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I sat next to someone playing this deck in Chicago. I was amazed. Progenitus just rocks as an alternate kill mech. I played a similar version in 2 tourneys over the weekend, and out of 10 matches, I lost one of them. I beat Enchantress, Mono whitr, Aggro Loam, Goblins, Death N Taxes, Eva Green, URG Thresh, Painter, and Painter again. I lost to UR painter once, cuz I got land screwed. The deck has a lot of potential....
Hi I used to be a big fan of this deck 3 years ago during its hayday, and i had started building it and the key pieces i had missing (Leds and a few duals) i proxied up. the deck was great but i never finished it because i gave it to a cousin of mine. now as a present for him i am going to get the few missing cards. before that though i want to make sure i have an optimal list (let's face it cardboard is expensive) so he can do well in the legacy meta game we will be playing in. It consists of combo (ichorid and tendrils), counter top, thresh, gobs and elves, and jank reanimator. I would consider it a diverse metagame overall.
here is my initial list
golden grahams:
Lands:
4 windswept hearth
2 bayou
1 scrubland
1 savannah
4 treetop village
3 forest
4 swamp
2 plains
creatures:
4 gamekeeper
2 auriok salvagers
spells:
1 pyrite spellbomb
4 infernal tutor
4 chromatic star
4 Lion's eye diamond
4 cabal therapy
4 hymn to tourach
4 pernicious deed
4 innocent blood
4 living wish
SB:
1 progenitus
1 auriok salvagers
1 city of brass
1 maga, traitor to mortals
1 kjeldoran dead
2 qasali pridemage
4 infest
4 duress
So thats what i have so far. I think at worst it is pretty decent but i can see problems against storm as besides hand manipulation the deck has very little to stop them from going off.
some noteworthy thoughts include
phyrexian tower: is it worth it as a living wish target or not?
porphyry nodes: white drop of honey this seems great if not a little slow and way conditional
withered wretch: this deck needs a way to stop ichorid and other lame reanimators dead, gamekeepers and pridemages can shut off bridge from below but is that enough, if not is this a viable inclusion it seems too slow
final thoughts: this deck is well suited to deal with aggro decks (elves, goblins, and affinity) because of a large creature removal package including innocent blood, the all star pernicious deed, and the sideboard infest. against combo and control we have a large discard package featuring hymn, therapy, and SB duress. this deck also has a variety of win-cons including salvagers-led-pyrite spellbomb, gamekepper into progenitus, or 1,000 mana maga traitor to mortals after salvagers led mana loop and recurring of chromatic star to draw entire library and living wish for maga.
Also include thoughts on infernal tutor led combo please!! input is greatly appreciated thanks!!!
i plan on buying the needed cards within the next day or so, so please if you have any advice for me please let me know.
Playing a single Prog in the main might be pretty good. It's basically another win condition in case you can't hit Salvagers.
Also, why the Progenitus in the sideboard for Wish? Wouldn't it make more sense to just have one in your main? It just seems unneeded there.
I have been playing around with this deck for a while, and it can still do pretty well. Just a few pointers on your list:
first, you really want 3 gamekeepers in the main, 1 in the sideboard. Wish for gamekeeper is one of my most common plays. You also want some number of krosan grips in your sideboard, because you will play against counterbalance decks alot. If you look a few posts up, theres some ideas about what should be in your wishboard.
Obviously thoughtsieze is better than hymn, but they are rather expensive. I would probably play the duress over hymn, but its up to you.
Lastly, some form of library manipulation is necasarry. Sensei's divining top / sylvan library / mirris guile. I also don't like infernal tutor here, i would probably go with tainted pact / spoils of the vault / Night's Whisper / plunge into darkness. Tainted pact is potentially the best option, but you need to significantly change up the deck to get the most use out of it (look at the decklist on the last page from gp philly). Plunge obviously has the most synergy with the deck, but has its problems.
3 stars is probably enough. I don't really like treetop village either.
Hope that helped. =)
EDIT: Progen in the main is just a bad idea. Progen takes 3 turns to win, and you ussually combo off on very low life facing down a playset of goyfs. I ussually use progen like this:
game 1: win with auriok + pyrite
game 2: loose to pithing needle / gravehate
game 3: side out auriok, side in progen + grips. laugh when they needle naming auriok.
If your playing against a deck that puts alot of pressure on you, this is probably a bad idea since progen takes 3 turns to win.
In a deck that plays Lion's Eye Diamond, Infernal Tutor is never a bad choice.Quote:
Originally Posted by roopa
but without LED and 3 lands, infernal tutor doesnt really do anything for you. This isnt a deck where you ussually want to see 2 of anything.
edit: you could use tainted pact / plunge / spoils in the same way, you just need a little more luck.
He plays no acceleration; being able to have the mana off LED could be important when trying to go off. There is no point of playing the tutor in the first place because he has no further acceleration than LED.
So we agree, theres no reason to play infernal tutor.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hollywood
Unless he decided to try out some additional acceleration in his deck. Salvager Game is highly susceptible to some of the most fluent hate spells in the format:
Swords to Plowshares (which is even worse for you now, because of M10 rules).
Path to Exile
Crypt
Leyline
Needle
Etc.
The list goes on and on. I just see it working as well as it used to unless the deck has a major overhaul.
golden grahams
Lands:
4 windswept hearth
2 bayou
2 scrubland
2 savannah
1 volrath's stronghold
3 forest
4 swamp
3 plains
creatures:
3 gamekeeper
2 auriok salvagers
spells:
1 pyrite spellbomb
1 duress
4 infernal tutor
4 chromatic star
4 Lion's eye diamond
4 cabal therapy
4 maelstrom pulse
4 pernicious deed
4 innocent blood
4 living wish
SB:
1 gamekeeper
1 shriekmaw
1 gaddock teeg
1 eternal witness
1 progenitus
1 auriok salvagers
1 city of brass
1 maga, traitor to mortals
1 qasali pridemage
1 volrath's stronghold
1 sporefrog
1 tarmogoyf
3 duress
I am a large fan of the sporefrog volrath's stronghold combo ftw game two, its just so simple its stupid.also volrath's allows you to recur everything because of eternal witness which is cool. many rock decks use this and i think it can also greatly help us.
I think this mana base is also pretty solid and doesn't auto blow to wasteland/moon effects.
thoughts would be greatly appreciated
thanks as always
Don't forget that you also eat it to chalice, counterbalance, and stifle. Its the bane of all combo decks, you are going to be hated on. Im not saying this deck is dominating the format, but it is a solid deck that can still win games and is fun to play.
@hwtcharger: spore frog is just a bad idea. If you just sit behind this, it allows you opponent to draw their entire deck. That means every deck that runs StP, counters, tendrils, graveyard removal, wasteland...etc wins. Every half decent deck can break that lock.
I have been running 1x volrath's stronghold and 1x life from the loam and 1x wasteland, and would never take them out. If you look at the list from philly, you could take the deck in a LftL direction if you wanted. I think the deck could do well with abusing the manland + deed/EE interaction.
You also really want a good 1-drop that disrupts your opponent, like thoughtsieze/duress. I would never run less that 4 siezes in the main.
I think EE > maelstorm pulse here, especially where you have the ability to cast it at almost any cost. Its ability to dodge counterbalance is also priceless.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here. I have never played this deck, I have played other combo decks though.
Isn't there any other shell for the combo? The combo is salvagers, LED, pyrite. White and artifacts.
Is green the best shell with black for discard?
Maybe a rock-deck with just a few cards from the combo?
Maybe a blue shell with tezzeret and card-draw as "search" ?
Enlightened tutor?
I like the look of this deck but I have a slight aside; Why is it called "Golden Grahams"?
Back in the day, it was a well known fact that all combo decks needed to be named after a breakfast cereal. Then people started to get lazy and named things ANT and TES and things like that.Quote:
Originally Posted by ilovejess2
has anyone ever considered lim duls vault instead of the tainted pact it works better and by the time you play it you spent 8 life and searched your whole deck and rearranged the next top 4 in any order plus shuffled and got the card you needed just a thought could set you up ftw. responses.
i have been using infernal tutor and that has been working really good instead of tainted pact which is meh. lim duls while good requires you to run blue, im not for hurting the mana base to have a marginaly better tutor, also infernal has nice synergy with LED.
i gave this deck a shot at a tournament recently and i dunno if my build was wrong or not but i couldn't understand how you were suppose to set up the maga, traitor to mortals kill. I thought i understood this when i was building the deck but i got to the tournament and it never once came out right for me. I had living wish in hand but suddenly realized LED was gunna derail my plan. if someone could correct me i'd appreciate it.
I ended up just doing games where i swapped out salvager for anti graveyard hate and dropping a progenatis on people game two. I think i just played it awefuly bad switching between big creature beats and salvager combo.
to boot infernal tutor was a beast over tainted pact.
What you need to do is generate the mana before you dig for living wish or your tutor. Usually you would go for the 'Maga-kill' only if your main win condition (Pyrite Spellbomb) is either removed or Needled. Currently I would probably play Orzhov Guildmage over that spot as the back-up kill condition, since it can win through Solitary Confindment, True Believer and Ivory Mask.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Fix it
whats the best yard defense? needle on crypt/relic or should i just wipe those out with something like deed before attempting to combo?
Well both of Crypt/Relic are not that difficult to deal with... it depends on when they crack the 'hate' usually if I come across it I hold back Lion's Eye Diamond to prevent from just getting hated out. Leyline and Counterbalance are bigger problems for the deck. Usually I would switch over to more board control options if I know Leyline is coming (Deed and Chain/Wipe Away). Other than that you should have a definate plan B that should at the very least be tutorable for the deck.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr. Fix it
(Also, please be polite and capitalize. I hate being English-facist but it's one of the rules for the forum, Thanks.)