Sword is not a threat, because it only buys time, because counterbalance and counterspells in general deal quite easily with it.
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Sword is not a threat, because it only buys time, because counterbalance and counterspells in general deal quite easily with it.
I'm wondering if there isn't a balls-out combo deck in this. Essentially, you have a combo that doesn't require ten spells to kill the opponent. I would facilitate this with Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, LED and Infernal Tutor/Grim Tutor to get the whole thing out.
You'll want something that removes the Swords or Krosan Grips from the opponent, so I see Abeyance or Duress to be worthwhile. I'm really curious about whether you can take this into a pure combo shell. You can even run stuff like Pact of Negation or Meditate because you'll never need to see your next turn anyway.
The only question is, is it better than the storm combo decks that do the same, or Belcher which costs one more mana, but only requires one card?Quote:
Originally Posted by hi-val
This combo really opens up doors to one's way of deck-building. You can go so many different routes with it that an optimal list would seem almost foolish to assume. You want to stick with a color theme, but at the same time recognize the power of the Servant. He works just fine with any other colored spells that can do harm on an opponent, not just Grindstone.
I'd consider building a supporting cast of counter-magic and tutor effects set with Tarmogoyf. It's almost not a bad idea (because the Painter assumes the color as well) to give your permanents some sort of colored protection. Pact of Negation would be rather risky because even though the combo is two cards and six mana, you still would need to get it off with acceleration paired with blue mana (assuming you're on the play). Otherwise, probably not.
Either way the idea looks fun.
If you really want to be STP resistant, play that goddamn UG version. Play that Loam. Play combo-loam! Academy Ruins just became a hell lot better. If you don't combo, put grindstone to play, mill yourself a bit, wait until you hit academy ruins and life from the loam, then dredge up loam, play it, return academy ruins, tranquil thicket and 1 random land. Then play, pay 1U, put Servant on top, cycle Tranquil Thicket, draw Servant. Wait until next turn, then play servant and mill the crap out of your opponent.
That might sound too slow, but I think that it could be one of the ways to go. A loam shell is always pretty redundant, and with UG, it should be possible to add that much counters, brainstorms to feed dredges and stuff. Also, you could add Mesmeric Orb if necessary.
Althoug I've never built/played Loam, I have a sample decklist:
2 Academy Ruins
2 Wasteland
2 Tranquil Thicket
2 Lonely Sandbar
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Polluted Delta
4 Tropical Island
4 Island
2 Forest
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Wild Mongrel
2 Painter's Servant
4 Trinket Mage
1 Genesis
1 Gigapede
4 Life From the Loam
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Grindstone
4 Intuition
SB:
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Pithing Needle
4 Stifle
2 Wasteland
3 Krosan Grip
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Tabernacle at the Pendrell Vale
Is this doable at all or do it simply suck? I might need some more tutor targets for Trinket Mage MD. Overall, this combo revolves (as you all know) servant + grindstone. Mongrel and Goyf beats and holds back attacks until I get Grindstone or Life From the Loam into play. I play 4 so I can dredge consistently from each loam engine, while I finally pop Academy Ruins into the yard, play loam returning 3 lands, 1 wasteland, 1 ruins and 1 tranquil thicket. I then play ruins, put artifact on top, cycle thicket, play artifact combo piece and wait until next turn or - if you already have it in play - win on the spot. This is a strange, untested hybrid of aggro-control and control-combo. Is this list shit or is it playable?
-willoe
Except you could do this while not whoring your manabase out to the kill...it's worth trying out!Quote:
Originally Posted by Nightmare
Am i reading this correctly? Combo running into Gaea's blessing = draw?
Thats quite possibly the easiest hate i have ever seen but could be awesome if you win the first game, and pull it on yourself.
Personally i agree with Hi-val a quick as possible combo looks like where i would want to bring this.
Or you can run Stifle, that kind of helps.Quote:
Originally Posted by vanele
If you guys want to try this combo in a blue deck with a white splash for Enlightened Tutor, Dreadstill/Enter the Fist seems to be the perfect fit.
If this combo doesn't resolve, you can still beat face with a 12/12 trampler.
That seems to be the general consensus. If this combo sees regular play, Gaea's Blessing should end up making a moderate comeback. That's where Stifle could also come up big.
A solid card that might be worth looking into if you go the Dreadbind route is Artificer's Intuition.
I really don't expect this combo to see regular play competitively in more than maybe random deck or so...
The main problem with this combo is that the best combos that see play in legacy are the ones where both combo pieces or at the very least, one of the combo pieces is very useful on their own.
Lets look at the other two card combos that make the cut in legacy....
Swans + Chain of Plasma - Swans is a very solid 4/3 flyer on it's own that turns your own Bolts into Ancestral Recalls. Chain of Plasma is a solid burn spell on it's own that can kill Confidants, Lackeys and what not.
Counterbalance + Top - Top is very solid in any deck with fetchlands, with or without CB. CB is very solid even without Top since all the decks that run this combo run Brainstorm as well. And even without Brainstorm, CB randomly counters spells.
Dreadnought + Stifle/Trickbind - Stifle/Trickbind are fantastic by themselves, acting as Sinkholes against any deck with fetchlands, and shutting down storm based combo, seals of primordium, and all sorts of random crap. Dreadnought is useless if you have only one copy and no stifle/bind on it's own. It can also be tutored for with Trinket Mages, or recurred with Academy Ruins both of which are very useful in the format so you can always use that to get the card in multiples.
Compared to the three combos ago, this combo just seems weak.
Grindstone is completely worthless by itself. Servant is just 1/3 blocker (worthless unless you are facing goblins), and decent if you run other cards synergic with it (Persecute etc) but even then is no where near as strong as Swan, Chain, Stifle, Trinket Mage, Top or CB by itself.
First of all, a Countertop is nowhere in the same category of "combo" than Grindstone+Servant. It helps to control the game, it doesn't make you win the game. If we were to call every synergistic two card interactions combos, we'd have to say Brainstorm+Fetchlands is one also.Quote:
Originally Posted by Clark Kant
Swans+Chain is yet to see play. As far as I know, People are still assembling shells for it and no one could have taken it to a competitive metagame, since it isn't legal yet. I don't see how you can say it has already made de cut.
Also, Trickbind isn't good by itself and Stifle may be dead against enough decks. There is no other single deck in which Trickbind could be played aside from those with Dreadnoughts. Of course it can be useful and worth casting sometimes, but so can be Terror.
Finally, take a look at Breakfast. None of their combo pieces are useful by themselves, but it did see a good amount of play.
I'm not saying that the combo isn't viable. Just that it doesn't seem quite as good as the other combos in the format.
Breakfast stopped being played for the same reason you described, that it was just better to play good cards like Goyf rather than cards that do nothing on their own.
The other problem with this combo is that the best artifact tutor (Trinket Mage) can tutor for only one of the combo pieces.
I was thinking that this combo could fit into a MBC deck as so that you can use Beseech which tutors for both combo pieces, and Persecute which works well with Servant.
But then, you're probably a lot better off playing the Staff of Domination + Magus of the Coffers combo since both cards actually work very well in the deck by themselves.
So blue is probably the best fit with a splash for E. Tutor, but arriving at a build that is actually superior in some way to regular old Dreadstill, Landstill etc might be a challenge.
AgreedQuote:
Originally Posted by Clark Kant
Quote:
Originally Posted by Clark Kant
I agree with Jaiminho.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jaiminho
I don't like the idea of this combo in MBC. I think mono :u: or :wu: works better. In this case it is better to be reactive to hate (Counterspell) rather than proactive (Thoughtseize).Quote:
Originally Posted by Clark Kant
Fabricate hits the same cost, albeit it doesn't chump goyf for a turn but can grab either or.Quote:
Originally Posted by Clark Kant
Wow, Fabricate is a great find, the artifact goes into your hand unlike Enlightened Tutor too.
Yes, it doesn't come with a 2/2 body, but I think being able to tutor for either combo piece might be worth the trade off.
So perhaps...
4 Enlightened Tutor
4 Fabricate
3 Servant
3 Millstone
Now the question is, should the deck also play...
Phyrexian Dreadnought
Vision Charm/Stifle/Trickbind
Sensei's Divining Top
Counterbalance
Standstill
One Ofs: EE, Pithing Needle, Tormod's Crypt
Mishra's Factory
Academy Ruins
Wasteland
Swords to Plowshares/Oblivion Ring
Vision Charm is especially impressive because not only does it combo with Phyrexian Dreadnought, but when you have only one of your combo pieces in play, you can phase it out in reponse to a Naturalize or Oblivion Ring to protect the artifact until you can cast the second combo piece next turn.
This is of course on top of the autoincludes
Fetchlands + Duals + Basics
4 Brainstorm
4 FoW
3 Spell Snare
3 Daze
We certainly have our work cut out for us.
What about something like the Faerie stompy shell:
// Lands
1 [MR] Seat of the Synod
9 [OD] Island (1)
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb
4 [EX] City of Traitors
// Creatures
3 [LRW] Mulldrifter
4 [CHK] Painter's servant
4 [R] Serendib Efreet
3 [UL] Cloud of Faeries
4 [P2] Sea Drake
4 [FD] Trinket Mage
// Spells
3 [DS] Sword of Fire and Ice
2 [BOK] Umezawa's Jitte
4 [AL] Force of Will
3 [TE] Grindstone
4 [MR] Fabricate
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
That way you can beat or assemble combo, whichever way the deck feels liek going.
Nope; Gaea's Blessing has a triggered ability. After Grindstone's ability has milled all your library (including Blessing) into the graveyard, and only then, will Blessing's ability go on the stack and resolve, shuffling your graveyard back in your library.Quote:
Originally Posted by vanele
So Blessing disrupts this combo, but does not cause a draw.
I would definately play Fabricate over Trinket Mage for this combo, esp in a mono blue deck that can't support Enlightened Tutor like Faeirie Stompy. Being able to tutor for either half of the combo is so much more important than a vanilla 2/2 body. And running playsets of both Fabricate and Mage isn't a good idea imo as that takes up a lot of slots and both cards are fairly high casting cost. There are just so many solid cards in blue to waste 8 slots on 3cc tutors.
I dont' think Fairie Stompy is the right fit for this combo though.
Combo decks need to play Brainstorm on top of the tutoring effects if they hope to be consistent at all. And F. Stompy doesn't run Brainstorm right now. You would have to cut Chalice of the Void out completely to support both Grindstone and Brainstorm. And at that point, you might as well play Dreadnought and Stifle as well to give you one other game winning combo.
If you do want to run this in F. Stompy and would cut Chalice to do so, you should absolutely run six fetchlands and four brainstorm in the build.
Here is a sample build...
Combo Fairies
// Lands
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
3 [OD] Island
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb
4 [EX] City of Traitors
// Creatures
4 [CK] Painter's Servant
4 [RV] Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 [RV] Serendib Efreet
4 [P2] Sea Drake
2 [MR] Trinket Mage
// Spells
4 [6E] Brainstorm
4 [DS] Stifle
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [MR] Fabricate
4 [MR] Chrome Mox
3 [TE] Grindstone
2 [TS] Vision Charm
Vision Charm serves double duty in not only comboing with Dreadnought but also protecting your other artifacts by phasing them out in response to removal. That's why I opted to run it over Trickbind.
Just for fun, I decided to throw in both the Dreadnought combo and the Servant's Stone combo. If you're playing combo, why not go all out and include as many synergic combos as possible. The deck has so many different options as to how to play out any hand that it should have no problem simultanously confusing both yourself and your opponent.
It could also work in Fairie Stompy's sideboard to get around all the creature hate opponents bring in, and fetchlands combined with a random Taiga, Engineered Explosives and tutoring gives you one more out against Goyf.
But at the end of the day, I think the best route for this combo is in a Uw controllish shell running...
Fetchlands + Duals + Basics
4 Brainstorm
4 FoW
X Spell Snare
X Daze
4 Enlightened Tutor
X Fabricate
X Servant
X Millstone
The main thing we need to figure out right now is which of the below cards to include in the deck...
Sensei's Divining Top
Counterbalance
Standstill
One Ofs: EE, Pithing Needle, Tormod's Crypt
Mishra's Factory
Academy Ruins
Wasteland
Phyrexian Dreadnought
Vision Charm/Stifle/Trickbind
Swords to Plowshares/Oblivion Ring
If you opt to also run Dreadnought, Vision Charm is especially impressive because not only does it combo with Phyrexian Dreadnought, but when you have only one of your combo pieces in play, you can phase it out in reponse to a Naturalize or Oblivion Ring to protect the artifact until you can cast the second combo piece next turn.
I didn't have time to read the whole thread unfortunately, but I wanted to add my two cents.
Painter's Servant is a really good utility creature, for all those who things he is useless without the combo:
-Misdirection
-Force of Will
-BEB/Hydroblast
Think about it, I think if you run 8 of the above in some combination maindeck, protecting the combo got a lot better.
Why not try to abuse the Painter for its own protection and use ALL blasts available. 50% of the blast are strong anyway as most of the metagame either play red or blue spells.
You can also use ponder/brainstorm to manipulate your library to find only the proper blast until you resolve of or your 8 painter servants (plus ponder/brainstorm) in your deck.
As soon as the Servant enters the game you can be the control deck for one turn. As soon as you untap you should be able to resolve the second combo part and either wait another turn or combo out immeditately depending on the matchup/situation. 20 counters and/or 16 instant "destroy target permanent" spells for one mana should be sufficient to protect your combo.
I donīt know if you will improve the deck when you "waste" slots to cards like CB/SDT/Trinket Mage/Fabricate...
This is I would try first:
"The Paint Shop" by MMD
4 Painterīs Servant
4 Grindstone
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Blue Elemental Blast
4 Pyroblast
4 Red Elemental Blast
4 Pyroblast
4 Enlightened Tutor
4 Volcanic Island
2 Tundra
1 Plateau
3 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
2 Island
4 Ancient Tomb
You should be able to combo out on turn 4 constantly.
Turn 1: Enlightend Tutor/Ponder
Turn 2: Brainstorm/Grindstone/Ponder/Enlightend Tutor
Turn 3: Painter`s Servant/1-2 Blast
Turn 4: Activate Grinstone/1-2 Blast
You can certainly combo out on Turn 3 (even Turn 2) but this is neither realistic nor safe.
I am not 100% sure if the 8 Blue Blasts are really good enough and needs to be tested but I always wanted to build a deck around them and the Servant really abuses them best. Perhaps a combination of Orimīs Chant/Thoughtseize/Daze will stabilize/improve the deck. But I will definitely try the 16 Blast version first.
You may want to play Flash Flood instead of splashing R and being able to counterspell/destroy only a part of spells.
Anyway, this approach looks bad because you are too much dependent on having Painter into play.
Vision Charm could also be hilarious if you Anarchy and phase Dreadnought out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Clark Kant
I donīt think that it will be a big issue to find/resolve/protect the Painter with my list. As soon as you have a Painter in play you can switch to control mode until you find one Grindstone.
I need to test if the eight blue blasts need to be substituted by any combination of Orimīs Chant/Spell Snare/Daze/Counterbalance+Top (or even Duress/Thoughtseize).
I donīt see a problem to "splash" red as the average CC is 1, so Wastelands donīt hurt that much. Also my Meta is full of Landstill and Threshold were red blasts really shine.
I personally donīt think that Flash Flood is superior to any Blast as it does not help to keep the Painter in play nor to counter other non-permanent threads. In the same way cards like Guttural Response and Active Volcano are less attractive for me as well.
I donīt think it is unlikely to have a Painter in you hand on turn 2-3:
1-4 out of 60 in your opening hand: 40% (Painter)
1-8 out of 60 in your opening hand: 65% (Painter/Enlightened)
1-16 out of 60 in your opening hand: 90% (Painter/Enlightened/BS/Ponder)
If you also add the Brainstorm(Ponder)/Fetchland "combo" and 1-3 draw phases (as you donīt want to cast the painter before turn 2-3) your chances of having a painter on turn 3-4 isnīt that bad.
I have a question: let's say they have a couple of gaea's blessing in their deck, and you do the painter combo on them (not knowing they have the blessings and thus not holding stifle in your hand to counter the blessing effect)...would this be a tie if you continue doing the ability? i mean if some one accuses you of wasting time because the grindstone is a may ability, can't you just say your going to keep grinding till the blessing is one of the last 2 cards?
It works like this:
All the library goes to the yard as an effect of the grindstone.
The trigger of the gaea's blessing(s) is(are) put on the stack.
You'd better stifle, make your opponent draw or do something or your combo is screwed up. My solution to that is to activate tormod crypt in resp.
The yard is shuffled into the library.
If you go to Dreadnought as a plan B, you have Stifles maindeck. These should be enough to stop any Gaea's Blessings or Feldon's Cane (wtf!) or whatever.
Did anyone try anything out other than a dreadstill shell?
I think it could do in survival or something. Trinket Mage to fetch grindstone and everything else to fetch Servant. And it's UG, which color you all love. Think FoW, Brainstorm, Intuition, Tradewind Rider etc. etc. etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jaiminho
Because of how Grindstone works, one of Crypt maindeck answers both Cane and any number of blessings.
The repeating process is all one resolution, so if you have crypt in play you can respond to all of the blessing triggers at once with one activation.
Extract or Jester's Cap can get rid of Blessing if you're that concerned about it. I don't have a doubt in my mind that Jester's Cap deserves atleast a couple SB slots.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jaiminho
This is a different route: I posted in the Stax thread as well, but am interested in everyone's thoughts:
Bare with me for a minute; this may be terrible and I haven't done any testing yet. But a stax shell with a combo win may be good.
This combines the broken openings of stax with the painters grindstone combo. I pulled the chalices as they are quite dis-synergistic with the e-tutors and grindstones. This also, allows e-tutors which can in fact find you important lock pieces. The obvious problem being painter and grindstone being bad on there own. Thoughts?
4 Trinisphere
3 Crucible of Worlds
4 Enlightened Tutor
3 Smokestack
4 Mox Diamond
3 Ghostly Prison
4 Armageddon
3 Painter's Servant
3 Grindstone
4 Magus of the Tabernacle
4 Flagstones of Trokair
4 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
3 Mishra's Factory
2 Wasteland
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
8 Plains
Could be good, but you would probably still use CB in the deck along side Survival.Quote:
Originally Posted by willoe
To answer the Blessing/staff questions: One crypt answers both of them. For the reason I stated earlier.
Yes, there are lots and lots of different answers to grave shuffling. I'm just saying that having them maindecked leaves more sideboard slots for answers to real issues this deck would have. Yeah, I know... Tormod may already fit in some slots, since it can be fetched by Trinket Mage.Quote:
Originally Posted by Happy Gilmore
In response to the Blessing trigger, activate Tormod's Crypt.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nihil
Survival looks good. With Trinket Mage you can tutor up all the pieces.Quote:
Originally Posted by Happy Gilmore
Gifts also works, though it's probably a little slow.
Absolute Law > Painter's servant
Painter can at no point be touched by kill spells then all you need to worry about is counter.
what about llawan + painter's servant to wait the kill grindstone?
I second the Uw control shell route...I've done some testing and came to some conclusions:Quote:
Originally Posted by Clark Kant
CBalance + Top is pretty much a given - against various decks (Thresh, Homebrew, Burn, combo etc) you are better off tutoring for CBalance instead of a combo piece. But against those matchup where CBalance usually sucks (Stax, Rock variants) you can go for the combo, so you can maximize your tutoring power and essentially play two different combos, each of which are useful against different decks.
The red splash is very powerful, I'm currently running seven Blasts maindeck. Basically, if they want to disrupt the combo with counters OR removal, Blast will always be useful (plus, every second deck seems to run blue). It only isn't good when you're dealing with discard...so maybe go down to five or six. A green splash for Reap would also look very attractive, but it does nothing if they counter your Painter (for the same reason, running 16 Blasts seems not so hot, because the Blue Blasts can't force it through counterspells).
Fabricate is pretty much worse than Intuition, and I'm not sure either one is worth running unless you play more than five two-mana-lands.
I think both Snare and Daze don't belong here, the first one is just not needed that much, the second one because a controllish deck can't use Daze very well.
Chalice@1 kills the deck if you don't manage to get out your Grindstone before it, since you can't even tutor for an answer then. This makes a case for expensive tutors (Intuition), or at least some Serenities/Explosives in the side.
Meddling Mage probably belongs in the sideboard, naming Grip, Extirpate, or just Swords to Plowshares.
I don't get why you would play Absolute Law. Please elaborate.Quote:
Originally Posted by vanele
The problem is Gaea's Blessing. Remember that thread about why people hate you? I don't think people hate you but many don't take you seriously as a deck designer. Ever think it has something to do with the fact that you're wasting time advocating Jester's Cap, an artifact that cost :4: to play and :2: to activate, when in fact good ol' Tormod's Crypt will do the job for :0:? Just something to think about.Quote:
Originally Posted by Cavius The Great
You set Painter to red and play Absolute Law to give it protection from everything.Quote:
Originally Posted by revenge_inc