Hello everyone,
is there an up-to-date list available? I find the lists in the openingpost a tad bit outdated. Or is it just me?
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Hello everyone,
is there an up-to-date list available? I find the lists in the openingpost a tad bit outdated. Or is it just me?
Updated the primer a bit. I'll be getting to a more indepth update sometime soon. I've just been quite busy with an incalculable number of things.
However.. there is an updated list now right above the sample hands list.
Great! Thanks a lot!!
Oh, and do keep up the amazing job Vacrix!
Any tips against tempo decks? I always have a hard time for some reason. And post board keepable hands.
Your game plan against Tempo in Game 1 is simply to force an early win. Extra stacked hands can push through sometimes if you slow play though, for example, if you were to put your opponent on Tempo before you even sit down because you scouted. For example.. a hand thats doubled up on a few different things, so a hand like Petal, Chrome Mox, Drit, D4, IT, LED, D4
This hand is stacked. You have quite a bit of mana to work with. 2 initial black sources, post-Mox you have 2 business. If you get one more ritual then you can push through a FoW.. however, if I were on the play, I'd probably try for an early D4 with the option of IT/LED as a backup plan later on.. however if you're on the draw, you can only play around Pierce + Daze, via LED. This means your 8th card lets you know whether or not to play out some of your perps and try to play around an assumed FoW, Spell Pierce as the general worst case scenario when you're T1 on the draw. If you draw a ritual, then you're good to go. If you draw an ESG, sometimes you can just try to play around Daze. If you draw a LED, you should probably wait another turn for a mana source that way you have the option to D4, then IT + LED + LED into EtW, assuming the D4 gets countered and then IT gets Spell Pierced. If you don't draw something you want, then dumping the LED to pay for a Spell Pierce looks pretty attractive, given its Game 1 against Tempo and you want to win asap.
In game 2/3, I'd suggest trying to keep a hand that gives you a solid accelerant. Lotus Bloom is good, Carpet is good. Either one makes playing around Tempo's soft permission much easier. Even Lotus Bloom, which is a one shot acceleration is quite good as it draws countermagic before you even go off, and compliments LED nicely for x8 conditional Black Lotus. 4x Duress and 3x Thoughtseize help you pave the way with your perps to resolve a business spell sooner.. however all this really depends on the matchup.
Against BUG Tempo, they usually play more lands than RUG.. this makes Carpet of Flowers much better, so you can actually grind with your business. Against RUG though, you want to strip the FOW's with discard and then resolve one business spell through some soft permission, ideally a Belcher, but if you expect the Tempo player to have a hand stacked with permission, you best save the Belcher as the last spell. Against RUG, you don't actually want your D4s to resolve too often because it puts you usually down to having to win on the next turn, or the turn the D4 resolves. Your life total winds up being too low and vulnerable to reach.
UR Tempo is probably the worst, but the metagame doesn't really favor it right now. They have the most reach because they don't slow down to play Goyf/Goose. In that matchup, you really, like really don't want a mid-late game D4..
In general against control, though, always play your Carpets/Blooms first, then play disruption, then play D4s, then ITs, then Belchers. ITs can be good for doubling up on Carpet of Flowers against slower control decks.. but a single Daze tends to waste that plan when you try it against Tempo. I prefer ITs finding Belchers against Tempo. With Blooms, Carpet, and LEDs, and even Cabal Rituals once you hit threshold, the deck has an absurd amount of mana in game 2/3 if you mulligan well. However, if they attack that plan by countering an early Carpet, I tend to treat that as my protection. They run a serious risk of holding only Spell Pierce, for example. If you're play is ESG/Carpet turn 1, I've had that countered before, and then just Petal/Drit/D4 my way into a lot of perpetual resources etc. or just a straight up win. In general, I've won more games against people that try to attack Carpet and Bloom instead of the rest of the deck, not knowing that its still dangerous without these resources. So if your opponent is forced to make a choice between countering a spell that costs G or 0... vs. a spell that costs BBB or 4.. we don't waste our other acceleration options like Drit, Crit, LED, on those cards.. not to mention the x7 discard suite. The Tempo players safest bet is to engage the grind plan and hope the deck bricks.. which is how they tend to approach the matchup when they see you draw 4 cards and then pass the turn instead of killing them. Well.. thats what you want. The grind plan sacrifices speed for consistency, so usually a D4 is just more resources for you and ideally win conditions.
EDIT:
Also, if you like, you can just play x7-8 man plan creatures instead if you want to make a business substitution. It might actually be the best idea for the current metagame. RUG is still amazing. UW is dying and that means so is Swords to Plowshares. BUG control's spot removal can't hit Phyrexian Obliterator.. and RUGS reach is useless. Desecration Demon also looks pretty good as a 6/6 flying for 2BB.
@Vacrix
How does the Lotus Bloom Plan stack up vs the previous Grind Plan?
I sold my Blooms about a month before you mentioned testing it...
Hey dudes.
I love this deck. Been playing this deck on and off for a while.
But I have a question for all of you.
I thought I'd give TES, ANT, Belcher etc. a go and see what pro's & con's I could take from each of them compared to PSI.
And I gotta admit, I cam back to this deck with a smile every time. PSI just seems more fun to play, and I found TES to be kinda deflating in comparison. I understand PSI is a dangerous deck, and that versions like TES are more resilient to hate, but PSI just makes me want to play the deck. All the others felt kinda "take it or leave it".
Does anyone else feel this way about other Storm atlernatives?
I ve been playing this deck for a while but then I sold most of the cards. Now I am going to rebuild it and I try to find a solid list.
Currently, I am testing this list. Please comment on it.
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Wild Cantor
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Bayou
1 Goblin Charbelcher
3 Tendrils of Agony
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Summoner's Pact
3 Manamorphose
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Past in Flames
1 Odious Trow
4 Land Grant
Welcome back to SI!Quote:
Originally Posted by CabalTherapy
Having 1x Empty the Warrens would give you a strong option for 'in-between' hands. IGG > PiF in most cases, but running both is also an option.
I suggest starting with
-1 Tendrils
-1 PiF
-1 Odious Trow (sad to see it go as I'll miss my opponents' WTF expressions)
+1 Empty
+1 IGG
+1 Deathrite Shaman
Are you running the old grind plan, the newer Lotus Bloom plan, or a manplan?
But is Empty the Warrens not too weak when Summoner's Pact was cast before?
The shaman looks pretty good. The Trow is just still in there, simply because I am not in the possession of the shaman.
I am still not sure if PiF is really weaker than IGG.
My SB contains some random protection cards and manland plan.
4 Duress
3 Unmask
4 Contagion
4 Tomb of Urami
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sockosensei
My philosophy when playing PSI is to clean up in game one against all but the decks with Force in hand. The IGG loop just wins:tongue:Quote:
Originally Posted by CabalTherapy
Or it makes you 18 T1 goblins while also Mind Twisting your opponent. PiF is much stronger when the game goes longer and graveyards fill up, hence great out of the board in a grind plan. It's not out of the question to run both, IMO.
EtW is poor after a Pact, certainly. It also shines at other times. Feel free to read up as it's been discussed to death.
I've never run anything like that so perhaps another poster could comment.Quote:
My SB contains some random protection cards and manland plan.
4 Duress
3 Unmask
4 Contagion
4 Tomb of Urami
Seeing as how the PSI list is pretty much optimized, how about some more sideboard tech?
Multani's Presence - A little narrow, but seeing as how PSI's biggest problem is blue, why not make them pay with each counter?
Epochrasite - Kind of slow but it's a recurring 4/4 threat after the first time it goes to the graveyard. It easily gets outclassed by our other postboard man-plan options and even opposing Tarmogoyfs but it allows you to keep a few Cullings MD for games 2-3.
Ancestral Vision - It facilitates the grind plan pretty well if drawn early enough but I can see it being dead if drawn too late or midway through a chain. Costing :u: also doesn't really help much either.
Just throwing ideas out there. I don't have the means to test my ideas, at least not yet, but I'm working on it. Also, I haven't read through the entire thread yet so apologies if the cards I suggested have already been discussed. I just finished reading the entire thread at Salvation so I'll start on this one soon.
P.S. I just was digging through my old box of magic cards the other day and lo-and-behold, I found my ALMOST completed PSI deck! I misplaced it about 3 years ago and kind of forgot about it. Imagine my surprise when I flipped through the deck and discovered my PLAYSET of LED's! :laugh:. I bought them back when they were 30 bucks a pop and I thought THAT was already highway robbery. For the maindeck, all I'm really missing are 4 IT's, 4 Pacts, a Cruel Bargain, and a Bayou. Luckily I pulled a Overgrown Tomb out of a Ravnica pack a while back so that'll hold me down for a while. The Legacy scene here in MN is pretty active and hardcore. The last tournament I went to (over a year ago) also had a guy playing what looked to be LGSI so I know the deck isn't totally unknown up here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sockosensei
Thank you for the answer. I will definetly test both of the options.
Still unsure about EtW but I will also give it a try.
There are a few mana base configurations in the primer that I think you either failed to consider or mention, a couple of people replaced the Land Grant, Goblin Charbelcher and Artifact Creature configurations with Swamps, Empty the Warrens and Kobolds circa 2007 in order to improve the consistency of the deck by playing 7 lands that didn't reveal your hand and couldn't be destroyed by permission and Wasteland and imprintable creatures for Chrome Mox in order to be able to cast Cabal Ritual without exiling black cards.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vacrix
I know BW played a list on Apprentice that was like,
4 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill Gotten Gains
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cabal Therapy
8 Kobolds
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
7 Swamp
and remember at least one variation with Empty the Warrens and Duress replacing Ill Gotten Gains and Cabal Therapy.
I have goldfished a bit and tested against Burn which is by far not the optimal test partner but nevertheless I reached my favourite list:
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Infernal Contract
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Summoner's Pact
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
3 Tendrils of Agony
2 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Chrome Mox
2 Manamorphose (still not sure about that)
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Odious Trow (don't have shaman)
1 Wild Cantor
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
Sorry for doubleposting here.
I have played a Legacy torunament yesterday with around 30 players in my local meta.
My list was the one from the post before: changes -1 Manamoprhose, +1 Tinder Wall
SB
3 Unmask
2 Duress
3 Empty the Warrens
3 Nature's Claim
4 Tomb of Urami
Round 1 against GB Shaman.dec
I keep a solid hand but without starting mana. I simply hope that he doesn't Duress me or whatever.
He playes Ooze and Vampire Nighthawk, I draw a Lotus Petal and go off with Tendrils for 20 at his head.
The second game was a bit annoying. I goldfished against myself for about 10 minutes and just draw senseless spells. After going down to 1 I lay down Belcher. He plays Goyf and I lose after drawing one more Bargain. In the last game I go off in my second turn and win with third turn Belcher.
2:1
1-0
Round 2 against Jund
He starts with Bayou > Shaman and I know that I can just goldfish a bit and with the game. I fizzle afterwards in the second game and move on to the third. I play Bayou and pass the turn. He plays Duress > Summoner's Pact and Surgical Extraction > Summoner's Pact. Mhhhmm... After a combination of Duress, Thoughtseize and Hymn to Tourach there is no chance to win the game with 2 LEDs and 2 Spirit Guides in Hand.
1:2
1-1
Round 3 against UW Countertop
I have to play against an well-known legacy player in our meta. I win the dice roll and simply kill him with turn 1 Belcher with Bayou in play and Arbor in Hand. I don't know that he plays but he knows my deck and is very surprised to see someone playing it. Nevertheless he has 2 FoW, 1 Spell Pierce and a Counterbalance in the second game: scoop. We both take a mulligan to six in the third game and I start off in my second turn with Bayou > Petal > DRitual > DRitual > IGG, discarding a Infernal Tutor and a Culling the Weak. He has no Force and I can pick up the Rituals and the Tutor > Charbelcher without Mana for the activation. He plays land go and I draw a Spirit Guide and then a Cabal Ritual. I think that I can wait one more turn and kill him in response to one of his action. He casts a Clique in my next draw step and in response to that I remove my Guide, tap Bayou, cast CRitual and activate Belcher for about 30 damage.
2:1
2-1
Round 4 against SneakShow
I try to go off in my second turn but he has a Force for my Infernal Tutor and everything he wants in his hand, so we move to the second game. I try to kill him on turn one but I just can lay down Belcher with two Moxen and one Bayou in play= second turn kill. In the final game we both take a mulligan to six and he starts with land > Brainstorm > Petal. I draw something good (can't remember) and go off with 2 Leds and Infernal into Infernal into Tendrils for 24.
2:1
3-1
Round 5 against Dredge
Well, I don't want to write about this round because it was my fault to keep a weak six and do nothing. In the next game I try to go off in my first turn (senseless, he holds a slow hand) and fizzle after the first Contract.
0:2
3-2
Nevertheless, I am satisfied with my result in this tournament. I placed 9th or something like that but it doesn't matter. Winning against Countertop and SneakShow on turn 1 was pretty a pretty cool experience for me. I will play this deck regularly in the future.
I've been experimenting with different versions of SI and I think I've created the best possible MD for the Pact SI variant,
4 Tendrils of Agony
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Ill Gotten Gains or Past in Flames or Empty the Warrens
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Chancellor of the Annex
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Pact of Negation
4 Elivish Spirit Guide
1 Deathrite Shaman
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor
That's right, MD Chancellor of the Annex, imagine having a card that prevents the opponent from casting Thoughtseize on his first turn and Force of Will on your first turn vs BUG and preventing the opponent from casting Spell Pierce, Brainstorm or Ponder and leaving Force of Will as his only out on the play vs RUG with the SB plan of boarding out your Chancellor of the Annex and 3 Elvish Spirit Guide for Xantid Swarm and 3 more Bayou vs any aggro-control deck that doesn't play Lightning Bolt or any control deck that doesn't play Thoughtseize aka U/W Stoneblade or Miracles.
Small tip, but lands in your SB are completely OP compared to a lot of the other SBing plans I've seen, once the deck switches to lands and swarms vs aggro-control on the draw or just SBs out disruption for lands when on the play vs anything without Force of Will game 2 it's pretty much the most efficient way you could play the deck for either resiliency or a pure gold fish.
The look on your opponent's face when you show him Chancellor of the Annex and then blow him out of the game is fucking priceless
I think you meant 4 Summoner's Pact instead of Pact of Negation in that list, since you said "Pact SI".
I never thought of running Chancellor in this deck, but it definitely makes sense. Interesting tech, there. Is it too hard to make 7 mana now that Chancellor is in the deck? I assume that's the reason for having no Charbelchers in the main.
Lack of Belcher and playing Chancellor are just indicators that the person putting together the list has no idea what drives the deck or the pressures that form the rules for card selection.Quote:
Originally Posted by .Ix
The deck will only improve if you can do one of three things:
(1) increase initial mana sources in the necessary colors (this is currently black, due to point 2)
(2) increase the explosiveness due to better net acceleration (this means improve on (possibly by duplicating) dark ritual and culling the weak, red rituals are not good enough yet)
(3) better business spells (see the experiment SAINT)
If you compare SI to the other two fast glass cannons, you see these three points emphasized.
Belcher fixes one by basing itself in R/G. This means more real initial mana sources (ESG, SSG, Summoner's Pact, Chancellor of the Tangle sometimes) complementing Petal/Mox/Land Grant/Land. It exchanges raw explosiveness of Culling the Weak and Dark Ritual for redundancy and more available copies of its acceleration (Rite of Flame and Tinder Wall are very close for example, the various forms of Desperate/Pyretic Ritual). Now that it's in red, easy ability to cast ETW and Burning Wish over Infernal Tutor follows.
This isn't to say that Belcher evolved from SI. I'm not saying that. I'm saying that if you want to build moderately effective glass cannons, you must balance these factors. You can look at the All Spells deck in the same way. It has the best business spells of any deck (4 mana, gg x8) and then makes decisions based on that (it still has a black mana requirement, but not as heavy as SI, so Culling the Weak isn't as attractive given the constraints it imposes (the creature in play).
That said, free Force Spike is a lot worse than Pact of Negation or Cabal Therapy because it doesn't work if it's not in your opening hand. Something I learned very early on with SI was patience. Against some control decks, things won't get significantly worse for you as the game progresses. The ability to grind via redundant business spells, generate obscene mana, and in certain versions, to defeat multiple copies of spells via Cabal Therapy meant that waiting until turn 6 was completely reasonable. I still found my free wins vs aggro, but I was successful against control too. Eventually, other pilots learned the same lessons and the gravitation towards sideboard cards like Carpet of Flowers and better maindeck win conditions like Goblin Charbelcher began.
The reason that Belcher is an auto-include in the deck has to do with recognizing that chaining Draw4s isn't a good strategy, mathematically speaking. Needing a particular mix of mana and business each time when digging relatively little into a large deck yields poor odds. Drawing Tendrils at the right time might as well be drawing Draco, Mountain Goat, or Little Girl. Drawing a Belcher is fine at any point. Further, it doesn't require the giant build-up that Tendrils takes. This makes it perfect for grindy battles that often ensue once your opponent realizes that a single Force of Will didn't yield a concession.
Or I choose to emphasize imprinting black mana on chrome mox and drawing tendrils instead of of belchers off draw fours so I can win before summoners pact triggers as opposed to needing 7 mana to cast and activate belchers only to flip a land. I dont mind a single Belcher in the MD or multiple in the board but let's not pretend belcher is strictly superior to tendrils.Quote:
Originally Posted by emidln
I am not a fan of waiting to go off with pact si, the deck doesn't hit land drops or sculpt its hand without investing significant resources to do so. I don't know whether or not the MD is strictly better with chancellor as opposed to veil, but even if you just SBed chancellor for being on the play vs bug or on the draw vs jund having access to a free force spike is a much bigger deal in terms of the cost efficiency of your disruption than your post would suggest. I strictly disagree with the notion that a combo deck can't improve its match ups by having better disruption, Autumn's Veil and to a lesser extent Unmask after the printing of the B/G creatures gave the deck more reliable disruption because Summoner's Pact could be used to cast either as opposed to Cabal Therapy or Xantid Swarm.
Pact of negation doesn't work with lions eye diamond and cabal therapy is sub par without lands, a more traditional version with swamps, kobolds and therapy can grind, but land grant and summoners pact are an all in strategy by design. fwiw carpet of flowers is worse than just boarding in lands, which is why I've side lined belchers. Regardless, I don't really give a shit about belchers, I find they misfire an unacceptably high% of the time but if you want to gamble with that and pact good luck. All I know is my win % with chancellor vs bug is higher than with veil and pushing the deck as hard as possible on turn 1.
Apologies for double posting, but I've been experimenting with SI this weekend and I think there is room to innovate, one of the things that occured to me when reading thru' the thread is that Land Grant is a liability compared to Fetch Lands and that Goblin Charbelcher isn't actually worth weaking your manabase to counter magic or playing a maximum of 6 "Land" between Bayou, Dryad Arbor and 4 Land Grant. If you replace Land Grant with Fetchlands and increase the number of Fetchlands beyond 4 and the number of Bayou beyond 1 you can increase the number of initial mana sources, land drops and culling targets in the deck, which makes it both more consistent and resilient. The problem comes in where you start chaining Draw 4s and realize Culling the Weak is dead after your first Dryad Arbor is sacrificed or after you've played Bayou and can't make a second land drop for Dryad Arbor on the same turn, which is where Summoners Pact comes in to make the extra creature drops. Then what occurred to me was that multiple Elvish Spirit Guides take up more space than they're really worth as accelerants compared to adding more and more lands and we could cut down to 1 ESG and 1 Cutter and with a combination of 11 forests and 5 virtual cutters that Burnt Offering is really close in power to Culling the Weak when you can reliably get down the forest.
So I'm messing around on apprentice and came up with a build that tests some of the possible configurations,
4 Tendrils of Agony
1 Ill Gotten Gains
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Infernal Contract
4 Dark Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Burnt Offering
4 Summoners Pact
4 Skyshround Cutter
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
8 Fetchlands
3 Bayou
Imagine the original spanish inquisition just switching out robots for cutters and disruption for lands and I think you can get close to a deck that plays, Bayou, Cutter and either Culling the Weak or Burnt Offering as its first turn play pretty consistently. You could integrate other elements into the deck by SBing in 4 Cabal Ritual, an Elvish Spirit Guide, a Dryad Arbor, a Deathrite Shaman and SBing out 4 Burnt Offering 3 Cutters in order to increase the utility of the fetchlands and summoners pact or cut pact altogether and try running Xantid Swarms in match ups with minimal removal spells in order to hit a double land drop, attack and sac Xantid Swarm and then hold the B/G mana back for possibly needing to cast another Xantid Swarm for a sac outlet.
I'm not really sure how well the idea is going to hold up, but I think it's kind of interesting to just concentrate on Tendrils so you can drop Land Grant and try to increase the number of initial mana sources and tutors for Dryad Arbor and I don't think I've seen anybody suggest going this route before.
Hi!
I was just wondering if you could tell an in-depth guide for siding against different decks with your present sideboard Vacrix? Like what is going out and what is going in, or is it just usual -15 out and +15 in when you meet Force of Wills and maybe other counterspells? I am playing against different kinds of blue decks, so I was wondering do you side differently against combo, control and aggro-control. I'm asking this because I'm thinking that I could get my hands on Lotus Blooms so I'd try your grind plan against all kinds of blue decks.
At this moment I have exact decklist as your opening post, but my sideboard differs just a little:
4 Duress
4 Carpet of Flowers
3 Thoughtseize
2 Empty the Warrens
1 Taiga
1 balustrade spy
I have one Balustrade spy because of Oops, all spells! -deck. I've seen that it is much easier to kill by T1 than Spanish Inquisition. It's like Belcher with the speed of SI. And because the matchup is pretty much forcing a T1 kill (or you could of course side in Thoughtseizes and duresses, but in some cases one discard isn't going to stop them from winning next turn so I don't think this is valid option.), Balustrade Spy becomes much easier and smoother T1 kill than any other thing against it. You need Initial, Dark Ritual, LED and Tutor to pull off a T1 kill against that deck. And yeah, this deck type is actually surprisingly common here! (some tournaments had 2 of those decks out of 14)
I'm gonna test it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Final Fortune
You don't have Dryad Arbor in your list? I like Burnt Offering, but is it worth it for so few sac-targets?
Just looking at the list;
I'm a bit worried about how you could empty your hand effectively enough to storm with Infernal Tutor, when you keep drawing lands or simply have more than one.
This could make storming trickier if you're aiming for going off on turn 1.
Anyways, see how I go.:wink:
Did a fair bit of testing Final Fortune;
And whilst I think elements of your idea have merit - I'm still not too happy about the amount of lands.
I've stalled with too many lands in my hand quite a few times, unable to combo out with a tutor even though I've had the bomb hand staring back at me.
Hmm...
Why don't you drop 4 fetches for 4 Land Grant? They do exactly the same thing, except you can play multiple Land Grants in a turn by just failing to find a land. With 7 lands you're still going to draw multiples sometimes, but at least it'll be somewhat less frequent.Quote:
Originally Posted by slave
FinalFortune - cool looking list! I'm going to try goldfishing it some.
Some combination of Fetch Land and Land Grant could be optimal for gold fishing, but Fetch Land is going to be a better play than Land Grant in a real game because you can sit on your Fetch Land in order to build a mana base and you don't have to reveal your strategy to your opponent.Quote:
Originally Posted by phazonmuant
I'm not certain that 4 Skyshroud Cutter and Burnt Offering is correct, cutting a Bayou for a Dryad Arbor gives 8 Fetch Land and 4 Summoner's Pact a tutor for Culling the Weak fodder and an Elvish Spirit Guide gives the deck a virtual 5 Elvish Spirit Guides to help cast Cabal Rituals to the point where I think reducing the total number of Skyshroud Cutter and Burnt Offering in order to emphasize the Culling the Weak plan is probably more consistent, if less explosive.
This could be interesting for example,
4 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Past in Flames
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Inferal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Land Grant
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Summoner's Pact
1 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Skyshroud Cutter
1 Deathrite Shaman
Apolpgize for the question, but Just training myself for a small tournament next sunday. I expect a few miracle, BUG,canadian( tempo UGR) maybe esperblade, and some rogue deck (maybe Storm)..
Wondering if Quasi-SI will perform better .. how do you think about bug & ugr MU?
Also, the primer's lists will be fine or it is outdated?
Thks, i'll post some impression after more testing :smile:i
I've not heard a single report of anyone having success with QSI.Quote:
Originally Posted by Moraxus
PSI with the grind plan, or the Robot list perhaps with the 'man-plan' sideboard would almost certainly serve you better.
You'll find a more active discussion of this deck on MTGSalvation.
I played SI-like deck in a small Legacy tournament yesterday, a dozen of ppl or so came to "that other LGS" for four rounds of swiss. (There are two LGS in our city, the small one that helds T1,5 on Mondays and some 10-15 ppl come, while the other helds T1,5 on Thursdays with approx. 20+ ppl coming. The second LGS has a bit better prize structure, too.)
A small notes before proceeding to decklist and report:
I play Magic for nearly two decades, and for the past several years I play exclusively Legacy. I got quite some collection, nothing special, but I may choose from several tier1 decks, including (but not limited to) RUG, Dredge, ANT, DDFT, etc. But even though I got alll these decks available, I don't have much success in past months, namely because I stopped to play(test) MtG and because there's hardly a deck I really like enough to force myself into master(bat)ing it. Mostly I play ANT, but the hate is amazing today, also ppl finally learned to play against it.
With this in mind, I decided that in the future I may still finish the tournaments with my usual "1:3", "0:2 drop" results, but this time I might have some fun with the unusual, bizzare and outright bed decks. So I unsleeved RUG, ANT and etc., and on that moment Bed Decks Player was born.
On decklist - I built the deck from what I've got, I just rode to the bigger store for the fourth Veteran Explorer ('cause they listed it as a Weatherlight one, of course it wasn't) and the last Land Grant that I was lazy to search for. The whole playtesting consisted of dozen goldfishes with perfect-sized deck mising the two cards, then I grabbed the finally "tuned" pack, thrown it into Ultra Pros and rushed to the city.
2x Forest
1x Swamp
1x Dryad Arbor
1x Bayou
1x Tropical Island
4x Xantid Swarm
4x Veteran Explorer
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
3x Cabal Therapy
4x Lotus Petal
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x DarkRitual
4x Cabal Ritual
4x Culling the Weak
4x Infernal Contract
2x Cruel Bargain
4x Meditate
4x Land Grant
4x Infernal Tutor
2x Tendrils of Agony
________
3x Chain of Vapor
4x Dread of Night
3x Duress
1x Cabal Therapy
4x Carpet of Flowers
As you might see, it's a mutant of SI and QSI, missing what makes both good and having what makes both crappy. The main idea was to not spend money for cards like Pact or Intent and rather play with what I got to see how the deck overally works. I liked the idea of tall men doing useful stuff before saccing them. Also maindeck Swarm was a troll atempt. I even shown the deck pre-tournament to the shop keeper, in case someone argues the insect.
1st round against RUG
1st game: I lead with Xantid Swarm, which luckily resolved and survived. Turn before I comboed out, he finally found Bolt, so I must tried to win unprotected and failed.
sideboard: Carpets and some stuff, generally speaking I overboarded. I had some trouble with sleeves, too, basically out of the 61+15, twenty had split so I had a complete mess in my cards and instead of concentrating on game and on sb-ing, I just struggled with the PVC foil.
2nd game: I tried a combo but he countered CRit. I replenished my hand ahd then played CT (Pierced), CT (flashing it for Veteran), found Forest and Swamp, LG into Bayou, Carpet, Carpet, move to the second main (he should have Bolted the Dryad during attack phase, as he knew of my Culling thanks to his Probe), 2nd main phase I took UB from Carpets, then I culled the Dryad, in response he BSed, (tapping himself out, so the only answer was FoW), and then I ToA him from hand, as he was on 13 from my attacks, his Probe and FoW.
3rd game: He had waful hand and so did I. One monet his hand revealed Jace, Pierce, Tarmogoyf and Submerge, which is strange card and he then admited that Bolt would be better. I played LP, LED, Crit with the latter not resolving and then I died to Goyf and Mangoose.
2nd round against UR Delver
1st game: A deck shown to be really bed, I like it. I ws hit by Delver, then by Abberation, then I resolved a D4 and died without playing anything else.
sideboard: same as above, just that the latex trouble was even worse. I hadn't enough time to resleve the deck. So I just took away some of the worst sleeves and then started to sleeve and sideboard all at once. We've had some fun of it, and then we bursted in laughter when I unsleeved one of my CRits (the only english one I use) and it has written "BALOG" all over the back side. I told Michal that I use this one because I got three asian ones and five English, with the four unneeded English ones in my trade binder. Strangely enough, he also has three asian and one English CRit, but I'm a winner in this contest, because of the "BALOG" alter.
Ok, back to game...
2nd game: This one was funny. I sided out 2nd ToA to find room for protection, thinking that I just kill him with big chain. Of course, when I startedthe chain with CoF on table and Culled Vetran, I had all the mana in world (something like BBBBBBB and LED+LP in play), but was stuck with IT+ToA in hand. Not playing the PiF/second ToA, I lost this game, of course.
3rd round, bye
I thrown away the Ultra Pro "sleeves" and bought Dragon Shield plus two Mirage IC so that I don't have to play the ugly 6th and 7th Ed. (Feel free to mention this in the "Exact name cards" thread...)
4th round against UBW Control
1st game I lost somehow.
sideboard: I once again overboarded.
2nd game: i had a very risky hand and after some tinkering decided to try it before he play land for Pierce/Thoughtseize. (He also kept a risky hand with no coutnerspells but two :b: discards, so I was correct on my decision.) Unluckily I had to go without land so, it was LP, DRit, LED, D4 (sac LED for BBB), brick and quit. If I had a DRit instead of Duress in my D4, I could have tried DRit, Trop, Med and win form there with CRit, LP, random :1: card, ToA
So, the deck is awful enough for me to play itagain, I just need to make my mind if I want to try the PSI or QSI route. (The latter been more likely.) Also, I'd appreciate the two remaining D4s.
Otoh, I wasted four hours of my life and quite some money on gas - remember I had to visit the other shop for the Veteran - sleeves, entry fee, cards for deck, cards for Mirage-Visions-Weatherlight deck, a peanut stick and a soda. So maybe I'll stick to some good deck next time...
Props:
Xantid Swarm main.
D4.
Slops:
Not enough sac outlets/dudes, or better said: incorrect numbers. I basically had every possible wrong combination any time possible, like double CtW and one CT with no dude to sac, or an Explorer and Dryad without anything to play.
ESG. This card sucks. It countered one Daze and that's about it.
My sb skills.
Hey Guys, I'm looking for a new deck to play, is there a reason this has fallen off of the wagon within the last year? Could you weigh the pros and cons of this versus Belcher/TES/ANT?
SI has no cantrips and no solid mana base. That's why it is less consistent than ANT or TES. I feel it is also slightly less consistent than Belcher, because the Belcher business is better. A draw 4 spell can give you crap, while Empty the Warrens always gives you an army that should win you the game (most of the time). SI just isn't as reliable as the popular Storm decks right now. Good players can make good use of SI though. It is a lot more resilient than it looks at first glance, and it can be ludacrisly fast. I should also add that SI is way more fun to play than ANT or TES. :smile:Quote:
Originally Posted by Manroe
SI hasn't really 'fallen off the wagon' cause there never really was a wagon for this deck. There's a few people camping in the mountains and thats about it.
MTGS has a far more active forum if you're interested in constant discussion, sharing results, etc. SI players are still performing at locals, and within the last year we had one player place 26th in an SCG, and the year before that, actually, the exact same place, with a different player. So with a good pilot, the deck is still able to do quite well at large tournaments.
A lot of players are playing RSI which is the robot heavy list that plays Mox Opal, Gitaxian Probe, and Cabal Therapy. It can lead to some incredibly powerful plays, and players of this type have been developing their own sideboards to good effect, things like Lotus Bloom and Tezzeret transformations.
I and some other players still player PSI (the Pact list), which plays 0 protection, but is far more flexible than the other lists because the Pacts can transform into either a creature or a mana source.
Belcher is a largely turn 3 combo deck. 4/11 win conditions are Empty the Warrens (on rare occasions Diminishing Returns and/or Tendrils). So after you hit 14 tokens turn 1, the fastest you can win is turn 3. PSI by comparison, is a turn 1 deck, more in line with the speed of decks like Oops All the Spells (or whatever its called). The difference is this deck still holds the title of best mulligans in all of Legacy magic because you can go off with fewer resources than any other combo deck, thanks to redundancy. Petal, Drit, D4, is all you really need. Yes D4s are risky, but that comes with the territory. The PSI lists fizzle less because you don't draw into multiple protection and tallmen when you really want business and acceleration. For this reason I've stuck with PSI. Also, still comparing to Belcher, PSI actually has a sideboard plan. If you notice, the most recent lists played by Ben Perry and others have ported sideboard tech from PSI such as Carpet of Flowers. Carpet is even more abusable post-board thanks to a heavy business count. Against a slower control player like Miracles or BUG, 3 Islands means free business for the PSI. Then, you just lay business spells down until they run out of permission, and then you kill them. It works extremely well actually, and is far more fun to play for both players than the typically combo matchup where one player bends down, and the other player does nasty things. Instead, its largely, how do you out play them, surprise pay for Daze and make them waste 2 counters on something. Also, you can lay down double or triple threats on turn 1 thanks to boarding in a bunch of 1cc bombs. The deck can play a man plan as well if you want to surprise your local opponents with something they aren't prepared for.
ANT and TES are played more because they are consistent, and easy to play. PSI is significantly faster, and usually you are favored in the combo mirror because they cannot match your speed. I've won most of my combo mirrors against other storm decks. PSI, though is a combo for the dedicated combo player who enjoys playing something both difficult and rewarding. The sideboard is incredibly fun to play; in fact, I've beaten control players who claim to have had 'the best game of magic in a long time' playing against it, so you won't look like a dick at your local metagame like you would if you were playing Belcher.
Then again, I've been developing a new list that I've shared with the MTGS and Stormboard SI-teams, and its developing quite well actually. We have a BGur list that plays Brainstorm, a BGR list that plays Entomb and Burning Wish, and a BGr list that plays Entomb. So far the list is about as fast as ANT. We have a small amount of data (70 goldfish games recorded), leading us to a 2.55 (20 games), 2.9 (20 games), 2.8 (20 games), and 2.5 (10 games) turn kill ratio. So its about the speed of ANT or TES, but it plays better cards in some cases, and its far better against control than these other storm combo decks by my assessment. I'll get into these things later though, here is the list:
- VANT w/ Entomb -
Business -
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Entomb
3 Diabolic Intent
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony
Protection/Utility -
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Narcomoeba
Mana -
1 Eternal Witness
3 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Young Wolf
4 Dark Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
Land -
4 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Bayou
1 Mountain
1 Dryad Arbor
We're still developing a sideboard. Direlemming is playing a BW variant, also playing Entomb. A few other players think we should go back to playing Brainstorm. Lately I've been pondering a Doomsday variant with Probe/Brainstorm/Top. Anyway, I'll explain the card choices. It shares like 37 cards or something with PSI so it was technically PSI for a long time. I started calling it Veteran ANT due to Veteran Explorer.
Business:
Infernal Tutor - Excellent tutor. Storm combo players are quite familiar with this one.
Entomb - Incredibly powerful. This card can be a creature if you need one for a sac effect, it can find business via PIF, or protection via Therapy.
Diabolic Intent - Much like IT, only its better than IT. Also, its better than Burning Wish because BW can't find LED, and thats huge if you have IT/BW in hand.
Ad Nauseam - Powerful engine.
Past in Flames - Your line of play if you have an Entomb in hand, or if you've lost too much life to go for Ad Nauseam.
Tendrils of Agony - Your kill.
Protection/Utility:
Cabal Therapy - ANT/TES do not utilize this card to its potential. Its basically a bad protection spell in other combo decks. In this one, you can flashback it frequently, or find it with Entomb for tricks.
Narcomoeba - Tricks with Entomb
Mana:
Eternal Witness - Huge card. If you have 9 mana in hand and your only business is Entomb and Pact, you can still win. You Entomb for Ad Nauseam, then you Pact, crack a LED for GGG, then Ewit for AdN, then cast AdN with the rest of your mana.
Elvish Spirit Guide - Anti-Daze tech, and helps you cast your Explorers and other green 1cc stuff on turn 1.
Summoner's Pact - Strongest card in the deck. It can turn into mana, a creature, or a business spell (Ewit). I'll talk about the drawback later.
Veteran Explorer - Another of the strongest cards in the deck. It's pseudo-ritual acceleration in that it nets you B, but you get to keep the lands. Its great for setting up.
Young Wolf - Sometimes you want to Pact for this when you have double Culling or some kind of double sac cost that you could not pay for if you grabbed Explorer.
Dark Ritual - Acceleration
Culling the Weak - More explosive acceleration than the other combo decks have access to. This is one of the cards that lets you frequently make huge-mana plays.
Lion's Eye Diamond - Combos with Pact, Entomb, DI, IT, and PIF. In other words, more cards than in any other storm combo variant.
Lands
Swamp - I like playing 4 but we can probably cut one for a basic Forest.
Verdant Catacombs - Can find a B/G source, or a Dryad Arbor if you need it for a sac effect.
Bayou - Your B/G mana sources.
Mountain - Sometimes you want to grab this when you are executing a PIF line of play. You grab it with Veteran Explorer.
Dryad Arbor - You can grab this with Catacombs or Pact.
As I've already mentioned, this deck wins somewhere between turn 2 and turn 3 on avg. Often you can set up protection as well, and many of those times you are also able to flashback therapy. The deck has natural protection from soft permission because the rituals are so explosive and the deck plays a very stable mana base thanks to Explorer. Also, Veteran Explorer is a psuedo-ritual acceleration that cannot be Spell Pierced or Flusterstormed. This is huge because it limits players to Daze, Stifle, and Force. The business of the deck (could include Pact) is so amorphous that you can usually manipulate your hand based on what you are playing to produce a win. I've talked about this deck ad nauseam on MTGS in the SI thread if anyone wants to read more (and see the results the few of us have in our limited testing).
The coolest thing you can do with this deck is probably the Eternal Witness line of play. You have no idea how satisfying it is to win with just Pact/Entomb in hand. Also, due to lines of play like this, you can produce a win by using spare DI's or ITs to look for protection or extra mana if you are taking your time in going off. Sometimes this deck has so much mana its absurd. Sometimes after you've played IT/DI and cracked all your LEDs, you have as much as 7 to 15 mana floating. Entomb in particular was a more recent addition to this list (I started with Brainstorms and Sea/Trop). I like Entomb because it can be protection, or if you don't have a dude to sac, you can throw a PIF in your yard, just in case they have a counter you don't expect. The deck has so much mana even if they counter your all in attempt that you can go off again next turn from the yard with PIF. This is because Explorers leave you with perpetual resources after you crack them, unlike other acceleration where its a one time deal.
I think this new storm variant could potentially dislodge RUG from its Papal Legacy throne. Explorer is just retarded against RUG, and their soft permission is rather hilarious when you look at how easily this deck can out distance soft permission. I had one game where I just played through 4 Spell Pierce, Daze, Flusterstorm, in game one. Just to compare to other storm variants (though I was going to do all this in an article at some point in the near future):
ANT - less explosive, more cantrips, less stable mana base, more disruption but weaker disruption, weaker rituals
TES - less explosive, more cantrips, less stable mana base, more and stronger disruption (pre-board), far weaker rituals
In particular, ANT plays Crit, which is extremely vulnerable to Daze, and frankly, the card you want to cut from that list if you could. Also, both lists play Chrome Mox, which is card disadvantage. I've dropped it since the deck has so much mana that you rarely AdN without mana floating. Also, Therapy/Probe is just a pathetic version of Therapy/Flashback. This deck abuses Therapy to the fullest of its potential, and then some thanks to Entomb. Entomb functions as pseudo protection a lot of the time. TES, on the other hand, plays Silence/Chant effects. These are awesome, but once VANT hits post-board, it can play Autumn's Veil, which is better in this deck. Why? Because all its rituals are instants, unlike in TES. This means VE against control allows you multiple land drops such that when you go off, you can respond to their soft permission with Veil, something that TES cannot do with Chant/Silence. TES is probably still faster than this deck overall, but cards like Culling the Weak produce explosive plays where TES would be waiting for a couple turns to get enough acceleration to get there. Also in terms of explosiveness, the number of cards that interact with LED mean that your topdeck mode is quite powerful. When I was playing Brainstorm, the deck also had a stronger Brainstorm than both TES and ANT, ANT typically only playing 16 shuffle effects with TES's 11, and VANT's 18. Now its at 23, no cantrips, but I am still playing around with the list.
I hope to gather some interest in this list that way we can get more players testing variations. I already have 5 or 6 other people testing their own variations, and a couple of people have liked the list so much they are on their way to completing their list.
Vacrix, first off your analysis is great. I can tell you are very passionate about the deck, which is very refreshing. The new list that you posted intrigues me. I would like to make and test it. I am always one to play something unique and my meta has almost no control players. Sounds fun to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vacrix
Really interesting list Vacrix. It's kind of amazing to see what appears to be an actual fresh take on storm.
It's very different from SI though. Why not start a new thread to get some interest going? I'm betting not a lot of people that might be interested even enter this thread and it's certainly different enough to warrant a new one.
Indeed, it is a fresh take on storm. A couple people on MTGS are already playing VANT with success. However, I want to get a little bit more information on the deck before I write a primer to officially present it to the community as something new. I have one tournament report so far from MTGS, and he beat 2 decks playing FoW to top4 at his local. Not bad, but I'd like to have a couple reports first. If anyone wants to read more about this deck, we've discussed it thoroughly on MTGS.
So far the deck appears to win quickly on turns 2 or 3 if you push the deck to race your opponent. If you take your time, it goes off later but slow plays better than other storm combo decks because this one can flashback Therapy, sac Explorers to build up enough mana to dodge soft permission, and the deck plays 15 tutors which allows the pilot to move resources around to solve different situations. Its more like Doomsday than ANT actually and the fast mana is even more flexible than in PSI because the deck can play Explorer instead of Chrome Mox. It has an incredible amount of resilience because of the high business density, much like the inevitability of ANT, but stacking basics with Explorer makes it more inevitable (and makes paying for Pact triggers easier). A Burning Wish version might be more appropriate but I'm becoming less and less fond of Empty the Warrens since everyone is answering it so effectively these days. Belcher wins some and loses some, but we don't want to lose to the same thing that beats Belcher. I think PIF is a much more preferable line of play. With access to Entomb, it opens up the possibility of creative post-board transformations. Hitting 8-10 mana for Griz isn't incredibly hard if we know we are trying to crack a Pernicious Deed. Then we can also play post-board reanimation as well. This would be a clever way to diversify how storm combo fights through hate because it slow plays into Deed extremely well thanks to Explorer. You can also Deed and then set up a PIF/Tendrils line of play. There are other board transformation I've been experimenting with that are also functioning within the current deck structure quite well, variations of Phyrexian Obliterator, Desecration Demon, and Carpet/protection plans.
EDIT:
Another good way too look at things in terms of virtual copies.
VANT -
18 virtual business - (4 IT, 4 Entomb, 3 DI, 1 AdN, 1 Tendrils, 1 PIF, 4 Pact)
20 virtual acceleration - (4 Drit, 4 Culling, 4 LED, 4 Veteran Explorer, 4 Pact)
8 virtual protection - (4 Therapy, 4 Entomb)
18 virtual creatures - (4 Veteran Explorer, 1 Young Wolf, 4 Pact, 4 Verdant Catacombs, 4 Entomb, 1 Dryad Arbor) (19 if you count wolf as 2 creatures, and 20 if you count hardcasting Narcomoeba)
11 land - (Veteran Explorers tend to mean you don't need to draw lands or cantrip into land drops as often. instead you take your time and crack the explorer somehow)
By comparison to ANT and TES, they play more cantrips while this deck plays tutors to create flexibility in the hand rather than relying on a good topdeck, shuffling, and multiple cantrips. In this case, you are very vulnerable to Pyroblast on cantrips early on against decks like RUG. By comparison, these decks are flexible within 3 cards of their topdeck, which they constantly shuffle. However, cards like Entomb and Summoner's Pact require additional deck space for flexibility, but through redundancy manages an effective system. Also, the ability of a player to hide his strategy as a Nic fit player is incredibly useful for determining how to play your hand. Sometimes, you will start by dropping lands, maybe an Explorer or something. Then your opponent drops Deathrite shaman. Initially, you were thinking about going for PiF. Well, you can now decide how to use Entomb. Entombing for Narcomoeba will really put them on edge because then they will expect some graveyard based strategy. This is the kind of mind numbing confusion this deck can unleash because the cards you are playing are so foreign to storm combo. I think people playing storm like Grinding Station, DDFT, and SI will really get turned on to this version of storm combo. Hopefully soon because this is a storm combo variant that will make fighting storm combo much more difficult.
Sorry for my ignorance but what is QSI?
If I recall correctly, it's the version of SI that splashes blue for cantrips to sculp a hand that can beat the hate. I think it runs Meditate as an additional D4. There is likely something about it in the OP/Primer.Quote:
Originally Posted by GoldenCid
Thank you for. Clarification. Does it provide any advantage over traditional psi?Quote:
Originally Posted by ntropy
And which is the trick behind lotus bloom?
@Vacrix
I loaded up the Veteran Explorer list and think it's rather interesting, but I have a lot of criticisms as well.
1) You should be using an Empty the Warrens in the MD as a second win/kill condition, answers for Empty the Warrens only exists post-board.
2) I rarely find myself wanting to fetch for a mountain, Entomb for a Narcomeba or Pact for a Young Wolf, I think you've gotten carred too far away with "cute" interactions and found yourself in the land of awful oppening hands.
3) Three Elvish Spirit Guide in a deck with Ad Nauseam is rather "ballsy"
4) Tinder Wall and Deathrite Shaman would make for rather useful draws and Pact targets for straightening out mana for Past in Flames or Chrome Mox if you choose to play any.
5) You're already playing Cabal Therapy, Gitaxian Probe should be right around the corner.
6) Grim Tutor or Death Wish seem like pretty viable business spells as well as a second Ad Nauseam.
Have you tried cutting the deck down to just Veteran Explorer and Diabolic Intent instead of getting "fancy" with Entomb?
Well, finally i got my third Cruel Bargain and while wait for the fourth wich draw spell do you recomend me to run instead?
Meditate
or
Slithermuse?
Moreover i share my actual list for help (insults are welcomed as well :P)
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Infernal Contract
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Summoner's Pact
3 Tendrils of Agony
2 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Culling the Weak
1 Wild Cantor
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Infernal Tutor
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Odious Trow
1 Empty the Warrens
Respect the side....im not sure what can i run. Im intrigued for lotus Bloom versión but maybe im so newbie for that.
Thx a lot
GC