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There's one minor trick you'll have to pull off, which is purposely rebonding with the empath, but blinking Deadeye Navigator to retrigger his soulbond on palinchron after you drop palinchron in. This will generate infinite mana--this actually doesn't sound terrible, since my only concern with palinchron was not tutoring him, but we can do that..Quote:
Originally Posted by EpicLevelCommoner
Well there are certainly options. Kokusho flings to the face, GraveDaddy makes an army, and Frosty the Snowman is the blue Yosei. But my point is all these wincons and the combo can be fetched with Empath which can be GSZd. Which makes this a very splashable combo.
Even that's not so bad though. You can play out Zegana, get your three cards or whatever, play out Navigator at some later point, bond w/ Zegana and you're rolling. And since Navigator can reset his bonding, you can play him whenever.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arianrhod
Is it going too deep to run something like Rune-Scarred Demon for after generating infinite mana, bouncing Deadeye to reconnect with Empath, bouncing empath to tutor him, fetching Rune-Scarred Demon to fetch blue sun, and just kill them?Quote:
Originally Posted by EpicLevelCommoner
Or is there another way to do that? Maybe a different less ridiculously expensive creature? I mean on one hand, if this combo starts it's not stopping for much, it also doesn't have any weird requirements like "It has to be in the library beforehand!" it's just like, you tutor a bunch of things and deck them after making infinity mana.
I think thats why the frost titan was in that list.Quote:
Originally Posted by EpicLevelCommoner
1. Play Empath get Deadeye
2. Play Deadeye and bond with Empath
3. Empath get Palinchron
4. Blink deadeye, bond with palinchron and make a infinite mana
5. Blink dead eye, bond with empath
6. Blink empath get frosty (or zengra or oona, whatever)
7. Blink deadeye, bond with Frosty or wincon
8. Blink frosty and tap down all their permanents forever. (Or draw your deck, mill your opponent or whatever)
I think blinking a witness, venser, thrag or coiling oracle infinite times when you have infinite mana should be all that's needed to win though. Literally any of the other creatures in the deck besides the explorers are wincons when you have deadeye+palinchron. Adding ANOTHER win-more 6 drop is unnecessary cuteness.
Also, as much as I love a good brew there isnt much this deck can do better than scapewish. Except for playing around wasteland, leyline of santicy and life gain, you just win if you hit 7 lands and have the combo piece. Where this combo requires that you get 6 lands, a GSZ, one, and usually two, untap steps, and you have to make sure your opponent doesn't have countermagic, discard, OR creature removal for the 2-3 turns were you set up. Maybe Im wrong, but a burning wish board seems much better than a living wish board. And islands/blue are hated on more than red. Huntmasters seem much better for this archtype than the creatures blue offers. Red in general offers better SB cards than blue. So that leaves just one big advantage to running blue over red, brainstorm, Jace and FoW, and this list seems to only be able to fit brainstorm in it.
I'm still going to try this out, cause it seems really cool and its a very creative idea. I'd love for this to be good, but we have to make sure it is not just innovation for innovations sake and is actually better than the alternatives.
Okay, I went through Gatherer and looked at literally every 6+ drop in the entire game. There are 8 total options in the entire game for ways to win, either on the spot or via lockdown, with infinite mana/blink.
Frost Titan
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Rune-Scarred Demon
Spawnsire of Ulamog
Triskelion
Vela the Night-Clad
Woodfall Primus
Craterhoof Behemoth
Most of these are somewhat situational. Hoof requires that you have at least one creature who is not summoning sick besides the Hoof (flickering infinitely generates an infinite/infinite trampler). Primus is like Frost Titan in that it's a lockdown...they don't have lands anymore. Vela just kills people, and says "Each opponent," so she won't get hosed by Leyline of Sanctity. She also has amazing art (which is not actually a category for consideration...but I'm just tossing it out there. *drool*).
Trike also just kills people, but he loses to Leyline (for whatever that's worth). He can still Plague Wind your opponent, though. Spawnsire is....uh.....included for the sake of completeness. I GUESS you could theoretically have an Emrakul in your board to Wish for..but....eugh. Rune-Scarred is actually sweet. You don't Demonic for Blue Sun, you Demonic for Living Wish, then Wish for Maga. Or you could Demonic for Venser and bounce all of their permanents and spells for the rest of the game. Oona is a third "just dead" option.
So, eliminating Spawnsire as being VASTLY too cute, that leaves us with the following:
Lockdown: Frost Titan, Woodfall Primus
Combat step: Craterhoof Behemoth
Just Dead: Oona, Queen of the Fae, Rune-Scarred Demon, Triskelion, Vela the Night-clad
Of these, I think that we can regretfully cut Vela from consideration. Leyline of Sanctity is no big deal -- we have a ton of ways to answer it, and frankly I don't know that people would board it in vs this deck anyway. I'm inclined to think that they shouldn't, at the least. Woodfall is, in my opinion, worse than Frosty. The only circumstance where Woodfall beats Frosty is if they Show Omniscience. Vs literally everything else, Frost Titan is better.
That leaves Frosty, Hoof, and Oona/RSD/Trike. I think that Rune-scarred ACTUALLY wins vs Trike and Oona, because you once you hit that stage it is literally impossible to lose. I mean literally. No matter what answer they might have, you can Demonic for an answer to their answer. If they have Mindbreak Trap, you flicker Demon for Venser or Snake. If they have Leyline (which stops Maga), you flicker Demon for Living Wish for Acidic Slime, then flicker Demon again for another Wish to Maga them. And so on. Whatever the board state is, you have an out. Also a 6/6 flying Demonic Tutor seems pretty legit at any stage of the game.
So...the final options are Frosty, Hoof, and RSD. What is everyones' opinions on these three? RSD costs 7 and Hoof runs you 8 mana, compared to Frosty's 6. Hoof is Zenithable, and sometimes you'll just randomly kill people with any odd dorks you have lying around, without even needing to go infinite. RSD can answer almost any situation single-handedly provided you have the time, but 7 mana is a LOT for "just" a Demonic. Frosty can lock down any single creature or land-based threat indefinitely, but is a slow kill, and runs into issues against developed board states with multiple Goyfs, etc.
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As for this vs Scapewish, I think that this version has a lot of good matchups that aren't shared by the rest of the family. Scapewish melts fair decks, but struggles vs combo. Rector is flexible enough to win vs anything, but can lose to anything as well. Deadeye should shred Show/Tell, and it actually has the ability to beat 12post, which is something that Nic Fit struggles with currently (wish for Acidic Slime, then start flickering). The idea is for Deadeye to be strong against combo, while still being able to hold its own vs fair decks.
Also, if we can get this thing ironed out in time for me to order the stuff I'm missing from it, I'll play it at Jupiter on Saturday. Finding the Trops might be a little tricky (since my Trops are in my 12post deck, which a friend will be using at the event), but I should be able to manage it. Right now it's too rough for me to be comfortable playing it in a 75-80 person event, though. Worst case I'll probably play it at April's Jupiter event.
This must happen Kevin. I need to see this deck in action. And hell yeah RSD. I was like "This feels too cute" but, even WITH a leyline out, you have infinite mana, you can flicker him to tutor a pulse and blow it up or a venser and bounce it then kill them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arianrhod
I would not recommend bringing this to a tournament. Barring insane luck or bad opponents you will be in for a 1-3 drop. It looks flashy but the lists is not good. What you currently have is a 4 drop that tutors for a 6 drop that combos with a 7 drop. That is simply not playable.
This combo finish doesn't help in the majority of the matchups. Against Combo it makes no difference because you are ~4 turns slower than them anyway. And against all the Tempo decks you would rather have win conditions that are good on their own. For example Planeswalkers like Jace, Liliana, Garruk like in my version; or value creatures like Wurmcoil Engine, Consecrated Sphinx or Grave/Primeval Titan. And against the U/W decks, they have Swords to Plowshares for the Deadeye.
I'll see what I can do. For where the list is at right now, I think I need like, Palinchron, Maga, Mystic Snake, 1 Deadeye....and I dunno what else. It's not much, I just need to have the list finalized (close enough) before I pull the trigger.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kich867
Right now I think the main points of contention are the Stroke/Blue Sun slots maindeck, the choice of finisher (Frosty/RSD/Hoof), and the sideboard / wishboard targets. I'm also not sure if I want Snake maindeck or if perhaps he should be moved to the sideboard as a Wish target....or just cut entirely. There's still a lot unsure about the deck at this point, with 2.5 days for us to iron it out. If I need to order cards from Jupiter, I'll be doing it Friday night, so the list has to have solidified by then for me to play it.
I have a Palinchron and I think a deadeye, will confirm tonight, that I could give you for the tournament.Quote:
Originally Posted by Arianrhod
Mystic Snake seems a little bit too cute for me, I think the Stroke / Blue Sun slots should be one slot, and it should be Stroke since it's just easier to cast in the event you aren't going infinite on them.
I would opt for RSD, if only because I prefer win conditions that insta-kill the opponent, no questions asked, rather than requiring an untap step to kill them. Craterhoof seems too difficult, since Empath, Palinchron, and Deadeye will all have summoning sickness after the combo, requiring a different creature to attack them. Frosty is probably fine as well, maybe a little more flexible of an answer, but certainly doesn't one-shot them.
Frost Titan is probably the more flexible answer that requires less slots, since you'd no longer need RSD or Stroke, freeing up 2 slots for something else, as well as being a more castable beater. And sometimes his defense-grid thing is annoying. Though if someone wants him dead, he's gone.
I also like that without the combo, most of these pieces are fine on their own. Deadeye + basically..fuckin..anything is the stone cold nuts (thragtusk?). I feel like it's missing enough powerful things to win the game with though, the list seems heavily reliant on deadeye to work, and while it most likely will in general, I feel like it should be able to stand on it's own or buy enough time and have enough disruption to reliably get it going.
I'm wondering if Thrun wouldn't be a bad choice here, just as a total beast of a wall that will buy infinity time, over the Mystic Snake slot?
I'm not sure that Stroke is even necessary. You can just kill that slot entirely and put Maga, Traitor to Mortals in your sideboard. If we just cut Snake, that would give us 3 open slots maindeck. That's....a lot of slots. For reference, here's where we're at (so people don't have to page back as much):Quote:
Originally Posted by Kich867
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Coiling Oracle
1 Fierce Empath
2 Eternal Witness
2 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Thragtusk
1 Deadeye Navigator
1 Frost Titan // Rune-Scarred Demon (debating now)
1 Palinchron
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Living Wish
3 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Brainstorm
2 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Open Slots
3 Bayou
3 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
3 Island
3 Forest
2 Swamp
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Phyrexian Tower
SB: Deadeye Navigator (engine)
SB: Vampire Hexmage (planeswalker hate)
SB: Bojuka Bog (graveyard hate) ---- Maybe something like Withered Wretch instead? Bog might be too limiting.
SB: Karakas (forms a lock with Venser, good vs Sneak/Show)
SB: Volrath's Stronghold (recursion engine)
SB: Acidic Slime (land/enchant/artifact hate)
SB: Faceless Butcher (targeted kill)
SB: The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale (Empty the Warrens sweep / aggro pressure) ---- cut this?
SB: Maga, Traitor to Mortals (infinite kill)
SB: Phyrexian Revoker (name a problem)
SB: 3 Negate
SB: 2 Mindbreak Trap
Not sure about the 5 current sideboard slots. I know I want 3 Negates, but I'm not sure about the Mindbreak Traps....and I'm not sure but if I might be able to squeeze out a few extra sideboard slots by trimming the wishboard down a bit. Like Tabernacle probably isn't necessary, for example. It's good...but probably not needed.
I dont see how this list is better vs combo. If anything it seems worse since you cant REB cantrips or combo peices. A two-of 4 drop that bounces a spell isnt going to stop TES or belcher. And you wont always have it hand for S&T. Both decks can wish for answers to empty or belcher+pass. But only one can wish for slaughter games or thoughtseize. I really think you want FoW in somewhere in the 75, THAT would improve the combo matchup. Mystic snake I think is worse than venser (could be wrong), but Id say cut him or make him venser #3.
Having a 6 drop win con like frost titan, RSD or whatever is totally win more. If you have coiling oracle, ewit, strix, venser or thrag out with deadeye+palichron you win. You do some combination of drawing infinite life, recuring cards from your graveyard infinitely, bouncing every card your opponent plays, or making 3/3 forever, or at the very worst case, swinging with hexproof undamageable palichron till you draw stuff.
Even Maga isnt needed, if you get the the point where your drawing/recuring lots of cards with infinite mana you can just bounce every permanent and spell your opponents play forever with venser while you swing with dead eye and palichron every turn. That can open up another SB slot.
If you're going to including stuff like runescared demon, BSZ or stoke, you need justification for them besides that they win the game in a cool way if you already won the game. If there truly are other reasons to run them over good stuff like abrupt decay, FoW, Jace, Thrun, or Thoughtseize that let you get to the point in the game where you can win, then by all means run them. But I cant think of any of those reasons. Most of the time they will just sit in your hand while you wish they were other cards.
I think if you're going to have the wish board, tabernacle definitely deserves a spot. Against random tribal, empty the warrens, or even decks like mav its really good.
Architect layin down the truth, this opens up more slots everywhere. Infinity bounce / life + creatures / etc. is really all that's needed. I'm not terribly opposed to the Prime Speaker Zegana idea so long as there are more mid-rangey creatures like Thrun hanging around.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheArchitect
FOW was something I wanted to try and fit in that list but there were only like 13 blue cards, so more of them are needed. And often you have nothing you want to pitch. Perhaps instead of FOW, just opting for solid hard-counters like maindeck Negates?
FOW is tough because there's just so many cards that sort of need to be in the maindeck, the ~15ish creatures, therapies, GSZ's, etc... Hrm.
Just because I honestly don't know: are we still trying to maximize win percentages with the lists? Because that is all I care about. Or is this about making cool stuff? I do not mind if you do, but then I know that I can keep out of the discussion.
You can interact on the stack. Also, you're playing blue. This automatically gives you a few % points, because combo players are going to hesitate. If they see Taiga + Badlands, they're just going to go off without protection. If they see Trop + Sea, though, they're going to wait until they have protection. Even if that only buys you a turn or two, that's an advantage.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheArchitect
Slaughter Games and Thoughtseize are grossly overestimated right now. There's too much Leyline of Sanctity. The combo decks are running them to protect themselves from discard, and the control decks are running them to protect against the combo decks. REB is a valid argument that I will grant you. At best, though, that's a wash, because blue has Negate, which does basically the same thing.
I'm actually thinking about running Force instead of Trap, and then trying to find slots for the 3rd and 4th copies. With the 3 open slots in the maindeck as blue cards, I think that it should be possible.
Where this version gets points vs combo is vs Show and Tell. While true that you won't always have one of these options in your hand, let's consider the range of possibilities:
Assuming that Show and Tell resolves, and is not Therapied away, you have:
2 Venser
1 Frost Titan + 1 Fierce Empath (+3 Green Sun)
4 Living Wish
-Possibly- 3 Baleful Strix (the forerunner for the open slots currently)
2 Pulse (if not Emrakul)
That's 16 cards, not counting if you Therapy away the Show and Tell in the first place, which brings the count up to 20. That's a solid 1/3 of the deck that directly or indirectly answers Show and Tell. That's HUGE.
As for Maga, I think that this comes to a difference in style more than anything. Let me use an example from Vintage:
There are two Bomberman decks in Vintage. One uses infinite Aether Spellbombs to bounce and replay Clique endlessly, sculpting your hand such that you have all counterspells to their all lands (by sculpting their hand too). The other kills by drawing your deck until you hit Vault/Key (which is considered a win in Vintage). Technically speaking, the Vault/Key win was unnecessary. You technically win with a Clique and enough counterspells to wall anything. But you don't ACTUALLY win. There's a chance that they can slip out somehow. They can draw something unexpected (like an Abrupt Decay), and suddenly, for all your infinite mana and your fistful of protection....you lose.
So yeah. Looping Thragtusk with Deadeye 5 times is probably going to win you the game. Almost certainly, in fact. But I would rather just see them dead, and not take chances on them ripping a Supreme Verdict or something. Venser is a little bit of a different story. Deadeye+Venser should end in a win. I'll grant you that one. So, cutting Maga is probably fine. RSD should still stay, though, as a means to be sure you hit Venser when you go infinite.
Oh, most definitely. I think that there is an element by which the two blend at some point, though. This entire thread has been dubbed cute stuff at various points in history. Everyone I knew at one point was skeptical of Scapewish and called it strictly unplayable -- and Scapewish has gone on to win myself, and then others, a lot of events. If Deadeye ends up being completely untenable, then you can bet that I'll be the first to admit it and slap myself on the wrist. But I don't think it will be. As I've said previously in the discussion, it has a hell of a lot more potential than Future or Panoptic Mirror. I tried both of those, and they both ended up being bad specifically because they were spell-based engines, not creature-based. Hell, I have foil Panoptic Mirrors rotting in my binder because I pulled the trigger too quickly on that one. I jumped the gun, and I paid for it. Those two failures showed me, though, that Nic Fit needs a creature base, and that's why I think that Deadeye is what the blue list has been looking for. It allows the blue version to run typically blue cards -- but still utilize a creature-centric base which synergizes with those cards.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tao
Incidentally, this is the problem that I've personally always had with the Jace version. I acknowledge that it's good...but it's not to my taste. Same with PFire and Rock. They're fine decks, but they don't sync well with me.
Taking out Trap for FoW is what I was thinking too.
Having an opponent play around countermagic because of the blue lands is legit point. But it does only works if they dont know your list.
Yes, the S&T match is probably better with this list.
I think the amount of times RSD is a dead draw and costs you a game, is going to be ALOT greater the amount of times you can get empath>dead>palinc but no other creatures to get you card advantage, and you lose because your 3 vigilance, semi-hexproof, uncombat-damagable creatures that generate infinite mana aren't good enough to win.
But if you get Empath>Dead>Palinc, they're always dead unless they stop it somehow. Which is unlikely, because even against spot removal you have 3 blinks to trigger before you're out of mana. No matter what, when you hit this setup by virtue of being able to tutor any 6 drop infinitely, you should always win the game. There is no corner case where you have no other creatures to get you card advantage, because you have Empath, who is the creature that gets you card advantage..Quote:
Originally Posted by TheArchitect
You can't lose to having your 3 vigilance, semi-hexproof dudes because one of them tutors frost titan who taps their entire board forever, or tutors RSD to tutor a kill spell, and so on and so forth. If this ever happens, you win the game on the spot. The question is: How hard is this to realistically setup (as has been mentioned, it may take a few turns and is difficult to do in one-go), how hard is it to protect, and how reliably CAN you set it up given the deck's tools.
Also, how good is the deck without this setup? That's probably the biggest question. Can this deck, without all that, just grind it out and win, and how reliant would the list be on that specific combo working.
I think your questions are spot-on. We agree, mostly, on how the kill is executed. These questions must now take precedence in a debate of the kill's merit.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kich867
My thoughts...
To realistically set this up, you need to hit Empath or a Green Sun. You grab Deadeye. Your opponent sits there and thinks. Depending on your board state, he may just kill the Empath on the spot and not give you the chance to pair it up. Smarter opponents will wait until you cast Deadeye, then remove Deadeye in response to the Soulbond trigger. Obviously this can be prevented with smart Therapy usage. Once Deadeye is paired, it becomes almost impossible to deal with short of something like Supreme Verdict, and it's GOING to tutor Palinchron and RSD. That's a given. It's a fair assumption that you're not going to be able to play Deadeye, flicker Empath, then play Palinchron all in the same turn, as that would be 15 mana. So, a more likely scenario is that you pass the turn with Deadeye and Empath up, then on their end step, you flicker to grab Palinchron and RSD, untap and win. This means that the combo is essentially a 2-turn, 1-card combo, which is fairly compact when you get down to it.
As for how hard it is to protect, as mentioned, there is basically one window for the opponent to answer the combo: in response to the Soulbond trigger, do [something] to the Deadeye. Once its bonded, it'll take a sweeper to actually get rid of it. The fact that the combo basically protects itself is insane.
Reliability, I do not feel is a problem. You have 3 Green Sun + the Empath himself, as well as Brainstorms and Tops + shuffles. You also have an additional 4 copies of Deadeye, thanks to Wish. Additionally, you're very rarely going to be going balls-deep combo, I feel. I think that it plays more like Bant Survival - you're doing all of these things, and then suddenly Iona. That's the ethic that Scapewish was originally designed under, as well, although Scapewish has become progressively more combo as the deck evolved.
The most important question, then: how good is it without the combo.
Deadeye is obviously insane with any non-Explorer creature in the entire deck. That isn't a concern.
Empath is industry standard for tutoring non-green 6+drops via Green Sun. Nothing new there.
Palinchron is a 4/5 flying batterskull without vigilance or lifelink. That's kind of a raw deal for 7 mana, but, it DOES always protect itself, because it untaps the mana necessary to bounce it when it comes into play. Considering that once you hit 7 mana, it's essentially a "free creature," I think that it's acceptable if not up to today's standards overall.
Rune-Scarred is a 6/6 flyer that replaces himself with the best card in your deck. I've used Demon before when tinkering with Gifts Ungiven, because he enables the chain of Gifts -> Unburial + Demon, Demon for Nightmare....at which point you can loop Demon through Nightmare to tutor for as many cards as you need. I've liked Demon in the past, and I don't think he's "just bad" here. He's also a pretty good target to slam down off of Show and Tell, although not as good as Frost Titan for obvious reasons.
Venser is the nuts. He's been picking up steam in other decks as well lately, and with good reason. I'm never unhappy to draw a Venser, regardless of the deck I'm playing.
The deck overall sports Living Wish as a fast and easy way to get to Volrath's Stronghold, or to deploy an answer or a threat, or to assemble a Deadeye engine. Every creature in the deck generates value of some kind, and is at least a 2-for-1. It has the usual Nic Fit deployment of sweepers, a few spot removal, some discard, and some bombs.
I DO feel that another solid bomb, a combat-based one, would not be a horrible idea....just to give the aggro plan a bit more oomph. The 4-drop slot is probably where this should come -- kind of analogous to Scapewish's Huntmasters. Master Biomancer makes Explorers, Oracles, and Strixes all 3/3s, which is not terrible. I'm not sure what other U/G options there are, though. If I could get away with running Frost Titan in addition to Deadeye/RSD/Palinchron, that would be fantastic...but I think that 4 6+drops is 1 too many. I do suspect that if I were to run this deck on Saturday at Jupiter, Frost Titan would get the nod over RSD, just because he's more combat-oriented and better vs Show and Tell.