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i still think its strange though, because (unless i'm mistaken,) this deck has VERY consistent t1 and 2 wins, plus it doesn't need its entire hand to go of and can live through the first attempt without scooping unlike belcher, AND it has access to some VERY potent protection (therapy/pact/duress/etc) against fow and other counters. the way i see it, this deck should at least be just as capable of handling todays meta as ANT and TES... so what am i missing?
plus its cheaper! xp
This deck is much weaker to disruption and much less consistent than ANT.
It is far faster though.
Its also much harder to pilot correctly. And the idea of buying a set of cruel bargains.... that only get played in one deck. Does not help. In 5 years of playing legacy.. I've. Only seen SI at an event once not counting myself or ppl that rode with me.
Piloting this deck is like piloting a semi-truck strapped to a thruster the size of Saturn, except the thruster is really just a celestially sized steel can packed with enough explosive force to test the big bang theory, and the semi-truck is actually just a deck chair, and the only way start this red-neck galactic monstrosity is to slice open your own chest, writhe your fingers between your organs and try to scoop out enough bodily fluids to fill the fuel tank before your bleed out...
I was wondering if anyone who is familiar could list any important interactions I may be missing? For instance one that wasn't apparent to me at first was: Pact -> Trow -> Chrome Mox for my black source.
Or maybe just good rules of thumb? e.g. if you just have Pact no lands, is it better to go Trow or Dryad Arbor for my Lamb? (I'm using the B/w list with Pact and Dryad Arbor, E. Wit, Odious Trow, and Slithermuse.)
IT tricks are something subtle that can be overlooked. IT --> IT produces extra storm if you have extra mana floating before you tendrils. IT can also find you an additional card if you aren't playing it as the last card to find a win condition. IT --> Dark Ritual you don't really profit from but if you have 2BB floating already IT --> CR produces quite a lot. Find Culling the Weak happens less often because you need Young Wolf.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dalapin
I usually go for Dryad because its a cheaper investment.
Another trick, but you probably know this one.. You can Belch in your upkeep before Pacts kill you, like if you have 3 Perpetual mana sources or something after you play Belcher (not unheard of hand: Belcher, Chrome Mox (IT), Chrome Mox (CB), Land Grant, Pact)
Another trick is to pseudo-Mindtwist your opponent with IGG before you can really profit from it because you recover much more quickly playing a combo deck like SI.
There's probably more than this. I'd reread the opening post in case you missed something.
For those not interested in reading the Primer (which I would recommend if you are interested as I answer most of the questions that keep coming up in the discussion). The comparison to Belcher is worth noting.Quote:
Originally Posted by lunabass
Pros of Belcher:
- Usually you can drop your opening hand into a win. It has pretty good mulligans because of redundancy and because its so fast it has an excellent matchup against decks that don't run Force of Will.
- Its very easy to play as you just have to count to 6 or 7.
- Empty the Warrens can sometimes allow you to avoid losing to FoW.
Cons of Belcher:
- Its a glass house. If you drop your opening 6 or 7 cards your opponent is likely to either counter the last ritual they expect to enable the win (cutting you off from even EtW if they are a reasonably experienced control player). Its very difficult to recover from a single piece of hate.
- The deck DOESN'T win on turn 1. It drops its hand on turn 1. The deck plays 4 Burning Wish, 3 Empty the Warrens, and 4 Belcher as its business spells. This means that the deck will win on turn 2 or 3 about 63% of the time. This varies if you play Spoils Belcher but obviously that list is far more ballsy.
- It has a mediocre sideboard plan against blue because it doesn't play enough business spells to take advantage of its perpetual resources. If you play your business spell and it gets countered, you are going to draw your next win condition in an average of about 5 cards. Further, its likely you won't have any resources in your hand or on the field to make a second attempt at the kill as you have to basically empty your hand to go off (this varies if you have a LED in play. Even then, its far more likely that you will have to go for Belcher, or BW --> Diminishing Returns.
- Belcher can misfire.
vs...
Pros of Pact Spanish Inquisition:
- You often only need 3 or 4 cards to go off. This means that the deck can recover far more quickly than Belcher. Having 3 or 4 extra cards can make all the difference in making a second attempt. Further, the deck plays anywhere from 17-19 business spells, meaning that you will likely draw a business spell within your next 3 cards. Thats almost three times faster than a Belcher recovery and you will likely have the resources in hand to get a kill because you need fewer cards to go off.
- PSI wins on turn 1. Often. You don't play Empty the Warrens, and you run 4 Land Grant and 4 Summoner's Pact in a draw based combo deck, meaning that its likely you won't misfire with Belcher.
- PSI and other variants can play Empty the Warrens, either main or post-board as an alternative win condition or option to avoid losing to FoW.
- PSI mulligans better than any other deck in Legacy history because it has redundant resources, a lot of business, and you only need as few as three cards to successfully go off. This also means that PSI can still pull off a reasonably fast win despite mulliganing down to as few as 4 or 5 cards. I've been playing this deck for a while and I feel very comfortable mulliganing down to 5 cards. Can you name another deck that can mulligan to three cards and still win on turn 1? Its only happened once, but I've done it.
- PSI in particular can sometimes play around Daze with ESG, and I've even played around Spell Pierce on a few occasions.
- Vulnerability to Stifle is still an issue but due to hands where you draw most of your deck with D4's, the deck can often play Belcher, with the option to Belch next turn (in the upkeep if you have played Pact(s)), or just go for a second win condition, or more recently Past in Flames, which is much better than IGG against FoW as you don't return cards to your opponent's hand.
- Because PSI has the highest business density of any combo deck, it is extremely powerful post-board with Carpet of Flowers. Often, Carpet of Flowers allows you to play your first business spell for free post-board, meaning you bait with D4's until your opponent runs out of steam, at which point you kill them with Belcher. For a Glass House, this combo deck has a dam good post-board plan.
- Further, because its so fast, you rarely have to deal with hatebears or 2cc storm hate because you kill them before it comes down.
- High business count means this deck has a fierce topdeck mode.
- The deck is fast enough that your aggro games are byes and you can often successfully race decks like Reanimator, Ichorid, ANT, and TES.
Cons of Pact Spanish Inquisition:
- The deck is a Glass House that doesn't like Force of Will. An opponent who opens with Force of Will on your first business spell is in the dominant position. If he can get another counterspell and a reasonable clock, it will be hard for you to go off again.
- Hands in which you go all in with Pact result in a game loss. This makes playing the deck a lot harder.
- The deck plays draw spells in which you are blindly drawing the top 4 cards and trying to configure your hand to get a kill or play another D4. Though one D4 can be enough, sometimes you are sitting with 10 life on turn 1 with a new hand and no way to go off, meaning you are in topdeck mode.
- Hands in which you are limited to an IT line of play leave you very vulnerable. Often this means you have to wait a few turns, and bait with a D4 into IT --> Past in Flames, or IT --> Belcher, pass the turn.
- It requires quite a lot of repetition and practice to learn how to play PSI because you need to not only know complex lines of play like Eternal Witness tricks, and calculate blind D4 + LED. Further, most of playing the deck is knowing how to mulligan. Also, the deck often wants to draw against aggro because that boosts your turn 1 to about 80%.
Decide for yourself which is better but I think the victor is clearly PSI. People don't play the PSI because ANT/TES is safer, far easier to play, and most of the people playing Belcher aren't really interested in playing a real game of magic anyway. The best Belcher list I've seen was Pulp Fiction's who played maindeck Bloodmoon. Like a boss. That's the only list I would play if I wasn't a PSI purist.
I will write something about the comparison to TES/ANT a little later.
I have been working with D7 SI, and PSI and I for one truely appreciate the work that you have done on this deck Vacrix.
I don't have the list 100% yet (I am working on it); but I hope to see a Spanish Inquisition rip the face off of the Aggro meta in my area. I only have a few months as a Pilot on this deck; but the learning curve has been super fun for me so far, and playing combo actually has made other decks so easy to play for me that the education alone has been worth the investment.
Thanks once again for all your efforts Vacrix, and I have probably read the primer in here at least 10 times. I love it, I only wish there was more in there about the D7 SI.
=5I've been thinking about decks I might bring to an event when I'm feeling pretty lazy and eventually came to a list that met my requirements of easy to play at 90% of its powerlevel, powerful, and at least some ability to outplay my opponents.
The basic idea was to play the fairly well known 4 AdN build of the tallman SI variant, but switching the win conditions to just belcher in the main. This critically gives you 12+ win conditions to draw in your opener (4 AdN, 4 Infernal Tutor, 4 Goblin Charbelcher, and 1-2 Diabolic Intent) along with at least some chance of drawing Cabal Therapy (and access to either Duress or Xantid Swarm out of the sb). The tallman variant is important as they function to enable Mox Opal (IMS count is absolutely key to win with 4 AdNs as well as to increase opening hand stability vs original SI) while blocking to keep your life total pretty high. The initial config I've had was using 1 Bayou, 4 Therapy, 1 Diabolic Intent, 2 Ornithopter, and 4 Mox Opal, but I'm not certain that the DI/Thopter/Opal counts are correct.
You get to play IGG/Tendrils as an alternate plan in matchups where Needle/lots of discard might become relevant, but I don't know that they're that relevant.
I feel like this is not all that well known :eyebrow:Quote:
Originally Posted by emidln
I've heard of this list but how effective is it really when you have +7 cards that contribute to +4/5 lifeloss?Quote:
Originally Posted by emidln
Also, I know nobody plays Merfolk anymore but my friend was playing 2 Spell Pierce, 4 Force, 4 Daze, and 4 Cursecatcher maindeck. We mostly played post-board games because I wanted to test my board. I lost game 1 to FoW on my first draw 4, and then Daze on my IT (one short).. however, I should have waited a turn to go off and then I'd have had one extra mana. Postboard games went like this
G2: I play turn 1 Chrome Mox imprinting Xantid Swarm, Carpet of Flowers. Next turn I play Duress, grabbing FoW. Next turn I play Dark Ritual, Cruel Bargain, he Spell Pierces. He has two Silvergill in play. Next turn, I play Belcher and LED, belch for 12. He beats my face. The next turn I Belch for lethal.
G3: I play turn 1 Empty the Warrens for 10 tokens. He plays a few guys but I get there.
G4: I play ESG --> Carpet of Flowers, next turn I drop another carpet of Flowers with Lotus Petal, and attempt Cruel Bargain. He Spell Pierces. Next turn I play Belcher, and he FoW. Next turn I play Xantid Swarm. He has a few lords out, swings in. I have two turns to win. I swing in with Swarm, and then drop Belcher. He swings, I have one turn, I Belch for the kill.
G5: I play EtW for 10, he Spell Pierces one of them. 8 tokens, almost gets there. I try for Arbor + Culling for Cruel Bargain, he Spell Pierces. I build up a few more cards in hand and try to land Belcher, he has FoW. Can't get there. Had I waited a turn, I could have played Duress and then played EtW for 10. My mistake.
G6: I play Lotus Petal, Dark Ritual, Duress, grab FoW see Spell Pierce (but I'm on the play), Dark Ritual, Cruel Bargain, Land Grant for Arbor Culling the Weak, Infernal Contract, Belcher + LED for the kill.
G7: I play Land Grant, Duress away FoW and see a Spell Pierce. I play Dark Ritual Cruel Bargain, he Spell Pierces. Then next turn I play Dark Ritual Infernal Contract thinking he's out of gas, but he has drawn another Spell Pierce. I manage to get another Land Grant and Culling the Weak to set up the Belcher kill. I try for it because he has lethal on the board but he has drawn FoW.
Though RUG Tempo and UR Delver would have slightly different games, I'm very confident with this config. I play 4 Belcher maindeck and 1 Tendrils config with this SB:
4 Carpet of Flowers
4 Xantid Swarm
3 Duress
2 Simian Spirit Guide
2 Empty the Warrens
Further, one other sick game I played that night against DnT, I drew 2 LED, PiF, and Tendrils off my draw 4. Sacrificed both LED's, discarding PiF and Tendrils, played out my yard to reach Tendrils for 20. Pretty tight.
EDIT:
Its worth mentioning that I can usually keep a dam good 7 card hand post-board.
Is there any alternative to Xantid Swarm with all of these bolts in the format right now?
I agree its, Swarm is not the best choice right now. Defense Grid is still pretty solid at 2cc.
BTW I just got Cockatrice so I'm going to playtest the shit out of some new sideboard ideas.
What is your current list looking like right now? I lent all my duals out to my friends for the GP, so I'm taking SI to my local event this week.
Currently I'm playing this list:
PSI
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Infernal Contract
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Slithermuse
1 Past in Flames
1 Eternal Witness
1 Odious Trow
1 Wild Cantor
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Culling the Weak
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor
SB
4 Carpet of Flowers
4 Xantid Swarm
3 Duress
2 Empty the Warrens
2 Simian Spirit Guide
The board is actually working quite well for me. I've been goldfishing it against the parameters FoW + Daze, FoW + Spell Pierce, FoW + Flusterstorm, FoW + FoW. I only give myself about 6 turns max to win, assuming that the opponent can put a reasonable clock on me. Obviously thats not as good as playing against a real opponent but it was the best I could do. I recently got Cockatrice so I'm ready to start doing some realistic playtesting.
So far the board will allow you to keep a 7 cards hand most of the time. In that 7 card hand you will usually have 2 turn 1 threats. Carpet of Flowers has been by far the best card you can draw as this deck is so business heavy that you just overpower the opponent. In real experience, the opponent usually lets it through and limits themselves to about 2 islands. Because the deck threatens Tendrils with the D4's, they usually counter them.
Empty the Warrens is anywhere from 8-12 tokens, about 10 avg. Great thing is 8 doesn't need to get there. Often they provide Culling food so that you can go off again, and obviously add pressure early. In fact, its been working so well that I'm thinking of cutting Swarm entirely from the post-board plan so that I can run more SSG/EtW. SSG has been great for Daze protection and its allowed me to play the 2nd threat, sometimes a play like Petal, SSG, Cabal Ritual, Cruel Bargain.
I'm also going to test out Defense Grid. Its a 2cc spell so its bad against decks that play Spell Snare, but it protects all your spells and is low costed enough to come out turn one along side Carpet or Duress.
EDIT:
Its worth mentioning that this deck can often play around 2 countermagic post-board. They need three to really give you trouble, and even then I've been able to push through a win condition. Keep in mind that's merely against a goldfish w/ FoW/Flusterstorm/Daze/SpellPierce on the correct spells.
I like the list for the most part. I'm glad to see no Burning Wishes, because in my testing, they never seemed worth it.
A few questions:
1) What's the percentage you goldfish for Belcher wins vs. Tendrils?
2) How frequently/in what situations do you find yourself using Eternal Witness? Whenever I would play a list with witness, I'd find either the 2g in the cost too restrictive, or the 3 cmc would override whatever value would be coming out of it. Advice?
1. Belcher wins games. It doesn't really slow down the deck that much because you have so much mana. Usually if you are deep into a spell chain where Tendrils would be nice, you are able to play and activate Belcher. Also, it enables hands where you just drop your 7 and win that turn as well as pass the turn plays. I find myself keeping way more 7 card hands with 4 Belcher 1 ToA. Its more vulnerable to FoW but then again, so are your Cruel Bargains and Infernal Contracts and they rarely let you play a D4 once and then save FoW for something else. Also, its a little better at allowing you to win through light countermagic in game 1 because if they counter 1 D4, you can play a pass the turn play with Belcher in a few turns and then activate it. Further, playing 4 Belcher in the maindeck allows you 1 free SB card. I haven't missed double Tendrils in the maindeck. Its still a viable option though.
2. You don't often use Eternal Witness, rarely can I use it when I natural draw it and its only purpose really is if you draw something like LED, LED, Pact, X cards, no business... I don't find myself using it that often either. Its a flex slot really, just like Wild Cantor. You can easily play 2 Manamorphose in those slots.
There's always autumn's veil, sure it requires one more mana the turn you go off but at least you can get techy, build up a big stack with lots of countermagic, then cast it to just blow out the opponent if it resolves. Agreed with the logic that xantid swarm isn't good right now with all the bolts and stuff running around and people are likely to keep bolts in against you due to draw 4's halving your life total.
Glad to see no burning wish. I goldfished quite a bit with DSI, but wish was quite awkward at times without red mana or a way to get red mana. Also didn't like tinder wall at all typically, if it made GR I would love the card infinitely more since double red isn't particularly useful when you want to cast another creature with the green to enable culling the weak and the only creature castable with red is wild cantor.
But I like Vacrix's list overall, sure it's more in the area of Bg belcher but the postboard plan is infinitely better than traditional belcher's plan of only swarm's and pyroblast's with half of their sideboard taken up by wish slots.
The only awkward looking part of your sideboard is the SSG's and EtW's. If SSG were fetchable or something I would like it a lot more but it seems inconsistent but maybe that's just because I haven't tried it. The deck plays a total of 9 red sources when counting pact, wild cantor, and lotus petal but pact typically comes out in postboard games because it is super ballsy to keep it in and lose if they can stop you after it resolves. The only time pact would be nice in postboard games I imagine would be to fetch ESG in order to cast autumn's veil in response to countermagic. If manamorphose were included instead of 2 cards in the deck I would feel a lot more comfortable but it means cutting eternal witness and something else, and makes sideboarding awkward because you want manamorphose to enable red mana for EtW but it means boarding out other cards that may be more essential to your gameplan.
Actually the deck has more red sources than that:
4 Carpet of Flowers
4 Lotus Petal
2 SSG
EDIT:
10 Might not be enough though. I'm considering just cutting the Swarms for 2 more SSG and 2 more EtW, which leaves me with 12 red IMS's, and potentially more with 8 red cards and Chrome Mox.
I got a really great turn 1 goldfish just now that I thought I would share with you since I can just copy and paste from the cockatrice game log. It is by far the coolest thing I've done with this deck and it's your list Vacrix that you just posted with 4 belcher and 1 tendrils config.
It is now the untap step.
Player 1 shuffles his library.
Player 1 shuffles his library.
Player 1 shuffles his library.
Player 1 shuffles his library.
Player 1 draws his initial hand.
It is now the upkeep step.
It is now the first main phase.
Player 1 puts Lotus Petal into play from hand.
Player 1 puts Chrome Mox into play from hand.
Player 1 exiles Land Grant from hand.
Player 1 puts Dryad Arbor into play from hand.
Player 1 taps Chrome Mox.
Player 1 taps Lotus Petal.
Player 1 puts Lotus Petal from table into graveyard.
Player 1 plays Culling the Weak from hand.
Player 1 sets counter storm to 3 (+1).
Player 1 puts Dryad Arbor from table into graveyard.
Player 1 puts Culling the Weak from the stack into graveyard.
Player 1 puts Lion's Eye Diamond into play from hand.
Player 1 sets counter storm to 4 (+1).
Player 1 plays Infernal Tutor from hand.
Player 1 sets counter storm to 5 (+1).
Player 1 taps Lion's Eye Diamond.
Player 1 puts Lion's Eye Diamond from table into graveyard.
Player 1 is looking at his library.
Player 1 puts Slithermuse into play from library.
Player 1 stops looking at his library.
Player 1 shuffles his library.
Player 1 puts Infernal Tutor from the stack into graveyard.
Player 1 sets counter storm to 6 (+1).
Player 1 puts Slithermuse from table into graveyard.
Player 1 draws 7 card(s).
Player 1 puts Lotus Petal into play from hand.
Player 1 sets counter storm to 7 (+1).
Player 1 exiles Elvish Spirit Guide from hand.
Player 1 sets counter g to 1 (+1).
Player 1 puts Lion's Eye Diamond into play from hand.
Player 1 sets counter storm to 8 (+1).
Player 1 puts Chrome Mox into play from hand.
Player 1 sets counter storm to 9 (+1).
Player 1 exiles Culling the Weak from hand.
Player 1 taps Chrome Mox.
Player 1 exiles Elvish Spirit Guide from hand.
Player 1 plays Cruel Bargain from hand.
Player 1 sets counter storm to 10 (+1).
Player 1 draws 1 card(s).
Player 1 draws 1 card(s).
Player 1 draws 1 card(s).
Player 1 draws 1 card(s).
Player 1 puts Cruel Bargain from the stack into graveyard.
Player 1 puts Chrome Mox into play from hand.
Player 1 sets counter storm to 11 (+1).
Player 1 exiles Dark Ritual from hand.
Player 1 taps Chrome Mox.
Player 1 puts Eternal Witness into play from hand.
Player 1 sets counter storm to 12 (+1).
Player 1 taps Lotus Petal.
Player 1 plays Culling the Weak from hand.
Player 1 sets counter storm to 13 (+1).
Player 1 puts Eternal Witness from table into graveyard.
Player 1 puts Culling the Weak from the stack into graveyard.
Player 1 puts Lotus Petal from table into graveyard.
Player 1 taps Lion's Eye Diamond.
Player 1 puts Lion's Eye Diamond from table into graveyard.
Player 1 puts Slithermuse into play from graveyard.
Player 1 moves Slithermuse from table to hand.
Player 1 puts Slithermuse into play from hand.
Player 1 sets counter storm to 14 (+1).
Player 1 puts Slithermuse from table into graveyard.
Player 1 draws 7 card(s).
Player 1 plays Cabal Ritual from hand.
Player 1 sets counter storm to 15 (+1).
Player 1 puts Cabal Ritual from the stack into graveyard.
Player 1 plays Land Grant from hand.
Player 1 sets counter storm to 16 (+1).
Player 1 is looking at his library.
Player 1 puts Bayou into play from library.
Player 1 stops looking at his library.
Player 1 shuffles his library.
Player 1 puts Land Grant from the stack into graveyard.
Player 1 shuffles his library.
Player 1 moves Bayou from table to hand.
Player 1 plays Summoner's Pact from hand.
Player 1 sets counter storm to 17 (+1).
Player 1 is looking at his library.
Player 1 puts Elvish Spirit Guide into play from library.
Player 1 stops looking at his library.
Player 1 shuffles his library.
Player 1 puts Summoner's Pact from the stack into graveyard.
Player 1 shuffles his library.
Player 1 shuffles his library.
Player 1 shuffles his library.
Player 1 exiles Elvish Spirit Guide from table.
Player 1 puts Goblin Charbelcher into play from hand.
Player 1 sets counter storm to 18 (+1).
Player 1 puts Lion's Eye Diamond into play from hand.
Player 1 sets counter storm to 19 (+1).
Player 1 taps Goblin Charbelcher.
I even removed all the + and - for mana, not sure if I added storm after every spell but I'm sloppy when goldfishing sometimes, not that the storm count mattered at all. Casting slithermuse twice is awesome sauce, on the one hand it can't be flashbacked with PiF for awesomeness like diminishing returns but diminishing returns is bad with past in flames anyways since you shuffle your graveyard and hand in, reducing PiF's fuel. I do love how PiF interacts with LED though, I don't think I'll ever get sick of looking at double lotus and PiF in my hand.
Also forgot carpet of flowers I guess. The red splash is a complicated one, since the deck excels at making green and black mana while red is left out in the rain in terms of manafixing. I know I always wish I had lotus petal in every draw with the deck since it is literally a mox of your choice in this deck.
I agree about Past in Flames. There hasn't been an occasion yet in which I'd rather have IGG over PiF. Plays where you can't cast either, you just cast Slithermuse.
Also, Wild Cantor is just too good not to run. It enables you to use Summoner's Pact as a pseudo-chrome mox when paired with another Pact or ESG. More black IMS's is good for this deck... and it will randomly enable PiF and Slithermuse.