[Deck] Spanish Inquisition (B/x Storm Combo)

1 Slithermuse
2 Goblin Charbelcher
3 Tendrils of Agony
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain
1 Eternal Witness
1 Tukatongue Thallid
2 Xanthid swarm
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor

SB
3 Rebuild Stax heavy meta
2 Xantid
4 Natural Order
1 Progenitus
3 cabal therapy
3 Carpet of Flowers

I tested out natural order and it works really smoothly when you sideboard but you just need to up the creature count so you can reliably get off natural order. Let me know what you think of my list I run xanthid main board cause there is a lot of decks that splash blue. I think with the natural order route you need more creatures then the regular list runs to make sure you can hit it reliably.

Just a random idea, because I haven't really been testing the QSI list much yet, but I was wondering if anyone's tried Erayo's Essence as a sideboard option? Seems like he would be pretty easy to "flip," he offers you some pretty great protection, he even disrupts your opponent while they try to develop their gameplan (in case you want to slowroll a bit before you go off), and at worst, you can sacrifice him to Therapy or Culling.

Any takers, or is this another bad idea of mine for tech for this deck?

It could possibly work ill test it out. I have a few problems with erayo. to flip her she would have to be second or third spell you play. The problem with 3rd is if your opponent cast something in response and Erayo enters the battlefield there is no way to flip her that turn. ill test in my main board as a 2 of and see how i find her but as i said my real problems is that she has to be at the latest the 3rd spell u play that turn or honestly xantid is a better creature cause he cuts off all your opponents plays and removal that would kill xantid would also kill the erayo before you could flip her which is a triggered ability so people can in response kill her.

I've played a few hands with x2 Thallid. The thing is beastly. Infernal Tutor + Culling the Weak + Summoner's Pact can create quite a bit of mana. I've also dropped a few WC's to see if Diabolic Intent is any good.

Erayo... has been thrown around before. Its usually worse than Xantid Swarm, makes Goyf +2/+2, and requires a blue source. Empty the Warrens works much better.

I really liked the idea of Thallid, so I replaced Uktabi Drake (which was never really necessary since the deck tends to get enough storm already).

I can't help but feel Diabolic Intent would shine when Thallid is played, so here's a draft of a PSI list with both:

PSI
Business
1 Slithermuse
2 Goblin Charbelcher
3 Tendrils of Agony
3 Infernal Tutor
2 Diabolic Intent
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain

Mana
1 Eternal Witness
1 Odious Trow
1 Tukatongue Thallid
2 Manamorphose
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
3 Cabal Ritual
3 Culling the Weak
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor

SB
4 Carpet of Flowers
4 Xantid Swarm
3 Duress
2 Goblin Charbelcher
2 Tomb of Urami

What I did here from the OP list is cut a Cabal Ritual for the Tukatongue Thallid, and an Infernal Tutor and Culling the Weak for two Diabolic Intent. That might be the wrong thing to do when Culling the Weak takes advantage of Thallid, but I think increasing the number of "additional cost: sac a creature" cards and outlets balances fine. I also took out an Infernal Tutor which also could be wrong, but again Diabolic Tutor takes the place of that and can get, well, anything, especially after a Draw4.

Your list looks strong, Ive cut manamorphose slots from my current build to facilitate diabolic intent, morphose was the weakest of cards often not need to color fix me for muse and really presenting me with some questionable opening hands,i.e. i could keep cause if i morphose into business then im good but if i hit gas im gonna lose.

Having a full set of IT is ideal i think, its one of the strongest cards/plays the deck can make, often i find just using it to double dip on ritual effects is fantastic. Especially now that thallid is making culling so much of a stronger play, I have had double IT hands so i ramp and IT for culling. cast and kill thallid twice and proceed to spew my hand.

Went undefeated at my local. I didn't win though.. because I got 2 byes in a row. Possibly a case of being too lucky?

I played the list from the O.P with the same board I've been testing (with Tomb not Omnath).

Match 1
Bye
1-0

Match 2
Bye
I know this isn't supposed to happen. The guy running the program that pairs everyone even tried to repair and it gave me the bye again so we just kept the same pairings.
2-0

Match 3: Faeries UGW
Game 1: I lead with IT--> Slithermuse with B floating, draw 7, into a lethal Tendrils.
Game 2: I lead with Tomb of Urami, Duress. He plays Spell Pierce. Next turn I play Duress, he counters with Spellstutter Sprite. Then I lay down Chrome Mox on green, and Chrome Mox on black, and try to play Belcher. He plays FoW. Next turn I play Carpet of Flowers. Then, I use mana from Carpet 2nd mainphase to crack Tomb of Urami. My Urami token allows me to comfortably set up, protecting me as a wall against his small, equipment-less Faeries. I’m at 4 life and he’s a few guys short of racing me. 3 turns later or so, I have 3 Carpets of Flowers out. I use 2 of them to add 4 mana to my mana pool, and play a D4, which gets FoWed. I play another, to which he has no answer. I play another Carpet of Flowers, pass to my 2nd mainphase, use the other 2 Carpets to add enough mana to play Belcher and activate for the win.
3-0

Match 4: Weird BG Shit
Game 1: He leads with Polluted Delta. I think he might be playing blue. I play Land Grant for Bayou, Dark Ritual, Cruel Bargain. I start chaining some D4’s together until I have only B floating. I can try for Belcher this turn but I would have to use Summoner’s Pact. I have plenty of resources so I decide to play it safe. I use the remaining mana to play Odious Trow (so basically I trolled that whole turn for like 15 minute). Then I use Culling the Weak to play and activate Belcher on my next turn.
Game 2: He leads with Cabal Therapy on Belcher. He gets it and I had a lethal Belcher kill in my hand. A few turns later he plays Hymn and gets ToA and IT out of my hand. He then extirpates away my Belchers. I had played Odious Trow and Dryad Arbor already which beat him down to 16 until he play Damnation. I know he is extremely slow so I wait until I have 8 cards, and then go off with a lot of mana, and Pact-->Eternal Witness-->IT-->IT-->Tendrils
4-0

Overall, I haven't really decided if my night was satisfying. I biked something like 10 miles to play in this FNM and I only got to play twice. The SB plan worked well, though I must say Faeries have a far from intimidating clock.

@sam.
Why would you drop Culling the Weak to 4? Its far too good a piece of acceleration to cut. Even Cabal Ritual I would hesitate to cut. You can always go from 3 to 4 ESGs. Also, Manamorphose is a flex slot. If anything, adding more tutors means you need fewer win conditions. You can cut Tendrils down to 2 as well.

I tested DI briefly and I wasn't extremely impressed. It did some cool things with Thallid but I have yet to abuse it to its full potential. I need to test it some more.

So, I couldn't find the "Beating your head against a wall on MWS" thread, so this seems like the next-most-appropriate place to post the following humorous snippet:

Quote:

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<CAREGA> kp
<DukeDemonKn1ght> Thinking
<DukeDemonKn1ght> kp
DukeDemonKn1ght plays Land Grant from Hand
DukeDemonKn1ght reveals a Culling the Weak
DukeDemonKn1ght reveals a Cabal Therapy
DukeDemonKn1ght reveals a Ill-Gotten Gains
DukeDemonKn1ght reveals a Shield Sphere
DukeDemonKn1ght reveals a Cruel Bargain
DukeDemonKn1ght reveals a Infernal Tutor
<DukeDemonKn1ght> Ok?
<CAREGA> omg
<System> Player Lost

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Count on that happening often. If you'd prefer you can advertise that you are playing a storm combo variant and want to test against control. Testing against aggro can get mundane anyway just because its usually a breeze.

So, I´ve been playing DDFT / NLS / whatever you wanna call it for quite some time now and was just impressed of the speed SI has. I tested SITES a few times and got frustrated quite soon since it is extremely explosive but simplies fails against any FoW or Spell Pierce. That´s why I wanted to play PSI, traded everything needed for the deck (except for 1 Slithermuse, which is in mail right now) and goldfished a whole lot of games yesterday. To be honest, it fizzled about 80% of my goldfished games, which is reaaaally frustrating! Maybe I played the deck wrong, but I guess most of it seems to be a no-brainer.
So, regarding this I do have a really general question:

If I can get to BBB (not more) on turn one and have a draw4 in hand, should I go for it?
If I should and if I have a LED in hand, should I crack it in response?

I know it is quite hard to answer these questions without knowing the rest of the cards in hand, but the bottom line is: play a draw 4 without mana floating? If you need mana floating, is it worth to discard the rest of your hand?

These were situations I faced in about 3/4th of my games, so a genereal advice should be helpful. Thank you so far!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DerFern

If I can get to BBB (not more) on turn one and have a draw4 in hand, should I go for it?
If I should and if I have a LED in hand, should I crack it in response?

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1) Depends. If you want a hard and fast rule, it's better to wait/draw (this rule holds roughly until you need such rules).

2) Yes. Unlike NLS/DDFT where you set up and go off, with SI you predominantly chain D4s into unknown. The engine is also the setup (and vice versa). From this perspective, drawing 4 with 3 mana floating is nearly ideal situation as it is very likely you will be able to continue the chain further. Things like achieving threshold and getting rid of dead cards (to enable hellbent) makes it even more potent.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DerFern

So, I´ve been playing DDFT / NLS / whatever you wanna call it for quite some time now and was just impressed of the speed SI has. I tested SITES a few times and got frustrated quite soon since it is extremely explosive but simplies fails against any FoW or Spell Pierce. That´s why I wanted to play PSI, traded everything needed for the deck (except for 1 Slithermuse, which is in mail right now) and goldfished a whole lot of games yesterday. To be honest, it fizzled about 80% of my goldfished games, which is reaaaally frustrating! Maybe I played the deck wrong, but I guess most of it seems to be a no-brainer.
So, regarding this I do have a really general question:

If I can get to BBB (not more) on turn one and have a draw4 in hand, should I go for it?
If I should and if I have a LED in hand, should I crack it in response?

I know it is quite hard to answer these questions without knowing the rest of the cards in hand, but the bottom line is: play a draw 4 without mana floating? If you need mana floating, is it worth to discard the rest of your hand?

These were situations I faced in about 3/4th of my games, so a genereal advice should be helpful. Thank you so far!

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Well in game 1, Spell Pierce will only be relevant half the time (dice roll), and one FoW usually won't be enough to stop you for good. Then sometimes you can just go for EtW, and other times you will protect your turn with Cabal Therapy. I wouldn't say the deck fails against conventional countermagic. Where you get tripped up is in the case that your combo turn is stopped by countermagic, and then you have to deal with a lock piece (like UWT). Otherwise, you are just trading with the opponent. Say for instance, you play a land, Dark Ritual, and Cruel Bargain. If your opponent responds with FoW, then you traded 2 cards for 2 cards, because you get to keep the land. Thats not a bad trade really. Sometimes you will have to invest more resources like Culling the Weak, and Cruel Bargain, but that allows for the potential for Dark Ritual + D4, or Cabal Therapy before your Bargain, so its still strong against control if you have other resources. So if your opponent stops your first D4, whatever; you have more resources in hand and possibly resources on the board already.

As for your questions, they both need to be taken in context. What are you playing against? I like to go for it against control, even if I can't win that turn, but I try to play around Daze. If I go for the early D4, then I get more resources, and really the games you beat control are the ones where you can lay down the most perpetual resources. If I can get a Land and a Chrome Mox then I can usually force a business spell through and set up the Belcher kill. This is even easier post-board when you board in more perpetual resources. Xantid Swarm is perpetual protection if it resolves, though its obviously a little vulnerable to removal. Carpet of Flowers is a gem that usually wins games if it resolves. The deck has so much business that even 1 extra mana per turn is significant, while producing 2 or 3 per turn (or multiple Carpets) lets you play stuff for free without investing any resources from your hand. The trick here post-board is to play 2 threats on the first turn, counting on one eating a FoW. So some combination of Carpet of Flowers, Xantid Swarm, Duress, and D4's.

Blind LED's depend entirely on what is in your hand and what has already been played. You will usually have to do a little calculation here to determine the likelihood of drawing business. Then again, I really enjoy the Eternal Witness line of play. If you have something in your hand like, LED, Pact, Lotus Petal, I'd probably hold on to that just because you can leave open Pact-->Eternal Witness, breaking LED for GGG. Sometimes you just draw all mana sources. Then again, if you are playing SITES then you forgo the Ewit line of play in favor of EtW and Cabal Therapy tactics.

Knowing this for certain is entirely situation dependent though. The more you play the deck, the more familiar you are with how to push the deck in sticky situations like the ones you describe.

Agree with the other guys it depends on the situation, however since that is not a useful answer in and of itself, I'll elaborate:

-against a non-disruptive Aggro deck, I'd probably wait. You don't have to win this turn or anything, you have a couple to draw into extra goodness.
-against highly-disruptive decks Aggro (think Dragon Stompy) I'd go for it. A 3sphere or Chalice is something I don't want to fight through.
-against Blue-based control, I'd probably go for it but I'd probably leave the LED (if I had some other cards in hand - if I had none then yes crack it). Infernal Tutor is best when you have hellbent obviously. Like Vacrix said if they force its a 2-for-2, and if they don't, great!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TheSleeper

Agree with the other guys it depends on the situation, however since that is not a useful answer in and of itself, I'll elaborate:

-against a non-disruptive Aggro deck, I'd probably wait. You don't have to win this turn or anything, you have a couple to draw into extra goodness.
-against highly-disruptive decks Aggro (think Dragon Stompy) I'd go for it. A 3sphere or Chalice is something I don't want to fight through.
-against Blue-based control, I'd probably go for it but I'd probably leave the LED (if I had some other cards in hand - if I had none then yes crack it). Infernal Tutor is best when you have hellbent obviously. Like Vacrix said if they force its a 2-for-2, and if they don't, great!

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Well, against non-disruptive aggro it depends. If it's Turn 1 I'd just wait, but otherwise I think I'd go for it, since they're laying down critters and stuff. Gaddock Teeg from Zoo comes to mind. But as long as you're not taking any risks by waiting (like giving the blue-player a chance to drop a land) you should wait. You don't lose anything, you just see more cards and can make more landdrops.
Against combo I would go for it aswell, but this can be very risky. As long as your opponent isn't playing chant-effects it's less risky to wait but you can still be killed turn one. The possibility of being killed on turn one is even higher when you fizzle, 'cause you lose to hands like Petal, Ritual, LED, Infernal -> Tendrils.

So has anyone found the time to test the deck in any larger tournaments, i know i missed the last knightware which is usually a good testing ground for things, Im interested to see how the deck is truly performing after the mystical tutor banning.

Most of my play is on workstation and it seems like there's a fair amount of interest in the direction of the deck, just want to see if anyone has actually ventured out into the real world with it recently.

I also missed the last Knightware, unfortunately due to a lack of transportation. As for recent top8's at larger tournaments... one guy on MTGsal recently topped 8 but it was at a local event.

DTB -
Strong matchups:
Goblins - they can't really do shit except race. pretty much a bye.
Zoo - harder than goblins because of Teeg but still a bye unless they have a really dedicated sideboard.
TES - at the very least this matchup is 50/50 because of the dice roll. otherwise, you can mini-tendrils to make them set up the IGG loop while you set up the Belcher kill. even with access to chant, I don't find this deck particularly intimidating.
Merfolk - A resolved Xantid Swarm is game. They play lots of islands. Tomb of Urami usually gets there. I'd say this is actually a strong matchup.
Landstill - They have an unspeakably slow clock. This gives you tons of time to setup and acquire enough resources to overwhelm them.

50/50 Matchups:
New Horizons - Swords hurts making this a harder matchup than Merfolk. In general though I'd say this matchup is better than 50/50 just because people usually don't know how to play against it.
Bant Aggro - See above. Its a similar matchup.

Weak Matchups:
Counterbalance - Obviously a weak matchup. You can still opt to race Force. Sometimes CB players will keep a hand with Turn 2 Counterbalance without FoW or sometimes Daze + CB, and underestimate your clock. Sucks for them. Duress is strong here.

I might be playing with PSI at a tournament this weekend. Then again I might opt to play Solidarity instead since there have been plenty of blue players there lately..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vacrix

@sam.
Why would you drop Culling the Weak to 4? Its far too good a piece of acceleration to cut. Even Cabal Ritual I would hesitate to cut. You can always go from 3 to 4 ESGs. Also, Manamorphose is a flex slot. If anything, adding more tutors means you need fewer win conditions. You can cut Tendrils down to 2 as well.

I tested DI briefly and I wasn't extremely impressed. It did some cool things with Thallid but I have yet to abuse it to its full potential. I need to test it some more.

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I know it's just so insane, but I thought with more sac outlets, it would become a dead card frequently. After testing, though, DI was WAAAY worse. The deck is already sick with draw4's and IT/LED, so I moved away from the list I had posted.

I do like Tukatongue Thallid for Culling the Weak itself, plus it's a blocker at the same time.

I feel like anything DI would want to do, a list made around Burning Wishes would just do better.

Quote:

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So has anyone found the time to test the deck in any larger tournaments

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200 people, 8 rounds
Round 1 Counterbalance
G1 I duress him T1 and saw 4 counters. T3 he activates CB
G2 See G1

Round 2 MUC
G1 I duress him and took his Force and killed him on the same turn
G2 Won around T20 through traps, force daze, stifle, CS :)

Round 3 Zoo
G1 Killed him on T2
G2 See 1

Round 4 Zoo
G1 I won the dice roll and feared counters. All in. Killed him T1.
G2 T1 Duress and found a Teeg on his hand. l0l
G3 Mulligan 4. I was forced to start the combo on T3 and found nothing in my Draw 4's

Round 5 Goblins
G1 Turn-1-Kill
G2 T1 chalice [0], T2 chalice [1]
G3 T2 He playes Chalice [0] and Lackey Turn 1. T3 I tried to play around his Chalice and found again nothing in my Draw's.

Drop

Ouch. Thats rough. How is Dosan working out for you?

Also, why would you bother with Duress against Zoo? They always play Teeg.
Hell I'm confused now. Whats your list look like now? Your G1 against MUC says you are running MD Duress.

Quote:

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Also, why would you bother with Duress against Zoo?

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T1 is was on the play and I thought my opp. was playing bant. I discovered a turn later that he was playing Zoo.
Dosan makes the hardcontrol (without CB) matchups much more easier.

Quote:

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4 Land Grant
4 Lotus petal
1 bayou
1 dryad arbor
3 Chrome mox
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 lion's eye diamond
4 Duress
4 cabal ritual
4 dark ritual
4 culling the weak
4 Infernal tutor
4 Infernal Conract
4 cruel bargain
1 IGG
4 pact
2 Tendrils
1 belcher
1 Witness
1 Trow
1 cantor
SB
4 naturalize
1 Dosan, the falling leaf
4 manamorphose
1 bayou
1 Tomb of urami
4 carpet flowers

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Right now, I'm testing this list. Belcher has gone :(, but I believe that fetchlands are stronger than LG.

Quote:

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4 Verdant catacombs
4 Lotus petal
1 bayou
1 dryad arbor
3 Chrome mox
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 lion's eye diamond
4 Duress
4 cabal ritual
4 dark ritual
4 culling the weak
4 Infernal tutor
4 Infernal Conract
4 cruel bargain
1 IGG
4 pact
2 Tendrils
1 death wish
1 Witness
1 Trow
1 cantor
SB
1 Dosan, the falling leaf
3 birds of Paradise --> Against Staxx and lands, for Pulse
1 swamp
1 Slaughter pact --> DW target
1 death shadow --> I'dont know if it works, has anyone experience with it ?
4 carpet flowers
3 Maelstrom pulse --> destroys everything
1 krosan grip --> for CB

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I wouldn't cut Chrome Mox man. Its just too good against control.

I did ALOT of testing with a fetchlands list. It just gives your opponent the option to shut down your lands with Stifle allowing them to instead save all their other countermagic for the business spells. Also, you will run into problems sometimes when you have 2 lands in hand and can't make the IT line of play because its not a Land Grant. The beautiful thing about land Grant is that you can cast it and not find a land if you want to just get rid of it or add to the spell count. Also, its convenient to invest your resources into Belcher because you can dilute the maindeck with all sorts of extra protection without having to worry about getting a long spell chain into Tendrils, even setting up the IGG loop is still putting all your eggs into one basket. Its really easy to play a protected Belcher.

Besides, often times I can just ghost control players in G1 simply because the maindeck is optimized to win fast consistently.

Maelstrom Pulse is a huge investment. Why play that over more discard or Nature's Claim? Both serve their purpose for 1CC.

Also, why are you boarding in Manamorphose? Play around Chalice? I'm thinking you could probably board in something better.

Quote:

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I wouldn't cut Chrome Mox man. Its just too good against control.

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I nerver missed the 4th Chrome mox, I replaced him with an ESG to make Witness stronger. Against Staxx/Lands (G2) mox is useless, against U we board CFlower.
@ fetchlands
of course LG is in an extremly fast version better, but a list with 4 protection spells is in most cases a turn slower and gives your opp. more time to interact in the game.
+ you can play around wasteland
+ surprise your opp. with Arbor--> block lacky or canonist
+ you don't miss your landdop if you're on the play, that can be problematic with LG
+ No information to your opp.
+ Gives false information to your opp. especially if you begin with duress.
+ basic swamp
- No Belcher
- sometimes the IT problem
- 1 Life

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It just gives your opponent the option to shut down your lands with Stifle allowing them to instead save all their other countermagic for the business spells.

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Land Grant can be snared, dazed or pierced, your opp. knows your next actions and will certainly use his drawspells to find more counters. I think a Stifle on a fetchland is better than on tendrils, isn't it ?

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Maelstrom Pulse is a huge investment. Why play that over more discard or Nature's Claim? Both serve their purpose for 1CC.

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I know. Games against Lands or Staxx are long and double Chalices aren't rare. During the game we have enough time to build up our manabase and hurt them with our removal.

Quote:

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Also, why are you boarding in Manamorphose? Play around Chalice? I'm thinking you could probably board in something better.

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To be faster than other decks, like Ichorid, TES or goblins, because my list can be slow sometimes and to make the Staxx matchup better. That were my thoughts, but there are better alternatives.

Actually I'd say that Chrome Mox is really important to winning the Stax matchup. Laying down resources right away is such a huge asset. And against U.dec you want as many staying mana sources as well. Having to invest something like Lotus Petal or ESG x2 + Manamorphose makes trading with countermagic less profitable for the control player. If we get to keep our Chrome Mox and then invest Ritual + D4, vs. FoW + Blue card, then we are even. If you are investing a Lotus Petal though, then its a 2 for 3 instead of a 2 for 2, which can make all the difference in the long run.

Stifle on a fetchland actually isn't better than a Stifle on Land Grant. The point is that you can't even get to the point at which you can even cast a lethal Tendrils if you lose your LG. This won't happen all the time, but you can play around Stifle with Belcher.

Malestrom Pulse looks decent against Stax. It would be significantly better if you could cast it off of a Ritual. I like Tomb of Urami for that matchup just because a turn 1, 4 turn evasive clock is a pretty good bet. Belchers are great too.
If you really want to beat Stax though, Seeds of Innocence looks much stronger. Getting to GG might be hard.. but in a Stax heavy metagame, I'd probably want to board in more Bayous anyway. Also, you'd normally think that your opponent might be gaining a shit ton of life here... but usually Stax is liberal with its lifetotal, especially when it already has a lock piece out.

Mox Opal {0}
Legendary Artifact
{Tap}: add one mana of any color if you control 3 or more artifacts.

Memnite {0}
Artifact Creature - Construct
1/1

Sweet holy Jesus. I am officially interested in this deck again.

EDIT:

You could definitely realistically run a 0-land version of this deck now. Right now I'm trying out a 1-land version similar to what I ran several years ago:

4 Mox Opal
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 LED
4 D Rit
4 C Rit
4 Culling the Weak
4 Memnite
4 Shield Sphere
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Infernal Contract
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
2 Tendrils
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Goblin Charbelcher
2 Slithermuse

I was skeptical of Slithermuse before, but now I think Mox Opal (another way to make U) makes it really really good.

Wow, Mox Opal is definitely abusable in some version of SI. It looks best in the tall man lists, but with longer spell chains I think its even playable as a 2'of or something in PSI.

In that list, I'm not sure that x4 Mox Opal is the right call. You don't want dead cards in hand off your draw4's unless you can sacrifice one of the Mox's some how so that you can take advantage of the other Mox's you might draw. It looks better as a 2 or 3'of.

Memnite I'm not so optimistic about. It looks far more abusable in some sort Glimpse of Nature + Retract deck. x12 tallman is probably too many if you aren't also running something like Diabolic Intent.

I don't think Memnite and Mox Opal will be good in SI. Mox Opal might be playable in QSI, but I don't think it really makes the cut. Memnite on the other hand seems cute, but it doesn't do anything we don't already have. I mean it trades with Goblin Lackey, but seriously, Goblins is a bye. Even with Glimpse it does nothing we don't already have. If Skullclamp was legal, things would look differently, but it isn't, so whatever.
Anyway, yesterday I figured there's little reason too run one of the slower SI-lists over traditional TES. It might be a playstyle-choice but in my opinion TES is basically strictly better. It might be a bit slower and less versatile but it has better protection and better ways to set up. Plus it isn't as draw-dependant as SI is, which is really good.
With that in mind I slightly changed my list. I cut Simian Spirit Guides, Kobolds, two lands and changed my protection suite. I threw in Summoner's Pact, Elvish Spirit Guides, Pact targets and Xantid Swarm.
I came up with the following list:

//Lands
1 Bayou
4 Misty Rainforest

//Creatures
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Slithermuse
1 Tinder Wall
1 Tukatongue Thallid
1 Wild Cantor
2 Xantid Swarm

//Spells
4 Burning Wish
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Chrome Mox
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Culling The Weak
4 Dark Ritual
1 Empty The Warrens
3 Infernal Contract
3 Infernal Tutor
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Summoner's Pact
1 Tendrils Of Agony

//Sideboard
1 Diminishing Returns
3 Duress
1 Deathmark
3 Empty The Warrens
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Reverent Silence
1 Shattering Spree
1 Tendrils Of Agony
2 Xantid Swarm

I really like it, but I'm not entirely sold on Tukatongue Thallid. In general this is the flex-slot in my list. I didn't really need until now. At first I had Eternal Witness in that slot but in about 50 testgames I used only once and it was often just a dead card clogging my hand. Then I tried out Skyshroud Cutter but I didn't like that one either, it's a bit too situational. Then I switched to Tukatongue Thallid and it has at least been okay. I think the next thing I'll try out is just adding the third Xantid Swarm mainboard.
The sideboard. Well basically I just kept the board I've been playing with SITES. So far I used exactly three cards from the board: Tendrils, Ill-Gotten Gains and Diminishing Returns. I guess it needs a bit more tweaking and a bit less wish-targets since the deck has become a lot faster. But to be honest I really don't know were to start. We'll see, maybe I'l be doing some more testing today. But so far I've been really happy with the list, it actually feels more like SI again and less like playing worse-protected TES, so that's pretty cool.

Mox opal will be very nice in the oldschool list. Memnite is bad.

Made 3rd at my local tournament.
Lost to Dreadstill
Won games against MBC, D&T, merfolk

Ok, Memnite might not actually make much of a difference, especially considering the goal of the deck. Robots with bigger asses are still probably the way to go.

For anyone still skeptical about Mox Opal, please playtest with it a little. I've been playing around with a 4x build (listed above), and it has been completely awesome. I always have at least 3 artifacts in play, and drawing multiples doesn't suck as bad as you would think, because by that point you are probably already rolling. Slithermuse is also pretty awesome with Mox Opal. I'm thinking about bumping up the count to 3x.

@ BC
What about Ancient Stirrings ? With such a high artifact count, it's a an Impulse for G.

I'm thinking of building a different sort of glimpse SI list once SoM comes out...there will be 16 0 costing artifact creatures post SoM at minimum and mox opal would be good in a list with 16 tallmen all of which are artifacts. Glimpse would be an insane engine with 16 tallmen and if you resolve two glimpses with some tallmen in hand it is basically GG's since you can draw so many cards to combo out with. I'll playtest it a little when I have some spare time and try to tweak some numbers around. And thanks for the retract idea Vacrix; retract would be like an ancestral recall in a list with glimpse and lots of tall men and it raises the storm count dramatically since it bounces all your chrome moxen, mox opal, tallmen, petals, and LED's allowing you to get bonus points when you tendrils some for 80+ damage lol. It also accelerates mana with chrome mox being tapped for mana and then getting the bounce back and then replaying it to provide more mana.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jona

I don't think Memnite and Mox Opal will be good in SI. Mox Opal might be playable in QSI, but I don't think it really makes the cut. Memnite on the other hand seems cute, but it doesn't do anything we don't already have. I mean it trades with Goblin Lackey, but seriously, Goblins is a bye. Even with Glimpse it does nothing we don't already have. If Skullclamp was legal, things would look differently, but it isn't, so whatever.
Anyway, yesterday I figured there's little reason too run one of the slower SI-lists over traditional TES. It might be a playstyle-choice but in my opinion TES is basically strictly better. It might be a bit slower and less versatile but it has better protection and better ways to set up. Plus it isn't as draw-dependant as SI is, which is really good.

I really like it, but I'm not entirely sold on Tukatongue Thallid. In general this is the flex-slot in my list. I didn't really need until now. At first I had Eternal Witness in that slot but in about 50 testgames I used only once and it was often just a dead card clogging my hand. Then I tried out Skyshroud Cutter but I didn't like that one either, it's a bit too situational. Then I switched to Tukatongue Thallid and it has at least been okay. I think the next thing I'll try out is just adding the third Xantid Swarm mainboard.
The sideboard. Well basically I just kept the board I've been playing with SITES. So far I used exactly three cards from the board: Tendrils, Ill-Gotten Gains and Diminishing Returns. I guess it needs a bit more tweaking and a bit less wish-targets since the deck has become a lot faster. But to be honest I really don't know were to start. We'll see, maybe I'l be doing some more testing today. But so far I've been really happy with the list, it actually feels more like SI again and less like playing worse-protected TES, so that's pretty cool.

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I'm not sure yet where Mox will fit in, but it looks good right now even just as a 1'of in any list with tallmen.

SITES and QSI are arguably just as good as TES is in the hands of a skilled pilot. You forget that being draw dependent in this case is a very good thing. In SITES you have the option to trade Ritual + D4 with the opponents FoW + blue card. If it goes through you just acquired +2 cards worth of resources, and you can continue that until ToA, EtW, or IT... or play some drawn protection. The ability to go off every 2 or 3 turns puts the control player under mad pressure to constantly come up with countermagic. TES doesn't have that luxury as it usually goes for one big turn. Even with cantrips, TES can't rebuild as fast as SI can because SI doesn't have to invest as many resources into its combo turn. Remember, TES is a business light combo deck. SITES is also faster than TES, and can support Cabal Therapy. QSI is actually SI designed to beat control. Much like TES, it also runs cantrips so that it can setup and it also plays a Cabal Therapy protection suit. Unlike TES, it has access to EOT Meditates and can apply the same pressure with D4's that SITES can due to a more land-focused manabase, unlike the LG lists.
TES obviously has its merits as well but I wouldn't dismiss slower lists as inferior to TES.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by B.C.

For anyone still skeptical about Mox Opal, please playtest with it a little. I've been playing around with a 4x build (listed above), and it has been completely awesome. I always have at least 3 artifacts in play, and drawing multiples doesn't suck as bad as you would think, because by that point you are probably already rolling. Slithermuse is also pretty awesome with Mox Opal. I'm thinking about bumping up the count to 3x.

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Nice. Let me know how you alter your list so I can test it after this weekend. I can't test Mox at the moment because I'm preparing for a tournament later tonight.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dark Ritual

I'm thinking of building a different sort of glimpse SI list once SoM comes out...there will be 16 0 costing artifact creatures post SoM at minimum and mox opal would be good in a list with 16 tallmen all of which are artifacts. Glimpse would be an insane engine with 16 tallmen and if you resolve two glimpses with some tallmen in hand it is basically GG's since you can draw so many cards to combo out with. I'll playtest it a little when I have some spare time and try to tweak some numbers around. And thanks for the retract idea Vacrix; retract would be like an ancestral recall in a list with glimpse and lots of tall men and it raises the storm count dramatically since it bounces all your chrome moxen, mox opal, tallmen, petals, and LED's allowing you to get bonus points when you tendrils some for 80+ damage lol. It also accelerates mana with chrome mox being tapped for mana and then getting the bounce back and then replaying it to provide more mana.

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I worked on a non-SI Glimpse list a while back than ran Retract and Glimpse, but it just turned into a Kobold list because I didn't have enough artifacts dudes to take advantage of Retract. Scapegoat is just as good, but you lose -1 dude. You could also use Shared Discovery.

Hey Vacrix, I'm completely new here, but I've been following this thread for a couple days. I'm running a modified version of the listed you posted somewhere back on page 5 or so. I haven't gotten to test against anyone yet, so for now I've just been goldfishing. When you said that you could conceivably go off every 2-3 turns, I'm wondering how true that actually is. If I understand it correctly, you can only use your draw 4's four times. If you use it a 5th time, it kills you. Also, even if you use it twice, you're at 5. It's fine if you're combo-ing, but if you fizzle, I'm wondering how often you just die next turn. Anyway, really enjoyed the primer and discussion and I hope to eventually get all the cards needed and start playing it.

I find that the life loss due to D4's isnt a problem, as if you are playing against aggro you can slow down and craft a hand that can go all in after a turn or two following a draw 4. More than 1 D4 though against aggro and yes you may find yourself in a tight spot, but even if you lose your first game it should be relatively easy to rebound g2 and 3. Against control they lack so few legitimate threats that even after a d4 or even two they still have a glacially slow kill, usually 2 or more swings.

On mox opel, i really like it. I personally play PSI so im looking at using a 2x probably, but for other variants its looking extremely promising, i am especially interested in seeing some glimpse decks developed to abuse all the tall men now available.

I also saw shared discovery today in the common's bin and thought "This card is tech in a creature heavy build of SI sure I'll tap 4 dudes to draw 3 for U. You probably don't want 4 though; I'll try it as a 2 of my the glimpse list I'm developing. Scapegoat would be retract numbers 5-8 if I need that many retract effects; Personally I'll try 2 in the first list I goldfish because having your hand clogged wouldn't be a good thing because retract while useful on the defense with tall men might be a dead card at times.

Mox opal looks promising though.

Shared discovery is going to see some play though which I find funny because at first I thought the card was utter jank; now I can actually abuse it in SI of all decks. That is some really sweet tech though.

So I was thinking that as a way for us all to learn how to play this deck better, we could post the ways we've fizzled and others could take a look to see if it could have been played differently. Thoughts?

So a fewquick scenario based questions if I may.

When playing LGSI if you have the following opening hand do you keep versus blue and non-blue and also, if you keep do you imprint Rit or Draw 4 on Mox? and also do you go for it first turn on the play or wait for the extra card?
The hand is:
2x Dark Ritual
2x BBB Draw 4
2X Tallmen
1x Chrome Mox

PS With the following opening hand do you Land Grant->Bayou->Dark Rit-> Draw 4 or do you Cabal Rit->Draw 4? On the play and also the draw. Thanks.
1x Land Grant
1x Dark Rit
1x BBB Draw 4
1x Cabal Therapy
1x Tallman
1x Infernal Tutor

PPS Is the following a mull hand?
2x BBB Draw 4
2x LED
2x Tallmen
1x Chrome Mox
1x Cabal Ritual

1. Depends on your opponent.
If it's an deck like Zoo I would lay down the tallman and wait 1,2 or 3 turns.
Against U you should wait for your 8th card before you start the chain.
If you want to go all-in T1, you should imprint your Draw4.

2.
LG->DR-> Draw4
To start with DR is always better than CR. Another thing that you can do is LG->DR->CR->draw 4 (If therapy should be a ritual)

3. Depends again
against Zoo keep -> Tallmen. On the draw keep. On the play against U-> mulligan.

Is Xantid Swarm more effective than Autumn Veil?

I get the feeling a lot of these questions would be answered by playing against an actual opponent a few times (rather than just goldfishing). Just use MWS or something.

To give the guy above me a non-facetious (and fairly obvious) answer though, Veil is really, really good because you can use it in response to a counterspell. On the other hand, Swarm is a perpetual resource for you, and he will either eat a counter or force them to dig for removal (which they may have boarded out, in which case mwahahah...) Swarm is also good because you don't have to keep mana open for using it on your fundamental turn. However, it's a little less inexorable because of the whole "dies to removal" thing. So basically: it's kind of a toss-up?

EDIT: Also, I'm liking Mox Opal a lot, at least on paper, haven't tested with it yet. Anyways though, adding mana of any color, and not eating two cards out of our hand (versus Chrome Mox)... These are pretty insane incentives to tweak some lists a bit to include this thing, I think. I don't think it will replace Chrome Mox, but I'm pretty sure they seem awesome together, in decks that use sacrificial robots.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nodahero

So a fewquick scenario based questions if I may.
When playing LGSI if you have the following opening hand do you keep versus blue and non-blue and also, if you keep do you imprint Rit or Draw 4 on Mox? and also do you go for it first turn on the play or wait for the extra card?
The hand is:
2x Dark Ritual
2x BBB Draw 4
2X Tallmen
1x Chrome Mox

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That's a keeper. Regardless of what you're playing against. I would imprint a D4, then to DRit, DRit, Draw4. It is always better to Draw4 with extra black mana floating. If you know for sure that your opponent is playing blue, I suppose you could save your second DRit, but I would rather just go for it. If possible, don't wait for them to play a land otherwise you have to worry about Daze, Spell Pierce, Spell Snare, and Stifle.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nodahero

PS With the following opening hand do you Land Grant->Bayou->Dark Rit-> Draw 4 or do you Cabal Rit->Draw 4? On the play and also the draw. Thanks.
1x Land Grant
1x Dark Rit
1x BBB Draw 4
1x Cabal Therapy
1x Tallman
1x Infernal Tutor

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Is that Cabal Rit or Cabal Therapy? If it's the former, I would go LG, Bayou, DRit, CRit, Draw4. If it's the latter, I would go LG, Bayou, Therapy, Robot, Flashback for something important. Draw 4 on your second turn.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nodahero

PPS Is the following a mull hand?
2x BBB Draw 4
2x LED
2x Tallmen
1x Chrome Mox
1x Cabal Ritual

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Mulligan.