Originally Posted by
Vacrix
SI hasn't really 'fallen off the wagon' cause there never really was a wagon for this deck. There's a few people camping in the mountains and thats about it.
MTGS has a far more active forum if you're interested in constant discussion, sharing results, etc. SI players are still performing at locals, and within the last year we had one player place 26th in an SCG, and the year before that, actually, the exact same place, with a different player. So with a good pilot, the deck is still able to do quite well at large tournaments.
A lot of players are playing RSI which is the robot heavy list that plays Mox Opal, Gitaxian Probe, and Cabal Therapy. It can lead to some incredibly powerful plays, and players of this type have been developing their own sideboards to good effect, things like Lotus Bloom and Tezzeret transformations.
I and some other players still player PSI (the Pact list), which plays 0 protection, but is far more flexible than the other lists because the Pacts can transform into either a creature or a mana source.
Belcher is a largely turn 3 combo deck. 4/11 win conditions are Empty the Warrens (on rare occasions Diminishing Returns and/or Tendrils). So after you hit 14 tokens turn 1, the fastest you can win is turn 3. PSI by comparison, is a turn 1 deck, more in line with the speed of decks like Oops All the Spells (or whatever its called). The difference is this deck still holds the title of best mulligans in all of Legacy magic because you can go off with fewer resources than any other combo deck, thanks to redundancy. Petal, Drit, D4, is all you really need. Yes D4s are risky, but that comes with the territory. The PSI lists fizzle less because you don't draw into multiple protection and tallmen when you really want business and acceleration. For this reason I've stuck with PSI. Also, still comparing to Belcher, PSI actually has a sideboard plan. If you notice, the most recent lists played by Ben Perry and others have ported sideboard tech from PSI such as Carpet of Flowers. Carpet is even more abusable post-board thanks to a heavy business count. Against a slower control player like Miracles or BUG, 3 Islands means free business for the PSI. Then, you just lay business spells down until they run out of permission, and then you kill them. It works extremely well actually, and is far more fun to play for both players than the typically combo matchup where one player bends down, and the other player does nasty things. Instead, its largely, how do you out play them, surprise pay for Daze and make them waste 2 counters on something. Also, you can lay down double or triple threats on turn 1 thanks to boarding in a bunch of 1cc bombs. The deck can play a man plan as well if you want to surprise your local opponents with something they aren't prepared for.
ANT and TES are played more because they are consistent, and easy to play. PSI is significantly faster, and usually you are favored in the combo mirror because they cannot match your speed. I've won most of my combo mirrors against other storm decks. PSI, though is a combo for the dedicated combo player who enjoys playing something both difficult and rewarding. The sideboard is incredibly fun to play; in fact, I've beaten control players who claim to have had 'the best game of magic in a long time' playing against it, so you won't look like a dick at your local metagame like you would if you were playing Belcher.
Then again, I've been developing a new list that I've shared with the MTGS and Stormboard SI-teams, and its developing quite well actually. We have a BGur list that plays Brainstorm, a BGR list that plays Entomb and Burning Wish, and a BGr list that plays Entomb. So far the list is about as fast as ANT. We have a small amount of data (70 goldfish games recorded), leading us to a 2.55 (20 games), 2.9 (20 games), 2.8 (20 games), and 2.5 (10 games) turn kill ratio. So its about the speed of ANT or TES, but it plays better cards in some cases, and its far better against control than these other storm combo decks by my assessment. I'll get into these things later though, here is the list:
- VANT w/ Entomb -
Business -
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Entomb
3 Diabolic Intent
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Past in Flames
1 Tendrils of Agony
Protection/Utility -
4 Cabal Therapy
1 Narcomoeba
Mana -
1 Eternal Witness
3 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Veteran Explorer
1 Young Wolf
4 Dark Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
Land -
4 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Bayou
1 Mountain
1 Dryad Arbor
We're still developing a sideboard. Direlemming is playing a BW variant, also playing Entomb. A few other players think we should go back to playing Brainstorm. Lately I've been pondering a Doomsday variant with Probe/Brainstorm/Top. Anyway, I'll explain the card choices. It shares like 37 cards or something with PSI so it was technically PSI for a long time. I started calling it Veteran ANT due to Veteran Explorer.
Business:
Infernal Tutor - Excellent tutor. Storm combo players are quite familiar with this one.
Entomb - Incredibly powerful. This card can be a creature if you need one for a sac effect, it can find business via PIF, or protection via Therapy.
Diabolic Intent - Much like IT, only its better than IT. Also, its better than Burning Wish because BW can't find LED, and thats huge if you have IT/BW in hand.
Ad Nauseam - Powerful engine.
Past in Flames - Your line of play if you have an Entomb in hand, or if you've lost too much life to go for Ad Nauseam.
Tendrils of Agony - Your kill.
Protection/Utility:
Cabal Therapy - ANT/TES do not utilize this card to its potential. Its basically a bad protection spell in other combo decks. In this one, you can flashback it frequently, or find it with Entomb for tricks.
Narcomoeba - Tricks with Entomb
Mana:
Eternal Witness - Huge card. If you have 9 mana in hand and your only business is Entomb and Pact, you can still win. You Entomb for Ad Nauseam, then you Pact, crack a LED for GGG, then Ewit for AdN, then cast AdN with the rest of your mana.
Elvish Spirit Guide - Anti-Daze tech, and helps you cast your Explorers and other green 1cc stuff on turn 1.
Summoner's Pact - Strongest card in the deck. It can turn into mana, a creature, or a business spell (Ewit). I'll talk about the drawback later.
Veteran Explorer - Another of the strongest cards in the deck. It's pseudo-ritual acceleration in that it nets you B, but you get to keep the lands. Its great for setting up.
Young Wolf - Sometimes you want to Pact for this when you have double Culling or some kind of double sac cost that you could not pay for if you grabbed Explorer.
Dark Ritual - Acceleration
Culling the Weak - More explosive acceleration than the other combo decks have access to. This is one of the cards that lets you frequently make huge-mana plays.
Lion's Eye Diamond - Combos with Pact, Entomb, DI, IT, and PIF. In other words, more cards than in any other storm combo variant.
Lands
Swamp - I like playing 4 but we can probably cut one for a basic Forest.
Verdant Catacombs - Can find a B/G source, or a Dryad Arbor if you need it for a sac effect.
Bayou - Your B/G mana sources.
Mountain - Sometimes you want to grab this when you are executing a PIF line of play. You grab it with Veteran Explorer.
Dryad Arbor - You can grab this with Catacombs or Pact.
As I've already mentioned, this deck wins somewhere between turn 2 and turn 3 on avg. Often you can set up protection as well, and many of those times you are also able to flashback therapy. The deck has natural protection from soft permission because the rituals are so explosive and the deck plays a very stable mana base thanks to Explorer. Also, Veteran Explorer is a psuedo-ritual acceleration that cannot be Spell Pierced or Flusterstormed. This is huge because it limits players to Daze, Stifle, and Force. The business of the deck (could include Pact) is so amorphous that you can usually manipulate your hand based on what you are playing to produce a win. I've talked about this deck ad nauseam on MTGS in the SI thread if anyone wants to read more (and see the results the few of us have in our limited testing).
The coolest thing you can do with this deck is probably the Eternal Witness line of play. You have no idea how satisfying it is to win with just Pact/Entomb in hand. Also, due to lines of play like this, you can produce a win by using spare DI's or ITs to look for protection or extra mana if you are taking your time in going off. Sometimes this deck has so much mana its absurd. Sometimes after you've played IT/DI and cracked all your LEDs, you have as much as 7 to 15 mana floating. Entomb in particular was a more recent addition to this list (I started with Brainstorms and Sea/Trop). I like Entomb because it can be protection, or if you don't have a dude to sac, you can throw a PIF in your yard, just in case they have a counter you don't expect. The deck has so much mana even if they counter your all in attempt that you can go off again next turn from the yard with PIF. This is because Explorers leave you with perpetual resources after you crack them, unlike other acceleration where its a one time deal.
I think this new storm variant could potentially dislodge RUG from its Papal Legacy throne. Explorer is just retarded against RUG, and their soft permission is rather hilarious when you look at how easily this deck can out distance soft permission. I had one game where I just played through 4 Spell Pierce, Daze, Flusterstorm, in game one. Just to compare to other storm variants (though I was going to do all this in an article at some point in the near future):
ANT - less explosive, more cantrips, less stable mana base, more disruption but weaker disruption, weaker rituals
TES - less explosive, more cantrips, less stable mana base, more and stronger disruption (pre-board), far weaker rituals
In particular, ANT plays Crit, which is extremely vulnerable to Daze, and frankly, the card you want to cut from that list if you could. Also, both lists play Chrome Mox, which is card disadvantage. I've dropped it since the deck has so much mana that you rarely AdN without mana floating. Also, Therapy/Probe is just a pathetic version of Therapy/Flashback. This deck abuses Therapy to the fullest of its potential, and then some thanks to Entomb. Entomb functions as pseudo protection a lot of the time. TES, on the other hand, plays Silence/Chant effects. These are awesome, but once VANT hits post-board, it can play Autumn's Veil, which is better in this deck. Why? Because all its rituals are instants, unlike in TES. This means VE against control allows you multiple land drops such that when you go off, you can respond to their soft permission with Veil, something that TES cannot do with Chant/Silence. TES is probably still faster than this deck overall, but cards like Culling the Weak produce explosive plays where TES would be waiting for a couple turns to get enough acceleration to get there. Also in terms of explosiveness, the number of cards that interact with LED mean that your topdeck mode is quite powerful. When I was playing Brainstorm, the deck also had a stronger Brainstorm than both TES and ANT, ANT typically only playing 16 shuffle effects with TES's 11, and VANT's 18. Now its at 23, no cantrips, but I am still playing around with the list.
I hope to gather some interest in this list that way we can get more players testing variations. I already have 5 or 6 other people testing their own variations, and a couple of people have liked the list so much they are on their way to completing their list.
