Escape Brain Freeze

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Originally Posted by AngryBacon

Here is what I am currently goldfishing:

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Looks strong. How is it testing?

I like Hurkyl's Recall in the board.

Double Tendrils is probably overkill. When would you bring them in?

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- Entomb is always card disadvantage
- Entomb doesn't work well with most sideboard card we want to tutor for post-sideboard
- Entomb does nothing but thinning against permanent graveyard hate
- Entomb forces the black splashes since it can't be just cast off rocks reliably
- Gamble is better than Entomb regarding these 4 points, but is sorcery

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Good points. Entomb may be the weak link. Gamble may be better. It finds Underworld Breach and SB cards.

Drawbacks:
-Gamble is also card disadvantage (-2 cards, get 1 to hand)
-Gamble can discard Underworld Breach, protection, or mana sources (you can't afford to lose those, and they tend to stay in hand till going off)
-Gamble is nondeterministic, making it harder to plan mulligans and when to go off because you don't know if you have enough
-Gamble can't be cast at EOT or at instant speed midcombo to find an answer

Gamble is strong, but those are downsides worth thinking about.

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- Stifle can counter the Eldrazi shuffle trigger

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Not needed. 95% of the time you don't even kill with Brain Freeze, Wish -> Grapeshot -> Grapeshot again is enough

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- Stifle can counter the sacrifice trigger from Underworld Breach

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Another protection slot is probably better. Protection stops disruption in the first place. Disruption is why you'd need to keep Breach, otherwise you win that turn.

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- Burning Wish functions as both an alternative kill condition as well as a hate-permission, hence the 2 copies

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Yes. Efficient solution.

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- Breakthrough theoretically functions as additional copies of Brain Freeze but leaves you Hellbent which I don't like when playing with reactive permission as opposed to proactive permission like discard spells

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Tome Scour and Memory Sluice do it better, without making you Hellbent.

Sluice was suggested to Entomb off LED for BBB to enable a resource-light winning line, otherwise Tome Scour digs deeper.

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- Veil of Summer can function as a Silence
- Veil of Summer protects from Abrupt Decay
- Veil of Summer forces through a Chalice of the Void on 0 or 2

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-Both protect from Abrupt Decay on Breach or LED (Silence before playing them)
-Silence prevents Surgical Extraction, Veil doesn't
-Silence stops nonblack disenchants on Breach (e.g. Wear / / Tear, Force of Vigor)

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Originally Posted by AngryBacon

The other cards mentioned however (Memory Sluice, Breakthrough) feel a little too cute and do next to nothing outside of the combo turn.

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Game 1 Tome Scour is useful before the combo turn:
-fills GY with escape fuel to hit critical mass to start the chain
-can dig into LED or Brain Freeze, so you don't need to cantrip/tutor into them
-clears chaff from Brainstorm/Ponder

It also works as backup Brain Freeze. Breakthrough/Sluice do not as they net you 0 new cards (exile 3 & mill 4 for U, but LED for UUU costs 3 cards).

It looks REALLY BAD on paper until you try it.

Postboard blind-milling yourself is riskier (Surgicals, etc.) so you probably board it out.

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Another route could be to go Veteran Explorer and Stitcher's Supplier with Cabal Therapy and Culling the Weak. The extra mana doesn't seem very much needed but could let the pilot save 3 extra cards in the graveyard not having to play the initial LED. Stitcher's Supplier on the other hand is 7 cards in the graveyard with a Cabal Therapy or by blocking a threat.

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Yeah, Stitcher's Supplier + Therapy seems good. It accomplishes the same thing.

Only drawback is Stitcher doesn't replace Brain Freeze as a combo chain enabler, while Tome Scour does. But Stitcher blocks and fuels Therapy. Worth testing.

Preordered my Breaches the other day. Definitely interested in taking them for a spin.

I feel like there's still dissonance between our tutors and the things we're trying to accomplish with the deck. Gamble doesn't work well if we need to crack Diamonds or need a card in an otherwise empty hand, Entomb only works when we already have the centerpiece of the combo, and Enlightened Tutor is off color, and it only finds that one piece of our combo (or, I guess, an LED) and doesn't give it to us right away. (In other words, ETutor isn't saving mana over Infernal because we're going to need a cantrip to bring that card off the top unless we EoT it.) Spoils of the Vault is, as has been mentioned, risky enough that I don't think we want it here. Talisman just feels "meh" to me. Not bad, but expensive and all-in.

Anyone still working with Infernal Tutor? I've been kicking around a DRit/Infernal Tutor setup to go with our wishes, our artifact mana, and the fact that we can start our chain immediately if we crack a Diamond with a Tutor on the stack. It's also somewhat all-in, but it opens up our plan to a number of other strategies, incl. snapping off Storm cards and snowballing mana or combo parts.

FTW, I realize I never got back to you about Empty the Warrens. I should've clarified that I did, in fact, mean that one would be good in the sideboard for Burning Wish. One thing I've found about playing Storm is that barfing gobbos is one of the best ways to get under stuff like Chalice even if we don't win the game on the spot. I don't like it in the main deck, but I do think it's worth considering out of the 'board. I know we're not a Storm deck, but we're relying really heavily on the graveyard, and graveyard hate's been free since 1994. Notably, the London mulligan is good for us and also good for our opponents, and I'm not sure we're getting the better end of the deal. Just wondering whether we can build a strong backup plan that doesn't use the 'yard.

EDIT: I had another thought that sort of takes things in a different direction. We could also try to capitalize on Entomb using other graveyard shenanigans—ostensibly reanimation, but maybe something else. I'd just had that thought as I was drifting off last night, so I haven't put much research or brainwork into it, but I thought I'd put it out there.

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Originally Posted by Ronald Deuce

I feel like there's still dissonance between our tutors and the things we're trying to accomplish with the deck.

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Yeah, unfortunately they all have some dissonance.

ETutor can be EOTed or cast on Upkeep (a line I've used a few times to go off faster), but it is slow and card disadvantage and forces white. ANT, UB Reanimator, High Tide and basically every combo deck played 4 Mystical Tutor until it was banned. The Mirage tutors are slow but effective.

Edit: If you go with Stitcher's Supplier and Veteran Explorer, there's Diabolic Intent

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Anyone still working with Infernal Tutor? I've been kicking around a DRit/Infernal Tutor setup to go with our wishes, our artifact mana, and the fact that we can start our chain immediately if we crack a Diamond with a Tutor on the stack. It's also somewhat all-in, but it opens up our plan to a number of other strategies, incl. snapping off Storm cards and snowballing mana or combo parts.

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Do you have a list in mind with rituals and IT? Interested to see what you've got.

I tried it in my first iteration (Rite of Flame, Dark Rit, Infernal Tutor, Gamble). It also had Entomb->Past in Flames so you could get lethal Tendrils without either Underworld Breach or LED. That sounds closer to what you're talking about.

I noticed I was barely ever casting Infernal Tutor. The 1-mana tutors were faster, when available. Or I didn't want to go Hellbent or didn't have LED. It could find Breach on the combo turn, but it does slow things down: increases mana required to go off or forces LED to crack for RRR instead of blue (you may need to escape LED for UUU to get Brain Freeze mana, requiring more cards in GY to go off). That's why I moved away from it.

But I was probably using it suboptimally. Infernal Tutor is strong and opens up many lines.

Is anyone else experimenting with it? What direction are you thinking?

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FTW, I realize I never got back to you about Empty the Warrens. I should've clarified that I did, in fact, mean that one would be good in the sideboard for Burning Wish. One thing I've found about playing Storm is that barfing gobbos is one of the best ways to get under stuff like Chalice even if we don't win the game on the spot. I don't like it in the main deck, but I do think it's worth considering out of the 'board.

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Good points. EtW seems worth it.

Just some thoughts on Pact of Negation, but I do not believe it's as good as people seem to think it is. From the other side of the table, the only good interaction point is with Breach on the stack or with the first escape on the stack. This means that we don't gain much by being able to escape pact mid combo other than perhaps countering surgical extraction, which would only be possible if we're later in the game. However we can just escape an instant using the target in response to fizzle the surgical. It also doesn't take care of problematic spells like RiP\Chalice\Thorn. Pact's upside is that it's free, allowing us to go off turn 2 with no fast mana and still have protection. I think some number of pacts should be spell pierce\daze\force spike instead.

Good points about Pact.

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Originally Posted by Lemon

From the other side of the table, the only good interaction point is with Breach on the stack or with the first escape on the stack.

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- With Breach on the stack you can cast Pact from hand (don't crack LED until Breach resolves)

- 1st escape? If you mean when you escape Brain Freeze/LED and don't have cards in the GY to also escape Pact, you can play around that by having more cards in the GY first (mill self before the combo turn).

I had Pact up at both those interaction points testing against Delver. Sometimes you won't have the escape fuel, but you can try to play around that. I think the bigger drawback is it can't protect you before the combo turn (Chalice/Thorn etc like you said).

A mix of counters may be better. I cut down to 3 Pacts main (+1 discard), maybe another split is better. Spell Pierce, Veil, Silence, Flusterstorm all have advantages and only cost 1 mana.

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Originally Posted by FTW

Looks strong. How is it testing?

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So far so good, I need to start recording the results and notes though.

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Originally Posted by FTW

Double Tendrils is probably overkill. When would you bring them in?

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One stays in the sideboard to wish for. There was a game against Delver where I could have make natural tendrils for lethal if I had it main (Gamble). That might be irrelevant, if a gamble resolves I should be going for Breach directly I suppose.

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Originally Posted by FTW

Drawbacks:
-Gamble is also card disadvantage (-2 cards, get 1 to hand)
-Gamble can discard Underworld Breach, protection, or mana sources (you can't afford to lose those, and they tend to stay in hand till going off)
-Gamble is nondeterministic, making it harder to plan mulligans and when to go off because you don't know if you have enough
-Gamble can't be cast at EOT or at instant speed midcombo to find an answer

Gamble is strong, but those are downsides worth thinking about.

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I agree. Especially considering a list with pacts. Counterspell for B is strong.

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Originally Posted by FTW

Not needed. 95% of the time you don't even kill with Brain Freeze, Wish -> Grapeshot -> Grapeshot again is enough

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I'm not on Stifle, just more arguments for those who are :-) Heck, it can even counter pacts' triggers.

I played the list with entomb+gamble i posted a few sites back now quit a while and i'm pretty convinced that this deck is a thing

BFS:

Maindeck (60)
4 Brainstorm
4 Entomb
4 Gamble
4 Veil of Summer
4 Brain Freeze
1 Grapeshot
4 Echo of Eons
3 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Mox Opal
3 Defense Grid
4 Underworld Dreams
1 Badlands
1 Bayou
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
1 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island

Sideboard (15)
2 Hope of Ghirapur
2 Chain of Vapor
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Echoing Truth
2 Crash
2 Reverent Silence
1 Jace, Wielder of Mystery
3 Silent Gravestone



Shared via TopDecked MTG

https://www.topdecked.me/decks/7115f...2-fdbb7ab6cce4

Cards i tested where the swamp, which is not as good as in TES because to get green for sb cards is soo much more important and mostly you go off before they wasteland you off. It happened twice against a delver deck and mostly you can recover or your already in a bad position anyway and you lose.
I think jace ia better than tendrils in the sb and we need one of those cards to play around control deck that play surgical or mostly leyline of the sanctity and cards like glacial chasm.
I also tried talisman but i was not conviced of him like in tes where you play rituals. I also dont think you wanna play too much rituals in this kind of deck because they can also be pretty dead and then i prefer the mox cards because they come down to the field.

So after some days of testing where should we head and what are the actual pro and con of this deck in comparing with ant and Tes or maybe even Dredge?
I was reading in a discord that you could compare it like reanimate and cephalid breakfast but that the first is better.
I actually dont agree with that because if you play some different match ups you realize the actual strength of broken cards combined.
Overall some people are making fast decisions sometimes.

+:This Deck is faster than the other storm decks.
+:It has the same protection as TES
+: It can regenarete even better and faster than bouth decks.
+: Echo can be a win condition on its own. As i already mentioned once if you get a early Echo of Eons the chance that it gives the oppenent mostly a same or worse or annoying hand and we will mostly be in a better position than them.

Cons:
- GY Based but i realized with correct boarding this decks does really well against hate. A storm deck can always lose to nuts so as we do. And if someones wanna hate it then let them do it lol.
-It can be random, which is bad but can also be good in the most situations. I guess fizzling just happens sometimes.
Gamble and entomb are not CA but this deck does not need to make CA because echo is gonna refull your hand.
The Oppenent cant react with surgical to crack led and discard echo.
Dont be annoyed about gamble takes your 15-20% tutored card. This happens with gamble but mostly gamble is here for the 5-8 echo. I often side it out for example against delver.

Otherwhise i dont see other contra yet.
Let see what happens.

Also i'm really not convinced of white. I was discussing that yesterday with a guy but i feel the explosive part makes the deck so good. But hei maybe someone gonna develop something thats even better and different :D

Greets Pascal

I tried one similar to AngryBacon's list (RUG). 3 colors with a streamlined manabase.


//Lands: 14
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Volcanic Island
2 Tropical Island
1 Island

//Artifacts: 14
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
3 Chrome Mox
3 Defense Grid

//Enchantments: 4
4 Underworld Breach

//Spells: 28
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Preordain
4 Gamble
4 Veil of Summer
2 Manamorphose
4 Burning Wish
4 Brain Freeze

//Wishboard: 7
1 Grapeshot
1 Echo of Eons
1 Reverent Silence
1 Shenanigans
1 Tome Scour
1 Pyroclasm
1 Empty the Warrens

//Other Sideboard: 8
3 Silent Gravestone
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Flusterstorm
1 Spell Pierce
1 Jace, Wielder of Mysteries


The deck seems fine without rituals. Cantripping and playing lands is enough setup. Artifact mana gives enough boost and should beat disruption better.

With only Gamble and cantrips to find Breach, I run 4 Burning Wish to open up backup lines with Echo of Eons and/or Empty the Warrens. 4 Burning Wish also means easy access to SB cards to fight hate.

Manamorphose imprints well on Chrome Mox, filters floating mana, and boosts storm for EOT Brain Freeze to fill your yard, but is the weakest slot. It could be more lands, more protection, or more digging like Preordain or Intuition (weak to Surgical though).

I have mixed feelings about Gamble. It works, but I also have bad luck with it. Ideally a 2nd tutor would help.

Goldfishes:

• T3 w Grid
• T2 w Veil
• T3 w Veil
• T4 w Grid or T5 w Grid+Veil (T1 Gamble lost Breach, 1/7 chance to whiff. 2nd Gamble worked, 1/5 to whiff)
• T3 w Grid
• T2 unprotected (Gamble lost 2nd land, 2/5 chance to whiff. Then topdecked land.. lol, luck goes both ways)
• T4 w Grid (Gamble worked, 1/5 to whiff)
• T3 w Grid (Gamble worked, 1/5 to whiff, 2/5 to go off T3, 2/5 to go off T4)
• T3 unprotected (Gamble lost Breach, 1/6 to whiff. Then topdecked 2nd Breach...)
• T2 unprotected (Gamble got Breach but lost Grid, 3/6 to lose something good)
• T3 w Veil or Grid (Gamble for LED lost Breach but had 2, so 0/7 to whiff!)
• T3 w Grid
• T4 w Grid + Veil (Gamble lost Breach, 3/7 to whiff. 2nd Gamble worked, 1/6 to whiff)

**I count a whiff as discarding Breach, necessary mana, or the only protection. Acceptable losses are LED, Brain Freeze, extra mana, cantrips. (LED & Brain Freeze can be escaped, though discarding them opens you up to Surgical and other hate)

Underworld Breach is so broken you can go off from very different shells.

I think the bigger questions are how to best fight hate and maximize win%.

Has someone brought up using Intuition as part of our search package? It'd have to be in a slower shell since it costs so much, but it's on color and can get two pieces at once, or the single piece you need. Also an instant so you can EOT Intuition for w/e then defend your combo turn with Veil\Silence.

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Originally Posted by Lemon

Has someone brought up using Intuition as part of our search package? It'd have to be in a slower shell since it costs so much, but it's on color and can get two pieces at once, or the single piece you need. Also an instant so you can EOT Intuition for w/e then defend your combo turn with Veil\Silence.

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I mentioned it in RUG list above. Don't know if it was brought up earlier, but I don't remember seeing it in any lists that were tested. Give it a whirl?

Pros:
- in color
- instant tutor for any card type without card disadvantage

Cons:
- slow (3 mana)
- walk into Surgical Extraction without protection from Veil/Silence/Grid/Pact
- can't find 1-ofs or 2-of SB cards

After thinking about Ronald Deuce's comment, I also tried brewing with Infernal Tutor and rituals like a more traditional storm build.

UBR shell. Started with both Dark Ritual + Rite of Flame. Black mana isn't needed much, cut Dark Rit to make space.



//Lands: 15
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
2 Badlands
1 Tropical Island

//Fast Mana: 14
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
2 Chrome Mox
4 Rite of Flame

//Enchantments: 4
4 Underworld Breach

//Spells: 27
3 Pact of Negation
4 Thoughtseize
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Burning Wish
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Brain Freeze

//Wishboard: 7
1 Grapeshot
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Echo of Eons
1 Reverent Silence
1 Shenanigans
1 Tome Scour
1 Massacre

//Other Sideboard: 8
3 Silent Gravestone
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Spell Pierce
1 Jace, Wielder of Mysteries


This goldfished smoothly too.

With the mana acceleration, some hands just won on turn 1.
A few turn 2 with protection (Thoughtseize or Pact).
Turn 2-4 is more common, since Burning Wish and Infernal Tutor can be slow to set up. Not losing to Gamble is good though!

Infernal Tutor + LED can set up Breach this turn, but there's a window where you lose Pact, so Pact is less good. Maybe it should be someting else.
I had Veil before, but searching for green mana stalled the combo turn enough that it wasn't worth it.

I've tried a few variations of the same shell in different color pairings. They all seem to work:

13-16 lands
4-10 mana accel

4 LED
4 Underworld Breach
4 Brain Freeze
0-2 additional mill

4-10 cantrips
4+ tutors for Breach
0-2 Entomb
2-4 Burning Wish

7-10 protection

Wishboard
Some AntiHate SB

There are explosiveness vs consistency tradeoffs between the acceleration slots, protection slots, tutor slots, and cantrips.

Pdingo gets even more explosive cutting Burning Wish and cantrips to run more Moxes, more Entombs and 4 Echo of Eons as an engine

This one has more tutors (Wishclaw + Infernal). More ways to find Breach and SB cards. But they're slower.

To support the higher mana costs and black cards, there are Dark Rituals and Moxen. Rituals curve out well with Thoughtseize/Duress too.



//Lands: 15
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
2 Badlands
1 Bayou

//Fast Mana: 14
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
2 Mox Opal
4 Dark Ritual

//Enchantments: 4
4 Underworld Breach

//Protection: 7
4 Thoughtseize
2 Duress
1 Defense Grid

//Other Spells: 20
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
3 Infernal Tutor
4 Wishclaw Talisman
4 Brain Freeze
2 Burning Wish

//Wishboard: 8
1 Grapeshot
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Echo of Eons
1 Reverent Silence
1 Pulverize
1 Massacre
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Tome Scour

//Other Sideboard: 7
3 Silent Gravestone
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Spell Pierce



Infernal Tutor has good synergy with the engine.

Dark Ritual -> Infernal Tutor + LED for RRRB -> Underworld Breach -> escape LED for UUU -> escape Tutor -> Brain Freeze for 21 -> win

Even went 6 mana -> Infernal Tutor -> Breach -> escape Infernal for LED -> crack LED for BBB -> escape LED for UUU -> escape Infernal for Brain Freeze -> Brain Freeze self for 21+ -> win, setting up the entire combo with 1 Infernal Tutor + mana + cards in yard.

Wishclaw Talisman + LED for RRR -> Wishclaw for Breach -> escape LED for UUU -> escape Brain Freeze (needs Brain Freeze in hand or GY, or more resources to Wish/Infernal into it)

2 mana + Wishclaw (or Dark Rit into Wishclaw) -> LED for BBB (BBBBR floating) -> Wishclaw for Infernal -> Infernal for Breach -> Breach -> escape LED for BBB -> escape LED for UUU -> escape Infernal for Brain Freeze -> Brain Freeze self


Goldfishes:
T1: x
T2 unprotected: xxxxxxxxx
T2 w discard: xxxxxx
T3 w discard: xxxxxx
T3 w Grid/2 disc: xxxxx
T4 w Grid/2 disc: xxxxxx
brick past turn 4: x

I can goldfish this a dozen different ways with different configurations of colors, mana accel, tutors and protection. Each has some advantages and disadvantages. Can't tell which direction is better without real games against disruption. They all fight disruption/tutor for answers differently.

I've been wondering if Poor Man's Will is going to see a ban but I'm leaning towards no.

Anyway the basics of this deck look great (always great to kill your opponent with Brain Freeze!).

I was thinking of trying out a 0 CMC artifact heavy Grixis version using Wishclaw and self-Hurkyl's using Cunning Wishes but I don't know if it'll work.

Was thinking about sluice and tome scour...

The advantage given to sluice was that it and entomb can be cast off the same led activation .... but that’s not that much of an advantage since you can cycle time scour 3 times, get 6 extra card in exile and then just cast led and entomb and end up having one more mana than in the initial scenario.

That said... why are we running four brainfreeze? Realistically we usually don’t win by brainfreezing the opponent (as you end up with enough cards in grave to escape led twice and escape a wish so... 9 extra cards in exile). We wish for grapeshot or other win con. So comparing to brainfreeze to sluice/scour wouldn’t we rather have them in our hands (assuming we aren’t playing many moxes) since then we can cast them prior to combining off and essentially digging for led, the missing combo card in that scenario?

So for example if we’re running 6 mill cards I think they should be something like 3 scour, 2-3 brainfreeze, 0-1 sluice (shouldn’t run 4 scours since you might need to wish for a scour)

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Originally Posted by Cire

That said... why are we running four brainfreeze? Realistically we usually don’t win by brainfreezing the opponent (as you end up with enough cards in grave to escape led twice and escape a wish so... 9 extra cards in exile). We wish for grapeshot or other win con. So comparing to brainfreeze to sluice/scour wouldn’t we rather have them in our hands (assuming we aren’t playing many moxes) since then we can cast them prior to combining off and essentially digging for led, the missing combo card in that scenario?

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Good question!

Tome Scour is worse for the main line. It nets +3 cards per 3 Tome Scours, barely any fuel for shenanigans. Brain Freeze gives a lot.

Brain Freeze can also be cast prior to comboing off. I regularly mill myself for 9-15 cards prior to the combo turn to dig into LED, worst case 6 cards. It digs deeper than Tome Scour.

How? You can mini-storm on your turn after playing out mana rocks, cantrips and discard.
You can also EOT Brain Freeze after the opponent plays spells (Storm counts opponent's spell's too), then untap and go off with nothing but 1R: Underworld Breach.


Brain Freeze self-mill is good enough that I cut Entomb and just try to mill into LED if I don't have it. Once you have that many cards in the yard, even if you missed LED, you can still go off. Ex:
- escape 2 petals, escape Brain Freeze yourself again
- escape petal, escape ETutor for LED, escape petal, escape Brainstorm to draw it
- escape petal, escape petal, escape Infernal Tutor for LED
- tap land for mana, escape Ponder/tutor & try to dig for LED
etc

Once you have enough cards in the yard you can really do anything. Breach becomes a 1-card combo.

Burning Wish can function as Tome Scour G1 but also answers to hate G2/G3, so more Wishes might be better than Tome Scours main.

The more I pilot it (200+ goldfishes across different variations, 20+ games against Delver, 10 games against Bant), the more I'm finding explosive lines. You don't need that many resources to go off. You just need Breach, many cards in the yard, and some mana. Some lines are hard to see.

There are so many cards that I have been trying out in this deck....some much better than others. I have played around with Paradoxical Outcome, Echo, Meditate, all the different kinds of tutors. From my experience the best engine we have for draw is Echo and through all of my goldfishing all I can think is that we have a "great" Brain Freeze deck. Brain Freeze/Mill is what I think we should building around.

I mentioned a couple of cards that no one else has mentioned; PO and Meditate, but there are more. With PO you need to run the artifact accel package and this also means that you are most likely not running any Echo's. With PO we also get to run Monastery Mentor which is a pretty good alternate wincon when you get hated out but it does turn on a lot of cards for your opponent. The bad part of playing PO is that you are pretty much forced to play Grim Monolith so that you don't waste an entire turn bouncing your artifacts by tapping all of your lands etc. It is also not great with Defense grid because you often want to cast it at the end of your opponents turn. Meditate is also interesting because it is basically Brain Freeze 5-8, it is raw card advantage, and you get to play out any 0cc artifacts you draw while you have an active Underworld Breach and looping Lion's Eye Diamond. It is also good to note that you almost always get the same or more cards from a Meditate than you do from a PO.

Here are some other cards to help fuel some discussion:

Merchant Scroll - Helps find Brainstrom, Meditate, PO, and Brain Freeze. It also allows us to play some main deck answers in the form of bounce spells and "free" counterspells. It is one of the most interesting cards in my testing so far. Cunning wish could fill a similar role but having a lesser mana cost seems better with MS. Chain of Vapor may be a good card to consider because it allows us to sac lands and bounce our own artifacts, where the land sacs allow us to fuel escape (just a thought).

Sevinne's Reclamation - This is by far the most interesting card I have come across in all of my builds of this deck. I would like to find more ways to abuse it but it having flashback is HUGE! It allows us to be a Brain Freeze/Mill deck! It let's us get back two of our key cards Underworld Breach and LED if they get countered or destroyed or if we mill it ourselves which happens quite often. This card also gets us back cards like Defense Grid and Hope of Ghirapur. SR is so efficient at it's job that I think it is better to run this card over Echo.

Cards that I do not think we should play are Chrome Mox, Gamble, and Force of Will. Instead of Chrome Mox I think we should be playing Arcum's Astrolabe. AA is CA neutral but it helps us to fix our mana and it allows us to run more basic lands (snow lands) which protects us more against Wasteland. AA may also mean that PO is better in this deck, but I doubt it.

This is the list that I have been working from and would love your feedback, testing and tweaking on:

Lands (13)
4 Flooded Strand
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Snow-Covered Island
1 Tundra
1 Volcanic Island

Artifacts (18)
4 Arcum's Astrolabe
3 Defense Grid
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Mox Opal
3 Hope of Ghirapur

Sorceries (10)
2 Merchant Scroll
4 Ponder
4 Sevinne's Reclamation

Instants (11)
4 Brain Freeze
4 Brainstorm
3 Meditate

Enchantments (4)
4 Underworld Breach


I think this deck gives us the most "reach" while still being able to "go fast". In any case this is my two cents after reading through this entire thread and testing lists since UB was spoiled.......AND yes, I think that UB is going to get banned and restricted in just about every format. It is a BUSTED magic card!

Thanks for posting your list! Nice to see a completely different direction.

Sevinne's Reclamation - YES. I was looking on Gatherer for a sorcery that did that but missed it. Almost resigned to running Replenish or Regrowth in my Wishboard just to have a way to Wish for Underworld Breach (after 1 is killed or countered). This card is much better. Getting back dead Breaches, Grid or LEDs seems strong!

Echo of Eons - It goldfishes explosively, but against real opponents? I tested it earlier. Sometimes it's amazing, sometimes you just whiff. Sometimes it gives opponent a better hand or extra FoWs. I think we don't need it if we have other card engines.

Meditate - Seems good. We are not passing the turn anyway.

Merchant Scroll - Even better if you run PO.
You could also run Cunning Wish to get PO/Brain Freeze/Meditate out of the SB. Wish should help G2/G3, finding answers to Leyline, Chalice, Grafdigger's Cage, Thalia, Revoker, etc.

With AA and all those mana rocks in your list, why aren't you running Paradoxical Outcome? It looks strong there. It's a backup storm engine that ignores graveyard hate, or just a way to refuel your hand if you try to go off and got disrupted. Unlike Echo it's 1-sided draw. Unlike Meditate, it's safe to cast outside of the combo turn. Even 1 copy to get with Merchant Scroll or Cunning Wish...

Also, why maindeck Hope of Ghirapur? Being artifact is nice but they'll also have removal in G1. Silence seems more consistent. Postboard some Hopes could come in.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FTW

Meditate - Seems good. We are not passing the turn anyway.

Merchant Scroll - Even better if you run PO.
You could also run Cunning Wish to get PO/Brain Freeze/Meditate out of the SB. Wish should help G2/G3, finding answers to Leyline, Chalice, Grafdigger's Cage, Thalia, Revoker, etc.

With AA and all those mana rocks in your list, why aren't you running Paradoxical Outcome? It looks strong there. It's a backup storm engine that ignores graveyard hate, or just a way to refuel your hand if you try to go off and got disrupted. Unlike Echo it's 1-sided draw. Unlike Meditate, it's safe to cast outside of the combo turn.

Also, why maindeck Hope of Ghirapur? Being artifact is nice but they'll also have removal in G1. Silence seems more consistent. Postboard some Hopes could come in.

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Thanks for the reply! I am happy to play PO but it means that I need to find something other than Defense Grid. It also means that the list should run 3ish copies of Grim Monolith to help keep PO's cost in check, but maybe Chrome Mox will work almost as well. Then the question becomes, "what to cut?".

The best solution may be to run a PO and a meditate in the SB and run the 3 cunning wish in the main. That would give us 3 "answers" in the main deck but may also make us less explosive. Right now I think we need to play with some number of SR (4 may be too many), maybe going down to 3.

I hear you on Hope of Ghirapur, but it gives us one more mana on our turn if it gets through. Silence usually means we are a half turn slower on average. HoG also adds to our metal craft the turn we are going off and it is a permanent which can be SR'ed back in a pinch.

Lots of tweaking to do, but I think this puts us on a different track than Storm decks and adds a bunch of resiliency. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by shojeel

Thanks for the reply! I am happy to play PO but it means that I need to find something other than Defense Grid. It also means that the list should run 3ish copies of Grim Monolith to help keep PO's cost in check, but maybe Chrome Mox will work almost as well. Then the question becomes, "what to cut?".

The best solution may be to run a PO and a meditate in the SB and run the 3 cunning wish in the main. That would give us 3 "answers" in the main deck but may also make us less explosive. Right now I think we need to play with some number of SR (4 may be too many), maybe going down to 3.

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Yeah I think 4 SR is too many anyway. It's more of a backup than a main engine. 2-3 should be enough.

Cunning Wish seems no slower than Meditate. Same mana cost, but Meditate costs a full turn!! Do you ever cast it before the combo turn? Once you're going off, you can Wish for Meditate if you need the draw.

-2 Meditate (leave 1 tutorable with Merchant Scroll)
-1 SR
+3 Cunning Wish

Doing that, Wish is replacing other slow 3 cmc cards so you shouldn't lose explosiveness, and you gain some powerful lines wishing for PO.

Wishboard:
1 PO
1 Meditate
1 Echoing Truth
1 Wear // Tear
etc etc

Edit: How consistently can you find Underworld Breach without any tutors? I found even running 4 tutors + 8 cantrips I was just barely seeing the card often enough. You're in white so you could play Enlightened Tutor. It's -1 card but it finds Breach, LED, Defense Grid, Hope, Astrolabe..