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Secrets could be good since it's an instant that can find more of the storm card. Don't like LD.
Secrets is actually very good. You can turn 1 turbine. Turn 2 cycle twice and on their end step find a shadow or ritual effect. You can also run surgical after sb pretty safely. (after turn 2 it becomes a lot better)
working on it a bit with a friend
4 Drannith Healer
4 Horror of the Broken Lands
4 Drannith Stinger
4 Imposing Vantasaur
4 Flourishing Fox
2 Monstrous Carabid
4 Street Wraith
3 Shadow of the Grave
4 Reaping the Graves
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Lotus Petal
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Songs of the Damned
2 Fluctuator
3 Swamp
1 Scrubland
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
1 Bloodstained Mire
SB: kind of random at this point
4 Hollow One
4 Thoughtseize
4 Phyrexian Obliterator
3 Unmask
Cycling doesn't build Storm count, so is Tendrils even good here? You'll just have the rituals and Shadow/Reaping.
Once you have that much mana, is Living Death better?
you only need 9 other spells. petals are pretty significant.
that being said living death does allow for some nasty turn 1's where you can pass the turn with a fairly significant number of creatures in play.
(cons: LD can be FOW'd, you can die the following turn to combo)
The con with Tendrils is it's a dead card under a certain Storm count, and it can be countered by Veil of Summer (and sometimes by Swords to Plowshares).
All Storm decks (ANT, TES, Belcher, Ruby) run Empty the Warrens as a mini-Storm option in case you can't reach a high enough count for lethal damage. Empty also plays around Veil. With Tendrils only, it's very narrow.
Living Death would be the equivalent of Empty. If you can't Storm 10, you can make a bunch of bodies to win if you untap. It does lose to Force, but realistically so does the Tendrils line because they can catch you on a Songs or Shadow to cut you off mid-combo.
I think the deck can be adapted a little bit, running maindeck mono black guys over 2 Carabid. Then you can just cast all the black creatures. Living Death seems redundant in those situations. There may be better options than LD and tendrils. Will give it some thought. (you can also cast Stinger and just cycle some cards too, but getting the red is more challenging.)
Oversold cemetery out of the sb seems great too, or tortured existence.
4 Flourishing Fox
4 Drannith Healer
4 Drannith Stinge
4 Horror of the Broken Lands
4 Street Wraith
4 Imposing Vantasaur
4 Dark Ritual
3 Scheming Symmetry
4 Songs of the Damned
4 Cabal Ritual
3 Shadow of the Grave
3 Reaping the Graves
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Lotus Petal
2 Fluctuator
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Marsh Flats
1 Polluted Delta
1 Scrubland
3 Swamp
1 Verdant Catacombs
SB:
4 Thoughtseize
2 Tortured Existence
1 Oversold Cemetery
4 Unmask
4 Hollow One
figured i'd bump this thread again. having some more fun goldfishing with scheming symmetry
4 Flourishing Fox
4 Drannith Healer
4 Drannith Stinger
4 Horror of the Broken Lands
4 Street Wraith
4 Imposing Vantasaur
4 Dark Ritual
4 Scheming Symmetry
4 Songs of the Damned
4 Cabal Ritual
2 Lotus Petal
4 Shadow of the Grave
1 Reaping the Graves
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Fluctuator
3 Swamp
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Polluted Delta
still not 100% sure about the lands. any help here would be appreciated!
Looks pretty satisfying, especially for a budget deck. If I proxy it up this week to test, I'll give you some feedback. My initial reaction is that Flameblade Adept could be a serviceable win condition, either in the main or in the side, in the absence of a Fluctuator. The deck is obviously going to be humming with a Fluctuator in play, but I immediately think about what happens if it gets countered or discarded on Turn 1. My suspicion is that a couple copies of Songs of the Damned can be trimmed. Board plans could involve Gurmag Angler, Rotting Regisaur, and/or Bitterblossom.Quote:
Originally Posted by mistercakes
Swamps can also be a combination of plateaus and badlands to make things castable. The menace guy is also a decent option. I'm not as crazy about the black cycling guy as he does require B.
I'd like angler more if there wasn't so many deathtouch guys.
Ritual, symmetry, street wraith is a really nice play for this deck.
Yes, Street Wraith is nice combo there.Quote:
Originally Posted by mistercakes
I have to say, from initial testing, Chalice at 1 is quite a beating. There are so few lands in the deck that casting Fluctuator is not a given if you can't cast Dark Ritual or Scheming Symmetry. I think Horror of the Broken Lands is a dead draw too often and needs to be something that's free with Fluctuator. Reaping the Graves is such a cool card, but it needs to cost less mana.
Edit: Mana is a significant bottleneck, so I do think the deck wants a full playset of Songs of the Damned. It's much better than Cabal Ritual in this deck. I think the density of cycling cards needs to be higher as well to maximize the chance of finding Shadow of the Grave. The lands might need to be cycling lands. Running a greater number of lands would allow you to run Mox Diamond, which would also enable Turn 1 Flourishing Fox, which could represent a Turn 2 or Turn 3 kill with a Fluctuator, even if they have Leyline of the Void postboard.
I started looking through other cycling cards, and Hollow One is an auto-include, IMO. It's free to cycle with Fluctuator and gives you another angle of attack.
i agree with Hollow One. the deck was still just being optimized for goldfishing. it's a great card and free to cast most of the time, even without a fluctuator. it's totally reasonable to go t1 dark ritual, 3 cycling effects and cast it. (even better if you draw a 2nd or 3rd). i had the singleton reaping only b/c it is effectively a way to refill the hand on a turn where you haven't actually discarded anything on that turn.
to play around chalice, mox is a decent option. it also allows for turn 1 mox -> land -> play land, cycle 2 cards and cast hollow one.
if playing that much mana, then it might make sense to cut dark ritual entirely and just rely on cabal ritual + songs of the damned. it's always tricky to say without actual testing. i tend to prefer a deck like to be okay with losing game 1 to chalice effects. it's always going to remain a tier 2 deck.
I'm really digging the new versions of the deck. Instead of Hollow One I am wondering about Twisted Abomination. Seems like a good way to pull the lands out of the library. I'm not sure if that would allow the removal of a couple fetches?
Playing more than one Scheming Symmetry is pretty hilarious when your opponent can't draw that top card. Good call on fitting in that card.
This is a fun (inexpensive) deck.
No Unearth? It's black, can bring back something like a cycled Drannith Stinger or Flourishing Fox as Plan B and it has cycling :2: to boot which plays excellently with Fluctuator.
It actually wasn't my idea. I saw it on someone else's list on a random discord. However it wasn't really streamlined and the deck was doing a lot of weird things. Great observation for that person with the tutor though.Quote:
Originally Posted by the Thin White Duke
https://i.ibb.co/cDFmPbX/2020-06-30-12-29-17.png
To update, this is what i want to play my next league with the deck. It's so fun to play with it that i want to improve and try its many routes =)
Plus, i feel that the deck has such a strong CA engine that it can really do something good with the new cards
Main points of discussion: Chrome Mox over some ritual, the sideboard (mainly)
And yes, Symmetry is awesome =)
really nice to see that the deck is evolving with some legit testing. chrome mox is a really good idea. i was thinking about it some more and it might make sense to actually run them over the lotus petals. this way you can maximize your number of imprint-able cards and also not have to reduce too many cycling effects.
Vile Manifestation might be better than Horror of Broken lands, in that, it's super cheap, has colourless cycling and hits hard too, i'm using it in my Modern cycling deck and quite like it, works well with unearth too.
i wouldn't play a playset, but it could be okay. the 2 mana cycling is pretty prohibitive.
Raven's Crime + Bone Miser works like an analog Skirge Familiar and creates a lot of storm, particularly with Shadow of the Grave. For me its been an excellent way to generate a lot of mana post-ad nauseam/necropotence/necrologia in EDH. Its also 4 mana cheaper than Miser/Familiar and you can Entomb either Bone Miser with Reanimation or Raven's Crime in order to start making mana and storm by discarding your own lands.Quote:
Originally Posted by ronco
Also a weird interaction is discarding Dryad Arbor hits multiple triggers on Bone Miser.
Will fix tags later. I would try this version out next. Was nice to see the deck still has legs.
4 Drannith Healer
4 Horror of the Broken Lands
4 Drannith Stinger
4 Imposing Vantasaur
4 Flourishing Fox
1 Scheming Symmetry
1 Thran Turbine
4 Street Wraith
1 Carpet of Flowers
4 Shadow of the Grave
4 Reaping the Graves
1 Tendrils of Agony
4 Lotus Petal
3 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Songs of the Damned
1 Fluctuator
2 Swamp
1 Bayou
1 Scrubland
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Polluted Delta
1 Marsh Flats
1 Bloodstained Mire
Sideboard
1 Veil of Summer
4 Thoughtseize
1 Bayou
2 Carpet of Flowers
4 Hollow One
1 Snuff Out
2 Opposition Agent