Blightsteel Colossus is there to prevent you from selfmilling if you play the version with Balustrade Spy.Originally Posted by ahg113
Flamekin Zealot is no Finisher anymore, because Flayer of the Hatebound wins the game with less setup, and wins through cards like Moat / Blazing Archon, etc.
Kenjawn, Mutator of Cells
:16:- (See, now Erratic Explosion's a deck)
Legendary Creature - Horror
Haste, Hexproof, Double Strike, Trample
Kenjawn, Mutator of Cells is indestructible.
Permanents you control can't be sacrificed or copied.
Whenever Kenjawn, Mutator of Cells attacks, defending player gets liver cancer (This effect doesn't end at end of turn.)
13/13
I thought the deck was pretty cool, of course it'd be a nightmare playing against a slow opponent using the deck.
Not four horsemen - it was a "Booberry" variant, almost identical to the list I run, when I feel like playing blue combo (which is rare!)
He ran the Basalt Monolith, Memeric Orb enabler (c/o 12 blue filter in ponder, perordain, brainstorm), into a Dread Return via narcomoeba's > Angel of Glory's Rise > Laboratory Maniac & Azami, Lady of Scrolls > Tap two wizards = Win.
His version ran a white splash for Enlightened Tutor, so I was VERY surprised he wasn't running a silver bullet style side to hate me out, OR a Show and Tell deck-morpher sideboard to negate any hate I may have sided in. (I've tried both)
I didn't know this til after the match, but we had a laugh about it after. The meta I play has been very DRS dominated lately (thankfully I've dodged them lately) so he didn't consider graveyard strategy to be much of a threat. He did say his game against Elves was an auto-win once he landed Mesmeric orb though.
What was your reasoning for moving away from LEDs? And did you find more trouble with enchantments than the Kraken or Angel could solve? What are your sideboard strategies for the forest package? I take it the reduction of 1 Probe is to make it a 60 card deck. Any particular reason you didn't keep it at 61?
Situational. You need acceleration in hand to make them good. They're great with the right hand, but the chances of drawing that hand aren't great either.
Plenty.
e.g. Rest In peace and Leyline of the void landed early suck.
Spy limits what side you can run. Taking out the Dread Return stuff against hate isn't ideal, but I've been testing the deck without all of it and retaining lots of acceleration.
Running Manaless tomorrow at a big event.
Happy hunting, share the experience.
Hey, I want to give manaless dredge a try in some testing, can someone show me a good list to start with.
This is the standard "Hollywood" list. You really should try this before you try anything else.
The only difference as of lately, might be changing the removal for Chancellor of the Annex.
2 Flayer of the Hatebound
4 Golgari Grave-Troll
4 Golgari Thug
4 Ichorid
4 Narcomoeba
4 Nether Shadow
4 Phantasmagorian
3 Shambling Shell
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Street Wraith
3 Griselbrand
4 Dryad Arbor
4 Bridge from Below
3 Contagion
1 Sickening Shoal
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Dread Return
Sideboard:
4 Nature's Claim
4 Mindbreak Trap
4 Reverent Silence
1 Forest
2 Verdant Catacombs
thanks for the help!
Goldfishing with the Spy version, I've been able to combo out on turn 4/5/6. Is that about normal for this deck? On play style, when would you opt to draw a card rather than dredge, given that you have a dredger in your graveyard. Should get the rest of the cards in the deck this week, may play it this weekend. Some of the nuances I'm trying to figure out still. While gold fishing, I'm hesitant to attack because I don't want the bridges to blow up, if I have them. If they're not there, I swing just because.
There's a lot of blue in the Northeast (Philly). How does Manaless handle counterspells? I'm guessing sac dudes for Therapy prior to sacing for DR.
Also, what are the mulligan scenarios? Typically, if I have either a Phantasmagorian or a dredger in hand, especially with G.Probe or SW, I'll keep. A hand of 2-Icky, 2-BtB, DR, Therapy, and SW, that's a mulligan correct?
Here are some of my experiences to answer your questions and comments regarding the Spy version:
- I find the turn of critical damage to occur most often around turn 4; a simple average, however, might put it a tick earlier than that. It's certainly possible to combo on turn 2 with a cantrip or two, and it's also possible to start with Shambling Shell and hit air for several turns. So your average should lie on the low end of your experiences so far, in my opinion.
- Drawing instead of dredging happens seldom: perhaps if you're digging for a Shoal/Contagion against Deathrite, Ooze, or a reanimator creature; or if you're guarding against maindeck gravehate or a Cunning Wish for Ravenous Trap, something like that.
- Swinging with Bridges in play is certainly situation-dependant. You'll have to make a judgment call. If you're forced onto the aggro strategy, swinging into creatures is probably the right move since you're trying to deal 20 damage quick; your guys will come back again the next turn and you'll have a chance to refill your graveyard with more Bridges.
- Either version of the deck is pretty terrific against counterspells because you don't need to play them. Both versions are well-equipped to beat down with your returned creatures without ever needing to cast Dread Return. Of course, you'll find that you want to run your Therapies and Dread Returns into counterspells anyway to amass a critical attack the next turn with Bridge zombies.
- I don't know how other people handle mulligans with either version of the deck, but I don't think I've ever mulliganed in tournament play. In the few cases where I don't have a dredger, or even some with a lone Shell, I'll play Probe or cycle Wraith on the first turn to find a bigger dredger. With your cited hand, you might see one of your dredgers or Phants since you're going second anyway, or you might go: cycle Wraith, hit air, discard an Ichorid, attack next turn. If you found a Phantasmagorian, discard, then discard Ichorid-Therapy-Bridge, and if you find a dredger in your next draw, Therapy it out of your hand and gain a free zombie from Bridge. You'll have to play around and find the most comfortable play for you. Of course, if you don't find a dredger in a few draws, you lose. This happens.
There are a lot of nuances to playing with the deck like others have noted thus far. You'll require a lot of rounds of tournament play to see the fine points but once you do you'll discover a myriad of unseen interactions that'll make others jump.
^^
This.
Take the time to read through the entire thread. It's well worth the time, simply to pick up on possible tricks, sideboard strategy and other "good stuff" cards that may make the deck.
Many of the cards have interactions not overly obvious at first sight, like using the one Phantasmagorian twice whilst the first trigger is on the stack for example.
RE: Mulligan's, this is a hard one. I try not to, but if you get a hand without a dredger and an answer to hate postboard, you're gonna find it hard to win.
So in my meta there's a bunch of storm, and I've seen Sneak and Show players play Leyline of Sanctity in order to combat it. I'm thinking a Chancellor of the Forge is worthwhile in the SB in order to change the dynamic of the combo kill. Has anyone played around with this one yet? I read slave tried Craterhoof, but that only affects the creatures that are able to attack, it doesn't grant haste. Thinking I'd like to MD 1 Forge, 3 Annex.
Protip question. For the Spy Builds, putting in the land and green hate, what comes out? Obviously Spy and "shuffler", prolly the Dread Returns, that's 8 cards. What else do you find "extra"? Guessing Probes is another 4 slots to make 12.
My current SB is something like
4 Dryad Arbor
2 Forest
1 Verdant Catacombs
3 Nature's Claim
3 Reverent Silence
1 Angel of Despair
1 Kederket Leviathan
So I took my Spy-Manaless-variant along to a meet.
And I got thumped!!
Apart from my 3rd round bye, I went 1 win and 3 losses.
I won against Jund,
Lost against RiP/Helm, Show n Tell (with Omniscience) & Enchantress/Solitaire.
Show and Tell first up, comboed out with T2 Omniscience both games. I had no chance from there in!
Next I came up aginst Jund, which I quickly killed in 2.
I then had a bye.
The next two games were long and drawn out....
Rest in Peace/Helm was painful. What a crappy matchup! I had no chance against this guy, but for whatever reason he couldn't put me away. He was running Enlightened Tutor and hit one on T1 every time, but even with RiP in play, couldn't hit a Helm b4 I killed his RiP. He'd then play another RiP.....:cry:
Then it was Solitaire. I got a great draw in game 1 and comboed out on T3 for the win. From there, Enchantress took AGES as he hid behind Elephant Grass inboth postboard games and just durdled like he didn't know the deck. I couldn't find a Dread Return to save my life!
Whilst he was dropping perm's like a man possessed, I couldn't find a Claim or a Reverent either.... A very.... long.... prolonged.... boring.... death.
Anyways.
After rolling with Spy for over a month > Hollywood Manaless VS. Spy Manaless????
I've run a Spy-variant 4 times now at a meet from memory, against quite varied opponents.
(I've got much more than that in experience with the hollywood list)
So what do I think after playing with Spy so much?!
Both lists have the exact same weaknesses really, but to me the main difference is whether you see Dryad Arbor as being a must in the main.
Really.
I consider any combo deck to be all about achieving the combo, not the strength of the combo, after actually doing the combo.
So for me, achieving the Spy combo is slightly weaker as we have no dryad arbor, although post combo we have a substantially stronger win-con.
Being able to combo below 7 life in a major plus, so that MUST be considered also, as this enabled me to win quite a few games. ....maybe not this week, but previously it sure did!
Anyways... just my 0.02c.
I'm gonna give manaless a break, I've been rockin this deck so hard my opponents know what I'm playing b4 I even sit down.
Last edited by slave; 04-27-2013 at 12:09 AM.
So how does the standard griselbrand list look like right now? Is it correct to MB Annex or Dryad arbors (or both?)
Is it better to run 2 flayers? In this case do we run 2 Grisels or 3? And where do we stand on the number of dredgers? 16+?
PS: I was playtesting against elves and found green sun's zenith into scavenging ooze is pretty much a scoop without wraiths in hand. Do we MB removal given that there are a number of threats out there (ooze, DRS, goblins) or do we play it cool and just SB them?
As you can tell, I'm kind of confused atm
I had a pretty interesting game this week at the legacy tournament.
He decides to start the second game, bad decision but it happens often. I show a Chancellor of the Annex so he is forces to use his fetchland to play his two lotus petal (Me: 20, Him: 19). I discard a card during the end step. He plays Show and Tell, Flayer of the Hatebound and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn enter play. I cycle Street Wraith to dredge (18,19). I bring back Ichorid (18,16) and dredge. On his turn he attacks me. I sacrifice my board. Flayer of the Hatebound comes back (18,11). I lose 15 life (3,11). I bring back Ichorid (3,8) and dredge. I attack with both my creatures (3,0). I win against turn 2 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. In retrospective, he shouldn't have attacked but I guess he never even thought about not attacking.
My opponent made many mistakes even if he's good usually, but it shows the bad effects of auto-play. I was really impressed with how fast the damages accumulates once Flayer of the Hatebound hits the table.
@Txisvurger: Usually there is Contagion and Sickening Shoal maindeck. Standard Split is 3/1. It also helps against Deathrite Shaman.
I would. Annex is effective against any matchup should you get a grip with it.So how does the standard griselbrand list look like right now? Is it correct to MB Annex or Dryad arbors (or both?
The hollywood list above ^^^ on this page is pretty tidy.
Whether you go with 15 or 16 dredgers, Annex or removal or more acceleration in Probe's, or even Unmasks are all kinda open to how you wanna play.
Some peeps run Bloodghast & Dakmor Salvage for maindeck answers to gravehate.
The Hollywood list does have the advantage of having a more flexible sideboard with Dryad Arbor in the main.
My 0.02
What is this for?
Another show'n'tell tech. Whatever they put into play gets returned to their hand. It probably should be another Angel, but I saw it mentioned and figured it'd be worth a shot for the heck of it. Recently completed deck, haven't had chance to play it yet.
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