Sorry if this qualifies as a double Post. Mods, please feel free to concatenate.
I am still waiting and hoping to see lots more discussion here. For what it's worth, I threw together the following deck and took it to my local shop last night. It went undefeated in 8 games. This was not a tourney, they were all casual games, however the casual nature of the evening meant the play included all kinds of opposition, including a smattering of T1 stuff, and two 5-person group games. I gave the deck to another player for one of the group games and he won handily. He was not familiar with archetype, nor had he seen me play the deck previously. He looked through it before the game and I gave him a quick run down. He won without much difficulty. It took a while, but he was never in any serious trouble.
LAND:
4 Plateau
4 Forgotten Cave
4 Secluded Steppe
7 Plains
5 Mountain
CREATURES:
4 Eternal Dragon
SPELLS:
4 Burning Wish
4 Lightning Rift
4 Humility (Lots of critters in my meta)
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Slice and Dice
3 Decree of Justice
2 Disenchant
4 Abeyance
4 Renewed Faith
SIDEBOARD:
1 Pyroclasm
1 Wrath of God
1 Akroma's Vengeance
1 Ruination
1 Decree of Justice
1 Slice and Dice
1 Shaterstorm
1 Tempest of Light
3 Rule of law
4 Red Elemental Blast
The Burning Wish and wishboard were useful, but did not live up to the "Bomb Rack" I had supposed in my head. As much as I hate to admit it, this pretty much confirms the comments made above. But everything worked, even against multiple opponents, something that traditional blue permissions decks often have trouble with.
You can't kill my Zombies - they're already dead!
Shoes for Industry!
Reality is for people who can't deal with Middle Earth.
Too much is never enough - I'm addicted to MORE!!!
Gotta love 'em instants huh? I know theres a sorcery one from champions thats arcane you may want to use that.Originally Posted by syssc9
@ wastedlife
Yeah, I was in a big hurry. I have since fixed that mistake with Cleansing Meditation from Torment. I still haven't broken down and rebuilt sans Burning Wish. I even did some testing on Sunday agains gobos: I piloted the Goblin deck, and handed this one to my wife. She beat me 2 out of 3 with no more knowledge of how the deck works than a 2-3 min walkthrough. And I'm a fare Goblin player! Very impressive.
You can't kill my Zombies - they're already dead!
Shoes for Industry!
Reality is for people who can't deal with Middle Earth.
Too much is never enough - I'm addicted to MORE!!!
i like this deck a lot but i have a few questions about sideboarding to deal with control...here's my meta:
2 High Tide
1 Red/Blue Control
1 Two-land Belcher
5 Goblins
1 Mono-Black Control
1 Landstill
2 Lightning Rift
1 White/Black Control
1 Blue/White/Red Control
1 Elves
1 White Stax
2 White Weenie
and here's my deck:
2 plateau (i'd run more but there's lots of wastelands and ports in this meta)
9 plains
7 mountain
4 secluded steppe
4 forgotten cave
4 eternal dragon
3 lightning rift
2 pyroclasm
3 slice and dice
4 swords to plowshares
2 disenchant
2 rune of protection: red
3 abeyance
3 renewed faith
3 humility
3 decree of justice
2 akroma's vengeance
SB:
3 rule of law
2 pyroclasm
2 disenchant
3 gilded light
1 abeyance
4 ???
...and it's the "???" i'm stuck on. i don't think there's enough blue to warrant a lot of blue hate but i want some general anti-control cards since this deck has a harder time against non-aggro decks. suggestions?
I love Burning Wish. What else can make you say, "Damn, if only this was a Sorcery."
I like the 2x Boil I see in the successful builds, it's terrible against Gro, but I think it's pretty damn good against Solidarity. As for your other 2 slots, maybe Sacred Ground? Anyone running Flashfires or Stench of Evil?
How is Pyroclasm working for you in the main deck? I'm finding it's not very good against Gro and Zoo because of the 3 and 4 toughness creatures. Maybe Wrath or Starstorm would be better.
there's no gro in my meta - no one around here seems to know it exists. as for zoo, it's okay but not that impressive. i run it because it shines against goblins and ww, which make up the bulk of the aggro decks. if there were more gro and zoo i might opt for flamebreak or maybe starstorm, but i'd have to test them. as for the open two slots, sacred ground sounds good. this deck doesn't seem to like having its lands destroyed...actually, no deck does, but this one especially doesn't.
thanks!
EDIT: after further consideration (but not much testing, i'm afraid), i'm thinking i want to go with 3 sacred ground in the sb instead of 2, since i want to maximize my chances of drawing it early against the relevant matchups without clogging the maindeck with them. with that out of the way, i have one open sideboard slot. if i go for chants i might drop the extra abeyance from the sb and run two chants...
just out of curiosity, has anyone tested trinisphere in this deck? it won't really hurt you since you would prefer to cycle your cards anyway and most of the permanents you play cost more than three mana (with the exception of rift which costs two, so it's close enough). the only real disadvantage would be that it hoses stp but i usually drop a few of them from the maindeck anyway when sideboarding against control. the advantages to trinisphere are:
1) it hoses most combo (with the exception of flamevault and probably a few others i'm not thinking of)
2) it hoses free counters
3) it forces decks like gro and control to make a higher mana investment for their cards which slows them down
4) it draws hate spells like vindicate and disenchant away from cards you want to keep on the board like rift and humility
of course, i'm just saying all of this in a very theoretical way, since i haven't tested it. still, i think it may be worth trying...
Last edited by Aggro_zombies; 03-27-2006 at 06:55 PM.
I would definitely recommend 2 Sacred Ground. Maybe 2 Orim's Chant as another anti-control card.
spiritmage of teamtheVault
Please forgive my ignorance, but isn't Fluctuator used or is it banned? When the first Rift decks came out around PT Houston, the pros didn't really have the time to evolve the deck for the then extended format. One suggested deck for that era (courtesy of Ben B.)
Theoretical Astral Rift Deck, Extended
4 Astral Slide
4 Lighting Rift
4 Fluctuator
4 Enlightened Tutor
1 Slice and Dice
1 Avalanche Riders
1 Flametongue Kavu
1 Ghitu Slinger
1 Monk Idealist
1 Teroh's Faithful
1 Pardic Arsonist
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Radiant's Judgment
1 "Rune of Protection: Red
1 "Rune of Protection: Green
1 Rune of Protection: Black
4 Mountain
4 Plains
4 Battlefield Forge
4 Blasted Landscape
4 Drifting Meadow
4 Forgotten Cave
4 Secluded Steppe
4 Smoldering Crater
Sideboard:
1 Clear
1 Radiant's Judgment
1 Akroma's Vengeance
1 Orim's Thunder
1 Light of Day
1 Ancient Hydra
1 Defender en-Vec
1 Honorable Scout
1 Monk Realist
1 Keldon Vandals
1 Rune of Protection: Red
1 Auramancer
1 Teroh's Faithful
1 "Flametongue Kavu
1 Exalted Angel
Certainly, the above deck is rough by current standards, but the idea holds, as their are 25 cycling cards and significant versatility. My issue though is Fluctuator, would someone please tell me why it doesn't see play. (Note, if it is banned and I missed that I will put myself in a self imposed 6 month exile).
Can that Fluctuator decklist really be called Rifter? The only control element I see off-hand would be Astral Slide. There's no Vengeance, no STP, no Wrath, no Humility. This Fluctuator deck seems so very interesting, but I think it does itself a disservice by playing the CIP creatures, possibly even moreso by playing Rift.
If you didn't have to pay 1 mana for Rift, this deck would be unbelievably fast. But you're hamstrung because you have to pay to deal 2 damage. That means the earliest you could start Shocking your opponent would be turn 3.
Turn 1, Land
Turn 2, Land, Fluctuator
Turn 3, Land, Rift, Cycle for zero & pay for Rift
Turn 4, Land, Cycle 4 cards for zero & pay for Rift 4x
Turn 5, Land, Cycle 5 cards for zero & pay for Rift 5x
So, in a perfect world for the Fluctuator deck, you could kill them on turn 5. That's if you drop 5 Land in a row (Lands 2-5 have to come into play untapped).
If you want to make use of your CIP guys, the earliest you could start wreaking havoc (if you can even call it that) would be as early as Turn 5.
Turn 1, Land
Turn 2, Land, Fluctuator
Turn 3, Land, Rift, Cycle a card for zero & pay for Rift
Turn 4, Land, Avalanche Rider, blow up target land
Turn 5, Land, Astral Slide, Slide out Rider, Cycle 5 cards for zero & pay for Rift 5x, blow up target land
Turn 5.5, Slide out Rider during opponent's main phase, blow up target land at EoT
Turn 6, Land, Cycle ad nausem & kill your opponent
Wouldn't a better use for Fluctuator be to cycle creatures to fill up the 'yard, play Songs of the Damned and Drain your opponent dead?
i think there is actually a deck like this that uses the 2-mana cyclers from the urzas and onslaught blocks. the problem is that it's vastly inferior to most of the other combo decks out there right now and is sensitive to all kinds of hate - artifact hate for fluctuator, graveyard hate for the kill. hell, even megrim would be game over for this deck...it's just too slow and if you run out of cyclers part way through (say, you hit a pocket of lands or cards that don't cycle), you have to wait until you get cyclers again, and so on...so it kills much more slowly than other combo decks like flamevault, solidarity, or salvagers game...although i do agree that fluctuator could help rifter to a certain extent, there's just no place in the deck for it.
You'd have to pay the Echo on Avalanche Rider on turn 5 too.
I don't see what fluctuator really does to make the deck better than standard builds of Rifter.
Fluctuator sucks in this deck. The point of the deck isn't to "combo" like Fluctuator was made for. The combo deck that uses fluctuator on the other hand is pretty cool. The only problem is all the cycle lands come into play tapped :(
Team Solo
I remember reading in the mtgsalvation Rifter thread that one guy was splashing green for Life from the Loam in his Rifter deck (and of course, access to extra cycle lands). Has anyone else tried this? If so, how does it work? I can see it being a fairly powerful engine, but is it necessarily worth it?
Last edited by Aggro_zombies; 04-01-2006 at 03:27 PM.
Fluctuator was present in early builds. However, it doesn't cycle. It also doesn't really do anything to help the deck. As stated above, this deck is control... not combo. Having the ability to cycle your whole deck in one turn really isn't that important. That, and most of the cyclers require colored mana, making fluctuator a little more un-good.
The point I actually want to make nobody above me touched on. Creatures have no place in this deck. The deck is humility with 56 other cards. Humility is that powerful and stupid-broken-good. Adding astral slide and creatures will only make the deck suck.
Sexy
Agreed...not to mention, adding creatures and Slide makes this a Slide deck and not really a Rift deck. ;)
I've played around with the Life from the Loam a little bit and it seems okay but not stupidly good. In the right situations you can really destroy people by recurring your cycle lands every turn, or even multiple times a turn if you've got the mana, but I've found more often than not that I would rather be doing other things with my mana that recurring LftL. Usually I wait until I have control of the board in the mid- to late-game to start using the LftL engine, which I then direct towards milking as much damage out of my Rifts as possible. In the early game LftL is a dead card because it doesn't really give you control of the board and has the potential to mill away stuff you want to throw down, like Rifts and Humility. Additionally, throwing in the lands to make this work screws with the mana base and makes it more vulnerable to Wasteland and Friends, since you're running more nonbasics.
On the flip side, if you have a Rift down, it does let you use cycling lands to activate Rift with impunity against opposing creatures without having to worry about not having the gas to kill your opponent afterwards. It also really frustrates counterspell-wielding opponents since they can't really stop it...counter it once and it will be back, just like Ahnold. Not that it's much of a help...
The Rifter decks from Lille and Duel for Duals seemed geared to destroying Goblins, playing cards like Pyroclasm and RoP: Red. The problem with Pyroclasm is it doesn’t stop Pro Red guys and guys with 3+ toughness. Starstorm was recommended to me because you can dial it up, play it as an instant, or Cycle it. With Humility in play, Starstorm for one is just as good as Pyroclasm. I felt that RoP: Red was too narrow and Akroma’s Vengeance was too slow. Wrath of God seemed like a good fit for an efficient way to sweep the board.
The deck I played in Syracuse is a work in progress. I need to be more familiar with the deck, make fewer mistakes, and play with better cards. 3 of my 7 Rounds went to time. Because of this, I think you have to leave no less than 2 Lightning Rift in your deck post board. When Gro shuts down your Dragon and Decree of Justice with Pithing Needle, you’ve got to deal damage somehow while you’re looking for Disenchant. In the maindeck, I want to see if Spark Spray is better than Renewed Faith. Spark Spray cycles for one less, pings Lackey, Dark Confidant, Mother of Runes, and is usually better than StP with Humility in play. I rarely hardcast Renewed Faith and when I do, I wonder if Spark Spray wouldn’t have killed off something that put me in a situation where I had to gain 6 life. My sideboard vs. Gro was weak. I don’t think Pyroblast and Boil are great choices against Gro. Pyroblast doesn’t stop Naturalize targeting Humility and Boil doesn’t seem worth it when they’ve a couple Mongoose and/or Werebear in play. I think Blood Moon, Wing Shards, and Price of Progress are my best choices.
What are people's experiences playing this deck vs. WW or Angel Stompy? I played against it a short time ago and struggled to destroy the Pro:Red men. I went to time in the match, but it was much more difficult than I would have imagined. The opponent did have main deck removal for enchanments which couldn't help me one bit. It strikes me that with this deck we seem to be relying on red damage in a format where red damage isn't that good. If they can keep Humility off the table we seem to be in rough shape. Have others shared this experience? Should we up the count of humilties? And even Lightning Rifts in order to race Angel Stompy?
These are my observations from limited experience with the deck.
You don't want to go there. When you try to race aggro, no matter how good your clock is for control, you are going to lose. No matter how good Rift is, their clock is faster. If you truly want to improve that match-up, play some Wraths main. They can't remove Wrath the way the can remove Humility. They just hope for Parallax Wave, but you're playing Disenchants too. Anyhow, yes, Angel Stompy is much more difficult than Goblins, and possibly more difficult than Thres as they have many creatures that are completely and utterly beyond over half of your removal, they pack a good number of threats, Parallax Waves (it makes your Vengeances look REALLY stupid) and the ability to rapidly empower any of their creatures, as well as to get by humilities (equipment). They also tend to SB Armageddons, so the MU is harder in almost every way than either Thres-variant (except they can't counter your Humility...but they can Disenchant it).
I like the deck. I have been playing it non-stop for testing purposes. The deck is not as good as people say it is. I've lost to WU chant. It kicked my ass. Scepter + Chant FTW. Nothing I can do to stop that. Disenchants were countered. I did manage to Abeyance and Boil at least eon game though. This deck VS discard: discard wins. Discard ruins this deck. Why was this a "Deck to Beat" again? Because so far I have only seen this deck perform sub-par with other decks. I haven't faced LD yet but I assume it dies to that also. 1.5 is usally a creature controled format. Every deck I have played VS the deck strategy does not work. If fluxuator was in the deck then i could have easily cycle and rifted for the win. The deck is just annoying to me. The list should be looked at. LATERS.
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