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Thread: Demonstra-Tell

  1. #1
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    Demonstra-Tell

    There's a lot of idea churn below. I'll keep the initial post here intact, but as of 4/21/23 this is where the idea is at: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/6B9AOq36c0CrfRrLYuKgPg

    -----------------------------------------------

    Original Post:

    I've never even attempted to pilot this; I was just playing about looking at the other Demonstrate cards in Scryfall this morning and I accidentally brewed the beginnings of what I think is the first anti-synergistic tribal deck I've ever seen. (There are 9x Angels and the only card in the deck that cares about Angels technically disincentivizes you from playing angels).

    So the idea is this is like Show and Tell, only its worse at winning after it resolves a Show and Tell. However, it also gets to run 4x Incarnation Technique (which could grab two fatties instead of one and would take double FoW to stop entirely), and it reasonably gets to be a 4x Grief, 4x Chancellor of the Annex, 3x Solitude, 3x Trinisphere deck.

    https://www.moxfield.com/decks/ysfsPO80gkyc9b58coqYTw

    Blue Count for FoW: 19

    Black Count for Grief: 16

    White Count for Solitude: 16

    Baseline Chance of 5 Cards out of 57 hitting at least one out of 19 Creatures: 88% [Assuming no Interaction on either side Incarnation Technique lets you do it twice, and can also get creatures already in graveyard]


    Creatures(19)

    4x Atraxa, Grand Unifier

    4x Chancellor of the Annex

    4x Grief

    3x Solitude

    4x Tivit, Seller of Secrets

    Sorceries(12)

    1x Emeria's Call

    4x Incarnation Technique

    3x Personal Tutor

    4x Show and Tell

    Instants(4)

    4x Force of Will

    Artifacts(6)

    4x Chrome Mox

    2x Trinisphere

    Lands(19) [20 including mdfc]

    4x Ancient Spring

    4x Ancient Tomb

    3x City of Traitors

    3x Otawara, Soaring City

    4x Peat Bog

    1x Saprazzan Skerry

    Sideboard(Who Knows)

    ????

    I imagine this plays like something between a Combo and a Midrange deck. No idea at this point in time, really, I just thought this idea was fun enough to share.
    Last edited by Rationalist; 04-21-2023 at 05:11 PM.

  2. #2
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    Re: Demonstra-Tell

    Interesting idea.

    I think it will have a hard time simultaneously supporting Black pitch (Grief), White pitch (Solitude), Blue pitch (Force of Will) and Green pitch (SB Force of Vigor and Endurance??). The multi-color creatures help, but not enough. For example, if you have both Grief and FoW in opening hand, the two probabilities are dependent since they're cannibalizing many of the same multi-colored cards. If you pitch one to Grief, you greatly reduce the chance of being able to use FoW. I think the most you can consistently support are 2 colors of pitch. Shoot for consistency over variety.

    Trinisphere is also a nonbo with pitch cards and Demonstrate (unless you can pay an extra 3). I don't see the purpose. If you don't want opponent to cast their copy, don't Demonstrate. If you want to cast your extra copy without opponent getting theirs, Trinisphere doesn't accomplish that. If you want to protect against enemy counterspells, running both Force of Will and Trinisphere in the same deck is counterproductive (each weakens the other line of defense). Maybe Defense Grid or City of Solitude is what you meant?

    The #1 question is how does 5 cmc Incarnation Technique improve upon other Show & Tell backups: 4cmc Eureka or 4cmc Sneak Attack? Is that improvement enough to justify destabilizing the mana, vs getting to be a 2-color deck with Xerox and stable mana? If you're still vulnerable to graveyard hate and playing the same threats, how is that an improvement on Reanimator (BR or UB)? I'm not seeing it, but maybe I missed something.

    This space is tougher to design in because you're competing against established Tier 1 archetypes that are tightly tuned and proven to work.

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    Re: Demonstra-Tell

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    Interesting idea.

    I think it will have a hard time simultaneously supporting Black pitch (Grief), White pitch (Solitude), Blue pitch (Force of Will) and Green pitch (SB Force of Vigor and Endurance??).
    Yeah, I don't think the Green Sideboard plan works; I was just experimenting there. Just on the Blue/White/Black numbers I'm currently on 19/16/16, which seems to work alright in the Moxfield simulator so far. The white and the black are a little low but those cards can also be cast, chrome mox'd, or come up on Incarnation so naively seems alright.

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    I think the most you can consistently support are 2 colors of pitch. Shoot for consistency over variety.
    That's fair, and the interdependencies without card filtering are definitely the biggest flaw in the deck. The motivation isn't to "cast all the pitch elementals" though, the pitch elementals are there to get the most value out of in-hand resources.

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    Trinisphere is also a nonbo with pitch cards and Demonstrate (unless you can pay an extra 3).
    Trinisphere is not a nonbo with Demonstrate, it's just a nonbo with Creative Technique. Incarnation Technique does not cast additional spells, it just copies itself and brings creatures into play. It is a nonbo with the Pitch cards, but the idea would be that you would use them first. They're just there to get relevant action out of the hand as well as pump the numbers on the Incarnation Technique, and later on you can just pay the 3 for them if necessary as we're really only using mana on the cheat spells, or hardcasting fatties after Tivit goes nuts with the Treasures.

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    If you want to protect against enemy counterspells, running both Force of Will and Trinisphere in the same deck is counterproductive (each weakens the other line of defense). Maybe Defense Grid or City of Solitude is what you meant?
    If Trinisphere resolves, I'm not expecting to need the FoW very much. It's also worth pointing out that Trinisphere turns an onboard Chancellor of the Annex very punishing because Chancellor doesn't increase the cost, it demands a tax after the spell is successfully put onto the stack.

    Also, the deck doesn't auto-win when it resolves a key spell. The deck wants to use Trinisphere in a stompy fashion.

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    The #1 question is how does 5 cmc Incarnation Technique improve upon other Show & Tell backups: 4cmc Eureka or 4cmc Sneak Attack?
    1) It does not require relevant fatties in hand. It actively digs for them.

    2) It generally generates two "fat" threats instead of one.

    3) It requires double countermagic to stop entirely.

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    Is that improvement enough to justify destabilizing the mana, vs getting to be a 2-color deck with Xerox and stable mana?
    Possibly not but I don't think this is the point to test the brew against that bar.

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    If you're still vulnerable to graveyard hate and playing the same threats, how is that an improvement on Reanimator (BR or UB)? I'm not seeing it, but maybe I missed something.
    The idea is more interaction, more resilience to countermagic, and it should be a bit easier to play around grave hate. It's not trying to play as a pure combo deck, it's trying to jam cheat effects to play something like a slightly overpowering fat-filled midrange game.

    Again, it may well not end up being worth it, the idea is only a few hours old, but it is legitimately doing something different in the "cheat a fatty" space. It may turn out to be bad, but even then it wouldn't turn out to be a strictly worse version of an existing show and tell deck, just a worse one.

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    Re: Demonstra-Tell

    Quote Originally Posted by Rationalist View Post
    Trinisphere is not a nonbo with Demonstrate, it's just a nonbo with Creative Technique. Incarnation Technique does not cast additional spells, it just copies itself and brings creatures into play.
    Interesting. I misread it as "cast the copy", which it does not do. In that case it does work. However due to the other anti-synergies Defense Grid still seems good.

    Quote Originally Posted by Rationalist View Post
    or hardcasting fatties after Tivit goes nuts with the Treasures.
    Win-more? You could instead run another creature that threatens to end the game quickly. Are you on Tivit just to force the multicolor pitch spell thing?

    Quote Originally Posted by Rationalist View Post
    If Trinisphere resolves, I'm not expecting to need the FoW very much.
    Even if you don't need that FoW yet, you've gone -2 or -1 hand size by converting a useful card into an irrelevant/unusable card.

    Quote Originally Posted by Rationalist View Post
    The motivation isn't to "cast all the pitch elementals" though, the pitch elementals are there to get the most value out of in-hand resources.
    So my criticism about that is that it essentially doesn't maximize in-hand resources, but may minimize them. Multiple effects are conditional 2-for-1s, with reasonable probabilities of being dead cards or nullifying other cards in hand. Dead because you lack the right card to pitch, or their conditional mode is not relevant yet (can't convert to a card), or you don't have the right colors and amounts of mana to hardcast.

    The status quo Show and Tell decks are built in a 1-for-1 design (Xerox), where each card either trades 1-for-1, converts to another card in your deck, or is a core combo piece. That design maximizes in-hand resources. Conditional 2-for-1 maybe-dead cards without filtering don't maximize in-hand resources. More often it's fewer game actions per total number of cards drawn. Perhaps all the pitch elementals just detract from what the rest of the deck could do.

    I playtested hands with your build:
    1) Unplayable. Does nothing.
    2) Turn 2 Show and Tell -> Atraxa with Chancellor protection
    3) Mismatch of mana/resources and business. Does nothing for several turns. Then Show and Tell-> Atraxa with FoW backup.
    4) Turn 2 Trinisphere. Draws no business till turn 6. Then Technique -> Chancellor (Demonstrate gets Tivit).
    5) Turn 2 Trinisphere. But then nothing to cheat out with Show and Tell. Draw bricks for a few turns. Then Technique -> Atraxa (Demonstrate gets Griselbrand), but cannot protect with FoW or Grief in hand without more delays, due to awkward mana & 3sphere
    6) Turn 2 Show and Tell -> Atraxa with FoW + Chancellor protection.
    7) Stumbles on mana. Can't cast anything for a few turns except some pitch interaction. Then Show and Tell -> Atraxa with Force backup.
    8) Turn 2 Show and Tell -> Atraxa without protection. Both FoW & Grief awkwardly dead in hand, lacking card to pitch and not supporting each other.

    It does things. However it seems like a higher variance version of what Show and Tell can already do. The added protection seems present inconsistently. Often I could not convert many cards in hand to value (redundant lands, wrong lands, unused pitch cards, uncastables).


    Suppose you reduce it to UB

    //Spells: 21
    4 Force of Will
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Ponder
    4 Show and Tell
    3 Incarnation Technique
    2 Lim-Dul's Vault

    //Creatures: 19
    4 Baleful Strix
    4 Grief
    4 Atraxa, Grand Unifier
    4 Griselbrand
    3 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

    //Lands: 20
    4 Ancient Tomb
    4 Polluted Delta
    4 Prismatic Vista
    2 Underground Sea
    2 Island
    2 Swamp
    2 Otawara, Soaring City


    While it has lower probability of blind-flipping into a fatty, there is no rule that says you must do that. Brainstorm/Ponder/Lim-Dul let you set up the top cards into Incarnation Technique.

    I noticed that Emrakul works with Incarnation Technique, since the card finishes resolving before the reshuffle trigger goes on the stack. Progenitus does not work (replacement effect). You could play Tivit or some other fatty, but Emrakul seems strong in that slot.

  5. #5
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    Re: Demonstra-Tell

    Playing around with it some more, you're definitely right that you can't support Grief / Solitude / Force of Will / Chrome Mox. Initial build is inconsistent and it's too much pitching in one two many colors, and your rebuild is definitely better and more consistent than my first draft. I still don't like the direction you went however because it makes Show and Tell the Plan A in a Red Blast world, its slow in getting to Incarnation Technique as the plan B, I'm iffy on Baleful Strix over Solitude in a Seasoned Dungeoneer / Minsc and Boo world, etc, and I don't really see how it beats a Karakas.

    So here's you pulling me a bit back towards sanity, but in a different direction - maybe we can eventually find a place to meet in the middle. I actually think the one to drop might be Grief, and to stop caring about the Black count, so for color counts it's a base UW deck even if the key combo card is black.

    Also a note about Incarnation Technique and why I like it as a Plan A. I mentioned before that it produces Double Threats, digs for them so you don't need them in hand, and is harder to counter. It's also worth pointing out that it dodges a lot of the graveyard hate that many decks depend on. Surgical Extraction, Faerie Macabre, Bojuka Bog, Soulguide Lantern ... these cards are not actually very good against it. Add on top of this the fact that it's not Pyroblastable and the other benefits I mentioned earlier, I kind of want it to be the A plan as I like it better than Show and Tell.

    What about something like this: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/oTfXoiHUPkyrgw8m-G3tjA

    Planeswalkers(3)

    3x Teferi, Time Raveler

    Creatures(18)

    4x Atraxa, Grand Unifier

    2x Brazen Borrower // Petty Theft

    4x Chancellor of the Annex

    4x Solitude

    4x Tivit, Seller of Secrets

    Sorceries(9)

    4x Incarnation Technique

    1x Sea Gate Restoration

    3x Show and Tell

    1x Unburial Rites

    Instants(7)

    4x Force of Will

    3x Intuition

    Artifacts(4)

    4x Chrome Mox

    Lands(19) · 20 including mdfc

    4x Ancient Spring

    4x Ancient Tomb

    2x City of Traitors

    4x Peat Bog

    4x Skycloud Expanse

    1x Underground Sea

    It cuts out the black pitch card entirely and now is 24 Blue cards 19 White to support Solitude and Force of Will. Replaced Trinisphere with T3feri for the White and Blue counts as well as protection and interaction on the board. It's still not trying to go as far over the top as classic Show and Tell, still no Emrakul here for example, but it's on 10x Maindeck pieces of action (4x Incarnation, 3x Show and Tell, 3x Intuition), and 17 pieces of early interaction (4x Force, 4x Chancellor, 4x Solitude, 3x Teferi, 2x Brazen Borrower).

    Still a slower, big-mana deck, but it already has 5x Maindeck interaction for the only piece of graveyard hate that matters (Leyline of the Void) without even counting the sideboard or the ability for Intuition to grab T3feri, Intuition can function as part of the manabase if necessary to improve consistency yet a bit more, and it's just trying to jam combos not as a pure combo deck but to just be the bigger deck vs. non-combo opponents while still playing chancellor as a great piece of opening interaction with function mid and lategame.
    Last edited by Rationalist; 04-19-2023 at 05:56 PM.

  6. #6

    Re: Demonstra-Tell

    Do you really have to go in that hard on the 2 mana lands?
    That seems very vulnerable and could back fire if you don't succeed the first time.
    I think you could slow roll it a bit more.

    Brainstorm seem too good not to play, even without fetches just to set up Technique.
    Thoughtseize might also be worth it for the dual use of discarding yourself to ensure a Technique hit.

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    Re: Demonstra-Tell

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    Do you really have to go in that hard on the 2 mana lands?
    That seems very vulnerable and could back fire if you don't succeed the first time.
    I mean, the deck in its current form is clearly not good enough and stumbling over mana is a big part of that. However ...

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    I think you could slow roll it a bit more.
    I don't think a deck that would be playing with this many dead cards can realistically play a control game to hit its 5th land drop.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    Brainstorm seem too good not to play, even without fetches just to set up Technique.
    I think if you need to use Brainstorm to set up Incarnation Technique, Incarnation Technique is no longer an impressive combo.

    Here's the chain of logic as I see it.

    1. You want to play with Incarnation Technique and you want resolving it and milling cards randomly off the deck to be worthwhile with no further setup.

    2. Therefore, you want to play with a high density of cards that are good hits off Incarnation Technique.

    3. Therefore, you need to play with pitch cards that can use those resources and pay off with tempo at the expense of card advantage.

    4. Therefore, you want to play a Chrome Mox deck that jams overwhelming threats early to plow through opposing interaction. I don't think we're going to play the nimble game of advantageous resource exchange so we end up with more resources in hand to play a lategame Technique when our opening hand has, like, two Atraxas.

  8. #8

    Re: Demonstra-Tell

    With slow rolling I didn't mean playing control.
    I meant playing a more solid mana base, maybe more counters/discard and being maybe a half a turn slower on average but more consistent.

    I also don't think you need to play Brainstorm to set up Technique but it is helpful to put creatures stuck on your hand back in case you don't have Show&Tell.
    Otherwise you have to use them to pitch into something which is ok.
    However, it would be good to have a backup plan to put them back + dig for Technique/S&T.
    Setting up Technique is just an added bonus.

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    Re: Demonstra-Tell

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    With slow rolling I didn't mean playing control.
    I meant playing a more solid mana base, maybe more counters/discard and being maybe a half a turn slower on average but more consistent.

    I also don't think you need to play Brainstorm to set up Technique but it is helpful to put creatures stuck on your hand back in case you don't have Show&Tell.
    Otherwise you have to use them to pitch into something which is ok.
    However, it would be good to have a backup plan to put them back + dig for Technique/S&T.
    Setting up Technique is just an added bonus.
    Slowly being dragged towards sanity, dropping more horrible cards for better ones but only where being specifically pointed out. Hoping to eventually land closer to FTW's list, but while preserving the deck's desired playpattern.

    (In other words I see where this is going, but I'm justifying my kicking and screaming as a filtering mechanism)

    I think this would bring me somewhere akin to here: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/AwRseAGx_E2T9Ccqmq99eA

    Creatures(17)

    1x Angel of Despair

    4x Atraxa, Grand Unifier

    4x Chancellor of the Annex

    4x Solitude

    4x Tivit, Seller of Secrets

    Sorceries(7)

    4x Incarnation Technique

    3x Show and Tell

    Instants(11)

    4x Brainstorm

    4x Force of Will

    3x Intuition

    Artifacts(3)

    3x Chrome Mox

    Lands(22)

    4x Ancient Spring

    4x Ancient Tomb

    2x Island

    2x Peat Bog

    4x Polluted Delta

    4x Prismatic Vista

    2x Swamp

  10. #10

    Re: Demonstra-Tell

    You can play your deck however you want, man.
    "I want to play it this way" is a perfectly valid reason because in the end it's a game and you should have fun.

    In terms of 2mana lands, wouldn't it be better to run rituals and go for even more explosive than ramping?
    Is there a reason to only run 3 S&T?
    If you're committing more to black you could also run Wishclaw Talisman or Death Wish.

  11. #11
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    Re: Demonstra-Tell

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    You can play your deck however you want, man.
    "I want to play it this way" is a perfectly valid reason because in the end it's a game and you should have fun.
    I am aware of that. Maybe "kicking and screaming" wasn't the best way to communicate the idea.

    I am actively here because I want this deck to be better and to play around with developing this idea. I want people to tear it apart. As it stands, the deck is not good. It doesn't hurt my feelings to point that out.

    However, my goal isn't just to play a better deck, it's to iterate on this specific idea. If I just jumped to a better deck that incorporates this card, I would likely find that it would be even better not even playing the key card at all. If, instead, I make one concession at a time, that will prioritize the most relevant changes. The interdependencies of the deck will then be forced to evolve progressively in a way that is conscious of the desired play-lines. For example, if I reluctantly include Brainstorm because it is clearly a go to Legacy power-level thing that was so obvious it was the first thing you mentioned, I keep Ancient Spring in the deck because it actually doesn't hurt most of the desired sequencing with Brainstorm and still fulfills its intended role in enabling the combo. If, however, I just immediately switched over to FTW's version and dumped all the bad cards for good cards, I would have ditched Ancient Spring already because it's an objectively bad card. This gets me to a better deck more quickly, but at the same time without the support of Ancient Spring there in the end result, we'd probably just drift off of Incarnation Technique all together and end up on Stock Show and Tell. The "reluctance", to my mind, helps explore the space of the concept more effectively.

    I'm not being slow to change the decklist because I don't want the decklist to change. There's a reason why I've never even actually played it yet; as it stands, it doesn't seem like it would work. The reason I'm slow to change the decklist is because the intentional play-patterns of a combo deck are fragile.

    Changing a deck too quickly to established and proven shells is not ideal for brewing, because you skip over most of the unexplored space.

    Not changing a deck at all is not ideal for brewing, because you are eternally left with a worse version of the deck.

    "Slowing being dragged kicking and screaming" from the most insane iteration of an idea to the most practical one, in my mind, is the optimal middle ground for the level of exploratory brewing I'm looking to do here.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    In terms of 2mana lands, wouldn't it be better to run rituals and go for even more explosive than ramping?
    I don't think the manabase of the deck as it stands is consistent enough to replace lands with rituals, since lands work multiple times and aren't subject to countermagic. The same reason I'm running Chrome Mox over Lotus Petal here is the reason why I wouldn't want to start dropping lands for Dark Rituals, and I don't think the deck is consistent enough to drop action spells or creature count for dark rituals either.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    Is there a reason to only run 3 S&T?
    It's not actually great. There's a lot of times where the fatty you have in your hand isn't really an impressive Show and Tell target, assuming you didn't already pitch it to one of the pitch spells. 3x means that you can reasonably turn Intuition into a Show and Tell if its preferable, but the 4th Show and Tell would just be doing everything you can to have the card in hand, and the card's not so impressive that this deck I think would want that. The "and Tell" part of this deck is actually the less relevant part of it. Heck, if there was a slightly more powerful version of Heartless Summoning I might at least experiment with something like that. When Show and Tell doesn't just consistently win you the game it's much less desirable.

    Quote Originally Posted by Zoid View Post
    If you're committing more to black you could also run Wishclaw Talisman or Death Wish.
    Wishclaw Talisman is certainly a powerful card, but without any important 1x cards in the deck, if I'm already making 2C mana consistently, I don't know why I wouldn't just run Demonic Bargain if I just wanted Intuitions 5 and 6. Why give the opponent a tutor in a deck where I don't win the turn I combo?

  12. #12
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    Re: Demonstra-Tell

    Interesting discussion. I respect the direction you want. I'll respond to a few points.

    Quote Originally Posted by Rationalist View Post
    I still don't like the direction you went however because it makes Show and Tell the Plan A in a Red Blast world, its slow in getting to Incarnation Technique as the plan B
    Is 4 Show and Tell + 3 Technique really a radical shift in plan from 4 Show and Tell + 4 Technique (original deck)? It's fundamentally the same plan.

    In practice that deck statistically sees Technique more often than your original 4x Technique build (due to 4 Brainstorm 4 Ponder 2 Lim Dul vs 0 sculpting), so can you really call it making Technique plan B? The reason I cut down to 3 copies was because you don't need to flood on multiples of Technique (high CMC & Demonstrate fights counters), while redundant Show and Tell isn't as bad. Keep in mind it's still casting the 1st Technique as consistently or more (10-14 cantrips), just slower due to the lands. 4 Technique is fine too.

    4 Show and Tell seems important. When I tested your original list, the most explosive starts were Turn 2 Show and Tell + protection. It's one of the most powerful things you can do. SB Red Blasts are fought with SB Blue Blasts, discard, Flusterstorm, Teferi, Defense Grid, whatever. It's an easy enough workaround. Show and Tell shouldn't be disqualified by REB anymore than Technique should be disqualified by Leyline of the Void. Show and Tell - Atraxa is a very powerful thing to do in Legacy right now.

    Quote Originally Posted by Rationalist View Post
    I'm iffy on Baleful Strix over Solitude in a Seasoned Dungeoneer / Minsc and Boo world, etc
    I was iffy on that slot too. I just wanted a low CMC play that had to be:
    - a black card (for Grief count)
    - a creature (for Technique desperation backup target)
    - deals with enemy creatures (because the deck had no removal)
    - doesn't cost BB due to manabase (can't be Dauthi Voidwalker even though it has synergy with Incarnation Technique)

    Strix was the first thing I thought of. It's also an artifact for Atraxa (free card). Perhaps Shriekmaw would be better. Targeted kill for 2 mana. Kills early Murktide & friends. Decent creature to flip off Technique or hardcast in midgame. Unlike Solitude it puts the creature in graveyard though, making Demonstrate riskier.


    Quote Originally Posted by Rationalist View Post
    I don't really see how it beats a Karakas.
    That's what the 8 nonlegendary creatures are for. Not only are they potential 2nd targets for Technique, but they can be hardcast as fair threats when the combo fails. Shriekmaw or Brazen Borrower work well for that.

    Karakas doesn't stop Griselbrand/Atraxa from drawing a bunch of cards, so you're still ahead in resources. Isn't Karakas as much a problem for your 8+ legendaries? You can always board into answers like Pithing Needle.


    Quote Originally Posted by Rationalist View Post
    So here's you pulling me a bit back towards sanity, but in a different direction - maybe we can eventually find a place to meet in the middle. I actually think the one to drop might be Grief, and to stop caring about the Black count, so for color counts it's a base UW deck even if the key combo card is black.
    Interesting. I saw it as a base UB deck. The two combo pieces are blue (Show and Tell) and black (Incarnation Technique).

    UW is interesting - I like Chancellor and Solitude. But it's impossible to be straight UW. It's UB (2-color) or UWb (3rd color splash). Out of those options, UB has more stable mana for an Ancient Tomb deck.

    UB can cast Grief as a backup plan (2BB), while UWb will struggle more to cast Solitude as a backup plan (1 more mana and WW is harder in 3 colors + Tomb). Grief is an unconditional play that protects the combo, while Solitude is a conditional play that has no value if opponent doesn't have a good creature. So is Grief the right one to drop? Do you drop both and then not worry about color count?


    Quote Originally Posted by Rationalist View Post
    Also a note about Incarnation Technique and why I like it as a Plan A. I mentioned before that it produces Double Threats, digs for them so you don't need them in hand, and is harder to counter.
    It's harder to stop with Force of Will. But it's also more open to other "counters":
    Leyline of the Void/Dauthi Voidwalker/Rest in Peace (Technique is dead until removed)
    Grafdigger's Cage (also counters any number of Techniques until removed)
    Containment Priest (same)
    Flusterstorm (counters both copies & opponent gets theirs)
    Thalia, Guardian of Thraben/Sphere of Resistance (soft-counters Technique by making it cost infinity mana, especially coupled with Wasteland/Port)
    Blood Moon (turn off the unstable mana before you can make 4B)

    Costing 5 mana has drawbacks. So there is some tradeoff. I think you're overrating this card and underrating Show and Tell. Show and Tell is still a Tier 1 deck.

    Quote Originally Posted by Rationalist View Post
    It's not actually great. There's a lot of times where the fatty you have in your hand isn't really an impressive Show and Tell target, assuming you didn't already pitch it to one of the pitch spells.
    Some of that is solved through deck design, not relying on the best fatties as the main cards to pitch like the original build with 8x WUB creature. You can also choose to run fatties that are impressive targets. Why play creatures that aren't? A bad Show and Tell target is just as bad a Technique target. Cheating it out for more mana doesn't somehow make the creature better.

    Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is an amazing target to cheat with either Show and Tell or Technique. If you shift away from depending on your fatties to support pitch cards, there's room for Emrakul.

    Statistically, you're more likely to see a fatty in 8 cards (opening hand + 1 draw) over 5 cards (1 copy of Technique), so Show and Tell should have a target. Hand sculpting helps.


    Quote Originally Posted by Rationalist View Post
    I would have ditched Ancient Spring already because it's an objectively bad card.
    Especially in the first iteration, there were too many suicidal lands. Land sequencing got fairly awkward in order to cast things in the order you want. Many lands kill themselves (Peat Bog, City of Traitors, Ancient Spring) so you lack the mana to cast more things if the first wave is disrupted. Suicidal lands are not necessarily more stable acceleration than Rituals.

    I think you want at most 4 suicidal lands. Unclear whether Peat Bog or Ancient Spring is better, though I lean towards Peat Bog (or Remote Farm in UWb to cast Solitude?). Dark Ritual might beat both.
    Last edited by FTW; 04-21-2023 at 10:09 AM.

  13. #13
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    Re: Demonstra-Tell

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    Is 4 Show and Tell + 3 Technique really a radical shift in plan from 4 Show and Tell + 4 Technique (original deck)? It's fundamentally the same plan.
    I think you just want Technique in hand as much as you can.

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    4 Show and Tell seems important. When I tested your original list, the most explosive starts were Turn 2 Show and Tell + protection. It's one of the most powerful things you can do.
    I'll grant that it's powerful. I mean ... it's Show and Tell. But in order to fully support 4x Show and Tell I think you need another Fatty on the same "level" as Atraxa, which the white builds do not have.

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    Perhaps Shriekmaw would be better. Targeted kill for 2 mana. Kills early Murktide & friends. Decent creature to flip off Technique or hardcast in midgame. Unlike Solitude it puts the creature in graveyard though, making Demonstrate riskier.
    The demonstrate problem is relevant, but Shriekmaw still sounds like an extremely good idea because the whole reason it allows you to keep the maindeck removal while moving off of white entirely, which buys all the consistency things.

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    Especially in the first iteration, there were too many suicidal lands.
    No argument.

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    I think you want at most 4 suicidal lands. Unclear whether Peat Bog or Ancient Spring is better, though I lean towards Peat Bog (or Remote Farm in UWb to cast Solitude?). Dark Ritual might beat both.
    I'll buy that the numbers need to continue to come down (there's a reason these lands don't normally see play), and if the build is UB with BB2 spells Peat Bog is clearly superior, but I don't think I want to throw away all copies of Ancient Spring because it's a "suicidal land". You never *have* to blow it up. At worst it's an ETB Tapped Island in a deck that rarely wants to use mana on Turn 1. It's also a base U land that can sack to produce other relevant colors, and it's not often your optional Sol-Land color fixes for you, which a deck running more than one color and so many lands outside of the usual Fetch-Dual-Basic shell is thirsty for.

    So, taking in the Shriekmaw idea (and hoping that their DRC just doesn't matter once I have an Atraxa), and ceding the relevant arguments here, gets me to something like: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/6B9AOq36c0CrfRrLYuKgPg


    Creatures(18)

    4x Atraxa, Grand Unifier

    4x Grief

    3x Griselbrand

    2x Sheoldred, the Apocalypse

    3x Shriekmaw

    2x Tivit, Seller of Secrets

    Sorceries(10)

    4x Incarnation Technique

    2x Ponder

    4x Show and Tell

    Instants(8)

    4x Brainstorm

    4x Force of Will

    Artifacts(3)

    3x Chrome Mox

    Lands(21)

    2x Ancient Spring

    4x Ancient Tomb

    4x Flooded Strand

    1x Island

    4x Peat Bog

    4x Polluted Delta

    1x Tundra

    1x Underground Sea

    • On the axis of "suicidal lands", this isn't really much worse than the 4x City of Traitors decks, and if you consider Peat Bog slightly more stable for sequencing reasons than City of Traitors, I think it's about on-par with the 2x Ancient Spring in there as well which, as mentioned, never *need* to blow themselves up until you're reasonably sure that doing so lets you win the game.
    • Including 3x Griselbrand makes the 4x Show and Tell plan more reasonable in my mind, which only UB base can really support as a pitch-spell deck.
    • 4x Peat Bog supports not only the big-mana spells, but specifically the 2BB cards, namely Grief as well as 2x Sheoldred as a hardcastable threat for when you're just playing a midrange game. Notably, Sheoldred feels extremely nice in a deck with both Brainstorm and Griselbrand as well. (Sheoldred + Griselbrand = Draw as much of your deck as you want while your lifetotal inflates immensely).
    • I still feel like the deck cannot support Dark Ritual for the acceleration, as that's just one further piece of card disadvantage in a Chrome Mox + Grief + FoW deck that will just burn up against the first piece of opposing countermagic.

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    Re: Demonstra-Tell

    ... at least one fetchable too-short it feels like.

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    Re: Demonstra-Tell

    Quote Originally Posted by Rationalist View Post
    I'll grant that it's powerful. I mean ... it's Show and Tell. But in order to fully support 4x Show and Tell I think you need another Fatty on the same "level" as Atraxa, which the white builds do not have.
    Agreed. But the UWb build could find room for Griselbrand or Emrakul.

    For example:

    //Spells: 20
    4 Force of Will
    4 Brainstorm
    4 Ponder
    4 Show and Tell
    4 Incarnation Technique

    //Creatures: 18
    4 Chancellor of the Annex
    4 Solitude
    4 Atraxa, Grand Unifier
    4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
    2 Storvald, Frost Giant Jarl

    //Planeswalker: 2
    2 Teferi, Time Raveler

    //Lands: 20


    16 maindeck white. If you're worried about white count you could go -1 Emrakul +1 white creature. Show and Tell will still have enough bangers.

    You seem really committed to Tivit, which was necessary in the UWB triple-pitch build. But imho it's part of the problem of having underwhelming creatures cheated out. For both Show and Tell & Incarnation Technique.

    Here are some other UW ones to consider:
    Chromium, the Mutable - Big and hard to kill
    Elenda and Azor - Big, hard to kill. Sometimes castable. Sometimes draws cards. Triggered ability is silly with Brainstorm or Griselbrand, if you can spare the life.
    Empyrial Archangel - Shroud, big, and keeps you from dying. Allows you to greedily Griselbrand draw without getting punished by double Bolt.
    Progenitus - Good with Show and Tell and pitch costs, but bad with Incarnation Technique
    Sphinx of the Steel Wind - All the keywords, but maybe the wrong ones. Awkwardly dies to StP and Murktide.
    The Ur-Dragon - Show and Tell on a stick


    Quote Originally Posted by Rationalist View Post
    You never *have* to blow it up. At worst it's an ETB Tapped Island
    ETB tapped Island is generally Legacy unplayable. If you don't blow it up, it's just a bad land. It needs to offer something very strong to compensate for the ETB tapped.

    Mystic Sanctuary barely made the cut, by tutoring Terminus or Expressive Iteration (banned) to top of library, being fetchable, and looping with Daze. Even then it was not viable in all decks, unless you were doing something broken with it, and they never wanted to have to play it from hand tapped. That's a high bar to match.

    Ancient Spring is basically -1 mana the turn you play it (tapped) for +1 mana when sacrificed. Charging mana and using it explosively, at the cost of a card. Is it worth it? For the Creative Technique deck, yes, because you just want to cast Technique as fast as possible and then the deck auto-pilots itself into a win. Also that deck has 0 plays below 5 mana, so you don't get punished for tapped lands. Incarnation Technique doesn't guarantee a win as easily, this deck does have earlier plays, and if you're on Show and Tell then you didn't really need that mana boost. So is it worth it here? Needs testing.

    Quote Originally Posted by Rationalist View Post
    that rarely wants to use mana on Turn 1.
    Brainstorm, Ponder, and SB cards drive up the demand for Turn 1 mana. Also keep in mind you won't always get the luxury to play it turn 1. Sometimes you draw it later, or have 2 ETB tapped lands.


    Quote Originally Posted by Rationalist View Post
    So, taking in the Shriekmaw idea (and hoping that their DRC just doesn't matter once I have an Atraxa), and ceding the relevant arguments here, gets me to something like: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/6B9AOq36c0CrfRrLYuKgPg
    I like this direction for UB. Maybe Shriekmaw balances out the weaknesses. Sheoldred is a good backup too. Peat Bog helps power out the 2BB creatures, which gives it more value in the deck outside accelerating the combo.

    Ancient Spring on top of Peat Bog seems like a lot of tapped and suicidal lands.

    Chrome Mox also adds even more card disadvantage. Would that be better as just Dark Ritual or Ponder? Dark Ritual now has back-up modes of helping cast the 2BB creatures on turn 2 or even casting Griselbrand.
    Last edited by FTW; 04-22-2023 at 06:49 PM.

  16. #16

    Re: Demonstra-Tell

    If your plan is really to get out a Technique out asap, I don't get how 2mana etb tapped lands are better than rituals.
    Especially G1, nobody will counter the ritual unless it's a Daze which is still an ok trade.
    Once you Ritual into Technique it's too late unless you whiff it or only get a bad creature out of it.
    Against certain decks you might send them to the SB G2&3 but having the explosiveness of T1 Technique is not to be underestimated.
    Rituals are not so great with S&T unless you have a fitting Chrome Mox.
    I'm not sure if in the long run Petal isn't better due to you not having to worry about the color if you only plan to cast 1 spell of it anyway.

    The problem with relying too much on Technique is that either you have a high chance to fail at least the first one or you have to fill your deck with dudes being otherwise useless.
    Just for that reason alone, I wouldn't leave the house without Brainstorm.
    Careful Study might actually be better than Ponder to dump stuff into your GY.
    I would also run Emrakul just because it's probably the best thing to get out.
    Sure, It might make the 2nd Technique fail but then you still have a 15/15 spaghetti monster.

    You could also take it in the UBR direction and run Rite of Flame and Manamorphose.
    However, I still think that running no discard that you can dual use on yourself is a mistake.

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    Re: Demonstra-Tell

    Ritual's bad with Show and Tell but good with Grief and Sheoldred in the UB deck. The possibility of turn 1 Technique is great too.

    Brainstorm is great at smoothing for both Show and Tell (put creature in hand) and Technique (put creature on top).

    Lim-Dul's Vault was an extreme version of that. You can EOT pay some number of life to basically tutor your library to be Technique into Atraxa/Emrakul, then untap and go off.

    I think you don't need Careful Study or other self-discard. The reason to play this over Reanimator is that you don't expose the threat to Surgical & friends. Technique is just "put creature from top 5 from library into play", like Summoning Trap. The only GY hate it's exposed to are replacement effects like Leyline or static abilities like Grafdigger's Cage. If you start self-discarding, you turn on more hate, begging the question why not be UB Reanimator instead?

  18. #18

    Re: Demonstra-Tell

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    I think you don't need Careful Study or other self-discard. The reason to play this over Reanimator is that you don't expose the threat to Surgical & friends. Technique is just "put creature from top 5 from library into play", like Summoning Trap. The only GY hate it's exposed to are replacement effects like Leyline or static abilities like Grafdigger's Cage. If you start self-discarding, you turn on more hate, begging the question why not be UB Reanimator instead?
    I don't think it has to be the main plan but I think it's good to have the option.
    Again, this might be mainly a G1 plan where your opponent will most likely have any hate anyway.
    Regular discard would still be good to protect S&T or slow the opponent down.
    I just feel like failing the first Technique is still likely without setup and once you fail that you expose yourself to Force again.
    If your opponent has boarded in targeted hate and you don't st up via the GY you get another advantage by them having dead cards.

    The interesting thing about Technique is that you can use it regularly in the S&T "mirror" while S&T is setting yourself up for fail.
    Again, here discarding the opponents fatty would come in handy.
    You definitely don't want to demonstrate so they can Brainstorm setup their own dude.

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    Re: Demonstra-Tell

    Good point. Careful Study modifies your hand by 2 cards, while Ponder only does by 1, so purely in terms of sculpting combo it can be useful if you can also use the card in graveyard. Especially if you're on Griselbrand instead of Emrakul. Both Griselbrand and Careful Study work well with Sheoldred.

    If you play Dark Ritual instead of Ancient Spring in UB, it opens up other possibilities like Opposition Agent (which also helps ramp) either main or SB. Between Oppo Agent, Grief and Sheoldred, you can play a midrange-combo strategy.

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