Oops usually runs *more*, including the 4 pact, and its other protection spells are generally *better*, Thoughtseize and Veil etc being better protection than Chancellor as they actually do something on the draw.Originally Posted by rufus
Belcher otoh, has the benefit of *not immediately losing* if the opponent does, y'know, *anything*
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
It's worth noting that we're largely in a Grief meta and none of this list's protection spells actually deal with Grief.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Oops loses to more hate so it's pressured to interact more. Necro ignores Leyline of the Void, Surgical, Endurance, Soul-Guide Lantern, Grafdigger's Cage, Pithing Needle, Doorkeeper Thrull, Dress Down, Stifle. Necro more easily plays around Daze and can sometimes win around Mindbreak Trap, Chalice, Vexing Bauble, Null Rod.
Most disruption gets Necro before you pay the 19 life, so you're still at full life and don't lose to *anything*.
Chancellor on the draw is still good against proactive disruption: Thoughtseize, spheres, Moons. It's just bad against land + free interaction (Force, Grief). Some builds have Leyline of Sanctity for Grief.
1 weekend of "TurboNecro" is already larger meta share than 2 weeks of Oops & Belcher & Ruby Storm combined:
https://www.mtgtop8.com/format?f=LE&meta=34&a=
Boseiju, Force of Vigor, Orcish Bowmaster, Opposition Agent, Leyline of Sanctity, Veil, the white Flare. Orin’s Chant and Silence. Way more vulnerable to Thalia and weaker against Sphere. Also any burn spell.
Seeing a bit more play now while it’s being hyped doesn’t change the fundamental shape of the deck which has all the same strengths and weaknesses as decks that we already know aren’t strong contenders. A slight lateral change in which hate cards wreck you isn’t enough to be a meaningful upgrade.
Someone mentioned Hulk Flash before but the comparison is laughable, Hulk Flash was good because the combo was very compact and left lots of slots for filtering and disruption/protection, you could run your own Forces, Dazes, and Duresses, and slots left over for Brainstorms and other cantrips and maybe even a couple bounce spells. The deck didn’t even need to try to win on turn 1 and often didn’t.
Necrodominance is a dumb card but I suspect it’s going to wind up being more like Skullclamp than Flash, and indeed more like Necropotence; best in an aggro or combo-control shell that can win without it but can use it to run away with games and out-resource opponents when it does hit the board.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
SB Nature's Claim, just need to find 1 before casting Tendrils.
These are problems, like discard. But you haven't paid life so you can try to regroup.
If cast after draw 19, Pact of Negation or Valakut into Pact. Remember draw 19-40 gets you more Pacts than Oops or Belcher, so you're protected once you've paid life & drawn cards. You're mainly vulnerable before the draw.
If cast before the draw trigger resolves, it's hard to stop. So just don't pay life. Wait a turn. Necrodominance timing rules help a lot.
Same. If they try to ambush your Beseech, counter with Pact. If they play Agent proactively before draw 19, play around it. Find Tendrils with Valakuts instead of Beseech.
The Hulk-Flash comparison was most of the game happens before the first turn: mulligans, "before the game starts" effects, free disruption. It forces all decks to have answers on Turn 0/Turn 1, otherwise they autolose. If you plan to beat it, it's quite beatable. But that changes the shape of the format. Legacy was doing T1 fetch into tapped Surveil dual and Leyline of the Guildpact Triome cheese, but that's actively bad when opponent could be on Necro. Instead every deck needs Turn 0 & Turn 1 answers, untapped lands, and die luck.
Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and White Plume Adventurer got banned for how unfair they are when you win the die roll. Surely T1 Necro is worse.
You make a good point that the T1 All-in build is fragile. TonyScapone loves jamming turn 1 combo brews but that may not be the best build. A slower turn 2 build might be a lot more resilient to a hostile meta. There's untouched design space. Enlightened Tutor makes Necro very consistent. Slowing down a turn lets you play 1-mana discards. White also has Orim's Chant, Angel's Grace, or maybe even Children of Korlis.
Otherwise, we were already discussing controlling Necro builds above. Mono B or UB look viable.
You don’t need to just draw a Nature’s Claim, you need to draw Nature’s Claim and mana to cast it and mana to cast all your other junk and Borne Upon a Wind and Tendrils etc etc, all in one turn. 19 cards is a lot but it’s not infinite. You’re not going to draw infinite Pacts. You might not even draw one. You might now draw a Manamorphose. You might not draw a Borne. You might not draw a way to Tendrils.
I’m sure this deck will feel powerful to play because when it works it wins on turn 1, which always feels nice, but tournaments aren’t decided by who wins on the earliest turns in the face of goldfish, they’re decided by who wins the most games overall in the face of opposition.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
You missed the point. Disruption that can be answered after draw 19 is much easier to fight. Opponent doesn't have infinite disruption either. But 19-40 cards is many times more resources than Oops or Belcher has in hand (or opponent has). It's easier to fight because you drew a TON of cards.
Oops has to answer Leyline of the Void before going off. Necro can Valakut through the whole deck before needing just an extra ESG & Claim to beat Leyline of Sanctity. It's not even comparable. 7 cards vs 40-50.
Storm rarely loses after resolving Peer for the same reason. There's some small probability you draw junk or opponent has too many answers, but on average you have a stupid amount of resources.
The deck's mainly vulnerable before the draw trigger. But then you're also not at 1 life. For Veil/Silence: pass the turn and Necro-draw next turn. If Necro's killed/discarded: look for another Necro or backup fair threat (Grief?). That's the weakest part of the current plan, not what you're going on about. Changing the deck configuration may help with that.
It's more than 19 cards though. The initial hand + 19, and then an extra 15~ from the first Valakut. Leyline of Sanctity in multiples seems rough, but I doubt a single copy is going to reliably stop them from going off if they board in removal/bounce.
You likely mulled to oblivion to find turn 1 Necro and now you’ve used up three of your eight spirit guides on Valakut so gj I guess
The impressive thing about this list is just how much it squanders resources on the assumption that 19 cards is infinite
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
I wasn't putting my 2 cents into anything else about the list, simply that I don't think a single Lelyine of Sanctity is going to do much.
The gameplan is almost always to cast Valakat post Necro unless you don't draw into one, so I'm not sure what your other point was about.
The deck is an Oops All Spells kinds deck, all in on one card/effect, very linear, but very fast. Definitely gets wrecked if the opponent has the correct type and amount of disruption, same as Oops. But the fizzle rate post Necro is very low, and most likely has the resources to fight hate post Necro like Leyline of Sanctity, which makes that kind of hate not very good against this deck.
Necro has 8 copies, Oops has 8 Balustrade Spy. Costs 3-4. Why is Necro mulling more?
Oops has 3-7 card hand to interact. Necro has hand + 18-19 cards + 15ish from Valakut. How hard is it to see Necro can interact more if you let it draw?
The deck's posting many 5-0s and Top 8s. It's more consistent than you make it sound.
I mean I'm the one who initiated the comparison to Oops when other people were trying to compare it to Hulk-Flash. It's interesting that this is now being presented as a defense; "Well how is that worse than Oops?"
I mean, it's not. I'm not here to argue that this deck is worse than Oops. But being on the same power level as Oops isn't really busted and isn't really doing anything new except, again, having a slight lateral shift in which sideboard cards you lose to.
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
My argument was that it was an improvement on current turn 1 decks.
Above: It mulls no more than Oops, but can dig more to answer hate. It also ignores grave hate (4-5 of in every deck).
It's beatable. But those are big upsides. Draw 19 is no joke.
To keep the SCD discussion moving forwards, other possible ways to brew with Necro:
1) No maximum hand size. Library of Leng, Spellbook and Reliquary Tower cheaply give no max hand size. Library protects Necro from Thoughtseize/Grief scam and is tutorable with Saga. Unfortunately time stamp order matters. To keep extra cards, you'd need to play them after Necro but still main phase (can't Necro draw into them).
2) Kill Necro after the draw (Force of Vigor, etc). Any discarded & cast cards go to graveyard, which could be exploited. Or the time stamp on an earlier Library of Leng keeps your 19 card hand.
3) Leyline of Anticipation as a 0cmc uncounterable Borne.
4) Use Enlightened Tutor to boost consistency of finding Necro. 1-mana tutors are also efficient postboard for finding answers.
4 E Tutor
4 Necrodominance
3 Beseech the Mirror
Protect with Duress & Orim's Chant. Go off turn 2 instead. Better tutoring & better protection but slower.
Last edited by FTW; 06-21-2024 at 01:20 PM.
I've been experimenting with a few alternate shells so far. This one seems worth further development.
BR Born Dominance
//Lands: 10
4 Badlands
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Valakut Awakening
//Other Mana: 26
4 Lotus Petal
4 Simian Spirit Guide
2 Chrome Mox
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Manamorphose
//Engine: 8
4 Necrodominance
4 Borne Upon a Wind
//Tutors: 8
4 Gamble
4 Burning Wish
//Protection: 8
4 Duress
4 Pact of Negation
//Wishboard: 8
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Elemental Eruption
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Peer into the Abyss
1 Echo of Eons
1 Cave-In
1 Meltdown
1 Feed the Swarm
//Maybeboard:
Red Elemental Blast
Inquisition of Kozilek
Chancellor of the Annex
Leyline of Sanctity
Abrade
Slaughter Pact
I've always thought LED and Lotus Petal were the best blue rituals. If the goal is to cast Borne Upon the Wind, rather than dumping a bunch of spirit guides into Manamorphose (very inefficient way to get U), we could just main phase extra mana rocks. Sometimes you can main phase Borne before going to end step. Other times you can keep the mana sources on board before trying to draw into Borne. LED can be cracked for blue in response to the Necro draw trigger, making UUU for End Step.
Perks of this build:
- More U sources & Bornes
- Get to run more "good" storm cards
- Can win without Necro (Wish for Empty/Dragons/Peer). Useful if opponent has Necro hate or you have to rebuild and eat combat damage.
- More consistent protection between Duress & Wishboard tools & Gamble tutor
- Gamble is still the most efficient tutor in the format, if you're willing to suck up some variance
- Gamble is VERY GOOD after drawing 19. R: Demonic Tutor
- Wincons hidden in the SB so they can't be accidentally exiled, don't make opening hands worse, etc.
Drawbacks:
- Less instant speed initial mana (so you have to plan ahead with main phase, no Necro YOLOing with 0 mana & 0 cards)
- Fewer T1 YOLOs, more T2s
- Can't get as greedy with mulligans
- Necro plan blown out by Force of Vigor on Necro + blue mana rock, but the other build is still losing to Force on Necro
There might be potential here.
I also tried something BU with Brainstorm, Cunning Wish, Leyline of Anticipation, Force of Will, but it had a harder time generating mana post-Necro and was fizzling more. Blue mana is too hard to generate, so having too many tools in blue was a problem. This BR version had smoother mana and was playing more consistently.
Last edited by FTW; 06-21-2024 at 01:03 PM.
Having multiple viable turn 1 linear combo decks that have different weaknesses does present a problem when metagaming though. Running a versatile answer like Force of Will has always been the best way to handle the wide-open nature of the format, but it does become more difficult for non-blue decks when developing a sideboard plan.
Have you tested Galvanic Relay and/or Infernal Tutor? Relay seems good in a build that tries to protect with discard spells and then win on the Relay turn. It is also more immune to discard itself.
I believe you're correct in thinking its better to remove a lot of the totally-garbage-when-not-combing cards in place of more generically good cards / cards that improve consistency. Building as a more regular storm deck with Necro as an option seems like a good approach.
I built that list off a storm shell I've tested and played a lot (RBx, Gamble Burning Wish + fast mana + discard). I overlapped the shell with the Necro engine in a way the cards work together. It's slower but more resilient than the popular Turbo build.
I didn't test Galvanic Relay or Infernal Tutor in that deck. I have tested them in that shell though.
Necro's taking the spot Relay had, pushing it to the Wishboard. Maybe adding Relay would help. I think Necro+ Relay would clash. "Pass the turn" is much worse after paying a lot of life, reducing hand size, and skipping draw step. Spirit Guides are good with Necro but bad with Relay.
In general, I'm a big fan of Burning Wish over Infernal Tutor. Hide wincon in the SB. Access answers in game 1. Don't need an empty hand. Some storm players love Infernal Tutor though. I find Infernal Tutor is better when emptying your hand or searching for redundant copies (rituals, discard), but worse when you have a large hand (draw 19) or want cards you don't have (answers, Necro, Borne). IT without LED doesn't find T1 Necro or Borne, or find Burning Wish to grab Tendrils. Gamble can. So IT looks worse than average here. After draw 19, IT gets much worse but Gamble gets much better.
Relay might help. IT looks iffy.
Maybe + 1 Echo as a Gamble target. But Echo also clashes with Necro.
The idea for relay is just to operate as Necro 5-8. If you have a hand with a bunch of fast mana artifacts and Relay you can keep them and try to Relay into Necro. What you say about IT makes sense but I was thinking more about the times where you don't have Necro. Gamble is better after you draw 19 but the majority of the time the deck loses is when it can't draw/resolve Necro not fizzling on the draw 19.
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