Which implies the 11 mana spent to get humility in play.Originally Posted by blitz
What's the alternative? With Chimes, you can freely dredge your deck, knowing that Ruins->Chimes->Humility&Exploration is a viable plan. With Nostalgic Dreams, if you dredge it, or it's countered, it's gone. If you can think up a cheaper way to solve the issue, that's as flexible as chimes, I'm all ears.
Well, you could play Recoup + Replenish if you really felt like it, but there's no insuring that you'd dredge those up in time or that you'd resolve replenish.
That said, chimes still seems really slow, and I think there has to be a better alternative. I don't know what that alternative is yet, but I'll try to come up with something.
HAving looked at every card that either
A) is an artifact with CMC 3 or less
B) contains the word Enchantment or Enchantments in its text box
I can, with reasonable confidence, say good luck.
If you Intuition at EOT for: Replenish, Recoup, Humility, then you will get Humility into play for six mana tops.
Now, I'm pretty unfamiliar with the deck, but I'm assuming the Threshold matchup does not exactly rely on Humility. Since the other decks you'd want Humility against don't run countermagic, I think Recoup/Replenish is superior to Crystal Chimes. Especially since Replenish also gives you back Explorations and Sylvan Libraries, and Recoup opens up the option of a few silver-bullet sorceries in the SB.
YOU'RE GIVING ME A TIME MACHINE IN ORDER TO TREAT MY SLEEP DISORDER.
Doesn't that mean you will have to splash in Red again? Or is 4 Mox Diamonds enough red sources?
Threshold isn't won by Humility at all, but it's certainly nice to have. But the entire concept of Crystal Chimes is moreso about Exploration than anything else, so I'm not sure why people are stressing Humility. It's also about the fact that it has synergies with cards already in the deck. Plus, it's only one slot compared to two in a deck with tight space, and only needs a single component to be dredged.Now, I'm pretty unfamiliar with the deck, but I'm assuming the Threshold matchup does not exactly rely on Humility. Since the other decks you'd want Humility against don't run countermagic, I think Recoup/Replenish is superior to Crystal Chimes. Especially since Replenish also gives you back Explorations and Sylvan Libraries, and Recoup opens up the option of a few silver-bullet sorceries in the SB.
Last edited by Di; 10-06-2007 at 01:05 AM.
Moved to Open.
-TOOL
There was a young lady named Valarie
Who started to count every calorie
Said her boss in disgust,
'If you lose half your bust
then you'll only be worth half your salary.'
Thanks tool! This deck was stuck in the development forum for a loooong time. Glad to see it considered relevant for once. ^_^
Di: I agree, chimes is very synergistic with the deck. If you are already running other recursion though, it basically does the same job as petrified field did for loam engine intuition piles. This is why I run the recursion suite you saw in the list I gave you: mana investment is high, but being able to recur anything can be vital to the resilience the decks lock/engine pieces have to have in order to be effective. The other route is just to pray for trini and the mana to cast it on turn 1 or 2, and hope you can follow up with crucible + wasteland or smokestack. I know a deck that does that pretty well, it's called mono white stax. I think the more we try to become stax, the more splash damage we'll take.
"It's like Time Walk and Stone Rain had sex (and Lava Dart watched)" - Pinder, on stifled fetchlands.
Glad to see this deck has moved up in the world.
I was just throwing around random ideas for mass recursion of non-artifacts when I mentioned replenish. I'm not necessarily advocating for it's inclusion.
That said, I think recoup provides some strong options for mass recursion, particular when comboed with Nostalgic Dreams. I'm going to be testing this combination, as well as ways to make the splash work, in upcoming weeks.
Why, exactly? Recoup makes sorceries better. If you ran Nostalgic Dreams, there would be 1 sorcery in the deck (Not counting Life from the Loam, of course). It's a complete waste of a slot.That said, I think recoup provides some strong options for mass recursion, particular when comboed with Nostalgic Dreams. I'm going to be testing this combination, as well as ways to make the splash work, in upcoming weeks.
I also fail to see the mass recusion when Nostalgic Dreams removes itself. Unless by mass recusion you mean discarding 5+ cards.
That's how you use it though. Loam for some land, cast dreams, drop your hand and win.
"It's like Time Walk and Stone Rain had sex (and Lava Dart watched)" - Pinder, on stifled fetchlands.
Yes, recoup would be there solely for making Nostalgic Dreams good and for encouraging strong intuition piles out of the board.
If you have a Recoup/Nostalgic Dreams pile in the maindeck, it'd be easier to use Intuition to set up a sorcery like Haunting Echoes or Reverent Silence, or even Breakthrough. With the amount of mana you generate, a recoup'ed Breakthrough would fill your hand with all kinds of good stuff.
I'm not saying that this is necessary for the deck, or even necessarily good. It's an option, and this deck is all about options. Recoup is a way to recur another kind of spell, and provides ways to draw cards, which is one thing this deck kinda lacks. Granted, Recoup with anything that costs more than 3 or 4 is probably overkill.
There's lots of good stuff you can potentially use recoup to abuse. Not to say that it's necessary, just that with the amount of mana this deck generates, it'd be easy to make it work.
Some stuff that might be worthwhile:
Conflagarate
Summer Bloom
Reminisce
Haunting Echoes
Breakthrough
Wrath of God
Reverent Silence
Nostalgic Dreams
Concentrate
Harmonize
Ideas Unbound
It'd be easy to splash if we played something like Gemstone Mine or City of Brass. They're not that much worse than duals if only one or so are run, even though duals are better, these allow for easier splashes into multiple colors, along with Mox Diamond.
Also, I think I'm going to test one City of Traitors in place of an Ancient Tomb.
Isn't this bordering the danger of cool things territory.
That's why I'm thinking it's worth testing, but probably not going to work. I like nostalgic dreams, but I think making the deck a Recoup/Academy Ruins/Crucible of Worlds engine is too much.
I'm going to test Recoup + Nostalgic Dreams. If by some chance it works out really well, I'll begin testing some other sorceries. I think that it'll be limited to nostalgic dreams though, if that.
Nostalgic Dreams gives the deck some much needed CA and non-land non-artifact recur spells. It's also better than a lot of other options, and I think that it may give you opportunities to lock up the game early by giving you a critical mass of Exploration, StP, Humility, etc.
alright, since watcher said he's moved on, I'll post his old list and then one of my current lists (he hasn't said if I could post his newer tech, so you'll have to ask him about it).
My version of mine and watchers old list (pre columbus):
5c Eternal Garden
// Lands
1 Tropical Island
1 Volcanic Island
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Wasteland
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Flooded Strand
1 Academy Ruins
1 Barbarian Ring
1 Bayou
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Nantuko Monastery
1 Plateau
1 Riftstone Portal
1 Savannah
2 Taiga
1 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai
3 City of Traitors
1 Underground Sea
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Petrified Field
// Creatures
3 Eternal Witness
// Spells
4 Mox Diamond
3 Crucible of Worlds
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Pithing Needle
4 Intuition
3 Crop Rotation
4 Exploration
1 Life from the Loam
4 Gamble
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Constant Mists
1 Zuran Orb
// Sideboard
SB: 3 Smokestack
SB: 2 Constant Mists
SB: 3 Chalice of the Void
SB: 1 Null Rod
SB: 4 Trinisphere
SB: 2 Krosan Grip
Yep.
Eternal witness + volrath stronghold
zuran orb instead of nomad stadium
gamble
barbarian ring
constant mists MD
pithing needle MD
city of traitors instead of ancient tomb
petrified field and gods eye
cycling land instead of horizon
... it was a good list though, before we got hit by hulk flash.
we were just developing it to the point where it would have stayed relevant due to the transformational sideboard that deals with combo. Alas, it died with columbus.
my updated version of that list:
Wicken Garden
// Lands
2 Savannah
1 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
1 Nantuko Monastery
1 Bayou
1 Nomad Stadium
1 Scrubland
1 Riftstone Portal
1 Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai
2 Tropical Island
1 Glacial Chasm
2 Windswept Heath
2 Flooded Strand
1 Academy Ruins
1 Wasteland
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Maze of Ith
1 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Volrath's Stronghold
// Creatures
1 Eternal Witness
// Spells
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Humility
4 Crop Rotation
3 Trinisphere
1 Smokestack
4 Mox Diamond
3 Crucible of Worlds
1 Nostalgic Dreams
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Life from the Loam
4 Exploration
4 Intuition
1 Constant Mists
// Sideboard
SB: 2 Smokestack
SB: 4 Chalice of the Void
SB: 3 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 3 Krosan Grip
SB: 2 Constant Mists
Gwu and a very small b splash that has a mininal affect on the manabase.
Cards...
eternal witness/nostalgic dreams/volrath stronghold:
witness + stronghold recurs everything in the deck. This means that once you have it, you can recur all the intuitions, explorations, STPs, etc, which can come in handy against deadguy styled decks which like to rape your hand and your land before you can put down a worthwhile engine. This way, you hold them off with maze and tab and such while either tutoring or dredging into stronghold and witness. Nostalgic dreams does 2 things: recurs ALL the relevant cards in your graveyard, and finishes intuition piles when you only have 1 or 2 of the card you want (eternal witness + nostalgic dreams + humility = you get humility for 3 + 2 or 3 + 4... 9/10 mana is actually cheaper than the 11 from chimes). On top of that, witness itself synergizes with smokestack to both eat a perm and recur something at the same time. Allows you to bump SS up a bit too. Life from the loam and horizon also fill your hand, enabling nostalgic dreams to really be an "I win now" card.
gods eye/city of traitors:
god's eye synergizes with smokestack and glacial chasm. With all 3 on the board along with an exploration, smokestack can be set at 2 without it hitting your land count nor getting in the way of repeat chasm. City of traitors is well... the count I have is 3 city, 1 tomb. I think that having a choice when it comes time to crop rotate is too important to have all just tomb or city. Granted 1 tomb is sustainable and is usually all you'll need in comparison to the amount of relevant colored mana and the cards you'll have in your hand at any one moment, but city has good synergy with crucible, and doesn't hurt us like tomb. I've never had a problem with it that wasn't the fault of sloppy play on my part.
sideboard is pretty obvious. The rest of the stax pieces are there, as well as GY hate and enchantment hate that both double as mirror breakers. Needle is sided in for cases like belcher, vial, disc, deed, etc. 2 extra mists come in during G2 against aggro so i can set up a reactive lock quicker.
Right now, i'm testing 2 things...
...SB -1 Krosan Grip +1 Ark of Blight
G2 answer to decks that needle wasteland or run back up basics. And testing...
...MD -1 Crop Rotation +1 Second Chance
...I dunno, I just want to see what it can do. Infinite turns after you drop below 6 life, keep recurring it with witness + stronghold while building up gods eye tokens to take out the opponent, or some other silly "it ends now" scenario. Trying to see if it's worth it to have an option to just end the game instead of trying to clear their board of threats to swing in with monastery while they somewhat keep the symmetry and look for answers like extirpate, tormods crypt, or pithing needle on academy/volrath/etc. Which also reminds me: having volrath in the deck is the same as having 2 different sets of 2 fetchlands: if one gets needled, the other makes that fact far less painful.
Just thought I'd throw this out there, tell me what you think.
"It's like Time Walk and Stone Rain had sex (and Lava Dart watched)" - Pinder, on stifled fetchlands.
I like the idea of 4c, but why not run any black spells? You could sustain stronghold with the moxen, so I'm not sure the scrub and bayou are necessary.
Also, do you find yourself wanting another EE or two? One seems kind of iffy.
The E.P.I.C. Syndicate: I mean, if they play a lullaby for babies they should at least play the Monster Mash when somebody dies.
1 is fine, since it gets recurred easily enough. If I need it, I'll tutor for it. And as for black spells, I don't want to overload my black splash, and just having moxen is not enough to guarantee black. The lands are setup so that any fetchland can get black, and all nonbasics with black are also green or white (the 2 main colors).
As for additional black spells, there really isn't anything in black that I want that can't be done better by white or green or blue as far as our gameplan is concerned. Innocent Blood maybe, but I prefer STP.
"It's like Time Walk and Stone Rain had sex (and Lava Dart watched)" - Pinder, on stifled fetchlands.
Hmm interesting, Witness recursion is certainlt something I will test out :)
It seems like you're testing a lot of things similar to I am. However, I do have some things I do and don't like about that list.
Your mana base seems like it'd be difficult to get the proper colored mana consistently. I see this drawing Savannah and Scrubland when you really want a Tropical Island or some such. THat said, I haven't tested the deck, so I can't know, but it's just a thought. I've been testing a splash too, but mine's red. The thing I've been loving so far is Gemstone Mine. It doesn't hurt you, it's not a real liability because I don't get it until I start recurring Glacical Chasm, so I just sac it to the chasm so I don't worry about counters. It's basically free colored mana in the late game for me, which is good as a back up to Diamonds because then I can set explosives to 0 without worrying.
I really, really like the split between Tomb and City. I've been testing 3 tombs/1 City, and it's been good for me, though now I might do a 2/2 split if it's been working for you.
I don't like God's Eye in the maindeck. I loved it when it was first brought up, but I think if anything it belongs in the sideboard. The build I run has 4 potential win-cons in the main:
Nantuko Monastery
Barbarian Ring
Cephalid Coliseum
Mishra's Factory
That should be more than enough. Other than that, God's Eye gives you a little more resistance to your own smokestack, which is cool and all, but I've been really considering dropping smokestack for something. Chalice maybe? I haven't decided. Granted, you only run a single copy. HOwever, that's when I've found smokestack to be worst. I never want to draw it after the first turn or two. After that I just want to play control and slow them down. Smokestack accomplishes that, sure, but it's best for speedy, turn 2 or 3 locks. I'm really hesistant to drop it becaues of absolutely ridiculous turn 1 potential (City, mox, mox, Smokestack. T2 Crucible, Tomb, Trinisphere is the most recent). But it doesn't seem to be pulling it's weight half the time, and it seems like there should be a better choice somewhere.
I'm not sure if I like Witness + Stronghold over Nostalgic Dreams and Recoup. Yeah, it's better long term, but it also takes longer to get the card you want. Unless you recur a Horizon Canopy or Coliseum, you have to wait until next turn to get it. In your build, NDreams + Recoup would take the same amount of slots, and I think it'd be more efficient in terms of cost, Intuition piles, and speed. Granted, it doesn't allow for cool finishes like Second Chance, and Volrath's Stronghold does give some resiliency to Pithing Needle on Academy, but only if you've dredged your witness already.Besides, what do you do if you dont have Smokestack in play to sac the witness?
That said, you made space for more lands, as well as a few cards I'd been trying to fit in. This is definitely a step in the right direction as far as I'm concerned.
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