1 Slithermuse
2 Goblin Charbelcher
3 Tendrils of Agony
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain
1 Eternal Witness
1 Tukatongue Thallid
2 Xanthid swarm
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor
SB
3 Rebuild Stax heavy meta
2 Xantid
4 Natural Order
1 Progenitus
3 cabal therapy
3 Carpet of Flowers
I tested out natural order and it works really smoothly when you sideboard but you just need to up the creature count so you can reliably get off natural order. Let me know what you think of my list I run xanthid main board cause there is a lot of decks that splash blue. I think with the natural order route you need more creatures then the regular list runs to make sure you can hit it reliably.
Last edited by agliophobia; 08-26-2010 at 02:26 AM.
Just a random idea, because I haven't really been testing the QSI list much yet, but I was wondering if anyone's tried Erayo's Essence as a sideboard option? Seems like he would be pretty easy to "flip," he offers you some pretty great protection, he even disrupts your opponent while they try to develop their gameplan (in case you want to slowroll a bit before you go off), and at worst, you can sacrifice him to Therapy or Culling.
Any takers, or is this another bad idea of mine for tech for this deck?
Last edited by DukeDemonKn1ght; 08-26-2010 at 04:55 AM.
Bless your heart, we must consider Blue/White Tempo's strategy and win percentages in an entirely different deck thread. -4eak
It could possibly work ill test it out. I have a few problems with erayo. to flip her she would have to be second or third spell you play. The problem with 3rd is if your opponent cast something in response and Erayo enters the battlefield there is no way to flip her that turn. ill test in my main board as a 2 of and see how i find her but as i said my real problems is that she has to be at the latest the 3rd spell u play that turn or honestly xantid is a better creature cause he cuts off all your opponents plays and removal that would kill xantid would also kill the erayo before you could flip her which is a triggered ability so people can in response kill her.
I've played a few hands with x2 Thallid. The thing is beastly. Infernal Tutor + Culling the Weak + Summoner's Pact can create quite a bit of mana. I've also dropped a few WC's to see if Diabolic Intent is any good.
Erayo... has been thrown around before. Its usually worse than Xantid Swarm, makes Goyf +2/+2, and requires a blue source. Empty the Warrens works much better.
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
Expect me or die. I play SI.
I really liked the idea of Thallid, so I replaced Uktabi Drake (which was never really necessary since the deck tends to get enough storm already).
I can't help but feel Diabolic Intent would shine when Thallid is played, so here's a draft of a PSI list with both:
PSI
Business
1 Slithermuse
2 Goblin Charbelcher
3 Tendrils of Agony
3 Infernal Tutor
2 Diabolic Intent
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain
Mana
1 Eternal Witness
1 Odious Trow
1 Tukatongue Thallid
2 Manamorphose
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
3 Cabal Ritual
3 Culling the Weak
4 Land Grant
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor
SB
4 Carpet of Flowers
4 Xantid Swarm
3 Duress
2 Goblin Charbelcher
2 Tomb of Urami
What I did here from the OP list is cut a Cabal Ritual for the Tukatongue Thallid, and an Infernal Tutor and Culling the Weak for two Diabolic Intent. That might be the wrong thing to do when Culling the Weak takes advantage of Thallid, but I think increasing the number of "additional cost: sac a creature" cards and outlets balances fine. I also took out an Infernal Tutor which also could be wrong, but again Diabolic Tutor takes the place of that and can get, well, anything, especially after a Draw4.
I'm a musician and would love your support.
Please visit www.samandluke.com and check out the debut album, Standing in a Room!
--- Decks that Storm ---
--- Also Goblins for when I don't feel like thinking ARRGH GOBLINS ---
Your list looks strong, Ive cut manamorphose slots from my current build to facilitate diabolic intent, morphose was the weakest of cards often not need to color fix me for muse and really presenting me with some questionable opening hands,i.e. i could keep cause if i morphose into business then im good but if i hit gas im gonna lose.
Having a full set of IT is ideal i think, its one of the strongest cards/plays the deck can make, often i find just using it to double dip on ritual effects is fantastic. Especially now that thallid is making culling so much of a stronger play, I have had double IT hands so i ramp and IT for culling. cast and kill thallid twice and proceed to spew my hand.
Went undefeated at my local. I didn't win though.. because I got 2 byes in a row. Possibly a case of being too lucky?
I played the list from the O.P with the same board I've been testing (with Tomb not Omnath).
Match 1
Bye
1-0
Match 2
Bye
I know this isn't supposed to happen. The guy running the program that pairs everyone even tried to repair and it gave me the bye again so we just kept the same pairings.
2-0
Match 3: Faeries UGW
Game 1: I lead with IT--> Slithermuse with B floating, draw 7, into a lethal Tendrils.
Game 2: I lead with Tomb of Urami, Duress. He plays Spell Pierce. Next turn I play Duress, he counters with Spellstutter Sprite. Then I lay down Chrome Mox on green, and Chrome Mox on black, and try to play Belcher. He plays FoW. Next turn I play Carpet of Flowers. Then, I use mana from Carpet 2nd mainphase to crack Tomb of Urami. My Urami token allows me to comfortably set up, protecting me as a wall against his small, equipment-less Faeries. I’m at 4 life and he’s a few guys short of racing me. 3 turns later or so, I have 3 Carpets of Flowers out. I use 2 of them to add 4 mana to my mana pool, and play a D4, which gets FoWed. I play another, to which he has no answer. I play another Carpet of Flowers, pass to my 2nd mainphase, use the other 2 Carpets to add enough mana to play Belcher and activate for the win.
3-0
Match 4: Weird BG Shit
Game 1: He leads with Polluted Delta. I think he might be playing blue. I play Land Grant for Bayou, Dark Ritual, Cruel Bargain. I start chaining some D4’s together until I have only B floating. I can try for Belcher this turn but I would have to use Summoner’s Pact. I have plenty of resources so I decide to play it safe. I use the remaining mana to play Odious Trow (so basically I trolled that whole turn for like 15 minute). Then I use Culling the Weak to play and activate Belcher on my next turn.
Game 2: He leads with Cabal Therapy on Belcher. He gets it and I had a lethal Belcher kill in my hand. A few turns later he plays Hymn and gets ToA and IT out of my hand. He then extirpates away my Belchers. I had played Odious Trow and Dryad Arbor already which beat him down to 16 until he play Damnation. I know he is extremely slow so I wait until I have 8 cards, and then go off with a lot of mana, and Pact-->Eternal Witness-->IT-->IT-->Tendrils
4-0
Overall, I haven't really decided if my night was satisfying. I biked something like 10 miles to play in this FNM and I only got to play twice. The SB plan worked well, though I must say Faeries have a far from intimidating clock.
@sam.
Why would you drop Culling the Weak to 4? Its far too good a piece of acceleration to cut. Even Cabal Ritual I would hesitate to cut. You can always go from 3 to 4 ESGs. Also, Manamorphose is a flex slot. If anything, adding more tutors means you need fewer win conditions. You can cut Tendrils down to 2 as well.
I tested DI briefly and I wasn't extremely impressed. It did some cool things with Thallid but I have yet to abuse it to its full potential. I need to test it some more.
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
Expect me or die. I play SI.
So, I couldn't find the "Beating your head against a wall on MWS" thread, so this seems like the next-most-appropriate place to post the following humorous snippet:
<CAREGA> kp
<DukeDemonKn1ght> Thinking
<DukeDemonKn1ght> kp
DukeDemonKn1ght plays Land Grant from Hand
DukeDemonKn1ght reveals a Culling the Weak
DukeDemonKn1ght reveals a Cabal Therapy
DukeDemonKn1ght reveals a Ill-Gotten Gains
DukeDemonKn1ght reveals a Shield Sphere
DukeDemonKn1ght reveals a Cruel Bargain
DukeDemonKn1ght reveals a Infernal Tutor
<DukeDemonKn1ght> Ok?
<CAREGA> omg
<System> Player Lost
Bless your heart, we must consider Blue/White Tempo's strategy and win percentages in an entirely different deck thread. -4eak
Count on that happening often. If you'd prefer you can advertise that you are playing a storm combo variant and want to test against control. Testing against aggro can get mundane anyway just because its usually a breeze.
Last edited by Vacrix; 08-30-2010 at 02:33 PM.
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
Expect me or die. I play SI.
So, I´ve been playing DDFT / NLS / whatever you wanna call it for quite some time now and was just impressed of the speed SI has. I tested SITES a few times and got frustrated quite soon since it is extremely explosive but simplies fails against any FoW or Spell Pierce. That´s why I wanted to play PSI, traded everything needed for the deck (except for 1 Slithermuse, which is in mail right now) and goldfished a whole lot of games yesterday. To be honest, it fizzled about 80% of my goldfished games, which is reaaaally frustrating! Maybe I played the deck wrong, but I guess most of it seems to be a no-brainer.
So, regarding this I do have a really general question:
If I can get to BBB (not more) on turn one and have a draw4 in hand, should I go for it?
If I should and if I have a LED in hand, should I crack it in response?
I know it is quite hard to answer these questions without knowing the rest of the cards in hand, but the bottom line is: play a draw 4 without mana floating? If you need mana floating, is it worth to discard the rest of your hand?
These were situations I faced in about 3/4th of my games, so a genereal advice should be helpful. Thank you so far!
Last edited by DerFern; 08-30-2010 at 06:11 AM. Reason: fixed some typos
1) Depends. If you want a hard and fast rule, it's better to wait/draw (this rule holds roughly until you need such rules).Originally Posted by DerFern
2) Yes. Unlike NLS/DDFT where you set up and go off, with SI you predominantly chain D4s into unknown. The engine is also the setup (and vice versa). From this perspective, drawing 4 with 3 mana floating is nearly ideal situation as it is very likely you will be able to continue the chain further. Things like achieving threshold and getting rid of dead cards (to enable hellbent) makes it even more potent.
Well in game 1, Spell Pierce will only be relevant half the time (dice roll), and one FoW usually won't be enough to stop you for good. Then sometimes you can just go for EtW, and other times you will protect your turn with Cabal Therapy. I wouldn't say the deck fails against conventional countermagic. Where you get tripped up is in the case that your combo turn is stopped by countermagic, and then you have to deal with a lock piece (like UWT). Otherwise, you are just trading with the opponent. Say for instance, you play a land, Dark Ritual, and Cruel Bargain. If your opponent responds with FoW, then you traded 2 cards for 2 cards, because you get to keep the land. Thats not a bad trade really. Sometimes you will have to invest more resources like Culling the Weak, and Cruel Bargain, but that allows for the potential for Dark Ritual + D4, or Cabal Therapy before your Bargain, so its still strong against control if you have other resources. So if your opponent stops your first D4, whatever; you have more resources in hand and possibly resources on the board already.
As for your questions, they both need to be taken in context. What are you playing against? I like to go for it against control, even if I can't win that turn, but I try to play around Daze. If I go for the early D4, then I get more resources, and really the games you beat control are the ones where you can lay down the most perpetual resources. If I can get a Land and a Chrome Mox then I can usually force a business spell through and set up the Belcher kill. This is even easier post-board when you board in more perpetual resources. Xantid Swarm is perpetual protection if it resolves, though its obviously a little vulnerable to removal. Carpet of Flowers is a gem that usually wins games if it resolves. The deck has so much business that even 1 extra mana per turn is significant, while producing 2 or 3 per turn (or multiple Carpets) lets you play stuff for free without investing any resources from your hand. The trick here post-board is to play 2 threats on the first turn, counting on one eating a FoW. So some combination of Carpet of Flowers, Xantid Swarm, Duress, and D4's.
Blind LED's depend entirely on what is in your hand and what has already been played. You will usually have to do a little calculation here to determine the likelihood of drawing business. Then again, I really enjoy the Eternal Witness line of play. If you have something in your hand like, LED, Pact, Lotus Petal, I'd probably hold on to that just because you can leave open Pact-->Eternal Witness, breaking LED for GGG. Sometimes you just draw all mana sources. Then again, if you are playing SITES then you forgo the Ewit line of play in favor of EtW and Cabal Therapy tactics.
Knowing this for certain is entirely situation dependent though. The more you play the deck, the more familiar you are with how to push the deck in sticky situations like the ones you describe.
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
Expect me or die. I play SI.
Agree with the other guys it depends on the situation, however since that is not a useful answer in and of itself, I'll elaborate:
-against a non-disruptive Aggro deck, I'd probably wait. You don't have to win this turn or anything, you have a couple to draw into extra goodness.
-against highly-disruptive decks Aggro (think Dragon Stompy) I'd go for it. A 3sphere or Chalice is something I don't want to fight through.
-against Blue-based control, I'd probably go for it but I'd probably leave the LED (if I had some other cards in hand - if I had none then yes crack it). Infernal Tutor is best when you have hellbent obviously. Like Vacrix said if they force its a 2-for-2, and if they don't, great!
Only the heroic and the mad follow mountain goat trails.
Well, against non-disruptive aggro it depends. If it's Turn 1 I'd just wait, but otherwise I think I'd go for it, since they're laying down critters and stuff. Gaddock Teeg from Zoo comes to mind. But as long as you're not taking any risks by waiting (like giving the blue-player a chance to drop a land) you should wait. You don't lose anything, you just see more cards and can make more landdrops.
Against combo I would go for it aswell, but this can be very risky. As long as your opponent isn't playing chant-effects it's less risky to wait but you can still be killed turn one. The possibility of being killed on turn one is even higher when you fizzle, 'cause you lose to hands like Petal, Ritual, LED, Infernal -> Tendrils.
So has anyone found the time to test the deck in any larger tournaments, i know i missed the last knightware which is usually a good testing ground for things, Im interested to see how the deck is truly performing after the mystical tutor banning.
Most of my play is on workstation and it seems like there's a fair amount of interest in the direction of the deck, just want to see if anyone has actually ventured out into the real world with it recently.
I also missed the last Knightware, unfortunately due to a lack of transportation. As for recent top8's at larger tournaments... one guy on MTGsal recently topped 8 but it was at a local event.
DTB -
Strong matchups:
Goblins - they can't really do shit except race. pretty much a bye.
Zoo - harder than goblins because of Teeg but still a bye unless they have a really dedicated sideboard.
TES - at the very least this matchup is 50/50 because of the dice roll. otherwise, you can mini-tendrils to make them set up the IGG loop while you set up the Belcher kill. even with access to chant, I don't find this deck particularly intimidating.
Merfolk - A resolved Xantid Swarm is game. They play lots of islands. Tomb of Urami usually gets there. I'd say this is actually a strong matchup.
Landstill - They have an unspeakably slow clock. This gives you tons of time to setup and acquire enough resources to overwhelm them.
50/50 Matchups:
New Horizons - Swords hurts making this a harder matchup than Merfolk. In general though I'd say this matchup is better than 50/50 just because people usually don't know how to play against it.
Bant Aggro - See above. Its a similar matchup.
Weak Matchups:
Counterbalance - Obviously a weak matchup. You can still opt to race Force. Sometimes CB players will keep a hand with Turn 2 Counterbalance without FoW or sometimes Daze + CB, and underestimate your clock. Sucks for them. Duress is strong here.
I might be playing with PSI at a tournament this weekend. Then again I might opt to play Solidarity instead since there have been plenty of blue players there lately..
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
Expect me or die. I play SI.
I know it's just so insane, but I thought with more sac outlets, it would become a dead card frequently. After testing, though, DI was WAAAY worse. The deck is already sick with draw4's and IT/LED, so I moved away from the list I had posted.
I do like Tukatongue Thallid for Culling the Weak itself, plus it's a blocker at the same time.
I feel like anything DI would want to do, a list made around Burning Wishes would just do better.
I'm a musician and would love your support.
Please visit www.samandluke.com and check out the debut album, Standing in a Room!
--- Decks that Storm ---
--- Also Goblins for when I don't feel like thinking ARRGH GOBLINS ---
200 people, 8 roundsSo has anyone found the time to test the deck in any larger tournaments
Round 1 Counterbalance
G1 I duress him T1 and saw 4 counters. T3 he activates CB
G2 See G1
Round 2 MUC
G1 I duress him and took his Force and killed him on the same turn
G2 Won around T20 through traps, force daze, stifle, CS :)
Round 3 Zoo
G1 Killed him on T2
G2 See 1
Round 4 Zoo
G1 I won the dice roll and feared counters. All in. Killed him T1.
G2 T1 Duress and found a Teeg on his hand. l0l
G3 Mulligan 4. I was forced to start the combo on T3 and found nothing in my Draw 4's
Round 5 Goblins
G1 Turn-1-Kill
G2 T1 chalice [0], T2 chalice [1]
G3 T2 He playes Chalice [0] and Lackey Turn 1. T3 I tried to play around his Chalice and found again nothing in my Draw's.
Drop
Ouch. Thats rough. How is Dosan working out for you?
Also, why would you bother with Duress against Zoo? They always play Teeg.
Hell I'm confused now. Whats your list look like now? Your G1 against MUC says you are running MD Duress.
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
Expect me or die. I play SI.
T1 is was on the play and I thought my opp. was playing bant. I discovered a turn later that he was playing Zoo.Also, why would you bother with Duress against Zoo?
Dosan makes the hardcontrol (without CB) matchups much more easier.
Right now, I'm testing this list. Belcher has gone :(, but I believe that fetchlands are stronger than LG.4 Land Grant
4 Lotus petal
1 bayou
1 dryad arbor
3 Chrome mox
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 lion's eye diamond
4 Duress
4 cabal ritual
4 dark ritual
4 culling the weak
4 Infernal tutor
4 Infernal Conract
4 cruel bargain
1 IGG
4 pact
2 Tendrils
1 belcher
1 Witness
1 Trow
1 cantor
SB
4 naturalize
1 Dosan, the falling leaf
4 manamorphose
1 bayou
1 Tomb of urami
4 carpet flowers
4 Verdant catacombs
4 Lotus petal
1 bayou
1 dryad arbor
3 Chrome mox
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 lion's eye diamond
4 Duress
4 cabal ritual
4 dark ritual
4 culling the weak
4 Infernal tutor
4 Infernal Conract
4 cruel bargain
1 IGG
4 pact
2 Tendrils
1 death wish
1 Witness
1 Trow
1 cantor
SB
1 Dosan, the falling leaf
3 birds of Paradise --> Against Staxx and lands, for Pulse
1 swamp
1 Slaughter pact --> DW target
1 death shadow --> I'dont know if it works, has anyone experience with it ?
4 carpet flowers
3 Maelstrom pulse --> destroys everything
1 krosan grip --> for CB
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