[Deck] Creeper (Creeping Renaissance Combo)

[Wanderlust]

Overview

Creeper is a combo deck that wins by using Creeping Renaissance to recur cheap artifacts such as Lion's Eye Diamond and Lotus Petal to build mana and a lethal storm count. The tutors Intuition and Artificer's Intuition are the true enablers of the deck. Intuition is generally used to tutor for Creeping Renaissance (one Intuition = up to 4x Creeping Renaissance effects) or the necessary Lion's Eye Diamonds for the combo loop to generate mana. Intuition also serves as a virtual win condition once you have achieved lethal storm by searching for Grapeshot and 2 Regrowth. Artificer's Intuition is similarly versatile: it can fill your battlefield and graveyard with mana and cantrip artifacts and can grab silver bullets. With Artificer's Intuition active during Creeping Renaissance loops, the deck becomes virtually fizzle-proof - it can produce large amounts of mana to find and repeatedly spin Sensei's Divining Top while shuffling away chaff via Artificer's Intuition activations. This process allows you to dig for your win condition or a tutor for it.

Creeper can goldfish as early as turn 2, but that requires an exceptionally good hand. It goldfishes consistently by turn 4.

Decklist (updated 2/5/13)

Core Spells (30)

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
3 Mox Opal
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Artificer's Intuition
4 Intuition
4 Creeping Renaissance
2 Regrowth
1 Grapeshot


Flex slots (9) – meta-dependent

2 Muddle the Mixture
4 Conjurer's Bauble
1 Pithing Needle
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Meekstone


Lands (21)

1 City of Traitors
2 Ancient Tomb
1 Academy Ruins
4 Seat of the Synod
3 Tree of Tales
5 Blue Fetch
2 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island
1 Island


Sideboard (updated 11/4/12):

4 Force of Will
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Painter's Servant
3 Grindstone




History

Creeper was first brewed by sourcer Wanderlust (Conor Brown) from February-December, 2012. It has no major tournament finishes to date.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Pros of the primary combo:
1) Resilient to discard and countermagic. (Largely thanks to Creeping Renaissance's flashback.)
2) Life total irrelevant to the combo.
3) Immune to creature removal.
4) No dead cards. (Every core card is useful on it's own outside of the combo turn.)
5) Highly customizable. (Ample flex slots main for silver bullets, etc... Has access to various secondary combos - either main or post-board depending on the build.)
6) Resistant to Stifle. (If they Stifle Grapeshot's storm trigger, it can be revived via Regrowth or sent back into your library via Conjurer's Bauble to be tutored for again.)

Cons of the primary combo
1) Soft to graveyard hate.
2) Slow for a combo deck.
3) Can't protect itself with countermagic effectively. (Because of Lion's Eye Diamond.)
4) Most hate bears (Thalia, Teeg, Scavenging Ooze) must be answered before comboing.
5) If you want to maximize the mana you get out of your Lion's Eye Diamonds, you often have to activate them while Creeping Renaissance or Intuition is on the stack, before passing priority. This opens you up to getting blown out by countermagic. (If at all possible, always hold up enough mana, including LEDs, to be able to flashback a Creeping Renaissance next turn.)

The main deck flex slots

As a general rule, the deck wants as many artifacts as possible to maximize the effectiveness of Creeping Renaissance, Artificer's Intuition, and Mox Opal.

Secondary Combos:
There are at least three secondary combos that can function naturally within the deck:
1) Painted Stone (Grindstone + Painter's Servant)
Fits into the deck like a glove. However, both cards are bad on their own (although at least Grindstone can laboriously stock your graveyard for a Creeping Renaissance loop). The fatal weakness of the combo is its softness to creature removal. For the time being, probably best in the sideboard.
2) Sensei's/Sensei's loop with Locket of Yesterdays.
Only requires adding the Locket of Yesterdays to the deck. With a Locket of Yesterdays in play, a Sensei's Divining Top in your graveyard, a second Top in play/hand, and a third to in play/hand/on top of your library, you can infinitely draw one top with the other to generate storm.) The combo is wholly supported by Artificer's Intuition besides your final kill card.
3) Bomberman (Auriok Salvagers/Lion's Eye Diamond/Pyrite Spellbomb combo.)
Adding 3-4 Auriok Salvagers to the deck is a fairly minimal commitment for an additional game-winning threat, but it dies to Swords to Plowshares and makes the manabase more fragile.

Tutors/Cantrips/Manipulation:
Infernal Tutor – Update 12/14/12: Superseded by Regrowth. Regrowth is completely on-color and is always active without jumping through hoops. Infernal tutor was great when it was great, but wound up being my least favorite card in the deck. Hands with Infernal Tutor + Creeping Renaissance were just awkward. Hands with Infernal Tutor + Infernal Tutor were just atrocious. (Infernal Tutor was generally proven superior to Gamble / Burning Wish / Cunning Wish.)

Regrowth: A very recent inclusion to the deck. It has some nice qualities: it makes the clunky singleton Mystic Retrieval unnecessary and replaces 3 Infernal Tutor, freeing up valuable slots for silver bullet artifacts and more Conjurer's Baubles. It is less powerful but more flexible that Infernal Tutor. Getting back an Artificer's Intuition that has been Abrupt Decayed is the most valuable pre-combo use for it. It also pairs well with Intuition, both to ensure you can Intuition for a single card you need and also to allow for the line: Intuition for 3x Lion's Eye Diamond > Regrowth Intuition > Intuition for 3x Creeping Renaissance.

Brainstorm/Ponder – I'm surprisingly unimpressed with these cards in this deck. They often feel redundant with Sensei's Divining Top. They break the rule of “play as many artifacts as possible.”

Silver Bullets and other Artificer's Intuition Toolbox Options
(2-3 slots in the main deck can/should be devoted to silver bullets.)

Engineered Explosives – The most versatile toolbox option. It's only downside is that you have to blow up your own Artificer's Intuition to answer hate bears or Rest in Peace.

Pithing Needle – Could deserve a spot main depending on the meta. Notable uses include shutting off Scavenging Ooze, Tormod's Crypt, and Griselbrand.

Pyrite Spellbomb – Answers hate bears such as Thalia, Gaddock Teeg, and Scavenging Ooze, can zap Insectile Abberation and other beaters to buy some time, or just function as an expensive Conjurer's Bauble.

Aether Spellbomb – A less satisfactory answer to hate bears than Pyrite Spellbomb, but it can answer some threats out of Reanimator and Show and Tell decks.

Executioner's Capsule – Outright kills more problematic creatures than either of the spellbombs, but it can be stopped by Mother of Runes and has awkward mana requirements. Also, it can't cantrip.

Meekstone – Very strong in certain matchups such as Canadian Thresh and Team America. Once it resolves, either they don't flip their Delvers and avoid threshold for Mongeese, or all of their creatures become next-turn burn spells. Either way, it buys a lot of time. Probably best in the sideboard since it's narrow.

Tormod's Crypt / Nihil Spellbomb – Graveyard hate for Dredge, Reanimator, and other graveyard-reliant strategies. A necessary sideboard inclusion.

(Creeper doesn't want Relic of Progenitus or Grafdigger's Cage as they nerf your own combo.)

Locket of Yesterdays – stellar when you Intuition for 3x Creeping Renaissance. The card also opens the possibility of the infinite Sensei's/Sensei's loop. However, after playing with it in the main for a while, it hasn't seemed to add enough flexibility or speed to make up for its conditionality.

Gustha's Scepter – purpose #1: hide things (usually Creeping Renaissance or Intuition) from being discarded to your Lion's Eye Diamonds so that you can use that mana to cast the hidden card. Purpose #2: hide things from discard. Occasionally Gustha's Scepter felt awesome in testing, but more often than not something else would have been better.

Chalice of the Void – This deck can be built to combo off without casting 1cc spells but using cycling artifacts (Glassdusk Hulk or Architect of Will). Unfortunately, Sensei's Divining Top is the best card in the deck and Chalice @1 nerfs it.

Miscellaneous:
Ensnaring Bridge – because Creeper generally gets stronger the longer the game lasts, Ensnaring Bridge is surprisingly potent. Many decks are slowed to a crawl after an Ensnaring Bridge resolves, giving you ample time to answer hate bears or to attempt to combo until they run out of countermagic.

Helm of Awakening – Decent for goldfishing, but its symmetrical effect is a huge downside that renders it unplayable.

Protection:
Defense Grid – Very nearly excellent. However, Tempo decks often drop their creatures early, so they can just keep 3 mana open for Force of Will by the time you want to combo.

(The following all break the “play as many artifacts as possible” rule.)

Duress/Thoughtseize/Autumn's Veil/Orim's Chant/Silence – worth more testing.

Cabal Therapy – Maybe good with a singleton Shield Sphere to grab with Artificer's Intuition. Probably falls under “danger of cool things.”

Xantid Swarm/Vexing Shusher/Meddling Mage – possible sideboard material.

Force of Will/Pact of Negation/ etc – usually die to your Lion's Eye Diamonds before they are relevant for fighting counter wars. This is a major downside to the Creeping Renaissance plan.

Sideboarding theory

Public Enemy #1: Hate for our graveyard

The achilles heel of the primary combo is its softness to graveyard hate. That is the defining factor of sideboarding in most matchups. There are two directions that can be taken to solve this problem: siding in an alternate win condition or siding in hate for their graveyard hate.

a) Siding in an alternate win condition.
There are various options here:
The strongest current sideboard plan is to transform into a permanent-based control deck, bringing in Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas and Jace, the Mindsculptor as win conditions/card advantage engines, and disruption in the form of [/CARDS]Force of Will[/CARDS], [/CARDS]Vendilion Clique[/CARDS], and [/CARDS]Chalice of the Void[/CARDS]. This plan completely dodges graveyard hate and poses a serious threat to both "fair" and "unfair" decks.

Another option which might be appropriate for certain metas is to sideboard into a secondary combo. Painted Stone is the most natural fit - it doesn't rely on your graveyard and is quite strong if your opponent sides out their creature removal. However, against decks with burn doubling as creature removal and reach (eg., RUG Tempo, UR Delver, Mono-Red Burn) it is not an ideal choice, as they are unlikely to side out their burn. Also, Surgical Extraction on a countered/destroyed combo piece can be quite nasty against the Painted Stone plan, as it can leave you with no win conditions.

b) Siding in hate for their graveyard hate.
Unfortunately, the breadth of graveyard hate available in Legacy is oceanic – it is basically impossible to have one answer for all of it. No single card (or even a couple cards) can answer Surgical Extraction, Extirpate, Tormod's Crpyt, Relic of Progenitus, Nihil Spellbomb, Scavenging Ooze, Wheel of Sun and Moon, Ravenous Trap, Leyline of the Void, Bojuka Bog, Faerie Macabre, and Grafdigger's Cage, just to name the most popular. The strongest anti-hate card seems to be Chalice of the Void at 1, as it stops the nightmare scenario of Surgical Extraction/Extirpate choosing Creeping Renaissance or Lion's Eye Diamond, while shutting off a few other hate cards and being decent in many matchups. However, I recommend sidestepping hate with a transformational board rather than trying to fight it head-on.

Conclusion

The first question that the deck must answer is, “Why play this over other turn-four combo decks such as Spiral Tide?” Given its strong transformational sideboard plan, stellar tutor suite, ample maindeck answers to permanent-based hate, and the card-advantage inherent in Creeping Renaissance's flashback, I believe that Creeper has the potential to be a serious contender in just about any meta.

[Wanderlust]

I played this deck yesterday at a local event at TnT in Danvers. Same maindeck as the OP (Grapeshot over Brain Freeze). My sideboard was 8x slots for the Painted stone combo, graveyard hate, and Pithing Needles.

Round 1: Zach (Dredge)
Game 1: He has a slow start and I am able to combo off on turn 3. An interesting situation arises near the end of my combo: I have 20+ storm, have used up all of my Creeping Renaissances, have 4 LEDs and some Petals in play, and Intuition, Mystic Retrieval in my graveyard. I crack the LEDs for blue, black, and red mana, flashback Mystic Retrieval targeting Intuition, cast Intuition for 3x Infernal Tutor. Infernal Tutor for Grapeshot to win the game. I didn't see this, the correct line of play, right away, so there was a minute where I thought I might fizzle.
Game 2: I side in a pile of graveyard hate. On my turn 1 I Tormod's Crypt away 2 Grave Trolls, Turn 2 resolve Artificer's Intuition. I Crypt him a couple more times and he scoops once he sees Conjurer's Bauble (which threatens to allow me to Crypt him over and over.)

Round 2: Chris (Dredge)
Game 1: He kills me (Flayer of the Hatebound style) the turn before I could have combo'd him. A close one.
Game 2: My graveyard hate slows him to a crawl and my combo gets there.
Game 3: He wins turn 1. I had hate if I had ever gotten a turn. Bummer.

Round 3: Matt (Belcher)
Game 1: He makes 14 goblins turn 1. I consider my hand again and laugh, play a land and a Top, and pass. He attacks me down to 6. I draw my card for the turn, play mox opal, lion's eye diamond, artifact land, and ENSNARING BRIDGE. I crack the LED to get my hand to 0 and spin top. He plays draw go for 3-4 more turns, unable to attack, while I set up a lethal combo turn.

I side in Pithing Needle to defend against Goblin Charbelcher.

Game 2: I have a loose keep, but it doesn't matter as he kills me with Goblin Charbelcher on turn 1.

Game 3: I have Artificers Intuition in my opener, which gives me access to Pithing Needle or Engineered Explosives to stop either of his routes to victory by turn 2. My plan is: turn 1 island, turn 2 sol land and lotus petal, play Artificer's Intuition, crack petal and discard an artifact to AI to search up Pithing Needle and play it with the remaining 1 mana from the sol land. On his turn one he topdecks a Rite of Flame, which gives him exactly the mana he needs to kill me with Goblin Charbelcher that turn.

Obviously going 1-2 (4-4 in games) in a local isn't much to write home about, but I was really impressed with Creeper's ability to go toe-to-toe with 2 of the fastest combo decks in the format. The amount of fast mana Creeper plays allowed the possibility for Artificer's Intuition to come on line in time to interact with them.

I would be very interested to hear any suggestions on how to improve the deck! It's ALMOST good. Almost.

[evanmartyr]

Just a couple questions:

Why the 1/2 split of Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors? If you're winning around turn 4, it would seem City is a poor choice.

Chalice at 0 might be an uncommon occurrence, but it kinda grinds you to a halt. Given that you're playing green, it might be worthwhile to throw in an answer or two to it. Ancient Grudge seems particularly well-suited to a deck that makes a habit of abusing Intuition.

[Wanderlust]

Just a couple questions:
Why the 1/2 split of Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors? If you're winning around turn 4, it would seem City is a poor choice.

I'm not sure I follow - if anything, Ancient Tomb is the liability by turn 4. Many decks can get you to within an inch of death by then, making it possible for them to turn off Ancient Tomb entirely. Also, staying above 3 life is critical against any deck with Lightning Bolt, 4 life for decks with Fireblast. City of Traitors is much safer in those situations. By this logic, perhaps 3x City and 0x Ancient Tomb is actually correct.

Chalice at 0

We do have the option of casting Engineered Explosives with colorless mana from a sol land to blow up Chalice at 0. I totally agree, though, that it's problematic - if Chalice is prevalent, Ancient Grudge would be a good inclusion.

[HPB_Eggo]

Sideboarding some sort of hate for other fast combo decks seems like it would be excellent. I'd probably go with Mindbreak Trap, personally.

In addition to being good against combo, it also has the somewhat uncommon use of casting a few innocuous artifacts and using it to protect Intuition or Artificer's Intuition, which seems to be the only part of the combo where counters are particularly effective.

Then again, I haven't played this, so it may or may not be worthwhile. It definitely looks interesting, though.

[Wanderlust]

[Mindbreak Trap] also has the somewhat uncommon use of casting a few innocuous artifacts and using it to protect Intuition or Artificer's Intuition, which seems to be the only part of the combo where counters are particularly effective.

Sadly, I don't think this works, since Mindbreak Trap only counts cards that your opponent has cast this turn.

I agree, though, that it would be a great SB choice if you expect lots of Belcher and other Storm Combo. However, it's not particularly great against all the Griselbrand combo decks that are floating around - any suggestions against those? They are all tough matchups for us...

[mini1337s]

Very cool combo. It does seem resilent to some graveyard hate, but how do you deal with Surgical Extraction/Extirpate? It seems like Surgical on an LED is backbreaking.
Thalia seems pretty oppresive as well, but you can Spellbomb it.

Is Creeping Renaissance really a 4x card? Seems trimmable, especially if you use Intuiton. Mystic Retrival can probably be removed as well.

I do like the maindeck Ensnaring bridge. You can literally leave it at zero until your combo turn... seems pretty powerful.

[Wanderlust]

How do you deal with Surgical Extraction/Extirpate? It seems like Surgical on an LED is backbreaking.

They are backbreaking, you are absolutely right. The best way to fight them I have found is with a transformational sideboard - I have mainly tested Painted Stone and "Planeswalker Stax" (featuring a sideboard with Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, and Chalice of the Void). Painted stone is still risky since Surgical Extraction can be good against that strategy as well, but at least it doesn't REQUIRE the graveyard like the main combo. The Planeswalker Stax route has been okay - but the deck does feel a bit watered down as a control deck unless you devote the entire sideboard to the strategy, thereby sacrificing the Dredge and probably some other matchups. In other words, the problem of Surgical Extraction/Extirpate has not yet been solved satisfactorily.

Perhaps the new angel from planechase - Illusory Angel - and Fettergeist could form the backbone of a "man plan." Seems decent enough against RUG Tempo. If Stoneblade sides out their removal, it could go the distance against them as well. Worth testing.

[evanmartyr]

I'm not sure I follow - if anything, Ancient Tomb is the liability by turn 4. Many decks can get you to within an inch of death by then, making it possible for them to turn off Ancient Tomb entirely. Also, staying above 3 life is critical against any deck with Lightning Bolt, 4 life for decks with Fireblast. City of Traitors is much safer in those situations. By this logic, perhaps 3x City and 0x Ancient Tomb is actually correct.

I meant more that if you're relying on those few slots to be "lands that accelerate you" Ancient Tomb is better at it every turn except the turn you go off than City of Traitors, which seems like it would accelerate the rate at which you can set up the win.

So with City of Traitors, you're slower because you're husbanding your resources carefully. With Tomb, you're faster because playing and using the land doesn't necessitate a warped sequence of land drops to play around the penalty. So the life loss matters less.

I agree that there are thresholds of life totals that you don't want to drop below, and the deck has no real interactivity so those thresholds are even more important than usual, and I have zero experience with how the deck plays anyway, but the drawback on City of Traitors seems atrocious for a deck that wants to Intuition on turn 1 or 2.

We do have the option of casting Engineered Explosives with colorless mana from a sol land to blow up Chalice at 0. I totally agree, though, that it's problematic - if Chalice is prevalent, Ancient Grudge would be a good inclusion.

Good point. I was just thinking tossing a single Grudge in the sideboard seems a no-brainer.

[HPB_Eggo]

Sadly, I don't think this works, since Mindbreak Trap only counts cards that your opponent has cast this turn.

I agree, though, that it would be a great SB choice if you expect lots of Belcher and other Storm Combo. However, it's not particularly great against all the Griselbrand combo decks that are floating around - any suggestions against those? They are all tough matchups for us...

Fair enough. I suppose it shows that I have literally never played with Mindbreak Trap...

As for Griselbrand combo, Ensnaring Bridge and Needle on Griselbrand beats them straight out, at least in the first game.

[Wanderlust]

Is Creeping Renaissance really a 4x card? Seems trimmable, especially if you use Intuiton. Mystic Retrival can probably be removed as well.

Mystic Retrieval and the 4th Creeping Renaissance have proven to be necessary evils, at least for me:

-Mystic Retrieval turns Intuition into a virtual win condition once you have lethal storm/mana. More often than not, the finishing blow of the combo is "Intuition for Grapeshot, Mystic Retrieval and X. Flashback Mystic Retrieval targeting Grapeshot. Grapeshot you to death."

-The 4th Creeping Renaissance is increased threat density when you are in "Top/Artificer's Intuition search mode" or "Conjurer's Bauble dig mode" mid-combo. It also makes Infernal Tutor and Intuition better mid-combo if you have already used a previous Intuition for 3x Creeping Renaissance but still don't have quite enough storm to just go for your win condition.

I do like the maindeck Ensnaring bridge. You can literally leave it at zero until your combo turn... seems pretty powerful.

Ensnaring Bridge is awesome! It's probably the redeeming reason currently to play this deck over something else - it allows you to slow-roll through numerous strategies.