[Deck] MonoU OmniTell

[limbo]

I have been playing around with the mana base to see if Omnitell is amenable to a more aggressive mana base like the ones seen in sneak and show to try to speed up the clock slightly. I did 20 'goldfish' hands with each list to start to get a feel for the differences. Results would clearly be better with n ~60, but this is where I am at thus far.
Version 1 (Version based of Lejay, Championed by Drew Levin):
Instant (14)
4x Brainstorm
3x Cunning Wish
1x Flusterstorm
4x Force of Will
2x Pact of Negation

Land (20)
4x City of Traitors
10x Island
2x Misty Rainforest
4x Scalding Tarn

Sorcery (18)
4x Enter the Infinite
2x Gitaxian Probe
4x Ponder
4x Preordain
4x Show and Tell

Enchantment (7)
3x Dream Halls
4x Omniscience

Creature (1)
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Sideboard (15)
3x Defense Grid
1x Eladamri's Call
1x Intuition
4x Leyline of Sanctity
1x Pact of Negation
1x Release the Ants
1x Rushing River
1x Sapphire Charm
1x Slaughter Pact
1x Trickbind

Version 2 (Modified Mana, fewer counters):
Instant (14)
4x Brainstorm
3x Cunning Wish
1x Flusterstorm
4x Force of Will
1x Impulse
1x Intuition

Enchantment (8)
4x Dream Halls
4x Omniscience

Artifact (3)
3x Lotus Petal

Creature (1)
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Land (18)
3x Ancient Tomb
2x City of Traitors
7x Island
2x Misty Rainforest
4x Scalding Tarn

Sorcery (16)
4x Enter the Infinite
4x Ponder
4x Preordain
4x Show and Tell

Sideboard (15)
2x Defense Grid
1x Eladamri's Call
1x Firemind's Foresight
1x Intuition
3x Leyline of Sanctity
1x Noxious Revival
1x Pact of Negation
1x Release the Ants
1x Rushing River
1x Sapphire Charm
1x Slaughter Pact
1x Trickbind

Results:
I ran 20 goldfish games with each version. For the purposes here, 'win' was defined as resolving enter the infinite or putting Emrakul into play.
To prevent unintended bias in mulligan decisions I used the following rules. This meant I kept some bad hands with 'potential':
V1 (reasons to mulligan): No blue land; 1 blue land, no cantrip; 5+ lands w/o brainstorm and fetch; 2 land without cantrip and with only 1 combo piece.
V2: No blue source; 1 blue mana source, no cantrip; 5+ mana sources w/o brainstorm and fetch; 2 mana sources without cantrip and with only 1 combo piece.
I indicate if the hand had an active cunning wish that could have been/was resolved before the 'win' and the extent of counter spell protection to indicate relative strength of hands before 'going for it'. Clearly a lot of other metrics would be useful, but this was a first pass.

Version	Ave T of Earliest Possible Win (EPW)	% Mulligans	% of games w/Protection at EPW	Ave T w/ Prot and Win (P&W)	Ave # of active protection for P&W	% w/ Active CWish before EPW	% Win w/ EtI	Mana remaining open 'after' EPW	Notes
V1	4.1	20	80	4.4	1.2	20	95	1.2	1x Mull to 5, 3x Mull to 6
V2	3.6	10	75	4	1.1	40	100	0.7	1 T1 win, 2x Mull to 6

What do folks think of this way of looking at the deck? How do you feel about the two versions?

With higher number of repetitions the percent hands that are mulliganed should be more accurate and bias the other numbers in a more meaningful way. The faster mana version did appear to be legitimately faster, and the amount of counter backup was very similar despite cutting the pacts in the fast mana version. I included mana open after going for the win as an indicator of how well the hand could play around daze/thalia type effects at the EPW stage. The faster mana version unsurprisingly does seem to suffer here. I rarely go for the EPW when playing against a live opponent, but I thought this was still analysis worth looking at since it indicates the ability to go under some forms of disruption.

Is faster mana worth playing live?

[Barsoom]

This version removed totally the Pact of Negation from the main and still top16/280 players so i think it can be done; it even added Firemind's Foresight to the side while keeping both Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and Release the Ants (but without Laboratory Maniac); it's an hybrid version that still works good seems.

[afb0032]

Thanks for running those stats limbo, it's always nice to see data. It's interesting to see that it speeds the deck up by half a turn and have protection when going for the win, despite having less total counters. I play in a heavy blue meta and always got punished for going for the win without a protection spell, so I'm not sure I'd favor the less counter version, but it is certainly something that I may test after seeing the numbers.

[Titan2k13]

1.)why is personal tutor not played in omni show in general?
2.)why is firemind's foresight played instead of an intuition in the sideboard?whats the advantage?

[lebarion]

1.)why is personal tutor not played in omni show in general?
2.)why is firemind's foresight played instead of an intuition in the sideboard?whats the advantage?

1.) Probably because it is card disadvantage and gives information to the opponent. But I'm not sure anyone have tested it.
2.) This has been explained plenty of times, including in the first post of this thread: "useful to have dream halls + cunning wish + 2 blue cards + 0 mana function.". With intuition only, you'd have to have 3 blue cards to win with Dream Halls.

[afb0032]

Any thoughts on the recent SCG Atlanta list with 2 Intuition in the main? It has always been beneficial for me in the sideboard because of the reasoning in the primer, but I don't have any experience running it main deck.

[lebarion]

Any thoughts on the recent SCG Atlanta list with 2 Intuition in the main? It has always been beneficial for me in the sideboard because of the reasoning in the primer, but I don't have any experience running it main deck.

I've tried even going up to 3 MD Intuition and 1 side. It greatly increases the consistency of the deck, and makes it a little quicker. However, as I've put them in place of PoN, my tempo match was a little worse. Maybe the decklist from this SCG is better in this sense.

[afb0032]

I've tried even going up to 3 MD Intuition and 1 side. It greatly increases the consistency of the deck, and makes it a little quicker. However, as I've put them in place of PoN, my tempo match was a little worse. Maybe the decklist from this SCG is better in this sense.

I can definitely see how it increases the consistency. I believe he swapped it out for the gitaxian probe(s), and just out of curiousity, why did you opt for the PoN slots? Was it because of less tempo in your meta?

[lebarion]

I can definitely see how it increases the consistency. I believe he swapped it out for the gitaxian probe(s), and just out of curiousity, why did you opt for the PoN slots? Was it because of less tempo in your meta?

I guess it's because I'm stubborn .
Tempo is not really rampant in my meta, but the real reason is that I don't like the fact that PoN is dead in your hand before the combo, and that it does nothing if the opponent don't play blue.
Also, I started with emidln's list with 4 Dream Halls and 4 Cunning Wish, so I don't really have the Gitaxian Probes to cut.

[Ellomdian]

Why couldn't they just ban SnT? Then I wouldn't be dropping 200$ on a playset this week.

Also, hey everybody! Looking forward to cheating wins in the near future!

[kingsey]

ive been thinking about getting back into show and tell. its just so easy and straight forward. No other deck can herp derp win like this.

cya soon

[afb0032]

Why couldn't they just ban SnT? Then I wouldn't be dropping 200$ on a playset this week.

Also, hey everybody! Looking forward to cheating wins in the near future!

ive been thinking about getting back into show and tell. its just so easy and straight forward. No other deck can herp derp win like this.

cya soon

Welcome to the dark side

[DragoFireheart]

Welcome to the dark side

Do they serve cupcakes at the show and tell?

[afb0032]

Do they serve cupcakes at the show and tell?

Only on birthdays

[Adan]

1.)why is personal tutor not played in omni show in general?

Because it's shit. It's painfully slow. If you are playing against Miracles, Jace ruins your day. And so does Surgical Extraction and/or Extirpate. That's also the reason why I would not play further Intuitions.

2.)why is firemind's foresight played instead of an intuition in the sideboard?whats the advantage?

That's also something I explained to you, but here we go again:

For one, it allows you to kill more efficiently with Dream Halls. With Dream Halls on board, you only need Cunning Wish and 2 other blue cards. You discard the first card to Cunning Wish and fetch for Firemind's Foresight. You discard the 2nd card to Firemind's Foresight and search your library for Intuition, Trickbind/Impulse (whichever you play in the CC2 slot) and a Brainstorm or Flusterstorm, it doesn't matter.
This way you end up with Inutition and 2 blue cards, the first blue card you can pitch to Intuition for 3x Enter, the 2nd card can be pitched to Enter the Infinite. Without FF, you would need a 3rd blue card. This can be tricks against decks that play Thoughtseize and/or Inquisition. And it's the reason why a Hymn to Tourach always hurts in general.

The Firemind's Foresight also allows you to react more smoothly to a comes-into-play trigger (Venser, Detention Sphere, Oblivion Ring, Flickerwisp, Angel of Despair/Ashen Rider in the future etc.). With the trigger of Oblivion Ring on the stack targeting your Omniscience post-Show and Tell, you can Cunning Wish for Firemind's Foresight. Firemind's Foresight - dependant in your maindeck configuration - either searches you:

Brainstorm, Trickbind & Intuition if you play Trickbind in your maindeck (like emidln)

or

Brainstorm, Impulse & Cunning Wish if you play Impulse instead of Trickbind in the maindeck (like Nicolas Goldberg for example)

The first pile is obvious: you use the Trickbind to counter the trigger and proceed to tutor Enter the Infinite with Intuition and win.

The second pile is different, there you have to use Cunning Wish to fetch Trickbind from your sideboard and counter the trigger. Impulse and Brainstorm get you 7 cards deep into your library. You basically have to get lucky, but statistically that's not unlikely given that you still have like 6 or 7 outs at that point (4 Enter the Infinite, 2 Cunning Wish and 1 Intuition, that should be accurate) and the Impulse might find you a Preordain. If you find Preordain with Impulse, it even gets you 10 cards deep.

So the Trickbind line of play is the ones that takes no prisoners and wins against such a CiP-effect guaranteed. The other one is more of a "counter that trigger and hopefully I'll find another wincon". But I have experiences that Trickbind sometimes is really dead and unnecessary in many matchups, so I might swap it for Impulse. Drawing either card ruins the FF-route anyway, but drawing Impulse does not impede your flow unlike Trickbind that will clog up your hand.

I did some goldfishing and digging with Impulse and Brainstorm is usually efficient enough for such a corner case.

[KobeBryan]

Have you guys tried playing this deck against Imperial painter. My god they have a lot of counters. Good thing their game A plan doesn't work against this deck. They do have to rely on creature beats.

[Titan2k13]

1.)why is lotus petal not played in general?
I allows you to cast S&T in your 1st turn.
2.)why don't you replace 4xislands by 4xlotus petal?

[Asthereal]

Lotus Petal is good if you naturally draw the three-card combo turn 1, or cantrip into it with your first cantrip, allowing you to go off turn 2. Chances of the happening are pretty slim. In all other cases, Islands are just better. They cannot be Wastelanded and provide a reliable source of cantrip mana.

Someone earlier mentioned Personal Tutor. Yes you can play it, but just look at what it can search for: Show and Tell, Enter the Infinite, and that's it really. You need either Dream Halls or Omniscience to be able to go off at all, and Personal Tutor cannot find those. If it could, it'd be an interesting option. Now it's just a mediocre way to find half your combo. Intuition is already lots better, but it costs three mana, and isn't very good against Extirpate effects.

[afb0032]

I've played some games with the lotus petal instead of islands just to test again recently and I've come to 2 conclusions. 1) I have to mulligan a lot more because of no permanent U source in the opener for cantrips. 2) Everytime I go off without multiple counters in hand I get burned AND lose my mana source which puts me that much more behind. Safe to say for me that I prefer deck consistency over occasional speed. I'm still playing Lejay's build and found that I only have to tinker around with 1-2 slots out of the 75 depending on what meta I expect at my local store that week.

[limbo]

1) I have to mulligan a lot more because of no permanent U source in the opener for cantrips. 2) Everytime I go off without multiple counters in hand I get burned AND lose my mana source which puts me that much more behind.

I have been very happy with the mana base in my Version 2 deck from entry 522. That has 18 lands (7 islands, 5 sol lands, 6 fetch) and 3 petals. 15 or 16 lands with 4 petals (as I believe is being discussed in the previous 2 posts) is too few lands. 4 petals cuts the blue count (mana and spells) a bit too much. Additionally multiple petal draws are rarely good. I really like the 3 petals and 18 lands though as it seems to be an excellent balance between power and stability. Petals effectively act as additional sol lands, and there are still plenty of blue sources. This also gives you an easy out to instant speed removal on your enchantment with enter the infinite on the stack, since you can simply cast petals and recast show and tell.