Oops, All Spells! (Formerly The Rogue Hermit)

[DireLemming]

I'm testing something similar, but with Rite of Flame instead Wraith as I was having a dismal rate of winning without passing the turn. With Tinder Wall, Rite is amazing and counterintuitively helps a little bit with getting B with plays such as SSG->Rite->Manamorphose->DR. The only problem with this change is, I'm getting low on B imprintable cards. My next iteration is going to be about trying to incorporate Living Wish back which I feel give a lot of resilience in real-life matches and would make imprinting Hermits less problematic. I also want Revival back as it turns on Manamorphose after PiF.

[nudon]

I'm testing something similar, but with Rite of Flame instead Wraith as I was having a dismal rate of winning without passing the turn. With Tinder Wall, Rite is amazing and counterintuitively helps a little bit with getting B with plays such as SSG->Rite->Manamorphose->DR. The only problem with this change is, I'm getting low on B imprintable cards. My next iteration is going to be about trying to incorporate Living Wish back which I feel give a lot of resilience in real-life matches and would make imprinting Hermits less problematic. I also want Revival back as it turns on Manamorphose after PiF.

I actually added tinder wall for the exact reason you stated. I compared previous iterations of this deck to belcher and noticed that while both decks have 20 initial mana sources (unless you're running tangle), this deck only had 4 cmc1 mana spells compared to 8 from belcher. Moreover the initial mana and cmc1 mana in belcher is more flexible. However, I was a little hesitant to add rite of flame because there are only 4 SSG compared to 8 ESG and imprinting for red mana is far worse than green. Let me know how the testing goes. I will definitely test living wish again as well since it's so versatile. Using living wish as extra wild cantors or hate cards is amazing. It also turns LED active much earlier. However, I would trim the wish board down to save space. Re-evaluating my previous list, I think we only need the following living wish targets: balustrade spy, laboratory maniac, city of brass, hickory woodlot, geothermal crevice, and maybe 2-3 creature options. Wishing for cavern of souls and city of traitors probably happens once in a blue moon. This gives us 7 sb spots to work with. Cavern may be worth keeping but will require a cabal therapy to go along with it so you can discard FoW after a rogue resolves.

[JPoJohnson]

Came across an interesting tweak recently. Wondering what your guy's thoughts are:

I've been running Underworld Cerberus instead of Azami and Angel... and he's fantastic. Combo goes: dread return UC, sack to therapy, hard cast maniac (spirit guides + wild cantor), cycle street wraith, win.

A few benefits:
One less card in the combo (15 card combo = full sideboarding)
Therapy-ing your opponent is part of the combo (hooray!)
He's a castable mostly-unblockable beat-stick (alternate kill)
Maniac in the hand is no problem (since you'll be hard casting him)
Only Dread Return is bad in the opening hand...

Let me know what you think. Cheers!

[nudon]

Came across an interesting tweak recently. Wondering what your guy's thoughts are:

I agree it's better than the angel kill. However, the dread return package still has plenty of dead cards in the deck. Hard-casting the creature without summoner's pact isn't trivial either.

I've incorporated the living wish package again due to its versatility. Belcher, while explosive, is often a dead card when you have multiple rogues in hand. Thus, I feel it's better to reduce the number of mulligan hands as possible. Moreover, noxious revival is better than burning/death wish. I also reduced the tinder wall count to 3 because having 2 in hand is not desirable. The main difference in the sideboard is carpet of flowers. This card allows the deck to recover from counters much easier. Aside from those minor tweaks, I haven't really tinkered with the deck too much lately.

@DireLemming: You can try 1 deathrite shaman as a summoner's pact target to imprint onto chrome mox if you're light on black cards. It's also not a completely dead card if you draw it.

[Final Fortune]

I've never understood the Deathrite Shaman in order to imprint black mana on Chrome Mox via Summoner's Pact argument, in 99% of those cases Wild Cantor does the same thing without being a questionable draw.

[nudon]

I've never understood the Deathrite Shaman in order to imprint black mana on Chrome Mox via Summoner's Pact argument, in 99% of those cases Wild Cantor does the same thing without being a questionable draw.

In the previous iteration with dread return, we both came to the conclusion that DRS isn't needed in most cases. However, DireLemming is working on the PiF kill, which requires green mana. Thus, you won't always be able to turn your ESG/summoner's pact into black mana because you need the green. Secondly, imprinting DRS on chrome mox gains you 1 mana while using wild cantor only filters, netting you 0. Though I haven't tested it yet, I was offering him a suggestion since he's down to 11 black cards (7 rogues + dark ritual) in the deck after removing street wraith.

[DireLemming]

I mostly solved my imprint black problem by changing Probes to Wraith and adding Living Wish (making Rouges more consistently imprintable).

[nudon]

I'm not sure about taking probes out for wraiths since probes act as pseudo protection in real life matches. Has rite of flame justified removing 4 cycling effects? Also, I think deadshot minotaur deserves some testing as a 1-of in the deck. This turns all of your summoner's pact into cantrips to go off all in 1 turn and gives your red mana something to do.

[Ziveeman]

Oops All Spells made its first SCG Top 8 today. Congrats.

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=59861

[MaximumC]

Dunno if this has been mentioned yet, but has anyone tried [card]Recross the Paths[/card] out? In builds with alot of Wraiths or Probes, it seems like a pretty sick way to stack your deck and get it done. With two cantrips in hand, you can stack LED and a Rouge, for example.

[Jables237]

Dunno if this has been mentioned yet, but has anyone tried [card]Recross the Paths[/card] out? In builds with alot of Wraiths or Probes, it seems like a pretty sick way to stack your deck and get it done. With two cantrips in hand, you can stack LED and a Rouge, for example.

Takes 3 mana to cast which is only 1 short of going off anyways. Then you still have to draw the cards you stack. Not worth it imho.

[jmd323232]

Oops All Spells made its first SCG Top 8 today. Congrats.

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=59861

This deck seems to disagree with many of the choices in this thread. I wish the coverage was better of how this deck was played and what matchups it faced...

The deck gets destroyed in the finals by FoW. How was it not countered more often without any pact in main or sb?

As previously mentioned, the wraith/probe let you top deck solutions, but make the mulligan choices murky. Im wondering how much mull was done and success rates from matches.

One thing im unclear on is how going off in response to the probe gives some kind of an advantage.

I like the transformational sideboard, but also wonder how often and against what decks it was used. In the finals, it didnt appear it was used.

[fredteded]

I'm thinking of building Jeremy Barbeau's version of this deck, only with the Underworld Cerberus win instead. Since Underworld Cerberus frees up one slot what should I play as the last card? Right now I'm thinking the 4th summoner's pact or a random rite of flame, any ideas?

Creatures (28)

1 Underworld Cerberus
4 Balustrade Spy
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Laboratory Maniac
4 Narcomoeba
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Street Wraith
1 Tinder Wall
4 Undercity Informer
1 Wild Cantor

Spells (31)

4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Manamorphose
3 Summoner's Pact
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread Return
4 Gitaxian Probe

[Xanderin]

This is my first post here, so hopefully this is useful. I am building this deck and my LGS didn't have any Azami, Lady of Scrolls in stock. So I was looking for an alternative and found Alchemist's Apprentice. http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Ca...verseid=240031 Alchemist's Apprentice seems like a strict upgrade to Azami since it does not require tapping. I would love to hear some input to this idea. I am new to Legacy, so maybe there is something that makes Azami better? Hopefully this idea helps someone!

Well, After reading more... I found the answer to my question on P16 of this thread. Azami lets you tap the other Wizard in response to Stifle.

[Namida]

"Requiring Tapping" isn't a drawback, and I'm not sure why you think it is. "Tap a Wizard" and "Sacrifice this" both are costs activated abilities that can be responded to.

Hapless Researcher is better than Alchemist's Apprentice because it costs one mana if you're planning on casting it. In a no-land deck, I think the extra mana you would put into casting the Apprentice is likely going to cost you a card, so there isn't much difference in losing a card from paying 1U and discarding a card as part of Hapless Researcher's ability.

Underworld Cerberus seems be a better alternative if you're trying to kill with Laboratory Maniac without playing Azami.

[Matt]

After some intensive play-testing, with the wish-less version, the Rogue Hermit's strengths and weaknesses are becoming very apparent.

Pros:
Speed - a self-contained combo for 4cc in legacy--almost inconceivable until you realize how vulnerable Rogue Hermit is to disruption.
High Game 1 Win % - If your opponent isn't holding FoW, and you didn't mull into oblivion, you win.

Cons:
Loses to FoW (needs to be addressed)
Loses to Graveyard Hate (solved, to some extent)

Firstly, in its current condition, I would not play this deck in a meta with any significant amount of blue cards--very similar to Belcher. Though, I feel like this problem is somewhat addressable (Pact of Negation and, to a lesser extent, Unmask.) Pact of Negation can be implemented easily enough with out running into any consistency issues. Unmask, on the other hand, requires some tinkering, but +4 Street Wraith, +4 Cabal Therapy, and possibly +1 Bridge from Below wouldn't be terribly difficult to implement and would be more than enough to supplement 2-3 Unmasks in the side. But because of our transformational sideboard, which I mention next, there isn't much room for protection spells (running 1-3 Goblin Charbelcher main could free some space). The obvious solution would be to run 3-4 Pact of Negation main (for starters, Underworld Cerberus replacing Angel of Glory's Rise and Azami, Lady of Scrolls provides a slot), freeing up room in the sideboard, along with 2-3 copies of Unmask in the side. Also, this deck is pretty weak to soft-counters, especially if your opponent is clever enough to target your initial mana sources or initial ritual effects. Regardless though, Carpet of Flowers wouldn't be correct. It's slow and counter-intuitive, as it takes an initial mana source to cast; even though Belcher decks only runs one land, it's more than enough to supplement Carpet of Flowers, Rogue Hermit, in comparison, desperately needs every initial mana source available to it in order to cast Dark Ritual, Tinder Wall, and possibly Rite of Flame.

Secondly, graveyard hate is simply a blowout (they can just mulligan into the 4x Tormod's Crypt that they sided in--and win!.. it's terrible). But thankfully, our second problem has already been addressed with a transformational sideboard! A transformational sideboard allows us to successfully dodge game 2 (and arguably game 3) graveyard hate. There's a few problems I see with this, though. Firstly, a transformational sideboard takes up 12+ slots, slots which could be dedicated to answering blue spells. Secondly, our transformed belcher deck is mediocre at best; the most fine-tuned blecher lists have a difficult time averaging 7-mana turn one to cast/activate belcher. In play testing, it generally took 3 turns to cast AND activate Goblin Charbelcher--quite slow. Thirdly, when transforming the deck game 2/3, if the opponent is clever enough to side in Mind Break Trap, Spell Pierce, ect. (which is a logical idea, as MBT and Spell Pierce answers Petal>Dark Rit.>Cabal Rit.>Spy/Informer), rather then graveyard hate, we're now playing a diluted version of belcher against blue cards... so terrible. And lastly, I figured I should mention, a transformational sideboard can often lead to awkward Game 3's. Game 1, your opponent is bestowed the great fortune of watching the Rogue Hermit blow up in their face (or vice versa, if they're packing FoW). Game 2, your opponent has now prepared graveyard hate to combat your efforts, but he is instead, once again, bestowed the great fortune of witnessing just how clever you really are as your new, innovative transformational sideboard blows up in their face (or vice versa, if they're packing FoW). Game 3, the cat's out of the bag. Your opponent has seen your tricks; there's no longer anywhere to hide. So what will your opponent do, side out graveyard hate? If so, will you transform back to Rogue Hermit; and if so, will he side his hate back in? Well if that's the case, mind as well just play belcher... See where I'm going with this? Game 3 tends to be sort of awkward, as both players take turns subtly spying on each other in an attempt to sideboard something relevant!

And if you're lucky enough to get paired against a blue deck with yard hate, it's a bad day for you my friend.

All-in-all, I think the best configuration as of now seems to be the wish-less list with a transformational sideboard. Though there's still improvements to be made, especially in terms of resiliency, which can be found in Pact of Negation and Unmask (specifically Pact of Negation main and Unmask in the side).

[herbig]

Can someone explain how you target Underworld Cerberus with Dread Return? I must be missing something right?

[whienot]

Can someone explain how you target Underworld Cerberus with Dread Return? I must be missing something right?

Underworld Cerberus's ability has no effect while it's in the graveyard.

[herbig]

Underworld Cerberus's ability has no effect while it's in the graveyard.

Oh yeah.

[nudon]

All-in-all, I think the best configuration as of now seems to be the wish-less list with a transformational sideboard.

Before making such a statement, I suggest you test either the living wish version Direlemming or I worked on. His version uses rite of flame instead of probes. Living wish represents 4 main deck outs to grave yard hate. Moreover, the living wish version only has 4 dead cards as opposed to 10.

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Tinder Wall
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Summoner's Pact
1 Wild Cantor
4 Manamorphose
4 Street Wraith
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Memory's Journey
1 Deep Analysis
1 Past in Flames
1 Noxious Revival
4 Living Wish
4 Undercity Informer
3 Balustrade Spy

1 Balustrade Spy
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 City of Brass
1 Hickory Woodlot
1 Geothermal Crevice
1 Phyrexian Obliterator
1 Magus of the Moon
4 Xantid Swarm
4 Carpet of Flowers