OK, y'all, I just want everyone to know that I am buying every possible copy of Energy Field (especially Japanese) and Helm of Obedience that I can find/afford. The recently spoiled Rest In Peace makes both of these cards a LOT more tasty in good ol' 1.5, or for you newcomers, Legacy. If you're more interested in the particulars, read my post "RIP.deck: Its Painted Stone all over again" in Legacy > Developing.
My circle has done the testing, and we are in agreement that the combo is nice and solid, probably tier-1 good. Reasons:
1. All pieces are art/ench, invalidating creature removal.
2. Field and RIP are both at CMC 2. Sticking both is tantamount to winning against most "fair" decks pre-board, as most do not have enchantment removal manlined.
3. Cards that are good against this deck are generally Disenchantable and do not have good cross-interactions with other decks besides Painter (Pithing Needle, Stony Silence), and Painter is not popular right now.
4. The deck has substantial gravehate in the maindeck, making it a shoo-in against Dredge and Reanimator.
5. The deck is in the appropriate colors for both Enlightened Tutor and Force of Will, two of the most relevant cards for setting up and executing combos, as well as Orim's Chant and Silence.
Testing has revealed that Show and Tell decks are really the only bad matchup, and generally only game 1. And while we are on the subject of Show and Tell, I have a theory that the reason it lists permanent types (of which there were only 4 at the time) instead of simply saying "permanent" like they did on cards like Desert Twister, Apocalypse, or Vindicate, all of which had printings near the same time, is that it was a form of spoiler (much like Tarmogoyf, which included the word "Planeswalker" in its explainer text long before there was such a thing) that there would one day be a fifth, or even sixth type of permanent. Or perhaps it was a "just in case" scenario, but Wizards has stated more or less that, if something is too powerful in Legacy, the will just ban it. Keeping Standard fun and interactive is mostly what they're interested in, so unless they were planning to run Planeswalkers out by Masques Block, there really was no need to print all 4 keywords. Just sayin'...
...because cards aren't permanents until they're on the battlefield. The vast majority of cards that say "permanent card" are were errataed to be that way after the Tribal type was created. The only, and I stress, only card that refers to permanent cards that isn't either A) errataed (Dragonstorm) or B) relatively new (Chaos Warp) is Eureka. And even then, Legends is no set to look at for proper wording...
tl;dr: "Permanent card" was never used until relatively recent cards, and simply saying "permanent" doesn't mean anything to anything that isn't on the battlefield.
Edit: Now I'm going to make a Eureka deck because Show and Tell isn't nearly as cool...
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OK, y'all, I just want everyone to know that I am buying every possible copy of Energy Field (especially Japanese) and Helm of Obedience that I can find/afford. The recently spoiled Rest In Peace makes both of these cards a LOT more tasty in good ol' 1.5, or for you newcomers, Legacy. If you're more interested in the particulars, read my post "RIP.deck: Its Painted Stone all over again" in Legacy > Developing.
My circle has done the testing, and we are in agreement that the combo is nice and solid, probably tier-1 good. Reasons:
1. All pieces are art/ench, invalidating creature removal.
2. Field and RIP are both at CMC 2. Sticking both is tantamount to winning against most "fair" decks pre-board, as most do not have enchantment removal manlined.
3. Cards that are good against this deck are generally Disenchantable and do not have good cross-interactions with other decks besides Painter (Pithing Needle, Stony Silence), and Painter is not popular right now.
4. The deck has substantial gravehate in the maindeck, making it a shoo-in against Dredge and Reanimator.
5. The deck is in the appropriate colors for both Enlightened Tutor and Force of Will, two of the most relevant cards for setting up and executing combos, as well as Orim's Chant and Silence.
Testing has revealed that Show and Tell decks are really the only bad matchup, and generally only game 1. And while we are on the subject of Show and Tell, I have a theory that the reason it lists permanent types (of which there were only 4 at the time) instead of simply saying "permanent" like they did on cards like Desert Twister, Apocalypse, or Vindicate, all of which had printings near the same time, is that it was a form of spoiler (much like Tarmogoyf, which included the word "Planeswalker" in its explainer text long before there was such a thing) that there would one day be a fifth, or even sixth type of permanent. Or perhaps it was a "just in case" scenario, but Wizards has stated more or less that, if something is too powerful in Legacy, the will just ban it. Keeping Standard fun and interactive is mostly what they're interested in, so unless they were planning to run Planeswalkers out by Masques Block, there really was no need to print all 4 keywords. Just sayin'...
This is a great combo, and I'd like to see it work, but Abrupt Decay. It's going to be seeing a ton of maindeck play in the near future, and it destroys both Energy Field and RIP uncounterably.
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Sigismond, you have an excellent point (and a creepishly cool avatar, BTW). The same thing occurred to me right after I posted, that permanents are not permanents until they are in play. I like your idea about going Eureka, as they are similarly priced to Shows right now (crazy, rite?), and I can forsee a ban on Show comin' round the bend, as more and more overpowered and overcosted cards get printed. With Omniscience and Griselbrand in the past two sets alone, it's the most busted combo since they banned Yawgmoth's Will, and absolutely no fun to play against. When they go Tomb, Lotus Petal, Show, Omni, Wish, Petals, Petals,...Petals, Wish, Grapeshot, GG, brah, while I'm holding 7 cards and wishing I had gotten to play Magic, it's just time to admit that the interaction is just plain unfair before people get frustrated and stop playing.
I would love to see Show go and Eureka! make a comeback. It's so much more fair a card. The extra mana and the fact that it's green make it so much more balanced. I'd say buy the Eureka!'s now while they're still cheap. Once Show goes, I'd bet good money the price of Eureka! will jump 20 just on speculation.
On a similar note, what do folks think of the interaction between Epic Experiment and Hypergenesis? Anything there?
Wildfire, you have an excellent point. Decay kills your RIP, which then destroys your Field, and does so uncounterably. But where is G/B in the current meta? Team America has long since bit the dust, Junk is currently below tier-1 status, and BUG, while a presence, generally makes up about 1-3% of the field at any given event. Decay may cause that number to jump (and probably will), but even post-release, I think I'm still not as afraid of Decay as I am of Show. Decay can't kill a Helm, and a second RIP is easy enough to find if you're doing it right. Only time will tell...
This is a great combo, and I'd like to see it work, but Abrupt Decay. It's going to be seeing a ton of maindeck play in the near future, and it destroys both Energy Field and RIP uncounterably.
There's always Privileged Position, but it's probably too expensive to play reliably in legacy.
Hey. Hey. What about Sterling Grove?
Grove works especially nice since Decay does nothing to it. In the worst case scenario it can be used to fetch another copy of itself.
- Hiss.
This isn't bad really, run some prison effects and mill and mill the enemy out.
We kicked the idea of Sterling Grove around during testing, but it was a choice of either a black splash for Thoughtseize, a red splash for Redblast, or a green splash for Grove. Grove is some kinda good if in the right matchup, and still decent in most, as a searcher, but we felt that hand disruption was the most relevant. Although, if the meta shifts, as I predict it will, causing G/B/X to become more powerful, and hopefully, leading to a ban on Show and Tell, Bant may wind up being the best version of the deck.
I think the biggest problem here is the Helm of Obedience.
The CMC is actually 5 because in most matchups, you want to activate right away.
At CMC 5, other decks hard cast 9 Power Creatures (Hermit) or have comboed off twice. or plant a Jace with spell pierce backup,
Look at Belcher: The whole deck is built around
-finding Belcher and an LED
-finding two lands and some one shot mana sources to play Belcher (4 Mana)
-playing LED and then winning (3 Mana off LED)
In a Helm deck however, you want to just cast the Helm on curve (4 or 5 depending on matchup), the rest is peanuts (finding Leyline OR RIP OR Tutor -ouch, card disadvantage- isn't that hard..)
It seems strange, but comboing off Belcher on Turn 3 is easier than reaching CMC 5 and then casting a single game winning something without being interrupted. 1-2 more turns to stick a pithing needle or burn you dead or combo off is a lot in Legacy!
The Grave hate can be a big extra, but against some decks, RIP and leyline without a Helm are just dead cards. Dead cards are deadly... for you!
What purpose does Helm of Obedience serve here? Given that you seem to be basically running a Prison/Turbofog deck with Mill as a wincon, aren't you better off with Sands of Delirium?
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What purpose does Helm of Obedience serve here? Given that you seem to be basically running a Prison/Turbofog deck with Mill as a wincon, aren't you better off with Sands of Delirium?
A single activation of Helm of Obedience with either Leyline of the Void or Rest in Peace in play will mill all the cards in your opponent's library because the 'creature card milled into the graveyard' condition can never be fulfilled.
Helm at 4 (5) is a drawback. We are in agreement about this. What makes the deck viable is the Energy Field. It prisons your opponent in a perpetual state of inactivity until you are able to go off. The reason Helm/Leyline never took off was that by the time it was casting combo pieces, it was generally dead to board. And those combo pieces offered little to no protection. The silver bullet here is the Field.
This deck absoltely hoses delver, as it shuts down every single creature in the deck other than its namesake. Goyf, Snapcaster, Mongoose, Lavaman, all no bigger or more threatening than a Savannah Lion. And thats WITHOUT Field in play. Most decks have some sort of interaction with graveyards, so RIP is rarely a dead card by itself. And at CMC 2, it is worlds better than Leyline in a Tutor package, as Tutoring for Leyline is very, very lossy.
The problem, as I see it, is that there is a tendency to view this as a traditional combo deck, which generally requires a single interaction between two cards to win the game. In actuality, it bears elements of 3 decks - combo, control, and enchantress; and encorporates aspects of all 3 as it puts together the pieces to create a commanding, and often impregnable board presence before going off at whatever time it deems appropriate, be it turn 4 or turn 12. Speed here is not the issue. The deck can go: turn 4 ancient tomb, tap out, kill you. That's not to say that it does so often, or even has any desire to do so in the first place.
There is, in this archetype, the inherent flaw of being very weak to a dedicated, speed-focused combo deck, as Field does absolutely nothing to stop or even slow down most 2-card instant-win conditions. The best one can hope to do in these circumstances is to stick the RIP early, then play a draw-go, control-heavy game. Think of it as a control deck with the combo as the ultimate win condition instead of Stoneforge/Batterskull. It will make more sense the more you play it, if that is your intention.
Going Bant is certainly an option, as stated before. And alternatively, Enchantress could use RIP/Helm as its win con, as it fits the color themology. Again, this is an interaction that can work in many situations. When was the last time you saw Enchantress win on turn 4? NEVER, that's when. There is no compelling drive to be fast. Against most decks, you have all the time in the world, and you're all set up by turn 3, with Spell Pierce and probably FoW backup.
Greater Auramancy that was the card I was thinking of! U can use that to give all your enchantments shroud which is real nice. Pretty much when an enchantress deck gets this out the opponent is screwed.
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This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
Sterling Grove has the same effect, and it lets you sac it to search for another enchantment. The combo is generally well-protected enough by the counterspells. Additional layers of protection do little until you get the combo in play, where as counters can be played for protection, as well as to disrupt an opponent's combo setup, to prevent a pivotal creature from hitting the board, etc. They are less likely to wind up being dead cards if you run out of steam.
That being said, I am somewhat fond of Misdirection and Divert as a means of dealing with Abrupt Decay, as all they have to do is have pretty much anything (that gets played in G/B) in play that is not a land for it to be pretty dang sweet. Diverting to Bob or KotR when they were expecting a clean snipe is quite the gamechanger.
So let's start thinking of ways to, instead of protecting the protection for our protection, improve the bad matchups, and/or pull the ol' switcheroo in the board. The deck easily converts to U/W Miracles, and requires few slots to do so. This may be the way to go. Also, besides Show and Tell, what do you all think the other bad matchups will be? We have not tested everything yet, and I want to be prepared for everything when the deck debuts, because I could really use that 2 grand top prize...
Instants/sorcs: 23
4 Standstill
2 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
3 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Misdirection
4 Force of Will
3 Enlightened Tutor
Enchantments/Artifacts: 10
3 Helm of Obedience
4 RIP
3 Energy Field
Lands: 17 (plus the 2 dryad arbor)
8 Fetch of what ever you want
2 Tundra
2 Savannah
3 Tropical Islands
1 Island
1 man land (pick one and have fun)
Things I may think about trying to fit in are Mox Diamonds and Ancient Tombs.
This is how I see the play.
Turn 1:
Land -> noble or GSZ for Dryad
Turn 2:
Land -> Tutor/Ponder/or Brainstorm and then Energy/standstill/Mage or RIP
Turn 3: Finish out what you need to get the combo
Turn 4: Combo off
FOW and Misdirection are really only for protecting your combo pieces or taking out your opponents win condition. Remember you can misdirect a counterspell to misdirection to save your play. Helps vs abrupt decay plays as well.
That being said, I am somewhat fond of Misdirection and Divert as a means of dealing with Abrupt Decay, as all they have to do is have pretty much anything (that gets played in G/B) in play that is not a land for it to be pretty dang sweet. Diverting to Bob or KotR when they were expecting a clean snipe is quite the gamechanger.
Not to bash on Misdirection or Divert, But Redirect is better than either of them (Cheaper by far than Misdirection, and doesn't allow your opponent any option, like Divert). And Running 4 of will never be a bad idea with so many FoW and Spell Peirce running rampant in Legacy.
EDIT: I know you can exile a blue card instead of paying Misdirection's mana cost, But I personally abhor Giving opponents CA. Redirect at its worst is a 1-1.
If it would mean Wizards has access to the Golden Legal Army of Disney and could slay the Reserved List, I for one would welcome our new rodent overlords.
This card also has the distinction of being my least favorite art on a card in the set thus far,... he looks... Out of place to say the least. His face seems to say: "I'm only wearing this outfit because if I don't Niv will eat my family."
Not to bash on Misdirection or Divert, But Redirect is better than either of them (Cheaper by far than Misdirection, and doesn't allow your opponent any option, like Divert). And Running 4 of will never be a bad idea with so many FoW and Spell Peirce running rampant in Legacy.
EDIT: I know you can exile a blue card instead of paying Misdirection's mana cost, But I personally abhor Giving opponents CA. Redirect at its worst is a 1-1.
Redirect is pretty slow, though. You want to redirect stuff like Hymn to Tourach and Thoughtseize, and you can't cast Redirect on one land (let's say they're on the play). I'll gladly lose 2 cards (one decent and one throwaway) to make them lose 2-3 cards (at least one of which is decent).
It would seem Abrupt Decay is less of an issue than I had previously imagined. Despite being mostly good in a vacuum, it seems like it's really having trouble finding its place. Misdirection, Redirect, Divert all seem fairly irrelevant.
And yeah, giving an opponent card advantage is terrible, which is why Force of Will is such an awful card, especially in combo decks.
The shell behind this deck is suited for black, not blue for the reasons stated, but the inclusion of white with some fetches and scrublands etc would look something roughly like this:
This is a VERY rough draft, and loosely based off the Dark Times decks. Leyline/Helm had a lesser known, but quite effective deck in Vintage known as Two Card Monte that was powered off Mishra's Workshops. Obviously we can't play Shops, but we can at least use Dark Rituals. The general object of the game is to get Leyline in opening hand, and combo out early off of Hexmage/DD or helm/leyline. LED shines here in a similar fashion of using Infernal Tutor to fetch and play Helm with mana leftover for activation. Ordinarily, we'd like to see more cards for LED to play off of, like Burning Wish, but since Burning Wish is essentially useless, we can still do the same trick off of Enlightened Tutor provided we have a way to draw the card (Sensei's Top). Slightly more conditional, but Sensei's Top also gives us some sorting and digging if our opening hand is solid, we just need to find a tutor or something. DD/Hexmage combo is useful to this deck, opponents hate to side out removal when they know that Marit Lage is a possibility, but hate to leave it in when there are NO other targets. Also, Urborg provides some color fixing and lets Dark Depths tap for mana as necessary. The infernal tutor/LED shell also lets us search for ANY combo piece, like RIP if we don't have enough mana to play Leyline, Hexmage if we have the dark depths, or even Dark Depths if we have the hexmage. That half of the combo is nice if hexmage is already out as DD is uncounterable.
The deck is resilient enough to keep trying to combo if it fails the first time for whatever reason, allowing you to try to go off without protection knowing you can always try again next turn.
Again, this is an unrefined shell, very rough, so there are probably some optimizations that can be had, but before RIP was printed I played a version of the deck utilizing Bob and Serum Powder and could combo off T1 about 25% of the time, and by T3 pretty consistently. With RIP and the access to E-Tutor, the deck has a greater stability and no longer needs to rely on Serum Powder to fix hands.
Goldfishing Results on Cockatrice:
G1: T2 Marit Lage Token
G2: T3 Leyline Kill
G3: (Mull to 6) T3 Leyline Kill w/thoughtseize
G4: T3 Leyline Kill w/ thoughtseize
G5: T3 RIP Kill
G6: T3 RIP Kill w/ Thoughtseize
G7: Mull to oblivion
G8: T3 Marit Lage Token
ok, so has anyone else been on starcity to check the prices of these cards lately? both are sold out, and each is up to to fifteen bucks, from 6-7 each less than a month ago. did i call it, or did i call it, or did i call it? i'll be going on to see if i can't pick up another few playsets before everyone catches on, but unless i miss my guess, one of two things will happen. either someone will top 8 with the deck this weekend, or there will some form of decktech or media coverage at the event in indiana, and every outstanding copy at the old price will be gone by wednesday. this is your last chance, people. i'd suggest tcgplayer.com, as they seem to be the only site still offering combo pieces at under 10$ a pop.
I totally love the Orzhov list. I knew someone had the brains/balls to make it work. Do update once you have had a chance to test, as I am very interested to see how the dedicated combo list fares without the E. Fields.
I might sleeve it up in the future, it's an idea i've had brewing in the back of my mind for some time, but RIP gave it some fresh blood. I'm doing this strictly in theory right now, but I might proxy the missing pieces and try it out. I've got everything but 3 scrubs, the shrines, 2 e-tutors, and the thoughtseizes. Want to make sure it works before I set about acquiring them.
Even though I didn't illustrate it, there's lots of t1 kill opening hand combinations if you don't care about going off without protection, or downright scary plays.
Leyline, rit, rit, petal or land, helm
Dark depths, petal, rit, hexmage (t2 actually, but you get the idea)
Leyline, led, rit, petal, land, inf tutor
Etc......
I encourage people to load up the deck on deckstats.net and try some opening hand goldfishing. It's fast. Real fast. And surprisingly stable. Just a little susceptible to counters is my initial impression, the thoughtseizes are a must.
Incidentally, with show and tell decks running around everywhere, a t1 helm is still a very scary thing for them, even without the leyline or rip. The deck also auto-hates dredge, as well as neutering maverick's KoTRs and has a backup plan with marit lage for gaddock teeg, shuts off igg-loop from storm based decks, and fights through mud's welders and lodestone golems with minimal disruption, and turns off thresh-style decks by neutering mongoose and 'goyf. It also shuts off snapcasters and almost completely ignores ethersworn canonist.
There's probably a way to build a transformational sideboard and board it into an ANT deck of some nature which might be too cute, but certainly hilarious.
Cool to see other's working with Energy Field and Rest in Peace. Here is a variant I built about 3 weeks ago. It uses Inkmoth Nexus and Elspeth, Knight-Errant for the win condition. I have 4 variations being worked on at the same time. I have also replaced Elspeth with Helm of Obedience which is probably the strongest. Another one replaces the Isochron Scepter - Orim's Chant lock with Sensei's Divining Top and Counterbalance synergy. Hard to decide which I like more. Too many good possibilities with these cards now.
3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Isochron Scepter
4 Rest in Peace
3 Energy Field
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Orim's Chant
4 Force of Will
3 Counterspell
2 Spell Pierce
My circle has done the testing, and we are in agreement that the combo is nice and solid, probably tier-1 good. Reasons:
1. All pieces are art/ench, invalidating creature removal.
2. Field and RIP are both at CMC 2. Sticking both is tantamount to winning against most "fair" decks pre-board, as most do not have enchantment removal manlined.
3. Cards that are good against this deck are generally Disenchantable and do not have good cross-interactions with other decks besides Painter (Pithing Needle, Stony Silence), and Painter is not popular right now.
4. The deck has substantial gravehate in the maindeck, making it a shoo-in against Dredge and Reanimator.
5. The deck is in the appropriate colors for both Enlightened Tutor and Force of Will, two of the most relevant cards for setting up and executing combos, as well as Orim's Chant and Silence.
Testing has revealed that Show and Tell decks are really the only bad matchup, and generally only game 1. And while we are on the subject of Show and Tell, I have a theory that the reason it lists permanent types (of which there were only 4 at the time) instead of simply saying "permanent" like they did on cards like Desert Twister, Apocalypse, or Vindicate, all of which had printings near the same time, is that it was a form of spoiler (much like Tarmogoyf, which included the word "Planeswalker" in its explainer text long before there was such a thing) that there would one day be a fifth, or even sixth type of permanent. Or perhaps it was a "just in case" scenario, but Wizards has stated more or less that, if something is too powerful in Legacy, the will just ban it. Keeping Standard fun and interactive is mostly what they're interested in, so unless they were planning to run Planeswalkers out by Masques Block, there really was no need to print all 4 keywords. Just sayin'...
I don't play legacy, but I wish you the best of luck with this deck idea.
tl;dr: "Permanent card" was never used until relatively recent cards, and simply saying "permanent" doesn't mean anything to anything that isn't on the battlefield.
Edit: Now I'm going to make a Eureka deck because Show and Tell isn't nearly as cool...
This is a great combo, and I'd like to see it work, but Abrupt Decay. It's going to be seeing a ton of maindeck play in the near future, and it destroys both Energy Field and RIP uncounterably.
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I would love to see Show go and Eureka! make a comeback. It's so much more fair a card. The extra mana and the fact that it's green make it so much more balanced. I'd say buy the Eureka!'s now while they're still cheap. Once Show goes, I'd bet good money the price of Eureka! will jump 20 just on speculation.
On a similar note, what do folks think of the interaction between Epic Experiment and Hypergenesis? Anything there?
Wildfire, you have an excellent point. Decay kills your RIP, which then destroys your Field, and does so uncounterably. But where is G/B in the current meta? Team America has long since bit the dust, Junk is currently below tier-1 status, and BUG, while a presence, generally makes up about 1-3% of the field at any given event. Decay may cause that number to jump (and probably will), but even post-release, I think I'm still not as afraid of Decay as I am of Show. Decay can't kill a Helm, and a second RIP is easy enough to find if you're doing it right. Only time will tell...
There's always Privileged Position, but it's probably too expensive to play reliably in legacy.
This isn't bad really, run some prison effects and mill and mill the enemy out.
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Played:
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The CMC is actually 5 because in most matchups, you want to activate right away.
At CMC 5, other decks hard cast 9 Power Creatures (Hermit) or have comboed off twice. or plant a Jace with spell pierce backup,
Look at Belcher: The whole deck is built around
-finding Belcher and an LED
-finding two lands and some one shot mana sources to play Belcher (4 Mana)
-playing LED and then winning (3 Mana off LED)
In a Helm deck however, you want to just cast the Helm on curve (4 or 5 depending on matchup), the rest is peanuts (finding Leyline OR RIP OR Tutor -ouch, card disadvantage- isn't that hard..)
It seems strange, but comboing off Belcher on Turn 3 is easier than reaching CMC 5 and then casting a single game winning something without being interrupted. 1-2 more turns to stick a pithing needle or burn you dead or combo off is a lot in Legacy!
The Grave hate can be a big extra, but against some decks, RIP and leyline without a Helm are just dead cards. Dead cards are deadly... for you!
This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
A single activation of Helm of Obedience with either Leyline of the Void or Rest in Peace in play will mill all the cards in your opponent's library because the 'creature card milled into the graveyard' condition can never be fulfilled.
This deck absoltely hoses delver, as it shuts down every single creature in the deck other than its namesake. Goyf, Snapcaster, Mongoose, Lavaman, all no bigger or more threatening than a Savannah Lion. And thats WITHOUT Field in play. Most decks have some sort of interaction with graveyards, so RIP is rarely a dead card by itself. And at CMC 2, it is worlds better than Leyline in a Tutor package, as Tutoring for Leyline is very, very lossy.
The problem, as I see it, is that there is a tendency to view this as a traditional combo deck, which generally requires a single interaction between two cards to win the game. In actuality, it bears elements of 3 decks - combo, control, and enchantress; and encorporates aspects of all 3 as it puts together the pieces to create a commanding, and often impregnable board presence before going off at whatever time it deems appropriate, be it turn 4 or turn 12. Speed here is not the issue. The deck can go: turn 4 ancient tomb, tap out, kill you. That's not to say that it does so often, or even has any desire to do so in the first place.
There is, in this archetype, the inherent flaw of being very weak to a dedicated, speed-focused combo deck, as Field does absolutely nothing to stop or even slow down most 2-card instant-win conditions. The best one can hope to do in these circumstances is to stick the RIP early, then play a draw-go, control-heavy game. Think of it as a control deck with the combo as the ultimate win condition instead of Stoneforge/Batterskull. It will make more sense the more you play it, if that is your intention.
Going Bant is certainly an option, as stated before. And alternatively, Enchantress could use RIP/Helm as its win con, as it fits the color themology. Again, this is an interaction that can work in many situations. When was the last time you saw Enchantress win on turn 4? NEVER, that's when. There is no compelling drive to be fast. Against most decks, you have all the time in the world, and you're all set up by turn 3, with Spell Pierce and probably FoW backup.
This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
That being said, I am somewhat fond of Misdirection and Divert as a means of dealing with Abrupt Decay, as all they have to do is have pretty much anything (that gets played in G/B) in play that is not a land for it to be pretty dang sweet. Diverting to Bob or KotR when they were expecting a clean snipe is quite the gamechanger.
So let's start thinking of ways to, instead of protecting the protection for our protection, improve the bad matchups, and/or pull the ol' switcheroo in the board. The deck easily converts to U/W Miracles, and requires few slots to do so. This may be the way to go. Also, besides Show and Tell, what do you all think the other bad matchups will be? We have not tested everything yet, and I want to be prepared for everything when the deck debuts, because I could really use that 2 grand top prize...
First time poster here but I wanted to share my ideas for the deck.
Bant
Creatures:10
2 Dryad Arbor
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Meddling Mage
Instants/sorcs: 23
4 Standstill
2 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
3 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Misdirection
4 Force of Will
3 Enlightened Tutor
Enchantments/Artifacts: 10
3 Helm of Obedience
4 RIP
3 Energy Field
Lands: 17 (plus the 2 dryad arbor)
8 Fetch of what ever you want
2 Tundra
2 Savannah
3 Tropical Islands
1 Island
1 man land (pick one and have fun)
Things I may think about trying to fit in are Mox Diamonds and Ancient Tombs.
This is how I see the play.
Turn 1:
Land -> noble or GSZ for Dryad
Turn 2:
Land -> Tutor/Ponder/or Brainstorm and then Energy/standstill/Mage or RIP
Turn 3: Finish out what you need to get the combo
Turn 4: Combo off
FOW and Misdirection are really only for protecting your combo pieces or taking out your opponents win condition. Remember you can misdirect a counterspell to misdirection to save your play. Helps vs abrupt decay plays as well.
Thoughts?
Not to bash on Misdirection or Divert, But Redirect is better than either of them (Cheaper by far than Misdirection, and doesn't allow your opponent any option, like Divert). And Running 4 of will never be a bad idea with so many FoW and Spell Peirce running rampant in Legacy.
EDIT: I know you can exile a blue card instead of paying Misdirection's mana cost, But I personally abhor Giving opponents CA. Redirect at its worst is a 1-1.
On Mercurial Chemister:
There's no proof she's being chased
by ninja squirrels either. - Dr. Wilson
Redirect is pretty slow, though. You want to redirect stuff like Hymn to Tourach and Thoughtseize, and you can't cast Redirect on one land (let's say they're on the play). I'll gladly lose 2 cards (one decent and one throwaway) to make them lose 2-3 cards (at least one of which is decent).
And yeah, giving an opponent card advantage is terrible, which is why Force of Will is such an awful card, especially in combo decks.
Two Card Monte (Legacy version)
4x Leyline of The Void
2x Rest in Peace
4x Sensei's Divining Top
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Dark Ritual
4x Infernal Tutor
4x Thoughtseize
4x Enlightened Tutor
3x Vampire Hexmage
4x Lotus Petal
2x Dark Depths
2x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4x Marsh Flats
4x Scrubland
4x Godless Shrine
3x Ancient Tomb
This is a VERY rough draft, and loosely based off the Dark Times decks. Leyline/Helm had a lesser known, but quite effective deck in Vintage known as Two Card Monte that was powered off Mishra's Workshops. Obviously we can't play Shops, but we can at least use Dark Rituals. The general object of the game is to get Leyline in opening hand, and combo out early off of Hexmage/DD or helm/leyline. LED shines here in a similar fashion of using Infernal Tutor to fetch and play Helm with mana leftover for activation. Ordinarily, we'd like to see more cards for LED to play off of, like Burning Wish, but since Burning Wish is essentially useless, we can still do the same trick off of Enlightened Tutor provided we have a way to draw the card (Sensei's Top). Slightly more conditional, but Sensei's Top also gives us some sorting and digging if our opening hand is solid, we just need to find a tutor or something. DD/Hexmage combo is useful to this deck, opponents hate to side out removal when they know that Marit Lage is a possibility, but hate to leave it in when there are NO other targets. Also, Urborg provides some color fixing and lets Dark Depths tap for mana as necessary. The infernal tutor/LED shell also lets us search for ANY combo piece, like RIP if we don't have enough mana to play Leyline, Hexmage if we have the dark depths, or even Dark Depths if we have the hexmage. That half of the combo is nice if hexmage is already out as DD is uncounterable.
The deck is resilient enough to keep trying to combo if it fails the first time for whatever reason, allowing you to try to go off without protection knowing you can always try again next turn.
Again, this is an unrefined shell, very rough, so there are probably some optimizations that can be had, but before RIP was printed I played a version of the deck utilizing Bob and Serum Powder and could combo off T1 about 25% of the time, and by T3 pretty consistently. With RIP and the access to E-Tutor, the deck has a greater stability and no longer needs to rely on Serum Powder to fix hands.
Goldfishing Results on Cockatrice:
G1: T2 Marit Lage Token
G2: T3 Leyline Kill
G3: (Mull to 6) T3 Leyline Kill w/thoughtseize
G4: T3 Leyline Kill w/ thoughtseize
G5: T3 RIP Kill
G6: T3 RIP Kill w/ Thoughtseize
G7: Mull to oblivion
G8: T3 Marit Lage Token
Seems promising so far, even off the rough shell.
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
Even though I didn't illustrate it, there's lots of t1 kill opening hand combinations if you don't care about going off without protection, or downright scary plays.
Leyline, rit, rit, petal or land, helm
Dark depths, petal, rit, hexmage (t2 actually, but you get the idea)
Leyline, led, rit, petal, land, inf tutor
Etc......
I encourage people to load up the deck on deckstats.net and try some opening hand goldfishing. It's fast. Real fast. And surprisingly stable. Just a little susceptible to counters is my initial impression, the thoughtseizes are a must.
Incidentally, with show and tell decks running around everywhere, a t1 helm is still a very scary thing for them, even without the leyline or rip. The deck also auto-hates dredge, as well as neutering maverick's KoTRs and has a backup plan with marit lage for gaddock teeg, shuts off igg-loop from storm based decks, and fights through mud's welders and lodestone golems with minimal disruption, and turns off thresh-style decks by neutering mongoose and 'goyf. It also shuts off snapcasters and almost completely ignores ethersworn canonist.
There's probably a way to build a transformational sideboard and board it into an ANT deck of some nature which might be too cute, but certainly hilarious.
EDH: Grand Arbiter $tax, Freyalise Stompy, Mimeoplasm Death From the Grave
3 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Isochron Scepter
4 Rest in Peace
3 Energy Field
4 Brainstorm
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Orim's Chant
4 Force of Will
3 Counterspell
2 Spell Pierce
5 Island
2 Plains
4 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Marsh Flat
1 Glacial Fortress
4 Inkmoth Nexus
Strong SB Options
Supreme Verdict
Moat
Humility
Meddling Mage
Redirect