I think we need a decent source of card draw (again) to make this thing really "pop". I think Call to Heel would be hilarious once we've hit the Quest, so we can just bounce, draw, and play at EOT.
Edit: Brainstorming with Jace, M. to draw and force the "kinship" seems like a solid plan.
That said... Holy hell, look at what Blue is doing here. Looking for tons of fatties and playing them without paying their mana cost? It feels so... Green.
Try playing it, it doesn't feel green at all. It feels like a quirky blue combo deck - you're spending your entire time trying to manipulate your library while refusing your opponent's attempts to foil you. Then, after you've lined everything up...control finishers.
Edit: I don't like Cryptic Annelid, it's way too expensive. Same goes for Husher. Mystic Speculation, on the other hand, I like a lot, especially since it can bottomdeck undesirables that the Sage Owls and Sages of Epityr can't deal with. I'm going to try it out.
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A voice for Timmy.
Commander R Ashling, the Pilgrim Mono Red Wildfire Control GBW Karador, Ghost Chieftain Abzan Dredge Rock WBR Tariel, Reckoner of Souls Mardu Aggro-Reanimator Midrange
Actually this deck needs something like congregation at dawn it wouild set you up for the counters and make sure you get to drop your sea monsters consistantly when the quest is online.
Once it's online, Grozoth just drops and tutors out all the other Grozoths and Inkwells. That's not a problem at all - at least it's not worth going into difficult three colors for! This deck, like any combo-ish deck, thrives on consistency above all else. Here's what I'm messing around with currently:
A voice for Timmy.
Commander R Ashling, the Pilgrim Mono Red Wildfire Control GBW Karador, Ghost Chieftain Abzan Dredge Rock WBR Tariel, Reckoner of Souls Mardu Aggro-Reanimator Midrange
Kind of. If you reveal Clockspinning instead of a creature, you just cast it and get the counter on the Quest. But if it had been a creature, you'd get a counter on the Quest, and then you'd also have a creature.
The question is, is the slim chance of paying the buyback cost on [card]
Clockspinning[/card] worth it not being a useful creature?
Disagree. Clockspinning is almost strictly better than a creature. There is no reason not to run it.
Clockspinning's buyback is completely irrelevent; you'll never pay it. However, it still accelerates you a full turn, even without the buyback.
If you reveal it in the course of a game, you still get your counter, as if you had revealed a creature. (Yes, this leaves you with one fewer creature in hand.) However, if you start with Clockspinning in your hand, or if you cycle into it, then you get an extra counter over what a creature in that slot would have provided, and get to go off turn 3 instead of 4. You can further enable this by stacking your library with Sage of Epityr and Sage Owl, allowing you to reveal a creature, then cycle to draw clockspinning and go off immediately.
Sample turn 3 hand:
Clockspinning
Island
Temple
Other possible turn 3 hand:
Sage of Epityr (where Sage reveals a Clockspinning and any cycler)
Island
Temple
Other possible turn 3 hand:
Any cycler (where cycling the creature finds Clockspinning)
Island
Temple
Unlikely turn 2 hand:
Clockspinning
Clockspinning
Island
Island
Temple
Bottom line is, Clockspinning never slows you down, and potentially speeds you up by a very siginificant amount. Especially in Extended, going off turn 3 rather than 4 is a big deal.
Needs more Kraken Hatchling!!! I hear it weilds Jitte fairly proficiently!!!
A Jitte with bloody counters...:embarrass:
Did I really say Jitte specifically? Oh well... EDIT: Okay, now I finally found when I said it. It isn't as ludicrous as it sounds just quoted out of context, as Fae easily carry Jitte over enemy lines to get counters.
Yeah, these decklists need more Mindscupting Jace and Ponder.
Pretty simple, Kraken Hatchling, Serpent of the Endless Sea and all the fatties can drop from the quest, and the hatchling and serpent fit nicely into the curve. Spreading Seas is included to make sure the (likely huge) Serpent can swing in, and triggers the Inkwell Leviathan's Islandwalk to make sure everything is going well. Sage Owl makes sure I can order things for the quest, as well as counting towards the quest himself (chosen over Ponder for that reason) while Umara Raptor and Windrider Eel slip in from the sky as an alternative win-con. The Eel combined with fetchlands hits really hard.
If you're trying to build it for Extended, you should really only look to 4x Grozoth, 4x Inkwell Leviathan and up to 4x Simic Sky Swallower. G/U looks to be the best option, imo, since you could essentially also turn it into an Elvish Piper deck as well.
EDIT: Forgot about Chameleon Colossus, the best changeling out there. And I say we should call the deck G-Fresh Sushi (especially a GU deck). If you've seen the movie Orgazmo, you'll get the reference.
What I like about this card is that you can play it early, defend with counterspells, then drop fat stuff, potentially 2 per 'turn' while leaving mana open.
One card that works well, is a Brainstorm Type effect. The New Jace (or in older formats, brainstorm itself) is gold. Draw cards and set up the next two tops to power your quest.
Potential Scenario:
Turn 1: Island, Quest for Ula
Turn 2: Drop Land (Hold a mana leak or remand)
Turn 3: (or turn 2 eot), library manipulating instant, for a critter or 2 on top. Charge the counter, drop land, leave counterspell mana open.
Turn 4: Reveal a creature, maybe play land. etc
Turn 5 (upkeep or turn 4 eot), play a 'to the top' tutor type effect. Fetch a Ula critter (SSS is a good choice)
Turn 5: eot drop SSS
Opponents eot: Drop another ula critter
turn 6: Leave mana open for counterspells, and beat them down.
Works especially well with brainstorm and vampric/worldy tutor (other tutor to the top cards escape me at the moment)
But this card could totally make a UG deck that keeps 2 mana open on every turn but the first, while churning out Simic Sky Swallowers, Chameleon Collosi and other very large U/G monsters.
Serious potential to use this almost like a 'demi-vial' for SSS's..
So I'm a little unfamilar with extended, haven't played or even looked at it for a while: Tutor is banned, so somethign else might work.
Also looking into scry and maybe even clash as topdeck controllers.
Perhaps.. Architects of Will.. they work well too.. if you aren't obsessed with free mana, (they cycle easily, up the creature count in the deck, and if oyu do hardcast them, manipulat the topcard.
supposedly the blue common land lets you index the top 3 cards of your deck. could be useful.
also, if we wanted to bump this up to legacy we could run the world's BEST leviathan as well!!! dryad arbor helps up our creature count and lets us run natural order. fierce empath is an option (gets us projenitus or grozoth). and, seeing as we're running 4 grozoth... lets run dream halls AND show and tell!!!
EDIT: Projenitus is a hydra not a leviathen. derf. dreamhalls still works...
You're going to need at least a singleton Freshmaker in your deck to up your octopus count. On first thought, maybe not.
But, you will need around 20+ lands, so I'd axe something, probably Mystic Snake, for some of those new Halimar Depths, and replace a few islands with forests.
A couple of quick points: the cyclers pair nicely with the owl / sage, and make Clockspinning more effective if you run it. Also, I'm not at all sure that you'll be able to reliably get to 3-4 mana to cast the slime or the snake.
I think this deck needs to try and run on just 1 land. This gives you the maximum chance of not revealing them. And even in the other variations with more lands, the overall land count is still low enough that it would prevent you from casting spells like the Snake reliably anyways. Might as well go for broke, I think.
Something like this? The loss of Voidslime hurts, as it's a great answer to their answers, but I don't think you'll be able to reliably cast it anyways. 3 lands by turn 3 is unlikely if you're only running 16, and even then, Voidslime is slower than most removal that might hit the quest anyways. The best solution might just be to dig for more quests and play them...if you have two in play at once, they're unlikely to be able to remove both before one goes active.
I think the deck *needs* a maindeck answer to Hexmage and Pridemage. I'm gonna keep Trickbind for that.
Tested v2.0 today. Mystic Snake never really mattered so I'll probably replace him with Architects of Will. 16 lands is the lowest I'll go, as there were too many games where I had a great opening hand but no land. Clockspinning was great. I feel like I could stand to drop Tidal Kraken for more utility, though I'm not sure what utility...more cycling dudes?
The deck is horrendously inconsistent, but near unstoppable with the right opening hand.
I think the deck *needs* a maindeck answer to Hexmage and Pridemage. I'm gonna keep Trickbind for that.
Tested v2.0 today. Mystic Snake never really mattered so I'll probably replace him with Architects of Will. 16 lands is the lowest I'll go, as there were too many games where I had a great opening hand but no land. Clockspinning was great. I feel like I could stand to drop Tidal Kraken for more utility, though I'm not sure what utility...more cycling dudes?
The deck is horrendously inconsistent, but near unstoppable with the right opening hand.
That makes great sense. Keep us informed on how the testing is going! I think this is a very nifty deck concept.
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If God spoke to you, and commanded you to kill your own children, would you do it?
If your answer is "No," then your morality does not come from God's commandments.
If your answer is "Yes," then please, please reconsider.
A different direction for standard. I don't know if we can rely on the quest and be consistent. If the gameplan is get inkwell into play, why not use master transmuter to add consistency: Shell:
4xMaster Transmuter
2-3xUla's Quest
4xInkwell
4xSteelclad Serpent
4xPonder or sage owl is prob better
maybe some spreading seas to enable islandwalk and maybe some sculpters for accel
Here are two versions I've been waffling between. They represent the two different extremes of consistency I've been able to get. They are not intended for resilience, and would probably benefit from the inclusion of Trickbind in the main or SB. This was just an exercize to see how reliable the deck can be made.
Serum Powder gives you about a 6.5% better chance to mull into Temple + Island, increasing your likelihood of starting that way from ~81% to ~87.5%.
However, it also decreases your creature density from 60% to 53.3%.
Which is better?
The first one: gets turn 1 temple 81% of the time at best, with creature density of 60%,
The second: gets turn 1 temple 87% of the time at best, with creature density of 53.3%
Furthering the same question: adding more lands increases your odds of starting with turn 1 Temple, at the cost of further reducing your creature density. The maximum possible is 91%, with Serum Powder, Quest, and 52 lands (91% turn 1 quest, 0% creature density). 16 lands seems like it hits a decent sweet spot, but I'm not sure which is more important. You can add another couple percent to your odds of starting with quest by going up to 20 lands, but your creature density will drop another 6.5% or so in doing so. There are also diminishing returns; the more lands you add, the closer to 91% you get, but each land counts for less. I'm not sure exactly where the equillibrium point is, and as a corollary whether it's better to run fewer, more, or exactly 16 lands, mathematically.
Edit: Much excel sheets and many recursions later, the best balance between creature density and odds of getting a first turn Quest + land is (4 Serum Powder + 16 lands + 4 Quests + 36 creautres). The end result is everything you want (first turn temple, first turn land, reveal a creature first activation) in about 63% of all possible cases. Clockspinning can count as a creature for this.
Here are two versions I've been waffling between. They represent the two different extremes of consistency I've been able to get. They are not intended for resilience, and would probably benefit from the inclusion of Trickbind in the main or SB. This was just an exercize to see how reliable the deck can be made.
Serum Powder gives you about a 6.5% better chance to mull into Temple + Island, increasing your likelihood of starting that way from ~81% to ~87.5%.
However, it also decreases your creature density from 60% to 53.3%.
Which is better?
The first one: gets turn 1 temple 81% of the time at best, with creature density of 60%,
The second: gets turn 1 temple 87% of the time at best, with creature density of 53.3%
Furthering the same question: adding more lands increases your odds of starting with turn 1 Temple, at the cost of further reducing your creature density. The maximum possible is 91%, with Serum Powder, Quest, and 52 lands (91% turn 1 quest, 0% creature density). 16 lands seems like it hits a decent sweet spot, but I'm not sure which is more important. You can add another couple percent to your odds of starting with quest by going up to 20 lands, but your creature density will drop another 6.5% or so in doing so. There are also diminishing returns; the more lands you add, the closer to 91% you get, but each land counts for less. I'm not sure exactly where the equillibrium point is, and as a corollary whether it's better to run fewer, more, or exactly 16 lands, mathematically.
Edit: Much excel sheets and many recursions later, the best balance between creature density and odds of getting a first turn Quest + land is (4 Serum Powder + 16 lands + 4 Quests + 36 creautres). The end result is everything you want (first turn temple, first turn land, reveal a creature first activation) in about 63% of all possible cases. Clockspinning can count as a creature for this.
Nice number crunch. I didn't even think of Serum Powder, which saddens me since I was the first person I knew to play it in Standard combo decks back in the day.
I'm thinking we might need to split this thread into 2 separate ones: One for Extended and one for Standard. I'll be keeping an eye on it, and if it gets confusing I'll work on that.
Did some more testing today with the deck. First off, it's getting a resoundingly positive reaction from people that play it. It's funny really: I tell them what the deck does, and they laugh saying it'll never work. Then I 2-0 them with turn 3 Inkwell Leviathans, and they marvel at the deck's power.
Someone brought up a good point about this deck: It's an incredible metagame choice for Extended. Hypergenesis will have fits with this thing (cute Progenitus, like my 3x Leviathans? Shroud laughs at your Angel of Despair), NLU would struggle to stabilize, even Zoo can't seem to race it in tests. AIR feels like an auto-loss though.
Play theory question: Your opening hand has 2 Clockspinning, Sage of Epityr, 2 Islands, Grozoth andSimic Sky Swallower. Do you keep it? My opinion is that you probably mull, but if I was on the draw I'd be afraid of throwing away a god hand if one of the next 5 cards was a Quest.
Play theory question: Your opening hand has 2 Clockspinning, Sage of Epityr, 2 Islands, Grozoth andSimic Sky Swallower. Do you keep it? My opinion is that you probably mull, but if I was on the draw I'd be afraid of throwing away a god hand if one of the next 5 cards was a Quest.
Odds of hitting a quest with the Sage and odds of getting quest + land in a 6 card hand are about the same. However, if you don't find it in your 6 land hand, you could mulligan to 5, etc, which makes the odds a little better for you if you mulligan. If you're running serum powder, the mulligan option is a little more attractive still.
I don't think AIR is an auto loss, it relies too heavily on Blood Moon / Magus of the Moon, which does nothing against if you. If they blow their hand for first turn Blood Moon, you cackle and giggle and play island > quest. If they get their godhand of first turn demigod or deus, you're probably dead. But your godhand of turn 3 activate beats their godhand. And turn 4 activate is good enough to beat turn 2/3 demigod / deus.
First turn chalice at 1 might be game over, though. That could be bad.
Zoo seems really tough - main deck pridemage plus an easy turn 4 goldfish. You're outracing it in testing? Do you think you could give a breakdown of the match up for you?
Been fooling around with this. It's great fun. Basically slap and early (hopefully but not always turn 1) Temple, and counter stuff until it goes online. Once it's online, hold back mana for counterspells and beat as needed.
Could use some serious tuning, but may have potential.
for extended - maybe fill it with mishra's bauble and street wraith (creature) and throw out the serum powder.
- against pridemage - a pithing needle?
- against noncreature threats - commandeer. I'm planning to run a 12-land deck, so a spare blue cards won't be a problem.
- when facing many fetches - cosi's trickster may hold aggro for awhile. Or kraken hatchling.
Street Wraith is an interesting idea. The main problem is still having to mullligan any hand without a quest, though, so the advantage of the wraith seems limited. Even so, I'll do some testing to see how that might work. The fact that it cycles for no mana makes it good with Sage / Owl / Clockspinning engine, and it might be worth running just for that synergy.
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Try playing it, it doesn't feel green at all. It feels like a quirky blue combo deck - you're spending your entire time trying to manipulate your library while refusing your opponent's attempts to foil you. Then, after you've lined everything up...control finishers.
Edit: I don't like Cryptic Annelid, it's way too expensive. Same goes for Husher. Mystic Speculation, on the other hand, I like a lot, especially since it can bottomdeck undesirables that the Sage Owls and Sages of Epityr can't deal with. I'm going to try it out.
Commander
R Ashling, the Pilgrim Mono Red Wildfire Control
GBW Karador, Ghost Chieftain Abzan Dredge Rock
WBR Tariel, Reckoner of Souls Mardu Aggro-Reanimator Midrange
Once it's online, Grozoth just drops and tutors out all the other Grozoths and Inkwells. That's not a problem at all - at least it's not worth going into difficult three colors for! This deck, like any combo-ish deck, thrives on consistency above all else. Here's what I'm messing around with currently:
4 Misty Rainforest
8 Island
4 Chrome Mox
4 Mystical Speculation
4 Ponder
4 Spell Pierce
4 Architects of Will
4 Sage of Epityr
4 Sage Owl
4 Grozoth
4 Inkwell Leviathan
Commander
R Ashling, the Pilgrim Mono Red Wildfire Control
GBW Karador, Ghost Chieftain Abzan Dredge Rock
WBR Tariel, Reckoner of Souls Mardu Aggro-Reanimator Midrange
4 Quest for Ula's Temple
9 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Halimar Depths
4 Zephyr Sprite
4 Calcite Snapper
4 Merfolk Looter
4 Sage Owl
4 Lorthos, the Tidemaker
4 Wind Zendikon
3 Jace Mindsculptor
Maybe something more like this?
EDH:
Niv-Mizzet
Legacy:
The Rack
Modern
Venser, the Sojourner Control
Disagree. Clockspinning is almost strictly better than a creature. There is no reason not to run it.
Clockspinning's buyback is completely irrelevent; you'll never pay it. However, it still accelerates you a full turn, even without the buyback.
If you reveal it in the course of a game, you still get your counter, as if you had revealed a creature. (Yes, this leaves you with one fewer creature in hand.) However, if you start with Clockspinning in your hand, or if you cycle into it, then you get an extra counter over what a creature in that slot would have provided, and get to go off turn 3 instead of 4. You can further enable this by stacking your library with Sage of Epityr and Sage Owl, allowing you to reveal a creature, then cycle to draw clockspinning and go off immediately.
Sample turn 3 hand:
Clockspinning
Island
Temple
Other possible turn 3 hand:
Sage of Epityr (where Sage reveals a Clockspinning and any cycler)
Island
Temple
Other possible turn 3 hand:
Any cycler (where cycling the creature finds Clockspinning)
Island
Temple
Unlikely turn 2 hand:
Clockspinning
Clockspinning
Island
Island
Temple
Bottom line is, Clockspinning never slows you down, and potentially speeds you up by a very siginificant amount. Especially in Extended, going off turn 3 rather than 4 is a big deal.
If your answer is "No," then your morality does not come from God's commandments.
If your answer is "Yes," then please, please reconsider.
A Jitte with bloody counters...:embarrass:
Did I really say Jitte specifically? Oh well... EDIT: Okay, now I finally found when I said it. It isn't as ludicrous as it sounds just quoted out of context, as Fae easily carry Jitte over enemy lines to get counters.
Yeah, these decklists need more Mindscupting Jace and Ponder.
4 Kraken Hatchling
4 Sage Owl
4 Umara Raptor
4 Windrider Eel
4 Serpent of the Endless Sea
4 Inkwell Leviathan
2 Kederket Leviathn
2 Lorthos, the Tidemaker
Tech:
4 Quest for Ula’s Temple
4 Spreading Seas
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
16 Island
Pretty simple, Kraken Hatchling, Serpent of the Endless Sea and all the fatties can drop from the quest, and the hatchling and serpent fit nicely into the curve. Spreading Seas is included to make sure the (likely huge) Serpent can swing in, and triggers the Inkwell Leviathan's Islandwalk to make sure everything is going well. Sage Owl makes sure I can order things for the quest, as well as counting towards the quest himself (chosen over Ponder for that reason) while Umara Raptor and Windrider Eel slip in from the sky as an alternative win-con. The Eel combined with fetchlands hits really hard.
Or if you wanted to do B/U Ula's Mill, you could always do Nemesis of Reason, Isleback Spawn and Kraken Hatchling along with some mill creatures like Grimoire Thief lol.
EDIT: Forgot about Chameleon Colossus, the best changeling out there. And I say we should call the deck G-Fresh Sushi (especially a GU deck). If you've seen the movie Orgazmo, you'll get the reference.
What I like about this card is that you can play it early, defend with counterspells, then drop fat stuff, potentially 2 per 'turn' while leaving mana open.
One card that works well, is a Brainstorm Type effect. The New Jace (or in older formats, brainstorm itself) is gold. Draw cards and set up the next two tops to power your quest.
Potential Scenario:
Turn 1: Island, Quest for Ula
Turn 2: Drop Land (Hold a mana leak or remand)
Turn 3: (or turn 2 eot), library manipulating instant, for a critter or 2 on top. Charge the counter, drop land, leave counterspell mana open.
Turn 4: Reveal a creature, maybe play land. etc
Turn 5 (upkeep or turn 4 eot), play a 'to the top' tutor type effect. Fetch a Ula critter (SSS is a good choice)
Turn 5: eot drop SSS
Opponents eot: Drop another ula critter
turn 6: Leave mana open for counterspells, and beat them down.
Works especially well with brainstorm and vampric/worldy tutor (other tutor to the top cards escape me at the moment)
But this card could totally make a UG deck that keeps 2 mana open on every turn but the first, while churning out Simic Sky Swallowers, Chameleon Collosi and other very large U/G monsters.
Serious potential to use this almost like a 'demi-vial' for SSS's..
So I'm a little unfamilar with extended, haven't played or even looked at it for a while: Tutor is banned, so somethign else might work.
Also looking into scry and maybe even clash as topdeck controllers.
Perhaps.. Architects of Will.. they work well too.. if you aren't obsessed with free mana, (they cycle easily, up the creature count in the deck, and if oyu do hardcast them, manipulat the topcard.
It only adds counters everytime you show a creature card not just upkeep.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY8h2vp5Xis
Too gimmicky, cuts down creature count, and by the time you drop Haze, Quest should already be on its last counter.
Goryus raises great points about Clockspinning.
I think I like Voidslime better than Trickbind for its versatility.
4 Breeding Pool
4 Misty Rainforest
8 Island
The win (4)
4 Quest for Ula's Temple
4 Deep Sea Kraken
4 Tidal Kraken
4 Grozoth
4 Inkwell Leviathan
4 Simic Sky Swallower
4 Clockspinning
4 Mystic Snake
4 Sage of Epityr
4 Sage Owl
4 Voidslime
also, if we wanted to bump this up to legacy we could run the world's BEST leviathan as well!!! dryad arbor helps up our creature count and lets us run natural order. fierce empath is an option (gets us projenitus or grozoth). and, seeing as we're running 4 grozoth... lets run dream halls AND show and tell!!!
EDIT: Projenitus is a hydra not a leviathen. derf. dreamhalls still works...
But, you will need around 20+ lands, so I'd axe something, probably Mystic Snake, for some of those new Halimar Depths, and replace a few islands with forests.
This deck is starting to look really cool!
A couple of quick points: the cyclers pair nicely with the owl / sage, and make Clockspinning more effective if you run it. Also, I'm not at all sure that you'll be able to reliably get to 3-4 mana to cast the slime or the snake.
I think this deck needs to try and run on just 1 land. This gives you the maximum chance of not revealing them. And even in the other variations with more lands, the overall land count is still low enough that it would prevent you from casting spells like the Snake reliably anyways. Might as well go for broke, I think.
12 Island
The win (4)
4 Quest for Ula's Temple
The fatties (20)
4 Deep Sea Kraken
4 Tidal Kraken
4 Grozoth
4 Inkwell Leviathan
4 Simic Sky Swallower
4 Clockspinning
4 Glassdust Hulk
4 Architects of Will
4 Sage of Epityr
4 Sage Owl
4 Ponder
Something like this? The loss of Voidslime hurts, as it's a great answer to their answers, but I don't think you'll be able to reliably cast it anyways. 3 lands by turn 3 is unlikely if you're only running 16, and even then, Voidslime is slower than most removal that might hit the quest anyways. The best solution might just be to dig for more quests and play them...if you have two in play at once, they're unlikely to be able to remove both before one goes active.
If your answer is "No," then your morality does not come from God's commandments.
If your answer is "Yes," then please, please reconsider.
Tested v2.0 today. Mystic Snake never really mattered so I'll probably replace him with Architects of Will. 16 lands is the lowest I'll go, as there were too many games where I had a great opening hand but no land. Clockspinning was great. I feel like I could stand to drop Tidal Kraken for more utility, though I'm not sure what utility...more cycling dudes?
The deck is horrendously inconsistent, but near unstoppable with the right opening hand.
That makes great sense. Keep us informed on how the testing is going! I think this is a very nifty deck concept.
If your answer is "No," then your morality does not come from God's commandments.
If your answer is "Yes," then please, please reconsider.
How about Mishra's Bauble? You can look at your top card and if it's a a creature card, you can stack it so you reveal the card before drawing, right?
4xMaster Transmuter
2-3xUla's Quest
4xInkwell
4xSteelclad Serpent
4xPonder or sage owl is prob better
maybe some spreading seas to enable islandwalk and maybe some sculpters for accel
Then add removal and utility.
Thoughts?
8x Island
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Scalding Tarn
Win (4)
4x Quest for Ula's Temple
4x Sage of Epityr
4x Sage Owl
4x Architects of Will
4x Glassdust Hulk
4x Inkwell Leviathan
4x Grozoth
4x Simic Sky Swallower
4x Deep-Sea Kraken
4x Tidal Kraken
4x Clockspinning
The fetchlands are not for deck thinning, at least, not primarily. They are there to let you shuffle your deck after Sage / Owl shenanigans.
8x Island
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Scalding Tarn
Win (4)
4x Quest for Ula's Temple
4x Sage of Epityr
4x Sage Owl
4x Architects of Will
Fat (20)
4x Inkwell Leviathan
4x Grozoth
4x Simic Sky Swallower
4x Deep-Sea Kraken
4x Tidal Kraken
4x Clockspinning
4x Serum Powder
Serum Powder gives you about a 6.5% better chance to mull into Temple + Island, increasing your likelihood of starting that way from ~81% to ~87.5%.
However, it also decreases your creature density from 60% to 53.3%.
Which is better?
The first one: gets turn 1 temple 81% of the time at best, with creature density of 60%,
The second: gets turn 1 temple 87% of the time at best, with creature density of 53.3%
Furthering the same question: adding more lands increases your odds of starting with turn 1 Temple, at the cost of further reducing your creature density. The maximum possible is 91%, with Serum Powder, Quest, and 52 lands (91% turn 1 quest, 0% creature density). 16 lands seems like it hits a decent sweet spot, but I'm not sure which is more important. You can add another couple percent to your odds of starting with quest by going up to 20 lands, but your creature density will drop another 6.5% or so in doing so. There are also diminishing returns; the more lands you add, the closer to 91% you get, but each land counts for less. I'm not sure exactly where the equillibrium point is, and as a corollary whether it's better to run fewer, more, or exactly 16 lands, mathematically.
Edit: Much excel sheets and many recursions later, the best balance between creature density and odds of getting a first turn Quest + land is (4 Serum Powder + 16 lands + 4 Quests + 36 creautres). The end result is everything you want (first turn temple, first turn land, reveal a creature first activation) in about 63% of all possible cases. Clockspinning can count as a creature for this.
If your answer is "No," then your morality does not come from God's commandments.
If your answer is "Yes," then please, please reconsider.
Nice number crunch. I didn't even think of Serum Powder, which saddens me since I was the first person I knew to play it in Standard combo decks back in the day.
I'm thinking we might need to split this thread into 2 separate ones: One for Extended and one for Standard. I'll be keeping an eye on it, and if it gets confusing I'll work on that.
Did some more testing today with the deck. First off, it's getting a resoundingly positive reaction from people that play it. It's funny really: I tell them what the deck does, and they laugh saying it'll never work. Then I 2-0 them with turn 3 Inkwell Leviathans, and they marvel at the deck's power.
Someone brought up a good point about this deck: It's an incredible metagame choice for Extended. Hypergenesis will have fits with this thing (cute Progenitus, like my 3x Leviathans? Shroud laughs at your Angel of Despair), NLU would struggle to stabilize, even Zoo can't seem to race it in tests. AIR feels like an auto-loss though.
Play theory question: Your opening hand has 2 Clockspinning, Sage of Epityr, 2 Islands, Grozoth andSimic Sky Swallower. Do you keep it? My opinion is that you probably mull, but if I was on the draw I'd be afraid of throwing away a god hand if one of the next 5 cards was a Quest.
Odds of hitting a quest with the Sage and odds of getting quest + land in a 6 card hand are about the same. However, if you don't find it in your 6 land hand, you could mulligan to 5, etc, which makes the odds a little better for you if you mulligan. If you're running serum powder, the mulligan option is a little more attractive still.
I don't think AIR is an auto loss, it relies too heavily on Blood Moon / Magus of the Moon, which does nothing against if you. If they blow their hand for first turn Blood Moon, you cackle and giggle and play island > quest. If they get their godhand of first turn demigod or deus, you're probably dead. But your godhand of turn 3 activate beats their godhand. And turn 4 activate is good enough to beat turn 2/3 demigod / deus.
First turn chalice at 1 might be game over, though. That could be bad.
Zoo seems really tough - main deck pridemage plus an easy turn 4 goldfish. You're outracing it in testing? Do you think you could give a breakdown of the match up for you?
If your answer is "No," then your morality does not come from God's commandments.
If your answer is "Yes," then please, please reconsider.
4 Quest for Ula's Temple
Beasts of the Sea
2 Inkwell Leviathan
4 Simic Sky Swallower
4 Chameleon Collossus
Other critters
4 Sakura Tribe Elder
4 Mystic Snake
4 Remand
4 Condescend
Library Control
4 Ponder
2 Telling Time
2 Jace, the Mindsculptor
4 Breeding Pool
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Forest
10 Island
Been fooling around with this. It's great fun. Basically slap and early (hopefully but not always turn 1) Temple, and counter stuff until it goes online. Once it's online, hold back mana for counterspells and beat as needed.
Could use some serious tuning, but may have potential.
Street Wraith is an interesting idea. The main problem is still having to mullligan any hand without a quest, though, so the advantage of the wraith seems limited. Even so, I'll do some testing to see how that might work. The fact that it cycles for no mana makes it good with Sage / Owl / Clockspinning engine, and it might be worth running just for that synergy.
If your answer is "No," then your morality does not come from God's commandments.
If your answer is "Yes," then please, please reconsider.