I actually hadn't thought about Thought Scour hitting Tyrant. I will probably just go back to Clique + Dig Through Time.
I know you don't have to have 4 lands which is why I said four mana. It is possible my experience is skewed from playing against lightning bolt decks that kill Deathrite Shaman / Birds / Strix pretty consistently. As far as sacking creatures to get to Griffin at 4 cmc I would only do that if I had the combo in hand, otherwise DRS and Baleful Strix are way too valuable on the board. The problem I see with Food Chain is it costs 3 - meaning if you had 3 to begin with you probably don't need help getting out your cmc 1-3 creatures. I concede it does have some use like you mentioned but I just wish it were more of an enabler instead of mostly just a finisher.
The deck certainly does have power as evidenced by all of its recent finishes and tier 1.5 is not a bad place to be.
A question I have to ask you is do you think this deck is better than traditional Shardless BUG?
Personally I found Tasigur to be great and would not throw him out. He really helps the deck's plan B (we can even call it co-plan A?) of being a grindy midrange deck by providing a faster clock or a big blocker when the game is too fast to wait on the combo.
I loved everything that makes the deck what it is and it performs pretty well. Manipulate fate is a pretty broken draw spell in this deck. Exiling Griffins to FoW and misdirection feels great and the combo feels great to land (especially on opponents who have not seen it yet lol)
The things that bother me about the deck:
1. Food Chain actually does not synergize all that well with the rest of the deck outside of the Misthollow Griffin tricks and the combo. I can think of cases where there is some minor help but never ran into them.
2. Multiple copies of Food Chain does nothing to help win the game so getting stuck with more than one in hand is a drag. Brainstorming them away only helps so much.
3. Tidespout Tyrant is a dead card without Food Chain + Misthollow Griffin. I almost want to go with the Vela plan since she is more castable (although not that much better at 6 versus 8).
4. Genesis Hydra is not a good enough card on its own.
5. The deck is too expensive (cmc not money). One way or another you have to get to four mana to cast a Griffin. Having three exiled griffins from Manipulate Fate doesn't help much when you are stuck on mana. Genesis Hydra hard cast needs at least 6 mana to dig deep enough to have a good enough chance to hit and also then stay out of bolt range. If your dorks die or you stumble on lands for a while you will die with high cmc cards in hand.
I think because of those things the deck lacks the consistency to really dominate, but when it works it really works. I also did just start playing the deck so some of the things I noted may be just me not playing the deck correctly or missing some synergy. Also need to get in more matchups.
I am starting to play the deck, I have a question. When you cast Manipulate Fate do you get three copies of Misthollow Griffin or do you include one or two extra copies of Manipulate Fate alongside the Griffin?
I've seen a few lists now with Shardless Agent. I know he is good but is he what this deck wants? He does not get either combo piece (most importantly Food Chain).
Edit: it does get Misthollow Griffin through Manipulate fate, so that may be the reason.
I think Grafdigger's Cage is the only card in my sideboard I didn't use but I think it's still necessary to have. Likewise, Venser isn't particularly awesome anywhere, but I think he's a good catchall that has synergy with Food Chain.
I'd like to find something other than Jitte for the Burn matchup (possibly Zuran Orb?) without being too narrow.
Blue blasts would be good against Burn but I generally dislike just 1 for 1ing against Burn with sideboard cards since I think we have better haymaker options if we're going to board specifically against them. I did like BEB more during the Treasure Cruise meta when we have more red spells and permanents to contend with, but I'm not sure how useful it would be nowadays.
Awesome write-up! I really enjoyed reading it and it definitely makes me want to play the deck. I really like combo decks with solid plan B's and are not really "all-in" on the combo.
Just from reading it sounds like the all-star of the deck was Misdirection as it had so many cases where it was useful or even won the game. Maybe add another one and move Dimir Charm to the sideboard for Show and Tell decks?
I really like the synergy between FoW/Misdirection and Misthollow Griffin
Do you think you will play the deck again at a major event?
Thanks for the link to the article! I'll have to give it a read this afternoon.
I actually used Dimir Charm for the removal + Envelop. I never used the third mode (I've tried it in Reanimator and it's actually pretty sweet when you get the setup of dude + reanimation spell in your top 3) since it doesn't actually replace itself for us.
The Envelop effect is what I really wanted to counter Show & Tell / Infernal Tutor / Burning Wish / Terminus / Entreat the Angels, etc. The removal side was just an added benefit for more flexibility since I was maindecking it.
So with Genesis Hydra, you can't actually use Maga (or at least the way you want to) since the trigger just puts the permanent into play, not casting it.
I was speaking with Joe Lossett about the deck over the weekend and a really interesting card he suggested that I'm going to try out once I get mine in is Vela, the Night-Clad for an instant kill.
Pros and Cons as I see Vela vs Tidespout is:
Vela
Pros: Kills the turn you go off, actually castable without Food Chain.
Cons: Stopped by Rule of Law / Ethersworn Canonist type effects. (If anyone can think of anything else, I'd love to hear it)
Tidespout
Pros: Gets around any sort of weird permanent based hate (eventually). You can protect it from StP / removal if you have an instant in your hand when you go off.
Cons: Pretty much never going to cast it without Food Chain.
Ah, I see. Sorry, I didn't actually know off-hand what Envelop did.
Did you win any games without the combo?
If possible could you give a rundown of what decks you played and what you did well against and what was a challenge?
My list is based off of Jonathan Job's GP New Jersey list (the maindeck is almost identical and I made some tweaks to the sideboard).
The only thing I didn't like in the main was the Emrakul he played. I feel it's overkill since once you go off with Tyrant, if you really want, after you bounce their board, you can recur Vendilion Clique to set their hand to all lands, then recur Baleful Strix until you have as many Forces as you want. Sure, they get 1 turn to kill you with no board and 1 land drop, but it's a risk I'm willing to take. I think I've died once due to not having Emrakul when I was at < 3 and my opponent had a TNN out, but I think the benefit of not drawing a dead card outweighs that corner case.
So, I had been testing other cards in what I consider that "flex" spot - a second Misdirection, Spell Pierce, Ponder, etc. The second Misdirection was actually alright - it's a great card vs the BG Abrupt Decay decks as well as more protection to get your Food Chain down, but I was finding that the combo matchup can be tough (especially fast combo like Reanimator or Storm). Miracles can be tricky as well and I was thinking about how I have always been a fan of Envelop in the sideboard and started looking at Dimir Charm again as a card for that slot.
Dimir Charm hasn't been amazing, but the flexibility of it has made it pretty solid for me so far. Being able to kill most small creatures in Legacy (with the notable exception of flipped Delvers, which is admittedly a very important one) in addition to the Envelop option was what sold me on it. Plus, if you like playing Misthollow Griffin, you have to inherently love weird/terrible cards
Sorry for the long-winded response but I wanted to give some insight into my thought process of how I arrived at it!
Ah, so you used Dimir Charm mainly as removal - that acts as a filter in the case the opponent does not have a suitable creature.
Did you consider using Maga, Traitor to Mortals as an immediate win the turn you combo off as suggested in the first post in this thread?
Any thoughts??? Please let me know what you think!!!
I see you run Cabal Therapy + Raise the Alarm in the sideboard which is probably a good choice. I run the package main - so either all in the main or all in the side is best.
Personally not a fan of Enlightened Tutor as we are not a combo deck that needs to assemble a critical piece and the card disadvantage is not worth it to me.
Humility is great against aggro and even some Combo decks that use a creature as a piece (Painter's Servant, Reanimator decks, Elves etc). Against certain decks it is of course a dead card but to have most aggro decks scoop when it is resolved is worth it to me.
I don't think I would drop the land count because resolving one of our 4-drops at some point seems critical and we have no other acceleration. Surviving the early game and making it into the mid game is where this deck shines, and that's what makes it fun.
I played with this deck for the past week or so and I really like it. I think Humility is the card that makes the deck go and it wrecks a lot of decks that rely on creatures.
I like Raise the Alarm a lot in this deck. Instant speed for surprise blockers or End of Turn use. It also enables early Cabal Therapy flashback.
For personal reasons I don't like Stoneforge Mystic with BW tokens. When I use/win with SFM, it just feels like another SFM deck and likely there is already a better shell for SFM (Jace etc). For tournament play certainly would not be a bad idea, but I like Raise the Alarm better.
I know you don't have to have 4 lands which is why I said four mana. It is possible my experience is skewed from playing against lightning bolt decks that kill Deathrite Shaman / Birds / Strix pretty consistently. As far as sacking creatures to get to Griffin at 4 cmc I would only do that if I had the combo in hand, otherwise DRS and Baleful Strix are way too valuable on the board. The problem I see with Food Chain is it costs 3 - meaning if you had 3 to begin with you probably don't need help getting out your cmc 1-3 creatures. I concede it does have some use like you mentioned but I just wish it were more of an enabler instead of mostly just a finisher.
The deck certainly does have power as evidenced by all of its recent finishes and tier 1.5 is not a bad place to be.
A question I have to ask you is do you think this deck is better than traditional Shardless BUG?
Personally I found Tasigur to be great and would not throw him out. He really helps the deck's plan B (we can even call it co-plan A?) of being a grindy midrange deck by providing a faster clock or a big blocker when the game is too fast to wait on the combo.
I loved everything that makes the deck what it is and it performs pretty well. Manipulate fate is a pretty broken draw spell in this deck. Exiling Griffins to FoW and misdirection feels great and the combo feels great to land (especially on opponents who have not seen it yet lol)
The things that bother me about the deck:
1. Food Chain actually does not synergize all that well with the rest of the deck outside of the Misthollow Griffin tricks and the combo. I can think of cases where there is some minor help but never ran into them.
2. Multiple copies of Food Chain does nothing to help win the game so getting stuck with more than one in hand is a drag. Brainstorming them away only helps so much.
3. Tidespout Tyrant is a dead card without Food Chain + Misthollow Griffin. I almost want to go with the Vela plan since she is more castable (although not that much better at 6 versus 8).
4. Genesis Hydra is not a good enough card on its own.
5. The deck is too expensive (cmc not money). One way or another you have to get to four mana to cast a Griffin. Having three exiled griffins from Manipulate Fate doesn't help much when you are stuck on mana. Genesis Hydra hard cast needs at least 6 mana to dig deep enough to have a good enough chance to hit and also then stay out of bolt range. If your dorks die or you stumble on lands for a while you will die with high cmc cards in hand.
I think because of those things the deck lacks the consistency to really dominate, but when it works it really works. I also did just start playing the deck so some of the things I noted may be just me not playing the deck correctly or missing some synergy. Also need to get in more matchups.
Thanks - I think this proves the Shardless Agent variant has power.
I see he used Fierce Empath to tutor for Emrakul as a combo finisher or Tombstalker as a non-combo finisher.
Goblins and Elves got 2nd and 3rd there too. That's pretty cool.
Edit: it does get Misthollow Griffin through Manipulate fate, so that may be the reason.
I also see Wall of Blossoms over Baleful Strix. Any reason for that?
The dream indeed.
I played Venser Control in Standard a couple years ago and looking at a modern version.
Awesome write-up! I really enjoyed reading it and it definitely makes me want to play the deck. I really like combo decks with solid plan B's and are not really "all-in" on the combo.
Just from reading it sounds like the all-star of the deck was Misdirection as it had so many cases where it was useful or even won the game. Maybe add another one and move Dimir Charm to the sideboard for Show and Tell decks?
I really like the synergy between FoW/Misdirection and Misthollow Griffin
Do you think you will play the deck again at a major event?
Ah, I see. Sorry, I didn't actually know off-hand what Envelop did.
Did you win any games without the combo?
If possible could you give a rundown of what decks you played and what you did well against and what was a challenge?
Ah, so you used Dimir Charm mainly as removal - that acts as a filter in the case the opponent does not have a suitable creature.
Did you consider using Maga, Traitor to Mortals as an immediate win the turn you combo off as suggested in the first post in this thread?
Looks like there was an article about your deck on TCG: http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=12368
A victory for Johnnies everywhere.
Congratulations! Always good to see more decks take first place.
Can you explain what your thinking was on including Dimir Charm?
I see you run Cabal Therapy + Raise the Alarm in the sideboard which is probably a good choice. I run the package main - so either all in the main or all in the side is best.
Personally not a fan of Enlightened Tutor as we are not a combo deck that needs to assemble a critical piece and the card disadvantage is not worth it to me.
Humility is great against aggro and even some Combo decks that use a creature as a piece (Painter's Servant, Reanimator decks, Elves etc). Against certain decks it is of course a dead card but to have most aggro decks scoop when it is resolved is worth it to me.
I don't think I would drop the land count because resolving one of our 4-drops at some point seems critical and we have no other acceleration. Surviving the early game and making it into the mid game is where this deck shines, and that's what makes it fun.
Plus Sorin looks cool with his white hair.
I like Raise the Alarm a lot in this deck. Instant speed for surprise blockers or End of Turn use. It also enables early Cabal Therapy flashback.
I have yet to be able to use Vault of the Archangel and I think it may be too slow.
For personal reasons I don't like Stoneforge Mystic with BW tokens. When I use/win with SFM, it just feels like another SFM deck and likely there is already a better shell for SFM (Jace etc). For tournament play certainly would not be a bad idea, but I like Raise the Alarm better.
What do you think of Elspeth Tirel or Hour of Reckoning? Too costly/narrow for Legacy?