Shouldn't we have a way to win as soon as we go Griselbrand => Ooze, Draw 7? I mean, I like Zombie Infestation as much as the next guy, and it's a great discard outlet, but...swarming on the ground with a bunch of 2/2s seems a rather slow and risky bet. Why not run Civilized Scholar/Grimgrin/Bloodline/some random pinger or something in order to just dump the whole deck into the graveyard and win right away? It isn't like you'll run out of draw power...
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April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Dull roots with spring rain.
Sparkl3r, I really do appreciate your comment and I apologize as well, I probably was charging after this list a little too heedlessly. Trying to work in secondary, non combo-oriented win-cons only seems like the smart and safe way to go, and again I apologize for not taking that into account. I think testing on cocatrice is a great idea and I'd be willing to set aside the time to do so and pinpoint the precise weaknesses of the deck...PM me about it and I'll be sure to respond.
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King Shane, care to explain why not? Just curious as to why your post says "this deck will never be competitive" without citing any reasons why you think that.
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Thank you for pointing that out Sparkl3r, decklist has been updated to include Heartless now...as far as viability goes I do appreciate what you're saying and it is a legitimate problem when the pieces don't come together. But with any combo deck you run that risk. You could argue that if you Surgically Extract Splinter Twin from it's namesake deck, what do they do? They lose. To avoid losing to a single card you have to play smart, you have to recognize the prevalence of problem cards in the current metagame and adapt to them, just like the metagame adapts to itself. I just don't think that the fact that Surgical Extraction is a strong answer to our game is a legitimate reason to dismiss it entirely. Sure, other variations of Lich decks (some containing Heartless Summoning, probably even most) may end up being more consistent and more viable. That's totally a possibility and I won't say that the build you suggest is bad or even suboptimal; it's just different. And to call the combo that clan_iraq and others have been interested in developing "not worth playing anywhere but at a friend's house" is both unhelpful and unnecessary. If you don't think it will work that's fine but the argument you pose is essentially a "dies to this specific removal" argument that, again, is going to be relevant once in a while if Surgical becomes a popular card but with tight play and attention to detail these detriments can be mitigated.
Considering your decklist now, I feel like it's mostly a run-of-the-mill UB Heartless list that incorporates Lich to add redundancy and resiliency to removal. It looks effective as a reliable way to recur beefy, evasive creatures (with the Demon chain being particularly effective) but suffers the same fate as most Heartless decks: without the enchantment, it's slower than all hell. With only four diggers in the whole deck, how often do you see Heartless Summoning in time to set things up?
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You're right about surgical being a problem card, especially since of its phyrexian mana cost, but in order to counteract an auto-loss you should probably have something in your board to specifically defend against such a narrow answer, i.e. Mental Misstep, as in my build. You could even maindeck a few if you were concerned about the random miser's card, but in all seriousness I don't think weakness to GY hate is enough of a reason to not play Grixis.
I think Lich fits into most every Heartless deck just because of his powerful recursion ability, and that he will most definitely see play in any rendition of said deck. The Grixis combo is just one of those builds specifically tailored to abuse his ability, and in that way functions very differently from the other Heartless archetypes due to its combo-y nature of simply ignoring your opponent's gameplan and assembling the combo. The only issue, as with every other combo deck ever, is consistency. The viability of the deck depends on the quality of the digging and filtering pieces, of which right now I believe are at a premium. Sure, we would rather have Preordain over Ponder, but our ability to sift through a substantial portion of the deck and not lose value of dumped cards is really too strong of a strategy to ignore.
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@ Believeinapathy: I'm totally with you on disliking Diabolic Tutor for those exact same reasons. The card is painfully slow and it always has been. I'm glad we are getting some input on the subject though, because the truth is that we can't always simply rule out cards that are traditionally bad just due to their traditional bad-ness. The cool thing about Tutor is that it finds the combo piece you're missing, always. And in regards to the turn progression (4 tutor, 5 play piece, 6 do something), it's important to note that you'll only ever want any sort of tutor for this deck to find the LAST piece, i.e. if we have Heartless Summoning and Havengul Lich all we need is Priest of Urabrask to go infinite; that card can be tutored for on T4-T6 and as soon as we have it we'll win the next turn (or possibly that turn, if we already have the other two in play). However I'm not going to defend Diabolic because I don't think it's necessary or effective...
One other card I've though about and I know has had some discussion revolving around it is Secrets of the Dead. What I like about the card is that once you're going infinite with Priest, this thing draws whatever finisher you need (if you don't already have it binned) and also draws into protection: what I don't like is the slots it takes up. Anybody been testing Secrets?
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Again, clan_iraq I have to agree about the filter/dig package...I just seem to run into more games than I would like when I'm just looking for heartless and fizzling out everywhere else. Maybe it's just the playtester I'm using...
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Diabolic Tutor would do the job...historically it's been a bad decision to run tutors that cost more than three mana...does anybody feel like Diabolic should be tried out? I feel like the only upside is that it will always directly fetch whatever you need, whereas its downsides run from expensive and slow to just being filler...
We already run the best filter cards imho, what do people think?
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I agree with clan_iraq about missing something...especially tutoring. Any card that allows us to easily and reliably find Heartless Summoning should probably be considered (at least for sideboard slots)...
Does such a card exist? Do any creatures have an ability to grant themselves protection that could feasibly be borrowed by the Lich?
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Been playing around with this deck, seems very very strong so far...the thing about it is that if it catches on, people will likely adapt their sideboards heavily to combat it (Nihil Spellbomb and Surgical Extraction come to mind). However, I'm working on SB slots to help overcome these roadblocks, and it is really not that difficult do to the fact that we have Mental Misstep at our disposal.
As others have said, Faithless is a big deal in this deck, as just about anything you pitch is going to work from the 'yard, and most of the times what you toss away BELONGS in the 'yard in the first place. What makes this deck so combo-y in a traditional sense is that it truly only relies on two cards in play to win, and while searching for those two cards is likely to fill the graveyard with the other key pieces. It isn't ExarchTwin, but it's likely the best combo we're bound to get since Wizards decided the playstyle is "un-fun."
I would probably play Grixis or, if there was enough cause for it, four-color with this thing, the Lich, Snapcaster, Gravecrawler, idk maybe Chandra's Phoenix (I know it isn't being played from the graveyard but it recurs well) with a bunch of filter/draw, small counters and maybe some burn...
Idk, something like that. Of course we'll have to see what the rest of the set brings before any big decisions are made, but I feel like this card could really shine given the support.
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At least you can reanimate her with the new Lich and then tap him to gain control of a creature...I guess...
Seems pretty bland for a mythic to be honest. They could at least have made it more aggressively costed.
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April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Dull roots with spring rain.
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Dull roots with spring rain.
-TS Eliot, The Waste Land
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Dull roots with spring rain.
-TS Eliot, The Waste Land
Just for all those with their fingers crossed for Kiora in the block.
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Dull roots with spring rain.
-TS Eliot, The Waste Land
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Dull roots with spring rain.
-TS Eliot, The Waste Land
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Dull roots with spring rain.
-TS Eliot, The Waste Land
Considering your decklist now, I feel like it's mostly a run-of-the-mill UB Heartless list that incorporates Lich to add redundancy and resiliency to removal. It looks effective as a reliable way to recur beefy, evasive creatures (with the Demon chain being particularly effective) but suffers the same fate as most Heartless decks: without the enchantment, it's slower than all hell. With only four diggers in the whole deck, how often do you see Heartless Summoning in time to set things up?
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Dull roots with spring rain.
-TS Eliot, The Waste Land
I think Lich fits into most every Heartless deck just because of his powerful recursion ability, and that he will most definitely see play in any rendition of said deck. The Grixis combo is just one of those builds specifically tailored to abuse his ability, and in that way functions very differently from the other Heartless archetypes due to its combo-y nature of simply ignoring your opponent's gameplan and assembling the combo. The only issue, as with every other combo deck ever, is consistency. The viability of the deck depends on the quality of the digging and filtering pieces, of which right now I believe are at a premium. Sure, we would rather have Preordain over Ponder, but our ability to sift through a substantial portion of the deck and not lose value of dumped cards is really too strong of a strategy to ignore.
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Dull roots with spring rain.
-TS Eliot, The Waste Land
One other card I've though about and I know has had some discussion revolving around it is Secrets of the Dead. What I like about the card is that once you're going infinite with Priest, this thing draws whatever finisher you need (if you don't already have it binned) and also draws into protection: what I don't like is the slots it takes up. Anybody been testing Secrets?
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Dull roots with spring rain.
-TS Eliot, The Waste Land
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Dull roots with spring rain.
-TS Eliot, The Waste Land
We already run the best filter cards imho, what do people think?
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Dull roots with spring rain.
-TS Eliot, The Waste Land
Does such a card exist? Do any creatures have an ability to grant themselves protection that could feasibly be borrowed by the Lich?
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Dull roots with spring rain.
-TS Eliot, The Waste Land
Here's the list I've been tweaking:
4x Darkslick Shores
3x Blackcleave Cliffs
3x Drowned Catacomb
3x Mountain
3x Island
5x Swamp
4x Havengul Lich
4x Priest of Urabrask
3x Perilous Myr
2x Spellskite
4x Faithless Looting
4x Ponder
3x Forbidden Alchemy
1x Gitaxian Probe
2x Negate
3x Mana Leak
1x Devil's Play
1x Increasing Confusion
4x Mental Misstep
3x Steel Sabotage
1x Negate
1x Necrotic Ooze
2x Doom Blade
1x Spellskite
1x Devil's Play
2x Whipflare
As others have said, Faithless is a big deal in this deck, as just about anything you pitch is going to work from the 'yard, and most of the times what you toss away BELONGS in the 'yard in the first place. What makes this deck so combo-y in a traditional sense is that it truly only relies on two cards in play to win, and while searching for those two cards is likely to fill the graveyard with the other key pieces. It isn't ExarchTwin, but it's likely the best combo we're bound to get since Wizards decided the playstyle is "un-fun."
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Dull roots with spring rain.
-TS Eliot, The Waste Land
Idk, something like that. Of course we'll have to see what the rest of the set brings before any big decisions are made, but I feel like this card could really shine given the support.
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Dull roots with spring rain.
-TS Eliot, The Waste Land
Seems pretty bland for a mythic to be honest. They could at least have made it more aggressively costed.
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Dull roots with spring rain.
-TS Eliot, The Waste Land
But I need it so I can eat Ramen.
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Dull roots with spring rain.
-TS Eliot, The Waste Land