Fiery Gambit is one of the best cards in the deck. Path of Anger's Flame is nuts too. If you are looking for other cards to cut, cut the slow cantrips for the fast mana instead. That will increase the speed.
I haven't tested mizzix's mastery, but I'm considering including a graveyard shuffle effect instead and then just replaying everything normally.
It is my opinion that colorless mana sources aren't as useful in this deck as they are in most EDH decks. I recommend placing a premium on sources of R, and for that reason I would not recommend colorless sources except to accelerate the turn that you could go off on. For example, sol ring nets a turn 2 Zada, but doesn't have much of an impact on the turn that you go off, except to get you off the ground. This same theory applies to lands, specifically colorless lands. I'd be hesitant to run many more colorless lands than you've listed.
As to land count, I've been testing what I believe will be the future mulligan method. Specifically, the current tournament mulligan rules (scry 1 if you go below 7), with the multiplayer varient of first mulligan free, and the EDH variation of only reshuffling once (after the hand is kept). Why does this matter? Unlike some posters, for instance Admiral Sultan has posted what looks like a fast storm build, I don't play any small effect looting spells. This means that the best way to make it likely that the deck will go off is to start with a cantrip in my hand. This causes me to keep some somewhat shaky hands when looking at mana sources. To overcome this, I run more lands that would be necessary if I were to use the partial paris method.
Lands drawn while storming off are useless (unless you run lightning storm), and can be seriously detrimental. With the ability to sculpt a hand with PP, you could probably drop from my list (35 lands) to 30-31. If you use the partial paris system, I'd immediately drop at least 3 lands for fast mana or rituals. The best mana for going of is red mana, so look into that first. Phyrexian Altar has been performing well in testing as a broader use skirk prospector, which is a great mana source if you have any surplus creatures. Mana Geyser can be a great ritual effect to kickstart your turn if you're metagame includes a lot of tapped lands and not as much draw-go control or prophet of kruphix. I'd agree with seething song being the third ritual that would slot in, even though it is somewhat low-impact.
I can't recommend cutting fiery gambit unless you're very unlucky in games of chance. It fills 3 roles of what we're looking for as we go off. First, it tranlates each creature into a 25% to hit each opponent for 6. Second, it makes each creature a 12.5% chance to produce red mana by untapping lands while finally drawing cards. It translates roughly to a win (42 damage to each opponent) if you have 28 creatures or battle hymn+stun if you have 8+ creatures. I usually choose which mode would be more effective and roll either 2 or 3 six sided dice for each creature and have an opponent chose either even or odd. This quickly resolves all the copies, with only the copies where all 3 are in my favor having an effect.
Path of Anger's Flame is the arcane equivalent of craterhoof behemoth, and is one of only several arcane spells that are truly worth running. Cards like strange inversion and into the fray don't actually do anything except act as enablers for path, desperate ritual or overblaze. I understand that Path is one of the only arcane spells that doesn't inherently trigger Zada, but it's damage potential is enormous and I encourage you to reconsider that cut.
If you're still looking for other cuts, I suggest looking at possibility storm. As loathe as I was to try it, I've been testing with that cut for some time now without significant detriment. As great as it is to start double-triggering Zada for each spell, it has one of the lowest impacts in setting up to prepare to go off, and I don't recommend interrupting a turn when already going off to cast it. Combine this with it being at the top of the curve and the difficulty starts to become more clear. While it does push the theoretical maximum damage to 3 overblazes/arcane spell in the deck (21 for me, thus 2^21 or a ~ 2.1 million damage multiplier), it was most often just a card to exile to blazing shoal to ritual for N*RRR.
If you go the route of a graveyard reshuffle, I've had some conversations about using an eldrazi titan and a discard effect or using elixar of immortality on the first page of this thread. Either method should allow you to completely go infinite, as it should be rather straightforward to re-draw the entire deck once set up and running. This would make a lot of sense if you see "infinite" life frequently. That's an interesting proposition.
Added skullclamp as a way to smooth out some of the draws, but its pretty bad in the deck. Haze of Rage is performing well as is Fatal Frenzy which I'm running over some of the other +power effects because it gives trample. I cut some land for some more mana rocks and rituals including pyretic ritual, rite of flame and lotus petal. Also added thought vessel, Dwarven stronghold, and the red depletion counter land. I also put lotus bloom in, but I think it telegraphs the combo turn too much so I'm probably going to cut it.
Mana gyser is a great idea even if the mana is a tad high. Can you explain why path of anger's flame is better than any of the effects that target zada? I'm cutting back on arcane heavily as I was getting sick of dead draws on those cards when I don't have desparate ritual in hand.
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Added skullclamp as a way to smooth out some of the draws, but its pretty bad in the deck. Haze of Rage is performing well as is Fatal Frenzy which I'm running over some of the other +power effects because it gives trample. I cut some land for some more mana rocks and rituals including pyretic ritual, rite of flame and lotus petal. Also added thought vessel, Dwarven stronghold, and the red depletion counter land. I also put lotus bloom in, but I think it telegraphs the combo turn too much so I'm probably going to cut it.
Mana gyser is a great idea even if the mana is a tad high. Can you explain why path of anger's flame is better than any of the effects that target zada? I'm cutting back on arcane heavily as I was getting sick of dead draws on those cards when I don't have desparate ritual in hand.
Haze of rage has been on the edge of inclusion in my list for a long time. It's good to know someone else is running it to good effect.
To specifically answer your question about path of anger's flame, simply put no other card can give the same effect at the same mana cost. I play the following spells to pump creatures, noting the exclusion of X cost pump, which isn't really a fair comparision:
downhill charge: +X/+0, usually around +3/+0 to +5/+0 depending on how many mountains I've sacrificed to mogg alarm
Out of these cards, the largest buff any can have by itself is around +6/+0. Path of anger's flame reaches parity with that if you only have 2 creatures other than Zada. The buff generated is a multiplier based on the number of creatures you have, and global pump. This effectively results in the power generated to be twice the number of creatures squared. 7 tokens and Zada results in each one getting +2/+0 for each other, a total power generation of 128 power across the eight creatures. This is, of course assuming a splice effect.
To compare that with any combination of two pump spells, let's consider casting downhill charge at x=6 then following with fatal frenzy. That's pretty much the largest number we could make and "only" provides a power bonus of 96. A more average power generation from a combination of pump spells is between 50 and 80 power.
I didn't understand how you were getting high numbers with path. I guess you're splicing a targeting effect onto it, but even so I'd rather not have to draw into a two card combo to have it not be a bad Rouse the Mob. I've cut virtually all of the pump spells that don't give trample or haste with exceptions for ones that are free, or fulfill other things the deck needs. Haze of Rage is still in as a way to repeatedly trigger slide/pyromancer in a pinch, and it can easily hit +8/+0 or higher. I'm still trying to work in better ramp, or mana that can be played mid combo. I'd like to get to a point where I can fairly safely keep two land hands.
I didn't understand how you were getting high numbers with path. I guess you're splicing a targeting effect onto it, but even so I'd rather not have to draw into a two card combo to have it not be a bad Rouse the Mob. I've cut virtually all of the pump spells that don't give trample or haste with exceptions for ones that are free, or fulfill other things the deck needs. Haze of Rage is still in as a way to repeatedly trigger slide/pyromancer in a pinch, and it can easily hit +8/+0 or higher. I'm still trying to work in better ramp, or mana that can be played mid combo. I'd like to get to a point where I can fairly safely keep two land hands.
A bad Rouse the Mob? Not sure you've understood it's effect.
If you have Zada and 4 other creatures and splice a target creature effect onto Path of Anger's Flame the "Creatures you control get +2/+0 until end of turn" effect happens 5 times to your creatures. They each get +10/+0 for a combined power boost of +50/+0. If you have Zada and 9 other creatures, they each get +20/+0 for a combined power boost of +200/+0. If you have 49 other creatures and Zada, they each get +100/+0 (+5000/+0 together).
And the two-card combos with splicing are not hard when you've drawn most of your library, as is the point of the deck. It's a great buff when you need the arcane spells and splicing anyway for Desperate Ritual and Overblaze.
I didn't understand how you were getting high numbers with path. I guess you're splicing a targeting effect onto it, but even so I'd rather not have to draw into a two card combo to have it not be a bad Rouse the Mob. I've cut virtually all of the pump spells that don't give trample or haste with exceptions for ones that are free, or fulfill other things the deck needs. Haze of Rage is still in as a way to repeatedly trigger slide/pyromancer in a pinch, and it can easily hit +8/+0 or higher. I'm still trying to work in better ramp, or mana that can be played mid combo. I'd like to get to a point where I can fairly safely keep two land hands.
You are correct that path is just a rouse the mob if it doesn't get spliced with a targeting effect. Given that you're reducing the arcane count, I could understand that cut if you've already removed some of the more questionable arcane spells, specifically into the fray, strange inversion, and unearthly blizzard. The swap to haze of rage makes sense with a lower arcane count and a higher storm count, as you have described. Lyonhaert is right that we typically draw enough cards that the odds of finding an arcane spell to splice isn't overly difficult, but I won't say that the arcane is necessary, just my preferred build path here. As other players have demonstrated, Zada can be built even excluding arcane completely.
That having been said, with my current arcane count it is not uncommon that I run out of cantrips, hit a slower cantrip, or am low on mana. In these situations, especially if I only got 1 cantrip off, the splice+path play is by far the most effective thing to have on hand. It's pulled a win out of something that didn't seem like a good situation more often than it just sat in my hand. Even then, it's still a rouse the mob, which isn't bad for us.
Keeping land light hands is becoming a habit for me as well, but it's often because I have a reasonable probability to draw the land than I need. I'll snap keep a 2 land hand if I see good token sources and a cantrip. The meat of the curve is at the 2-3 costs, so we can run on only 3 lands if necessary. The largest cost I see on a regular basis is Zada herself, but it's a cost that has to be paid every game. I don't like using brightstone ritual or skirk prospector to cast Zada, but I've made it work more often than not.
I've been contemplating the benefits of more early ramp, and the more I consider it, the less I think that it would do for me. Zada makes a reasonable scale for where we are between setting up and going off, so I'll use a 4 mana benchmark. I would argue that the best place to be with this or any similar deck would be to go off the turn Zada is cast or the turn after. Full disclosure; I typically aim for the turn after. This means that we need a certain critical mass of creatures on hand before we hit 4 mana, or at least be prepared to produce as we go off. This mentality places more of a premium on playing out creatures early instead of setting up mana sources early. I'll readily admit that that this leaves me open to disruption.
We're definitely approaching the deck slightly differently, but you've convinced me to give haze of rage another shot at inclusion despite our differences in approach.
When I cast zada is usually determined by having a 3 mana ramp (lotus bloom, gilded lotus, grim monolith or mana vault) or not. If I don't I'll ramp to 6 (without using rituals), generate 4-6 tokens minimum,and then on the pre-combo turn cast zada and a cantrip, comboing off the following turn. If I have a 3 mana ramp I'll often go up to 8 mana at which point I can cast zada and the ramp and hopefully draw into mana, comboing that turn if I do. I'm going to add mox diamond and chrome mox to my build. They should improve the combo turn. Obviously the numbers of tokens/mana rage widly, but those are the two major lines of play.
When I cast zada is usually determined by having a 3 mana ramp (lotus bloom, gilded lotus, grim monolith or mana vault) or not. If I don't I'll ramp to 6 (without using rituals), generate 4-6 tokens minimum,and then on the pre-combo turn cast zada and a cantrip, comboing off the following turn. If I have a 3 mana ramp I'll often go up to 8 mana at which point I can cast zada and the ramp and hopefully draw into mana, comboing that turn if I do. I'm going to add mox diamond and chrome mox to my build. They should improve the combo turn. Obviously the numbers of tokens/mana rage widly, but those are the two major lines of play.
We definitely have different lines of play, especially regarding the timing of cantrips. The only time I'll use a cantrip other than the turn I intend to go off during is if it's a "slow" cantrip that won't draw until the next upkeep. As I implied earlier, the first several turns for me are all about throwing tokens out and preparing for Zada.
I can honestly say that I had not considered either mox diamond or chrome mox, and they are interesting inclusions. "Free" R is not to be ignored. I may also test that change, swapping out two lands.
I used to run both moxen, but I eventually dropped Mox Diamond. Even at 35 lands, there were a few too many times where discarding the land was too much for the deck to be able to handle, and I'd sputter out. Chrome Mox, however, has been consistently one of the best cards to see in my opening hand, as it's usually not hard to find something to exile.
Both moxen will probably be mulligained away from opening hands and be dead draws on anything other than the combo turn. You need a 10+ card hand before they really become decent.
Just got back from playing two games against a Sliver Queen combo deck and a Hana prison deck. The first of the two games I won on turn 4 which is honestly faster than I thought this deck could go. The line of play was,
Opening hand after mulligans was Mountain, Accelerate, Rite of Flame, Chrome Mox, Lotus Bloom, Krenko, Beetleback Chief. I drew three lands in the first four turns. I don't remember what the other draw was.
t1: mountain, suspend lotus bloom
t2: mountain, rite of flame, chrome mox imprinting Beetleback Chief, Krenko, Mob Boss
t3: mountain, Zada, Tap krenko for two tokens.
t4: mountain, Goblin Rally, Crack bloom, Tap Krenko, Accelerate drawing into skirk prospector, Unnatural speed splicing desperate ritual, heat shimmer, titan's strength, swing.
My friends have this habit of hitting zada with swords after I'm already going off. I figure this will get harder after they get more used to the deck.
I used to run both moxen, but I eventually dropped Mox Diamond. Even at 35 lands, there were a few too many times where discarding the land was too much for the deck to be able to handle, and I'd sputter out. Chrome Mox, however, has been consistently one of the best cards to see in my opening hand, as it's usually not hard to find something to exile.
I'll probably swap a land out for chrome mox if I can find one easily. You make a good argument about mox diamond.
Both moxen will probably be mulligained away from opening hands and be dead draws on anything other than the combo turn. You need a 10+ card hand before they really become decent.
If I could partial paris, running mox diamond would obviously make more sense. I wouldn't want to see either in an opening hand, but chrome mox is more lenient.
Just got back from playing two games against a Sliver Queen combo deck and a Hana prison deck. The first of the two games I won on turn 4 which is honestly faster than I thought this deck could go. The line of play was,
Opening hand after mulligans was Mountain, Accelerate, Rite of Flame, Chrome Mox, Lotus Bloom, Krenko, Beetleback Chief. I drew three lands in the first four turns. I don't remember what the other draw was.
t1: mountain, suspend lotus bloom
t2: mountain, rite of flame, chrome mox imprinting Beetleback Chief, Krenko, Mob Boss
t3: mountain, Zada, Tap krenko for two tokens.
t4: mountain, Goblin Rally, Crack bloom, Tap Krenko, Accelerate drawing into skirk prospector, Unnatural speed splicing desperate ritual, heat shimmer, titan's strength, swing.
My friends have this habit of hitting zada with swords after I'm already going off. I figure this will get harder after they get more used to the deck.
Zada + Krenko can be one of the fastest starting hands available. Only a young pyromancer + twinflame hand makes tokens faster.
Opponents should know that the best time to disrupt this deck is almost always before the storm turn happens. I have often continued going off in response to removal, disruption, or a potentially lethal cerebral vortex but if my mana pool is empty or my hand is low things become dire. There's not much that can be done to avoid this and you should anticipate it becoming more difficult. A reasonable plan is to play like other combo decks and wait for an opportune time to drop the pieces and go for it, but that can take a while.
Edit: Nevermind Mortarpod, that wouldn't work at all at instant speed.
Mortorpod is interesting, but if I'm paying two mana for a creature, I usually want more than one of them. It would basically play like a mogg fanatic that costs more and lacks the goblin synergy. That's not terrible, but it's also not quite what I'm looking for in a creature/creature source.
Mana Flare is effective ramp in the right situation. It pulls it weight in other decks I play with significantly higher mana requirements such as Gisela + earthquakes. In Zada; it would increase the red mana we have access to at the start of the storm turn, which would make starting off easier. That said, most storm turns that I've had resulted in all of my lands being tapped early on, usually the first or second cantrip. With the exception of fiery gambit this means that mana flare wouldn't work as a ritual effect as/after we go off. I won't say it doesn't deserve further consideration or testing, but I wouldn't anticipate great returns from it.
Mortorpod is interesting, but if I'm paying two mana for a creature, I usually want more than one of them. It would basically play like a mogg fanatic that costs more and lacks the goblin synergy. That's not terrible, but it's also not quite what I'm looking for in a creature/creature source.
Exactly. The biggest advantage to P&K, SGC, and Fanatic is they're repeatable at instant speed. I realized that Fanatic's advantage over Spikeshot Elder is if you've Twinflamed/Shimmered and have multiple Fanatics.
14 instances of Overblaze (also thanks to Mastery)
grand total damage, with double strike and trample from Temur Battle Rage: almost 80 trillion
Edit: I may have goofed in my math on the 576,000. Can't seem to get above 528,000 with what I think my sequence of plays was. That would result in 72 trillion damage.
It's occurred to me that it's pretty important to save Strionic Resonator for something big like Path of Anger's Flame (spliced with DR and OB) or a hugely pumped Blazing Shoal (also spliced). Also, early in the process of going off I had 28 cards left in the library and 27 creatures. Rather than draw all of those with an immediate cantrip (had 3 in hand), I used the scrying from Portent (before tapping Krenko again) to get to the last few needed cards (including 2 Arcane spells), responding to that scry with a cantrip targeting somebody other than Zada to draw 1 card, then continue resolving the scrying.
I've begun to wonder if it's possible to go rather infinite with Shimmer Myr and Elixir of Immortality in the middle of drawing through the deck to repeatedly cast cantrips to continue the drawing, rituals, arcane and pump spells etc. No matter how many card draws are left, are left, one should have the Myr and the Elixir in hand to resolve those, cast some more spells if necessary, and dump the graveyard back into the library to continue drawing. I still like the idea of being able to do as much as we do without infinite combos, but I appreciate that this one takes awareness and timing (compared to Dualcaster Mage + Twinflame).
I've been clicking on this thread whenever I see it, so I'm just going to comment and get this one in my list of threads I've commented in.
The closest experience I have to a deck like this is my Rakdos, Lord of Riots deck. It doesn't do splice arcane shenanigans, but it does chain creatures into mana into card draw into creatures into mana etc, etc, etc. The best new addition I've made to my Rakdos deck in a long time is Flameshadow Conjuring. The one red to duplicate a creature absolutely goes places when you can easily getitrightback. The 4 mana to cast it before you start going off is the biggest sticking point I can see for something that might be overkill, but with all those creature etb token generations, you can make a conjuring clone of like half the creatures in the deck and immediately hit critical mass while having that utility stick around later. I use it with Thermopod to make my board absolutely explode.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
The problem is, most Zada decks run l9w creature counts, sometimes in the single digits. The Conjuring does little in most Zada decks.
Ok, but this particular deck has 12, half of them have etb tokens, and one turns into a Seething Song. To put it in perspective, if I'm counting correctly, the deck has 8 arcane spells, and they come together in pairs reliably enough to name the thread after. When the game plan is drawing 100 cards in a turn, it's not really a question of if there will be opportunity to double creatures with it, but rather whether it's worth the mana and card slot when the opportunity presents itself.
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If we are already drawing that many cards to consistently hit our 8 creatures that enter the battlefield for effects, then we probably don't need to copy our creatures is all that means.
If we are already drawing that many cards to consistently hit our 8 creatures that enter the battlefield for effects, then we probably don't need to copy our creatures is all that means.
You don't need to copy them. You don't need to cast them at all. But if you can copy the creatures, you can turn a profit off of them. If you cast Beetleback Chief and follow it up with a Battle Hymn, you paid 4 for the creature and got 3 of it back. If you cast Beetleback Chief and copy it with Flameshadow Conjuring and then cast Battle Hymn, you paid 5 for the creatures and got 6 back. The deck already has the instants and sorceries actually gaining cards and mana when they're cast, and with the ability to double things, creatures can start to do the same sort of thing. Using one card of the deck to let another 8 contribute to the snowball might be worthwhile. It certainly has been in my experience with a similar deck concept, but in fairness, that deck has access to black and major creature discounts.
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It might be worth testing, but for 1 or 2 more, casting Zada and then Twinflame or Heat Shimmer copies all the creatures.
However, I am curious to test thermopod since it provides R. Sacrificing creatures also sacrifices the scope of other effects, so I think it's viewed as a more desperate option to make sure we go off.
I'm currently testing with Lotus Bloom and Iron Myr for those extra bits of mana to go off. Just got a Chrome Mox to try that. I'm a bit wary of exiling a card though. Also going to be testing with Zap in place of one of the slow cantrips. Mob Rule was quite helpful tonight. Not totally sold on it, but it seems like a good surprise.
I played around with Flameshadow Conjuring when I first built the deck, and it was one of the first things I cut. The bar for any given four-drop is pretty high in this deck, since it shares a spot on the curve with Zada and Zada will almost always be a higher priority than whatever that four drop might be. And as a turn 4 or turn 5 drop, it was consistently disappointing. If I played it the turn I got 4 mana, it would do nothing and then I'd have to untap and then play Zada the next turn and it would again do nothing. If I played it turn 5 after Zada it would still do nothing at all, and by that point, doing that much nothing gave my opponents ample time to disrupt me. It was a win-more card that didn't really even do anything most of the time, as some games my only sources of other creatures were from cards like Krenko's Command and Molten Birth.
This deck can draw tons of cards, but it doesn't tend to have a lot of excess mana until the time the deck is already going off, by which time the deck doesn't really need to make even more creatures. Until that point, every mana counts, and spending 4 of our precious mana to do nothing at all is kind of underwhelming, and by the nature of Zada's effect, we're already running enough cards that don't do anything without other creatures, so we don't really need more.
How do you feel about Riddle of Lightning? I know it would be at the top of your curve, but in my testing I found scrying 30 and leaving a land on top so my creatures live and then on the zada copy throwing the land to the bottom and putting a powerful 1 cost of top to be an extremely powerful way to dig for what I need.
You can also lead a turn with a Spite of Mogis if you have no instants/sorceries in your graveyard, for a powerful 1 mana, scry 8+ spell.
Another hilarious interaction is throwing Eternal Warrior on Zada, and then targeting her with Seize the Day for an obscene amount of combat steps where you can swing with her, AND it flashes back for cheaper, so it's fine to toss to a loot spell.
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It is my opinion that colorless mana sources aren't as useful in this deck as they are in most EDH decks. I recommend placing a premium on sources of R, and for that reason I would not recommend colorless sources except to accelerate the turn that you could go off on. For example, sol ring nets a turn 2 Zada, but doesn't have much of an impact on the turn that you go off, except to get you off the ground. This same theory applies to lands, specifically colorless lands. I'd be hesitant to run many more colorless lands than you've listed.
As to land count, I've been testing what I believe will be the future mulligan method. Specifically, the current tournament mulligan rules (scry 1 if you go below 7), with the multiplayer varient of first mulligan free, and the EDH variation of only reshuffling once (after the hand is kept). Why does this matter? Unlike some posters, for instance Admiral Sultan has posted what looks like a fast storm build, I don't play any small effect looting spells. This means that the best way to make it likely that the deck will go off is to start with a cantrip in my hand. This causes me to keep some somewhat shaky hands when looking at mana sources. To overcome this, I run more lands that would be necessary if I were to use the partial paris method.
Lands drawn while storming off are useless (unless you run lightning storm), and can be seriously detrimental. With the ability to sculpt a hand with PP, you could probably drop from my list (35 lands) to 30-31. If you use the partial paris system, I'd immediately drop at least 3 lands for fast mana or rituals. The best mana for going of is red mana, so look into that first. Phyrexian Altar has been performing well in testing as a broader use skirk prospector, which is a great mana source if you have any surplus creatures. Mana Geyser can be a great ritual effect to kickstart your turn if you're metagame includes a lot of tapped lands and not as much draw-go control or prophet of kruphix. I'd agree with seething song being the third ritual that would slot in, even though it is somewhat low-impact.
I can't recommend cutting fiery gambit unless you're very unlucky in games of chance. It fills 3 roles of what we're looking for as we go off. First, it tranlates each creature into a 25% to hit each opponent for 6. Second, it makes each creature a 12.5% chance to produce red mana by untapping lands while finally drawing cards. It translates roughly to a win (42 damage to each opponent) if you have 28 creatures or battle hymn+stun if you have 8+ creatures. I usually choose which mode would be more effective and roll either 2 or 3 six sided dice for each creature and have an opponent chose either even or odd. This quickly resolves all the copies, with only the copies where all 3 are in my favor having an effect.
Path of Anger's Flame is the arcane equivalent of craterhoof behemoth, and is one of only several arcane spells that are truly worth running. Cards like strange inversion and into the fray don't actually do anything except act as enablers for path, desperate ritual or overblaze. I understand that Path is one of the only arcane spells that doesn't inherently trigger Zada, but it's damage potential is enormous and I encourage you to reconsider that cut.
If you're still looking for other cuts, I suggest looking at possibility storm. As loathe as I was to try it, I've been testing with that cut for some time now without significant detriment. As great as it is to start double-triggering Zada for each spell, it has one of the lowest impacts in setting up to prepare to go off, and I don't recommend interrupting a turn when already going off to cast it. Combine this with it being at the top of the curve and the difficulty starts to become more clear. While it does push the theoretical maximum damage to 3 overblazes/arcane spell in the deck (21 for me, thus 2^21 or a ~ 2.1 million damage multiplier), it was most often just a card to exile to blazing shoal to ritual for N*RRR.
If you go the route of a graveyard reshuffle, I've had some conversations about using an eldrazi titan and a discard effect or using elixar of immortality on the first page of this thread. Either method should allow you to completely go infinite, as it should be rather straightforward to re-draw the entire deck once set up and running. This would make a lot of sense if you see "infinite" life frequently. That's an interesting proposition.
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Mana gyser is a great idea even if the mana is a tad high. Can you explain why path of anger's flame is better than any of the effects that target zada? I'm cutting back on arcane heavily as I was getting sick of dead draws on those cards when I don't have desparate ritual in hand.
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Haze of rage has been on the edge of inclusion in my list for a long time. It's good to know someone else is running it to good effect.
To specifically answer your question about path of anger's flame, simply put no other card can give the same effect at the same mana cost. I play the following spells to pump creatures, noting the exclusion of X cost pump, which isn't really a fair comparision:
Out of these cards, the largest buff any can have by itself is around +6/+0. Path of anger's flame reaches parity with that if you only have 2 creatures other than Zada. The buff generated is a multiplier based on the number of creatures you have, and global pump. This effectively results in the power generated to be twice the number of creatures squared. 7 tokens and Zada results in each one getting +2/+0 for each other, a total power generation of 128 power across the eight creatures. This is, of course assuming a splice effect.
To compare that with any combination of two pump spells, let's consider casting downhill charge at x=6 then following with fatal frenzy. That's pretty much the largest number we could make and "only" provides a power bonus of 96. A more average power generation from a combination of pump spells is between 50 and 80 power.
Kemba | Linvala | Talrand | Geth | Krenko | Zada | Patron of the Orochi | Medomai | Athreos | Gisela | Trostani | Nin | Silumgar | Kaervek | Jarad | Xenagos | Sydri | Narset | Roon | Zurgo | Ghave | Marath | Uril | Tasigur | Animar | Riku | Riku | Sek'Kuar | Cromat
If you have Zada and 4 other creatures and splice a target creature effect onto Path of Anger's Flame the "Creatures you control get +2/+0 until end of turn" effect happens 5 times to your creatures. They each get +10/+0 for a combined power boost of +50/+0. If you have Zada and 9 other creatures, they each get +20/+0 for a combined power boost of +200/+0. If you have 49 other creatures and Zada, they each get +100/+0 (+5000/+0 together).
And the two-card combos with splicing are not hard when you've drawn most of your library, as is the point of the deck. It's a great buff when you need the arcane spells and splicing anyway for Desperate Ritual and Overblaze.
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R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
You are correct that path is just a rouse the mob if it doesn't get spliced with a targeting effect. Given that you're reducing the arcane count, I could understand that cut if you've already removed some of the more questionable arcane spells, specifically into the fray, strange inversion, and unearthly blizzard. The swap to haze of rage makes sense with a lower arcane count and a higher storm count, as you have described. Lyonhaert is right that we typically draw enough cards that the odds of finding an arcane spell to splice isn't overly difficult, but I won't say that the arcane is necessary, just my preferred build path here. As other players have demonstrated, Zada can be built even excluding arcane completely.
That having been said, with my current arcane count it is not uncommon that I run out of cantrips, hit a slower cantrip, or am low on mana. In these situations, especially if I only got 1 cantrip off, the splice+path play is by far the most effective thing to have on hand. It's pulled a win out of something that didn't seem like a good situation more often than it just sat in my hand. Even then, it's still a rouse the mob, which isn't bad for us.
Keeping land light hands is becoming a habit for me as well, but it's often because I have a reasonable probability to draw the land than I need. I'll snap keep a 2 land hand if I see good token sources and a cantrip. The meat of the curve is at the 2-3 costs, so we can run on only 3 lands if necessary. The largest cost I see on a regular basis is Zada herself, but it's a cost that has to be paid every game. I don't like using brightstone ritual or skirk prospector to cast Zada, but I've made it work more often than not.
I've been contemplating the benefits of more early ramp, and the more I consider it, the less I think that it would do for me. Zada makes a reasonable scale for where we are between setting up and going off, so I'll use a 4 mana benchmark. I would argue that the best place to be with this or any similar deck would be to go off the turn Zada is cast or the turn after. Full disclosure; I typically aim for the turn after. This means that we need a certain critical mass of creatures on hand before we hit 4 mana, or at least be prepared to produce as we go off. This mentality places more of a premium on playing out creatures early instead of setting up mana sources early. I'll readily admit that that this leaves me open to disruption.
We're definitely approaching the deck slightly differently, but you've convinced me to give haze of rage another shot at inclusion despite our differences in approach.
Kemba | Linvala | Talrand | Geth | Krenko | Zada | Patron of the Orochi | Medomai | Athreos | Gisela | Trostani | Nin | Silumgar | Kaervek | Jarad | Xenagos | Sydri | Narset | Roon | Zurgo | Ghave | Marath | Uril | Tasigur | Animar | Riku | Riku | Sek'Kuar | Cromat
We definitely have different lines of play, especially regarding the timing of cantrips. The only time I'll use a cantrip other than the turn I intend to go off during is if it's a "slow" cantrip that won't draw until the next upkeep. As I implied earlier, the first several turns for me are all about throwing tokens out and preparing for Zada.
I can honestly say that I had not considered either mox diamond or chrome mox, and they are interesting inclusions. "Free" R is not to be ignored. I may also test that change, swapping out two lands.
Kemba | Linvala | Talrand | Geth | Krenko | Zada | Patron of the Orochi | Medomai | Athreos | Gisela | Trostani | Nin | Silumgar | Kaervek | Jarad | Xenagos | Sydri | Narset | Roon | Zurgo | Ghave | Marath | Uril | Tasigur | Animar | Riku | Riku | Sek'Kuar | Cromat
Opening hand after mulligans was Mountain, Accelerate, Rite of Flame, Chrome Mox, Lotus Bloom, Krenko, Beetleback Chief. I drew three lands in the first four turns. I don't remember what the other draw was.
t1: mountain, suspend lotus bloom
t2: mountain, rite of flame, chrome mox imprinting Beetleback Chief, Krenko, Mob Boss
t3: mountain, Zada, Tap krenko for two tokens.
t4: mountain, Goblin Rally, Crack bloom, Tap Krenko, Accelerate drawing into skirk prospector, Unnatural speed splicing desperate ritual, heat shimmer, titan's strength, swing.
My friends have this habit of hitting zada with swords after I'm already going off. I figure this will get harder after they get more used to the deck.
Mortarpod: similar effect to Pia and Kiran Nalaar, Siege-Gang Commander, and Mogg Fanatic.Mana Flare: does it help out opponents too much if we have to play it the turn before the one we go off?
Edit: Nevermind Mortarpod, that wouldn't work at all at instant speed.
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R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
I'll probably swap a land out for chrome mox if I can find one easily. You make a good argument about mox diamond.
If I could partial paris, running mox diamond would obviously make more sense. I wouldn't want to see either in an opening hand, but chrome mox is more lenient.
Zada + Krenko can be one of the fastest starting hands available. Only a young pyromancer + twinflame hand makes tokens faster.
Opponents should know that the best time to disrupt this deck is almost always before the storm turn happens. I have often continued going off in response to removal, disruption, or a potentially lethal cerebral vortex but if my mana pool is empty or my hand is low things become dire. There's not much that can be done to avoid this and you should anticipate it becoming more difficult. A reasonable plan is to play like other combo decks and wait for an opportune time to drop the pieces and go for it, but that can take a while.
Mortorpod is interesting, but if I'm paying two mana for a creature, I usually want more than one of them. It would basically play like a mogg fanatic that costs more and lacks the goblin synergy. That's not terrible, but it's also not quite what I'm looking for in a creature/creature source.
Mana Flare is effective ramp in the right situation. It pulls it weight in other decks I play with significantly higher mana requirements such as Gisela + earthquakes. In Zada; it would increase the red mana we have access to at the start of the storm turn, which would make starting off easier. That said, most storm turns that I've had resulted in all of my lands being tapped early on, usually the first or second cantrip. With the exception of fiery gambit this means that mana flare wouldn't work as a ritual effect as/after we go off. I won't say it doesn't deserve further consideration or testing, but I wouldn't anticipate great returns from it.
Kemba | Linvala | Talrand | Geth | Krenko | Zada | Patron of the Orochi | Medomai | Athreos | Gisela | Trostani | Nin | Silumgar | Kaervek | Jarad | Xenagos | Sydri | Narset | Roon | Zurgo | Ghave | Marath | Uril | Tasigur | Animar | Riku | Riku | Sek'Kuar | Cromat
Exactly. The biggest advantage to P&K, SGC, and Fanatic is they're repeatable at instant speed. I realized that Fanatic's advantage over Spikeshot Elder is if you've Twinflamed/Shimmered and have multiple Fanatics.
In a goldfish practice run last night, I reached:
My opening hand had Lotus Bloom, Titan's Strength, and no mountains or cantrips.
It's occurred to me that it's pretty important to save Strionic Resonator for something big like Path of Anger's Flame (spliced with DR and OB) or a hugely pumped Blazing Shoal (also spliced). Also, early in the process of going off I had 28 cards left in the library and 27 creatures. Rather than draw all of those with an immediate cantrip (had 3 in hand), I used the scrying from Portent (before tapping Krenko again) to get to the last few needed cards (including 2 Arcane spells), responding to that scry with a cantrip targeting somebody other than Zada to draw 1 card, then continue resolving the scrying.
I've begun to wonder if it's possible to go rather infinite with Shimmer Myr and Elixir of Immortality in the middle of drawing through the deck to repeatedly cast cantrips to continue the drawing, rituals, arcane and pump spells etc. No matter how many card draws are left, are left, one should have the Myr and the Elixir in hand to resolve those, cast some more spells if necessary, and dump the graveyard back into the library to continue drawing. I still like the idea of being able to do as much as we do without infinite combos, but I appreciate that this one takes awareness and timing (compared to Dualcaster Mage + Twinflame).
Happy splicing, folks.
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R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
The closest experience I have to a deck like this is my Rakdos, Lord of Riots deck. It doesn't do splice arcane shenanigans, but it does chain creatures into mana into card draw into creatures into mana etc, etc, etc. The best new addition I've made to my Rakdos deck in a long time is Flameshadow Conjuring. The one red to duplicate a creature absolutely goes places when you can easily get it right back. The 4 mana to cast it before you start going off is the biggest sticking point I can see for something that might be overkill, but with all those creature etb token generations, you can make a conjuring clone of like half the creatures in the deck and immediately hit critical mass while having that utility stick around later. I use it with Thermopod to make my board absolutely explode.
Here's the link: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/autocardanywhere/eobkhgkgoejnjaiofdmphhkemmomfabg?hl=en
Ok, but this particular deck has 12, half of them have etb tokens, and one turns into a Seething Song. To put it in perspective, if I'm counting correctly, the deck has 8 arcane spells, and they come together in pairs reliably enough to name the thread after. When the game plan is drawing 100 cards in a turn, it's not really a question of if there will be opportunity to double creatures with it, but rather whether it's worth the mana and card slot when the opportunity presents itself.
Here's the link: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/autocardanywhere/eobkhgkgoejnjaiofdmphhkemmomfabg?hl=en
You don't need to copy them. You don't need to cast them at all. But if you can copy the creatures, you can turn a profit off of them. If you cast Beetleback Chief and follow it up with a Battle Hymn, you paid 4 for the creature and got 3 of it back. If you cast Beetleback Chief and copy it with Flameshadow Conjuring and then cast Battle Hymn, you paid 5 for the creatures and got 6 back. The deck already has the instants and sorceries actually gaining cards and mana when they're cast, and with the ability to double things, creatures can start to do the same sort of thing. Using one card of the deck to let another 8 contribute to the snowball might be worthwhile. It certainly has been in my experience with a similar deck concept, but in fairness, that deck has access to black and major creature discounts.
However, I am curious to test thermopod since it provides R. Sacrificing creatures also sacrifices the scope of other effects, so I think it's viewed as a more desperate option to make sure we go off.
I'm currently testing with Lotus Bloom and Iron Myr for those extra bits of mana to go off. Just got a Chrome Mox to try that. I'm a bit wary of exiling a card though. Also going to be testing with Zap in place of one of the slow cantrips. Mob Rule was quite helpful tonight. Not totally sold on it, but it seems like a good surprise.
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R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko
This deck can draw tons of cards, but it doesn't tend to have a lot of excess mana until the time the deck is already going off, by which time the deck doesn't really need to make even more creatures. Until that point, every mana counts, and spending 4 of our precious mana to do nothing at all is kind of underwhelming, and by the nature of Zada's effect, we're already running enough cards that don't do anything without other creatures, so we don't really need more.
You can also lead a turn with a Spite of Mogis if you have no instants/sorceries in your graveyard, for a powerful 1 mana, scry 8+ spell.
Another hilarious interaction is throwing Eternal Warrior on Zada, and then targeting her with Seize the Day for an obscene amount of combat steps where you can swing with her, AND it flashes back for cheaper, so it's fine to toss to a loot spell.