Hey guys! Following what DTrain said, we over at /r/CompetitiveEDH recently group-brewed a version of the deck that avoids the whole four-horseman problem all together.
It turns out it's pretty easyto avoid the 4 horseman, so long as you use Dakmor (which you'll probably hit eventually anyways) and/or discard outlets that change the game state.
DO note, the rare situation where you use something NOT dakmor to dredge, and dakmor flips on the last set or dredge, you won't draw a card and will re-shuffle your library into a pervious state, which DOES hit 4 horseman.
Make sure you keep Jarad in the deck to avoid that, although you'll need the forest/swamp to be able to trigger it.
Also, can I get a link? I'll put it in the OP.
Since you can pitch Dakmor Salvage in response to the Kozilek trigger, you can continue to loot (and draw) the rest of your library, dredge Salvage into your hand, let the trigger resolve, and then continue and repeat this loop until your entire library is in your hand. This loop is deterministic - you will eventually end at a state with your entire deck in your hand. I believe you can shortcut it too, since in the event that all your lands are in your hand (which means you can no longer draw cards by continuing to dredge) you can just pitch them to your yard, draw cards, trigger Kozilek, and then repeat.
Still not deterministic. You can't say how many loops it takes to get your library into your hand, because you don't know how many cards you're drawing per run.
Even in the situation where there is 1 land in your library (so you know that there is one 'draw' waiting to happen), you can't shortcut it. If your library has an odd number of cards (which it will, each other iteration, since you're drawing 1 at a time), there is now the possibility that the land is the bottom-most card of the library, which means you can't dredge it with Dakmor. This mean when you shuffle, you return the game state to the same library and handsize, so if you're not using Mongrel/Familiar/etc, you have now 4 horsmaned yourself.
This deck can avoid the 4 horseman situation, but if you're not very careful, it can still happen.
If you have 2 lands in your library, then you can't tell if you're going to draw 1 or two cards in the iteration.
Even if you keep ALL the lands in the deck each iteration, such that you have such a land consistency that it is inconceivable to not draw on each dredge - so long as there are 2 non-land cards, there is a possiblity that they end up back to back.
I ran some computer simulations, and dredging 6 with Golgari Grave-Troll ended up dredging to Dakmor Salvage over 99.9% of the time, dredging 5 over 90% of the time, and dredging 4 over 70% of the time - I forget the exact figures.
That's good stuff to know! Of course, this is only if you need to actually use one of those engines, so far I haven't had any issue tutoring into Dakmor, but still. Good stuff. Did this only account for the raw dredge chains, does it include dredging into other dredge cards, or does it also account for any resets we have to continue the chains - such as land discard, land sac outlets, and Jarad being milled?.
Currently our win-conditions are looping Praetor's Grasp (which in my mind is more elegant and goes quicker since you can win with your opponents' cards) and Geth's Verdict. Verdict was included since it's an instant, so you can win during your cleanup phase(s) when you discard Dakmor Salvage to go down to seven, your frog triggers, and you "draw" (read:drege) a card.
I like it. Elegant.
How do you get the mana for it though? Lotus Petal is sorcery speed, or is it all Dark Ritual I guess? so long as you have B to start?
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I see Culling the Week made it back in, which makes sense with the higher dork count. This is looking a lot more where I want to take my OP now, but there are still a few changes I'd make.
ALso that aura, I've been thinking or re-adding it, since it acts as the Wild Mongrel effect to prevent 4horse situations.
I'd cut Exsanguinate. If you have Geth's in there, it's redundant.
I'd up the tutors. Summoner's Pact can get Mongrel or Grave Troll, Expedition map gets Dakmor, the 2g get 4 lands gets you dakmor and a free discard, Sylvan Scrying gets you dakmor, etc.
I would also switch Kozi for Ulamog. pedantics, I know, but the cards draw is useless, while technically we could cast Ulamog for a necessary destruction and then cull the weak him.
I'm concerned at the low forest/swamp counts. I think the sac outlets for those is worth more than the early mana fixing, we're 2 colors, we don't need every single land to tap for both colors. We'll be fine.
I think Lotus Cobra deserves a place as it ramps you from 3-5 and has great synergy with Gitrog if your extra land is also a fetchland. To deal with hate I think Nature's Claim, Natural State, Maelstrom Pulse are all necessary.
I'm wondering though if the glass cannon version is better though than building a more reliable combo-control deck - without blue you're very susceptible to counterspells and graveyard hate.
As soon as the number of lands in your library/hand/graveyard is more than half the number of nonlands, I do believe there is a maximum number of iterations. You are drawing at least one card per iteration, and can continue drawing at least one card per iteration by discarding the lands that you draw. Even if you are drawing all lands, you can cycle them with your discard outlet and turn them into nonlands. I haven't yet calculated the maximum (and such a calculation wouldn't be valuable since it changes depending on how many lands and cards are left in your deck, what's in your hand, et cetera). You can instantly draw cards and add lands to your library by discarding lands from your hand.
My dredge chains were simply "probability of dredging into Dakmor Salvage before fizzling." I do think at the least Grave-Troll should be in the list - it's so valuable with an engine like Bazaar of Baghdad. Speaking of, that card is insane - Tap it, dredge once (mill a land), dredge again (mill a land), discard (a land and two dredgers), draw 3 cards? (This DOES work since "draw 2" means "draw 1, then draw 1" and they are separate instances of zone-changing.)
Yes, you can only win at instant speed if you already have a black mana up. Unfortunately the black mana doesn't carry over through cleanup steps, so the deck needs Necromancy to be able to reanimate Skirge Familiar at instant-speed and win in one cleanup step. The list needs a little work.
I don't actually care at all about which Titan we use. Kozilek is less life off Ad Naus, so we went with that. Other than that, I generally agree with your criticisms.
I think Lotus Cobra deserves a place as it ramps you from 3-5 and has great synergy with Gitrog if your extra land is also a fetchland. To deal with hate I think Nature's Claim, Natural State, Maelstrom Pulse are all necessary.
I'm wondering though if the glass cannon version is better though than building a more reliable combo-control deck - without blue you're very susceptible to counterspells and graveyard hate.
Lotus Cobra is very strong, and I think a worthwhile include for the deck.
Maelstrom pulse is a bit expensive and slow, but I agree on the other 2 100%. I'd rather Beast WIthin before pulse.
This deck should have more disruption and be less glass-cannon, but as before, my main focus has been on solidifying the core, before adding the disruption. To fight counterspells, you use the targeted discard cards, or some of the City of SOlitude types of effects others have suggested. Or Imp's Mischief.
As soon as the number of lands in your library/hand/graveyard is more than half the number of nonlands, I do believe there is a maximum number of iterations. You are drawing at least one card per iteration, and can continue drawing at least one card per iteration by discarding the lands that you draw. Even if you are drawing all lands, you can cycle them with your discard outlet and turn them into nonlands. I haven't yet calculated the maximum (and such a calculation wouldn't be valuable since it changes depending on how many lands and cards are left in your deck, what's in your hand, et cetera). You can instantly draw cards and add lands to your library by discarding lands from your hand.
There's actually always a maximum once the Dakmor is involved. I go over it earlier in the thread, but essentially you will draw cards equal to 33%-100% of your land count.
My dredge chains were simply "probability of dredging into Dakmor Salvage before fizzling." I do think at the least Grave-Troll should be in the list - it's so valuable with an engine like Bazaar of Baghdad. Speaking of, that card is insane - Tap it, dredge once (mill a land), dredge again (mill a land), discard (a land and two dredgers), draw 3 cards? (This DOES work since "draw 2" means "draw 1, then draw 1" and they are separate instances of zone-changing.)
I don't own a Bazaar sadly, but then, since I'm not planning on actually building this in paper, I guess I might as well stop restricting myself on that, and just go for an optimal list.
Yes, you can only win at instant speed if you already have a black mana up. Unfortunately the black mana doesn't carry over through cleanup steps, so the deck needs Necromancy to be able to reanimate Skirge Familiar at instant-speed and win in one cleanup step. The list needs a little work.
That's actually rather funny. Still works though with the Necromancy, you use cleanup steps to get the pieces needed, then you dark rit the Familiar, then you go off.
I don't actually care at all about which Titan we use. Kozilek is less life off Ad Naus, so we went with that. Other than that, I generally agree with your criticisms.
Thanks, I'll read through it and add it to the OP after work.
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Also, you're right. We CAN make it deterministic after we have our deck in hand.
By discarding a lot of land (say, 30, for math) on an empty library, we get +30 draws. Then we discard a Kozi. We now have 30 draws, and 31 cards in the library - still random. But now a twist. We discard the salvage and draw it - since the deck has only 1 non-land card at this moment, we now have 31 draws, and 29 cards.
Wait. No. Damnit. If we put extra cards in to compensate, it becomes non-deterministic again. There's a way. I'm sure of it.
Wait, got it. We can't use salvage.
We use a cycling land. cycling land gives us 2 draws for 1 card, while kozi gives us 0 cards for 1 card. They'll balance out. We can loop a Kozi + a Barren Moor for infinite mana, doesn't care about order.
Not seeing the cycling land loop. With deck in hand and a clean grave, discard Kozilek, shuffle. Cycle, trigger, draw koz, discard koz, resolve koz trigger, resolve cycling ability to draw a card, draw either land or Koz...?
Discard Koz, trigger, discard a land & draw trigger, draw Koz, discard Koz & shuffle trigger, cycle Barren Moor, draw 2, discard Koz, shuffle trigger, discard a land, draw Koz...? I don't see it.
That combo is definitely a lot easier to execute than the one I described on the last page, but it also constrains your win conditions a lot. It needs exactly Skirge Familiar as the discard outlet, which isn't ideal because it costs 5 mana, and it only really allows you to use something like Exsanguinate as the kill card. In theory I think the version that loops the entire library with Kozilek every iteration is the most compact and resilient, but it's not feasible to actually play because of the amount of time required to play out the combo. A version like this that loops a much smaller library makes it much more manageable to play out while still being more compact than a Necrotic Ooze or Mike + Trike combo.
That combo is definitely a lot easier to execute than the one I described on the last page, but it also constrains your win conditions a lot. It needs exactly Skirge Familiar as the discard outlet, which isn't ideal because it costs 5 mana, and it only really allows you to use something like Exsanguinate as the kill card. In theory I think the version that loops the entire library with Kozilek every iteration is the most compact and resilient, but it's not feasible to actually play because of the amount of time required to play out the combo. A version like this that loops a much smaller library makes it much more manageable to play out while still being more compact than a Necrotic Ooze or Mike + Trike combo.
It's not constrained at all. You get whatever discard outlet of choice you have to initiate the loop, same as yours. You perform combo to pick up library in hand, same as yours. You Necromancy / Reanimate Skirge Familiar, same as yours. Then, simply get infinite mana, to perform the necessary loop of choice. Once you have infinite mana, you can perform the same loop, except with 5 cards: add another colorless cost cycling land, and your kill card. You simply with 2 cycling lands, put 5 draw triggers on the stack, and then put 5 cards in GY (2 cycling lands, 1 free cycle land, 1 titan, 1 whatever-you-want). Whether it's Geth's Verdict, or Oblivion Crown, both can be cast with the black mana. If need be, you can filter the mana into green with Lotus Petal.
The advantage is simply that this method is a perfect set of steps, that doesn't alter, so that you can shortcut it, legally. That's all this is.
The combo I outlined never requires you to have Skirge Familiar in play specifically which means you don't have to run Necromancy, Reanimate, etc, which is why I think it's slightly better in a theoretical sense. Yours is obviously better in a practical sense because you can shortcut it. My use of "a lot" was incorrect there as this only requires you to add one extra card which isn't too big of a deal.
Discard Land - - - - - (1 draw on stack, 0 cards in library, 1 grave, +1 B)
Cycle Barren Moor - (3 draw on stack, 0 cards in library, 2 grave, -1 B (to cycle), net 0)
Discard Koz - - - - -- (3 draw on stack, 3 cards in library, 0 grave, 1 B, net 1)
Back to Clean Library, GY, except have +1 B. Go to step 1.
Beautiful. All of these cards are already cards we play, and like you said once you generate infinite mana you can add another cycling land (adding one card to the pile to draw two) and the card you actually want to loop, likely Praetor's Grasp. I also like that this is infinite without Dakmor Salvage, so if that gets hit by a turn two Bitter Ordeal or whatever you can still potentially make this work.
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Is there an elegant way to make Chains of Mephistopheles work as your discard outlet? I have The Gitrog Monster out, and I crack a fetchland. The Monster triggers, and I draw a card. Instead of drawing a card, I discard a card (Dakmor Salvage) and then draw a card. Instead of drawing a card here, I dredge Salvage to my hand, and mill two. Let's say I miss land. Now, since I discarded Dakmor Salvage, I have a draw trigger on the stack, and can repeat this process, filtering my deck. The only thing is, unlike other discard outlet,s if I do hit land, my extra draw trigger is just extra looting. Unfortunately I never actually get card advantage, so I can't actually use this to "go off" unless I run a bad win-condition. If I have 2+ cards in my hand, or one card in my hand and a green mana up, I can continue the loop (infinitely, using Kozilek) until I have Lotus Petal and Nature's Claim and blow up the Chains, but then I'm out a discard outlet. (Looping your library until you find these cards will take a long time since you can't shortcut it. It will fall under slow play.) If I have more resources, I can kill it and put another discard outlet into play.
It's not very elegant, but it works, kind of. Chains is also a great piece of disruption that will help against decks like Storm that might be a tad faster. I'd like to see a more compact way of making the combo work, either without having to blow up your combo piece by playing other win-conditions entirely out of your graveyard or by finding an easier way around it that doesn't get a judge called on you for slow play.
You can gain card advantage. Replace the draw with dredging one of the other dredge cards. Then chains won't apply to that draw, and you won't need to discard.
Ex:
You dakmor loop, using dakmor's dredge to replace the draw. Chains doesn't apply. Dakmor mills a land.
Replace that draw with dredging Life from the loam. You are now +1 card in hand. If loam mills a land, draw the card with Chains, then pitch the loam. (if not, dakmor into the needed draw).
Chains will mess with the shortcutable loop, but you can still essentially do the combo with it.
Thanks bobby, I forgot you can apply replacement effects in any order you want. For some reason I thought they happened in timestamp order or something - like you couldn't dredge the draw because Chains has been in play longer than Life has been in your graveyard. I totally think you guys should play this card.
Edit: I figured out a loop to allow you to combo with Chains in play if for some reason all your permanent removal is exiled. There's probably a more elegant way to do it, but this is the best I could get.
1) Get entire deck in hand with a clean grave.
2) Put Skirge Familiar in hand using Lotus Petal and ritual. Use our combo to get entire deck in hand with a clean grave again.
3) A nonland and Kozilek, shuffle up.
4) Discard Dakmor Salvage, get a Frog trigger. Dredge your library, shuffle up. Repeat this step for infinite black.
5) Finish this by cycling a land to draw your cards back.
6) Cast Praetor's Grasp.
7) Discard Kozilek. Resolve Koz trigger. Praetor's Grasp, the cycle land, and Koz are in your library.
8) Cycle a land, get two draws, hold priority.
9) Move to resolve your draw, replace with Chains. Discard a land to Chains and draw the top card. Frog triggers. Repeat until you get back your library. Discard Kozilek to Familiar to shuffle up.
10) Repeat infinitely, adding cycling lands where needed to keep the pile small. You can also add Lotus Petal and cast Life from the Loam to get cycle lands out of your yard and keep your pile small.
Hopefully there's an easier way to do this but at the very least this works if you need it to.
I would love nothing more than to play a deck like this. However, with all of the math that seems involved and trying to get certain cards left in deck, it just seems to complicated and time consuming to me.
Is there anyway to basically "dumb" down the entire deck/combo so any regular joe could easily grasp the concept?
It's really a lot simpler than it sounds. You just keep discarding and dredging the dakmor salvage until your entire library is in the graveyard (or hand). Then you use a standard GY combo to win.
At its absolute simplest, skip the Eldrazi Titan, and use the wincon that's currently in the OP: (Dread Return -> Necrotic Ooze combo). This lets you win withouth any shuffling, worrying about drawing cards, or anything of that.
All the 'math' we're discussing right now is trying to shave down the combo to use less cards, so that there are less card slots used, and thus, less dead draws. We're simply min/maxing to the absolute extent.
So in a perfect world, you should be able to draw your entire deck with just a discard outlet and dakmor salvage?
With Kozilek somewhere in the deck, you don't need a perfect world, you need this one. Without Koz, you can loot your entire library and draw lots of cards too.
Most of it will end up in your graveyard, but there's no 'perfect world' about it. Dakmor + discard outlet lets you dredge your entire deck on its own. Every time you discard dakmor, Gitrog gives you a draw trigger, which you use to dredge Dakmor. This lets you mill your entire library 2 cards at a time. On top of that, if you happen to dredge a land, you get to draw an extra card.
Once you arrive at the last 2 cards of your library, just discard/sacrifice some lands to draw the 2 remaining cards. (to avoid dredging a land in the last 2 cards and having the awkward situation of having an extra draw trigger).
Now, if any of your combo pieces are in your hand, discard them. Use Gitrog's extra land drop to play a land and return Bloodghast or unearth the 1 cost unearth dude (if needed), sac gitrog + 2 bodies to dread return, and win with Necrotic Ooze.
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Adding a Titan isn't necessary to the deck, but it adds a level of safety, and it also allows you to use less cards on the combo, which lets you have less dead cards in opening draws, but it adds a small amount of complexity in how you hand the re-shuffles. In that case, you end up getting the entire library into your hand, but this process can't technically be shortcut. It can't fail, and there's a maximum number of iterations that it will take, but it still has some randomness.
So then you infinite mana and use Bloodrite Invoker to win? What's skittles used for then?
Bloodrite Invoker is part of the non-Eldrazi reshuffle win. You mill your deck once over, Dread Return the Necrotic Ooze, give the ooze haste use Skytherix's ability, use the ooze to make infinite mana with Devoted Druid and Quillspike, and then kill using Bloodrite Invoker's ability (on the ooze).
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All the crazy discussion above is working to cut down on that combo. Using an Eldrazi titan, you can cut the Necrotic Ooze, Bloodrite Invoker, Quillspike, Skytherix, and Dread Return, and instead add in Necromany, the Eldrazi, and a win condition (choices of preference seem to be Geth's Verdict and Praetor's Grasp). This free's up 2 card slots, and lets you run the combo at instant speed, in case you need to use the cleanup step as your discard outlet (which is actually a bit tricky, since you need 8 cards in hand to begin with).
Essentially, the combo is to then Eldrazi Loop your entire deck into your hand, then use the cycling combo I mentioned for infinite mana, and then infinitely cast your win spell (Geth's Verdict, or Praetor's Grasp) to win.
The Necromancy is there to reanimate the Skirge Familiar in case you were using a different discard outlet, (say Putrid Imp). That's just for the convenience of being able to legally (within the rules) shortcut the process. You can already make infinite mana without that just by Eldrazi cycling a Lotus Petal or Dark Ritual infinitely, but you can't legally shortcut it, due to the randomness of the steps.
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Using the cleanup step to combo is a tricky rules thing. Typically, players don't get priority during the cleanup step, but if anything triggers (such as Thawing Glaciers, for a rules example), players gain priority and a new cleanup step is created to cleanup anything that didn't get cleaned up before. Repeat as needed.
So what happens is that if you enter the cleanup step with 8 cards, then you need to discard 1 due to handsize rules of the game, so you discard Dakmor Salvage, which triggers Gitrog, so you draw a card, but replace that by dredging Dakmor Salvage.
So now that that's done you go to the new cleanup step. Well, darn! Now you have 8 cards in hand again! (or possibly 9, if you dredged a land). So you discard down again!
Do Note: Using this method means that you aren't advancing the game state if an Eldrazi gets shuffled (since you can't respond to the trigger), which could lead to stalling if that's your dredge mechanism. Weird stuff.
Lol, it would appear that The Gitrog Monster is a gentleman's commander; you'd need to be either a level 100 judge to understand all the interactons, replacement effects, etc. or have a doctorate in Magic: The Gathering. So beautiful... Be ready to tutor your pod in how all this works in case it includes that one guy that can't understand anything beyond tapping lands for mana and tapping creatures for attack.
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Thanks bobby, I forgot you can apply replacement effects in any order you want. For some reason I thought they happened in timestamp order or something - like you couldn't dredge the draw because Chains has been in play longer than Life has been in your graveyard. I totally think you guys should play this card.
Edit: I figured out a loop to allow you to combo with Chains in play if for some reason all your permanent removal is exiled. There's probably a more elegant way to do it, but this is the best I could get.
1) Get entire deck in hand with a clean grave.
2) Put Skirge Familiar in hand using Lotus Petal and ritual. Use our combo to get entire deck in hand with a clean grave again.
3) A nonland and Kozilek, shuffle up.
4) Discard Dakmor Salvage, get a Frog trigger. Dredge your library, shuffle up. Repeat this step for infinite black.
5) Finish this by cycling a land to draw your cards back.
6) Cast Praetor's Grasp.
7) Discard Kozilek. Resolve Koz trigger. Praetor's Grasp, the cycle land, and Koz are in your library.
8) Cycle a land, get two draws, hold priority.
9) Move to resolve your draw, replace with Chains. Discard a land to Chains and draw the top card. Frog triggers. Repeat until you get back your library. Discard Kozilek to Familiar to shuffle up.
10) Repeat infinitely, adding cycling lands where needed to keep the pile small. You can also add Lotus Petal and cast Life from the Loam to get cycle lands out of your yard and keep your pile small.
Hopefully there's an easier way to do this but at the very least this works if you need it to.
In terms of facilitating the Gitrog combo, Chains is strictly worse than an open discard outlet like Wild Mongrel or Oona's Prowler.
Reasoning: for this application, Chains basically reads:
You have an extra card draw? If you want to Dredge, ok go ahead, this card has no effect. But if you don't dredge away the draw, then replace that draw with "discard 1 then draw 1", or "mill 1" if your hand's empty.
If the goal is to be able to discard cards (ahem, lands), then obviously a Wild Mongrel or whatever is better--just draw your cards normally and discard whenever you want. Chains isn't as effective in enabling discards, requiring a card draw trigger first. Does this deficiency-as-a-discard-outlet matter? Well, maybe. Chains isn't as flexible to initiate/sustain the combo by itself. "Stack is empty. I discard this land to Wild Mongrel, Gitrog triggers a card draw." <-- Chains can't do this.
So, if a discard outlet is required to execute the full Gitrog combo (and I think it is, but am not up-to-date on the thousands of words written @ the combo here and elsewhere) then I don't think that Chains is sufficient to be that discard outlet. You'd still need a Mongrel/whatever.
With that in mind, I think Chains will have to win its way into a Gitrog list on the merits of its strength as disruption, not on its merits as a combo piece. It is hella disruptive (**** your Brainstorm!), and one-sided--awesome that the Chains effect doesn't disrupt the Gitrog combo.
Having only looked at this deck from a distance, and not having done any testing/goldfishing or anything, there are a couple questions I can't answer.
Q1. How much is Chains in the way once the combo is established? It looks like you've figured out how to work that scenario in your prior post (though I admit I haven't worked through it myself). I should not have been so hasty in my quoted post to claim that Chains doesn't disrupt us, as there are some devil-in-the-details issues to sort out.
Assuming the combo still works with Chains in play:
Q2. How bad is it if Chains is your only discard outlet on board? Chains isn't as good as an open discard outlet, but to what degree is it deficient? I mention an event above: <<"Stack is empty. I discard this land to Wild Mongrel, Gitrog triggers a card draw." <-- Chains can't do this.>> With only Chains on board, it would seem like combo initiation could be either impossible or have risk of a quick abortion. You can still attempt initiation via land sac effects (several options) or by having >7 cards in discard phase. Still, I'm not seeing a path to run the full engine running using only Chains, but I could be missing something. If Chains somehow does function just as well as an open discard outlet, then it's an auto-include as both disruption and a combo-piece.
Tentative conclusions, code-style:
If "Chains fouls the combo re: Q1" { // I think this condition is false, i.e. the combo is ok
Don't run it.
} Else If "Chains is just as good as an open outlet re: Q2" { // I think this condition is false, i.e. Chains is a deficient outlet
Auto-include.
} Else {
// It's a non-combo card with inclusion merits based on
// 1. Disruption to other players
// 2. Facilitation of combo
}
The value of the disruption is decent. It's probably not as good as something like Cabal Therapy, as counterspells / hate are probably the effects that need disrupting. Still, it's ok for the anti-card draw that it is.
The facilitation of combo comes from the scenario outlined in Q2, where its the only discard outlet you have so far. You can sac a land, perform a few iterations of "discard land, draw card, new draw trigger on stack" and hope to dig up needed pieces/tutors.
Q1. How much is Chains in the way once the combo is established? It looks like you've figured out how to work that scenario in your prior post (though I admit I haven't worked through it myself). I should not have been so hasty in my quoted post to claim that Chains doesn't disrupt us, as there are some devil-in-the-details issues to sort out.
It depends on what combo you're running. If you're just upending the library into the GY once, with no titan, it really isn't an issue. Your library still ends up in the grave.
It can be a bit annoying though, if the last 'draw-replace' ends up being a combo piece, but theoretically you should have drawn another discard outlet (Putrid Imp? by then, and be able to clear away the last card.
On the other hand, if you're doing Titan loop, the big issue is that you can't respond with another discard if Chains is your discard outlet, since it's essentially a replacement on a triggered ability, rather than an activated one. This can lead into 4horseman situations where you keep milling the Titan without any change of state. I care about that, but many others don't.
If you have another discard outlet out as well as chains, it disrupts non-titan combo not at all.
With the titan loop, you can still combo through it, but it is rather more annoying. Essentially, Chains prevents you from drawing cards and increasing your handsize, which makes it hard to cast the same spell over and over. BUT! We have dredge cards, which bypass this. You need to cast you kill spell, then you need to replace some draws with dredges, in order to increase your handsize, then you need to loot back into your killspell...
Which is... harder, but not impossible. You can even still draw most of your deck, by repeatedly dredging Life from the Loam and friends to increase the handsize, and then looting them away. Your ending loop would essentially have LFTL, Geth's Verdict, Titan, and about 3 filler cards looping through your library, (lands, most likely, so that you can cycle into geth's every time).
This makes it possible to combo off with just chains, even in a titan shell, but you're almost guaranteed of 4 horseman in that situation. Also, when you dredge a non-Dakmor card, if you ever fail to dredge a land, your loop ends, since you need to keep the card draw triggers going.
In short: Non-Titan - effectively no dent. Titan - rather annoying, don't try to use it as a solo-enabler.
Q2. How bad is it if Chains is your only discard outlet on board? Chains isn't as good as an open discard outlet, but to what degree is it deficient? I mention an event above: <<"Stack is empty. I discard this land to Wild Mongrel, Gitrog triggers a card draw." <-- Chains can't do this.>> With only Chains on board, it would seem like combo initiation could be either impossible or have risk of a quick abortion. You can still attempt initiation via land sac effects (several options) or by having >7 cards in discard phase. Still, I'm not seeing a path to run the full engine running using only Chains, but I could be missing something. If Chains somehow does function just as well as an open discard outlet, then it's an auto-include as both disruption and a combo-piece.
* - note that lands dredged will result in you looting your hand. This is how you get other combo pieces into the yard. Any lands drawn simply keep milling you essentially until you hit a non-land.
Tentative conclusions, code-style:
If "Chains fouls the combo re: Q1" { // I think this condition is false, i.e. the combo is ok
Don't run it.
} Else If "Chains is just as good as an open outlet re: Q2" { // I think this condition is false, i.e. Chains is a deficient outlet
Auto-include.
} Else {
// It's a non-combo card with inclusion merits based on
// 1. Disruption to other players
// 2. Facilitation of combo
}
The value of the disruption is decent. It's probably not as good as something like Cabal Therapy, as counterspells / hate are probably the effects that need disrupting. Still, it's ok for the anti-card draw that it is.
The facilitation of combo comes from the scenario outlined in Q2, where its the only discard outlet you have so far. You can sac a land, perform a few iterations of "discard land, draw card, new draw trigger on stack" and hope to dig up needed pieces/tutors.
aka. Run in non-titan, very, very annoying in titan loop - probably avoid, but still possible to combo off (though can't shortcut at all, since you need to use dredge as a mechanic to increase hand size).
Two things I wanted to mention here, 1) would Psychosis Crawler not work for infinite life loss, as you dredge a land from dakmoor you get another draw + return of dakmoor.
2) Since alot of people think infinite combos are not that fun, what non-infinite combos could you use in place of Mike/Trike or whatever that infinite lotus petal mana combo.
Most game-winning combos are infinite, and in general if you're playgroup doesn't find infinite combos fun you probably shouldn't be playing a deck like this anyway. Hypothetically given sufficient mana I guess you could return Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord to your hand from the grave, cast it, Dread Return/Reanimate/Necromancy/whatever back Lord of Extinction, and drain each opponent for your deck after milling.
Two things I wanted to mention here, 1) would Psychosis Crawler not work for infinite life loss, as you dredge a land from dakmoor you get another draw + return of dakmoor.
2) Since alot of people think infinite combos are not that fun, what non-infinite combos could you use in place of Mike/Trike or whatever that infinite lotus petal mana combo.
Technically, yes, the Psychosis Crawler would work, but you'd need to do it in the titan shell, otherwise you risk getting to it too far down the line, and not having enough card draw. An interesting option.
For non-infinite, there were a few options, which usually involve the non-titan loop to get the deck in the graveyard, then using Dread Return on a Greenwarden of Murasa to get back Yawgmoth's Will, to then cast a lot of Dark Rituals, Culling the Weak, and Songs of the damned from the graveyard into an Exsanguinate win. I don't really see much difference between this and an infinite combo though, as the issue with infinite combo is that they just go: "Bang! You're dead!" and this does the same thing. I mean... this is a combo deck.
There are a few more stax-like Gitrog builds though, that go more for value over time.
DO note, the rare situation where you use something NOT dakmor to dredge, and dakmor flips on the last set or dredge, you won't draw a card and will re-shuffle your library into a pervious state, which DOES hit 4 horseman.
Make sure you keep Jarad in the deck to avoid that, although you'll need the forest/swamp to be able to trigger it.
Also, can I get a link? I'll put it in the OP.
Still not deterministic. You can't say how many loops it takes to get your library into your hand, because you don't know how many cards you're drawing per run.
Even in the situation where there is 1 land in your library (so you know that there is one 'draw' waiting to happen), you can't shortcut it. If your library has an odd number of cards (which it will, each other iteration, since you're drawing 1 at a time), there is now the possibility that the land is the bottom-most card of the library, which means you can't dredge it with Dakmor. This mean when you shuffle, you return the game state to the same library and handsize, so if you're not using Mongrel/Familiar/etc, you have now 4 horsmaned yourself.
This deck can avoid the 4 horseman situation, but if you're not very careful, it can still happen.
If you have 2 lands in your library, then you can't tell if you're going to draw 1 or two cards in the iteration.
Even if you keep ALL the lands in the deck each iteration, such that you have such a land consistency that it is inconceivable to not draw on each dredge - so long as there are 2 non-land cards, there is a possiblity that they end up back to back.
That's good stuff to know! Of course, this is only if you need to actually use one of those engines, so far I haven't had any issue tutoring into Dakmor, but still. Good stuff. Did this only account for the raw dredge chains, does it include dredging into other dredge cards, or does it also account for any resets we have to continue the chains - such as land discard, land sac outlets, and Jarad being milled?.
I like it. Elegant.
How do you get the mana for it though? Lotus Petal is sorcery speed, or is it all Dark Ritual I guess? so long as you have B to start?
===
I see Culling the Week made it back in, which makes sense with the higher dork count. This is looking a lot more where I want to take my OP now, but there are still a few changes I'd make.
ALso that aura, I've been thinking or re-adding it, since it acts as the Wild Mongrel effect to prevent 4horse situations.
I'd cut Exsanguinate. If you have Geth's in there, it's redundant.
I'd up the tutors. Summoner's Pact can get Mongrel or Grave Troll, Expedition map gets Dakmor, the 2g get 4 lands gets you dakmor and a free discard, Sylvan Scrying gets you dakmor, etc.
I would also switch Kozi for Ulamog. pedantics, I know, but the cards draw is useless, while technically we could cast Ulamog for a necessary destruction and then cull the weak him.
I'm concerned at the low forest/swamp counts. I think the sac outlets for those is worth more than the early mana fixing, we're 2 colors, we don't need every single land to tap for both colors. We'll be fine.
Raven's Crime, Cabal Therapy, etc, probably deserve to stay in.
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I'm wondering though if the glass cannon version is better though than building a more reliable combo-control deck - without blue you're very susceptible to counterspells and graveyard hate.
BRWC Mardu Shops - Tymna and Akiri Artifacts BRWC
My dredge chains were simply "probability of dredging into Dakmor Salvage before fizzling." I do think at the least Grave-Troll should be in the list - it's so valuable with an engine like Bazaar of Baghdad. Speaking of, that card is insane - Tap it, dredge once (mill a land), dredge again (mill a land), discard (a land and two dredgers), draw 3 cards? (This DOES work since "draw 2" means "draw 1, then draw 1" and they are separate instances of zone-changing.)
Yes, you can only win at instant speed if you already have a black mana up. Unfortunately the black mana doesn't carry over through cleanup steps, so the deck needs Necromancy to be able to reanimate Skirge Familiar at instant-speed and win in one cleanup step. The list needs a little work.
I don't actually care at all about which Titan we use. Kozilek is less life off Ad Naus, so we went with that. Other than that, I generally agree with your criticisms.
edit: Link to Discussion, Link to Decklist
Jarad Graveyard Combo[Primer]!
Sidisi ANT!
Playing Commander to Win - A guide on Competitive, 4-player EDH
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Maelstrom pulse is a bit expensive and slow, but I agree on the other 2 100%. I'd rather Beast WIthin before pulse.
This deck should have more disruption and be less glass-cannon, but as before, my main focus has been on solidifying the core, before adding the disruption. To fight counterspells, you use the targeted discard cards, or some of the City of SOlitude types of effects others have suggested. Or Imp's Mischief.
There's actually always a maximum once the Dakmor is involved. I go over it earlier in the thread, but essentially you will draw cards equal to 33%-100% of your land count.
I don't own a Bazaar sadly, but then, since I'm not planning on actually building this in paper, I guess I might as well stop restricting myself on that, and just go for an optimal list.
That's actually rather funny. Still works though with the Necromancy, you use cleanup steps to get the pieces needed, then you dark rit the Familiar, then you go off.
makes sense.
Thanks, I'll read through it and add it to the OP after work.
===
Also, you're right. We CAN make it deterministic after we have our deck in hand.
By discarding a lot of land (say, 30, for math) on an empty library, we get +30 draws. Then we discard a Kozi. We now have 30 draws, and 31 cards in the library - still random. But now a twist. We discard the salvage and draw it - since the deck has only 1 non-land card at this moment, we now have 31 draws, and 29 cards.
Wait. No. Damnit. If we put extra cards in to compensate, it becomes non-deterministic again. There's a way. I'm sure of it.
Wait, got it. We can't use salvage.
We use a cycling land. cycling land gives us 2 draws for 1 card, while kozi gives us 0 cards for 1 card. They'll balance out. We can loop a Kozi + a Barren Moor for infinite mana, doesn't care about order.
SOLUTION FOUND!
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Discard Koz, trigger, discard a land & draw trigger, draw Koz, discard Koz & shuffle trigger, cycle Barren Moor, draw 2, discard Koz, shuffle trigger, discard a land, draw Koz...? I don't see it.
Jarad Graveyard Combo[Primer]!
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Discard Land - - - - - (1 draw on stack, 0 cards in library, 1 grave, +1 B)
Cycle Barren Moor - (3 draw on stack, 0 cards in library, 2 grave, -1 B (to cycle), net 0)
Discard Koz - - - - -- (3 draw on stack, 3 cards in library, 0 grave, 1 B, net 1)
Back to Clean Library, GY, except have +1 B. Go to step 1.
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Modern: UR Storm RU
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The advantage is simply that this method is a perfect set of steps, that doesn't alter, so that you can shortcut it, legally. That's all this is.
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GUB [Retired Primer] The Mimeoplasm BUG
Modern: UR Storm RU
Cube: WUBRG Pauper Cube GRBUW
Credit for the banner goes to DarkNightCavalier at Heroes of the Plane Studios
Beautiful. All of these cards are already cards we play, and like you said once you generate infinite mana you can add another cycling land (adding one card to the pile to draw two) and the card you actually want to loop, likely Praetor's Grasp. I also like that this is infinite without Dakmor Salvage, so if that gets hit by a turn two Bitter Ordeal or whatever you can still potentially make this work.
-----
Is there an elegant way to make Chains of Mephistopheles work as your discard outlet? I have The Gitrog Monster out, and I crack a fetchland. The Monster triggers, and I draw a card. Instead of drawing a card, I discard a card (Dakmor Salvage) and then draw a card. Instead of drawing a card here, I dredge Salvage to my hand, and mill two. Let's say I miss land. Now, since I discarded Dakmor Salvage, I have a draw trigger on the stack, and can repeat this process, filtering my deck. The only thing is, unlike other discard outlet,s if I do hit land, my extra draw trigger is just extra looting. Unfortunately I never actually get card advantage, so I can't actually use this to "go off" unless I run a bad win-condition. If I have 2+ cards in my hand, or one card in my hand and a green mana up, I can continue the loop (infinitely, using Kozilek) until I have Lotus Petal and Nature's Claim and blow up the Chains, but then I'm out a discard outlet. (Looping your library until you find these cards will take a long time since you can't shortcut it. It will fall under slow play.) If I have more resources, I can kill it and put another discard outlet into play.
It's not very elegant, but it works, kind of. Chains is also a great piece of disruption that will help against decks like Storm that might be a tad faster. I'd like to see a more compact way of making the combo work, either without having to blow up your combo piece by playing other win-conditions entirely out of your graveyard or by finding an easier way around it that doesn't get a judge called on you for slow play.
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Sidisi ANT!
Playing Commander to Win - A guide on Competitive, 4-player EDH
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Ex:
You dakmor loop, using dakmor's dredge to replace the draw. Chains doesn't apply. Dakmor mills a land.
Replace that draw with dredging Life from the loam. You are now +1 card in hand. If loam mills a land, draw the card with Chains, then pitch the loam. (if not, dakmor into the needed draw).
Chains will mess with the shortcutable loop, but you can still essentially do the combo with it.
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Edit: I figured out a loop to allow you to combo with Chains in play if for some reason all your permanent removal is exiled. There's probably a more elegant way to do it, but this is the best I could get.
1) Get entire deck in hand with a clean grave.
2) Put Skirge Familiar in hand using Lotus Petal and ritual. Use our combo to get entire deck in hand with a clean grave again.
3) A nonland and Kozilek, shuffle up.
4) Discard Dakmor Salvage, get a Frog trigger. Dredge your library, shuffle up. Repeat this step for infinite black.
5) Finish this by cycling a land to draw your cards back.
6) Cast Praetor's Grasp.
7) Discard Kozilek. Resolve Koz trigger. Praetor's Grasp, the cycle land, and Koz are in your library.
8) Cycle a land, get two draws, hold priority.
9) Move to resolve your draw, replace with Chains. Discard a land to Chains and draw the top card. Frog triggers. Repeat until you get back your library. Discard Kozilek to Familiar to shuffle up.
10) Repeat infinitely, adding cycling lands where needed to keep the pile small. You can also add Lotus Petal and cast Life from the Loam to get cycle lands out of your yard and keep your pile small.
Hopefully there's an easier way to do this but at the very least this works if you need it to.
Jarad Graveyard Combo[Primer]!
Sidisi ANT!
Playing Commander to Win - A guide on Competitive, 4-player EDH
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Is there anyway to basically "dumb" down the entire deck/combo so any regular joe could easily grasp the concept?
[EDH Non-Primers] Newzuri | Breya
At its absolute simplest, skip the Eldrazi Titan, and use the wincon that's currently in the OP: (Dread Return -> Necrotic Ooze combo). This lets you win withouth any shuffling, worrying about drawing cards, or anything of that.
All the 'math' we're discussing right now is trying to shave down the combo to use less cards, so that there are less card slots used, and thus, less dead draws. We're simply min/maxing to the absolute extent.
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[EDH Non-Primers] Newzuri | Breya
With Kozilek somewhere in the deck, you don't need a perfect world, you need this one. Without Koz, you can loot your entire library and draw lots of cards too.
Jarad Graveyard Combo[Primer]!
Sidisi ANT!
Playing Commander to Win - A guide on Competitive, 4-player EDH
LandDestruction.com - An EDH blog
Once you arrive at the last 2 cards of your library, just discard/sacrifice some lands to draw the 2 remaining cards. (to avoid dredging a land in the last 2 cards and having the awkward situation of having an extra draw trigger).
Now, if any of your combo pieces are in your hand, discard them. Use Gitrog's extra land drop to play a land and return Bloodghast or unearth the 1 cost unearth dude (if needed), sac gitrog + 2 bodies to dread return, and win with Necrotic Ooze.
===
Adding a Titan isn't necessary to the deck, but it adds a level of safety, and it also allows you to use less cards on the combo, which lets you have less dead cards in opening draws, but it adds a small amount of complexity in how you hand the re-shuffles. In that case, you end up getting the entire library into your hand, but this process can't technically be shortcut. It can't fail, and there's a maximum number of iterations that it will take, but it still has some randomness.
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[EDH Non-Primers] Newzuri | Breya
====
All the crazy discussion above is working to cut down on that combo. Using an Eldrazi titan, you can cut the Necrotic Ooze, Bloodrite Invoker, Quillspike, Skytherix, and Dread Return, and instead add in Necromany, the Eldrazi, and a win condition (choices of preference seem to be Geth's Verdict and Praetor's Grasp). This free's up 2 card slots, and lets you run the combo at instant speed, in case you need to use the cleanup step as your discard outlet (which is actually a bit tricky, since you need 8 cards in hand to begin with).
Essentially, the combo is to then Eldrazi Loop your entire deck into your hand, then use the cycling combo I mentioned for infinite mana, and then infinitely cast your win spell (Geth's Verdict, or Praetor's Grasp) to win.
The Necromancy is there to reanimate the Skirge Familiar in case you were using a different discard outlet, (say Putrid Imp). That's just for the convenience of being able to legally (within the rules) shortcut the process. You can already make infinite mana without that just by Eldrazi cycling a Lotus Petal or Dark Ritual infinitely, but you can't legally shortcut it, due to the randomness of the steps.
===
Using the cleanup step to combo is a tricky rules thing. Typically, players don't get priority during the cleanup step, but if anything triggers (such as Thawing Glaciers, for a rules example), players gain priority and a new cleanup step is created to cleanup anything that didn't get cleaned up before. Repeat as needed.
So what happens is that if you enter the cleanup step with 8 cards, then you need to discard 1 due to handsize rules of the game, so you discard Dakmor Salvage, which triggers Gitrog, so you draw a card, but replace that by dredging Dakmor Salvage.
So now that that's done you go to the new cleanup step. Well, darn! Now you have 8 cards in hand again! (or possibly 9, if you dredged a land). So you discard down again!
Do Note: Using this method means that you aren't advancing the game state if an Eldrazi gets shuffled (since you can't respond to the trigger), which could lead to stalling if that's your dredge mechanism. Weird stuff.
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Hey, so I find myself at this awkward place where there's conversation in multiple forums on the same subject. I guess I'll drop my comment from reddit in here, too, if that's all right. (From https://www.reddit.com/r/CompetitiveEDH/comments/4d8q8s/chains_of_mephistopheles_in_gitrog_edh/ )
Having only looked at this deck from a distance, and not having done any testing/goldfishing or anything, there are a couple questions I can't answer.
Q1. How much is Chains in the way once the combo is established? It looks like you've figured out how to work that scenario in your prior post (though I admit I haven't worked through it myself). I should not have been so hasty in my quoted post to claim that Chains doesn't disrupt us, as there are some devil-in-the-details issues to sort out.
Assuming the combo still works with Chains in play:
Q2. How bad is it if Chains is your only discard outlet on board? Chains isn't as good as an open discard outlet, but to what degree is it deficient? I mention an event above: <<"Stack is empty. I discard this land to Wild Mongrel, Gitrog triggers a card draw." <-- Chains can't do this.>> With only Chains on board, it would seem like combo initiation could be either impossible or have risk of a quick abortion. You can still attempt initiation via land sac effects (several options) or by having >7 cards in discard phase. Still, I'm not seeing a path to run the full engine running using only Chains, but I could be missing something. If Chains somehow does function just as well as an open discard outlet, then it's an auto-include as both disruption and a combo-piece.
Tentative conclusions, code-style:
If "Chains fouls the combo re: Q1" { // I think this condition is false, i.e. the combo is ok
Don't run it.
} Else If "Chains is just as good as an open outlet re: Q2" { // I think this condition is false, i.e. Chains is a deficient outlet
Auto-include.
} Else {
// It's a non-combo card with inclusion merits based on
// 1. Disruption to other players
// 2. Facilitation of combo
}
The value of the disruption is decent. It's probably not as good as something like Cabal Therapy, as counterspells / hate are probably the effects that need disrupting. Still, it's ok for the anti-card draw that it is.
The facilitation of combo comes from the scenario outlined in Q2, where its the only discard outlet you have so far. You can sac a land, perform a few iterations of "discard land, draw card, new draw trigger on stack" and hope to dig up needed pieces/tutors.
It can be a bit annoying though, if the last 'draw-replace' ends up being a combo piece, but theoretically you should have drawn another discard outlet (Putrid Imp? by then, and be able to clear away the last card.
On the other hand, if you're doing Titan loop, the big issue is that you can't respond with another discard if Chains is your discard outlet, since it's essentially a replacement on a triggered ability, rather than an activated one. This can lead into 4horseman situations where you keep milling the Titan without any change of state. I care about that, but many others don't.
If you have another discard outlet out as well as chains, it disrupts non-titan combo not at all.
With the titan loop, you can still combo through it, but it is rather more annoying. Essentially, Chains prevents you from drawing cards and increasing your handsize, which makes it hard to cast the same spell over and over. BUT! We have dredge cards, which bypass this. You need to cast you kill spell, then you need to replace some draws with dredges, in order to increase your handsize, then you need to loot back into your killspell...
Which is... harder, but not impossible. You can even still draw most of your deck, by repeatedly dredging Life from the Loam and friends to increase the handsize, and then looting them away. Your ending loop would essentially have LFTL, Geth's Verdict, Titan, and about 3 filler cards looping through your library, (lands, most likely, so that you can cycle into geth's every time).
This makes it possible to combo off with just chains, even in a titan shell, but you're almost guaranteed of 4 horseman in that situation. Also, when you dredge a non-Dakmor card, if you ever fail to dredge a land, your loop ends, since you need to keep the card draw triggers going.
In short: Non-Titan - effectively no dent. Titan - rather annoying, don't try to use it as a solo-enabler.
With Dakmor Slavage the combo still works.
Here's an example. Chains as discard outlet, Dakmor Salvage as dredge, a fetch land to start the first draw.
aka. Run in non-titan, very, very annoying in titan loop - probably avoid, but still possible to combo off (though can't shortcut at all, since you need to use dredge as a mechanic to increase hand size).
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2) Since alot of people think infinite combos are not that fun, what non-infinite combos could you use in place of Mike/Trike or whatever that infinite lotus petal mana combo.
| Omnath | Zada | Alesha | Scion |
| Mazirek | Animar |
Modern
UR Storm RU
UBRG Dredge GRBU
Standard
UR Thermo-Thing RU
For non-infinite, there were a few options, which usually involve the non-titan loop to get the deck in the graveyard, then using Dread Return on a Greenwarden of Murasa to get back Yawgmoth's Will, to then cast a lot of Dark Rituals, Culling the Weak, and Songs of the damned from the graveyard into an Exsanguinate win. I don't really see much difference between this and an infinite combo though, as the issue with infinite combo is that they just go: "Bang! You're dead!" and this does the same thing. I mean... this is a combo deck.
There are a few more stax-like Gitrog builds though, that go more for value over time.
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