Being somewhat familiar with the basics, but unfamiliar with the specifics of the 4 Horseman/slowplay rulings, I have decided to pose the question in rulings, so see what scope of 'advancing the gamestate' could apply in these situations. If drawing a card works, then the only risk of slow play is when we go off with a dredge card that isn't Dakmor salvage, and a discard outlet that doesn't benefit (like Putrid Imp), as you could hit the Eldrazi titan, reshuffling the library, before hitting the items that increase gamestate.
If drawing eliminates that issue, priority should be made to use Dakmor Salvage as the only engine piece, perhaps even cutting other dredge cards, and utilizing even cards like Expedition Map to ensure the salvage is obtained.
The inherent issue is that you can never shortcut anything in the combo because everything is non-deterministic. You cannot know exactly what the game state will look like after any given number of iterations, so you have to manually play them out to determine the outcome. No matter how many times you would repeat the loop, there is no guarantee that you would ever end up in the situation that you are looking for. I don't think slow play rules really come into play because this isn't a sanctioned tournament format, but if you are concerned about that I don't really have that knowledge.
The inherent issue is that you can never shortcut anything in the combo because everything is non-deterministic. You cannot know exactly what the game state will look like after any given number of iterations, so you have to manually play them out to determine the outcome. No matter how many times you would repeat the loop, there is no guarantee that you would ever end up in the situation that you are looking for. I don't think slow play rules really come into play because this isn't a sanctioned tournament format, but if you are concerned about that I don't really have that knowledge.
Deterministic: With Dakmor Salvage, you are going to go through your entire deck. In fact, you can even draw your entire deck. Take, for example, that you have 32 lands left in the deck. Dakmor salvage dredges 2 cards, if neither are lands, you don't draw a card. If one or two cards dredged are lands, you draw a card. This means that in cycling your deck, you will draw ~11-32 cards (16 if you only dredge in pairs, and draw a land). You can freely cycle your lands, meaning that everytime you reshuffle the deck, there are still 32 lands, meaning you'll draw 11-32 cards again. Eventually, you can have your entire deck in hand, where you're only looping a deck with a titan, a land, and the dakmor salvage.
This is deterministic. It will happen. You can even set a limit on it, saying that after 10 iterations, you'll have your entire deck in hand. You don't know which iteration that will happen on, but it will happen by the 10th. It could happen by the 3rd (drawing 32 cards each iteration), and then leave you looping just the land, dakmor, and titan for 7 iterations, or it could happen by the 10th, where you only draw about 10 cards each time. But it does, definitely, always, get there by the 10th.
This isn't Emrakul loops, where the chance of having Emmy as the last card is statistically possible, but not guaranteed, this is guaranteed to happen. Only the speed of it is unknown.
Once there, you can simply discard your combo, guaranteeing the win. (Or use the Glacial Chasm, Sickening Dreams kill)
===
Also, once there, the state is perfectly controlled, allowing you to infinitely generate the mana or P/T needed for those kills. However, you still can't technically shortcut it, since you'll get different amounts of P/T or mana depending on whether your 2 card library has a titan or a land on top.
Because dumb reasons.
===
The fact remains that you can still kill without the need to loop your GY, using various ooze or mike-trike combos. Sadly, without looping the grave, it may happen that you don't get enough P/T on mongrel, or enough mana for the Jarad/Exsanguinate combos. Thus, requiring a large cardslot dedication to a combo. That's why I'm curious about how 4 horseman is actually ruled, as without that, we can really lower our combo requirements.
===
My concern for tournament legality is that while EDH isn't a tournament sanctioned format by intent, people do play it as such at some events. I feel that if you are building a competitive deck, it is to be played against competitive people. Sometime even at those hosted events. Thus those formalities should be maintained. Not just for tournament legality, but simply because if you're playing against other competitive minded people, you should adhere to the accepted practices and mentalities that surround that mindset. It's simply the polite thing to do.
Building a competitive deck that can't be played competitively seems to defeat the purpose, for me.
Can you walk me through the loop once you only have a Titan, a land, and Dakmor Salvage left? Going through it in my head I keep arriving at the fact that you would lose the game by drawing from an empty library, so there must be something missing that I'm not quite getting. So with just a Titan and land in your deck, you discard Salvage and use the draw trigger to dredge, putting the other 2 cards in your graveyard. The Titan's shuffle trigger and the draw trigger from milling the land get put onto the stack in the order of your choosing, which means you have to put the Titan trigger on top so you don't lose right away. So you shuffle the Titan and the land into your library and then draw a card, which could be either one of them. If it's the Titan you just discard and it and you're back to a 2 card library, and if it's the land you discard it, draw the titan, and then discard that to reshuffle and end up with a 2 card library as well. It appears that just typing out instead of going through it in my head has allowed me to see the answer.
I read over the replies in the ruling thread and my understanding was that using any of the discard outlets that advances the game state would be valid, which means Wild Mongrel, Skirge Familiar, and Oona's Prowler (I guess?) would be valid but Putrid Imp would not be.
It's important to note that the four-horseman style loop is a true infinite, not an unbounded loop. You can put an upper limit on the number of iterations required - "repeat this loop until I have 60k mana of every color." The problem with the four-horseman combo is that you require your end-state to be something that is randomized - a specific order of cards in your yard - and you can't say "within so-and-so iterations, I will have these cards in this order." Thus, the Kozilek loop is tournament-legal.
Still isn't though. You can't give a description of what the game state is at the end of the loop. How many cards are in your graveyard? How many times did you have to shuffle your deck?
What you can do is say, "I'm going to activate Wild Mongrel, discard Dakmor Salvage, trigger froggy. Resolve it as dredge. Repeat this process until I hit Kozilek. Repeat the process of hitting Kozilek until I have made 8 trillion mana. Continue again until I hit Koz, shuffle my GY in." As you said you can also use a bounded loop to say that you will have your entire deck in your hand by the Xth iteration.
Can you walk me through the loop once you only have a Titan, a land, and Dakmor Salvage left? Going through it in my head I keep arriving at the fact that you would lose the game by drawing from an empty library, so there must be something missing that I'm not quite getting. So with just a Titan and land in your deck, you discard Salvage and use the draw trigger to dredge, putting the other 2 cards in your graveyard. The Titan's shuffle trigger and the draw trigger from milling the land get put onto the stack in the order of your choosing, which means you have to put the Titan trigger on top so you don't lose right away. So you shuffle the Titan and the land into your library and then draw a card, which could be either one of them. If it's the Titan you just discard and it and you're back to a 2 card library, and if it's the land you discard it, draw the titan, and then discard that to reshuffle and end up with a 2 card library as well. It appears that just typing out instead of going through it in my head has allowed me to see the answer.
I read over the replies in the ruling thread and my understanding was that using any of the discard outlets that advances the game state would be valid, which means Wild Mongrel, Skirge Familiar, and Oona's Prowler (I guess?) would be valid but Putrid Imp would not be.
Putrid imp still is valid, so long as you do not return the game state to a previous state that it was at without changes. Since you can increase your handsize with Dakmor salvage, and you can continuously respond to the shuffle trigger, even if you were using a different dredge card, you would eventually hit dakmor, and thus increase your handsize and not be returning to the same state as before.
That said, if putrid imp wasn't valid, Oona's Prowler wouldn't be either. Giving her further negative power does not affect the gamestate in a meaningful way.
It's important to note that the four-horseman style loop is a true infinite, not an unbounded loop. You can put an upper limit on the number of iterations required - "repeat this loop until I have 60k mana of every color." The problem with the four-horseman combo is that you require your end-state to be something that is randomized - a specific order of cards in your yard - and you can't say "within so-and-so iterations, I will have these cards in this order." Thus, the Kozilek loop is tournament-legal.
Still isn't though. You can't give a description of what the game state is at the end of the loop. How many cards are in your graveyard? How many times did you have to shuffle your deck?
What you can do is say, "I'm going to activate Wild Mongrel, discard Dakmor Salvage, trigger froggy. Resolve it as dredge. Repeat this process until I hit Kozilek. Repeat the process of hitting Kozilek until I have made 8 trillion mana. Continue again until I hit Koz, shuffle my GY in." As you said you can also use a bounded loop to say that you will have your entire deck in your hand by the Xth iteration.
Except you can't shortcut that, because you can't say how many iterations are being done.
In order to do a shortcut, you have to give both the Gamestate at the end of the loop AND say how many iterations it would take. Loops are typically deterministic, so people don't bother doing the math, and just explain a loop, but if called for it, they could do the math and show the exact gamestate and number of iterations.
In this loop, we can define one, or the other, but not both. You can still explain the loop, and your opponent is free to concede (and probably should), and you can explain why it isn't 4 horseman, and why it isn't slow play, but you can't shortcut it, and your opponent can make you play it out. Which I think is silly, since he could use that to stall, but that's the way it seems to be.
I still have questions on it, but I'm getting a better understanding of the big picture. I've been good at card rulings, but sadly, I have completely ignored tournament rulings issues, which is why I never bothered to become a judge. Tournament rulings just typically bore me.
Can you walk me through the loop once you only have a Titan, a land, and Dakmor Salvage left? Going through it in my head I keep arriving at the fact that you would lose the game by drawing from an empty library, so there must be something missing that I'm not quite getting. So with just a Titan and land in your deck, you discard Salvage and use the draw trigger to dredge, putting the other 2 cards in your graveyard. The Titan's shuffle trigger and the draw trigger from milling the land get put onto the stack in the order of your choosing, which means you have to put the Titan trigger on top so you don't lose right away. So you shuffle the Titan and the land into your library and then draw a card, which could be either one of them. If it's the Titan you just discard and it and you're back to a 2 card library, and if it's the land you discard it, draw the titan, and then discard that to reshuffle and end up with a 2 card library as well. It appears that just typing out instead of going through it in my head has allowed me to see the answer.
I read over the replies in the ruling thread and my understanding was that using any of the discard outlets that advances the game state would be valid, which means Wild Mongrel, Skirge Familiar, and Oona's Prowler (I guess?) would be valid but Putrid Imp would not be.
Putrid imp still is valid, so long as you do not return the game state to a previous state that it was at without changes. Since you can increase your handsize with Dakmor salvage, and you can continuously respond to the shuffle trigger, even if you were using a different dredge card, you would eventually hit dakmor, and thus increase your handsize and not be returning to the same state as before.
That said, if putrid imp wasn't valid, Oona's Prowler wouldn't be either. Giving her further negative power does not affect the gamestate in a meaningful way.
It's important to note that the four-horseman style loop is a true infinite, not an unbounded loop. You can put an upper limit on the number of iterations required - "repeat this loop until I have 60k mana of every color." The problem with the four-horseman combo is that you require your end-state to be something that is randomized - a specific order of cards in your yard - and you can't say "within so-and-so iterations, I will have these cards in this order." Thus, the Kozilek loop is tournament-legal.
Still isn't though. You can't give a description of what the game state is at the end of the loop. How many cards are in your graveyard? How many times did you have to shuffle your deck?
What you can do is say, "I'm going to activate Wild Mongrel, discard Dakmor Salvage, trigger froggy. Resolve it as dredge. Repeat this process until I hit Kozilek. Repeat the process of hitting Kozilek until I have made 8 trillion mana. Continue again until I hit Koz, shuffle my GY in." As you said you can also use a bounded loop to say that you will have your entire deck in your hand by the Xth iteration.
Except you can't shortcut that, because you can't say how many iterations are being done.
In order to do a shortcut, you have to give both the Gamestate at the end of the loop AND say how many iterations it would take. Loops are typically deterministic, so people don't bother doing the math, and just explain a loop, but if called for it, they could do the math and show the exact gamestate and number of iterations.
In this loop, we can define one, or the other, but not both. You can still explain the loop, and your opponent is free to concede (and probably should), and you can explain why it isn't 4 horseman, and why it isn't slow play, but you can't shortcut it, and your opponent can make you play it out. Which I think is silly, since he could use that to stall, but that's the way it seems to be.
I still have questions on it, but I'm getting a better understanding of the big picture. I've been good at card rulings, but sadly, I have completely ignored tournament rulings issues, which is why I never bothered to become a judge. Tournament rulings just typically bore me.
The criterion for being able to shortcut isn't being able to tell you exactly how many iterations a loop takes, it's being able to tell you a maximum. You don't even need to calculate the exact maximum, the loop just has to have a maximum. You can't shortcut 4 Horsemen because it is possible that you mill Emrakul any number of times before you finally hit your desired pile. Here, the loop has a bounded end, so I believe you can shortcut it.
My YouTube Channel: The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
The problem was this: you needed to get 3 narcomoeba's, the dread return, sharuum, and the blasting station into your graveyard, all at the same time. Since you can loop your deck infinitely, it would statistically happen... eventually. But, if Emrakul showed up early, you'd have to start over, and try again.
That was a bit problematic. You can't actually say how long it will take the loop to work. It could happen on your 1st try, your 5th try, but possibly, not for 10,000 tries.
Eventually, they made these kinds of unbounded loops infractable as Slow Play, since you weren't advancing the game at any point, until it happen. Thus, essentially banning the deck.
The criterion for being able to shortcut isn't being able to tell you exactly how many iterations a loop takes, it's being able to tell you a maximum. You don't even need to calculate the exact maximum, the loop just has to have a maximum. You can't shortcut 4 Horsemen because it is possible that you mill Emrakul any number of times before you finally hit your desired pile. Here, the loop has a bounded end, so I believe you can shortcut it.
It is also slow play if a player continues to execute a loop without being able to provide an exact number of
iterations and the expected resulting game state.
Most loops have a finite ending — I do X 10 times, but stop early if Y happens.
That is, however, taken out of context. That quote assumes a definitive loop (I mill 3 cards at a time), but with a condition (I stop when Dread Return is in my graveyard). Our loop doesn't have a definitive loop set. Which is odd, and doesn't have a lot of precedents.
“Mill until your deck is gone” is an acceptable shortcut as there is a quantifiable number of times needed to get to the result that the player desires.
(Although, I guess upending our deck is a definite number of iterations. What we can't do, is tell what the exact gamestate at the end of that is. ie, how many cards in hand. We also can't give a number of iterations to get the deck in hand.)
What's the bounded end to avoid a 4horseman type situation?
4 horseman relied only on mill, and getting certain cards (3 narcomoeba's, dread return, blasting station, and Sharuum) all before Emrakul refreshed the deck, setting the game state back to the same position (ranomized deck, no other changes in play). If it failed you had to start over.
That isn't the case with us. We can respond to the shuffle trigger, and keep going until the deck is empty, then allow the reshuffle to work. This is because we don't care that Dread Return is sorcery speed. Every time we execute the loop, we get more cards in hand, thus, when we shuffle the deck, it isn't the same gamestate. We've altered our hand size and deck size, and potentially other things that matter (mana, P/T on mongrel, etc).
We can then continue this until we draw our entire deck, or at least the needed combo, pause the loop, discard the combo to have it all in the GY at the same time, and execute the win.
I just want to say that all this discussion is fascinating. If I understand, because the game state is changing, you are allowed to execute the "Gitrog Horseman" style combo in a tournament setting, even though you cannot technically shortcut to the end?
For what it's worth, I run into similar scenarios with my Selvala deck in games with 4+ people with Grand Abolisher in play:
- Selvala, Explorer Returned
- Wirewood Symbiote
- Mirror Entity
If each player has ~40 lands in their deck, each iteration of the loop nets about 0.4 mana. You cannot technically shortcut it, but if you have a big enough head start and explain to everyone what you are doing, people will scoop if they know they do not have an answer. I have literally never had anyone make me play it all the way out. This Gitrog loop is even more of a certainty than that.
The problem was this: you needed to get 3 narcomoeba's, the dread return, sharuum, and the blasting station into your graveyard, all at the same time. Since you can loop your deck infinitely, it would statistically happen... eventually. But, if Emrakul showed up early, you'd have to start over, and try again.
That was a bit problematic. You can't actually say how long it will take the loop to work. It could happen on your 1st try, your 5th try, but possibly, not for 10,000 tries.
Eventually, they made these kinds of unbounded loops infractable as Slow Play, since you weren't advancing the game at any point, until it happen. Thus, essentially banning the deck.
The criterion for being able to shortcut isn't being able to tell you exactly how many iterations a loop takes, it's being able to tell you a maximum. You don't even need to calculate the exact maximum, the loop just has to have a maximum. You can't shortcut 4 Horsemen because it is possible that you mill Emrakul any number of times before you finally hit your desired pile. Here, the loop has a bounded end, so I believe you can shortcut it.
It is also slow play if a player continues to execute a loop without being able to provide an exact number of
iterations and the expected resulting game state.
Most loops have a finite ending — I do X 10 times, but stop early if Y happens.
That is, however, taken out of context. That quote assumes a definitive loop (I mill 3 cards at a time), but with a condition (I stop when Dread Return is in my graveyard). Our loop doesn't have a definitive loop set. Which is odd, and doesn't have a lot of precedents.
“Mill until your deck is gone” is an acceptable shortcut as there is a quantifiable number of times needed to get to the result that the player desires.
(Although, I guess upending our deck is a definite number of iterations. What we can't do, is tell what the exact gamestate at the end of that is. ie, how many cards in hand. We also can't give a number of iterations to get the deck in hand.)
What's the bounded end to avoid a 4horseman type situation?
4 horseman relied only on mill, and getting certain cards (3 narcomoeba's, dread return, blasting station, and Sharuum) all before Emrakul refreshed the deck, setting the game state back to the same position (ranomized deck, no other changes in play). If it failed you had to start over.
That isn't the case with us. We can respond to the shuffle trigger, and keep going until the deck is empty, then allow the reshuffle to work. This is because we don't care that Dread Return is sorcery speed. Every time we execute the loop, we get more cards in hand, thus, when we shuffle the deck, it isn't the same gamestate. We've altered our hand size and deck size, and potentially other things that matter (mana, P/T on mongrel, etc).
We can then continue this until we draw our entire deck, or at least the needed combo, pause the loop, discard the combo to have it all in the GY at the same time, and execute the win.
Lol, but then since it's legally not a 4horseman-style due to the changing game states, isn't doing this an exorbitant numbers of times as obnoxious as playing the Eggs modern deck? Eggs had its key card banned specifically for taking so long to do things as a deck while your opponent could've basically gone back home, prepared dinner, at it, took a dump, and then sat back at the table while the Eggs player was still cracking eggs. I think this is pretty much there, lol. Only a lot more complex so it's even easier to follow as an opponent, harder to pilot if you're not super prepared for it, and still pretty much obnoxious if no one can throw a wrench in the combo, disrupt it in any way, or counter anything.
My YouTube Channel: The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
I'd say that it's easier and faster to pilot than eggs.
In Eggs, you have to track your available mana, and you have to keep cracking different eggs in each iteration to keep the whole thing moving forward, never knowing what you're getting next.
With this, you are using the same piece over and over, just flipping 2 off the top at a time, and seeing if either is a land. if it is, you get a card in hand, if not, just flip 2 more.
In my goldfishes, it goes:
Flip 2, draw, Flip 2, Flip 2, Draw, Flip 2, Draw... etc
and I just flip until there are about 15ish cards in the deck, and then I just pitch lands to get the last X cards. Then I discard combo and win.
I'm not running the Titan loop in that version yet, but it would be a similar concept, just a bit more of it.
Wasn't even aware of this card Simian Brawler, until I went looking for discard outlets, more mana then Putrid Imp but it makes your brawler large or infinitely large for Jarad if you are running Eldrazi.
We worked on this a lot on the Competitive EDH Discord server last night and I think the conclusion that we came to is that the best win condition is to reach the point where everything is in your hand besides a Land, Kozilek, and Lotus Petal. You continue using Dakmor Salvage to dredge with just these three cards in your library. You will always dredge two of the three cards, and the order doesn't matter, so we have three scenarios:
1. You dredge Kozilek and Lotus Petal: You just let Kozilek reshuffle and try again.
2. You dredge Land and Lotus Petal: Use the Gitrog trigger to draw Kozilek and pitch him to reshuffle and try again.
3. You dredge Kozilek and Land: This is where the fun happens. You use the Gitrog trigger to draw Lotus Petal, then allow the reshuffle to resolve and end up with a two card library. You play and crack Lotus Petal for B, gaining 1 gravestorm. Now you dredge with Dakmor again. You will always dredge the only two cards in your library, the Land and the Kozilek, so make sure you order the triggers so you reshuffle before you draw. Now you have to draw a card, which gives us three sub-cases:
A. You draw Kozilek: Just pitch him to you discard outlet and reshuffle, which returns us to the three card library state that we want.
B. You draw Lotus Petal: We are back in option 3, so you just repeat what we do there and enter one of these subcases again.
C. You draw the Land: You pitch the land and use the Gitrog trigger to draw, which gives us two sub-sub-cases:
I. You draw Kozilek: Just pitch him to your discard outlet and reshuffle, which returns us to the three card library state that we want.
II. You draw Lotus Petal: Pitch another land from your hand to draw a card, which will always be Kozilek. Play and crack the Lotus Petal, then discard Kozilek to reshuffle what now becomes a four card library with two lands. Dredge Dakmor again, which now has four possible outcomes:
a. You dredge two Lands: Put the draw trigger on the stack, then dredge with Dakmor again. You end up with a four card library and a draw trigger on the stack, which is scenario d.
b. You dredge Lotus Petal and Kozilek: Reshuffle and try again.
c. You dredge a Land and Lotus Petal: Draw a card from Gitrog trigger, which gives two scenarios:
i. You draw Kozilek: pitch it and reshuffle, putting you back in the four card library situation.
ii. You draw the other Land: Pitch it and draw Kozilek, then pitch him and put yourself back in the four card situation.
d. You dredge a Land and Kozilek: Reshuffle and then draw, which gives three scenarios:
i. You draw a Land: now you are back to the three card library
ii. You draw Kozilek: discard him and reshuffle putting you back to the four card library
iii. You draw Lotus Petal: Play it and crack it, then Dredge with Dakmor, which gives two scenarios:
AA. You hit two Lands: draw Kozilek and discard it, which puts you back into the four card library situation
BB. You hit a Land and Kozilek: Draw the other land then reshuffle, which puts you back in the three card library situation.
Once you've generated enough mana and gravestorm you play Bitter Ordeal and exile everyone's libraries.
Holy crap that was super complicated but I believe it works. Let me know if I screwed it up anywhere. Maybe I can make a flowchart.
If you have your entire deck in your hand, with infinite mana and infinite reshuffles, do you even need to devote a slot to the otherwise-dead Bitter Ordeal? It would be much more elegant if you could kill with cards already in your deck.
We worked on this a lot on the Competitive EDH Discord server last night and I think the conclusion that we came to is that the best win condition is to reach the point where everything is in your hand besides a Land, Kozilek, and Lotus Petal. You continue using Dakmor Salvage to dredge with just these three cards in your library. You will always dredge two of the three cards, and the order doesn't matter, so we have three scenarios:
1. You dredge Kozilek and Lotus Petal: You just let Kozilek reshuffle and try again.
2. You dredge Land and Lotus Petal: Use the Gitrog trigger to draw Kozilek and pitch him to reshuffle and try again.
3. You dredge Kozilek and Land: This is where the fun happens. You use the Gitrog trigger to draw Lotus Petal, then allow the reshuffle to resolve and end up with a two card library. You play and crack Lotus Petal for B, gaining 1 gravestorm. Now you dredge with Dakmor again. You will always dredge the only two cards in your library, the Land and the Kozilek, so make sure you order the triggers so you reshuffle before you draw. Now you have to draw a card, which gives us three sub-cases:
A. You draw Kozilek: Just pitch him to you discard outlet and reshuffle, which returns us to the three card library state that we want.
B. You draw Lotus Petal: We are back in option 3, so you just repeat what we do there and enter one of these subcases again.
C. You draw the Land: You pitch the land and use the Gitrog trigger to draw, which gives us two sub-sub-cases:
I. You draw Kozilek: Just pitch him to your discard outlet and reshuffle, which returns us to the three card library state that we want.
II. You draw Lotus Petal: Pitch another land from your hand to draw a card, which will always be Kozilek. Play and crack the Lotus Petal, then discard Kozilek to reshuffle what now becomes a four card library with two lands. Dredge Dakmor again, which now has four possible outcomes:
a. You dredge two Lands: Draw the other two cards, play and crack Lotus Petal, pitch Kozilek. This puts you back in the 4 card library situation.
b. You dredge Lotus Petal and Kozilek: Reshuffle and try again.
c. You dredge a Land and Lotus Petal: Draw a card from Gitrog trigger, which gives two scenarios:
i. You draw Kozilek: pitch it and reshuffle, putting you back in the four card library situation.
ii. You draw the other Land: Pitch it and draw Kozilek, then pitch him and put yourself back in the four card situation.
d. You dredge a Land and Kozilek: Reshuffle and then draw, which gives three scenarios:
i. You draw a Land: now you are back to the three card library
ii. You draw Kozilek: discard him and reshuffle putting you back to the four card library
iii. You draw Lotus Petal: Play it and crack it, then Dredge with Dakmor, which gives two scenarios:
AA. You hit two Lands: draw Kozilek and discard it, which puts you back into the four card library situation
BB. You hit a Land and Kozilek: Draw the other land then reshuffle, which puts you back in the three card library situation.
Once you've generated enough mana and gravestorm you play Bitter Ordeal and exile everyone's libraries.
Holy crap that was super complicated but I believe it works. Let me know if I screwed it up anywhere. Maybe I can make a flowchart.
Lol, that was pretty effin' thorough. Yeah, a flowchart would just be icing on the cake, lol. Making the flowchart will also help you net any errors you may have made in the logical steps through the process.
My YouTube Channel: The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
If you have your entire deck in your hand, with infinite mana and infinite reshuffles, do you even need to devote a slot to the otherwise-dead Bitter Ordeal? It would be much more elegant if you could kill with cards already in your deck.
Well, we're assuming multiplayer, so attacking with infinitely large mongrels might not work so well. But that's were Jarad comes in.
We also get infinite mana off of a Lotus Petal each iteration, so we can do whatever.
I think the most elegant solution present was Sickening Dreams + Glacial Chasm, since that only takes a single card slot, (though you still want Dread Return for Skirge Familiar, for the mana, which means you still want bloodghast). But since Jarad is in already, since he unblocks us in a pinch, I think that's the best option overall. With the mongrel.
You just need to loop the Petal 4 times for the green mana, and have a blast. Dread Return might not even be needed anymore.
We worked on this a lot on the Competitive EDH Discord server last night and I think the conclusion that we came to is that the best win condition is to reach the point where everything is in your hand besides a Land, Kozilek, and Lotus Petal. You continue using Dakmor Salvage to dredge with just these three cards in your library. You will always dredge two of the three cards, and the order doesn't matter, so we have three scenarios:
1. You dredge Kozilek and Lotus Petal: You just let Kozilek reshuffle and try again.
2. You dredge Land and Lotus Petal: Use the Gitrog trigger to draw Kozilek and pitch him to reshuffle and try again.
3. You dredge Kozilek and Land: This is where the fun happens. You use the Gitrog trigger to draw Lotus Petal, then allow the reshuffle to resolve and end up with a two card library. You play and crack Lotus Petal for B, gaining 1 gravestorm. Now you dredge with Dakmor again. You will always dredge the only two cards in your library, the Land and the Kozilek, so make sure you order the triggers so you reshuffle before you draw. Now you have to draw a card, which gives us three sub-cases:
A. You draw Kozilek: Just pitch him to you discard outlet and reshuffle, which returns us to the three card library state that we want.
B. You draw Lotus Petal: We are back in option 3, so you just repeat what we do there and enter one of these subcases again.
C. You draw the Land: You pitch the land and use the Gitrog trigger to draw, which gives us two sub-sub-cases:
I. You draw Kozilek: Just pitch him to your discard outlet and reshuffle, which returns us to the three card library state that we want.
II. You draw Lotus Petal: Pitch another land from your hand to draw a card, which will always be Kozilek. Play and crack the Lotus Petal, then discard Kozilek to reshuffle what now becomes a four card library with two lands. Dredge Dakmor again, which now has four possible outcomes:
a. You dredge two Lands: Draw the other two cards, play and crack Lotus Petal, pitch Kozilek. This puts you back in the 4 card library situation.
b. You dredge Lotus Petal and Kozilek: Reshuffle and try again.
c. You dredge a Land and Lotus Petal: Draw a card from Gitrog trigger, which gives two scenarios:
i. You draw Kozilek: pitch it and reshuffle, putting you back in the four card library situation.
ii. You draw the other Land: Pitch it and draw Kozilek, then pitch him and put yourself back in the four card situation.
d. You dredge a Land and Kozilek: Reshuffle and then draw, which gives three scenarios:
i. You draw a Land: now you are back to the three card library
ii. You draw Kozilek: discard him and reshuffle putting you back to the four card library
iii. You draw Lotus Petal: Play it and crack it, then Dredge with Dakmor, which gives two scenarios:
AA. You hit two Lands: draw Kozilek and discard it, which puts you back into the four card library situation
BB. You hit a Land and Kozilek: Draw the other land then reshuffle, which puts you back in the three card library situation.
Once you've generated enough mana and gravestorm you play Bitter Ordeal and exile everyone's libraries.
Holy crap that was super complicated but I believe it works. Let me know if I screwed it up anywhere. Maybe I can make a flowchart.
Yeah. This is the same loop I came up with in the rulings lounge, except that I omitted the lotus petal for simplicity (also, it may kinda be unneeded, but, details.
Good write up of it.
Except, that I don't think gravestorm is needed, since Jarad and Wild Mongrel are already in the deck, and both of them add to the combo as is. Though redundancy I guess isn't bad.
!
Note though, in the situations where you dredge Lotus Petal and Kozi, and "shuffle up and try again" - That runs into the 4horsemen situation where you have executed a loop, and have returned the gamestate to a pre-existing situation, so you need to be careful on that, and ensure that you're advancing the state somehow.
I'm pretty in on this deck. Will be testing this deck with my playgroup in the coming weeks.
I see a few issues, mainly the more obvious ones like losing to all sorts of disruption. Sure this deck can be successful as a glass cannon combo deck, but I think it might be more potent when played as a GB ramp deck. The wonderful part of Gitrog is that his innate strategy, revolving around lands, allows us to play would be considered "fringe" cards in other decks, such as Life from the Loam or Bazaar of Baghdad, making the list consistently fast thanks to the focus on extra-land ramp and naturally more resilient against stax type strategies. I'm not sure what the exact configuration of this will be, but I suspect the list needs more control or more protection in a competitive / hostile environment. People are already aware of what the deck can do - it's time to play around those answers while still being able to keep up with the other strategies of the format.
If you're going with the combo build, you should really include dregscape zombie as a target to sac to dread return. Also I noticed you're not running crop rotation which will be bonkers in this deck. It's a great defensive play against other graveyard combo decks, instantly tutoring bojuka bog (you need to run this too) to exile their yard.
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. 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.
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. 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.
If drawing eliminates that issue, priority should be made to use Dakmor Salvage as the only engine piece, perhaps even cutting other dredge cards, and utilizing even cards like Expedition Map to ensure the salvage is obtained.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-rulings/682320-4-horsemen-situations
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek
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
Deterministic: With Dakmor Salvage, you are going to go through your entire deck. In fact, you can even draw your entire deck. Take, for example, that you have 32 lands left in the deck. Dakmor salvage dredges 2 cards, if neither are lands, you don't draw a card. If one or two cards dredged are lands, you draw a card. This means that in cycling your deck, you will draw ~11-32 cards (16 if you only dredge in pairs, and draw a land). You can freely cycle your lands, meaning that everytime you reshuffle the deck, there are still 32 lands, meaning you'll draw 11-32 cards again. Eventually, you can have your entire deck in hand, where you're only looping a deck with a titan, a land, and the dakmor salvage.
This is deterministic. It will happen. You can even set a limit on it, saying that after 10 iterations, you'll have your entire deck in hand. You don't know which iteration that will happen on, but it will happen by the 10th. It could happen by the 3rd (drawing 32 cards each iteration), and then leave you looping just the land, dakmor, and titan for 7 iterations, or it could happen by the 10th, where you only draw about 10 cards each time. But it does, definitely, always, get there by the 10th.
This isn't Emrakul loops, where the chance of having Emmy as the last card is statistically possible, but not guaranteed, this is guaranteed to happen. Only the speed of it is unknown.
Once there, you can simply discard your combo, guaranteeing the win. (Or use the Glacial Chasm, Sickening Dreams kill)
===
Also, once there, the state is perfectly controlled, allowing you to infinitely generate the mana or P/T needed for those kills. However, you still can't technically shortcut it, since you'll get different amounts of P/T or mana depending on whether your 2 card library has a titan or a land on top.
Because dumb reasons.
===
The fact remains that you can still kill without the need to loop your GY, using various ooze or mike-trike combos. Sadly, without looping the grave, it may happen that you don't get enough P/T on mongrel, or enough mana for the Jarad/Exsanguinate combos. Thus, requiring a large cardslot dedication to a combo. That's why I'm curious about how 4 horseman is actually ruled, as without that, we can really lower our combo requirements.
===
My concern for tournament legality is that while EDH isn't a tournament sanctioned format by intent, people do play it as such at some events. I feel that if you are building a competitive deck, it is to be played against competitive people. Sometime even at those hosted events. Thus those formalities should be maintained. Not just for tournament legality, but simply because if you're playing against other competitive minded people, you should adhere to the accepted practices and mentalities that surround that mindset. It's simply the polite thing to do.
Building a competitive deck that can't be played competitively seems to defeat the purpose, for me.
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek
Jokes aside I would like the official ruling.
Can you walk me through the loop once you only have a Titan, a land, and Dakmor Salvage left? Going through it in my head I keep arriving at the fact that you would lose the game by drawing from an empty library, so there must be something missing that I'm not quite getting.So with just a Titan and land in your deck, you discard Salvage and use the draw trigger to dredge, putting the other 2 cards in your graveyard. The Titan's shuffle trigger and the draw trigger from milling the land get put onto the stack in the order of your choosing, which means you have to put the Titan trigger on top so you don't lose right away. So you shuffle the Titan and the land into your library and then draw a card, which could be either one of them. If it's the Titan you just discard and it and you're back to a 2 card library, and if it's the land you discard it, draw the titan, and then discard that to reshuffle and end up with a 2 card library as well. It appears that just typing out instead of going through it in my head has allowed me to see the answer.I read over the replies in the ruling thread and my understanding was that using any of the discard outlets that advances the game state would be valid, which means Wild Mongrel, Skirge Familiar, and Oona's Prowler (I guess?) would be valid but Putrid Imp would not be.
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
What you can do is say, "I'm going to activate Wild Mongrel, discard Dakmor Salvage, trigger froggy. Resolve it as dredge. Repeat this process until I hit Kozilek. Repeat the process of hitting Kozilek until I have made 8 trillion mana. Continue again until I hit Koz, shuffle my GY in." As you said you can also use a bounded loop to say that you will have your entire deck in your hand by the Xth iteration.
Jarad Graveyard Combo[Primer]!
Sidisi ANT!
Playing Commander to Win - A guide on Competitive, 4-player EDH
LandDestruction.com - An EDH blog
Comes out for BB + Land, so pretty cheap at least.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
That said, if putrid imp wasn't valid, Oona's Prowler wouldn't be either. Giving her further negative power does not affect the gamestate in a meaningful way.
Except you can't shortcut that, because you can't say how many iterations are being done.
In order to do a shortcut, you have to give both the Gamestate at the end of the loop AND say how many iterations it would take. Loops are typically deterministic, so people don't bother doing the math, and just explain a loop, but if called for it, they could do the math and show the exact gamestate and number of iterations.
In this loop, we can define one, or the other, but not both. You can still explain the loop, and your opponent is free to concede (and probably should), and you can explain why it isn't 4 horseman, and why it isn't slow play, but you can't shortcut it, and your opponent can make you play it out. Which I think is silly, since he could use that to stall, but that's the way it seems to be.
I still have questions on it, but I'm getting a better understanding of the big picture. I've been good at card rulings, but sadly, I have completely ignored tournament rulings issues, which is why I never bothered to become a judge. Tournament rulings just typically bore me.
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek
The criterion for being able to shortcut isn't being able to tell you exactly how many iterations a loop takes, it's being able to tell you a maximum. You don't even need to calculate the exact maximum, the loop just has to have a maximum. You can't shortcut 4 Horsemen because it is possible that you mill Emrakul any number of times before you finally hit your desired pile. Here, the loop has a bounded end, so I believe you can shortcut it.
Jarad Graveyard Combo[Primer]!
Sidisi ANT!
Playing Commander to Win - A guide on Competitive, 4-player EDH
LandDestruction.com - An EDH blog
BGU [Primer] Sidisi, Brood Tyrant BGU | BG [Primer] Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG | G [Primer] Polukranos, World Eater G
My YouTube Channel:
The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
4 Horseman was a tournament combo deck for ?legacy? (here's a list: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/legacy-type-1-5/developing-legacy/181684-deck-the-four-horsemen)
The combo ran as such: You used Mesmeric Orb and Basalt Monolith to mill yourself out, getting you free Narcomoeabas. You'd sac 3 of them to dread return, which would return Sharuum the hegemon, which would return Blasting Station, which you would then sac Narcomoebas to until you killed your opponent.
During all of this, you'd reshuffle your deck with Emrakul, the Aeons Torn.
The problem was this: you needed to get 3 narcomoeba's, the dread return, sharuum, and the blasting station into your graveyard, all at the same time. Since you can loop your deck infinitely, it would statistically happen... eventually. But, if Emrakul showed up early, you'd have to start over, and try again.
That was a bit problematic. You can't actually say how long it will take the loop to work. It could happen on your 1st try, your 5th try, but possibly, not for 10,000 tries.
Eventually, they made these kinds of unbounded loops infractable as Slow Play, since you weren't advancing the game at any point, until it happen. Thus, essentially banning the deck.
This is technically not accurate, but could probably spawn a huge debate. Technically, you must provide exact numbers, per section 3.3 of the IPG:
https://www.wizards.com/ContentResources/Wizards/WPN/Main/Documents/Magic_The_Gathering_Infraction_Procedure_Guide_PDF1.pdf
However, this interpretation comes up: ( http://blogs.magicjudges.org/rules/ipg3-3/ )
That is, however, taken out of context. That quote assumes a definitive loop (I mill 3 cards at a time), but with a condition (I stop when Dread Return is in my graveyard). Our loop doesn't have a definitive loop set. Which is odd, and doesn't have a lot of precedents.
For example, this quote, from http://blogs.magicjudges.org/articles/2012/12/25/slow-play/#loops wouldn't apply to us, because there may not be a definite number of iterations:
(Although, I guess upending our deck is a definite number of iterations. What we can't do, is tell what the exact gamestate at the end of that is. ie, how many cards in hand. We also can't give a number of iterations to get the deck in hand.)
4 horseman relied only on mill, and getting certain cards (3 narcomoeba's, dread return, blasting station, and Sharuum) all before Emrakul refreshed the deck, setting the game state back to the same position (ranomized deck, no other changes in play). If it failed you had to start over.
That isn't the case with us. We can respond to the shuffle trigger, and keep going until the deck is empty, then allow the reshuffle to work. This is because we don't care that Dread Return is sorcery speed. Every time we execute the loop, we get more cards in hand, thus, when we shuffle the deck, it isn't the same gamestate. We've altered our hand size and deck size, and potentially other things that matter (mana, P/T on mongrel, etc).
We can then continue this until we draw our entire deck, or at least the needed combo, pause the loop, discard the combo to have it all in the GY at the same time, and execute the win.
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek
For what it's worth, I run into similar scenarios with my Selvala deck in games with 4+ people with Grand Abolisher in play:
- Selvala, Explorer Returned
- Wirewood Symbiote
- Mirror Entity
If each player has ~40 lands in their deck, each iteration of the loop nets about 0.4 mana. You cannot technically shortcut it, but if you have a big enough head start and explain to everyone what you are doing, people will scoop if they know they do not have an answer. I have literally never had anyone make me play it all the way out. This Gitrog loop is even more of a certainty than that.
Draft my Mono-Blue Cube!
lichess.org | chess.com
Lol, but then since it's legally not a 4horseman-style due to the changing game states, isn't doing this an exorbitant numbers of times as obnoxious as playing the Eggs modern deck? Eggs had its key card banned specifically for taking so long to do things as a deck while your opponent could've basically gone back home, prepared dinner, at it, took a dump, and then sat back at the table while the Eggs player was still cracking eggs. I think this is pretty much there, lol. Only a lot more complex so it's even easier to follow as an opponent, harder to pilot if you're not super prepared for it, and still pretty much obnoxious if no one can throw a wrench in the combo, disrupt it in any way, or counter anything.
BGU [Primer] Sidisi, Brood Tyrant BGU | BG [Primer] Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG | G [Primer] Polukranos, World Eater G
My YouTube Channel:
The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
In Eggs, you have to track your available mana, and you have to keep cracking different eggs in each iteration to keep the whole thing moving forward, never knowing what you're getting next.
With this, you are using the same piece over and over, just flipping 2 off the top at a time, and seeing if either is a land. if it is, you get a card in hand, if not, just flip 2 more.
In my goldfishes, it goes:
Flip 2, draw, Flip 2, Flip 2, Draw, Flip 2, Draw... etc
and I just flip until there are about 15ish cards in the deck, and then I just pitch lands to get the last X cards. Then I discard combo and win.
I'm not running the Titan loop in that version yet, but it would be a similar concept, just a bit more of it.
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek
1. You dredge Kozilek and Lotus Petal: You just let Kozilek reshuffle and try again.
2. You dredge Land and Lotus Petal: Use the Gitrog trigger to draw Kozilek and pitch him to reshuffle and try again.
3. You dredge Kozilek and Land: This is where the fun happens. You use the Gitrog trigger to draw Lotus Petal, then allow the reshuffle to resolve and end up with a two card library. You play and crack Lotus Petal for B, gaining 1 gravestorm. Now you dredge with Dakmor again. You will always dredge the only two cards in your library, the Land and the Kozilek, so make sure you order the triggers so you reshuffle before you draw. Now you have to draw a card, which gives us three sub-cases:
A. You draw Kozilek: Just pitch him to you discard outlet and reshuffle, which returns us to the three card library state that we want.
B. You draw Lotus Petal: We are back in option 3, so you just repeat what we do there and enter one of these subcases again.
C. You draw the Land: You pitch the land and use the Gitrog trigger to draw, which gives us two sub-sub-cases:
I. You draw Kozilek: Just pitch him to your discard outlet and reshuffle, which returns us to the three card library state that we want.
II. You draw Lotus Petal: Pitch another land from your hand to draw a card, which will always be Kozilek. Play and crack the Lotus Petal, then discard Kozilek to reshuffle what now becomes a four card library with two lands. Dredge Dakmor again, which now has four possible outcomes:
a. You dredge two Lands: Put the draw trigger on the stack, then dredge with Dakmor again. You end up with a four card library and a draw trigger on the stack, which is scenario d.
b. You dredge Lotus Petal and Kozilek: Reshuffle and try again.
c. You dredge a Land and Lotus Petal: Draw a card from Gitrog trigger, which gives two scenarios:
i. You draw Kozilek: pitch it and reshuffle, putting you back in the four card library situation.
ii. You draw the other Land: Pitch it and draw Kozilek, then pitch him and put yourself back in the four card situation.
d. You dredge a Land and Kozilek: Reshuffle and then draw, which gives three scenarios:
i. You draw a Land: now you are back to the three card library
ii. You draw Kozilek: discard him and reshuffle putting you back to the four card library
iii. You draw Lotus Petal: Play it and crack it, then Dredge with Dakmor, which gives two scenarios:
AA. You hit two Lands: draw Kozilek and discard it, which puts you back into the four card library situation
BB. You hit a Land and Kozilek: Draw the other land then reshuffle, which puts you back in the three card library situation.
Once you've generated enough mana and gravestorm you play Bitter Ordeal and exile everyone's libraries.
Holy crap that was super complicated but I believe it works. Let me know if I screwed it up anywhere. Maybe I can make a flowchart.
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
Couldn't you attack with a huge Wild Mongrel? Or blow up everything with Beast Within + Maelstrom Pulse? Or Sign In Blood + Duress them to death, like the Turbo-Zvi Dream Halls deck of old?
Draft my Mono-Blue Cube!
lichess.org | chess.com
Lol, that was pretty effin' thorough. Yeah, a flowchart would just be icing on the cake, lol. Making the flowchart will also help you net any errors you may have made in the logical steps through the process.
BGU [Primer] Sidisi, Brood Tyrant BGU | BG [Primer] Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG | G [Primer] Polukranos, World Eater G
My YouTube Channel:
The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
We also get infinite mana off of a Lotus Petal each iteration, so we can do whatever.
I think the most elegant solution present was Sickening Dreams + Glacial Chasm, since that only takes a single card slot, (though you still want Dread Return for Skirge Familiar, for the mana, which means you still want bloodghast). But since Jarad is in already, since he unblocks us in a pinch, I think that's the best option overall. With the mongrel.
You just need to loop the Petal 4 times for the green mana, and have a blast. Dread Return might not even be needed anymore.
Yeah. This is the same loop I came up with in the rulings lounge, except that I omitted the lotus petal for simplicity (also, it may kinda be unneeded, but, details.
Good write up of it.
Except, that I don't think gravestorm is needed, since Jarad and Wild Mongrel are already in the deck, and both of them add to the combo as is. Though redundancy I guess isn't bad.
.
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek
I see a few issues, mainly the more obvious ones like losing to all sorts of disruption. Sure this deck can be successful as a glass cannon combo deck, but I think it might be more potent when played as a GB ramp deck. The wonderful part of Gitrog is that his innate strategy, revolving around lands, allows us to play would be considered "fringe" cards in other decks, such as Life from the Loam or Bazaar of Baghdad, making the list consistently fast thanks to the focus on extra-land ramp and naturally more resilient against stax type strategies. I'm not sure what the exact configuration of this will be, but I suspect the list needs more control or more protection in a competitive / hostile environment. People are already aware of what the deck can do - it's time to play around those answers while still being able to keep up with the other strategies of the format.
One-Eyed Black | Orzhov Combo | Ooze Reanimator | Mindwheeling Pain
1x The Gitrog Monster
//Land (38)
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Barren Moor
1x Bayou
1x Bazaar of Baghdad
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Cabal Pit
1x Cavern of Souls
1x City of Brass
1x City of Traitors
1x Command Beacon
1x Command Tower
1x Crystal Vein
1x Dakmor Salvage
1x Dryad Arbor
3x Forest
1x Ghost Quarter
1x Lake of the Dead
1x Llanowar Wastes
1x Mana Confluence
1x Marsh Flats
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Petrified Field
1x Polluted Delta
1x Polluted Mire
1x Slippery Karst
1x Strip Mine
3x Swamp
1x Tranquil Thicket
1x Twilight Mire
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Windswept Heath
1x Wooded Foothills
1x Woodland Cemetery
1x Arbor Elf
1x Birds of Paradise
1x Boreal Druid
1x Deathrite Shaman
1x Elves of Deep Shadow
1x Elvish Mystic
1x Fyndhorn Elves
1x Golgari Grave-Troll
1x Golgari Thug
1x Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1x Llanowar Elves
1x Oona's Prowler
1x Putrid Imp
1x Skirge Familiar
1x Stinkweed Imp
1x Sylvan Safekeeper
1x Wild Mongrel
//Sorcery (12)
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Exsanguinate
1x Green Sun's Zenith
1x Grim Tutor
1x Imperial Seal
1x Life from the Loam
1x Nature's Lore
1x Reanimate
1x Sylvan Scrying
1x Thoughtseize
1x Traverse the Ulvenwald
1x Yawgmoth's Will
//Enchantment (6)
1x Burgeoning
1x Exploration
1x Oblivion Crown
1x Pernicious Deed
1x Squandered Resources
1x Sylvan Library
1x Abrupt Decay
1x Ad Nauseam
1x Cabal Ritual
1x Crop Rotation
1x Culling the Weak
1x Dark Ritual
1x Darkblast
1x Geth's Verdict
1x Entomb
1x Nature's Claim
1x Noxious Revival
1x Rain of Filth
1x Slaughter Pact
1x Summoner's Pact
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Worldly Tutor
//Artifact (10)
1x Chrome Mox
1x Everflowing Chalice
1x Expedition Map
1x Grim Monolith
1x Lion's Eye Diamond
1x Lotus Petal
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Mox Diamond
1x Sol Ring
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. 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.
Jarad Graveyard Combo[Primer]!
Sidisi ANT!
Playing Commander to Win - A guide on Competitive, 4-player EDH
LandDestruction.com - An EDH blog