MTG Salvation

That makes sense. So replace the Angel combo with the Ghoul combo and a Cabal Therapy. What about the board? I've realized since posting the list that I misunderstood how Mindbreak Trap works, so that's out. Are the other answers good choices? Is boarding into double combo a reasonable way of dealing with Surgical Extraction?

@World_Peace I'm looking at your list and the main list on the first page and trying to figure this deck out for the first time.

Also, why are you running Bridge from Below? What do you use them for? I gave the deck a few test runs and I didn't need or use them to go off.

And what is the Ghoul combo? I'm guessing Sutured Ghoul? Doesn't he have summoning sickness?

What do you use Wild Cantor and Manamorphoes for?

What do you do if you draw Angel of Glory's Rise, Azani and/or Maniac in your opening hand? Cabal Therapy as a discard outlet after you go off?

I'm not critiquing, I just have questions. I'm sure these cards are there for a reason.

EDIT: I get it. Never mind about Wild Cantor and Manamorphose. Other questions still loom though. I also figured out Bridge from Below as it is used with Cabal Therapy.

I see. Clever deck and cheap to build, it goes for about $280. The more I play it the more I get the card choices. What is the preferred win con? My guess is Ghoul as it uses less slots. It needs a name. Balustrade Spy and Undercity Informer are technically themed as spies. Maybe "Spy vs. Spy"?

Quote from Laser Brains »

I see. Clever deck and cheap to build, it goes for about $280. The more I play it the more I get the card choices. What is the preferred win con? My guess is Ghoul as it uses less slots. It needs a name. Balustrade Spy and Undercity Informer are technically themed as spies. Maybe "Spy vs. Spy"?

Underworld Cerberus + Laboratory Maniac is the new hot Oops No Spells win con, as assuming that you stick in 3+ Spirit Guides, Wild Cantor, Cabal Therapy, and 2+ Street Wraith in your deck anyway (like most people do), UC + Maniac takes up only 2 slots and resists creature removal. You Dread Return UC, Flashback Therapy to kill UC, recur all the milled creatures, use a Spirit Guide to cast Wild Cantor, pop Cantor for U, use that blue mana and more Spirit Guides to cast Maniac, then Cycle a Street Wraith.

Dang!! That is tech!! I'm gonna test this, looks awesome. I love this deck!

Back to it!



I am considering moving Annex to the main. What would you cut? Tangle? What would replace her in the board?

I might be dumb but can someone explain to me how underworld cerberus in this list works? I can't see it.

post #435.

Anyone still playing this deck?

Cerberus/Maniac VS Ghoul/Breath. Anyone prefer one over the other?
Is one more resilient over the other in your experience?

Why not use Careful Study, Reanimate etc.? I mean, with the ability to drop mana sources on turn one, it's another way to achieve a T1 Spy.

I'm building the deck, so the deck is still played. Here's my list:



So it's Ben Williams' list that was 29th out of 279 at SCG Legacy Open in Edison (2013). I'm a fan of non-interactive combo decks, so I thought that this list without the transformational sideboard was more appropriate. In testing, having the Belcher sideboard plan (4 Goblin Charbelcher, 4 Lion's Eye Diamond, 3 Spoils of the Vault and 1 Tinder Wall) didn't help me with the decks' weaknesses aside the graveyard hate : 4 Chancellor of the Tangle provide more acceleration against aggro decks, 4 Leyline of Sanctity provide protection against hand disruption (which is the second worst thing for us) and 4 Nature's Claim provide protection against the graveyard hate (not as effectively as the Belcher sideboard).

It's amazing how consistent the deck is : having 3-1/4-0 is a regular thing at FNMs.

Comments and feedback are welcomed : let's get the thread alive again guys.

Cheers!

Congrats on the finish! I strongly agree about dropping the Belcher transformational sideboard as I've explained in my previous post. Since a year, everyone is packing for game 2 at least 4 Lion's Eye Diamond and 4 Goblin Charbelcher, which dilutes the deck as your walking on two paths at the same time (the mill your deck plan or the Belcher plan) : opponents are not packing up as much graveyard hate during game 2 because they are expecting the Belcher plan. I am curious about knowing your Helm of Obedience plan in the sideboard : how does that work out?

Just play-tested with ANT and ended 3-4, but should have been 4-3 : I made a terrible mistake in game 3 of the 7th round that cost me the game... Had Balustrade Spy and Undercity Informer in hands with 3 mana (notably a Dark Ritual), but on turn 1, instead of casting Undercity Informer, I waited and he used Cabal Therapy to take away my Dark Ritual. I couldn't recover from that.

Overall, every match was close : 2-1 (game 1, turn 1 win and game 3, turn 2 win), 1-2 (game 2, turn 1 win), 2-1 (game 1, turn 2 win and game 3, turn 1 win), 1-2 (game 2, turn 3 win), 2-1 (game 2, turn 4 win and game 3, turn 2 win), 1-2 and 1-2.

Cheers!

Just tested again tonight against ANT and faced a corner case situation : with Leyline of Sanctity on my side and Tormod's Crypt on the board for my opponent, he let the combo resolves at least three times. Then, in response to Cabal Therapy just for protection, Chain of Vapor and cracking the crypt exiling my graveyard and ending the game. I have Pact of Negation, but after resolving the combo and having Cabal Therapy, are there some things that could be done to prevent such scenario?

Had some issues with Flusterstorm. Thoughts about it?

Ended up 2-3 (2-0, 2-0, 1-2, 0-2 and 0-2).

Cheers!

Quote from TomCourtenay »

Just tested again tonight against ANT and faced a corner case situation : with Leyline of Sanctity on my side and Tormod's Crypt on the board for my opponent, he let the combo resolves at least three times. Then, in response to Cabal Therapy just for protection, Chain of Vapor and cracking the crypt exiling my graveyard and ending the game. I have Pact of Negation, but after resolving the combo and having Cabal Therapy, are there some things that could be done to prevent such scenario?

Had some issues with Flusterstorm. Thoughts about it?

Ended up 2-3 (2-0, 2-0, 1-2, 0-2 and 0-2).

Cheers!

I'm in the process of putting this deck together. Flusterstorm is a card I've been worrying about since I first started thinking about this deck. Pact of Negation doesn't cut it. I think a solid line of protection against early soft permission like Daze is Chancellor of the Annex, which also helps mitigate the early Flusterstorm threat. The best direct answer to Flusterstorm is your own Flusterstorm, and that doesn't belong in an all-in combo deck.

@ anemptyfield : glad to know I'm not the only one around here!

Chancellor of the Annex is the best protection mainboard that we have and I don't see myself running Street Wraith instead. However, Flusterstorm doesn't bothers me as much anymore as Force of Will, which can be mitigated by Chancellor of the Annex on turn 1. Daze is also problematic, but Pact of Negation deals with that.

I played again yesterday and ended up 2-0 against ANT, each time 2-1 each after losing on game 1, both times on the draw with turn 1 or turn 2 wins. The deck is so smooth, it's amazing.

Here's my current build, no changes:

I'm thinking about this sideboard maybe :

So for game 2 sometimes, bring in the transformational sideboard with Leyline of the Void in the opening hand (mulliganing agressively is not a problem as we can go down to 4) and having Helm of Obedience as the win condition. I think that it's better than the Belcher plan if I'd had to go with something transformational as it works in conjunction with their Rest in Peace!

Cheers!

@TomCourtenay cool, there's still some other people hanging around this thread. I'm interested in brewing this deck to compete - I highly doubt it will ever be tier 1, but with solid metagaming and sideboard decisions & a good pilot, this deck can steal wins.

Is there a reason you're not running Pact mainboard? What do you side out when putting in the Chancellor of the Tangles, Pacts, and Leylines, if anything?

Also, curious if you have a reason behind running the Angel of Glory's Rise + Azami, Lady of Scrolls combo instead of just Underworld Cerberus? Frees up a maindeck slot for e.g. a 2nd Bridge from Below or another Cabal Therapy.

I would definitely try to find space for mainboard pacts somehow.

Quote from anemptyfield »

@TomCourtenay cool, there's still some other people hanging around this thread. I'm interested in brewing this deck to compete - I highly doubt it will ever be tier 1, but with solid metagaming and sideboard decisions & a good pilot, this deck can steal wins.

Is there a reason you're not running Pact mainboard? What do you side out when putting in the Chancellor of the Tangles, Pacts, and Leylines, if anything?

Also, curious if you have a reason behind running the Angel of Glory's Rise + Azami, Lady of Scrolls combo instead of just Underworld Cerberus? Frees up a maindeck slot for e.g. a 2nd Bridge from Below or another Cabal Therapy.

I would definitely try to find space for mainboard pacts somehow.

This deck can be a fine tier 2 deck having 3-1 or 4-0 regularly at FNMs or even going to day 2 in a large tournament (which is easier than being 4-0 at your local gamestore) : it's the most non-interactive deck out there, so mulliganing, sideboarding proprely and piloting wisely are key components to winning. Once you get that, you're hard to beat.

I'd run 3 Pact of Negation mainboard, but I'm not sure what to take out as the mainboard is pretty stock. With Chancellor of the Annex mainboard, I mulligan quite agressively to have it or to find one Cabal Therapy in order to name Force of Will (in conjunction with Gitaxian Probe, this is great). Surely, 3 Pact of Negation would make this deck quite resilient, so I'd say that if we go with the Underworld Cerberus plan, it would free up a slot and we could cut down 1 Manamorphose and 1 Gitaxian Probe, having something like this at the moment :


As for my sideboard planning right now, for Chancellor of the Tangle, I bring him in against any aggro deck without counterspells or hand disruption, taking out 4 Gitaxian Probe. Leyline of Sanctity comes in against disruption, taking out 1 Manamorphose, 1 Gitaxian Probe, 1 Narcomoeba and 1 Undercity Informer. For 3 Pact of Negation against countermagic, I side out 1 Manamorphose, 1 Gitaxian Probe, 1 Narcomoeba.

Finally, the reasons I don't run Underworld Cerberus are :
1) The resiliency between Azami, Lady of Scrolls and Laboratory Maniac : one gets bolted, tap the other one in response to win. Swords to Plowshares one of them? Tap the other one in response. The combo is quite strong with the two of them.
2) Having Gitaxian Probe is great way to evaluate what's the opponent working with. Turn 1, on the play and you see a Force of Will and you have a Cabal Therapy? There you go! Turn 1 on the play and you see Force of Will, but nothing on your side to deal with that? Then wait because you would have fizzled otherwise. Street Wraith doesn't allow that.

However, testing the list I've posted with the 3 Pact of Negation mainboard would provide serious protection with 9 answers : 4 Chancellor of the Annex, 3 Pact of Negation and 2 Cabal Therapy.

Yeah I think you can get away with running the Cerberus combo easier with running more protection. I'm going to be building the deck with 4 Chancellor, 4 Pact, and 3-4 Cabal Therapy, with cuts like -2 Street Wraith (only need 1), -X Gitaxian Probe, -1 Manamorphose. Seeing if the coast is clear with Git Probe can be pretty important, but cantripping into a Narcomoeba or Cerberus (or Azami/Angel if you're running that version) can slow you down or brick you for a turn. Here's a decklist I'm thinking of:



Unsure of my sideboard plan yet, but I'm going to avoid the Belcher plan for reasons specified in this forum. I think playing an extra Bridge and 3rd Cabal Therapy gives you extra proactive defensive gas, and also more Zombie beatsticks if they brick your combo after you've sacrificed all the Narcomoebas to flash back 2-3 Therapies. You still have an out on early turns to possibly win through damage if they don't have creature threats or removal, which you can also strip away with the extra Therapies - 3 of them fired off in a row should be sufficient to strip most opponent's hands of removal and threats. That's why I think 3 is much better than 2.

Additionally, being mindful of how many cantrips you're running will help mulligan decisions. Although, the new mulligan rule that allows for a free scry after going down a card will surely help decks like this slightly more than other decks, since we're trying to assemble a specific number of combo cards. Being able to scry, find a combo piece or ship it, and cantrip into the card on T1 on the play might be a compelling argument to run more copies of Gitaxian Probe and Street Wraith. What do people think? Is having topdeck information after taking mulligans a good enough reason to play more cantrips?

Surely, scrying will help us a lot, so Gitaxian Probe and/or Street Wraith will have even more value for us. This new scrying rule helps us very much, that's for sure and cantrips will be necessary to take advantage of that.

As for your list, it looks good! Just one thing: let us know how it works out with 2 Bridge from Bellow and 3 Cabal Therapy. I prefer to have more cantrips to dig for the needed pieces as I'm very ''combo'' oriented. I've never faced situations were a ''zombie beatdown'' plan would have won me the game. I think 2 Bridge from Bellow and 3 Cabal Therapy is too much as it doesn't help the combo as much as cantrips, but some people around here swear by these numbers, so it should work.

I think really that if you want to strip the opponent's hand, Gitaxian Probe is a necessary card with Cabal Threapy as you wont name something out of the blue (you'll probably say Force of Will, but Daze or Spell Pierce could be what they have), maybe missing it and then wasting a Cabal Therapy.

As for the sideboard plan, anything but the Belcher plan! I think the new way to go is the Helm of Obedience/Leyline of the Void combo, but I need to test it to make sure it's worth it.

Cheers!

I have come up with a strong Underworld Cerberus version that doesn't require a transformational sideboard (Helm of Obedience and Leyline of the Void) The problem with those is that you ought to have both pieces in hand + 4 mana to cast Helm of Obedience, so you can't mulligan to less than 5 in an ideal opening hand (Helm of Obedience, Leyline of the Void, Dark Ritual, Lotus Petal and another acceleration card). So I've tested a version with Pact of Negation mainboard, which is the best protection card, and Duress sideboard as well as Nature's Claim for graveyard hate. 7 cards dedicated to graveyard hate is quite enough. Here's the latest version:



Cheers!

Quote from Xoddy »

Can't wait to try the deck out!

One question though, when do you exactly board Chancellor of the Tangle in? And what do you take out? (in your latest build)

Well it depends. I'm still piloting this list with success :



For the sideboard plan, here it is:
1) Chancellor of the Tangle goes in against any aggro deck without counterspells or hand disruption, taking out 4 Gitaxian Probe.
2) Leyline of Sanctity comes in against disruption, taking out 1 Manamorphose, 1 Gitaxian Probe, 1 Narcomoeba and 1 Undercity Informer.
3) Pact of Negation comes is against countermagic : 1 Manamorphose, 1 Gitaxian Probe and 1 Narcomoeba out.

However, in a very heavy control environment, I'd go with this :



For the sideboard plan, here it is:
1) Chancellor of the Tangle goes in against any aggro deck without counterspells or hand disruption, taking out 3 Pact of Negation and 1 Chancellor of the Annex.
2) Leyline of Sanctity comes in against disruption, taking out 1 Manamorphose, 1 Gitaxian Probe, 1 Narcomoeba and 1 Undercity Informer.
3) Duress comes is against discard : 1 Manamorphose, 1 Gitaxian Probe and 1 Narcomoeba out.

Cheers!

I ended up 2-1 yesterday beating and losing to storm decks. I used my usual list :



Playing more and more with the deck, I see that if I don't win on turn 1, I win rarely after turn 3. By that, I mean that you ought to mulligan aggressively, but that can also lead to a direct lost. Mulligan at 6 is fine and having a 5 cards starting hand is limit, going down to 4 is winnable, but I haven't recover from one ever. Honestly, I lose to aggresive mulligan more than to countermagic or hand disruption.

Speaking of hand disruption, it's not has bad has it seemed to me. The worst this is really counterspells.

Cheers!

Since it has been stressed multiple times that this deck requires aggressive mulliganing, I would like to ask some of you who pilot this deck about the mulligan strategy.
Is a hand that can produce enough mana (and possibly protection) keepable without any of the 8 combo initiators? Likewise, is an all-equipped hand that is one mana short keepable? Or any other relevant borderline situation.

Quote from Elvish_Farmer »

Since it has been stressed multiple times that this deck requires aggressive mulliganing, I would like to ask some of you who pilot this deck about the mulligan strategy.
Is a hand that can produce enough mana (and possibly protection) keepable without any of the 8 combo initiators? Likewise, is an all-equipped hand that is one mana short keepable? Or any other relevant borderline situation.

@ Elvish_Farmer : I wouldn't keep a hand without one of the 8 combo initiators. You have to mulligan agressively and you can be just fine down to 4 cards, so don't be afraid to mulligan.

It's better to be one mana short than not to have a combo piece.

@ FNM :

Was 3-1 two weeks ago with this list, the usual one :



I'll be running the deck in a huge Legacy tournament in Montreal. We'll be two All Spells players, me on this list and another one with the Belcher sideboard plan.

Cheers!

When Spy enters the battlefield and gets bolted does the mill effect still trigger? Same with Informer, can you activate the milling if it gets killed?

Quote from Lord_Spisi »

When Spy enters the battlefield and gets bolted does the mill effect still trigger? Same with Informer, can you activate the milling if it gets killed?

They can simply bolt laboratory maniac and win instead, if you are holding priority you can sac Undercity Informer and not give him/her the chance of bolting it. Yes, the trigger will happen either way.