So this is the best version of the Presence of Gond-Midnight Guard combo deck I've tested so far. That's not to say it is good, exactly, but this version has actually won against several good decks (previous versions rarely won against, well anyone). Anyone who has tried the deck knows that matches like mono-black control and fast aggro are usually almost hopeless, but this one actually has a non-embarrassing record thus far! (I may have got lucky)
The key to this is Cho-Manna's Blessing. It is by far the most important card in the deck, next the actual combo itself. That is why, in order to go off, you must have a minimum of 5 mana, 3 of which must be white, 1 for Midnight Guard and 2 for Cho-Manno's Blessing. It always helps to have an extra two mana for Negate back up if you can get it. With all the fixing, getting the white is usually not a problem. Getting to 5 mana (or better 7 mana) and finding the combo pieces before dying is the real problem. Outside of moment's peace, negate and and maybe swirling sandstorm, you are basically just ignoring your opponent.
Everything else in this deck is ramp or card search. I've discovered including the slower devoted druid combo or any real main deck answer cards just slows the deck down. It has one goal, to find the combo and protect it. If you can get a midnight guard in play with a cho-manno's blessing on it (always use the blessing to respond to targeted kill effects unless they are tapped out), with negate back up and a presence of gond in hand for when you untap, you have a better than 75% chance to win. (and that 25% is for one of two reasons, either you are already so low on life that you can't survive another two turns, one to untap and make a million 1/1 and one more to attack for the win, or because they have 3 instant creature kill spells or enchantment kill + electrickery, electrickery by itself only slows you down by a turn) That's a big if, of course, but the entire deck is geared towards it and it does happen.
I decided to try this deck again when commune with the gods came out, and it does really help. Not only does it find your combo (and cho-manno's blessing), but it also has very important synergy with moment's peace and accumulated knowledge. Because you discard cards to the graveyard, if you can discard a moment's peace, that allows you to survive an extra turn and of course an accumulated knowledge with any number in the yard is just awesome.
The growth spasms are in the side for any deck that might include edict effects, the moment's peace and swirling sandstorm for aggro decks, hydroblast obviously for goblins and dispels for blue decks.
I'd love for people to try it and hear their experiences.
2 Negate
2 Drift of Phantasms
4 Utopia Sprawl
3 Cho-Manno's Blessing
4 Presence of Gond
2 Preordain
1 Impulse
1 Moment's Peace
4 Commune with the Gods
4 Midnight Guard
4 Abundant Growth
2 Rampant Growth
4 Accumulated Knowledge
2 Ponder
when it comes to building combo there are two things your deck has to do; find the combo and protect it long enough to use it
you've got like half of half of that... as you have things set up you kind of have the ability to find your pieces because of all the draw, but you're running a lot of draw spells in a deck with two islands, I get that you have some things to find them easier, but this deck is playing heavy blue on two islands... idk the whole thing seems clunky as heck with main deck negates and you're using a protection spell in blessing with double white in enchantment form, why use that over vines or blessing?
I personally don't see why Cho-manno's Blessing is good. Most of times you only need Apostle's Blessing. Being an Enchantment is really not that relevant since you either go off the turn you cast Gond or probably never get a second chance. In another case, you cast Blessing the turn before you go off and that simply results in your opponent's 1-for-2 trade just as most enchantments do.
Sorry about posting twice, whenever I post at the end of a long thread, I always start thinking people will just never get to end of the thread and see the post I just put work into creating, so I decide to put it in its own thread. Maybe I should have just started a new thread at the start.
In response to your guys comments.
In testing, I discovered that
1) The mana may look clunky, but in reality I almost never have issues with it. Like I said, getting triple white and single blue between abundant growth, utopia sprawl, expanse and rampant growth is relatively easy (double blue and triple white can sometimes be a pain, but that is why i have only two drift of phantasms, it is probably the worst card in the deck, but unfortunately necessary I think). I'm almost always selecting white with utopia sprawl, but the green base is absolutely necessary to play 3 colors.
2) Cho-manno's blessing outperforms all the instants and sorceries that would protect a creature thus far. Decks like mono-black and blue/black are always going to have more removal than you have protection/counters, but are usually unable to play more than one on your turn, and even after sideobard the majority of that removal is still targeted removal. However, when they untap, they usually have second or even third removal. Cho-manno's protects against targeted removal the next turn, and every turn thereafter, for almost the same cost and negate is much more versatile than something like apostle's blessing or vines of vastwood (both of which have other benefits for the decks they are normally in, i.e. unblockability and size increase, you don't need either of these things). Edict effects are always going to be a pain, but again, if they have only one in hand, a negate is better than apostle's blessing and the growth spasm's help somewhat with that. And as a not insignificant bonus, cho-manno can be found with commune with the gods.
Power Sink seems interesting, though you mostly don't care about creatures, only spells that might target your midnight guard or otherwise disrupt your combo.
I feel like benevolent bodyguard would have the same drawback as apostle's blessing and such, in that it can only be used once, whereas cho-mannos blessing protects against multiple pieces of targeted removal.
So this is the best version of the Presence of Gond-Midnight Guard combo deck I've tested so far. That's not to say it is good, exactly, but this version has actually won against several good decks (previous versions rarely won against, well anyone). Anyone who has tried the deck knows that matches like mono-black control and fast aggro are usually almost hopeless, but this one actually has a non-embarrassing record thus far! (I may have got lucky)
The key to this is Cho-Manna's Blessing. It is by far the most important card in the deck, next the actual combo itself. That is why, in order to go off, you must have a minimum of 5 mana, 3 of which must be white, 1 for Midnight Guard and 2 for Cho-Manno's Blessing. It always helps to have an extra two mana for Negate back up if you can get it. With all the fixing, getting the white is usually not a problem. Getting to 5 mana (or better 7 mana) and finding the combo pieces before dying is the real problem. Outside of moment's peace, negate and and maybe swirling sandstorm, you are basically just ignoring your opponent.
Everything else in this deck is ramp or card search. I've discovered including the slower devoted druid combo or any real main deck answer cards just slows the deck down. It has one goal, to find the combo and protect it. If you can get a midnight guard in play with a cho-manno's blessing on it (always use the blessing to respond to targeted kill effects unless they are tapped out), with negate back up and a presence of gond in hand for when you untap, you have a better than 75% chance to win. (and that 25% is for one of two reasons, either you are already so low on life that you can't survive another two turns, one to untap and make a million 1/1 and one more to attack for the win, or because they have 3 instant creature kill spells or enchantment kill + electrickery, electrickery by itself only slows you down by a turn) That's a big if, of course, but the entire deck is geared towards it and it does happen.
I decided to try this deck again when commune with the gods came out, and it does really help. Not only does it find your combo (and cho-manno's blessing), but it also has very important synergy with moment's peace and accumulated knowledge. Because you discard cards to the graveyard, if you can discard a moment's peace, that allows you to survive an extra turn and of course an accumulated knowledge with any number in the yard is just awesome.
The growth spasms are in the side for any deck that might include edict effects, the moment's peace and swirling sandstorm for aggro decks, hydroblast obviously for goblins and dispels for blue decks.
I'd love for people to try it and hear their experiences.
My luck must be really bad. Every time I play a fragile combo deck, I lose. Playing and relying on a single creature to win is very risky, even in pauper. But I see it all the time: Cyclops, Infect rush, Kiln Fiend, etc. I wonder...
Infinite anything is good. Can't say much about your deck though.
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Originally posted by mondu_the_fat: One minute you're arguing about meatlof and the next thing you know someone's sex life is being dredged up.
My playgroup: four people total.
We use the Legacy B&R list.
My meta consists of combo, control and some aggro / midrange decks.
My group uses proxies, so budget is not an issue. Because of this, things can get out of hand.
Yeah, this deck is very fragile, and as I mention above, not exactly good by any stretch of the imagination, just better than previous versions. You really do have to get lucky to some degree. You can easily just draw your ramp and not find your pieces and just get run over. And even if you find the key pieces, midnight guard, presence of gond, & cho-manno's blessing, you are often too slow, only going off on turn four or five at the earliest.
Let me tell you though, when you get to go off, it is hella fun.
The key to this is Cho-Manna's Blessing. It is by far the most important card in the deck, next the actual combo itself. That is why, in order to go off, you must have a minimum of 5 mana, 3 of which must be white, 1 for Midnight Guard and 2 for Cho-Manno's Blessing. It always helps to have an extra two mana for Negate back up if you can get it. With all the fixing, getting the white is usually not a problem. Getting to 5 mana (or better 7 mana) and finding the combo pieces before dying is the real problem. Outside of moment's peace, negate and and maybe swirling sandstorm, you are basically just ignoring your opponent.
Everything else in this deck is ramp or card search. I've discovered including the slower devoted druid combo or any real main deck answer cards just slows the deck down. It has one goal, to find the combo and protect it. If you can get a midnight guard in play with a cho-manno's blessing on it (always use the blessing to respond to targeted kill effects unless they are tapped out), with negate back up and a presence of gond in hand for when you untap, you have a better than 75% chance to win. (and that 25% is for one of two reasons, either you are already so low on life that you can't survive another two turns, one to untap and make a million 1/1 and one more to attack for the win, or because they have 3 instant creature kill spells or enchantment kill + electrickery, electrickery by itself only slows you down by a turn) That's a big if, of course, but the entire deck is geared towards it and it does happen.
I decided to try this deck again when commune with the gods came out, and it does really help. Not only does it find your combo (and cho-manno's blessing), but it also has very important synergy with moment's peace and accumulated knowledge. Because you discard cards to the graveyard, if you can discard a moment's peace, that allows you to survive an extra turn and of course an accumulated knowledge with any number in the yard is just awesome.
The growth spasms are in the side for any deck that might include edict effects, the moment's peace and swirling sandstorm for aggro decks, hydroblast obviously for goblins and dispels for blue decks.
I'd love for people to try it and hear their experiences.
2 Negate
2 Drift of Phantasms
4 Utopia Sprawl
3 Cho-Manno's Blessing
4 Presence of Gond
2 Preordain
1 Impulse
1 Moment's Peace
4 Commune with the Gods
4 Midnight Guard
4 Abundant Growth
2 Rampant Growth
4 Accumulated Knowledge
2 Ponder
4 Terramorphic Expanse
11 Forest
4 Plains
2 Islands
Sideboard
3 Swirling Sandstorm
2 Growth Spasm
3 Dispel
3 Moment's Peace
3 Hydroblast
1 Patrician's Scorn
Deck List:
BMBCB
UBUB Control/TeachingsBU
Ha! My Pauper UG Post Deck Showed!
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BPoxB
Legacy
GB Eva Depths (Primer By Me) BG
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In response to your guys comments.
In testing, I discovered that
1) The mana may look clunky, but in reality I almost never have issues with it. Like I said, getting triple white and single blue between abundant growth, utopia sprawl, expanse and rampant growth is relatively easy (double blue and triple white can sometimes be a pain, but that is why i have only two drift of phantasms, it is probably the worst card in the deck, but unfortunately necessary I think). I'm almost always selecting white with utopia sprawl, but the green base is absolutely necessary to play 3 colors.
2) Cho-manno's blessing outperforms all the instants and sorceries that would protect a creature thus far. Decks like mono-black and blue/black are always going to have more removal than you have protection/counters, but are usually unable to play more than one on your turn, and even after sideobard the majority of that removal is still targeted removal. However, when they untap, they usually have second or even third removal. Cho-manno's protects against targeted removal the next turn, and every turn thereafter, for almost the same cost and negate is much more versatile than something like apostle's blessing or vines of vastwood (both of which have other benefits for the decks they are normally in, i.e. unblockability and size increase, you don't need either of these things). Edict effects are always going to be a pain, but again, if they have only one in hand, a negate is better than apostle's blessing and the growth spasm's help somewhat with that. And as a not insignificant bonus, cho-manno can be found with commune with the gods.
I feel like benevolent bodyguard would have the same drawback as apostle's blessing and such, in that it can only be used once, whereas cho-mannos blessing protects against multiple pieces of targeted removal.
Let me fix this for you:
11 Forest
4 Plains
2 Islands
4 Terramorphic Expanse
//Creatures (6)
2 Drift of Phantasms
4 Midnight Guard
//Other (33)
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Presence of Gond
4 Commune with the Gods
4 Abundant Growth
4 Accumulated Knowledge
3 Cho-Manno's Blessing
2 Negate
2 Preordain
2 Rampant Growth
2 Ponder
1 Impulse
1 Moment's Peace
3 Swirling Sandstorm
3 Dispel
3 Moment's Peace
3 Hydroblast
2 Growth Spasm
1 Patrician's Scorn
My luck must be really bad. Every time I play a fragile combo deck, I lose. Playing and relying on a single creature to win is very risky, even in pauper. But I see it all the time: Cyclops, Infect rush, Kiln Fiend, etc. I wonder...
Infinite anything is good. Can't say much about your deck though.
My playgroup: four people total.
We use the Legacy B&R list.
My meta consists of combo, control and some aggro / midrange decks.
My group uses proxies, so budget is not an issue. Because of this, things can get out of hand.
Let me tell you though, when you get to go off, it is hella fun.
Thanks for fixing the deck list.
4x midnight guard
4x presence of gond
4x selesnya evangel
4x stonybrook schoolmaster
4x squadron hawk
4x soul warden
4x soul's attendant
4x suture priest
4x ward of lights
3x forest
2x evolving wilds
2x haunted fengraf
4x selesnya guildgate