Hi, do you guys think there is any reasonable way to make this combo work in a modern deck?
You need Basal Sliver on the battlefield and Haakon, Stromgald Scourge in your graveyard. Then you can sacrifice Skeletal Changeling to Basal Sliver, creating two black mana, which can be used to recast it from the graveyard because of Haakon's effect. This gives you infinite Gravestorm for Bitter Ordeal
Obviously, this combo would be hard to make work because you need so many pieces in the right places. You need Sliver and Changeling on the field, Haakon in your grave, and Gravestorm in your hand. However, I think it has some advantages:
All of the combo pieces are black, so it is not weak to Blood Moon and other mana disruption. In fact, it may be advantageous for the deck to splash red to run Blood Moon. Splashing red also gives access to Faithless Looting, which is a good way to dig for pieces and to get Haakon into the graveyard.
It's also worth noting that every single combo piece can be cast with three black mana, so Dark Petition might be valuable. It costs five mana, but it can search up any piece we need and pay for it. It should be easy enough to enable Spell Mastery in black with so many quality removal spells and discard spells available.
Do y'all think those advantages do much for a combo that needs so many pieces together to work?
My big question is, if you're going mono B, how are you getting your big combo piece (Haakon) into your graveyard? (which is the only place you can cast it from) I suppose you could target yourself with discard, but that's a pretty inefficient use of it.
Never mind, saw that you mentioned splashing red for Looting.
EDIT: Though don't forget, you could also run green for stuff like Grisely Salvage (or Life from the Loam). That has the advantage of letting you instant speed it, and digs deeper for the whole combo (since 2 of the 3 pieces can be cast straight from the graveyard, as long as 1 of them is cast first)
Also, I think you misread Haakon - he needs to be on the field for you to do the combo. Not the worst thing ever, but it does make the combo that much more fragile, since you need to keep 2 boltable bodies on the board, rather than 1.
Still, it looks like a really fun way of abusing Haakon. I hadn't thought of the idea of using changeling to gain advantages from multiple creature types like that before, and the win con you came up with is pretty silly.
Also, if you plan on Haakon being in the deck anyway, I would suggest dedicating a few slots to Nameless Inversion so that you can abuse the combo between that and Haakon until you get your win con going.
My big question is, if you're going mono B, how are you getting your big combo piece (Haakon) into your graveyard? (which is the only place you can cast it from) I suppose you could target yourself with discard, but that's a pretty inefficient use of it.
Never mind, saw that you mentioned splashing red for Looting.
EDIT: Though don't forget, you could also run green for stuff like Grisely Salvage (or Life from the Loam). That has the advantage of letting you instant speed it, and digs deeper for the whole combo (since 2 of the 3 pieces can be cast straight from the graveyard, as long as 1 of them is cast first)
Also, I think you misread Haakon - he needs to be on the field for you to do the combo. Not the worst thing ever, but it does make the combo that much more fragile, since you need to keep 2 boltable bodies on the board, rather than 1.
Still, it looks like a really fun way of abusing Haakon. I hadn't thought of the idea of using changeling to gain advantages from multiple creature types like that before, and the win con you came up with is pretty silly.
Also, if you plan on Haakon being in the deck anyway, I would suggest dedicating a few slots to Nameless Inversion so that you can abuse the combo between that and Haakon until you get your win con going.
Yep, I did misread it. Now I have a lot less faith in the combo.
Although, while we're here anyway, I think in the version incorporating Blood Artist and Muddle the Mixture, I think Taigam's Scheming might be a good option since we're in blue. It's card disadvantage, but I've seen Footsteps-Hulk combo decks run it and it's a great way to filter cards and get the ones in the graveyard that you want in the graveyard. I'm also going to test Serum Visions in that version. It's card selection and contributes to Spell Mastery.
Honestly, I think you're still better off in red black for faithless looting and blood moon, but you're missing obvious dredge things, which will do the graveyard fill trick better than most and looting is great with them. You can also use magus of the moon over blood moon for the simple fact that you can then cast it from graveyard with haakon on the battlefield and something like ashes of the fallen active (it's presumed you will choose knight). Even then, it's not necessary to cast the disruption piece unless needed, but you will need to be able to kill obnoxious things such as scavenging ooze (the one really maindecked and scary threat I can think of). There is always removal for that, and red also adds terminate. Admittedly, there are black options available, but they are rarely as good. the only removal spell you really fear is path to exile.
Honestly, I think you're still better off in red black for faithless looting and blood moon, but you're missing obvious dredge things, which will do the graveyard fill trick better than most and looting is great with them. You can also use magus of the moon over blood moon for the simple fact that you can then cast it from graveyard with haakon on the battlefield and something like ashes of the fallen active (it's presumed you will choose knight). Even then, it's not necessary to cast the disruption piece unless needed, but you will need to be able to kill obnoxious things such as scavenging ooze (the one really maindecked and scary threat I can think of). There is always removal for that, and red also adds terminate. Admittedly, there are black options available, but they are rarely as good. the only removal spell you really fear is path to exile.
On the other hand, green gives access to arguably the BEST removal spell in modern with abrupt decay Honestly, both red and green bring multiple useful options to the table, I think it's really just down to personal preference.
Abrupt decay is the best removal...for small things. There are things it doesn't hit that terminate does (primarily big beaters not named tarmogoyf or scavenging ooze). You also get kolaghan's command which is just plain versatile and returns things in response to grave removal that might be needed in response to that scooze ability. It is true that green gives access to great things, but if you do run dredgers such as stinkweed imp or golgari thug, faithless looting becomes a very strong reason to run red and its options over green options.
Jund or Golgari on paper look the strongest to me. In addition to the cards already mentioned:
In green we have Greenseeker and Llanowar Mentor as additional discard outlets for dredgers or Haakon. If going the Ashes of the Fallen route, Buried Ruin alongside Loam can allow you to assemble the full combo (haakon, ashes into sliver, blood artist) from the graveyard (if only we had Buried Alive...) and without the blue requirement of Academy Ruins. Gnaw to the Bone can also quite strong out of the side.
Has anyone tried or though of trying out Collected Company to find Haakon and Sliver? Fits in with a Green build and gives us a way besides relying on getting Haakon from grave to field.
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You need Basal Sliver on the battlefield and Haakon, Stromgald Scourge in your graveyard. Then you can sacrifice Skeletal Changeling to Basal Sliver, creating two black mana, which can be used to recast it from the graveyard because of Haakon's effect. This gives you infinite Gravestorm for Bitter Ordeal
Obviously, this combo would be hard to make work because you need so many pieces in the right places. You need Sliver and Changeling on the field, Haakon in your grave, and Gravestorm in your hand. However, I think it has some advantages:
All of the combo pieces are black, so it is not weak to Blood Moon and other mana disruption. In fact, it may be advantageous for the deck to splash red to run Blood Moon. Splashing red also gives access to Faithless Looting, which is a good way to dig for pieces and to get Haakon into the graveyard.
It's also worth noting that every single combo piece can be cast with three black mana, so Dark Petition might be valuable. It costs five mana, but it can search up any piece we need and pay for it. It should be easy enough to enable Spell Mastery in black with so many quality removal spells and discard spells available.
Do y'all think those advantages do much for a combo that needs so many pieces together to work?
Good idea! Blood Artist seems much better. Thanks.
Awesome, thanks. I'm gonna start goldfishing and refining a list with Bridge from Below and a list with Blood Artist and those suggestions.
My big question is, if you're going mono B, how are you getting your big combo piece (Haakon) into your graveyard? (which is the only place you can cast it from) I suppose you could target yourself with discard, but that's a pretty inefficient use of it.Never mind, saw that you mentioned splashing red for Looting.
EDIT: Though don't forget, you could also run green for stuff like Grisely Salvage (or Life from the Loam). That has the advantage of letting you instant speed it, and digs deeper for the whole combo (since 2 of the 3 pieces can be cast straight from the graveyard, as long as 1 of them is cast first)
Also, I think you misread Haakon - he needs to be on the field for you to do the combo. Not the worst thing ever, but it does make the combo that much more fragile, since you need to keep 2 boltable bodies on the board, rather than 1.
Still, it looks like a really fun way of abusing Haakon. I hadn't thought of the idea of using changeling to gain advantages from multiple creature types like that before, and the win con you came up with is pretty silly.
Also, if you plan on Haakon being in the deck anyway, I would suggest dedicating a few slots to Nameless Inversion so that you can abuse the combo between that and Haakon until you get your win con going.
Yep, I did misread it. Now I have a lot less faith in the combo.
Although, while we're here anyway, I think in the version incorporating Blood Artist and Muddle the Mixture, I think Taigam's Scheming might be a good option since we're in blue. It's card disadvantage, but I've seen Footsteps-Hulk combo decks run it and it's a great way to filter cards and get the ones in the graveyard that you want in the graveyard. I'm also going to test Serum Visions in that version. It's card selection and contributes to Spell Mastery.
Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
On the other hand, green gives access to arguably the BEST removal spell in modern with abrupt decay Honestly, both red and green bring multiple useful options to the table, I think it's really just down to personal preference.
Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
In green we have Greenseeker and Llanowar Mentor as additional discard outlets for dredgers or Haakon. If going the Ashes of the Fallen route, Buried Ruin alongside Loam can allow you to assemble the full combo (haakon, ashes into sliver, blood artist) from the graveyard (if only we had Buried Alive...) and without the blue requirement of Academy Ruins. Gnaw to the Bone can also quite strong out of the side.
Red also gives access to Lightning Axe.
Blue gives aforementioned Academy Ruins. Maybe Forbidden Alchemy and Narcomoeba?
White splash gives Lingering Souls and Unburial Rites. Not sure they completely fit though. The junk route opens up Knight of the Reliquary (Knight for Haakon) fetching out Horizon Canopy.
Vengeful Pharaoh is also reasonable against in any deck planning to dredge their draw step.