First off, I know there are a couple threads floating around Deck Creation discussing how to make a deck viable using the card Aetherflux Reservoir. People have a few different ideas. I'd like to dedicate a thread to the deck I've been brewing which focuses SOLELY around winning with the Death Star, (a giant blast of energy that's precariously gathered in a big artifact). After a bunch of testing, what I've found to work the best and win the most is a storm-centric deck consisting of mostly cantrips and ramp. It leans heavily on the two best filtering cards out there, Serum Visions and Ancient Stirrings. It combos off mostly on the back of common plays like Mox Opal --> Repeal Opal for 0--> Mox Opal--> Serum Visions--> 2nd Mox Opal--> Ancient Stirrings--> Everflowing Chalice for 0. The fact that roughly twelve spells can be played for 0 on a combo turn is extremely relevant (and makes Repeal the secret all star, also capable of stalling/defending on the early turns). Alternatively, resolving a Paradoxical Outcome after a reservoir is usually game.
You might ask, doesn't this deck just fold to aggro? That depends on which aggro. It's surprisingly resilient against Affinity, Soul Sisters, and zoo. The deck finds Ensnaring Bridge consistently off of its dig spells, and stalls with 3 copies each of Porphyry Nodes and Engineered Explosives. Elves can be hard sometimes, as they can overwhelm Nodes and pump under a bridge. The deck struggles hardest against infect, mostly due to Inkmoth which can't be hit by Repeal or the two aforementioned removal pieces. Because many of the "storm" count spells can defend against creatures in the early game, the deck can hold the fort pretty well. Additionally, the win-con creates its own defense. It's not uncommon to get down to 4 life, and then combo back to 20, finding bridges or explosives along the way.
Playing against other combo decks is a bit of a coinflip. The deck goldfishes wins on turn 5 with some consistency. Playing against control is tedious but definitely winnable, with Academy Ruins pulling weight. Control has a lot of dead cards (creature removal) against us. Plus, there are not that many pre-board cards that deal with a 4 CMC non-creature-artifact. And post board, Stony Silence is a nuisance but not crippling. Repeal hits it on combo turns. Padeem comes out of the board here, and is amazing. Seriously a good card, especially when all Path to Exiles have been boarded out.
If anyone likes quirky decks that surprise opponents with how they function (and win), I'd suggest trying out a version of this. Any discussion/questions/criticisms welcome.
Value is good. But Dredgevine isn't supposed to be about value. It's supposed to be about V-8; 2000 pounds of nitro boosted war vegetables. The more velocity, the better.
Modern:
DredgeVine EDH:
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Anima Standard:
I like this thing you've come up with. It looks like you've spent some time testing it and I don't see too much room to try different things.
The theme seems good, and you have mainboard answers for stuff like Stony Silence which could shut you out after game 1.
EE, Nodes, and Bridge give you some survivability against aggro decks and the Death Star itself seems really good at keeping you in the game if they pressure you too much.
My question for you is; how well does the deck work when you've lost say 8-10 life and now you have to make 40+ life to activate the D.Star? Without Paradoxical Outcome it seems like quite a stretch.
The Cheerios deck uses Retract to build up a big storm count. Obviously it's not as good as Outcome because it doesn't net you a bunch of cards. Might be something to look at though with all those artifacts?
I remember the earlier build of this. Glad you put in an Inventors' Fair.
I'm trying a list similar to yours on Cockatrice, and I've found out some things:
I'm torn on whether the white splash for Porphyry Nodes is the best direction to take this deck. On the one hand, it's awesome against Bogles and good against aggro in general. On the other hand, Burn doesn't care that much, neither does Affinity or Dredge, and the white splash warps card choices.
With the white splash, I hate the mana base more and I miss cards like Glint-Nest Crane (good at finding artifacts, survives surprisingly often so I can bounce it during the combo turn) and Spreading Seas (I've generally found that I valued the mana disruption more than Abundant Growth's colour fixing in the UG build). Porphyry Nodes also argues with maindeck Spellskite in my current build.
Regardless of how many colours are in this deck, Pentad Prism has been great for mana ramp, accelerating my combo turn significantly and being easy enough to cast during the combo turn.
Paradoxical Outcome tends to argue enough with Ensnaring Bridge that the turn I draw the Outcome, I need to combo off. At least it's actually fairly good if I cast it in response to Thoughtseize or removal on Bridge.
I found that Merchant Scroll was the best fifth Outcome because it could also get Repeal.
I've found that this deck is probably too slow against Burn. I've comboed off through Eidolon of the Great Revel several times with enough life to absorb 2 Bolts post-combo, but Skullcrack effects can buy crucial turns (luring them by slow-rolling cheap artifacts may not be fast enough) and chaining 4-drops against Burn tends to be too slow (ramp not cantripping into the combo doesn't help).
At least this deck feels insanely powerful when it works--I had a game against UWR Midrange with Madcap Experiment into Platinum Emperion, and I managed to combo off through 2 Platinum Emperions and being unable to bounce either of them. Yes, I hit more than 150 life. Took 2 Paradoxical Outcomes, but I ground it out.
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Here's my work in progress:
4 Mox Opal
4 Everflowing Chalice
1 Mishra's Bauble
3 Engineered Explosives
3 Abundant Growth
3 Porphyry Nodes
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Aetherflux Reservoir
Instants/Sorceries: 15
4 Serum Visions
4 Ancient Stirrings
1 Sleight of Hand
4 Repeal
3 Paradoxical Outcome
4 Aether Hub
4 Botanical Sanctum
1 Glimmervoid
1 Inventors' Fair
1 Academy Ruins
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Island
2 Forest
1 Torpor Orb
1 Pithing Needle
2 Padeem, Consul of Innovation
2 Negate
3 Nature's Claim
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Ghostly Prison
2 Sun Droplet
1 Echoing Truth
You might ask, doesn't this deck just fold to aggro? That depends on which aggro. It's surprisingly resilient against Affinity, Soul Sisters, and zoo. The deck finds Ensnaring Bridge consistently off of its dig spells, and stalls with 3 copies each of Porphyry Nodes and Engineered Explosives. Elves can be hard sometimes, as they can overwhelm Nodes and pump under a bridge. The deck struggles hardest against infect, mostly due to Inkmoth which can't be hit by Repeal or the two aforementioned removal pieces. Because many of the "storm" count spells can defend against creatures in the early game, the deck can hold the fort pretty well. Additionally, the win-con creates its own defense. It's not uncommon to get down to 4 life, and then combo back to 20, finding bridges or explosives along the way.
Playing against other combo decks is a bit of a coinflip. The deck goldfishes wins on turn 5 with some consistency. Playing against control is tedious but definitely winnable, with Academy Ruins pulling weight. Control has a lot of dead cards (creature removal) against us. Plus, there are not that many pre-board cards that deal with a 4 CMC non-creature-artifact. And post board, Stony Silence is a nuisance but not crippling. Repeal hits it on combo turns. Padeem comes out of the board here, and is amazing. Seriously a good card, especially when all Path to Exiles have been boarded out.
If anyone likes quirky decks that surprise opponents with how they function (and win), I'd suggest trying out a version of this. Any discussion/questions/criticisms welcome.
Modern:
DredgeVine
EDH:
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Anima
Standard:
The theme seems good, and you have mainboard answers for stuff like Stony Silence which could shut you out after game 1.
EE, Nodes, and Bridge give you some survivability against aggro decks and the Death Star itself seems really good at keeping you in the game if they pressure you too much.
My question for you is; how well does the deck work when you've lost say 8-10 life and now you have to make 40+ life to activate the D.Star? Without Paradoxical Outcome it seems like quite a stretch.
The Cheerios deck uses Retract to build up a big storm count. Obviously it's not as good as Outcome because it doesn't net you a bunch of cards. Might be something to look at though with all those artifacts?
I'm trying a list similar to yours on Cockatrice, and I've found out some things:
I'm torn on whether the white splash for Porphyry Nodes is the best direction to take this deck. On the one hand, it's awesome against Bogles and good against aggro in general. On the other hand, Burn doesn't care that much, neither does Affinity or Dredge, and the white splash warps card choices.
With the white splash, I hate the mana base more and I miss cards like Glint-Nest Crane (good at finding artifacts, survives surprisingly often so I can bounce it during the combo turn) and Spreading Seas (I've generally found that I valued the mana disruption more than Abundant Growth's colour fixing in the UG build). Porphyry Nodes also argues with maindeck Spellskite in my current build.
Regardless of how many colours are in this deck, Pentad Prism has been great for mana ramp, accelerating my combo turn significantly and being easy enough to cast during the combo turn.
Paradoxical Outcome tends to argue enough with Ensnaring Bridge that the turn I draw the Outcome, I need to combo off. At least it's actually fairly good if I cast it in response to Thoughtseize or removal on Bridge.
I found that Merchant Scroll was the best fifth Outcome because it could also get Repeal.
I've found that this deck is probably too slow against Burn. I've comboed off through Eidolon of the Great Revel several times with enough life to absorb 2 Bolts post-combo, but Skullcrack effects can buy crucial turns (luring them by slow-rolling cheap artifacts may not be fast enough) and chaining 4-drops against Burn tends to be too slow (ramp not cantripping into the combo doesn't help).
At least this deck feels insanely powerful when it works--I had a game against UWR Midrange with Madcap Experiment into Platinum Emperion, and I managed to combo off through 2 Platinum Emperions and being unable to bounce either of them. Yes, I hit more than 150 life. Took 2 Paradoxical Outcomes, but I ground it out.