It's also worth noting that my versions are usually more aggressive than INS's, and as such aren't as good as utilizing Grapeshot. It's possible that's a part of it.
Last thing: Actually, I'm starting to think Griselbrand might actually be good. If you can draw the cards on their turn, untap, and find an Inner Fire, I can't imagine you ever losing. Then again, Inner Fire is a terrible card, so perhaps I'm just crazy.
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I've always looked at that card post Seething Song ban and always thought "Yeah, they'll just put it in my graveyard and then it won't be worth it post Past in Flames..." It's certainly broken with Griselbrand, I've never thought about it... Then again, Griselbrand is pretty broken itself
The main problem I had with the reanimator plan (yesterday tried it a bit against a friend) is that, while I don't know if it's actually worth it mainboard (it certainly might be), in games 2 and 3 it suffers from the same grave hate that hoses your storm kill. It's certainly a fine option as you can rush a first Reanimator-Gifts and force them to use their hate card (Relic of Progenitus, Rakdos Charm, etc) and then you have all the cards needed for the storm kill still in your deck. Sometimes you can't wait for a counter or bounce to protect your graveyard, and wasting a Past in Flames and a bunch of rituals to lure a graveyard exile is almost as good as conceding. So, having a Plan B should be decent; after the initial thoughts of "everyone has an answer", I'm starting to also weigh the actual value of having a solid plan B that only demands 2 cards. Maybe we can even go for more traditional targets such as Iona, Shield of Emeria et al, but I feel they aren't that game ending though (in this Pro Tour there was one match where a Boggle deck ran over Iona two games in a row). Griselbrand is so broken though, he might be the best target for this deck.
Griselbrand is probably the only reason to go for the plan. Back when Song was around and you could have a certain density to your rituals, you could reanimate Griselbrand and as soon as it hit the battlefield they had to kill you immediately. You could just draw 7 cards and go off. That's why I don't like Iona or other threats-they can be removed and only give you a bit of value. Griselbrand would let you go off.
If there's a way to do that, that's a huge deal, and the version that can do that is probably the optimal version. You get to bait through removal, but even more importantly you get to provide a different angle of attack, beyond spells. That's actually a huge deal, because it can force your opponent to leave in a bunch of Paths and other removal spells that are dead to everything else. Or, they side out their removal and get killed by Griselbrand.
Also, for post-board games against graveyard hate, you can side out the Griselbrand Rites package for something less vulnerable (I believe we used to use Splinter Twin and occasionally Hive Mind). I've even thought about running a transformative sideboard and just replacing the storm cards with a bunch of Restos, Cliques, extra Snapcasters, and just turning into a UWR Gifts deck, maybe with the ability to set up the twin combo with it.
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Before the Song banning, I was always a fan of the Meloku-->make a bunch of dudes and keep replaying Halimar Depths to Top each turn. That's pretty good at beating Vendilion Clique+Relic of Progenitus.sideboard plan. I know that it's a lot worse in this metagame than it was then, but it could be a different bomb, too--there's nothing wrong with dumping a storage land into an Aetherling. Not much kills that guy, and you don't have to use your yard at all. Any bomb that's kinda hard to kill (at least, in the metagame) and plays offense as well as defense is a good sideboard man-plan.
I just think if we're going to spend 4+ mana on a threat in the mainphase, we might as well get our money's worth and not get shafted by grave hate. Why not hardcast something? People board in grave hate and anti-storm cards against us, right? What we should be boarding are creatures that don't die to just 1 removal spell (so the little removal they leave in won't just headshot it; people just don't take out paths anymore), or artifacts/planeswalkers(?!), which are totally not on the radar for what their board plan will entail. Nobody sees Past in Flames and thinks "I need more Ancient Grudge." They might think about Pyromancer Ascension and Empty the Warrens, but not Vedalken Shackles or Tamiyo.
It's also worth noting that my versions are usually more aggressive than INS's, and as such aren't as good as utilizing Grapeshot. It's possible that's a part of it.
Last thing: Actually, I'm starting to think Griselbrand might actually be good. If you can draw the cards on their turn, untap, and find an Inner Fire, I can't imagine you ever losing. Then again, Inner Fire is a terrible card, so perhaps I'm just crazy.
Yeah, this is definitely true--I build more conservative control-combo decks and you build more aggressive Merchant Scroll decks.
That's exactly it. For me, it's a stylistic thing: I tend to play fast and close to the chest, and leverage small advantages into early wins, before the other side can react. My scroll builds are a lot better at that style of play. Your lists are probably closer to optimal, of course, since they generally have a higher average card quality than mine, but matching your decision trees is almost as important here.
I think either Aetherling or Inferno Titan would do well as a secondary win condition. I've always liked the Titan, since it gives you the ability to turn rituals+past in flamss into just a bunch more damage. Aetherling is harder to kill though, so maybe that swings it toward Aetherling.
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I agree with Luesto about Rewind over Plasm Capture. I think that, even if your manabase supports Capture just fine, Rewind is always going to produce 4 mana so you can cast a Gifts right there and then--Capture won't do that most of the time, as most of the cards in this format are cheaper than 4 mana.
I think the important difference is if we're going to use rewind we want to have a lot of instants to take advantage of the untapped lands since when we cast it on the enemy's turn the benefit could be wasted. Plasm Capture allows for more sorcery spells and seems more conducive to a deck filled with mana dumps. Just my 2 cents.
I've noticed you can actually loop the deck pretty well. Flame jab --> rewind (from volute) --> volute on gifts --> life from the loam --> gifts (from volute) for gifts and rewind. Repeat. You net 1 mana and 4 storm per loop, which is pretty damn good.
What about using Raven's Crime in the combo turn, targetting yourself to pitch a Rewind or Gifts? Red isn't really a necessary color for any part of the combo except Flame Jab and Grapeshot; Manamorphose is also a green card, and going BUG opens up a lot of doors. Thoughts?
I was talking about BUG. Could just use use a grapeshot and manamorphose/channel maybe.
I couldn't really type more earlier because this forum seems to really lag up Chrome on my iphone. I was thinking about going to a BUG route and just having a couple fetch-able red shocks, maybe a Fungal Reaches and/or Molten Slagheap, and then a small number of Manamorphose/Channel the Suns to cast Grapeshot. The idea would be to play a grindy control deck complete with Raven's Crime+Life from the Loam, but then also be able to use Spellweaver Volute as a Yawgmoth's Will to close out a game in one turn.
Just a random thought: something I like within BUG colors is Treasured Find, which is a straight Regrowth effect.
I really like the idea of a control deck with a combo finish. I'm thinking the deck might end up splitting in those that go more control (essentially like your list was) and those that only go for the combo (closer to Eco's old list). There even might be s color split. The addition of black gives more value to Teachings if it would fir it, but you could already get that with the Volute.
Explosives/Ruins suffers from the fact that there are no other artifacts to recur, making Ruins a pretty awkward draw any time you aren't recurring things.
The best grindy land in this case is probably Desolate Lighthouse, which lets you ditch bad singletons, stock up your graveyard for a huge past in flames, and draw your way into more answers and engine pieces, most importantly the aforementioned Past in Flames.
I'm currently trying out a URw Griselbrand again, this time with more midrangey plays and multiple Goblin Electromancers. The fact that you have so many gamebreaking creatures make correct sideboarding almost impossible for your opponent, and it lets you play fewer dead rituals and more Manamorphoses.
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Academy Ruins might primarily (or singularly) recur Engineered Explosives in the main, but post-board there are a lot of specific options which are well-worth consideration. Think about Tormod's Crypt/Nihil Spellbomb. Think about Spellskite. Damping Matrix. Shackles. Wurmcoil Engine. Batterskull. Sure, I wouldn't maindeck almost any of those here, but I'd board a Wurmcoil against Rock decks in a heartbeat, and I'd board Damping Matrix against Pod or Twin.
If you're not playing Loam already, sure--I wouldn't play Ruins. But if you're on the Loam plan and there's also retrace cards, I think Ruins is highly likely worth a slot. In a more aggressive/tempo-based combo build than what I usually go for, you're probably not going for Loam anyways, so it's different.
Time to bust out the Academy Ruins + Etched Oracle tech?
In all seriousness, I don't think any of those artifacts you've listed are good reasons to run ruins. Yeah, you can recur them, but it's very slow at it and doesn't give them any value beyond reusing them. It's nice with explosives though, and could well be worth running alongside 2-3 explosives and LftL.
BUG allows nice proactive disruption in the form of discard, and just LftL + Raven's Crime is a great way to beat control decks. I almost feel like going BUG would make the deck look like standard 3/4c gifts, but our gifts can just poop out a win rather than having to grind them down.
kidbait, how do you like Aetherize? It is the only card in your 60 I do not like. I'm assuming Evacuation is just to slow, but it just seems like something has to be better than Aetherize. Such as a second Anger of the Gods or a Repeal.
Time to bust out the Academy Ruins + Etched Oracle tech?
I know you're joking, but that was once some really sweet tech for a really well-metagamed gifts deck. I have honestly thought about Etched Oracle lately, too. It's pretty superfluous here and now though, I think--there are already enough ways to grind out card draw with Loam and Volute and a couple Teachings.
In all seriousness, I don't think any of those artifacts you've listed are good reasons to run ruins. Yeah, you can recur them, but it's very slow at it and doesn't give them any value beyond reusing them. It's nice with explosives though, and could well be worth running alongside 2-3 explosives and LftL.
That's kind of what I mean. Just play EE in the main, board maybe a couple more artifacts, and then those artifacts can threaten softlocks in the long run (but form parts of simple "solution" gifts piles earlier). I wouldn't put 15 artifacts in the board, but I could see a lot of mileage from just having a Nihil Spellbomb, a Spellskite, and a Shackles. We're just talking about justifying 1 land slot in the maindeck, which is almost worthwhile with just EE in the deck--so giving it a little nudge with a couple sideboard tools.
BUG allows nice proactive disruption in the form of discard, and just LftL + Raven's Crime is a great way to beat control decks. I almost feel like going BUG would make the deck look like standard 3/4c gifts, but our gifts can just poop out a win rather than having to grind them down.
Sure! And it's not like Volute can't grind either--you can target stuff in your opponent's yard, too. Ever Helix a Nacatl from Zoo's yard? It's also nice to think about having a deck that represents combo, control, and grindy midrange all in one 75.
In theory. I'm a little preoccupied with Pauper lately, so I've been a bit lazy with Modern testing this past week.
kidbait, how do you like Aetherize? It is the only card in your 60 I do not like. I'm assuming Evacuation is just to slow, but it just seems like something has to be better than Aetherize. Such as a second Anger of the Gods or a Repeal.
Actually, of all of my bullets to get with Merchant Scroll, it's been my favorite. Evacuation is too slow, but this is basically evacuation. Take a zoo matchup for example. If they decide to attack with everything and you have it in hand, it's a total blowout. You generally gain at least two turns against (in this situation), which can generally be enough for the deck to take over and combo out, or draw more answer spells. If it comes out off of a merchant scroll, they can only attack with so few creatures that they know they can replay the next turn, which is good by itself, especially since zoo sometimes operates off of 2-3 lands (depends on the version).
The situations where I consider boarding it out are against decks which generally don't like to attack to win (obviously) at which point it probably gets boarded out for specific hate or something like that.
"I feel quite safe in saying that this is the strongest deck I've ever played in Modern. Using this deck, it actually feels as if you're playing a different format, like a slower Vintage. And your opponents didn't get the memo and brought their standard decks to the match. Make no mistake, the limits on this deck are no longer the card quality or playability: now, it's about whether or not people decide to try it."
this thread is the funniest on MTGS
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Amusing as that may be today, that was a very different format. I won't stand by that now, but there was absolutely a window, between the printing of Avacyn Restored and Return to Ravnica, where this deck was just unstoppable. My team stayed on it the entirety of that time, and over the course of several tournaments with it the four copies of the deck we scraped up paid for themselves several times over. You had enough of a control suite to play poor man's UWR if you had to, control the game with the best of them, while also throwing out a Griselbrand and winning the game even if they dealt with it immediately. Or just go off with a huge Past in Flames. Deathrite Shaman, followed by the banning of Seething Song and the printing of Scavenging Ooze, changed all of that. But for those few months, Ritual gifts was absolutely insane. Your opponents could never tap out for fear of Griselbrand or just going off. You could easily play through massive amounts of storm hate. You could present up to four different angles of attack (Gifts Ungiven+Past in Flames, Gifts Ungiven out a Griselbrand, Gifts Ungiven to set up a twin kill, Mystical Teachings for Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir and either Meloku the Clouded Mirror or Inferno Titan), making sideboarding basically impossible even if your opponent knew all the cards in your list. You had basically no bad match ups, since fast aggro at the time largely couldn't deal with a Griselbrand and control matchups couldn't afford to play draw-go or you would win, which meant they had to tap out, so you would win. Fast combo was hosed by countermagic and wasn't particularly good at the time either, and those that were had to deal with very specific, powerful, targeted hate that other decks couldn't afford to play, but Ritual gifts could just slip a singleton into the sideboard and consistently have it by turn 3 the majority of games in the match.
Setting aside the past for a moment, does anyone have some matchup information on the BUG Volute lists people are talking about? I haven't tried these out, but I'll add them to the primer if someone can give me a good list and demonstrate some results.
Also, in other news, URw is proving surprisingly good. I've wound up cutting down on rituals, leaving it mostly up to Goblin Electromancers, Manamorphoses, and a couple dedicated rituals to go off, with more control elements. The plan is basically: play a poor man's UWR control for a bit, while using free cycling on Manamorphose, eventually Gifts up a big Past in Flames or Griselbrand, which leads into a huge Past in Flames. I'm also really liking Aetherize, and it's helping a lot to keep the aggro decks in check.
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How much mana is needed for the volute win? I'm having issues comboing but I feel like I'm going off too early. I'm still stuck with old habits of t4 gifts t5 win. I'm thinking you need 6 lands (so t5 gifts t6 win) to go off cleanly. To those who have been doing it, how much mana have you been using, and did your hands have anything key? ( for example with the original build you needed a ritual in hand for t5 kill or wait till you had 6 mana for the win regardless of the gifts pile. You could win t5 without a rit, but your opponent had to split the pile incorrectly)
If Past in Flames was put in your graveyard on the first Gifts pile, you'll need the second one on the second pile. If you were able to save your hand's Manamorphose's flashback until then, just replace the second one on the second Gifts pile with another Past in Flames. The same if you already have a Remand in your yard or hand, or drew into Grapeshot or Noxious Revival.
Lueseto, thats with the old Ritual gifts way. That I'm familiar with. It just requires more in hand mana than when Seething Song was legal. I was asking about the Spellweaver Volute Rewind, Flame Jab deck. Either I'm gifting wrong, or just doing things suboptimally, or as I suspect, going off too early
Oh, I thought you were interested in both... I haven't played with Spellweaver's Volute so I can't help you... I still can't understand how you guys can get it online reliably soon enough though, could someone explain? Gifting to get it and then have to Gifts another time feels somewhat slow, but maybe the engine itself is strong enough that it deserves it. After all it only costs 1 more than PiF so it could be reasonable.
Ok, it seems as though some people are still having difficulty understanding the general process that the spellweaver gifts list takes on. I will do my best to explain it thoroughly and optimally here. For reference, here is my current list:
The core engine of the deck is Flame Jab, Rewind on a Volute, And Gifts Ungiven to add rewind and gifts to the graveyard to add storm count. It is worth noting that storm count is increased by volute, because storm counts spells played, and volute plays spells.
The general concept of the deck is as follows:
Early Game - Don't die. It sounds simple, but it's actually very important. The deck is better against the slower, grindier decks of the format, but the fast aggro matchups can get difficult. It's the reason I include 3 maindeck red sweepers as well as aetherize. You do this through remand, rewind, and sweepers. Additionally, any cantrips can be cast during this to try and dig for more control elements and combo pieces.
Middle Game - The midgame for this deck is generally pretty short. I consider this to be the turns where you are giftsing for combo pieces and setting up your graveyard. General gifts piles in this sitation are: (Spellweaver Volute, Snapcaster Mage, Noxious Revival, Manamorphose), (Life from the Loam, Flame Jab, Land, Land), or some combination of the two, perhaps throwing in faithless looting and rewind in order to net mana during the combo turn.
Late Game - This is the combo turn. Against decks not packing maindeck removal for volute or the graveyard, I prefer to try and land a volute on turn 5 and untap on turn 6 and combo here. It is however possible to combo on turn 6 tapping 5 lands for volute and holding flame jab mana up with land in hand and volute on rewind.
The combo generally works like this. Volute is sitting on a rewind, and you have a flame jab in the graveyard as well as a land in hand to cast it. A life from the loam should also be in your hand (dredged this turn) You start by casting flame jab, triggering volute. The rewind will go on the stack targetting flame jab, and you should be able to untap 4 lands using the rewind. Volute should then go on a gifts in the graveyard. Casting life from the loam will net you a free gifts, which should search for another gifts ungiven and a rewind, and the volute should land itself on the rewind, and then you can return 3 lands from life from the loam. Repeatedly casting flame jab allows you to loop this process easily, netting mana and storm for each time passed through a rewind and a gifts. However, the last gifts should fetch (Mystic Retrieval, Manamorphose, Grapeshot, and Remand), landing volute on either Remand or Manamorphose. A mystic retrieval can trigger volute on manamorphose, netting mana, or nothing if the volute was on remand. Get back grapeshot, and cast it triggering volute on remand, remand targetting the grapeshot, and recast for lots of damage.
It's a long combo, and I'm still working on the win condition pile, because I think there are ways to screw it out of the game, depending on the ruling of volute. Basically, I'm thinking that if your opponent gives you both instants, you may not be able to get volute to land on an instant before the resolution of the trigger that makes copies in the first place. I'm thinking you can put manamorphose on the stack, because it can resolve before the trigger resolves, but remand is a different situation. It'll just take some work I think.
Sorry if I didn't make it particularly clear about how the combo works, but it's very difficult to explain without showing somebody in the first place.
Thank you for explaining that--I started to, and I just didn't have the patience to write it all out.
A couple notes: The endgame pile should always be safe if you have a cantrip and you have any kind of instant recursion spell to put under the Volute. So if you have a Noxious or a Reclaim, that's going to get your Grapeshot back regardless. How? Well, we assume you Gifts for Shot and some other stuff, right? So your Shot goes to the yard obviously, since your opp doesn't want to die. Then if your Reclaim/Noxious is in hand, you just hardcast it and then cantrip into Grapeshot; that's game. If your Reclaim/Noxious is in the yard, you use Volute to cast it from your yard, placing Shot on top of your deck, which you then cantrip into.
You can do all of this from your yard if you dredge it in there with Loam or something. You use Loam/Jab as enablers, then put Volute on Noxious and Noxious Shot back, then put Volute on Manamorphose. Reclaiming Jab on Manamorphose will not only cycle you into Grapeshot; if you're out of mana, it will give you exactly 2 mana to cast Grapeshot. You really don't need Retrieval for the Volute combo at all; all you really need is to have Loam/Jab and some business in your graveyard, and to have a land and Volute in hand. Everything else you can do from your yard via dredge and retrace mechanics-->tutoring.
And like Kidbails already said: Volute actually casts the copies of these spells, so every time you play a sorcery and cheat an instant onto the stack with Volute, that's +2 storm instead of just +1. If you have 2 Volutes running (which is a giant pain to maintain, but occasionally it might happen), each sorcery could potentially be +3 storm instead. So when you combo off with Volute, a typical chain is going to do 20 damage very easily without really needing to work hard to get critical mass of storm. And factor in that, if you're using Flame Jab (as opposed to Raven's Crime), you can nick away a couple points to make it easier to kill with Grapeshot.
Once you figure out what Volute actually does, everything is downhill from there. It's a very unique engine and we're talking about Gifts piles on top of that, so it's not really intuitive; however, once you get the hang of it, Volute combo is fairly linear. Since you're just chaining rituals and tutors, it all comes down to understanding how to build infallible Gifts piles where you get what you need and keep going. Almost all of that is just making sure you keep getting a Gifts and mana production as you chain through your deck.
It's also worth noting that my versions are usually more aggressive than INS's, and as such aren't as good as utilizing Grapeshot. It's possible that's a part of it.
Last thing: Actually, I'm starting to think Griselbrand might actually be good. If you can draw the cards on their turn, untap, and find an Inner Fire, I can't imagine you ever losing. Then again, Inner Fire is a terrible card, so perhaps I'm just crazy.
You may also know me as the guy in the art of Dark Confidant. No, not Bob Maher, the OTHER one.
The main problem I had with the reanimator plan (yesterday tried it a bit against a friend) is that, while I don't know if it's actually worth it mainboard (it certainly might be), in games 2 and 3 it suffers from the same grave hate that hoses your storm kill. It's certainly a fine option as you can rush a first Reanimator-Gifts and force them to use their hate card (Relic of Progenitus, Rakdos Charm, etc) and then you have all the cards needed for the storm kill still in your deck. Sometimes you can't wait for a counter or bounce to protect your graveyard, and wasting a Past in Flames and a bunch of rituals to lure a graveyard exile is almost as good as conceding. So, having a Plan B should be decent; after the initial thoughts of "everyone has an answer", I'm starting to also weigh the actual value of having a solid plan B that only demands 2 cards. Maybe we can even go for more traditional targets such as Iona, Shield of Emeria et al, but I feel they aren't that game ending though (in this Pro Tour there was one match where a Boggle deck ran over Iona two games in a row). Griselbrand is so broken though, he might be the best target for this deck.
If there's a way to do that, that's a huge deal, and the version that can do that is probably the optimal version. You get to bait through removal, but even more importantly you get to provide a different angle of attack, beyond spells. That's actually a huge deal, because it can force your opponent to leave in a bunch of Paths and other removal spells that are dead to everything else. Or, they side out their removal and get killed by Griselbrand.
Also, for post-board games against graveyard hate, you can side out the Griselbrand Rites package for something less vulnerable (I believe we used to use Splinter Twin and occasionally Hive Mind). I've even thought about running a transformative sideboard and just replacing the storm cards with a bunch of Restos, Cliques, extra Snapcasters, and just turning into a UWR Gifts deck, maybe with the ability to set up the twin combo with it.
You may also know me as the guy in the art of Dark Confidant. No, not Bob Maher, the OTHER one.
I just think if we're going to spend 4+ mana on a threat in the mainphase, we might as well get our money's worth and not get shafted by grave hate. Why not hardcast something? People board in grave hate and anti-storm cards against us, right? What we should be boarding are creatures that don't die to just 1 removal spell (so the little removal they leave in won't just headshot it; people just don't take out paths anymore), or artifacts/planeswalkers(?!), which are totally not on the radar for what their board plan will entail. Nobody sees Past in Flames and thinks "I need more Ancient Grudge." They might think about Pyromancer Ascension and Empty the Warrens, but not Vedalken Shackles or Tamiyo.
Yeah, this is definitely true--I build more conservative control-combo decks and you build more aggressive Merchant Scroll decks.
I concur Inner Fire is a terrible card.
I think either Aetherling or Inferno Titan would do well as a secondary win condition. I've always liked the Titan, since it gives you the ability to turn rituals+past in flamss into just a bunch more damage. Aetherling is harder to kill though, so maybe that swings it toward Aetherling.
You may also know me as the guy in the art of Dark Confidant. No, not Bob Maher, the OTHER one.
I think the important difference is if we're going to use rewind we want to have a lot of instants to take advantage of the untapped lands since when we cast it on the enemy's turn the benefit could be wasted. Plasm Capture allows for more sorcery spells and seems more conducive to a deck filled with mana dumps. Just my 2 cents.
4 Gifts Ungiven
4 Rewind
4 Remand
2 Manamorphose
2 Merchant Scroll
2 Mystic Retrieval
1 Noxious Revival
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Aetherize
1 Echoing Truth
1 Gigadrowse
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Slagstorm
1 Firespout
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Grapeshot
1 Life from the Loam
1 Flame Jab
3 Halimar Depths
2 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Mountain
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Mountain
4 Steam Vents
2 Sulfur Falls
I've noticed you can actually loop the deck pretty well. Flame jab --> rewind (from volute) --> volute on gifts --> life from the loam --> gifts (from volute) for gifts and rewind. Repeat. You net 1 mana and 4 storm per loop, which is pretty damn good.
UGR Ritual Gifts
Legacy Decks
UBRG Storm Decks
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The Storm Boards
I couldn't really type more earlier because this forum seems to really lag up Chrome on my iphone. I was thinking about going to a BUG route and just having a couple fetch-able red shocks, maybe a Fungal Reaches and/or Molten Slagheap, and then a small number of Manamorphose/Channel the Suns to cast Grapeshot. The idea would be to play a grindy control deck complete with Raven's Crime+Life from the Loam, but then also be able to use Spellweaver Volute as a Yawgmoth's Will to close out a game in one turn.
Just a random thought: something I like within BUG colors is Treasured Find, which is a straight Regrowth effect.
Gifts and Blue and that many colors make me want to run Engineered Explosives/Academy ruins. Not sure it's it's worth taking a look at.
The best grindy land in this case is probably Desolate Lighthouse, which lets you ditch bad singletons, stock up your graveyard for a huge past in flames, and draw your way into more answers and engine pieces, most importantly the aforementioned Past in Flames.
I'm currently trying out a URw Griselbrand again, this time with more midrangey plays and multiple Goblin Electromancers. The fact that you have so many gamebreaking creatures make correct sideboarding almost impossible for your opponent, and it lets you play fewer dead rituals and more Manamorphoses.
You may also know me as the guy in the art of Dark Confidant. No, not Bob Maher, the OTHER one.
If you're not playing Loam already, sure--I wouldn't play Ruins. But if you're on the Loam plan and there's also retrace cards, I think Ruins is highly likely worth a slot. In a more aggressive/tempo-based combo build than what I usually go for, you're probably not going for Loam anyways, so it's different.
In all seriousness, I don't think any of those artifacts you've listed are good reasons to run ruins. Yeah, you can recur them, but it's very slow at it and doesn't give them any value beyond reusing them. It's nice with explosives though, and could well be worth running alongside 2-3 explosives and LftL.
BUG allows nice proactive disruption in the form of discard, and just LftL + Raven's Crime is a great way to beat control decks. I almost feel like going BUG would make the deck look like standard 3/4c gifts, but our gifts can just poop out a win rather than having to grind them down.
MOD::symw::symu::symb: Gifts
LEG::symg::symb: Infect
I know you're joking, but that was once some really sweet tech for a really well-metagamed gifts deck. I have honestly thought about Etched Oracle lately, too. It's pretty superfluous here and now though, I think--there are already enough ways to grind out card draw with Loam and Volute and a couple Teachings.
That's kind of what I mean. Just play EE in the main, board maybe a couple more artifacts, and then those artifacts can threaten softlocks in the long run (but form parts of simple "solution" gifts piles earlier). I wouldn't put 15 artifacts in the board, but I could see a lot of mileage from just having a Nihil Spellbomb, a Spellskite, and a Shackles. We're just talking about justifying 1 land slot in the maindeck, which is almost worthwhile with just EE in the deck--so giving it a little nudge with a couple sideboard tools.
Sure! And it's not like Volute can't grind either--you can target stuff in your opponent's yard, too. Ever Helix a Nacatl from Zoo's yard? It's also nice to think about having a deck that represents combo, control, and grindy midrange all in one 75.
In theory. I'm a little preoccupied with Pauper lately, so I've been a bit lazy with Modern testing this past week.
Actually, of all of my bullets to get with Merchant Scroll, it's been my favorite. Evacuation is too slow, but this is basically evacuation. Take a zoo matchup for example. If they decide to attack with everything and you have it in hand, it's a total blowout. You generally gain at least two turns against (in this situation), which can generally be enough for the deck to take over and combo out, or draw more answer spells. If it comes out off of a merchant scroll, they can only attack with so few creatures that they know they can replay the next turn, which is good by itself, especially since zoo sometimes operates off of 2-3 lands (depends on the version).
The situations where I consider boarding it out are against decks which generally don't like to attack to win (obviously) at which point it probably gets boarded out for specific hate or something like that.
UGR Ritual Gifts
Legacy Decks
UBRG Storm Decks
---------------------------------------------------
The Storm Boards
this thread is the funniest on MTGS
Setting aside the past for a moment, does anyone have some matchup information on the BUG Volute lists people are talking about? I haven't tried these out, but I'll add them to the primer if someone can give me a good list and demonstrate some results.
Also, in other news, URw is proving surprisingly good. I've wound up cutting down on rituals, leaving it mostly up to Goblin Electromancers, Manamorphoses, and a couple dedicated rituals to go off, with more control elements. The plan is basically: play a poor man's UWR control for a bit, while using free cycling on Manamorphose, eventually Gifts up a big Past in Flames or Griselbrand, which leads into a huge Past in Flames. I'm also really liking Aetherize, and it's helping a lot to keep the aggro decks in check.
You may also know me as the guy in the art of Dark Confidant. No, not Bob Maher, the OTHER one.
MOD::symw::symu::symb: Gifts
LEG::symg::symb: Infect
If Past in Flames was put in your graveyard on the first Gifts pile, you'll need the second one on the second pile. If you were able to save your hand's Manamorphose's flashback until then, just replace the second one on the second Gifts pile with another Past in Flames. The same if you already have a Remand in your yard or hand, or drew into Grapeshot or Noxious Revival.
MOD::symw::symu::symb: Gifts
LEG::symg::symb: Infect
4 Gifts Ungiven
3 Spellweaver Volute
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Noxious Revival
4 Steam Vents
4 Remand
1 Grapeshot
2 Manamorphose
1 Life from the Loam
1 Flame Jab
2 Breeding Pool
3 Merchant Scroll
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Sulfur Falls
2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Mystic Retrieval
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 AEtherize
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Firespout
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Slagstorm
1 Snow-Covered Mountain
1 Gitaxian Probe
3 Halimar Depths
1 Echoing Truth
3 Serum Visions
1 Faithless Looting
The core engine of the deck is Flame Jab, Rewind on a Volute, And Gifts Ungiven to add rewind and gifts to the graveyard to add storm count. It is worth noting that storm count is increased by volute, because storm counts spells played, and volute plays spells.
The general concept of the deck is as follows:
The combo generally works like this. Volute is sitting on a rewind, and you have a flame jab in the graveyard as well as a land in hand to cast it. A life from the loam should also be in your hand (dredged this turn) You start by casting flame jab, triggering volute. The rewind will go on the stack targetting flame jab, and you should be able to untap 4 lands using the rewind. Volute should then go on a gifts in the graveyard. Casting life from the loam will net you a free gifts, which should search for another gifts ungiven and a rewind, and the volute should land itself on the rewind, and then you can return 3 lands from life from the loam. Repeatedly casting flame jab allows you to loop this process easily, netting mana and storm for each time passed through a rewind and a gifts. However, the last gifts should fetch (Mystic Retrieval, Manamorphose, Grapeshot, and Remand), landing volute on either Remand or Manamorphose. A mystic retrieval can trigger volute on manamorphose, netting mana, or nothing if the volute was on remand. Get back grapeshot, and cast it triggering volute on remand, remand targetting the grapeshot, and recast for lots of damage.
It's a long combo, and I'm still working on the win condition pile, because I think there are ways to screw it out of the game, depending on the ruling of volute. Basically, I'm thinking that if your opponent gives you both instants, you may not be able to get volute to land on an instant before the resolution of the trigger that makes copies in the first place. I'm thinking you can put manamorphose on the stack, because it can resolve before the trigger resolves, but remand is a different situation. It'll just take some work I think.
Sorry if I didn't make it particularly clear about how the combo works, but it's very difficult to explain without showing somebody in the first place.
UGR Ritual Gifts
Legacy Decks
UBRG Storm Decks
---------------------------------------------------
The Storm Boards
A couple notes: The endgame pile should always be safe if you have a cantrip and you have any kind of instant recursion spell to put under the Volute. So if you have a Noxious or a Reclaim, that's going to get your Grapeshot back regardless. How? Well, we assume you Gifts for Shot and some other stuff, right? So your Shot goes to the yard obviously, since your opp doesn't want to die. Then if your Reclaim/Noxious is in hand, you just hardcast it and then cantrip into Grapeshot; that's game. If your Reclaim/Noxious is in the yard, you use Volute to cast it from your yard, placing Shot on top of your deck, which you then cantrip into.
You can do all of this from your yard if you dredge it in there with Loam or something. You use Loam/Jab as enablers, then put Volute on Noxious and Noxious Shot back, then put Volute on Manamorphose. Reclaiming Jab on Manamorphose will not only cycle you into Grapeshot; if you're out of mana, it will give you exactly 2 mana to cast Grapeshot. You really don't need Retrieval for the Volute combo at all; all you really need is to have Loam/Jab and some business in your graveyard, and to have a land and Volute in hand. Everything else you can do from your yard via dredge and retrace mechanics-->tutoring.
And like Kidbails already said: Volute actually casts the copies of these spells, so every time you play a sorcery and cheat an instant onto the stack with Volute, that's +2 storm instead of just +1. If you have 2 Volutes running (which is a giant pain to maintain, but occasionally it might happen), each sorcery could potentially be +3 storm instead. So when you combo off with Volute, a typical chain is going to do 20 damage very easily without really needing to work hard to get critical mass of storm. And factor in that, if you're using Flame Jab (as opposed to Raven's Crime), you can nick away a couple points to make it easier to kill with Grapeshot.
Once you figure out what Volute actually does, everything is downhill from there. It's a very unique engine and we're talking about Gifts piles on top of that, so it's not really intuitive; however, once you get the hang of it, Volute combo is fairly linear. Since you're just chaining rituals and tutors, it all comes down to understanding how to build infallible Gifts piles where you get what you need and keep going. Almost all of that is just making sure you keep getting a Gifts and mana production as you chain through your deck.