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Out of the blackness and stench of the engulfing swamp emerged a shimmering figure. Only the splattered armor and ichor-stained sword hinted at the unfathomable evil the knight had just laid waste.
That's cool. Don't really see the point of it, as pyrite spellbomb and Banefire should be enough, and if not, using disciple or maniac or grapeshot would be a better way to vary the kill mechanism.
Moonglove Extract was added as I thought to myself "what do I do if my opponent plays Surgical Extraction on my Pyrite Spellbomb" it also gets passed Trinisphere which is a card I predict would cause us issues.
...but you still have banefire for that. Moonglove is just too cute. And getting passed trinisphere is a matter of affording it or bouncing it. Moonglove's just already paying extra to avoid the extra charge. Makes no sense. And no one plays trinisphere because it doesn't do anything to any tier 1 decks except storm, and not for long either. You see, 3spheres needs LD and other taxing effects to make it an actual showstopper, and modern doesn't really have a prison deck. The closest thing would be death and taxes, and they are more than happy to not run it. The same can be said of chalice of the void, and that actually hits us harder than 3spheres.
Hey everyone. I was looking for a Modern deck I could pick up on the cheap that wouldn't get boring to play and I came across this. I bought the pieces for the KCI version, and here's what I plan to run in an upcoming Modern tournament:
My observations. (Feel free to correct any of them, I don't really know a whole lot about the Modern metagame, and especially the local Modern metagame since it's not a popular format here. I've tested this deck a fair bit solo to get a feel for it, but no proper games - though from what I understand, Eggs is a pretty uninteractive deck, so it's more important you know how to step through the combo than how to deal with what's going on on the other side of the table.)
- I liked the Mox better than a fifth fetch. I never found I really had any mana problems that a basic Plains/Forest would have fixed, and the Mox sometimes lets you go off a turn earlier.
- I want to start with two direct damage-based win conditions (Spellbomb and RSZ) main, and then board into the alternate win condition of LabMan - it gives an extra slot for sideboarding, and hopefully it dodges some of my opponent's sideboard choices for round 2.
- Banefire seems to provide worthless benefits as a kill condition. Damage prevention via Angel's Grace can be sidestepped with a Spellbomb to the face during upkeep, and when you can make 20R you tend you have enough fuel in hand to keep going even if you get stopped. There's no counterspells I saw any of the major decks running that exile apart from Mindbreak Trap, but that's a moot point since it would stop Banefire anyway. So Banefire may as well be Blaze. Or, Red Sun's Zenith, which can shuffle your library and self-recur - small benefits, but they seem like they do more than what Banefire does.
- Etherium Scuptor isn't needed in the KCI builds at all. Once you resolve a KCI, you have all the mana you ever want for anything ever, and the number of opening hands you get where you can cast a Sculptor and a ton of eggs and still reliably go off seemed rare to me. Riddlesmith does more for the deck than Sculptor does - not only do you draw a ton of cards from it and drop the chances of bricking mid-combo to practically zero, you can also pitch Citadels/Lotuses stranded in hand to increase the value of Open the Vaults.
- 3 Ironworks is the right number - you always want to see one, but you never want to see more than one. However, I was having a tough time always finding one with four Reshapes, since getting 4UU after a Sunrise can be tricky. Enter Tezzeret. He's easy to cast after the first Sunrise (Lotus + Island + Ghost Quarter), and he fills the role of both fourth Reshape and fourth KCI. In theory you could possibly get into a game state where you could ultimate and attack with a dozen 5/5s, but I can't really imagine how that happens, so whatever.
- I never enjoyed drawing into multiple Revivals when I had nothing to Revive, so the 2 became a 1/1 split with Revival and Drift of Phantasms. Drift is expensive but it shuffles the library.
- To sideboard, I'm guessing I want to put in Defense Grid against heavy permission and play around Spell Snape/Spell Pierce, Silence against tempo, a combination of Silence and Angel's Grace against storm, and Silence/Echoing Truth against aggro(?). Echoing Truth seems like a good catch-all to fight hate (Leylines and graveyard hate and Thalia and things) and also against Empty the Warrens. I plan to take out the Smiths and Spellbomb/Zenith and cut into Terrarion/Bauble numbers if I need more room. Sounds good?
The point of fetchlands in this deck is as Ghost Quarters 5+. They're used to find Islands at least 70% of the time if you splash green and 100% of the time if you don't splash. I've tended to have consistency problems in non-KCI builds without fetchlands.
My point about Banefire vs Red Sun's Zenith is that uncounterable and unpreventable are worthless attributes.
If you can generate the mana to make a lethal Fireball, you're usually left with only a couple of cards in your library, right? Which means you can use Conjurer's Bauble to put any card in your graveyard into your hand, given enough loops of SS, Lotus, and 2x Bauble. Which means the only counterspells that threaten Red Sun's Zenith are counters that exile the spell - I looked over the top decks and didn't see Dissipate at all, and Mindbreak Trap will stop Banefire just as well as RSZ. So being uncounterable doesn't actually do anything.
And what spells that prevent damage are being played in numbers? The only thing I can think of that comes close is Angel's Grace. So you burn them for 20 and they keep their life at 1, so you keep mana open for Pyrite Spellbomb and kill them before they draw a card on their turn. Unpreventable damage also doesn't actually do anything.
I realise the benefits Red Sun's Zenith brings are trivial and will not be used in most games, but they are "something" - a quantity greater than the "nothing" of Banefire.
Also, Tezzeret's quicker than Reshape when searching for KCI. If you do not have an Ironworks and you draw Tezzeret, it is more likely you will be able to cast him. If you have an Ironworks and you draw Tezzeret, then you can most certainly cast him because Ironworks is a magical fountain of endless mana. So I don't really get your point about Etherium Sculptor; he doesn't do anything mid-combo, just converts 1U to 2. The cost reduction only helps pre-KCI, and I found the hands where I was relying on Scuptor to be able to go off incredibly sketchy. The mana you "lose" on casting a Riddlesmith is more than made up for in never not being able to dig deep enough to hit the next Sunrise.
so, what do you use RSZ for again? To spend R to shuffle your deck?
I guess that's cool, it can take the place of one bauble instead of a different egg... I doubt the drawback would come up all that often, and you get extra use out of it that banefire wouldn't give you, in terms of comboability.
Banefire is great on time though, and the reality of playing this thing when you have real time limits is probably less marginal than getting a statistical +half an egg or the 9th shuffler.
Gotta admit I didn't think of the timer on MODO, since all I play is paper. Playing this deck online already seems masochistic enough, you probably wouldn't want to add hassles.
Yeah, it can shuffle the library, and also add a card if you overshoot sacrificing Wellsprings/Flasks to the point that you'd deck yourself with a SS. RSZ also put itself back for later use if you use it to kill a Thalia or something, but I'm not sure if that's good or bad. Similarly, I don't know how useful exiling a creature instead of killing it is, but RSZ does that too. Tiny things.
I was thinking Blue Sun's Zenith might be an alternative, too - can't kill creatures but has more value outside of the game-ending card. Or get super-techy and run Invoke the Firemind. I really just wanted to bring up that Banefine isn't that much better than Blaze.
If you run into it midcombo when you are forced to go off before you have your bounce, then you might be able to cast it and keep going without worrying over when she comes back like she would if you used the spellbomb. Though, I guess a more robust MainDeck answer to thalia might be in order with the current meta. That's actually a valid point.
Banefire's main draw is being able to beat the clock against delver tempo decks and other decks that try and stick efficient beaters while holding regular counterspells (people still use them, i hear). For this deck, tempo (blue or black hurt the most) is the most daunting matchup. Most times, a deck with a permission suite isn't ALSO running mindbreak trap, since they figure they got most combo beat just by having so many cards that say "no". Against them, banefire says "yes" and RSZ says " no? ok I'll come back later". Who is running mindbreak trap main? no one, really. Game 2, you usually board into your silences/defense grids for those matchups, and aim to cast it before going off (If they can stop your combo, they can stop it at a sunrise). And when you use Banefire against these decks, you just have to stick a KCI and build up your board till you can just power through a banefire without casting more than 3 spells that turn. It doesn't get negated(both kinds), outwitted, charmed, commanded, delayed, deprived, rused, flashfrozen, hindered, etc.
When you think about the benefits of RSZ, it's actually closer to aether spellbomb than pyrite in terms of the most useful attribute it has (thalia/canonist removal). I think the spellbomb is better (and cheaper), and should be MD anyway (it is in my current build).
This is actually not an easy pick, partly because of the meta-dependent nature of picking a wincon for this deck, and partly because the differences between these cards is still pretty negligible (regardless of meta). I'd say though, that if you are in a meta that sees a lot of hatebears and aggro in general, you should probably run RSZ alongside aether spellbomb MD. Interesting points all around, Seven.
I'll probably come back to this post after some sleep. It's 5am here o.O
I see you guys don't like to run Spoils of the Vault
I added one to my deck and I have to say it saved me a lot of games.
Yes, it's risky, but when your deck stalls you will wish you have one of these in your hand.
What do you think about the card?
Drift of Phantasms was my replacement for a second Noxious Revival because I got fed up with drawing into two of them and having no Second Sunrise to bring back. It's a bit clunky but overall no worse than Open the Vaults. It's a small change that I think ultimately comes down to personal preference, as is the kill condition and Tezzeret to some extent. I think the real big thing I wanted to bring up is the Riddlesmiths - they give the KCI build a greater level of consistancy. Techy plays with discarding things to be reused with Open the Vaults/Conjurer's Bauble aside, the digging power a Smith provides should beat out the cost reduction from a Sculptor.
I've never had consistency issues without riddlesmith, it's been tested before. The point of the sculptor is that it allows you to combo out earlier with egg heavy hands (same reason to include the mox). I find the deck plenty consistent already when constructed well, and riddlesmith can be cumbersome if you draw it at the wrong time since he isn't an artifact himself while sculptor still sacs to KCI. Just fyi, that paths been worn. No worries, you'll see it too after a bit more testing.
I run Laboratory Maniac in my mainboard as a meta call since I'm seeing more and more Leyline/Witchbane Orb in my area.
I decided against Open the Vaults entirely in my 75 for a few reasons. I know it is there to save the day if you fizzle out and you can make the next turn work, but I typically only fizzle when I lack a KCI on the field and if I can't afford to play a KCI, then I definitely can't afford to play Open the Vaults the next turn. This deck can't survive going into a 5th turn, so OtC is typically a dead card for me any time I draw it. I know it acts as another copy of Second Sunrise but if I'm already on the ropes mid-combo I can't afford a 6CC card usually.
I don't use Darksteel Citadel since I don't have a playset yet and I haven't tried them out yet but I'm unsure of what they bring to the table honestly. I already see Blood Moon screwing my Ghost Quarters, I don't know if I want to expose my already small mana base further.
I prefer Etherium Sculptor over Riddlesmith because the deck does enough digging as is, and Sculptor helps to ensure that I can lay a KCI down pre-combo turn and it counts as an artifact for KCI. I've playtested and ran both, and I don't like Riddlesmith as much as Sculptor in a KCI build. Personal preference?
Concerning RSZ v. Banefire, I like Banefire a lot more. Yeah, RSZ can come back if countered and it shuffles the deck but it doesn't bring a whole lot to the table that Banefire doesn't. It's a meta-call, and I see enough control in mine to warrant running Banefire over RSZ. If someone does run Mindbreak Trap, then my plan b quickly becomes using my Maniac instead.
Just a quick note: If Red Sun's Zenith is countered (by any means), it does not shuffle back. The "shuffle ~ into your library" is part of red sun's zenith's effect, so if the spell gets countered, that part does too. As such, the only benefit I can see of Red Sun's Zenith over Banefire is either using it for 0 as a free shuffler, or using it to kill a dude to you get one more turn to try and win. My pick is still banefire.
fizzel mage: I see you are running only the 4x sunrise. True, 6cc is a bit steep, but the deck DOES need more than 4 catalyst cards. This has been tested thoroughly and is a nonnegotiable design aspect of eggs. So, 2 things -
1 - OTV: Seeing an Open the Vaults in your opening grip without also a KCI makes me very nervous, and I might just ship that hand if the rest isn't godly (like double bloom + 3 eggs and 1 land). But with KCI, depending on the kind of eggs you have, you can keep it and it will work on turn 4. A lot of that has to do with say, terrarion getting you the double white after you put all your mana into casting KCI, and finding the other 4 through your other eggs (3 eggs minimum, terrarion + 2 other eggs or a darksteel citadel/mox opal). On the other hand, all you need in 3-4 eggs after an open the vaults to get your mana back up to that point, and the sunrise/revival will come to help with thinning lands OtV didn't get. Mid combo, OtV doesn't offend, because most times with KCI and enough eggs in the deck, you'll run out of eggs before you run out of mana. KCI mana is obscene when you are saccing the right things, and even eggs like sphere and bauble can be sacced to it to keep a low mana/high egg hand from fizzeling out in a subsequent loop. But, it can really be terrible for your mulligan decisions if it's in your opening grip too often, so...
2 - Drift: Drift of Phantasms is a nice in-between. It's a 6 mana investment that looks like this 2WWUU instead of 4WW. But you get to pay it in 2 sections (1UU and then 1WW). This works for the deck because of the implications it has for our "curve" (turn 3 drift, turn 4 sunrise). I don't mind seeing it in the opening grip, but I never really want to see it over OtV while comboing because of the extra color requirements which means less mana pump from KCI, more using eggs for filtering. That said, it does give you access to the better spell, since it will grab sunrise to recur your lands and letting you thin your deck more.
My personal set up is 1x drift, 1x OtV, 4x sunrise, 2x revival. With 2x wipeaway in the board (since drift grabs that, too). That said, i find 6 pre-combo and 8 post-combo catalyst cards to be the right mix for me personally.
Mshnik: With what he pointed out about it's uses, I still say it's a meta call. It's nice to have a little extra creature kill MD in a creature heavy environment, especially if that environment is heavy in hatebears that need a good kill'n. I don't personally see a lot of hatebears when I play. I see a lot of delver, twin, faeries, storm, and tron (why am i even playing this deck right now? yeesh...)
Wipeaway and angel's grace/defense grid/silence is a godsend, though. Man I wish they would reprint abeyance...
Mise Mage: I wasn't calling you out on it, but I guess if you don't trust my testing, you can mess with this and tell me off if it doesn't work for you...
The opal is a personal preference, but you could take it out for the 4th sphere or 3rd sculptor, or the 3rd flask. depending on your aims before and during the combo. If you go sculptor, change the 4th bauble for the 4th sphere anyway. And if you do that, or add the 3rd flask, you can get away with -1 plains +1 island. Don't add too much to the wellspring/elsewhere count or it might skew the numbers for those times when you combo out without the help of KCI.
The MD has been my build now since January (except for flask/wellspring numbers. I cut a flask recently, and a pyrite spellbomb). I always wonder if I'm living in magical christmas land, so go ahead and slam me on my choices, I'd love a second opinion ^u^
ah, i haven't been paying much attention to my sideboard aside from the silence/defense grid/grace, i think it was originally in there for the benefit of cheap tormod removal with the extra draw attached to make it replace itself and bounce relics for just U. Anti-grave hate. Not sure about it now, if it should be something else at this point.
And I totally flubbed on the numbers when i posted it, including letting that seep into my card explanations (lol), so I'll just amend the list I posted above to what it should be (i think i grabbed a one of the flex saves of the deck. I just have a bunch of different configurations saved as different files with like, 1 card difference and such).
to point out quickly: pyrite is out (and I remember why now) - I don't need a 2nd wincon in the main any more. It used to be a concern, but much of what would concern me at this stage should be bounced game 2, or is a deck that is not common. Like MD sanctity, it exists, but not really against who i am playing against.
flask is 2, cut from 3 (i ran 3/3 i think... I'd have to check back at the op), and i just don't need that many, nor do i want more than five 2cc eggs in the deck.
edit - NOW I remember! After looking at the op...
I decided that running the extra island (17 as opposed to 16) was necessary to make land drops.
In any case, the deck can still power through, the extra land + opal makes 18 sources, which is where I feel comfortable making 3-4 land drops in 4 turns. The reshapes because of this tend to fetch out wellsprings rather than anything else once you have kci online. Cept in some really odd situations where there's a threat of soft counters. KCI puts you out of reach usually, but don't walk into remands when you can't produce any more white o.o
I might get some Drift's then, as I think I would immensely prefer them over OTV. It might be a pain in the neck mid-combo, but I've found that once one Second Sunrise has resolved you've typically won barring any major mistake/miscalculation.
One thing that strikes me as interesting though is the lack of any real performance of this deck on MTGO dailies. I never see it as a 4-0 or a 3-1 and I'm interested on explanations of that phenomenon.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think this deck is the best out there but it ought to be a fair contender in a fight given that it typically has a turn 3-4 clock and it's rogue enough to make sure that a lot of opponents don't know what it does G1--allowing for sideboarded protection G2 and G3. I know it's a relatively budget deck with few big flashy cards (Lotus Bloom), and it is a rather complex deck but I think the lack of representation strikes me as weird. I've played a little MTGO, enough to know that this deck would be complex and time-consuming to run and fraught with risks of not hitting the right keys in the correct order but is this enough to ensure this deck's relative ignominy?
Not many people play the deck on mtgo because of just how many triggers you have to go through. Of those that do, a lot of them aren't playing very resilient or consistent builds, because there are basically a ton of articles about what it USED to look like. That's usually what people grab, and the deck in that form doesn't do well without ponder (and looking farther back, cunning wish). The only article on this deck that even had KCI was some johnny combo monstrocity that used tezz and time sieve to get infinite turns, along with a bunch of other synergistic, but ultimately win-more cards. Over on the source, I'm not sure those guys have picked up KCI either. It seems like this site is pretty much the only place where people have wised up, so the number of people sporting the non-pet version is still very slim. And what you said about its "rogue"ness is reasonable, but the truth is that if you place down citadel, and play a chromatic sphere/star, your opponent is going to know you are one of 2 decks: karn tron or this. And if that was anything but a citadel, or a sphere/star, they'd know it wasn't RG Karn Tron. Eggs is nebulous enough that a person who hasn't seen it is mostly bewildered. Those who have seen it though can immediately recognize it. It's not like you are playing ritual gifts and pretending to be UW control. We can't really do that...
If you can tolerate playing it on mtgo, try it out and get a 4-0 for us =) So far, I've only ever seen juggler hitting the dailies with this deck and getting results.
That's cool. Don't really see the point of it, as pyrite spellbomb and Banefire should be enough, and if not, using disciple or maniac or grapeshot would be a better way to vary the kill mechanism.
http://officeofstrategicinfluence.com/spam/ <---- kills spam, fyi.
...but you still have banefire for that. Moonglove is just too cute. And getting passed trinisphere is a matter of affording it or bouncing it. Moonglove's just already paying extra to avoid the extra charge. Makes no sense. And no one plays trinisphere because it doesn't do anything to any tier 1 decks except storm, and not for long either. You see, 3spheres needs LD and other taxing effects to make it an actual showstopper, and modern doesn't really have a prison deck. The closest thing would be death and taxes, and they are more than happy to not run it. The same can be said of chalice of the void, and that actually hits us harder than 3spheres.
http://officeofstrategicinfluence.com/spam/ <---- kills spam, fyi.
4 Ghost Quarter
8 Island
2 Riddlesmith
1 Drift of Phantasms
3 Lotus Bloom
1 Mox Opal
4 Conjurer's Bauble
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
3 Terrarion
1 Noxious Revival
2 Elsewhere Flask
4 Ichor Wellspring
3 Krark-Clan Ironworks
4 Second Sunrise
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
2 Open the Vaults
1 Red Sun's Zenith
3 Reshape
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Pithing Needle
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Angel's Grace
3 Silence
3 Defense Grid
4 Echoing Truth
My observations. (Feel free to correct any of them, I don't really know a whole lot about the Modern metagame, and especially the local Modern metagame since it's not a popular format here. I've tested this deck a fair bit solo to get a feel for it, but no proper games - though from what I understand, Eggs is a pretty uninteractive deck, so it's more important you know how to step through the combo than how to deal with what's going on on the other side of the table.)
- I liked the Mox better than a fifth fetch. I never found I really had any mana problems that a basic Plains/Forest would have fixed, and the Mox sometimes lets you go off a turn earlier.
- I want to start with two direct damage-based win conditions (Spellbomb and RSZ) main, and then board into the alternate win condition of LabMan - it gives an extra slot for sideboarding, and hopefully it dodges some of my opponent's sideboard choices for round 2.
- Banefire seems to provide worthless benefits as a kill condition. Damage prevention via Angel's Grace can be sidestepped with a Spellbomb to the face during upkeep, and when you can make 20R you tend you have enough fuel in hand to keep going even if you get stopped. There's no counterspells I saw any of the major decks running that exile apart from Mindbreak Trap, but that's a moot point since it would stop Banefire anyway. So Banefire may as well be Blaze. Or, Red Sun's Zenith, which can shuffle your library and self-recur - small benefits, but they seem like they do more than what Banefire does.
- Etherium Scuptor isn't needed in the KCI builds at all. Once you resolve a KCI, you have all the mana you ever want for anything ever, and the number of opening hands you get where you can cast a Sculptor and a ton of eggs and still reliably go off seemed rare to me. Riddlesmith does more for the deck than Sculptor does - not only do you draw a ton of cards from it and drop the chances of bricking mid-combo to practically zero, you can also pitch Citadels/Lotuses stranded in hand to increase the value of Open the Vaults.
- 3 Ironworks is the right number - you always want to see one, but you never want to see more than one. However, I was having a tough time always finding one with four Reshapes, since getting 4UU after a Sunrise can be tricky. Enter Tezzeret. He's easy to cast after the first Sunrise (Lotus + Island + Ghost Quarter), and he fills the role of both fourth Reshape and fourth KCI. In theory you could possibly get into a game state where you could ultimate and attack with a dozen 5/5s, but I can't really imagine how that happens, so whatever.
- I never enjoyed drawing into multiple Revivals when I had nothing to Revive, so the 2 became a 1/1 split with Revival and Drift of Phantasms. Drift is expensive but it shuffles the library.
- To sideboard, I'm guessing I want to put in Defense Grid against heavy permission and play around Spell Snape/Spell Pierce, Silence against tempo, a combination of Silence and Angel's Grace against storm, and Silence/Echoing Truth against aggro(?). Echoing Truth seems like a good catch-all to fight hate (Leylines and graveyard hate and Thalia and things) and also against Empty the Warrens. I plan to take out the Smiths and Spellbomb/Zenith and cut into Terrarion/Bauble numbers if I need more room. Sounds good?
Erebos B | Ghost Council WB | Grimgrin UB | Jhoira UR
Jor Kadeen RW | Melek UR | Mimeoplasm GUB | Rasputin WU
Savra BG | Sisay GW | Teneb BGW | Thada Adel U | Wort BR
I draft and play EDH. If a Standard player can't understand who a card is for, it's probably for me.
I also write things about good films.
The Tezz tech looks spicy, though.
Erebos B | Ghost Council WB | Grimgrin UB | Jhoira UR
Jor Kadeen RW | Melek UR | Mimeoplasm GUB | Rasputin WU
Savra BG | Sisay GW | Teneb BGW | Thada Adel U | Wort BR
I draft and play EDH. If a Standard player can't understand who a card is for, it's probably for me.
I also write things about good films.
If you can generate the mana to make a lethal Fireball, you're usually left with only a couple of cards in your library, right? Which means you can use Conjurer's Bauble to put any card in your graveyard into your hand, given enough loops of SS, Lotus, and 2x Bauble. Which means the only counterspells that threaten Red Sun's Zenith are counters that exile the spell - I looked over the top decks and didn't see Dissipate at all, and Mindbreak Trap will stop Banefire just as well as RSZ. So being uncounterable doesn't actually do anything.
And what spells that prevent damage are being played in numbers? The only thing I can think of that comes close is Angel's Grace. So you burn them for 20 and they keep their life at 1, so you keep mana open for Pyrite Spellbomb and kill them before they draw a card on their turn. Unpreventable damage also doesn't actually do anything.
I realise the benefits Red Sun's Zenith brings are trivial and will not be used in most games, but they are "something" - a quantity greater than the "nothing" of Banefire.
Also, Tezzeret's quicker than Reshape when searching for KCI. If you do not have an Ironworks and you draw Tezzeret, it is more likely you will be able to cast him. If you have an Ironworks and you draw Tezzeret, then you can most certainly cast him because Ironworks is a magical fountain of endless mana. So I don't really get your point about Etherium Sculptor; he doesn't do anything mid-combo, just converts 1U to 2. The cost reduction only helps pre-KCI, and I found the hands where I was relying on Scuptor to be able to go off incredibly sketchy. The mana you "lose" on casting a Riddlesmith is more than made up for in never not being able to dig deep enough to hit the next Sunrise.
Erebos B | Ghost Council WB | Grimgrin UB | Jhoira UR
Jor Kadeen RW | Melek UR | Mimeoplasm GUB | Rasputin WU
Savra BG | Sisay GW | Teneb BGW | Thada Adel U | Wort BR
I draft and play EDH. If a Standard player can't understand who a card is for, it's probably for me.
I also write things about good films.
I guess that's cool, it can take the place of one bauble instead of a different egg... I doubt the drawback would come up all that often, and you get extra use out of it that banefire wouldn't give you, in terms of comboability.
Banefire is great on time though, and the reality of playing this thing when you have real time limits is probably less marginal than getting a statistical +half an egg or the 9th shuffler.
http://officeofstrategicinfluence.com/spam/ <---- kills spam, fyi.
Yeah, it can shuffle the library, and also add a card if you overshoot sacrificing Wellsprings/Flasks to the point that you'd deck yourself with a SS. RSZ also put itself back for later use if you use it to kill a Thalia or something, but I'm not sure if that's good or bad. Similarly, I don't know how useful exiling a creature instead of killing it is, but RSZ does that too. Tiny things.
I was thinking Blue Sun's Zenith might be an alternative, too - can't kill creatures but has more value outside of the game-ending card. Or get super-techy and run Invoke the Firemind. I really just wanted to bring up that Banefine isn't that much better than Blaze.
Erebos B | Ghost Council WB | Grimgrin UB | Jhoira UR
Jor Kadeen RW | Melek UR | Mimeoplasm GUB | Rasputin WU
Savra BG | Sisay GW | Teneb BGW | Thada Adel U | Wort BR
I draft and play EDH. If a Standard player can't understand who a card is for, it's probably for me.
I also write things about good films.
If you run into it midcombo when you are forced to go off before you have your bounce, then you might be able to cast it and keep going without worrying over when she comes back like she would if you used the spellbomb. Though, I guess a more robust MainDeck answer to thalia might be in order with the current meta. That's actually a valid point.
Banefire's main draw is being able to beat the clock against delver tempo decks and other decks that try and stick efficient beaters while holding regular counterspells (people still use them, i hear). For this deck, tempo (blue or black hurt the most) is the most daunting matchup. Most times, a deck with a permission suite isn't ALSO running mindbreak trap, since they figure they got most combo beat just by having so many cards that say "no". Against them, banefire says "yes" and RSZ says " no? ok I'll come back later". Who is running mindbreak trap main? no one, really. Game 2, you usually board into your silences/defense grids for those matchups, and aim to cast it before going off (If they can stop your combo, they can stop it at a sunrise). And when you use Banefire against these decks, you just have to stick a KCI and build up your board till you can just power through a banefire without casting more than 3 spells that turn. It doesn't get negated(both kinds), outwitted, charmed, commanded, delayed, deprived, rused, flashfrozen, hindered, etc.
When you think about the benefits of RSZ, it's actually closer to aether spellbomb than pyrite in terms of the most useful attribute it has (thalia/canonist removal). I think the spellbomb is better (and cheaper), and should be MD anyway (it is in my current build).
This is actually not an easy pick, partly because of the meta-dependent nature of picking a wincon for this deck, and partly because the differences between these cards is still pretty negligible (regardless of meta). I'd say though, that if you are in a meta that sees a lot of hatebears and aggro in general, you should probably run RSZ alongside aether spellbomb MD. Interesting points all around, Seven.
I'll probably come back to this post after some sleep. It's 5am here o.O
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I added one to my deck and I have to say it saved me a lot of games.
Yes, it's risky, but when your deck stalls you will wish you have one of these in your hand.
What do you think about the card?
Erebos B | Ghost Council WB | Grimgrin UB | Jhoira UR
Jor Kadeen RW | Melek UR | Mimeoplasm GUB | Rasputin WU
Savra BG | Sisay GW | Teneb BGW | Thada Adel U | Wort BR
I draft and play EDH. If a Standard player can't understand who a card is for, it's probably for me.
I also write things about good films.
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4x Chromatic Sphere
4x Chromatic Star
4x Conjurer's Bauble
3x Elsewhere Flask
3x Etherium Sculptor
4x Ghost Quarter
3x Ichor Wellspring
10x Island
3x Krark-Clan Ironworks
1x Laboratory Maniac
3x Lotus Bloom
3x Noxious Revival
2x Plains
4x Reshape
4x Second Sunrise
4x Terrarion
Sideboard
2x Defense Grid
1x Disciple of the Vault
4x Echoing Truth
1x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Pithing Needle
1x Pyrite Spellbomb
3x Silence
1x Tormod's Crypt
This is my current build on it.
A few different choices:
I run Laboratory Maniac in my mainboard as a meta call since I'm seeing more and more Leyline/Witchbane Orb in my area.
I decided against Open the Vaults entirely in my 75 for a few reasons. I know it is there to save the day if you fizzle out and you can make the next turn work, but I typically only fizzle when I lack a KCI on the field and if I can't afford to play a KCI, then I definitely can't afford to play Open the Vaults the next turn. This deck can't survive going into a 5th turn, so OtC is typically a dead card for me any time I draw it. I know it acts as another copy of Second Sunrise but if I'm already on the ropes mid-combo I can't afford a 6CC card usually.
I don't use Darksteel Citadel since I don't have a playset yet and I haven't tried them out yet but I'm unsure of what they bring to the table honestly. I already see Blood Moon screwing my Ghost Quarters, I don't know if I want to expose my already small mana base further.
I prefer Etherium Sculptor over Riddlesmith because the deck does enough digging as is, and Sculptor helps to ensure that I can lay a KCI down pre-combo turn and it counts as an artifact for KCI. I've playtested and ran both, and I don't like Riddlesmith as much as Sculptor in a KCI build. Personal preference?
Concerning RSZ v. Banefire, I like Banefire a lot more. Yeah, RSZ can come back if countered and it shuffles the deck but it doesn't bring a whole lot to the table that Banefire doesn't. It's a meta-call, and I see enough control in mine to warrant running Banefire over RSZ. If someone does run Mindbreak Trap, then my plan b quickly becomes using my Maniac instead.
UR Storm WUBRG Sunnyside Up W Death+Taxes BR 7->0:60 Discard
EDH
GU Vig RWU Zedruu BR Olivia
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1 - OTV: Seeing an Open the Vaults in your opening grip without also a KCI makes me very nervous, and I might just ship that hand if the rest isn't godly (like double bloom + 3 eggs and 1 land). But with KCI, depending on the kind of eggs you have, you can keep it and it will work on turn 4. A lot of that has to do with say, terrarion getting you the double white after you put all your mana into casting KCI, and finding the other 4 through your other eggs (3 eggs minimum, terrarion + 2 other eggs or a darksteel citadel/mox opal). On the other hand, all you need in 3-4 eggs after an open the vaults to get your mana back up to that point, and the sunrise/revival will come to help with thinning lands OtV didn't get. Mid combo, OtV doesn't offend, because most times with KCI and enough eggs in the deck, you'll run out of eggs before you run out of mana. KCI mana is obscene when you are saccing the right things, and even eggs like sphere and bauble can be sacced to it to keep a low mana/high egg hand from fizzeling out in a subsequent loop. But, it can really be terrible for your mulligan decisions if it's in your opening grip too often, so...
2 - Drift: Drift of Phantasms is a nice in-between. It's a 6 mana investment that looks like this 2WWUU instead of 4WW. But you get to pay it in 2 sections (1UU and then 1WW). This works for the deck because of the implications it has for our "curve" (turn 3 drift, turn 4 sunrise). I don't mind seeing it in the opening grip, but I never really want to see it over OtV while comboing because of the extra color requirements which means less mana pump from KCI, more using eggs for filtering. That said, it does give you access to the better spell, since it will grab sunrise to recur your lands and letting you thin your deck more.
My personal set up is 1x drift, 1x OtV, 4x sunrise, 2x revival. With 2x wipeaway in the board (since drift grabs that, too). That said, i find 6 pre-combo and 8 post-combo catalyst cards to be the right mix for me personally.
Mshnik: With what he pointed out about it's uses, I still say it's a meta call. It's nice to have a little extra creature kill MD in a creature heavy environment, especially if that environment is heavy in hatebears that need a good kill'n. I don't personally see a lot of hatebears when I play. I see a lot of delver, twin, faeries, storm, and tron (why am i even playing this deck right now? yeesh...)
Wipeaway and angel's grace/defense grid/silence is a godsend, though. Man I wish they would reprint abeyance...
Mise Mage: I wasn't calling you out on it, but I guess if you don't trust my testing, you can mess with this and tell me off if it doesn't work for you...
4 Ghost Quarter
1 Misty Rainforest
6 Island
2 Plains
4 Darksteel Citadel
Creatures
1 Drift of Phantasms
2 Etherium Sculptor
Artifacts
3 Lotus Bloom
3 Krark-Clan Ironworks
3 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
4 Conjurer's Bauble
4 Terrarion
3 Ichor Wellspring
1 Mox Opal
2 Elsewhere Flask
1 AEther Spellbomb
4 Second Sunrise
4 Reshape
2 Noxious Revival
1 Open the Vaults
1 Banefire
2 Wipe Away
3 Echoing Truth
2 Repeal
4 Silence
1 Angel's Grace
2 Defense Grid
1 Laboratory Maniac
The MD has been my build now since January (except for flask/wellspring numbers. I cut a flask recently, and a pyrite spellbomb). I always wonder if I'm living in magical christmas land, so go ahead and slam me on my choices, I'd love a second opinion ^u^
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And I totally flubbed on the numbers when i posted it, including letting that seep into my card explanations (lol), so I'll just amend the list I posted above to what it should be (i think i grabbed a one of the flex saves of the deck. I just have a bunch of different configurations saved as different files with like, 1 card difference and such).
to point out quickly: pyrite is out (and I remember why now) - I don't need a 2nd wincon in the main any more. It used to be a concern, but much of what would concern me at this stage should be bounced game 2, or is a deck that is not common. Like MD sanctity, it exists, but not really against who i am playing against.
flask is 2, cut from 3 (i ran 3/3 i think... I'd have to check back at the op), and i just don't need that many, nor do i want more than five 2cc eggs in the deck.
edit - NOW I remember! After looking at the op...
I decided that running the extra island (17 as opposed to 16) was necessary to make land drops.
In any case, the deck can still power through, the extra land + opal makes 18 sources, which is where I feel comfortable making 3-4 land drops in 4 turns. The reshapes because of this tend to fetch out wellsprings rather than anything else once you have kci online. Cept in some really odd situations where there's a threat of soft counters. KCI puts you out of reach usually, but don't walk into remands when you can't produce any more white o.o
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One thing that strikes me as interesting though is the lack of any real performance of this deck on MTGO dailies. I never see it as a 4-0 or a 3-1 and I'm interested on explanations of that phenomenon.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think this deck is the best out there but it ought to be a fair contender in a fight given that it typically has a turn 3-4 clock and it's rogue enough to make sure that a lot of opponents don't know what it does G1--allowing for sideboarded protection G2 and G3. I know it's a relatively budget deck with few big flashy cards (Lotus Bloom), and it is a rather complex deck but I think the lack of representation strikes me as weird. I've played a little MTGO, enough to know that this deck would be complex and time-consuming to run and fraught with risks of not hitting the right keys in the correct order but is this enough to ensure this deck's relative ignominy?
Not many people play the deck on mtgo because of just how many triggers you have to go through. Of those that do, a lot of them aren't playing very resilient or consistent builds, because there are basically a ton of articles about what it USED to look like. That's usually what people grab, and the deck in that form doesn't do well without ponder (and looking farther back, cunning wish). The only article on this deck that even had KCI was some johnny combo monstrocity that used tezz and time sieve to get infinite turns, along with a bunch of other synergistic, but ultimately win-more cards. Over on the source, I'm not sure those guys have picked up KCI either. It seems like this site is pretty much the only place where people have wised up, so the number of people sporting the non-pet version is still very slim. And what you said about its "rogue"ness is reasonable, but the truth is that if you place down citadel, and play a chromatic sphere/star, your opponent is going to know you are one of 2 decks: karn tron or this. And if that was anything but a citadel, or a sphere/star, they'd know it wasn't RG Karn Tron. Eggs is nebulous enough that a person who hasn't seen it is mostly bewildered. Those who have seen it though can immediately recognize it. It's not like you are playing ritual gifts and pretending to be UW control. We can't really do that...
If you can tolerate playing it on mtgo, try it out and get a 4-0 for us =) So far, I've only ever seen juggler hitting the dailies with this deck and getting results.
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