I'm messing around with a similar idea! Note that I've been mostly away from the game for about a year, so my knowledge of current sets is quite limited.
Archfiend and Perspectives are critical, but I think four of each is a mistake. Well, four Archfiend could work since it cycles, but hitting multiple New Perspectives is terrible. I'm thinking 2-3.
I think I'd rather go wide with tokens than go big with Shadowstorm Vizier. It puts us at too much risk to just fizzle from a removal spell.
Vizier of Tumbling Sands generates free mana when we're going off with Perspectives, especially if we have some way to generate multiple mana from a single source. I'm thinking Gift of Paradise. That way, we can really fill the board with Drakes off of Drake Haven and set up lethal damage on end step in the air. Stir the Sands also lets us generate more tokens from the combo.
Also, while I haven't tested it yet, my current list runs one Inverter of Truth as a reset. I'm not sure if it's right, but since this deck is absolutely capable of drawing all 60 cards and then fizzling to a Fog effect, I think it's a reasonable insurance play.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Formerly Angrypossum over at the now-defunct WotC forums.
Seems slow, I don't think you need 5 colors, I would go 4 or maybe even 3. e.g. You only use 1 red card and it has doble red color as a cost. That seems hard to cast, insted you could take out the red color, put some fast mana lands and put other removal, like fumigate or the -3/-3 black expertise. You should also use fatal push. Also I don't like Shadow of the Grave, most of the times you will not have New Perspectives in play and you will only have 4-5 mana so you will only cicle and then return 1 card, I think this card is only good when you don't really need it (i think if you played New Perspectives and your opponent didn't kill your or exiled that enchantment you already won the game
Since there are five cycling lands in Standard, I think we're going to want to run the full 20 anyway, and with almost everything having Cycling we're going to have unparalleled card selection. Seems to me that that makes being 5-colors "free". We certainly need blue, I think we need black and white for removal, and green is critical for mana acceleration, mana comboing on the turn we go off, and for giving us our Fog effect. That leaves Red on the chopping block, but while Sweltering Suns may be hard to cast, it cycles for colorless so I don't think we lose much. Sweltering Suns seems much better then Yehenni's Expertise for several reasons: It kills virtually the same creatures, it cycles, and we don't have much need for the Expertise free spell.
Shadow of the Grave seems uninspiring but perhaps necessary. Without it, don't we risk fizzling? I mean, we win either by beating down with Demons or flooding the table with Drakes, and either strategy can be blown out by a sweeper if we don't close the game out fast. I worry that, without Shadow, we can't put enough End Step power on the table to win in a single attack, which I think is simply the way to go.
I'm unsure on Fatal Push, mostly because I haven't been playing much Standard. It seems like a good choice for the deck, but there's something to be said for simply playing Turbo-Fog into our combo win conditions and ignoring aggro 1-2 drops.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Formerly Angrypossum over at the now-defunct WotC forums.
I agree that Sweltering Suns is better than Yehenni's Expertise but I if I would cut a color it would probably red because of black and white massive removal and nice green sideboard. Playing with 20 lands that enter the game taped is just painful, you will be 1 turn behind your opponent if you are on the play and 2 turns if you are on the draw and if you don't have the mana you need and you only have Painted Bluffs you would be 2 and 3 turns behind, that is just painful. That's why I would cut 1 color and consider playing fast lands or even maybe show lands. Taking a second look on Shadow of the Grave it looks good if you have cycling cards with cost 1 in hand, maybe it works, there is only one way to know and is to test it. I played against a cycling deck yesterday in xmage and he played Liliana and it makes sense because she returns big creatures that you cycled to the battlefield.
Maybe, but I'm leaning towards no. We're probably never going to cast it on turn 4, and the deck kills off of six lands so I'm not sure if dumping a bunch of extra lands on the board in the late game matters that much. While we are certainly going to have a high number of lands in the yard for Splendid Reclamation to hit, I don't think we get enough payoff from it.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Formerly Angrypossum over at the now-defunct WotC forums.
I'm unsure about running 20 cycling lands, mainly because when you finally reach a point where you're one mana away from casting New Perspectives you don't want to then have to wait another turn because the majority of lands you have in your deck come into play tapped.
I also think Curator of Mysteries may be worth trying out for the sheer digging potential of scrying every time you cycle a card.
Also one final thought I've had is that since cycling can be done at instant speed at the very end of your opponent's turn, perhaps this deck would work best if it leaned in the direction of a draw-go control deck.
So far the list I want to try is Esper. Although the black is only for Ifnir. I don't use black removal because of the double black taxe in everything (murder, grasp). I just have a hard time cutting the demon to be UW because its acts as a board whipe and wincon without having to do anything special. I am still missing a lot of cards to actually test it. I also think you need more than one drake haven in the deck. 3 might be better than 4 but gotta test the playset at first imo.
I like the direction your deck is going, Humstuck. My only suggestion is perhaps trying out a few Summary Dismissals or Disallows in the sideboard to deal with the on cast abilities of Eldrazi.
To my previous list, the more I think about it the more I think port town might be better than prairie stream because the cycle lands have types.
Also, after watching the video of Micheal Major on UW Drake Haven vs Todd Mardu Vehicle, I think the correct number of Drake Haven might be 3 instead of 4 even more than yesterday. Now I just need to get my cards from the mail and actually playtest.
I agree on the Disallows, I still need to buy them dunno why I am so reluctant to pay 7$ (CAD) each.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
4x Canyon Slough
4x Cast Out
4x Censor
1x Drake Haven
4x Fetid Pools
1x Forsake the Worldly
4x Haze of Pollen
4x Hieroglyphic Illumination
4x Irrigated Farmland
4x New Perspectives
4x Painted Bluffs
4x Scattered Groves
2x Shadow of the Grave
4x Shadowstorm Vizier
4x Sheltered Thicket
4x Sweltering Suns
Archfiend and Perspectives are critical, but I think four of each is a mistake. Well, four Archfiend could work since it cycles, but hitting multiple New Perspectives is terrible. I'm thinking 2-3.
I think I'd rather go wide with tokens than go big with Shadowstorm Vizier. It puts us at too much risk to just fizzle from a removal spell.
Vizier of Tumbling Sands generates free mana when we're going off with Perspectives, especially if we have some way to generate multiple mana from a single source. I'm thinking Gift of Paradise. That way, we can really fill the board with Drakes off of Drake Haven and set up lethal damage on end step in the air. Stir the Sands also lets us generate more tokens from the combo.
Also, while I haven't tested it yet, my current list runs one Inverter of Truth as a reset. I'm not sure if it's right, but since this deck is absolutely capable of drawing all 60 cards and then fizzling to a Fog effect, I think it's a reasonable insurance play.
Shadow of the Grave seems uninspiring but perhaps necessary. Without it, don't we risk fizzling? I mean, we win either by beating down with Demons or flooding the table with Drakes, and either strategy can be blown out by a sweeper if we don't close the game out fast. I worry that, without Shadow, we can't put enough End Step power on the table to win in a single attack, which I think is simply the way to go.
I'm unsure on Fatal Push, mostly because I haven't been playing much Standard. It seems like a good choice for the deck, but there's something to be said for simply playing Turbo-Fog into our combo win conditions and ignoring aggro 1-2 drops.
I also think Curator of Mysteries may be worth trying out for the sheer digging potential of scrying every time you cycle a card.
Also one final thought I've had is that since cycling can be done at instant speed at the very end of your opponent's turn, perhaps this deck would work best if it leaned in the direction of a draw-go control deck.
3x Archfiend of Ifnir
4x Curator of Mysteries
//Enchantment (8)
4x Cast Out
4x Drake Haven
//Instant (20)
2x Blessed Alliance
4x Censor
2x Forsake the Worldly
4x Hieroglyphic Illumination
4x Immolating Glare
4x Void Shatter
4 Canyon Slough
4 Fetid Pools
4 Irrigated Farmland
3 Island
3 Plains
4 Prairie Stream
3 Swamp
Also, after watching the video of Micheal Major on UW Drake Haven vs Todd Mardu Vehicle, I think the correct number of Drake Haven might be 3 instead of 4 even more than yesterday. Now I just need to get my cards from the mail and actually playtest.
I agree on the Disallows, I still need to buy them dunno why I am so reluctant to pay 7$ (CAD) each.