Cryprolith Sacrifice is a deck that looks to put together small efficient bodies into various combinations that creates value affecting board state, while advancing the gameplan of grinding down the opponent's life total until we have an opportunity to close the game through one huge explosive combo.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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COLOR ANALYSIS
The deck can be played in a number of configurations and I will go into each below. However, before looking at specific decks, I will look at each color that can be included in the mix, and how that color can influence the build you choose. Writer's note: The following lists are ordered -- First by casting costs, then by my ranking of importance for consideration.
This deck requires a lot of bodies. Green is the color that lets us build up our board state to have a bountiful supply of creatures for attacking, chump blocking, sacrificing, and even digging for more creatures. Green also offers us the benefit of accelerated mana and efficient colorfixing. While it is possible to build without green, I feel it is safe to say that if you aren't running green, it is probably very different deck and should be considered a different archetype.
Black offers us the most efficient ways to gain value fom creatures dying, or the ability to recapture value from creatures in the graveyard. It is also the color that gives us the most efficient way to sacrifice our creatures at will, which can be important when timing effects or when facing opposing removal effects (especially exile). It is also the home of Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet the one silver-bullet we respect and fear from our opponent. Black also adds efficient creature removal to our toolbox.
White offers us the ability to make our tokens bigger/stronger, or to set up mass tokenmaking combos. White also offers us the ability to protect out own creatuers, and to have wider control over opponent's creatures. And white also has Avacyn -- a card that really could have her own section.
Jace is a pretty strong reason to go blue, offering a cheap body that can filter cards and recast Collected Company. Blue also offers us chicanery in the form of combat tricks and evasive creatures that can go over the top while the rest of the deck clogs up the ground game.
In colorless we have a wide range of effects that we can utilize in almost any color combination. At the top end, we can utilize painlands to become an eldrazi aggro deck (MD or SB), though at the expense of Collected Company potential hits.
MULTICOLOR
There are some very strong multicolor cards that can be included in our list, but opting in forces us to make some important decisions about the overall scope of the deck and how reliant we want to be on Cryptolith or Dryad in order to make our mana work. As such I will go into the color combinations separately, rather than giving notes as a whole.
Sifter pushes our identity into small creatures that sacrifice for additional effects by offering card filter, an addidional body and even extra mana. Butcher and Null offer effects we can make use of, if we want to incorporate more risk/cost into out deck.
Ayli, is a great efficient 2-drop that gives us another sacrifice outlet, life manipulation, and is even a spectacular chumpblocker. You can even go for a purely lifegain build that is more control oriented.
Reflector Mage is widely acknowleged as the best tempo creature in standard, and we are capable of building around it. Ojutai's Command is another control option that we can utilize, but is moestly here so that this section isn't entirely about Reflector Mage.
Blue/Black leans us into more graveyard manipulation and controling effects but also significantly increases our play-curve. Focusing here wil severly limit our ability to use Collected Command, but it is not entirely out of the question. My gut instinct is that this section has more potential with another rotation and a new deck/format.
This is the breakout deck that was piloted by Luis Scott Vargas at Pro Tour: Madrid. It fires off at a breackneck pace and can win any game (even bad matchups) by its ability to consistently fire up, find what it wants and close the game fast. You can read more about this deck HERE. While it does not include any displacer/brood monitor shenanigans it plays a similar game with other pieces of out engine. It serves as a baseline for what our deck could be, and any additions that we make by adding colors need to strengthen the deck from this baseline in some way and not serve as a distraction. For example: adding the Brood Monitor / Eldrazi Displacer Combo gives us a small a little bit more board control, a little bit more explosiveness, and gives us a way to combo out without screwing ourselves over in the face of an opposing Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet.
This is a sample G/W build that forsakes the value of Collected Company in favor of a much bigger ground game with planeswalker goodies and explosiveness with Secure the Wastes and Avacyn. It can still combo out by transforming Pious Evangel -- before sacrificing to Westvale Abbey, or in responce to Avacyn wiping your board. Most games it just makes token dudes big, and goes face, but the ability to explode mana and combo out at any time gives the deck an amazing amount of diversity, especially mana sinks in Elzdrazi Displacer, Duskwatch Recruiter, Hangarback Walker, and Secure the Wastes. Here, Pious Evangel act as both your sacrifice outlet for key plays, and as your Combo-effect multiplier. Also, as a fun aside, Oath of Gideon, allows us to set up silliness like re-using Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, going +1 to attack, and then blinking him with Eldrazi Displacer to gain an emblem, every turn.
This is the Deck Piloted at GP Toronto by Seth Mansfield. It trades some of the explosiveness of G/B in order to have acess to blue for Reflector Mage and sideboard goodies. It also maindecks the Displacer/Brood Monitor Combo that can pair with Catacomb Sifter to scry through your entire library, and then find Zulaport Cuttroat to just end the game. You can read more about this deck HERE. The inclusion of Reflector mage isn't just because he's such a great card by himself, he's also one of the best tools at our disposal to deal with mirror matches. Not only does he prevent a replay of one combo piece for a turn... but you can hit him with Collected Company in response to your opponent's attempt to go for a combo: either by removing Eldrazi Displacer -- or by giving Ormendahl, Profane Prince a time-out.
Another 4C Displacer Combo list that Louis Deltour piloted to 2nd place at Grand Prix:New York. TKS in the sideboard compliments the number of control lists gunning for this deck at the moment, and also help in the Mirror. Reality Smasher allows you to go aggro out of the side, and put a clock on control that isn't tied to a combo they can hold cards for and break easily.
This is a 4C Meta build that gives up the "Infinite Combo" for one that must be used in iteration. Trading Brood Monitor for Drowner of Hope offers better board presence in a creature that can survive languish and put your opponent on a solid clock. It also gives us the ability to exert control over the board and go for the beatdown ending if we aren't quite set up to combo out. Warping Wail is a SB addition that can go well vs control sweepers, as well as being able to pick off Zulaport Cutthroat in the Mirror, and even net you an extra mana/body EOT to enable up-tempo plays or supply an emergency chump-blocker.
This is what separates this deck build from other Cryptolith/Abbey Variants. Eldrazi Drisplacer + Brood Monitor is your infinite combo. In a vacuum, it does nothing but repeat itself... blink brood monitor, get 3 scions. Sac scions to blink Brood Monitor, wash rinse repeat. In creature combat, you have a closed loop of chump blockers. If you have mana available pre-turn EOT, you can just flood the board with more dudes. But, when you add other cards to the mix... THINGS happen.
On that note.... if you are using Catacomb to dig, and your opponent aims a removal spell at breaking your loop, you can still go through your entire deck and WRITE IT DOWN so that you can go to anyplace in your deck and KNOW what your deck order is for the rest of the game (barring shuffle effects). It is also important to recognize that one of the best reasons to use the Brood Monitor combo, is to dodge Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet hate, since all you need to sacrifice is tokens
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Similar to Brood Moniter above, this combo is about making guys and flooding the board, potentially to combo someone out. UnlikeBrood Monitor you cannot just combo out, but instead get a bigger board presence (Drowner is effectively 7/7 for 6), and can use scions to clear the road to a beat-down plan. Not a bad thing when your clock is a 5/5 instead of a 3/3. He's also a little easier on the mana-spread, needing U instead of GG. Perhaps most importantly, Drowner of Hope survives Languish and most damage based removal, making him a potent substitute for the dead on combo, vs. control lists gunning for this deck.
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Avacyn + Displacer is a combo in your deck that a) protects the rest of your deck (and even itself) from traditional removal and b) is capable of winning games all by itself. Heck... just gaming Avacyn in your deck will win you some games.
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Sometimes you don't need to combo out to win. Just play the tempo game and keep all their minions trapped in their hand and unable to be played. Incidentally, hitting this on an EOT Collected Company will sometimes net you an immediate concession -- even if it doesn't, it is REALLY good, especially if you are holding Avacyn protection in hand.
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Activate Gideon turning him into a creature (+1). Blink him with Displacer, and he comes back with 5 loyalty counters. this lets you generate an emblem (-4), and leaves Gideon still in play, hanging out with the rest of your crew. This combo will be the cornerstone of any G/W purist-builds, Giving you the ability to keep getting bigger, every turn.
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=+10
No matter what else you have going on in the game, never forget that having two (or more) Zulaport/Disciple effects in play can make for a game winning transformation of Westvale Abbey. With only 2 Triggers active, popping the demonlord comes out to a whopping 19 point smack in the face (not even counting the lifegain). Thats 2 life for each sacrificed creature (5) for 10 damage, and then the swing from a hastey demon for 9. Strangely, by sacrificing your Cutthroat effects to Ormendahl, you are also protecting them from random response shenanigans.
+++...
Similar to the above, allowing Avacyn to take her fury out on your board can set up big swings to close the game. Your opponent may smirk when they see that you are about to blow up your own board, but that smirk will fade when they realize that all your creatures dying at once means taking a ton of damage from death triggers -- not to mention potentially 9 from Avacyn herself.
IN CLOSING
Like much of SOI Standard, this deck is very much experimental, but has shown some amazing potential. It has been a blast to design so far, and I can't wait to see where it grows from here.
I am still adding and editing sections, especially now that the deck has been moved to the Established Decks forum. For now, I leave it in the hands of the community and look forward to hearing your constructive feedback.
The goal of this deck is to win the game through synergy of various card combinations throughout the deck. Rather Than being a "pure" combo build it is designed to be interactive in the early to mid-game, ramping mana with Scion tokens and Cryptolith Rite before closing the game through superior numbers, superior threats, or with a potentially infinite combo - repetitively bouncing Brood Monitor with Eldrazi Displacer while Zulaport Cutthroat cheers on the party.
THE BREAKDOWN
Below, I will go over the different cores I feel are important to the deck's function. Some of the cards will fill multiple roles, and some sections even have alternate considerations. This is not an exhaustive detail into the sum of all cards considered for this deck, but should give you an idea how I arrived at the choices I made for this iteration.
Token Makers
Generally speaking we want to spend our early game going wide in order to out-tempo our opponent. Late game going wide gives us multiple options in finding a way to end the game, even if it is not going face. Many games will be resolved from the sacrifice effects of Zulaport Cutthroat/Wayward Disciple, but in order to get there, we need willing sacrifices that don't take a heavy toll on our hand size.
There are three major reasons for focusing on Eldrazi Scion Tokens (which btw don't have a card lookup to share as a pretty picture). First, getting tokens attached to bodies tends to be more cost efficient and abusable later with some fun tricks from Eldrazi Displacer. The second reason is to limit the effectiveness of Declaration in Stone(the most popular removal card in standard ATM) by giving us the ability to auto-sac in response to resolution. Tertiary to these reasons, scions act not only as additional bodies, but also mana ramp, even when we don't have Cryptolith Rite in play.
While Secure the Wastes makes a good instant speed way to really ramp up bodycount, it doesn't do much by itself, and you need to have developed your mana significantly before it is truly efficient. The planeswalkers are good, but lend themselves to a version of the deck that is more aggro oriented than combo, yet prolong the game because they don't interact as well with Displacer/Cryptolith or sacrifice effects. Hangerback Walker is generally good, but not as synergistic as scion tokens - This is easily a SB card that you can sub in main if you want to swap effects with anything.
Ramp
Believe it or not, this is actually a really funky ramp deck, even if it does not seem like one at first blush. You are perfectly capable of deploying accelerated threats on curve, but where this build really shines is its ability to sink large amounts of mana into growing bigger, digging for pieces, or just sacrificing itself off to close the game.
Reiterating some from the previous section, Accelerating with scions gives us some additional security in board state, while allowing for some pretty spectacular plays with Cryptolith Rite, or sacrifice effects in play. Scions and scion-makers also allow for some utility in building up a large board, or chump-blocking tricks with Eldrazi Displacer.
Generally speaking, I initially shied away from trying to push 1 drop utility creatures into the deck because the tend not to be card efficient unless you are assembling the right cards really fast. Cards like From Beyond are on the other side of the spectrum, coming down too late to be effective, and not offering up enough utility to make up the tempo loss. Eyeless Watcher is an example of something not quite fitting -- overall it fits, but it doesn't enable anything relevant in its tempo slot.
Sacrifice Effects and Outlets
As a "Token Sacrifice" themed deck, here's where a lot of our energy racing is spent. Even if we don't outright win this way, sacrifice/death effects are what allow us have midgame parity with other decks packing creatures with better raw stats.
Pious Evangel is basically Zulaport Cutthroat 4+, but he does have some nice synergy as a blocker that can survive Avacyn's wrath on the transformation. Catacomb Sifter is amazing for turning small in-turn plays into card filtering for our next draw effect.
Altar's Reap is a potential replacement for Collected Company, especially in budget builds. It also is a nice hedge vs. Declaration in Stone. However, in streamlining, Collected Company is just hands-down better and I wasn't comfortable cutting elsewhere. Ayli, was a hard card to cut, and will probably find at least 1 copy in my personal list as she is just really strong and can help your early game immensely. Sifter of Skulls is promising in theory, but we shouldn't have that much of an issue following our plan that we need him -- moreover, if we are having an issue, he doesn't actually help, he just prolongs the death. Still, Sifter may go well in a version with Nantuko Husk. I like husk, but he doesn't quite feel right in my playtesting of this build. I think he's waiting for a build with some kind of mass graveyard reanimation. Smothering Abomination is a great example of recognizing the price. He feels like he could work, but he will still just screw you over since he cant regain you tempo from behind, and there are better effects we can draw on at the point in the game where we'd want him. The only reason I mention Ruthless Deathfang here is because I feel this is an effect we could actually use... if only we were in blue. Hm....
Dig
This archetype of deck usually has a flash in the pan kind of feel.
Including a selection of ways to dig for more cards... or the RIGHT cards... allow us to use different tools for different situations. Just as long as we bring the right tool first...
Don't overlook Catacomb Sifter when you are playing out your build. If you have excess creatures sitting on the board, sacrificing one can do wonders for cleaning up the top of your library. Multiple sifters make this effect stronger, and under the right circumstances you can even go through your whole deck. The others offer various effects that you don't necessarily overdose on, but can be extremely useful with the right timings. Duskwatch Recruiter is extremely effective as a mana sink, and even doubles as board pressure if he flips.
While not exactly dig, Greenwarden and Den protector allow us to reuse something that we have already done to try and [re]capture more value. Soul of the Harvest is a sneaky little gem that is Standard legal again, thanks to its inclusion in the 2016 Welcome Deck. Even better, Both Greenwarden and Soul of the Harvest would be abusable with Eldrazi Displacer. Another gem with Displacer is Ulvenwald Hydra, unfortunately, digging out Westvale Abbey or even just accelerating your land drops just feels forced, and won't turn the game by itself.
Bombs
These effects are the powerhouses that can decide games all on their own. while a combo deck does not necessarily need specific bombs, these fit so well into what we are already doing, we cant ignore them. Neither, does it hurt that they are some of the most powerful cards from the new set.
Avacyn is panning out to the most pervasive card in standard from the new set. Just the threat of her is enough to give most decks pause, and we can actually use her to pull off some crazy stunts. While not as flashy, Abbey gives us a steady supply of bodies, and the potential to close games out of nowhere. Even though Cryptolith Rite is more a ramp card than a bomb, you need to keep in mind that having it is a huge tempo swing for your deck, and need to adjust your play accordingly.
THE COMBOS
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Avacyn + Displacer is probably the most important combo in your deck because it is the one that a) protects the rest of your deck, and even itself... and b) is the one that most of your opponents will be expecting from you, and will try to play around. You can use both of those pieces of info to your advantage. The basic idea here, is that if Avacyn tranforms for any reason, you can use Displacer to protect your side of the board for a 1 sided clear. Incidentally, it also allows displacer to protect any creature you have in play from non-exile removal.
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The second most important combo in your deck is the one they WON'T necessarily see coming. Eldrazi Drisplacer + Brood Monitor is your infinite combo. In a vacuum, it does nothing but repeat itself... blink brood monitor, get 3 scions. Sac scions to blink Brood Monitor, wash rinse repeat. In creature combat, you have a closed loop of chump blockers. If you have mana available pre-turn EOT, you can just flood the board with more dudes. But, when you add other cards to the mix... THINGS happen.
AND, on that note.... if you are using Catacomb to dig, and your opponent aims a removal spell at breaking your loop, you can still go through your entire deck and WRITE IT DOWN so that you can go to anyplace in your deck and KNOW what your deck order is for the rest of the game (barring shuffle effects).
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=+10
No matter what else you have going on in the game, never forget that having two (or more) Zulaport/Disciple effects in play can make for a game winning transformation of Westvale Abbey. With only 2 Triggers active, popping the demonlord comes out to a whopping 19 point smack in the face (not even counting the lifegain). Thats 2 life for each sacrificed creature (5) for 10 damage, and then the swing from a hastey demon for 9. Strangely, by sacrificing your Cutthroat effects to Ormendahl, you are also protecting them from random response shenanigans.
+++...
Similar to the above, allowing Avacyn to take her fury out on your board can set up big swings to close the game. Your opponent may smirk when they see that you are about to blow up your own board, but that smirk will fade when they realize that all your creatures dying at once means taking a ton of damage from death triggers -- not to mention potentially 9 from Avacyn herself.
SUBSTITUTION, SIDEBOARDING, AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENT
While I feel this is a pretty solid list, I do think it has room to improve. These "weak spots" are the places where you can find room to squeeze in preferred effects for your meta, sideboard slots for tournament play, or cut-fodder for future R&D.
First, Scion Summoner and Pious Evangel are duplicate effects to other cards in the deck. This makes them immediately disposable if you feel you have a need for something different or better. On the other side of the coin, Cryptolith Rite does not NEED to be a 4-of (I would hesitate to cut it entirely). Also, having an infinite combo is great, but outside of combo-ing off, Brood Monitor is pretty weak and you can probably add something else here and just focus on playing a stronger traditional game.
PRIME SUSPECTS
These are cards not mentioned elsewhere which may still have a place in this deck. These could be in the sideboard, or in future iterations based on competitive results.
Bearer of Silence, Fleshbag Maruder, and Brood Butcher fall in the category or playing interactive creatures that affect board state. Conversely, combo decks and hand disruption go hand-in-hand so theres the nod to TKS, Transgress, and Pick the Brain. In particular, Thought-Knot Seer is a great body that achieves hand disruption and tends to eat removal spells (one way or another). which is a handy thing to have. Drowner of Hope is one of my favorite cards, especially with Eldrazi Displacer -- and is one last nod to my belief that this will eventually be blue. Sanitarium Skeleton belongs in a deck that is trying to be hyperefficient, but may not be possible. such a deck would cut lands and also run cards like Blisterpod and Shambling Goblin, and lean more heavily on Cryptolithic Rites for explosive mana.
IN CLOSING
Like much of SOI Standard, this deck is very much experimental, but has shown some amazing potential. It has been a blast to design so far, and I can't wait to see where it grows from here.
I am still adding sections and interactions to the main write-up. But, for now, I leave it in the hands of the community and look forward to hearing your constructive feedback.
A testable version of this deck can be found ... HERE
This space reserved for changes and additional updates.
Played a list pretty close to this recently straight G/W, it went much bigger on the scion's, and stream lined the outs/wins to be much more combo. They used eerie interlude and card* (that green 6cmc creature that returns a card from graveyard to hand, on death exile him for another)
It was pretty nasty tbh, everything he played would generate two scions, so with one mana up and two scions, with a couple creatures in play, a Eerie Interlude in hand, he could go off. His kill was flipping Evangel with Avacyn in play, she'd come back wipe the board of 10+ scions and gg
Sounds pretty close to this, though I'm wondering how he was getting double tokens. Greenwarden of Murasa is definitely worthy of consideration if i decide I want graveyard recursion. I haven't looked to see if a delirium build is plausible yet.
Maybe, but I have had smooth testing so far. A few points of pain to keep me uptempo is usually offset by Zulaport and Pious Evangel triggers. With crypotolith rite in play, I almost never tap for pain. The painlands are also good for activating Displacer consistently.
Still, I won't say it can't use tweaking. Right now I am still working the core to find the most efficient way for the deck to unpack itself.
With regard to being able to look at your entire deck if an opponent breaks your loop at say the third iteration, how is that possible?
The shortcut for infinite scry is to simply look through your deck and put the wanted card on top, but that's an agreement between your opponent and you that you aren't going to be stopped at some iteration of the loop. If you are going to be stopped, then you have to scry as you normally would, 1 card at a time, scrying to the bottom. Thus you would not know what is the next card in your deck.
Smothering Abomination is a card I have my eye on, but am not including yet, because theres some serious risk issus. Foremost is that this is a balanced combo list that sometimes may not have access to a sac creature at n point in the game. I also don't like the idea that he forces me to flip avacyn whether I want to or not (and then he dies to her unless I also have displacer). That said, I have also been eyeing Soul of the Harvest, since learning that it is standard legal courtesy of the 2016 welcome deck.
With regard to being able to look at your entire deck if an opponent breaks your loop at say the third iteration, how is that possible?
The scenario is -
I have available: Brood Monitor, Catacomb Sifter, 3 lands, 3 scion tokens, and Eldrazi Displacer (0 relevant cards from hand or grave)
I attempt to activate Displacer and my opponent casts Fiery Temper targeting Displacer
-- I have 3 mana still available, but no way to save Displacer so I know that once Fiery temper resolves, boom.
The play is to use my remaining 3 mana and activate displacer again, targeting Brood Monitor
-- most players immediately jump to the thought -- just scry to another Displacer ... some even say, I'll do it again to get to "card Z".
What I am trying to highlight here is that you don't have to stop at "card Z" the first time. If your opponent it going to use another killspell just to break your loop early, GREAT! Otherwise you have the unique opportunity to scry through your entire deck before displacer dies. While you do it, you can record your deck order and go to the position of your choice (we can't quite reorder it...yet). That is a powerful tool.
Maybe the best play is to go straight to your next displacer -- but I'd wager there might be other pockets of awesome that you want to fast forward to instead.
As far as playing through the loop, you can ask your opponent - but when in doubt call a judge, you may as well get familiar with them while playing a deck like this.
Explain the board state, then say "I am going to demonstrate a loop"
Show them the Brood Monitor Displacer Loop.
Point out that Catacomb Sifter allows you to scry 1 and that every scry you want to put to the bottom of your deck unless interrupted by your opponent.
Then declare that you are going to do the loop n times, such that you are able to go through your entire deck and record the card order.
*if your opponent is going to break your loop (again) he has to do it now, or state when he is going to.
At that point, a savvy judge will let you pick up your deck and just write it down to save time, and watch you to make sure you don't reorder anything inappropriately. Some judges may want you to do it card by card. But for such a powerful tool, it is worth it.
From that point, pick the point you want to go to in your deck, and move your cards (top to bottom) and get to that point before allowing Displacer to die (he's probably tired now anyways). MAKE SURE TO MARK ON YOUR LIST WHERE YOU ARE IN YOUR DECK.
Do that twice or more in a tournament and not only will the judges pick up quickly from the sound of your voice, but you will be elevated to a special level of dread by other players (LOL).
I've been testing this version of the deck for a few days. So far I'm really enjoying it's ability to grind, stay alive, and then combo kill. The board is definitely a work in progress, but the deck can gum up the ground fairly well, is a bit weak to flyers, and probably wants to lose the combo against decks that have a lot of spot removal. Command can deal with virulent plague, and cards like silkwrap, statsis snare, etc. It's possible that the mainboard interlude and wail should just be duress, but then the mana base would probably have to be tweaked a bit. Interlude is very good when it works, and bluffing it is not unreasonable as we have several 3 cost abilities that are plausible. Warping wail mainboard is more versatile than duress and can be instant speed pinging with cutthroat, which can catch people off guard. Need to test more. Duress is very good in most match ups as well.
I like what I see you doing and look forward to hearing your results. I will likely add some of your inclusions to the card consideration in my next update.
With the breaking of the LSV/Channel-Fireball list in PT:SOI I will share my tentative build for the GB build of this deck from what I have seen so far:
In order to get the average CMC of the deck down, dropping white entirely is a smart step, almost literally decapitating the largest CMC portion of the deck. This does not come without its own hurdles: losing Avacyn means losing the best protection in our deck, and losing Displacer/Moniter relegates us to playing heads up efficient magic with no room for error. I feel that this was a smart move in the face of a metagame overseeded with w/x humans and Bant Company, allowing you to play faster - in a shallower curve, and just dig for what you need rather than opting for big splashy plays with redundancy.
The neatest things I noticed when evaluating this version were:
Duskwatch Recruiter and Elvish Visionary are amazing together.
I have said on many occasions that Duskwatch Recruiter was vastly preferred to the elf, because of the ability to use excess mana to unpack the rest of your deck. I did not, however, realize how well they go TOGETHER in such a shallow curved build. This is a brilliant move and I was wrong.
Liliana, Heretical Healer, is such a natural fit for this deck, I am amazed that I missed it. My only explanation, other than just saying I was wrong, is that she was harder to handle in the bigger version of the deck with more going on (especially when navigating Avacyn transformations. On this curve she is stellar, and I am surprised how often I am ready and willing to flip her and immediately bring back some dork and net even more board presence. She is also the kind of GY recursion that Nantuko Husk needed in order to justify his inclusion in the deck. The fact that she also offers us MD hand disruption is pure gold.
Loam Dryad is a good inclusion for his ability to help accel mana when you dont have cryptolith in play. However, he is probably the weakest 1 drop and might be better off as Shambling Goblin or Sanitarium Skeleton in some builds.
Overall I am impressed with the concise design for this GB build. However, I feel that this is the kind of build that works in the right meta-game. Being played at a pro-tour level event makes the most sense as the likelihood of running into "random jank" is relatively small. That said, it IS possible to build against this deck now that it has been spoiled, and I still feel that the GBW Version has some merit in resiliency versus a more diverse field, particularly FNM, Gameday, and PPTQ's -- and especially if this deck prompts a greater interest in control decks.
For now I look forward to seeing how the team at Channel Fireball perform the rest of this weekend.
She was in my preliminary list and was one of the last cards that I cut from the core list (and added to other considerations). At the time, hitting precisely BW on T2/3 was sometimes problematic and I was looking for space for so many other 2 drops, I erred on the side of mana flow and left her out there for experimentation.
That said, If you start with the LSV list and add white, she is probably an auto include, as she offers you some good early defense and an alternate sac outlet to Nantuko Husk. IF you want to be really extreme, her exile effect MAY prove relevant if you can get your life up high enough, but I don't see that being efficient in this style deck (by the time you get to 30 life, you are probably already winning). However, the deathtouch and sac outlet on a 2/3 at 2cmc is solid.
Just watching Paul play this on stream, this deck looks great. It looks like the true successor to Rally, and I'm anxious to starting putting in games with it.
Just watching Paul play this on stream, this deck looks great. It looks like the true successor to Rally, and I'm anxious to starting putting in games with it.
Duskwatch helps find all three of your combo as well as fuels your hand throughout the entire game. You also need Zulaport when you are going for the kill. At that point in time it is very likely you have a Sifter in play which would allow you to infinite scry through your whole deck to find one.
Toon ninja has it right. Zulaport is one of the last things you want to commit to the board if you are assembling a combo. You can search for him with Recruiter or sifter if you are ready to win, but before then its risky to play him to board and lose him and multiples can sometimes be dead cards in hand.
HOLIDAY! the deck name has officially changed to reflect its position in the established forums. The OP has been adjusted to better reflect the differentiation of of the Displacer Combo, and I am still adding a few pieces to the C-C-C-Combo section, since I feel that was one of the better parts of the initial post I created when submitting this deck.
Anyone have any good ideas for sideboard? I had a pretty decent idea of sideboarding after following all of Haumph's stream, but was a little confused when LSV ran a completely different sideboard. For example LSV had Thought Knots and Drowner of Hopes in his side which I'm still trying to figure out what they're in for.
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Cryprolith Sacrifice is a deck that looks to put together small efficient bodies into various combinations that creates value affecting board state, while advancing the gameplan of grinding down the opponent's life total until we have an opportunity to close the game through one huge explosive combo.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Click on any of the following Links to skip to that section of the Guide.
COLOR ANALYSIS
The deck can be played in a number of configurations and I will go into each below. However, before looking at specific decks, I will look at each color that can be included in the mix, and how that color can influence the build you choose.
Writer's note: The following lists are ordered -- First by casting costs, then by my ranking of importance for consideration.
GREEN
This deck requires a lot of bodies. Green is the color that lets us build up our board state to have a bountiful supply of creatures for attacking, chump blocking, sacrificing, and even digging for more creatures. Green also offers us the benefit of accelerated mana and efficient colorfixing. While it is possible to build without green, I feel it is safe to say that if you aren't running green, it is probably very different deck and should be considered a different archetype.
BLACK
- Sanitarium Skeleton
- Zulaport Cutthroad
- Ultimate Price
- Altar's Reap
- Carrion Thrall
- Nantuko Husk
- Liliana, Heretical Healer
- Fleshbag Marauder
- Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
- Sifter of Skulls
- Smothering Abomination
Black offers us the most efficient ways to gain value fom creatures dying, or the ability to recapture value from creatures in the graveyard. It is also the color that gives us the most efficient way to sacrifice our creatures at will, which can be important when timing effects or when facing opposing removal effects (especially exile). It is also the home of Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet the one silver-bullet we respect and fear from our opponent. Black also adds efficient creature removal to our toolbox.WHITE
- Thraben Inspector
- Declaration in Stone
- Stasis Snare
- Oath of Gideon
- Eldrazi Displacer
- Secure The Wastes
- Pious Evangel
- Stasis Snare
- Quarantine Field
- Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
- Archangel Avacyn
- Tragic Arrogance
White offers us the ability to make our tokens bigger/stronger, or to set up mass tokenmaking combos. White also offers us the ability to protect out own creatuers, and to have wider control over opponent's creatures. And white also has Avacyn -- a card that really could have her own section.BLUE
- Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
- Palace Familiar
- Manic Scribe
- Tide Drifter
- Harbinger of Tides
- Eldrazi Skyspawner
- Sigiled Starfish
- Stitched Mangler
- Mizzium Meddler
- Silumgar Sorcerer
- Drowner of Hope
Jace is a pretty strong reason to go blue, offering a cheap body that can filter cards and recast Collected Company. Blue also offers us chicanery in the form of combat tricks and evasive creatures that can go over the top while the rest of the deck clogs up the ground game.COLORLESS
- Hangarback Walker
- Hedron Crawler
- Runed Servitor
- Matter Reshaper
- Pilgrim's Eye
- Wild-Field Scarecrow
- Harvest Hand
- Thought-Knot Seer
- Reality Smasher
In colorless we have a wide range of effects that we can utilize in almost any color combination. At the top end, we can utilize painlands to become an eldrazi aggro deck (MD or SB), though at the expense of Collected Company potential hits.MULTICOLOR
There are some very strong multicolor cards that can be included in our list, but opting in forces us to make some important decisions about the overall scope of the deck and how reliant we want to be on Cryptolith or Dryad in order to make our mana work. As such I will go into the color combinations separately, rather than giving notes as a whole.
Green/Black
- Catacomb Sifter
- Brood Butcher
- Baloth Null
Sifter pushes our identity into small creatures that sacrifice for additional effects by offering card filter, an addidional body and even extra mana. Butcher and Null offer effects we can make use of, if we want to incorporate more risk/cost into out deck.Green/White
- Dromoka's Command
- Veteran Warleader
- Sigarda, Heron's Grace
Green/white pushes our identity into making more tokens and making them bigger so that can trade or face for more damage.Black/White
- Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim
- Anguished Unmaking
- Blood Knight
- Drana's Emissary
Ayli, is a great efficient 2-drop that gives us another sacrifice outlet, life manipulation, and is even a spectacular chumpblocker. You can even go for a purely lifegain build that is more control oriented.Blue/White
- Reflector Mage
- Ojutai's Command
Reflector Mage is widely acknowleged as the best tempo creature in standard, and we are capable of building around it. Ojutai's Command is another control option that we can utilize, but is moestly here so that this section isn't entirely about Reflector Mage.Blue/Black
- Prized Amalgam
- Posessed Skaab
- Ruthless Deathfang
Blue/Black leans us into more graveyard manipulation and controling effects but also significantly increases our play-curve. Focusing here wil severly limit our ability to use Collected Command, but it is not entirely out of the question. My gut instinct is that this section has more potential with another rotation and a new deck/format.BACK TO TOP
SAMPLE BUILDS:
Green/Black Hyper-efficiency Build
4x Blisterpod
4x Catacomb Sifter
4x Duskwatch Recruiter
4x Elvish Visionary
2x Liliana, Heretical Healer
4x Loam Dryad
4x Nantuko Husk
4x Zulaport Cutthroat
5x Forest
4x Hissing Quagmire
4x Llanowar Wastes
3x Swamp
3x Westvale Abbey
Instant
4x Collected Company
Enchantment
3x Cryptolith Rite
4x Ultimate Price
4x Transgress the Mind
2x Tireless Tracker
2x Ulvenwald Mysteries
2x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1x Fleshbag Marauder
G/W Beefcake Build
4x Hangarback Walker
4x Thraben Inspector
3x Duskwatch Recruiter
4x Pious Evangel
3x Eldrazi Displacer
2x Brood Monitor
2x Archangel Avacyn
Spells
3x Cryptolith Rite
2x Oath of Gideon
1x Secure the Wastes
1x Evolutionary Leap
4x Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
4x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
4x Canopy Vista
6x Forest
4x Crumbling Vestige
6x Plains
3x Westvale Abbey
1x Secure the Wastes
2x Clip Wings
3x Declaration in Stone
1x Evolutionary Leap
2x Lambholt Pacifist
1x Quarantine Field
1x Sigarda, Heron's Grace
3x Tragic Arrogance
1x Linvala, the Preserver
4-Color Combo Build
4 Loam Dryad
4 Elvish Visionary
2 Zulaport Cutthroat
4 Duskwatch Recruiter
4 Catacomb Sifter
4 Eldrazi Displacer
4 Reflector Mage
3 Brood Monitor
Non-Creatures:
3 Cryptolith Rite
4 Collected Company
3 Caves of Koilos
4 Evolving Wilds
3 Forest
1 Island
4 Llanowar Wastes
1 Plains
1 Swamp
3 Westvale Abbey
4 Yavimaya Coast
1 Enlightened Ascetic
2 Fleshbag Marauder
3 Negate
3 Reality Smasher
1 Secure the Wastes
2 Sylvan Advocate
2 Transgress the Mind
1 Ultimate Price
4 Loam Dryad
4 Duskwatch Recruiter
4 Elvish Visionary
2 Zulaport Cutthroat
4 Catacomb Sifter
4 Reflector Mage
4 Eldrazi Displacer
3 Brood Monitor
Instant (4)
4 Collected Company
3 Cryptolith Rite
Land (24)
3 Caves of Koilos
4 Yavimaya Coast
4 Llanowar Wastes
3 Forest
1 Island
1 Plains
1 Swamp
4 Evolving Wilds
3 Westvale Abbey
1 Enlightened Ascetic
2 Thought-Knot Seer
2 Negate
2 Transgress the Mind
4 Reality Smasher
4 Sylvan Advocate
1x Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim
4x Catacomb Sifter
3x Drowner of Hope
4x Duskwatch Recruiter
3x Eldrazi Displacer
3x Elvish Visionary
1x Liliana, Heretical Healer
4x Loam Dryad
1x Nantuko Husk
4x Reflector Mage
2x Zulaport Cutthroat
Instant (4)
4x Collected Company
3x Cryptolith Rite
Land (23)
2x Canopy Vista
2x Caves of Koilos
3x Evolving Wilds
1x Forest
3x Llanowar Wastes
1x Plains
2x Prairie Stream
1x Sunken Hollow
1x Swamp
3x Westvale Abbey
4x Yavimaya Coast
2x Archangel Avacyn
1x Enlightened Ascetic
4x Reality Smasher
2x Thought-Knot Seer
4x Transgress the Mind
2x Warping Wail
BACK TO TOP
C-C-C-COMBOS!
This is what separates this deck build from other Cryptolith/Abbey Variants. Eldrazi Drisplacer + Brood Monitor is your infinite combo. In a vacuum, it does nothing but repeat itself... blink brood monitor, get 3 scions. Sac scions to blink Brood Monitor, wash rinse repeat. In creature combat, you have a closed loop of chump blockers. If you have mana available pre-turn EOT, you can just flood the board with more dudes. But, when you add other cards to the mix... THINGS happen.
?=Pious Evangel-Gain infinite life
?=Zulaport Cutthroat-Win the Game
?=Wayward Disciple-Win the Game
?=Catacomb Sifter-Dig through your library and find whatever you want.
On that note.... if you are using Catacomb to dig, and your opponent aims a removal spell at breaking your loop, you can still go through your entire deck and WRITE IT DOWN so that you can go to anyplace in your deck and KNOW what your deck order is for the rest of the game (barring shuffle effects). It is also important to recognize that one of the best reasons to use the Brood Monitor combo, is to dodge Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet hate, since all you need to sacrifice is tokens
Similar to Brood Moniter above, this combo is about making guys and flooding the board, potentially to combo someone out. Unlike Brood Monitor you cannot just combo out, but instead get a bigger board presence (Drowner is effectively 7/7 for 6), and can use scions to clear the road to a beat-down plan. Not a bad thing when your clock is a 5/5 instead of a 3/3. He's also a little easier on the mana-spread, needing U instead of GG. Perhaps most importantly, Drowner of Hope survives Languish and most damage based removal, making him a potent substitute for the dead on combo, vs. control lists gunning for this deck.
Avacyn + Displacer is a combo in your deck that a) protects the rest of your deck (and even itself) from traditional removal and b) is capable of winning games all by itself. Heck... just gaming Avacyn in your deck will win you some games.
Sometimes you don't need to combo out to win. Just play the tempo game and keep all their minions trapped in their hand and unable to be played. Incidentally, hitting this on an EOT Collected Company will sometimes net you an immediate concession -- even if it doesn't, it is REALLY good, especially if you are holding Avacyn protection in hand.
Activate Gideon turning him into a creature (+1). Blink him with Displacer, and he comes back with 5 loyalty counters. this lets you generate an emblem (-4), and leaves Gideon still in play, hanging out with the rest of your crew. This combo will be the cornerstone of any G/W purist-builds, Giving you the ability to keep getting bigger, every turn.
+++???
No matter what else you have going on in the game, never forget that having two (or more) Zulaport/Disciple effects in play can make for a game winning transformation of Westvale Abbey. With only 2 Triggers active, popping the demonlord comes out to a whopping 19 point smack in the face (not even counting the lifegain). Thats 2 life for each sacrificed creature (5) for 10 damage, and then the swing from a hastey demon for 9. Strangely, by sacrificing your Cutthroat effects to Ormendahl, you are also protecting them from random response shenanigans.
+++...
Similar to the above, allowing Avacyn to take her fury out on your board can set up big swings to close the game. Your opponent may smirk when they see that you are about to blow up your own board, but that smirk will fade when they realize that all your creatures dying at once means taking a ton of damage from death triggers -- not to mention potentially 9 from Avacyn herself.
BACK TO TOP
IN CLOSING
Like much of SOI Standard, this deck is very much experimental, but has shown some amazing potential. It has been a blast to design so far, and I can't wait to see where it grows from here.
I am still adding and editing sections, especially now that the deck has been moved to the Established Decks forum. For now, I leave it in the hands of the community and look forward to hearing your constructive feedback.
/Aezuriel
BACK TO TOP
Original Post:
The goal of this deck is to win the game through synergy of various card combinations throughout the deck. Rather Than being a "pure" combo build it is designed to be interactive in the early to mid-game, ramping mana with Scion tokens and Cryptolith Rite before closing the game through superior numbers, superior threats, or with a potentially infinite combo - repetitively bouncing Brood Monitor with Eldrazi Displacer while Zulaport Cutthroat cheers on the party.
THE DECK
3x Archangel Avacyn
2x Brood Monitor
4x Carrier Thrall
4x Catacomb Sifter
4x Duskwatch Recruiter
3x Eldrazi Displacer
2x Pious Evangel
2x Scion Summoner
4x Zulaport Cutthroat
4x Canopy Vista
4x Caves of Koilos
3x Forest
4x Llanowar Wastes
3x Plains
3x Swamp
4x Westvale Abbey
3x Collected Company
Enchantment
4x Cryptolith Rite
Testing build can be found HERE
THE BREAKDOWN
Below, I will go over the different cores I feel are important to the deck's function. Some of the cards will fill multiple roles, and some sections even have alternate considerations. This is not an exhaustive detail into the sum of all cards considered for this deck, but should give you an idea how I arrived at the choices I made for this iteration.
Token Makers
Generally speaking we want to spend our early game going wide in order to out-tempo our opponent. Late game going wide gives us multiple options in finding a way to end the game, even if it is not going face. Many games will be resolved from the sacrifice effects of Zulaport Cutthroat/Wayward Disciple, but in order to get there, we need willing sacrifices that don't take a heavy toll on our hand size.
There are three major reasons for focusing on Eldrazi Scion Tokens (which btw don't have a card lookup to share as a pretty picture). First, getting tokens attached to bodies tends to be more cost efficient and abusable later with some fun tricks from Eldrazi Displacer. The second reason is to limit the effectiveness of Declaration in Stone(the most popular removal card in standard ATM) by giving us the ability to auto-sac in response to resolution. Tertiary to these reasons, scions act not only as additional bodies, but also mana ramp, even when we don't have Cryptolith Rite in play.
Other Considerations
While Secure the Wastes makes a good instant speed way to really ramp up bodycount, it doesn't do much by itself, and you need to have developed your mana significantly before it is truly efficient. The planeswalkers are good, but lend themselves to a version of the deck that is more aggro oriented than combo, yet prolong the game because they don't interact as well with Displacer/Cryptolith or sacrifice effects. Hangerback Walker is generally good, but not as synergistic as scion tokens - This is easily a SB card that you can sub in main if you want to swap effects with anything.
Ramp
Believe it or not, this is actually a really funky ramp deck, even if it does not seem like one at first blush. You are perfectly capable of deploying accelerated threats on curve, but where this build really shines is its ability to sink large amounts of mana into growing bigger, digging for pieces, or just sacrificing itself off to close the game.
Reiterating some from the previous section, Accelerating with scions gives us some additional security in board state, while allowing for some pretty spectacular plays with Cryptolith Rite, or sacrifice effects in play. Scions and scion-makers also allow for some utility in building up a large board, or chump-blocking tricks with Eldrazi Displacer.
Other Considerations
Generally speaking, I initially shied away from trying to push 1 drop utility creatures into the deck because the tend not to be card efficient unless you are assembling the right cards really fast. Cards like From Beyond are on the other side of the spectrum, coming down too late to be effective, and not offering up enough utility to make up the tempo loss. Eyeless Watcher is an example of something not quite fitting -- overall it fits, but it doesn't enable anything relevant in its tempo slot.
Sacrifice Effects and Outlets
As a "Token Sacrifice" themed deck, here's where a lot of our energy racing is spent. Even if we don't outright win this way, sacrifice/death effects are what allow us have midgame parity with other decks packing creatures with better raw stats.
Pious Evangel is basically Zulaport Cutthroat 4+, but he does have some nice synergy as a blocker that can survive Avacyn's wrath on the transformation. Catacomb Sifter is amazing for turning small in-turn plays into card filtering for our next draw effect.
Other Considerations
Altar's Reap is a potential replacement for Collected Company, especially in budget builds. It also is a nice hedge vs. Declaration in Stone. However, in streamlining, Collected Company is just hands-down better and I wasn't comfortable cutting elsewhere. Ayli, was a hard card to cut, and will probably find at least 1 copy in my personal list as she is just really strong and can help your early game immensely. Sifter of Skulls is promising in theory, but we shouldn't have that much of an issue following our plan that we need him -- moreover, if we are having an issue, he doesn't actually help, he just prolongs the death. Still, Sifter may go well in a version with Nantuko Husk. I like husk, but he doesn't quite feel right in my playtesting of this build. I think he's waiting for a build with some kind of mass graveyard reanimation. Smothering Abomination is a great example of recognizing the price. He feels like he could work, but he will still just screw you over since he cant regain you tempo from behind, and there are better effects we can draw on at the point in the game where we'd want him. The only reason I mention Ruthless Deathfang here is because I feel this is an effect we could actually use... if only we were in blue. Hm....
Dig
This archetype of deck usually has a flash in the pan kind of feel.
Including a selection of ways to dig for more cards... or the RIGHT cards... allow us to use different tools for different situations. Just as long as we bring the right tool first...
Don't overlook Catacomb Sifter when you are playing out your build. If you have excess creatures sitting on the board, sacrificing one can do wonders for cleaning up the top of your library. Multiple sifters make this effect stronger, and under the right circumstances you can even go through your whole deck. The others offer various effects that you don't necessarily overdose on, but can be extremely useful with the right timings. Duskwatch Recruiter is extremely effective as a mana sink, and even doubles as board pressure if he flips.
Other Considerations
While not exactly dig, Greenwarden and Den protector allow us to reuse something that we have already done to try and [re]capture more value. Soul of the Harvest is a sneaky little gem that is Standard legal again, thanks to its inclusion in the 2016 Welcome Deck. Even better, Both Greenwarden and Soul of the Harvest would be abusable with Eldrazi Displacer. Another gem with Displacer is Ulvenwald Hydra, unfortunately, digging out Westvale Abbey or even just accelerating your land drops just feels forced, and won't turn the game by itself.
Bombs
These effects are the powerhouses that can decide games all on their own. while a combo deck does not necessarily need specific bombs, these fit so well into what we are already doing, we cant ignore them. Neither, does it hurt that they are some of the most powerful cards from the new set.
Avacyn is panning out to the most pervasive card in standard from the new set. Just the threat of her is enough to give most decks pause, and we can actually use her to pull off some crazy stunts. While not as flashy, Abbey gives us a steady supply of bodies, and the potential to close games out of nowhere. Even though Cryptolith Rite is more a ramp card than a bomb, you need to keep in mind that having it is a huge tempo swing for your deck, and need to adjust your play accordingly.
THE COMBOS
Avacyn + Displacer is probably the most important combo in your deck because it is the one that a) protects the rest of your deck, and even itself... and b) is the one that most of your opponents will be expecting from you, and will try to play around. You can use both of those pieces of info to your advantage. The basic idea here, is that if Avacyn tranforms for any reason, you can use Displacer to protect your side of the board for a 1 sided clear. Incidentally, it also allows displacer to protect any creature you have in play from non-exile removal.
The second most important combo in your deck is the one they WON'T necessarily see coming. Eldrazi Drisplacer + Brood Monitor is your infinite combo. In a vacuum, it does nothing but repeat itself... blink brood monitor, get 3 scions. Sac scions to blink Brood Monitor, wash rinse repeat. In creature combat, you have a closed loop of chump blockers. If you have mana available pre-turn EOT, you can just flood the board with more dudes. But, when you add other cards to the mix... THINGS happen.
?=Pious Evangel-Gain infinite life
?=Zulaport Cutthroat-Win the Game
?=Wayward Disciple-Win the Game
?=Catacomb Sifter-Dig through your library and find whatever you want.
AND, on that note.... if you are using Catacomb to dig, and your opponent aims a removal spell at breaking your loop, you can still go through your entire deck and WRITE IT DOWN so that you can go to anyplace in your deck and KNOW what your deck order is for the rest of the game (barring shuffle effects).
+++???
No matter what else you have going on in the game, never forget that having two (or more) Zulaport/Disciple effects in play can make for a game winning transformation of Westvale Abbey. With only 2 Triggers active, popping the demonlord comes out to a whopping 19 point smack in the face (not even counting the lifegain). Thats 2 life for each sacrificed creature (5) for 10 damage, and then the swing from a hastey demon for 9. Strangely, by sacrificing your Cutthroat effects to Ormendahl, you are also protecting them from random response shenanigans.
+++...
Similar to the above, allowing Avacyn to take her fury out on your board can set up big swings to close the game. Your opponent may smirk when they see that you are about to blow up your own board, but that smirk will fade when they realize that all your creatures dying at once means taking a ton of damage from death triggers -- not to mention potentially 9 from Avacyn herself.
SUBSTITUTION, SIDEBOARDING, AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENT
While I feel this is a pretty solid list, I do think it has room to improve. These "weak spots" are the places where you can find room to squeeze in preferred effects for your meta, sideboard slots for tournament play, or cut-fodder for future R&D.
First, Scion Summoner and Pious Evangel are duplicate effects to other cards in the deck. This makes them immediately disposable if you feel you have a need for something different or better. On the other side of the coin, Cryptolith Rite does not NEED to be a 4-of (I would hesitate to cut it entirely). Also, having an infinite combo is great, but outside of combo-ing off, Brood Monitor is pretty weak and you can probably add something else here and just focus on playing a stronger traditional game.
PRIME SUSPECTS
These are cards not mentioned elsewhere which may still have a place in this deck. These could be in the sideboard, or in future iterations based on competitive results.
Bearer of Silence, Fleshbag Maruder, and Brood Butcher fall in the category or playing interactive creatures that affect board state. Conversely, combo decks and hand disruption go hand-in-hand so theres the nod to TKS, Transgress, and Pick the Brain. In particular, Thought-Knot Seer is a great body that achieves hand disruption and tends to eat removal spells (one way or another). which is a handy thing to have. Drowner of Hope is one of my favorite cards, especially with Eldrazi Displacer -- and is one last nod to my belief that this will eventually be blue. Sanitarium Skeleton belongs in a deck that is trying to be hyperefficient, but may not be possible. such a deck would cut lands and also run cards like Blisterpod and Shambling Goblin, and lean more heavily on Cryptolithic Rites for explosive mana.
IN CLOSING
Like much of SOI Standard, this deck is very much experimental, but has shown some amazing potential. It has been a blast to design so far, and I can't wait to see where it grows from here.
I am still adding sections and interactions to the main write-up. But, for now, I leave it in the hands of the community and look forward to hearing your constructive feedback.
A testable version of this deck can be found ... HERE
This space reserved for changes and additional updates.
It was pretty nasty tbh, everything he played would generate two scions, so with one mana up and two scions, with a couple creatures in play, a Eerie Interlude in hand, he could go off. His kill was flipping Evangel with Avacyn in play, she'd come back wipe the board of 10+ scions and gg
Still, I won't say it can't use tweaking. Right now I am still working the core to find the most efficient way for the deck to unpack itself.
The shortcut for infinite scry is to simply look through your deck and put the wanted card on top, but that's an agreement between your opponent and you that you aren't going to be stopped at some iteration of the loop. If you are going to be stopped, then you have to scry as you normally would, 1 card at a time, scrying to the bottom. Thus you would not know what is the next card in your deck.
Smothering Abomination is a card I have my eye on, but am not including yet, because theres some serious risk issus. Foremost is that this is a balanced combo list that sometimes may not have access to a sac creature at n point in the game. I also don't like the idea that he forces me to flip avacyn whether I want to or not (and then he dies to her unless I also have displacer). That said, I have also been eyeing Soul of the Harvest, since learning that it is standard legal courtesy of the 2016 welcome deck.
I have available: Brood Monitor, Catacomb Sifter, 3 lands, 3 scion tokens, and Eldrazi Displacer (0 relevant cards from hand or grave)
I attempt to activate Displacer and my opponent casts Fiery Temper targeting Displacer
-- I have 3 mana still available, but no way to save Displacer so I know that once Fiery temper resolves, boom.
The play is to use my remaining 3 mana and activate displacer again, targeting Brood Monitor
-- most players immediately jump to the thought -- just scry to another Displacer ... some even say, I'll do it again to get to "card Z".
What I am trying to highlight here is that you don't have to stop at "card Z" the first time. If your opponent it going to use another killspell just to break your loop early, GREAT! Otherwise you have the unique opportunity to scry through your entire deck before displacer dies. While you do it, you can record your deck order and go to the position of your choice (we can't quite reorder it...yet). That is a powerful tool.
Maybe the best play is to go straight to your next displacer -- but I'd wager there might be other pockets of awesome that you want to fast forward to instead.
As far as playing through the loop, you can ask your opponent - but when in doubt call a judge, you may as well get familiar with them while playing a deck like this.
Explain the board state, then say "I am going to demonstrate a loop"
Show them the Brood Monitor Displacer Loop.
Point out that Catacomb Sifter allows you to scry 1 and that every scry you want to put to the bottom of your deck unless interrupted by your opponent.
Then declare that you are going to do the loop n times, such that you are able to go through your entire deck and record the card order.
*if your opponent is going to break your loop (again) he has to do it now, or state when he is going to.
At that point, a savvy judge will let you pick up your deck and just write it down to save time, and watch you to make sure you don't reorder anything inappropriately. Some judges may want you to do it card by card. But for such a powerful tool, it is worth it.
From that point, pick the point you want to go to in your deck, and move your cards (top to bottom) and get to that point before allowing Displacer to die (he's probably tired now anyways). MAKE SURE TO MARK ON YOUR LIST WHERE YOU ARE IN YOUR DECK.
Do that twice or more in a tournament and not only will the judges pick up quickly from the sound of your voice, but you will be elevated to a special level of dread by other players (LOL).
5 Forest
3 Plains
4 Llanowar Wastes
4 Caves of Koilos
2 Shambling Vent
2 Hissing Quagmire
2 Westvale Abbey
2 Fortified Village
Creature 25
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Eldrazi Displacer
4 Catacomb Sifter
4 Zulaport Cutthroat
2 Pious Evangel
3 Duskwatch Recruiter
3 Brood Monitor
1 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
4 Oath of Nissa
2 Eerie Interlude
2 Warping Wail
3 From Beyond
3 Duress
2 Transgress the Mind
1 Dragonlord Dromoka
1 Languish
1 Thought-Knot Seer
1 Reality Smasher
1 Endbringer
1 Ever After
2 Dromoka's Command
2 Clip Wings
I've been testing this version of the deck for a few days. So far I'm really enjoying it's ability to grind, stay alive, and then combo kill. The board is definitely a work in progress, but the deck can gum up the ground fairly well, is a bit weak to flyers, and probably wants to lose the combo against decks that have a lot of spot removal. Command can deal with virulent plague, and cards like silkwrap, statsis snare, etc. It's possible that the mainboard interlude and wail should just be duress, but then the mana base would probably have to be tweaked a bit. Interlude is very good when it works, and bluffing it is not unreasonable as we have several 3 cost abilities that are plausible. Warping wail mainboard is more versatile than duress and can be instant speed pinging with cutthroat, which can catch people off guard. Need to test more. Duress is very good in most match ups as well.
Changes include a more streamlined main list, formatting changes, and additional sections on card selection and areas of potential improvement.
I like what I see you doing and look forward to hearing your results. I will likely add some of your inclusions to the card consideration in my next update.
4x Blisterpod
4x Catacomb Sifter
4x Duskwatch Recruiter
4x Elvish Visionary
2x Liliana, Heretical Healer
4x Loam Dryad
4x Nantuko Husk
4x Zulaport Cutthroat
4x Forest
4x Hissing Quagmire
4x Llanowar Wastes
4x Swamp
3x Westvale Abbey
Instant
4x Collected Company
Enchantment
3x Cryptolith Rite
4x Ultimate Price
4x Transgress the Mind
2x Tireless Tracker
2x Ulvenwald Mysteries
2x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1x Fleshbag Marauder
In order to get the average CMC of the deck down, dropping white entirely is a smart step, almost literally decapitating the largest CMC portion of the deck. This does not come without its own hurdles: losing Avacyn means losing the best protection in our deck, and losing Displacer/Moniter relegates us to playing heads up efficient magic with no room for error. I feel that this was a smart move in the face of a metagame overseeded with w/x humans and Bant Company, allowing you to play faster - in a shallower curve, and just dig for what you need rather than opting for big splashy plays with redundancy.
The neatest things I noticed when evaluating this version were:
Duskwatch Recruiter and Elvish Visionary are amazing together.
I have said on many occasions that Duskwatch Recruiter was vastly preferred to the elf, because of the ability to use excess mana to unpack the rest of your deck. I did not, however, realize how well they go TOGETHER in such a shallow curved build. This is a brilliant move and I was wrong.
Liliana, Heretical Healer, is such a natural fit for this deck, I am amazed that I missed it. My only explanation, other than just saying I was wrong, is that she was harder to handle in the bigger version of the deck with more going on (especially when navigating Avacyn transformations. On this curve she is stellar, and I am surprised how often I am ready and willing to flip her and immediately bring back some dork and net even more board presence. She is also the kind of GY recursion that Nantuko Husk needed in order to justify his inclusion in the deck. The fact that she also offers us MD hand disruption is pure gold.
Loam Dryad is a good inclusion for his ability to help accel mana when you dont have cryptolith in play. However, he is probably the weakest 1 drop and might be better off as Shambling Goblin or Sanitarium Skeleton in some builds.
Overall I am impressed with the concise design for this GB build. However, I feel that this is the kind of build that works in the right meta-game. Being played at a pro-tour level event makes the most sense as the likelihood of running into "random jank" is relatively small. That said, it IS possible to build against this deck now that it has been spoiled, and I still feel that the GBW Version has some merit in resiliency versus a more diverse field, particularly FNM, Gameday, and PPTQ's -- and especially if this deck prompts a greater interest in control decks.
For now I look forward to seeing how the team at Channel Fireball perform the rest of this weekend.
That said, If you start with the LSV list and add white, she is probably an auto include, as she offers you some good early defense and an alternate sac outlet to Nantuko Husk. IF you want to be really extreme, her exile effect MAY prove relevant if you can get your life up high enough, but I don't see that being efficient in this style deck (by the time you get to 30 life, you are probably already winning). However, the deathtouch and sac outlet on a 2/3 at 2cmc is solid.
UR Blue-Red Control
Modern:
UBR Grixis Control
UWR Jeskai Control
Got a link?
It's in his past broadcasts; he's played the deck the past two days.
UR Blue-Red Control
Modern:
UBR Grixis Control
UWR Jeskai Control
HOLIDAY! the deck name has officially changed to reflect its position in the established forums. The OP has been adjusted to better reflect the differentiation of of the Displacer Combo, and I am still adding a few pieces to the C-C-C-Combo section, since I feel that was one of the better parts of the initial post I created when submitting this deck.