Would Turn Aside be useful as a counter in this deck? It doesn't take care of abilities like Spellskite and doesn't stop creatures like Remand, but it would be cheap protection for combo pieces already on the battlefield.
Also, has anyone messed with proactive milling (like Hedron Crab) and Wight of Precinct Six in this? I'm wondering if there's a way to increase reliability by being less all-in on our combo. Though, all the fancy new Delve cards might screw us over.
The larger problems are k-command and abrupt decay. As long as jund is big, I don't think a deck like this can be. As far as proactive milling, you want a different deck - the ub aggro mill decks. They're also in an even worse-than-usual meta position right now for the reasons you mention.
I like this idea and list, more control heavy rather than tempo heavy. I've run Cryptic in the slot you've got for Damnation - countering a "must counter" spell, or fogging an alpha strike, and drawing has been powerful. I've also tried drown in sorrow in the side, but it has been underperforming - so much stuff gets out of range so quickly. I've tested Aetherize, Polymorphist's Jest, and Sudden Spoiling - none were great, I think damnation is just better for control and cryptic for a tempo play.
The budget build on the front page isn't a bad place to start. Use whatever lands you have, maybe go up to 23 lands, and swap in remand for spell pierce & smother.
Budget B/U Version: The budget version is cheap to build and very reliable. The only downside is that the alternate wincon is a bit weaker.
If you want to go all-in, you don't need the tar pit, delver, or pike. You may want the full 4x mindcrank and guildmage. Some people earlier were suggesting 4x Springleaf Drum and 4x Disciple of Deceit for an all-in version. I haven't tested it, but it is definitely budget friendly, and anything that accelerates you is going to help.
I'm not crazy about bloodchief ascension because it takes work to turn on. If you're dealing 8-9 damage in the first 3 turns, you may as well just play burn, it'll be more consistent. Also, transmuting T3 is way too late to turn it on - you're looking at a T5 activation which isn't any faster than casting duskmantle guildmage & activating in response to removal.
Muddle the mixture or dimir infiltrator will fetch either combo piece if you're using duskmantle guildmage, and they work immediately, if you have mana and can put something in your opponent's yard. In my experience, the two best things going for the deck is that (1) the 2-drop tutors can fetch 1-of silver bullets from your sideboard G2/G3 and (2) the tempo variant can play the combo as an incidental wincon, and with tutors you don't need lots of combo-piece redundancy. Tutoring for combo pieces also lets you dodge the dreaded T1 thoughtseize.
The problem is the deck spends too long durdling, each combo piece is bad on its own, and . Adding Disciple of Deceit to work with Springleaf Drum feels like more of the same. They're both bad on their own, but pretty good together, which increases the variance on this high variance deck. They also don't impact the board, which is a problem in the deck. Maindecking Spellskite feels right, but I'd put it in more of an all-in shell like in the first post.
The only potentially relevant card I've seen since Gatecrash has been maybe swan song to counter removal, and that's only marginally better than dispel. Everything else seems worse than what we have - ulcerate typically isn't as good as dismember, bile blight is OK and tutorable, drown in sorry is OK too, but I can't think of when we'd want them over existing removal options.
The ramp from the drum is nice, but the deck really needs better card draw and cantrips. However, due to more consistent combo decks like storm, those won't be forthcoming. I'd be happy to be wrong, I still have the deck put together and collecting dust.
Honestly I don't get the lifegain here - I don't understand what it does for you. Sure you gain a bunch of life and it hoses burn and kiki, but without ajani's pridemate or serra ascendent, it isn't developing your board state or putting a clock on your opponent or anything. And if the lifegain is important, wouldn't Auriok Champion be worth running? You can't get it with Ranger but it does both lifegain and has protection from pretty much any removal but path. Though like the other Soul Sisters, it never becomes a threat without an anthem or something.
With lifegain, I guess you don't have to block goyf when it comes trundling in, but wouldn't you rather have a threat? Something like Dragonmaster Outcast, Magus of the Scroll, Student of Warfare, etc. 1-drops stuff that still triggers genesis chamber & champion, but can actually be dangerous. Even Mikaeus the Lunarch is a pseudo anthem and fetchable with Ranger and an anthem for the swarm seems like it'd be pretty good. Or some split between threats & lifegain?
I'm not wild about Far // Away here. I think it is too costly and too slow. Options are nice, and I see this works as bounce, protection for duskmantle guildmage, and sac removal. But bounce for 2 or sac for 3 is a little too mana intense - hard to keep mana up for anything else and use either half. It isn't bad, I'd just prefer something like vapor snag for bounce (because it also triggers our combo) or geth's verdict for sac removal (again, triggers the combo) since they're so much cheaper.
Isochron Scepter isn't a bad idea, if only because it'd draw the artifact hate off mindcrank. Attaching far // away would be nice, but it is even nastier to attach counters like remand or mana leak; or some removal like smother; or both with dimir charm.
Neither solve the central problems of combo pieces that do nothing until both sides are on the board and are easily hated. But putting a counter on isochron scepter is sure to draw some of the artifact hate, so that's not a bad idea.
I agree with division by zorro. I've played this for a while in a number of different shells. It isn't a competitive deck because both combo pieces are bad by themselves. I often take G1 by surprise, but after that it is just too hard to protect both a do-nothing artifact and a do-nothing creature and keep 3 mana up.
Having both a creature & artifact - and decks mainboard/sideboard a lot of hate for both card types - means your opponent needs only have an answer to one or the other. And the combo pieces provide no value until they go off, so it is very different than pod combos or tron, where you can get something out of pod & tron lands even if it gets destroyed right away. In fact, mindcrank may help your opponent.
Protecting the combo is extra hard because the removal is cheaper than the protection, so your opponent can drop their own creature and path to exile the duskmantle guildmage or shattering spree your mindcrank. And if you don't get a counter in, you've wasted your turn keeping mana up. So you fall behind in board presence for the first several turns by leaving mana to protect your combo. Plus, the tutors are pricier - transmute is 3cc, whereas birthing pod tutors for 2 life, Sylvan Scrying & Expedition Map are cheaper or the costs can be spread across turns.
Going all-in combo isn't great because you end up with duplicate dead cards in your hand, so I put it in a control/tempo shell. But the combo pieces are still lousy, so you end up cutting more and more of them for more tempo/control pieces, relying on transmute for the combo, until you just end up with a bad delver/tempo/control deck with an alternate win condition.
It is fun to play, and it has been competitive at the FNM level, but just isn't something I'd want at a PTQ. Unless someone can post some actual competitive results, I'm moving back to RU affinity, BW tokens & WU turbofog.
Try playing it any turn other than turn one and see what happens. It's a terrible topdeck and is completely crap in multiples, and this deck already runs the risk of drawing bad multiples. In the list I posted earlier, Aether Vial would not improve it. Not at all. You would need to rebuild the entire list around Aether Vial in order to make that card worth running.
This is exactly right. If you topdeck an aether vial, you've lost a draw. This is ameliorated with Thirst for Knowledge, but otherwise it is a dead draw.
The deck is a control deck with disruption elements, which happens to win by that combo.
In my testing, the "all-in" version does better in game one, but is easily disrupted G2/3. The tempo & control versions fare nearly as well G1, but both do much better G2/3. I'm still testing to see which is better overall - tempo or control shell.
Beseech the Queen may also be playable as a 3-cost tutor for anything - assuming the mana base can support BBB.
That's true, and the cost isn't too onerous in a 2-color version. However, with transmute we've got enough 3-cost tutors for stuff we care about, and transmute cards can be otherwise useful in supporting the strategy. It is a good idea, but I don't think it is solving a problem I've run into yet.
That's really interesting. I like that you've got so many cantrips. I'm a little puzzled about thoughtflare. A 5 drop seems way too slow for modern and since the discard isn't helpful to the deck (think twice's flashback being the exception) I'm a bit underwhelmed. It is instant speed, but I suspect I'd rather have izzet charm, or maybe thirst for knowledge if I was using aether vial. I suspect I'd prefer 4x remand rather than the 3x mana leak & 2x spell snare, but I could be wrong. And a shame to lose cryptic command, but I agree that UUU is too iffy with 3-colors.
I'm curious how it plays against creature heavy decks, it seems light on removal in the mainboard. Any reason to choose nihil spellbomb over relic of progenitus? Recursion with Academy ruins or something else?
From my earlier testing, my enablers need to be 1 cmc or less. Duskmantle Guildmage behaves like a 5-cmc sorcery if I don't want him to die to removal, and if I want to win fast enough against stuff like Zoo or Burn (decks combo should aim to cream), I need to play cheap stuff.
This is the right way to think about it IMO. And I've found mindcrank is just as vulnerable as the guildmage, though with as few creatures as this deck runs, I always run into some removal.
Gutshot & Ghost Quarter are great combo enablers because they're free. Pact of Negation or Slaughter Pact would do it too, as mentioned on the first page, and they're also free and Pact of Negation protects your combo pieces. Dismember & Thought scour aren't bad for one mana, and they do other relevant things.
Serum visions is a lousy cantrip - perhaps the best in modern, but doesn't reliably flip delver, doesn't trigger the final loop, and doesn't do much. When I keep a hand relying on serum visions for something, I typically just should have mulliganed. Since I've cut serum visions, delver doesn't flip reliably enough, even with ~25 instants and sorceries. So I run this delverless now.
I've come up with an "all-in" combo version of the deck. I don't really have a good way to playtest it against a gauntlet of modern decks right now. I've goldfished some on tappedout and played it against my modern decks, and it has gone off with protection T4 most games, but in a vacuum all combo decks feel pretty good. This has no alternate wincon to speak of, but is more resilient to spot removal because of the redundancy. There is a blurb in the initial primer on each card listed below, if it isn't immediately obvious what something is doing.
I don't think this works very well. First, you have to deal damage on three separate turns. That isn't a sure thing if you're spending mana on bloodchief ascension and you're not a strong aggro deck. Second, once you've got 3 counters you must mill your opponent. This deck doesn't really do that.
I have seen bloodchief ascension work in a friend's b/u zombie mill deck. It played aggressively with zombies early on, and finished using mill (archive trap, glimpse of the unthinkable, etc) to trigger bloodchief ascension or generate zombies for undead alchemist or the like. My friend ended up changing it into a zombie pox deck that used smallpox, targeted discard, with a recurring zombie base. Bloodchief ascension was replaced with liliana's caress.
All of which is to say, bloodchief ascension is bad here. You can't tutor for it, you'll have a hard time getting 3 counters on it, and if you do, you won't trigger it enough to matter.
How about adding Ghostly Flicker? Cheap and can protect key combo elements. I've been using it in my Crab mill deck but it seems to me adding 2 to this build seems perfect.
Hardly seems worth the slot to me. I'd rather just run counters in place of the ghostly flicker. Similar protection against removal, one or two mana cheaper, and hits other stuff.
I don't like the idea of playing this combo in a mill shell. The combo wins instantly, so any mill or damage you've done up to that point is a waste. And if you can't combo out, the mill was a waste because you've got to deal damage. I get the synergy between the guildmage and big mill cards, but I probably wouldn't bother with mindcrank. The guildmage already wins with archive trap or glimpse.
Ghost Quarter is a great card here though because it works as a strip mine or a trigger for Archive Trap, so that's nice. Spellskite is a great sideboard card against infect, bogle/auras, and to protect delver/guildmage against UWR decks.
Would the deck benefit from moving to a more control aspect with the combo still being the focus of teh deck? You can still transmute for things but the combo itself would be stronger with back of Remand, Leak and Command I feel
Yep, the decklist I posted that I've been playing with has 4x remand, 2x cryptic command. I like mana leak, but between muddle the mixture & remand already, plus dimir charm, I felt like mana leak was too many 2-drop counters, so I added spell pierce. Now that storm isn't a thing anymore, spell pierce may not be ideal. It is nice on the play to have up against disruption, but most other viable combo decks are creature combos, so I don't know. Force spike seems pretty weak, spell snare maybe better, since it snags melira, snapcaster, thalia, & most of the problematic jund creatures. I'll have to test.
Also, dimir charm has been just OK. The counter is pretty much useless, the mill is unnecessary, and smother is a cheaper way to kill off creatures. So I'm thinking about pulling it for smother. Also not enamored with serum visions as a cantrip. It doesn't flip delver of secrets reliably, and the filtering isn't super important given the deck has fetch. So I'm looking for a useful 1-cost noncreature spell to stick in that slot, a shame there isn't anything that works better with delver.
Splashing red for 3rd color is interesting, but the deck doesn't have any fetch this way, so I'm not sure it'd be reliable enough and sufficiently resilient to disruption. I would suggest a pod shell, but then you're just better off going kiki/twin and resto/pester/exarch, and not doubling up on non-interchangeable combo pieces. Also, no way to get mindcrank.
The larger problems are k-command and abrupt decay. As long as jund is big, I don't think a deck like this can be. As far as proactive milling, you want a different deck - the ub aggro mill decks. They're also in an even worse-than-usual meta position right now for the reasons you mention.
I like this idea and list, more control heavy rather than tempo heavy. I've run Cryptic in the slot you've got for Damnation - countering a "must counter" spell, or fogging an alpha strike, and drawing has been powerful. I've also tried drown in sorrow in the side, but it has been underperforming - so much stuff gets out of range so quickly. I've tested Aetherize, Polymorphist's Jest, and Sudden Spoiling - none were great, I think damnation is just better for control and cryptic for a tempo play.
In a all-in control shell, have you thought about adding one finisher that is very hard to disrupt? Creeping Tar Pit is an option, but unlike Celestial Colonnade, he just dies to bolt. Nyaxithid or Grave Titan seem ok except no evasion or protection. You can get evasion with Tombstalker or Bloodgift Demon, though not protection. Wurmcoil Engine & Aetherling feel a bit slow, but both survive damnation in one form or another. Also, maybe Batterskull?
Budget B/U Version: The budget version is cheap to build and very reliable. The only downside is that the alternate wincon is a bit weaker.
2 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Drowned Catacomb
3 Ghost Quarter
4 Island
3 Swamp
2 Underground River
Creatures
3 Duskmantle Guildmage
3 Dimir Infiltrator
4 Delver of Secrets
2 Mindcrank
1 Runechanter's Pike
Instants/Sorceries
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Thought Scour
3 Muddle the Mixture
3 Spell Pierce
2 Duress
3 Dismember
3 Smother
3 Gut Shot
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 Torpor Orb
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Devour Flesh
3 Relic of Progenitus
If you want to go all-in, you don't need the tar pit, delver, or pike. You may want the full 4x mindcrank and guildmage. Some people earlier were suggesting 4x Springleaf Drum and 4x Disciple of Deceit for an all-in version. I haven't tested it, but it is definitely budget friendly, and anything that accelerates you is going to help.
Muddle the mixture or dimir infiltrator will fetch either combo piece if you're using duskmantle guildmage, and they work immediately, if you have mana and can put something in your opponent's yard. In my experience, the two best things going for the deck is that (1) the 2-drop tutors can fetch 1-of silver bullets from your sideboard G2/G3 and (2) the tempo variant can play the combo as an incidental wincon, and with tutors you don't need lots of combo-piece redundancy. Tutoring for combo pieces also lets you dodge the dreaded T1 thoughtseize.
The problem is the deck spends too long durdling, each combo piece is bad on its own, and . Adding Disciple of Deceit to work with Springleaf Drum feels like more of the same. They're both bad on their own, but pretty good together, which increases the variance on this high variance deck. They also don't impact the board, which is a problem in the deck. Maindecking Spellskite feels right, but I'd put it in more of an all-in shell like in the first post.
The only potentially relevant card I've seen since Gatecrash has been maybe swan song to counter removal, and that's only marginally better than dispel. Everything else seems worse than what we have - ulcerate typically isn't as good as dismember, bile blight is OK and tutorable, drown in sorry is OK too, but I can't think of when we'd want them over existing removal options.
The ramp from the drum is nice, but the deck really needs better card draw and cantrips. However, due to more consistent combo decks like storm, those won't be forthcoming. I'd be happy to be wrong, I still have the deck put together and collecting dust.
With lifegain, I guess you don't have to block goyf when it comes trundling in, but wouldn't you rather have a threat? Something like Dragonmaster Outcast, Magus of the Scroll, Student of Warfare, etc. 1-drops stuff that still triggers genesis chamber & champion, but can actually be dangerous. Even Mikaeus the Lunarch is a pseudo anthem and fetchable with Ranger and an anthem for the swarm seems like it'd be pretty good. Or some split between threats & lifegain?
Burrenton-Forge Tender seems good to side to avoid getting blown out by whipflare or pyroclasm.
Can someone explain why you want lifegain instead of threats here?
Isochron Scepter isn't a bad idea, if only because it'd draw the artifact hate off mindcrank. Attaching far // away would be nice, but it is even nastier to attach counters like remand or mana leak; or some removal like smother; or both with dimir charm.
Neither solve the central problems of combo pieces that do nothing until both sides are on the board and are easily hated. But putting a counter on isochron scepter is sure to draw some of the artifact hate, so that's not a bad idea.
Having both a creature & artifact - and decks mainboard/sideboard a lot of hate for both card types - means your opponent needs only have an answer to one or the other. And the combo pieces provide no value until they go off, so it is very different than pod combos or tron, where you can get something out of pod & tron lands even if it gets destroyed right away. In fact, mindcrank may help your opponent.
Protecting the combo is extra hard because the removal is cheaper than the protection, so your opponent can drop their own creature and path to exile the duskmantle guildmage or shattering spree your mindcrank. And if you don't get a counter in, you've wasted your turn keeping mana up. So you fall behind in board presence for the first several turns by leaving mana to protect your combo. Plus, the tutors are pricier - transmute is 3cc, whereas birthing pod tutors for 2 life, Sylvan Scrying & Expedition Map are cheaper or the costs can be spread across turns.
Going all-in combo isn't great because you end up with duplicate dead cards in your hand, so I put it in a control/tempo shell. But the combo pieces are still lousy, so you end up cutting more and more of them for more tempo/control pieces, relying on transmute for the combo, until you just end up with a bad delver/tempo/control deck with an alternate win condition.
It is fun to play, and it has been competitive at the FNM level, but just isn't something I'd want at a PTQ. Unless someone can post some actual competitive results, I'm moving back to RU affinity, BW tokens & WU turbofog.
This is exactly right. If you topdeck an aether vial, you've lost a draw. This is ameliorated with Thirst for Knowledge, but otherwise it is a dead draw.
In my testing, the "all-in" version does better in game one, but is easily disrupted G2/3. The tempo & control versions fare nearly as well G1, but both do much better G2/3. I'm still testing to see which is better overall - tempo or control shell.
That's true, and the cost isn't too onerous in a 2-color version. However, with transmute we've got enough 3-cost tutors for stuff we care about, and transmute cards can be otherwise useful in supporting the strategy. It is a good idea, but I don't think it is solving a problem I've run into yet.
I'm curious how it plays against creature heavy decks, it seems light on removal in the mainboard. Any reason to choose nihil spellbomb over relic of progenitus? Recursion with Academy ruins or something else?
This is the right way to think about it IMO. And I've found mindcrank is just as vulnerable as the guildmage, though with as few creatures as this deck runs, I always run into some removal.
Gutshot & Ghost Quarter are great combo enablers because they're free. Pact of Negation or Slaughter Pact would do it too, as mentioned on the first page, and they're also free and Pact of Negation protects your combo pieces. Dismember & Thought scour aren't bad for one mana, and they do other relevant things.
Serum visions is a lousy cantrip - perhaps the best in modern, but doesn't reliably flip delver, doesn't trigger the final loop, and doesn't do much. When I keep a hand relying on serum visions for something, I typically just should have mulliganed. Since I've cut serum visions, delver doesn't flip reliably enough, even with ~25 instants and sorceries. So I run this delverless now.
I've been thinking about replacing the white with a red splash - cutting Geist of Saint Traft & Lingering Souls to add Lightning Bolt & Electrolyze, sideboard Pyroclasm, and test out Izzet Charm, Burst Lightning, Sowing Salt, etc. This will be next for me to put together & test.
I've come up with an "all-in" combo version of the deck. I don't really have a good way to playtest it against a gauntlet of modern decks right now. I've goldfished some on tappedout and played it against my modern decks, and it has gone off with protection T4 most games, but in a vacuum all combo decks feel pretty good. This has no alternate wincon to speak of, but is more resilient to spot removal because of the redundancy. There is a blurb in the initial primer on each card listed below, if it isn't immediately obvious what something is doing.
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Drowned Catacomb
2 Ghost Quarter
4 Island
3 Swamp
2 Academy Ruins
3 Tolaria West
4 Duskmantle Guildmage
3 Dark Confidant
2 Dimir Infiltrator
2 Maralen of the Mornsong
Artifacts
3 Mindcrank
4 Aether vial
4 Thoughtseize
4 Serum Visions
2 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Muddle the Mixture
3 Remand
2 Dismember
2 Smother
I have seen bloodchief ascension work in a friend's b/u zombie mill deck. It played aggressively with zombies early on, and finished using mill (archive trap, glimpse of the unthinkable, etc) to trigger bloodchief ascension or generate zombies for undead alchemist or the like. My friend ended up changing it into a zombie pox deck that used smallpox, targeted discard, with a recurring zombie base. Bloodchief ascension was replaced with liliana's caress.
All of which is to say, bloodchief ascension is bad here. You can't tutor for it, you'll have a hard time getting 3 counters on it, and if you do, you won't trigger it enough to matter.
Hardly seems worth the slot to me. I'd rather just run counters in place of the ghostly flicker. Similar protection against removal, one or two mana cheaper, and hits other stuff.
Ghost Quarter is a great card here though because it works as a strip mine or a trigger for Archive Trap, so that's nice. Spellskite is a great sideboard card against infect, bogle/auras, and to protect delver/guildmage against UWR decks.
Yep, the decklist I posted that I've been playing with has 4x remand, 2x cryptic command. I like mana leak, but between muddle the mixture & remand already, plus dimir charm, I felt like mana leak was too many 2-drop counters, so I added spell pierce. Now that storm isn't a thing anymore, spell pierce may not be ideal. It is nice on the play to have up against disruption, but most other viable combo decks are creature combos, so I don't know. Force spike seems pretty weak, spell snare maybe better, since it snags melira, snapcaster, thalia, & most of the problematic jund creatures. I'll have to test.
Also, dimir charm has been just OK. The counter is pretty much useless, the mill is unnecessary, and smother is a cheaper way to kill off creatures. So I'm thinking about pulling it for smother. Also not enamored with serum visions as a cantrip. It doesn't flip delver of secrets reliably, and the filtering isn't super important given the deck has fetch. So I'm looking for a useful 1-cost noncreature spell to stick in that slot, a shame there isn't anything that works better with delver.