Ummmm that really isn't SI....it lacks cruel bargain, Lion's Eye Diamond, plays songs of the damned with a total of 12 creatures and tries to use sign in blood to generate storm instead of the strictly better version called cruel bargain which for one more B gets you 2 more cards...and soul spike? really? Also seems like infernal tutor without LED is terrible. Skeletal scrying has dissynergy with songs of the damned and to top that off costs a lot of mana just to draw 3 cards. You also lack chrome mox which is essential to any list of SI. I suggest you post this in the casual legacy forum.
In other news I took SI to a local tourney yesterday going 3-1. I'll describe it briefly here.
Round 1
I play against a homebrew deck and fizzle game 1 thus losing but combo off turn 2 in games 2 and 3 and win. Game 1 I fizzled because I tried to force the turn 1 kill but it just wasn't there.
1-0 (2-1)
Round 2 vs. an odd homebrew sort've deck it has blue and forces along with tombstalker, cursecatcher, bitterblossom daze, etc. etc. I classify it as faeries since the deck is kind of all over the place.
Game 1 he lacks force of will I win the roll so I combo out turn 1 and win. Since he's playing faeries and bitterblossom is quite good against tomb of urami I only board in 12 cards leaving a belcher and the pair of urami's in the board. Turn 1 I attempt to land grant revealing my hand with charbelcher, duress, chrome mox, dark rit and some other cards and he dazes it since he was on the play. I then go chrome mox imprinting culling the weak I think and duress him taking a sinkhole since he had no other relevant cards and that was the only option alongside a jitte. I combo out soon thereafter and when I resolve charbelcher he just scoops them up and leaves despite me having a good chance of fizzling if I fire the belcher with the 2 lands in the deck at least I didn't board in urami. Nonetheless I get the match 2-0.
2-0 (4-1)
Round 3 v. Aggro loam RGB.
I win the dice roll and combo off turn 1 against him game 1. I have zero sideboard for this MU I simply rely on speed due to no artifact hate in the board. Game 2 I resolve belcher and activate and hit the bayou 11 cards down *sigh* onto game 3. Game 3 I keep the following high risk high reward hand of:
Dryad Arbor, Bayou (yes I opened with both lands in my hand and not land grants, this is key), i. tutor, charbelcher, LED, LED, chrome mox. So turn 1 I play dryad arbor and pass to him. He goes turn 1 diamond, taiga, zuran orb, and chalice on 1 AND I JUST THINK THANK GOD HE SET IT FOR 1. He passes back to me and his turn took awhile I assume he was debating setting chalice for 0 or 1 and he picked the wrong choice :). Turn 2 I draw dark ritual (yay its not an artifact for chrome mox) and belch him for 50. Afterwards we talk about how hard it is to play chalice correctly and how if he had set it for zero he just wrecks my entire hand and leaves me with IT, belcher, and dark ritual. Then again chalice depends on what's in my hand on whether it's good or not against me. The optimal play is obviously chalice @1 and 0 but that doesn't happen all the time. He also told me that game 1 when I comboed out turn 1 he had 2 chalice's in hand but he was on the draw fortunately enough for me.
3-0 (6-2)
Round 4 vs. URGW tempo zoo stuff homebrew with stifles, dazes, force, and fire//ice.
Game 1 I keep a 1 business spell only hand that spell being a D4. I keep thinking I can draw more business if he FoWs the D4 which he does and I draw nothing the rest of the game except a lot of land grants and eventually lose. Game 2 I board in all 15 cards and the first D4 I play gets FoWed then on turn 2 he casts pyrostatic pillar and I resolve a D4 after that and I'm at a very low life total and can't combo off into the belcher in my hand to try to activate it FTW and after I show him the belcher along with LED he shows me a stifle so I couldn't win realistically. I should've remembered he plays pillar because he played it against me when I was playing solidarity two weeks ago. Oh well. I end up 3-1 (6-4) and get 3 packs opening no jace 2.0 but a foil abyssal persecutor which looks hot but I don't really need the card oh well. Next tourney if the guy with pillars is there again I fully intend on running nature's claim in the board to deal with it and with the aggro loam players chalices. There aren't a lot of blue decks there but there are some and I hit 2 of the 3 I believe. The other one is the worst MU though because he plays 4c CBTop with counterspells, spell pierce, spell snare, just all the bad stuff PSI doesn't want to face unless he keeps a hand without a FoW and I'm on the play with the turn 1 win in hand.
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"Yawgmoth," Freyalise whispered as she set the bomb, "now you will pay for your treachery."
Nice report Barl. I have a few comments/questions..
- In game 2 against Aggro Loam, misfires suck but did you die to Pact or the Loam player?
- In game 3 against Aggro Loam, this game is an excellent example of how PSI doesn't fold to a single chalice consistently. Sometimes your initial mana source is a Land Grant or a Land, bypassing Chalice @ 0 and opening the potential for Dark Ritual and Culling the Weak to fuel mad acceleration, while Chalice @ 1 turns on all initial mana sources, making the SI player rely more on LEDs and Thresh'ed Cabal Rituals to get the win. Conveniently, decks that play Chalice are often slow and enable the SI player to hit Threshold or make an LED line of play.
- Based on how you describe your metagame, I think you should play the following board:
SB
4 Duress
4 Carpet of Flowers
3 Nature's Claim
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Goblin Charbelcher
You are running into a lot of permanent based hate. Nature's Claim is also good against Counterbalance. If your opponent is trying to counter a 1cc spell and don't have a 1cc on top of their library, you can respond to the top activation with Nature's Claim to Destroy CB. It seems like Xantid Swarm isn't going to be too hot unless your meta is Merfolk heavy. Duress works much better, even post-board in game 3 against something like Aggro Loam. Duress can grab Counterbalance and lock pieces as well as countermagic, unlike Xantid Swarm.
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I died to summoner's pact due to seeing no LEDs in my spell chain to pay for the pact and I didn't have the 2GG to pay the upkeep cost so I just scooped. Actually had I seen an LED you just fire belcher again during upkeep with the pact trigger on the stack lol as long as he doesn't destroy the belcher but oh well you can't get the extremely broken card every game. And I misplayed a little I think I had 7 mana total and could have played either a D4 or the belcher and I chose the belcher and there was the kill in the top 4 cards oh well I still got the match at least
On the SB. Xantid swarm is meh in my meta and if people know you play it they keep the creature hate in. No one plays merfolk at my local tourney so yeah although sometimes merfolk pops up randomly it doesn't happen the most often. There's usually around 10 people in the room so I can choose a very good SB. Duress is so good in general in storm combo I just love it. Tomb of urami is meh without a complete man plan so I support cutting it. Nature's claim is great against counterbalance and other permanent based hate like chalice if it isn't at one or zuran orb in the case of the aggro loam player. He debated putting in leyline for IGG/cabal rit games 2 and 3 but decided not to and I told him I only ran cabal ritual but no IGG. I never used e. witness the entire day nor did I show it to anyone so I guess that would get hit by leyline as well but I typically board it out games 2 and 3 since pact is often boarded out as well so it isn't that useful and the 1GG cost is troublesome to achieve sometimes. But I love nature's claim in my meta. I considered putting it in before the tourney but decided not to oh well lol.
EDIT: The other blue deck isn't 4c counterbalance its 4c landstill but he has 4 counterspell's along with all the other countermagic you could think of. He also has 4 jace 2.0 in there or 3 at least 3.
Hey Guys, I'm adopting SI as my new Combo deck. I love all archetypes but my combo deck was ANT, i took it apart out of sadness when MT was banned... I made TES, but I don't like it very much. So before going back to MTless-ANT as my only combo deck I'm willing to give SI a shot. Iam an Old school IGGY-POP player from when that deck first came into existence. I was reading previous posts and I think I will go to the older list without pacts/ESG... well I might go with ESG and 9-10 Tallmen. Reasoning: I feel like this deck needs protection Main deck, so I will Include Cabal Therapy in the Main list as well as Diabolic Intent. The quickest way to win is by direct Tutoring. So here is my take on my initial list:
Well, it took me 4 hours or so of messing with the stock lists and goldfishing until i could figure out the spell chains and start doing turn 1 kills on a normalish basis. The addition of charbelcher really helps out. Not only does it provide endgame (2-4) paths after a storm combo is no longer possible, it is an alternate t1 win, though if it fails, bad draws can hurt until you get the needed three to go through again.
I have to agree that running the arbor dryad is superior to the multiple tallmen version, sans running Glimpse of Nature, where the tallmen get a little better off, though it requires slightly more mana (and manamorphoses) to offset the cost of playing Glimpse and the loss(?) of a business card.
SoM's Mox Opal doesnt have a place in the pact lists, i've found. It usually ends up being a storm count +1 that doesnt offer anything else, as you'll sometimes not have metalcraft when you're ready to go off.
All observations I agree with. Bad draws do hurt if you misfire on Belcher but there are so many ways to find Dryad Arbor that you can often find at least one land before Belching. Also, if you have any perpetual resources after the Belcher activation then a Dark Ritual or LED will put you back in the game, as will 2 mana and Infernal Tutor-->LED, as will just drawing 3 manasources. Its actually quite easy to activate it a second time. In fact, you can often play it out and just wait for mana against decks that don't have a clock, especially if you just lay it down without playing any D4's.
@aaronc123
Your changes don't make too much sense. I'd read the primer again if I were you. There's no good reason to play 2 IGG in PSI. Your spell chains are always long enough to fuel a lethal Tendrils without needing to IGG loop a second time. Also, you are playing a deck that wins by drawing cards and diluting the deck of other cards to improve the consistency of the draws. Playing 61 cards is not the way to go with this deck trust me. You might be able to pull it off with other decks, but inconsistent draws will start to piss you off when you try to play more than 60 cards in SI.
Also, there isn't much reason to play Land Grant if you are not going to play Belcher. Try looking into a SITES build. It plays almost like what you are trying to build only with Burning Wish instead of Diabolic Intent. In some sense its stronger because you don't need a creature. It also plays Therapy main (if you want to), and Kobolds as Tallmen to imprint on Chrome Mox, though if you want you can play Tallmen instead.
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People often make that mistake. Trust me you can stand it. If you could actually make the play Pact-->Slithermuse, it would be far too O.P to be legal and Pact would be banned rather quickly, in which case you'd be in the same situation as before. The deck is still phenomenal without that play so I don't see the problem. Besides, the deck would be designed around finding Slithermuse if you could make that play.
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LOL just play painter's servant naming green so you can fetch muse with pact....then again that seems pretty terrible. I made that mistake when I first started goldfishing too and if you could make that play I'm sure someone would have discovered it when slithermuse was spoiled summoner's pact would be banned hardcore for being the stone cold nuts. But slithermuse is still great with IT and LED just not as broken because the tutor costs 1B versus 0.
I would only play one IGG in PSI. Like Vacrix stated, storm is easy to accumulate in that deck I mean I personally have won with just the opening 7 cards leading into tendrils because pact ramps it up along with all those mana spells, land grant, etc. etc. you get the point and after one D4 I can most definitely achieve 10 storm with ease. After slithermuse always.
I most definitely agree with mox opal not belonging in PSI lists as a 1-4 of. If you don't have metalcraft woohoo you raised the storm count one but you also fizzled which is very annoying because of mox opal. I also think the PSI list is close to optimal already and what would we cut for mox opal? I can't find anything and running it in the flex slots seems lackluster compared to other cards we could be running. Sure in lists like GSI with 16 tallmen which are all artifacts it is a definite 4 of but in PSI not so much. The card is not that good.
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@aaronc123
Your changes don't make too much sense. I'd read the primer again if I were you. There's no good reason to play 2 IGG in PSI. Your spell chains are always long enough to fuel a lethal Tendrils without needing to IGG loop a second time. Also, you are playing a deck that wins by drawing cards and diluting the deck of other cards to improve the consistency of the draws. Playing 61 cards is not the way to go with this deck trust me. You might be able to pull it off with other decks, but inconsistent draws will start to piss you off when you try to play more than 60 cards in SI.
Also, there isn't much reason to play Land Grant if you are not going to play Belcher. Try looking into a SITES build. It plays almost like what you are trying to build only with Burning Wish instead of Diabolic Intent. In some sense its stronger because you don't need a creature. It also plays Therapy main (if you want to), and Kobolds as Tallmen to imprint on Chrome Mox, though if you want you can play Tallmen instead.
After tons of Goldfishing, I see your points. The listing i posted on the previous page was made without belcher/pacts, simply because I did not have any. However, i acquired the 3 belchers and my friend is giving me a playset of pacts. Therefore, I will try it out. Also, 61 cards may be screwing up again, and cutting tallmen disallows Opal, so that was cut too.
I have 2 questions though.
1. Slithermuse vs. Ill-Gotten Gains, can an experienced SI player give me some pros/cons?
2. Cabal Therapy Main decked.- on a week to week basis 1/3 of my meta has Force of Will, and all the aggro decks have Mindbreak Trap on the board. I don't see many people running the proactive hate such as therapy main, so, is this good enough hate for main, or would something like Unmask be superior?
Here is my second version. Not sure if i'll do Iggy or slithermuse yet Main deck.
You can actually play around Mindbreak Trap relatively easy. Just drop your mana sources 2 at a time until you are ready to go off, then for that turn, play a ritual, and then a business spell like Belcher, and win on the following turn. Further, you can even IT and play Belcher in the same turn if you play everything in the right order.
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Yeah Mindbreak Tarp is relatively easy to beat. If people don't hit your draw 4's then you just stomp them because you can draw a huge portion of your deck and have enough win cons to just go off twice.
I primarily play online, but I don't want to shell out a buck fifty for 3 LED's so I made a Glimpse of Nature version that forgoes LED. This is also about the only way to make the deck online because you don't have the 8 D4's. I consistently goldfish turn 2 although I'm not good enough yet at mulliganing to have results that I like. The sheer amount of Tallmen make D4's less good but that is something I can live with because this is the fastest combo deck online. Mox Opal is really what holds this deck together, and it is absolutely bananas in this deck.
Street Wraith have never been a problem, and I like them much more than manamorphose because they help you start the glimpse chain and they don't make you use a ritual and sac a lotus petal to play. Also, the lifegain isn't a problem until after you have played your second/third D4 and by then you probably don't need the additional draw. I would like to replace them with LED but that really hasn't been an issue because LED is only amazing when you are tutoring or drawing a ton.
I don't play belcher because Land Grant isn't online. Another reason is that I play 6 lands. Misty is because it is in decks that don't play black and I want people to think I am playing blue (or green like a nub).
Retract is an absolute house in this deck. One is the correct number. It is usually free and draws your 3+ cards because you return a mox opal. It is the easilest way to turn a single glimpse into a win. Worst case scenario it ups your storm count by like 4 for 0 mana.
I have never needed more than 2 tendrils and I like that I have so few win cons because it makes it easier to chain glimpse triggers into tallmen.
Diabolic Intent is the strait nutzoar in this deck, however I haven't really needed more than 2. The Infernal/LED package might just be better.
Proxy it up if you want to. The deck is a ton of fun.
Comments/Suggestions welcome. Remember this is for MTGO.
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Accomplishments:
1800+ in Limited
3-0ing after drafting 17 non-basics in Cube
I'm finally getting the hang of the pact list. I suppose it might be the same of all Storm decks; this is my first venture into a combo deck...but the issue I was facing is that the deck requires a bit of "letting go." You don't really have much control over where your deck takes you, and you're relying on redundancy in deckbuilding to secure the W. I'm getting consistent turn one kills, but I feel more like I'm tripping dick-first into them because the only kind of hand that 100% kills on its own is a hand where you can produce seven mana, have Belcher in hand, and can get all the land out of your deck with tutors.
I haven't played any sideboarded games though, because I literally just pick the deck up and play solitaire obsessively when I've got nothing better to do. I ended up choosing to play this deck because it seemed like it would be easy to learn how to play compared to something like TES, given that you really have no desire to interact with an opponent (so giving a low priority to mastering intricacies concerning that kind of interaction seems acceptable). I don't have many people to test against, and I feel like I need an opponent complete with disruption if I want to figure out how to play games with the sideboard in.
From the PSI list in the primer...What 15 cards do you board out to board your entire sideboard in against decks with blue?
...Do you care about any other matches enough to side any of your cards in?
It depends on your meta. I added 3 nature's claim to my SB to combat chalice, z. orb to an extent, and canonist. If you dedicate your entire board to blue decks, I usually board out likewise with my list with a sample SB and my decklist I go likewise:
-4 Summoner's pact
-1 Wild cantor
-1 Skyshroud cutter
-1 Culling the Weak
-3 Tendrils of Agony
-1 Eternal Witness
-1 Land grant
-1 Dryad Arbor
-2 Manamorphose
In fact, I just checked this and its the same way Vacrix said he boarded on page 7, post 98. Or very close to it.
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The manamorphose slots are called flex slots meaning you can put any variety of cards in there. Personally I run skyshroud cutter and wild cantor in those slots and have been fine without manamorphose. Manamorphose makes this deck easier to goldfish when you're new to it but the good thing about cantor and cutter is that they're culling fodder while manamorphose can be any number of things. The nicest thing about morphose is turning green mana into black mana or blue mana for slithermuse but generally it makes black mana.
As for the 3 tendrils you could try -1 tendrils +1 IGG. The spell chains in PSI are usually long though and tend to reach 10 storm easily without IGG at least I've never wished I had IGG to ramp up the storm count because accumulating storm is so easy.
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"Yawgmoth," Freyalise whispered as she set the bomb, "now you will pay for your treachery."
I've had this deck built for the past four months, and I'm going to Japan for a extended stay in a few weeks, so today was my last chance to get a tourney in before I have to get lost trying to find a cardstore that has Legacy tournaments in Japan. I chose to play PSI.
So I went 1-3, but I could have won every match I lost if I knew what I was doing.
Round 1-I Lost to Grizzly Bears. I played against an opponent who hadn't played Magic in four years. I saw Gruul Turf, Elvish Archers, Grizzly Bears, Balduvian Bears, Giant Growth, and Colossal Might. Game one, I lost because I didn't mini-Tendrils even though I put my opponent on Green Aggro with Pump Spells and I was at four when he had two guys in play. He hadn't played a pump spell yet, and I was hoping to get one more card before I had to pull the trigger. Game two, I played too conservatively. I was killed by a Grizzly Bears with Untamed Might because I didn't use my Lion's Eye Diamonds when I played a Cruel Bargain. I drew two more D4 with no mana to cast them, and I undoubtedly would've been able to kill him on turn one if I had been more aggressive.
0-1.
Round 2-I played some acquaintance of my first round opponent. He was playing MUC complete with Morphling, Nevinyrral's Disk, and like 23 counterspells. Game one he doesn't keep a hand with Force of Will, and I kill with Goblin Charbelcher on turn two before his counterspells go online. In goes the sideboard! Game two, he plays Chalice for zero on his first turn. I look at my hand, and on my turn I exile Elvish Spirit Guide, cast Carpet of Flowers, go to my postcombat main phase, add G from Carpet, cast Xantid Swarm. His entire deck is invalid.
1-1.
Round 3-I play a man sporting TES. He's an avid Storm player, saw me goldfishing during the tournament, and knew more about my deck than I did. It was a good experience; we spent most of the round shuffling and chatting because our games took 5 minutes each. I win the die roll and put him to 6 on turn one. His City of Brasses put him down to three, and I plan to beat down with an ESG and a Dryad Arbor. Turns out I didn't evaluate my hand well enough. I had the ability to Tendrils him for 6 on the turn I cast the ESG and put the Arbor into play, but this was provided that I *noticed* (I had a brain fart and thought Tendrils would only make him lose 2 life even though I had LED and a Lotus Petal in hand) and that I had enough experience to play around Silence/Orim's Chant--Had I gone for the Tendrils, he would've Chanted me based on the order I normally play my spells. Anyway, he goes down to one and goes off. Game two I Tendrils him down to two life on turn one. His opening play was going to be Rit, Rit, Ad Nauseam off of City of Brass. That plan's out of the window, so we play Draw-Go until I cast Infernal Tutor. He chants me to go to one life, and I go search for Odious Trow, so he loses. Game three, I believe I mulliganed into oblivion.
1-2.
Round 4-I play against some sort of UW deck with Standstill and Counterbalance. Game one I would have turn two killed him with Charbelcher if he didn't play Counterspell. I prayed that he was going to cast Daze because I had an ESG in hand, but it didn't happen that way. The next turn he resolved Counterbalance and I didn't want to show him my ESG so I conceded before I died to Summoner's Pact. Game two, he doesn't understand that Carpet of Flowers is going to just destroy him. I use Carpet Mana and Infernal Tutor to search my deck for all four Charbelchers. The third one resolves, and he concedes. Game three is the best match I play all day. It's a lot of back and forth stuff. He lets my Carpet and Land Grant both resolve on my first turn. I eventually create an Urami Token from Tomb of Urami. The next turn, I play Duress and see Standstill, Force of Will, Force of Will, Trinket Mage. I take Standstill...because I'm an idiot. I draw my second Duress shortly afterward and take a Force of Will. He plays Trinket Mage--I expect him to get Engineered Explosives to deal with my token, because he's got Tundra, Underground Sea, and Volcanic Island in play and I haven't seen him play a single Black or Red spell, but he gets Sensei's Divining Top (He told me after the match that he didn't play EE). I want to keep my life total up for D4's, so I also cast an ESG to stop Trinket Mage from getting at me. Along the way I tried to tutor for Charbelcher to kill his Trinket Mage so I could attack with ESG too, but it got FoW'd. This was a mistake because he had Top in play and I knew the one card in his hand--he put Top on the top of his deck and all my cards just went poof. I get him down to three before he finds a Cunning Wish (his only out) for the Swords to Plowshares that he had sideboarded out. After that, we're playing Draw-Go. He eventually played Ethersworn Canonist, attacked me a bit, and his ending board position was the Mage and two Canonists. I was at eight life with the ESG to block. I lose because my final turn is Cruel Bargain down to four life, draw a Charbelcher, and have no initial mana to activate it on his turn.
1-3.
All in all, It went better than I would've expected. I was nervous going in, because this was basically my first Legacy Tournament, and my first time actually playing the deck against other people. My wins were more a product of my ability to trip dick-first into them than any sort of skill on my part; I wasn't confident enough to play my way out of the situations I faced tonight. I had taken a friend with me, and after being critical of the deck for the longest time, he was impressed with the deck when he saw it in action--as I previously mentioned, every loss was literally winnable for me if I just knew what I was doing. Playing Shield Sphere and Phyrexian Walker would've saved my ass a few times, too.
The biggest question I have is if Thoughtseize would've been better in the board. If I had taken Trinket Mage in the last game, my opponent would not have been able to deal with Urami or found the creatures to kill me (He *should've* had EE but didn't; Sensei's Divining Top put him back in the game from one Force of Will in hand; Trinket Mage dealt the last two damage to me). I only side cards in against blue, and other than Merfolk (which may be the reason to keep Duress instead), Blue typically doesn't have a clock. With this in mind, 18->9->4->2->1 is the same as 20->10->5->2->1 when it comes to D4 cards.
I've been goldfishing for quite awhile now and I was at first hesitant to run the skyshroud cutter seeing as you need 3 more spells to kill with tendrils. After trying it though, it was absolutely no challenge at all to exceed the storm count by at least 5. Before I often sat with a culling and pact in hand, but no mana to cast trow and culling, and now with cutter there isn't an issue at all.
I also love how well this deck mulligans, I can often times belcher kill on a 5 card hand and my playgroup is absolutely dumbfounded by it.
Just 2 cents from a guy who absolutely loves this deck and is still hated from all of my friends considering that my main deck is stax, and this isn't any better lol.
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Skyshroud cutter can be really good at times and at others he is really bad. If you don't have a forest, he's terrible i.e. you go turn 1 land grant, dryad arbor, culling the weak sacking the land, go off. At other times you can get there very good with him; you essentially need 2 more storm since he ups the storm count himself. On a side note, I played in a tournament this last Tuesday going 2-2 with PSI. Here's a very rough report since I never take notes:
Round 1: Bant survival vine.
I win turn 1 with the nuts hand of LED, dark rit, petal, etc. etc. into infernal tutor into slithermuse into the win quite easily.
I boarded in 2 carpets and 4 duress. I wasn't sure about swarm since he knew what I was playing and I opted not to bring in nature's claim. Game 2 he has lots of countermagic, I can never go off before he smashes me with lots of vengevines.
Game 3 was the worst game in the history of magic. He keeps a one lander and that land is a forest. He stops my first couple of D4s and it turns into a cripple fight on his side he has rootwalla, hierarch, hierarch. My side? Both lands, 2 chrome moxen, and an odious trow that can block all day long. He topdecks survival before long and then gets the 4 VVs since I have nothing in hand to combo and carpet of flowers is REALLY weak here since I played one but he only had that singleton forest still but the hierarchs won him the game I'm pretty sure because he could cast spell pierce with them. But those are the ropes.
Round 2 vs. mono white soldier knights or something.
He wins the die roll and I go off on turn 1 or 2 or something. It's a casual deck.
Game 2 he plays first and in my draw step silences me. I'm like sure looking at those uncastable land grants and I discard a D4 or something and pass. Turn 2 he plays some dork or something. My turn 2 is just land granting for a dryad arbor and playing it then passing figuring I have all the time to combo off. He drops a vial on turn 3 and maybe something else. I land grant again on my turn getting bayou and proceed to smash his face in with my nuts hand. I tell him afterwards that he should have saved his silences for when I tried to combo and that he should play silence in response to me cracking an LED because then I'm often dead in the water especially if it's infernal tutor if its a D4 it depends on what I draw but yeah.
Match 3 vs. CuthberttheCat on here playing lands.
I win the die roll and I combo turn 1 and there's nothing he can do. Game 2 he mulls to 5 and drops a leyline of sanctity turn 0. Good thing I was expecting chalice of the void because on my turn I drop a chrome mox, imprinting odious trow lol the one of. End of his turn I nature's claim his leyline and he plays some lands and nothing relevant. I untap, infernal tutor for another LED I think, and pass the turn. I have a charbelcher in hand with 2 LEDs, a culling, and a cabal ritual I think. He intuitions for loam, chalice of the void, and academy ruins. I give him the loam. On my turn, I topdeck an LED. *Sigh* Now I have 3 LEDs in hand with my chrome mox on the field. I say what the hell and drop all LEDs on the field to get past chalice. On his turn he does something or another which does matter since I topdeck a summoner's pact, getting the dryad arbor. I culling it, cast the belcher, and belch him for over 25 with 2 LEDs on the board. I felt sorry for Cuthbert in short because the matchup is so skewed in my favor overall since I'm a turn 1 combo deck typically.
Match 4 against BW homebrew stuff
Game 1 I combo out easily on turn 3 or something.
Game 2 I fizzle mid combo.
Game 3 I fizzle, and this is after the guy thought I had the win I was just wishing he would scoop but he wanted to see me play it out. I misplayed one time when I used summoner's pact before D4ing for the last time and my D4 turned up 3 business spells and one ESG so I just fizzled due to drawing heavy business thoughtout the combo. It would have helped if he had more cards in hand when I evoked slithermuse I drew 5 cards instead of 7 since he mulled a lot. I felt bad since he was a bad player; game 2 he thoughtseized me turn 1, seeing chrome mox, ESG, x2 D4, dark rit, summoner's pact, infernal tutor or something maybe LED. In the end he took the dark rit, the right choice. He even said he had no idea what to take when he saw my hand and it was very obvious.
2-2 overall I guess getting 1 pack. The guy I faced round 4 opened a foil molten-tail masticore since he went 3-1 in 3 packs I guess he was lucky that day.
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"Yawgmoth," Freyalise whispered as she set the bomb, "now you will pay for your treachery."
Has anyone found any good replacements for Slithermuse in the Pact version? It hasn't been good for me but I can't think of anything else for 4-CC (one off-color) that gives me a legit shot at winning that turn.
I don't know of any replacements for slithermuse. You could try diminishing returns, at the potential risk of exiling your win cons though we pack 3 ToA and 2 charbelcher's so it's unlikely. Only problem? Filling up your opponents hand with potential answers. I really don't know a good replacement for slithermuse unfortunately. Then again, I've had good experiences with the card except for one instance where I drew 5 with it and fizzled later on in that turn whereas if I had drawn 7 I would have for sure won.
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"Yawgmoth," Freyalise whispered as she set the bomb, "now you will pay for your treachery."
Has anyone found any good replacements for Slithermuse in the Pact version? It hasn't been good for me but I can't think of anything else for 4-CC (one off-color) that gives me a legit shot at winning that turn.
Honestly, Slithermuse doesn't need a replacement. If you're really insistent I would replace it with 1 IGG, but it seems you already run 2. 2 IGG is waaaay overkill in the pact list. I don't run either Slithermuse or IGG, but instead 4 mana morphose, 1 belcher and 2 tendrils. It is much more balls to the wall, but its also streamlined so that I have no problems building up a lethal tendrils. It's common to run either 1 Slithermuse or 1 IGG in PSI, but definitely not both, nor 1 of each.
EDIT: Also, you are missing Eternal Witness I realized. Big big big big big mistake, witness is the stone cold nuts. Seriously, a PSI list is sub optimal if it's not running witness in its main 60. For reference, my list is -1 tendrils, -1 belcher, -2 IGG, -1 Wild Cantor, -1 Slithermuse, +4 manamorphose, +1 witness, +1 Skyshroud Cutter. Skyshroud cutter isn't the best card around, but it is the best of all the options we have.
Hey thanks for your response. Here's why I do and don't have the mentioned cards:
IGG and Slithermuse are for different situations. Obviously if you have a used ritual plus 5 floating you just win with IGG. If you can only float 4 mana then IGG is generally worthless and Slithermuse has a very good chance of still winning you the game.
I'm not sure why you'd want to play a Legacy storm deck with Rituals, LEDs and Infernal Tutors but no IGG (unless you're playing Burning Wish and have it in the side). Draw-4s can and will whiff, Manamorphose draws a whopping 1 card, and IGG wins the game against non-blue every time if you can count to 5 (mana and storm) :). I would like to try Skyshroud Cutter in place of the second one and see how often I have to imprint my lone copy or discard it to LED.
With no Witness, Manamorphose does next to nothing for me. Mana-fixing in rare cases where I have only GG available (although Cantor is there for Pactable fixing), and lack of synergy (no ability to topdeck tutor, brainstorm, ponder, top, et al to insure that you draw into something useful/float mana into a bomb, etc)
Just got back from The Star City Games Open in San Jose, and I had an absolute blast. I finished out my Pact SI deck after proxying it for a couple months (literally goldfishing whenever I had a spare moment, all of it proxied on the back of an elspeth deck). I entered a little 4 round Legacy challenge with it. I would have loved to have entered the Legacy open with it, but I had been mainly testing Stax for that one and stuck to my guns for it.
The only thing, I only had 2 Cruel Bargains as NO one owns that card. But funny story about that, at the Channelfireball homestore down there I picked up the only bargain they had and bought 3 packs of Portal. I know the odds of actually pulling a bargain but I thought "What the heck? I will probably just open garbage and have wasted $20." What do I pull out the first pack: CRUEL FRICKIN BARGAIN! I about flipped out. And on Sunday of the event, I played against a Doomsday player who had seen my SI deck running around and said he used to play it. I asked if he had Bargains to trade, and sure enough he had them. So on the last day of our trip I officially finished out the deck. I was way stoked for that.
So instead of running a spell that might be totally irrelevant, I just ran 2 Ill-Gotten Gains, and I hated it. Everytime I had it in hand it was like drawing a blank card. I found it really hard outside of those god-hands with infinite rituals to reach 5 mana for a IGGY loop, so its purpose was chrome mox fodder.
But anyway, heres the report from the event, I ended up going 3-0-1, and the last guy we decided to play for a pack split.
Match 1: vs Trisomy 21
Game 1: I win the die roll and get a turn 1 goldfish kill. I don't think he's playing counterspells as each time I asked him if a spell resolved he had a tone of "go for it, I've got nothing for you."
Game 2: He goes first and gets a Turn 1 Raven's crime off, I pitch an irrelevant IGG. I kept a hand that can win if I draw into a ritual. Draw. Go. He double raven's crimes me, I go. Draw ritual, go off and kill him with belcher. This is why I like this deck over all of the other combo decks. I lost 3 cards out of my hand and still managed to win, other decks have too hard of a time doing that.
What do I do with the rest of my time? Scope out the rest of the tourney and see enough matchups that I don't really care about, but a few fish decks, a solidarity player and quite a few countertop players.
Match 2: vs Ichorid
Game 1: He plays City of Brass but no Careful study or breakthrough, so I wonder if hes playing TES. I start to worry a bit, cast Land Grant and go for Dryad arbor, play it, pass. He casts breakthrough keeping a card, doesn't do anything, passes to me, and I kill him.
Game 2: Here is where I mess up a bit. If anyone has seen the movie rounders out there, you will remember that Matt Damon talks about how most poker players rarely remember a big pot, but a big loss they remember it perfectly, well here it is. He goes first and careful studies into nothing really. I go. My hand is Chrome Mox, 2 Culling the Weak, Skyshroud, Infernal Tutor, Dryad Arbor and Ill Gotten Gains. I imprint CUlling, play arbor and cutter, culling the cutter and IGG. Now, for a IGG loop, I cannot imprint IT, so I imprint a Culling, and try to go for the IGG loop...realizing that I dont have the floating mana to cast the culling again and sacrifice the Arbor. What did I do for him after I cast the IGG? I let him dump an entire hand of dredgers and pull back a Breakthough. I scoop to my own misplay. This puts me a little on tilt, but I calm down and simply focus.
Game 3: he plays a Turn 1 Cabal Therapy and proceeds to spend 5 minutes thinking of what to call with it. He decides on Culling the Weak. Swing and a miss. I draw and pass. He casts careful, and doesn't hit anything. I go, start playing cards, draw 4 into a belcher and cast it with 2 Moxen out and a bayou, whilst I have double Pact in hand to fetch for my Dryad arbor. He has to deal 10 to me this turn, which isn't unheard of in dredge, as they board in Zealot so they can race us. He draws, plays a land and carefuls, pitching an imp. And then he casts breakthrough. Uh oh. He dredges and hits NOTHING. And pitches a hand that consists of Iona, dread return and zealot. He only had to hit a few Narcomeobas and I would have died. On my turn I tutor for the arbor and kill him.
Funny story, during this match I had a mox in hand and a pact, and intended to pact for Trow and imprint, well, I instead cast chrome first and he asks what Im imprinting on it. I freak out, and say, "In response to the trigger cast summoner's Pact" and then imprint. He just gives me a look like, "Why the hell are you getting cutesy with this?" I had to try so hard to not laugh at myself as I thought, "Thank GOD Pact is an instant." I'm pretty sure this misplay was due to the fact that I was pretty angry at myself for punting game 2 to my own mistake and it just put me on tilt. But after that I refocused and kept on playing and didn't misplay again.
Match 3: Elves
Game 1: He wins the die roll and I worry because I have yet to play against Force of Will this tourney. He goes Turn 1 Llanowar Elves, I breathe a huge sigh of relief as I proceed to goldfish him on my turn.
Game 2: He goes first and mulligans to 6. I keep a starting hand that is decent. He starts with turn one mana dork. I top deck a Land grant. Now, I'm going to talk about how STUPID this deck is when it starts with 8 cards. It is absolutely disgusting, I've had countless times where I am just goldfishing and draw an 8th card and it goes from good to god-like. But anyway, I go off and kill him with belcher. He then shows me 2 thorn of amethyst in his hand. Those would have been golden had he actually gotten a second turn.
MAtch 4: Ichorid again
We decide to ID because the prizes were something like 4-0 record got $50 store credit, 3-0-1 got $25 and 3 packs, and 3-1 was something ridiculous like 3 packs. So we draw and play for a 4-2 pack split.
Game 1: Goldfish him on my first turn.
Game 2: I get down a turn 2 belcher with game on board for him my next turn. He is praying for a land so he can start doing stuff. What does he topdeck instead: Pithing Needle. Wow, just wow. I pass my turn, hoping to get another spell chain going to kill him with tendrils. He then plays cabal Therapy hitting the 2 Pacts I had in hand (I had Infernal tutored for one in hopes of killing him by getting arbor and then an elvish spirit guide before he topdecked like a champ). I scoop.
Game 3: I board in 2 Nature's Claims and wait a couple of turns while he doesn't do much, and then on my 3rd turn I start to chain, and I have a Lion's Eye Diamond on the board. He then proceeds to Chain of Vapors it. He does this with complete and utter confidence. My head almost explodes as I try and figure out why he would do that. And then he realizes that it won't do anything for him. This has been a fairly casual match so far so I joke around with him, as do the other 2 guys who ID'ed next to us. I add 2 more to the storm count and actually tendrils kill him thanks to it.
I grab my packs and pull a Mox Opal and then buy Beta plains for my Stax deck. So all in all, a lot of fun. There were enough people there that knew what I was playing that they kept saying "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition" whenever they saw me comboing out that it was fun. And there were also enough players watching that had no idea what I was playing. There was one guy watching my matches who was still in the main event, and when I walked by to turn in the match slip he asked how the Spanish Inquisition was going, and I replied, "Its going great, no one expects it."
It was tons of fun and did what it does against decks that don't play FoW: crush them. Its really comforting playing against those decks because it is handy knowing that you also have a couple of turns to build up if you need to, so you can keep a less than optimal hand and draw into the nuts.
To anyone new to the deck, do not just walk into a tourney and play this beast. It takes so much playtesting to pilot it properly. I for one had to do some extremely goofy plays in order to continue a spell chain. So much so that some of my friends who were watching and are fantastic magic players told me later that they would have never thought of that line of play, even though they know the decklist. And thats not me trying to be egotistic, its just the truth, as it takes a lot of testing to see those plays.
At the main event, the top ranked player from here in Reno wanted to play a belcher deck. What a coincidence. I handed him the deck, he tested 10 hands, looked at the toolbox package and entered the event 5 minutes before it started. He ended up going 4-4. But heres the interesting part: he refused to Tendrils anyone. Period. He would have a T1 Tendrils for like 30, and would instead go for the Belcher kill. Why? Because he had too much fun turning the deck upside down and saying, "To the face!" But he had a blast and it was hilarious watching him do it, even if it was sometimes frustrating watching him pass turn and kill him with belcher, and a couple of players wanted to strangle him.
But, all in all I had a blast, and most of people I played weren't too upset (I guess considering that 2 of them were Ichorid, and they do what we do, except 2/3 of a turn late). I simply love this deck and am so glad I'm playing it.
At the main event, the top ranked player from here in Reno wanted to play a belcher deck. What a coincidence. I handed him the deck, he tested 10 hands, looked at the toolbox package and entered the event 5 minutes before it started. He ended up going 4-4. But heres the interesting part: he refused to Tendrils anyone. Period. He would have a T1 Tendrils for like 30, and would instead go for the Belcher kill. Why? Because he had too much fun turning the deck upside down and saying, "To the face!" But he had a blast and it was hilarious watching him do it, even if it was sometimes frustrating watching him pass turn and kill him with belcher, and a couple of players wanted to strangle him.
Ha! I played against Kenny at the Open. I was laughing the whole time, because in Round 1 I sat next to him, and laugh as his opponent was totally perplexed.
Then when I played against him I was laughing, because he did in fact say, "TO THE FACE!" So I took the time to look through his version of the deck.
I've been watching SI for the last few months, and almost took it with me to play, but I could only find 2 of the Bargains.
Well done on the tournament!
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My first post here, this is my SI deck, it works very fine... i would like to get some feedback bout the deck
:symw::symb:Steel Wb Weenie
In other news I took SI to a local tourney yesterday going 3-1. I'll describe it briefly here.
Round 1
I play against a homebrew deck and fizzle game 1 thus losing but combo off turn 2 in games 2 and 3 and win. Game 1 I fizzled because I tried to force the turn 1 kill but it just wasn't there.
1-0 (2-1)
Round 2 vs. an odd homebrew sort've deck it has blue and forces along with tombstalker, cursecatcher, bitterblossom daze, etc. etc. I classify it as faeries since the deck is kind of all over the place.
Game 1 he lacks force of will I win the roll so I combo out turn 1 and win. Since he's playing faeries and bitterblossom is quite good against tomb of urami I only board in 12 cards leaving a belcher and the pair of urami's in the board. Turn 1 I attempt to land grant revealing my hand with charbelcher, duress, chrome mox, dark rit and some other cards and he dazes it since he was on the play. I then go chrome mox imprinting culling the weak I think and duress him taking a sinkhole since he had no other relevant cards and that was the only option alongside a jitte. I combo out soon thereafter and when I resolve charbelcher he just scoops them up and leaves despite me having a good chance of fizzling if I fire the belcher with the 2 lands in the deck at least I didn't board in urami. Nonetheless I get the match 2-0.
2-0 (4-1)
Round 3 v. Aggro loam RGB.
I win the dice roll and combo off turn 1 against him game 1. I have zero sideboard for this MU I simply rely on speed due to no artifact hate in the board. Game 2 I resolve belcher and activate and hit the bayou 11 cards down *sigh* onto game 3. Game 3 I keep the following high risk high reward hand of:
Dryad Arbor, Bayou (yes I opened with both lands in my hand and not land grants, this is key), i. tutor, charbelcher, LED, LED, chrome mox. So turn 1 I play dryad arbor and pass to him. He goes turn 1 diamond, taiga, zuran orb, and chalice on 1 AND I JUST THINK THANK GOD HE SET IT FOR 1. He passes back to me and his turn took awhile I assume he was debating setting chalice for 0 or 1 and he picked the wrong choice :). Turn 2 I draw dark ritual (yay its not an artifact for chrome mox) and belch him for 50. Afterwards we talk about how hard it is to play chalice correctly and how if he had set it for zero he just wrecks my entire hand and leaves me with IT, belcher, and dark ritual. Then again chalice depends on what's in my hand on whether it's good or not against me. The optimal play is obviously chalice @1 and 0 but that doesn't happen all the time. He also told me that game 1 when I comboed out turn 1 he had 2 chalice's in hand but he was on the draw fortunately enough for me.
3-0 (6-2)
Round 4 vs. URGW tempo zoo stuff homebrew with stifles, dazes, force, and fire//ice.
Game 1 I keep a 1 business spell only hand that spell being a D4. I keep thinking I can draw more business if he FoWs the D4 which he does and I draw nothing the rest of the game except a lot of land grants and eventually lose. Game 2 I board in all 15 cards and the first D4 I play gets FoWed then on turn 2 he casts pyrostatic pillar and I resolve a D4 after that and I'm at a very low life total and can't combo off into the belcher in my hand to try to activate it FTW and after I show him the belcher along with LED he shows me a stifle so I couldn't win realistically. I should've remembered he plays pillar because he played it against me when I was playing solidarity two weeks ago. Oh well. I end up 3-1 (6-4) and get 3 packs opening no jace 2.0 but a foil abyssal persecutor which looks hot but I don't really need the card oh well. Next tourney if the guy with pillars is there again I fully intend on running nature's claim in the board to deal with it and with the aggro loam players chalices. There aren't a lot of blue decks there but there are some and I hit 2 of the 3 I believe. The other one is the worst MU though because he plays 4c CBTop with counterspells, spell pierce, spell snare, just all the bad stuff PSI doesn't want to face unless he keeps a hand without a FoW and I'm on the play with the turn 1 win in hand.
Currently Playing:
Retired
- In game 2 against Aggro Loam, misfires suck but did you die to Pact or the Loam player?
- In game 3 against Aggro Loam, this game is an excellent example of how PSI doesn't fold to a single chalice consistently. Sometimes your initial mana source is a Land Grant or a Land, bypassing Chalice @ 0 and opening the potential for Dark Ritual and Culling the Weak to fuel mad acceleration, while Chalice @ 1 turns on all initial mana sources, making the SI player rely more on LEDs and Thresh'ed Cabal Rituals to get the win. Conveniently, decks that play Chalice are often slow and enable the SI player to hit Threshold or make an LED line of play.
- Based on how you describe your metagame, I think you should play the following board:
SB
4 Duress
4 Carpet of Flowers
3 Nature's Claim
2 Xantid Swarm
2 Goblin Charbelcher
You are running into a lot of permanent based hate. Nature's Claim is also good against Counterbalance. If your opponent is trying to counter a 1cc spell and don't have a 1cc on top of their library, you can respond to the top activation with Nature's Claim to Destroy CB. It seems like Xantid Swarm isn't going to be too hot unless your meta is Merfolk heavy. Duress works much better, even post-board in game 3 against something like Aggro Loam. Duress can grab Counterbalance and lock pieces as well as countermagic, unlike Xantid Swarm.
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Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
On the SB. Xantid swarm is meh in my meta and if people know you play it they keep the creature hate in. No one plays merfolk at my local tourney so yeah although sometimes merfolk pops up randomly it doesn't happen the most often. There's usually around 10 people in the room so I can choose a very good SB. Duress is so good in general in storm combo I just love it. Tomb of urami is meh without a complete man plan so I support cutting it. Nature's claim is great against counterbalance and other permanent based hate like chalice if it isn't at one or zuran orb in the case of the aggro loam player. He debated putting in leyline for IGG/cabal rit games 2 and 3 but decided not to and I told him I only ran cabal ritual but no IGG. I never used e. witness the entire day nor did I show it to anyone so I guess that would get hit by leyline as well but I typically board it out games 2 and 3 since pact is often boarded out as well so it isn't that useful and the 1GG cost is troublesome to achieve sometimes. But I love nature's claim in my meta. I considered putting it in before the tourney but decided not to oh well lol.
EDIT: The other blue deck isn't 4c counterbalance its 4c landstill but he has 4 counterspell's along with all the other countermagic you could think of. He also has 4 jace 2.0 in there or 3 at least 3.
Currently Playing:
Retired
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor
Creatures
4 Shield Sphere
4 Phyrexian Walker
2 Ornithopter
Artifacts
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Mox Opal
Sorcery
4 Infernal Tutor
2 Diabolic Intent
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Infernal Contract
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Land Grant
2 Ill-Gotten Gains
2 Tendrils of Agony
4 Dark Ritual
4 Culling The Weak
3 Cabal Ritual
3 Duress
3 Xantid Swarm
4 Tombstalker
4 Nature's Claim
1 Tranquil Domain
And yes, i run 61 cards in most of my decks that is no Mistake. Critique is welcome.
Thank you mchief111, great sig
Lvl 37 Planeswalker
Current:
Legacy:
:symu::symb::symr::symw::symg: TES | Spiral Tide | MUD | :symu::symb::symg: Lands | Burn | :symr::symbg: Goblins | Elf Combo
Vintage:
:symb::symu: Titan Dredge | :symb::symu::symw: Bomberman
Modern:
:symu::symr: Kiki-Twin | :symr::symg: Tron
Standard:
Wip
EDH:
:symb::symu::symw: Zur
I have to agree that running the arbor dryad is superior to the multiple tallmen version, sans running Glimpse of Nature, where the tallmen get a little better off, though it requires slightly more mana (and manamorphoses) to offset the cost of playing Glimpse and the loss(?) of a business card.
SoM's Mox Opal doesnt have a place in the pact lists, i've found. It usually ends up being a storm count +1 that doesnt offer anything else, as you'll sometimes not have metalcraft when you're ready to go off.
Also - Slithermuse is absolutely nuts.
EDH:
RNorin the WaryR <-Link! (Primer - Mono Red Control)
GUEdric, Spymaster of TrestUG <- Link! (Mini-Primer - Dredge)
Duel Commander:
WUGeist of Saint TraftUW <- Link! (Aggro-Control)
BGSkullbriar, the Walking GraveGB <- Link! (Aggro)
BUGDamia, Sage of StoneGUB <- Link! (Extinction Control)
Church of the Wary
@aaronc123
Your changes don't make too much sense. I'd read the primer again if I were you. There's no good reason to play 2 IGG in PSI. Your spell chains are always long enough to fuel a lethal Tendrils without needing to IGG loop a second time. Also, you are playing a deck that wins by drawing cards and diluting the deck of other cards to improve the consistency of the draws. Playing 61 cards is not the way to go with this deck trust me. You might be able to pull it off with other decks, but inconsistent draws will start to piss you off when you try to play more than 60 cards in SI.
Also, there isn't much reason to play Land Grant if you are not going to play Belcher. Try looking into a SITES build. It plays almost like what you are trying to build only with Burning Wish instead of Diabolic Intent. In some sense its stronger because you don't need a creature. It also plays Therapy main (if you want to), and Kobolds as Tallmen to imprint on Chrome Mox, though if you want you can play Tallmen instead.
U Solidarity U
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
Time to bring back a 5-year old sig banner. DEDICATION!
Currently Playing:
=Legacy=
RUUG Delver
=Modern=
BRRG LOAM
=EDH=
BGGR Karrthus
RRRX Norin
UUWW Bruna
BBBB Skithiryx
U Solidarity U
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
I would only play one IGG in PSI. Like Vacrix stated, storm is easy to accumulate in that deck I mean I personally have won with just the opening 7 cards leading into tendrils because pact ramps it up along with all those mana spells, land grant, etc. etc. you get the point and after one D4 I can most definitely achieve 10 storm with ease. After slithermuse always.
I most definitely agree with mox opal not belonging in PSI lists as a 1-4 of. If you don't have metalcraft woohoo you raised the storm count one but you also fizzled which is very annoying because of mox opal. I also think the PSI list is close to optimal already and what would we cut for mox opal? I can't find anything and running it in the flex slots seems lackluster compared to other cards we could be running. Sure in lists like GSI with 16 tallmen which are all artifacts it is a definite 4 of but in PSI not so much. The card is not that good.
Currently Playing:
Retired
After tons of Goldfishing, I see your points. The listing i posted on the previous page was made without belcher/pacts, simply because I did not have any. However, i acquired the 3 belchers and my friend is giving me a playset of pacts. Therefore, I will try it out. Also, 61 cards may be screwing up again, and cutting tallmen disallows Opal, so that was cut too.
I have 2 questions though.
1. Slithermuse vs. Ill-Gotten Gains, can an experienced SI player give me some pros/cons?
2. Cabal Therapy Main decked.- on a week to week basis 1/3 of my meta has Force of Will, and all the aggro decks have Mindbreak Trap on the board. I don't see many people running the proactive hate such as therapy main, so, is this good enough hate for main, or would something like Unmask be superior?
Here is my second version. Not sure if i'll do Iggy or slithermuse yet Main deck.
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor
Creatures
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Eternal Witness
1 Odious Trow
Artifacts
4 Chrome Mox
4 Lotus Petal
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
Sorcery
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Cruel Bargain
4 Infernal Contract
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Land Grant
1 Ill-Gotten Gains
2 Tendrils of Agony
2 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Dark Ritual
4 Culling The Weak
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Summoner's Pact
3 Duress
3 Xantid Swarm
4 Tombstalker
4 Nature's Claim
1 Goblin Charbelcher
Thank you mchief111, great sig
Lvl 37 Planeswalker
Current:
Legacy:
:symu::symb::symr::symw::symg: TES | Spiral Tide | MUD | :symu::symb::symg: Lands | Burn | :symr::symbg: Goblins | Elf Combo
Vintage:
:symb::symu: Titan Dredge | :symb::symu::symw: Bomberman
Modern:
:symu::symr: Kiki-Twin | :symr::symg: Tron
Standard:
Wip
EDH:
:symb::symu::symw: Zur
U Solidarity U
Luck is a residue of design.
I'm an aspiring Psychedelic Trance musician. Please feel free to enjoy my sense of life:
http://soundcloud.com/vacrix
I primarily play online, but I don't want to shell out a buck fifty for 3 LED's so I made a Glimpse of Nature version that forgoes LED. This is also about the only way to make the deck online because you don't have the 8 D4's. I consistently goldfish turn 2 although I'm not good enough yet at mulliganing to have results that I like. The sheer amount of Tallmen make D4's less good but that is something I can live with because this is the fastest combo deck online. Mox Opal is really what holds this deck together, and it is absolutely bananas in this deck.
4 Ornithopter
4 Phyrexian Walker
4 Shield Sphere
4 Street Wraith
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Infernal Contract
2 Diabolic Intent
1 Retract
1 Reprocess
4 Culling the Weak
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Lotus Petal
4 Mox Opal
2 Tendrils of Agony
3 Misty Rainforest
Street Wraith have never been a problem, and I like them much more than manamorphose because they help you start the glimpse chain and they don't make you use a ritual and sac a lotus petal to play. Also, the lifegain isn't a problem until after you have played your second/third D4 and by then you probably don't need the additional draw. I would like to replace them with LED but that really hasn't been an issue because LED is only amazing when you are tutoring or drawing a ton.
I don't play belcher because Land Grant isn't online. Another reason is that I play 6 lands. Misty is because it is in decks that don't play black and I want people to think I am playing blue (or green like a nub).
Retract is an absolute house in this deck. One is the correct number. It is usually free and draws your 3+ cards because you return a mox opal. It is the easilest way to turn a single glimpse into a win. Worst case scenario it ups your storm count by like 4 for 0 mana.
I have never needed more than 2 tendrils and I like that I have so few win cons because it makes it easier to chain glimpse triggers into tallmen.
Diabolic Intent is the strait nutzoar in this deck, however I haven't really needed more than 2. The Infernal/LED package might just be better.
Proxy it up if you want to. The deck is a ton of fun.
Comments/Suggestions welcome. Remember this is for MTGO.
1800+ in Limited
3-0ing after drafting 17 non-basics in Cube
I haven't played any sideboarded games though, because I literally just pick the deck up and play solitaire obsessively when I've got nothing better to do. I ended up choosing to play this deck because it seemed like it would be easy to learn how to play compared to something like TES, given that you really have no desire to interact with an opponent (so giving a low priority to mastering intricacies concerning that kind of interaction seems acceptable). I don't have many people to test against, and I feel like I need an opponent complete with disruption if I want to figure out how to play games with the sideboard in.
From the PSI list in the primer...What 15 cards do you board out to board your entire sideboard in against decks with blue?
...Do you care about any other matches enough to side any of your cards in?
-4 Summoner's pact
-1 Wild cantor
-1 Skyshroud cutter
-1 Culling the Weak
-3 Tendrils of Agony
-1 Eternal Witness
-1 Land grant
-1 Dryad Arbor
-2 Manamorphose
In fact, I just checked this and its the same way Vacrix said he boarded on page 7, post 98. Or very close to it.
Currently Playing:
Retired
As for the 3 tendrils you could try -1 tendrils +1 IGG. The spell chains in PSI are usually long though and tend to reach 10 storm easily without IGG at least I've never wished I had IGG to ramp up the storm count because accumulating storm is so easy.
Currently Playing:
Retired
1 Bayou
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Culling the Weak
4 Land Grant
2 Manamorphose
4 Summoner's Pact
1 Odious Trow
4 Infernal Tutor
4 Infernal Contract
4 Cruel Bargain
1 Eternal Witness
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Slithermuse
2 Goblin Charbelcher
3 Tendrils of Agony
2 Goblin Charbelcher
2 Tomb of Urami
3 Duress
4 Carpet of Flowers
4 Xantid Swarm
So I went 1-3, but I could have won every match I lost if I knew what I was doing.
Round 1-I Lost to Grizzly Bears. I played against an opponent who hadn't played Magic in four years. I saw Gruul Turf, Elvish Archers, Grizzly Bears, Balduvian Bears, Giant Growth, and Colossal Might. Game one, I lost because I didn't mini-Tendrils even though I put my opponent on Green Aggro with Pump Spells and I was at four when he had two guys in play. He hadn't played a pump spell yet, and I was hoping to get one more card before I had to pull the trigger. Game two, I played too conservatively. I was killed by a Grizzly Bears with Untamed Might because I didn't use my Lion's Eye Diamonds when I played a Cruel Bargain. I drew two more D4 with no mana to cast them, and I undoubtedly would've been able to kill him on turn one if I had been more aggressive.
0-1.
Round 2-I played some acquaintance of my first round opponent. He was playing MUC complete with Morphling, Nevinyrral's Disk, and like 23 counterspells. Game one he doesn't keep a hand with Force of Will, and I kill with Goblin Charbelcher on turn two before his counterspells go online. In goes the sideboard! Game two, he plays Chalice for zero on his first turn. I look at my hand, and on my turn I exile Elvish Spirit Guide, cast Carpet of Flowers, go to my postcombat main phase, add G from Carpet, cast Xantid Swarm. His entire deck is invalid.
1-1.
Round 3-I play a man sporting TES. He's an avid Storm player, saw me goldfishing during the tournament, and knew more about my deck than I did. It was a good experience; we spent most of the round shuffling and chatting because our games took 5 minutes each. I win the die roll and put him to 6 on turn one. His City of Brasses put him down to three, and I plan to beat down with an ESG and a Dryad Arbor. Turns out I didn't evaluate my hand well enough. I had the ability to Tendrils him for 6 on the turn I cast the ESG and put the Arbor into play, but this was provided that I *noticed* (I had a brain fart and thought Tendrils would only make him lose 2 life even though I had LED and a Lotus Petal in hand) and that I had enough experience to play around Silence/Orim's Chant--Had I gone for the Tendrils, he would've Chanted me based on the order I normally play my spells. Anyway, he goes down to one and goes off. Game two I Tendrils him down to two life on turn one. His opening play was going to be Rit, Rit, Ad Nauseam off of City of Brass. That plan's out of the window, so we play Draw-Go until I cast Infernal Tutor. He chants me to go to one life, and I go search for Odious Trow, so he loses. Game three, I believe I mulliganed into oblivion.
1-2.
Round 4-I play against some sort of UW deck with Standstill and Counterbalance. Game one I would have turn two killed him with Charbelcher if he didn't play Counterspell. I prayed that he was going to cast Daze because I had an ESG in hand, but it didn't happen that way. The next turn he resolved Counterbalance and I didn't want to show him my ESG so I conceded before I died to Summoner's Pact. Game two, he doesn't understand that Carpet of Flowers is going to just destroy him. I use Carpet Mana and Infernal Tutor to search my deck for all four Charbelchers. The third one resolves, and he concedes. Game three is the best match I play all day. It's a lot of back and forth stuff. He lets my Carpet and Land Grant both resolve on my first turn. I eventually create an Urami Token from Tomb of Urami. The next turn, I play Duress and see Standstill, Force of Will, Force of Will, Trinket Mage. I take Standstill...because I'm an idiot. I draw my second Duress shortly afterward and take a Force of Will. He plays Trinket Mage--I expect him to get Engineered Explosives to deal with my token, because he's got Tundra, Underground Sea, and Volcanic Island in play and I haven't seen him play a single Black or Red spell, but he gets Sensei's Divining Top (He told me after the match that he didn't play EE). I want to keep my life total up for D4's, so I also cast an ESG to stop Trinket Mage from getting at me. Along the way I tried to tutor for Charbelcher to kill his Trinket Mage so I could attack with ESG too, but it got FoW'd. This was a mistake because he had Top in play and I knew the one card in his hand--he put Top on the top of his deck and all my cards just went poof. I get him down to three before he finds a Cunning Wish (his only out) for the Swords to Plowshares that he had sideboarded out. After that, we're playing Draw-Go. He eventually played Ethersworn Canonist, attacked me a bit, and his ending board position was the Mage and two Canonists. I was at eight life with the ESG to block. I lose because my final turn is Cruel Bargain down to four life, draw a Charbelcher, and have no initial mana to activate it on his turn.
1-3.
All in all, It went better than I would've expected. I was nervous going in, because this was basically my first Legacy Tournament, and my first time actually playing the deck against other people. My wins were more a product of my ability to trip dick-first into them than any sort of skill on my part; I wasn't confident enough to play my way out of the situations I faced tonight. I had taken a friend with me, and after being critical of the deck for the longest time, he was impressed with the deck when he saw it in action--as I previously mentioned, every loss was literally winnable for me if I just knew what I was doing. Playing Shield Sphere and Phyrexian Walker would've saved my ass a few times, too.
The biggest question I have is if Thoughtseize would've been better in the board. If I had taken Trinket Mage in the last game, my opponent would not have been able to deal with Urami or found the creatures to kill me (He *should've* had EE but didn't; Sensei's Divining Top put him back in the game from one Force of Will in hand; Trinket Mage dealt the last two damage to me). I only side cards in against blue, and other than Merfolk (which may be the reason to keep Duress instead), Blue typically doesn't have a clock. With this in mind, 18->9->4->2->1 is the same as 20->10->5->2->1 when it comes to D4 cards.
I also love how well this deck mulligans, I can often times belcher kill on a 5 card hand and my playgroup is absolutely dumbfounded by it.
Just 2 cents from a guy who absolutely loves this deck and is still hated from all of my friends considering that my main deck is stax, and this isn't any better lol.
Avatar and Banner made by R&Doom of the Ye Olde Sig and Avatar Shoppe
On the topic of Moat:
Round 1: Bant survival vine.
I win turn 1 with the nuts hand of LED, dark rit, petal, etc. etc. into infernal tutor into slithermuse into the win quite easily.
I boarded in 2 carpets and 4 duress. I wasn't sure about swarm since he knew what I was playing and I opted not to bring in nature's claim. Game 2 he has lots of countermagic, I can never go off before he smashes me with lots of vengevines.
Game 3 was the worst game in the history of magic. He keeps a one lander and that land is a forest. He stops my first couple of D4s and it turns into a cripple fight on his side he has rootwalla, hierarch, hierarch. My side? Both lands, 2 chrome moxen, and an odious trow that can block all day long. He topdecks survival before long and then gets the 4 VVs since I have nothing in hand to combo and carpet of flowers is REALLY weak here since I played one but he only had that singleton forest still but the hierarchs won him the game I'm pretty sure because he could cast spell pierce with them. But those are the ropes.
Round 2 vs. mono white soldier knights or something.
He wins the die roll and I go off on turn 1 or 2 or something. It's a casual deck.
Game 2 he plays first and in my draw step silences me. I'm like sure looking at those uncastable land grants and I discard a D4 or something and pass. Turn 2 he plays some dork or something. My turn 2 is just land granting for a dryad arbor and playing it then passing figuring I have all the time to combo off. He drops a vial on turn 3 and maybe something else. I land grant again on my turn getting bayou and proceed to smash his face in with my nuts hand. I tell him afterwards that he should have saved his silences for when I tried to combo and that he should play silence in response to me cracking an LED because then I'm often dead in the water especially if it's infernal tutor if its a D4 it depends on what I draw but yeah.
Match 3 vs. CuthberttheCat on here playing lands.
I win the die roll and I combo turn 1 and there's nothing he can do. Game 2 he mulls to 5 and drops a leyline of sanctity turn 0. Good thing I was expecting chalice of the void because on my turn I drop a chrome mox, imprinting odious trow lol the one of. End of his turn I nature's claim his leyline and he plays some lands and nothing relevant. I untap, infernal tutor for another LED I think, and pass the turn. I have a charbelcher in hand with 2 LEDs, a culling, and a cabal ritual I think. He intuitions for loam, chalice of the void, and academy ruins. I give him the loam. On my turn, I topdeck an LED. *Sigh* Now I have 3 LEDs in hand with my chrome mox on the field. I say what the hell and drop all LEDs on the field to get past chalice. On his turn he does something or another which does matter since I topdeck a summoner's pact, getting the dryad arbor. I culling it, cast the belcher, and belch him for over 25 with 2 LEDs on the board. I felt sorry for Cuthbert in short because the matchup is so skewed in my favor overall since I'm a turn 1 combo deck typically.
Match 4 against BW homebrew stuff
Game 1 I combo out easily on turn 3 or something.
Game 2 I fizzle mid combo.
Game 3 I fizzle, and this is after the guy thought I had the win I was just wishing he would scoop but he wanted to see me play it out. I misplayed one time when I used summoner's pact before D4ing for the last time and my D4 turned up 3 business spells and one ESG so I just fizzled due to drawing heavy business thoughtout the combo. It would have helped if he had more cards in hand when I evoked slithermuse I drew 5 cards instead of 7 since he mulled a lot. I felt bad since he was a bad player; game 2 he thoughtseized me turn 1, seeing chrome mox, ESG, x2 D4, dark rit, summoner's pact, infernal tutor or something maybe LED. In the end he took the dark rit, the right choice. He even said he had no idea what to take when he saw my hand and it was very obvious.
2-2 overall I guess getting 1 pack. The guy I faced round 4 opened a foil molten-tail masticore since he went 3-1 in 3 packs I guess he was lucky that day.
Currently Playing:
Retired
list I'm playing for reference:
4x Lotus Petal
4x Lion's Eye Diamond
4x Chrome Mox
2x Goblin Charbelcher
Instants - 16
4x Dark Ritual
4x Cabal Ritual
4x Culling the Weak
4x Summoner's Pact
4x Land Grant
4x Infernal Tutor
4x Cruel Bargain
4x Infernal Contract
3x Tendrils of Agony
2x Ill-Gotten Gains
4x Elvish Spirit Guide
1x Slithermuse
1x Odious Trow
1x Wild Cantor
Land - 2
1x Dryad Arbor
1x Bayou
Trade Thread
Modern
RWGBurnGWR
GUInfectUG
GRTronRG
UWGifts TronWU
URBGrixis DelverBRU
RGWZooWGR
Legacy
BUWTinFinsWUB
UROmniTellRU
BURTESRUB
GElves!G
GBPSIBG
RGBelcherGR
UBRGWDredgeWGRBU
UBAffinityBU
RBurnR
Vintage
UBGDoomsdayGBU
0Martello Shops0
GElves!G
UBTPSBU
UBelcherU
0Dredge0
Currently Playing:
Retired
Honestly, Slithermuse doesn't need a replacement. If you're really insistent I would replace it with 1 IGG, but it seems you already run 2. 2 IGG is waaaay overkill in the pact list. I don't run either Slithermuse or IGG, but instead 4 mana morphose, 1 belcher and 2 tendrils. It is much more balls to the wall, but its also streamlined so that I have no problems building up a lethal tendrils. It's common to run either 1 Slithermuse or 1 IGG in PSI, but definitely not both, nor 1 of each.
EDIT: Also, you are missing Eternal Witness I realized. Big big big big big mistake, witness is the stone cold nuts. Seriously, a PSI list is sub optimal if it's not running witness in its main 60. For reference, my list is -1 tendrils, -1 belcher, -2 IGG, -1 Wild Cantor, -1 Slithermuse, +4 manamorphose, +1 witness, +1 Skyshroud Cutter. Skyshroud cutter isn't the best card around, but it is the best of all the options we have.
IGG and Slithermuse are for different situations. Obviously if you have a used ritual plus 5 floating you just win with IGG. If you can only float 4 mana then IGG is generally worthless and Slithermuse has a very good chance of still winning you the game.
I'm not sure why you'd want to play a Legacy storm deck with Rituals, LEDs and Infernal Tutors but no IGG (unless you're playing Burning Wish and have it in the side). Draw-4s can and will whiff, Manamorphose draws a whopping 1 card, and IGG wins the game against non-blue every time if you can count to 5 (mana and storm) :). I would like to try Skyshroud Cutter in place of the second one and see how often I have to imprint my lone copy or discard it to LED.
With no Witness, Manamorphose does next to nothing for me. Mana-fixing in rare cases where I have only GG available (although Cantor is there for Pactable fixing), and lack of synergy (no ability to topdeck tutor, brainstorm, ponder, top, et al to insure that you draw into something useful/float mana into a bomb, etc)
Trade Thread
Modern
RWGBurnGWR
GUInfectUG
GRTronRG
UWGifts TronWU
URBGrixis DelverBRU
RGWZooWGR
Legacy
BUWTinFinsWUB
UROmniTellRU
BURTESRUB
GElves!G
GBPSIBG
RGBelcherGR
UBRGWDredgeWGRBU
UBAffinityBU
RBurnR
Vintage
UBGDoomsdayGBU
0Martello Shops0
GElves!G
UBTPSBU
UBelcherU
0Dredge0
The only thing, I only had 2 Cruel Bargains as NO one owns that card. But funny story about that, at the Channelfireball homestore down there I picked up the only bargain they had and bought 3 packs of Portal. I know the odds of actually pulling a bargain but I thought "What the heck? I will probably just open garbage and have wasted $20." What do I pull out the first pack: CRUEL FRICKIN BARGAIN! I about flipped out. And on Sunday of the event, I played against a Doomsday player who had seen my SI deck running around and said he used to play it. I asked if he had Bargains to trade, and sure enough he had them. So on the last day of our trip I officially finished out the deck. I was way stoked for that.
So instead of running a spell that might be totally irrelevant, I just ran 2 Ill-Gotten Gains, and I hated it. Everytime I had it in hand it was like drawing a blank card. I found it really hard outside of those god-hands with infinite rituals to reach 5 mana for a IGGY loop, so its purpose was chrome mox fodder.
But anyway, heres the report from the event, I ended up going 3-0-1, and the last guy we decided to play for a pack split.
Match 1: vs Trisomy 21
Game 1: I win the die roll and get a turn 1 goldfish kill. I don't think he's playing counterspells as each time I asked him if a spell resolved he had a tone of "go for it, I've got nothing for you."
Game 2: He goes first and gets a Turn 1 Raven's crime off, I pitch an irrelevant IGG. I kept a hand that can win if I draw into a ritual. Draw. Go. He double raven's crimes me, I go. Draw ritual, go off and kill him with belcher. This is why I like this deck over all of the other combo decks. I lost 3 cards out of my hand and still managed to win, other decks have too hard of a time doing that.
What do I do with the rest of my time? Scope out the rest of the tourney and see enough matchups that I don't really care about, but a few fish decks, a solidarity player and quite a few countertop players.
Match 2: vs Ichorid
Game 1: He plays City of Brass but no Careful study or breakthrough, so I wonder if hes playing TES. I start to worry a bit, cast Land Grant and go for Dryad arbor, play it, pass. He casts breakthrough keeping a card, doesn't do anything, passes to me, and I kill him.
Game 2: Here is where I mess up a bit. If anyone has seen the movie rounders out there, you will remember that Matt Damon talks about how most poker players rarely remember a big pot, but a big loss they remember it perfectly, well here it is. He goes first and careful studies into nothing really. I go. My hand is Chrome Mox, 2 Culling the Weak, Skyshroud, Infernal Tutor, Dryad Arbor and Ill Gotten Gains. I imprint CUlling, play arbor and cutter, culling the cutter and IGG. Now, for a IGG loop, I cannot imprint IT, so I imprint a Culling, and try to go for the IGG loop...realizing that I dont have the floating mana to cast the culling again and sacrifice the Arbor. What did I do for him after I cast the IGG? I let him dump an entire hand of dredgers and pull back a Breakthough. I scoop to my own misplay. This puts me a little on tilt, but I calm down and simply focus.
Game 3: he plays a Turn 1 Cabal Therapy and proceeds to spend 5 minutes thinking of what to call with it. He decides on Culling the Weak. Swing and a miss. I draw and pass. He casts careful, and doesn't hit anything. I go, start playing cards, draw 4 into a belcher and cast it with 2 Moxen out and a bayou, whilst I have double Pact in hand to fetch for my Dryad arbor. He has to deal 10 to me this turn, which isn't unheard of in dredge, as they board in Zealot so they can race us. He draws, plays a land and carefuls, pitching an imp. And then he casts breakthrough. Uh oh. He dredges and hits NOTHING. And pitches a hand that consists of Iona, dread return and zealot. He only had to hit a few Narcomeobas and I would have died. On my turn I tutor for the arbor and kill him.
Funny story, during this match I had a mox in hand and a pact, and intended to pact for Trow and imprint, well, I instead cast chrome first and he asks what Im imprinting on it. I freak out, and say, "In response to the trigger cast summoner's Pact" and then imprint. He just gives me a look like, "Why the hell are you getting cutesy with this?" I had to try so hard to not laugh at myself as I thought, "Thank GOD Pact is an instant." I'm pretty sure this misplay was due to the fact that I was pretty angry at myself for punting game 2 to my own mistake and it just put me on tilt. But after that I refocused and kept on playing and didn't misplay again.
Match 3: Elves
Game 1: He wins the die roll and I worry because I have yet to play against Force of Will this tourney. He goes Turn 1 Llanowar Elves, I breathe a huge sigh of relief as I proceed to goldfish him on my turn.
Game 2: He goes first and mulligans to 6. I keep a starting hand that is decent. He starts with turn one mana dork. I top deck a Land grant. Now, I'm going to talk about how STUPID this deck is when it starts with 8 cards. It is absolutely disgusting, I've had countless times where I am just goldfishing and draw an 8th card and it goes from good to god-like. But anyway, I go off and kill him with belcher. He then shows me 2 thorn of amethyst in his hand. Those would have been golden had he actually gotten a second turn.
MAtch 4: Ichorid again
We decide to ID because the prizes were something like 4-0 record got $50 store credit, 3-0-1 got $25 and 3 packs, and 3-1 was something ridiculous like 3 packs. So we draw and play for a 4-2 pack split.
Game 1: Goldfish him on my first turn.
Game 2: I get down a turn 2 belcher with game on board for him my next turn. He is praying for a land so he can start doing stuff. What does he topdeck instead: Pithing Needle. Wow, just wow. I pass my turn, hoping to get another spell chain going to kill him with tendrils. He then plays cabal Therapy hitting the 2 Pacts I had in hand (I had Infernal tutored for one in hopes of killing him by getting arbor and then an elvish spirit guide before he topdecked like a champ). I scoop.
Game 3: I board in 2 Nature's Claims and wait a couple of turns while he doesn't do much, and then on my 3rd turn I start to chain, and I have a Lion's Eye Diamond on the board. He then proceeds to Chain of Vapors it. He does this with complete and utter confidence. My head almost explodes as I try and figure out why he would do that. And then he realizes that it won't do anything for him. This has been a fairly casual match so far so I joke around with him, as do the other 2 guys who ID'ed next to us. I add 2 more to the storm count and actually tendrils kill him thanks to it.
I grab my packs and pull a Mox Opal and then buy Beta plains for my Stax deck. So all in all, a lot of fun. There were enough people there that knew what I was playing that they kept saying "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition" whenever they saw me comboing out that it was fun. And there were also enough players watching that had no idea what I was playing. There was one guy watching my matches who was still in the main event, and when I walked by to turn in the match slip he asked how the Spanish Inquisition was going, and I replied, "Its going great, no one expects it."
It was tons of fun and did what it does against decks that don't play FoW: crush them. Its really comforting playing against those decks because it is handy knowing that you also have a couple of turns to build up if you need to, so you can keep a less than optimal hand and draw into the nuts.
To anyone new to the deck, do not just walk into a tourney and play this beast. It takes so much playtesting to pilot it properly. I for one had to do some extremely goofy plays in order to continue a spell chain. So much so that some of my friends who were watching and are fantastic magic players told me later that they would have never thought of that line of play, even though they know the decklist. And thats not me trying to be egotistic, its just the truth, as it takes a lot of testing to see those plays.
At the main event, the top ranked player from here in Reno wanted to play a belcher deck. What a coincidence. I handed him the deck, he tested 10 hands, looked at the toolbox package and entered the event 5 minutes before it started. He ended up going 4-4. But heres the interesting part: he refused to Tendrils anyone. Period. He would have a T1 Tendrils for like 30, and would instead go for the Belcher kill. Why? Because he had too much fun turning the deck upside down and saying, "To the face!" But he had a blast and it was hilarious watching him do it, even if it was sometimes frustrating watching him pass turn and kill him with belcher, and a couple of players wanted to strangle him.
But, all in all I had a blast, and most of people I played weren't too upset (I guess considering that 2 of them were Ichorid, and they do what we do, except 2/3 of a turn late). I simply love this deck and am so glad I'm playing it.
Thanks for your time, and I hope you enjoyed.
Avatar and Banner made by R&Doom of the Ye Olde Sig and Avatar Shoppe
On the topic of Moat:
Ha! I played against Kenny at the Open. I was laughing the whole time, because in Round 1 I sat next to him, and laugh as his opponent was totally perplexed.
Then when I played against him I was laughing, because he did in fact say, "TO THE FACE!" So I took the time to look through his version of the deck.
I've been watching SI for the last few months, and almost took it with me to play, but I could only find 2 of the Bargains.
Well done on the tournament!