I've been brewing a control deck and, although it looks like jank, is actually really good. It beats most of the major decks (surging, chancellor, storm, leyline, etc...)
If anyone doubts me then I will gladly run it through the gauntlet with someone tomorrow on cockatrice.
Extraction is the stone nuts in this format. However, it is important to note that going from 7 to 6 to even 5 against certain decks is necessary to get the right mix because of its volatile nature.
LMK what you all think
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Thanks to SushiOtter at Hakai Studios for the great banner.
@my deck fizzling - I tried some opening hands, it definitely fizzles less than half the time. And the ratios aren't even fine tuned.
@pact- I didn't know the current accepted version of flames.dec is running Pact. Why would it run Pact if the meta is Chancellor, Leyline, and Flames? It's useless against those three. Is there a fourth deck I'm not aware of??
I suggested Elvish Spirit Guide and Back to Nature on page one for the Leyline problem. Those two cards are better, because they are instant speed.
It really does not matter all that much, I actually prefer the echoing truth/lotus because it requires only one of each (two spirits vs. one lotus) and time/instant speed is not relevant against leylines unless they have some odd combo that wins T0/T1. With lotus you can play it, truth, exile a red guide, and flames. Not really sure that that matters, but truth is definitely more versatile against non-enchantments.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Thanks to SushiOtter at Hakai Studios for the great banner.
No instant speed matters a lot. Most of these decks tend to win in the upkeep. You are pretty lost with sorcery speed removal. It doesn't help against Flash.dec e.g. even though Echoing Truth would help if mana were available.
And there is not only Leyline.dec. I think I can put 5 Leylines in Surging.dec without a greater loss of consistency. Back to Nature helps against these decks too. As long as there are good combos which target and kill on the upkeep of turn 1, leylines will be played.
Good point, didn't consider the mirror matches' hate when adding cards. What is the flash deck? (If it is blue leyline, then I do know what it is)
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Thanks to SushiOtter at Hakai Studios for the great banner.
Flash to put Protean Hulk into play and sacrifice it immediatly to put a creature combo into play. There exist several, the easiest to understand is to search for X Disciple of the Vault and Y Shifting Wall. The Walls die to having 0 toughness and the Disciples will deal X*Y lifeloss immidiatly.
It's untargeted and instant speed with Gemstone Caverns and Elvish Spirit Guide. Too bad Gemstone Caverns only makes blue mana half of the time (when you are on the draw) so it is not as good as the chancellors.
Would you play a bunch of blue leylines and lotus to go off instant speed more consistently though? This deck seems bad unless there is a way to win through leyline.
The Disciple thing does target though, as does hedron crab, are there any other win con?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Thanks to SushiOtter at Hakai Studios for the great banner.
Hmm I think now there are too many card required for this combo. Since it is indeed targeted I'd play Surging Flame instead.
I still don't think lotus is a viable choice for decks, because of the sorcery speed. Maybe with the suggested banned list.
lotus is good only in control and leyline of anticipation. [In control because it allows you to cast your win cons with only 1 card (as opposed to needing three land)]
Anyone want to play a few games?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Thanks to SushiOtter at Hakai Studios for the great banner.
Aren't any decks that don't have 60x of a copy of a card bad? Because even with the Surging Flames + Simian Spirit Guide deck, there's still the entire possibility of drawing 7 Simian Spirit Guides or 7 Surging Flames. Or even 1 Simian Spirit Guide and 6 Surging Flames. So the Chancellor of the Dross x 60 is the most consistent deck. If we're just talking about god hands then why are we even discussing card quantities?
Every deck that is 60x of a single card can be easily hated out, and will have some completely unwinnable matchups. The best deck is almost certainly more complicated than that. You still get to mulligan, as well.
It seems like there'd be a way to break a deck by abusing ~53 serum powder to craft a perfect hand, perhaps going to just 40 powders and dedicating the rest of the deck to exact answers to every other viable deck in the meta
Edit: forgot that it was the whole hand and not just the powder itself. Perhaps there's still potential, but it's not as insane as I originally thought it would be
Edit again, brainstorming:
Perhaps something along the lines of
16 serum powders
The numbers would need to be tweaked, but essentially you just get to the point game 1 where you have a leyline, a black lotus, and two stifles in hand.
If you're playing dross he has to reveal his hand straight away, which means you can just leyline -> black lotus -> stifle for the win. If you're not playing dross then you're almost certainly playing leyline or flames. Leyline is easy, your griffins can eat anything they throw at you.
With flames it'll be trickier. They'll have to make the first move as they can't let you get more than one black lotus out. At most flames can offer two activations (either 5 simians + 2 flames or 4 simians + 3 flames opening hand).
So if they flame you, you just drop lotus + stifle and win. If they have two flames then they can respond to your lotus with another flame though, so I guess you'd need two lotuses in opening hand? That still feels very, very likely with the deck though.
If you're not playing dross then you're almost certainly playing leyline or flames. Leyline is easy, your griffins can eat anything they throw at you.
A few 3/3 fliers against a grip of 4/4 enchantment creatures? It would be a race, and I'm not sure the griffins could win it. Even if you multi-block the leylines to get them off the field, Serra's Sanctum will let them cast more so long as at least 3 leylines (+Opalescence) remain alive.
Surging Flames doesn't go off before the first upkeep; you can cast the Flames at the first upkeep, the same time the Chancellor triggers go on the stack.
Leyline will sideboard Nourishing Shoal for the matchup with Chancellor.
theoretically can win vs. all 3 above, sucks vs. "normal" decks
am i missing anything? (turboslug is worse than chancellor btw, it beats leyline, but is slower than chancellor anyway)
Well, you're basically categorizing this wrong, those top 3 are the decks to beat. In a format they would warp to beat one another (Chancellor would become obsolete because of the hate that everyone will bring and they cannot adapt to it). I really don't count Slug.dec because it is unhinged (and therefore rules for it are sketchy), doesn't win T0, and like chancellor cannot be customized. All non surging flames/40 or more leyline decks are brews that have to beat those top three before and after the top three have been customized to beat each other. I think that the brews are innumerable, but so far we have:
No, Chancellor does the damage in the first upkeep. The ripple deck can do everything at instant speed in response to any upkeep triggers.
Wrong.
Quote from Gatherer ruling for Chancellor of the Dross »
Your "opening hand" is the hand of cards you decide to start the game with after taking any mulligans.
6/1/2011
After all players have decided not to take any more mulligans, if the starting player has any cards that allow actions to be taken with them from a player's opening hand, that player may take the actions of any of those cards. The starting player repeats this, taking all actions he or she wishes to, one at a time. Then each other player in turn order may do the same. After each player has exercised his or her option to take actions from his or her opening hand, the first turn of the game begins.
This happens before the first turn.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Currently playing:
Standard: WBRG Aggro-Reanimator Humans GRBW
Modern: UR Twinning RU G Venus Fly Trap G U Artifacts Aggro U
You may reveal this card from your opening hand. If you do, at the beginning of the first upkeep, each opponent loses 3 life, then you gain life equal to the life lost this way.
The trigger happens before the first turn, but the life loss happens at the first upkeep.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Quote from Head Judge at a tournament »
Please do not have food at the tables. We do not need a messy play area. No, you can not use a Sierra Mist-ic to fetch a Batterspill.
why griffins? would any threat not suffice? i can think of more resilient threats, especially considering none of these super decks seem to have exile effects.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern UWUW ControlUW UGWSpiritsUGW GHardened ScalesG WGRUKiki PodWGRU [RIP]
why griffins? would any threat not suffice? i can think of more resilient threats, especially considering none of these super decks seem to have exile effects.
If you're referring to the Serum Griffins deck, it's so you can get them back if exiled by serum powder.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
1 Grapeshot
1 Quicken
1 Back to Nature
22 Elvish Spirit Guide
18 Ancestral Recall
16 Manamorphose
Not just possible, but guaranteed.
And I know, I read this entire thread then burst into laughter when I saw you comment.
Just Pact of Negation the Quicken and the Mind Break Trap and win with the flames.dec
If anyone doubts me then I will gladly run it through the gauntlet with someone tomorrow on cockatrice.
7 black lotus
8 phyrexian crusader
10 leyline of sanctity
10 mindbreak trap
15 soul spike
10 surgical extraction
1 black lotus
1 kor firewalker
1 phyrexian crusader
3 mindbreak trap
4 soul spike
5 surgical extraction
Extraction is the stone nuts in this format. However, it is important to note that going from 7 to 6 to even 5 against certain decks is necessary to get the right mix because of its volatile nature.
LMK what you all think
20x Black Lotus
20x Channel
20x Fireball
But all these decks beat that
Done by Rivenor of Miraculous Recovery signatures!
@pact- I didn't know the current accepted version of flames.dec is running Pact. Why would it run Pact if the meta is Chancellor, Leyline, and Flames? It's useless against those three. Is there a fourth deck I'm not aware of??
It really does not matter all that much, I actually prefer the echoing truth/lotus because it requires only one of each (two spirits vs. one lotus) and time/instant speed is not relevant against leylines unless they have some odd combo that wins T0/T1. With lotus you can play it, truth, exile a red guide, and flames. Not really sure that that matters, but truth is definitely more versatile against non-enchantments.
Good point, didn't consider the mirror matches' hate when adding cards. What is the flash deck? (If it is blue leyline, then I do know what it is)
Would you play a bunch of blue leylines and lotus to go off instant speed more consistently though? This deck seems bad unless there is a way to win through leyline.
The Disciple thing does target though, as does hedron crab, are there any other win con?
lotus is good only in control and leyline of anticipation. [In control because it allows you to cast your win cons with only 1 card (as opposed to needing three land)]
Anyone want to play a few games?
Edit: forgot that it was the whole hand and not just the powder itself. Perhaps there's still potential, but it's not as insane as I originally thought it would be
Edit again, brainstorming:
Perhaps something along the lines of
16 serum powders
20 black lotuses
6 [CARD]leyline of anticipation
[/CARD]
6 misthollow griffin
12 stifle
The numbers would need to be tweaked, but essentially you just get to the point game 1 where you have a leyline, a black lotus, and two stifles in hand.
If you're playing dross he has to reveal his hand straight away, which means you can just leyline -> black lotus -> stifle for the win. If you're not playing dross then you're almost certainly playing leyline or flames. Leyline is easy, your griffins can eat anything they throw at you.
With flames it'll be trickier. They'll have to make the first move as they can't let you get more than one black lotus out. At most flames can offer two activations (either 5 simians + 2 flames or 4 simians + 3 flames opening hand).
So if they flame you, you just drop lotus + stifle and win. If they have two flames then they can respond to your lotus with another flame though, so I guess you'd need two lotuses in opening hand? That still feels very, very likely with the deck though.
I love this thread so much
Props to the Serum Powder+Griffin idea, though!
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
30 surging flames
goes off before first upkeep
goes off at first upkeep
5 serra's sanctum
5 opalescence
wins late, immune to ripple.dec, sucks vs. "normal" decks
20 BLack lotus
6 Leyline of Anticipation
12 Stifle
6 Threat
theoretically can win vs. all 3 above, sucks vs. "normal" decks
am i missing anything? (turboslug is worse than chancellor btw, it beats leyline, but is slower than chancellor anyway)
UWUW ControlUW
UGWSpiritsUGW
GHardened ScalesG
WGRUKiki PodWGRU [RIP]
Leyline will sideboard Nourishing Shoal for the matchup with Chancellor.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
Well, you're basically categorizing this wrong, those top 3 are the decks to beat. In a format they would warp to beat one another (Chancellor would become obsolete because of the hate that everyone will bring and they cannot adapt to it). I really don't count Slug.dec because it is unhinged (and therefore rules for it are sketchy), doesn't win T0, and like chancellor cannot be customized. All non surging flames/40 or more leyline decks are brews that have to beat those top three before and after the top three have been customized to beat each other. I think that the brews are innumerable, but so far we have:
-My jank list
7 black lotus
8 phyrexian crusader
10 leyline of sanctity
10 mindbreak trap
15 soul spike
10 surgical extraction SB:
1 black lotus
1 kor firewalker
1 phyrexian crusader
3 mindbreak trap
4 soul spike
5 surgical extraction
-leyline of anticipation combo deck
-serum griffins
20 black lotuses
6 leyline of anticipation
6 misthollow griffin
12 stifle
all the other decks that I have seen lose to tweaked top 3 or just regular top 3.
thoughts?
Wrong.
This happens before the first turn.
Standard:
WBRG Aggro-Reanimator Humans GRBW
Modern:
UR Twinning RU
G Venus Fly Trap G
U Artifacts Aggro U
Legacy:
B Reanimator B
WU Stoneblade UW
EDH
WBGGhave, Guru of SporesGBW
URGRiku of the Two ReflectionsGRU
WUBRGScion of the Ur-DragonGRBUW
Casual
Far too many to list
The trigger happens before the first turn, but the life loss happens at the first upkeep.
Modern: B/W Tokens
I am a DCI rules advisor.
so can anything be responded to in when the loss life would happen?
UWUW ControlUW
UGWSpiritsUGW
GHardened ScalesG
WGRUKiki PodWGRU [RIP]
If you're referring to the Serum Griffins deck, it's so you can get them back if exiled by serum powder.