I'm testing (without knowing that) a variation of Splice Into Arcane version, a more controllish one. I've started at developing it from Pitch Control topic, moving by myself in this direction:I've cut the white for blue and red, then cut the Soulfleyer too but now i'm in trouble, a bit. This is the list
My main problem is: i can control the game, playing in oppo's EOT ******* his counters and so on, can reanimate a griselbrand or a Orzhova but... even if i menage to get a swing, to close the game is the hard part. Before, between Geist and Soulflayer i could have 2 important cloack in the deck, but now... dunno.
I'm testing (without knowing that) a variation of Splice Into Arcane version, a more controllish one. I've started at developing it from Pitch Control topic, moving by myself in this direction:I've cut the white for blue and red, then cut the Soulfleyer too but now i'm in trouble, a bit. This is the list
My main problem is: i can control the game, playing in oppo's EOT ******* his counters and so on, can reanimate a griselbrand or a Orzhova but... even if i menage to get a swing, to close the game is the hard part. Before, between Geist and Soulflayer i could have 2 important cloack in the deck, but now... dunno.
Okay, first, let's start by putting it in deck tags and trying at least partially organize by function. You've got Polluted Delta listed twice, so I'm going to assume that one set of these is probably meant to be either Verdants or Tarns. Probably Tarns, based on your shock distribution.
This is... an eclectic mix of cards, and I'm hard pressed to figure out exactly what the full game plan is here. It feels very unfocused.
You've got a pretty decent core of a Goryo's Vengeance deck, 4 Goryo's, 4 Griselbrand, 2 Obzedat, 8 looting spells plus 2 liliana to enable, and a pair of Breaches. Not sure I like only 2 Breaches, but you can splice them, and you're clearly more on the reanimate plan. I also like the use of Obzedat to get extra value out of Goryo's. Not sure it has quite the same value in Modern as it did in standard, given the amount of instant speed removal in Modern that can handle it, but it seems solid enough, and it's a reasonable threat on its own, even if you can't ever actually hard cast it.
Peer is a very nice splice target which also fetches combo pieces. If there was a reason to be in blue in a deck like this, that's it. Ideas Unbound would also be interesting, serving as both dig and a discard outlet, but your manabase just isn't going to reliably support UU and still be able to splice on either Goryo's or Breach, along with casting your other spells in the first few turns.
Sickening Shoal and Whisper as splice targets are... okay. Shoal is a little lacking in black cards to pitch. You've got 20, which is more than the minimum, but over half of them you don't really want to pitch because they're pretty critical to your game plan (Goryo's, other Shoals, Obzedats, Griselbrands). Shoal also requires a target, which not all decks will oblige you to provide when it's convenient. Consider the mirror, a RG Breach deck, Storm, Amulet Bloom, and 8 Rack, all of which aren't likely to have creatures on the battlefield any given turn, unless they're actively killing you. Even Twin doesn't tend to have a lot of creatures on board when you're going to want to try for a Griselbrand reanimate. No target means you can't splice a Goryo's onto it.
Whisper is some decent added value as a splice, but you aren't really running quite enough looting to really fill your yard to be able to reliably splice it without interfering with the Goryo's plan, which means you're relying on Loam to help fill your grave yard, but you've only got 2 with only Peer to dig for it, and only 1 source of green in the whole deck, so it's not exactly reliable. As an arcane splice target, it's not horrible, but there are much more efficient removal spells in these colors, and not hitting black is a pretty big drawback in the current meta, between Tasigur, Siege Rhino, opposing Griselbrands, etc. It also makes the whole Splice package with Goryo's cost 6, which means it's not happening until probably turns 8 or 9, which is a long game in Modern. I'd either go with Murderous Cut if cheap/efficient removal is really the goal, Rend Flesh if the goal is to have instant speed removal that also can serve as a target for splicing.
Damnation is interesting, and I like in this context. It interferes some with Obzedat, but given the idea of not having threats on board, I like it as a 1 or 2 of. Being able to clear the board on 4 or 5 gives you a bit more time to develop your board and combo.
Not sure what to think of a 2 of Banefire. This deck does not look to be generating a huge amount of mana. Even including borderposts, you've only got 12 actual mana sources, and no rituals or accelerators or mana cheating. So it doesn't really feel like a kill condition, but a utility fireball and occasional Lava Axe, which seems a little at odds with everything else going on. If your goal is to close out games, then Lava Spike is a much cheaper way to do a few damage and can serve as a Splice target.
Snapcaster also feels like an odd fit. The only targets you're going to really want to flashback are Goryo's, but you've already got the splice plan for those. Beyond that, flashing back Damnation is about the only other thing you'd likely want, but you're going to be a long time into the game before that ever happens. 6 mana is a lot in a deck with only effectively 24 land drops, unless, again, you manage to get Loam going early. Likewise, Banefire isn't a great target, as devoting at least 3 mana before X means you're unlikely to be able to dump more than 3 or 4 more into during any reasonable game.
Loam itself is a little weird. The only real synergies it has in the deck are getting back fodder for discarding to Liliana and maybe flipping over a target for Goryo's. Snapcaster actually looks like it's a way to salvage the other things you dredged on accident. Beyond that Loam seems to exist only to try and cover for the greedy manabase that needs both 4 colors and basics to feed to Borderposts. You don't have any hand disruption to go with a Raven's Crime package, or any sort of "waste" lands like Ghost Quarter or Tectonic Edge to make Loam a powerful engine on its own. No spell lands or utility lands that you need to guarantee you can have on the board.
In the sideboard, you've got 4 Blood Moons, but not a single green source under it and only Mistveins (which are going to be Decay/Wear/Disenchant/etc targets) to give you blue. It also feels like you're pretty dependent on Loam/Fetches to reliably hit your mana drops and the Moons shut that off completely. You're a 4 color deck running spells that want BB, while hitting R, B, G, and U all in the first few turns. Blood Moon is your fear, not your answer. Beyond that, your sideboard seems quite solid.
Basically you've got a ton of "cute" little synergies between different parts of your deck, but no coherent game plan that I can see. I'd pick one aspect of the deck and try and focus on that.
If you're a control deck, you need more efficient removal (both spells cheaper in mana, and card advantage spells like sweepers) and a stronger disruption package, probably in the form of Raven's Crime to go with Life from the Loam, and maybe some straight up Thoughtseize/Duress type cards. Counters are also an option, as they go very well with Snapcasters as well. A few man-lands like Creeping Tar Pit might help.
If you're a reanimator combo deck, then you need a way to close out games once you're into your combo. Either something like a Griselbrand-based draw finisher like Soul Spike, Fury of the Horde, etc, or some more effective closers, like Emrakul, the Aeons Torn or even Worldspine Wurm, where one hit is likely game over. In this case, you also need to streamline your manabase considerably.
If you're a Loam/graveyard value deck, you need some more ways to put lots things in the graveyard and some better ways to take advantage of them. Raven's Crime is again a solid choice, as is Tasigur, the Golden Fang or Tombstalker. A few mill enablers like Thought Scour or Glimpse the Unthinkable could help, and you could tie this to the arcane package by using Death Denied or Soulless Revival (possibly with Snapcaster) in order to rescue your Delve creatures like Tasigur.
First of all, thank's for the long post. As i said, i've started from Pitch Control list and i've tested many version: right now, i've come back to a list with white shoal too plus Soulfleyer and Geist (for a sort of midrange plan).
For your points:
-Remove extra Orzhova/Griselbrand with shoal is one of its quality: i've found whisper excellent.
Banefire is the closer after a swing of Griselbrand, usually. Snapcaster has loothing spells, Peer and (obv) Goryo as main targets, and i've really enjoyed him.
The main synergy of Loam is to transform Loothing and Voice in CA, that's huge and repeatable.
But you're right on the last part: i was looking for something unusual and funny to play, so probably i'm going to try something more on your last idea.
Time of need is in the awkward free slot. I have no idea what to play there, but I kinda want another G card there (to have more to pitch for Shoal). I tried the following cards in this slot so far:
In the end, I didn't find anything which I liked. Hence, I kicked a Night's Whisper and added 2 Tormenting Voices (for more Discard outlets and more draw). Desperate Ritual is great, but I wouldn't run more than 2 (you kinda only want them when you are going off).
I hate to run 4 Manamorphoses too, but since you need a around ~14 G cards preboard to get a shoal pitch I still run 4. 3 Is probably the correct number, but I still have to test this (need a ton of data for this, when it is relevant and when not).
My SB was pretty outdated, since I didn't own several cards which I run now in the SB (e.g. Inquisition of Kozilek). Duress is bad (noticed it in the moment, when my opp revealed a hand with 2 Oozes), try IOK instead. It hits all relevant cards.
In the end, you have to find a perfect SB for yourself, since I like the Discard, and I'm running 6 now (2 Thoughtseize 4 IOK).
Greetings,
Kathal
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
4 Manamorphose is too many, but needing green cards that you can pitch to Shoal is pretty critical. I don't feel bad about cycling the first 1 or 2 at end step to draw into action. I'd go down to 3 only if I was replacing it with another green card, though.
Time of Need is usually pretty bad, but when it's relevant, it's a lifesaver. If only it were Arcane, then it'd be much better. The place I usually need it is having everything to combo except a Griselbrand, or mid combo when I need a Borborygmos. I tend to cast it more in games 2 and 3, as a Thrun against control decks can often end the game by itself. I've had them scoop to just fetching it, not even casting it.
Also agree that more than 2 Desperate Ritual is probably a mistake. However, I personally have gone up to 2 in main, because having the only copy be on the bottom of the deck is one of the very few ways to fizzle out during a combo turn. The only time I'd ever cast it, pre-combo, is if I already had the second in hand, in which case using it like an SSG to Breach a turn sooner is fine.
As far as sideboards go, I'm very fond of Blood Moon, as posted about previously. Modern, and my meta in particular, has a few decks that are completely cold to an early Blood Moon, and we can drop it on turn 2 or even 1, with some help from SSG. And even matchups where it doesn't outright lock them out, it does tend to slow development enough to assemble the combo. The only strike against it is that a lot of people are noticing how strong it is, and trying to tune their manabase against it or even run it themselves.
Anyone have thoughts for a Dragonlord Atarka or Atarka, World Render in the flex slot for the Shoal version? Either is another legendary for Goryo's, perfectly acceptable Breach target, and green for pitching to Shoal (and X=7 is exactly enough to draw 7 with Griselbrand). Dragonlord has a nice ETB against decks with Souls or other aggro decks like Burn, Affinity, or WW strategies, while World Render does more direct damage (and is basically a 1+1 combo with a Griselbrand, assuming they take any damage at all from their own manabase).
Did a quick search on big G Fatties which should be playable besides Wurm and those 2 dragons:
Giant Adephage leaves a copy, but only good for attacking and not for blocking
Liege of the Tangle when he connects it's gg (exception is a Wrath and Mass bounce effects, which doesn't see any play in Modern (I count the ~4% of the meta as non existent)
Moldgraf Monstrosity no idea how good this one actually is. It doesn't win the game on its one, but can get back Grisel/Borbor
Terastodon good old Terastodon. No explanation needed here
If I want to play one of those (or one of the Dragons), I would play 1-2 Summoner's Pact to be able to find them (or get something for a Shoal, I would play 1 in the Morphose slot). I think Liege and Dragonlord Atarka (can clear the board if needed) have the same power level, followed by Giant Adephage and Atarka, World Render and then the rest.
I have to test it (especially Liege and Atarka) to make further statements.
EDIT says: Yeah, I'm trying the Moons too, so far they are pretty amazing, but I have a little problem with my SB slots because of this (6 discards, 3 Moons, 3 Decay and a split between Ancient Grudge and Rakdos Charm. I kinda want Thrun or Boseiju in my SB against Control).
Greetings,
Kathal
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
In the old thread we discussed various non-Grisel/Emrakul fatties a few times. Most of those and a few others came up.
To me, the big strike against most of them is that as non-Legendary they don't work with the Goryo's half of the deck's game plan, which is a pretty critical flaw. The only reason Wurms even get a pass in my book as that they're so overwhelmingly good with both Breach and Shoal. If your goal is just to have Breach targets that are Green for Shoal, I'd probably consider Progenitus or Autochthon Wurm, as some of the earliest Shoal decks used. Progenitus is both enough life for another draw (and then some) and 10 damage that's effectively unblockable and unstoppable via removal like Path. Autochthon is enough life for 2 full draws and still a respectable 9 trampling.
But none of those can be used with Goryo's Vengeance, unlike the 2 Atarkas, which is why they caught my attention. A lot of the deck's power comes from being able reanimate a fatty on turn 2 or 3. Without that, there are other shells which get as much or more power out of Breach (like the RG Valkut Breach deck).
Liege of the Tangle is an awesome card, but I would avoid playing creatures that can't be Goryo's target. (Worldspine is an exception, as its raw power and 12 life Shoal are too good).
Dragonlord Atarka is quite interesting and those 5 damage make it better than World Render in current meta imho. I'll definitely try it.
Moldgraf is a great casual card but I think it relies too much on randomness.
I'll be waiting for your feedback on Liege testing
Still havent picked up Emrakul for my deck but I recently had been thinking about how he presents the problem of How 15 isnt 20 unlike worldspine who leaves tokens, but cant be reanimated. Then I thought "oh wait! Manlands!" Any thoughts on that? I havent done much research on them for my rb allin build but theres mutavault at the least, inkmoth, blinkmoth and probably others. One nice thing is that these enter untapped so they dont slow down the combo.
Hey all. Been doing nothing but fiddling with this list for a month now.
Finally completed it so I took it to FNM after goldfishing for a while. Here's my tournament report: Round 1: Soul Sisters
Game 2: Keep a sketchy hand with one land, but the T2 kill if I draw another. Bricked on the first draw, but then drew a fetch and proceeded to go full combo
1-0
Round 2: Jund Pox
Game 1: I very, very grindy game in which I draw 0 large threats and have all my copies of Goryo's and TtB discarded. 10 of my last 14 cards in my library were 4x Griseldaddy, 4x Wurm and 2x Borbor.
Game 2: Combo on T3. Opp scoops after I draw 14 cards.
Game 3: Another super grindy game. Again do not draw relevant threats. I hold off on casting Faithless Lootings to ensure I keep a Goryo's Vengeance vs. his Lili. Very close matchup.
1-1
Round 3: Esper Control
Game 1: Opp was slow with Lingering Souls and I bait out enough countermagic to eventually Through the Breach (countered), Shoal + Breach EoT (countered), my turn Breach in Wurm GG.
Game 2: I get to cast a Duress on Turn 2 and see: Dispel, Syncopate, Esper Charm and 3 irrelevant cards. I take the Dispel. He proceeds to make me discard cards, so I discard some duplicate threats. Eventually I cast a Through the Breach appearing as though I was tapped out when he had 2 mana open. He syncs, and I exile a Simian Spirit Guide for the win.
2-1
Round 4: Burn
Game 1: I keep a super greedy hand, but T4 cheat in Wurm and win on 4 life.
Game 2: I shoaled twice. I don't need to say anymore in this matchup. (Ok, I lied. I played around the Deflecting Palm and Path to Exile he was clearly representing. I hard-cast 2 Simian Spirit Guides as well to block his creatures, since I (correctly) assumed he removed his Searing Blazes.
3-1
Overall, still very impressed with the deck. I feel it is powerful enough to steal some games you have no business winning, and any decent set of draws can lead to victory.
My list: (not quite what I want. I have changed one Tormenting Voice for a Time of Need)
Sunday magic report, very happy with my outcome. Running something like this (landbase is excluded cause I dont remember off the top of my head, its just b/r)
Game 1:
Clean match against some sort of naya midrange, he had little to no interaction. T3 and t4 griselbrand kill, nice and clean.
Game 2:
Most interesting match probably ever against Jeskai Ascendancy. Game 1 I didnt draw a goryos for griselbrand in the yard and lost around turn 5. Game 2 I put in 2x Go for the throat and 3xDuress kept an opener with both, faithless, and some lands. Throated a birds of paradise and duressed ascendancy so we both went into topdeck mode. Mine included through the breach and worldspine, he just pained himself down to 14 digging for his combo until I killed him. Game 3 was beautiful. 3 lands, faithless, griselbrand,goryos, and duress. T2 kill ftw.
Game 3:
Played against infect. Kept a SS, 4 land, breach+worldspine that I shouldnt have and lost. Next game mulliganed to 3 lands faithless and tormenting drew grisel, breach, but not ramp so vengeance came 1 turn too late. Dissapointing match overall
Game 4:
This lady hates me. Treefolk tribal isnt good against griselbrand. Game 1 I was cocky kept a bad hand and lost. Game 2 I was down to 10 went off with griselbrand and she conceded. I looked and if she hadnt I would have fizzled. Game 3 I kept looting goryos land land pentad tormenting. Drew into griselbrand draw draw fury draw fling griselbrand gg t3.
Went 3-1 very happy with my success. The deck is awesome. I love the flings actually, adds a lot of consistency mid combo though I may cut one for another wild guess. Took 2nd place today the jeskai ascendancy dude got 1st with mr. Infect right behind me.
are interesting additions to the deck. they are legends that play with goryo's vengeance legendary requirement. Dragonlord Atarka I find more interesting of the 2 cause now both spells have the means to instant speed whip out 5 damage and hit opponents creatures. basically letting you turn vengeance or breach into a fiery justice with a 8/8 body for attacking or blocking.
very useful for killing the small creatures in life, infect, elves, treefolk, mana dorks.
if blocking can 1 for 1 multiple siege rhinos or other 4/5s
at instant speed 5 damage should wipe out stuff like scavenging ooze and plus some.
Atarka, World Render needs some changes to the decks structure to make him more viable, but he can be pretty lethal. at minimum he attacks for 12, add 1 fury of the horde thats 24 damage, one would need a really good hand to achieve that scenario in best of circumstances. the changes I would make to make him more potent would also benefit griselbrand.
-In the land base add cathedral of war, double strike compounds this, Fury of the horde cause it to trigger additional times pumping further. griselbrand essentially grows as he combos.
-he's an ideal candidate for fling if your running that. most people take some land damage. so he hits for 12, and fling for 6 thats 18!
-If your running burn spells in the list, such as lightning bolts in the main, then striking for 12 in the air at some point in the game should be lethal to an opponent.
-he's a solid creature to run as back up to griselbrand. if an opponent hits you with slaughter games naming griselbrand, next best thing to hit them in the face for 12! If you don't draw emrakul, the aeons torn!
Overall, deck performed well, I'm happy with SB, but see Infect can be a problem
Regarding card choices: Tormenting Voices are better than Night's Whisper, because without them, there are only looting to get your fatty to GY.
Extras Rituals helps to combo faster, but 4 is too much, next time I'll cut to 3.
Still I need to find a quicker way for the Through the Breach plan. If only Seething Song was legal...
Pentad Prism is a semi reasonable option that's been used to accelerate breach in traditional Kahleya style builds forever. It's no Song, but it's generally as good as any other ritual and very occasionally fixing colors matters.
On the Tormenting/Whisper tradeoff, I initially started strong on Voice, but over time, the actual outright card advantage of Whisper has lead me to start using more of them. Sometimes I've got hand full of things I just don't want to discard, and there's nothing worse than having 2 possible lines of play, discarding one to Voice, and then drawing the cards you needed for the line you discarded rather than the line you kept.
had this wierd idea for Reya Dawnbringer. both vengeance and breach put a delayed trigger on the creatures we would reanimate or sneak attack into the field. however if you use them at end of an opponents turn the creature can stay around into the following turn until that is over with. if we discard reya and bring her back at end of an opponents turn she could reanimate permanently another creature from the graveyard. fundamentally the deck can't be a true reanimator unless it leaves a creature on the battlefield. reya might be a soft synergy to achieving that.
had this wierd idea for Reya Dawnbringer. both vengeance and breach put a delayed trigger on the creatures we would reanimate or sneak attack into the field. however if you use them at end of an opponents turn the creature can stay around into the following turn until that is over with. if we discard reya and bring her back at end of an opponents turn she could reanimate permanently another creature from the graveyard. fundamentally the deck can't be a true reanimator unless it leaves a creature on the battlefield. reya might be a soft synergy to achieving that.
To my mind, it is a win more situation. If we can reanimate/breach in Grisel, we should win.
I'm looking at her as a 2 for 1 gateway card so you can establish a permanent big creature on the field instead of solely relying on getting 1 creature out to finish the job.
now that i'm saying "2 for 1" that makes the idea kind of worthless, better to just get to 4 mana and bust out the zombifys for making a regular reanimator.
In which version? In the classic one it is pretty useless, since you shuffle your Graveyard back in with Emmi and can't use it on Emmi. In the Shoal version it may be possible, but I would rather play a tutor to find Goryo's Vengeance. It sees play in the Ooze Version, since it uses self mill elements (like Grisly Salvage).
@All, ATM I don't have that much time to play Magic, sadly, but I could play 6 games against Grixis Delver yesterday. Went 4-2 and I noticed, that they need the turn 1 Delver or that we have a rather slow Breach hand that they have a shot for winning. If they don't know what we are doing, they usually tap out in the first few turns, which gives us more than enough time to find a proper kill. Also, Worldspine Wurm CAN backfire against them, especially if they have Young Pyromancer out. It didn't actually happen to me, but it was close (he took the hit, played Tasigur, and terminated a Token, killed the other one with Tasigur+token and chump the last one, went down to 1 and he bricked for the next turn).
Greetings,
Kathal
PS: I will probably go to GP Copenhagen, but I'm not sure which version I will play, either Grixis Emmi, or the Shoal version. I like both versions atm.
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
To be honest, I never liked the idea of Pact, but I should give it a try.
@Topic:
Two things:
1) As some can remember, I said I will test Liege of the Tangle and Dragonlord Atarka. In the end I disliked both, the first one on being to fragile and the second one was decent at best (sweeping the board was only once important, but would have lost the game either way). BUT I could finally test Summoner's Pact (in the random G slot). I really liked it, since it is Borbo Nr. 3 or Worldspine Wurm Nr. 5. There were several games where I needed it to actual win, instead of one of the creatures (I know, it sounds strange, but I needed to draw like all the library to get enough mana, and Pact enabled it).
BUT I found another card, which could be in this slot: Noxious Revival. It enables 2 things, first you can get back a discarded/countered enabler, or second, when you go off you can re-use Desperate Rituals/Shoals (you can simply draw it from Grisel). I might try 2 (1 in the 4th Morphose slot). I also consider kicking 1 SSG + a random card (probably a land) for 2 Pentad Prism. I just want to try them in the Shoal version, since they can provide an easier way to get a early Breach.
2) I found a nice goody for the Primer (will add it in the next days), the first "Tin Fins" deck which had an relevant tournament finish in Modern (Trial Winner for GP Yokohama, June 2012, aka two month after printing Grisseldaddy):
First, gratz on the win. 4 Rituals is a little unusual, but I can see the appeal of using them as extra SSGs to get to an early Breach, rather than saving them exclusively for comboing off. Only thing I note is a lack of Night's Whisper or similar card draw. Lootings are great, but sometimes you just need to refill your hand.
The deck you linked is pretty odd. Copied here for discussion:
This deck is just packed. The shoal engine. The Soul Spike engine. The Fury engine. Mainboard Pacts and Boseiju. Footsteps + Wisps as an alternate reanimation plan. Sideboard breaches.
Not sure about the Chancellors. They do up the likelihood you can just go off on turn 1, but without Manamorphose or Pentad Prism, the only thing you can really use G for on T1 is aTime of Need or if you've got a perfect hand, as the 1 for Goryo's Vengeance after using an SSG to Faithless Looting. They do at least pitch to the Shoals for another draw 7, which is nice.
The Shoal package seems a little light. There's only 8 total green spells. On the other hand, you've got both the Soul Spike (18 black cards) and the Fury of the Horde (15 red cards) packages, which can effectively gain you life and thus draw more cards.
The manabase is either brilliant or a trainwreck. It's either very carefully tuned, but I'm not sure for what, or it's just the stuff he had on hand that mostly worked. Forbidden Orchard seems out of place (except maybe to make a target for Lightning Axe?) Boseiju is great, but at odds with trying to use Chancellors to accelerate a T1 play. And why Sulfurous Springs over Blood Crypt, since in a long game, a Springs will often do 2 or more damage to you?
It feels very all in. It's going to go off once, and if it fails, there's almost no chance it's ever going to rebuild and try again, as you're going to pitch your whole hand to one or more of your engines. But it does seem like it's got a very optimized engine for going off. Drawing 14 is almost assuredly going to get you enough cards to hit one of your 3 pitchs to let you gain life and draw 7 more.
I do like the use of Funeral Charm as a discard outlet that doubles as both disruption and a kill spell for certain annoying cards like Clique, Pyromancer, etc, and has the potential to let you slip past Lingering Souls via Swampwalk. I've been playing a singleton Lightning Axe as an instant speed discard outlet for comboing off. Charm may actually be better for that, though B instead of R is a minor issue.
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I'm testing (without knowing that) a variation of Splice Into Arcane version, a more controllish one. I've started at developing it from Pitch Control topic, moving by myself in this direction:I've cut the white for blue and red, then cut the Soulfleyer too but now i'm in trouble, a bit. This is the list
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
1 Mountain
2 Blood Crypt
2 Watery Grave
4 Polluted Delta
4 Mistvein Borderpost
1 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
4 Griselbrand
4 Sickening Shoal
2 Horobi's Whisper
4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Faithless Looting
4 Tormenting Voice
2 Obzedat, Ghost Council
4 Peer Through Depths
2 Life from the Loam
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Damnation
2 Through the Breach
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Banefire
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 4 Blood Moon
SB: 1 Pyroclasm
SB: 3 Abrupt Decay
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 2 Inquisition of Kozilek
SB: 1 Damnation
My main problem is: i can control the game, playing in oppo's EOT ******* his counters and so on, can reanimate a griselbrand or a Orzhova but... even if i menage to get a swing, to close the game is the hard part. Before, between Geist and Soulflayer i could have 2 important cloack in the deck, but now... dunno.
Okay, first, let's start by putting it in deck tags and trying at least partially organize by function. You've got Polluted Delta listed twice, so I'm going to assume that one set of these is probably meant to be either Verdants or Tarns. Probably Tarns, based on your shock distribution.
2 Obzedat, Ghost Council
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Goryo's Vengeance
2 Through the Breach
4 Faithless Looting
4 Tormenting Voice
4 Peer Through Depths
4 Sickening Shoal
2 Horobi's Whisper
2 Life from the Loam
1 Damnation
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Banefire
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
2 Blood Crypt
2 Watery Grave
1 Steam Vents
1 Stomping Ground
2 Surgical Extraction
4 Blood Moon
1 Pyroclasm
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Damnation
This is... an eclectic mix of cards, and I'm hard pressed to figure out exactly what the full game plan is here. It feels very unfocused.
You've got a pretty decent core of a Goryo's Vengeance deck, 4 Goryo's, 4 Griselbrand, 2 Obzedat, 8 looting spells plus 2 liliana to enable, and a pair of Breaches. Not sure I like only 2 Breaches, but you can splice them, and you're clearly more on the reanimate plan. I also like the use of Obzedat to get extra value out of Goryo's. Not sure it has quite the same value in Modern as it did in standard, given the amount of instant speed removal in Modern that can handle it, but it seems solid enough, and it's a reasonable threat on its own, even if you can't ever actually hard cast it.
Peer is a very nice splice target which also fetches combo pieces. If there was a reason to be in blue in a deck like this, that's it. Ideas Unbound would also be interesting, serving as both dig and a discard outlet, but your manabase just isn't going to reliably support UU and still be able to splice on either Goryo's or Breach, along with casting your other spells in the first few turns.
Sickening Shoal and Whisper as splice targets are... okay. Shoal is a little lacking in black cards to pitch. You've got 20, which is more than the minimum, but over half of them you don't really want to pitch because they're pretty critical to your game plan (Goryo's, other Shoals, Obzedats, Griselbrands). Shoal also requires a target, which not all decks will oblige you to provide when it's convenient. Consider the mirror, a RG Breach deck, Storm, Amulet Bloom, and 8 Rack, all of which aren't likely to have creatures on the battlefield any given turn, unless they're actively killing you. Even Twin doesn't tend to have a lot of creatures on board when you're going to want to try for a Griselbrand reanimate. No target means you can't splice a Goryo's onto it.
Whisper is some decent added value as a splice, but you aren't really running quite enough looting to really fill your yard to be able to reliably splice it without interfering with the Goryo's plan, which means you're relying on Loam to help fill your grave yard, but you've only got 2 with only Peer to dig for it, and only 1 source of green in the whole deck, so it's not exactly reliable. As an arcane splice target, it's not horrible, but there are much more efficient removal spells in these colors, and not hitting black is a pretty big drawback in the current meta, between Tasigur, Siege Rhino, opposing Griselbrands, etc. It also makes the whole Splice package with Goryo's cost 6, which means it's not happening until probably turns 8 or 9, which is a long game in Modern. I'd either go with Murderous Cut if cheap/efficient removal is really the goal, Rend Flesh if the goal is to have instant speed removal that also can serve as a target for splicing.
Damnation is interesting, and I like in this context. It interferes some with Obzedat, but given the idea of not having threats on board, I like it as a 1 or 2 of. Being able to clear the board on 4 or 5 gives you a bit more time to develop your board and combo.
Not sure what to think of a 2 of Banefire. This deck does not look to be generating a huge amount of mana. Even including borderposts, you've only got 12 actual mana sources, and no rituals or accelerators or mana cheating. So it doesn't really feel like a kill condition, but a utility fireball and occasional Lava Axe, which seems a little at odds with everything else going on. If your goal is to close out games, then Lava Spike is a much cheaper way to do a few damage and can serve as a Splice target.
Snapcaster also feels like an odd fit. The only targets you're going to really want to flashback are Goryo's, but you've already got the splice plan for those. Beyond that, flashing back Damnation is about the only other thing you'd likely want, but you're going to be a long time into the game before that ever happens. 6 mana is a lot in a deck with only effectively 24 land drops, unless, again, you manage to get Loam going early. Likewise, Banefire isn't a great target, as devoting at least 3 mana before X means you're unlikely to be able to dump more than 3 or 4 more into during any reasonable game.
Loam itself is a little weird. The only real synergies it has in the deck are getting back fodder for discarding to Liliana and maybe flipping over a target for Goryo's. Snapcaster actually looks like it's a way to salvage the other things you dredged on accident. Beyond that Loam seems to exist only to try and cover for the greedy manabase that needs both 4 colors and basics to feed to Borderposts. You don't have any hand disruption to go with a Raven's Crime package, or any sort of "waste" lands like Ghost Quarter or Tectonic Edge to make Loam a powerful engine on its own. No spell lands or utility lands that you need to guarantee you can have on the board.
In the sideboard, you've got 4 Blood Moons, but not a single green source under it and only Mistveins (which are going to be Decay/Wear/Disenchant/etc targets) to give you blue. It also feels like you're pretty dependent on Loam/Fetches to reliably hit your mana drops and the Moons shut that off completely. You're a 4 color deck running spells that want BB, while hitting R, B, G, and U all in the first few turns. Blood Moon is your fear, not your answer. Beyond that, your sideboard seems quite solid.
Basically you've got a ton of "cute" little synergies between different parts of your deck, but no coherent game plan that I can see. I'd pick one aspect of the deck and try and focus on that.
If you're a control deck, you need more efficient removal (both spells cheaper in mana, and card advantage spells like sweepers) and a stronger disruption package, probably in the form of Raven's Crime to go with Life from the Loam, and maybe some straight up Thoughtseize/Duress type cards. Counters are also an option, as they go very well with Snapcasters as well. A few man-lands like Creeping Tar Pit might help.
If you're a reanimator combo deck, then you need a way to close out games once you're into your combo. Either something like a Griselbrand-based draw finisher like Soul Spike, Fury of the Horde, etc, or some more effective closers, like Emrakul, the Aeons Torn or even Worldspine Wurm, where one hit is likely game over. In this case, you also need to streamline your manabase considerably.
If you're a Loam/graveyard value deck, you need some more ways to put lots things in the graveyard and some better ways to take advantage of them. Raven's Crime is again a solid choice, as is Tasigur, the Golden Fang or Tombstalker. A few mill enablers like Thought Scour or Glimpse the Unthinkable could help, and you could tie this to the arcane package by using Death Denied or Soulless Revival (possibly with Snapcaster) in order to rescue your Delve creatures like Tasigur.
First of all, thank's for the long post. As i said, i've started from Pitch Control list and i've tested many version: right now, i've come back to a list with white shoal too plus Soulfleyer and Geist (for a sort of midrange plan).
For your points:
-Remove extra Orzhova/Griselbrand with shoal is one of its quality: i've found whisper excellent.
Banefire is the closer after a swing of Griselbrand, usually. Snapcaster has loothing spells, Peer and (obv) Goryo as main targets, and i've really enjoyed him.
The main synergy of Loam is to transform Loothing and Voice in CA, that's huge and repeatable.
But you're right on the last part: i was looking for something unusual and funny to play, so probably i'm going to try something more on your last idea.
Time of need is in the awkward free slot. I have no idea what to play there, but I kinda want another G card there (to have more to pitch for Shoal). I tried the following cards in this slot so far:
In the end, I didn't find anything which I liked. Hence, I kicked a Night's Whisper and added 2 Tormenting Voices (for more Discard outlets and more draw). Desperate Ritual is great, but I wouldn't run more than 2 (you kinda only want them when you are going off).
I hate to run 4 Manamorphoses too, but since you need a around ~14 G cards preboard to get a shoal pitch I still run 4. 3 Is probably the correct number, but I still have to test this (need a ton of data for this, when it is relevant and when not).
My SB was pretty outdated, since I didn't own several cards which I run now in the SB (e.g. Inquisition of Kozilek). Duress is bad (noticed it in the moment, when my opp revealed a hand with 2 Oozes), try IOK instead. It hits all relevant cards.
In the end, you have to find a perfect SB for yourself, since I like the Discard, and I'm running 6 now (2 Thoughtseize 4 IOK).
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
4 Manamorphose is too many, but needing green cards that you can pitch to Shoal is pretty critical. I don't feel bad about cycling the first 1 or 2 at end step to draw into action. I'd go down to 3 only if I was replacing it with another green card, though.
Time of Need is usually pretty bad, but when it's relevant, it's a lifesaver. If only it were Arcane, then it'd be much better. The place I usually need it is having everything to combo except a Griselbrand, or mid combo when I need a Borborygmos. I tend to cast it more in games 2 and 3, as a Thrun against control decks can often end the game by itself. I've had them scoop to just fetching it, not even casting it.
Also agree that more than 2 Desperate Ritual is probably a mistake. However, I personally have gone up to 2 in main, because having the only copy be on the bottom of the deck is one of the very few ways to fizzle out during a combo turn. The only time I'd ever cast it, pre-combo, is if I already had the second in hand, in which case using it like an SSG to Breach a turn sooner is fine.
As far as sideboards go, I'm very fond of Blood Moon, as posted about previously. Modern, and my meta in particular, has a few decks that are completely cold to an early Blood Moon, and we can drop it on turn 2 or even 1, with some help from SSG. And even matchups where it doesn't outright lock them out, it does tend to slow development enough to assemble the combo. The only strike against it is that a lot of people are noticing how strong it is, and trying to tune their manabase against it or even run it themselves.
Anyone have thoughts for a Dragonlord Atarka or Atarka, World Render in the flex slot for the Shoal version? Either is another legendary for Goryo's, perfectly acceptable Breach target, and green for pitching to Shoal (and X=7 is exactly enough to draw 7 with Griselbrand). Dragonlord has a nice ETB against decks with Souls or other aggro decks like Burn, Affinity, or WW strategies, while World Render does more direct damage (and is basically a 1+1 combo with a Griselbrand, assuming they take any damage at all from their own manabase).
If I want to play one of those (or one of the Dragons), I would play 1-2 Summoner's Pact to be able to find them (or get something for a Shoal, I would play 1 in the Morphose slot). I think Liege and Dragonlord Atarka (can clear the board if needed) have the same power level, followed by Giant Adephage and Atarka, World Render and then the rest.
I have to test it (especially Liege and Atarka) to make further statements.
EDIT says: Yeah, I'm trying the Moons too, so far they are pretty amazing, but I have a little problem with my SB slots because of this (6 discards, 3 Moons, 3 Decay and a split between Ancient Grudge and Rakdos Charm. I kinda want Thrun or Boseiju in my SB against Control).
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
To me, the big strike against most of them is that as non-Legendary they don't work with the Goryo's half of the deck's game plan, which is a pretty critical flaw. The only reason Wurms even get a pass in my book as that they're so overwhelmingly good with both Breach and Shoal. If your goal is just to have Breach targets that are Green for Shoal, I'd probably consider Progenitus or Autochthon Wurm, as some of the earliest Shoal decks used. Progenitus is both enough life for another draw (and then some) and 10 damage that's effectively unblockable and unstoppable via removal like Path. Autochthon is enough life for 2 full draws and still a respectable 9 trampling.
But none of those can be used with Goryo's Vengeance, unlike the 2 Atarkas, which is why they caught my attention. A lot of the deck's power comes from being able reanimate a fatty on turn 2 or 3. Without that, there are other shells which get as much or more power out of Breach (like the RG Valkut Breach deck).
Dragonlord Atarka is quite interesting and those 5 damage make it better than World Render in current meta imho. I'll definitely try it.
Moldgraf is a great casual card but I think it relies too much on randomness.
I'll be waiting for your feedback on Liege testing
I know its a late thanks, but I only picked the deck back up a week ago after a while of not using griselbrand!
Finally completed it so I took it to FNM after goldfishing for a while. Here's my tournament report:
Round 1: Soul Sisters
Overall, still very impressed with the deck. I feel it is powerful enough to steal some games you have no business winning, and any decent set of draws can lead to victory.
My list: (not quite what I want. I have changed one Tormenting Voice for a Time of Need)
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Stomping Ground
1 Verdant Catacomb
1 Overgrown Tomb
2 Stomping Ground
2 Blood Crypt
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Mountain
2 Swamp
1 Forest
4 Griselbrand
2 Borborygmos Enraged
4 Worldspine Wurm
4 Faithless Looting
2 Desperate Ritual
4 Goryo's Vengeance
2 Tormenting Voice
3 Night's Whisper
4 Nourishing Shoal
4 Manamorphose
4 Through the Breach
3 Duress
1 Rakdos Charm
3 Blood Moon
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Rending Volley
Link to cubetutor:
http://cubetutor.com/cubeblog/10113
4x Worldspine Wurm
4x Pentad Prism
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Tormenting Voice
2x Wild Guess
3x Fling
4x Fury of the Horde
4x Faithless Looting
4x Goryo's Vengeance
4x Through the Breach
Game 1:
Clean match against some sort of naya midrange, he had little to no interaction. T3 and t4 griselbrand kill, nice and clean.
Game 2:
Most interesting match probably ever against Jeskai Ascendancy. Game 1 I didnt draw a goryos for griselbrand in the yard and lost around turn 5. Game 2 I put in 2x Go for the throat and 3xDuress kept an opener with both, faithless, and some lands. Throated a birds of paradise and duressed ascendancy so we both went into topdeck mode. Mine included through the breach and worldspine, he just pained himself down to 14 digging for his combo until I killed him. Game 3 was beautiful. 3 lands, faithless, griselbrand,goryos, and duress. T2 kill ftw.
Game 3:
Played against infect. Kept a SS, 4 land, breach+worldspine that I shouldnt have and lost. Next game mulliganed to 3 lands faithless and tormenting drew grisel, breach, but not ramp so vengeance came 1 turn too late. Dissapointing match overall
Game 4:
This lady hates me. Treefolk tribal isnt good against griselbrand. Game 1 I was cocky kept a bad hand and lost. Game 2 I was down to 10 went off with griselbrand and she conceded. I looked and if she hadnt I would have fizzled. Game 3 I kept looting goryos land land pentad tormenting. Drew into griselbrand draw draw fury draw fling griselbrand gg t3.
Went 3-1 very happy with my success. The deck is awesome. I love the flings actually, adds a lot of consistency mid combo though I may cut one for another wild guess. Took 2nd place today the jeskai ascendancy dude got 1st with mr. Infect right behind me.
and
Dragonlord Atarka
are interesting additions to the deck. they are legends that play with goryo's vengeance legendary requirement. Dragonlord Atarka I find more interesting of the 2 cause now both spells have the means to instant speed whip out 5 damage and hit opponents creatures. basically letting you turn vengeance or breach into a fiery justice with a 8/8 body for attacking or blocking.
very useful for killing the small creatures in life, infect, elves, treefolk, mana dorks.
if blocking can 1 for 1 multiple siege rhinos or other 4/5s
at instant speed 5 damage should wipe out stuff like scavenging ooze and plus some.
Atarka, World Render needs some changes to the decks structure to make him more viable, but he can be pretty lethal. at minimum he attacks for 12, add 1 fury of the horde thats 24 damage, one would need a really good hand to achieve that scenario in best of circumstances. the changes I would make to make him more potent would also benefit griselbrand.
-In the land base add cathedral of war, double strike compounds this, Fury of the horde cause it to trigger additional times pumping further. griselbrand essentially grows as he combos.
-he's an ideal candidate for fling if your running that. most people take some land damage. so he hits for 12, and fling for 6 thats 18!
-If your running burn spells in the list, such as lightning bolts in the main, then striking for 12 in the air at some point in the game should be lethal to an opponent.
-he's a solid creature to run as back up to griselbrand. if an opponent hits you with slaughter games naming griselbrand, next best thing to hit them in the face for 12! If you don't draw emrakul, the aeons torn!
Pentad Prism is a semi reasonable option that's been used to accelerate breach in traditional Kahleya style builds forever. It's no Song, but it's generally as good as any other ritual and very occasionally fixing colors matters.
On the Tormenting/Whisper tradeoff, I initially started strong on Voice, but over time, the actual outright card advantage of Whisper has lead me to start using more of them. Sometimes I've got hand full of things I just don't want to discard, and there's nothing worse than having 2 possible lines of play, discarding one to Voice, and then drawing the cards you needed for the line you discarded rather than the line you kept.
I'm looking at her as a 2 for 1 gateway card so you can establish a permanent big creature on the field instead of solely relying on getting 1 creature out to finish the job.
now that i'm saying "2 for 1" that makes the idea kind of worthless, better to just get to 4 mana and bust out the zombifys for making a regular reanimator.
Modern Tallowisp Spirits - A Modern Tallowisp Deck UW
Eldrazi Ninjas - Summoning Octopus Jutsu YYYYAAAHHHH!
STANDARD
Naban Wizards
@All, ATM I don't have that much time to play Magic, sadly, but I could play 6 games against Grixis Delver yesterday. Went 4-2 and I noticed, that they need the turn 1 Delver or that we have a rather slow Breach hand that they have a shot for winning. If they don't know what we are doing, they usually tap out in the first few turns, which gives us more than enough time to find a proper kill. Also, Worldspine Wurm CAN backfire against them, especially if they have Young Pyromancer out. It didn't actually happen to me, but it was close (he took the hit, played Tasigur, and terminated a Token, killed the other one with Tasigur+token and chump the last one, went down to 1 and he bricked for the next turn).
Greetings,
Kathal
PS: I will probably go to GP Copenhagen, but I'm not sure which version I will play, either Grixis Emmi, or the Shoal version. I like both versions atm.
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
To be honest, I never liked the idea of Pact, but I should give it a try.
@Topic:
Two things:
1) As some can remember, I said I will test Liege of the Tangle and Dragonlord Atarka. In the end I disliked both, the first one on being to fragile and the second one was decent at best (sweeping the board was only once important, but would have lost the game either way). BUT I could finally test Summoner's Pact (in the random G slot). I really liked it, since it is Borbo Nr. 3 or Worldspine Wurm Nr. 5. There were several games where I needed it to actual win, instead of one of the creatures (I know, it sounds strange, but I needed to draw like all the library to get enough mana, and Pact enabled it).
BUT I found another card, which could be in this slot: Noxious Revival. It enables 2 things, first you can get back a discarded/countered enabler, or second, when you go off you can re-use Desperate Rituals/Shoals (you can simply draw it from Grisel). I might try 2 (1 in the 4th Morphose slot). I also consider kicking 1 SSG + a random card (probably a land) for 2 Pentad Prism. I just want to try them in the Shoal version, since they can provide an easier way to get a early Breach.
2) I found a nice goody for the Primer (will add it in the next days), the first "Tin Fins" deck which had an relevant tournament finish in Modern (Trial Winner for GP Yokohama, June 2012, aka two month after printing Grisseldaddy):
4 Marsh Flats
1 Verdant Catacombs
2 Blood Crypt
2 Godless Shrine
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Isolated Chapel
4 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
//13 creatures
4 Simian Spirit Guide
3 Squee, Goblin Nabob
4 Griselbrand
2 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
2 Thoughtseize
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Faithless Looting
4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Zombie Infestation
3 Lingering Souls
2 Unburial Rites
//3 planeswalkers
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
3 Pyroclasm
3 Blood Moon
4 Through the Breach
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
It is pretty funny, how the deck developed in comparison to this "first" version.
Greetings,
Kathal
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
The deck you linked is pretty odd. Copied here for discussion:
4 Griselbrand
4 Simian Spirit Guide
2 Crimson Wisps
2 Funeral Charm
2 Lightning Axe
2 Nourishing Shoal
3 Pact of Negation
4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Soul Spike
3 Time of Need
4 Faithless Looting
4 Footsteps of the Goryo
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
2 Forbidden Orchard
3 City of Brass
3 Sulfurous Springs
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Through the Breach
3 Wear // Tear
This deck is just packed. The shoal engine. The Soul Spike engine. The Fury engine. Mainboard Pacts and Boseiju. Footsteps + Wisps as an alternate reanimation plan. Sideboard breaches.
Not sure about the Chancellors. They do up the likelihood you can just go off on turn 1, but without Manamorphose or Pentad Prism, the only thing you can really use G for on T1 is aTime of Need or if you've got a perfect hand, as the 1 for Goryo's Vengeance after using an SSG to Faithless Looting. They do at least pitch to the Shoals for another draw 7, which is nice.
The Shoal package seems a little light. There's only 8 total green spells. On the other hand, you've got both the Soul Spike (18 black cards) and the Fury of the Horde (15 red cards) packages, which can effectively gain you life and thus draw more cards.
The manabase is either brilliant or a trainwreck. It's either very carefully tuned, but I'm not sure for what, or it's just the stuff he had on hand that mostly worked. Forbidden Orchard seems out of place (except maybe to make a target for Lightning Axe?) Boseiju is great, but at odds with trying to use Chancellors to accelerate a T1 play. And why Sulfurous Springs over Blood Crypt, since in a long game, a Springs will often do 2 or more damage to you?
It feels very all in. It's going to go off once, and if it fails, there's almost no chance it's ever going to rebuild and try again, as you're going to pitch your whole hand to one or more of your engines. But it does seem like it's got a very optimized engine for going off. Drawing 14 is almost assuredly going to get you enough cards to hit one of your 3 pitchs to let you gain life and draw 7 more.
I do like the use of Funeral Charm as a discard outlet that doubles as both disruption and a kill spell for certain annoying cards like Clique, Pyromancer, etc, and has the potential to let you slip past Lingering Souls via Swampwalk. I've been playing a singleton Lightning Axe as an instant speed discard outlet for comboing off. Charm may actually be better for that, though B instead of R is a minor issue.