I don't think anyone has created a thread for this yet, and if they have, I cannot find it on the forums. If there's already a thread, excuse my lack of location skills.
Anyway, I've wanted to play combo in standard since Dragonstorm, and maybe now it is once again possible. Here's the deck.
The deck is pretty simple. There's 20 creatures that function as draw and deck thinning, as well as Maurder's for more creatures in the graveyard. These creatures fuel Crypt. Tap crypt, or cypts, for lots of mana and shoot someone with banefire.
I've done very limited testing. Aggro is difficult but not impossible with 7 sweepers, and control is pretty easy. Banefire cannot be stopped unless your opponent has Mindbreak Trap. Suggestions are welcomed. It's also a very fun deck to play.
Interesting list. Can you give a typical game winning scenario for us? For instance, how much mana do your crypts usually tap for? Also, have you considered trying a self-mill route with stuff like extractor demon, corpse connoisseur, any blue mill? Your method certaining provides better card advantage, just maybe not as explosive, I don't know.
I would advise Soul Stair Expedition, which gives you 2-for-1s for 1 mana with cycling creatures.
Also, if you really are afraid of Thought Hemorrhage you can just play 3 Banefire and 1 Consume Spirit. Plus, don't forget that your deck has like 20 cycling creatures in it and you can hardcast almost all of them. I've seen Belcher decks get there against hate spells by just beating face with a Grey Ogre for 10 turns. Seriously.
I don't know how fast this deck draws cards, but if it's the pace that I anticipate then Diabolic Tutor is probably right for the deck. Maybe a playset is too many, but 2-3 could do the trick to give you extra Banefires, Crypts, and Duress effects (to rip Mindbreak Trap out of your opponent's hand). In fact, I would consider the deck just go down to 1-2 Banefire and 1 Consume Spirit and run the rest of the win-cons as tutors. Post-board you can bring in more Fireballs to fight Thought Hemorrhage if so inclined.
what about putting Iona, Shield of Emeria in the graveyard then bringing it back with rise from the grave, sorta as a alternate win con, I mean even if you draw it you could still play it will creatures in the graveyard, just play day of judement and paths.
I tested a bit against vampires and got destroyed. Bloodghast keeps coming back, our removal triggers their quest, that damn nighthawk has lifelink....it's just not fun. And they fly. Earthquake = dead card. It really, really blows.
Edit: Elves are easy as hell. We have sweepers, end of story. I'll keep posting edits as I test.
And you, too, are one of us, and yet you are not. In your words I hear anger, hatred. I see a darkness that is not cold and lifeless, but is alive and moving, like a living entity. I feel caged, trapped, a yearning for escape. --Death Gate Cycle Volume 3: Fire Sea
Hmmm... Life-gain is all over right now, and I can see that as being a sizable problem. What can give this type of deck more reach? Just more win-cons, so they can be played earlier going into the same explosive late game Banefires and such?
Bloodghast can be easily taken care of by sideboarding Magma Sprays. That seems like the right move to me, since it is a big problem indeed. I encountered the same headache when playing against Vamps with Mono-Black Control. Also, I'm not too sure about Earthquake, since it's not always an effective sweeper as shown above, plus the damage is symmetrical, which doesn't seem like something you could always handle with this deck since you'd be trying to deal enough with it to put them in range for the big finish.
Consume Spirit really seems like the necessary way to go, for the life-gain it offers. It may play worse against control decks, but playing a set of Consume Spirits and Banefires really seems like a good combination of wins to me.
I may test some various builds of this later on. It seems vulnerable, though, if it would perform well. Graveyard hate would murder the deck :-\
Major problem that this deck faces is red sligh and vampires that run Bloodghast. Also, a first game Luminarch Ascension is auto-loss but siding in the right cards solves this problem.
What the deck need is a major sweeper but all the control elements are already present. Let's pray that Mutilate gets reprinted.
I'd like to make a few notes instead of going over each card individually.
*Note 1: The land count is pretty low, but who cares? With cheap cyclers, theres a lot of draw involved, especially when Igneous Pouncer is strict landcycling.
*Note 2: I originally had only 2 Architects of Will, thinking that i'd rather have more of things I can hardcast if necessary. Bad. Idea. You very, very, very, very rarely will want to hardcast things besides fleshbag, and Architects of Will costs but a single mana to cycle, which is very nice.
*Note 3: Cheap cyclers rock. I originally like the Sojourners, but that 3 mana cycle sucks pretty hard when you're trying to fill your grave faster.
*Note 4: Because I predict aggro to be much more dominant due to the death of 5cc, I agree that the life gain with Consume Spirit is actually better than the uncounterability of Banefire.
Match-ups: I figured i'd repost them here and update here with my list.
Vampires: Hard, it's an aggro deck with some defenses against sweepers and a little bit of lifegain. Still manageable though.
Elves: Easy as hell. Sweepers = charred pointy ears. Hah.
Red/White (Spanish Inquisition): This was pretty easy. It's only problem is baneslayer, but Consume Spirit didn't seem to be picky. It's very fun consume spiriting all the baneslayers and then giving us both a massive hit with Earthquake FTW.
And you, too, are one of us, and yet you are not. In your words I hear anger, hatred. I see a darkness that is not cold and lifeless, but is alive and moving, like a living entity. I feel caged, trapped, a yearning for escape. --Death Gate Cycle Volume 3: Fire Sea
Does this deck work in white? playing white gives you an extra 8 1CC cyclers, and opens up martial COUP as an sweeper/win con? White has decent removal too...
I'd like to note that i've tried a few different color combinations as well. Red/Black seems to be the best. Blue/black and white/black both lacked the ability to do damage in addition to the win con. Blue lacks sweepers, and whites sweeper is twice as expensive to play. Red/Black seems to be the most consistant choice.
@LilB: I'm not sold. traumatize could easily deck your wincons or extra Crypts. By turn five, you've usually got the ball rolling anyways.
@Nabbazz: Thanks! I hadn't even thought about Terminate. I just wish I could figure out where to shove it in, my list is crazy tight. I still prefer Pyroclasm though, purely becuase it's cheaper.
And you, too, are one of us, and yet you are not. In your words I hear anger, hatred. I see a darkness that is not cold and lifeless, but is alive and moving, like a living entity. I feel caged, trapped, a yearning for escape. --Death Gate Cycle Volume 3: Fire Sea
I would love to see this working nice, it will be very hard however.
I really think Soul Stair Expedition is the way to go, and it is win-win with fetches... This plus all the cyclers and you save yourself from running junkpile like Expedition Map and since the only dowside is that it comes into play tapped i would run the full set, unlike Cabal Coffers it produces black by itself.
Another note, Lavaball Trap. A) It kills much more than the other sweepers; B) You produce enough mana to hardcast it; C)Trap cost triggers a lot with landfall fetches and stuff and it buffs the lands as well...
Consume Spirit should be in but you would have to adapt you mana base to almost all lands produce black as well. Counters aren't very popular right now and the life gained can save you.
I'm going to recieve a lot of hate for this but.... Immortal Coil???? It could help stall the game long enough for you to get enough dudes in your GY. Of course, you would only want to remove your instances and sorceries (if you run it, I wouldn't run fallout with it...).
And, what about Tendrils of Corruption? deals with peskies and gains you life for more stall.
Just some thoughts and ramblings.
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About Mindslaver rulings:
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so if i am that player do i get to sleep with his girlfriend ?
this deck seems fail....surely the whole idea could be shelved into a sideboard, to be used as transitional sideboard. make it red/black beats? there's not really enough of it to be called combo~?
It's awesome to see the work going into this deck. I really do like it...I just wish the deck wasn't so easy to hate against, as graveyard removal really does hurt. That said, I still think this could work.
Consume Spirit seems like a good idea for against aggro. I might go for a 2/2 split with banefire and consume, since my meta tends to have a lot of control.
I still think Pyroclasm is the best sweeper available, since it casts for two and doesn't hurt us.
The deck is consistent mostly because due to the absurd amount of draw through cycling.
Lavaball trap seems interesting. I want to test that and Tendrils--tendrils, however, seems more like a sideboard card.
I wish Damnation was reprinted. Or Mutilate, but Earthquake is still decent.
I'd be interested to see a self-mill decklist, if anyone has tested one.
I've been abusing cycling (street wraith mostly) with dredge to use Crypts in legacy. This is a nice standard variant that I will definately try to play next chance I get.
Although the legacy deck ran Haunting Misery and SoulShriek/Ghoul's Feat for the final win, swining with Extractor Demon...
I was going to build a deck similiar to this abusing Viscera dragger and ... well other cycling cards. But your win-con is much more stable than my stupid build with Consume Spirit.
Extractor Demon might be worth looking into. Its hard to dump into the graveyard, but once you unearth him you can combine your board-wiping with mill (you can mill yourself). Plus he unearths at a ratio of 3 mana for 5 damage.
Anyway, I've wanted to play combo in standard since Dragonstorm, and maybe now it is once again possible. Here's the deck.
4 Fleshbag Marauder
4 Pyroclasm
3 Earthquake - also functions as win-con
4 Lightning Bolt
Main win-con
3 Banefire
4 Monstrous Carabid
4 Igneous Pouncer
4 Viscera Dragger
4 Jund Sojourners
4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Black/red Refuge
4 Crypt of Agadeem - Combo Piece
3 Swamp
7 Mountain
The deck is pretty simple. There's 20 creatures that function as draw and deck thinning, as well as Maurder's for more creatures in the graveyard. These creatures fuel Crypt. Tap crypt, or cypts, for lots of mana and shoot someone with banefire.
I've done very limited testing. Aggro is difficult but not impossible with 7 sweepers, and control is pretty easy. Banefire cannot be stopped unless your opponent has Mindbreak Trap. Suggestions are welcomed. It's also a very fun deck to play.
Only spiderboy4 at High~Light could do it like this! Thanks spidey!
I think you should have more than 5 win cons in case they get exiled by thought hemorrhage and the like.
I, too, am curious as to what testing has shown you so far with the deck. Have you tested it much yet?
Also, if you really are afraid of Thought Hemorrhage you can just play 3 Banefire and 1 Consume Spirit. Plus, don't forget that your deck has like 20 cycling creatures in it and you can hardcast almost all of them. I've seen Belcher decks get there against hate spells by just beating face with a Grey Ogre for 10 turns. Seriously.
I don't know how fast this deck draws cards, but if it's the pace that I anticipate then Diabolic Tutor is probably right for the deck. Maybe a playset is too many, but 2-3 could do the trick to give you extra Banefires, Crypts, and Duress effects (to rip Mindbreak Trap out of your opponent's hand). In fact, I would consider the deck just go down to 1-2 Banefire and 1 Consume Spirit and run the rest of the win-cons as tutors. Post-board you can bring in more Fireballs to fight Thought Hemorrhage if so inclined.
And put Duress in here, please.
Edit: Elves are easy as hell. We have sweepers, end of story. I'll keep posting edits as I test.
Bloodghast can be easily taken care of by sideboarding Magma Sprays. That seems like the right move to me, since it is a big problem indeed. I encountered the same headache when playing against Vamps with Mono-Black Control. Also, I'm not too sure about Earthquake, since it's not always an effective sweeper as shown above, plus the damage is symmetrical, which doesn't seem like something you could always handle with this deck since you'd be trying to deal enough with it to put them in range for the big finish.
Consume Spirit really seems like the necessary way to go, for the life-gain it offers. It may play worse against control decks, but playing a set of Consume Spirits and Banefires really seems like a good combination of wins to me.
I may test some various builds of this later on. It seems vulnerable, though, if it would perform well. Graveyard hate would murder the deck :-\
Major problem that this deck faces is red sligh and vampires that run Bloodghast. Also, a first game Luminarch Ascension is auto-loss but siding in the right cards solves this problem.
What the deck need is a major sweeper but all the control elements are already present. Let's pray that Mutilate gets reprinted.
4 Crypt of Agadeem
4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Akoum Refuge
5 Swamp
4 Mountain
Cyclers/Grave Fillers - 22
4 Architects of Will
4 Fleshbag Marauder
4 Viscera Dragger
4 Monstrous Carabid
3 Igneous Pouncer
3 Jund Sojourners
3 Expedition Map
Removal - 10
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Pyroclasm
2 Earthquake
Win Condition - 4
4 Consume Spirit
4 Duress
4 Magma Spray
3 Banefire
2 Volcanic Fallout
2 Thought Hemorrhage
I'd like to make a few notes instead of going over each card individually.
*Note 1: The land count is pretty low, but who cares? With cheap cyclers, theres a lot of draw involved, especially when Igneous Pouncer is strict landcycling.
*Note 2: I originally had only 2 Architects of Will, thinking that i'd rather have more of things I can hardcast if necessary. Bad. Idea. You very, very, very, very rarely will want to hardcast things besides fleshbag, and Architects of Will costs but a single mana to cycle, which is very nice.
*Note 3: Cheap cyclers rock. I originally like the Sojourners, but that 3 mana cycle sucks pretty hard when you're trying to fill your grave faster.
*Note 4: Because I predict aggro to be much more dominant due to the death of 5cc, I agree that the life gain with Consume Spirit is actually better than the uncounterability of Banefire.
*Note 5: Sideboard choices a bit up in the air. Duress for mindbreak trap. Magma Spray for Bloodghast. Banefire vs. Control. Volcanic fallout for the few U/G gro decks floating around thanks to lotus cobra. Thought Hemorrhage for the random combo decks that are popping around, like the Archive Trap/Bloodchief Ascension one.
Match-ups: I figured i'd repost them here and update here with my list.
Vampires: Hard, it's an aggro deck with some defenses against sweepers and a little bit of lifegain. Still manageable though.
Elves: Easy as hell. Sweepers = charred pointy ears. Hah.
Red/White (Spanish Inquisition): This was pretty easy. It's only problem is baneslayer, but Consume Spirit didn't seem to be picky. It's very fun consume spiriting all the baneslayers and then giving us both a massive hit with Earthquake FTW.
@LilB: I'm not sold. traumatize could easily deck your wincons or extra Crypts. By turn five, you've usually got the ball rolling anyways.
@Nabbazz: Thanks! I hadn't even thought about Terminate. I just wish I could figure out where to shove it in, my list is crazy tight. I still prefer Pyroclasm though, purely becuase it's cheaper.
I really think Soul Stair Expedition is the way to go, and it is win-win with fetches... This plus all the cyclers and you save yourself from running junkpile like Expedition Map and since the only dowside is that it comes into play tapped i would run the full set, unlike Cabal Coffers it produces black by itself.
Another note, Lavaball Trap. A) It kills much more than the other sweepers; B) You produce enough mana to hardcast it; C)Trap cost triggers a lot with landfall fetches and stuff and it buffs the lands as well...
Consume Spirit should be in but you would have to adapt you mana base to almost all lands produce black as well. Counters aren't very popular right now and the life gained can save you.
My 2 cents.
4 Crypt of Agadeem
4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Akoum Refuge
6 Swamp
3 Mountain
Creatures
4 Fleshbag Marauder
4 Monstrous Carabid
4 Igneous Pouncer
4 Jund Sojourners
4 Grixis Sojouners
2 Architects of Will
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Volcanic Fallout
3 Lavaball Trap
Sorcery
3 Consume Spirit
2 Earthquake
1 Banefine
4 Duress
4 Terminate
3 Mind Shatter
2 Banefire
2 Thought Hemorrhage
I would be kinda lame, but not a auto-scoop since you can use you lands to make big consume spirits, banefires and eartquakes.
And, what about Tendrils of Corruption? deals with peskies and gains you life for more stall.
Just some thoughts and ramblings.
About Mindslaver rulings:
Consume Spirit seems like a good idea for against aggro. I might go for a 2/2 split with banefire and consume, since my meta tends to have a lot of control.
I still think Pyroclasm is the best sweeper available, since it casts for two and doesn't hurt us.
The deck is consistent mostly because due to the absurd amount of draw through cycling.
Lavaball trap seems interesting. I want to test that and Tendrils--tendrils, however, seems more like a sideboard card.
I wish Damnation was reprinted. Or Mutilate, but Earthquake is still decent.
I'd be interested to see a self-mill decklist, if anyone has tested one.
Although the legacy deck ran Haunting Misery and SoulShriek/Ghoul's Feat for the final win, swining with Extractor Demon...
I was going to build a deck similiar to this abusing Viscera dragger and ... well other cycling cards. But your win-con is much more stable than my stupid build with Consume Spirit.
Extractor Demon might be worth looking into. Its hard to dump into the graveyard, but once you unearth him you can combine your board-wiping with mill (you can mill yourself). Plus he unearths at a ratio of 3 mana for 5 damage.
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