The genesis behind the deck was to move the splash from black to red to help defeat 2 of the better cards against infect, lingering souls and spellskite. It's still in its infancy and needs some polishing but i just wanted to post it and see what everyones thoughts on the list and where we can go from here.
M1G1: UWblink
dude says he is playing a budget deck and is mostly a legacy player. he lands a couple non relevent wall of omens and blinks them. i pop my bloom and proceed to slam ideal and go to town.
M1G2:
he apparently packs counters.... but only from the SB. i proceed to play around his counters into late game and he finally takes it with some flyers after i fail to find anything meaningfull
M1G3:
i reboard and bring in nevermore, t1 bloom t2 pentad prism and t3 i attempt to combo off with seething song even though he was representing counter magic as i had a second copy of ideal and a 4th land in hand. it resolves i grab dovescape and in proceeding turns grab greater auramancy and nevermore naming his evoke bounce creature and he has no outs. GG
M2G1 merfolk
we casually start talking while shuffling up and i mention that merfolk is one of my worst MU's due to the aggressive clock backed up with countermagic
he proceeds to slam down t1 cavern of souls naming merfolk, cursecatcher. i play t1 serum visions digging for a copy of ideal. t2 he plays 2 more cursecatchers and its all downhill from there.
M2G2:
i shuffle up and have a t3 combo in hand, i start off with serum visions to dig for firespout with no success. he plays t1 cursecatcher again and i t2 pentad prism, his t2 he plays master of the pearl trident . knowing i cant go off on t3 through his cursecatcher i dig some more trying to find a spout and he keep slamming threat after threat while my life total dwindles. no firespouts in site. he ends the game soon after
M3G1: 4 color allys (apperently this is a thing)
he wins the roll and plays a bunch of allies eventually milling me out around t5 with an ally that mills a clone of the same and a spell dropping 2 allies into play amongst his other allies hits me for a mill of 28. i think to myself "allies?? really??"
M3G2:
i board in leylines to prevent the mill and i play one from opening hand.
he plays more allys and i combo off grabbing in sequence dovescape , phyrexian unlife, greater auramancy, and form of the dragon. i have him locked but he keeps gaining lots of life from random effects eventually going to over 100 life and i can grab no more forms as ive drawn into 2. i ask him if he can remove my inevitably winning state and he says no. we play 2 more turns and he says hell concede and we go to g3.
M3G3:
i combo off of a bloom playing form and just go for it as he has no flyers in his deck save for seascape aerialist. so i pew pew his face a few times and he goes to 10 begining of my upkeep he big surprise has 5 damage exactly represented on board of flyers. i choose to shoot his face as we went to rounds due to game 2. i realize my mistake right away and think to myself "play to your outs" i cast peer through depths finding an absolutly clutch firespout i cast it and blow his board away and pass turn. he has no way to make 5 hasty flyers and he passes back to me and i take the match.
in conclusion the deck is great and firespout is incredable. but falls apart when a clock is represented and backed by countermagic. if merfolk and UW or delver strategies are fringe in your meta or countinue to be subpar then this is a great deck choice
Slaughter Games is like an uncounterable, indestructible Nevermore that's easier on the coloured mana but is slightly more expensive. It's also significantly easier to cast through Blood Moon (this is relevant against Exarch Twin and maybe Hive Mind).
City of Brass is the answer to all colour problems. I've been using CoB and the lifeloss has never been an issue even against Robots.
COB in place of maybe the forests? and someone with the cards online should test this with nevermore, and leyline of sanctity. i think even a MD nevermore seems good. like i don't think your not going to have somthing to name where you won't get value.
jund has liliana/goyf/bob so on
scapeshift has... well.. scapeshift
storm has grapeshot/EE/or even PIF
affinity has like thoughtcast/etched champion
twin has splintertwin
melira pod has chord of calling/pod/melira combo pieces
kiki pod has kiki/restoration angel/pod/ and usually chord as well
the point is naming somthing even MD usually will get us value and i think could improve our combo MU. someone with the cards on MODO needs to test and post results
the problem is that tron is positioned to win a vast number of matches against jund and the like. but our combo matchup is horrible and seeing sowing salt every MU sucks. we need a nevermore type card to shut off salt. it seems that a higher white splash could make splashing for nevermore and possibly evenleyline of sanctity a reality, but how do we go about the splash and without ruining our consistancy? any ideas?
I really think that by adding 8 creatures to a combo deck we are watering down the deck. I get that they dig and you get value off of ETB triggers but i dont think tht offsets the loss of raw power you get from multiple peer through depths and serum visions/sleight of hand. In addition without any other creatures your opponent is likely sitting on a grip of removal so you wont get much in the way of slowing aggro via blocking or even trading. So the route that needs to be taken i believe is raw power and speed to blow out aggro decks and not giving the time to be interacted with, we arnt seeking to durdle. We want to combo on T1 if we can so i think creatures are sub optimal but im still wondering what saint tobias is brewing up. And what results youve gotten with the list equinox.
P.s. for the grammer nazi's i know we cant go off t1 im just saying if it were possible we would want to consistantly
The problem is i've been bouncing between 3 builds
A: utility, which has more MB awnser enchants
B: silence build which plays MB silence to slow aggro (mildly) and stop counters
C: sweeper build playing an emitation of tron, MB pyroclasm or firespout to stop aggro dead in its tracks
So far im playing utility but i'm worried about the aggro/ infect MU
Im fairly certain that MB utility, with sided silence or sweepers (meta dependent)
Is the best direction so far that i've found. Especially until saint shows me his new "secret" list
No, that is not true. From the comprehensive rules:
So combining Rain of Gore or Havoc Festival with Form of the Dragon is a really bad idea imho.
hmmm well thank you for the explanation. i appear to be mistaken. oh well plenty of other ways to kill them around a leyline of sanctity.
back to the deck at hand my question does this deck need less of a toolbox feel once we have gone off in order to use up our slots on things MD such as pyroclasm or firespout to hold off slower decks while we bide our time, similar to the way the RG tron lists have gone?
Could be that I am missing something but you should never use one of those two together with Form of the Dragon. When you can't gain anymore life you will probably die before your opponent does.
what you are missing is the from of the dragon doesnt ever "gain" you life, it literally set's your life total to 5. therefore with havoc festival you lose half rounded up which is 3 putting you to 2, and at the end of your turn your life is reset to 5.
your opponent unaffected by the FOTD life resetting clause will continuing to lose life whilst getting hit by FOTD's 5 damage per turn (unless they have leyline out of course) and eventually dying to havoc festival
can't decide between serum visions and sleight of hand as T1 sleight to find a bloom is actually fairly relevant.
some of my singleton choices explained
blood moon: obviouslly against tron this hoses them fairly hard.
stony silence: just like blood moon maindeck, gives us an out against affinity and if hard cast can buy a few turns to go off
leyline of sanctity:this card is a HOUSE against so many decks storm,eggs,burn,gifts ETC..
now for a list of enchants and uses that we could include as a miser's copy or use to tune for your current meta... wheel of sun and moon rest in peace leyline of the void tired of seeing GY shenanigans? no problem
suppression field awesome against a fetch mana base like boros or burn, slows tron down by stopping there mana rocks, hurts jund and especially spirit jund
nevermore catch-all designed to hit a single bad guy (quasali,acidic slime...)
rule of law against storm this wrecks, but i prefer leyline of sanctity
grounded against emrakul if your that worried, as was brought up earlier in the thread.
cowardice hum of the radix MOAR AFFINITY HATE!! all jokes aside cowardice shuts off their cranial platings and hum makes there deck slow and clunky although stony silence does nearly the same as hum, slowing them to a crawl to go off and cowardice just makes ravager affinity look like garbage
detention sphere could easily replace o-ring maindeck and destroys tokens handily
this discussion is now degrading into the "dies to removal" argument and yes its assuming that with 4 in the deck theirs atleast a fair chance ill have one on turn 2. and if not i can play one later, and your also arguing that i won't always have the correct creature in hand. well i counter that my opponents won't always have the correct removal in hand or even removal in hand at all.
The difference is this -- they don't waste a card against silhana. they -will- waste a card when you respond with a vines.
that's absolutley true but they are unable to use the card against silhana and it becomes essentially dead in their hand. allowing me to go about my merry way casting more cheap beats onto silhana and crushing their face in with it.
well yea i was thinking of running Silhana Ledgewalker in place of canopy cover for that reason. and 99% of the time my opponents removal isn't enough for me to not gain atleast some card avantage and or stick hexproof on a gnarlid or another creature
oh and spider umbra in his build over rancor.... hmmmm
basic concept is to lay early BOPS and sprawls to accelerate into your spiritdancers and gnarlids laying multiple cheap auras down every turn.
gaining CA from spiritdancers and staying incredibly resistant to many forms of removal thanks to totem armor.
card reasoning
SD's and aura gnarlid
here is your main beats and your primary win-con. the SD's combos very nicely with recurring and cheap enchants like rancor and hyena umbra to give a metric ton of card advantage
all enchantments but spiritlink should make sense at first glance
spiritlink can be used in a pinch to pacify your opponnents creatures and even give a life gain if the decide to block.
any advice would be much appreciated (and because someone is bound to say it, yes ive considered o-ring)
2 Pendelhaven
3 stomping ground
1 steam vents
3 breeding pool
4 scalding tarn
4 copperline gorge
4 inkmoth nexus
4 glistener elf
4 blighted agent
4 ichorclaw myr
4 assault strobe
4 ground swell
4 might of old krosa
4 vines of vast wood
2 simic charm
2 rancor
2 flameslash
2 ancient grudge
2 natures claim
3 combust
2 surgical extraction
3 spellskite
3 electrickery
The SB is pretty loose but it's a start
M1G1: UWblink
dude says he is playing a budget deck and is mostly a legacy player. he lands a couple non relevent wall of omens and blinks them. i pop my bloom and proceed to slam ideal and go to town.
M1G2:
he apparently packs counters.... but only from the SB. i proceed to play around his counters into late game and he finally takes it with some flyers after i fail to find anything meaningfull
M1G3:
i reboard and bring in nevermore, t1 bloom t2 pentad prism and t3 i attempt to combo off with seething song even though he was representing counter magic as i had a second copy of ideal and a 4th land in hand. it resolves i grab dovescape and in proceeding turns grab greater auramancy and nevermore naming his evoke bounce creature and he has no outs. GG
M2G1 merfolk
we casually start talking while shuffling up and i mention that merfolk is one of my worst MU's due to the aggressive clock backed up with countermagic
he proceeds to slam down t1 cavern of souls naming merfolk, cursecatcher. i play t1 serum visions digging for a copy of ideal. t2 he plays 2 more cursecatchers and its all downhill from there.
M2G2:
i shuffle up and have a t3 combo in hand, i start off with serum visions to dig for firespout with no success. he plays t1 cursecatcher again and i t2 pentad prism, his t2 he plays master of the pearl trident . knowing i cant go off on t3 through his cursecatcher i dig some more trying to find a spout and he keep slamming threat after threat while my life total dwindles. no firespouts in site. he ends the game soon after
M3G1: 4 color allys (apperently this is a thing)
he wins the roll and plays a bunch of allies eventually milling me out around t5 with an ally that mills a clone of the same and a spell dropping 2 allies into play amongst his other allies hits me for a mill of 28. i think to myself "allies?? really??"
M3G2:
i board in leylines to prevent the mill and i play one from opening hand.
he plays more allys and i combo off grabbing in sequence dovescape , phyrexian unlife, greater auramancy, and form of the dragon. i have him locked but he keeps gaining lots of life from random effects eventually going to over 100 life and i can grab no more forms as ive drawn into 2. i ask him if he can remove my inevitably winning state and he says no. we play 2 more turns and he says hell concede and we go to g3.
M3G3:
i combo off of a bloom playing form and just go for it as he has no flyers in his deck save for seascape aerialist. so i pew pew his face a few times and he goes to 10 begining of my upkeep he big surprise has 5 damage exactly represented on board of flyers. i choose to shoot his face as we went to rounds due to game 2. i realize my mistake right away and think to myself "play to your outs" i cast peer through depths finding an absolutly clutch firespout i cast it and blow his board away and pass turn. he has no way to make 5 hasty flyers and he passes back to me and i take the match.
in conclusion the deck is great and firespout is incredable. but falls apart when a clock is represented and backed by countermagic. if merfolk and UW or delver strategies are fringe in your meta or countinue to be subpar then this is a great deck choice
this is true but its not just aboutnevermore, it's also about leyline of sanctity to improve the combo MU
COB in place of maybe the forests? and someone with the cards online should test this with nevermore, and leyline of sanctity. i think even a MD nevermore seems good. like i don't think your not going to have somthing to name where you won't get value.
jund has liliana/goyf/bob so on
scapeshift has... well.. scapeshift
storm has grapeshot/EE/or even PIF
affinity has like thoughtcast/etched champion
twin has splintertwin
melira pod has chord of calling/pod/melira combo pieces
kiki pod has kiki/restoration angel/pod/ and usually chord as well
the point is naming somthing even MD usually will get us value and i think could improve our combo MU. someone with the cards on MODO needs to test and post results
P.s. for the grammer nazi's i know we cant go off t1 im just saying if it were possible we would want to consistantly
A: utility, which has more MB awnser enchants
B: silence build which plays MB silence to slow aggro (mildly) and stop counters
C: sweeper build playing an emitation of tron, MB pyroclasm or firespout to stop aggro dead in its tracks
So far im playing utility but i'm worried about the aggro/ infect MU
Im fairly certain that MB utility, with sided silence or sweepers (meta dependent)
Is the best direction so far that i've found. Especially until saint shows me his new "secret" list
hmmm well thank you for the explanation. i appear to be mistaken. oh well plenty of other ways to kill them around a leyline of sanctity.
back to the deck at hand my question does this deck need less of a toolbox feel once we have gone off in order to use up our slots on things MD such as pyroclasm or firespout to hold off slower decks while we bide our time, similar to the way the RG tron lists have gone?
what you are missing is the from of the dragon doesnt ever "gain" you life, it literally set's your life total to 5. therefore with havoc festival you lose half rounded up which is 3 putting you to 2, and at the end of your turn your life is reset to 5.
your opponent unaffected by the FOTD life resetting clause will continuing to lose life whilst getting hit by FOTD's 5 damage per turn (unless they have leyline out of course) and eventually dying to havoc festival
4 Gemstone Mine
2 Hallowed fountain
2 Island
1 Mountain
2 Mystic Gate
1 Plains
4 Rugged Prairie
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Steam Vents
1 mistveil plains
22 lands
1 stony silence
1 greater auramancy
1 Aura of Silence
1 volition reins
1 blood moon
1 Curse of Death's Hold
1 Dovescape
4 Enduring Ideal
2 Form of the Dragon
1 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Lotus Bloom
1 Meishin, the Mind Cage
2 Oblivion Ring
4 Peer Through Depths
4 Pentad Prism
1 Phyrexian Unlife
4 Seething Song
4 Serum Visions
can't decide between serum visions and sleight of hand as T1 sleight to find a bloom is actually fairly relevant.
some of my singleton choices explained
blood moon: obviouslly against tron this hoses them fairly hard.
stony silence: just like blood moon maindeck, gives us an out against affinity and if hard cast can buy a few turns to go off
leyline of sanctity:this card is a HOUSE against so many decks storm,eggs,burn,gifts ETC..
now for a list of enchants and uses that we could include as a miser's copy or use to tune for your current meta...
wheel of sun and moon
rest in peace
leyline of the void tired of seeing GY shenanigans? no problem
suppression field awesome against a fetch mana base like boros or burn, slows tron down by stopping there mana rocks, hurts jund and especially spirit jund
nevermore catch-all designed to hit a single bad guy (quasali,acidic slime...)
rule of law against storm this wrecks, but i prefer leyline of sanctity
rain of gore soul sisters/martyr-proc hate
havoc festival same as above but combo's with FOTD
grounded against emrakul if your that worried, as was brought up earlier in the thread.
cowardice
hum of the radix MOAR AFFINITY HATE!! all jokes aside cowardice shuts off their cranial platings and hum makes there deck slow and clunky although stony silence does nearly the same as hum, slowing them to a crawl to go off and cowardice just makes ravager affinity look like garbage
detention sphere could easily replace o-ring maindeck and destroys tokens handily
this discussion is now degrading into the "dies to removal" argument and yes its assuming that with 4 in the deck theirs atleast a fair chance ill have one on turn 2. and if not i can play one later, and your also arguing that i won't always have the correct creature in hand. well i counter that my opponents won't always have the correct removal in hand or even removal in hand at all.
that's absolutley true but they are unable to use the card against silhana and it becomes essentially dead in their hand. allowing me to go about my merry way casting more cheap beats onto silhana and crushing their face in with it.
that's the thing, for what the deck is trying to do ledgewalker is so much better than vines as it is always hexproof and i can attach my auras to it
oh and spider umbra in his build over rancor.... hmmmm
4 Kor Spiritdancer
4 Aura Gnarlid
4 Birds of Paradise
4 utopia sprawl
4 rancor
4 Hyena Umbra
4 Daybreak Coronet
4 Canopy Cover
4 Boar Umbra
2 spiritlink
9 Forest
5 Plains
4 Temple Garden
4 Arid Mesa
basic concept is to lay early BOPS and sprawls to accelerate into your spiritdancers and gnarlids laying multiple cheap auras down every turn.
gaining CA from spiritdancers and staying incredibly resistant to many forms of removal thanks to totem armor.
sideboard isn't certain yet but atleast a few leyline of sanctity
card reasoning
SD's and aura gnarlid
here is your main beats and your primary win-con. the SD's combos very nicely with recurring and cheap enchants like rancor and hyena umbra to give a metric ton of card advantage
all enchantments but spiritlink should make sense at first glance
spiritlink can be used in a pinch to pacify your opponnents creatures and even give a life gain if the decide to block.
any advice would be much appreciated (and because someone is bound to say it, yes ive considered o-ring)