My version might be less reliant on tutors since you can probably go off without the Scepter by chaining Dramatic Reversals together. I think you might underestimate just how fast that Atlas can spiral out of control, granted that in the deck I ran it in also included Voltaic Key which did a lot of the work. I'm not closed to the idea of tutors but generally I tend to prefer card draw in combo decks. That's what I've had most success with with other combo brews in the past, especially combos that rely on multiple moving pieces.
This is how I'd start out. In order to fully abuse Cornucopia and Chalice you need at least 7 support cards in my experience, therefor I added Coretapper which have been great in my testing. You play it turn 2 with a mana rock, sack it and then you have two extra mana to mess around with the same turn, making it a mana neutral play. He's also great at giving Atlas an explosive start (note you can use Atlas to draw into the missing pieces). I prefer Emmy to Molten Pysche since he's better in a vacuum (in case you have infinite mana but no Atlas). You can either just play him, or you can parse the turn, discard down to hand size, shuffle your GY back in and then mill your opponent in his upkeep.
4x Surge Node - mana ramp, always want to be casted on turn 1 if possible
4x Astral Cornucopia - go-to artifact for the win(need RR to win)
4x Everflowing Chalice - good ramp
2x Mox Opal - untaps with Scepter, adds to speed
2x Welding Jar - protects trinkets, adds to metalcraft, and helps Mox turn on faster
It may seem confusing to some so I'll explain how this deck wins. Basically what you want is a Scepter in play, a mana rock that gives 3+ mana, and Otherworld Atlas. From there you put a lot of counters on Atlas, tap it to draw(40 or more cards), then you cast Molten Psyche for the win.
With this combination of ramp/artifacts, you could actually combo off on turn 2. It goes like this:
Turn 1: Island, Surge Node, Astral Cornucopia(for 0), Mox Opal - tap Island for Node, tap Opal to put counter on Cornucopia, pass turn.
Turn 2: Island, tap Opal/Node on Cornucopia(2 counters). Tap both islands and Cornucopia for Scepter, with 2 mana to untap all artifacts. From there you have infinite mana turn 2. No wincon but there you go...
In my opinion if you want this deck to work you have to go 'all-out' combo.
A creature strategy seems terrible because it's likely your deck won't be much good as an aggro deck. You'll have all these weak creatures and stuff like Springleaf Drum, Mox Opal, etc. If you can't draw the combo you should have a very good backup plan. Seems too inconsistent to me.
As a control shell it could be good, as Scepter adds value to a lot of cards like Lightning Helix, Remand, etc. The problem with this style is, can you combo off before your opponent beats you down first? Also, does adding stuff like Mox Opal and a bunch of mana rocks really help out control? My guess is a control list wouldn't want to run the Scepter/Reversal combo because it takes up too much deck space.
So all-in-all I think the deck HAS to be artifact based. They untap off Reversal and they are harder to remove than creatures are. With the Surge Node/Cornucopia/Chalice/Opal package you have 14 cards that can be played turn 1, and will ramp you up to the 4 mana needed to combo.
There's many ways to take this combo and this is just one. I hope I've given you guys some things to think on. I'll continue to check in and see what happens. I hope we can come up with something cool.
It reminds me of a deck I used to mess around with, with the charge counter theme coupled with Atlas as a refill/mill/kill mechanic and Time Warp to untap.
I think that if we are to go in this direction then I think that the tutors need to go. I've never been a big fan of tutors in Modern, especially in a 5-6 card combo deck. Spending one turn getting one out of 5 pieces is just too slow. I'm a bigger fan of a combination between Serum Visions, Thoughtcast and Tezzeret's Gambit, the last one is unorthodox but I've been impressed with it for its ability to ramp and draw at the same time.
The deck I used to run was around 1-1½ turn too slow. Not sure that this combo speeds the combo up that much but It'd be nice to mess around with and find out.
I've been away from the scene for a while but after seeing the spoilers I'm quite excited for the future of this deck. Mainly Skysovereign, Consul Flagship, which I think could be a huge upgrade for this deck.
1) It has flying. At one point I played around with Wingcrafter to break stand offs which seemed to happen a lot with this deck with the lack of removal. It having evasion also makes Swords playable.
2) It costs 5. 5 is often what 7 is to Tron and there aren't any good 5-drops outside of Batterskull.
3) It affects the board. Not being able to affect the board dirrectly was what turned me off about this deck in the beginning since you gave problematic creatures like Bob, Young Pyro and Lord of Atlantis a free pass to spin out of control.
The gearhulks also seem kinda sweet. Mainly the black, green and white one. I'm mostly leaning towards the white one as a sideboard tech against elves and such, since I've always been a big fan of the UW version with Thalia. Toolcraft Exemplar also seems decent in that vein. It isn't blue but it still fuels Chief Engineer, it doesn't block well but it's a good pilot for the Flagship.
So yeah, I'm really looking forward for this expansion. It might be my casual MtG comeback
Sadly Dubious Challenge reads 'Target Opponent MAY choose one of the exiled cards and put it onto the battlefield under his or her control. Put the rest onto the battlefield under your control.' So Phage would actually end up killing us not them.
That's a relief. For a second I thought that WotC had dropped the ball again.
Drop the ball? That combo wouldnt even be playable even if it said that the opponent should take a creature. This is Modern man, not kitchen table
a 4 mana 1 card combo that only takes up 8 slots in your deck wouldn't be playable? I don't know the math, but if the fizzling rate is low enough it would be insanely OP. At this point why would you play Scapeshift or Ad Nauseam or even Sneak and Show/ANT/TES in Legacy?
Sadly Dubious Challenge reads 'Target Opponent MAY choose one of the exiled cards and put it onto the battlefield under his or her control. Put the rest onto the battlefield under your control.' So Phage would actually end up killing us not them.
That's a relief. For a second I thought that WotC had dropped the ball again.
Thoughts on the new Madcap Experiment + Platinum Emperion? Maybe instead of Phyrexian Unlife. It costs 1 more mana but gives the deck an alternative win. Unless Ad Nauseam doesn't work with Emperion, but it does, right?
Overwhelming Denial will see play. Best counterspell to be printed in recent memory.
What do you think it will see play in? It is always going to cost at least 3 mana and it will often cost 4.
I think delver / tempo-y decks could run this effectively. When you surge it you have a strict upgrade to counterflux. When you don't you have counterflux that costs 2 instead of the R, which is somewhat equivalent. I think I would play this over any of the pure blue 3cc counterspells we have to choose from.
Except that it only worrks as a Counteflux when Surge is turned on (without Surge it's just a regular counterspell) and it's not necessarily an upgrade when it is turned on, since a lot of the time you're playing cards off curve that you'd played earlier in the game if you ran Counterflux instead. So the discount is not really a discount. You still need 3+ open mana.
Overwhelming Denial is a counter counterspell. Thats how it makes the most sense to me. If you force the second spell to interact with your opponent then youre probably doing it wrong. Doing it as a second spell naturally (lets say you are casting a combo card, and they interact with it, you can cast this. Or you counter their spell after interacting again.
Im still not sold on it, but its a nice tool.
In that case, it's just a worse Dispel. If you need to resolve something the "can't be countered" aspect of it becomes moot (they can just let it resolve and throw another counterspell at the combo piece).
I'm really unimpressed by Overwhelming Denial. If you manage to sandbag your Thought Scours and Lightning Bolts until turn 3 (instead of playing them out on curve or when you need to) and your opponent plays something important into you 3 open mana: congratulations, you've build your own clunky Counterflux. I have a tough time imagining when this is better than flux.
Hatebears has Vial and Thalia. That means you're realistically only allowed to play 4 Vial, 4 Path and up to one more non-land spell. There's no room for green Oath.
Green Oath is bad in BGx when, as things stand now, a little under one-third of the deck is instants and sorceries.
I disagree. Vial and Oath come down T1 (there's no other 1-drops in the deck. I mean real 1-drops. Path doesn't count. EDIT: though I guess there's also Hierarch). This is before Thalia hits the board and being able to do something T1 more consistently seems good. If you draw it after Thalia is online, it's not the end of the world. Paying 1G for Oath is basically a green Anticipate not to mention all the value you get from blinking it later in the game with Flickerwisp and Resto + Wisp.
Oath also gets both pieces of the GQ + Arbiter/Mindcensor combo
Wow Oath of Nissa, a green cantrip! This is great filtering in green. I used to use Commune with Nature for getting the right creature, but that doesn't fix mana issues. Ancient Stirrings gets lands, but not your creatures. Oath digs 2 less, but always hits something you can use (assuming you are playing a deck with some creatures). I think this will see play in particular green creature decks.
Maybe in GW Hatebears? For some Flickerwisp action
I'm intrigued by these Oath cards. They seem borderline playable in a vacuum and they have this build-around-me thing going for them, like Venser, the Sojourner. There's probably other ways to abuse them.
3 Otherworld Atlas
4 Isochron Scepter
4 Dramatic Reversal
4 Thoughtcast
4 Tezzeret's Gambit
4 Surge Node
3 Coretapper
4 Astral Cornucopia
3 Everflowing Chalice
2 Welding Jar
16 Island
This is how I'd start out. In order to fully abuse Cornucopia and Chalice you need at least 7 support cards in my experience, therefor I added Coretapper which have been great in my testing. You play it turn 2 with a mana rock, sack it and then you have two extra mana to mess around with the same turn, making it a mana neutral play. He's also great at giving Atlas an explosive start (note you can use Atlas to draw into the missing pieces). I prefer Emmy to Molten Pysche since he's better in a vacuum (in case you have infinite mana but no Atlas). You can either just play him, or you can parse the turn, discard down to hand size, shuffle your GY back in and then mill your opponent in his upkeep.
It reminds me of a deck I used to mess around with, with the charge counter theme coupled with Atlas as a refill/mill/kill mechanic and Time Warp to untap.
I think that if we are to go in this direction then I think that the tutors need to go. I've never been a big fan of tutors in Modern, especially in a 5-6 card combo deck. Spending one turn getting one out of 5 pieces is just too slow. I'm a bigger fan of a combination between Serum Visions, Thoughtcast and Tezzeret's Gambit, the last one is unorthodox but I've been impressed with it for its ability to ramp and draw at the same time.
The deck I used to run was around 1-1½ turn too slow. Not sure that this combo speeds the combo up that much but It'd be nice to mess around with and find out.
I've been away from the scene for a while but after seeing the spoilers I'm quite excited for the future of this deck. Mainly Skysovereign, Consul Flagship, which I think could be a huge upgrade for this deck.
1) It has flying. At one point I played around with Wingcrafter to break stand offs which seemed to happen a lot with this deck with the lack of removal. It having evasion also makes Swords playable.
2) It costs 5. 5 is often what 7 is to Tron and there aren't any good 5-drops outside of Batterskull.
3) It affects the board. Not being able to affect the board dirrectly was what turned me off about this deck in the beginning since you gave problematic creatures like Bob, Young Pyro and Lord of Atlantis a free pass to spin out of control.
The gearhulks also seem kinda sweet. Mainly the black, green and white one. I'm mostly leaning towards the white one as a sideboard tech against elves and such, since I've always been a big fan of the UW version with Thalia. Toolcraft Exemplar also seems decent in that vein. It isn't blue but it still fuels Chief Engineer, it doesn't block well but it's a good pilot for the Flagship.
So yeah, I'm really looking forward for this expansion. It might be my casual MtG comeback
a 4 mana 1 card combo that only takes up 8 slots in your deck wouldn't be playable? I don't know the math, but if the fizzling rate is low enough it would be insanely OP. At this point why would you play Scapeshift or Ad Nauseam or even Sneak and Show/ANT/TES in Legacy?
That's a relief. For a second I thought that WotC had dropped the ball again.
Except that it only worrks as a Counteflux when Surge is turned on (without Surge it's just a regular counterspell) and it's not necessarily an upgrade when it is turned on, since a lot of the time you're playing cards off curve that you'd played earlier in the game if you ran Counterflux instead. So the discount is not really a discount. You still need 3+ open mana.
In that case, it's just a worse Dispel. If you need to resolve something the "can't be countered" aspect of it becomes moot (they can just let it resolve and throw another counterspell at the combo piece).
I disagree. Vial and Oath come down T1 (there's no other 1-drops in the deck. I mean real 1-drops. Path doesn't count. EDIT: though I guess there's also Hierarch). This is before Thalia hits the board and being able to do something T1 more consistently seems good. If you draw it after Thalia is online, it's not the end of the world. Paying 1G for Oath is basically a green Anticipate not to mention all the value you get from blinking it later in the game with Flickerwisp and Resto + Wisp.
Oath also gets both pieces of the GQ + Arbiter/Mindcensor combo
I could be wrong, but it seems really good here.
Maybe in GW Hatebears? For some Flickerwisp action