Has anyone made the statistics of cantrip vs no-cantrip version of this deck? Because I've heard people complaining a lot that usually you cantrip to find mana, so it's better to run mana instead.
I agree that for the most part the no-cantrip strategy is interesting. However if you run some kind of protection like Pact of Negation then cantrips start getting more interesting, while chancellors gets less attractive, since you could end drawing some while cantripping.
Why this is important? Because basically each mana generator we have makes 1 mana per card (if you count that Dark Ritual generates 2 we have Chrome Mox that eats 1 card, so they compensate each other). So in general we would want 4 mana generator and one Spy/Informer in hand. That alone makes 5 cards, that's why this deck suffers a lot from inconsistency, because we are trying to do a turn 1 kill and for this to happen we need 5 cards on our opening 7. Cantrips can help making this possible, but you can also end up drawing some combo piece, which can be deadly. What I'd like to know is if the probability of drawing a good cards while cantripping is much higher than drawing a bad card and if that could compensate compared to simply mulliganing in a no-cantrip version.
Using the most recently list I saw scrolling back, we have the following ratio of cards in the deck:
4 Dead Cards (Chancellor of the Tangle) 6.6%
8 Burritos (Spy or Informer) 13.3%
20 Accelerators 33.3%
8 Cantrip 13.3%
9 Fixing 15%
11 Other Combo pieces 18.3%
The Chancellor of the Tangle, wasn't sure how to classify that but definitely useless to cantrip into.
So, it's definitely better to keep a hand with cantrips hoping to cycle into an accelerator than it is to hope to cycle into a Burrito (Spy or Informer).
That said I'm not a fan of this because why not just replace those cantrips with what you want? Tinder Walls and Grim Monolith's fill the role of what you want to cantrip into in a huge number of cases anyway. All the Wraith's and GitProbes have done here is made mulliganing decisions really dicey.
Leave one Street Wraith in to do the Underworld Cerberus kill with and away we go...
Sweet, it's about time this deck got a primer here!
I will say, the version developed in the MTG thread on Something Awful I feel has a vastly superior name (Breakfast Burrito -- because it wraps up the Cephalid Breakfast combo into one single creature, who comes in two flavors!).
That aside, I also feel like there are some choices I would make differently.
First of all, Street Wraith. This is a sneakily bad card. Why? Because it makes mulliganing a crapshoot. I have no idea if this Street Wraith in my hand is going to cycle into what I need. It might, it might cycle into a combo piece, or into something we don't need. This is a real problem for Burrito because we need to go off right now. We need to know if we can go off turn 1 with certainty! The same can be said for Gitaxian Probe.
Now, I do understand, for anyone looking to run numbers here, mathmatically, a deck with Gitaxian Probe and Street Wraith will go off turn 1 more often, but practically it will lose more matches because you will end up keeping hands that you shouldn't in games that end up being winnable otherwise.
The list we are currently running with over there (not my list and I can't take credit for the refinement):
Wait a minute you're saying, why is there a Street Wraith here? It's actually the wincon now. After milling yourself with a Burrito, Dread Return your Underworld Cerberus, returning all creature cards in your graveyard to your hand. This will include Wild Cantor, a bunch of Spirit Guides, Street Wraith, and Laboratory Maniac. Then you can cast Lab Man using the Spirit Guides and Wild Cantor, and cycle Street Wraith to win. This makes the combo much more resilient to drawing wincons. Yes it's still weak to removal, but because of the bridges, you will be able to Cabal Therapy them to get a peak at their hand and Cabal Therapy them again to strip away removal, before reanimating the Cerberus (you can obviously also then strip away any countermagic waiting for your casting of Lab Maniac). This also frees up a spot in the sideboard (because LabMan is in there either way). Speaking of the sideboard, Worldspine Wurm is there against Show and Tell, no, you don't want to S&T it in, instead, drop a Burrito and mill yourself, except for the Wurm (because it gets shuffled back in), so you don't die on your next draw step, then win next turn.
This kill might go back to the sideboard if Spirit of Labyrinth becomes commonplace in legacy.
In that case, and against decks that don't run leyline of sanctity, you want The Mimeoplasm with Lord of Extinction and Triskellion as you wincon (dread return Mimeoplasm, becomming a copy of Triskellion with P/T equal to Lord of Extinction, then remove counters to kill your opponent).
Replacing the Grim Monolith's with Tinder Walls has a sizable impact on price and a relatively small impact on performance.
You can go really deep with Psychic Vortex and Sundial of Infinite. Essentially, Psychic Vortex will let you draw enough cards to feed Descent every turn, eventually just drop like a Laboratory Maniac and you're all set.
True, but Meditate has drawbacks if you need to cast Empty the Warrens. I was thinking of the RB lists that were going around ... this might take some load off of Infernal Contract and make it a bit less heavy on the life loss?
So I've seen a few different deck lists over the past ~10 or so pages and I'm not exactly sure if we agree on the optimal SLT build. The few builds from fairly recent MTGO Dailies that I glossed over were pretty dissimilar to most lists I'm seeing here, is it a meta-game call or is it preference mostly?
There is a metagame call to be made. The black/red only lists with Infernal Contract are about a turn on average faster than the blue/black/red/(white?/green?) lists, however they are brutal on your own life, running 8 spells that cost 2 life and 4 that csot half your life. In a meta with a lot of burn or fast aggro, it can be too much.
I know against non-blue decks it'd be a dead card, but is there any reason in the non-burning-wish version of this deck not to mainboard 2x pyroblast?
I guess I'm just thinking against anything blue it's going to be... got force of will? And you win or lose right there, unless you have a 2nd storm card and mana, or can go off a 2nd time. With all the cantrips and draw, it seems like 2 copies would seriously reduce the number of times you lose game 1 to FOW. Sure, there'll be times they have 2x FOW or something, but I think that'd be pretty unusual. Game 2 you either board them out or board in the 3rd copy.
It's meta-dependent, obviously. If you don't see a lot of blue decks it's probably not worth the space. But in a blue-heavy meta or a large event where you would expect a lot of blue...
Force of Will is not saved until your storm spell, FoW is going to hit your enablers. Your Dark Rituals, Cabal Rituals, Burning Wish, or your card draw spells. Force of Will would only counter one copy of the storm, it's way too risky to assume someone is going to only get to exact life total for storm. The theme with this deck is to simply power through them. If you're going to combo off, and your opponent is representing any blue, be sure that you don't need any single spell to continue your chain. You will roll right through a counter or even two. By far the more annoying and devestating blue spell you're going to encounter is Stifle, because it's actually just going to crush your storm trigger and ruin your day. Duress or Cabal Therapy + Gitaxian Probe is probably better, as The Fluff pointed out, because they are more versatile. Sideboarding Red Elemental Blast or Pyroblast is definitely an option, but if you're going for any maindeck protection, targeted discard is going to serve a broader range of options.
Not good because you'll need to float eight mana for this to work. Better to just dedicate the slots you'd take up with this card with cantrips and spells that dig.
I agree it might not work, but you don't need to float 8 mana. You just need to put this into play the turn before you go off, then pay 2 + storm spell.
Avoiding Stifle really is a big deal, it's kind of a ***** to deal with.
Yah, it would need testing. My thought was mainly that it could be played before a combo turn by just tapping our sac lands for 1 each and then be there for redundancy against stifle or making sure that we don't fizzle.
I have the same feelings you do about Ideas Unbound toward Meditate. I know some don't favor it because of how it interferes with Empty the Warrens kills. In my experience though, drawing off of Meditate is almost certain to lead to a tendrils kill.
Using the most recently list I saw scrolling back, we have the following ratio of cards in the deck:
4 Dead Cards (Chancellor of the Tangle) 6.6%
8 Burritos (Spy or Informer) 13.3%
20 Accelerators 33.3%
8 Cantrip 13.3%
9 Fixing 15%
11 Other Combo pieces 18.3%
The Chancellor of the Tangle, wasn't sure how to classify that but definitely useless to cantrip into.
So, it's definitely better to keep a hand with cantrips hoping to cycle into an accelerator than it is to hope to cycle into a Burrito (Spy or Informer).
That said I'm not a fan of this because why not just replace those cantrips with what you want? Tinder Walls and Grim Monolith's fill the role of what you want to cantrip into in a huge number of cases anyway. All the Wraith's and GitProbes have done here is made mulliganing decisions really dicey.
Leave one Street Wraith in to do the Underworld Cerberus kill with and away we go...
I will say, the version developed in the MTG thread on Something Awful I feel has a vastly superior name (Breakfast Burrito -- because it wraps up the Cephalid Breakfast combo into one single creature, who comes in two flavors!).
That aside, I also feel like there are some choices I would make differently.
First of all, Street Wraith. This is a sneakily bad card. Why? Because it makes mulliganing a crapshoot. I have no idea if this Street Wraith in my hand is going to cycle into what I need. It might, it might cycle into a combo piece, or into something we don't need. This is a real problem for Burrito because we need to go off right now. We need to know if we can go off turn 1 with certainty! The same can be said for Gitaxian Probe.
Now, I do understand, for anyone looking to run numbers here, mathmatically, a deck with Gitaxian Probe and Street Wraith will go off turn 1 more often, but practically it will lose more matches because you will end up keeping hands that you shouldn't in games that end up being winnable otherwise.
The list we are currently running with over there (not my list and I can't take credit for the refinement):
4 Balustrade Spy
4 Undercity Informer
3 Narcomoeba
2 Bridge from Below
2 Cabal Therapy
1 Dread Return
1 Underworld Cerberus
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Street Wraith
Mana Production:
4 Lotus Petal
4 Chrome Mox
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Manamorphose
2 Tinder Wall
2 Grim Monolith
1 Wild Cantor
Protection:
4 Pact of Negation
1 Worldspine Wurm
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Chancellor of the Annex
4 Leyline of the Void
Wait a minute you're saying, why is there a Street Wraith here? It's actually the wincon now. After milling yourself with a Burrito, Dread Return your Underworld Cerberus, returning all creature cards in your graveyard to your hand. This will include Wild Cantor, a bunch of Spirit Guides, Street Wraith, and Laboratory Maniac. Then you can cast Lab Man using the Spirit Guides and Wild Cantor, and cycle Street Wraith to win. This makes the combo much more resilient to drawing wincons. Yes it's still weak to removal, but because of the bridges, you will be able to Cabal Therapy them to get a peak at their hand and Cabal Therapy them again to strip away removal, before reanimating the Cerberus (you can obviously also then strip away any countermagic waiting for your casting of Lab Maniac). This also frees up a spot in the sideboard (because LabMan is in there either way). Speaking of the sideboard, Worldspine Wurm is there against Show and Tell, no, you don't want to S&T it in, instead, drop a Burrito and mill yourself, except for the Wurm (because it gets shuffled back in), so you don't die on your next draw step, then win next turn.
This kill might go back to the sideboard if Spirit of Labyrinth becomes commonplace in legacy.
In that case, and against decks that don't run leyline of sanctity, you want The Mimeoplasm with Lord of Extinction and Triskellion as you wincon (dread return Mimeoplasm, becomming a copy of Triskellion with P/T equal to Lord of Extinction, then remove counters to kill your opponent).
Replacing the Grim Monolith's with Tinder Walls has a sizable impact on price and a relatively small impact on performance.
4 Bad River
2 Flood Plain
1 Marsh Flats
3 Watery Grave
3 Steam Vents
2 Hallowed Fountain
3 Drowned Catacomb
2 Island
1 Mountain
1 Plains
2 Elixir of Immortality
2 Call to Mind
//Miracles
4 Thunderous Wrath
4 Devastation Tide
3 Terminus
2 Reforge the Soul
//Dig & Arrange
4 Lim-Dul's Vault
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
3 Preordain
2 Muddle the Mixture
//Protection
2 Spell Pierce
2 Mana Leak
1 Sphinx's Revelation
Obviously the manabase is very budget, feel free to use real duals/fetches if you have them!
2B
Sorcery
Scry 2, then draw 2 cards.
4 Lotus Petal
4 Rite of Flame
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
3 Seething Song
[20 Cantrips/Draw]
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Faithless Looting
4 Manamorphose
4 Night's Whisper
4 Infernal Contract
4 Burning Wish
3 Tendrils of Agony
[14 Lands]
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
4 Ebon Stronghold
4 Dwarven Ruins
2 Geothermal Crevice
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Grapeshot
1 Past in Flames
1 Reforge the Soul
1 Shattering Spree
1 Chain Lightning
1 Anarchy
3 Duress
2 Pyroblast
2 Chaos Warp
There is a metagame call to be made. The black/red only lists with Infernal Contract are about a turn on average faster than the blue/black/red/(white?/green?) lists, however they are brutal on your own life, running 8 spells that cost 2 life and 4 that csot half your life. In a meta with a lot of burn or fast aggro, it can be too much.
Force of Will is not saved until your storm spell, FoW is going to hit your enablers. Your Dark Rituals, Cabal Rituals, Burning Wish, or your card draw spells. Force of Will would only counter one copy of the storm, it's way too risky to assume someone is going to only get to exact life total for storm. The theme with this deck is to simply power through them. If you're going to combo off, and your opponent is representing any blue, be sure that you don't need any single spell to continue your chain. You will roll right through a counter or even two. By far the more annoying and devestating blue spell you're going to encounter is Stifle, because it's actually just going to crush your storm trigger and ruin your day. Duress or Cabal Therapy + Gitaxian Probe is probably better, as The Fluff pointed out, because they are more versatile. Sideboarding Red Elemental Blast or Pyroblast is definitely an option, but if you're going for any maindeck protection, targeted discard is going to serve a broader range of options.
I agree it might not work, but you don't need to float 8 mana. You just need to put this into play the turn before you go off, then pay 2 + storm spell.
Avoiding Stifle really is a big deal, it's kind of a ***** to deal with.
Read that as: 2, {t}: Double the number of copies of a storm spell. This could be very, very interesting.
Hey there, we have a similar build going...
4 Cabal Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
3 Seething Song
4 Lotus Petal
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Manamorphose
4 Night's Whisper
4 Faithless Looting
3 Meditate
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Past in Flames
4 Geothermal Crevice
4 Sulfur Vent
4 Ancient Spring
2 Gemstone Mine
4 silence
1 tendrils of agony
1 duress
1 past in flames
1 empty the warrens
3 echoing truth
4 pyroclasm
I have the same feelings you do about Ideas Unbound toward Meditate. I know some don't favor it because of how it interferes with Empty the Warrens kills. In my experience though, drawing off of Meditate is almost certain to lead to a tendrils kill.