So now the question is, do we Sharuum players take out Clone or Sculpting Steel for this new guy? I'm leaning towards Clone, but what do you guys think?
...
Both. Having two Sculpting Steels = twice the probability of drawing the important half of the combo.
I forgot a card in the combo and disciple isn't actually necessary. The sac outlet that gives you infinite mana is ashnod's altar / krark-clan ironworks. I'm going to get a bitter ordeal soon. I'll post the cards I'm about to order soon.
This doesn't work either. If you have another artifact or artifact creature to bring back Sharuum, you're still only producing 4 per loop with Nim Deathmantle, netting you 0 mana. It still kills with Disciple of the Vault or Bitter Ordeal, but you don't produce infinite mana.
So.... the combo you're running is...
Sharuum + Nim Deathmantle + Another Artifact (KCI) or Artifact Creature (AA or KCI) + Ashnod's Altar or Krark-Clan Ironworks + Disciple of the Vault or Bitter Ordeal or Arcbound Crusher or Glassdust Hulk.
I believe the way the rules are worded atm, you can't play Surgical Extraction with a non-black general. If I am correct, I see no reason to change the rules.
Playing turn 4-5 combo and being a spike is not mutually exclusive.
Our playgroup is full of spikes and we play counterspells so 4-5 turn wins are impossible. If you sit down at a table with us and expect to win before turn 15, good luck when each of us are packing 12+ counterspells.
In a metagame where everyone is trying to be super casual and "have fun," turn 4-5 combo might be the best deck to play, but why bother? In those types of metagames you can win just as easily with a deck that reliably kills on turn 10 with protection like wraths, counterspells, etc.
I actually wish EDH were more competitive, or at least everyone had a competitive deck instead of just screaming about how everyone should be "casual."
Our playgroup has multiple competitive decks per player, then we each have a semi-competitive deck, a casual deck, and a "I don't know how I can win, but this is fun durrrrrrrrrr" deck.
I have never liked foils. Yeah, they're shiny, but it's more important to me that an entire deck look roughly the same. If I could foil out THE ENTIRE DECK, I would consider doing it, but with original duals and Mana Crypt, that's a bit of a problem.
I have to give crop rotation my endoresement. instant speed you get whatever land you want untapped. my friend always seems to have an early wasteland. crop rotation makes his face turn green.
Sacrifice Wasteland: Target player discards a card from his or her hand.
It's still 1 for 1. I would rather complement its ability to produce mana by fetching Gaea's Cradle rather than speaking its praises of countering Wasteland, which it really doesn't.
115.3b The active player receives priority after a spell or ability (other than a mana ability) resolves.
This rule is not the correct one to quote, as this has to do with spell and ability resolution.
A spell/ability resolving is different from who gets priority after casting a spell or playing an ability. Normally, priority is passed after casting or playing an ability (due to shortcuts), unless the active player requests priority.
Giving priority to your opponent leaves him only one window : split second spells. Since a normal spell can be responded to by launching the combo again, only a split second spell can break the combo. Trickbind prevents your Ooze from copying itself or from untapping. Once this is done, you can say "go", and launch the combo again at your opponent's turn. The same is true for Sudden Spoiling, which is not played anyways. Only Sudden Death is problematic.
If your opponent does not receive priority until you put 100,000 Necrotic Ooze "Shivan Hellkite" triggers on the stack, he will not be able to Trickbind your Necrotic Ooze to stop the 100,000 triggers from going on the stack.
Once they are on the stack and your opponent receives priority, he can Trickbind one of your Necrotic Ooze activations, but the other 99,999 will still be on the stack.
Your opponent will need to Trickbind + Time Stop (or some other card that removes all abilities from the stack), Sudden Death + Time Stop effect to survive.
I'm not sure I follow your example. It doesn't seem relevant; that interaction has nothing special to do with priority, it's just responding to a spell. I believe there's a window for an opponent to respond to IGG before you have priority to sacrifice LED, but it's meaningless in every situation I can think of (since you can always respond to your opponent's action, and LED as a mana ability can't be further responded to).
In this case, yes, you can respond to a "Shivan Hellkite" activation with another activation, but the point is that, as far as I know, the opponent has priority to respond to that activation before you do, and only then do you get to respond. So you do have to pass priority. I might be wrong, but I've always understood the rules to work this way. I'd like to see the rule you're referring to.
If your opponent gained priority before you had a chance to activate Lion's Eye Diamond, and passed priority back (i.e. chose not to counterspell or do anything), your spell would immediately resolve as there was a double pass and you would never have a window to break Lion's Eye Diamond.
When casting spells or activating abilities, it works like this:
Active Player = AP
Non-Active Player = NAP
AP casts Ill-Gotten Gains without requesting priority
NAP can then choose to cast instants or activate abilities, NAP passes priority
Ill-Gotten Gains resolves without the chance to break LED
If the AP requests priority before casting a spell or activating an ability, he must cast a spell or activate an ability.
Quote from Magic Floor Rules section 122 »
A player may not request priority and take no action with it.
It does NOT work like this:
AP casts Ill-Gotten Gains
NAP immediately has priority and passes priority back
AP gains priority and can choose to break LED, AP chooses not to
NAP gains priority and passes priority back AGAIN
Ill-Gotten Gains resolves without LED breaking
--------
If the active player wishes to break LED while Ill-Gotten Gains is on the stack, he must request priority immediately prior to casting IGG or while casting it without passing priority to his opponent (if his opponent decides to pass back priority, i.e. no counterspell, he will not be able to break the LED with extra information).
You can request priority before each of your Necrotic Ooze activations by simply saying something like "I'm going to request priority before each Necrotic Ooze activation so you will not have priority until I have activated Necrotic Ooze 300,000 times."
They will gain priority before they die (with 100,000 Shivan Hellkite triggers on the stack or whatever), so they can Sudden Death your Necrotic Ooze and then cast Time Stop to survive.
...
Both. Having two Sculpting Steels = twice the probability of drawing the important half of the combo.
It loses pretty hard. Luckily not everything in the meta is Azami or Clique.
^ Ninja Edit: I don't mean that it can't beat those decks (obviously), but it's a pretty uphill battle.
The XYRversion of Fireball is the best for allowing people to understand how it works with multiple targets.
You want three targets? So you're paying 2R right off the bat (2 in the Y slot), now you just have to figure out X, divide by Y + 1, then round down.
It sounds way more complex than it is.
Here's the XYR version.
This doesn't work either. If you have another artifact or artifact creature to bring back Sharuum, you're still only producing 4 per loop with Nim Deathmantle, netting you 0 mana. It still kills with Disciple of the Vault or Bitter Ordeal, but you don't produce infinite mana.
So.... the combo you're running is...
Sharuum + Nim Deathmantle + Another Artifact (KCI) or Artifact Creature (AA or KCI) + Ashnod's Altar or Krark-Clan Ironworks + Disciple of the Vault or Bitter Ordeal or Arcbound Crusher or Glassdust Hulk.
A five piece combo.
Seems kind of janky.
You're not wrong, it's just nullifying Wasteland isn't the best argument for Crop Rotation.
Our playgroup is full of spikes and we play counterspells so 4-5 turn wins are impossible. If you sit down at a table with us and expect to win before turn 15, good luck when each of us are packing 12+ counterspells.
In a metagame where everyone is trying to be super casual and "have fun," turn 4-5 combo might be the best deck to play, but why bother? In those types of metagames you can win just as easily with a deck that reliably kills on turn 10 with protection like wraths, counterspells, etc.
I actually wish EDH were more competitive, or at least everyone had a competitive deck instead of just screaming about how everyone should be "casual."
Our playgroup has multiple competitive decks per player, then we each have a semi-competitive deck, a casual deck, and a "I don't know how I can win, but this is fun durrrrrrrrrr" deck.
He's turning this card:
Sacrifice Wasteland: Destroy target nonbasic land.
Into...
Sacrifice Wasteland: Target player discards a card from his or her hand.
It's still 1 for 1. I would rather complement its ability to produce mana by fetching Gaea's Cradle rather than speaking its praises of countering Wasteland, which it really doesn't.
Quite a number of Magic players would be better off skipping a decent meal every now and then.
This rule is not the correct one to quote, as this has to do with spell and ability resolution.
A spell/ability resolving is different from who gets priority after casting a spell or playing an ability. Normally, priority is passed after casting or playing an ability (due to shortcuts), unless the active player requests priority.
If your opponent does not receive priority until you put 100,000 Necrotic Ooze "Shivan Hellkite" triggers on the stack, he will not be able to Trickbind your Necrotic Ooze to stop the 100,000 triggers from going on the stack.
Once they are on the stack and your opponent receives priority, he can Trickbind one of your Necrotic Ooze activations, but the other 99,999 will still be on the stack.
Your opponent will need to Trickbind + Time Stop (or some other card that removes all abilities from the stack), Sudden Death + Time Stop effect to survive.
If your opponent gained priority before you had a chance to activate Lion's Eye Diamond, and passed priority back (i.e. chose not to counterspell or do anything), your spell would immediately resolve as there was a double pass and you would never have a window to break Lion's Eye Diamond.
When casting spells or activating abilities, it works like this:
Active Player = AP
Non-Active Player = NAP
AP casts Ill-Gotten Gains without requesting priority
NAP can then choose to cast instants or activate abilities, NAP passes priority
Ill-Gotten Gains resolves without the chance to break LED
If the AP requests priority before casting a spell or activating an ability, he must cast a spell or activate an ability.
It does NOT work like this:
AP casts Ill-Gotten Gains
NAP immediately has priority and passes priority back
AP gains priority and can choose to break LED, AP chooses not to
NAP gains priority and passes priority back AGAIN
Ill-Gotten Gains resolves without LED breaking
--------
If the active player wishes to break LED while Ill-Gotten Gains is on the stack, he must request priority immediately prior to casting IGG or while casting it without passing priority to his opponent (if his opponent decides to pass back priority, i.e. no counterspell, he will not be able to break the LED with extra information).
You can request priority before each of your Necrotic Ooze activations by simply saying something like "I'm going to request priority before each Necrotic Ooze activation so you will not have priority until I have activated Necrotic Ooze 300,000 times."
They will gain priority before they die (with 100,000 Shivan Hellkite triggers on the stack or whatever), so they can Sudden Death your Necrotic Ooze and then cast Time Stop to survive.
2 Mana Crypt
3 Necropotence
4 Consecrated Sphinx
5 Mindslaver