Yeah, sphinx's tutelage has an awesome synergy with the deck, and I know mill can potentially deny them some key cards, but my point here is we probably need to speed up our wins a couple turns. Playing 4x sphinx's tutelage it's not really efficient at doing that, firstly because we don't always get to draw it, and secondly because it's still a slow win condition (it usually takes me at least turn 10 to beat them through that, if they don't have removal or sth). Maybe we can improve our consistency drawing a similar wincon by adding some number of jace's erasure, or "typical" mill spells like glimpse the unthinkable/archive trap.
Jace Beleren is great, basically a harder-on-CMC howling mine which can steal us a game eventually, I still play a singleton on my list, sometimes it's a pity I have to spend my fogs defending it while I have enough life to resist an attack, but that's not really usual.
So, I'm just working here with the way to win. Mill vs burn. I still need to test a lot, but as usual, I'll share my results and thoughts with you.
Oh, and BTW, I've been trying to record a couple matches, but I couldn't find a good recording software. Any suggestions on that?
Do I need to buy a good graphic/video card for doing that? Or the onboard card should work perhaps?
Shall I ask these questions elsewhere?
Oh, I misread grafdigger's cage. It doesn't let you cast stuff, but we're straightly putting into play, so I guess it's worth a try on my sb.
I could also try some of your sb stuff, but xmage being my meta makes it really unpredictable, so I'm not sure to what extent I'm willing to sacrifice my sb versatility for tron matchup. Given this meta, I try to go as wide as possible, but I kept some silver bullets, particularly for tron/emrakul decks (bribery).
I could try your sb for development's sake of the deck or sth, which is one of the two reasons I play MTG (the other and most important being fun/LOLS).
I can't believe I haven't tried starfield of nyx yet, I guess I'm really afraid of turning pillows into creatures, haha.
I was thinking about playing some manlands. Particularly inkmoth nexus mainly for lifegain decks like soul sisters/martyr proc (which takes ages to beat), and the other option being urza's factory, only to be able to actually do sth with mana once Enduring Ideal comes out. Westvale abbey could fill that role as well.
I know our worries are more focused on what to do before resolving EI, and that those cards may be some sort of a "win more" thing. But I just wanted your opinion on those.
If they do not run either then happy days either way......they get milled rapidly. Tron always has something to nick.
Yeah, I know, but what I actually meant is to discuss how much wide can bribery go regarding other archetypes. It works against Tron, Nahiri, Eldrazis, and emrakul-cheating decks (tooth and nail, polymorph, possibility storm, etc) . But how would it work against other archetypes?
Yeah, the issue about turbo fog is that only has one plan, and it's not even a lethal one. It only prevents combat damage (great at that though), but it relies on symmetrical draw-engines for that, which means we're getting no card nor board advantage at all, and we're letting our opponents draw their deck hoping they don't find an "answer".
I think the key here is using our turbo fog core as a means to actually win the game and not just hoping to win through natural mill, potentially speeded-up by sphinx's tutelage. Otherwise we're going to 12-15 turns games and still hoping they don't have a solution on their deck.
That's why I'm trying 4x runeflare trap and also considering sudden impact on my build, they just steal games out of nowhere.
I'd like to see Tylerstegman's build with liliana's caress and megrim which is somewhat in tune with what I'm trying to do, actually winning a game.
It'd be great if we had access to some fog which actually gave us some card advantage, say, "2W: prevent all combat damage, draw a card", or something like a deflecting palm, shining shoal or comeuppance, that lets us prevent combat damage while dealing damage at the same time. Like "3W, prevent all combat damage this turn, deal that damage to target player", like divine deflection, but without the "X" . Dreaming too high perhaps? Comeuppance isn't that far from that. It's a shame we can't choose either players or creatures.
I could even try going with some burn spells on sb as a plan b, but I'm not sure how that'd work. Switching some fogs for lightning helixes and lightning bolts, may be sth to try.
What do you think about grafdigger's cage? I haven't tried it yet, but it's possibly the best we can get on graveyard hate since it doesn't exile our graveyard like rest in peace, it doesn't have a prohibitive cost like leyline of the void, it's not slow as relic of progenitus and it doesn't need to be activated/sac'd like tormod's crypt, and the best part, it doesn't affect us at all since we only need our graveyard for reshuffling some cards with either elixir of immortality/kozilek, butcher of truth or old school eldrazis.
drmarkb, i think owling mine decks are fairly viable now with fevered visions, board wipers like whelming wave and even thing in the ice. Sadly its thread it's pretty much dead now. Bribery is certainly a blast against tron, I'd like to see what it can do for us against emrakul/ulamog-less decks though. What's the best we can get from each matchup?
But right now, that card is the only non temporal solution I have against that, and stealing an eldrazi it's fun enough to keep 2 copies on my sb.
Drmarkb, that's true, we can't board enough stuff to beat all those three decks which are currently our worst matchups, so it's up to you and your meta.
In my book, Tron is the one that requires more sb slots in order to at least stand a chance of winning. I don't have much experience against infect,
but I know Runed Halo shines in there, they don't play lots of creatures and denying them 4 copies of one of their critters can be lethal for them, and I agree we may need to pack some number of fogs (pollen lullaby scries us 1 and can become 2 fogs if we win the clash) and probably non targeted removal (celestial flare for instance) because of apostle's blessing/vines of vastwood. Maybe chalice of the void at 1, or engineered explosives help us. We could also try stealing some pump spells with spellkite.
Is porphyry nodes any good against it? OR perhaps too slow?
Some infect decks also sb grafdigger's cage, so if you manage to survive, you'd better get rid of that before Enduring Ideal.
Defense grid helps me a lot against anything with counterspells. I wanted to include some graveyard hate, but I'm not sure if I want to sacrifice my own graveyard recursion (3 copies of mistveil plains) to a rest in peace.
My choice was a singleton Wheel of sun of moon, which eventually could be used in my own gy, but it seldomly saw play, so I took it away.
IMO, for beating tron you need sth close to 10 sb slots dedicated to it, so if that's what's on your meta, you won't have much sb room for other matchups.
Infect and control are more winnable than tron, so probably you need less slots there.
But, yup, I don't see a way to sb against all 3. It's possible to sb for infect AND control though..
Xmage fixed Runeflare Trap!!! I only played a match against nahiri jeskai and won 2-1.
I have to say burning your opponent's face for 11 damage which only costed you R was a trascendental experience haha.
They just don't see that coming, at least game 1, game 2 he played more conservatively and eventually got me with an ultimated Nahiri, the harbinger into emrakul, the aeons torn. Game 3 I bribery'd his emrakul after he tapped out to counter an EOT runeflare trap (powered by fevered visions, which would've dealt him 7/8 damage). It was the first time I won as early as turn 6 with turbofog, and I have to say it was awesomely unexpected.
Probably just lucky, but I'm gonna keep testing this stuff.
First of all, I currently play and I think most players do play too W, W/U or WUR on a pillow fort/prison shell.
Here, the only color that can't be cut down is white as most prison pieces are white.
Some other players go the ramp route, but IMO since the banning of seething song that's not as viable as before.
You can try other stuff like going on a U/W "typical" control shell with counterspells and such, ramping up with green stuff, etc, but I'll be focusing on what I play, pillow fort, which IMO is the most natural shell for Enduring Ideal since all your deck can be fetched once you cast that.
That said, let's see.
Why'd you care about a bunch of fliers when you're already playing 4 copies of ghostly prison and 2/3 sphere of safety mainboard? Even better, why would you worry about a bunch of fliers if you have Form of the Dragon+Phyrexian Unlife+Dovescape out!? If you have those 3 out, you're practically (if not) unbeateable. They can't beat you through combat damage as the poison counters start stacking ONCE you're at zero, therefore the only way they could kill you is having multiple attack instances, like double strike or sth. The other possible way would be burning you to zero and then attacking you for lethal, but how are they supposed to burn you if you have dovescape out?
Also, consider most builds go creatureless (except for Heliod, god of the sun versions) in order to blank our opponent's creature removal, playing Doomwake giant will enable them to hit something.
IMO black doesn't have much to offer to us other than sb stuff like discard (duress, thoughtseize, etc), extraction effects (extirpate, memoricide, etc), and eventual removal (anguished unmaking and hero's downfall could help against tron for instance). Brain maggot doesn't have a solid body, it can be easily removed, if it was a 0/4 it'd be more viable to me. I'd just play normal discard instead of it, I don't see the point of fetching it with EI. Pack Rat's efficiency would depend on the number of suppression fields you play. It could be easily triggered once you have EI resolved, as you don't have much to do with your lands and you can't cast anything. But it can't be fetched with EI, so you'd better cast it before it and make sure it survives a lightning bolt.
If you mean to play that as a plan B, replacing EI with it, that's not gonna happen, we can't afford to discard enough cards to make the rats a threat.
Firstly no one is including black on their brews. Also doomwake giant isn't really impressive, it sucks actually, it doesn't really add anything to our deck other than a 4/6 vanilla beater, unless we're facing tokens or something, but even there if they have an anthem (a.k.a. honor of the pure, etc) you wouldn't be destroying them, and still tokens is a good matchup for us, one ghostly prison is typically enough to stop them for a long while.
Most versions go Mono white, UW, or even UWR. I've seen some brews going G too (mainly for ramp, enchantresses like eidolon of blossoms, and stuff like kruphix's insight) but unless you're going FTW with karma+urborg, tomb of yawgmoth or sth still I wouldn't play black there, and if I did I wouldn't play doomwake giant.
Then you might consider personal sanctuary as well for stopping karma from hurting yourself.
I don't see the point of playing much land protection, unless your meta is flooded with Land destruction. But if you go the terra eternal/sacred ground, why not just animate (corrupted zendikon) or awaken (ruinous path and stuff) your lands, or even consider playing manlands (shambling vent). Planar outburst would be cool there, but I guess I'm going far from a Prison deck there, and closer to an animate land deck.
The good thing about black is that it has some useful removal for our tough matchups, specially tron, but also against newer archetypes which feature more planeswalkers (Nahiri/emrakul ones, superfriends, etc.). You have Anguished Unmaking, hero's downfall, ruinous path for instance as well as extraction stuff, extirpate, memoricide and friends.
About building with megrim/liliana's caress, I don't know how that'd work, I'd probably use them in a more discard-focused deck like 8rack or stuff, but I'll keep my comments until you share some results and a decklist I can test online. The only question I have is, do we want to "win more"? Or do we want more consistency and versatility regarding the threats we can handle? I mean, how far can we "punish" our fog/turbo "core", in the search for faster wins? Is that the way? Trying to win faster? Or is it better to stall the game for ages while progressively killing our opponent?
The more win conditions we include in a deck, the less we can turbofog and viceversa. That's my point. Shall we go more all in, changing some consistency for better win conditions? Or shall we work on our resilience?
BTW, I moved out to a new place, countryside kind of thing, so I won't be able to playtest until they set up the internet at my new home.
But I'll post here as usual.
@aaaaannnts, First of all, we don't really need to cast a fog t3 unless we're facing infect or some really fast aggro deck (blistercoil weird maybe?) . The golden rule for playing is turbo fog could be something like "don't play a fog unless they're swinging for lethal, and whenever you're not playing a fog, play a turbo piece". "Look out for burn spells" might be added as well.
I’d play green only for beast within, it’s exceptional removal and we don’t really care about the 3/3. That’d certainly improve our range/odds against our bad matchups which are essentially anything with a low creature count (Tron/Burn/Control, etc), but I don’t think we need the ramp rites of flourishing provides as much as our opponent, since we’re not able to flood the board with threats, combo off, or do anything relevant with that extra mana (unless you’re playing a version that does so).
Rites of flourishing helps non-creature decks go off faster, think of ad nauseam, tron, scapeshift, through the breach, and even burn among others. We don’t need extra land there as much as they do.
And regarding gain lands, I don’t think those can help us much, maybe against burn but even there I’d prefer to have an untapped land and just play my tech one turn before rather than having an extra life point.
Fevered Visions sets a <slow, but real> clock on our opponent and forces them to discard to less than 4 cards if they don't want to take 2 dmg.
It does force you to play red, but I've already said red has some cool stuff like intimidation bolt, lightning helix, crumble to dust, runeflare trap, etc.
It's true that it's harder to build a manabase, but going 3 colors already is, and I didn't have much issues with that as I play Forbidden Orchard to fix that.
I don't know if it's been mentioned yet, but I'm currently developing/testing a 4 card combo deck based on abusing Grinning Ignus ETB triggers along with Impact tremors/Furious Assault/Cinder Pyromancer.
It goes off really consistently on turn 5 while goldfishing, but it's really weak to removal.
Sequence is: Once you have all pieces out, activate Grinning Ignus ability, 2R will add to your mana pool. Then you cast it again for 1R (or less) due to our cost reducers, turn your extra C into R through skyshroud elf, bounce Grinning Ignus back to hand, cast it again and then repeat over and over again, each time you cast Grinning Ignus you'll deal 1 damage. With Cinder pyromancer instead of Impact Tremors or Furious Assault is pretty much the same but you have to activate it yourself for damage, then untap it when grinning ignus hits the board and repeat.
It's also possible to go infinite mana if you have 2 cost reducers on Battlefield, then you'd be able to cast anything with an x on it for lethal (kaervek's torch, etc.).
I'm not playing mtg due to lack of time right now, and when I do, there's a ton of pauper decks I'm testing before turbo fog.
I'll try the counterspell sb plan once I have time, and I'm dying to try runeflare trap but xmage needs to fix it before I can do that (wrong wording on the alternative cost). Otherwise I could try cockatrice or sth, but I really like rules enforcement xmage has.
Last time I played fog, I was hosed by a blood moon deck.
I couldn't tell if it'd be hard to pull off or not since I haven't actually tried it, but the draw engines should make it easier to get the parts together..
I already pack an eldrazi for reshuffling, so probably including 4x polymorph, a couple low CMC manlands, and/or some lingering souls/timely reinforcements or cards of the sake shouldn't be that hard, they may eventually serve as blockers if needed, or even as <weak> wincons.
You should check SaffronOlive's experience tring to brew with that, it didn't go that well.. http://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/against-the-odds-azor-s-elocutors
Jace Beleren is great, basically a harder-on-CMC howling mine which can steal us a game eventually, I still play a singleton on my list, sometimes it's a pity I have to spend my fogs defending it while I have enough life to resist an attack, but that's not really usual.
So, I'm just working here with the way to win. Mill vs burn. I still need to test a lot, but as usual, I'll share my results and thoughts with you.
Oh, and BTW, I've been trying to record a couple matches, but I couldn't find a good recording software. Any suggestions on that?
Do I need to buy a good graphic/video card for doing that? Or the onboard card should work perhaps?
Shall I ask these questions elsewhere?
Cheers.
SST.
I could also try some of your sb stuff, but xmage being my meta makes it really unpredictable, so I'm not sure to what extent I'm willing to sacrifice my sb versatility for tron matchup. Given this meta, I try to go as wide as possible, but I kept some silver bullets, particularly for tron/emrakul decks (bribery).
I could try your sb for development's sake of the deck or sth, which is one of the two reasons I play MTG (the other and most important being fun/LOLS).
I can't believe I haven't tried starfield of nyx yet, I guess I'm really afraid of turning pillows into creatures, haha.
I was thinking about playing some manlands. Particularly inkmoth nexus mainly for lifegain decks like soul sisters/martyr proc (which takes ages to beat), and the other option being urza's factory, only to be able to actually do sth with mana once Enduring Ideal comes out. Westvale abbey could fill that role as well.
I know our worries are more focused on what to do before resolving EI, and that those cards may be some sort of a "win more" thing. But I just wanted your opinion on those.
Cheers.
SST.
Yeah, I know, but what I actually meant is to discuss how much wide can bribery go regarding other archetypes. It works against Tron, Nahiri, Eldrazis, and emrakul-cheating decks (tooth and nail, polymorph, possibility storm, etc) . But how would it work against other archetypes?
Yeah, the issue about turbo fog is that only has one plan, and it's not even a lethal one. It only prevents combat damage (great at that though), but it relies on symmetrical draw-engines for that, which means we're getting no card nor board advantage at all, and we're letting our opponents draw their deck hoping they don't find an "answer".
I think the key here is using our turbo fog core as a means to actually win the game and not just hoping to win through natural mill, potentially speeded-up by sphinx's tutelage. Otherwise we're going to 12-15 turns games and still hoping they don't have a solution on their deck.
That's why I'm trying 4x runeflare trap and also considering sudden impact on my build, they just steal games out of nowhere.
I'd like to see Tylerstegman's build with liliana's caress and megrim which is somewhat in tune with what I'm trying to do, actually winning a game.
It'd be great if we had access to some fog which actually gave us some card advantage, say, "2W: prevent all combat damage, draw a card", or something like a deflecting palm, shining shoal or comeuppance, that lets us prevent combat damage while dealing damage at the same time. Like "3W, prevent all combat damage this turn, deal that damage to target player", like divine deflection, but without the "X" . Dreaming too high perhaps? Comeuppance isn't that far from that. It's a shame we can't choose either players or creatures.
I could even try going with some burn spells on sb as a plan b, but I'm not sure how that'd work. Switching some fogs for lightning helixes and lightning bolts, may be sth to try.
Cheers.
SST.
What do you think about grafdigger's cage? I haven't tried it yet, but it's possibly the best we can get on graveyard hate since it doesn't exile our graveyard like rest in peace, it doesn't have a prohibitive cost like leyline of the void, it's not slow as relic of progenitus and it doesn't need to be activated/sac'd like tormod's crypt, and the best part, it doesn't affect us at all since we only need our graveyard for reshuffling some cards with either elixir of immortality/kozilek, butcher of truth or old school eldrazis.
It stops snapcaster mage/jace, telepath unbound's flashback, dredge, chord of calling/collected company/summoning trap, persist, undying, goryo's vengeance, goblin dark-dwellers, etc.
What'cha think?
drmarkb, i think owling mine decks are fairly viable now with fevered visions, board wipers like whelming wave and even thing in the ice. Sadly its thread it's pretty much dead now.
Bribery is certainly a blast against tron, I'd like to see what it can do for us against emrakul/ulamog-less decks though. What's the best we can get from each matchup?
But right now, that card is the only non temporal solution I have against that, and stealing an eldrazi it's fun enough to keep 2 copies on my sb.
Cheers.
SST.
Privileged position is only better if you play some number of non-enchantment creatures (I saw wall of omens for instance in some versions), artifacts (I currently sb ensnaring bridge, pithing needle and defense grid) and well, anything that's not an enchantment. Maybe it also gets better if you're on a land destruction meta or something.
Still, after that, to seal the lock we need an extra copy so they protect each other, and remember we're still vulnerable to non-targeted removal and effects like anhihilator and board wipes for instance. Ulamog, the ceaseless hunger, karn liberated, Nahiri, the Harbinger, abrupt decay, maelstrom pulse and stuff won't hurt us (except for ulamog's mill trigger :/) but Ugin, the spirit dragon, Oblivion Stone, all is dust and friends will do.
Drmarkb, that's true, we can't board enough stuff to beat all those three decks which are currently our worst matchups, so it's up to you and your meta.
In my book, Tron is the one that requires more sb slots in order to at least stand a chance of winning. I don't have much experience against infect,
but I know Runed Halo shines in there, they don't play lots of creatures and denying them 4 copies of one of their critters can be lethal for them, and I agree we may need to pack some number of fogs (pollen lullaby scries us 1 and can become 2 fogs if we win the clash) and probably non targeted removal (celestial flare for instance) because of apostle's blessing/vines of vastwood. Maybe chalice of the void at 1, or engineered explosives help us. We could also try stealing some pump spells with spellkite.
Is porphyry nodes any good against it? OR perhaps too slow?
Some infect decks also sb grafdigger's cage, so if you manage to survive, you'd better get rid of that before Enduring Ideal.
Defense grid helps me a lot against anything with counterspells. I wanted to include some graveyard hate, but I'm not sure if I want to sacrifice my own graveyard recursion (3 copies of mistveil plains) to a rest in peace.
My choice was a singleton Wheel of sun of moon, which eventually could be used in my own gy, but it seldomly saw play, so I took it away.
IMO, for beating tron you need sth close to 10 sb slots dedicated to it, so if that's what's on your meta, you won't have much sb room for other matchups.
Infect and control are more winnable than tron, so probably you need less slots there.
But, yup, I don't see a way to sb against all 3. It's possible to sb for infect AND control though..
Cheers.
SST.
I have to say burning your opponent's face for 11 damage which only costed you R was a trascendental experience haha.
They just don't see that coming, at least game 1, game 2 he played more conservatively and eventually got me with an ultimated Nahiri, the harbinger into emrakul, the aeons torn. Game 3 I bribery'd his emrakul after he tapped out to counter an EOT runeflare trap (powered by fevered visions, which would've dealt him 7/8 damage). It was the first time I won as early as turn 6 with turbofog, and I have to say it was awesomely unexpected.
Probably just lucky, but I'm gonna keep testing this stuff.
Cheers.
SST.
Here, the only color that can't be cut down is white as most prison pieces are white.
Some other players go the ramp route, but IMO since the banning of seething song that's not as viable as before.
You can try other stuff like going on a U/W "typical" control shell with counterspells and such, ramping up with green stuff, etc, but I'll be focusing on what I play, pillow fort, which IMO is the most natural shell for Enduring Ideal since all your deck can be fetched once you cast that.
That said, let's see.
Why'd you care about a bunch of fliers when you're already playing 4 copies of ghostly prison and 2/3 sphere of safety mainboard? Even better, why would you worry about a bunch of fliers if you have Form of the Dragon+Phyrexian Unlife+Dovescape out!? If you have those 3 out, you're practically (if not) unbeateable. They can't beat you through combat damage as the poison counters start stacking ONCE you're at zero, therefore the only way they could kill you is having multiple attack instances, like double strike or sth. The other possible way would be burning you to zero and then attacking you for lethal, but how are they supposed to burn you if you have dovescape out?
Also, consider most builds go creatureless (except for Heliod, god of the sun versions) in order to blank our opponent's creature removal, playing Doomwake giant will enable them to hit something.
IMO black doesn't have much to offer to us other than sb stuff like discard (duress, thoughtseize, etc), extraction effects (extirpate, memoricide, etc), and eventual removal (anguished unmaking and hero's downfall could help against tron for instance).
Brain maggot doesn't have a solid body, it can be easily removed, if it was a 0/4 it'd be more viable to me. I'd just play normal discard instead of it, I don't see the point of fetching it with EI.
Pack Rat's efficiency would depend on the number of suppression fields you play. It could be easily triggered once you have EI resolved, as you don't have much to do with your lands and you can't cast anything. But it can't be fetched with EI, so you'd better cast it before it and make sure it survives a lightning bolt.
If you mean to play that as a plan B, replacing EI with it, that's not gonna happen, we can't afford to discard enough cards to make the rats a threat.
Cheers.
SST.
Most versions go Mono white, UW, or even UWR. I've seen some brews going G too (mainly for ramp, enchantresses like eidolon of blossoms, and stuff like kruphix's insight) but unless you're going FTW with karma+urborg, tomb of yawgmoth or sth still I wouldn't play black there, and if I did I wouldn't play doomwake giant.
Cheers.
SST.
I don't see the point of playing much land protection, unless your meta is flooded with Land destruction. But if you go the terra eternal/sacred ground, why not just animate (corrupted zendikon) or awaken (ruinous path and stuff) your lands, or even consider playing manlands (shambling vent). Planar outburst would be cool there, but I guess I'm going far from a Prison deck there, and closer to an animate land deck.
Cheers.
SST.
About building with megrim/liliana's caress, I don't know how that'd work, I'd probably use them in a more discard-focused deck like 8rack or stuff, but I'll keep my comments until you share some results and a decklist I can test online. The only question I have is, do we want to "win more"? Or do we want more consistency and versatility regarding the threats we can handle? I mean, how far can we "punish" our fog/turbo "core", in the search for faster wins? Is that the way? Trying to win faster? Or is it better to stall the game for ages while progressively killing our opponent?
The more win conditions we include in a deck, the less we can turbofog and viceversa. That's my point. Shall we go more all in, changing some consistency for better win conditions? Or shall we work on our resilience?
BTW, I moved out to a new place, countryside kind of thing, so I won't be able to playtest until they set up the internet at my new home.
But I'll post here as usual.
Cheers.
SST.
@aaaaannnts, First of all, we don't really need to cast a fog t3 unless we're facing infect or some really fast aggro deck (blistercoil weird maybe?) . The golden rule for playing is turbo fog could be something like "don't play a fog unless they're swinging for lethal, and whenever you're not playing a fog, play a turbo piece". "Look out for burn spells" might be added as well.
I’d play green only for beast within, it’s exceptional removal and we don’t really care about the 3/3. That’d certainly improve our range/odds against our bad matchups which are essentially anything with a low creature count (Tron/Burn/Control, etc), but I don’t think we need the ramp rites of flourishing provides as much as our opponent, since we’re not able to flood the board with threats, combo off, or do anything relevant with that extra mana (unless you’re playing a version that does so).
Rites of flourishing helps non-creature decks go off faster, think of ad nauseam, tron, scapeshift, through the breach, and even burn among others. We don’t need extra land there as much as they do.
And regarding gain lands, I don’t think those can help us much, maybe against burn but even there I’d prefer to have an untapped land and just play my tech one turn before rather than having an extra life point.
Fevered Visions sets a <slow, but real> clock on our opponent and forces them to discard to less than 4 cards if they don't want to take 2 dmg.
It does force you to play red, but I've already said red has some cool stuff like intimidation bolt, lightning helix, crumble to dust, runeflare trap, etc.
It's true that it's harder to build a manabase, but going 3 colors already is, and I didn't have much issues with that as I play Forbidden Orchard to fix that.
Cheers.
SST.
It goes off really consistently on turn 5 while goldfishing, but it's really weak to removal.
You can see my version of the deck here http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/grinning-impact-combo-screw-fancy-names/ .
Basically combos are: -Impact Tremors + Grinning Ignus + Skyshroud Elf + Brighthearth Banneret
-Furious Assault + Grinning Ignus + Skyshroud Elf + Thornscape Familiar
-Cinder Pyromancer + Grinning Ignus + Skyshroud Elf + Brighthearth Banneret.
Basically you need something to deal damage on ETB triggers (Impact tremors/Furious assault/Cinder Pyromancer), Grinning Ignus, a cost reducer (Brighthearth banneret/thornscape familiar) and a mana filterer (skyshroud elf).
Sequence is: Once you have all pieces out, activate Grinning Ignus ability, 2R will add to your mana pool. Then you cast it again for 1R (or less) due to our cost reducers, turn your extra C into R through skyshroud elf, bounce Grinning Ignus back to hand, cast it again and then repeat over and over again, each time you cast Grinning Ignus you'll deal 1 damage. With Cinder pyromancer instead of Impact Tremors or Furious Assault is pretty much the same but you have to activate it yourself for damage, then untap it when grinning ignus hits the board and repeat.
It's also possible to go infinite mana if you have 2 cost reducers on Battlefield, then you'd be able to cast anything with an x on it for lethal (kaervek's torch, etc.).
Any thoughts?
I'll try the counterspell sb plan once I have time, and I'm dying to try runeflare trap but xmage needs to fix it before I can do that (wrong wording on the alternative cost). Otherwise I could try cockatrice or sth, but I really like rules enforcement xmage has.
Last time I played fog, I was hosed by a blood moon deck.
Cheers.
SST.
I couldn't tell if it'd be hard to pull off or not since I haven't actually tried it, but the draw engines should make it easier to get the parts together..
I already pack an eldrazi for reshuffling, so probably including 4x polymorph, a couple low CMC manlands, and/or some lingering souls/timely reinforcements or cards of the sake shouldn't be that hard, they may eventually serve as blockers if needed, or even as <weak> wincons.
Cheers.
SST.