About how often do you 'fail to find' hulk in your games? I took this to an event today and went 2-3. All the matches I played, I lost before my turn 5, with no hulk in sight.
Bogles, infect, bye, robots, pyro storm (only win, new player borrowing a deck)
Only 1 game did I actually combo. My list is the Zac Elsik list, but -1 swan song main for 1 izzet charm.
I know the sample size is small, but it was just super feel bad. Any thoughts or further advice? Generally I was casting dig spells t1-t3 so seeing 20+ cards per match. Just a bit on tilt and about to give up on hulk, so someone please talk me down.
As you said, if Banefire gets discarded somehow. Again, as I said, if you really want to play Banefire go, go for it. I think I (more specifically Zac) has shown it is not necessary, but you are free to do as you please. You asked for suggestions and feedback on your list.
Why not Banefire? I don't see a reason for the second shredder. I use it to get back the reward/vaults so i don't have to loop the entire deck with bauble. And even if my Banefire gets discarded somehow i can just return it to my hand with the shredder or mill them with the shredder.
This has been discussed in the thread already, but you have your answer right here. IRL, you don't need to go off against a chess timer. You already have a win-condition in the deck. Banefire is a wasted slot maindeck. And of course you can have 2 win cons; but when the second win-con is actually dependent on the first (buy back Banefire with shredder), then you really only have one win-con, so why not just go with that one? Use the slot opened by Banefire to play a card that synergizes more overall. An artifact is a natural choice.
The corner case is Emrakul, which has already been discussed. Swan Song sequence to create infinite Birds. This is why the slot for Banefire should be a second shredder, so you don't have to draw your deck to do the Swan Song sequence. You are not playing Swan Song, but then that is another issue.
If this is for IRL, don't play banefire main. Cut 1 elsewhere flask for the second shredder or a bauble. You never want Banefire until you go off, it is a dead card. If Modo, then Banefire is fine.
You have shredder as a win con. Doesn't work too well on modo but IRL. I play 2x shedder instead of Bauble IRL so you don't have to draw your deck to loop. Once you can generate >9 per loop then you can sac all to KCI and shred back reward, while milling once per loop. This is the leanest win con package and allows for more protection main deck. Zacs blog here: http://themeadery.org/b/zacelsik/read/poached-eggs-in-modern/
He stated earlier in the thread that 2x shredder might be better than the bauble. Also would make the swan loop doable IRL without drawing the whole deck.
From playing a 3 bloom version with opals, having bloom in your opener is not where you want to be. The deck can 'go off' earlier than t4 with opals and reshape, so suspending a bloom is one less to search up. I have been considering cutting to 2, for this reason.
So I think playing less Bloom leaves room for things like swan song main, and is better if your plan A is to go off before t4.
Akki Blizzard-Herder is just a re-curable Boom // Bust (with kolaghan's command and Mortuary Mire) and it doubles as a wall that opponents never want to attack into. Currently I am looking for a re-usable way to get creatures back from the grave - anyone know the best option to keep re-using Akki and Fulminator?
Grim Harvest? It requires you to keep 2B up for the Recover trigger, so you need 5 or 6 total mana to play guy with Recover mana up. It is quite a lock though with Fulminator Mage.
The 4th color doesn't matter after you flip your deck, as I have shown. What matter's is that you are losing a forest cycler before you flip your deck.
Mainly I was trying to stimulate conversation. Is this the best the deck can be currently? It seems very tight, so I don't think that anything huge changes since a couple years ago when the deck was developed. But just wanted some confirmation, since I don't see a lot of discussion of the deck.
Also what I was trying to understand if making room in the SB mattered. And if this version is the agreed upon "better version" vs. one with Elves of Deep Shadow.
It sounds like you do not like Leonin Squire as a good alternative and that you think the deck is good "as-is". What about the Elves of Deep Shadow version? Any better or worse? Seems better against incidental life gain from the Gain Lands or similar.
Hitting W requires mana in your pool + Manamorphose in hand or a Petal or Cantor in hand or play. Considering you often use the Manamorphose and Petal to set up the combo it's a lot more risky.
In the build I posted, the combo becomes Morgue Theft on Leonin Squire + Blood Celebrant. So essentially, this is no different than Simian Spirit Guide for R + Anarchist, except I'm postulating that it possible opens up more lines of winning, but at the draw back of removing the 1 forest cycler from the main deck.
Total mana for this route (assuming no cards that are needed are in had): BB8 for Morgue Theft, BB2 and 1 life for Blood Celebrant, Leonin Squire, and Conjurer's Bauble. The generic mana is going to be black anyway.
Total mana is the same for the other route. Morgue Theft mana is the same, 4 generic for the Anarchist, plus exile the Ape for red.
This requires you have more than one life, so that is the only draw back I see. This is the case when you have none of the pieces in your hand. But the Blood Celebrant + Leonin Squire becomes better when you have things in hand.
Here's one corner case. When you go off, you have Morgue Theft and Dimir House Guard in hand, but not Songs of the Damned. This line requires you generate a total of 10 mana when going off (need 3B for Balustrade Spy, then 3WBB for steps 1-4 below). But my point here is that it makes a lot of these kinds of lines possible, since Anarchist only targets sorceries.
1. Theft back Squire. 1B
2. Play Squire. 1W
3. Bauble back Songs. 1
4. Play Songs for 21. B
5. 21 B floating. Play Dimir House Guard. 17 B floating.
6. Sac Leonin Squire.
7. 8BB for Morgue Theft; 2BB for playing Blood Celebrant, Leonin Squire, and Conjurer's Bauble back Haunting Misery. BBB left.
8. Sac out the board to House Guard.
9. Haunting Misery for 24.
I think that maybe a lot of the posters here have their decks on tappedout? In any case, I've been goldfishing and played a couple matches on MTGO. Actually did win a game.
1. I think that I like the Leonin Squire more than [[Anarchist]] but please convince me why it is worse, I am open to changing the slots back to Elvish Aberration and Anarchist. At a minimum, it is technically not needed in G1, so it makes the combo more clunky. I don't know that much has changed since the deck was tuned and honed.
2. Why play any forest cycler except Elvish Aberration ? It is the only one that seems to have a corner case use; tap for GGG seems like it would be more useful than reach on Pale Recluse; Valley Rannet and Wirewood Guardian are just vanilla dudes.
Galvanic Alchemist can also work in the slot, for 2U. Not ideal but with the creatures you given, it could serve the same function. Of course, needs to be soulbound to the mana maker, but that should not be too hard.
for Doorkeeper as other possible win conditions to utilize the Axebane Guardian infinite mana. Many other "tap and bring death" commons could be used here but I'm just pointing out ones with defender, that actually help the Defender plan.
Unlike Doorkeeper, these all let you win at instant speed, vs. waiting for them to draw a card.
tzykid
do you think your sideboard which has enough power against bule deck?(especially twin deck)
I defeated by 3 bule deck in a GPT today (2 twin decks)
two 1-2 one 0-2
I won a game that my opponent have not counter and won a game that swan song oppnents counter.but I lose two game that i cant get seventh mana source for cast silence and open the vault
So I will think my bule deck side tactics again Pact of Negation or Defense Grid is my candidate
Defense Grid is cheap and can disrupt twin deck greatly
Pact of Negation is reasonable card here but has less synergy than Defense Grid and expensive.
Any opinion here?
After playing the deck online, I like Defense Grid. I had a Twin player scoop game 2 to a resolved T2 Defense Grid; I assume she sided out the combo, so couldn't race me?
Also, I like the idea of more Serum Visions or Gitaxian Probe. Probe can with sequencing against many decks, plus dig.
I guess I'm in general agreeing that Swan Song is not helping so much against Remand into Dispel / Spell Pierce.
I've been lurking here for a while. What is the thoughts on Collective Brutality? Seems like it does a lot of what we want.
Also, what is the thought on Cathartic Reunion vs Tormenting Voice. Digging 3 seems better.
Bogles, infect, bye, robots, pyro storm (only win, new player borrowing a deck)
Only 1 game did I actually combo. My list is the Zac Elsik list, but -1 swan song main for 1 izzet charm.
I know the sample size is small, but it was just super feel bad. Any thoughts or further advice? Generally I was casting dig spells t1-t3 so seeing 20+ cards per match. Just a bit on tilt and about to give up on hulk, so someone please talk me down.
This has been discussed in the thread already, but you have your answer right here. IRL, you don't need to go off against a chess timer. You already have a win-condition in the deck. Banefire is a wasted slot maindeck. And of course you can have 2 win cons; but when the second win-con is actually dependent on the first (buy back Banefire with shredder), then you really only have one win-con, so why not just go with that one? Use the slot opened by Banefire to play a card that synergizes more overall. An artifact is a natural choice.
The corner case is Emrakul, which has already been discussed. Swan Song sequence to create infinite Birds. This is why the slot for Banefire should be a second shredder, so you don't have to draw your deck to do the Swan Song sequence. You are not playing Swan Song, but then that is another issue.
He stated earlier in the thread that 2x shredder might be better than the bauble. Also would make the swan loop doable IRL without drawing the whole deck.
Edits for spelling.
So I think playing less Bloom leaves room for things like swan song main, and is better if your plan A is to go off before t4.
Is there an agreed upon 'best' list? I have Burn, looking to play something else maybe. Thanks!
Grim Harvest? It requires you to keep 2B up for the Recover trigger, so you need 5 or 6 total mana to play guy with Recover mana up. It is quite a lock though with Fulminator Mage.
Mainly I was trying to stimulate conversation. Is this the best the deck can be currently? It seems very tight, so I don't think that anything huge changes since a couple years ago when the deck was developed. But just wanted some confirmation, since I don't see a lot of discussion of the deck.
Also what I was trying to understand if making room in the SB mattered. And if this version is the agreed upon "better version" vs. one with Elves of Deep Shadow.
It sounds like you do not like Leonin Squire as a good alternative and that you think the deck is good "as-is". What about the Elves of Deep Shadow version? Any better or worse? Seems better against incidental life gain from the Gain Lands or similar.
In the build I posted, the combo becomes Morgue Theft on Leonin Squire + Blood Celebrant. So essentially, this is no different than Simian Spirit Guide for R + Anarchist, except I'm postulating that it possible opens up more lines of winning, but at the draw back of removing the 1 forest cycler from the main deck.
1. Get Blood Celebrant, and Leonin Squire back.
2. Play Blood Celebrant, and play Leonin Squire off the W from Blood Celebrant.
3. Get back a Conjurer's Bauble from Squire, and use that to Bauble back your Haunting Misery.
Total mana for this route (assuming no cards that are needed are in had): BB8 for Morgue Theft, BB2 and 1 life for Blood Celebrant, Leonin Squire, and Conjurer's Bauble. The generic mana is going to be black anyway.
Total mana is the same for the other route. Morgue Theft mana is the same, 4 generic for the Anarchist, plus exile the Ape for red.
This requires you have more than one life, so that is the only draw back I see. This is the case when you have none of the pieces in your hand. But the Blood Celebrant + Leonin Squire becomes better when you have things in hand.
Here's one corner case. When you go off, you have Morgue Theft and Dimir House Guard in hand, but not Songs of the Damned. This line requires you generate a total of 10 mana when going off (need 3B for Balustrade Spy, then 3WBB for steps 1-4 below). But my point here is that it makes a lot of these kinds of lines possible, since Anarchist only targets sorceries.
1. Theft back Squire. 1B
2. Play Squire. 1W
3. Bauble back Songs. 1
4. Play Songs for 21. B
5. 21 B floating. Play Dimir House Guard. 17 B floating.
6. Sac Leonin Squire.
7. 8BB for Morgue Theft; 2BB for playing Blood Celebrant, Leonin Squire, and Conjurer's Bauble back Haunting Misery. BBB left.
8. Sac out the board to House Guard.
9. Haunting Misery for 24.
4x Balustrade Spy
2x Dimir House Guard
1x Blood Celebrant
1x Leonin Squire
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Street Wraith
4x Tinder Wall
4x Wild Cantor
Other Spells
4x Cabal Ritual
4x Conjurer's Bauble
4x Dark Ritual
4x Gitaxian Probe
1x Haunting Misery
4x Land Grant
4x Lotus Petal
4x Manamorphose
2x Morgue Theft
4x Songs of the Damned
1x Forest
1x Cavern Harpy
1x Flaring Pain
2x Fog
1x Gray Merchant of Asphodel
4x Ingot Chewer
1x Mnemonic Wall
1x Pit Keeper
4x Pyroblast
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/1-land-spy-combo-without-anarchists-1/
I think that maybe a lot of the posters here have their decks on tappedout? In any case, I've been goldfishing and played a couple matches on MTGO. Actually did win a game.
1. I think that I like the Leonin Squire more than [[Anarchist]] but please convince me why it is worse, I am open to changing the slots back to Elvish Aberration and Anarchist. At a minimum, it is technically not needed in G1, so it makes the combo more clunky. I don't know that much has changed since the deck was tuned and honed.
2. Why play any forest cycler except Elvish Aberration ? It is the only one that seems to have a corner case use; tap for GGG seems like it would be more useful than reach on Pale Recluse; Valley Rannet and Wirewood Guardian are just vanilla dudes.
http://tappedout.net/mtg-forum/tappedout/api-access-with-api-key/
Is there really that little interest in this? I'm deciding where I want to store my decks and such and this seems like a no-brainer feature.
Really interested in using the api, but only ever get 401 Unauthorized.
I tried to use my apikey like:
http://tappedout.net/api/collection/collection?access_key=
But still unauthorized.
Galvanic Alchemist can also work in the slot, for 2U. Not ideal but with the creatures you given, it could serve the same function. Of course, needs to be soulbound to the mana maker, but that should not be too hard.
1. (Galvanic Alchemist + Axebane Guardian ) + (Galvanic Alchemist + Doorkeeper) + (2 other defenders) = infinite mana /infinite mill
2. (Galvanic Alchemist + Axebane Guardian ) + Doorkeeper + Momentary Blink/Ghostly Flicker + (2 other defenders) = make infinite mana w/ Axebane Guardian, blink Galvanic Alchemist to soulbond with Doorkeeper, mill out.
You could insert:
Unlike Doorkeeper, these all let you win at instant speed, vs. waiting for them to draw a card.
After playing the deck online, I like Defense Grid. I had a Twin player scoop game 2 to a resolved T2 Defense Grid; I assume she sided out the combo, so couldn't race me?
Also, I like the idea of more Serum Visions or Gitaxian Probe. Probe can with sequencing against many decks, plus dig.
I guess I'm in general agreeing that Swan Song is not helping so much against Remand into Dispel / Spell Pierce.