While I don't have the time or the desire to address each of your points individually, I would like to simply address your post, as well as the card choices you have made, in a more general manner. It seems to me that many of the cards that you have chosen to include are there in order to accumulate value over several turns. While those cards are incredibly powerful for the reasons that you have stated, from following this post and list for a while, the entire point of TrueNub's list is speed. While a smokestack is a powerful stax effect, it works slowly, only hitting each player on their upkeep, so it won't create the full stop effect that Possessed Portal does. You may say that we could play both, but the power of Arcum is that we can grab whatever answers we want. While I don't play this exact list, I often land Arcum turn 2-3, and am able to tap him that turn for a tutor. This can lead to wins the same turn, or if I didn't keep many pieces in my opener, probably a turn later. The one thing you said that I specifically want to address is what you said about the Rings/Monolith combo. While it is true that it dies to instant speed artifact destruction, it is incredibly uncommon that my opponents have some, with mana open, on turn 2-4. This may not be the case in your playgroup, but I find that most of the time the only players with mana open so early are the people playing counters. Also, most of the time, people in my playgroup use repeatable artifact/enchantment destruction as opposed to the cheaper 1-use options (Krosan Grip excepted). Additionally, if my opponent has mana open, I will always be more cautious with what I put on the table.
As I said in the previous post, I never tutor for smokestack.
The point I was making about rings-monolith wasn't that the combo is bad, but that the suggestion of "play Staff so that when you win with Rings/Monolith you are immune to disruption" is most likely wrong.
If you are consistently able to play Arcum turn 2-3 with a haste enabler and have it resolve and live (ie your opponents have no disruption) then why aren't you just playing Hermit Druid? You only have to resolve a 2 mana creature, not a 4 mana one, you don't have to have any myr in play to get it to work - sure, you can't play Druid from your command zone but there are plenty of tutors for it. The reason why I like Arcum as a commander is that tinkering into a win is a very powerful linear strategy if your opponents let you do that, but Silver Myrs are still signets and you can play reasonable attrition game if you have to, unlike Hermit which has to dedicate so many slots to the combo that it when it gets disrupted it basically folds to any follow-up play.
The reason why hermit works as a balls-out strategy is because all you have to do is tap 1 creature. Nearly every card in the list is dedicated to either eliminating the opponent's disruption or getting druid into play. It's very difficult for arcum to play a similar game:
1. You have to play artifact dorks (and tinker targets) for your tinker to work so it's impossible to have the same density of interaction/combo redundancy
2. You're restricted to mono blue so you can't play reanimation or discard
One alternative, then, when faced with disruption is to not cast Arcum at the first opportunity and try to sculpt a hand/board where you can get it into play protected later. Again, if you think this is the strategy for winning commander games then you probably should choose a different commander, because decks packing higher levels of disruption are likely to have many more options for interacting with you (by virtue of not having a deck full of myrs and 6 drops) and also be able to exploit a draw-go game state by having more plays available at instant speed. Yes, if your opponent has mana open, you want to be cautious about what you put on the table; you don't want to cast Arcum for 4 mana and have it die when you've built your deck in such a way that it's the only threatening card you have. Smokestack is a card that you don't have to be cautious about putting on the table, you just cast it and it demands an answer. If they get rid of it then you still have Arcum, plus other cards that are scary (e.g. Steel Hellkite, Shackles).
You have to play a bunch of 2 drops that tap for mana (plus junk diver etc) so why not build the deck in a way that turns that into a pro rather than a con. You have so many permanents that things like smokestack and tangle wire become pretty abusable and with the amount of acceleration you can afford to think about playing powerful cards that cost 3,4+ mana as well as spheres.
I'm willing to accept that I might be wrong, that you can win more games with Arcum by either by building 'fast' or by buildng draw-go and trying to thread the needle with a protected activation, but to me it seems that if this is the case then it's correct to just play a completely different deck.
Regarding your comments:
I never tinker up Smokestack, it's just meant to be another powerful 4 drop. If your opponents are trying for a long game and holding up removal all the time it can be very difficult to get an Arcum activation off, in which case I would rather look to have other threats rather than try to sculpt a hand with counterspells and greaves (I think if you want to play that game other generals are better at doing it).
To me it seems like you are overlooking how easy it is to interrupt the Rings/Monolith combo itself (regardless of whether you win with Top or Staff). If you have an untapped Monolith and Rings then you need 2 mana to start the combo. If I have Naturalize I will just wait until you have paid for the Rings trigger and then kill your Monolith with 2 untaps on the stack. If you still want to make infinite mana in response then you need 5 more mana to untap Monolith and pay for Rings again - a total of 7 mana plus untapped monolith to start. I don't think having such an amount of resources available is common enough for this to be an argument in favour of having staff as an alternative to top.
I don't consider Steel Hellkite as an aggro card (although you can use it as an outlet for infinite mana with the firebreathing ability and win that way) nor is it just for 'shutting down aggro', it's a 1-sided repeatable engineered explosives. It can kill artifacts, enchantments, and creatures that don't need to attack to be good. (Although if you have Bridge in your deck it might be harder to attack with it, which is a fair comment). My only problem with it is that 6 mana is a lot and it's annoying when it gets Bribery-d.
I am also concerned we don't have enough islands for Shackles but the card is so good that I wanted to try it.
Artificer's Intuition is card disadvantage because even though it sets up 1-for-1s the card itself does nothing (in the same way that Careful Study is card disadvantage). You can use the tutors to recover advantage later but this can be a bit slow. The reason why you dislike enchantments is actually not obvious and I am wondering if you can elaborate further.
In your discussion about Clock when you say "You can literally have a T3-5 board like: a few lands, Arcum, boots on Arcum, Turbine, and 2-4 dorks/tokens...nothing very threatening" that's like the ideal, perfect board (Turn 3-5 you have all of that? holy *****) and is threatening as ****. In a majority of games you could just tinker for PPortal in this situation and that would be enough to win the game by itself. Now instead imagine that you had all of that stuff and no Arcum; you would much rather Clock be a Smokestack or a Shackles or a card that does something on its own without needing some kind of super-board to work with.
I realise that Null Brooch works pretty well with Unwinding Clock, which is quite funny but I don't imagine it comes up very often.
Have you ever considered playing Engineered Explosives? It's not terrible for 0 or 1 and with the new rules change you can swap some Islands for like City of Brass to make extra colours. Or Ratchet Bomb, Powder Keg. Generally the hardest games are the ones where your opponents have Ring/Crypt and you don't and I would like some card that can disrupt these starts fairly early while still being useful in a longer game.
Hi, just found this thread linked from another site, I have played Arcum for a long time and our lists are mostly similar. (I post on the source with mrJumbo)
--- Removed ---
Svyelunite Temple
Gemstone Caverns
3 Island
Epochrasite
Lodestone
Master Transmuter
Revoker
Sage of Lat-Nam
Steel Hellkite
Artificer's Intuition
Defense Grid
Expedition Map
Guardian Idol
Mindslaver
Mox Opal
Oblivion Stone
Skullclamp
Smokestack
Sphere of Resistance
Staff of Nin
Thorn of Amethyst
Uba Mask
Vedalken Shackles
Winter Orb
----------
Some thoughts:
Svyelunite Temple is something I haven't tried, I imagine that it's okay but I wanted to avoid CIPT lands.
I agree with your reasoning for not playing Mox Diamond but then following that same logic it doesn't make sense to me that you play Gemstone Cavern AND Lotus Petal but not Mox Opal.
Sea Gate Wreckage has been pretty good for me, I think you should consider it.
I agree that if you're soft-locking someone with crucible then Strip is better than Waste (obviously), but in that case you still want to maximise your chances of drawing Strip/Waste.
Phyrexia's Core is probably the weakest colourless land but a couple of times it's been great for returning Spine (or more likely copies of spine) and for EOT sacrificing stax pieces so I can untap and go off. (One time Zedruu donated me a steel golem and I ate it, EDH is great).
I don't have any more reasons to recommend Expedition Map that haven't already been suggested, but I think the card is excellent.
In terms of protection/disruption I would rather play spheres (Lodestone/Sphere/Thorn/Orb/Grid) than counterspells. Many turns the Arcum deck only casts 0-1 spell, other decks often plan to cast many more, making the effect of the spheres asymmetric. It also breaks the symmetry of defense grid when you take all your counterspells out. Playing counters with spheres is a bit of a nonbo so you have to really pick one or the other but I have been happy with this configuration for quite a while. (Same logic applies for including Uba mask)
I agree with your initial assessment of Smokestack on an early page of this thread that it takes too long to come online if you aren't taxing your opponents mana - but my build has the spheres so it becomes much more appealing.
I consider Power Artifact, Clock of Omens, Unwinding Clock, Dross Scorpion, and Staff Of Domination to be 'combo clunk' and I don't play them for basically the same reasons that you dismissed Prototype Portal and Mirrorworks. Power Artifact is unsearchable and only goes with 2 cards to give infinite mana. You still need a third card to win the game with. Likewise, if you don't already have infinite mana, Staff sucks. If you have infinite mana by Rings/Monolith you can win the game with Top. I would play Staff if Metalworker was searchable.
It seems like Unwinding Clock and Dross Scorpion are mainly included to sustain Possessed Portal. Turbine and Crucible have always been enough for me in that regard. You don't have to keep Portal forever, just enough that you get ahead and then let it die. I can't see these 2 cards pulling their weight doing anything else either (Scorpion is a really fun card when you tinker for lattice but I think that's a bit win-more).
Clock of Omens is super fun and can be good in some situations but I think most of those are when you are already ahead. (I would be happy to be wrong here because I love this card).
I have no Torpor Orb, Null Brooch, or Ensnaring Bridge, but I have Oblivion Stone and Revoker as disruption instead. On the surface it seems that this is the kind of thing that would be a 'meta call' but I can't imagine ever cutting either of my 2, so I'm curious how strongly you feel about these 3 cards on your end.
Myr Sire vs Epochrasite isn't something I have a very strong opinion on, it might be correct to play both, or neither. Likewise I think Guardian Idol is good enough but it's not an exciting card. Karn is on my 'next thing to try' list.
I think Artificer's Intuition is very strong. I already thought it was good (Ring/Crypt are the best cards, you have plenty of utility with Needle, Map, Top, Key) but now Hangarback Walker makes it even better. I understand your concern about loss of card advantage, but Hangarback can make up for this and I also play Skullclamp. If you have Arcum online you would rather sac your Myrs to him instead but I find this card is an excellent 'plan B' if he dies a bunch of times or you have extra 1/1s.
I've never wanted the redundancy of a 2nd shoes effect.
I think Gilded Lotus is too clunky, anytime you are casting it I think you would pretty much always want it to be a card that actually does something and I can't imagine a situation where you would want to tinker it out (you mentioned the counterspell example which seems like a corner case). Is there a particular reason why you play this card and not Thran Dynamo? (I don't think you need either of them but it would help me to understand the reason for its inclusion).
Sage of Lat-Nam is a pretty minor effect but I have found it to be quite good. You have many artifacts which you don't care about at various points in the game so it often feels like a 2 mana phyrexian arena, and sometimes you get the additional utility of killing your own lockpiece or returning a Spine.
Steel Hellkite has been underwhelming for me. Master Transmuter and Shackles are recent additions so they haven't come up often enough for me to comment on them. I've been playing Mindslaver forever and it seems like a card that would be so good in this deck. Sometimes it does steal games that you just have no business winning but I don't know if it really comes up enough to be worth playing. I guess it's one of my pet cards lol.
Please excuse the wall of text. I think you have a good thread and we seem to have pretty similar ideas about how the deck plays out so I'm keen to hear your (or anyone else) comments.
Removed:
Raven’s Crime
Unearth
Wrench Mind
Read the Bones
Drown in Sorrow
Damnation
Death’s Shadow
Carnophage
Diregraf Ghoul
Augur of Skulls
Stronghold Assassin
Geralf’s Messenger
Ichorid
Shrieking Affliction
Bad Moon
Desolation
Darkblast
The Rack
Cuts:
- Raven’s Crime and Darkblast are too narrow, so is Unearth – it very rarely gets cast.
- Read the bones and Drown in Sorrow are too slow.
- Carnophage, Diregraf Ghoul, Geralf’s Messenger, and Ichorid don’t do anything except attack and in this deck this means they are only good if you are already winning.
- Likewise, The Rack and Shrieking Affliction only do something if your opponent has no cards and therefore you are probably in a good position anyway.
- Augur of Skulls would be good if you could activate the Mind Rot ability in your own mainphase.
- Wrench Mind is worse enough than Hymn that it’s not worth playing IMO.
- Stronghold Assassin is too slow.
- Bad Moon is okay but win-more and it affects your opponent’s creatures too.
- Death’s Shadow only functions as a sorcery that says B: flip your Liliana – which is actually surprisingly okay but there are better options available for this
- Desolation is the cut I am least sure of, I am not sure if the card is not good or if I am not using it in appropriate situations.
Additions:
- Snuff Out is excellent removal (Usually; sometimes this deck has problems in the Mono-black mirror due to an abundance of e.g. Shriekmaw, Dark Withering that can’t target anything).
- Kjeldoran Dead is good at attacking, blocking, and flipping Liliana.
- Hero’s Downfall because I wanted another removal spell.
- Crypt Creeper because flipping your Liliana on turn 3 or whenever you need it is great.
- Skirsdag High Priest has a very powerful ability and it’s easy to activate in this deck.
- Geth’s Verdict, Chainer’s Edict: Narset is a very hard MU.
- Ravenous Rats, Chittering Rats, Liliana’s Specter, Phyrexian Rager: the 2-for-1 grind is how this deck wins games. (This deck can use the bodies in a number of ways which makes them better than e.g. Wrench Mind imo).
- Blood Pet because it flips Liliana well and having the PW ability “-1: Add B to your mana pool” can be quite handy sometimes. Viscera Seer is here for a similar reason.
- Reassembling Skeleton is good value as a card to discard with Liliana and combos with Rusalka, Skullclamp etc.
- Brain Maggot for the same reason as Mesmeric Fiend, Ravenous Rats, etc.
- Abyssal Persecutor is added because the play of: flip Liliana, +2, next turn, -4 was a very effective way to apply pressure (with Obliterator or Desecration Demon) so it seemed fine to add another way to do this. This deck shouldn’t have problems sacrificing it to win the game.
- Toxic Deluge is an upgrade to Damnation and 1 of this effect seems like the right number.
- Stronghold Rats seems good as both an unblockable 2 power guy and for the discard, but Needle Specter or another card might be better in this slot.
Suspect matchups:
- Anything with inbuilt hate on the graveyard (Anafenza)
- Anything that can get cards for free out of the graveyard (E.g. Karador)
- Any commander that provides a massive boost by itself if the game goes long and both players flood out (Narset, Wanderer)
Most other opponents feel at least even.
Not sure if this kind of doublepost is allowed, sorry.
I've been playing quite a few more games on cockatrice and I recognise the usernames of some spectators so let me know if you have any other suggestions.
It plays like a combination of an aggro and attrition strategy. You want to play cheap creatures so something can die for Liliana to flip, and quickly emptying your hand also breaks the symmetry of the planeswalker +2 ability. Unlike Liliana of the Veil, if your opponent topdecks running lands into a fatty you don't get a free edict to kill it with, so the best way to make sure your opponent can't do that is just to keep attacking and finish them off quicker. (Liliana can help you do this of course, by adding guys to your team with the -X ability, or just attacking as a 2/3 or with the free Zombie).
The decklist is pretty self-explanatory I think, there aren't really any tricky combos or things of that nature. This means that there are many things that could be easily changed! Please feel free to make suggestions. I've been playing this deck on cockatrice a bit and this afternoon I went 2-0 against Asimov's Anafenza build with it so I think it could have some potential.
Oh great another deck creator on this forum that wins a few dailys with their deck and thinks they just broke the format with their list. This happens a lot on here and it just kills any progression on a deck because heads get big and any ideas get shot down immediately without testing and yes I'm talking to YOU. And even if my list isn't perfect at least im throwing ideas out there instead of just having a 50 page circlejerk thread going nowhere and not testing anything. And i don't know why you capitalized "EVERYTIME" because rg tron does not get tron turn 3 everytime. No deck can do something turn 3 "EVERYTIME" unless it's a land drop in a 60 land card deck. The only thing you pointed out wrong at the core of my deck is the mana base and by your logic every deck should be mono colored because i'm running 6 basics instead of 9. Maybe we should tell the WUR guys to go mono blue since it's more consistent and their mana base sucks. Karn can be any other wincon your little heart desires and just because i play cards that can fetch tron doesn't mean i forget counters and go balls to the wall timmy mode. More than often I'll play a counter before trying to rush tron especially if i dont have a wincon in my hand. The green ensures tron when I need it. If you don't believe me, test it and make a note of whatever single card replaces an old one and see if you miss having it or not.
On loam and gifts, that could work and it would need to replace existing wincons since there are enough as it is although stirrings doesn't dig for gifts unlike wurm, angel, slaver, ostone, ect. Notice how I said it could work and I do plan on trying it before calling it a "terrible list".
Well he's posted a lot more results than winning a 'few' daily events. Some thread creators don't feel the need to back up what they say with results from any event at all and most of the things that shok/khani says are backed up by at least a bit of valid reasoning. I appreciate the explanation for the snapcasters but I do have a few questions:
I can name about 5 decks in which our matchup is soley based on me getting 3 blue sources out rather quickly.
Which 5? This seems like a pretty big call to make and it seems like a rather odd thing to be so important.
I run talisman because it sets up perfect with expedition map t2
If you opened with the map you would have played it on turn 1, right? So if that happened now you have to choose between popping your map EOT or casting mainphase talisman (usually I would save the mana for map EOT and (possibly bluff) for remand/condescend). If you open with talisman and then in your turn 2 draw step you topdeck map I guess it's handy to be able to go talisman into map but this doesn't feel like enough of a reason to endorse the Talisman.
oh one last comment. those of you who feel sundering titan is underwhelming you are absolutely insane. He's hands down the biggest game changing card v 70% of the decks that are out there.
I would appreciate a bit more explanation here. Against non-path midrange decks ST seems to have a similar impact to Wurmcoil by being a big creature that's awkward to remove and trades with a bunch of their cards. Against decks with a more combo-plan ST looks like it does a similar thing to Mindslaver, by destroying a bunch of their resources. ST seems to fit a niche against UWR by being a big threat that's still bad for them if they Path it but I've often considered cutting the Titan because it seems so redundant with the other cards that we play.
Anyway congrats on the result, I'm taking this deck to a big-ish modern event at the end of the month and I hope I have just as much success with it.
I don't know how mu hthe deck has changed since seething song has been banned, but Manamorphose used to be very important due to how the combo worked.
You used to need 5 mana, 3 of which needed to be red, and the outcome would be 15 red mana. you needed to filter that into blue which allowed you to recast your gifts ungiven after a past in flames.
That was the easy kill. Its possible to kill your opponent without gifts ungiven, but its really hard to kill them without a manamorphose as you had too much red mana and not enough blue (If your trying for a turn 5/6 kill, late game storage lands fix that problem)
It is also not irrelevant that on your combo turn it is two storm. While it is possible to get to storm 20 and 60 your marty opponent, sometimes only get get about 10 storm to kill with your grapeshot due to lack of resources.
That's why I said to use Channel the Suns now that you can't play Seething Song anymore, which mostly eliminates the problem of not having mana of the right colours. LK's list originally didn't have this so I can see how Manamorphose is more important there, but once you are using Channel of the Suns you only seem to want 1 free cantrip in the deck to put in gifts piles with Noxious Revival and it doesn't really make too much difference which one you use.
___________________________________________
I'm pretty frustrated at all the "lol if you aren't winning with this list then it's obviously too hard to play for you" circlejerk posts in this thread. Look at LKs post at the top of page 33 in response to whether the deck is still playable after the SS ban.
Short answer: yes. Long answer: Well, it's a lot tougher to play, because there isn't a standard gifts pile to win you the game anymore and you aren't as fast, so your play has to be even tighter and you have to reach near-Doomsday levels of tutor mastery to reliably go off. The Jury's still out as to whether that makes the deck unpilotable for new players, but I think it'll turn out still being good enough to play.
How does this even make sense? SS was part of your main combo, so banning it obviously made the deck worse. Either the deck is now worse to the point of being unplayable, or the deck still functions (in a worse way) using some other combo plan. It is not a harder-to-play version of the same deck. When they banned Second Sunrise I don't think anybody here would have said something like "Well you just have to play Open the Vaults in Eggs now. You need a lot more mana to go off than before so you need to run Krark Clan Ironworks now and you can't loop as easily. The deck is still just as good as it was pre-ban, but people aren't putting up results with it because it's so hard to play now". That's just utter nonsense.
There's a similar post (Unkyunk vs LK on page 12) where the viability of this deck is questioned relative to a more traditional storm deck, and the issue is dismissed with more rubbish.
Nobody wants to play a worse something else, so the first two things people will ask after seeing this deck are:
A) If I'm going to be winning with Desperate Ritual is this really better than the Portland-Finkel deck?
B) If I'm playing Gifts Ungiven would I be better off playing a pure control deck with Loam, Lingering Souls etc?
Because these two decks both have proven records in large tournaments.
The only way you can convince people that Ritual Gifts is viable is with tournament reports. Every tournament result pre-SS ban (which is most of the thread) is almost irrelevant now, because nobody has demonstrated that the deck is able to function at the same level while missing this key card. I don't believe there were any major successes for this deck at a GP or PTQ level even with Seething Song.
The reason why I'm placing such emphasis on results is because there doesn't seem to be any way to have a legitimate discussion; anything INS or LK says is taken as gospel and any critique or counter-theorycrafting is met with 'gg nub you obviously aren't good enough to understand'.
I'm posting in the thread because I want the deck to be good, I like the idea of a control deck winning with storm. I'm just not seeing it.
Newcomer to this thread: I like Past in Flames, Gifts Ungiven and Grapeshot so if I can play them all in one deck that seems cool.
I took the list from Karona's blog post and goldfished it a bit. I have some questions.
Is Plasm Capture really that good? Mana Drain is a much better card because it only costs 2: the chance of countering a spell that cost more than it and therefore accelerating you is much higher than with plasm capture (it also makes it a better counterspell because you can deal with threats earlier). In this deck the biggest thing you can ramp into is either a Gifts Ungiven or a PiF, both of which cost 4+ mana. Gifts Ungiven is an instant, so how often is Plasm Capture simply a worse Rewind? (Given that you tapped 4 lands to counter a spell possibly costing 3 or less). If you Gifts into the combo, untap, pass, Plasm Capture their next thing, then use the extra mana to go off, that seems like the best use for the card, but that seems extremely unwieldy and slow.
This brings me to my next point: Is this just a worse version of Gifts Rock? (The UGWB Deathrite, Lingering Souls, Unburial Rites, Loam, Removal, Discard control deck). It is able to fit more disruption because it doesn't have to devote around 10+ slots to comboing off. If you see an opening for Unburial Rites -> Fatty then that play will normally be just as lethal as a big storm count and even if you can't you still have the option of Giftsing for value, binning stuff like Lingering Souls, Life from the Loam, etc. Getting to 4 mana, gifts for Rites+Fatty, untapping and using that same 4 mana to seal the deal is so much easier than having to use extra rituals and things to get to PiF mana so that your combo can start.
Apart from these more overall issues I had some problems with specific cards:
-Desolate Lighthouse and basic Mountain are bad because they don't cast plasm capture.
-I don't see the reason for Burst of Speed + Empty: why not just Flashback all your rituals with PiF and then remand your Grapeshot?
-Why aren't you playing Channel the Suns?
-Why are there 3 maindeck Manamorphose? You can cast all your spells off your lands. If you play Channel the Suns it further alleviates the problem of "I burned all my coloured mana into rituals and now I only have Red". This isn't a deck that's trying to chain 20 spells from its hand into a Grapeshot so it seems unnecessary to have 3 free cantrips in the deck that don't do much of anything. They could be cut for more disruption (althought I would still keep 1, or a Gitaxian Probe for Gifts Pile reasons)
-1 of the flex slots should probably be an Electrolyze
Maybe you can post a video of you playing some games? I just can't see how the deck is really as strong as your article implies.
Would Aether Spellbomb be a playable card? The small speedbump for the opponent could be good in the matchups against fast aggro decks. (I'm thinking either in the Repeal or Talisman slots)
Pros:
-Artifact (pitches to TFK, Recurrable by academy ruins)
-Still cantrips in the MUs where repeal is bad/awkward
-Is cheaper or equal to the cost of a repeal when you're targeting a non-ornithopter (This is also relevant for curve reasons being able to go Talisman into spellbomb or turn 1 spellbomb when you don't have a map, turn 1 spellbomb into turn 2 Talisman leaving up bomb activation etc)
-Hits Teeg (unlike repeal)
-Hits Emrakul, Iona (unlike everything)
-Hits manland (unlike repeal)
Cons:
-Artifact (Stony Silence turns it off)
-If you bounce something with it you don't get to draw a card
-Only bounces creatures
Has anyone considered this? It seems reasonable
EDIT:
I'm quite liking this
It's better against controlly MUs because it just cycles and you don't have to worry about finding a target or paying a lot of mana.
Against aggro MUs it seems like being able to just pay 1 and bounce anything is more crucial than the extra card the repeal would give you. (I just took the shoktroopa 'stock list' and cut 3 repeals for spellbombs)
Against the more midrangey part of the spectrum it's probably worse but that seems like a sacrifice that's worth making in this instance
The line "when ~ attacks and isn't blocked" is meant to check whether the creature is attacking or not. The entire ability triggers and resolves in the declare blockers step.
The "when this attacks... [ability]" does create a bit of ambiguity as the above poster has highlighted but having something along the lines of "when this isn't blocked, [ability]" also is weird. Is it considered not blocked if it didn't attack? Is it considered not blocked in my upkeep? Etc
There are quite a few cards already printed with this line of text so it's not like there isn't precedent to this specific scenario.
TL : DR 'TheLizard' is correct
EDIT: Partially nathed by delost
The idea is that Aggro decks (Lyzolda?) and other Tempo decks (Geist?) lose to infinite Electrickeries (It also makes things hard for like Azami and Elves, I guess), and decks with more expensive cards lose to counterspells and a relatively quick clock.
The list is obviously not optimal, to start with I was like "lolol, add this spell for sure, it's blue AND red!" (Weirds) and towards the end of this list I just started running out of ideas so added in whatever card seemed okay. (Incinerate, Vapor Snag)
I've used a similar build on cockatrice 1v1s in 40-life mode to reasonable success so I reckon it can work rather well.
Cockatrice is used to be good, but I always kicked out after some minutes logging in. It makes me very sad since I have difficulty to play Magic in real life
I'm also having this problem
When trying to connect it often fails and returns the message "server timeout", and when I do connect the same thing often happens mid game (to the point that playing more than one game of a match before being dropped out of the server is rare).
Does anyone know if there is a fix for this or if it is a server-side issue when it is going to be fixed?
I've seen plenty of logic in what you've been saying, but very little reason. I see you trying very hard to justify and rationalize an abhorrent practice. Marking up a product just because the market can sustain that price may be a logical business decision, but it's not in the best interest of your customers, is it? And no, you're not "required" to act in the best interest of your customers, but I'm sure they'd appreciate it if you did. I, for one, consider myself lucky that you don't own MY LGS. Or do you? I can't seem to find much information about which store you're affiliated with.
I think you're confused about the idea of 'not in the best interest of the customers'. It's a nice-sounding emotive phrase, but if you aren't buying the things then you aren't even a customer in the first place. "This company is not good to is customers" is not the same as "I don't buy their stuff because I think it's too expensive".
The choice to price up the product to meet demand is simple economics. If you want him to sell his stuff for cheap, obviously the demand is going to be huge - how do you propose he distributes the stock?
If you really want something to get sore about then I would be very concerned about the string of wizards' recent decisions showing a philosophy of 'our players enjoy scarcity', especially regarding the reserved list and the release of several new products including this one.
As the lead developer for MTG Familiar, I've gotta push that one. It has the most advanced offline search on android, it pulls prices from TCGPlayer, and its continuously updated. you can even request features, and I'll see what I can do about it. Check out the google code page and submit ideas here: google.com/p/mtg-familiar/
One problem with the search on this is that it will only search for an exact phrase
Eg If I'm searching card text, "Counter spell" returns no results, but
"Counter target spell" does - and some cards I might want to find will not appear e.g. Negate.
I like the interface more than MTG tracker and the card search is still better but I wonder how hard this feature would be to change?
EDIT
I just downloaded mtgdroid and it also has this problem
And your google URL gave me a 404
As I said in the previous post, I never tutor for smokestack.
The point I was making about rings-monolith wasn't that the combo is bad, but that the suggestion of "play Staff so that when you win with Rings/Monolith you are immune to disruption" is most likely wrong.
If you are consistently able to play Arcum turn 2-3 with a haste enabler and have it resolve and live (ie your opponents have no disruption) then why aren't you just playing Hermit Druid? You only have to resolve a 2 mana creature, not a 4 mana one, you don't have to have any myr in play to get it to work - sure, you can't play Druid from your command zone but there are plenty of tutors for it. The reason why I like Arcum as a commander is that tinkering into a win is a very powerful linear strategy if your opponents let you do that, but Silver Myrs are still signets and you can play reasonable attrition game if you have to, unlike Hermit which has to dedicate so many slots to the combo that it when it gets disrupted it basically folds to any follow-up play.
The reason why hermit works as a balls-out strategy is because all you have to do is tap 1 creature. Nearly every card in the list is dedicated to either eliminating the opponent's disruption or getting druid into play. It's very difficult for arcum to play a similar game:
1. You have to play artifact dorks (and tinker targets) for your tinker to work so it's impossible to have the same density of interaction/combo redundancy
2. You're restricted to mono blue so you can't play reanimation or discard
One alternative, then, when faced with disruption is to not cast Arcum at the first opportunity and try to sculpt a hand/board where you can get it into play protected later. Again, if you think this is the strategy for winning commander games then you probably should choose a different commander, because decks packing higher levels of disruption are likely to have many more options for interacting with you (by virtue of not having a deck full of myrs and 6 drops) and also be able to exploit a draw-go game state by having more plays available at instant speed. Yes, if your opponent has mana open, you want to be cautious about what you put on the table; you don't want to cast Arcum for 4 mana and have it die when you've built your deck in such a way that it's the only threatening card you have. Smokestack is a card that you don't have to be cautious about putting on the table, you just cast it and it demands an answer. If they get rid of it then you still have Arcum, plus other cards that are scary (e.g. Steel Hellkite, Shackles).
You have to play a bunch of 2 drops that tap for mana (plus junk diver etc) so why not build the deck in a way that turns that into a pro rather than a con. You have so many permanents that things like smokestack and tangle wire become pretty abusable and with the amount of acceleration you can afford to think about playing powerful cards that cost 3,4+ mana as well as spheres.
I'm willing to accept that I might be wrong, that you can win more games with Arcum by either by building 'fast' or by buildng draw-go and trying to thread the needle with a protected activation, but to me it seems that if this is the case then it's correct to just play a completely different deck.
The commander board on that site is pretty dead (it's almost meant exclusively for legacy) so there's no point checking it often.
Regarding your comments:
I never tinker up Smokestack, it's just meant to be another powerful 4 drop. If your opponents are trying for a long game and holding up removal all the time it can be very difficult to get an Arcum activation off, in which case I would rather look to have other threats rather than try to sculpt a hand with counterspells and greaves (I think if you want to play that game other generals are better at doing it).
To me it seems like you are overlooking how easy it is to interrupt the Rings/Monolith combo itself (regardless of whether you win with Top or Staff). If you have an untapped Monolith and Rings then you need 2 mana to start the combo. If I have Naturalize I will just wait until you have paid for the Rings trigger and then kill your Monolith with 2 untaps on the stack. If you still want to make infinite mana in response then you need 5 more mana to untap Monolith and pay for Rings again - a total of 7 mana plus untapped monolith to start. I don't think having such an amount of resources available is common enough for this to be an argument in favour of having staff as an alternative to top.
I don't consider Steel Hellkite as an aggro card (although you can use it as an outlet for infinite mana with the firebreathing ability and win that way) nor is it just for 'shutting down aggro', it's a 1-sided repeatable engineered explosives. It can kill artifacts, enchantments, and creatures that don't need to attack to be good. (Although if you have Bridge in your deck it might be harder to attack with it, which is a fair comment). My only problem with it is that 6 mana is a lot and it's annoying when it gets Bribery-d.
I am also concerned we don't have enough islands for Shackles but the card is so good that I wanted to try it.
Artificer's Intuition is card disadvantage because even though it sets up 1-for-1s the card itself does nothing (in the same way that Careful Study is card disadvantage). You can use the tutors to recover advantage later but this can be a bit slow. The reason why you dislike enchantments is actually not obvious and I am wondering if you can elaborate further.
In your discussion about Clock when you say "You can literally have a T3-5 board like: a few lands, Arcum, boots on Arcum, Turbine, and 2-4 dorks/tokens...nothing very threatening" that's like the ideal, perfect board (Turn 3-5 you have all of that? holy *****) and is threatening as ****. In a majority of games you could just tinker for PPortal in this situation and that would be enough to win the game by itself. Now instead imagine that you had all of that stuff and no Arcum; you would much rather Clock be a Smokestack or a Shackles or a card that does something on its own without needing some kind of super-board to work with.
I realise that Null Brooch works pretty well with Unwinding Clock, which is quite funny but I don't imagine it comes up very often.
Have you ever considered playing Engineered Explosives? It's not terrible for 0 or 1 and with the new rules change you can swap some Islands for like City of Brass to make extra colours. Or Ratchet Bomb, Powder Keg. Generally the hardest games are the ones where your opponents have Ring/Crypt and you don't and I would like some card that can disrupt these starts fairly early while still being useful in a longer game.
--- Removed ---
Svyelunite Temple
Gemstone Caverns
3 Island
Dross Scorpion
Karn
Myr Sire
Counterspell
FoF
Muddle
Negate
Pact
Swansong
Thirst
Power Artifact
Clock of Omens
Ensnaring Bridge
Gilded Lotus
Lotus Petal
Null Brooch
Staff of Domination
Swiftfoot Boots
Torpor Orb
Unwinding Clock
--- Added ---
Wasteland
Sea Gate Wreckage
Darksteel Citadel
Phyrexia's Core
Epochrasite
Lodestone
Master Transmuter
Revoker
Sage of Lat-Nam
Steel Hellkite
Artificer's Intuition
Defense Grid
Expedition Map
Guardian Idol
Mindslaver
Mox Opal
Oblivion Stone
Skullclamp
Smokestack
Sphere of Resistance
Staff of Nin
Thorn of Amethyst
Uba Mask
Vedalken Shackles
Winter Orb
----------
Some thoughts:
Svyelunite Temple is something I haven't tried, I imagine that it's okay but I wanted to avoid CIPT lands.
I agree with your reasoning for not playing Mox Diamond but then following that same logic it doesn't make sense to me that you play Gemstone Cavern AND Lotus Petal but not Mox Opal.
Sea Gate Wreckage has been pretty good for me, I think you should consider it.
I agree that if you're soft-locking someone with crucible then Strip is better than Waste (obviously), but in that case you still want to maximise your chances of drawing Strip/Waste.
Phyrexia's Core is probably the weakest colourless land but a couple of times it's been great for returning Spine (or more likely copies of spine) and for EOT sacrificing stax pieces so I can untap and go off. (One time Zedruu donated me a steel golem and I ate it, EDH is great).
I don't have any more reasons to recommend Expedition Map that haven't already been suggested, but I think the card is excellent.
In terms of protection/disruption I would rather play spheres (Lodestone/Sphere/Thorn/Orb/Grid) than counterspells. Many turns the Arcum deck only casts 0-1 spell, other decks often plan to cast many more, making the effect of the spheres asymmetric. It also breaks the symmetry of defense grid when you take all your counterspells out. Playing counters with spheres is a bit of a nonbo so you have to really pick one or the other but I have been happy with this configuration for quite a while. (Same logic applies for including Uba mask)
I agree with your initial assessment of Smokestack on an early page of this thread that it takes too long to come online if you aren't taxing your opponents mana - but my build has the spheres so it becomes much more appealing.
I consider Power Artifact, Clock of Omens, Unwinding Clock, Dross Scorpion, and Staff Of Domination to be 'combo clunk' and I don't play them for basically the same reasons that you dismissed Prototype Portal and Mirrorworks. Power Artifact is unsearchable and only goes with 2 cards to give infinite mana. You still need a third card to win the game with. Likewise, if you don't already have infinite mana, Staff sucks. If you have infinite mana by Rings/Monolith you can win the game with Top. I would play Staff if Metalworker was searchable.
It seems like Unwinding Clock and Dross Scorpion are mainly included to sustain Possessed Portal. Turbine and Crucible have always been enough for me in that regard. You don't have to keep Portal forever, just enough that you get ahead and then let it die. I can't see these 2 cards pulling their weight doing anything else either (Scorpion is a really fun card when you tinker for lattice but I think that's a bit win-more).
Clock of Omens is super fun and can be good in some situations but I think most of those are when you are already ahead. (I would be happy to be wrong here because I love this card).
I have no Torpor Orb, Null Brooch, or Ensnaring Bridge, but I have Oblivion Stone and Revoker as disruption instead. On the surface it seems that this is the kind of thing that would be a 'meta call' but I can't imagine ever cutting either of my 2, so I'm curious how strongly you feel about these 3 cards on your end.
Myr Sire vs Epochrasite isn't something I have a very strong opinion on, it might be correct to play both, or neither. Likewise I think Guardian Idol is good enough but it's not an exciting card. Karn is on my 'next thing to try' list.
I think Artificer's Intuition is very strong. I already thought it was good (Ring/Crypt are the best cards, you have plenty of utility with Needle, Map, Top, Key) but now Hangarback Walker makes it even better. I understand your concern about loss of card advantage, but Hangarback can make up for this and I also play Skullclamp. If you have Arcum online you would rather sac your Myrs to him instead but I find this card is an excellent 'plan B' if he dies a bunch of times or you have extra 1/1s.
I've never wanted the redundancy of a 2nd shoes effect.
I think Gilded Lotus is too clunky, anytime you are casting it I think you would pretty much always want it to be a card that actually does something and I can't imagine a situation where you would want to tinker it out (you mentioned the counterspell example which seems like a corner case). Is there a particular reason why you play this card and not Thran Dynamo? (I don't think you need either of them but it would help me to understand the reason for its inclusion).
Sage of Lat-Nam is a pretty minor effect but I have found it to be quite good. You have many artifacts which you don't care about at various points in the game so it often feels like a 2 mana phyrexian arena, and sometimes you get the additional utility of killing your own lockpiece or returning a Spine.
Steel Hellkite has been underwhelming for me. Master Transmuter and Shackles are recent additions so they haven't come up often enough for me to comment on them. I've been playing Mindslaver forever and it seems like a card that would be so good in this deck. Sometimes it does steal games that you just have no business winning but I don't know if it really comes up enough to be worth playing. I guess it's one of my pet cards lol.
Please excuse the wall of text. I think you have a good thread and we seem to have pretty similar ideas about how the deck plays out so I'm keen to hear your (or anyone else) comments.
1 Snuff Out
1 Kjeldoran Dead
1 Hero's Downfall
1 Crypt Creeper
1 Skirsdag High Priest
1 Geth's Verdict
1 Ravenous Rats
1 Blood Pet
1 Reassembling Skeleton
1 Brain Maggot
1 Viscera Seer
1 Abyssal Persecutor
1 Liliana's Specter
1 Chittering Rats
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Phyrexian Rager
1 Chainer's Edict
1 Stronghold Rats
Removed:
Raven’s Crime
Unearth
Wrench Mind
Read the Bones
Drown in Sorrow
Damnation
Death’s Shadow
Carnophage
Diregraf Ghoul
Augur of Skulls
Stronghold Assassin
Geralf’s Messenger
Ichorid
Shrieking Affliction
Bad Moon
Desolation
Darkblast
The Rack
Cuts:
- Raven’s Crime and Darkblast are too narrow, so is Unearth – it very rarely gets cast.
- Read the bones and Drown in Sorrow are too slow.
- Carnophage, Diregraf Ghoul, Geralf’s Messenger, and Ichorid don’t do anything except attack and in this deck this means they are only good if you are already winning.
- Likewise, The Rack and Shrieking Affliction only do something if your opponent has no cards and therefore you are probably in a good position anyway.
- Augur of Skulls would be good if you could activate the Mind Rot ability in your own mainphase.
- Wrench Mind is worse enough than Hymn that it’s not worth playing IMO.
- Stronghold Assassin is too slow.
- Bad Moon is okay but win-more and it affects your opponent’s creatures too.
- Death’s Shadow only functions as a sorcery that says B: flip your Liliana – which is actually surprisingly okay but there are better options available for this
- Desolation is the cut I am least sure of, I am not sure if the card is not good or if I am not using it in appropriate situations.
Additions:
- Snuff Out is excellent removal (Usually; sometimes this deck has problems in the Mono-black mirror due to an abundance of e.g. Shriekmaw, Dark Withering that can’t target anything).
- Kjeldoran Dead is good at attacking, blocking, and flipping Liliana.
- Hero’s Downfall because I wanted another removal spell.
- Crypt Creeper because flipping your Liliana on turn 3 or whenever you need it is great.
- Skirsdag High Priest has a very powerful ability and it’s easy to activate in this deck.
- Geth’s Verdict, Chainer’s Edict: Narset is a very hard MU.
- Ravenous Rats, Chittering Rats, Liliana’s Specter, Phyrexian Rager: the 2-for-1 grind is how this deck wins games. (This deck can use the bodies in a number of ways which makes them better than e.g. Wrench Mind imo).
- Blood Pet because it flips Liliana well and having the PW ability “-1: Add B to your mana pool” can be quite handy sometimes. Viscera Seer is here for a similar reason.
- Reassembling Skeleton is good value as a card to discard with Liliana and combos with Rusalka, Skullclamp etc.
- Brain Maggot for the same reason as Mesmeric Fiend, Ravenous Rats, etc.
- Abyssal Persecutor is added because the play of: flip Liliana, +2, next turn, -4 was a very effective way to apply pressure (with Obliterator or Desecration Demon) so it seemed fine to add another way to do this. This deck shouldn’t have problems sacrificing it to win the game.
- Toxic Deluge is an upgrade to Damnation and 1 of this effect seems like the right number.
- Stronghold Rats seems good as both an unblockable 2 power guy and for the discard, but Needle Specter or another card might be better in this slot.
Suspect matchups:
- Anything with inbuilt hate on the graveyard (Anafenza)
- Anything that can get cards for free out of the graveyard (E.g. Karador)
- Any commander that provides a massive boost by itself if the game goes long and both players flood out (Narset, Wanderer)
Most other opponents feel at least even.
Not sure if this kind of doublepost is allowed, sorry.
I've been playing quite a few more games on cockatrice and I recognise the usernames of some spectators so let me know if you have any other suggestions.
The decklist is pretty self-explanatory I think, there aren't really any tricky combos or things of that nature. This means that there are many things that could be easily changed! Please feel free to make suggestions. I've been playing this deck on cockatrice a bit and this afternoon I went 2-0 against Asimov's Anafenza build with it so I think it could have some potential.
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Thoughtseize
1 Duress
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Innocent Blood
1 Call to the Netherworld
1 Unearth
1 Wrench Mind
1 Hymn to Tourach
1 Smallpox
1 Sinkhole
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Sign in Blood
1 Night's Whisper
1 Pox
1 Read the Bones
1 Drown in Sorrow
1 Damnation
1 Death's Shadow
1 Gravecrawler
1 Carnophage
1 Carrion Feeder
1 Diregraf Ghoul
1 Plagued Rusalka
1 Fume Spitter
1 Soldevi Adnate
1 Vampire Hexmage
1 Rotting Rats
1 Augur of Skulls
1 Mesmeric Fiend
1 Pain Seer
1 Dark Confidant
1 Abyssal Gatekeeper
1 Shriekmaw
1 Hypnotic Specter
1 Stronghold Assassin
1 Fleshbag Marauder
1 Geralf's Messenger
1 Desecration Demon
1 Phyrexian Obliterator
1 Ichorid
1 Street Wraith
1 Bitterblossom
1 Waste Not
1 Bad Moon
1 Desolation
1 Dark Ritual
1 Funeral Charm
1 Disfigure
1 Ulcerate
1 Darkblast
1 Tragic Slip
1 Go for the Throat
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Dismember
1 Dark Withering
1 Skullclamp
1 Cursed Scroll
1 The Rack
33 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Mishra's Factory
1 Mutavault
1 Wasteland
1 Tectonic Edge
I had a peek back at this forum after not following it for a long time and it might have rekindled my interest.
I've never watched games casted on cockatrice before, but I enjoyed it - keep it up
Well he's posted a lot more results than winning a 'few' daily events. Some thread creators don't feel the need to back up what they say with results from any event at all and most of the things that shok/khani says are backed up by at least a bit of valid reasoning. I appreciate the explanation for the snapcasters but I do have a few questions:
Which 5? This seems like a pretty big call to make and it seems like a rather odd thing to be so important.
If you opened with the map you would have played it on turn 1, right? So if that happened now you have to choose between popping your map EOT or casting mainphase talisman (usually I would save the mana for map EOT and (possibly bluff) for remand/condescend). If you open with talisman and then in your turn 2 draw step you topdeck map I guess it's handy to be able to go talisman into map but this doesn't feel like enough of a reason to endorse the Talisman.
I would appreciate a bit more explanation here. Against non-path midrange decks ST seems to have a similar impact to Wurmcoil by being a big creature that's awkward to remove and trades with a bunch of their cards. Against decks with a more combo-plan ST looks like it does a similar thing to Mindslaver, by destroying a bunch of their resources. ST seems to fit a niche against UWR by being a big threat that's still bad for them if they Path it but I've often considered cutting the Titan because it seems so redundant with the other cards that we play.
Anyway congrats on the result, I'm taking this deck to a big-ish modern event at the end of the month and I hope I have just as much success with it.
That's why I said to use Channel the Suns now that you can't play Seething Song anymore, which mostly eliminates the problem of not having mana of the right colours. LK's list originally didn't have this so I can see how Manamorphose is more important there, but once you are using Channel of the Suns you only seem to want 1 free cantrip in the deck to put in gifts piles with Noxious Revival and it doesn't really make too much difference which one you use.
___________________________________________
I'm pretty frustrated at all the "lol if you aren't winning with this list then it's obviously too hard to play for you" circlejerk posts in this thread. Look at LKs post at the top of page 33 in response to whether the deck is still playable after the SS ban.
How does this even make sense? SS was part of your main combo, so banning it obviously made the deck worse. Either the deck is now worse to the point of being unplayable, or the deck still functions (in a worse way) using some other combo plan. It is not a harder-to-play version of the same deck. When they banned Second Sunrise I don't think anybody here would have said something like "Well you just have to play Open the Vaults in Eggs now. You need a lot more mana to go off than before so you need to run Krark Clan Ironworks now and you can't loop as easily. The deck is still just as good as it was pre-ban, but people aren't putting up results with it because it's so hard to play now". That's just utter nonsense.
There's a similar post (Unkyunk vs LK on page 12) where the viability of this deck is questioned relative to a more traditional storm deck, and the issue is dismissed with more rubbish.
Nobody wants to play a worse something else, so the first two things people will ask after seeing this deck are:
A) If I'm going to be winning with Desperate Ritual is this really better than the Portland-Finkel deck?
B) If I'm playing Gifts Ungiven would I be better off playing a pure control deck with Loam, Lingering Souls etc?
Because these two decks both have proven records in large tournaments.
The only way you can convince people that Ritual Gifts is viable is with tournament reports. Every tournament result pre-SS ban (which is most of the thread) is almost irrelevant now, because nobody has demonstrated that the deck is able to function at the same level while missing this key card. I don't believe there were any major successes for this deck at a GP or PTQ level even with Seething Song.
The reason why I'm placing such emphasis on results is because there doesn't seem to be any way to have a legitimate discussion; anything INS or LK says is taken as gospel and any critique or counter-theorycrafting is met with 'gg nub you obviously aren't good enough to understand'.
I'm posting in the thread because I want the deck to be good, I like the idea of a control deck winning with storm. I'm just not seeing it.
I took the list from Karona's blog post and goldfished it a bit. I have some questions.
Is Plasm Capture really that good? Mana Drain is a much better card because it only costs 2: the chance of countering a spell that cost more than it and therefore accelerating you is much higher than with plasm capture (it also makes it a better counterspell because you can deal with threats earlier). In this deck the biggest thing you can ramp into is either a Gifts Ungiven or a PiF, both of which cost 4+ mana. Gifts Ungiven is an instant, so how often is Plasm Capture simply a worse Rewind? (Given that you tapped 4 lands to counter a spell possibly costing 3 or less). If you Gifts into the combo, untap, pass, Plasm Capture their next thing, then use the extra mana to go off, that seems like the best use for the card, but that seems extremely unwieldy and slow.
This brings me to my next point: Is this just a worse version of Gifts Rock? (The UGWB Deathrite, Lingering Souls, Unburial Rites, Loam, Removal, Discard control deck). It is able to fit more disruption because it doesn't have to devote around 10+ slots to comboing off. If you see an opening for Unburial Rites -> Fatty then that play will normally be just as lethal as a big storm count and even if you can't you still have the option of Giftsing for value, binning stuff like Lingering Souls, Life from the Loam, etc. Getting to 4 mana, gifts for Rites+Fatty, untapping and using that same 4 mana to seal the deal is so much easier than having to use extra rituals and things to get to PiF mana so that your combo can start.
Apart from these more overall issues I had some problems with specific cards:
-Desolate Lighthouse and basic Mountain are bad because they don't cast plasm capture.
-I don't see the reason for Burst of Speed + Empty: why not just Flashback all your rituals with PiF and then remand your Grapeshot?
-Why aren't you playing Channel the Suns?
-Why are there 3 maindeck Manamorphose? You can cast all your spells off your lands. If you play Channel the Suns it further alleviates the problem of "I burned all my coloured mana into rituals and now I only have Red". This isn't a deck that's trying to chain 20 spells from its hand into a Grapeshot so it seems unnecessary to have 3 free cantrips in the deck that don't do much of anything. They could be cut for more disruption (althought I would still keep 1, or a Gitaxian Probe for Gifts Pile reasons)
-1 of the flex slots should probably be an Electrolyze
Maybe you can post a video of you playing some games? I just can't see how the deck is really as strong as your article implies.
Pros:
-Artifact (pitches to TFK, Recurrable by academy ruins)
-Still cantrips in the MUs where repeal is bad/awkward
-Is cheaper or equal to the cost of a repeal when you're targeting a non-ornithopter (This is also relevant for curve reasons being able to go Talisman into spellbomb or turn 1 spellbomb when you don't have a map, turn 1 spellbomb into turn 2 Talisman leaving up bomb activation etc)
-Hits Teeg (unlike repeal)
-Hits Emrakul, Iona (unlike everything)
-Hits manland (unlike repeal)
Cons:
-Artifact (Stony Silence turns it off)
-If you bounce something with it you don't get to draw a card
-Only bounces creatures
Has anyone considered this? It seems reasonable
EDIT:
I'm quite liking this
It's better against controlly MUs because it just cycles and you don't have to worry about finding a target or paying a lot of mana.
Against aggro MUs it seems like being able to just pay 1 and bounce anything is more crucial than the extra card the repeal would give you. (I just took the shoktroopa 'stock list' and cut 3 repeals for spellbombs)
Against the more midrangey part of the spectrum it's probably worse but that seems like a sacrifice that's worth making in this instance
The "when this attacks... [ability]" does create a bit of ambiguity as the above poster has highlighted but having something along the lines of "when this isn't blocked, [ability]" also is weird. Is it considered not blocked if it didn't attack? Is it considered not blocked in my upkeep? Etc
There are quite a few cards already printed with this line of text so it's not like there isn't precedent to this specific scenario.
TL : DR 'TheLizard' is correct
EDIT: Partially nathed by delost
The idea is that Aggro decks (Lyzolda?) and other Tempo decks (Geist?) lose to infinite Electrickeries (It also makes things hard for like Azami and Elves, I guess), and decks with more expensive cards lose to counterspells and a relatively quick clock.
The list is obviously not optimal, to start with I was like "lolol, add this spell for sure, it's blue AND red!" (Weirds) and towards the end of this list I just started running out of ideas so added in whatever card seemed okay. (Incinerate, Vapor Snag)
I've used a similar build on cockatrice 1v1s in 40-life mode to reasonable success so I reckon it can work rather well.
Let me know what you think
Edited for card tags
I'm also having this problem
When trying to connect it often fails and returns the message "server timeout", and when I do connect the same thing often happens mid game (to the point that playing more than one game of a match before being dropped out of the server is rare).
Does anyone know if there is a fix for this or if it is a server-side issue when it is going to be fixed?
I think you're confused about the idea of 'not in the best interest of the customers'. It's a nice-sounding emotive phrase, but if you aren't buying the things then you aren't even a customer in the first place. "This company is not good to is customers" is not the same as "I don't buy their stuff because I think it's too expensive".
The choice to price up the product to meet demand is simple economics. If you want him to sell his stuff for cheap, obviously the demand is going to be huge - how do you propose he distributes the stock?
If you really want something to get sore about then I would be very concerned about the string of wizards' recent decisions showing a philosophy of 'our players enjoy scarcity', especially regarding the reserved list and the release of several new products including this one.
One problem with the search on this is that it will only search for an exact phrase
Eg If I'm searching card text, "Counter spell" returns no results, but
"Counter target spell" does - and some cards I might want to find will not appear e.g. Negate.
I like the interface more than MTG tracker and the card search is still better but I wonder how hard this feature would be to change?
EDIT
I just downloaded mtgdroid and it also has this problem
And your google URL gave me a 404