I'm attempting to break Carnival of Souls... Any helpers?

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Dune Echo

Guest
Okay, I've come up with a few ideas here:

I think a deck with Carnival of Souls should try to offset the disadvantage of life-loss while taking advantage of getting mana back per creature spell.

First, I'd start with an assortment of extremely good and cheap black or artifact creatures:
4 Black Knight
4 Sarcomancy
4 Dauthi Slayer
4 Carnophage
2 Phyrexian Negator
2 Unholy Strength

Fast Mana:
4 Dark Ritual (this is casual, who cares if it's banned in 1.X, right?)
4 Carnival of Souls

Drawback balancer:
4 Drain Life
4 Congregate
4 Soul Warden
(Here's my secret "tech") 2 Horn of Plenty

The Horn allows for a mana sink, when you can get it into play because it is essentially a new version of Necropotence for each player. So, the question to me, is how to get this into play fast, along with Carnival of Souls to keep your hand full and to use as a mana sink for the Carnival of Souls. Maybe I should go over the ideal 60 cards and include something for fast mana. Charcoal Diamonds maybe? Anyone have any ideas? Maybe I should include 2 more Horns? But if the deck gets to big, your chances of drawing the Horn, Carnival, and enough resources decreases.


[Edited by Dune Echo (03-23-2000 at 10:54 AM).]
 
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Gizmo

Guest
I think that Carnival is a stronger bet for some sort of Foster or Saproling Cluster combo. Alternately you can put into Living Death decks to generate Infinite mana loops (Anarchist and Soul Warden needed - but that`s what Survival is for, isn`t it?).
The problem with playing it in aggro black is that by taking a turn out to play it you largely negate the speed boost it then gives you:

Without Carnival
Carnophage
Black Knight
Sarcomancy, Dauthi Slayer
Turn 3 you`ve pretty much dumped all yor creatures out.

With Carnival
Carnophage
Carnival
Sarcomancy, Black Knight, Dauthi Slayer
Turn 3 all your creature are there, and now you are 3 life and a card down on the deal.
 
D

Dune Echo

Guest
LOL! It was just an idea! Oh well. David, do you have any ideas in regards to that Living Death version? When you Living Death, do you get to choose the order creatures come into play, or do they get dumped all at once, thus negating Soul Warden's ability. I really want to break this card and I think Horn of Plenty has lots of possiblities. Any ideas on that card as well?
 
Z

Zadok001

Guest
I think the Living Death thing works identically to the Replenish rules difficulty of not too long ago. In other words, yes, if a card comes into play from Living Death that checks whenever a creature comes into play, it will count all creatures brought back by Living Death (including itself!). For reference, I site the ruling on Replenish, Pandemonium, Opalescences.

"And for my next trick, I'll reveal the usefullness of being on an Mtg Rules mailing list..."
 
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Gizmo

Guest
Well the beauty of Living Death decks is you can put ANYTHING you want in. I love them to bits - always fun to play because you have an answer to everything, and they can be as serious or wacky as you like. Giving a decklist would be largely futile because there are so many options - if you knock up a list you would want to play with I can run through and give some pointers (Rectors, Squee etc).

Remember that you need to play with:
3 Death (minimum)
4 Survival
1 Soul Warden
1 Anarchist
1 Plaguelord (or similar)
1 Carnival Of Souls
And I strongly recommend:
1 Squee (Krovikan Horror might actually be better here)
2 Academy Rector
2 Vampiric Tutor

For Horn Of Greed the best way to go is the Summer Bloom/Exploration deck, but it`s never been very good. Trade Routes/Exploration perhaps - sounds good in principle?

{Begin Post Editing}
Aahh - Horn Of PLENTY!
Doh!
I wondered why it was in the Carnival deck...


[Edited by Gizmo (03-23-2000 at 06:45 PM).]
 
D

Duel

Guest
Break carnival of souls, eh? All I can think of is some sort of twisted donate-bounce deck. Any suggestions?

BTW, Zadok, how do you get on that list. I need a copy to prove that my replenish deck works with panda-opal.

[Edited by Duel (03-23-2000 at 06:13 PM).]
 
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Dune Echo

Guest
LOL! Yeah, Horn of Plenty! I was trying to see if Horn of Plenty was a sink for the extra mana Carnival of Souls makes and as undiscovered alternative to Necropotence.

Any ideas with Horn of Plenty then? I'm thinking it's best in a Stupid Red Burn deck as a way to keep getting those Bolts, Shocks, and Incinerates quickly. Mana Flare anyone?
 
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Gizmo

Guest
But it`s SO expensive!
I think it`s just way off the curve for SRB, which runs as few lands as possible to be efficient.
You need - fast mana, lots of it to get the Horn in quick, and then for it to stick around once you get the Horn so you can abuse it. Sounds like Mono-Brown to me:
Tinker for Horn, Cast Monolith, draw a card, cast Key, draw a card, cast Dynamo, draw a card...
Alternatively use it as Recycle in the Elf-ball deck, with tons of green mana producers.
 
D

Duel

Guest
Mybe horn of plenty could be used in a wildfire/ponza deck w/ lots of artifact mana to keep those big guys coming out.
 
A

asadoine

Guest
My sudden thoughs would lead me to ....

Rec/sur - squirrels or autocrat ..

the cards you need are :
soul warden (must stay in play)
the black creature that can regenerate for B but you must sacrfice a creature when it comes into play) Sorry i am not sure of the name lets call it X.
deranged hermit in your graveyard
of course carnival of souls ..

return the hermit in play via recurring nightmare. you loose no life but end up with 5 black mana. and 4 squirrel tokens.
play recurring nightmare. BB left.
sack a token to the nightmare to return X.
when X comes into play, sack the hermit to it.
you have BBB in your mana pool and 3 squirrel tokerns, enough to cast nightmare. sack X to nightmare, return the hermit.

Repeat as many time as necessary.

You always end up creating 2 tokens net. So you can create an infinite number of squirrels thanks to CARNIVAL OF SOULS

deck :
2 recurring nightmare
1 X
1 deranged hermit
1 soul warden
that was for the ultimate combo...
as you want the deck to be also effective in case the combo doesnt pull off and also want to survive until the combo is off you just add up whatever makes rec/sur playworthy :
4 survival
4 bop
1 living death
2 vampirice tutors
1 oath of ghouls

2 academy rector (helps to pull the combo)
1 sexmonkey
1 avalanche rider
1 ghitu fireslinger
1 spike feeder
1 peace keeper (better thatn weaver in multiplayer)
2 monk realist
1 monk idealist
1 man o war
1 nekrataal
1 radiant's dragoon
1 squee
1 opposition (rec/sur/carnival/prison) :)

1 Kor haven
1 vorlrath's tower
1 Phyrexain tower
4 city of brass
4 reflecting pool
4 bayou
1 taiga
2 savannah
1 tropical island
1 lotus vale
1 pine barren
(not sure for the lands yet ...)

Acutally I might even want to try to play that in my next multiplayer game as I already have a quite acceptable rec/sur deck

If you are not afraid of generating too much mana you can just play with 2 deranged hermits, switching them back and forth from the graveyard, ending up with an infinite number of squirrels and black mana ...

In this case you might want to add a sliver queen for example : you can use the mana surplus for sliver tokens ... ayeayeaye ...

By the way that make me think that there might be a combo there too
sliver queen / heartstone / carnival of souls
Howerver that involves creature + artefact + enchantment, whitch is quite hard to handle.
berto
 
A

asadoine

Guest
Ok here a better version after I let that go through my feeble mind :

REcurring nightmare + soul warden + carnival of souls + deranged hermit + GHITU FIRESLINGER ...

I know it is heavy, but once again not so difficult to pull out in a rec sur deck :

with soul warden & carnival of soul in play
bring deranged hermit (aka DH)into play.
you have BBB BB + 4 token
play recurrring nightmare
BB in the pool.
Sack the hermit to bring back the fireslinger. BBB in you mana pool, deal 2 to opponent.
Play recurring nightmare.
sack the fireslinger to the nightmare to bring back DH. BBB BB in you mana pool ...

Repeat infinitly to kill your adversary in one turn ...

If the ghitu is not available in the graveyard you can :
kill all lands with Avalanche Rider
REturn all creatures with Man o war
kill all non black non artefact creat with nekraatal
destroy all artefacts with sex monkey
destroy all enchantments with monk realist

All that thanks to CARNIVAL OF SOULS ...

:)

berto


[Edited by asadoine (03-27-2000 at 08:36 AM).]
 
F

FoundationOfRancor

Guest
You've done it. Oh my god you actually made the carnival usuable. I have a foil 1, does ANYBODY wanna trade for it? (Plaese!)
 
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asadoine

Guest
it is actually even more efficient than the opposition / squirrels variant of Rec Sur ...

I will even try to play it tomorrow and let you know, but I am sure that this is going to be a killer for multiplayer games, especially emperor....

berto
 
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asadoine

Guest
Well, I tried my "Killer" carnival of soul combo and I couldnt pull it off once in more than 5 games, even in multiplayer where you have more time to get settled.

The weak point was always the soul warden, who is easilly dispatched ...

:(

Carnival of souls is still a bad card.

NO I WILL NOT SIGN "BERTO", but I still need to find another name.
 
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Gizmo

Guest
The Living Death version is still viable because the Soul Warden is going to be one of the creatures rotated with Living Death. It`s just plain the best version of the deck and I know it works fine because I used to play it for kicks - until my playgroup informed me that infinite damage combos were only really interesting if you weren`t stood in front of them with a bullseye strapped to your chest.
 
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