Oversoul
The Tentacled One
It came to my attention that Academy Rector has made a comeback in Vintage. I copied a decklist onto Apprentice for testing it again, since it's one of my favorite decks. The deck got second place in a recent tournament (losing to monoblue, but beating out some of the environment's big shots).
This can, at least in part, be attributed to the restriction of Trinisphere (at least something good came about from that). Trinisphere was unforgiving to Tendrils decks, but Workshop decks were actually weak against TPS, which used Rebuilds as part of its engine, and could easily spare them to slow down opponents. With Trinisphere gone, the other Tendrils decks are looking more viable...
The new Rectal Agony is not particularly unusual. It mostly uses the same cards as were in the old Rectal Agony decklists or were in my five-color experimental build (Ultimate Agony), which is not a surprising coincidence. I designed that deck with the successes of the other, different storm decks in mind, and the new Rectal Agony has taken a hint from them as well. I might even try to test elements from that old deck in the new Rectal Agony.
Surprisingly, the new deck has been able to keep Force of Will, but has shed Duress. The interaction of Duress and Cabal Therapy was fun, but not particularly great, so Duress is gone. I think the problem with the old Rector decks was the obsolete approach to killing one's opponent with a combo. The old deck was based around getting Academy Rector into play and using Cabal Therapy to grab Yawgmoth's Bargain and win the game. If an opponent could disrupt this, the game would be lost.
The new build does fully what I only partially did when I set out to improve the defunct archetype (before it resurfaced, obviously). It behaves as a modern combo deck. Any combination of cards might result in a chain of spells that ends in Tendrils of Agony. The deck could play Memory Jar and then Windfall, followed by an Academy Rector into Bargain or a Wheel of Fortune into Yawgmoth's Will or a few small spells and them Mind's Desire.
Like other Tendrils builds, it makes every spell a threat. But it's sole creature is one of its most dangerous threats. If Academy Rector can be killed (not difficult with Cabal Therapy), it turns into Magic's most broken enchantment: Yawgmoth's Bargain.
I'm hoping that this time Rector steals a place as Magic's second most broken creature (after the all-too-useful Goblin Welder).
This can, at least in part, be attributed to the restriction of Trinisphere (at least something good came about from that). Trinisphere was unforgiving to Tendrils decks, but Workshop decks were actually weak against TPS, which used Rebuilds as part of its engine, and could easily spare them to slow down opponents. With Trinisphere gone, the other Tendrils decks are looking more viable...
The new Rectal Agony is not particularly unusual. It mostly uses the same cards as were in the old Rectal Agony decklists or were in my five-color experimental build (Ultimate Agony), which is not a surprising coincidence. I designed that deck with the successes of the other, different storm decks in mind, and the new Rectal Agony has taken a hint from them as well. I might even try to test elements from that old deck in the new Rectal Agony.
Surprisingly, the new deck has been able to keep Force of Will, but has shed Duress. The interaction of Duress and Cabal Therapy was fun, but not particularly great, so Duress is gone. I think the problem with the old Rector decks was the obsolete approach to killing one's opponent with a combo. The old deck was based around getting Academy Rector into play and using Cabal Therapy to grab Yawgmoth's Bargain and win the game. If an opponent could disrupt this, the game would be lost.
The new build does fully what I only partially did when I set out to improve the defunct archetype (before it resurfaced, obviously). It behaves as a modern combo deck. Any combination of cards might result in a chain of spells that ends in Tendrils of Agony. The deck could play Memory Jar and then Windfall, followed by an Academy Rector into Bargain or a Wheel of Fortune into Yawgmoth's Will or a few small spells and them Mind's Desire.
Like other Tendrils builds, it makes every spell a threat. But it's sole creature is one of its most dangerous threats. If Academy Rector can be killed (not difficult with Cabal Therapy), it turns into Magic's most broken enchantment: Yawgmoth's Bargain.
I'm hoping that this time Rector steals a place as Magic's second most broken creature (after the all-too-useful Goblin Welder).