My Psychic Vortex deck

[Istanbul]

As sent in to magicthegathering.com...

So here I am, sitting at home, and reading your article...and Psychic Vortex shows up. I loooooove Psychic Vortex. As long as you can keep it going, it's a card-drawing machine. And I see a deck-building contest.

Well, my first impulse is to send in some kind of Wild Mongrel-based blue/green thing. But I figure, everybody's gonna be sending in decks where you discard those cards you're drawing to pull funny tricks. I want to be *different*. So I sit there and I look at the card for a while.

What a sdrawkcab design. The upkeep is the good part, and the rest of the card is the bad part. So I'm looking at it, and I'm thinking, "Okay...this card would really suck if I didn't get the cards. All I'd be doing is discarding my hand at the end of each turn and losing a land. Downward spiral." Of course, I can choose not to pay the cumulative upkeep to get rid of it...but what if I couldn't? What if the good part of the card was gone, and all that was left was the stain?

Eon Hub.

Okay, so I've got the beginnings of a fun idea. Eon Hub turns off the good part, and just leaves the discarding and landkill. But why would I ever actually do that to myself? What a masochistic idea. But what if my opponent...heh. Heh heh. A plan begins to form...

Stop The World (I Wanna Get Off)
---------------------------------------

Land:
12x Island
8x Swamp
4x Underground Sea

Spells:
3x Psychic Vortex
3x Intuition
4x Counterspell
3x Donate
3x Soothsaying
4x Accumulated Knowledge
3x Eon Hub
3x Morphling
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor
4x Coercion
4x No Mercy

The idea here is to use Soothsaying, Intuition, the Tutors, and Accumulated Knowledge to get the pieces of your combo into hand. Play the Eon Hub first; it won't hurt you on its own. Then play the Psychic Vortex, hopefully after using Coercion to get rid of any pesky enchantment removal (or while holding Counterspell to stop it in its tracks). Donate that bad boy to your opponent, and watch him slog through constantly diminishing resources. No Mercy is in there as protection, to turn all of your opponent's creatures into burn spells. And Morphling...well, you do want to WIN sometime, right?

So, there's my idea. Play a botched-up Psychic Vortex and hand it to your opponent.

 

[Homestar]

stifle on isochron scepter...wait, would that work to stifle the discard hand/sac a land effect? if so, thats all i got for you.......

 

[Force of Will Smith]

hmm.. benefit from insane amounts of cards in your graveyard...

songs of the damned, mortal kombat..

That card's pretty bad... the sac'ing land thing isn't so bad.. you get to play a land as well..

if you added in gaea's blessing and mesmeric orb.. you'd dump lots of permanents but frequently your blessings would reset the drawbacks..

You'd need a solid secondary win condition though...

 

[Homestar]

organ grinder? does the stifle+sceeptar thing work???

 

[Force of Will Smith]

Well if psychic's second ability is a static ability, no.
But i think it's a triggered ability. In which case yes.

In addition to what i said before i think running turbulent dreams would work nicely..


you have 3 gaea's blessing in your library (don't even need green mana) and a mesmeric orb... say your drawing.. 8 cards this turn.. one of which is a turbulent.. pitch 7 bouncing 7 permanents.. next turn your turbulent gets shuffled back..

If you wanna be really messed up, run words of wind... so say you have to draw 12 cards... decline to draw 3 of them, bouncing 3 permanents.. in addition you could bounce your vortex if its getting too crazy... hmm..

im thinking a winter orb+words of wind thing.

You could also bounce a permanent a chalice of the void.. play it again with another spell..

You might able to get some crazy creature recursion with noetic scales.. bouncing any creature you control for nothing.. and possibly hurting an opponent

you could also run seismic assault, and possibly use desperate ritual to get the RRR.

ok so ensnaring bridge is a definate. Also with library of leng, you never have to discard your cards.. but you can stack the amount of cards you draw...

so .. draw 2 cards... put 2 back on top... draw 3... draw 5... draw8...

you could also use fiery temper... if you draw say.. 6 cards... 2 of which is fiery temper.. when vortex causes you to pitch it... put it on top of your library and pay R to deal 3.

Firestorm would also work. You could play firestorm discarding a ton of cards and use fiery temper's alt cost to get an extra 3 damage.

You could use elfhame sanctuary to guarantee your land drop.

You also run Mindborn Muse to further mill and use a combination of Fountain Watch with lit greaves so artifacts can be touched and neither can lit greaves.

Ensnaring Bridge
Mesmeric Orb
Library of Leng

Psychic Vortex
Mindborn Muse
Words of Wind
Turbulent Dreams

Elfhame Sanctuary
Gaea's Blessing

Fiery Temper
Firestorm

??

you could also use fool's tome or null brooch to benefit from empty hands..

 

[Force of Will Smith]

heh, i actually sent this in.. maybe he'll advise me on it.

4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Mesmeric Orb
3 Library of Leng

4 Dreamborn Muse
4 Psychic Vortex
4 Ancestral Knowledge
3 Turbulent Dreams
3 Words of Wind

3 Fiery Temper

3 Gaea's Blessing
2 Elfhame Sanctuary

12 Islands
8 Forests
4 Mountains

This is what i came up with.. it's really really bizarre..

mainly ensnaring bridge saves you.. psychic with leng is diabolical.. and if you have a vortex with leng out, it's insane

I think it might seriously need propaganda.. or maybe enlightened tutors.. i think ancestral takes the place since if you have 4 permanents.. you need to order the cards 1-2-3-4 choice.. 1-2-3-4 choice.

here's how a bad vortexless draw goes..

1x Ancestral Knowledge, 2x Forest
1x Island, 1x Fiery Temp, 2x Mesmeric Orb

Turn 1:Island

Draw Leng
Turn 2: Forest, Mesmeric Orb

Mill, Leng, Ancestral, Elfhame

Draw Blessing

Turn3: Forest, 2nd Orb

mill 10x
at this point your opponent has had 7 cards from their library
drawn (51), if they played first they have -2 cards less, and 3 if they drew first. Let's say they played first, 49 cards.. next turn it'll be 48 plus 2x permanents... if they played a minium of a land each turn, they'll have 6 dropped each turn. Assuming theyre playing with at least 5 permanents.. they lose 10 cards a turn assuming you do nothing else..

If you can find another orb.. then next time it'll be 15-20 cards a turn and your blessings will undoubtedly trigger.

If you find a vortex and a leng, you'll be recurring fiery temper.

If you find a vortex and a bridge, creatures cant hit you.

 

[train]

Personally I like the Donate idea...

While in the mood of that idea...

Gilded Drake, etc...

 

[Force of Will Smith]

awful several games with this deck.

Words of Wind is awful..
Words of War should be at 4
Fiery temper is good, but 3 is fine.

here's the new version

13 island
9 Mountain

4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Mesmeric Orb
3 Howling mine
3 Library of Leng

4 Dreamborn Muse
4 Ancestral Knowledge
4 Psychic Vortex
4 Frantic Search

4 Words of War
3 Fiery Temper
2 Gaea's Blessing

I found very little mountains were needed other than to cast the Words of war early.. and fiery late..
Orb only needs 2 gaea's.