November Extended Deck Idea - Combo

[Mongoose Man]

Hey I was looking through the decklists around the Net and saw an interesting primer* in the type 1 / 1.5 forums on MTGnews about a deck called Life. The deck uses an En-Kor and a Task Force or Angelic Protector combined with Worthy Cause to gain infinite life. The way the combo works is this:
You have an Nomad En-Kor (or Warrior En-Kor) and a Task Force (or Angelic Protector) in play. You use the En-Kor's ability to redirect the next billion or so damage to the Task Force which gets +0/+3 each time it is targeted making it huge. Play Worthy Cause sacrificing the Task Force and you now have near infinite life. After this you just do whatever you need to win, I have seen versions of the deck run About Face so they can deal infinite damage as well, I have seen millstone/grindstone versions and ones that win via Serra Avatar. How you win afterwards is up to you but I chose to go with Phyrexian Processor. Here is my current decklist.

Land - 22 cards
4 Adarkar Wastes
4 Faerie Conclave
2 Skycloud Expanse
4 Remote Farm
4 Island
4 Plains
Combo - 16 Cards
4 Worthy Cause
4 Task Force
2 Angelic Protector
2 Warrior En-Kor
4 Nomads En-Kor
Win Conditions - 3 Cards
2 Phyrexian Processor
1 Test of Endurance
Other Stuff (Card Drawing / Countermagic / Utility) 19
4 Fact or Fiction
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Counterspell
3 Absorb
4 Seal of Cleansing
Total - 60 Cards
Sideboard - Not yet determined

So yeah, everything in there is pretty self explanitary and Test of Endurance is always fun so why not? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[rkoelsch]

Nice idea. but I think you have too few islands for counterspell. I am unsure of your selection of Remote Farm. Having 8 lands that come into play tapped seems excessive. I would remove them and go 2 coastal tower and 2 islands

 

[Mongoose Man]

Yeah that's a good Idea, they do slow down the deck sometimes so I think i'll change it to like you said.

 

[Mikeymike]

2 question for you

How does the en-Kor continually do damage to the Task Force? (like if your opponent attacks with a 3/3 you redirect 3 points making the Task Force a 2/11)

What happens if your opponent is not blocking, attacking, or burning your en-kor?

 

[rkoelsch]

Text (SH+errata): 2/2. ; {0}: The next 1 damage that would be dealt to ~this~ this turn is dealt to target creature you control instead. [Oracle 2000/02/01]

that is the errata for Warrior en-kor. It does not require the warrior to be damaged to activate its ability. no mana and no tapping. it can be activated infinite times anytime the player wants. This is a pretty standard engine.

I like the fact you have at least 2 win conditions. good luck with it.

 

[Thallid Ice Cream Man]

Thank you errata.
That's scary.

 

[Ransac]

My god. Talk about janky, random wierdness!

I may have to build a horrible, not-great deck around it.


Ransac, cpa trash man

 

[NorrYtt]

Land - 22 cards
4 Adarkar Wastes
4 Faerie Conclave
2 Skycloud Expanse
4 Remote Farm
4 Island
4 Plains
Combo - 16 Cards
4 Worthy Cause
4 Task Force
2 Angelic Protector
2 Warrior En-Kor
4 Nomads En-Kor
Win Conditions - 3 Cards
2 Phyrexian Processor
1 Test of Endurance
Other Stuff (Card Drawing / Countermagic / Utility) 19
4 Fact or Fiction
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Counterspell
3 Absorb
4 Seal of Cleansing
Total - 60 Cards

Faerie Conclave just doesn't seem to fit. It slows you down and gets owned by Dustbowl so you can...attack with it? Aren't you playing a combo deck? If you get off your combo, what good is Faerie Conclave then? Not a good win condition, I say. Your deck should be a combo deck, through and through.

About Face was in that decklist to provide a turn 2 kill with Tireless Tribe.

The Life combo has some flaws. You still die to Stroke of Genius (ala Aluren Combo). You still lose to some other random infinite combo. You even lose to a Backlash on your Serra Avatar (has happened to me ).You still have to win. Against beatdown and sligh, you can do something like discard a Serra Avatar each turn (perhaps you can tell your opponent this so he might concede quickly). Swords to Plowshares is gone in November which will help Serra Avatar beatdown.

Make sure you choose an adequately high number (like 1 google^google). I've seen people choose a number like 1000. Rith, the Awakener can kill you in a finite number of turns if you aren't careful, so choose a huge number just to be safe.

Test of Endurance is an excellent win condition. You can draw it as the last card in your library and you will still win. Your opponent has exactly one turn to find some enchantment removal and force it through your counters. Opposing Seals of Cleansing can be met with your own Seals. Phyrexian Processor is a much worse win condition than this.

I think your win conditions should be:
1 Test of Endurance - for the win. Plain and simple, round time.
1 Serra Avatar - attack until you win the old fashioned way. Provides Millstone insurance and you can't be decked as long as you keep 8 cards so you can discard it. Black can disrupt this by making you discard other cards, knocking your hand below 8. Lose to Stroke of Genius or other forced draw spells (Opportunity).
1 Pursuit of Knowledge - let it sit in play. Once your library is empty, just put knowledge counters on it and never deck yourself. Beats Stroke of Genius, and lets you deck your opponent if they can't get rid of it. Green, White, and Blue can likely destroy or bounce this, so you should also use the discard the Serra Avatar trick, since they probably can't stop that.

You have to be careful. Suicide Oath might be a problem, especially if they have Gurzigost. Gurzigost in a well-built Oath decks allows infinite damage through Time Warp, or infinite damage if you are stuck discarding Serra Avatar each turn. The biggest problem I see with this deck is winning in a timely manner.

 

[Dune Echo]

About Face was in that decklist to provide a turn 2 kill with Tireless Tribe.

Erm... Turn 2? You need several other things to assist with that...
Mana Acceleration (Mox Diamond I think is the only option), to draw more than your 1 card per turn (due to card loss from mana acceleration), and to draw at least 4 lands, Mox Diamond, Tireless Tribe, About Face, and Fling in the first 13 cards, plus at least 1 card that is comparable to Ancestral Recall turn 1. The odds of this happening mathematically are quite slim to none, especially in Extended.

A turn 3 kill seems more viable (but not by much) and doesn't require Mox Diamond or card drawing. You just better hope you don't try to pull this against a semi-decent player playing blue.

Turn 1, going second:
White mana-producing land, Tireless Tribe. 6 cards in hand.
Turn 2:
Red mana-producing land. 6 cards in hand. (These first two turns can be switched without a problem.)
Turn 3:
Red mana-producing land, discard 5 cards, play About Face on Tireless Tribe. Play Fling, sacrificing Tireless Tribe. 21 damage to your opponent. Practically a Donate-Illusions without the counter backup.

The good news is this combo can be played at the end of an opponent's turn.

 

[Lotus Mox]

You just need a Battlefield Forge for a turn 2 kill with About Face (you don't even need that when you're drawing first).

you also don't have to fling the Tribe, just attack with them,

Of course you anything from a blocker to Shock can disrupt this combo, but the Tribe/About Face combo isn't the center piece of this deck.

About Face could also be used to switch the P/T of a Task Force with "infinite" toughness

 

[Dune Echo]

I would of course forget the most obvious route to winning with a combo deck...

 

[Mikeymike]

Text (SH+errata): 2/2. ; {0}: The next 1 damage that would be dealt to ~this~ this turn is dealt to target creature you control instead. [Oracle 2000/02/01]

that is the errata for Warrior en-kor. It does not require the warrior to be damaged to activate its ability. no mana and no tapping. it can be activated infinite times anytime the player wants. This is a pretty standard engine.

Seems like a big mistake to me, this is one of those degenerative combos that can't be good for the game in anyway except to cause another round of errata's (along with Animate Dead/Worldgorger Dragon). This is some cheesy stuff, right up there with Donate/Illusions.

 

[rkoelsch]

Like anyone would abuse this combo. It is white. who plays that?

 

[Mikeymike]

rkoelsch, is that sarcasm I note?

I'm just whiney about this b/c its one of those combos that takes advantage of holes in the rules, as opposed to to being true synergy. Like Waylay after the 6th ed rules, Abundance/Sylvan Library, etc. Whine, whine, whine...whine, whine.

 

[rkoelsch]

Sarcasm, whats that?

But the en-kor really have a good synergy with eternal toughness guys. This combo has lots of white flavor. Damage prevention. high toughness low power. I don't look at that as skirting the rules. It needs reds chaos of about face to get really brutal.

 

[Spiderman]

I have to agree with Mikeymike, this is sort of cheesy with the rules akin with Waylay. Boo....

But since it works, you might as well build a deck around it

 

[Thallid Ice Cream Man]

They should have made the en-Kor creatures say this:

"0: The next time at least 1 damage would be dealt to ~this~ this turn, choose target creature you control. Prevent 1 damage to ~this~ and have the 1 damage dealt to that creature instead."

The only reason is that quite frankly no one should be able to redirect non-existent damage and trigger abilities for it.

Now I agree with the fact that too many people view white as sucking. For the record what I think should be done about that is that the people who design white cards should give white a few strong styles of effects and make cards based on variations on those themes... instead it seems as though they're making a lot of white cards by just picking ideas that seem "white" out of a hat. This is why almost all of what are the perceived "best" white cards are somewhat inconsistent with the rest of the white cards...
Once white has a flavor of its own that is apparent on all the cards and that people consider to be worth playing, more people will play white consistently.

 

[Spiderman]

They should have made the en-Kor creatures say this:

"0: The next time at least 1 damage would be dealt to ~this~ this turn, choose target creature you control. Prevent 1 damage to ~this~ and have the 1 damage dealt to that creature instead."

Well, actually, that's pretty much what the "instead" means in the original (or errata'd, however you want to look at it) wording.

They should just take out the word "target" to prevent abilities from triggering, IMHO.

 

[Turtlewax Joe]

Actually this deck was played at some PT or Grand prix or sumthin'. and Mon Man and i found it late at night and proxied 2 complete decks and eventually made them the MTGnews primer was a god send for us

for a while both mongoose man and i were running it. It really is a fun deck just because it sucks sooooo bad that it actually wins.

TO CLEAR UP THE ERRATA: it says next time....so it still targets the en-kor or protector with out damage

I played Feldon's kane in mine and almost decked alot of people before i won with a Tim.

at the time i played it UW and mon man blayed it RW for quicker kill.

I'm having troubles finding an extended deck so i may wonder back to LIFE

 

[Sammy Dead-O]

Saturday night, I built a R/W beatdown-ish deck to take to the shop on Sunday afternoon. I own 2 Nomads En-Kor, 2 Task Forces, and a single About Face, so I decided to throw them in the deck, just in case. Sure enough, first or second game, I attack with a lone Task Force, my unsuspecting opponent doesn't block, and I hit him for way more damage than necessary to win the game.

It was fun to pull off once, but I'm not sure how much more I'll play it. The most annoying thing is that you have to go by errata, which isn't the kind of thing you want to have to explain to an opponent you've just hit for 3000 damage with a cheap and cheesy combo.

Maybe I'll try going the Life route...