Playing God

Z

Zadok001

Guest
Banned:

Survival of the Fittest
Necropotence
Demonic Consultation
Replenish

Combo is dead.

Right?

Wrong.

A few rogue decks remain. Pebbles is being rebuilt, weaker than ever. The ancient Rector/Pattern tech decks are seeing the light of day in some circles.

And a writer on the StarCityCCG mailing list mentions Foster.

Foster
2GG
Enchantment
Whenever a creature you control is put into the graveyard from play, you may pay 1. If you do, reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a creature card. Put that card into your hand and all other revealed cards into your graveyard.

A 4cc enchantment that requires a mana commitment and expendable creatures. What on earth good does THAT do?

Ornithopter good. Ashnod's Alter good.

See the combo? Play the Alter, the Foster, and the 'Thopter (or Shield Sphere, or Phyrexian Walker). Sacrifice it. Ashnod's Alter being a mana ability, it resolves instantly and you can use one of the two mana to pay for Foster. You reveal cards from the top of your deck. Get 0cc creature number 2. Etc... Make lots of mana.

"But Zadok! You'll deck yourself!"

Gaea's Blessing solves that problem.

"But Zadok! There's no way to kill someone!"

Play a single Ticking Gnomes. You'll be recurring it forever in and out of play with the extra mana and cycling through your library, but hopefully your opponent will concede after you deal the first damage rather than forcing you to do it all 19 times...

4x Ashnod's Alter
4x Foster
4x Ornithopter
4x Phyrexian Walker
4x Shield Sphere
4x Enlightened Tutor
4x Gaea's Blessing
1x Ticking Gnomes

The basic engine is simply, and leaves some room open for additional backup spells. Not much, but enough...

Thus, the question at hand. That's 29 cards. Assuming ~23 land, that leaves 8 slots open for any additional search cards, off-color spells, disruption, etc... So, what goes in those slots?

Also, is this at all a good deck? Or am I just obsessed with showing that combo is NEVER as dead as it should be?
 
M

Mundungu

Guest
Urza's bauble ?
The problem might be to get to 4 mana without being countered.
port ?
green man land ?
exploration ?
mox for accelreation ?
eldamary's vineyard ?
You have the white tutor, then why not use the Sterling grove ? Or Academy rector ?
What do you do with all the extra mana, just in case ?

4x Ashnod's Alter
4x Foster
4x Ornithopter
4x Phyrexian Walker
4x Shield Sphere
4x Enlightened Tutor
4x Gaea's Blessing
1x Ticking Gnomes
(=29)
1 Bottle gnome
4 exploration
4 Mox diamond
4 land grant

4 green man land
4 rishadan port
4 Savannah
4 brushland
6 Forest

?????
 
M

Mundungu

Guest
SB :
Swords to plowshare
Argivian find (research ? not sure. Brings an enchant back)
Abeyance (against control)

.....
 
Z

Zadok001

Guest
There is no "Just in case" - Once the loop starts, I either fizzle (HIGHLY UNLIKELY), or I win. There is no other option. :)

I considered Urza's Bauble (if I played it, I was going to consider this thing a theme deck!), but it seemed a bit slow... Likewise, Chromatic Sphere seemed weak. Mana acceleration is largely provided in my version by Hickory Woodlots, though I am running a Cradle for fun. It's theoretically possible to go off turn 2 with the Cradle, but honestly, we're looking at turns 3-5. If I had Mox Diamonds, they'd go in without question. They're _excellent_ mana acceleration, and there's nothing like making it even more 'themish' to confuse people. :)

I don't like playing the Grove, since it costs quite a bit, and that's mana I'd usually use on my combo itself. And I literally _can't_ play Rector, since it screws up the combo by coming out via Foster. :( I can't run any more creature cards at all, actually...

I've also considered splashing into Blue for Impulse or Opt, Brainstorm, and all their card-drawing and search friends. Unfortunately, that tempts me to play FoW, and then I'm stuck with pulling combo pieces...

Danke all... :) Whadda you guys think of this design?
 
R

rakso

Guest
Zadok:

Using this Oath-like card and Gaea's Blessing, I think you should actually use LESS creatures. :)

Having more lessens the chance that you turn over a Blessing and continue reshuffling.
 
G

Gizmo

Guest
Erm, isn`t this just a slightly better version of Fec/Altar/Cluster? I think it`s probably not good enough - that would be my initial reaction.

I`d vote for you being obsessed with combo decks.

On the other hand:

Forsaken Stasis V1.1
(v1.0 had a kill in that didn`t work - doh!)

4 Force Spike
4 Daze
4 Arcane Denial
3 Counterspell
4 Force OF Will

4 Vampiric Tutor
3 Intuition
4 Gush

3 Root Maze
4 Stasis
2 Vision Charm

4 Forsaken City
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
6 Island

My very first playtest game went like this:

1: Underground Sea, Force Spike
2: Tropical Island, Counterspell
3: Forsaken City, Arcane Denial
4: Vampiric Tutor, Gush, replay an Island, Stasis, Root Maze. Thank you and good night.

Then he asked me what my kill was, I showed him my Thran Foundry and he pointed out it came into play tapped.
:(
 
M

Mundungu

Guest
Giz : maybe you can answer an question.

Why is it that noone plays undiscovered Paradise in Stasis.
Isn't it a card of choice for stasis Decks ?

Ok you need two because the paradise returns to your hand during the untap and the upkeep is to be played well during upkeep, but still.

At least it can be a good alternance with forsaken city.
 
J

John`O

Guest
Dave : Second playtest game ;
them Forest , Ranger
you , scoop.

Should you have Keg or somthing to stop this,
or are you just going to take the chance ?


Mundungu : Stasis makes you skip untap
Paradise justs kinda sits there.



John
 
D

Duel

Guest
Uh, Baskil? Ranger isn't the kill method, it simply means that stasis suddenly hurts you more than them. It lets them play kill methods....

As to Dave's deck, I'm worried about defense of the combo. City of solitude could be a solution. Abeyance, Orim's chant (I knew it was good for something!) though he says it would be easier to splash blue and run forces. Thoughts?
 
A

Apollo

Guest
Doesn't Quirion Ranger return a land to untap a creature? If so, it wouldn't let them play kill methods, cause the land would just come back tapped. It would be the kill method. In that case, Wall of Blossoms would stop it. Don't know if it'd be the best choice, though.

Zadok: you only really need the Ticker and two 0-cost creatures to keep the combo going, correct? You could go down to just a few 0-cost guys (most likely 4 Shield Spheres), and play more search/defense to ensure you get one and get the combo off. Whether you go all the way down to 2-4, I would definitely play less.

BTW, is Rocket Launcher legal? I don't think so, but it would be a better kill method. If you could find some colorless source that isn't a creature (like the Launcher), it would remove the off-chance of a fizzle should you pull the Gnomes off the top right away in the combo.

Aeolipile! It's colorless, sacs for damage, and isn't a creature... perfect!:)
 
Z

Zadok001

Guest
"Zadok: you only really need the Ticker and two 0-cost creatures to keep the combo going, correct?"

Technically, yes, that's possible - But not recommended. If I hit the Ticker before I have 3 mana, I stall, unable to play it and unable to activate Foster again. Yes, there is a chance of that as the deck is currently designed. But if I do stall, there is a high chance I will have a second 0 cc in play, letting me continue. Furthermore, I am 12 times more likely to hit a 0 cc than a Ticker, so slight advantage there. Reducing the number of 0 ccs is certainly an option, but I'd rather not drop under the 8 point, just to be mostly assured of getting the combo running without a stall.

Urza's Bauble has a good chance of making into the deck - I wanna be a theme deck! :)
 
C

Captain Caveman

Guest
How about this................?


4 Ashnod's Alter
4 Foster
4 Chimeric Idol
2 Phyrexian Walker
4 Shield Sphere
4 Enlightened Tutor
4 Sterling Grove
2 Gaea's Blessing
1 Ticking Gnomes
2 Scroll Rack
4 Exploration(?)
3 Mox diamond
4 Land Grant

6 Forest
4 Savannah
4 Brushland
4 Treetop Village
4 Rishadan Port
 
A

Apollo

Guest
This post has been deleted. It should be noted that when this post was written, it was late at night and the author's mind was not functioning correctly. The author wishes to retract everything he said, and would like for nobody to ever read his posts ever again, for the author is a nincompoop.
 
S

superguy

Guest
Im not sure if anyone mentioned this, but wouldn't this deck be very vulnerable to anything running counterspells? Oath, Forbiddian, Stasis, all these decks have a chance in new extended. Just a thought.
 
A

Apollo

Guest
Lotus Mox--see above retraction. And never read my posts again. I mean it. I know nothing.

On a different note, you could still win with the Foundry. Just let the Stasis go when you have one card left, then use the Foundry and play another Stasis. They do get one turn to untap, though. I was just pointing out that it was feasible.

The funny thing is that you would lose horribly in the first round of a PTQ to the random kid with the 90-card deck, thus booting you into the losers bracket with all of the 90-card decks...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top