i think that what we call COMBO-deck is a group of different deck types :

- strict combo : like donate, you need a 2-3 card interaction to win

- engine-combo : all the deck is like an engine that creates a situation you can use to win. The cars of the deck are not common in others deck (cadaverous bloom, dream Hall, MOMA, maybe tps)

- mass combo : all the card works indifferently with each other ( ichorid, burn, millstone deck).

it gives mana against workshop, even  if u dont play green
it fights against dredge and snapcaster
it can make goyf 1/2 ot so...
it blocks crucible recursion

meanwhile it kills the opponent or let u stay alive. Ah, i think it wont see playing where there s green. It's a strong black creature

scryb ranger makes it a 6/6 cc4 with flyng and vigilance. Or a - you have 3 turns before losing (unless you have flying blockers)- clock.

that's good but still not T1 playable. cause other colors can provide so strong creature at lower cost or better win con. at the same cost.

a 4cc creature is bad unless it inst-wins.

it's simply a 6/6 for 4 mana that can be "blocked" by a lot of creature.

yes, every time a creature is immolated against him , he gets bigger.

However it's not better than a persecutor or grinning demon :

If opponente has a flying creature, persecutor and desecration are the same
If he has a nonflying creature, you get a 7/7, persecutor stays the same
if opponent has no creature you make 6 damages.

BUT

if u are losing they can sac a noble hierarc to make 4 damages with a tarmo.

shitty card

mayor doesnt help vs blu deck (cause, even if it resolves, your humans are still in piroclasm range).


I dont think that we can make a good list from cavern of souls.

yes cotv+bob+thalia. Then ? qasali, gorilla, kataki arent human, goyf , jotun, ooze are not human , teeg mindcensor, leonin... etc.

lavamancer, delver, student goes under cotv1. Only abolisher and glowrider (and maybe the mayor/magus of the unseen) are there to be played.

Blue players can now use other sweepers like terminus or devastation tide.

But if they stay with piroclasm-darkblast-massacre the good old angelic shield is still here to protect your bears and bounce they robots.

~Devastating Tide
   3uu
Sorcery    Rare
Return all nonland permanents to their owners' hands.
Miracle 1{U}

comparison :

- pitchable
- 3uu is more affordable than 5W
- takes care of all kind of permanents
- dont have to play white
- 3uu is a fair cost for what this card do.
- at miracle cost this is an hurkyll or an hurkyll for creature. Or both
- quite always usefull even if no creatures on ground
- storm enabler
- make you re-use your snaps
- you can force opponent to discard cards too.

- against creature its effect can be worst
- cant use miracle cost on turn2

this targets :

- 0 cards vs GW, 4 vs fish, 6 vs goblin

- 6-12 vs blu control in general.....

- vs artifact discards are quite shitty

No way this can better of TS

cc 3, doesnt work alone. It takes 1 turn to cycle itself and provide vantage from turn 2. Not instant speed. Seems nearly playable but nothin more. As :

Hunter's Insight

or

Lead the Stampede

dont like the 4x in legendary creature

dont like 6 swords.... 

And THAT manabase is toooo light on green sources. Ok you have lot of 1-off effects but only 3 forests ? i'd play 6-7 duals. U dont have green , you dont need basic forest in 90% of matches

a lot of cards can speed up my clock.
  Still it cant speed up enough to an aggro-like clock (3-4th turn).

its a legend, it needs ranger, it does nothing alone, it doesnt instant-win, it doesnt help directly in any match up, it makes me goildfish turn 5 win....

And  i havent read these amazing results with the deck. all i know is he lost to ichorid.

So im waiting. If his results are better than mine with a straight GW version i ll test it. if they worst i'll save my time.

so...

mikaelus costs 3.
yes i can play it as 1/1, but then (if i dont control a scryb) i should wait 1 more turn for an use.

You need to use him twice for a good protective effect ( piroclasm kills all your */1 critters even with a +1/+1 bonus). that means that its effect became relavant after 2 turns (unless you have the scryb).

Alone he sucks. With another creature it sucks... You need at least 3 creature on the battlefield or is effect is really slower than a beating tarmo.

playing such a creature means that you have less disruptive critters and you need scryb or mika is too slow to be played. So you have 7 un-locking creature more than other GW(b) variants.
The fact is : it works fine when you have ranger+mika+another creature. every turns your creatura take +2/+2 ( so in 2 turns mika wins you the game).
BUT turn 1 thalia, turn 2 ranger, turn 3 mika, turn 4 use it twice, turn 5 you win is slow nowaday and more important, its very fragile.

It works ? I dont know... my impression is NO WAY but still.... for the third time..... can you post your matchup stats ?

@ maximum

inkwell is really slow and can be outraced. Colossus is countermove or GG in a turn.

@ Guli

im still waiting match ups.

and about the last list :

If you want wayfearer,  Ghost quarter is an auto inclusion.
If you want mox, im not sure about stony silence. ESG could be more usefull.
If you want scrybs, i want cards they work with : noble hierac, 4x ooze and wayfearer before mikaelus
Gaddock is too good for a 1x.
selkie isnt that bad but i'd preffer other cards.

4 wasteland
1 strip
2 ghost quarter
1 Forest
1 Plains
1 labyrinth
3 Savannah
4 Windswept Heath
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Karakas
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire

4 Scryb Ranger
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Qasali Pridemage
3 Stony Silence
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
3 Aven Mindcensor
3 Weathered Wayfarer
3 Mental Misstep
1 lftl
3 Swords to Plowshares
4 ooze
2 gaddock

I'd really really like to read your matchups.

I cant believe that they are better than those of a traditional GW list with tons of hatebears.

unless you playing against deck with Inkwell, 

confidant works on its own. enchantress needs enchantment.

confidant is a winning condition too, enchantress is not.

timing is different too :

DC can be played after distruptions, while enchantress needs to be there before 'em. Or you wont draw cards.

while the Dc player has stp, you have lignify. While he can fill his deck with tutors and broken , you need enchantment to draw cards.

look at the list :

change the 4 enchantress with DC
or
change the 4 enchantress with gush

isnt it better ?

and now u can get rid of crappy enchantment...

the winning conditions of the deck are bad too... 4 goyf.... no way to 1 turn kill, no way to swarm with creature like a fish or a GW. with 4 library tinker is the card to play but you have no mox to support it.... because you need lot of enchantment......

I tried to build a strong enchantress deck too.

It cant work.

DC is strictly superior to enchantress, remora and fastbond would be better if u play more counters or if u play gush.
 the deck works but not as efficient as other decks. Enchantment are strong but you need a lot to make your engine viable. And in the end they arent that versatile.

As you stated , sylvan is better than enchantress. That s true. Cause they work alone (no need to cast somethin to draw a card). If u swithc enchantress with gush and put some good instant instead of enchantment in it, you ll see that the deck become stronger.

lead the S. is no good.


Why ?  there are cc3 cards that let u draw 2 cards, right ? (mulldrifter)

But, Lead, lets u draw only creature.. so u need to draw at least 3 card from LtS.
So u need a 36-40 creature deck to broke it. Theory.  And That means no space for somethin else.


If i can suggest a way to broke it :

4 children of korlis
4 sylvan library
4 Lead the stamp
8 spirit guide
4 IMMOLATIN SOULEATER

sylvan let u draw with stampede
children let u draw with library
souleater win u the game with korlis

im an arcane-lover.

I played em in the 90's and i d like to play 'em now.

But i dont get why do you preffer g.probe to noxius revival or gut shot. Both of them have a more valuable use when u dont have an arcane....

3 opal is a bad choise, no way it can be good. Even 4 arcane is too much. You need arcane as emergency extra protection ordraw engine in mid-late game.

Gift+noxious+arcane could be interesting ( I tried but it wasnt that consistent...)

awesome article !

Game, set, match !

Your manabase is toooo abundant, the forest is quite useless and not having stripmine is a Huge loss ( with a noxius it's possible to strip a couple of time a screwed opponent and win. Don't Know if sol ring is worth playing,

Ninja is broken with snapcaster but is really bad w/o. So i'll play the forth mage before ninja. Chian of vapor / jace can replace ninja.
Ponder is so good in this deck ? I'll cut it.

The Gush engine is overkill, the twincast is simply worst than every other protection but I know you'll try it so....

I think you are really light on protection : vs artifact you have a lot of cards you don't want too see and only 4x force and 1 echoing to remove a 5/3.


Mana Base:      22
1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Sol Ring
4x Mishra's Factory
1x Library of Alexandria
1x Strip Mine
3x Island
4x Misty Rainforest
1x Polluted Delta
4x Tropical Island

Creatures:          5
1x Blightsteel Colossus
4x Snapcaster Mage

Disruption:         11
4x Force of Will
4x Mental Misstep
1/3x Spell Pierce
2/0x Flusterstorm

Card Draw/Tutor: 8/10
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Brainstorm
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Merchant scroll
0/2 x Ponder / Personal tutor / arcane denial
4x Standstill

Utility:               4
3x Noxious Revival
1x Regrowth

Board Control:     4/5
1x Echoing Truth
1x Hurkyll recall
1x Steel sabotage
1x Chain of vapors
0/1x Twincast / steel sabotage / arcane denial

Brokenness:        4
2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1x Time Walk
1x Tinker

Why arcane denial ? It's a bad counter but combined with noxiuos is a good draw engine.LOL

i think he means that it can target your own ancestral in those match where is not good as counter

snapcasting+twincasting a cc U spell =  1UUUU.

c'mon....


as a counter it goes from useless to counterspell level. very bad

some speculations :

you tinkered, you can't protect the robot from a steel sabotage with this.

for coping your own spell you need at least UUU or UUR or UUB.... not that easy

coping opponent's ancestral --> tie & you are subject to his own counter
flusterstorm on  oppo's ancestral --> advantage  & i'm not subject to counter

IF i would play something workin only with instant&c. i'll play flusterstom.

a cc 1UU solution, is not a solution so worth plain....

Yes, no good matchup except oath.

but the deck is slow, full of creatures, no counters. It's the perfect oathvictim profile. Emrakul is protected from everything different from karakas.
I'll probably maindeck seal of clesing before TrueB. because the first is good vs stax too.

 the problem you faced are the reason I preffer GW :

- Hierarc provides more mana, ESG faster mana
- Qasali are good beater and prevent oath or cotv2
- gaddock stops force and random brokens

(WW has more creature hate, a stronger mana bases vs waste/moon and a better dredge matchup)

Options :

cc 0

cotv
MM

cc W

icatian javeliner
Gideon's Lawkeeper
sword to plowshares/pact to exile
tithe
Dispeller's Capsule
Orim's chant

cc 2

phyrexian revoker
thorn of amethist

cc 1W

balance
kataki
leonin arbiter
ethersworn canonist
seal of cleasing
stoneforge mystic
jotun grunt
stony silence

cc WW

Samurai of the Pale Curtain
True Believer
leonin relic warden
serra avenger

cc 3

crucible

cc 2W

aven mindcensor
blade splicer
oblivion ring
Devout Witness
glow rider
porcelain legionair

I thinks this is the white's cream of tha crop. Surely it's not complete but it's a good reminder.

First question = plains + waste + GQ and/or mox and/or ancient tomb and/or extra white land ?

Different answers, different lists.

Second question = What about beating ? serra's avenger a/o jotun a/o porcelain a/o misticalbox (a/o blade splicer) ?

These 2 decisions make half the deck.

@ policehq

tpc = tinker per colossus

the new list is really better.Still 3 stp, 3 ring, 4 javelineer, 4 jideon is way too much. Kami is usefull only against a couple of decks. Some cards I want :

lotus petal, WW on first turn is important
aven #4, at minimum
balance, our bomb
porcellain legionaire.

Mana-base 25
1 Mox Pearl
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Sol Ring
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
7 Plains
1 Karakas
4 Flagstones of Trokair

Enchantments 6
4 Stony Silence
2 Oblivion Ring

Instant 4
3 Swords to Plowshares
1 Balance

Creatures 25
4 Aven Mindcensor
3 Icatian Javelineers
3 Leoni relic-warden
3 Kataki, War's Wage
2 Gideon's Lawkeeper
3 Porc-legion
4 samurai
3 canonist

Vs little creature :

- 3 stp + 3 javelineer + 3 balance oblivion

Vs big monster

- 3 stp + 3 balance oblivion + 3 relic-warden + 2 jideon

vs artifact

- 3 kataki 3 relic warden 2 oblivion

Why samurai and no believer ?

samurai is a 3/3 during combat, prevents goyfpumping, yagwill and sooo. Believer today prevents only few cards and he has no match ups in which shines.

In side I would like jitte. It's good vs zoo, fish,bant,goblin,GW AND dredge.

Cotv at 2 is still a problem.

it's always been.

Once, there was only a colossus. Fish e zoo players complained about the stp they had to play maindeck to fight it. [the problem is thinker but the trouble is the combination of colossus+tinker in the last 10 years]

People today complain about the 6 cards plan against dredge. And in the trini-meta complined about all the artifact hate they had to play.

I don't see the strenght of this list.

 It's slow,it has slow ramosian mechanics, it suffers fast tinker, it has some excessive redundancy like 4x kataki, 3x kami and no decent beater.

 Not to be negative, but without stp a fast turn confident/tpc/golem puts you in trouble.

I don't see how you could exclude arbiter in a deck with GQ.

a 2/* rod for 1W would be awesome. And I'll probably play some green leyline.  . Sure, it would be better.

But we have an enchantment. It's slightly, not so much more resilient ( for what I see there are more bolts than trygon/claims).

have you tried in old vintage ? Battles of drain-reb-rod-ophidian and draw seven.



The problem is simple :

80% of the field is playing one or two of this engine :  bob/remora/gush/oath.

so every deck is full of reb/flusterstorm/MM/TS etc... to beat the majority of the field.

BUT if the meta was more balanced (more stax/mud, GW) you couldn't permitt to play 15land list with flusterstorm/reb/MM/misdy.
=
slower meta, more interactions

its no the fastest card in the format, but it needs only G to be a decent beater. It's no hate. It's a beater with bonuses. Helps you recover life when lightening are coming at you. If You think at it as a walking tormod, you'll be disappointed.

In no-proxie environment, 12 bicolor land is a common configuation. But with the 2 lotus color screw is uncommon.

that's bax's manabase (top8 in milan) :

  1 Strip Mine
  2 Karakas
  3 Razorverge Thicket
  4 Ghost Quarter
  4 Horizon Canopy
  4 Savannah
  4 Wasteland

1 karakas, 1 GQ of difference, (supported by ESG and hierarc 4x). One white mana source of difference.
GQ can fight vampiric and mystical tutor vs blue. And YES, the number of stax in italy is really high.



dunno. Being an enchantment makes it really resilient. I'd liked a 1/1 hexproof !

@ StanleyAugust

4 relic warden is too much! Their number should be based on number of qasali, stp and nature's claims you play. 2-3 is clearly better. I'm not fan of revoker (cause it's an artifact) but its redudant with stonysilence, I wont play more than 2.