Once again, comparing apples and oranges.

I have 8 discard spells that help quite a bit against a multitude of matchups.

And the critical combo turn is the same as belcher

40-50% turn one

70-75% turn two

90% + turn three

after that, you can use all your tutors to get discard spells to help protect that 12/12 trampler for 2 turns.

Say all you want about FCG but unless you resolve that Food Chains (and I have eight pinpoint discard spells that come out turn one that say you won't), there isn't much chance that a goblin weenie or two per turn can compete with 12/12 tramplers on the second turn.


http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=6144

The metagame hasn't really changed that much since then.

The major differences are that long (its worst matchup) is gone and that the deck has even more tutors to work with and accelerate itself to a turn two or turn one dreadnaught.

Try goldfishing around wiht the decklist I posted. It's a blazingly fast deck by any account.

It can combo out on turn one almost half the time. That alone deserves a second look. And the vast majority of the time, it combos out turn two. Unmask doesn't really eat up any mana but lets you disrupt your opponent nonetheless.

This is one of the if not the fastest combo deck in magic. It unfortunately needs a turn or two after it combos out to win. Thats why I often find myself tutoring for discard spells after I comboed out and already used up the ones I have.

The deck can play a dreadnought out on your first turn almost half the time if you mulligan aggressively, on second turn roughly 70% of the time provided that you mulligan intelligently. And when it can't, it can get two dreadnoughts out by turn three almost 70% of the time (by tutoring up and playing a necropotence turn two). It can get atleast one dreadnought into play by turn three almost 100% of the time.

This is almost on par with dragon.

These aren't bloated up numbers, they are based on actual testing.

I think many of you are underestimating this deck. It almost always gets a dreadnought out by turn two at the latest, a full turn ahead of FCG, and early enough that the only counterspell you need to worry about is FoW. It's speed allows it to avoid much of the hate that could prevent dreadnought from hitting play.

Duress and Unearth can be very helpful in slowing down fellow combo decks, or ducking the hate that might hit the dreadnought once it does hit play.

It's a very different deck and one that's definately faster than Venguer Masque.

It can often get out a Dreadnought faster that FCG can combo out but usually takes a turn longer than FCG to win unless it luckily draws 2 dreadnoughts.

Yes it is more resistent to certain types of hate and less so to others.

It atleast has unmask and duress to get rid of problem cards, counters, and to stop a combo deck from going off.

It's also less vulnerable to wastelands and mana screw.

Plus it has the option to play a mana denial game by playing wastelands instead and this should help it's matchup against dragon and stax.

But more importantly, what the point if everyone just plays the same decks over and over again just because someone arbitrarily decided that it's the best of the genre. Otherwise, there would only be one combo deck, one control deck and one combo deck.

Each deck is different enough that it has it's specific niche. This deck is no different.

could you please post something with substance toad?

Thanks for the suggestion, Plunge into Darkness works beautifully.

I'll test out your other suggestions.

----------------------------------Unrelated Rant----------------------------------

The more I play around with this deck, the more I'm convinced that other combo decks relying heavily on black are possible using a similar core of library manipulation and mana acceleration. (I'm currently considering Academy Rector variants and Bazaarless Dragon combo decks)

4 Plunge into Darkness
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Necropotence
4 Night's Whisper
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Entomb

4 Dark Ritual
1 Mana Crypt
1 Lotus Petal
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Chrome Mox

This is the build that I currently use. It works quite well and gets out a Dreadnought turn two a majority of the time (faster than Venguer Masque).

4 Illusionary Mask
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Will

4 Plunge into Darkness
4 Night's Whisper or Tainted Pact
4 Spoils of the Vault or Tainted Pact or Phyrexian Negator (Playing Spoils increases the percent of times you can play a dreadnought turn one or two significantly, but it kills you 15-16% of the time when you use it.)

4 Duress
4 Unmask

4 Dark Ritual
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Lotus Petal
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Chrome Mox
1 Mana Vault

12 Swamp
3 Ancient Tomb
1 Strip Mine

Duress and Unmask help the deck can get rid of any counterspells (usually FoW is the main one you have to worry about that early since most players opt to play cards their first turn), Null Rods, combo pieces or creature destruction cards that might ruin the game plan. The mana base and tutors ensure that a dreadnought can hit play by turn two or at the latest by turn three on a consistent basis and that the deck can recover from the loss of a critical card rather quickly. And the surprise factor often gets this deck game one.

I think this deck is very competitive against the entire field with blue based decks packing a ton of counterspells being it's greatest threat. But I'm not experienced enough with type one to make this assertion. Can anyone back me up on this, and if not suggest ways in which to make this deck more competitive.

I tested a version playing all five moxen and it really wasn't any faster but tended to give me mana of colors I don't need too often.

I was also wondering if getting out a dreadnought second or third turn almost every game is fast enough for the format in your opinion. Or is the deck simply too slow to be considered competitive.

How would you modify this deck to make it more competitive? Is a stronger focus on mana denial ala Sui Black recommended? Should I sacrifice the speed that Ancient Tombs offer for what Wasteland brings to the table (Bazaar and Workshop hate). Ancient Tombs and the mana deck in general has proven invaluable in playing around cards such as trinisphere and sphere of resistence.

I've never had a problem with a mana base and would prefer to leave it intact. I would prefer it if most of the suggestions dealt with the core cards themselves.

Suggestions for a sideboard would also be appreciated. The sideboard currently revolves around Powder Keg, Chalice of the Void, Planar Void, Wasteland, Tormod's Crypt, Contagion, Smother, and Vendetta.

Okay, I edited the post to take into account the concerns you've expressed. Please comment on the new idea for now.

Costly Expansion
3
Artifact
Fading 3
All nonland permanents gain the text "At the beginning of your upkeep, pay 2 mana or sacrifice ~this~"

This could just as easily be an enchantment, for black. The card that finally makes sui black or one of the many many other budget decks that play few permanents competitive again. It would also fit beautifully into keeper not utilizing the moxen and would open the field up to several new decks.

If this is too powerful, it can be modified to apply only to artifacts, or the upkeep cost can be reduced to 1 instead of 2. This would make it somewhat similar to the blue card with a similar effect.

I would much rather play this than Null Rod as it has more of an impact. It slows the whole game down a bit, for everyone and also makes the moxen utterly useless.

I give Wizards of the Coast full rights to use this idea as they please without acknowledgment or compensation of any sort.

Ever since Night's Whisper was unveiled, the idea of a B/U Tog deck (one abandoning cards like cunning wish and pernicious deed altogether to focus on mana denial) has appealed to me. This version seemed to have the potential to be a more ruthlessly consistent deck than even GroAtog.

Of course, such a version requires some new adaptations such as a much heavier component of black and mana denial.

Cards like wasteland, sinkhole, and possibly even null rod (if the mana base was adapted to phase out the off color moxen in favor of dark rituals) add a significant disruptive element to the deck. In such a version, spiketail hatchling seems quite promising as well.

This is all mostly brainstorming. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not an expert on tog based decks and have no idea if my current version is truly on par with standard groatog based on a couple of dozen goldfish turns.

I will state that the mana denial element seems to have added a very significant dimension to the deck though.

That's why I'm posting the idea here, to get your more experienced anaylisis and feedback.