Shivan Hellkite (and Kumano which does the same thing) requires red mana, which this deck run so that it can have a couple basic swamps at its disposal.

The combo stops when you switch the animate onto Oona after you've generated enough mana to mill their library with her.

A friend of mine has run something similar to this on occasion and I will admit it is quite frustrating to play against (in a good way for him).  One little trick that he uses that you may want to consider is running 4 Ninja of the Deep hours to bounce a Spellstutter back to his hand and re-use as a counter.  He also runs Sage of Epityr and Vendilion Clique for the same reason. 

Also, Energy Flux for the SB might what you are looking for to help out in the stax matchup.

-Ruinn

Agree that squees are bad without Bazaar, however, the point of 4 crop rotations is that you are almost never without a bazaar.  Even if the first gets met with a wasteland, you have a real good chance of hitting a second one instantly.

With the xantids, according to Steve's articles, drain decks make up over 40% of the metagame these days, and Xantid's just single handedly prevent them from stopping you.  Since traditionally those types of decks are your biggest foe, I do think it's worth 4 maindeck slots for the xantids over duress.  Most ritual-based decks at this point run force of will these days also, which as I said, xantid is great against.  I guess the biggest reason for xantids to me is that game one, it is the drain matchup I fear the most, and one I have almost a 50/50 (fish decks should also be considered part of this) shot of facing.

Confidant is another great card, but is again one that I feel is unnecessary.  This deck just really doesn't have a problem drawing enough cards because of how efficiently it gets and uses bazaar.  When playing this deck you almost do so in a way similar to ichorid; mulligan into a bazaar or crop rotation unless you have an amazing hand, bazaar will find a way to get you what you need in very short order.

Replacing the whole bazaar-squee engine with confidants/loam/entomb is taking the deck in a whole new direction that I have not tried so I cannot say how effective it would be.  If you feel like working out a list I'd definitely be curious to see the final product.

I actually really like the idea of ancient grudge and the more I think about it, the more a single life from the loam probably belongs.

re: cutting yawg/squees... Yawgs really has to stay as a late game bomb.  No, you cannot animate a dragon the turn you cast yawgs, but it lest you get so many things back, that I feel like it has to stay in.  Squees to me are an essential part of the deck.  There are a lot of things you really do not want to just discard in this deck, and while I could see making a squee-less version, I think it would have to look very different; starting over from scratch with that idea in mind might lead to something interesting.

re: Xantid swarm vs. Duress... Xantid is not just great against drains.  It is better than duress against force, (simply because rather than just stripping the force from their hand you get it and a blue card out), and also stops stifle, daze, spell snare and lots of other random things like spellstutter sprite that tend to float around.  Duress is good, but I think xantid is better.

I haven't posted here for quite awhile but the recent un-restrictions inspired me to dust off a long-since retired deck I used to have some success with. 

The list is a B/G only dragon concotion which I now think can be just as good as the lists that contain blue due to now being able to run 4 crop rotations.  The premise of the deck is that bazaar of baghdad is your best card and this deck abuses it to its fullest potential.  I have only been able to do a limited bit of testing thus and would greatly appreciate any input.


Obligatory (12)
4x Worldgorger Dragon
4x Squee, Goblin Nabob
4x Bazaar of Baghdad

-The core of any dragon deck, no explanation necessary

Win Condition(s) (2)
2x Oona, Queen of the Fae

-I find it vastly superior to any other options out there, it may or may not be worth running 1 Oona, and 1 something else to get around pithing needle

Disruption (8)
4x Xantid Swarmp
4x Thoughtseize

-Xantid is amazing, it is a must counter or must deal with immediately card.  Thoughtseize is a little better than duress since life loss should not be an issue.  It is possible to use a few duress in addition to the other disruption elements in the deck although I generally found that to be overkill.

Broken Stuff (6)
4x Crop rotation
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Yawgmoth's Will

-Crop rotation is the card that makes this deck work.  It lets you run 8 bazaars and it can also turn a bazaar into a mana source in a pinch.  DT and Will are both obvious auto-includes.  No vampiric tutor or imperial seal because the card disadvantage tutors don't really play nice with the other cards in this deck and they are usually not needed due to how fast this deck can dig.

Animate Package (8)
4x Animate Dead
4x Necromancy

-No dance of the dead because it can't really be used on an Oona or Xantid swarm (which is a big deal).  8 Seems to be the right number to me, although I know some people prefer more/less.

The Catch-All (2)
2x Pernicious Deed

-I really like Pernicious Deed.  I don't find it as hard to cast as you would expect and it clears out pretty much everything that could be annoying.  This slot can certainly be something else though... popular choices include: naturalize, diabolic edict, smother, choke, pitching needle etc.

Bazaar Insurance (3)
3x Entomb

-I feel like this is the weakest card in the deck at the moment, but it certainly serves a purpose.  If you have a bazaar online it can make sure you get the dragon in the yard ASAP.  If you don't have a bazaar it can get the dragon in the yard, or it can get an oona in the yard to animate and stall an aggro deck.  This slot could certainly be more disruption/removal as well, or even a Life from the Loam/Darkblast.

Mana (19)
1x Black Lotus
1x Lotus Petal
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Pearl
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Emerald
3x Bloodstained Mire
3x Polluted Delta
4x Bayou
2x Swamp

-Mana bases have never been my strength but this has worked for me so far.  I've toyed with the idea of ESGs/Sol Ring/Mana Crypt but never really loved them.  They may all have a slot in a more aggressive version of the deck however.

Sideboard (15)
TBD

-Can be transformational into oath or aggro (Goyf and Tombstalker work well for that).  I would probably go that way at this point considering how much graveyard hate is running around in peoples boards nowadays.  SB should also include 2 swamps and a forest, also choke can be extremely powerful.  More deeds certainly work as well.


Well, that is what I have come up with so far.  It is very straightforward to play. 1st turn -> xantid or thoughtseize, 2nd turn -> Bazaar (or rotate into bazaar), pitch dragon, play mox, animate, win.  I'm not sure if this deck will be a star in the GY hate-heavy metagame we'll probably be experiencing in the near future, but I do like it a bit more than the versions I've seen being tossed around that run blue.  This deck is faster to me and just as resilient.  It also dodges all the random blue hate cards that people play. 

Thanks for reading.

-Ruinn

I am a friend of the R/G beatz player and since he does not post here or even read this forum much I guess I'll try and help you out a little bit with how he did.  He ended up losing in the quarters due to a combination of a poor judgement on whether to mulligan a hand or not, and some bad luck.

It is not really an R/G beatz deck also, its really more of a red burn/stompy deck with dryads, and this is why we call it "Burning Dryad."  The dryads are the focal point of the deck but hardly necessary to win (I think he said he casted a total of one in his first 3 matches and very few after as well.)  He actually only decided to play the deck before as we figured on a very heavy control oriented meta and we were right as he did not lose a match until the top 8.  

Browbeat is basically the drawing engine of the deck, originally it was sylvan library + fetches but that did not work well.  Then it was skullclamps but we did not like the idea of having to take out burn spells for sub optimal creatures (like goblin cadet) to feed clamp.  Browbeat actually works the best, as it does not get played until he has already dealt a hefty amount of damage.  If the person takes the five damage, that works too.

Hope that helped to clear some things up.

I would go if the prize was worthwhile, and would most likely bring at least one other person.  This would only be 1.5 hours as opposed to the usual 3 I drive for a good tournament.

I have attempted to develop something similar to this, however I went off in a different direction so what I am saying here may not completely apply to your deck as I have not had a chance to test it.  You say yourself that the sliths are average and to me they seem like the weak point in this deck.  Have you tried Arcbound Crusher in that spot?

The crusher just seems like it would grow to enormous proportions in this deck, and will almost definately outgrow the slith over time.  The fact that it has trample only makes it more synergistic with the particular equipment you  are using.  

The only thing I could possibly see preventing you from using it is that it may be a little bit harder to get down.  However, looking at your 2 mana slot it even seems like the slith has a good deal of competition.  There would be significantly less competition for the crusher at four, and with your deck getting it first for second turn seems very easy.  One other thing, Arcbound Crusher is also not effected by null rod/matrix.

I like the idea of the biskelion, I had never thought of trying him but I will now.  He perfectly deals with all those annoying little pests, is an artifact which helps with metalworker, and at worst you can throw some equipment on him and let him attack.

Cranial Plate is another card that I have not tried but really should have thought of.  When I playing at the fifth dawn pre-release this card carried me all day, and I had not even built my deck accordingly.  With so many artifacts that thing is going to cause a great deal of pain.

Good Job, and congrats on the high finishes, let me know if you make any changes.

I would just like to add in that this is the place where I play nearly every week and greatly enjoy being there.  The prizes are more than reasonable considering the entry fee and the people who play here are generally a pleasure to be around.  Several top decks are represented every week and there are numerous players with access to full power.

Also, these tournaments are on the rise, months ago when I first started going getting 12 people was viewed as very good.  Now there are weeks where the number can hit 20 and prizes are always increased when there are more players.  I encourage anyone in the area to come and play.

Landstill would not like this card all that much because of the disks it runs.  None of the fish variants use a global board sweeper the way landstill does, so I believe it would see more play in fish than landstill.  Even then, does it really help either of those deck more than the cards they already have in it?

The only thing I can see using it for is in my casual U/g Stasis deck.  The zuran orb and fastbond were already in there, so creating infinite life is not so bad since I'm trying to deck you anyway.  But, other than that casual deck I really do not see it as a combo piece.  However, I will definately also test this out in any deck running five wastes and other mana denial elements, just to see if it has any potential.

I mentioned the Damping Matrix Masticore to AngryPheldagrif earlier, but he seems intent on going with it....

AngryPheldagrif:  Morphling and Masticore do not work at all in this deck because damping matrix shuts them off.  Matrix is also the card that makes the deck effective in so many matchups so removing it is obviously out of the question.  

Jazzykat: Throwing some red into an EBA style is something that I have been messing around with for nearly a month now.  However, I chose a different path than you took.  I removed the black and kept white as I felt Exalted Angel and Meddling Mage were just pure awesomeness.  

My most recent list for reference:

Meddling Matrix.dec

Mana (25):
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tundra
4 Volcanic Island
3 Island
1 Plains
1 Strip Mine
1 Mana Crypt  <---- yes it belongs
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Diamond
1 Sol ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire

More Cards would be nice:
4 Brainstorm
4 Deep Analysis  <--- explanation below
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Mystical Tutor

I don't think I live that:
4 Meddling Mage
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
3 Damping Matrix
2 Cunning wish
2 Swords to Plowshares

No Explanation Necessary:
1 Balance
1 Time Walk

Most Underrated Creature in Type 1:
3 Exalted Angel

Sideboard (or why red is in the deck):
1 Disenchant
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Blue Elemental blast
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Stifle
3 Rack and Ruin
4 Red Elemental Blast
2 Flametongue Kavu
1 Fire/Ice


Ok, first off let me explain the selection that raises the most eyebrows.  Deep Analysis... yes it does seem very odd at first but let me explain my thought process.  I need card draw, AK's are good but I want this deck to have a good matchup versus tog so they are out.  Ophidians get shut off by damping matrix.  Thirst for knowledge is good, but in the end, I liked deep anal more for a couple of reasons: This deck runs crazy acceleration, It can get me three new cards without making me discard anything, Makes the control matchup that much stronger as they essentially have to counter it twice.

Now, about all that "crazy acceleration."  It serves two purposes, getting deep anal online, and getting the angel down as fast as possible.  Getting the Angel down ASAP just wins many matchups, especially with the counter backup this deck can offer.  

Both of our decks offer favorable psychatog and slaver matchups (that was the reason I started working on this deck actually), however, I feel I am more prepared to deal with aggro than you are.  Kavu is ok, but better suited to the sideboard, and I've never been a fan of chalice in decks that do not use a lot of accerants.  Angel just sticks its middle finger up at aggro, and there is rarely a whole lot they can do about her once she is down.  In playtesting, one of my friends  refused to play any aggro decks against me after a particularly interesting series of games which involved many turn three hardcasted angels.  

One other thing that stands out differently is that you have chosen to go the mana denial route while I have given up on this.  I believe that decks are so ready for wastelands at this point they are not as effective as they once were.  However, I do run the one strip for pesky bazaar's and such.  I see it more often than you would think with all of the draw I run.  

One other thing, I feel you have way overloaded against combo.  You are a control deck remember, combo is going to be weaker against you anyway, I do not think you need as much combo hate as you are currently using.  

Sorry about the long post but when I saw this go up I realized it was something I had been working on and figured I'd offer my two cents.  Also, considerring Jazzy and I play in the same area and see each other a lot, it may give us something to talk about at next Friday's tournament.  

GL with your build.

Explain to me why having four creatures hinders consistency.  The only way to deal with any of them is swords (and even that is hard to do to morphling.  They all get shuffled back in from gaea's blessing otherwise.  One of the beauties of oath is that it does not need many creatures, it has room for so many other good cards.

This is speaking with virtually no experience with the deck, but if drawing is a problem, how bad would adding 2 skullclamps be?  The elves are not particularly useful after the first couple turns and being able to off them for two cards does not seem like a bad tradeoff.  I would imagine you would normally have at least one and usually two by the time you see a clamp, and this is when typically the deck would seem to run out of gas.  

By the way, ESG should be in here I feel, it is a speed boost, and an efficient one, which is exactly what you say you are in need of.  If you get them late, they can be hardcast which is not the most awful thing in the world.

I like to run 1 morphling, 1 darksteel colossus, 1 weaver, 1 baloth.  The ability to get all of them off the board (except the colossus) is essential so you can keep oathing every turn.  Colossus is there because he is ridiculously powerful against most anything, but to be fair, he is not entirely needed.  I mainly have him there as a tinker target as a backup plan.

I've always felt the creatures should be able to be sacked at instant speed and no exceptions should be made.  I changed my mind when the Colossus appeared, but I am not willing to include anything.  The colossus is just plain better than anything else you can put in this deck other than instant-sac creatures.

Yes, that third game (round 1) I thought it would be a good idea to keep a hand with force, lotus, ancestral, brainstorm, ak, trop, demonic tutor..... after digging 7 cards and only finding that emerald as a mana source + having my trop wasted, it was downhill from there.  

Good to see you did well with such a fun deck though.  I want your lotus though because it finds opening hands more often then all my moxen combined.

I can devinately relate to this situation as I love playing magic but I like change and surprise more than than focusing and fine tuning any single deck.  I play in a tournament every week and bring something different every week.  I cannot even remember all the things I have tried but I have enough ideas lined up for another month.  

My suggestion would be that if you are having trouble finding a single deck.... try them all! It works for me.  I have the most fun playing my own rogue builds or playing something that is similar to something in existance but with a personal spin.  Every now and then I hit on something and win the whole thing but even when I that does not happen I have fun with it.  Give it a shot, it is always possible that while trying out everything you actually will stumble across something you love, and then you have accomplished what you wanted to.  My friend did the same thing and recently fell in love with a rector tendrils deck.  Not sure how effective it will be in our area but he seems happy.

@Alfred: Oath of Druids is the weakest of the cards that give you creatures for free, however there are many games where it is the best option given its 1G CC.  It would most likely be the most sided out card, but I am hesitant to add a third color to the deck.  Sneak attack fits the theme perfectly but adding red would mean not getting the proper mana in your opening hand as often.  If you are sitting there with a Eureka and only blue/red mana, its not going to do you a whole lot of good.  One of the other more subtle things that would have to be changed is the creature base.  When using sneak attack it makes more sense to use creatures with comes into play and when leaves play abilities, rather than just huge ones.  Therefore I think the deck is better without red.

@mrieff: I'm hesitant to cut anything large in this deck because when playing this deck, the worst feeling is when you have the mana to play eureka and there are no big creatures in your hand.  Birds would be in there if not for the vineyards which are just stronger in the deck.  However, if I were to go with the red splash Birds would replace the Vineyards, and natural orders would indeed most likely be brought in because the pair work so well together.

Titan is a cute card, but this deck wants beef as opposed to cute.  The seven power is great and all but Titan really offers very little else.  Mana disruption is not really much of a threat for this deck because it either has the acceleration or it doesn't.  Because of this running another basic land really does not seem to help a great deal.

Dicemanx suggested I throw this up as its own thread and I feel that it can be a competitive and extremely fun deck to play.  Here is the post that was made in the skull.dec thread:

The idea of throwing huge creatures on the board has always been a fun thought to me and I have been in a constant state of trying to find the best way to do it. When I saw darksteel colossus I went back to the drawing board and came up with a solid decklist. In seeing this thread I notice a lot of similarities and figured I might as well share my findings.

Free Fat.dec

Mana:
4 Yavimaya Coast
4 Tropical Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Eladamri's Vineyard
2 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Island
1 Forest
1 Chrome Mox
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby

The Fat:
4 Darksteel Colossus
4 Plated Slagwurm
4 Verdant Force
2 Silvos

The Stuff that makes the fat free:
4 Eureka
4 Show and Tell
4 Oath of Druids

Leaving them out would be silly:
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker

The obvious difference between my deck and the one originally posted is the switching of sneak attack for show and tell, plus the subsequent switching of the creature base due to this change.

You mention your leaving out the colossus because he is not castable, and I feel that his impact warrants his inclusion regardless. First turn colossus is not that uncommon and second turn happens creature drops is basically guaranteed. The two turn clock he creates is superior to any creature that could be put in this deck.

The massive acceleration provided by the 30 mana sources in this deck gives a solid backup plan of just hardcasting either a verdant or slagwurm, turn two being fairly likely and third turn nearly 70%.

I have not worked out a solid sideboard yet, but it would seem that the best options would be xantid swarm, and possibly city of solitude to combat control.  City may seem odd but getting three mana first turn for this deck is cake.  Chalice of the Void is also logical as you have very few things costing 1 or 2 and easily the mana to set chalice there early.

Thanks for the encouragement, I will throw up another thread about this deck, and I appreciate the suggestions.  I am not sure which version functions better, with sneak attack you can abuse comes into and leaves play abilities that I cannot.  Show and Tell can also come back to hurt you although this is a rare occurance, but nonetheless should be noted.

The idea of throwing huge creatures on the board has always been a fun thought to me and I have been in a constant state of trying to find the best way to do it.  When I saw darksteel colossus I went back to the drawing board and came up with a solid decklist.  In seeing this thread I notice a lot of similarities and figured I might as well share my findings.

Free Fat.dec

Mana:
4 Yavimaya Coast
4 Tropical Island
4 Polluted Delta
4 Eladamri's Vineyard
2 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Island
1 Forest
1 Chrome Mox
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby

The Fat:
4 Darksteel Colossus
4 Plated Slagwurm
4 Verdant Force
2 Silvos

The Stuff that makes the fat free:
4 Eureka
4 Show and Tell
4 Oath of Druids

Leaving them out would be silly:
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker

The obvious difference between my deck and the one originally posted is the switching of sneak attack for show and tell, plus the subsequent switching of the creature base due to this change.

You mention your leaving out the colossus because he is not castable, and I feel that his impact warrants his inclusion regardless.  First turn colossus is not that uncommon and second turn happens creature drops is basically guaranteed.  The two turn clock he creates is superior to any creature that could be put in this deck.  

The massive acceleration provided by the 30 mana sources in this deck gives a solid backup plan of just hardcasting either a verdant or slagwurm, turn two being fairly likely and third turn nearly 70%.

Just for the record, my final version of belcher won:

1st turn: 15%
2nd turn: 55%
3rd turn: 25%
later: 5%

This version ran 4 duress and 2 unmask for disruption but as I said earlier on the board, the deck was put on the backburner for a couple reasons.  

-Ridiculous inconsistency (Sometimes you would win first time with mana to spare but others you would just mulligan again and again until you were down to no cards.)

-Extreme fragility (The deck just rolled over and died to any kind of marginally effective hate, this made it totally unplayable to today's meta.)

Currently I do not see a way to make combo belcher viable, the only way I can see belcher being used is as the kill in a control deck.  I have no idea how a deck like this would be structured, nor have I made any attempts to build one myself.  Nonetheless I wish you luck in your efforts.

If I were playing budget landstill I believe that powder keg is a must.  Disk is slow without the acceleration of mana drain, or even a mox.  Keg solves this problem by clearing away a few threats right before you drop can drop a disk.  Also, in the absence of ancestral recall, I think that running an impulse or two, just to help you find the card you need would be ideal.  

Three MisD also seems a little bit excessive.  I have found them to be continually less useful as time goes on, but they make a bit of a comeback now that control is packing more removal.  I would suggest at least trying one or two less main however because they can often be a dead card.

I'm one of the people who was paritally responsible for some of the directions that this deck took.  I even used it in a couple of tournaments to get a feel for it and the results were... not that great.  I determined that it was just too inconsistant and could be hated so easily by cards people are already running.  As such, I have, for the most part, scrapped the belcher project until a revelation is made or another card comes out that greatly helps the deck.

In regards to the list you have there, most efforts proved that the best build used two lands, a bayou and a tropical island in order to bring in some of the power cards.  Tinker proved to be especially good in this deck.  The spheres were also cut and so were the vineyards even later for various reasons.  The vineyards helped out the opponents too much and birds of paradise turned out to actually be a better option.  The spheres were slow and clunky and thus removed.  Cabal Ritual is also suboptimal in the deck.  Necropotence was also taken out for being too slow and a pain to cast.  Adding a tainted pact or two helped get the cards you would need.

You are for the most part correct about the sideboard, 4 swarms are a must and I used four crumbles, but oxidize is better and when legal should be used.  Running both crumble and oxidize is not an awful idea since most of the damaging cards against belcher are artifacts.  

If you decide to develop this further, good luck.  The deck can have some very broken hands and can win first turn fairly often, but I found the inconsistancy means that it is not as good as the other combo decks out there right now.

The removing of black is something I have thought about due to the high concentration of blood moons running around, and also the occasional back to basics.  The deck gains stability and loses some versatility, overall the choice should be very much a metagame decision.

I am not a fan of humility, this deck handles aggro pretty well even with the loss of the abyss.  I had mentioned earlier that the abyss is the weakest of the creature control methods.  Decree of Justics is also not as good as Sacred Mesa because the opponent may have many creatures just sitting on the ground waiting for you to attack with soldiers, or you could have a moat in play.  Yes, you could make angels but not control deck will allow that to happen, and duress is gone to clear the way.

Mesa can create much larger, harder to block armies.  The fact that it is an enchantment only strengthens its case.

I always ran hollistic wisdom, it is a very important card I feel the deck.  Enchantress draws so well that the discard is usually not as issue and getting back a serra's sanctum or something else more valuable.  

I think if black is removed adding another sterling grove and maybe in my case bringing in a karmic justice would be the best option.  If your feeling the need for a little more acceleration, the extra slots could also be wild growths, but there are numerous useful enchantments.  One ground seal main could be very useful depending on the opponents you are facing.

I've been known to overlook the simple solutions in an effort to find something more complicated and it looks like this has happened again.  Wild growth could be very good, even if it makes the land even more of a wasteland target.  I am not sure what the best thing to cut from the deck would be, but this is an change I will try out when I get some free time.

I often wonder about eladamri's vineyard, its an enchantment, it speeds things up....but something about giving my opponent that much mana for so many turn, and me not even have a good sink prevents me from doing it.  It might be the best we will ever see though in the way of enchantment excelleration.