[Deck] Colorado Gains

[Lou]

Colorado Gains is a deck that I have been working on in one form or another since after Gencon of last year.  I met Mike Bomholt at dinner the last night, and some of the discussion was around his Ill-Gotten Gains (IGG) Legacy deck that he calls Iggy Pop.  The deck seemed very interesting, and I immediately wanted to port the deck over to Type 1.  There was one main problem though.  Force of Will.  If you cast IGG and an opponent has FoW, or any counter magic and some mana for that matter, you might as well scoop 'em up, cause your next spell isn't going through, and you have more than likely fizzled.  For those who don't know, here is the what IGG does:

Ill-Gotten Gains:  Remove Ill-Gotten Gains from the game.
Each player discards his or her hand, then returns up to three cards from his or her graveyard to his or her hand.

The solution?  Leyline of the Void

Leyline of the Void: If Leyline of the Void is in your opening hand, you may begin the game with it in play.
If a card would be put into an opponent’s graveyard, remove it from the game instead.

Leyline of the Void is truly a busted card, and gives this deck much more game than it should have against a lot of decks.  Does this mean the deck has no game without Leyline?  Maybe and maybe not. I am just going to present the deck and give a little break down, not convince anyone to play this deck this weekend in Richmond.  It is fun though, and can put up good results.

Here is Mike's SCG Legacy Iggy-Pop primer, which gives a little more detail of how the combo goes off.  The cards are not exactly the same, but the point is made: http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/10989.html

The combo, really quick, is to resolve one or a number of Ill-Gotten Gains or Yawgmoth's Will to ramp up a storm count high enough to finish off your opponent using Tendril's of Agony as your finisher.

I played this deck last weekend in a sanctioned event that brought in about 48 people or so.  Most people were not powered, and I am not basing my results solely on this event, but a limited amount of testing as well.  This deck is not finished, and can certainly use more fine tuning.  I went 3-1-1 and lost in the first round of top 8 to Goblins.  There is also one change from the current list and the list I played: -1 Duress and +1 Intuition

The list:

Enchantments
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Necropotence

Sorceries:
3 Il-Gotten Gains
1 Yawgmoth's Will
4 Unmask
3 Duress
2 Grim Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
3 Tendril's of Agony

Instants:
4 Dark Ritual
2 Cabal Ritual
1 Ancestral Recall
3 Intuition
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 hurkyl's Recall

Creatures:
4 Dark Confidant

Artifacts:
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt

Lands:
4 Polluted Delta
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Underground Sea
5 Swamp

I don't think my sideboard is very important, as it was built for an unpowered metagame that probably resembles nothing any one outside of Denver will see.

Let's look over some of the card choices  Some obvious, some not.  First, disruption.

Unmask:  This card is truly great with a dead Leyline in hand, especially if all you need to go off is a little assurance, or you need to get that FoW removed from the game with a Leyline down.  Unlike Duress, Unmask can remove creatures, and against Fish, taking away something like a Meddling Mage is huge.  (Bob will whine if I don't give him props for Unmask.  Props you mother fucker!)

Duress:  Duress is arguably combo's best disruption card.

Bounce:  I am currently only running hurkyl's Recall.  I don't think this is the right number, and I would love to find another slot for a Rebuild.  Stax is probably this decks hardest match up, as is the case with most storm based combo decks.  A very strong argument could also be made for the inclusion of Chain of Vapor or Echoing Truth because a well timed Meddling Mage naming Tendril's of Agony will make the rest of the game an uphill battle for you, as Confidant beats are your only out at that point.

Leyline of the Void:  Many of the decks in the format rely on graveyard abuse to cheat costs and to replay cards as if they were in your hand.  Goblin Welder, Bazaar of Baghdad, Yawgmoth's Will, Crucible of Worlds, the dredge mechanic, Gifts Ungiven and many many more cards are hosed by Leyline of the Void.  One of the best plays with this deck is having a Leyline down, casting IGGs very early and removing your opponents hand from the game.  You now have only three cards in your hand, but your opponent won't even have a hand.

Card Draw and Tutoring.

Dark Confidant:  This card is ridiculously good at filling your hand while putting the opponent on a clock.  By generating large amounts of card advantage, an early Confidant unanswered will probably spell game over more often then not.  I want to fit Time Walk in here just for the Confidant, because the tempo generated is usually very substantial.  This card can get painful though, and running three Tendril's of Agony can help some of this with a little bit of life gain after a small amount of storm is generated.

Intuition:  This card finds all your combo pieces, both before and after you have started to go off.  If you have to get three IGGs and you have the necessary mana, barring disruption, you win on the spot as you now have Intuition in your yard to find one of your three Tendrils.  This is why the deck needs three Tendrils, in my opinion.  Intuition also sets up the mana needed to combo out or grabs a Duress or Unmask that might be needed to push the combo through.  Intuition can also grab one of the many tutors in this deck to ensure that you get the exact card that you need.  This is not the best way to abuse the card, but it can definitely deliver results.

The Tutors:  With five tutors in the deck, you have a nice way of making sure that you always have a play, and you won't fizzle when the time to combo out arises.  Between the Intuitions and the tutors, you should not have a problem seeing the cards that you want to see.

The Mana Base:

This mana base is very resilient.  With five basics and 6 fetches, Wasteland is laughable.  The deck does not rely on artifact mana until it is ready to win, and even then a couple of Dark Rituals or Cabal Rituals will do the job.

While the deck can win turn one, that is not your normal goal.  Against control, you really want to ride a Confidant for a few turns until you have enough cards to force through your threats and  win the game.  Another plan is to tutor multiple times for a few busted cards and make sure you can force through the most important ones.  Don't forget about FoW however, especially if you don't have a Leyline down.  Against any version of Stax, you hope to just stay in it long enough to bounce all the badness during your opponents EOT, and then combo out unimpeded during your next turn.  As is the case with all decks, the sideboard should be utilized to upgrade your challenging matches.

Questions that I have for the deck:

I wonder if adding three more moxen will detract anything from the deck?  The deck doesn't currently rely on artifact mana, but adding three moxes could significantly change that.  The deck is obviously slower without the added moxen, but I think the stable mana base helps versus some of the harder decks in the format that really pose a problem to this deck.

Any questions or comments and criticisms about the deck will be greatly appreciated.  Thanks to all my Colorado Crew homies for making suggestions and helping me tweak the deck and for not always being douches and allowing me to test something I enjoy playing.

[bomholmm]

I would seriously consider running three Cabal Ritual, using Intuition to fetch three of those is sooo broken, the +3 to threshold that Intuition gives you is amazing and after you resolve Yawg Will they will pay for every black spell you could want. Oh and the unmask to use dead leylines is friggin sweet.

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

Lou and I never discussed the Grim Tutor slot. I was never too impressed with it, so maybe you could go,

-2 Tutor
+1 Ritual
+1 Duress

Also, mystical tutor might become an imperial seal.

The deck is pretty savage, and pretty much laughs conventional combo hate (ie, mana disruption). Chalice 1 doesn't stop cabal ritual or lotus, and chalice 0 doesn't stop any of your rituals. Wastelands can also be easily played around between 6 fetch, 5 swamps, and Confidants drawing you into them. In fact, the deck can play it's own disruption. Lou boarded Null rods in testing and they were pretty savage. It slows combo/control decks to your pace, while also shutting off tormod's crypt.

[PucktheCat]

Any particular reason to run 4 Underground Sea instead of, for example, 1 Island, 1 Mire, 2 Sea?

I really like that your combo engine happens to naturally include an insane hate card against almost all of T1.  Seems to me like there is definately room for exploration here.  Storm is so busted.

How aggressively do you mulligan for Leyline?  Do you have any idea what kind of difference starting with Leyline in play makes to the deck's win %?

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

There really is no reason to run 1 island.

The deck runs a total of 15 lands, meaning you want to make the most out of them. The core is Mono-black with a splash of blue for recall/intuition. Initially, I thought intuition was going to be utter crap, but it turned out to be pretty good. The deck also doesn't run brainstorm, so you really don't need blue mana on turn 1. Against stax, you find hurkyl's (if you really need it) and sit on a fetch. In our initial testing, I remember Lou losing a game or two because he played turn 1 island.

That's not to say running a basic island is bad. If you see a crapload of stax, adding an island might not be too bad of an idea. So far, it's been doing just fine.

Finding Leyline is dependent on the matchup. Against something like stax, it's margianlly useful, so it's not all that important you find it. Against something like storm combo or dragon, trying to mull into it isn't a terrible idea...

[Rapalaman1]

I would seriously consider running three Cabal Ritual, using Intuition to fetch three of those is sooo broken, the +3 to threshold that Intuition gives you is amazing and after you resolve Yawg Will they will pay for every black spell you could want. Oh and the unmask to use dead leylines is friggin sweet.

It would seem like since Leyline is a pretty important part of the deck, the threshold side of Cabal Rit might not be so good.

[LouGodKingofDustBunnys]

Ah, excuse me please rapalaman...what are you in fact saying? I'm just a tad confused, since leyline of the void only affects your opponent, i don't see were it affects cabal at all...

[BruiZar]

I've been testing ill-gotten gains for over a month now. Tendrils occasionally craps out on you because you lack the drawing power to make it lethal. Confidants help .Unmask is a bad card. You dont want your business cards removed since you play 4 gains and a will so removing spells for a duress that can be drained for 4 mana sucks ass
Aso i wonder why this post isnt in the improvement forum since this build is nowhere near optimal

Cabal Ritual is pretty good. but i would consider running it multicolored.

I'm also considering mana drains, getting back 3 drains using drain mana to begin with seriously f*cks your opponent in the buttox
my list as of now:

4 Leyline of the Void
4 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Dark Ritual
4 Dark Confidant
3 Duress
2 Cabal Therapy
2 Swords to Plowshares
2 Gravestorm [questionable or not?]
1 Web of Inertia [House]
1 Contagion [Questionable, but rids leylines]
1 Ancestrall Recall
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor

1 Balance
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Hurkyll's Recall
1 Regrowth
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Time Vault
1 Tinker
1 Flame Fussilade
1 Darksteel Collosus
1 Time Walk

1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Black Lotus

4 Wasteland
4 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass
1 Strip Mine
3 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Karakas

I will test burning wish asap

[LouGodKingofDustBunnys]

I've been testing ill-gotten gains for over a month now. Tendrils occasionally craps out on you because you lack the drawing power to make it lethal. Confidants help .Unmask is a bad card. You don't want your business cards removed since you play 4 gains and a will so removing spells for a duress that can be drained for 4 mana sucks ass
Aso i wonder why this post isnt in the improvement forum since this build is nowhere near optimal

You said that Tendrils sometimes craps out on you due to drawing power? That's what the search is for, to find you cards to allow you to combo out. The confidants are good in the deck, because they give you extra cards AND beat down to lower your opponents life total making it easier to pull off a lethal Tendrils. Unmask is card disadvantage, but It's free and gets rid of extra Leylines. The free part is important because sometimes mana is tight when your starting the combo. The only spells that matter once you start going off is the Ill-gotten's, the Rits and a Tendrils, so pitching anything else if fine...as long a it puts you in a postion to win the game.

However, none of this is the reason for my responce.

This is in the open forum because this deck has been tested and tuned by good proven players, who want to share it with other players. After saying that, you then post a decklist that run no brainstorms , very little search, a horrid manabase (one plains? 3 swamps? no fetchlands??) only 3 duresses and 2 cabal therapy's? Then you add in the random gravestorms, web and contagion. And then, on top of all that your running the flamevault kill with only 3 search spells.

The only thing I can say in response to all that I HAVE to assume you are joking sir. I do realize it is a bit early for April fools jokes, but some people like to get a head start on things. I'm going to assume you are of on those early joker types.

On the ever so tiny chance that you were if fact serious about your post and the decklist, I only have but one thing to say...Good Luck.

[BruiZar]

Your deck just doesnt win. Leyline /Illgotten Gains puts your opponent in topdeck mode. Why play a tendrils that isnt going to be lethal when you can just combo out with 2 cards instead of playing 9 ? When you go off, your opponent doesnt have cards to prevent it ANYWAY.

Besides that, unmask really doesnt do anything because once you are able to cast illgotten gains. you automatically rid him of all his answers anyhow. Duress does everything unmask can and does it cheaper and quicker , creatures should be no problem for this deck.
If you want to run suboptimal carddisadvantage like unmask with only recall and confidant as real draw thats fine by me but dont expect to actually return 3 cards from your graveyard with gains when you are mulling for leyline and wasting valuable cards for unmask


If adding moxen to a combo deck NOT running null rod or chalice is a question, I believe the joke is on you. If you're saying that your metagame is unpowered, that means you have not been able to put your deck to a real test. Gold fishing and testing isn't winning power on tournaments. Besides you went 3-1-1 which isnt spectacular.

Grabbing an unmask without a leyline in your opening and = auto mull. You basically add Dark COnfidant because you agree with me that your tendrils isnt going to cut it That means your win condition is suboptimal which ultimately means that this deck will crap out on you or go broken turn 1 or 2.

Im not sure why you say i ONLY have 3tutors. I run regrowth, will, 4xgains. That is enough to tutor atleast 9 times. Intuition is a good card because it has synergy with gains so i applaud that.


"I went 3-1-1 and lost in the first round of top 8 to Goblins. "
"Then you add in the random gravestorms, web and contagion."
Seems to me that if you had Web you wouldnt have lost the match. I already stated myself that both contagion and gravestorm are questionable as i still need to do some extra testing so flaming me for these cards is obviously not affecting me.

You are running grim tutor but no imperial seal. If you rather tutor for 3 than tutor for 1 you dont deserve a fast combo deck. Brainstorm means nothing when i can just cast recall 6 times

enough mocking:
Playing timevault and tinker makes sense because if it gets countered it just lands in your graveyard which you will recurse anyway and it instantly reads game over.
Getting a chalice for 0/1/2 seriously hampers your storm count which automatically makes yourchances of going lethal smaller.

[Hydra]

For one, the Lou who posted the deck and the Lou you're arguing with are NOT the same person.

Second, your list does look sub-par to me as well.  Instead of a focused combo deck, you appear to be attempting a combo-control deck like Gifts, but lack the overpowered tutors to make the idea work.  How do you expect to fetch your win conditions?  Dark Confidant + 2 Tutors really aren't enough to set up the win conditions you're attempting to run, while the original deck posted runs Intuition to go with Confidant and 5 other Tutors.  Ill-Gotten Gains isn't any good if you can't get the card somewhere where you can abuse them.

Unmask is important because it's a free way to make sure you resolve the FIRST IGG while jacking up your storm count.  Multiple Dark Rituals/Cabal Rituals and IGGs fetched by Intuition are an amazing way of boosting storm, as the past success the deck has had in Legacy can attest to.

I think bashing him for Brainstorm and Grim Tutor is non-sensical and goes a long way towards making the rest of us disregard your opinion.  Any deck that runs as much utor-power as the original list posted can definitely take advantage of the card selection Brainstorm provides you.  Casting Ancestral 6 times off recursion sounds okay, but why not just play 5 Ancestrals to begin with?  That's what Brainstorm tends to be in a deck like this.  Grim Tutor allows you to win NOW, instead of next turn.  Paying 1B more to win NOW sounds fairly reasonable to most combo players.

Back to commenting on the original list, I'd also like to see another Cabal Ritual put in so you can Intuition for 3.  The mana boost it could provide off IGGs seems too good to pass up not trying to capitalize on it.

[BruiZar]

not grabbing leyline of the void absolutely destroys 4x leyline and 4x unmask.

if you cast ill gotten gains you are filling up his counters to disrupt your upcoming tendrils setup.

i have
manadrain
force of will
island

you have
ill gotten gains
dark ritual
dark ritual
unmask

you are clearly in a favorable position. if you have a leyline out you will definately win the game by unmasking his mana drain and then casting ill-gotten gains.
however, you cannot count on having leyline out all the time. if you do not have leyline out, you can cast unmask and then cast ill-gotten gains but you will just give back 3 counters in his hand which he can use to combo out on you. you arent getting a leyline in to play after the first few turns since your opponent will have drain mana open and fows waiting to get you. that means you just turned 8 cards into timewalks... for your opponent....

[Lou]

In regards to the third Cabal Ritual...  I ran three for awhile, but what I found was that if I didn't have threshold it was really hard for me to go off after casting a IGG when I Intuitioned for three.  I would always have six cards in my graveyard and I would have to wait another turn.  If I threw a Dark Ritual in with two Cabal Rituals however, I now had no problem going off, because almost no matter what, you had at least one black mana remaining, instead of the two needed for Cabal Ritual, and now I could start chaining spells regardless, because I could start with the Dark Ritual.  Three might be a better call.  Three Dark Rituals might have been a better call in those instances as well, but I do try to get threshold as soon as possible to abuse the Cabals.  Does anyone have any suggestions as to what they think they might pull out?

I think the power of Grim Tutor is being underestimated.  It puts the card in your hand, now, and it is also a tutor that will be in your yard after you start the combo just in case you need another way to find your Tendrils.  Let's not forget that your plan is to play most of the cards twice before you win the game.

To BruiZar - Please don't clog up my thread with hate.  I have tested this deck, and I feel it can be a strong continder in the metagame.  However, I said multiple times in my first post that I think the deck can use work and that it is not a final product.  I did not say that the deck was the end all be all of storm combo decks.  The deck does not need to win fast, as the mana base is solid, the draw engine takes a few turns to get online, and you don't want to fizzle.  You can wait just a little bit.  In regards to me losing to Goblins - I lost very early both games, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.  The first game I got down an early Confidant, who showed his dark side that game, as he showed me an Unmask and a Leyline to quicken my death, and game two was over before I could get the four mana necessary to hard cast Massacre, which was in my board to combat weenie style decks.  You don't have to use IGG to win with this deck.  It runs like a Yawmoth's Will deck, and that is obviously the better card.  If I need to pitch an IGG to an Unmask to cast Will and just win now, I will.  I am not sure the quality of play you are putting me on, but I personally don't walk into Drain blindly.  Sometimes you need to bluff one spell to ensure that the right spell goes through, and if that means getting something Drained, but I still win, then it doesn't matter.  If you would like to start up a thread about your build and your card choices, I strongly encourage you to do so.  Or maybe some actual analysis as to WHY your card choices are better, please.  I am having some trouble making sense of some of what you are saying.

[EnialisLiadon]

I would think that Cabal Therapy would be much better at protecting and disrupting with IGG, rather than use a card that dead more often than not.

[Hydra]

Isn't that an issue with your list as well BruiZar?  I'm failing to see why you can knock that for the original build but not your own.  Sure you get more win conditions in your build, but the original list has a lot more tutor power to get the cards it needs to overcome your opponent's counters, as Lou said.

I'm at a complete loss for what to cut for a 3rd Cabal Ritual.  From what you described it's debatable whether or not the 3rd is even needed in the deck, as you can't exactly cut Leylines, leaving only "bombs" like Necropotence or other utility cards as possible cuts, cuts I don't think would be worth making.

Cabal Therapy instead of what?  Unmask makes excellent use of dead Leylines or any other unneeded black cards, where as Therapy is free only if you sacrifice a Dark Confidant, which isn't something I'd personally want to do unless I knew I was going to be winning THAT turn.

[bomholmm]

I think you should definately trade out Mystical Tutor for Imperial Seal, especially without the basic island in the deck.  You might also consider Chrome Mox, it eats up redundant Leylines and it is another non land black source.  but again it is hard to make cuts, I'm not sure you need a full compliment of 4 Unmask they could easily go down to three in order to fit the third Cabal Rit or a Chrome Mox.

[LouGodKingofDustBunnys]

Your deck just doesn't win. Leyline /Illgotten Gains puts your opponent in topdeck mode. Why play a tendrils that isn't going to be lethal when you can just combo out with 2 cards instead of playing 9 ? When you go off, your opponent doesn't have cards to prevent it ANYWAY.

My God man, do you not understand how the deck works??? there is the linkhttp://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/10989.html%22 to the thread that explains how the legacy version works (there are some card differences, do to the differences between Legacy and Vintage Ban/restriction list)

Besides that, unmask really doesn't do anything because once you are able to cast illgotten gains. you automatically rid him of all his answers anyhow. Duress does everything unmask can and does it cheaper and quicker , creatures should be no problem for this deck.
If you want to run suboptimal carddisadvantage like unmask with only recall and confidant as real draw thats fine by me but don't expect to actually return 3 cards from your graveyard with gains when you are mulling for leyline and wasting valuable cards for unmask

If you have the gall to call unmask suboptimal in a deck that runs cards that are useless in multiples and are black...and cost 0 in a deck that is often tight on mana then i CHALLENGE you to find something better for the posted decklist. And before you try it, 4 disruption spells simply aren't enough so don't bother saying Duresses are good enough again.

If adding moxen to a combo deck NOT running null rod or chalice is a question, I believe the joke is on you. If you're saying that your metagame is unpowered, that means you have not been able to put your deck to a real test. Gold fishing and testing isn't winning power on tournaments. Besides you went 3-1-1 which isn't spectacular.

Not every combo deck needs off color moxen, ala Doomsday. A Mox Ruby isn't going to help you cast Dark Ritual, now is it? Not to mention the sideboard plan of bringing in Null Rod makes moxen a liability

Grabbing an unmask without a leyline in your opening and = auto mull. You basically add Dark Confidant because you agree with me that your tendrils isn't going to cut it That means your win condition is suboptimal which ultimately means that this deck will crap out on you or go broken turn 1 or 2.

Unmask without Leyline in the opening hand isn't an Auto-Mull. Hell, if you have a Leyline in your opening hand it's going to be in play, not used for the unmask anyways. You hold the Unmask until your ready to go for it and just ditch a black card that doesn't help you win at that moment in time.
The Dark Confidant's were added to help you 'Draw' extra spells to help you overwhelm you opponent. What you said makes it glaringly obvious you haven't the slightest clue how to play this deck.

Im not sure why you say i ONLY have 3tutors. I run regrowth, will, 4xgains. That is enough to tutor atleast 9 times. Intuition is a good card because it has synergy with gains so i applaud that.

Regrowth, Yawgwill and the Gain's are NOT tutors...they only affect the cards that are in the graveyard, not anywere else. If you should draw a tutor you could then replay it, but with only 3 in the list, that not hella likely.

"I went 3-1-1 and lost in the first round of top 8 to Goblins. "
"Then you add in the random gravestorms, web and contagion."
Seems to me that if you had Web you wouldn't have lost the match. I already stated myself that both contagion and gravestorm are questionable as i still need to do some extra testing so flaming me for these cards is obviously not affecting me.

Regrowth, Yawgwill and the Gain's are NOT tutors...they only affect the cards that are in the graveyard, not anywere else. If you should draw a tutor you could then replay it, but with only 3 in the list, that not hella likely.
What ifs are pointless, and web is way to situational to be worth a maindeck slot in ANY competitive deck. Now as a possible sideboard...No thanks, I would rather win with something good. Because against an aggro deck like Gobbo's the damn leylines would be boarded out most likely, making your precious web absolute JANK.

You are running grim tutor but no imperial seal. If you rather tutor for 3 than tutor for 1 you don't deserve a fast combo deck. Brainstorm means nothing when i can just cast recall 6 times

Grim Tutor has be answer quite well by Hydra, so I'll leave that alone.

enough mocking:
Playing timevault and tinker makes sense because if it gets countered it just lands in your graveyard which you will recurse anyway and it instantly reads game over.
Getting a chalice for 0/1/2 seriously hampers your storm count which automatically makes yourchances of going lethal smaller.

FlameVault and tinker make perfect sense in any deck that can support them, IE decks that are built around them. The list you posted looks like a hodgepodge of cards that might, if it was real lucky, take 1 game out of 3 against 10 land  stompy.

If my opponent plays three chalices for 0/1/2 he's most likely won the game, but then again most Combo decks would roll over to that, and hell a good portion of other decks in the meta would to. But you get only two of those down, this deck could still win. You take out any one of those, and either your arty's work, or Dark rit, or Cabal rit. That's alot more resilient then most friggin combo decks.

Edited because I forgot to put the link in to the primer

I would think that Cabal Therapy would be much better at protecting and disrupting with IGG, rather than use a card that dead more often than not.

Therapy shoots blind the first time, and there being only 4 critters in the deck, it's unlikely that you would be able to flash it back with any real consistency. Unmask gets what you want out or their hands every time (based upon the assumption that it resolves of course).

We avoid double posts by editing our first posts. -Klep

[EnialisLiadon]

Cabal Therapy works well with Ill-Gotten Gains, since you know what they pick back up.  If they get back a Force, Therapy/Duress it away, play and pop Lotus for Intuition and continue going off.  I wasn't suggesting Therapy is superior due to flashback, though it could come up on occasion.

[LouGodKingofDustBunnys]

Using the standard Gains loop you return Gains #2 and mana. If you try to return a discard spell, most of the time you run out of mana before casting the killing tendrils. If you just use the confidants or yawg will, then you don't have to worry about your opponent recurring Force. This was one of the problems the deck faced previous to the printing of the leyline. The original legacy version would use Grids, Swarms and other things to prevent it. Now that we have the leyline the deck an answer/hoser that could quite well make it extremely competitive....but only time will tell.

[Hydra]

Therapy costs mana the second time around and requires you to have out Dark Confidant to flash it back.  If the deck plays at all like its Legacy counterpart than it is already incredibly mana tight as it is, so you might not even have a black mana to spare.  The flashback is highly situational as well, as counting on reliably paying Flashback in a deck with only 4 creatures isn't very smart in my opinion.

Unmask is free, ramps up storm just as well (usually better) than Cabal Therapy does, and allows you to make use of extra Leylines, Necropotence, an extra Tendrils if you get them in multiples, Confidants if you're going off, extra discard spells, etc.  Not to mention if you're going for the Yawgmoth's Will win instead of IGG, then you have all the IGGs to pitch to it.

[PucktheCat]

Therapy costs mana the second time around and requires you to have out Dark Confidant to flash it back.  If the deck plays at all like its Legacy counterpart than it is already incredibly mana tight as it is, so you might not even have a black mana to spare.

Therapy doesn't cost mana the second time around:

Name a nonland card. Target player reveals his or her hand and discards all cards with that name.
Flashback—Sacrifice a creature. (You may play this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then remove it from the game.)

That's why it is good.  If you have out Confidant and build up to the point where you want to go off you can flash it back for free, getting rid of a creature that has already done its job (because you are going off this turn) to make sure they can't stop you.  On your win turn it is a truly free spell, costing you no resources that help you go off.

Whether you can reliably flash with only the four creatures is a different question though.

[bebe]

This deck looks pretty good to me. I really wanted to incorporate Ill Gotten Gains into the french tendrils deck but it just didn't fit - I agree it needs to be looked at. You have a pretty reliable engine for storm and a built in mind twist. My only concern with the build is speed. You either play a control tendrils or go for max speed which means comboing off turn 1-3 when necessary ( usually game one and then siding in more control elements). I could see you needing three turns to play your intuition and that seems a bit slow. Your deck seems to straddle the speed/control fence. Now I'm not saying that it does not work. You have nice synergy going for you but I wonder how fast you combo off on average. You have some elements of disruption ( duress and unmask ) but you won't be controlling the early game with them. Dark Confidants are great with counterspells but you aren't playing any.
Now having said that, I've not tested your build. It does seem promising as a start.

[Lou]

This is by no means the fastest combo deck around.  Or even close.  I have comboed out turn one and two with no problem.  This is not the norm, however, as the deck probably goes off turn 4.  Once the combo goes off this late, it is almost overkill, as your storm will get pretty ridiculous.  The deck can combo early though and with the right hand and knowing that your opponent can't disrupt you goes along way towards speeding the deck up.  With a solid tutor base, you can apply pressure by casting spells that either must be countered or must be dealt with.  If these spells are not dealt with (Dark Confidant, Necropotence, all the bombs) then the opponent is on the clock, and not you.  This means that they are searching for answers while you are searching for that last piece or two to finish them off.

I know that Tendrilsing an opponent early and not finishing them off is an unpopular move, however, you want a Tendrils in your yard anyways if you are going to be casting IGG, and it doesn't matter if it is in the yard after a Will either.  By casting an early Tendrils, you are buying yourself the extra turn or two that you might need to go off.  With a Dark Confidant out, you finding the cards you need are very great, and the added life gain also helps to ensure that the Confidant does not kill you to early.  The deck runs three Tendrils, and it must, in my opinion, for Intuitioning them up after starting the Gains combo.  Why not take advantage of the cards you are using?

Something I didn't touch on in my first post was my sideboard.  I run Null Rod, and this is a big reason as to why I don't think the deck needs a full compliment of moxen to speed it up.  The deck can play the slow game against most decks, because, and especially with a Leyline down, the kill pretty resilient.  Not a lot of people are packing Stifle, and I don't know of any other effective ways to stop a big Tendrils.

[Duncan]

My big question about this deck is:
How do u play with an opening hand without leyline against a deck that plays countermagic? if you duress him to play your leyline, they get their counter back when you cast gains. But without leyline, you have a problem. And if you don't duress, you'll probably walk into a drain.

I'm sure you have a solution to this situation, but i just don't see it 

[Lou]

My big question about this deck is:
How do u play with an opening hand without leyline against a deck that plays countermagic? if you duress him to play your leyline, they get their counter back when you cast gains. But without leyline, you have a problem. And if you don't duress, you'll probably walk into a drain.

I'm sure you have a solution to this situation, but i just don't see it 

The answer is to play the deck as a Will deck and getting in some Confidant beats with a Tendrils or two.  This is were Unmask really shines, as you now  have even more practically dead cards at this point.  This is purely hypothetical, but you can use IGG in this senario to get back something like Duress, Will, Lotus/Ritual/whatever, and Duress away the FoW and then accelerate into the Will for the win.  Certainly in that situation you would have to be aware of Mana Drain or not and your graveyard would have to be set up.  IGG does not have to be cast to win instantly.  There are many situations were the discard ability really shines on its own.  This is particularly true with Confidant on the table, and can be useful even without a Leyline down.

[Burntgerbil]

Down here in Savannah, we built this deck (colorado gains) and played it a bit. We Really wanted to build something with three goals :
First, To build a deck, that when played enough will be able to put up consistent wins for us. (Duh..)
Two is to build a deck that is not really a netdeck, or at least not an existing archetype (Does the inclusion of tendrils count ?)
and C: Something that is forgiving to play. The worst feeling is the end of a tournament feeling completely spent.
(Dont be dissuaded by my post count, I have taken a 1 1/2 yeah hiatus but contributed  since ol BDominia.)

So here is Sick Gains. ( bad name, I know)

Sorc
4 Gains   
4 Tendrils
3 Pox
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Timetwister
1 Windfall
1 Yawgmoth's Will
4 Duress

Instants
3 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
4 Brainstorm
1 Vamp Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Rebuild
1 Mystical tutor
1 Ancestral Recall

Enchantments
4 Leyline of the void

Mana:
1 Sapphire
1 Jet
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Lions Eye Diamond
1 Mana Crypt

3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
5 Swamp


OK, I know, Why all the suboptimal card choices ?..And what the hell with Pox ?

Well, Pox pretty much shores up this deck's defenses against many things that smashed it before. Singles of any creatures, which  raises its wins against oath and colossus. This card is also used to lower the storm count needed for tendrils to be lethal.

We used demonic consultation over say, imperial seal because we wanted the card right away. This is fine, because consult always goes for a duress or tendrils or ritual anyway.

Windfall went in there as another draw 7, but needs to get replaced with somthing else - time walk or .

We decided to play brainstorms over Confidants because there is too many 3+ cc's in the deck (pox would also kill it).
Typically when this deck draws a leyline late in the game, it gets pitched to pox.
This deck can play as a tendrils combo, or depending on your opening hand, a leyline deck.
The redundancy of tendrils and the inclusion of pox enables you to play lethal tendrils with many fewer spells, or even play a nonlethal tendrils and stall until you play a gains next round and get it back. First turn concessions have even been seen here with the leyline duress gains combo.

I decided to share because this deck is fun to play at the moment, and leylines seem to have the right fit in this deck. One needs to spend some time playtesting to understand that first turn leyline is not necessary. While we need to play it more, I wanted to at least gather your opinions on it.

 

 

[Kelwyrm]

Hello Lou!!

First I’m from Spain… sorry for my awful English 

I’ve been playing Colorado Gains for a while in Spain, in fact I win a tournament with it (36 players with a Imperial Seal as price), that was more than 5 months ago. Since then I tried to play full powered decks but with bad results, I feel that I must return to Colorado Gains, and I heard that you played this deck in Indianapolis but I find no report and no deck list. I tried a few full powered variations with very bad results, do you have any advice to me? What was your performance in Indianapolis? Did you made any report?

Thanks and best regards.
[Kelwyrm member of TheOrderOfTheStack   http://theorderofthestack.blogspot.com/ ]

User was linked to the rules for this post. (Thread necromancy)  -DA

[Demonic Attorney]

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