[Deck Idea] 5 Anc / Empty Discovery

[Ruven]

Hey everyone,

As I haven't found a thread on this already, I thought I give it a try. I just dicovered the card Shared Discovery yesterday and was kinda psychied to try and make a deck that works well with it, so first, the decklist, and after that I try to write a bit about, why I chose the cards etc.

Hope to get some ideas, critiques etc. to see if the idea might be a good one or not.

Decklist:

4 Empty the Warrens
4 Shared Discovery

4 See Beyond
1 Ancestral
1 Time Walk
1 Brainstorm
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Demontic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Personal Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Yawgmoth's Will

4 Force of Will
1 Misdircetion
2 Pyroblast
3 Spell Snare

2 Repeal
2 Rebuild
2 Mystic Remora

8 SoLoMoxCrypt
1 Mana Vault

2 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
3 U-Sea
3 Volcanic Island
2 Island
1 Mountain

SB

2 Annul
2 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Pithing Needle
2 Ravenous Trap
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Ingot Chewer
1 Darkblast
1 Pyroclasm
1 Thada Adel
(or 1 additional Land instead of Thada or Pyroclams)

Well, as Shared Discovery is really useless without 4 critters/tokens I figured figured I really want 4 Emptys. On the other hand, having a few tokens is often useless, so I also really wanted 4 Shared Discoverys to make something more out of the tokens than just a few dudes hanging around on the battlefield.

But as with 4 offs: Sometimes you get too much of one and that's why I tried out See Beyond here, to shuffle back to not needed second copy of some cards, or depending on the MU some other useless/suboptimal cards. As with 4 Empty and 4 SD's the Deck was already quite Sorceryspeed-heavy, I figured I rather have See Beyond than any of the 2-3 mana instants who do a similar job but slightly worse (imo, OR I forgot a card..).

I haven't gotten to actually testing (as it's summerbreak for vintage Tournies here in Switzerland AND I just orderd the cards yesterday anyway), but I did some Goldfishing and See Beyond was solid there. Not extremely awesome or anything, but  wouldn't want to kick it out of the deck (or rather: no better card came to mind in this slot).

Anyway, as the deck is quite Sorceryspeed-heavy, I decided to not play drains and play 2 Pyroblasts instead (they were fist drains, but I never had the mana open to cas them anyway), which also help against fish (destroying their draw engine or a nasty meddling mage).

As the deck doesn't require UU, I also put in a basic Mountain, which should help me against Staxx/Fish (especially postboard) and makes having 2 Pyroblasts not a risk to my manabase.

3 Snares also mostly against fish, but have theri uses against Drains as well. Against fish, cause I really think a single resolved null rod can easily ruin my day. as Empty still costs 4 Mana and they not only got Stifle, but can also protect their Rod with Force and Spell pierce, which makes a resolved Null Rod hard to handle (if they have a decent clock). Or so is my believe on that matter, correct me if I'm completely wrong.

Besides the usual power/restricted cards, I didn't want to include a few namely: Thirst, Gifts, Fact, Ponder.

Thirst: I think I don't have enough artifacts to really support that card in a useful matter, also the Instant speed isn't needed.
Fact: 4 Mana is quite a bit, considering I already have 4 Empties, also the effect even though OK, is surely not THAT great in a deck that doesn't go "Draw, Go"

Gifts: well, partly the same reason as Fact (4 Mana), but also, cause I believe I sport too few actualy Bombs, that work on their own, to make this a worthwhile inclusion here. I mean, I don't have a 2 card combo or a quick tendrils kill or anything, I don't have a lot of draw that works on its own etc.

Ponder: I'm not sure, I shuold just take one See Beyond out for this to be honest. Though more often thatn not, the awayshuffling of a not-so-needed-card was really nice to have even though See Beyond only goes 2 cards deep.

Inclusion of Personal Tutor: Well, as this deck heavily depends on Empty/Discovery I wanted to have more than 3 tutors for them. First I wanted to include an impereal Seal, but figured I didn't want to fetch for U-Sea, if I don't have to, so mostly for manastability purposes I included personal Tutor here. Still this card is really either great or useless depending on the situation. So I dunno if I shouldnt look for a better card here.

Inclusion of Remora: Another slot that I don't feel too strongly about. Mostly I felt I needed something against Drains, as I lack the unconditional draw-bombs, that drain has, at the same time, I didn't want some too expenisve spell, so I thought I put remoras in here. As they slow down the game and let me make some landdrops, mabye let me resolve a See boyond or even a small Empty for 2 or 3, while Drain players "have" to wait a bit OR have to use a counterspell for something I only paid U

Well, from the few goldfishingmirror on MWS (which is of course not really conclusive in any way) I get the feeling, this deck MIGHT maybe be quite good, but of course I have to test it first anyway..

Either way, I hope you can give me some ideas, cirtique cardchices, etc.

[Delha]

The core premise of this deck is to resolve Empty the Warrens, right? Assuming that's true, why aren't you running any of the rits? You obviously want acceleration and storm, so those seem like a natural inclusion, either black or red.

Hitting your third land drop into Mox->Empty seems unimpressive, and as it stands, artifact acceleration is the only storm ramping you have that doesn't demand additional mana on top of the 4 for Empty itself.

[Ruven]

hmm...interesting thought ^^ I haven't even considered that...ermm, well, honestly, yeah, you're of course right, that the premise is to resolve empty, but the strength (or the one I see) of the deck is somewhere from Turn 3-5 after you resolve empty and can start to abuse the tokens with discovery, wjhich should give you the edge of contrliing the game and will lead to a second empty for the win eventually (or a short Turn 5 Will for draing 6 cards off 2 Discoveries and/or the Anc for few mana)

I honestly wouldn't know where to squeeze in some rits (would be red ones, as the Black manabse is the unstable part anyway, imo) maybe for repeals?

hmm on the other hand, it's not as if you're not doing anything on turn 2-3...either sculpting your hand for the safe empty/discovery abusage or disrupting the enemy draw (or trying to..) or slow down the game with Remora, so that you're not at a disadvantage when the time to act comes...

I mean, to premise of using rits is to be able to win the game quicker as your opponent, which this deck woudln't do anyway (as empty still takes a few turns to be lethal) on the other hand, start using the Discovery earlier, which is the point anyway can't come too early...hmm gotta try that out...

thanks for the input

[silvernail]

Shared Discovery is a mostly useless card, hate to tell ya. Vintage hardly has that many creatures on both sides of the table, let alone on one side.

About the best thing I can think of is a black / blue / green Kobolds storm deck that plays tons of 0 CC dudes. Versions of that deck have been around using Glimpse of Nature and various black draw 4 card spells. You could replace some of the black card draw in those with SD.

[Wagner]

I'm not sure what the discoveries are for either. If you resolve a Warren for 10 tokens or more, which should be easy enough, you don'T need to control the game much after that. It seems you are trying to create a draw engine that forces you to start a small storm count to use.

[Thegreatgonzo]

If we want to abuse Shared Discovery, maybe we should rather look at cards like Bitterblossom or Awakening zone

[silvernail]

I'm pretty sure those are way too slow.

[i_set_fire]

I'm not sure what the discoveries are for either. If you resolve a Warren for 10 tokens or more, which should be easy enough, you don'T need to control the game much after that. It seems you are trying to create a draw engine that forces you to start a small storm count to use.

this.  would you rather win now, or win next turn with a couple extra cards in your hand?

also, i agree with the adding of rits.  possibly in place of spell snare.  maybe switch a sea or volcanic out for a swamp, too. 

[Cyberpunker]

what about kobolds and skullclamp?

[Delha]

what about kobolds and skullclamp?

DiesToChalice.dec?

[MaximumCDawg]

I've been goldfishing an Ancestral Warrens deck for a few weeks now.  It seems to perform best in a Drain shell, with an unexpected Gobbos twist... you could call it a "Storm Drain."  Hah!

Anyway, here's what I'm testing:

[deck]
Creatures (12)
3 Mogg Fanatic
2 Goblin Welder
2 Goblin Chieftan
4 Empty the Warrens
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind

Draw Engine (5)
3 Shared Discovery
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm

Tutor Suite (6)
1 Tinker
1 Personal Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Disruption (10)
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
1 Lava Dart
1 Rebuild
1 Echoing Truth

Mana (26)
5 Mox
5 Ring / Crypt / Vault / Petal / Lotus
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Polluted Delta
2 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Badlands
3 Island
2 Mountain
[/deck]

Still a work in progress, dies horribly to fish unless it resolves Tinker, but here's a description of my choices:

Started with Empty + Discovery, like everyone else on the planet.  I decided to use Drain because Empty needs 3 colorless, so this deck likes Drain's ramp+disruption angle.  Went down to three Discoveries because, in goldfishing, I never wanted to see Discovery until I had resolved a Warrens.  I went heavy on the creatures to help out Discovery in a pinch.  Goblin Welder is mostly for offensive use.  Added Goblin Warchief mostly as a response to Fish, but it works really well for a surprise win with a hasty horde after a resolved Empty.  Singleton Lava Dart over Fire//Ice or Darkblast because Lava Dart is a better storm generator.  I did not want to splash Black initially, but since this deck wants to storm out, it really, really needs Yawgmoth's Will.

In goldfishing, this deck is still sort of clunky.  It's difficult to get enough mana to storm out even 4 gobbos on t2 to get Discovery online.  When I first saw Discovery, I thought to myself, "Self, if you have four creatures in play you're probably already winning."  And that's what I'm finding here.  If the opponent doesn't have an Echoing Truth, you're gonna win anyway when you start resolving six or more goblins at a time.

I'm gonna keep tinkering and see if there is a build that works for Discovery, though.

If we want to abuse Shared Discovery, maybe we should rather look at cards like Bitterblossom or Awakening zone

Yeah, I tried it with Bitterblossom.  Too slow.  Blossom is better used with skullclamp.