[Theoretical]Omen Machine (updated with decklist)

[waffles]

With the printing of grafdigger's cage, I thought it worth looking at omen machine again. To be clear I understand that the cage would not stop creatures cast through omen machine's ability, as it is cast from exile. I have read the previous discussion here on the card.

In the previous discussion the following advantages and drawbacks were noted:

• It is expensive in the terms of the format, at mana.
• Your opponent benefits from it. Omen grants them the ability for top decking serious threats to you. E.g. BSC, Emerkul, and Ancient Grudge.
  
• It does nothing to prevent in play threats.

The positives of the card

• It stops dredge, gush, and other draw abilities.
  
• Also it hinders counter magic.

With that said, I wonder if the cage could add some measure of defense so omen machine can be used. The potential of this deck is outstanding. The idea is to constantly top deck threats that are far more damaging than what your opponent is pulling. There are quite a few cards that having a strong synergy with omen machine. I will review some these cards to the best of my ability for use with omen machine; this is not an exhaustive list but a sample to what is availible.


Gold
Lim-Dûl's Vault
Lim-dul’s vault sets up the top five cards of your deck it is repeatable so the potential to finding a, this can be quite powerful provided that the stack that ends up on top is a clear threat.

Diabolic Vision
As with the vault this sets up the top deck of your library, with the add bonus of grabbing you a card. Unlike the vault this is not repeatable.

Elemental Augury
This card seems really restrictive due to the high cost and the color requirement. However, under omen machine this card becomes a very strong lock piece in the manner of being able to fateseal your opponent for 3. Without omen its usefulness questionable.

Blue

Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Under omen machine jace can function as a repeatable Fateseal for 2, and is a source of a possible win condition. Not much needs to be said about jace’s usefulness without omen machine.

Portent
Can function as fateseal 3 under omen or a pseudo-scry for yourself. Without omen it’s a bit slow for a draw spell.

Impulse
This grants you a card like the vision, yet only goes 4 deep; the tradeoff for this is it is a bit friendlier to multi-color decks to cast.

Gifts Ungiven
Dodges the draw restriction, grants 2 cards

Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
Control aspect through forced reduction of opponent’s hand size, win con through dmg

Black

Necropotence
Reloads your Hand, dodges the draw restriction.

Dark Confidant
Dodges card draw restriction.

Vampiric Tutor
This tutor is powerful under omen machine with the prior drawback of the tutored card to the top of the library into an advantage; the same can be said for all the top-deck tutors.

Red

Any heavy direct damage spell has use under omen machine.

Winds of Change
Under omen machine this functions as “all players discard their hands”

Zo-Zu the Punisher
This has an interesting interaction that under omen machine you are forced to play lands, combined with fateseal like abilities it can lead to a significant amount of damage.

Artifact
Ankh of Mishra
Like zo-zu this has the same interesting interaction under omen machine.

[xouman]

This card does very little against aggro decks, confidants, MUD (althought your spells dodge spheres), oath, and also Ichorid to my knowledge. And potential good pairings are probably too fast for this strategy to be viable.

I can see this card in the SB for slaver, but there are better options...

[waffles]

This card does very little against aggro decks, confidants, MUD (althought your spells dodge spheres), oath, and also Ichorid to my knowledge. And potential good pairings are probably too fast for this strategy to be viable.

I can see this card in the SB for slaver, but there are better options...

it does not dodge spheres, as the spells are still cast, abet from exile but still casted, that is why a top deck emrakul under the omen machine is quite rough. For omen machine to work the card must have a tool box of threats that are more potent than what your opponent is playing.

[xouman]

in that case, you can make a deck around omen machine and erayo When fact or fiction got unrestricted I tested a deck with riddlesmith, welders and lots of artifacts. With lots of moxen (opal, chrome, etc), erayo is easier to flip, but usually you want cheap cantrips in a erayo deck, and that's not synergistic with omen...

this card reminds me of maralen: you can't draw cards, but a more powerful effect affects both players. with maralen I wasn't able to find a right deck, but it was prior to leonin arbiter...

[waffles]

in that case, you can make a deck around omen machine and erayo When fact or fiction got unrestricted I tested a deck with riddlesmith, welders and lots of artifacts. With lots of moxen (opal, chrome, etc), erayo is easier to flip, but usually you want cheap cantrips in a erayo deck, and that's not synergistic with omen...

this card reminds me of maralen: you can't draw cards, but a more powerful effect affects both players. with maralen I wasn't able to find a right deck, but it was prior to leonin arbiter...

Maralen has a home in a sphere heavy board with the arbiter, or with mindlock orb. Omen machine is made for a prison style deck.  In an omen machine deck you have essentially an implied arcane laboratory, given that there is only one upkeep step per turn. Extra turns, deck manipulation/stacking set the conditions for this to be quite powerful. Also when omen machine comes down your hand is your hand without an abundance of draw dodging effects, thus you are stuck playing one spell at a time from your top deck.

here is a partial deck list

Creatures
1x Emrakul

spells
4x Lim-Dul's Vault
1x Vampric tutor
1x impulse
4x portent
1x ransack
1x necro

Plainswalker
4x Jace 2.0

Artifact
2x Omen Machine
1x top

Lands
Hallamar depths

[Delha]

Quick question... how is this deck supposed to get Omen Machine into play before your opponent just kills you? I'm not seeing any acceleration or disruption.

[waffles]

Quick question... how is this deck supposed to get Omen Machine into play before your opponent just kills you? I'm not seeing any acceleration or disruption.

I did say partial deck list, being 24 cards it is far from being complete. To answer your question, i do not know yet. I am open to all options. 

Things i have explored:

• Metalworker: handsize is a small issue under the machine, though it is something still worth concidering.
• green ramp: havent fully explored this yet but it still has some potental

But a few road blocks exist:

• counter magic is dead under the machine
• "draw a card" spells are dead under the machine.
• spheres are a hinderence to omen machine casting.

[TheWhiteDragon]

Other than thinking this idea is terrible - I'll bite for the sake of fun.

You NEED sensei's tops.  Not only does it help with card quality, but gives you bang when machine is out.  For 1 mana you freely cast the best of your top 3.  With shufflers, it's even better.  With that said, you NEED Bobs.  Confidant lets you draw when you can't draw, is good CA before omen machine comes online, and is great with tops.  You probably will toss in huge CC beasts to take advantage on machine, so it is more risky, but SDT mitigates the damage (so I'd suggest at least 3 tops with 4 bobs).  Another card to try is augury adept.  I've been playing them to some success, though they are harder to cast and have to connect to get CA.  Vs a heavier creature meta, it's obviously tough (my deck runs sowers/old man/plow/jace/counters to clear the path of blockers though).  Basically, you'll need cards that put cards in hand without "drawing". I think a suite of tops and bobs are the best choice.

[Darkenslight]

Omen Machine loves[/o] Show and Tell.  However, that just allows your opponent to mise that BSC stuck in their hand...

Which is where Grafdigger's Cage comes in: play a true MUD deck, no Blue (except for Show and Tell), lots of colorless ramp effects, Kuldotha Forgemaster and Magewright's Stone (so you can use it right away).

It could be very fun, but also highly inconsistent.

[waffles]

Other than thinking this idea is terrible - I'll bite for the sake of fun.

You NEED sensei's tops.  Not only does it help with card quality, but gives you bang when machine is out.  For 1 mana you freely cast the best of your top 3.  With shufflers, it's even better.  With that said, you NEED Bobs.  Confidant lets you draw when you can't draw, is good CA before omen machine comes online, and is great with tops.  You probably will toss in huge CC beasts to take advantage on machine, so it is more risky, but SDT mitigates the damage (so I'd suggest at least 3 tops with 4 bobs).  Another card to try is augury adept.  I've been playing them to some success, though they are harder to cast and have to connect to get CA.  Vs a heavier creature meta, it's obviously tough (my deck runs sowers/old man/plow/jace/counters to clear the path of blockers though).  Basically, you'll need cards that put cards in hand without "drawing". I think a suite of tops and bobs are the best choice.

I know about the tops, i did put one in there, along with top deck malipulation spells, lim-dul's vault being the back bone of the deck. Finding the machine isnt really the issue, its casting it and protecting it.

[TheWhiteDragon]

I didn't see SDT in your list, so I assumed you missed it.  Regardless of it's synergy with omen machine, it is great with Bobs....and those are the key.  If you want to cast and protect omen, you need to draw cards - to draw acceleration and protection - and you need the alternate win con, since landing and sticking an omen machine will be next to impossible.

Being that black and artifact are definite needs (with tutors in black beside bob), and blue (jin, jace, tinker, other tutors), I'd suggest the U/B lands with urborg and workshops (or no urborg/shops and go with mana drains -> omen), and use thoughtseize/duress/show and tell as an alternate way to cheat in fatties around the cage.  Once you see their hand, you can safely show and tell, or cast the omen without it getting countered/blown up.

[waffles]

I didn't see SDT in your list, so I assumed you missed it.  Regardless of it's synergy with omen machine, it is great with Bobs....and those are the key.  If you want to cast and protect omen, you need to draw cards - to draw acceleration and protection - and you need the alternate win con, since landing and sticking an omen machine will be next to impossible.

Being that black and artifact are definite needs (with tutors in black beside bob), and blue (jin, jace, tinker, other tutors), I'd suggest the U/B lands with urborg and workshops (or no urborg/shops and go with mana drains -> omen), and use thoughtseize/duress/show and tell as an alternate way to cheat in fatties around the cage.  Once you see their hand, you can safely show and tell, or cast the omen without it getting countered/blown up.

With bob, i fear that i will eat an omen machine or an emrakul when i dont have a way to shape the top of my deck. Transmute Artifact may work very well in this case. It is not affected by cage. yes it still stops grabbing a creature, but it does find and place omen into play. The option still exists to make it      but that seems like a poor choice for this deck.

[serracollector]

I have been testing Omen Machine a lil bit, my lists being far diff than the ideas your coming up with, but I can say 1 thing fro sure from testing, that Karn the PW is absolutely amazing in a deck with Omen Machine as it can exile any thing they play for free, and when they get a land, it can exile the cards in their hand, so they are down to topdeck mode.  W/e list your trying I suggest 2-3 Karn PW. 

[waffles]

I have been testing Omen Machine a lil bit, my lists being far diff than the ideas your coming up with, but I can say 1 thing fro sure from testing, that Karn the PW is absolutely amazing in a deck with Omen Machine as it can exile any thing they play for free, and when they get a land, it can exile the cards in their hand, so they are down to topdeck mode.  W/e list your trying I suggest 2-3 Karn PW. 

ooo defintly a good answer to a good portion of the problems that omen machine faces. I this is more control driven but have you tried fateseal like ablities? i mean stuff that allows you to mess with your opponents top deck?

[serracollector]

No my build was well....janky....it played 4 Personal Tutor, 4 time Stretch, 4 Karn, 4 Wurmcoil Engine, 4 Karn PW, 4 metalworker,  4 Omen, 1 blight, 1 tinker, 1 acall, 1 time walk, 4 workshop, 4 ancient tomb, academy, and islands, and your basic restricted mana package.  As I said janky, but the few games I played with it, and got Omen in Play, I simply won.  Getting a Wurmcoil or Karn, then casting personal tutor in timestretch usually ended games pretty quickly.

[waffles]

No my build was well....janky....it played 4 Personal Tutor, 4 time Stretch, 4 Karn, 4 Wurmcoil Engine, 4 Karn PW, 4 metalworker,  4 Omen, 1 blight, 1 tinker, 1 acall, 1 time walk, 4 workshop, 4 ancient tomb, academy, and islands, and your basic restricted mana package.  As I said janky, but the few games I played with it, and got Omen in Play, I simply won.  Getting a Wurmcoil or Karn, then casting personal tutor in timestretch usually ended games pretty quickly.

hrmm, some of the stuff you played here i may use in my shell. ill post a list once i have gotten something that is more a funtional list.

[waffles]

Artifacts(15)
1 Black Lotus
1 Crucible Of Worlds
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
4 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Trinisphere
1 Mox Opal
2 Omen Machine

Creatures(11)
4 Kuldotha Forgemaster
4 Metalworker
1 Sundering Titan
1 Emrakul
1 Blightsteel



Planeswalkers(4)
2 Karn Liberated
2 Jace 2.0

Sorceries/Instants(10)
4 Transmute Artifact
2 Lim-dul's Vault
1 Vampric Tutor
1 Tinker
1 Impulse
1 Mana Severence

Lands(21)
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Vault of Wispers
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Mishra's Workshop
4 Wasteland
1 Tolarian Academy

Total 61 cards

Here we are a funtional decklist, it maybe not optimal. But it seems to funtion how it survives in actual games, i dont know. In the few goldfish tests i found the same thing that serracollector found, omen comes down and it just wins. Now i could have went with a fateseal and ankh of mishra direction, but i thought this might have worked better when omen machine wasnt in play.