Step One: Karametra's Favor + Puresight Merrow

[MaximumCDawg]

I've been wanting to break Puresight Merrow for the longest time.  His ability to repeatedly tutor once you can tap him for mana seems so utterly broken, but it turns out it is very hard to abuse.  What you do is you tell him to put on Paradise Mantle, Utopia Vow, or Multani's Harmony.  Then, you can tap and untap him as much as you like to exile cards from the top of your library until you have what you need.

Karametra's Favor kicks this interaction up a notch.  Now you enchant the little bugger, and in response to the ETB trigger, you go tutor for whatever it is you want to draw.  Now let the ETB resolve and draw it. This is good because it means Favor simultaneously turns on your Merrow and also tutors up whatever you need on the spot.

From here on out, you have complete control of your topdeck, which is great, but I'm still grasping for some way to translate this into a win.  

Possible targets include:

Judge of Currents - For 1W mana you get an arbitrarily large amount of life off the Merrow.  This is fine, but because you just milled yourself so badly, you'll probably die to an empty library long before the life matters.

Erratic Explosion - You can continue to control your topdeck, so you can put Emrakul or whatever on top and then spend 2R to do 15 damage.  But, you need multiples of these cards to minimize fizzling, and 15 damage does not end the game.  Is there a 20 cc spell..? (Answer: Nope.  Only Gleemax is 20 or greater).

Polymorph - At 3U, this is getting expensive, but you can mill yourself to an Emrakul and then Morph away your Merrow for the win.  That doesn't seem too bad.

Aethermage's Touch - At 2UW you can put a Grislebrand into play, which isn't terrible, but you're doing an awful lot of damage to the ol' library in the meantime...

Or perhaps the better idea is to simply tutor up a Thoughtseize, take away their answer, and then go for the Polymorph into Emrakul during your next turn.  I dunno.

Anyone have a better idea?  If this can't be made vintage viable, it still might be an idea for Modern / Legacy...

[AmbivalentDuck]

Seems like a three-card combo no matter how you look at it. Even going with a Necrotic Ooze angle...3 cards.

[MaximumCDawg]

Yeah, the trick is to cut it down to two.  That might be possible, since the combo draws you any card you want immediately.  It's not really fair to call it "three cards" if you can get whatever else you need with just those first two.

I forgot about Laboratory Maniac.  He gives you another line of thought.  If you had infinite mana, you could, say, mill yourself into Think Twice or Deep Analysis, then let ETB draw you that card.  Next, mill yourself to Laboratory Maniac, use the draw spell to draw it, cast it, flash back the draw spell to win.  But this takes effectively infinite mana in Vintage.

Oh, and Ooze doesn't work the way you're suggesting (I think?) because Puresight exiles the cards rather than dumps them in the yard.

[Demagoguery]

Hu, I didn't even know these cards existed, but that's really cool. I think the other important thing to mention is that  both parts of the combo help you dig, since the gift lets you draw and the Merrow can pseudo-scrye if you so wish. So while it's a two card combo that may or may not win right away it does have a lot of dig potential.

I think it's a little too cute, but it does actually seem a lot more resilient and consistent than you'd expect at first glance. 

[MaximumCDawg]

The fact remains that I have yet to identify a win con that is not terrible.  Favor is tremendously helpful because, at least in theory, you can now draw directly into your win condition and finish the game upon assembling the combo.  Trouble is, the options are not great.  The best one seems to be Polymorph and stacking an Emrakul, but that costs alot of mana (5 total the turn you combo, assuming you start with Merrow in play -- you can tap the Merrow for the last mana you need) and it requires playing with several copies of each so you don't end up having to dig past all your Emmys before finding a Morph. 

I guess Emrakul and Merrow also work well with Call of the Wild....?  But now we're really stretching.

[Protoaddict]

I think the trouble with this combo is vulnerability + redundancy.

Puresight and Favor are the only cards that do what they do with this combo and a 2/2 body with summoning sickness is easily dealt with. You get counter magic but so do they. Thoes cards also have very little to no utility outside of the combo. If Favor worked with some other creature that already saw some level of play because of its value maybe?

So not only do you need a wincon that works with this that is better than other wincon options, but you need the rest of the deck around it to not be substandard cards to support it.

Do note however Favor works on a nettle sentinel in elves pretty well. Maybe it could see play as the 5th heritage druid?

[AmbivalentDuck]

I'm saying that it's always 3 cards: Merrow untaps, something taps it. If the tapping generates mana, you need an outlet. Even if that outlet is a wincon, you're still using three cards even if it can be called a two-card combo.

[evouga]

For unrestricted tutoring of a specific card, isn't this guy worse than Divining Witch?


To be better than the witch, you'd need to take advantage of the fact that the Merrow untaps repeatedly, or somehow use it multiple times per turn.

[MaximumCDawg]

Well, the concept here would be: can you translate the ability to tap and untap Merrow as much as you like into an instant win?  That's why it's different from Witch.  And, remember, that you are in total control of your topdeck at every moment once you have Merrow active.  Any draw effect lets you tutor. 

As we can't find a good instant win, this is probably Modern only, but IF there is a win condition, then a pair of 2 cc cards that win the game would be Modern playable. 

[AmbivalentDuck]

To have infi untaps, it has to be something like Earthcraft or Paradise Mantle.  Unless a single card gives you both a blue/white mana per tap AND an additional effect, it'll always be a three-card combo.

[MaximumCDawg]

To have infi untaps, it has to be something like Earthcraft or Paradise Mantle.  Unless a single card gives you both a blue/white mana per tap AND an additional effect, it'll always be a three-card combo.

I don't follow.  Karametra's Favor + Puresight Merrow gives you infinite untaps right there.  It also gives you an additional affect, allowing you to look at your top card and exile it as much as you want, for free.  That's the two card combo.  While this ability by itself does not win the game immediately, it lets you tutor up a third card.  So, while a potential win condition might technically be a "three card combo," that's like calling Oath a "two card combo" because it must eventually hit a fattie to win.  But in your hand, Oath is a one-card combo.  So you can look at this whole thread like this: can we find a way to translate the two-card combo of Favor and Merrow into win?

Here are some other thoughts I had.

Fetch: Mesmeric Orb.  Now you can mill your entire library and win that way.  Advantage: potentially costs no more mana, can win immediately in a variety of ways off Dread Return (Angel, Cerebrus, etc).  Disadvantage: since you're exiling cards off your library to find the Orb, you're likely to hit a win condition along the way.  Running more win conditions means the already bloated yard win condition gets even worse.  So, this works, but it's wildly inconsistent.  Some number of Pull from Eternity might help.

Fetch: A cascade card, probably Shardless Agent.  Then, Merrow down your library with Ancestral Vision or Ancestral Recall.  Cast Shardless, cascading into the Vision or Recall.  With Vision or Recall on the stack, Merrow down your library to find.... something....?

Fetch: Magus of the Future / Future Sight / Melek, Izzet Paragon.  Again, this is expensive, but if you manage to cast the dude then winning shouldn't be too hard.  

Fetch: Sensei's Top.  Now Merrow down to a draw spell, use top to draw it, cast the draw 3.  Replay top.  Repeat...?

Fetch: Skill Borrower.  Now Merrow down to something with an activated ability that you can use immediately and wins the game.  Uh...? If your dudes have haste, then Borrower + Kikki Jikki is a win.  Any way to work haste into this?  Without it, it's a kill in two turns.  Poopy. 

Extra cute thing about Skill Borrower is that it functions as a Merrow, at least once, while Merrow is on top.  With Merrow on top of the library, you can enchant Borrower with Karametra's Favor, and then fill the stack with activations of Merrow's ability.  10000 of them, say.  Then you can start resolving them to tutor up what you need, even though Merrow goes away.  I suppose you can hit Arcanis the Omipotent along the way, and then you can draw a mess'o'cards if you like. 

Fetch: A card with Ripple.  You can stack your deck in response to each successive ripple trigger to get 3 or four effects out of it.  Is exiling your whole library worth making them discard 4 cards with Surge of Dementia...?  Probably not.  With a Thrumming Stone already in play there are several wins, but this is waaay clunky.  

ASIDE: While researching this, I realized that Conch Horn is actually hilarious in a deck trying to abuse Call of the Wild-type effects because it digs 2 and stacks your library with Emrakul for Call of the Wild.  Guess thats why Conch Horn is too cool for Modern!

[fsecco]

Maybe I missed something, but this is a 2 card combo that does what Vampiric Tutor does (or Demonic Consultation). So... if this should be a combo kill enabler, why does it do that Vamp Tutor doesn't?

[MaximumCDawg]

It does what Demonic Tutor does.  Then it lets you do what Vampiric Tutor does as much as you want.

Well, the concept here would be: can you translate the ability to tap and untap Merrow as much as you like into an instant win?

As I said before... a normal tutor effect does not leave you with: (a) the ability to tap and untap a permanent as much as you like; and (b) the ability to exile a card from the top of your library at will after you tutor.

Whether these abilities can translate into a win is the WHOLE POINT of this thread :-/

[Demagoguery]

Maybe I missed something, but this is a 2 card combo that does what Vampiric Tutor does (or Demonic Consultation). So... if this should be a combo kill enabler, why does it do that Vamp Tutor doesn't?

Well it keeps you from losing if your Consultation target is in the top 6 and you don't have another copy.

However, what it really does, is when you play the Gift, you get to Pseudo-Consultation up a card, and then you get to pseudo-Vamp Tutor up a card during the same turn. So all of a sudden you get to draw your win condition, and you get to put protection on top of your library, while still having a 2/2 that can pseudo-Vamp as much as you want it to.

If for example you have a Top+Key in play when you cast Gift on this guy, what happens is you get your Demonic Tutor, then you get your Vamp Tutor. Now, if you wanted, you could tap to draw a card, untap with Key to draw a card, let the first draw resolve to pick up your first answer, and then with the second draw trigger use the combo to Vamp another card to the top and draw that... Essentially casting 1 Demonic and Double Vamp in one turn, for 1G. Yes, that's painfully complicated and bloated, but it shows what this card can do in theory that those others can't.

Additionally, you could always get the protection off the draw, then vamp up your win condition, so that it has protection from discard until you draw it, and you have a way of protecting it once you can cast it.

Edit: You can also use it to get another Gift into hand, then put a card you want on top. Next turn draw that card, then cast gift to tutor up another card, and put another card on top that you want. Unless you find a Demonic Tutor before the gift when you're searching the first time.

Likewise, if you can make the mana, you can chain Gifts/draw together to build up storm count. Then Riftsweeper/Pull from Eternity the card you may have exiled in the process you need to win.

Edit2: Also, this into Gitaxian Prode, then finding another Probe with the first one on the stack, means you get to tutor again while also knowing what the opponent has in their hand and what you need to play around when looking for your combo or protection.

[MaximumCDawg]

Ah, I think I got it!

Turn 1, you play your Puresight Merrow.  Perhaps with Mox help.  Protect from removal.
Turn 2, you play Karametra's Favor.  Tutor up Skill Borrower.  Play it.  Assuming you have two lands and an accelerate, this is doable.  Next, Merrow away your library until Gristlebees is on top.  Draw 14 cards.  Presumably you now draw enough gas to win.

This can be accomplished by turn 3 in Modern.  You have to think about what else goes in the deck that allows you to win with the 14 cards you drew, but that should be the easier part of the combo.

[Bill Copes]

Ah, I think I got it!

Turn 1, you play your Puresight Merrow.  Perhaps with Mox help.  Protect from removal.
Turn 2, you play Karametra's Favor.  Tutor up Skill Borrower.  Play it.  Assuming you have two lands and an accelerate, this is doable.  Next, Merrow away your library until Gristlebees is on top.  Draw 14 cards.  Presumably you now draw enough gas to win.

This can be accomplished by turn 3 in Modern.  You have to think about what else goes in the deck that allows you to win with the 14 cards you drew, but that should be the easier part of the combo.

This is a three-card combo in order to "cheat" a Grizzleboner into play.  In your colors and with the same casting cost of just one of your combo pieces, you have Oath of Druids, which does the same thing in one card.

Forgive me, but I do not understand where this is going.

[Demagoguery]

Ah, I think I got it!

Turn 1, you play your Puresight Merrow.  Perhaps with Mox help.  Protect from removal.
Turn 2, you play Karametra's Favor.  Tutor up Skill Borrower.  Play it.  Assuming you have two lands and an accelerate, this is doable.  Next, Merrow away your library until Gristlebees is on top.  Draw 14 cards.  Presumably you now draw enough gas to win.

This can be accomplished by turn 3 in Modern.  You have to think about what else goes in the deck that allows you to win with the 14 cards you drew, but that should be the easier part of the combo.

That's a mess... Why not just chain together Gitaxian Probes and Manamorphoses at that point to make a massive storm count and kill them that way instead? I mean each probe and Morphose is assured to draw another one with this guy out. You can even throw in some Gushes and Repeal, and like a Fastbond, so you can make the chain easier as long as you have islands to bounce, and the Fastbond just makes it even scarier.

[MaximumCDawg]

Like Bill said, none of these ideas make sense in Vintage so far.  Some seem attractive in modern, though.  As for the storm kill... the problem is that storming with probe and manamorphose doesn't make grapeshot lethal.  Maybe there is a way to do that...?

[TheJesus]

Laboratory Maniac is your best best. After casting the enchantment you can find, draw, and cast him. Using Gush as the free draw 2, you'll require 2 lands and a lotus. The order of Gush/Maniac doesn't matter, but the Lotus does. You can't exile it before you find either of the other two or you'll need a difference way. The the ritual cards don't make the the right color mana. You could use extra LED's, but it just makes the combo more clunky.

It's really closer to Demonic Consultation in that the wrong order of the Lotus/LED makes you have to pass the turn. Kind of reminds me of figuring out a Doomsday pile.