@ Combo players: Where to Throw Ourselves Now?

[Luc, Use The Force]

I was playing Long for the last 3 months, and I must say I'm happy to see the new R&B list. However, I'm not sure whether or not this deck is really dead. I'm remembering the attitude a lot of players adopted after Entomb's restriction: Dragon was dead. There was stagnation about the developpement of this deck. However, few months later (thanks to the Ontario guys!) Dragon may be the strongest combo right now.

I'm the one of those who think that Dragon is easily hosable, and therefore, I don't think I'd play this deck if there was any other option.

Before we claim that Dragon is the best combo deck, shouldn't we look at other possible combo options?

We must admit that Long is dead, but there are still plenty of other ways to take with this kind of combo. TPS, also named Dutch Tendrils,  is a great example.

Combo players must gather now!

Let's break Magic again

[Montana_Gamer]

Switch out 3 burning wish for 3 death wish, who cares if you lose half your life if you are going to win first turn!

[beastmouth]

Quote (Montana_Gamer @ Dec. 01 2003,16:58)Switch out 3 burning wish for 3 death wish, who cares if you lose half your life if you are going to win first turn!

I think it's the three mana cc that's the bigger problem with trying to use Death Wish.  Methinks you wouldn't be as explosive, and thus more likely to fizzle, so you'd probably be better off with a more long-game oriented combo like Dragon.

[RJPARJ]

but how r u still going to win first turn when they restricted LED.  It gave such an advantage that A new Combo is going to need sum other mana producer.

Translation:

But how are you going to win on the first turn, now that LED is also restricted? It was such a focal part of the deck that any new combination-deck will need another mana-accelerant, sirrah!

Leave the ridiculous shorthand on IRC. Proper punctuation and capitalization are - in the common vernacular - 'gravy'.\n\n

[Montana_Gamer]

I don't know how it is going to win on first turn without LED, but I did test the old list with -3 burning wish, +3 death wish (because i thought they were just going to restrict Burning Wish) and the deck was still as consistant and just as fast. But you are right, LED is a big hit for the deck, alot bigger hit than Burning Wish.

[jntemp777]

How about a Neo-academy variant with Forces.  Afterall Academy has it's final draw 7 and it's uncounterable and often nets up to 10 cards without paying their casting cost.  I think that is the deck I'm going to mess around with.

[Smmenen]

Montana Gamer, did you use ESG or something else in place of LED?

STeve

[Fastbond]

Combo players will just have to wait for more cards to be printed or adapt to a more controlling(ie. 4 Duress, Force of Will, better mana base) combo.  Combo can beat any blue based deck due to the strength of the hate cards such as carpet of flowers among others.  But it can no longer race brown or black based decks before the hate cards come in.  

There are no cards to find to build a broken first turn combo engine.  The eggs aren't good because once you have three mana you should be casting a timetwister variant or a meditate.  Elvish spirit guild should have been used in long already.  Cabal Ritual isn't good because if you can cast it, you already have the two colorless mana for the good draw cards.  And Mishra's Workshop can help with egg usage but that's about it.  The negatives of Cabal Ritual and Mishra's Workshop are canceled by the heavy usage of eggs and spheres and vice versa.  But eggs lead to a great possibility of stalling out.  You can use eggs to cycle through your whole deck until you hit a brain freeze but if you hit a card you don't need you lose.

Thus, play controllish combo decks that rely on the strength and flexibility of cards like Duress, Force of Will, and Balance.  And, wait for more cards to be printed like Chrome Mox for pure
combo decks and hate cards on the level of carpet to combat decks with a lot of maindeck hate.

[Smmenen]

Quote (Fastbond @ Dec. 02 2003,10:53)Combo players will just have to wait for more cards to be printed or adapt to a more controlling(ie. 4 Duress, Force of Will, better mana base) combo.  Combo can beat any blue based deck due to the strength of the hate cards such as carpet of flowers among others.  But it can no longer race brown or black based decks before the hate cards come in.  

I am not sure this is true.  Here is the way I see it - if we can find a CONSISTENT turn two combo deck that wins on turn 1 like 10% of the time, and rarely on turn three and beyond - then it should be able to survive Workshops and Suicide.  If you are gonig first and you have Duress + FoW, you can set yourself up for a turn 2 win quite a bit I'd think.  

Fact is, this should be possible - after all, There are quite a few turn 2 decks in the current Extended and it doesn't have power.

Steve

[Triple_S]

But current 1.x also allows 4 x Vampiric, 4 x Mystical, 4 x Tinker....

[Smmenen]

Yes, but doesn't have Black Lotus, Lion's Eye Diamond, Demonic Tutor, Ancestral Recal, Time Walk, Timetwister, Wheel of Fortune, Windfall, Yawmoths' Bargain, Necropotence, Memory Jar, Mishra's Workshop, Mox Jet, sapphire, Pearl, Emerald, Ruby, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Lotus Petal, Tolarian Academy, sol ring, and whole bunch more goodies.  Sure, the fact that 1.x has 4 vamps, mysticals, and tinkers is certainly going to give it something.  But not only does it not have like half the sets of magic that Vintage has, it also lacks the most powerful.

If you wanted to really refute my point - i'd say this:

You: "Yes, but Extended has Good players breaking it for big money...."

Me: "...."




Steve\n\n

[Kerzkid11]

Turn 2 isn't going to be easy anymore with so much less unrestricted tutoring and mana acceleration. Maybe we can look back at older academy builds or early Tendrils decks to find tech for the new meta. Is rector out of the question? Rector combo goes off turn 3-4 but plays 8 discard, and 4 FoW.

[Smmenen]

No I don't buy that.  Consistent Turn Two is damn well possible - becuase PTW's Dragon deck does it in 1.5.

I want something that can also win more than a handful of games on turn one though.  I think its possible fo SHIZZLE, it just requires discovering it.  Of course it's possible, it just requires a little bit of testing and only a mild amount of innovation.  If it can be done in a format that has half of the legal card pool, it can be done here.

Steve

[Eastman]

Quote (Smmenen @ Dec. 02 2003,14:53)I think its possible fo SHIZZLE, it just requires discovering it.  Of course it's possible, it just requires a little bit of testing and only a mild amount of innovation.

Hell ya it is.

It's not chance that the deck I've seen the most development of here on TMD (long.dec) grew to become one of the most powerful ever created. There is most certainly an intensely powerful neo-academy deck that merely requires some dedicated development in this community.

[dicemanX]

Quote I want something that can also win more than a handful of games on turn one though.  I think its possible fo SHIZZLE

I've been thinking about this since the release of Mirrodin, asking myself if Dragon can be made faster. It obviously can, and PTW already demonstrated it by releasing his 1.5 list. I might as well release what I had, because it was very similar. I followed PTW's build by converting it to mono-B (I had U splashed in there), and added green because Xantids fill a big hole.

Here we go:

4x WGD
1x Ambassador Laquatus
1x Sliver Queen

4x Bazaar of Baghdad
4x Buried Alive
4x Animate Dead
2x Dance of the Dead
2x Necromancy

4x Spoils of the Vault
1x Demonic Consultation
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor

4x Duress
4x Xantid Swarm
-----------------------------
36

4x Dark Ritual
1x Lotus
5x Mox
1x Mana Crypt
1x Lotus Petal
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Vault
4x Bayou
4x Gemstone Mine
2x Polluted Delta
-----------------------------
24


This thing can kill turn 1, but you need a Buried Alive and Animate (unless you have extra mana for Spoils), plus two of the following seven cards:

Lotus
Ritual
Mana Crypt
Mana Vault

Alternately, you could have a Ritual plus Mox/Petal+Spoils, or 2 Mox/Petal. If you have a Lotus, you only need a land and a Mox or two Moxes.

Not great odds, but I doubt that anything else can do better right now. Plus, there's room for 8(!) disruption spells, because frankly there just isn't anything else to add combo-wise. Maybe more Dance of the Dead if you want even greater consistency, or even more land.

Personally, I'd stick to U/B Dragon because this pile is way more vulnerable, even though its a full turn faster on average.

[Kerzkid11]

Quote No I don't buy that.  Consistent Turn Two is damn well possible - becuase PTW's Dragon deck does it in 1.5.

Maybe we should shift away from Academy/Long style combo decks and towards Dragon? It's already very good, and with more thought and innovation can only get better.

[BreathWeapon]

Spoils Dragon is some scary stuff, and I to have been testing it on Appr. The version I use is almost exactly the same as yours, except I use; Unmask over Xantid Swarms, 8 Animate/Dance instead of Necromancey, a Mono-B manabase and Elvish Spirit Guides instead of Moxen. I think the inclusion of Sliver Queen is a possible mistake in this build. Why should we bother to wait an extra turn to win when you can play additional copies of Laquatas instead? What do you think about this?

Some of the reasoning behind my choices,

I am only using 2 CC Animates hasn't gotten me killed vs Chalice = 2 yet, and i'm willing to take the risk for the added speed until it does. I'll probably settle on a 3/3/3 set up later.

Unmask is pretty awesome, it keeps the manabase free from Wasteland and you can use it to discard a Dragon from your own hand in a pinch.

ESG over Moxen may seem like an odd choice, but Spoils Dragon doesn't need permanent mana sources when it will win in 2 turns consistantly and it completely ignores Chalice = 0.

Its nice to see that you also agree that Squee has no place in this deck. I was surprised when PTW included them in his build. Nevertheless it was 1.5, and i'm not familiar with Dragon in that format.

[bebe]

Well it is getting more and more like my build. I play a budget version of Dragon but it loses little without Moxen. I sent PTW a list from last tournament but were i playing the deck today I would also include ESGs. I've been using them in a few new combo decks. I differ from Peter in that I want to have alternate win conditions main decked and prefer V. Forces over Xantids main.

kill : 9
4 WGD
3 Verdant Force
1 Ambassador Laquatious
1 Sliver Queen

animation : 9
2 Dance of the Dead
4 Animate Dead
3 Necromancy

burial: 8
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
3 Buried Alive
1 Entomb

disruption: 6
4 Duress
2 Unmask

search: 6
4 Spoils of the Vault
1 D Tutor
1 V Tutor
 
mana: 22
4 EsG  
4 Dark Ritual
4 Polluted Delta
3 Swamp
3 Bayou
2 Ancient Tomb
1 Chrome Mox
1 Sol Ring

sb: 15
4 Xantid Swarm
4 Tornod's Crypt  
4 Pernicious Deed  
3 Chalice of the Void

[Nevyn]

Quote (Triple_S @ Dec. 02 2003,11:09)But current 1.x also allows 4 x Vampiric, 4 x Mystical, 4 x Tinker....

More importantly, the current extended environment allows 0 Force of Will. The only answer to turn 1 damping matrix on the play is Foil. Also, extented is a consistent turn 3, possible turn 2, and maybe mathematically possible turn 1. You are talking about being a whole turn faster despite having to go through FoW.

I can't see anything in January being more consistently fast and reliable than Dragon. It's combo elements are very cheap and in dark ritual's and spoils' colour. What more do you want?

Don't get me wrong, there are tons of fast combo decks out there.  Dutch Tendrils is pretty fast, and you could probably do a mana belcher deck.Heck, if you're feeling really crazy
you can even try scrambled eggs with tendrils or no-land charbelcher. But I think you'll find anything like that as or more disruptable as dragon.

[BreathWeapon]

Not only is speed an important aspect to all combo decks, but their ability to avoid hate. Even if TPS isn't as fast or consistant as Spoils Dragon, it definately avoids all of the hate that will be pointed towards Dragon in the future.

[Luc, Use The Force]

I'd really like to make some kind of a "public deckbuilding".

I'm aware that a lot of people are working on that individually, and that there is another thread by Maxx MAtt talking about Academy-Tendrils. I'd just like to restart from nothing, so we could explain our choices instead of just showing them.

Maybe you could throw your ideas here for the benefit of everybody  

It may sound kinda stupid, but since I'm such a bad deckbuilder, I really like to do a brainstorm before building a deck. So here I go.

We want to build an Academy deck who has chances to goldfish on turn one, must win on turn 2 and should have won on turn 3.

I think there's 36-38 must-be-included cards:

Draw7
--------
1 Memory Jar
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Windfall
1 Tinker
1 Windfall

Mana
------
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald

Tutors, utility, broken
--------------
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Time Walk (I personnaly never included it in Long, but we should be slower here)
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Mind's Desire
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Lands
-------
4 CoB
4 Gemstone Mine
2-4 Glimmervoid or Underground Sea
1 Tolarian Academy

Winning
-------
2 Tendrils

If we agree and start from here, we have 22-24 slots to fill.

What we need now is protection.

Whe have to choose 4-8 slots between.

Protection
----------------
x Duress
x Xantid Swarm
x FoW

And there's still mana available:

Other mana availaible
-------------
4 Dark Ritual ( I think they should obviously be included, but I put them here just in case)
1 Grim Monolith
1 Mox Diamond
1 Chrome Mox
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Chromatic Sphere (The lack of LED makes them less powerful, but they could be interresting with Rituals and Guides)

Other tutors availaible
--------------
1 Burning Wish
1 Demonic Consultation
4 Spoils of the Vault (without 4 LED or Wish the sound less appealing, but break 'em and we'll play 'em!)
1 Crop Rotation
4 Death Wish

Other drawing availaible
--------------
1 Time Spiral
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Frantic Search
x Meditate
x Brainstorm
x Diminishing Returns
x Impulse

Other playable cards
--------------
Chain of Vapor
Hurkyl's Recall
Helm of Obedience

Like I said, I know lots of people have worked on this and posted their results, but I just wanted to gather and order our reasonnings somewhere.

Thanks!\n\n

[Smmenen]

Here is the most recent build of the deck I was working on.  Some explanations are in order.  First, I am not a fan of Chrome Mox.  Although Elvish Spirit Guide is everything Chrome Mox wants to be.  How often after casting Chrome Mox do you actually untap?  This deck is balanced for speed and resilience.  I may cut the chrome mox for a 12th land.  We shall see.


Mana:
        1 Black Lotus
        1 Sol Ring
        1 Mana Crypt
        1 Mana Vault
        1 Lotus Petal
        1 Mox Sapphire
        1 Mox Ruby
        1 Mox Pearl
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mox Emerald
        1 Lion's Eye Diamond
        4 Chromatic Sphere
        4 Dark Ritual
        4 Elvish Spirit Guide
        1 Chrome Mox
        1 Tolarian Academy
        1 Glimmervoid
        4 Gemstone Mine
        4 City of Brass

Tutors:
     1 Demonic Consultation
     1 Demonic Tutor      
     1 Burning Wish
        1 Vampiric Tutor
        1 Mystical Tutor

Draw 7s:
1 Memory Jar
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Windfall  
1 Timetwister
1 Diminishing Returns
1 Tinker

The Nuts:
        1 Ancestral Recall
        1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
        1 Necropotence
        1 Mind's Desire
        1 Yawgmoth's Will

Setting up the Combo:
        1 Time Walk
        4 Brainstorm
        4 Duress
        1 Tendrils of Agony

 Stephen Menendian\n\n

[Rico Suave]

So how is Consultation now?  

I personally wouldn't cut it, but it seems like it lost a big target in Wish.  Now it (reliably) finds mana, disruption, and Brainstorm, but no business spells.  Apparently that is not enough for you to drop it, so I'd like to hear your thoughts on it.

[BreathWeapon]

Steve, do you feel comfortable with only 1 Tendrils? I'd be more inclinded to cut the Diminishing Returns for a second Tendril.

I take it Death Wish didn't work out?

[erik]

I wouldn't cut DR, but imo its' inclusion means there should be at least three kill cards in the deck. I feel the same as Rico regarding consult, an amazing card for sure, but in Long you basically always consulted for wish or LED. With them gone i'm not sure if it's worth the risk to remove necessary cards (with only one wish to get them back) for a duress, a land or a brainstorm. Personally, I'd cut consult for a 2nd Tendrils.

[Smmenen]

I knew someone was going to post something about the Consult - my experience with it has been "iffy".  But it can still get Chrome Sphere, ESG, Dark Ritual, or a land.  We'll see.  It will be a while until I do some really serious testing.  

Steve

[Dante]

Quote (Smmenen @ Dec. 06 2003,12:36)I knew someone was going to post something about the Consult - my experience with it has been "iffy".  But it can still get Chrome Sphere, ESG, Dark Ritual, or a land.  We'll see.  It will be a while until I do some really serious testing.  

Steve

Not to nitpick, but would you seriously consult for ESG?  The sphere and a land would give you color fix if you need it and the ritual is a 3-for-1, but ESG is just 1 Green?  If you were gonna do it for the turn after for 1 more mana, you could just get a land..

Bill

[walking dude]

My experience with this deck (and other decks like it since I’m testing several builds) leads me to recommend the following change.
-1 consult
+1 crop rotation

Reasons: Nowadays pretty much the only thing you can consult for is mana and brainstorm. And the only mana you can get is land or ritual.
Ritual will get you +1 mana –b dc –b dr +bbb = +b and you need bb to make that play.
Land will just work as a color fixer and then only if you haven’t played a land this turn.

If you want a mana boost academy is almost always going to give you more than 1 extra mana  and it only requires g to play instead of bb. That’s less colored mana and less total mana for a larger boost.

If you want to use the consult to get a land to fix mana crop rotation does that as well and it can do it even if you have already played a land this turn.

Not only does crop rotation do most things consult does better than consult, it is also far less risky. With so few win conditions and not having 4 wishes to get them back the odds of a bad consult are higher than I’d like.

As far as mana goes, in testing I’ve never had trouble casting crop rotation. You have 4 rits v 4 guides and the lands all make both colors so the theory says you should be able to cast either with relative ease.

The only real advantage consult has in my eyes is you can desperation fetch a restricted card if you need to while crop rotation can not. I don’t think that is something you should plan on doing with enough frequency for it to effect your deck construction.

[Smmenen]

Both good points Dante and Will.  I probalby won't consult for ESG.  It seems that the Crop Rotation is the better card.

Steve\n\n

[BreathWeapon]

What about Channel