Neo Academy.

[Boobs4L]

http://www.angelfire.com/magic/regionals2003/t1deck.html

There is my deck, I would like some feedback, I am new to this forum, but not to magic.  I have played since beta and I am just getting back into play at tourments after a 2 year break.  I want to take a deck like this to a local type 1 event and any advise would be helpful.

[Jacob Orlove]

Posts with just decklists belong in the newbie forum. Moved.

[mask]

simply put if you don;t have your god hand to begin with, you deck will almost sit there and do nothing.

Lack of early drawing abilty. brain storm would help a lot - mediate,

helm??? why?? if you are going off you don;t need cheaper spells. fast bond would work so muc better. and yotu would only drop it going off and it doesn;t make any difference in your case, since reduction of colouress is pointess in most of your spells, and oif you drop it and say go your oppentent will take advantage of it very fast.

duress and abeyance should be taken out for counter spells, they act as a counter spell but abeyance doesn;t help you during your turn. if you get mana drain instead the abilty to jump start your combo next turn increases.

hurk recall or retrace? would help a lot bounce your artifacts back to you hand and drop them again. - wheel

mom (mind over matter) is almost essitinal in your build for you to have an explosive hand, and one null rod will shut you down pretty fast. for reduceny try + deserted temple - strip mine you just don;t run any other distrupution one will not help


frantice search should be in main deck, the abilty to untap acedemy really shines.

[Purple Hat]

@mask:  man, I don't think you understand the point of some of the cards you mentioned in this deck.  the strip isn't there as disruption, it's there to ensure that there isn't another academy in play when you try to play yours.  abayence isn't there to use on an opponent's turn it's there to use on yours to protect the combo right before you go off.  going off and having your stroke/gyser countered sucks.  duress is there, like in most combo decks, to ensure that your opponenet isn't holding counters waiting for you to try to go off.  in order to go infinite off the academy-candelabra-capsize combo you need 9 mana per iteration (6 for capsize with buyback, 1 to recast candelabra, 1 to untap the academy, and one left over so you're still generating mana)  without helm this deck becomes ungodly slow, as opposed to just kind of slow and inconsistant.  it will almost never go off without the helm.  you would need to play 8 artifacts, the academy, and candelabra with capsize in hand to go off without helm.  that's a lot of cards.  the fist helm counts as an artifact and drops the mana requirements to 7 to go infinite, each subsequent helm drops it by another 1 while giving you even more mana to fuel the combo, basically counting doubble.


this deck needs multiple candelabra of twanos's to even approach the kind of reliability you're gonna want.  one just isn't going to show up enough.  I'm not sure you want to be forced to wish for your capsize.  that adds three to the cost of going off, which is already fairly high with this deck.

I would play power artifact and grim monolith to add redundancy and another infinite loop.  

why aren't you playing crop rotation?  if you're whole plan is to get academy into play and then abuse it to produce infinite mana you need to have as many tutors as you can get.  crop rotation not only fetches the academy but also puts it directly into play.  it's a must have.

futuresight might be a good card for you because of the amount of mana you're going to be generating.  it shouldn't be too hard to play your deck off a futuresight espcecially if you get fastbond out.  

also lingering mirage is a good secondary way to nutralize opposing academies, specifically taking their legendary tag away and making your academy actually able to come into play.

[c9h13no3]

Crop Rotation defin8ly needs to be included.  I find that fastbond really isn't necessary.  Just don't play a land unless you know you're not on the "critical turn".  I find MoM to be dead weight many times, and taking it out for more draw power has only helped my deck IMO.  4 Brainstorms are just plain awesome.  The two Cunning Wishes, I'm unsure about.  They're really quite slow.  A maindeck capsize takes care of just about any problem you'll have that isn't a counterspell, so I feel it should be included over MoM.  Meditate..... eh.  I'm not sure how much I like it.  They're only useful on the "critical turn" in which you go off, otherwise I feel the drawback is too debilitating.  The scroll racks also look dead.  Defense Grids are excellent SB cards.  Blah blah blah, hope that helps.

[LoA]

Just about everybody who has answered in this thread thus far really needs to take more time to edit their posts.  I know people feel as though the internet is the place grammar forgot, but TMD tries to get away from that impression.

First off, you have some slow cards in a combo deck.  Scroll Rack is slow in Type 1 for just about any deck not named Parfait; it has no place in a combo deck.  The same is true for Sylvan Scrying (Crop Rotation is faster) and Cunning Wish.  This deck needs to run itself through a few cycles before it generates enough mana to win--its win conditions ought to be maindecked.  This is in contrast to a deck like Dragon, which generates the mana and then cycles through the library.

You're playing a blue-based combo deck that can generate godly amounts of mana and you're not playing with Mind's Desire?  Or Frantic Search, or Mystical Tutor, or Stroke of Genius...

Any combo deck in Type 1 needs to be amazingly fast.  Not turn 4 fast.

Here are my suggestions:

-2 Scroll Rack
-1 Helm of Awakening
-1 Meditate
-1 Sylvan Scrying
-3 Duress
-2 Cunning Wish

+1 Mind's Desire
+1 Candalabra of Tawnos
+1 Chain of Vapor (for things like Chains, other Academies)
+1 Stroke of Genius
+4 Impulse
+1 Frantic Search
+1 Mystical Tutor

I'm also not sold on Yawgmoth's Bargain/Will in this deck, but I haven't tested with NeoAcademy + Yawgmoth for a long time.  Something tells me you'd be better off with Stifle.

[firebird365]

+1 Chain of Vapor (for things like Chains, other Academies)

Chain of Vapor targets a non-land permanent, so it wouldn't work for Academies.

As for the deck:

I agree with LoA and c9h13no3; you definately shouldn't be playing Scroll Rack, and you probably shouldn't be playing Cunning Wish. Both of these slow your deck down to a crawl, relative to other T1 decks. Most aggro decks will be able to stop your combo turn 1 or 2 (Root Maze comes to mind) so you should include some ways to stop those.

[Hi-Val]

Lingering Mirage no longer tanks opposing Academies either. My suggestion is to shift to storm-based combo or at least put Mind's Desire in your deck. Both can dramatically improve your odds of winning.

[c9h13no3]

I'm also not sold on Yawgmoth's Will in this deck.  Something tells me you'd be better off with Stifle.

Something tells me you're high.  Will is one of the most broken cards that I've played with.  Not running it would be a crime.  I find myself tutoring for this card more often than any other when playing academy.  This is the newbie forum, but still, suggesting the drop of will from academy is, like, whoa.

[Androstanolone]

not running will....

I donno what to say to that.

[mask]

@LoA sorry english is my third language, but thats no excuse but i usually don;t catch my grammer mistakes well becuase to me they make sense lol.

@mask:  man, I don't think you understand the point of some of the cards you mentioned in this deck.  the strip isn't there as disruption, it's there to ensure that there isn't another academy in play when you try to play yours.  abayence isn't there to use on an opponent's turn it's there to use on yours to protect the combo right before you go off.  going off and having your stroke/gyser countered sucks.  duress is there, like in most combo decks, to ensure that your opponenet isn't holding counters waiting for you to try to go off.  in order to go infinite off the academy-candelabra-capsize combo you need 9 mana per iteration (6 for capsize with buyback, 1 to recast candelabra, 1 to untap the academy, and one left over so you're still generating mana)  without helm this deck becomes ungodly slow, as opposed to just kind of slow and inconsistant.  it will almost never go off without the helm.  you would need to play 8 artifacts, the academy, and candelabra with capsize in hand to go off without helm.  that's a lot of cards.  the fist helm counts as an artifact and drops the mana requirements to 7 to go infinite, each subsequent helm drops it by another 1 while giving you even more mana to fuel the combo, basically counting doubble.

all you ever can down is to 7 buyback is not a seperate cost it as part of the casting cost. Candelabra of Tawnos cost 1 you cannot reduce it anymore, capsize has only one 1 colourless in it casting, therefore uu it never reduced.

duress is limited and not reactive in this deck, counterspell is reactive, no pint in revelaving you hand and thier with duress, and if you yank a counter it is the same as a counter but if not it allow you take care of other threats. and sure if you cast abeyance hmm if they havea counter sure they counter and then whatever goes on goes on. but with - abeyance sure you play your spell they counter, you counter,, if they have two ocunter this doesn;t work anyways, but a counter spell also target other items that can kill you abeyance is not specific to this degree.

[Jacob Orlove]

The problem with this deck is that Tendrils of Agony just makes it completely obsolete.

[mask]

The problem with this deck is that Tendrils of Agony just makes it completely obsolete.

yes it does, tradionial acedemcy decks just aren;t as competitive

[Purple Hat]

mask wrote:

all you ever can down is to 7 buyback is not a seperate cost it as part of the casting cost. Candelabra of Tawnos cost 1 you cannot reduce it anymore, capsize has only one 1 colourless in it casting, therefore uu it never reduced.

I'm not quite sure what this means but what I think you're trying to say is that helm of awakening doesn't subtract from buyback which is not true.  According to Crystal Keep the reduction from helm of awakening is applied to the total cost to play, not to the converted mana cost, thus it effects the buyback cost as well as the casting cost.

mask wrote:

duress is limited and not reactive in this deck, counterspell is reactive, no pint in revelaving you hand and thier with duress, and if you yank a counter it is the same as a counter but if not it allow you take care of other threats. and sure if you cast abeyance hmm if they havea counter sure they counter and then whatever goes on goes on. but with - abeyance sure you play your spell they counter, you counter,, if they have two ocunter this doesn;t work anyways, but a counter spell also target other items that can kill you abeyance is not specific to this degree.

I don't understand why being reactive is a good thing for this deck, but duress and abayence are never reactive in any deck.  Academy decks specifically, and combo decks in general, don't want to be reactive.  they want to enable and protect their combo as efficiently as possible in terms of cards and mana.  Duress is good at this, it only costs one mana and lets you see their hand. (I'm not quite sure what you meant about revealing your hand to duress but that's not how duress works so I'll move on)  Abeyence is good at this, it only costs two mana, one if you have a helm in play, cantrips, and makes your opponent's hand irrelevant.  Counterspells cost more mana and are less effective then duress and abeyance.  this deck isn't going to win counter wars.  it needs to not have them.  this deck shouldn't be worrying about responding to other people's threats, it should be worried about removing target player from the game.  combo works on the strategy that if you don't have an opponent he can't kill you.  being reactive is totally antithetical to this plan.

that said I would tend to agree with Hi-val and suggest that storm based combo is probably better then academy based combo, it's faster and harder to counter.  It's also more consistent.  But if you like this deck then more power to you.  Desire can help, but I suggest that if you play mind's desire in this deck you should probably start leaning towards storm and at least put a tendrils in your deck.  That way a big minds desire can flat out win the game.  Without tendrils you can try to hit some card drawing and use it to help go off or if you haven't played a land so far this turn play the academy, but if you hit a stroke/gyser you can't use it and it gets removed from the game.  with tendrils, if you hit it you can play it for free and make the kill in a lot of cases.

[c9h13no3]

Putting multiple kill cards in your deck only dilutes it.  When academy "goes off" it goes off.  You should work towards that one objective rather than just toss tendrils in the deck.  And the reason tendrils based decks are faster is because they have more synergy with dark rit.  I personally find academy to be more consistant however (read the rest of what I say before you respond to this).  I find academy has less of a chance of stalling, and has almost a 100% chance of going of by turn 4.  This is mainly due to the fact that all of it's mana generating cards aren't 1 turn shots (like dark rit), they are instead things that hang around (candelabra, helm, ect.).  However, academy's fast mana is slower than rits & spirit guides and candelabra depends on academy, hence the reason why storm based decks are so much faster.

I would run abeyance & counterspells any day over duress.  With academy, you're running every draw 7 spell there is to run.  Your opponent is not going to be low on threats to play.  They are, however, going to be short on mana and turns since you win so fast.  And what's the point of pulling a mana drain with a duress, when you're going to make them draw a new hand later in the turn.  FoW & Abeyance work much better with the general flow of the deck.  Not to mention that the majority of academy is base blue.

tradionial acedemcy decks just aren;t as competitive

Because of statements like these?  I agree that it's inherently not as good as long.  However, it is slightly easier to play.  And Academy is also much more fun to play in my opinion  I've played time walk 8 times in a row before .  Given, it doesn't make the deck better, but it's a better casual choice IMO.  Knocking a deck just because it's less competitive doesn't really help the situation.  I wouldn't really mind if you posted that statement with some advice, but just that statement seems kinda lame.

Candelabra of Tawnos cost 1 you cannot reduce it anymore

Reduce it to 0?  Sounds like you have very little experiance playing academy.  Or is it just me?

[Purple Hat]

I'm not saying toss in tendrils at random, but I've had problems with casting mind's desire in academy because of the fact that some times it reads, play lots of free spells, remove your academy from the game, scoop anyway.  if you use it without the academy in play you just loose the game sometimes.  I saw a guy at gencon go turn one, land, full set of jewlery, mind's desire.  he revealed time twister, timespiral, and memory jar....and tolarian academy.  with his academy gone he couldn't go off.  maybe tendrils is a bad choice for color reasons but you need an alternate kill if you are going to use minds desire.  casting a huge desire can be an unbelievable risk in this deck IMO another kill is necessary to mitigate this risk.  if it's not tendrils then perhaps brainfreeze would work, but you have to think about what happens if you get desire for 10 or 15 and hit gyser and stroke, or academy with no land drop remaining.  either ends your game pretty damn quickly.

about counterspells, I was refuting Mask's point about using Mana Drain in this deck.  I think abeyance and FoW are both better fits then duress but I think that duress is clearly better then Drain or other reactive counterspells.  if you find you need more disruption I think that Duress would probably be my next option.  this deck doesn't really have a base color for it's mana base because it has so many 5 color sources.  city of brass, glimmervoid, lotus petal, black lotus and gemstone mine all produce any color you want.

[LoA]

Sorry about the gaff concerning Chain of Vapor getting rid of other Academies.  I think it's still worth running for things like Null Rod and Root Maze though.

Yawgmoth's Stuff: Obviously Yawgmoth's Will is the most broken card out there.  But does it belong here?  Yes, there will be times when you can cast it can do some crazy things off Ancestral, etc.  However, the lack of Dark Rituals really weaken its strength.  So does this deck's reliance of cards like Timetwister and Time Spiral.  Without the Dark Ritual to accelerate, Academy really needs the Lotus to break Yawgmoth's Will.  Removing it lessens your ability for broken plays from time to time and increases your overall consistency.

[Boobs4L]

MainDeck (61)
   Sideboard

Spells
  4 Force of Will
  1 Vampiric Tutor
  1 Mox Pearl
  1 Mox Ruby
  1 Mana Crypt
  1 Mind Over Matter
  1 Mana Vault
  1 Regrowth
  1 Black Lotus
  1 Wheel of Fortune
  1 Mox Sapphire
  1 Timetwister
  1 Mox Jet
  1 Mox Emerald
  1 Demonic Tutor
  1 Ancestral Recall
  1 Sol Ring
  1 Braingeyser
  3 Helm of Awakening
  3 Meditate
  2 Candelabra of Tawnos
  2 Abeyance
  1 Memory Jar
  1 Windfall
  1 Time Spiral
  1 Time Walk
  1 Crop Rotation 
  1 Tinker
  4 Impulse
  1 Mind's Desire
  1 Frantic Search
  1 Stroke of Genius
  1 Mystical Tutor
  1 Capsize
  4 City of Brass
  1 Strip Mine
  1 Tolarian Academy
  4 Glimmervoid
  4 Gemstone Mine
SIDE
    1 Abeyance
  2 Misdirection
  4 Red Elemental Blast
  3 Tormod's Crypt
  3 Duress
  2 Seal of Cleaning

i took the suggestions people made and formed that... any advise is helpful.

[c9h13no3]

but you need an alternate kill if you are going to use minds desire.

this deck doesn't really have a base color for it's mana base

1) Why not just not screw yourself?  I run Burning Wish in my academy, and I have Mind's Desire in the SB, since it's somewhat situational.  I usually end up wishing for Trade Secrets instead.  The two cards trade secrets provides my opponent isn't really an issue since my deck is set up to deal with this problem.  Either way you go, just playing smart, and not doing something stupid like playing mind's desire without your academy out is the best route, rather than throwing in a card which only helps you go off in that particular instance.  And come to think of it, if your academy gets removed by desire, wouldn't fastbond be the best way to remedy that problem without having to throw in a dead card?  And even then it's just good play form not to play a land in the academy deck until you absolutely need to, in case you draw into academy later on in the turn.  I really don't see how Mind's Desiring away your combo is an issue, unless you do something really retarded.

2) I wasn't talking about mana, I was talking about # of blue cards, not the mana base.  FoW is more suited for this deck than duress also because of the fact that it's mostly blue.

[Purple Hat]

force of will is obviously much better then duress.  I was assuming that was basically a given.  I was talking about if he had forces, a coupple abayence and for some reason thought he needed more.  at that point duress is clearly better then Mana Drain.

if you're going to be wishing for mind's desire then that changes things.  in that case you are drawing a wish which can become cards that aren't quite as risky if you are in a bad situation to be using minds desire.  without using a wish you draw minds desire and it sits in your hand waiting for you to draw the academy or a suitable tutor so it doesn't just make you loose.  in which case it probably falls into the category of Yawg's win in this deck.  it can be extremely broken....or just sit in your hand while you stare at it and your moxes and your gemstone mines and mutter about how if it was a real draw card you'd be able to go off.

to get back on to the topic of the thread

I think I would cut two land from the posted list.
I'd probably try to find a way to put in brainstorms if I could possibly fit them.

[c9h13no3]

force of will is obviously much better then duress.  I was assuming that was basically a given.  I was talking about if he had forces, a coupple abayence and for some reason thought he needed more.  at that point duress is clearly better then Mana Drain.

I dunno, drain uses blue mana which is in far more abundance, and limits them on mana.  Not to mention it can help you go off.  I'd be tempted to run drains instead.

in which case it probably falls into the category of Yawg's win in this deck.  it can be extremely broken

If you haven't played a draw spell in your deck already, you have other problems than yawg's will.  I think my favorite play is to have my opponent waste my academy, shaman my moxes, and then will them all back out.  With academy being so crucial to the deck, running ways of recurring it is vital.  Not to mention that regrowth would go before will would.

I think I would cut two land from the posted list.
I'd probably try to find a way to put in brainstorms if I could possibly fit them.

Word.  Brainstorm is too strong.  Placing cards back into your deck is half the appeal of this card.  I've often used it to ensure good draws off jar//windfall//wheel, and it shuffles academy back in, to crop rotate it out if I've already played a land.  Not to mention the obvious benefit of smoothing your draws over, and hiding things from the evil duress of your opponent.  Combine that with a few ways to shuffle, and you have yourself a mandatory 4-of.

Edit - Let me try to iterate why Drain is better than duress IMO.  Against academy, your opponent will be mana and turn limited.  He will not be limited by the number of cards he sees.  With the draw 7's, he will have a constant flow of bullets against you.  However, since your deck is so fast, he will have a limited number of turns and mana to play them with.  Your measures against his disruption need to take this fact into account.  Mana Drain forces your opponent to use up mana to play his mana drain//stifle//orim's chant//whatever, and then have his spell stopped.  Duress only takes that card away from him, and he's quite likely to draw another of bullet X after you play a draw 7.  Abeyance has a similar effect.  Your opponent has only a few turns to play his disruption, and abeyance takes one of those turns away.  Thus the reasoning by which I choose drain over duress.  Not to mention that it can stop mox monkeys and wretches.  While these are not as big a threats as other cards in the meta, they still add to the pile of reasons why I'd rather have mana drain.  Add the colorless boost from drain, and I think you can see why I'd prefer it.

[mask]

Word.  Brainstorm is too strong.  Placing cards back into your deck is half the appeal of this card.  I've often used it to ensure good draws off jar//windfall//wheel, and it shuffles academy back in, to crop rotate it out if I've already played a land.  Not to mention the obvious benefit of smoothing your draws over, and hiding things from the evil duress of your opponent.  Combine that with a few ways to shuffle, and you have yourself a mandatory 4-of.

Edit - Let me try to iterate why Drain is better than duress IMO.  Against academy, your opponent will be mana and turn limited.  He will not be limited by the number of cards he sees.  With the draw 7's, he will have a constant flow of bullets against you.  However, since your deck is so fast, he will have a limited number of turns and mana to play them with.  Your measures against his disruption need to take this fact into account.  Mana Drain forces your opponent to use up mana to play his mana drain//stifle//orim's chant//whatever, and then have his spell stopped.  Duress only takes that card away from him, and he's quite likely to draw another of bullet X after you play a draw 7.  Abeyance has a similar effect.  Your opponent has only a few turns to play his disruption, and abeyance takes one of those turns away.  Thus the reasoning by which I choose drain over duress.  Not to mention that it can stop mox monkeys and wretches.  While these are not as big a threats as other cards in the meta, they still add to the pile of reasons why I'd rather have mana drain.  Add the colorless boost from drain, and I think you can see why I'd prefer it.

exactly what i said since the beginning

Word

aoe player?

[mask]

mask wrote:

all you ever can down is to 7 buyback is not a seperate cost it as part of the casting cost. Candelabra of Tawnos cost 1 you cannot reduce it anymore, capsize has only one 1 colourless in it casting, therefore uu it never reduced.

I'm not quite sure what this means but what I think you're trying to say is that helm of awakening doesn't subtract from buyback which is not true.  According to Crystal Keep the reduction from helm of awakening is applied to the total cost to play, not to the converted mana cost, thus it effects the buyback cost as well as the casting cost.

sorry you were mislead through hear say, instead of going directly to the rules.

502.16. Buyback

502.16a Buyback is a static ability of some instants and sorceries that functions while the spell is on the stack. The phrase “Buyback [cost]” means “You may pay an additional [cost] as you play this spell. If you do, put the spell into your hand instead of into your graveyard as it resolves.” Paying a spell’s buyback cost follows the rules for paying additional costs in rules 409.1b and 409.1f–h.

it is ruled as an abilty not another spell

503.10. To copy a spell means to put a copy of the spell onto the stack; a copy of a spell isn’t “played.” In addition to copying the characteristics of the spell, all decisions made when the spell was played are copied. These include mode, targets, the value of X, and optional additional costs such as buyback. (See rule 409, “Playing Spells and Activated Abilities.”) Choices that are normally made on resolution are not copied. A copy of a spell is itself a spell, but it has no spell card associated with it. It works just like a normal spell: it can be countered or it can resolve, and it uses the same timing rules as normal spells.

it a copy isn;t played how can the spell cost be reduced by one? if you were right phage in full english breakfeast would kill you everytime.

also why create inferior cards such as memory crystal if buyback was treated as the same effect, maybe that is why they choose to rule it in this fashion.

the ruling is very clear on this, buyback is specificy mentioned in both and is mentioned in more columns in the rulings but those are the only ones on topic. therefore maxuim reduction of cost is through one helm

[Jacob Orlove]

You're wrong about capsize. I'm not quite sure what you meant about Phage, though. I suspect it has something to do with copy effects, since that's the rule you cited, but it's not quite clear what your point was.

Let's look at the relevant section of the rules:

409. Playing Spells and Activated Abilities
409.1b If the spell or ability is modal (uses the phrase “Choose one —” or “[specified player] chooses one —”), the player announces the mode choice. If the spell or ability has a variable mana cost (indicated by {oX}) or some other variable cost, the player announces the value of that variable at this time. If the spell or ability has alternative, additional, or other special costs (such as buyback or kicker costs), the player announces his or her intentions to pay any or all of those costs (see rule 409.1f). You can’t apply two alternative methods of playing or two alternative costs to a single spell or ability. Previously made choices (such as choosing to play a spell with flashback from his or her graveyard or choosing to play a creature with morph face down) may restrict the player’s options when making these choices.
409.1f The player determines the total cost of the spell or ability. Usually this is just the mana cost (for spells) or activation cost (for abilities). Some cards list additional or alternative costs in their text, and some effects may increase or reduce the cost to pay. Costs may include paying mana, tapping permanents, sacrificing permanents, discarding cards, and so on. The total cost is the mana cost, activation cost, or alternative cost, plus all cost increases and minus all cost reductions. Once the total cost is determined, it becomes “locked in.” If effects would change the total cost after this time, they have no effect.

Buyback is an additional cost, which means it's part of the total cost. Two helms will thus reduce the cost by 2, three Helms by 3, and four helms by 4.

[mask]

You're wrong about capsize. I'm not quite sure what you meant about Phage, though. I suspect it has something to do with copy effects, since that's the rule you cited, but it's not quite clear what your point was.

Let's look at the relevant section of the rules:

409. Playing Spells and Activated Abilities
409.1b If the spell or ability is modal (uses the phrase “Choose one —” or “[specified player] chooses one —”), the player announces the mode choice. If the spell or ability has a variable mana cost (indicated by {oX}) or some other variable cost, the player announces the value of that variable at this time. If the spell or ability has alternative, additional, or other special costs (such as buyback or kicker costs), the player announces his or her intentions to pay any or all of those costs (see rule 409.1f). You can’t apply two alternative methods of playing or two alternative costs to a single spell or ability. Previously made choices (such as choosing to play a spell with flashback from his or her graveyard or choosing to play a creature with morph face down) may restrict the player’s options when making these choices.
409.1f The player determines the total cost of the spell or ability. Usually this is just the mana cost (for spells) or activation cost (for abilities). Some cards list additional or alternative costs in their text, and some effects may increase or reduce the cost to pay. Costs may include paying mana, tapping permanents, sacrificing permanents, discarding cards, and so on. The total cost is the mana cost, activation cost, or alternative cost, plus all cost increases and minus all cost reductions. Once the total cost is determined, it becomes “locked in.” If effects would change the total cost after this time, they have no effect.

Buyback is an additional cost, which means it's part of the total cost. Two helms will thus reduce the cost by 2, three Helms by 3, and four helms by 4.

two thing are wrong with what are you saying, one the ruleing which i restate below, the secound thing is buyback cost is part of an additionial cost, ie sack a land, (raze). the additionail cost of a spell itself does not define itself as spell otherwise you would run into another problem then if you are correct, it is storm +1, which is incorrect. additional cost are treated as abilties.

503.10. To copy a spell means to put a copy of the spell onto the stack; a copy of a spell isn’t “played.” In addition to copying the characteristics of the spell, all decisions made when the spell was played are copied. These include mode, targets, the value of X, and optional additional costs such as buyback. (See rule 409, “Playing Spells and Activated Abilities.”) Choices that are normally made on resolution are not copied. A copy of a spell is itself a spell, but it has no spell card associated with it. It works just like a normal spell: it can be countered or it can resolve, and it uses the same timing rules as normal spells.

it says specfically "A copy of a spell itself a spell, but it has no spell card associated with it."

meaning it place on the stack as a spell but is not affected by anything that is affects spells. and buyback is mentioned here specifcally to make it a clear example.

the reason i mentioned phage in full english breakfeast is becuase you will use volrath shapeshifter to copy the top card of the graveyard, volarath ablities never goes on hte stack since it work as a continous effect. phage states if you didn;t play it from your hand you lose the game, since you offically never played it would kill you but it was never trigger (see triggers) becuase it never came into play. the same with buyback the abilties are copied but never come into play unless resolution where it checks it trigger. ie sneak attack (abilties resolves and then check the creature come into play status).

so with your reasoning , would helm take a mana cost off entwine? my answer is no for the same reason.

[BrokenNut]

Uhm, 2 issues. If you actually read the ruling on buyback, it is an additional cost, which means it is part of the cost which means Helm will reduce it. This is an old ruling, you really shouldn't be arguing against this mask, it's been done over before many times.

"You may pay an additional [cost] as you play this spell." Being the key part.

And as for buyback affecting storm count, of course not. Playing a spell with buyback will not increase the spell count anymore than just playing the spell would unless you replay the spell once it is back in your hand. But that should all be obvious.

[DEA]

Helm of Awakening

Color= Artifact  Type= Artifact  Cost= 2 VI(U)  
Text (VI+errata): Spells cost less to play. [Oracle 2002/03/01]

The effect is cumulative. [Aahz 1997/01/29]
You apply the Helm to the total play cost. Since the play cost is the total of the mana cost (see Rule G13.7) and all costs in the card text, this means you can apply the Helm to things like Fireball's extra targets and to Buyback (see Rule 502.16) costs. The cost reduction is not applied separately to each thing, however, it is applied just once to the total cost. For example, a Capsize costs to cast and for Buyback for a total play cost of . One Helm makes the cost and three Helms makes the cost . See how the reduction is applied to the total and not to individual items. [D'Angelo 1998/01/06]
The effect is applied for Kicker (see Rule 502.21) the same way it is applied for Buyback (see Rule 502.16). You add the Kicker to the total cost before applying any reductions. [D'Angelo 2001/07/22]
The cost reduction can apply to external penalty effects such as Gloom. [WotC Rules Team 1998/02/01]
The generic X cost is still considered generic even if there is a requirement that a specific color be used for it. For example, "only black mana can be spent this way". This distinction is important for effects which reduce the generic portion of a spell's cost. For example, if you had two Helms in play (each reduces the generic costs of all spells by 1), you could cast a Drain Life for just and still do 1 damage. [WotC Rules Team 1997/06/01] [Duelist Magazine #19, Page 26]
Can lower the cost to zero. For example, a Brass Man. But cannot lower something below zero. [D'Angelo 1998/06/26]
The lower cost is not optional like with some other cost reducers. [D'Angelo 1997/01/27]
Can never affect the colored (non-generic) part of a play cost or any additions to the cost. [D'Angelo 1998/07/29]

http://www.crystalkeep.com/cgi-bin/magicsearch.cgi?cardName=helm+of+awakening&cardColour=&cardType=&creatureType=&expansion=&rarity=&cardText=&rulingText=

check the rulings for the card before trying to rules cheese please  :lol:

[mask]

therefore if that is correct a fireball can target infinite number of targets, and since it cost was reduced it was treated as a sperate spell for each target otherwise it reduction would not have happened = infinite storm count

but that rules in it self has problem becuase it says it take away from hte total casting cost, but it applied seperately you cannot have both, otherwise that is double reduction.

"The cost reduction is not applied separately to each thing, however, it is applied just once to the total cost."

yaya that makes sense? so in itself it claims that you don;t apply them seperately but go on have that example of capsize which then contradicts itself

[DEA]

i don't think you're getting any of this
let's go example by example
since the extra mana to target more than 1 target is an additional cost, a fireball for three targets with ZERO dmg will cost 2R
with 2 helms, it'll cost R
you cannot get infinite targets
it's probably just a misunderstanding in language
read the oracle text again carefully and you'll see how it works

[Purple Hat]

when are we creating extra spells here?
we aren't talking about an ability that creates extra coppies of a spell, or even produces a seperate spell which causes things to go back to your hand.  When we talk about a single spell's cost being reduced by more then 1 we are talking about situations where there are multiple helms in play.

8th ed rules say:

409.1f The player determines the total cost of the spell or ability. Usually this is just the mana cost
(for spells) or activation cost (for abilities). Some cards list additional or alternative costs in
their text, and some effects may increase or reduce the cost to pay. Costs may include paying
mana, tapping permanents, sacrificing permanents, discarding cards, and so on. The total cost is
the mana cost, activation cost, or alternative cost, plus all cost increases and minus all cost
reductions. Once the total cost is determined, it becomes "locked in." If effects would change
the total cost after this time, they have no effect.

so you add the buyback cost to capsize's mana cost and get 4UU.  Then you subtract all cost reduction effects.  In this case -1 X The number of Helm of Awakening's in play.

We're still only dealing with one spell here.  Each copy of helm reduces the total cost to play the spell by 1.

Also the oracle rulings on Helm of Awakening pretty clearly explain how this works and deal with this specific example.  They are already posted in this discussion so I dont' feel the need to post them again.