before everyone pops a million boners over crucible

[hellswarm]

hum....

well it could be used in a g/u build of Stasis running explorations and stuff to accelerate out land lock the board down with recuring wastes/stips to smash in untapped lands that come out... orb to make it so u always have mana avialable and life to surive creatures that manage to get cast out and attack once...

just a random idea... something simlar to squasis(from weatherlight erra) could be potential as well..

other thoughts for speed mana would be around crucible and squandered resources combined wiht aformentioned accelartion from explorations/fastbond.

[AIcOPed]

Hi, I am new to TMD, but I have been playtesting CoW for about 1 month solid in a keeper deck and it is very solid. Here is my deck list:

1 Decree Of Justice
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Fastbond
1 Zuran Orb
1 Sylvan Library
1 Future sight

1 Death wish
1 skeletal scrying
1 mind twist
1 yawgmoth's will
1 demonic tutor



1 ancestral recall
1 timetwister
1 time walk
1 fact or fiction
1 gush
3 brainstorm

4 Mana drain
4 force of will

1 enlightened tutor
1 balance

1 regrowth

1 gorilla shaman

4 flooded strand
1 polluted delta
2 tundra
2 volcanic island
2 tropical island
3 underground sea
3 wasteland
1 Soldevi excavations(trying this one out. it is ok so far)
1 strip mine
1 tolarian academy
1 library of alexandria
7 solomox

sideboard

2 rack and ruin
1 Decree of justice
1 zuran orb
1 crucible of worlds
2 red elemental blasts
2 blue elemental blasts
1 gaea's blessing
2 ebony charm
1 gorilla shaman
1 Swords to plowshares
1 diabolic edict




I have playtested this against tog and mindslaver quite extensively and it works about like I expected (which is better than my old keeper w/o CoW)

It also wins 50% of the time in the mirror match.  


I would like to point out that w/ CoW in play, lands become great at keeping yoiur hand full for your library of alexandria.

About half of the time you will see at least one of the 3 of zuran/fb/CoW
and have a tutor for the second of three pieces. I almost always go for fb since it is restriicted and thus not in my sb. As discussed in an earlier post sylvan library is even better when you ca flush away the dead lands via fetchlands.

This deck is very fun to play, because there are almost always several choices to think about.


With the lock in play (zo/fb/CoW) You have an arbitrarily large number of lifa and mana and with future sight in play is and auto win as you can cast every card in your deck(and if you hit a card you cannot cast{mana drain or force of will}then you just fetchland it away). ditto w/ library in play, and seven cards in hand.

Fastbond and CoW also means quick death for your opponent as you can typically afford to go get five or so lands via the fetching and thin your deck and have more mana to counter his spells.

There are more interactions, but I think you get the gist. I am currently writing an article about this card. I think it will be a tournement worthy card.

[Machinus]

Is decree of justice the best way to win with infinite life? If you can cast all your spells with the combo out why dont you just put tendrils in the deck?

[AIcOPed]

I can win w/o the inf life/mana via DoJ. A tolarian academy with 4 artifacts in play and a few land= a 2 or 3 turn kill. at a minimum it puts them on a quick clock and it can be cycled. I can kill them the same turn i generate inf mana/ life via a time walk which i can guarentee about 1/2 of the time, so the other half of the time, I am forced to give them a turn. I think the tendrils only equals win condition, whereas DoJ can be so many more things. For instance they have a gorilla shaman in play and are foolish enough to attack, I cycle doj for 1 and kill mox monkey and draw a card. There are other reasons, but those are the main ones. I have thought about putting Tendrils in the sb instaed of the doj.

thanks for the input.

[Moxlotus]

To repeat what has already been said, it is a 3 card combo that is easy to disrupt.  Those cards are dead without the other.  Keeper could be tutoring for broken cards rather than trying to find combo pieces, look at what happened to grimpower keeper.  The combo is a waste of space in the deck.

Another question:
What makes this combo better than GrimPower?  Grim Power is only 2 cards +some kill while CoW is 3 +a kill.

[firebird365]

What makes this combo better than GrimPower? Grim Power is only 2 cards +some kill while CoW is 3 +a kill.

It does more stuff... specifically, infinite life / mana instead of just infinite mana.

[Moxlotus]

What makes this combo better than GrimPower? Grim Power is only 2 cards +some kill while CoW is 3 +a kill.

It does more stuff... specifically, infinite life / mana instead of just infinite mana.

But that still doesn't make the combo good.  Who cares about infinite life if you have infinite mana?  If you have infinite mana you win that turn no matter what your life total is, that is unless you suck ass royally and don't have your kill card when you combo.

[AIcOPed]

hi moxlotus,

none of these cards are dead alone. a first turn fb allows you to typically have enough mana to have a first turn drain. fastbond w/ future sight draws most of your deck in one turn.

CoW alone does the fetch thing or the strip mine thing every turn. cow w/ fb does it in one turn.CoW/fb also allows you in a pinch to sac your own library of alexandria via strip mine and then play them both back and draw another card, netting you 1 card for 2 life this process can be repeated. or CoW and zuran orb allows you to do the same trick every turn.

zuran orb can help you get that extra turn against a sligh type deck or force an atog player to do more math(lol), but it is pretty useless alone, I must admit.zo w/ cow in play allows you to tap a big tolarian, sac it and then put it right back into play. this is typically enough mana to kill via DoJ.

there is much more than these ideas, but these are the ones you will see the most.

I have thought about the grim power trick for this deck, but I would lose the ability to fetch the pieces from my sb and run them maindeck. also they do nothing on their own, yes I realize grim monolith does give you slight mana accelaration once before power artifact comes into play. They also do not combo at all w/ future sight whereas CoW and fb  do.

[skecreatoR]

I like your arguments.

My question is rather where does this belong. Changing the Keeper base to include green for a single card, which do have a drastic gameplay effect seems unnecessary because Keeper can already play the "powergame" against these decks.

As good as the combo is, I somehow don't think its actual place is in such a Keeper oriented deck, rather some sort of controllish, WTF.dec, fx.

I would gladly test that out to see if there is some point in playing it in WTF, as that is were I believe it could have impact.

[AIcOPed]

I already had green in my mana base since I was playing futuresight fastbond before cow. I also added in regrowth and sylvan library. The 5 fetchlands go along way towards insuring I am never color screwed. The death wish has been not cast a few times, but I really like death wish overall. The sylvan library is a double ancestral recall if you want to lose 16 life. Remember, you have 19 to give. In todays environment, you are either at 20 or dead, so not too much of a disadvantage. Also if you do not like your sylvan cards then shuffle them away w/ flooded strand. I have played about 100 games w/ this deck mostly against tog and slaver. I did try the iso-keeper semi mirror match and I am very happy w/ my results so far. I also goldfished the deck 40 games now and I have the lock(zuran orb/fb/CoW) on average between 5 and 6 with death on average on turn 8. this is also assuming i "counterspell" my opponents imaginary cards and do not just hold them to build up for library, otherwise, the deck would prob be 1/2 a turn quicker.

I think it does belong in a keeper type deck. I think it also belongs in a mishra's workshop deck. and many others.


I will probably get laughed at for this, but I said it on a different post at SCG, so here goes. I rank CoW 3rd best card ever, behind ancestral recall and yawgmoth's will.

[Moxlotus]

I already had green in my mana base since I was playing futuresight fastbond before cow. I also added in regrowth and sylvan library. The 5 fetchlands go along way towards insuring I am never color screwed. The death wish has been not cast a few times, but I really like death wish overall. The sylvan library is a double ancestral recall if you want to lose 16 life. Remember, you have 19 to give. In todays environment, you are either at 20 or dead, so not too much of a disadvantage. Also if you do not like your sylvan cards then shuffle them away w/ flooded strand. I have played about 100 games w/ this deck mostly against tog and slaver. I did try the iso-keeper semi mirror match and I am very happy w/ my results so far. I also goldfished the deck 40 games now and I have the lock(zuran orb/fb/CoW) on average between 5 and 6 with death on average on turn 8. this is also assuming i "counterspell" my opponents imaginary cards and do not just hold them to build up for library, otherwise, the deck would prob be 1/2 a turn quicker.

I think it does belong in a keeper type deck. I think it also belongs in a mishra's workshop deck. and many others.


I will probably get laughed at for this, but I said it on a different post at SCG, so here goes. I rank CoW 3rd best card ever, behind ancestral recall and yawgmoth's will.

To avoid confusion perhaps you should stop referring to your deck as "keeper".  When you say keeper most people refer to a Germbus type deck.  Death Wish(?!?!), fastbond, and other stuff makes it look more like The Shining from about a year ago.  

Here's the thing I don't like about the deck.  If it wants to be combo, it should play combo and just win.  If it wants to play control it should play control, it should not try to do both at the same time.  This is different from combo/control decks like tog because tog only needs 1 card(tog) to be combo so it is much easier to pull off while playing the control game.  

Yes, you can waste/strip every turn, but your mana development never improves either.  Colored mana (especially if you play green) is key and while many wastes can be helpful, its use should not be overexaggerated.  

Oh, and yes, I do think your nuts for saying that it is the 3rd best card ever  :lol:

[AIcOPed]

I had been out of magic for about 6 years, and when I got back in about 6 months ago my friend recommended me a similar version of "the deck" to try out. it used mind over matter and tolarian to get lots of mana and then cast DoJ.

I have never heard of shining, so i did not know that is what my deck would be called. thank you for this info.

The death wish is in there to fetch the last piece of the puzzle or in a pinch a gorilla shaman or some other control piece.

and the combo helps control, as you mentioned that when i wasteland my opponent every turn, I am not gaining mana. this is absolutely true, but the moment my opponent misses a land drop, he is losing mana. basically it stops the game dead in its tracks and says, I dare you to start missing land drops.

I also think the control is necessary to set up the combo, so i agree it looks clunky or whatever word should be there, but i disagree that it does not need the control and combo parts.

Oh, and yes, I do think your nuts for saying that it is the 3rd best card ever

thank you! i am here all week.

[Wizbane]

Hi Aicoped (sp?)

I like your tentative deck. The most solid deck with Crucible built-in I've seen so far.

Many are wrongs in saying Keeper hasn't to use combo cards. This is not a combo route, it's just adding other broken cards, a thing Keeper always liked. This will be the evolution of Grim Keeper of some years ago.

I found while facing a variant of this deck that the Keeper player doesn't actually look for combo pieces. They are just there and will pop up eventually. And you have to deal with them, otherwise there is an additional "inevitable" incoming danger, as someone calls it, that may cause your loss even if keeper has failed to obtain full control. Not like combo decks, but very high enough given that this is "the" control deck and this is enough to keep you busy. And the combo is obtained with control cards.

If you already had green for fastbond all for the better. The only part I dont' like in your deck is the black part, with s.scrying and death wish. Seems you're too confident of getting infinite life.

I'm testing a version with the CoW combo and Stroke of Genius instead of S.Scrying. And Sylvans instead of some Brainstorms (back ot the past here...). Regrowth has always been in my deck, despite the common (non)sense.


W.

[AIcOPed]

the death wish is there only to fetch the final piece of the lock or in a pinch the DoJ, which means then life does not matter, and the skeletal scying is the most cards at the end of my oponents turn that i can allow myself, and I typically will only cast one for more than a few if I have 2 pieces of the lock and feel pretty confident that I can draw into the 3rd or if I will lose no matter what if they go again.Like if they just cast a welder w/ pentivus in play and mindslaver in the graveyard. I do like the sylvan library, but I never like more than one of a card that does not have a cummulative effect.

I also agree about the combo aspect. when this deck wins, only about 1/2 of the time is the full lock in play. the rest of the time, typically i got a fastbond/futuresight soft lock or a crucible/wasteland soft lock. and control the rest of the game.

[cheeseman202000]

Can someone please provide a standard list for Germbus?  I have no idea what it is.
Use the search function.
-Jacob

[AIcOPed]

Let him use the search function himself. There's no need to waste a post doing it for him. And personal notes should be kept to PMs
-Jacob

[ELD]

I love it.  I have had alot of success with the FAT combo (Fastbond Academy Trade Routes)  and this is very similar.  Have you tested Trade Routes.  With Infinate Mana/Life you can draw your whole deck and win.  Someone isn't required to scoop it up when they have no outs and you run the risk of timing out.  I'll have to throw this together and see how it runs.  

I have a feeling it will see more play in workshop decks abusing Waste/Strip and Trinisphere though.  The same thing happened with chalice.  First people tried it in Keeper and now it's almost exclusively in Workshop decks.

[AIcOPed]

I have not tested this card w/ anything other than the deck i have listed or a very similar variation, which did not work quite as well. I have a fun tol/freeze deck I play on occasion, but it only runs 7 lands and I do not think the inf mana is needed because it already generates virtual inf anyway, but maybe an overhaul would be better.

[Browser]

I have been playing around with the idea of running Workshops and Storm Cauldrons in the combo version of Crucible.dec, along with the Explorations and Fastbond, to increase the number of cards that get you to start going off.  It looks like it's worth playing around with more.