GhoulNought ( A new deck based on Illusionary Mask ).

[JackPot76]

Illusionary Mask ´ The forgotten & Lost Artifact ´

Decks containing Illusionary Mask hasen´t been seen in a long time so here is a totally new Mask deck ´ Ghoulnought ´ . It´s based around the the old Tainted Mask and the extended deck Angry Hermit. The deck seems to work good in this metagame, but it seems to have some problems against Stax if you haven´t got a very good starting hand of course. I have played it in tournaments and 2/3 times i got to the Top8. And here in Sweden/Gothenburg we have a pretty solid metagame so can the deck make any good results here then it should work everywhere. I have played decks containing illusionary mask for 4 years and tried all archetypes and made many by myself and this archetype has solved the problems that makes the other mask decks unplayable (except shapeshifter builds). The deck has a secondary win condition that isen´t an artifact and wins the same turn as i resolves. The deck is as fast as Dragon or even faster. So all Maskplayers here is a new design of a Mask deck to try out.

Deckname: GhoulNought Deckcreator: Jarmo Laakkonen

Maindeck:

The Combos:
4  Hermit Druid

1  Sutured Ghoul
1  Krosan Reclamation
1  Dragon Breath

3  Reanimate
2  Exhume

4  Phyrexian Dreadnought
4  Illusionary Mask

Blue search/Broken:

4  Brainstorm
1  Time Walk
1  Ancestral Recall
1  Mystical Tutor
1  Chain Of Vapors

Disruption:

3  Duress
2  Cabal Therapy

Black search/Broken:

2  Tainted Pact
1  Vampiric Tutor
1  Demonic Tutor
1  Yawgmoth´s Will

Mana acceleration:

1  Mox Pearl
1  Mox Ruby
1  Mox Jet
1  Mox Emerald
1  Mox Sapphire
1  Black Lotus
1  Mana Crypt

Lands:

4  Bayou
4  Underground Sea
3  Polluted Delta
2  City Of Brass
2  Bloodstained Mire

Sideboard:

3  Xantid Swarm
2  Hurkyl´s Recall
3  Pernicious Deed
2  Lighting Greaves
2  Coffin Purge
1  Ray of Revelation
2  Metagame Slots

I´ll go thru all the card choices so you all know what i have tested and what results the card had.!

* 4  Hermit Druid

I'll run four of these of course, you want to resolve one of these the first turn. Not much to talk about here!

* 1  Sutured Ghoul

I'll run just 1 of this one cause you don´t want have 1 or 2 of these in your hand. The only problem is if you get the one and only on starting hand without a brainstorm. But this have never been a problem. So i´ll stick with one.

* 1  Krosan Reclamation

I´ll run just 1 of this one too cause you don´t want multipels in your starting hand. It´s possible to have one extra in sideboard against controldecks.

* 1  Dragon Breath

Not much too say, haste to your Suthered Ghoul. Possible to hardcast on your dreadnoughts or hermit druids.

* 2  Reanimate, 2  Exhume

I have chosen to run 2 of each, you will want to have one of these asap so you can combo out. Why 2 of each why not 4 reanimate? I tried this out and when aggrodecks hits you hard & fast you won´t have the life to animate the ghoul. You take damage from fetchlands & Crypt too. It´s good against the Cotw too. I´ll tell you a story against a Tendrils deck later.

* 4  Phyrexian Dreadnought, 4  Illusionary Mask

One of the combo parts. Not much to say here, you can remove the dreadnoughts to the Suthered Ghoul for a 48/48 Trample/Haste monster.

* 4  Brainstorm

This card works so fine and 4 is needed. Finds the combo parts or hides cards. Possibilty too put back Ghoul, Breath and other junk you don´t need.

* 1  Time Walk, 1  Ancestral Recall

Just broken!

* 1  Mystical Tutor

Maybe will be replaced, but it can get Ancestral, Animation spell, Yawgmoth´s Will.

* 1  Chain Of Vapors

This has to be in there, it´s a answer to all perms there is. It can even save your mask, dread from a R&R or a DISK blow out. Is there a P.Angel or any other nasty artifact or enchanment then you can go Activate Druid and play Will, play Vapor and do the thing.

* 3  Duress, 2  Cabal Therapy

I´ll want to have 4 Duress but 3,2 seems to be the best configuration after all. When you play against control it often happens that you play out 2 druids and when you activate the druid and play the first Therapy you probably go for FoW, If you take out his force and see that he has one more answer then you can sac the other druid and take out the second answer before comboing out.

* 3  Tainted Pact

I´ll want 4 of this one to, maybe switch the Mystical for the fourth Tainted, but i am not sure yet. I have tried Impulse and Thirst for Knowledge in this place but they don´t just fit, TFK is card advantage but it doesn´t dig deep enough. The Tainted digs about 8 cards and the cards i have four of is the needed cards. So in the end tainted seems to be the best alternative.

* 1  Vampiric Tutor, 1  Demonic Tutor, 1  Yawgmoth´s Will

These are just the broken cards that black has to offer.

* Mana acceleration:

5 Moxen, Lotus, Mana Crypt why no Sol Ring? I have tried out the Sol Ring but didn´t like it at all it kinda slowed me down. First turn i want to drop a land and a 0cc artifact boost so i can drop a Mask, Druid, Tainted, Demonic or a 1cc spel. To play Land + Sol Ring feels lame, You got to do better then that.

* Lands:

Not much to say here, it works very good, tried to make it work as good as it gets with the Tainted pacts too, Could improve it a little i think. 5 Fetch seems to be good, want these with the brainstorm and to smooth out the colors.

* Sideboard choices is discussable.

I haven´t made any match analysis yet so you have to wait for that.

Tendrils Story!

When i played against a Tendrils deck in the Swedish Masters.

ME:

Polluted Delta,Fetch Bayou, Mox Sapphire, Mana Crypt, Mask + Hermit Druid. I got a pretty sweat hand but only junk left in my hand.
Me 19 Life.

HIM:

This was a long one , He goes off first turn with Timetwister and drops a lot of moxen, Rituals and goes for Tendrils for 18 damage.

ME: (1 Life) Upkeep: Survived the Mana Crypt.

I got a sweat new 7 card hand. He knows that i play Mask+Dread and he´s at 38 Life so it takes 4 strikes with  a Dreadnought. So he kinda smiles :lol:  at me. So i play a Underground sea, Flip the druid and he still smiles :lol: . Activate, i tell him that i have no basic lands in the deck so is it possible to just put the chunk into the graveyard? He says OK!. I´ll flashback my therapy and say FoW, that´s the only thing he could run that could stop me. He shows me crap. Of course i got the exhume when he used the twister. I´ll play exhume. I put my Suthered Ghoul in play, remove 4 Dreadnoughts and put dragon breath on the Ghoul. He begins to read on all the cards and doesn´t seem to understand. Then i Attack for 48 damage so he´s at -10 life. The smile  went away and he talked about this all day.

Of course the deck could be improved but i am stuck! What do you people here on TMD think about it. What changes could be made with maindeck or sideboard to make it even better.

We have about 3 Maskplayers in Sweden so the development of mask builds is kinda slow. I am probably the only one who is trying to develop new archetypes in Sweden.

[Negator]

What about Worldgorger Dragon and Ambassador Laquatus in this deck? You can cange the reanimation spells.

[Methuselahn]

It looks like the deck will suffer splash damage from the things that harm both Dragon and other artifact decks.  This being graveyard hate and artifact hate... rod, rackNruin, Matrix, etc.  It just doesn't seem like 3 Duress, 2 Therapy and 1 Vapor is enough to protect your combo.

[Wollblad]

@Methuselahn
That's what it seems like in the first place, but it' simply not true. What hits artifacts does not hit the druid combo and vise versa. If you see hate against one combo, go for the other one! I have played against this deck and even if you would happend to know what you're up against it is more or less impossible to sidebaord against. You cannot sidebaord against both combo's unless you have Swords to Plowshares.

Now, what I don't like with this deck is Tainted Pact. Say that you want to go for a Druid since you know that will win you the game and before you find a Druid you turn over the Ghoul. You cannot continue searching for a Druid, so should you stop then and get a Gouhl in your hand? Doesn't seem like an option to me, so you'll have to continue. But then you'll render your whole Druid combo uesless since you removed your only Ghoul. I would go for Thirst for Knowledge since you have so many cards that you want to get down in the graveyard. It just seems to help the concept even though it doesn't dig that deep.

[JackPot76]

It looks like the deck will suffer splash damage from the things that harm both Dragon and other artifact decks.  This being graveyard hate and artifact hate... rod, rackNruin, Matrix, etc.  It just doesn't seem like 3 Duress, 2 Therapy and 1 Vapor is enough to protect your combo.

First game they have their wishes ( If not maindecked hate ) to get an answer and this deck is so explosive so you will probably win on speed. Second game they´ll have to sideboard against both combos or just sideboard against the combo that is hardest for their matchup. Many many times when i have played this deck i won the first match with dreadnoughts, people begins to crazy sideboard against artifacts and then i´ll just win with the Ghoul. It´s hard to sideboard against this deck cause you win by 2 different combos and people have to sideboard both artifact removal and graveyard hate. One more reminder is that Dragon is a pretty much dead deck so people doesn´t have that much sideboard against dragon anymore. Null Rod and Rack & Ruin, what do i care i´ll just animate my Ghoul. After sideboard i have answers to all these cards, you just have to countersideboard.

Give the deck a try before you throw it in the thrashcan.

[Matt]

Yeah, actually. Unlike a lot of "new combo decks" we've been seeing lately, this one actually has some promise. It certainly uses Hermit well, which is something the Type One community should have started breaking a LONG time ago (like back when Smmemen was trying to use Polar Krakens with Ghoul).

[Bulls on Parade]

I really like the idea of having two separate card combinations that dodge hate aimed at each other. The only question I have, before I even get to the lists, is why are you using Hermit Druid over Buried Alive? Why not a core of something like:

4 Buried Alive
4 Phyrexian Dreadnought
4 Illusionary Mask
1 Sutured Ghoul
4 Shallow Grave
4 Reanimate
8 Duress/Unmask/Cabal Therapy
4 Spoils of the Vault
4 Dark Ritual
3 Ancient Tomb

With the monoblack build, you gain a full turn on the combo (no need to wait for Druid to lose summoning sickness), don't have to mill your deck away, Have the potential Rit+Rit+Buried+Shallow Grave turn 1 kill (meh, this point is kind of irrelevant, but awesome), a solid manabase; what's not to love?

[Matt]

Because Hermit Druid is a one-card combo. Activate, then on your next upkeep flashback Krosan Reclamation to put an animate spell on top of your library. One-card combo, which is what makes this deck worth investigating.

[JackPot76]

@Methuselahn
That's what it seems like in the first place, but it' simply not true. What hits artifacts does not hit the druid combo and vise versa. If you see hate against one combo, go for the other one! I have played against this deck and even if you would happend to know what you're up against it is more or less impossible to sidebaord against. You cannot sidebaord against both combo's unless you have Swords to Plowshares.

Now, what I don't like with this deck is Tainted Pact. Say that you want to go for a Druid since you know that will win you the game and before you find a Druid you turn over the Ghoul. You cannot continue searching for a Druid, so should you stop then and get a Gouhl in your hand? Doesn't seem like an option to me, so you'll have to continue. But then you'll render your whole Druid combo uesless since you removed your only Ghoul. I would go for Thirst for Knowledge since you have so many cards that you want to get down in the graveyard. It just seems to help the concept even though it doesn't dig that deep.

Ok, we have some alternatives like Impulse, Thirst For Knowledge, Tainted Pact. Wollblad if you ignore the part of flipping Suthered Ghoul with the Tainted Pact what card had you choosen ? Cause when you play the deck this doesn´t happen, you even have the Brainstorms that can put the Ghoul back.

So if we analyse the cards:

2U Thirst For Knowledge - Draw three cards and then discard an artifact or two other cards. This would be discarding a mana artifact or a combo piece or discard 2 other cards like Ghoul + A card or 2 other cards. You don´t want to discard a combo piece if you don´t have multipels and if you discard 2 cards then this isen´t even card advantage. This is a 3cc spell and i don´t think it belongs in this deck. It´s possible for the opponent to use graveyard removal during the match so you can´t win with the Hermit combo and in a Welder meta you don´t want to discard artifacts when you play with Dreadnoughts.

1U Impulse - Look at the top 4 cards and put one in your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library. Personally i think this is better than the TFK in this deck. You got the possibility to choose from 4 cards and put the Ghoul and Breath on the bottom of your library. This one digs 1 card more and costs 1cc less then the TFK.

1B Tainted Pact - This one digs about 8 cards sometimes less and sometimes more. We are playing combo here so of course this isen´t 100% stable but almost. You want the combo pieces and you want them fast. This one goes twice as deep as Impulse for the same CC. This card totally rocks in this deck cause if you go either Hermit kill or Dreadnought kill and play a Tainted Pact it happens many times that the opposite combo cards flips first and i am very happy that i didn´t have to draw all that crap.

[bebe]

I'm all for building a Hermit Druid deck. I've tested a number of versions including one with masks ( posted it at mtgnews a year ago). The deck certainly shows promise. I also love shoving Masks in various arch types to test how they perform (gromask as an example). Moridor has shoved masks in a Stacker build with some success as well.

on to the deck -
22 lands  - this seems a bit shy of optimum - we used 25 sources including EsGs  - your build has more blue though.

reanimate spells - 4 seems a little risky no? You ideally wanrt one in your hand when you go off turn one/two or you may delay the kill.

search - well you have used blue. we used sotf as a secondary search engine with a copy of Squee as our draw engine. This allowed for a g/b build and few mana issues.

In the end we dropped the Masks and added more fat creatures that could be either reanimated or played from hand. Which build is better is up for debate but I always thought that Ghoul had potential. Good luck with your testing.

[VGB]

Excellent deck!

What are your thoughts on using Living Wish or Survival?

[JackPot76]

Because Hermit Druid is a one-card combo. Activate, then on your next upkeep flashback Krosan Reclamation to put an animate spell on top of your library. One-card combo, which is what makes this deck worth investigating.

I just want to notice that in 70 % of the games i got the animate spell on my hand and the Krosan is just a backup plan if it got countered or disrupted in some way. That´s why i run 4 copies of animate spells so i´ll get one asap.

[WildWillieWonderboy]

I would definately much rather play the non-Druid version proposed by BoP (but w/ Demonic Consultation) simply because it uses more good cards and less combo-only cards. This makes the list seem like it has innate consistency where the one proposed at the start of this thread has potential brokenness with timewalk and company. I would prefer a transformational sb in this case because the 8-card nought combo can be sided out vs. anything w/ welder or null rods and if necessary the 9-card reanimation part could be sided out for the likes of negator and other beats.

[JackPot76]

Excellent deck!

What are your thoughts on using Living Wish or Survival?

Thx!

Living wish ? I don´t really get what i should use it for , if you could give me some advice what i should wish for?

Survival Of The Fittest - I already got an engine in the deck that is much faster (Hermit Druid) . So this one doesn´t belong in this deck.

[VGB]

Living wish ? I don´t really get what i should use it for , if you could give me some advice what i should wish for?

Survival Of The Fittest - I already got an engine in the deck that is much faster (Hermit Druid) . So this one doesn´t belong in this deck.

Survival/Living Wish aren't necessarily engines as much as they are redundancy for the creatures in your deck - although Survival does function as an engine with Squee.  Survival also tends to work better with Volrath's Shapeshifter, though.

If you sideboard a single Dreadnought and Druid and play 4 wishes, not only do you render them somewhat resistant to Swords, you essentially run 7 maindeck copies of each.  With Wish, you can also fetch bullets such as Shaman (the Gorilla or Viridian kind), or even things like Shapeshifter for grins.  I was asking your opinion as to the impact these cards would have on your build for better or worse, as you are vastly more conversant with this deck than I.

I would definately much rather play the non-Druid version proposed by BoP (but w/ Demonic Consultation) simply because it uses more good cards and less combo-only cards.

Frankly, I disagree.  Mask/Nought has synergy with the Ghoul combo in that Dreadnoughts are excellent fat for pumping the Ghoul, and Mask enables your Druid to become uncounterable and colorless.  I think the monoblack version has fallen out of favor due to inflexibility in terms of its overall deck synergy and susceptibility to hate, and this build neatly addresses the synergy and susceptibility issues.

[SliverKing]

Before Kee-per (thats its name, get over it) got big again I'd say this had a great shot at being a rogue powerhouse... but the re-emergance of swords to plowshares makes this kind of strategy a lot more dangerous.

[JackPot76]

Before Kee-per (thats its name, get over it) got big again I'd say this had a great shot at being a rogue powerhouse... but the re-emergance of swords to plowshares makes this kind of strategy a lot more dangerous.

True!, Keeper is one of the hardest matchups for this deck, Decks that packs Swords and Fire/Ice are really hard matchups but that doesn´t say that the deck won´t work in the current meta. I have tested the deck against keeper and it was hard but not impossible. The deck can combo out turn 2 with backup of disruption ( Cabal Therapy ) and that´s hard for any deck out there. Against any control deck this deck puts a lot of pressure, there is so many must counters and disruption so it´s hard for them to keep up.

Living wish ? I don´t really get what i should use it for , if you could give me some advice what i should wish for?

Survival Of The Fittest - I already got an engine in the deck that is much faster (Hermit Druid) . So this one doesn´t belong in this deck.

Survival/Living Wish aren't necessarily engines as much as they are redundancy for the creatures in your deck - although Survival does function as an engine with Squee.  Survival also tends to work better with Volrath's Shapeshifter, though.

If you sideboard a single Dreadnought and Druid and play 4 wishes, not only do you render them somewhat resistant to Swords, you essentially run 7 maindeck copies of each.  With Wish, you can also fetch bullets such as Shaman (the Gorilla or Viridian kind), or even things like Shapeshifter for grins.  I was asking your opinion as to the impact these cards would have on your build for better or worse, as you are vastly more conversant with this deck than I.

Living Wish - This is really to slow for this deck. This deck is all about speed and Living Wish is just to slow. Is there any Tier1 type 1 deck that runs Living Wish? Belcher! But is it Tier1? The answer to you question whould be "Worse".

Silverbullets - The Bullet is Yawgmoth´s Will!. I haven´t explained it yet so i´ll explain it now. After you have activated the druid, played Therapy, and when you play your Krosan Reclamation you put the i win the game card "WILL" on top of your library. When you play Will you can play all cards in your library and the nice part here is that you know can play the Chain Of Vapor to get rid of any pesky permanent and then just combo out.

Double post merged

[VGB]

Living Wish - This is really to slow for this deck. This deck is all about speed and Living Wish is just to slow. Is there any Tier1 type 1 deck that runs Living Wish? Belcher! But is it Tier1? The answer to you question whould be "Worse".

The speed argument is valid, and I was expecting it - nonetheless, playing Hermit via Illusionary Mask costs the same, does it not (2 for mask, 2 for druid)?  Also, would Draw7 run 4 x Burning Wish if it could?  Of course, even without 4 x LED - the potential to employ 5 demonic tutors is just too powerful to resist.  Just because no deck currently breaks Living Wish doesn't mean that it can't happen - especially when that deck looks like it could use 4 additional creature DT's (assuming what you are looking for the majority of the time is Hermit, and sometimes to some smaller extent Dreadnought).

To present one last argument in favor of Living Wish, consider this scenario: you have a resolved Hermit in play, and your opponent sends it farming before it goes active.  The number of Druids you have tutorable drops by a much lower percentage than if you were not playing Living Wish at all.

[Purple Hat]

I agree with VGB.  living wish also gives you an answer to nullrod or damping matrix, both of which can hurt this deck a lot.  if you rework the side to include wish targets you could run alot of good stuff in there for problem cards/matches.

[Mixing Mike]

Have you played vs Slaver variants?  They can always board Jester's Cap if worst comes to worst. :lol:

But seriously, how resilliant to hate is it?  Even 4 LED/Wish Long had Duress/FoW/Xantids and still lost plenty of games.  Rector had Cabal Therapy/FoW and still lost to Coffin Purge.  What happens If your Krosan Rec's get RFG?  Don't you just lose?

[Alfred]

That was back when those decks were the decks to beat. Nowadays, there is less emphasis on graveyard removal in SBs. I would still have some sort of backup plan against coffin purges and such. Perhaps 2 reclaimations would be best. Also, if you see the graveyard hate coming, go the masknaught route. This is what I see as the backup plan, and what makes it resiliant to hate. Xantid Swarms in the SB look like a good option as well.

[Thug]

Reminds me a little of a deck I used to toy around with.

My main question is, why run so many conditional/suboptimal cards when all you need to combo out is Will. You explained it yourself

Silverbullets - The Bullet is Yawgmoth´s Will!. I haven´t explained it yet so i´ll explain it now. After you have activated the druid, played Therapy, and when you play your Krosan Reclamation you put the i win the game card "WILL" on top of your library. When you play Will you can play all cards in your library and the nice part here is that you know can play the Chain Of Vapor to get rid of any pesky permanent and then just combo out.

All you need is Druid, and then you flashback reclamation for Will and a random card (I always took Time Walk or Lotus depending in my mana resources if 2 open take walk, if three just flashback the reclamation. If less mana left either lotus of some disruption spell)

Then you can win with any combo that your deck can include. I used Grim/Power Artifact because it only used one dead card and I wanted to play with Cunning Wishes anyway. But there are better options now. You could use Tendrils, or even just a single Burning Wish will do the job (with a Tendrils in your Side).

This makes the deck more one-sided, and often a turn slower, and easier to hate out, but it also gives you mass of space to add anything to prevent that. And you dodge swords/bounce issues

I just wanted to make sure if you thought of this possibilty too, I'm not sure if it's better, but if one has potential, than the other might just have  too.

Koen

[Alfred]

4x Underground Sea
4x Tropical Island
4x Polluted Delta
4x City of Brass

4x Hermit Druid
4x Phyrexian Dreadnought
4x Lim-Dul's Vault
2x Intuition
1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Pearl
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Demonic Tutor
4x Illusionary Mask
1x Animate Dead
1x Necromancy
1x Krosan Reclamation
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Time Walk
4x Force of Will
4x Brainstorm
1x Fastbond

Win conditions:
Option #1:
Sutured  Ghoul + Dragon breath
Option #2:
Wordlgorger Dragon + Ambassador Laquatus
Option #3:
Tendrils of Agony + Fastbond

I've left out the win conditions, because I am still toying with sutured ghoul, dragon, and a tendrils type deck. This list I find is very consistant, and I just took out all of the discard for FoW. I find that fastbond is very important to this list, especially when combined with Yawg's will, it lets you combo with tendrils, or set up an ideal situation for dragon/sutured ghoul not to mention its utility before comboing.

These options can even be combined, as right now I am testing a dragon/tendrils combination and it is doing very well. I enjoy the dual nature of this deck. Not being pure combo, and having a backup plan make this deck very consistant and helps negate hate cards. I also need help with the sideboard.

[Jacob Orlove]

If you're using Hermit Druid, it's silly not to play with at least a couple Therapies, since you can sac the Druid to one once the druid dumps your library into the graveyard.

Also, why was this moved to newbie? It belongs in open. Moved

[Mixing Mike]

That was back when those decks were the decks to beat..... Also, if you see the graveyard hate coming, go the masknaught route. This is what I see as the backup plan, and what makes it resiliant to hate.

Even the mask/naught route has it's problems with StoP, Rack 'n Ruin, your opponents Goblin Welders, etc....  The reason combo can never be totally resilliant to hate is because it sets the game status.  Control decks can morph around the game status,  or set the game status, therefore becoming much more difficult to hate.

[Alfred]

Mixing Mike, I agree somewhat with what you are saying. But what I am trying to say is that control decks would have to board both forms of hate, both artifact and graveyard to deal with the problem (except STP), and having the masknaught plan screwed over by Rack and Ruin, or STP has no effect on you being able to combo out with Hermit. Control decks can waste all of the resources they want on the masknaught combo and you will still be able to use the Hermit plan hitch free. Not only this, but I find that control decks in general are moving away from the grave hate in the sbs.

In other news, I completely ditched the idea to go with tendrils of agony as a backup-backup plan, because that idea is extremely stupid. Instead, I think I'm going to go with jacob orlove's suggestion of cabal therapies to help with the hermit combo. Here is the decklist I am currently using:

Hermit Dragon (or ghoul):

Mana
4x Underground Sea
3x Tropical Island
4x Polluted Delta
4x City of Brass
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Pearl
1x Black Lotus

Hermit Combo
4x Hermit Druid
1x Krosan Reclamation
1x Worldgorger Dragon
1x Ambassador Laquatus
1x Animate Dead
1x Necromancy

Masknaught
4x Phyrexian Dreadnought
4x Illusionary Mask

Search/draw
4x Lim-Dul's Vault
2x Intuition
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Ancestral Recall
4x Brainstorm

Utility/Disruption
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Time Walk
4x Force of Will
1x Yawgmoth's Will
2x Cabal Therapy

There are a few subtleties to the deck that you might not pick up on. Firstly is the good interaction between mask and hermit. If you manage to get masks past counters, each hermit you draw afterwards will be uncounterable. Also, you will notice that the worldgorger dragon combo is mostly singletons, but this shouldn't stop you from going off. The only thing that you have to worry about drawing is dragon, but that can easily be remedied by brainstorm + fetchland, a hardcast cabal therapy or a post-hermiting flashback therapy (preferrably not the ladder).

Lim-Dul's vault is probably one of the best tutors for this deck. Not only does it pitch to FoW, it doesn't remove utility cards/combo peices that can be used post Hermitting©.

I like to play this deck cautiously against control, it isn't about the fastest goldfish, you have to remember to protect the combo. All an opponent has to do is counter your reclaimation and you are totally screwed. Tutor up FoWs if you fear they have more than one counter in their hand, and choose you cabal therapy targets wisely. Remember to think ahead, and make sure you have enough mana to use hermit, cast therapies and cast reclaimation, so that you don't feel like a total boner if you fuck it all up.

Another thing you have to do is choose reclaimation targets, there is probably only rule that, except in bizarre situations, should be followed every time: ALWAYS PUT A REANIMATION SPELL AS YOUR SECOND CARD. This is your safety net. The first card can be any of the utility spells, including chain of vapor, time walk or yawgmoth's will. Most of the time though, you will want to put both reanimation spells on top.

This deck can just as easily be transformed into a sutured ghoul deck, by changing the worldgorger dragons into sutured ghouls and the laquatus' into dragon's breath. I just prefer the 'gorger.

These are all tips for the hermit section of the deck, if you need lessons on how to use masknaught, you should probably search for decks that are a bit simpler, possibly in the suicide section.

EDIT: How does the stack work if you are playing against a dragon deck, and they deck you. Could you stack krosan reclaimation so that you would draw the card before laquatus could mill it? In which case you could yawg's will for a bunch of cards, bounce laquatus and combo out.

[Matt]

EDIT: How does the stack work if you are playing against a dragon deck, and they deck you. Could you stack krosan reclaimation so that you would draw the card before laquatus could mill it? In which case you could yawg's will for a bunch of cards, bounce laquatus and combo out.

No, I'm pretty sure that there's no way to use KroRec to beat a Laquatus with three mana untapped. Both players must have their chance to do things on an empty stack (i.e. after the KR resolved) before moving to the draw step. However, I don't think you need to bounce Laquatus since the Ghoul has trample.

[Alfred]

On the bright side, unless they have 3 untapped (non bazaar lands), they can't mill you on your turn, meaning this deck already has built-in hate against dragon. And to clarify, I wanted to know about bouncing because my deck uses the dragon kill method, and laquatus is a legend.

[Cross]

have you tried using intuitions? it seems like you could use those as the typical draw engine, or if necessary drop two noughts in your yard and one in your hand. also, with a lot of four-ofs it acts as a tutor for the tools you need.

[Matt]

On the bright side, unless they have 3 untapped (non bazaar lands), they can't mill you on your turn, meaning this deck already has built-in hate against dragon. And to clarify, I wanted to know about bouncing because my deck uses the dragon kill method, and laquatus is a legend.

Not really, because if they go off, then their lands will (for the umpteeth time) return to play untapped. So if they have three non-Bazaar lands (or two lands and a mox, et cetera) they'll still have them after milling you.

I guess it might slow them down a turn (bazaar+mox turn one, land, animate, mill won't leave them with three mana in your draw phase) but I wouldn't call that "built-in hate".