GhoulNought ( A new deck based on Illusionary Mask ).

[Dr_Tongue]

Can anyone say droul?  http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=11438&highlight=droul  
 An all necro build is what I use in T1.5 as it can kill turn 2 with the 4 of's in the deck.Fun tho.[/url]

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

The deck looks interesting.  You mentioned that 4cc was a tough matchup, but what about other common decks?  I would imagine that the fow+rod packed by most aggro decks nowadays could pose some problems, and although the tendrils story was awsome, isn't pure combo usually faster?

[JackPot76]

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

Ok, The Yawgmoth´s will is a mid, lategame option. On turn 2-3 you got to stick with the Animate Spells. And i haven´t built the deck totally on Krosan Reclamation it is a kind of backup route. Like i said before that in 70% of the cases when i Activate the Druid i already have a Animate Spell on hand or the Will. I have played with 2 Animate Spells but i didn´t work my way. In my opinion you must have 4 Animate Spells to make this deck playable. You can´t build the deck just around the Krosan cause then you are really F*cked. There is another problem that we have discussed , Cotv - If someone put Cotv on (1) Then you have different CC spells to choose from Exhume, Will depending on the mana you have. If you going to put 2 cards on the top of your library (Shuffle) then you want 2 cards with the same CC so you have 2 i win the game cards on top depending on the mana you have. I do not recommend to put Time Walk, Yawgmoth´s Will on top just to make it faster if you aren´t 100% sure it will resolve. I made this against a Landstill deck at the Swedish Masters and he topdecked Force Of Will so i was out. Always put 2 threats on top then it´s possible to win even if he topdecks. I have tried to play with 2 Krosan R. Maindeck but when i draw these or get them in my opening hand it´s like a Mulligan. The deck already has a few "Dead Cards" and there isen´t room for more. I would like to have one more Ghoul and perhaps one more Krosan R. but the deck will draw many dead hands.

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.

Null Rod isen´t a big problem for this deck cause it can win with the Suthered Ghoul. I have played against many Fish decks and the speed of this deck is their fall. The must mulligan to a Null Rod to be sure and even then i can win with the Ghoul.

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?

About the Jester Cap, It won´t happen, i haven´t seen this card in a long time.

You just have to play the deck and try it out, of course this deck can loose too, i haven´t said that it  wins all the time.


What other maskbuilds do we have and what do they suffer.

Vengeur Mask
SpoilsMask (Tainted Mask)
Ninja Mask
Ghoulnought

If we look at the different builds of Vengeour Mask they contain 4 Force Of Will´s or 4 FoW and 4 Duress. And this deck contains 3 Duress and 2 Cabal Therapy.

The Vengeour Mask has about the same must counters as the Ghoulnought deck.

Both decks suffer from the same hate Artifact removal and Graveyard hate.

Both decks can win instant (Shapeshifter + Phage) kill. Ghoulnought with the Suthered Ghoul.

The really big difference here is the speed! Vengeour Mask needs a lot more time to set up the kill and that gives the opponent more time to find answers or even kill ya. And the shapeshifter combo is even more disruptable than the Hermit combo. All the usual graveyard hate works and even a wasteland can make you sad.

The spoilsmask and Tainted Mask suffers from all the arifact hate their is so this deck isen´t even discussable.

What do you think about this people?

The deck looks interesting.  You mentioned that 4cc was a tough matchup, but what about other common decks?  I would imagine that the fow+rod packed by most aggro decks nowadays could pose some problems, and although the tendrils story was awsome, isn't pure combo usually faster?

The problem isen´t really FoW+Rod cause the deck can handle both of them. The hardest matchups is 4c Control and Stax. You win with a creature so Swords and Fire/Ice are really awesome against this deck. Swords kills Dreadnought and Ghoul. Fire/Ice can tap your big guys or kill the Hermit before it losses summoning sickness. Against Stax you really need to win that DICE to have a chance.

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.

I will test this, maybe your upto something. I Think i have discussed this before but i don´t want more NON-active cards in the deck. If i would replace my Tainted Pacts with Wish i personally think they would do nothing. The deck is already so tight so i can´t put in more non-active cards in it. Maybe one wish but that´s it!

Posts Merged.

DO NOT POST SIX TIMES IN A ROW.

-JAcob

[VGB]

I will test this, maybe your upto something. I Think i have discussed this before but i don´t want more NON-active cards in the deck. If i would replace my Tainted Pacts with Wish i personally think they would do nothing. The deck is already so tight so i can´t put in more non-active cards in it. Maybe one wish but that´s it!

Doesn't playtesting infer risk?  If it were me, I would try cutting pacts/topdeck tutors to fit in the entire playset, and see how it pans out (not to mention that you get a slot by moving 1 Hermit to the side, and you can still get a 36/36 if you move a Dreadnought to the side).  I'm dubious that testing with just one wish will lead you to make an informed decision as to its tech.

At a minimum, run 2 Wishes, for the following (likely) scenario:

If you move 1 Hermit to the side, and you put Living Wish in that slot, if your Living Wish gets countered, then you are far worse off than if it had been a Hermit, because had it been a Hermit you at least have the potential of reanimating it.  Once your lone Wish is countered, you are also cut off from your sideboarded Hermit, and only Will can bring it back.  For this reason, I would surmise that running one Wish is hardly better than running none at all; also, 1 wish slot is hardly worth bastardizing your sideboard.

By the way, you can edit your posts to include additional commentary.  It allows for more posts by separate people on the same page.

[bebe]

What other maskbuilds do we have and what do they suffer.

Vengeur Mask
SpoilsMask (Tainted Mask)
Ninja Mask
Ghoulnought

I like your deck quite a bit. It has the capacity to go off quickly, it has a secondary kill condition and the engine id synergistic with the deck as a whole. I would mention though that there are two masks builds played in Toronto that you missed.
Moridor (Wayne) managed a top four finish at Onatrio Vintage Championships ( a field of sixty) with a Stacker/Naught build which also has many of these attributes. I play GroMask which is a few turns slower but is more difficult to disrupt. I've also had excellent results with it. Obviously, ther potential is there to abuse the combination.
I'm going to take a serious look at this build. as I stated before, i think the basic framework is solid but I need to see how often you go off turns two to four with this configuration.

[carl]

The Vengeour Mask has about the same must counters as the Ghoulnought deck.

 Vengeur masqué has 11 must counter spells:
3 Volrath's Shapeshipfter
4 Illusionary Mask
4 Survival of the Fittest

I would have said 5 for Ghoulnought :
1 Krosan Reclamation
4 Illusionary Mask

Both decks suffer from the same hate Artifact removal and Graveyard hate.

Actually, I lost a lot of games to mana screw (Wasteland mainly).
Let's have look at the last 4 tournies I played Vengeur Masqué in 2003:
5-2-0 2 losses due to mana issues (screw and timely Wasteland)
7-0-0 can't complain here
7-1-1 lost to multiple Wasteland
5-1-1 lost to combo fair and square

The really big difference here is the speed! Vengeour Mask needs a lot more time to set up the kill and that gives the opponent more time to find answers or even kill ya.

It happened only once out of 4 tournies.

What do you think about this people?

I think it's a combo deck, while Vengeur Masqué isn't.

[JackPot76]

The Vengeour Mask has about the same must counters as the Ghoulnought deck.

 Vengeur masqué has 11 must counter spells:
3 Volrath's Shapeshipfter
4 Illusionary Mask
4 Survival of the Fittest

I would have said 5 for Ghoulnought :
1 Krosan Reclamation
4 Illusionary Mask

Both decks suffer from the same hate Artifact removal and Graveyard hate.

Actually, I lost a lot of games to mana screw (Wasteland mainly).
Let's have look at the last 4 tournies I played Vengeur Masqué in 2003:
5-2-0 2 losses due to mana issues (screw and timely Wasteland)
7-0-0 can't complain here
7-1-1 lost to multiple Wasteland
5-1-1 lost to combo fair and square

The really big difference here is the speed! Vengeour Mask needs a lot more time to set up the kill and that gives the opponent more time to find answers or even kill ya.

It happened only once out of 4 tournies.

What do you think about this people?

I think it's a combo deck, while Vengeur Masqué isn't.

Yes it´s true this is plain combo we are talking about. Depending on the deck you are facing the Hermit Druid is a must counter. If this resolves then you guaranteed have a disruption (Cabal Therapy) before you go off. If you let the Hermit resolve turn one, then it´s possible to go off turn 2 with backup, i consider this a must counter if you haven´t got Swords or Fire/Ice. Depending on who starts you will only have one land on my turn 2 and that´s not even mana for Mana Drain and my therapy will likely hit yor FoW.

Yes i see that you have made good results with Vengeour Mask but that was a year ago, how does it work in the current metagame?

[Purple Hat]

I'm fairly confident from my experiences running mask decks that you'd be doing yourself a favor if you tested the following configuration

maindeck:
3 druid
3 dreadnought
4 living wish

sideboard:
1 druid
1 dreadnought

this would also allow you to do things like wish for strip mine to counter that pesky maze of ith that just means you loose sometimes.  I just feel like this would make you almost always go off on turn 2 or 3 because you could be virtually assured with essentially 7 of each in your deck that you would draw the druid or the dreadnought when you wanted it.  turn one wish, turn two druid, turn three win is alot better then sitting there waiting to draw one or trying to mull into one.  Considering how strongly your deck is based on creatures I just don't see how living wish would ever be dead for you.  I mean it's always less dead then a second druid, and a 36/36 is gonna win anyway.  also it lets you get back guys who got sent farming which would help the 4CC matchup some.

Hale

[JackPot76]

I'm fairly confident from my experiences running mask decks that you'd be doing yourself a favor if you tested the following configuration

maindeck:
3 druid
3 dreadnought
4 living wish

sideboard:
1 druid
1 dreadnought

this would also allow you to do things like wish for strip mine to counter that pesky maze of ith that just means you loose sometimes.  I just feel like this would make you almost always go off on turn 2 or 3 because you could be virtually assured with essentially 7 of each in your deck that you would draw the druid or the dreadnought when you wanted it.  turn one wish, turn two druid, turn three win is alot better then sitting there waiting to draw one or trying to mull into one.  Considering how strongly your deck is based on creatures I just don't see how living wish would ever be dead for you.  I mean it's always less dead then a second druid, and a 36/36 is gonna win anyway.  also it lets you get back guys who got sent farming which would help the 4CC matchup some.

Hale

I fully understand what you all have in mind and i promise i´ll test it even if i doubt it will give result. If you run a full set of Living Wish and use the wish first turn. Second turn Hermit resolve. Opponent plays fire. I draw a wish! What happens now? What i am trying to say is it probably will be a totally dead card many times. And if somebody kills my Hermit (except STP) then i have the possibilty to Animate my hermit. So if the first one dies then i have 7 ways to get a hermit in to play anyway.

[VGB]

I fully understand what you all have in mind and i promise i´ll test it even if i doubt it will give result. If you run a full set of Living Wish and use the wish first turn. Second turn Hermit resolve. Opponent plays fire. I draw a wish! What happens now? What i am trying to say is it probably will be a totally dead card many times.

Then Brainstorm and shuffle it away.

The beauty of the card, though, is that you can configure your sideboard such that it is never dead.

See:

Volrath's Stronghold
Volrath's Shapeshifter
Apprentice/Doomed Necromancer
etc.

[Mixing Mike]

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.

STP kills your Hermit before you can even tap it, as does Fire/Ice.

If I were to SB vs. your deck with an average 4cControl deck, I'd do this...

-1 Fire/Ice
-1 Decree of Justice
-1 Cunning Wish (if running 3)
+2 Rack and Ruin
+1 StoP

That allows me to stop your Hermits faster (aka turn 1 with 3 StoP), and kill naughts/masks.

I find that control decks in general are moving away from the grave hate in the sbs.

In general yes, though I see a lot of decks around me that still run grave hate mostly because of Welders and Hulk.

Vengeur masqué has 11 must counter spells:
3 Volrath's Shapeshipfter
4 Illusionary Mask
4 Survival of the Fittest

I would have said 5 for Ghoulnought :
1 Krosan Reclamation
4 Illusionary Mask

Ahh yes, but by the time they play Krosan Reclamation, you've already allowed them to activate a Hermit, therefore giving them access to at least 4 Cabal Therapies, leaving you dead in the water.

[JackPot76]

I fully understand what you all have in mind and i promise i´ll test it even if i doubt it will give result. If you run a full set of Living Wish and use the wish first turn. Second turn Hermit resolve. Opponent plays fire. I draw a wish! What happens now? What i am trying to say is it probably will be a totally dead card many times.

Then Brainstorm and shuffle it away.

The beauty of the card, though, is that you can configure your sideboard such that it is never dead.

See:

Volrath's Stronghold
Volrath's Shapeshifter
Apprentice/Doomed Necromancer
etc.

Yes its true, but the deck already got enough ´I win cards maindeck´ so i don´t think i need more in sideboard, plus it´s much slower. It´s true it´s possible to brainstorm it away but then it´s like having 3 dead cards in the library except when i need an answer. In this scenario and many more the tainted is a much more Active card vs Living Wish.

What does the other people here on TMD think about the discussion of Living Wish? Can we discuss this and close the discussion of Living Wish.

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.

STP kills your Hermit before you can even tap it, as does Fire/Ice.

If I were to SB vs. your deck with an average 4cControl deck, I'd do this...

-1 Fire/Ice
-1 Decree of Justice
-1 Cunning Wish (if running 3)
+2 Rack and Ruin
+1 StoP

That allows me to stop your Hermits faster (aka turn 1 with 3 StoP), and kill naughts/masks.

I find that control decks in general are moving away from the grave hate in the sbs.

In general yes, though I see a lot of decks around me that still run grave hate mostly because of Welders and Hulk.

Vengeur masqué has 11 must counter spells:
3 Volrath's Shapeshipfter
4 Illusionary Mask
4 Survival of the Fittest

I would have said 5 for Ghoulnought :
1 Krosan Reclamation
4 Illusionary Mask

Ahh yes, but by the time they play Krosan Reclamation, you've already allowed them to activate a Hermit, therefore giving them access to at least 4 Cabal Therapies, leaving you dead in the water.

As i said before 4c Control is one of the hardest matchups and your sideboarding seems OK. But the Fire/Ice is really nice against this deck too, possibility to kill Hermit and Tap the Dreadnought or Ghoul.  I found this very anoying when playing against Keeper/4c Control.

What has been discussed in 48 posts, of course when a new deck idea is born people just spam a lot and give ideas. It´s good but many ideas is just plain brainstorming and not tested in reality so much of it is probably mumbo jambo.

This is what we have discussed so far.

Let´s see...

Discussed Cards:

Impulse
Thirst For Knowledge
Tainted Pact
Intuition
Living Wish (Put one Hermit and one Dreadnought in sideboard)
Survival Of The Fittest
Lim Dul´s Vault

Discussed cards that´s a potiental threat:

Null Rod
Rack & Ruin
Damping Matrix
Swords To Plowshares
Fire/Ice
Jester´s Cap
FoW
Goblin Welder

Mana issues:

22 Lands
Include ESG
Sol Ring

Other winconditions:

Tendrils
Dragon
Power Artifact/Monotlith/Stroke

How many of each card:

2-X Animate Spells
1-2 Krosan Reclamation

How should the disruption look like:

For the moment.

3 Duress
2 Cabal Therapy

Really Hard Matchups:

4c Control
StaX

Maybe i have forgot something but this is pretty much what have been discussed so if we take all the facts and begin to discuss what can be done. I have worked with this deck in a couple of months or so and i don´t belive it´s in perfect shape yet so what shall be done to perfect the deck. Has anybody tried the deck yet and can give some comments how it feels.

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

You talked about conditional/suboptimal cards, The Animate Spells works as 4 extra Hermits if they get killed (Except Stp). You want a animate spell asap so you can combo out without Krosan R. You have the possibility to Reanimate opponents creatures (Welder, Tog). Just think of how fun it could be to have an active Hermit and animate you opponents Tog, I´ll remove my grave 25 damage in you. Possibility to put 2 animate spells with the same cc on top of your library (Cotv). In case of much life loss you can use Exhume instead of Reanimate. Their is so many reasons to have 4 Animate Spells + Will. If you build the deck just around Krosan i think it won´t work at all. That´s just my opinion but i ain´t sure of course. I have tested with 2 and it didn´t work, so if i will build it around Will then it probably won´t work at all.

Posts merged. Do not double post. Never, ever, ever, quadruple post.

-Jacob

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

I think 4 wish might be too much.  Testing should be done with 1-4, of course, but I think 2-3 would be the optimal configuration.  It is good, though, because wish can serve a dual purpose: providing answers/resiliency to hate, while helping to combo off more reliable by acting as multiples of your combo creatures.

start of wishboard suggestions:
so far we have:
1 hermit druid
1 phyrexian dreadnaught

I also suggest:
1 uktabi orangutang (sex monkey can rape things: platinum angel, damping matrix)
1 faceless butcher

[JackPot76]

I have considerd testing a heavyblue Ghoulnought deck by replacing:

- 3 Duress
- 1 Brainstorm
- 3 Tainted Pact

+ 4 Force Of Will
+ 3 Lim Dul´s Vault

15 blue cards, i think is about the minimum you can have. I belive the deck will be one turn slower. I have tested this once with the FoW´s and sometimes i had the problem not to have any blue card to pitch. The duress does not ever backfire on me. Lim Dul´s is a multicolor vampiric (A little better) but requires on-color mana so the off-color moxen and crypt doesn´t help here, probably slows down a little. Plus this is card is not cardadvantage unlike tainted pact and others. I have played with the Lim Dul´s so many times and i always begin with 4 and in the end i have 0 i the deck. Probably the same thing will happen again. What is the advantages/Disadvantages with the Lim Dul´s Vault.

Advantage:

Dig thru the whole deck.
Stack 5 next cards.
No cards in graveyard or out of game.

Disadvantge:

Multicolor BU
Cards on top of library (No card in hand).

What do you think? Am i out of track, i don´t know !!

I think 4 wish might be too much.  Testing should be done with 1-4, of course, but I think 2-3 would be the optimal configuration.  It is good, though, because wish can serve a dual purpose: providing answers/resiliency to hate, while helping to combo off more reliable by acting as multiples of your combo creatures.

start of wishboard suggestions:
so far we have:
1 hermit druid
1 phyrexian dreadnaught

I also suggest:
1 uktabi orangutang (sex monkey can rape things: platinum angel, damping matrix)
1 faceless butcher

About providing answers/resiliency! The deck has 2 different win conditions (maindeck) so i don´t belive that i need more maindeck answers (Living Wish) to make the deck more stable. If somebody have a deck with both artifact hate & Graveyard hate in maindeck then i  am really unlucky. After the first match i have the possibility to sideboard/Countersideboard (Lucky me!)  so it shouldn´t be a problem. I cut the wishes even in my 2 Land Belcher they didn´t do nothing.

Double post merged.

-Jacob

[Purple Hat]

About providing answers/resiliency! The deck has 2 different win conditions (maindeck) so i don´t belive that i need more maindeck answers (Living Wish) to make the deck more stable. If somebody have a deck with both artifact hate & Graveyard hate in maindeck then i am really unlucky

it seems like an early Damping matrix could spoil your whole day pretty easily.  people definately pack those in the board at the very least.

[Mixing Mike]

people definately pack those in the board at the very least.

I personally haven't seen one in recent months.  Here's some proof courtsey of Dr. Sylvan...

Card Occurrences Sorted By Expansion Set
APRIL 2004
....
3 Damping Matrix
....

MAY 2004
....
5 Damping Matrix
....

There you have it.  There is no to little need to worry about Damping Matrix as of now.  I'd assume their numbers have actually dropped the last month and 1/2.

[heiner]

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

I tested a similar built some time ago and found that having 5 mana (krosan+will) is almost impossible turn 2 or 3. With an animate spell in your Hand it gets really easy, but are 4 animate spells enough, then? I played 4 rituals that time and it was still very hard to get the 5 mana..

[Alfred]

You don't even need yawg's will, you can put a reanimate spell on top. Most of the time anyway (when the threat of countering is gone), I like to activate the hermit on my opponent's eot step, so I can plop two cards on top of my library so that I have lots of untapped mana for the next turn.

[JackPot76]

Having 4 animate spells gives you a high percentage to get one in your starting hand and if you don´t maybe you got the Mask and other goodies on your starting hand. The deck isen´t built 100% around the Hermit you can win with Dreadnoughts too. Some say more some say less animate spells. I have already discussed why i run more then 0 or 2 (Will only wincondition). Just read the older posts. Activating the Hermit EOT isen´t an option if you aren´t 100% sure. Make use of your Cabal Therapy´s for god sake.

A way to play ..

Turn 1 Play Hermit
Turn 2 Activate Hermit
          Flashback Cabal Therapy (Target FoW)
          If you drawn a Reanimate or Exhume Play it and WIN!
          If not flashback Krosan Reclamation (Put 2 Reanimate spells ontop)
Turn 3 Play Reanimate/Exhume (Unlucky countered)!
Turn 4 Play Reanimate/Exhume & WIN!

This is kind of a perfect play and a none perfect way.

This deck isen´t for a player that doesn´t like to take a mulligan or two sometimes cause you have to do this sometimes.


I have considered testing a heavy blue based Ghoulnought deck.

What makes this better / Worse?

I have cut the Animate Spells to 2 , but included 2 topdeck tutors (Lim Dul´s Vault) that can get this pretty fast. The Tainted Pacts could remove Animate spells from the game and LIm Dul´s keeps them in the deck. Probabably the Lim Dul´s makes the deck a little slower. 4 Force Of Will Instead of the Duress and 2 Misd. . I think the FoW is powerhouse in this deck, if you combo out on turn 2,3 with Cabal Therapy backup and have a foW or a Misdirection on your hand then you should be safe. Probably the deck will suffer a little of it´s speed but you get a more stable build.
The Misdirections could possibly work out some problems with spot removal like StP and others. This deck hasen´t been tested at all yet so i have to try i out in a tournament and report back how it went.

The Deck

4  Hermit Druid

1  Sutured Ghoul
1  Krosan Reclamation
1  Dragon Breath

1  Reanimate
1  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

Multicolor Search:

2  Lim Dul´s Vault

Disruption:

4  Force Of Will
2  Misdirection
2  Cabal Therapy

Black search/Broken:

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:

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

Double post merged. I already told you to stop.
-Jacob

[HuntedWumpus]

I was captivated by this deck when I first saw and and have been testing it against a variety of things in the past week. I very much liked the black disruption version because it was simply much more streamlined. However the match against any form on control drastically improves with the use of the FoW.

I HATE lim Dul's Vault so Im still running  4 reanimate spells instead, I find this to work much better since your probably going to have one in hand.

I also think its needs a third Cabal therapy, I cut one Mis-d for it, but lack of the 2 mis-d hurts. I still feel that the 3rd cabal is optimum because it gives you 2 shots to protect the combo and Having the Cabal in the opening hand is a very very good sign in my testing.

[Sammy]

I'd like to point out the fact that I got 8th today in the Myriad Games tourny playing Ninja Mask. Although it is not Ghoulnought it is a deck taht runs mask/nought.

POWER TO ANYTHING MASK/NOUGHT!!!

I'LL GET YOU HARRY POTTER. -Z

[JackPot76]

In the decklist that i posted first i have made some changes.

-1 Tainted Pact
+1 Reanimate

I have playtested the deck some and noticed how important it´s to get a animate spell asap. So one tainted pact is replaced with one Reanimate.

Next week we are having 3 Type1 Tournaments in 3 days a row and this is going to be where i make a Full Playtest of the deck. First day 120$ / Winner, Second day 120$ / Winner, Third day 650 $ / Cash for the flight to Gencon.

So ill report to you all how it went those 3 days next week.

[JackPot76]

After 3 days of playing i have played against most of the top Tier1 decks out there. As i assumed Stax was a terrible matchup if i didn´t draw like a god. There was one more Draw7. This one was really hard too, i got 2 looses against Draw7 in these 3 days. The deck i played looked like this.

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

Disruption:

3 Duress
3 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:

2 Xantid Swarm
2 Hurkyl´s Recall
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Lighting Greaves
2 Gilded Drake
2 Root Maze
1 Coffin Purge
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Chain Of Vapor

On day2 we had a tournament with 50-60 pers with a looot of power. My final result became 10th place. Decks that i faced this day was.

Landstill 2-1
Draw7 0-2
Fish 2-1
4c Control 2-0
Stax 1-2
Reanimator 2-0

I just have to say to all of you that 4c control is a pretty easy matchup, i played against three different builds and won all of them. Presideboard and after sideboard. The Draw7 matchup could be improved a little but i have put the 2 Root Mazes in for this matchup and Dragon aswell. The big problem here in Sweden is the Stax matchup cause it´s terrible if you don´t win the DICE.

Day 1 i lost to Draw7 and Stax.
Day2 i lost to Draw7 and Stax.
Day3 i had to catch the bus.

[ggallin08]

I know that I am quite the newb, but  if hermit druid is the win condition then why not throw in some worldly tutors. It's an unrestricted tutor for one G that gives you your win condition next turn! Or is putting it on top of your library just too slow? Anyway, it's the first thing that came to mind when trying to dig for a creature. Let me know what you think.

[Toad]

This thread is 7 monthes old.