Fitting Skullclamp into Vintage, Attempt #3

[Thug]

I have a firm believe that Skullclamp should be a viable draw enigine in type 1. Because the most common use of the attack phase it Vintage is to force mana burns and announce different mainphases Skullclamp has to forfill a different job that it had too in other formats. The way I see it, it is made for a Combo deck, since it’s cheap, reliable and a 4-of. It does require a deck built around it though, and I have tried different approaches, with some decent results, but nothing ground trembling.

So here’s yet another attempt, this deck is by far the fastest version of a Skullclamp build I have seen, and in speed it can easily be compared with Belcher, it might even be slightly faster. This is a huge pro for the deck, and one of the reasons why this version may just have that little extra that makes it a viable choice in the current metagame.

So I present:

Kobolds:

Broken Lands: (4)
3 Gaea’s Cradle
1 Tolarian Academy

Other Lands: (6)
4 City of Brass
2 Gemstone Mine

Artifact Mana: (12)
5 Moxen
1 Mox Diamond
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Chromatic Sphere

Draw: (16)
4 Skullclamp
4 Glimpse of Nature
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Windfall
1 Timetwister
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Frantic Search
1 Memory Jar
2 Recycle

Tutoring: (5)
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Tinker
1 Burning Wish
1 Crop Rotation

Dorks: (15)
12 Kobolds (the 0/1’s, obv.)
3 Ornithopter

Winning: (2)
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Tendrils of Agony

---

The sideboard is under constructing, and always will be so posting one doesn’T really add anything. It might be useful to name some of the Wish Targets though: Mind’s Desire, Tendrils, Hull Breach are most common.

The deck is pretty tight, some cards just waiting to slip in in favour of another card. Main candidates right now are Mystical Tutor and Candelabra.

---

How does this deck play? It’s pretty similar to other combo decks involving draw-sevens. You have some bombs that win you games and you have draw-sevens to back them up. The good thing about this deck is that the bombs are very cheap and often allow you to follow it up with a draw-seven if needed.

Glimpse is a card that really causes headache to your opponent, most of the time it’s not worth countering it, but then again, often it can be compared to Ancestral Recall cycling through multiple Kobolds.

Skullclamp is an amazing draw engine is this deck, I’ve never had a version that could use Skullclamp so consistently.

Gaea’s Cradle can be compared to Rituals in other combo decks, they speed you up and they allow the use of some bombs (Jar, Recycle).

Those are the core cards of the deck, the remaining cards are used in many other deck and they shouldn’t really be surprising. I do think I have to explain a little about some things though.

The deck runs very little land, but you have to keep in mind that Skullclamp doesn’t need a land at all to be used. Almost always if you didn’t have a land yet, you draw into it with Glimpse/Skullclamp.

Xantid Swarm seems made for this deck, but maindecking causes some serious play difficulties. Swarm often forces you to hold back for a turn, something that is the worst thing you can do against combo or prison decks. Even with the high amount of FoW’s floating around I think the right place for Swarms are in the sideboard.

If you really want to try them in the maindeck though the Thopters are the cards to remove, since Kobolds are clearly better, though I do like the Mix of Kobolds/Thopters. I probably wouldn’t run 15 Kobolds if I could, but you really need the 12 available ones IMO.

---

There have been other Kobold Based decks, but I think the time wasn’t ready for it before we were presented Glimpse of Nature. If you have to make room for ±15 dorks in your deck you better have some darn good reasons for that, and Glimpse added 4 reasons, upping the total to 11 (Glimpse, Clamp, Cradle).

---

Why would you play this deck?

It’s hard to compare this deck with other decks because a huge part of the engine is totally different. Fact is that its speed is one of it’s main weapons along with the fact that this deck often can’t be stopped with a single FoW.

Clear weaknesses are shared with a lot of other decks, though this deck does get hurt a lot more by Chalice than other might.

I could put down a lot more theory about this deck, but the best way really is to see the deck in action. I know demanding people to test a deck isn't appreciated and I totally understand if you don't want to pick up this deck because it's looks like crap to you on paper. But if you have a weakness for combo decks and broken games in particular I really ask you to pick up this deck once and help me improve it.

---

Since the Skullclamp engine is heavily under-explored there might just be more cards that fit into this kind of deck that haven’t been looked at yet. Maybe this deck can (with a few more improvements) finally make people look at Skullclamp more seriously.

Koen

P.S. I’m not claiming this deck is at the level of excisting decks just yet, I haven’t done enough testing for that and most important the deck has not been tried in tournaments yet (it isn’t even legal yet). But I do believe it has potential.

Thoughts?

[Matt]

Would Frogmite be better than Ornithopter? You're playing 16 cheap artifacts...is that enough to get 4 first turn?

[Joblin Velder]

Ornithopter will always be free, though.

[Limbo]

I would say that cabal therapy is an insane way of disruption with this much dorks. It sure as hell worked in my quadruple recycle.dec as it owned a lot of control by ripping their hand apart for B, and then going at their throat with draw effects.

As an additional point I think that getting black mana can be a pain in the ass, so maybe dark rituals could solve that problem (or even carnival of souls, as this provides continuous? mana).

Auriok steelshaper could be nice to circumvent clamp activations, being a target for clamp as well.

Btw, in my experience, windfall isn't the bomb it used to be anymore.

Just my $0.02 for the moment (I was thinking about this kind of deck as well).

[Fastbond]

It looks easily disrupted(just counter a few spells or waste a few lands) and that it'll have very bad topdecks(topdeck a kobold when you need draw with no skullclamp).

[Komatteru]

I saw a version of this run in the old 1.5 and someone also had some fun with it at a local Vintage tourney a couple times (very early in the summer).  I have not seen it since.  However, it is pretty impressive and often hilarious when it gets cranking.

The trouble with the Kobold/clamp engine is that it can run out of mana rather easily.  I see your running Gaea's Cradle, but how does that actually work for you?  I can see it's useful for tapping for 3-4 mana once you get the Kobolds out there, but, correct me if I'm wrong, it seems that you need to clamp the Kobolds to draw more Kobolds, and that takes mana.  I've seen this run Carnival of Souls, but that's really horrible (needs black and life).  I'd be interested in seeing how Tangleroot would work.  It costs 3, but that shouldn't be hard to get with all the artifact mana and whatnot.  You might even try Dark Ritual to power out an Early Tangleroot.  It would have awesome synergy with Glimpse of Nature, and seems to me (on paper), that it might be a little more reliable and faster for you.  Xantid Swarm becomes a much easier addition then, since it'll be 'free' off Tangleroot mana, and I think that this deck needs some form of disruption, lest it die to one Force of Will.  I'd recommend giving it a shot.

How does this deck deal with turn 1 Trinisphere or Chalice?  I see that it is possible to win under Null Rod, since Glimpse of Nature can help there.  Those two are just too huge to say "I lose to them easily."

[The M.E.T.H.O.D]

veteran explorer?

[serialjester]

veteran explorer?

Yes, he is amazing in this. Granted, you have to run more basics, but he is amazing with Clamp, because of how you can manipulate the stack to search for lands first, then draw the cards. Again, in a version with more basics, like the B/G version I ran in 1.5 for awhile, Explorer is amazing.

Chalice shouldn't stop you if you side Multani's Presence, actually at that point it would accel you, albeit 1 card less than Clamp would but in the instance of you having cast Glimpse, and then drop Kobolds with a Chalice at 0 and Presence on the board, it duplicates the effect while saving your mana.

Carnival is RARELY problematic, I was forced to run it in 1.5 because of the lackluster mana accel that was available, and there were only a few times that it killed Me or I found that I was unable to win because of the lifeloss. My particular engine was Carnival/Genesis Chamber/Clamp with a slew of supporting cast members, and with the fact that in Vintage you're going to be able to play alot of spells (P9) that don't damage you and count towards Storm, you shouldn't worry that much about the loss of life.

The thing with Cradle is you save it for a burst of mana, and then if possible Rotate it into a new one. The capacity in the posted deck to tap a Cradle for 3-5 mana and then Rotate it into another Cradle, or Academy if the mana will be even greater is obscene. The major issue I see with mana is getting the BB for Tendrils, the absence of Ritual makes that sketchy.

How has Recycle worked for you? I wanted to try it before but it was out of range mana wise for a 1.5 deck.

[PacmanXSA]

I saw a version of this run in the old 1.5 and someone also had some fun with it at a local Vintage tourney a couple times (very early in the summer).  I have not seen it since.  However, it is pretty impressive and often hilarious when it gets cranking.

The trouble with the Kobold/clamp engine is that it can run out of mana rather easily.  I see your running Gaea's Cradle, but how does that actually work for you?  I can see it's useful for tapping for 3-4 mana once you get the Kobolds out there, but, correct me if I'm wrong, it seems that you need to clamp the Kobolds to draw more Kobolds, and that takes mana.  I've seen this run Carnival of Souls, but that's really horrible (needs black and life).  I'd be interested in seeing how Tangleroot would work.  It costs 3, but that shouldn't be hard to get with all the artifact mana and whatnot.  You might even try Dark Ritual to power out an Early Tangleroot.  It would have awesome synergy with Glimpse of Nature, and seems to me (on paper), that it might be a little more reliable and faster for you.  Xantid Swarm becomes a much easier addition then, since it'll be 'free' off Tangleroot mana, and I think that this deck needs some form of disruption, lest it die to one Force of Will.  I'd recommend giving it a shot.

How does this deck deal with turn 1 Trinisphere or Chalice?  I see that it is possible to win under Null Rod, since Glimpse of Nature can help there.  Those two are just too huge to say "I lose to them easily."

Yeah that was me.  I don't really wanna give out the decklist that I'm working on, however it deals with the recent unrestriction of Earthcraft.  I also would advise against running the Cradles seeing as you rarely need green and if you wish to go off first or second turn, you'll need the production of various different colors.

I've been placing in the top 8 every time I've played the deck, however it still craps out to control way too often when I can't get that clamp into play.  I doubt this will ever be competitive, but it's awesome when people don't expect it.

Pac

[Thug]

Would Frogmite be better than Ornithopter? You're playing 16 cheap artifacts...is that enough to get 4 first turn?

It's really all about the tougness and I don't think it's worth the risk of running Frogmits over Thopter because even with a lot of cheap artifacts dropping one for free won't happen often in the early game.

I would say that cabal therapy is an insane way of disruption with this much dorks. It sure as hell worked in my quadruple recycle.dec as it owned a lot of control by ripping their hand apart for B, and then going at their throat with draw effects.

Yeah, I tested it for some time, and it is pretty sick. My goal right now was to be faster than my opponents disrpution but if this fails, Therapy defenitly is an option.

As an additional point I think that getting black mana can be a pain in the ass, so maybe dark rituals could solve that problem (or even carnival of souls, as this provides continuous? mana).

The thing is you only need black mana once, and by that time you basicly have the resources to draw your whole deck. Often you can't play the Tendrils as soon as you might like too, but it doesn't really matter since you also win if you only have ±5 cards left in your library.

A thing I was considering though is Huntick Pack in either sideboard or maindeck. With the cradles they can be quote easily to cast and they are amazing versus control.

It looks easily disrupted(just counter a few spells or waste a few lands) and that it'll have very bad topdecks(topdeck a kobold when you need draw with no skullclamp).

The amount of business spells in this deck is pretty high, and they come out with amazing speed. Often against control they stop an early clamp or other threat, but you get an huge mana-advantage which basicly wins you the game if you resolve a draw-seven around turn 2.

If your opponent goes first and gets Leak/Drain up it's gets much harder since he has to sacrifice less to stop you. But the Swarm in the sidebard make sure you have another 4 threats he has to stop. I honestly don't think control should be all that hard. Any deck with this amount of broken cards can count of winning some games by just being more broken, so you just have to steal some other games to make it a good matchup.

The trouble with the Kobold/clamp engine is that it can run out of mana rather easily. I see your running Gaea's Cradle, but how does that actually work for you? I can see it's useful for tapping for 3-4 mana once you get the Kobolds out there, but, correct me if I'm wrong, it seems that you need to clamp the Kobolds to draw more Kobolds, and that takes mana.

When you get going you often draw approximatly 3 cards for each Kobold you find and it takes only a single mana. By using Moxes and other artifact mana you can easily keep this going, and once you find Crop Rotation, Frantic Search or Will mana won't be a problem anymore.

Timing when to use Cradle can be tough, but it comes with practise. If you can run lands that produce at least two (coloured) mana in the early game if not more I see little reason not to run them.

It costs 3, but that shouldn't be hard to get with all the artifact mana and whatnot. You might even try Dark Ritual to power out an Early Tangleroot. It would have awesome synergy with Glimpse of Nature, and seems to me (on paper), that it might be a little more reliable and faster for you.

Mana rarely is a problem, so I want to stay away from adding "dead" cards, if mana would be a problem I would try to fix it witrh overall usefull cards like Candelabra first.

How does this deck deal with turn 1 Trinisphere or Chalice? I see that it is possible to win under Null Rod, since Glimpse of Nature can help there. Those two are just too huge to say "I lose to them easily."

Chalice can be delt with after sideboard, and you simply lose to Trinisphere if your going second. This count for other decks too and is something that you just have to deal with.

veteran explorer?

Sounds very cute, but not for this deck. I could see it work in a version with Eartcraft and basics though. Interesting, maybe an idea for attempt#4  

How has Recycle worked for you? I wanted to try it before but it was out of range mana wise for a 1.5 deck.

It has been pretty good to me, mainly because you have the Cradles to power them out. Once they resolve you are going to be able to win this or next turn (if your opponent doesn't kill you first).

Yeah that was me. I don't really wanna give out the decklist that I'm working on, however it deals with the recent unrestriction of Earthcraft. I also would advise against running the Cradles seeing as you rarely need green and if you wish to go off first or second turn, you'll need the production of various different colors.

My main draw engine relies on Colorless mana, Glimpse is a green card, and I have no other card than Tendrils that requires more than 1 non-green mana. If you need to run basics in your version I can see a reason for not running Cradle, but in here it just broken.

Cards like Chromatic Sphere and Petal, Mox Diamond etc make sure you get the amount of Coloured mana you need to cast your restricted stuff. I really haven't has much problems with that.

I will post some ideas later

Koen

[Arkeld]

Actually, Null Rod is more problematic for this deck than you might think since it shuts down all your artifact mana and your clamps (and your jar for that matter) meaning that you're stuck with 10 mana sources to cast both the glimpse and the tendrils. And you have no maindeck disruption or artifact removal. Duress?

Sorry, but scooping to any deck that plays trinisphere, chalice AND null rod doesn't sound very promising. I'm not a fan of Deathlong but it seems to me to be a far better tendrils deck.

[Team-Judgement]

When you are running 4 lands that produces a hell lot of mana, why not run Fastbond and maybee even a couple of Exploration. That would also make it easier for you to win with a Recycle on the board.

And yes Tangleroot actually seems pretty good in this deck.

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

I only did a couple of golfishes but I can tell you that anything that costs 3 or more mana and isn't flat out broken (will) or an insane card draw bomb (twister, wheel, jar, tinker, etc), sucks.

As for the deck: I am unable to see how it is faster than belcher.  When I goldfished it seemed to work as a turn 3 deck because you need to take a couple of turns to set up mana without having rituals or ESG or w/e.  I found glimpse to be quite good as it allowed me to easily chain through the entire deck with glimpse+clamp.  Whenever I drew a recycle I was already going off so I think it is win more, especially without accel that regular tendrils uses to power out it's big bombs (d rit, ESG).  I understand there are the cradles but most of the time I use that mana to clampp or help power out the 3cc spells.

On the subject of rod, it may be possible to win without it, but It would require alot of cradle/acadamy mana as well as glimpse/recyle, but rod would slow you down alot and you propbably win't win very often when it's in play.

The fundamental problem with the deck is of course obvious: to run the engine you play 15 0cc creatures that do nothing by themselves other than chump, as well as the skullclmap glimpse engine, tutoring, brokeness, and mana: there is little to no room for disruption and the deck gets hit by null rod hate as well as trinisphere, which it is jsut not fast enough to fight without disruption.  I know that Thug understands these difficulties and is trying to overcome them, but I belive this to be a lost cause.

As for fastbond, If you have a recycle you should win fairly easily, and all of the artifact mana you draw should be able to keep you going when ur going off (or at least it was for me)

[Thug]

As for the deck: I am unable to see how it is faster than belcher. When I goldfished it seemed to work as a turn 3 deck because you need to take a couple of turns to set up mana without having rituals or ESG or w/e. I found glimpse to be quite good as it allowed me to easily chain through the entire deck with glimpse+clamp. Whenever I drew a recycle I was already going off so I think it is win more, especially without accel that regular tendrils uses to power out it's big bombs (d rit, ESG). I understand there are the cradles but most of the time I use that mana to clampp or help power out the 3cc spells.

Interesting, maybe instead of comparing it too belcher I should just state what the speed is that I believe (and have achieved) this deck can handle.

When the Original Long deck was legal I once made a statement that every hand could and should lead to a second turn win in Goldfishing, I have played and tested the deck a lot, and I think I can't recall more than 2 hands which didn't acclompish it.

This deck seems to be almost on par with that. While turn 1 kills are less familiar, almost every hand leads to a turn 2 kill if played perfectly. I have never put too much time into Belcher but while I may slam down Belcher turn 1 pretty often, it often takes at least another turn to actually activate it. So that made me state thats it seems to be as fast as Belcher.

Recycle isn't really hot in Goldfishing, I must admit. But in real games you can'T always rely on Skullclamp, and that means you can actually count on Cradle more, since you creatures tend to stick around a little longer. At such a point Recycle is amazing, but it could be cutted in favour of disruption to have a better change at having an active Skullclamp etc.

The fundamental problem with the deck is of course obvious: to run the engine you play 15 0cc creatures that do nothing by themselves other than chump, as well as the skullclmap glimpse engine, tutoring, brokeness, and mana: there is little to no room for disruption and the deck gets hit by null rod hate as well as trinisphere, which it is jsut not fast enough to fight without disruption. I know that Thug understands these difficulties and is trying to overcome them, but I belive this to be a lost cause.

I'm glad you looked a little further then some others, and most of what you are saying here is correct. I haven't claimed that it is good enough yet, but I really like the concept of the deck and I see enough progress in the deck to continue working on it.

I thought some people might be able to help me improve the deck, but I guess most people rather have their decks tuned out for them. I guess this thread can be closed
Anyone intersted inthe deck: feel free to PM me and share your thoughts.

Koen

[rozetta]

No, don't close the thread!

I'm playing around with this idea right now as well and I think it can be somehow made faster if it is reduced to mono-green with the following possible options:
- Fastbond is definitely a must
- Elvish Spirit Guides a must (since they can be used to cast a Glimpse)
- Tinder Wall is worth a look, since it can be clamped and then sacced for mana which can be then used to activate the clamp again
- Explorations actually don't look bad at all
- Genesis Chamber is another possibility
- Tangleroot doesn't look bad (although it is a little slow, so might need the deck to run, for instance, shops to enable casting this)
- Recycle could be a little slow
- Biorythm as a possible win condition? Since this deck will allow you to draw all it's cards when it's going off, all you need is one "duress" to clear the way for the win condition


I don't have an alternate list yet but I'm digging around the various options right now. This is certainly an interesting looking deck idea, and it might be quite possible to increase the likelyhood of going off on turn 1 with the right balance of creatures and card drawing.

Edit:
I came up with this preliminary list. Basically, I didn't like the draw-7s since they were too high casting cost and often just plain stalled the deck out. I decided that Ancestral Recall and Yawgmoth's Will were, however, worth keeping in the deck to give it that little bit more "oomph".  This is quite a different list to Thug's original because of these few changes. Basically, I've only goldfished it, but it looks good in terms of speed at which is goes off and opening hands. The win condition is actually just Time Walk. Draw and play your whole deck until you have Time Walk and Yawgmoth's Will. Time Walk, play the Will and make enough Myrs via Genesis Chamber and replaying the creatures. Then Time Walk again and attack. The reason you might want to execute it in that fashion is that you want a turn without the Glimpse of Natures drawing you cards (since it's not a "may" effect) while playing creatures. There is currently no "disruption" spell there to resolve the Walk, since I couldn't figure out what would be best. One more thing is that I cut Crop Rotation for Zuran Orb, since the deck runs Explorations and you can sac a Cradle to play a new one (and also get a good amount of mana if you Yawgmoth's Will).

// Creatures
3 Genesis Chamber
4 Tinder Wall
4 Crimson Kobolds
4 Crookshank Kobolds
4 Kobolds of Kher Keep

// Draw
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Skullclamp
1 Ancestral Recall

// Win
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Time Walk

// Mana and Acceleration
1 Zuran Orb
3 Exploration
1 Fastbond
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Lotus Petal
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Chrome Mox
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Gemstone Mine
1 City of Brass
1 Tolarian Academy
3 Gaea's Cradle

[Bram]

This is more of a conceptual post than criticism or an actual solution to anything, but:

As it has been pointed out, the problem with Skullclamp is that in order for it to be good, you need lots of small creatures. And obviously, these creatures get in the way of slots that would otherwise be put to contructive use. Due to the power level of T1, it is absolutely vital that we do not waste 16+ slots on cards that do nothing but enable your combo in one very specific way. In other words: we need to find cheap, low-toughness creatures that actually help your game. Whatever you find (if anything) it will always cost >0 mana, so the combo aspect if the deck is gone. What I'd like to do is work towards a more control-oriented build that abuses clamps; perhaps not for massive 6 cards-per-turn-for-3-mana advantage like in the current Longclamp build, but it seems to me that if we can figure out some way of clamping 1 creature per turn, this would be a solid enough draw enigine.

Maybe we should look into creatures that have been considered but were judged slightly too weak before, that now may just be pushed over the top by clamp? Nothing comes readily to mind, but I'll sure be looking.

[Limbo]

Well, xantid swarm should be an auto-inclusion.
Tinder wall is sweet, since it can be clamped multiple times, as well as being mana storage.
Auriok steelshaper. At worst it is a clampable critter for effectively W (as it doesnt need mana to clamp, the cost to cast + clamp is still 1W). At worst it draws you a few for 1W, at best it keeps you from ever spending mana on clampage again.

Possible SB critters
Mogg fanatic might even be a card of choice to deal with opposing critters (welder and friends) while setting up.
Elvish scrapper doubles as artifact destruction or a clampable critter.
Elvish lyrist deals with enchantments.

Problem with this plan is that you slow your deck bigtime, which makes it more vulnerable to hate/combo again... The entire strength (and weakness) of the deck is based around the

If you go the few clamps a turn route, glimpse of nature could be cut, freeing some more room (for example those nice cabal therapy's we were talking about) for disruption.

[Bram]

I'm working on a VERY funky aggro-ish build based on the assumptions that:

1. combo is ruled out as an option because you need to run lots of 0/1cc critters that don't protect your combo or help you smoothen your plan.
2. control doesn't want to run creatures with 1 toughness (and certainly not enough of them to make Skullclamp a reliable draw engine). You'd get the draw engine running just fine if you did, but you wouldn't be drawing into stuff that allows you to control the board.

I see an aggro-like build as a possible solution. The deck is SO random at the moment however, that I can't really post it (or it'd have to be in casual :-). There is something there, however, and I'll keep working on it s'more. Maybe I'll try it out in e'hoven :-) I haven't given up on Long's build either, though.

[Azande]

Another possible creature is the Floating Dream Zubera

Casting Cost: 1U

Power / Toughness: 1  / 2

When Floating Dream Zubera is put into a graveyard from play, draw a card for each Zubera put into a graveyard this turn.


4 cards for double clamp + 1 card because they leave play.

[Bram]

That bonus is rather marginal, considering the fact that it does nothing else alltogether.

[Komatteru]

// Creatures
3 Genesis Chamber
4 Tinder Wall
4 Crimson Kobolds
4 Crookshank Kobolds
4 Kobolds of Kher Keep

// Draw
4 Glimpse of Nature
4 Skullclamp
1 Ancestral Recall

// Win
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Time Walk

// Mana and Acceleration
1 Zuran Orb
3 Exploration
1 Fastbond
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Lotus Petal
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Chrome Mox
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Gemstone Mine
1 City of Brass
1 Tolarian Academy
3 Gaea's Cradle

I like this list a lot, but it has one problem: there doesn't seem to be a win condition, unless you were planning on winning with a swarm of Myr tokens.  I'll put that aside for a moment and assume that you merely forgot them.

I think that removing the draw 7's is a good idea, as refilling your hand is not going to be difficult with all the draw in this deck.

Cards that seem to stick out:
Lion's Eye Diamond.  Granted, three mana is a lot for this deck, and ditching your lousy hand so you can clamp 3 times is pretty good, but this deck has so many mana acclerators available to you already that it doesn't seem like you'll need LED.  Toss in the fact that Tendrils (if you include that) will not be castable off an LED and you might be better served by something else.

Lotus Petal.  You have so much acceleration that Petal doesn't seem like it'll be terribly useful.  If you run Tendrils, remove an ESG instead because the Petal can produce black.

Chrome Mox. It's alright, but most combo players consider this the weakest of the mana accelerants.  In fact, a lot of players side it out because it is not all that essential.  Stuff you might imprint like ESG and Tinder Wall already provides mana, which means you'd be imprinting an extra Exploration or Kodold (Kobolds are still red, so I believe it should give you red mana).  I think you'd be better served by something else, like Tangleroot or Carnival of Souls, which require an initial investment, but will give you a lot more than you put in.

Zuran Orb.  I see that this is in the deck for the sole purpose of sacrificing a Cradle to it so you can play another.  Crop Rotation would serve you much better, as it will remove a land from your deck.  I can't imagine that you'll need to play more than 2 Cradle in the course of the game.

[oyzar]

Some suggestions:
Why are there no crop rotaions in these lists? it is very good. Fetches academy/cradle depending on what you need. Also tinder wall is made for this deck. I often find that with just 15 critters you simply run out of steam. This deck is soo fun to play. One problem though, it got no disruption. Glimpse have made this playable. also esg is amazing in this deck. it gives you extra mana and it can even draw you extra cards when hardcast.

[Komatteru]

As it has been pointed out, the problem with Skullclamp is that in order for it to be good, you need lots of small creatures. And obviously, these creatures get in the way of slots that would otherwise be put to contructive use. Due to the power level of T1, it is absolutely vital that we do not waste 16+ slots on cards that do nothing but enable your combo in one very specific way. In other words: we need to find cheap, low-toughness creatures that actually help your game. Whatever you find (if anything) it will always cost >0 mana, so the combo aspect if the deck is gone. What I'd like to do is work towards a more control-oriented build that abuses clamps; perhaps not for massive 6 cards-per-turn-for-3-mana advantage like in the current Longclamp build, but it seems to me that if we can figure out some way of clamping 1 creature per turn, this would be a solid enough draw enigine.

Maybe we should look into creatures that have been considered but were judged slightly too weak before, that now may just be pushed over the top by clamp? Nothing comes readily to mind, but I'll sure be looking.

You either need a lot of small creatures or a way to sacrifice those creatures to gain some benefit.  Off the top of my head, the only things theoretically worth playing that meet the sacrifice for benefit requirement are Ashnod's Altar, Altar of Dementia, Krark-Clan Ironworks, and Arcbound Ravager.  The first two are not nearly as good as the second two.  There's other stuff like Diamond Valley, but that's only usuable once and is not good in the slightest (but is a neat-looking card).  Carrion Feeder lets you sacrifce creatures to make it bigger, but that's not going to work real well either.

This is off the topic of improving the original deck list, but I tried my hand at T1 Affinity at the Columbus Mox tourney in September.  If you don't know, that deck uses the Clamp/Chamber engine along with a host of free creatures (Frogmite, Enforcer, Ornithopter) to draw insane amounts of cards and make Ravager really big.  It's reminiscant of Affinity from T2 when Skullclamp was still legal there, but the T1 version is naturally a lot more broken. However, the deck is not good right now.  The problem with it is that it completely rolls to first turn Trinisphere, more so than you might imagine.  The deck relies on playing a lot of cheap but decently big creatures, and if it can't do that, it dies rather quickly, as it doesn't have much room for disruption (I used 3 Oxidize and 2 Fire/Ice).  

I think that the Affinity model (or at least an artifact deck) is really the only way to use Clamp effectively in T1.  Other choices require playing too many small creatures, and, let's face it, an army of 1/1s isn't going to get it done in this format.  Thus, the only big creatures that are lost cost (almost always free) are Frogmite and Myr Enforcer.  Dan, a friend of mine (serialjester here), played a mono-brown deck using Ironworks and things like Su-Chi and Mycosynth Golem (along with Genesis Chamber),  drawing lots of cards and going generally wild, and that worked out pretty well for him.

From my experience, I don't think that an aggro build utilizing the clamp engine is viable in the current meta.  Since you have to utilize a lot of really low cost creatures to maximize your use of Clamp, you'll run into problems with Trinisphere.  If you're not playing Affinity (rather using lots of 0,1, and 2 cost creatures), Chalice of the Void can also bite you in the ass.  If Stax and other Workshop fat aggro takes a backseat, then the Affinity/Clamp Abuser deck can become more viable.  However, that time is not now.

The problem I ran into with my Affinity build is that it intermingles combo and aggro.  However, it is not a combo deck that can win in one turn, since it relies on creatures.  Having to give your opponent a turn to respond allows for all sorts of awful things to wreck out: Balance, Hurkyl's Recall, Rebuild, Energy Flux, etc.  If you can get around playing artifacts, then there's a lot less that's played that can hurt you.  However, the problem is that then your deck loses all its explosiveness and becomes more of a slow aggro or control type deck.  Slow aggro just is not going to be good and a control-type deck that runs 4 Clamp and then enough creatures to make those clamps worthwhile just isn't going to work.  Therefore, I think that a model using Kobolds is really the only thing that has a chance to work, and clearly that has problems.

-JD

[orgcandman]

ok, I have done some breif testing with the deck, and share the same concerns as bram. Namely: the deck stalls out too often. The problem is there are just hands that contain NO gas whatsoever. The hands that do contain gas can end up being decimated by a single FoW on the correct spell.

That having been said, I like the deck, and I was wondering if you'd ever considered the balance-resources style combo engine. Basically using a ton of free artifact mana to get squandered resources into play, then using that to play a natural balance, then generating a shit ton of mana and using clamp draws to fill your hand. I think that this may be a viable strategy as it solves the mana concerns people have, as well as provide a solid shell that constantly fills the deck, and allows for maximum utility.

Maybe that sounds crazy, but those are just my thoughts.

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

That having been said, I like the deck, and I was wondering if you'd ever considered the balance-resources style combo engine. Basically using a ton of free artifact mana to get squandered resources into play, then using that to play a natural balance, then generating a shit ton of mana and using clamp draws to fill your hand. I think that this may be a viable strategy as it solves the mana concerns people have, as well as provide a solid shell that constantly fills the deck, and allows for maximum utility.

Maybe that sounds crazy, but those are just my thoughts.

Why not just make prosbloom, then?

Im sorry but squandered resources/natural balance is simply a horrible idea.  The deck already has the problems we've mentioned so why add more bad cards?

[freakish777]

@Thug,

Have you considered making the deck more black-based to be able to include the following:


Dark Ritual
Necropotence
Yawgmoth's Bargain
Songs of the Damned


I like Bargain and Necro far better than Recycle, one other "cute" trick you may consider playing around with is Reaping the Graves if you do go with black so you can recur all your kobolds for more draw.

The obvious problem with this then is your reliance on black mana, but I was wondering if you'd considered it already.

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

@Thug,

Have you considered making the deck more black-based to be able to include the following:


Dark Ritual
Necropotence
Yawgmoth's Bargain
Songs of the Damned


I like Bargain and Necro far better than Recycle, one other "cute" trick you may consider playing around with is Reaping the Graves if you do go with black so you can recur all your kobolds for more draw.

The obvious problem with this then is your reliance on black mana, but I was wondering if you'd considered it already.

I remember an old kobald skullclamp deck that was black-based, and used d rit/reaping the graves thing, as well as carnival of souls.

Songs of the damned is an interesting card idea, but probably too conditional to be worth running.  Necro of course would be an auto-inclue if it had dark rituals, and bargain is just insane and costs the same as recylce, so probably it as well.

Unfourtunately, I still don't see any way to overcome the inherent weakness of the deck idea.  No matter what card choices we make to fill out the rest of the deck, 1/4-1/3 is stuck being dead weight.

[freakish777]

Yeah, I was just wondering if he'd considered that build (and tested it) as it seems like the immediate natural conclusion to me, and if he has whether or not he believes his current build is superior, and if so why?

That's primarily what I'm interested in.

[KoBoLd]

I'm happy that you talk about the mono black version of kobold because
i personnaly play an unpowered this version of the deck .

This version is unpowered but is very fast I began playing mono black
kobold  with Carnival of Soul and Reaping the Grave but after a lot of
play test i came with this build that is faster can easily 1 st turn kill.
The averge kill is on turn 2.

12xKobold
4xOrnitopter

4xDark Ritual
4xCulling The Weak
2xSong of The damned
4xESG
1xSol Ring
1xMana Vault
1xMana Crypt

4xSkullclamp
1xNecropotence
1xYawgmoth Bargain
1xYawgmoth Will
1xDemonic tutor
1xVampiric Tutor
1xDemonic consultation

sb:

4xPheryxian Negator
4xnantoko shade
4x Hypnotic Specter
3xTormod's Crypt

4xTendril of Agony (personnal choice)maybe 3

3xCabal therapy
10xSwamp


There the version i'll play if I had power.

12xKobold
4xOrnitopter

4xDark Ritual
4xCulling The Weak
1Song of The damned
5xMox
1xSol Ring
1xMana Vault
1xMana Crypt
1xBlack Lotus

4xSkullclamp
1xNecropotence
1xYawgmoth Bargain
1xYawgmoth Will
1xDemonic tutor
1xVampiric Tutor
1xDemonic consultation

3xtendril of Agony
 
3xCabal therapy

10xSwamp

[WakaWakaBopp]

I recently won a 15 participant type 1 tourney with kobold clamp, 1st prize was a beta illusionary mask =)

Here's my build along with match results

4 bayou
1 gaea's cradle

4 kobolds of kher keep
4 crimson kobold
4 crookshank kobold
4 elvish spirit guide
3 ornithopter
3 tinder wall

4 songs of the damned
4 culling the weak
4 land grant
4 glimpse of nature
2 tendrils of agony
1 necropotence
1 demonic tutor
1 wheel of fortune
1 yawgmoth's will

4 skullclamp
1 mox sapphire
1 mox emerald
1 mox pearl
1 mox jet
1 mox ruby
1 black lotus
1 mana crypt
1 mana vault

SB
3 Xantid swarm
3 oxidize
2 naturalize
3 ground seal
3 deconstruct
1 tendrils of agony

im thinking of maybe putting death wish into mainboard =/

matchups

1st: 2-0 FCG

2nd: 2-0 tog
 
3rd: 2-1 wtf

draw into top 4

semifinals: 2-0 fish

finals: 2-1 TPS

wins very consistently on turn 1 (5 turn 1 wins for the tournament)

thanks,
Bopp