[Deck Discussion] Jester's Cap Combo, is it viable?

[serracollector]

I have been noticing lately that more and more decks are now relying on 1 of's, simply because of:

A.)  The cards played are restricted.
B.)  Not more than one copy of the card is needed due to resilency (i.e. Tendrils) or recursion (i.e. Welder/Yawg's Win)
C.) Because of Tutors (in this case right now Gifts Ungiven being a big one)

Now because of this I had the "crazy idea" that Jester's Cap could possibly become a viable kill card again (some of you are probably saying "When was it ever?").
 
Anyways, there are two ways of going about making a decklist with J.Cap as your kill, either a control oriented deck, more or less 4cc, but 4cc is already using Angels and the new Lobotomy (forgive me for forgetting the name, 3B, name a card, remove all etc.)  and BBS can simply win with anything after it gets a handful of counters and a couple phids on the board, so why mess with something that totals to 6 mana?  

The second way then to make the card vaible in a deck archtype would to  be able to cast it asap, a.k.a. a Combo deck.  Now currently in the t1 meta what are the two fastest combo decks?  Tendrils (forgive me for not being exact, but TPS, Draw7, Long, w ever you want to call it) and Belcher.  Now, the question arises, even though yes, people are playing more one of's, making J. Cap a viable  kill card, why would you run it over Belcher or Tendrils?  Well I hope to show you.

Now as we all know, tendrils is extremely hard to play.  There can be a lot of player error, and tendacy to "make the wrong choice" if you haven't played the deck dozens if not hundreds of times.  And I do not mean just goldfishing either, for as I am sure Smemmen would agree, you also have know how to react to your opponents deck and decisions as well when playing a combo deck as thourough as Draw7/Long/Meandeck Tendrils.  Now the deck idea I propose would be a lot easier to play, it is much much more like Belcher in the fact that you simply want to play a J.Cap asap and pop it, and grab the essential ingredients out of an opponents deck.  If you know anything about t1 and the current decks people play, this "search and destroy" operation should be much much simplier than Piloting a Tendrils deck to profession.

As for Belcher, why is jester's cap a better option?  It is not simply, but it is an easier play.  Why?  For 3 reasons.  

1.)  Activation/Casting Cost.  As we know they both have the same casting cost, but Jester's Cap has an activation cost of one less.  

2.)  No land constraint.  You do not have to play with only 1-2 lands, and 4 land grants, a card which even smemmen himself said he did not liek due to the fact that it gives away all your plans, and lets control players plan against you, and since, in general they have more counters/ways to screw you up than you have answers to, poses a huge problem.

3.)  Allows other cards to be used in the "belcher" decklist in leu of land grants and dula lands which will help you with "problem" cards such as wasteland, 3sphere, and the likes.

Without further ado, here is the current decklist of mine.

Mana Accelrants (25)
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Man Vault
4 Dark Ritual
1 Black Lotus
1 Chrome Mox
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Channel
4 Tinder Wall

Lands (7):
4 Mishra's Workshop (now 3sphere does not pose as much as a problem)
1 Tolarian Academy
2 City of Brass

Fixers: (4)
4 Chromatic Sphere

The Win: (6)
4 Jester's Cap
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Darksteel Collosus

Cards that Find the Win: (5)
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Crop Rotation

Draw: (9)
1 Ancestral Recall
3 Brainstorm
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Timetwister
1 Tinker
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Memory Jar

Resilience: (4)
1 Living Wish
3 Goblin Welder

Now, the sideboard would be, much like the Cerebral assasin idea, to simply convert the deck to Belcher against any aggro decks such as Fish and 5/3 or the Man show or whatever, along with the Tool box idea for your living wish.

Sideboard (15)
4 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Land Grant
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Barb Sextant
2 Cabal Ritual
(taking out, 4 cap, 4 workshop, 1 Academy, 2 City, 1 Collosus, and 1 brainstorm, atm)
1 Green Guy that nukes artifacts (your choice)
1 Boneshredder

Now, please take this seriously, I honestly beleive that this deck is viable, a first or 2nd turn J.Cap will either win you the game or seriously cripple a deck at the least.  Now, you ask "Well, what do you do if they have a kill card in there hand?"  That is where the two alternate kills come in, the Tendrils and the Collosus.  With the new mana base you can even hard cast the collosus if needed, or if there kill is in there hand, either inable them to cast it (i.e. rip 3 mana sources from belcher) or deck them with welders/cap/memory jar recursion.  Well
that is all I have for now, if update are to be made I will keep everyone up to date.   Please any comments or ideas are much appreciated, even if they are negative.  Thanx.

SC

[PipOC]

36 Mana sources or fixers is INCREDIBLY high, I would go so far as to run 28 or 29.  I would also consider running some more potent acceleration such as ancient tomb, and more permanent mana sources, since as it is you are more vulnerable to wasteland than any other deck in the format, since you don't win really quickly. I would also try running intuition as a supplemental tutor, it grabs the majority of things you need, and in a pinch it can find a draw7.  I do like the originatlity of the deck though.

[serracollector]

Well, honestly all I did was take the belcher decklist and cahnge the original kill to Jester's Cap.  And it shouldn't take longer to kill as once you pull all their kill options they are done, and if they have many kill facets, such as fish or 5/3 then you go the belcher route.  I hate the newbie forum.

[Mouth for War]

Well, honestly all I did was take the belcher decklist and cahnge the original kill to Jester's Cap.

     Okay, but Jester's Cap is not a "kill," and it's a 1-shot (yes, I know you can recur it with Welder), as opposed to Belcher, which actually ends the game, rather than allowing your opponent the possibility to come back (depending, of course, on their deck selection).  You've spent your initial resources to pull off a Cap, but the game is still on.

     Further, what do you do when you're paired off initially at a tournament with a deck that doesn't use 1-ofs as its kill (Fish, 5/3, or even a janky rogue deck)?  The Cap, which you've used all your initial resources to pull off, is essentially useless.  Certainly you can employ your transformational SB for the next game (or two), but your margin for error has just become nil.

And it shouldn't take longer to kill as once you pull all their kill options they are done,

     IF you're facing a standard net-deck and can gobble their 1-of win conditions, you still have to finish them off, so, yes, the kill will still take longer.  There's no doubt that, should they choose to continue to play it out, you can eventually resolve a threat (Colossus) or deck them with the Cap, but again, you're talking a much longer game, which means your "new tech" will be scouted and planned for by subsequent opponents.

and if they have many kill facets, such as fish or 5/3 then you go the belcher route.

     Yet, again, you're now talking about being behind by a game in a best-of-three situation - certainly not an admirable position.

     I don't understand why you would replace a kill card with a non-kill card and claim that it's a viable alternative.  For all intents and purposes, you've simply weakened the Belcher deck.

     That said, it's nice to see people experimenting, and not simply rolling over to current powers.

I hate the newbie forum.

     Meaning...?  IF you're insulting people that disagree with your build by dogging the newbie forum, I've got to say that's about pathetic.  If you dislike being disagreed with by "newbs," think how much more unhappy you'd be if one of the Vintage Adepts summarily dismissed your ideas, with all the weight of experience behind them...

[Freelancer]

The problem with jester's cap is that it doesn't affect the game state...wich essentially means that if the opponent manages to resolve a single creature with a bigger but than 1 (otherwise stupid goblin can block) the jesters cap did apeshit...Jesters cap is essentially a sideboard card at best since even slaver runs more than 5 win conditions...
And if the opponent (say slaver) has more than win conditions than you can cap they will just start drawing cards like a crazy and counter all off your win conditions...(actual win conditions not cap) than beatdown for instance with welder...(or whatever theres left)
A interesting idea though...keep them coming...


I would suggest swapping your sideboard to the maindeck (transforming back to belcher) and run the transformative cap sideboard against for instance oath/TPS...


Ps. This is all constructive criticism don't take it personally...

[serracollector]

Eh, you guys are all probably right, it should be initially belcher as it is stronger and just have the cap SB.  I used to play Keeper back in the day and my kill was J. Cap instead of Morphling (hated the guy) and I jsut really would like to see J. Cap be a kill card again, sigh.....no I do not hate n00bs, if it weren't for them the game would end, I just hate the fact that whenver I bring up an "idea" for a deck, if it doesn't immediatly win like 10 GP, or doesn;t use cards that every one else does, my discussions are immediatley sent to the newbie thread (search for forums made by serracollector, I started ALL of them in the Vinatage FOrums and see how many are now in the newbie forum).  Yes, I understand that ppl in the newbie forums can give me good advice, but maybe I want advice from the people who NEVER even dare think about looking in the newbie forums, who have won 10 GP and Waterbury and stuff, those are the people I would like advice from, nothing against n00bs, just want advice from people that I "know" are good, see?  And that pisses me off.

SC

[DEA]

Yes, I understand that ppl in the newbie forums can give me good advice, but maybe I want advice from the people who NEVER even dare think about looking in the newbie forums, who have won 10 GP and Waterbury and stuff, those are the people I would like advice from, nothing against n00bs, just want advice from people that I "know" are good, see?  And that pisses me off.

just, what is your freaking problem?
go see a psychiatrist to work out your issues

[Moxlotus]

Um, the Newbie forum is for untested, unproven decks.  Exactly what this is.  Exactly where it belongs.