Dancing Golem

[GRAH]

3 Corpse Dance
4 Composite Golem
3 Brain Freeze

4 Cunning Wish
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Intuition
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor

1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
4 Brainstorm
4 Careful Study

3 Cabal Therapy
3 Duress
3 Force of Will

7 SoloMoxen
1 Mana Crypt
4 Dark Ritual
4 Polluted Delta
4 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
2 Island

SB:
1 Brain Freeze
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Coffin Purge
1 Corpse Dance
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Entomb
1 Misdirection
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Stifle
2 Extract
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Tormod's Crypt


For those that have never heard of Dancing Golem, it was a deck made during last Extended season by Laplie over at Magic-League (I assume this. I had never seen it before). The combo of the deck was Corpse Dance + Composite Golem. First, find some way to put Golem in your graveyard. Then, you play Corpse Dance with buyback on it. Then, sacrifice the Composite Golem and use the mana to play the Corpse Dance again. This is, of course, an infinite spells combo. Then, you just drop a Brain Freeze at your opponent for the win. This deck is a port. This deck's usual win turn is 3.

I haven't had enough time to test this thoroughly, so I don't know how it fares against the tier 1.

There are a couple things I'm concerned about:

1. Mana. A couple of times in my goldfishing I've had problems getting 5 mana to play Corpse Dance with buyback. Replacing the missing 4 SoloMoxen with Dark Rits seemed to help, but I have problems occasionally.

2. Frantic Search. I really need a better draw-discard card. Careful Study is nice, but it's only so good.

Comments/fixes are appreciated.

[PipOC]

Thirst for knowledge would probably be much better than careful study.  Another thing to try might be a bazaar engine as well as intuition.  This might actually be a better choice than dragon, since although it requires a higher initial mana investment it's much less vulnerable to most hate.  Try entomb in your sideboard as a wish target.

[GRAH]

I had TFK in here before, but it ended up being ~really~ bad, and Entomb came in for it. It's a 3cc card, and unlike Frantic Search, it doesn't let me go off after I play it. Intuition actually sounds like a good idea, though. Should I drop the Frantic Search and move the Entomb back to the SB for 2 of it?

I thought about Bazaar, also, but while it's good in Dragon, it's not as good here because:

1. I'm not playing Squee, and playing Squee would require the deck being a LOT weaker.

2. There aren't as many things I want to pitch.

[Dzy]

It looks okay, except for the Therapies. They just don't seem to fit in this deck. You should try Force of Will. It's better in protecting your combo, and also protecting against big threats of your opponent, which might occasionally win a game because of the ability to counter a topdecked will. Put a misdirection in the sb to wish for against opposing counters.

Squee + Bazaar is not good in this deck since a Squee in your graveyard above the golem will make you wait a full turn to go off. This deck can go off at instant speed, if there is a Golem in the graveyard.

I would cut a few lands for the other moxen, a sol ring and mana crypt, to be able to wish or hardcast the golem early if neccesary.

Looks like a good deck, with a bit of TPS feeling.

Quit magic Just kidding, insider's joke.

[GRAH]

The main reason I use Therapy over FoW is that I can toss my own Golems if need be.

Fitting in the rest of the Solos...they were in here before, but I took them out for Rits. I suppose putting them back in would be a good idea.

How does this look?

-1 Entomb
-1 Frantic Search
-1 Cabal Therapy
-1 Duress
-2 Flooded Strand
-2 Swamp
-1 Island

+1 Intuition
+3 Force of Will
+1 Mana Crypt
+4 Rest of SoloMoxen

SB:

-1 Echoing Truth
-1 Force of Will
+1 Entomb
+1 Misdirection


EDIT:

After testing, the problem I predicted (which is why I originally took the SoloMoxen out) keeps coming up. I keep drawing hands with only off-color Moxen and spells. I think I'm going to switch some of them back to lands.

[RThomas]

I've been playing around with this deck for the last hour or so (I assisted GRAH a bit in development) and from what I see, four Forces are definitaly needed in the main. I just feel terribly unprotected when trying to go off without them.

I do believe Laplie's version had one less Composite Golem, and I don't feel worse about cutting one. I'm not partial to Cabal Therapy, so I've cut those as well.

I can't come to cutting Frantic Search, it's simply amazing. The Brainstorm-Fetch engine lets you see so many cards that I believe you can live with 5 discard effects.

I'll keep goldfishing; it doesn't look all that horrible so far.

[GRAH]

I think I might switch Intuition back to Frantic Search. It wastes a turn.

I disagree about needijng 4 Forces, however. Therapy is great for discarding your Golem in case you have it in your hand without a Careful Study.

Getting hands with only off-color moxen and spells is getting annoying. I'm wondering if I should drop a couple moxen for lands.

[Jacob Orlove]

If you want infinite storm, why not just run Sensei's Divining Top, Future Sight, and Helm of Awakening?

[GRAH]

Because I'd rather run a combo that can't be shut down by any artifact or enchantment removal...?

[RThomas]

I'm currently screwing around with Intuition and Deep Anal as the draw engine. It slows the deck down a bit, but I think we have to sacrifice some speed for consistancy. With this, I think you can run Forces maindeck more viably, because this creates more pitch cards for FoW. Also, Laplie suggested Reanimate, which isn't a bad idea either. Play your Corpse Dance for one black, plus it creates versatility, if there's something else you want to Reanimate. The problem with this is, it shifts the deck's focus more on Intuition itself.

I've replaced the Study's with Reanimate, and a golem, and a freeze from your build. I'm also playing 4 Fow's and another Duress, in place of a wish and the rituals. There isn't really a time when i've felt the need to cast ritual into anything game breaking, except for Dance or Golem, and Reanimate accomplishes that job better.

Just throwing things around at this point.

[Kowal]

Because I'd rather run a combo that can't be shut down by any artifact or enchantment removal...?

Enjoy the grave hate.  God, Disenchant is so prevelant.  You're such a metagame caller.

[GRAH]

As shorele mentioned, me, him, Laplie (who made the original Extended version), and another person have been workin on a different list. This is that list:

Dancing Golem v2 (AKA "Pogo Christ")

3 Corpse Dance
4 Composite Golem
3 Brain Freeze

3 Cunning Wish
1 Demonic Tutor
3 Intuition
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor

1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
4 Brainstorm
2 Deep Analysis
1 Frantic Search
3 Reanimate

4 Duress
4 Force of Will

7 SoloMoxen
1 Mana Crypt
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
3 Swamp
3 Island

SB:
1 Brain Freeze
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Coffin Purge
1 Corpse Dance
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Entomb
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Intuition
1 Misdirection
1 Stifle
2 Extract
1 Tendrils of Agony
2 Tormod's Crypt

We looked through Laplie's Extended build. He used Reanimate, which helps power out a turn-2 win without Lotus. Deep Analysis is the other major addition. It's a nice target for Intuition, allows for acceleration. The addition of more Intuitions also helps fetch the combo pieces. The change has made it a little slower, but more consistent.

[Kowal]

Let's not get started on how laughably inconsistant this deck is.  I'll just jump right in to the good part.

We looked through Laplie's Extended build. He used Reanimate, which helps power out a turn-2 win without Lotus.

For those who didn't care enough to check (trust me, there are a lot) the only way Reanimate powers out diddly squat is if you have a hand like this:

Land, Mox, Mox, Intuition, Reanimate, Corpse Dance, kill condition, irrelevant card.

Otherwise, it's a tremendously crappy and situational reanimation effect to get a 4/4.  At this rate you might as well get a second one and kill people with Door to Nothingness.

Deep Analysis is the other major addition. It's a nice target for Intuition, allows for acceleration. The addition of more Intuitions also helps fetch the combo pieces. The change has made it a little slower, but more consistent.

Deep Analysis does not allow acceleration.  This part of your paragraph makes no sense whatsoever.  Also, a "little slower" does not accurately represent what Deep Analysis does.  By including Deep Analysis in your deck in the first place, you are making the statement "I will outdraw you and beat you with superior card advantage".  Your deck will not out-card advantage anybody.  Instead, you'll find yourself walking in to Drain with your draw spells, and you'll lose to things like untap-draw-gifts, or untap-draw-hardcast slaver.  While I'm mentioning what you lose to, it seems wise to point out how abysmal your stax matchup is, since you have to resolve an enormous sorcery and dodge the high concentrations of grave hate people will be running to combat gifts decks.

[Laplie]

well, after years of just reading the forums here, I joined just for this topic.

In my build, I still have in the careful studies so reanimate does power out a turn 2 win without moxes.  The optimal hand would be:

land, careful study, golem, reanimate, corpse dance, (cunning wish OR brain freeze OR intuition)

with only the land, study, and golem needing to be in your turn 1 hand and any of the rest can be drawn off study or the turn2 draw.  A mox would give you a turn 1 win.

Using my trusty odds calculator (and not considering needing the land because of complications), the odds of such a hand is about 9% going first and 12% going second.

Reanimate gives you 4 extra mana for the cost of 6 life.  It is not situational, since in order to win you would have to have golem in the grave at some point anyway.

[silvernail]

You must understand people will dislike this idea because it is similar to dragon, in that its an infinite engine using the graveyard ; and that as such it retains the inherent weaknesses of said deck. The differneces here are that you can have better card drawing and countermagic than dragon.

That being said, this would usually look to win about as much as dragon could but could be more reslient in counter wars if reanimates were misdirections or cabal therapies.

[Kowal]

I had a substantial reply typed up, but my computer ate it.  This will be quite rushed in comparison to the replies I usually give.

The differneces here are that you can have better card drawing and countermagic than dragon.

This conclusion is false.  Bazaar of Baghdad is about a million times better than Deep Analysis.  Here are some reasons why.

1)  It doesn't walk in to Mana Drain.
2)  It doesn't cost a million mana.
3)  It doesn't hurt half the time.
4)  It's instant speed.
5)  It's likely to draw far more than 4 cards.
6)  It's uncounterable.
7)  It can't be misdirected.

And in terms of countermagic, the two are identical.  In terms of disruption you have a little bit more, but having more slots dedicated to disruption doesn't make you see more than Dragon necessarily.  Dragon is going to outdraw you, and I don't mean by just a little--  Dragon will draw 3-4 times as many cards as you do, excluding starting seven.

Using my trusty odds calculator (and not considering needing the land because of complications), the odds of such a hand is about 9% going first and 12% going second.

You either screwed up, can't do statistics, or are a liar.  I did a little experiment to better illustrate how wrong you are about this.

Corpse Dance, Composite Golem, Reanimate, and Careful Study (assumed as a 4-of) are represented by themselves.  Blue or black mana sources (should be blue AND black, but I figured I'd give you the benefit of the doubt) are represented by Islands.  Kill conditions are represented by Cunning Wish, and irrelevant spells are represented by Svelunite Priest.  Here's your analysis.



As you can see, you're way off.

It is not situational, since in order to win you would have to have golem in the grave at some point anyway.

If you don't have anything in the graveyard, this card does nothing.  That's a fairly common situation in which your card does nothing.  In case you haven't realized, that makes it highly situational.  It's irrelevant what needs to happen for you to win in determining the situationality of your spells.  If anything it should be alarming that you consider your route to victory to effect the situations in which your spells become relevant.