[Premium Article] The Arcborn Virus

[Smmenen]

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/10344.html

Less than a year ago, Mike Long released a deck dubbed The Suicide Virus. The immediate reaction to this deck was incredulity. Most readers dismissed the deck as “a pile.� A few players tinkered with it before moving onto something else. Regardless of what people thought at the time, no major structural improvements to the deck have been published since. Since then, I have been furiously working in my secret Vintage laboratory pouring creative energies into improving this deck and today I'm set to unveil my latest creation.

Throw the deck together, play around with it and have fun.  The deck is quite strong and it will test your own skills at the same time. 

//Arcborn Virus, by Stephen Menendian
//Downloaded from StarCityGames.com
     4 City of Brass
     4 Skullclamp
     3 Arcbound Ravager
     4 Artificer's Intuition
     4 Myr Servitor
     1 Mystical Tutor
     4 Thoughtcast
     1 Aether Spellbomb
     4 Disciple of the Vault
     1 Vault of Whispers
     1 Glimmervoid
     1 Chrome Mox
     4 Seat of the Synod
     3 Ornithopter
     1 Lotus Petal
     1 Demonic Tutor
     1 Time Walk
     1 Ancestral Recall
     1 Black Lotus
     1 Mana Vault
     1 Mana Crypt
     1 Sol Ring
     1 Mox Sapphire
     1 Mox Ruby
     1 Mox Jet
     1 Mox Pearl
     1 Mox Emerald
     3 Cloud of Faeries
     1 Crop Rotation
     1 Yawgmoth's Will
     1 Tolarian Academy
     1 Vampiric Tutor
     1 Gemstone Mine

[JuJu]

Decklist, please. When did everyone stop caring about decklists? ;(

[NastyNate]

I knew you liked this deck Steve. You even mentioned that it might become a force in the meta after trinisphere got restricted. I dunno though. It's just so vulnerable to well...everything. If you came up with a version running 4 thoughtcast, 4 brainstorm, and 4 force of will then I would have been impressed.

I toyed around with this concept when it was first posted, and found that I couldn't fit everything I wanted into a sixty card frame. Cloud seems like a nifty addition, but no better than myr moonvessel was. This seems like it could be little more than a pet deck that will potentially cause you a brain aneurysm trying to play it correctly. Good luck.

[Smmenen]

That's not true.  Cloud is many orders of magnitude better than Moonvessel.  It's so vulnerable to everything?  This deck has powerful retorts to every form of hate.   Fish?  Ravager.  Null Rod?  My answer is in the article.  Stax?  You have more perms than they can race.  Control?  The only card that I think is interfering is Welder and you have lots of Disciples. 

[Telperion]

I must say this has some potential.  I played about 5 games with it so far, and I've killed on turn 3 twice (once with Timewalk).  This deck makes an incredible amount of mana and draws similarly to tendrils based combo decks.  The Artificer's Intuition is impressive, I'm surprised it hasn't been abused yet.  I have to agree with the faeries being the right choice, in the simple fact that they allow you to make colored mana.  The deck has an amazing feeling of damned if you do, damned if you don't for the opponent, especially with a resolved DotV.  I'm curious as to what the answer to null rod is, but I can at least say the ravager isn't always needed to win.  Also, the list above has 59 cards.  Steve, I'm curious why you avoided tinker-dsc in this?

Post more testing: I haven't won a game where they got mox monkey out. 

[waSP]

I would guess Mana Crypt.

What makes this deck stronger to similar artifact combo decks?  Why is it better than the Ironworks deck?

[Smmenen]

I must say this has some potential.  I played about 5 games with it so far, and I've killed on turn 3 twice (once with Timewalk).  This deck makes an incredible amount of mana and draws similarly to tendrils based combo decks.  The Artificer's Intuition is impressive, I'm surprised it hasn't been abused yet.  I have to agree with the faeries being the right choice, in the simple fact that they allow you to make colored mana.  The deck has an amazing feeling of damned if you do, damned if you don't for the opponent, especially with a resolved DotV.  I'm curious as to what the answer to null rod is, but I can at least say the ravager isn't always needed to win.  Also, the list above has 59 cards.  Steve, I'm curious why you avoided tinker-dsc in this?

This is exactly how I feel about the deck.  The decklist is complete in the article.  I highly recommend you get premium to read the article.  As for DSC, I just think that a three casting cost spell that isn't Yawg Will or Mind's Desire is too expensive in the deck.  When would you cast Tinker that you couldn't just do other things to win sooner?  You need to consider whether this deck wants Desire.  I think it very well may want the Desire maindeck. 

To be perfectly frank, I start a 9-5 job tommorrow after years of schooling.  I would like to engage the questions and debates that are sure to arise from this thread.  But I simply don't have the time and other personal matters are more important the moment. 

I'm going to have to let the article stand to answer all the questions that arise.  This is one of the longest articles I've ever written (it's 18 pages) so I think it shoudl do an adequate job.  I hope that people pick up the deck and if warranted, I can do a follow up article describing the matchups in more detail.  i just don't have the time to do that here.  I apologize - but life is like that sometimes. 

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

God I love this deck. I'm a HUGE fan of ravager, so it's good to see it being played in Vintage.

I'd like to point out, that this deck has so much strategic superiority over oath. Resolving a turn 1 skullclamp almost guarantees the win. Not to mention Ravager + Thopter gets bigger than any creature they can oath up. I don't really understand the inclusion of the spellbomb over, say, pithing neelde. Oath shouldn't be an issue, you can race tinker--colossus, and dragon is nearly obsolete from the format (pithing needle isn't worthless here either, as you can name bazaar). With a MD needle, you can randomly catch CS players off guard.

I do have two questions though. 1) why no fourth cloud of faeries? The deck is so much based on academy that the 4th seems like an auto include. Is it because it's not an artifact (doesn't trigger disciple and doesn't work with ravager)? Or is it just space issues. 2) This may sound stupid, but have you tested helm of awakening? It seems like it'd be the nutz to play clamps /servitors for free. Not to mention, it'd be good for the rest of the deck (cloud/intuition/thoughtcast).

Good job tweaking the deck Steve.

-Bob

[kedi]

What do I do if my opponent plays cards, Steve?

Well to be frank, this deck looks... solid, should I dare to say, but anyway, it won't be the next format breaker. It might go well rogue at unexpected metas, but that's much about it.

[tidal kraken]

I count 59 cards in that list. What is the 60th card?

I've been playing a few games with this myself. I've lost to mox monkey, chalice 0, chalice 1, null rod, rack and ruin. How do you address these concerns? You have no disruption at all.

[Sagath]

I count 59 cards in that list. What is the 60th card?

Does ANYONE read what was said before their own reply? Jesus. As its allready been said, it was mana crypt, and Steve allready corrected it.
Also, as he allready said, if you READ THE ARTICLE he discuss's other concerns/problems with the deck.


This is a forum for intelligent people. Try reading what others have to say before you post. Yeesh.

My head asplode!

[tidal kraken]

I count 59 cards in that list. What is the 60th card?

Does ANYONE read what was said before their own reply? Jesus. As its allready been said, it was mana crypt, and Steve allready corrected it.
Also, as he allready said, if you READ THE ARTICLE he discuss's other concerns/problems with the deck.


This is a forum for intelligent people. Try reading what others have to say before you post. Yeesh.

My head asplode!

Personal attacks are wholly unnecessary.

Where did he say it was mana crypt? I'm having a hard time seeing it.
I don't have a SCG premium, and I have no way to get one. I'm a 16 year old kid without a credit card, and my parents sure as hell won't let me a premium.

I stand by what I said. You roll over and die to chalice, and rod, and mox monkey. Rack and ruin you can recover from though.

[Sagath]

Personal attacks are wholly unnecessary.

You are correct. I sincerely apologize. My bad. It was not constructive of me to do that at all.

To correct my previous post without being an asshole ( ) I will say the following;

If you scroll up, you will notice that Wasp did indeed say the missing card was a mana crypt. The main list has been corrected with said mana crypt to show this.

[moses2k]

I wonder how u perform against chalice?

probably 50% of the decks around have a set maindeck and the others sb..

chalice 1 really hurts ur deck as does chalice 2,0

Tim

[Disburden]

I goldfished like 30 hands so far, and I'm still concerned about my metas most popular deck: R/G beats.

Every Beats deck I face contains 3 null rod main, 3-4 root mazes main, lightning bolts, lavamancers, etc.

I'm mainly concerned about the Null Rod. I read the article and the fact that it is said that Null Rod isn't much of a concern because Fish doesn't run much acceleration to put out a turn one Rod just doesn't seem that potent of an argument to me. Uba Stax runs rods and has tons of acceleration. R/G beats runs lotus, Two moxen, and a Sol Ring for more than just land mana (some builds I see run Spirit Guides).

So Fish doesn't run much acceleration, sure, but what about other decks that pack Null Rod that do have a lot of speed if they draw a good hand?

[NWI Team_Zilla]

Ignore this if you have explained it in your article (I do not have starcity premium).

Did you test Triskellion in your list, because in some of the Ravager lists that I have seen in the past they have used Ravager/Trike together as creature removal/faster win?  Obviously the drawback with this approach is that Trike costs 6, but if you Academy/lots O' Moxen you probably wouldn't have a problem putting it down.

[Anusien]

Trike is way too expensive to only be a 4/4, I believe, especially since he can just serve with an Ornithopter.

[Xyre]

Clamp is excellent in fast Vintage decks. I've been trying to brainstorm a way to use Artificer's Intuition, and I completely passed up Skullclamp. But as it's been said, 1-toughness creatures and artifact decks with cheap cards are susceptible to hate; Null Rod, Chalice of the Void, Goblin Sharpshooter...this deck looks like it fails miserably against Fish or fast decks with reliable control elements. Even my crazy ElfClamp deck, which can solitaire a turn 3 kill with no power is very weak against the usual suspects.

[sa-x]

rebuild 4tw.
Verbal warning for breaking TMD rules. Posts this short are simply unacceptable here.
-Jacob

[doylehancock]

first off its great to see that cheater Mike Long is still making great decks.
all joking aside I do like the deck but I realise there is no way it can compete with most type 1 decks.

Plus the reasoning for it beating fish is just wrong it wont beat it before fish drops null rod because fish plays counters and it will counter skull clamp or disciple.

[Moxlotus]

The deck looks interesting, but I have a few questions.

Why is this better than DeathLong?

It seems to me that the closest thing to this deck would be something like Deathlong or Belcher.  It is retardedly explosive and can kill soon pretty consistant.  Mana+good cards=wn the game.  However, like Deathlong and Belcher, it gets kicked in the sack by Sphere of Resistance and Chalices.  If Belcher and Deathlong each have a Fundamental Turn of 2.5 also, why would I play this deck since it is hurt more by Rod than Deathlong (Belcher seems to share many common traits of this deck, even without many of the same cards).

The deck looks like it has potential, I am just unsure as to why this is better than fast combo when it loses to the same cards.

[Disburden]

I think it's a shame that Steve is busy and can not respond for himself in this forum. I'm sure we would all like to know how this deck can compete in a serious environment. He seemed very sure of himself in his article that this deck can "Win tournaments" and to me that means beat all the hate we mentioned somehow. I would like his explanations of how this can happen on a regular basis.

I did test the deck a few times and played a "two outta three" against my girlfriend's R/G beats deck and destroyed her for like 50 damage on turn three every game, but that was because she couldn't find Null Rod in any of those games, which I was lucky. I have Tendrils in my sideboard too, so I'm currently working on that kill mechanism.

Anyone do any testing at all?

[Bram]

Back when Long released (or rather: sold) his list, I goldfished many, many games with it. After a couple of games you get the hang of it and start seeing interactions you didn't even notice when looking at the list for the first time. I was one of many guys that 'tinkered with it, and moved on' as Steve put it. I ended up playing Toadi's list (one with which Steve will probably be familiar) as I percieved it to be superior to Long's list. I've been waiting for an opening to play this deck at a tournament ever since, but I never saw the opportunity / had the balls. This deck just randomly died against Null Rod, which kinda creeped me out at the time.

Obviously I have not yet tested the Cloud of Faeries list, but I must say that I like the idea. I'm glad someone like Steve is bringing this deck under our attention again. If this ends up breaking the format again (which I believe it won't ;-), we need to be deeply ashamed of ourselves :-P

[knickers]

With the use of 4 Artificer's Intuition, what would your thoughts be on a maindeck Tormod's Crpyt, and/or Pithing Needle(s) [Plural on the Needles]?

[Bram]

Can't speak for Steve ofcourse, but in my humble experience the deck was pretty tight. I doubt it could support maindecked hate.

Man, I wish I had premium so that I could read what Steve's Nul Rod plan is ;-)

[Liam-K]

To listen to the people posting here, his plan seems to be race it.  It costs 2 in a deck with no/minimal acceleration, so win the dice roll and kill on turn 2 game 1 and pray game 2.

As has already been said I don't think this deck is better than long.

[49 Cents]

I'm not sure if it is. Long has more disruption, but this has 2 plans. If you fail to combo for some reason, you can always switch to the beatdown plan. 8/10 Ornithopter's smash face you know.. Plus Clamp draws you alot of cards which drops you alot of artifacts to sac for Ravager..

You can recover from Rack and Ruin; and even Shaman I think if you have a Ravager in play.

Maybe it's worse then Long. Maybe it isn't. It's much cooler anyway

[Disburden]

With the use of 4 Artificer's Intuition, what would your thoughts be on a maindeck Tormod's Crpyt, and/or Pithing Needle(s) [Plural on the Needles]?

Steve mentions in the article that pithing needle can be in the aether spellbomb slot.
More can be sideboarded.

[PipOC]

I'm not sure if it is. Long has more disruption, but this has 2 plans. If you fail to combo for some reason, you can always switch to the beatdown plan. 8/10 Ornithopter's smash face you know.. Plus Clamp draws you alot of cards which drops you alot of artifacts to sac for Ravager..

You can recover from Rack and Ruin; and even Shaman I think if you have a Ravager in play.

Maybe it's worse then Long. Maybe it isn't. It's much cooler anyway

Grimlong has two plans as well, if you don't get a lethal tendrils tutor up tinker and swing away with an 11/11 trampler, but long still has more disruption.

[NCM]

Less than a year ago, Mike Long released a deck dubbed The Suicide Virus. The immediate reaction to this deck was incredulity. Most readers dismissed the deck as “a pile.� A few players tinkered with it before moving onto something else. Regardless of what people thought at the time, no major structural improvements to the deck have been published since. Since then, I have been furiously working in my secret Vintage laboratory pouring creative energies into improving this deck and today I'm set to unveil my latest creation.

When I read that, it reminded me of the episode of ATHF where Meatwad eats a microchip.

Meatwad:  If you want your chip so damn bad, why don't you just shrink yourself down and come in here and find it.
Frylock:  No, Meatwad.  That won't work.
**later**
Frylock:  Alright, Shake, shrink me down with the shrink ray, put me into this seringe, and inject me into Meatwad.
Meatwad:  How is that different from what I said?
Frylock:  Because I said "inject".

Anyway, the deck seems interesting and I want to try it out, especially since I have a history of playing Affinity and, more importantly, Clamp (outside of Type One, I mean).  Once back when I had a Type Two deck based around the Genesis Chamber+Skullclamp+Auriok Steelshaper combo, I was able to combo off and kill three people in a 2-on-2 game.  I know that in actuality this is probably worse than other combo decks, namely Death/GrimLong, but I may build it anyway just for the nostalgia.  Besides, it's not like I can play Disciple in any other format.

I don't have the Premium, but I'm sure it was a great article and I look forward to reading it 3 months from now.