Cerebral Assassin

[+t]

Everyone has been talking about this new Planar Chaos card Extripate, and the adverse effects it will have on Dragon.  I'm not completly convinced about this, but that's besides the point.  All of this talk of Dragon needing to adapt reminded me of a breif conversation with Lunar about adding Tinker and Titan maindeck to Dragon way before I saw anyone else mention doing so.  And since he was so in love with Cerebral Assasin, I thought I'd revisit the deck. 

Here is the list I've hammered out after some breif testing. 

Updated list:

26
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Undiscovered Paradise
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
5 Moxen
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
4 Bazaar

13
1 Life from the Loam
1 Darkblast
3 Animate Dead
4 Dark Confidant
4 Goblin Welder


21
4 Duress
2 True Beleiver
3 Intuition
2 Sundering Titan
1 Entomb
1 Portal
1 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Hellkite
1 Recall
1 TW
1 Tinker
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic
1 Yawgmoth's Will
For anyone who has picked up this deck, you've probably run into the following two problems:

1) Horrid mana base
2) Reliance on Bazaar

The card choices have reduced these problems a tad bit.

Urborg:  Urborg offsets the mana problem slightly, it turns Bazaar into an actual mana source, and allows you to cheat the counters of gemstone mine and tendo ice bridge.  I think its fine to have two here because this deck runs bazaar, and as such if you have 2, you pitch them.  And while you often want to see this land as often as possible, 3 is probably one too many on account of it being a legendary land.

No Sol Ring, Mana Vault: Again, the deck has horrible mana issues.  These cards are really a gigantic pain in the ass in that they 1) Don't produce colored mana and 2) actually require another mana source to be played.  While Mana Crypt suffers from the former, it makes the cut it that it doesn't suffer from the latter.

Shit lands aka 2 Artifacts, Tendo Ice Bridge: The deck wants colored mana.  I think I've already outlined why I prefer the arti lands over Sol Ring and Vault.  Tendo is good because it can allow me to cast chant.  I'm still not sold on this, I think its probably my weakest mana source.

Dark Confidant: It seems most of us have temporarilly stopped with our Bob Maher fetishes, but I haven't!  Simply put, he replaces Squee.  Really, I've always hated Squee.  He's absolutely useless without Bazaar, and even then I've never really thought he was that great until I got multiples of him.  Confidant not only gives you an extra card every turn (and his condition isn't a may, which is relevant if you're stupid) but brings the beats and makes you less reliant on Bazaar.

Animate Dead: Eschewing Lunar's 4 Reanimate, 1 Dead plan, I've simply gone with 4 Animate.  It saves SB space for the transformational Dragon board.  I might cut down to 3 of these.

Duress: Better than Force of Will.  Force of Will isn't really "free" here, the deck is tight on space, and force forces (lol) you to run blue cards that you simply don't want to run. 

Chant: Combo is your worst matchup.  This is probably the second best card you've got against Combo.  It doesn't hurt that this is gas against virtually every Vintage deck.

Crypt: Since I'm so used to playing Control, I probably play too much disruption    This is, however, really good against the field.  It gives you an out versus Ichorid, and lets you Tinker with impunity versus active welder.

Intuition: Well, its noteworthy that there are 3 here.  I'd play four if I was running force, but I simply don't think four are needed, especially now that the deck relies on 3 engines (Confidant, Zaar+Confidant, Intuition) instead of two (Squee+Zaar, Intuition).

2 Dragon: With 3 Intuitionm 4 Bazaar and 4 Confidant, I didn't feel that it was necessary to include 3-4.

What isn't in the deck / Other cards I tried:

Entomb, Crop Rotation: I've listed these here because they suffer from the same problem: They're awesome support cards that make terrible topdecks.  I'm simply not convinced that the goodness that they provide you with is worth the times you'll draw them and they'll be complete ass.

Possesed Portal: This is a parlor trick.  Its another overcosted shitter that CAN lock the oponent down, but really, I'd rather have a large man that actually does some focused shitting.  Secondly, I've cut Squee, making this symetrical.  And symetrical just isn't good enough for this deck.

Breakthrough: I tested this a while ago, when I ran Renamiate.  It was sometimes ridiculious to spend 1U to draw four cards, dump my hand, then shit out Sundering Titan.  But these times were few and far between.

Reanimate: Its not that I don't want to run this card, its that I'm pretty sure everything else here is better.  If things get cut and I have free space, who knows?

The Sideboard currently looks like this:

2 Crypt
2 Chant
3 Shattering Spree
4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Pithing Needle


Ichorid: -2 Chant, +2 Darkblast
Fish: -2 Crypt, -1 Dragon, -4 Duress, +4 Pithing Needle, +3 Shattering Spree
Combo: -1 Triskelion, -1 Dragon, -2 Animate, +2 Chant, +2 Crypt
Stax: -4 Duress, -2 Chant, -1 Something +4 Pithing Needle, +3 Shattering Spree, 
Control Slaver, MeanDeck Gifts: No idea.  Seriously, what to cut here?

Edit: Added Will.  Can't beleive I forgot that card. 

Completly redid sideboard.  Decided to not add transformational sideboard for now.

[LKG]

Thanks for bringing this up!  I love dragon, but have thought about giving it up if extirpate becomes popular, but I'd rather change the deck around than pick up something completely new.

Just a few thoughts: If you're not going with Squee why not take a page from WGDX and add in Read the Runes and Deep Analysis.  Read the Runes is nice because it reduces reliance on bazaar, and Deep Analysis is extremely synergy with bazaar, and RtR.

As far as Bob, isnt it more than a little risky with Titan, Dragon and Trike?  Also I'd replace Animate with Necromancy.  It has the benifit of being castable as an instant, which is good for some Dragon kills, which I think more than makes up for the extra mana cost.

[Lymph]

I really love CA, it's one of the most fun decks I've played with. Occasionally I load up Steffen van der Veen's old list on MWS. It is the last list, that I know off, that has made a couple of top 8's in the first part of 2006. You should look it up on Morphling.de if you haven't allready.

I dont agree with some of your choices/thoughts:

Possesed Portal is the ultimate lockcard. It's the card I tutor for the most. It has won me so many matches. Offcourse it doesnt work without a Squee or two. I agree that on its own Squee doesnt do alot but Portal imo is just too good. Squee can still generate cardadvantage, yet it is slow. I also use it alot to force my opponent's to break their Tormod's Crypt when I intuition for Squee's.

You state that you are so dependent on Bazaar. Well I think the solution is dredge cards. I love it when my opponents set their Pithing Needle on Bazaar. Darkblast and Life from the Loam are a big upgrade imo. Espacially Life from the Loam, it gives you alot of different Intuition piles to work with. It protects your Bazaar against Wastelands, it gives you 3 land cards to discard, it can get cards in the yard.  Darkblast is crucial to win the Welder war and again it can get cards in the yard.

Entomb is too good not to play in this deck. Really I wish I could play 4. I would cut the Mystical for it or atleast play Imperial Seal over Mystical.

I'm not sure if the Tendo Ice Bridges will give you enough colored mana. Steffen used Tarnished Citadel and Undiscovered Paradise. Both have their drawbacks but they will give colored mana multiple times. Undiscovered Paradise drawback can sometimes be used as an extra card to discard to Bazaar and clearly playing Bob's you dont really care about your life totals so Citadel's drawback isnt that big.
I dont understand why you cut Sol Ring, Crypt and Vault. Bazaar allready sets you back a landdrop and these cards can power out turn 1 Intuitions or Tinkers all the time. Also where is Tolarian Academy ?

I dont get the chants, if they end up in the yard, there is nothing you can do with them. Why dont you play True Believer. It gives you an edge versus combo and gits/intuitions and when it ends up in the yard you can still Animate it.

What is your kill once the dragoncombo is out ? You want to get Triskelion into play but how can you make sure it will always get into play ? Isnt it safer to include Eternal Witness ?

Also have you considered Balance for the maindeck or sideboard ?

I do like your inclusion of Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. It's something I'll have to try out. I like the idea of Bob in the deck although I'm not certain how they will work out.

[+t]

Regarding the Bob:

The cards in this deck have an average cmc of 1.38.  Bob pain isn't that much of an issue.

I think that, this time around, I've not evaluated portal correctly.  I've also seemed to forget that Confidant's ability isn't a draw abiliity    I think I'll throw it back into the deck.

Loam and Darkblast can probably go in over the Chants.  I originally wanted to play these main because I was so afraid of combo, but I'm not sure how effective they'd be anyway.  Oh well, I'll toss them in the board.

My mana base is a complete joke, and I'll be the first to admit it.  I cut the artifact mana (Crypt is in the deck, Vault and Ring aren't)  because in playing the deck, I would get so frustrated not having lands.  However, the addition of more mana sources has probably diminished this.  I'm recutting artilands.

True Beleiver over Chant is hella interesting.  I'm definetly trying that.

I have no idea what happened to the Shivan Hellkite in my deck when I copy+pasted this?  The Triskelion is something that's left over from Lunar's list. 

Holy crap, undiscovered paradise looks interesting.  I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Citadel is too painful, though. 

Here's the list I'm going to be fooling around with for a while:

26
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Undiscovered Paradise
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
5 Moxen
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
4 Bazaar

13
1 Life from the Loam
1 Darkblast
3 Animate Dead
4 Dark Confidant
4 Goblin Welder


21
4 Duress
2 True Beleiver
3 Intuition
2 Sundering Titan
1 Entomb
1 Portal
1 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Hellkite
1 Recall
1 TW
1 Tinker
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic
1 Yawgmoth's Will

[oldbsturgeon]

okay so i had to look at my list from last year cause i couldnt remember what i had played.
so this was it from 3-19-06
4 City of Brass
4 Duress
1 Underground River
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
1 Strip Mine
2 Triskelion
2 Sundering Titan
1 Eternal Witness
1 Possessed Portal
1 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Platinum Angel
1 Vault of Whispers
2 Darkblast
2 Life from the Loam
4 Intuition
1 Wasteland
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Animate Dead
1 Black Lotus
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Crop Rotation
4 Goblin Welder
1 Tinker
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Vampiric Tutor
4 Gemstone Mine


now what i remember and what i felt at the time that life from the loam was so insane in this deck and it replaced the squees as did the darkblast.
with two loams thats why i ran the 1 strip and 1 wasteland. same for the crop rotation.
as for lotus petal vs sol ring i dont like the idea of having another source of mana that doesnt last very long. i never really seemed to not be able to get the color i wanted and red was usually there when i needed it. though as you see i felt having super early black was more important than red, hence my decision to go with vault and underground river.
i remember testing tendo and hated it but that was just me.
now i dont know how ol bob has been going for you but i would be so scared hitting all of those large cost permanents. hopefullly though you would just win before that would happen.
what i like about triskelion over helkite is that in the instance you might not have red in play to use its ability. thats just my thought.

[+t]

Yea, this situation of not having Red came up once or twice. 

I'll try out Witness/Trike.  I'm not sure if I can afford the slot, but I'll try it.

I've added another Life from the Loam.  This card was so good when I played the deck again.  Intuition -----> Loam, Bazaar, Strip Mine is pretty nasty.

On that note, I'm playing Crop Rotation.  It now actually does quite a bit, getting Stripmine, Bazaar and Factory.  Factory is sort of ehhhh, but I'm a big fan of cards that play multiple roles, and Factory not only does this on its own, but allows Crop Rotation to do this also.

I've cut Petal.  The not sticking around thing is awful annoying, especially considering that I have Gemstone Mine.  I'm trying Archeological Dig, but this may turn back into Undiscovered Paradise, or a Painland, or another Factory.

Beleiver was not all that he could be.  I'm sorry, he's WW, which is annoying, because with most other cards in the deck I only need one colored mana.  Animating him is ok, but a lot of times I'd rather animate Titans.  I've cut them, for now, for 4th animate and Balance woot.  Holy shit is Bazaar + Balance stupid good.  Balance is also really good with Life from the Loam. 

God, I am plumbing the depths of awful cards here :/

26
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Stripmine
1 Mishra's Factory
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
4 Bazaar

13
2Life from the Loam
1 Crop Rotation
1 Darkblast
4 Animate Dead
2 Dark Confidant
4 Goblin Welder


21
4 Duress
3 Intuition
1 Balance
2 Sundering Titan
1 Entomb
1 Portal
1 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Caller of the Claw
1 Recall
1 TW
1 Tinker
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic
1 Yawgmoth's Will

I've loved Urborg so much that I've actually considered Joiner Adept.  Does that make me awful?

[nataz]

I played a ton of CA back in the day and remember talking with lunar about it over on SCG. As far as a Dragon kill goes, just add witness and kill them with infiny timewalks/mill them with recall. It isnt that hard, and it only takes up one slot + U mana which is nice. Witness can also be used for any number of tricky plays, but that tends to be build dependant.

Intuition was the best card in the deck, not because of FOW, but because it was the ultimate tutor card. You could entomb for the dragon combo, you could snatch card adantage with recall + timewalk + witness, you could set up a portal lock, or grab any 3x+ that was in the deck. Intuition for 3x bazaar isn't terrible. On that note, I think you should also look at playing vault again. Early intuitions win games.

Bob or no Bob, as much as I love this deck I don't think you will do much with it. It's too slow for the kind of meta game we have now, not to mention it gets hit with all the random gy hate runing around.

Tomb is an excellent addition, and does help the mana issues (the mana base was always terrible because of 5 color and a full set of bazaars), but I don't think its enough to give the deck legs.

Good luck, <3 CA!

[Lymph]

How is Portal working out without the Squee's ? Portal works at every turn's EOT step/phase so Bob wont deliver enough cards I think. With enough Squee's you can Tinker for it early game without a win condition and make them start the game again with no permanents or cards. Should be game right there 

Archeological Dig, Strip Mine and Factory seems alot of colorless mana for a deck that needs alot of different colors. Where is Lotus btw ?

[+t]

Archeological Dig replaced Black Lotus, which I thought was Lotus Petal.  It was something i'd thought about while posting without testing it at all.

Ultimately, Factory is pretty underwhelming as a one off.  I have fond memories of being trounced by MonoGreenZaar Factoriesstripminelifefromthe loam.dec, but I doubt there's enough room to support this.

Portal has been a decent late game card.  I'm playing a lot of permanents, and I can easily Dredge out Loam.  It probably would be better if I had multiple Squees.  I guess I shall begrudingly get around to trying two out.

Also, how do people feel about Will?  Its a bomb at times, but there are other times that I draw it early and it just sucks.  Discarding this seems like sacreligious, almost, but I am often either am forced to do that or mull should it be in my opening hand.

[dicemanx]

Bob or no Bob, as much as I love this deck I don't think you will do much with it. It's too slow for the kind of meta game we have now, not to mention it gets hit with all the random gy hate runing around.

I wonder why people aren't trying to tip the archetype more towards the WGD side of things - bring the WGD count up (to 3) and the animate count up (to 5-6). You still retain the flexibility that Welders and the artifacts give you, but you now have a more powerful immediate combo finish at your disposal. The Bazaar dependency can also be addressed in the same manner as it was in WGDX - as stated in an above post, you could consider RtR or TfK along with DAs over Squees (dropping the Portal lock in the process, which won't be as necessary given your faster goldfish).

I'd also consider dropping disruption like Duress and True Believer in favor of more artifacts - CotV, EE, Crypt, and even Null Rod all come to mind. You get more synergy with Welder, and CotV/Rods can be used to either attack manabases with Titan + Welder/Animate, or you can use CotV to cut off their 1cc spells including Extirpate if that card ever might pose any issues for you.

[+t]

I'd also consider dropping disruption like Duress and True Believer in favor of more artifacts - CotV, EE, Crypt, and even Null Rod all come to mind. You get more synergy with Welder, and CotV/Rods can be used to either attack manabases with Titan + Welder/Animate, or you can use CotV to cut off their 1cc spells including Extirpate if that card ever might pose any issues for you.

Drop Duress and add more Dragons?  Does that make you very vulnerable to getting your board removed?  Or is Necromancy good enough to deal with this problem?

[dicemanx]

I'd also consider dropping disruption like Duress and True Believer in favor of more artifacts - CotV, EE, Crypt, and even Null Rod all come to mind. You get more synergy with Welder, and CotV/Rods can be used to either attack manabases with Titan + Welder/Animate, or you can use CotV to cut off their 1cc spells including Extirpate if that card ever might pose any issues for you.

Drop Duress and add more Dragons?  Does that make you very vulnerable to getting your board removed?  Or is Necromancy good enough to deal with this problem?

There isn't really that much creature removal in this format, so you'll very rarely be stepping into a disruption spell that will nuke your permanents. Plus, since you're playing a hybrid, you're not forced to go off with WGD if less risky opportunities present themselves.