Angry Hermit MkII

[WilD]

Ok, this deck is based on an old idea - use hermit to dump all your cards into your graveyard, then reanimate a fatty. In this case, you use a new card called Narcomoeba, which gets put into play from your library when it would be put into your graveyard to sacrifice for Dread Return, returning Sutured Ghoul and swinging with Dragon Breath on it for the win. Instead of going with blue, I decided to be proactive and pack a black disruption suite.

The decklist would play a fair few mana sources, because you want to at least hit your first 3 land drops. This would suggest 16 land (8 fetches, bayou and maybe City of Brass), plus SoLoMoxen, Crypt and Petal. Then you'd have the black disruption package (Duress, Therapy and Unmask). The combo takes up 16 slots, although Hermit is the combo in itself:
4 Hermit (Living wish is an option)
4 Narcomoeba
2 Sutured Ghoul
2 Dragon's Breath
2 Dread Return
2 Krosan Cloudscraper (There HAS to be a better option than this)
This leaves you with a few slots to round out the decklist (Tutors etc)
This pseudo-decklist is extremely rough, and I can't test it besides goldfishing (which I've done), because no-one on MWS has a patch for the newest set. That said, if anyone wants to test with me, hit me up. All comments are appreciated, because as I said it's a rough decklist and can't really be refined a huge amount without playing against a real opponent.

I realise that there is very little to flesh this decklist out, but basically I was hoping that people would help me build the deck, rather than critique a deck that I've already built and tested to the nth degree.

EDIT: I've just realised that this could be built in a G/U shell, with counters and better card draw. You could still play 2 Cabal Therapys purely for the flashback, but I'd be interested in opinions on which one would be better.

[wethepeople]

I am testing a list using a similar shell. I am unable to get much testing in because the people who I play with IRL are out for April vacation. Future Sight hasn't been released yet, so I can't play randoms on MWS.

I have been goldfishing it a lot, and have been able to remove like triple Force of Will-backup before even casting Ghoul, which usually takes place turn two or so. I use three Therapies, four Duress, two Unmask, and four FOW's. These quantities aren't even close to set in stone, but this is still one of my first drafts.

My list uses just three Narcomoebas, becaus you only need two in play, at the most (assuming Hermit Druid is still on the board). I use Sundering Titan as my current "fatty", because it also can be Tinkered for. In addition to the two 7/10's, there are atleast 7 other 1/1 creatures in play, as well as Dragon Breath. If I draw one of my two Titans, I can either reanimate a slightly-smaller Ghoul, reanimate a Titan with Dragon Breath attached, or Cabal Therapy myself of the second 7/10. If for some reason one of my combo pieces are removed entirely (e.g. Extirpate), I have Krosan Reclamation to give me another two turns.

I however am not finished with a list that is even close to finished, but the idea itself seems very strong.

[BreathWeapon]

The problem tho' is that deck is going to find itself some where between Ichorid and Gifts, Force of Will is a good idea, but what else can this deck to walk the line between those two decks?

Elvish Spirit Guide, Summoner's Pact and Worldly Tutor all seem like good ideas, Worldly Tutor is especially good with Elvish Spirit Guide and Street Wraith.

[Implacable]

Why not run Dragon instead of Ghoul? Don't they do the same thing and have the same vulnerabilities?

[wethepeople]

Why not run Dragon instead of Ghoul? Don't they do the same thing and have the same vulnerabilities?

That would require us to reanimate with Animate Dead, Necromancy, et cetera. Ghoul allows things to be much easier, and use Necromoebas to cast Dread Return.

[angrychilla]

Here is a very rough attempt and some thoughts about card choices:

Land
  2 Tropical Island
  2 Bayou
  2 Windswept Hearth
  2 Wooded Foothills
  3 Bazaar of Baghdad
  2 Polluted Delta

Creatures
  3 Hermit Druid
  1 Sutured Ghoul
  4 Narcomoeba
  4 Street Wraith
  3 Elvish Spirit Guide
  1 Sundering Titan

Mana Artifacts
  5 Mox
  1 Crypt
  1 Lotus
  1 LED
  1 Lotus Petal

Spells
  1 Dread Return
  1 Dragon's Breath
  1 Dragon's Fangs
  4 Force of Will
  4 Brainstorm
  4 Cabal Therapy
  1 Tinker
  3 Living Wish
  1 Demonic Tutor
  1 Vampiric Tutor
  1 Ancestral (Edit - OOPS)

Sideboard
  1 Hermit Druid
  1 Forest
  1 Bazaar
  3 Chain of Vapor
   and whatever else

OK.  My list is very rough (especially the mana base!), so feel free to change it around.  I took out the Cloudscrapers because they are useless except for feeding a ghoul.  Sundering Titan gives a bit of a plan B with Tinker.  With the Street Wraith (cycling 2 life) you can easily push the Ghoul over 20 and a bit higher with the ESG, Druids, and Narcs.  I keep finding that there is the potential for a hand to get cluttered with useless things, so I added in the Bazaar as a way to toss things in the grave and add some draw.  I like the Living Wish idea for Druids 4 - 6 and also yanking a Bazaar or Forest in a pinch.  I went with 4 Narcs because I really like the double Cabal Therapy before Dread Return.  Also, Narcs can pitch to FOW.  Finally, I put more blue than black because game 2 it will probably be necessary to chain of vapor something before activating the Druid.

As far as this concept goes, I only see it really functioning as a really quick combo.  Too many useless cards to draw into.  The druid is very fragile and I really only see being able to protect him for about 1 turn.  After he pops, however, you can probably ride the Therapies pretty easy for the win (although an ancestral recall will ruin your day).

Anyway, just some thoughts.  I may be taking this concept down the wrong road, but I think at least it's worth some discussion.

[Harlequin]

Ive been working on a similar legacy list (using Cephalid Illusionist + Greave/En Vec). 

I would suggest cutting the Dragon Fang's for Bridge from Below (aslo from Future Sight).  It means you can cabal therapy more liberally.  Also if you end up with a few Necromeba's in hand you can still win without hard casting them.  Effectivly you can win with only 2 guys left in the deck.

Lastly, for the Cephalid Breakfast combo, I was looking closely at Summoner's Pact (because its a 2 creature combo that can go off without haste).  If there was a reliable way to give Hermit Haste, then the Pact might be worth looking at. 

Ulimately I gave up on Ceph Breakfast 2.0 because I couldn't build the deck in 56 cards + street wraiths.

[WilD]

Regarding Street Wraith - I love it! It's a great pick for this deck, perhaps more so than even ichorid or other similar decks. They are exactly what I meant when I talked about needing better solutions. Sundering is a great reanimation target - possible better than ghoul in the control match, because you can destroy their manabase so that even if they do topdeck a solution, you have a 3 (2+current turn) clock against them. I think that 4 Narcomoeba is a must, merely because it allows for that extra discard from Cabal Therapy and is totally worth the slots.I'm questioning the choice of Bazaars - they're clunky, and while they help you dig you could spend that mana from the land to actually tutor for Hermit, or cast a discard spell. Are they really needed? Sure, you have a discard outlet in bazaar and all, but what you can often do is activate hermit then flashback therapy targeting yourself. The deck does look like it's heading in the direction of UGB, because the synergy between Force and stuff like Narcomoeba is readily apparent, and the manabase is already about as vulnerable to wasteland as a deck can be. Anyway, the deck looks like it could be a strong contender, even if it isn't as fast as Ichorid or as resilient as Gifts. Sorry for the rambling and disjointed post.

[Vegeta2711]

You'd either want this in an Oath shell or an Ichorid shell; depends on if you want a back-up plan to the combo or not. That's all I really know from limited testing. Oh and the dork is really good and easy to slide by counters. Not being duressable is also a huge plus.

[WilD]

I'm assuming you're replacing the Oaths with Hermit, because oathing up a Narcomoeba isn't what I had in mind . That said, I think this deck needs to be faster than an oath shell, playing ESG etc. to try for that first turn hermit with counter backup.

[demonic effect]

Angrychilla...

how can you afford to run FoW when you only have 13 blue spells... Doesn't that seem a bit low?

Additionally, how does this deck fair when chalice is set to 1?  I understand that this deck can still win b/c Hermit is at two and all... but by shutting off your ability to disrupt the opponent they can just counter w/e you want to play, find an answer during summoning sickness (of hermit), etc... 

Or what if the opponent plays Crypt or LotV... The only win condition you can then go for is tinker->titan...  However, how do you find tinker considering you have very limited draw and even more limited tutoring power...

Finally, I understand how this deck has a variety of ways of winning... However, the disruption package becomes significantly worse when trying to defend the titan (b/c you can't recur therapys and you put them on a slower clock in which they can utilize their better draw/tutor engine to find bounce, STP, etc...)  Additionally, the means of finding and setting up those alternative win conditions is very limited making them much slower unless you are lucky...

I am not saying that the deck is not viable... In fact I am very interested in it...  My observation is that the deck is functionally Oath except utilizing different cards (i know oxymoron right?)  Both decks attempt to get a creature into play by using a 2cc green card that takes a turn to activate.   However, in contrast to Oath, the deck relies much more heavily on the GY, has a much worse draw engine, uses a card that not only needs mana to activate, but is much easier to destroy, and packs more disruption... This is in large part due to a difference in what it takes for each deck to "combo" off... Hermit requires more cards to make the combo a one turn clock, but only needs 1 card to work: hermit (oath requires that the opponent have a creature in play which often means orchard + oath), which means that Hermit doesn't really need draw spells preferring instead tutors like Worldly tutor and Living Wish.  Thus, Hermit plays relatively recklessly where it attempts to get Hermit into play (probably turn 2 after turn 1 duress)... pray they can defend them for a turn... and then win with double therapy back up to ensure a safe win condition...

This plan is great and all, but what do you do when something of yours does gets disrupted... like what if you are on the draw and they play any sort of hate spell... how do you recover?  Obviously speed and the ability to duress/therapy/FoW (which seems shaky with only 13 blue cards) looks sufficient, but is that enough?  Tormod's Crypt being laid first turn requires FoW to deal with it which won't always happen... And in the case of LotV there is nothing this deck can do except hope to win by using tinker (without the double therapy back up and 1 turn clock) 

Someone else compared it to ichorid, but ichorid uses dredge, is often slower, and is more susceptable to hate (in some ways)...   In my mind, the only shell that seems to fit is the Oath one but even that sems a bit shaky because of the difference in purpose...

[Thegreatgonzo]

What about dropping blue? (yes, I know, it sounds silly). Blue takes so many slots. Maybe a  version of the deck could work. You have to keep the narcomoebia, of course, but tinker -> colossus can be dropped for something like illusionary mask -> Phyrexian dreadnaught. This gives you a "graveyard free" plan B, and feeding the ghoul is not a problem anymore. In addition, since the dreadnaught cost only 1, dark confidants can be added for drawing purpose. If sutured ghoul reaches your hand, Living wish -> Bazaar can solve the lack of Brainstorm
The hate you fear is based on artifacts and enchantments (graveyard hate, and now null rod), so naturalize should work just fine. An early Chalice set at 2 becomes a real problem, I admit that. Crumble anyone?
Also note that the mask can be used to protect the druid from countermagic.
Any toughts?

[That0neguy]

Well dread returning sundering titan isn't an option without something like krosan reclaimation, which I don't think is worth it.

I really like the mask idea here is a list that I just threw togather that I plan on testing when I get the chance:

4 narcomeba
4 Hermit Druid
1 Dread Return
1 Sutured Ghoul
1 Dragon Breath
4 Illusionary Mask
4 Phryxian dreadnaught

1 Iseal
1 vamp
1 demonic

4 D Conf
4 Street Wraith

4 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy

4 ESG
6 mox (chrome)
1 lotus
1 petal
4 Bayou
3 polluted delta
3 Bloodstained mire

I think that 22 mana source might be a bit low, but I am not sure what else to cut.  I really like the fact that illusionary mask forces your opponent to attempt to kill any 2CC+ guy that you throw down under the mask since in the event that it is a hermit, they have probably lost.  Doing this you can easily bluff with a dark confidant to get them to waste, what will probably be limited creature removal/bounce spells.

[demonic effect]

I'm not truly opposed to the mask idea however I do have a few questions...

While the deck does include street wraith, 3 tutors, and dark confidant my question is this sufficient draw?  don't get me wrong, it sounds like a lot since it is 11 cards, but my concern is more about quality in terms of overall strategy...  The reason why someone would want to play both strategies is that the one they have in hand may be able to be prevented.  In such cases, how do you win?  the alternative is to use a different win condition...  Mask requires two cards to be truly effective (sure it can hide druid but, common, dreadnaught is its purpose)...  Wraith will only dig one card in... confidant takes 2 turns to see any gains and that is also only one card per turn.  While the three tutors are efficient, the others do not seem to be this way for a deck that is trying to be a combo deck...  this is not to say that I think wraith is a bad card...  In fact, I think it does a lot for this deck, probably more than for ay other deck besides ichorid...  However, wraith combined with confidant as a draw engine seems to be kinda slow...  What about instead of condiant we add in grim tutors, or worldly tutors (if grim then also dark ritual) and cut the number of dreadnaguths down to two. 

This last becomes important and is a strong reason for grim tutor... The other reason why the deck seems weakened by the inclusion of mask is that it can often take several turns to find both combo parts and, when you do, it takes a total of 3 turns to kill them... During this time, hate can definately be found (like ennaring bridge etc...) which can hinder your plan... Sure duress and therapy do their job, but you probably won't be recurring a therapy on a dreadnaught and regardless both spells can only do so much... Eventually with the opponents own duress/counters etc... hate will get through and an answer needs to be available.  To that end, a better draw system definately needs to be added b/c the deck seems vulnerable to hate.

[EKM_Ichorid]

I designed a deck similar that we've been discussing on SCG.

THE GREEN PARTY

THE WIN///17
4 Hermit Druid
4 Nacromoeba
2 Dread Return
4 Bridge from Below
1 Gurzigost
2 Flame-kin Zealot

SUPPORT///4
2 Sylvan Safekeeper
1 Legacy Weapon
1 Elvish Scrapper

TUTOR///8
R Vampiric Tutor
R Imperial Seal
4 Worldy Tutor
2 Sylvan Tutor

DISRUPTION///8
4 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy

MANA///23
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Bayou
4 Polluted Delta
4 Overgrown Tomb
3 Simian Spirit Guide
R Black Lotus
R Mox Emerald
R Mox Jet
R Lotus Petal

SIDEBOARD///15
4 Xantid Swarm
2 Sylvan Safekeeper
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Extirapte
3 Elvish Scrapper

Extremely consistant at winning turn 3, and very hard to disrupt.

[demonic effect]

Extremely consistant at winning turn 3, and very hard to disrupt.

I am a little confused as to these two statements...  First lets talk about the disruption factor...

What do you do if they cast chalice for 1?  All of your disruption will be shut off (including the lone creature that can kill artifacts)... This opens you up for counters etc...

What is the game plan if they pay extirpate on dread return after the druid is activated?

what is Legacy's weapon supposed to do?  its only ability is to be shuffled back into the library repeatedly...  Why not use krosan reclamation instead since it can get a druid that has been killed and put it back into your library etc... if nothing else.

As to winnining turn 3?  How?  at the earliest you can activate druid turn 2 which means you play him turn one which means you started with him in your hand...  Even if you do that, you will only be able to return one creature with a dread unless you happened to also play another creture which means turn 3 kill...  The liklihood of you  not only starting with druid, 1cc creature, land, and free accelerant is very unlikly...  Turn 4 kills seem much more likely...

Additionally, I realize that you are able to add in more utility creatures and so on, but why forgo the ghoul kill?  its a turn faster and allows you to have double cabal back up... what gain do you truly see from it?  the only way you could have that much disruption is if you get a bridge from below which would be played at the earliest turn 3 (w/o lotus, petal, or jet)...  Why worry about playing this card?  why not just play ghoul with safekeepers if you are truly worried about removal... it is more consistent disruption with 2 cabals every turn and still provides protection...

[EKM_Ichorid]

Extremely consistant at winning turn 3, and very hard to disrupt.

I am a little confused as to these two statements...  First lets talk about the disruption factor...

What do you do if they cast chalice for 1?  All of your disruption will be shut off (including the lone creature that can kill artifacts)... This opens you up for counters etc...

What is the game plan if they pay extirpate on dread return after the druid is activated?

what is Legacy's weapon supposed to do?  its only ability is to be shuffled back into the library repeatedly...  Why not use krosan reclamation instead since it can get a druid that has been killed and put it back into your library etc... if nothing else.

As to winnining turn 3?  How?  at the earliest you can activate druid turn 2 which means you play him turn one which means you started with him in your hand...  Even if you do that, you will only be able to return one creature with a dread unless you happened to also play another creture which means turn 3 kill...  The liklihood of you  not only starting with druid, 1cc creature, land, and free accelerant is very unlikly...  Turn 4 kills seem much faster...

Additionally, I realize that you are able to add in more utility creatures and so on, but why forgo the ghoul kill?  its a turn faster and allows you to have double cabal back up... what gain do you truly see from it?  the only way you could have that much disruption is if you get a bridge from below which would be played at the earliest turn 3 (w/o lotus, petal, or jet)...  Why worry about playing this card?  why not just play ghoul with safekeepers if you are truly worried about removal... it is more consistent disruption with 2 cabals every turn and still provides protection...

They need 2 mana to cast Chalice for 1. They would only do that after knowing what kind of deck I play, and they'd only know that after an EOT tutor or when I cast Hermit. Before that, I could have already Therapied/Duressed.

How isn't it a consistant third turn win? You have 8 1cc tutors to fetch your 4 Hermits. The chance of one of those 12 cards being in your opening hand is great because it makes up 1/5th of your deck...statistically there is 1 tutor/Hermit per 5 cards, and your hand is 7 cards. There are 10 acceleraters in the deck, which means thats 1/6 of your deck or 1 every 6 cards. Once you get Hermit in play, the deck plays itself. The Bridge activate when they are in the graveyard (you obviously didn't read the card) which means when the Nacros come into play you sacrifice all of them to Therapies and then sacrifice 3 tokens to Dread Return the Zeolot. They all get haste and become 3/3s and you should almost always have atleast 6 tokens in play after Dread Return. It they Extirpate Dread Return, you have an army of 2/2s. Legacy Weapon ensures you will get another turn, unless they Ancestral Recall you. Why would you want to have to wait till you have 3 mana open so you can Druid and then Reclamation?

The Ghoul kill is the same speed.

I really question if you even thought about what you said at all, or even knew what some the cards I listed did.

[angrychilla]

Hmmm ...

That is a very interesting and original twist on the idea.  One potential concern would be the number of potentially dead cards that this kill adds.  The 4 Narcs, 2 Dread, 4 Bridge, 1 Gurzigost, 2 Zealot, 1 Legacy Weapon are all pretty much uncastable if they end up in an opening hand or come up on a draw.  Have you run into any problems with this.

[policehq]

(you obviously didn't read the card)

This kind of pretentiousness won't fly on any level. Not everyone has been discussing the deck on StarCityGames, and not everyone is following the development of Manaless Ichorid post-Future Sight.

You're talking about a lot of cards in the card pool and not in the card pool that are not well-known. If you can't at the very least show that your deck is able to protect its 1/1 creature engine and no back-up plans, you can at least explain the cards used to win when you do.

-hq

[demonic effect]

They need 2 mana to cast Chalice for 1. They would only do that after knowing what kind of deck I play, and they'd only know that after an EOT tutor or when I cast Hermit. Before that, I could have already Therapied/Duressed.

Turn 1 chalice 1 is a very common play and is as likely as you being able to play hermit turn one...  Granted, most people play it for 0 against an unknown deck, but still... you have to deal with games 2-3...  Duress is cool and all but it'll be doubtful that you'd randomly name chalice on a turn one cabal when you could just as easily name FoW etc...

As for the Bridge, you're right, i misread the card (its a new card give me a break lol)...  I definately see the synergy now and how not only can you kill someone with it and Flame-kin Zealot but how it can provide a lot of creatures for you to sac for return or therapys etc...  Overall I think this is incredibly powerful and will look more into it... My only question is does the card's ability stack?  Even if it does, why do you need 4 bridges doesn't that seem like overkill since you shold consistently be sacing 4 creatures (druid and 3 naromoebas) making a total of 4 tokens...  This leads to a damage potential of 15 when combined with the zealot with only one bridge in the GY... why do you need so many more?  Wouldn't 2 or, if you were afraid of having one in hand, 3 be sufficient?

Legacy Weapon ensures you will get another turn, unless they Ancestral Recall you. Why would you want to have to wait till you have 3 mana open so you can Druid and then Reclamation?

There are 4 reasons...
       1. it shouldn't be a big deal with all of your acceleration... i mean as you said

There are 10 acceleraters in the deck, which means thats 1/6 of your deck or 1 every 6 cards.

       2. It gives you an extra turn in case something goes wrong
       3. The card is useful besides ensuring you don't deck yourself (return an important card to deck)
       4.  Allows you to return an animate dead in case the dread gets stuck in hand,or  is removed, etc...  It gives you another out to ensure that you don't lose

and regardless, you hardly answered my question about hate...  Remember, your therapy's are most likely going to miss turn 1... duress will hit, sure, but that's 4 cards in your deck and, if you choose to therapy turn two after you duress turn 1 then you risk not being able to play druid...   Additionally, remember many decks play BS which means they can hide the cards that are going important if it matters...
This means you only have 4 cards that will consistently disrupt an opponent turn 1... (and BS definately hinders that sometimes)
        A.  What do you do if you are on the draw?  They could duress away your tutor/hermit (whichever is in your hand at the time) or even duress away your duress if it mattered etc...  Or they could play turn 1 chalice etc...
        B.  How do you deal with permenants that disrupt you?  your answers have summoning sickness and are hard to find (sure you can tutor for them, but that will take another turn since they only put the creature on top)  During those three turns, (which doesn't help if its LotV since its an enchantment) you are unable to keep up the pressure since you have very limited draw and your disruption is not static.  This means that the opponent will then be able to fight through the lone duress that you sent against them, draw more threats/counters, and either find an answer to your answer, apply more pressure from another card, or just win...

Overall, I will definately have to give your list more thought now that bridge has been included which will depend a lot, in my mind, on whether or not its stackable (which would make it just insane)

[policehq]

Bridge from Below is cumulative. For every Bridge from Below in your graveyard, you play a 2/2 zombie token each time a creature goes into the graveyard.

None of these new cards address the problem that Hermit Druid has always sucked!!! I can't stress this enough. You can't depend on the guy sticking around on turn 2 if you get him into play turn 1, turn 3 if you get him into play turn 2, and so on. Sylvan Safekeeper is not a new card. Elvish Scrapper is not a new card. Bridge from Below and Narcomoeba make Hermit Druid AWESOME if you activate him, but they don't help you do so. He's been awesome when activated anyway.

-hq

[Crankster]

You have 2x extirpate in the board as your only answer to darkblast. Lavadart is almost the same thing too.

[EKM_Ichorid]

About Darkblast...how many decks run high amounts of them? Usually its a 1-2 slot card, so it will have to be tutored for. I have tutors also. Its an X vs Y arguement. If no cards could hate out a deck, we'd all be playing that deck.

I really don't know what serious decks open with Chalice for 1 without knowing what they're up against. Chalice for 1 first turn is a bad play in most decks regardless.

How do they Duress my Hermit? I'm confused on that one.

The accelerators are ONLY for fueling out the Hermit ASAP. Never did I say they were for getting 3 mana so I could activate and Reclamation. I run Spirit Guides so I can get around Chalice for 0, I don't have much acceleration in the form of permanents.

I don't know how much hate people pack MD where you live, but I really think it's ridiculous for you to tell me I need to pack more anti-hate MD. That's what a sideboard is for. Point the anti-hate that SS or Gifts or Ichorid runs MD. Why should I run additional anti-hate?

My new list has 2x Survival of the Fittest for the Sylvan Tutors and 3x Mesmeric Fiend for Scrapper/1x Nacromoeba/1x SSG. It actually is working out good. I'm thinking of turning the 4x Overgrown Tomb into 4x City of Brass so I can cast Nacro if I need to.

Policehq, is Survival a decent enough way to grab more Hermits if need be? There is the back plan if he is killed...get another. Once he's activated there's no way I won't get a huge swing whether it be a huge horde of hasted 3/3s or a Gurzigost after I empty their hand.