[Deck] Return of Shop Combo

[Harlequin]

Shop Combo:
-- 24 MANA ---
4 Shop
4 Ancient Tombs
2 City of Traitors
2 Seat of the Synod
1 Tolarian Academy
3 Academy Ruins
5 Mox
3 Lotus, Sol, Crypt

-- 7 MANA ENGINS ---
4 Metalworker
3 Basault Monolith

-- 17 COMBO PIECES / FINISHERS --
4 Rings of The Brighthearth
4 Staff of Domination
3 Timevault
2 Umbral Mantle
2 Karn
1 Pentavus
1 Avarice Totem (or Goblin Cannon if you are not a master of the stack)

-- 7 DECK MANIPULATION --
3 Sensies Top
2 Well of Knowledge
1 Memory Jar
1 Tinker

-- 5 PROTECTION --
4 Spheres / Defense Grid
1 Trinisphere

////////////

The Goal is really to win on turn 2 consistantly.  Uninterputed the deck should win basically any keepable hand on turn 4 at the latest.  Here are the main ways:
Worker; Staff
Worker; Mantle
Timevault; Rings (5 mana needed on turn 2)
Monolith; Rings + Top/Staff/Win (5 mana needed on turn 2)

As far as "proving the win" goes:  Ubral Mantel is the win condition of choice, Infinite Pentavites is a good plan-B, Timevault gives infinite turns at which point you can use staff to tap them down and win with a lone metalworker, and Actually with Rings + Jar + Academy ruins you have a non-targeting non-damaging win condition.

Avarice Totem:  Currently I am running Avarice Totem over Goblin Cannon.  This is actually a very techy answer to the same problems Goblin Cannon answers, the problem card being Platinum Angel.   I like it because it's a slightly less dead draw if you don't have infinite mana. 
> Totem with 5 mana - Decent.  You will basically always be out-manaing your opponent so often its worth it to just trade them there best card for your stupid totem they can't really use. 
> Totem with 7 mana + Rings (or 10 mana) - SILLY.  Ok, So lets say I have a Mox, a 7 mana, Totem, and Rings; and you have a Platinum Angel.  I use 5 mana to activate the Totem targeting My Mox its a legal target however if this ability were to simply resolve it would do nothing.  Next I copy the ability with rings and 2 mana.  With the copy I target Plats.  The copy resolves and I trade Totem for Plats.  But wait a minute the stack isn't emtpy.  We still have a "Trade Totem for Mox" on the stack.  When this resolves I now you trade me Totem for my mox.  Effectively I have stolen your Plats and traded you a Mox in the process.  So Totem really has a 2nd hidden ability of (10): Exchange control of target card you control and target card an opponent controls.  This cost is reduced to if you have rings.   This is great for symetrical cards like Spheres and Well of Knowledge, and even crazier with Top (outlined below).
> Avarice Totem + Combo time - BUSTED!  Long story short You can steal your opponents entire non-land board, and leave them with nothing.  Here's how:  Play Top, Play Totem, Play rings.  Activate the "draw a card" ability on Top copy it.  In response to the copy, Activate Totem targeting the tapped Top.  Resolve Rings and copy the ability targeting something of your opponents.  Now the stack resolves.  You steal the card totem takes a trip to the other side of the board.  Then the totem comes back to you trading them the tapped top.  Now the top ability resolves last and the top goes to YOUR library.  You draw a card and if you copied the ability you then draw the top.  And after you play the top you're back where you started only with +1 of your opponent's perminants.  If your library is small (or you need to steel infinite squirls or something silly) you can do the same thing with Topx2 and choose to not copy the top activation but rather use top1 to draw top2 and 2 to draw 1... etc, this keeps your deck the same size.

This is a very techincal Play, and really Goblin Cannon is Just as good while you are comboing off.  But I think Avarice Totem is slightly better pre-infinite mana.  Avarice can also answers some "never played" enchantments like Solitary Confinement or Worship (however you can kill with Jar against those cards).

And well while I'm at it, I might as well explain that kill.  Ok you go inifinite you have 80% of your deck in hand and infinite mana.  Hopefully you have a Timevault from another turn.  If not drop a timevault + all your spheres and pass the turn.  Use Karn to turn Timevault into a creature and equip the Ubral Mantle.  Now use Rings + infinite mana to Untap, Tap, Copy... repeat 10,000 times.  This gives you 10,000 turns.  This isn't 100% nessisary because you can copy the turns at the begining of each turn, however this is a quick way to get that step out of the way.  Put all 4 of your rings into play.  Ok at this point you've discarded basically your entire deck and kept a 7 card hand.  This had MUST include Academy Ruins and a blue mana source.  Now spend a bunch of turns Activating Ruins and copying the ability x4.  This increases the cards in your deck +4 a turn (-1 for the draw).  Do this until you have no GY this should be a repeatable loop so you will likely be able to shortcut it.  Now pop Jar and copy it enough times to not deck yourself.  Now discard most of your deck (your opponent will do the same).  Now repeat from the begining and spend X turns returning your GY to your deck (your opponent will not do this).  Now you should have more cards in your deck then they do (if not repeat a 3rd time).  Activate Jar and copy it enough to deck your opponent but not yourself.  This gives you a non-targeting non-damage win.  Not bad.

The last contraversial card in the deck is Well of Knowledge.  This card is actually not included because it is another outlet for infinite mana.  It is very rare that I draw my deck durring my drawstep (but obviously its a perk of running this card).  What it does do is help recoup a hand from a big loss.  The effect is "symetrical" but really, it isn't.  Most decks can draw cards much more efficently than .  And few decks have extra mana durring the draw to waste on a single card.  I personally like the card, but I could also easily see it being some more blue draw like Timetwister and/or Ancestral.  Basically it's the best artifact that draws cards outside of Staff of Dom.

The biggest problem this deck has is Null Rod.  Everything in the deck crumbles at the mercy of Null Rod.  This means your sideboard ends up being fairly stupidlooking. I ususally end up something like this:
4 Tormod's Crypt
4 Defense Grid / Thorn of Amnatyst
4 Plague Boiler
3 Culling Scales

Crypts are good against GY decks.
Defense Grids are a bomb against control.
and Boilers + Scales are Triggered Artifact answers to Null Rod.

Basically If Null Rod is popular in the new world, this deck has basically no chance of survival.  However if Null Rod remains on the D-list, this deck has the ability to race basically any combo or combo-control deck - with the benefit of having only a minimal interaction with the graveyard.  Also it shruggs off spheres and thorns like no other combo deck can.  This gives it a great game against both shop aggro and prison decks.

Because most of the combo peices are redundant and synergistic with many other cards in the deck, pinpoint artifact removal is often ineffetive at stopping the deck dead, and Defense Grid makes instant artifact board sweepers pretty bad.  All in all the deck is fairly resilant to non-nullrod based hate.

[Thicketman]

Have you considered painter/grindstone combo as well. That can happen on turn 1 with 6 mana, which happens a lot in shop decks.

[BruiZar]

I need some time to think about this, the deck looks damn cool though, props for thinking up the combo

[Harlequin]

Have you considered painter/grindstone combo as well. That can happen on turn 1 with 6 mana, which happens a lot in shop decks.

I actually had a very similar conversation with Jer when Painter-Stone was spoiled.  It went something like:  "dude here's yet another combo for your shop combo deck"
Me "Not really, both peices have 0 synergy with everything else in the deck, and besides the deck is already basically at critical mass with Rings."
Jer "Yeah I guess, hopefully they will make some broken untap abilites"
Me "Yeah"
.... then Umbral Mantle was spoiled and I knew I had my replacement for Voltaic Key.

I need some time to think about this, the deck looks damn cool though, props for thinking up the combo

This deck is one pile of ruling nightmares.  Timevault, Rings, Top, Avarice Totem, Basault Monolith!! All cards that take some explaining.  Playing this deck on MWS is basically not worth it because no one ever believes that you can do half the stuff this deck can do.  In order to really play the deck you have to have an extremely solid understanding of Triggers, Activated Abilites, Priority, and the mechics and interaction of "Skip a Turn" and "Take an Extra Turn."

[nineisnoone]

This looks reeally awesome.  I'll have to read over it again to make sure I'm getting it all.

Question thought, why not Serum Power?  I've always liked it in Shop decks as getting the right hand on turn 1 is so much more critical than with other decks.  Did you test and it just prove to be unreliable?

[The Atog Lord]

Props for getting so many complex cards into a single deck. This is the most complicated contraption that I've seen since we were Replenishing up Opalescences and Humilities. Very neat deck -- I look forward to playing against it in the near future.

[Harlequin]

Mathematically speaking, you never want to run Powder in a deck where you need 2 differant conditional cards.  Without recalcing the numbers, here is the basic problem:

You have 60 cards, 4 of card A, 4 of Card B, and 4 Powders. 

A "Sucess" is drawing at least 1 of A -AND- at least 1 of B.

With 7 cards:
 Sometimes you draw A&B
 Sometimes you draw A&Powder (and not B)
 Sometimes you draw B&Powder (and not A)
 Sometimes you draw Powder (and Not A or B)

In the first event A&B - you have Succeded without powder
In the last event you clearly powder away the cards and have an increased chance of getting A&B on the new hand, and the 7th card increases your chances.

In the middle two events, you actually have a -SMALLER- chance of drawing A&B on a 7 hand with a 3:4 dist, than you do drawing 6 cards from 60 with 4:4. 

For this reason Powder is no good unless your looking for a single card.

Also I'd like to point out that the deck mulls like butter.  You really only need 4-5 cards to win, and many many combinations will "get there" so if you don't have a visable win in your 7-hand don't be afraid to take it to 6.  And Keep in mind a solid 5-hand will often be better than a shakey 6er. 

[vartemis]

Interesting deck.  I'm gonna proxy it out and take it for a test run.   The only thing I am concerned about off the top is the Time Vault/Umbral Mantle/Karn "combo".  I don't think this  works the way you want it.  You can use this interaction to make make a 1000000/1000000 creature, but you can't get infinite turns out of it. Thanks to the new errata on time vault, it doesn't matter how you untap it, you still have to pay a turn to do so.  This means that in order to untap it with the Mantle, you will have to pay and sacrifice a turn.

On the other hand, you can just use Time Vault and Rings of Brighthearth to reach the same effect, and it is 1 less card.

If someone can confirm or bunk the Vault/Mantle/Karn interaction, that's the only issue I have with the deck.

j

[Harlequin]

You need Rings + Timevault + Karn + Mantle (+timevault to be un-sick).  And your right, its actually not nessiary to do this because you still have a repeatable infinite turns with Rings+Timevault alone.  This way you can essentailly do all the work for infinite turns on the front end, which makes it abit easier if you are trying to prove a loop because the loop no longer contains the motions of creating +1 extra turns.  It just says "ok now I have 10,000 turns lined up! so now I... " 

[nineisnoone]

Mathematically speaking, you never want to run Powder in a deck where you need 2 differant conditional cards.  Without recalcing the numbers, here is the basic problem:

You have 60 cards, 4 of card A, 4 of Card B, and 4 Powders. 

A "Sucess" is drawing at least 1 of A -AND- at least 1 of B.

With 7 cards:
 Sometimes you draw A&B
 Sometimes you draw A&Powder (and not B)
 Sometimes you draw B&Powder (and not A)
 Sometimes you draw Powder (and Not A or B)

In the first event A&B - you have Succeded without powder
In the last event you clearly powder away the cards and have an increased chance of getting A&B on the new hand, and the 7th card increases your chances.

In the middle two events, you actually have a -SMALLER- chance of drawing A&B on a 7 hand with a 3:4 dist, than you do drawing 6 cards from 60 with 4:4. 

For this reason Powder is no good unless your looking for a single card.

Also I'd like to point out that the deck mulls like butter.  You really only need 4-5 cards to win, and many many combinations will "get there" so if you don't have a visable win in your 7-hand don't be afraid to take it to 6.  And Keep in mind a solid 5-hand will often be better than a shakey 6er. 

OOOohh.  I love math.   

But assuming you have.... 10% (6 cards) chance of card A and 10 %(6 cards) chance of card B with 80% chance of non-factor cards...

In the middle two cases you go, you remove 7 cards total, 6 of those non-factor cards and let's say 1 of those a card A.

This leaves you with 5/53 (9.4%) cards let in getting an A and 6/53 (11.3%) cards getting B.  I'm not sure how to do the probability of getting both there, but it seems like it's roughly the same as in the first case.  Looking at this (but I can't say for certain), it seems like the decrease in probability of one increase the probability of the other comparatively, which should (I'm guessing maybe?) mean that the probability of getting both remains the same.

However, Powder takes advantage of the last case where you get neither.

In any case, I would only suggest them over the Sphere/Defense Grid slot as what fills the answer slot will be opponent dependent anyways so you might as well have Serum Powers in there for the case where you get non of you combo parts.  Though, of course, that does cram up the Sideboard slots.  And Powder outside of Ichorid is much more difficult because it's rarely even just a 2 card combination you need.

[TopSecret]

This deck seems fun.

Not that it matters much,
but does this deck have trouble with Suppression Field?

Would you play Gaea's Blessing in the sideboard against Painter,
double Colossus, or neither?

... Or would you play quadruple Colossus since you have so much mana?!

Thanks!

[vartemis]

You need Rings + Timevault + Karn + Mantle (+timevault to be un-sick).  And your right, its actually not nessiary to do this because you still have a repeatable infinite turns with Rings+Timevault alone.  This way you can essentailly do all the work for infinite turns on the front end, which makes it abit easier if you are trying to prove a loop because the loop no longer contains the motions of creating +1 extra turns.  It just says "ok now I have 10,000 turns lined up! so now I... " 

Ah, missed the ring in there.  Getting 4 specific cards into play seems pretty tough.  How often do you get this?

j

[Arzangremmel]

Could Umbral Mantle be Mizzium Transreliquat instead?
I'm sure you would never be at a loss for targets to copy, and with the 'quat and Time Vault you have endless turns for one shop activation per turn.

It seems to interact well with the entire rest of the deck.

[LordHomerCat]

Wow this deck is hilarious.  There's so many different things going on, I can't imagine the opponent can ever tell which ones are important.  I wish there were weekly tournaments here like in the NE, as I would be really tempted to bring this to one just to mess around and cast Time Vault and Umbral Mantle for the hell of it.

[meadbert]

First of all I love this deck.  I have been testing it and I have been impressed, but I have some ideas on how it could be improved.  I would like to touch on some comments you made earlier:

Mathematically speaking, you never want to run Powder in a deck where you need 2 differant conditional cards.  Without recalcing the numbers, here is the basic problem:

You have 60 cards, 4 of card A, 4 of Card B, and 4 Powders. 

A "Sucess" is drawing at least 1 of A -AND- at least 1 of B.

With 7 cards:
 Sometimes you draw A&B
 Sometimes you draw A&Powder (and not B)
 Sometimes you draw B&Powder (and not A)
 Sometimes you draw Powder (and Not A or B)

In the first event A&B - you have Succeded without powder
In the last event you clearly powder away the cards and have an increased chance of getting A&B on the new hand, and the 7th card increases your chances.

In the middle two events, you actually have a -SMALLER- chance of drawing A&B on a 7 hand with a 3:4 dist, than you do drawing 6 cards from 60 with 4:4. 

For this reason Powder is no good unless your looking for a single card.

Also I'd like to point out that the deck mulls like butter.  You really only need 4-5 cards to win, and many many combinations will "get there" so if you don't have a visable win in your 7-hand don't be afraid to take it to 6.  And Keep in mind a solid 5-hand will often be better than a shakey 6er. 

Most of what you say is right here, but I actually think Serum Powders could be good.
First of all I agree with the generality that when putting together a two card combo, Serum Powder is not good.  Here you are running several two card combos so that makes this a different problem altogether.  Basically certain cards like Shop, Metalworker and to a lesser extent Rings are really good.  Other cards are more conditional.  I am pretty sure that running a full set of Powders will help mulliganing into an early Shop or Metalworker or Rings.  Also, just mulliganing into the right amount of mana is huge.  When I was testing this deck I had as much trouble with getting the right amount of mana as I did getting the right combo pieces.  Powder can smooth that out.
With so many 4ofs and since you are running both Shop and Metalworker, Powder's draw backs are minimal.

Also you pointed out that your mulligans are already good because you only need 5 cards.  Such decks are EXACTLY the sort of decks that Serum Powder is best in.  I heard all the time that Uba Stax did not need Serum Powder because it had such good mulligans already, but the fact that you can mulligan so freely is one of the biggest reasons that Powder is so good in Uba Stax.  Serum Powder will never show up in control decks that NEED all 7 of their opening cards.  Instead it is best abused in a deck just like this.  Now this does not mean that Serum Powder is an improvement, but I am curious to try it out on my end.

I realize you are against adding Powders, but if you were to add them which cards would you drop?  Would you run a different mana base?  Generally I expect I will mulligan into either Shop or turn 1 Metalworker.  Will I still need City of Traitors?  Is Mana Vault worth considering since it helps accelerate?

A second issue is Null Rod.  You have chosen the "beat Ichorid, remove Null Rod" strategy which may be the best.  The second option is to use Null Rod to your advantage.
If you board starts with 1 Strip, 4 Wastes, 4 Ghost Quarter and 4 Crucible then you can go for a Strip Lock and let Null Rod lock them out of the game.  Also the 9 Bazaar removal give you game against Ichorid!  You could drop to 2 Ghost Quarter and run your full set of Resistors.  Anyway, this allows you to play prison against NullRod.dec and let them play lock pieces for you.

Finally, is there any chance that Welder could be added to this deck.  Trading 1 artifact for another is just what this deck wants and Welder could replace Defense Grid as protection and in that manner help against Removal or Duress effects.  Also Welder could perhaps negate the need for Academy ruins.  Perhaps by running some Furnaces, Mountains, Barbarian Rings and maybe even Coalition Relic could provide enough red mana to support Welder and protect the combo.

[Harlequin]

Another interesting way to think of serum powder is "You get to see your 6 card hand, before your 7 card hand."  Think of this: you draw 6 cards + serum powder.  You don't automull that hand -because- of powder.  You instead look at it as a 6 card hand and decided wethre or not to go to 7.  I just simply can't get behind this.  The math just doesn't do enough to improve your odds of getting a "good" hand. 
The other problem with Serum Powder is its one of those extremely missleading cards.  You always remember when it was amazing and rarely can see how it hurts you.  This makes it a very difficult card to 'test' objectively. 

As to the question - If I "gun to my head" had to add them to the deck, I'm not sure what I would cut.  Probably all 4 spheres and swap a city for a 4th top, maybe 1 ruins for a 3rd ubral mantle.  As you pointed out, the deck is all about the 'right' mana.  Which 95% of the time translates to 'craploads' of mana.  So cutting mana, to add a card that allows you to muligan into mana is something only congress would get behind.  Basically this turns the deck into a more all-in turn 2 combo deck.  Basically the plan is if you can't win with your opening hand ... just scoop.

As far as mana vault is concerned, I would add a 4th Monolith before I added mana vault (or grim monolith).  Basault Monolith is nice for converting shop mana and/or storing up mana from turn to turn... and a combo peice.  Adding a non-combo mana accellerant isn't really that good.

Lastly, I have done testing with the deck that included welder.  Cut blue, Cut City, Cut back on Tombs, Cut Ruins, and add Welders and Coalition Relic as well as some Mountains (not furnace because I want to use red in the board to remove null rod).   Umbral + welder = hotness.  And the deck definately gains some late power, and doesn't really fear null rod as much.  The problem is the mana base doesn't really support the combo.  So the deck slides from turn 2-3 to turn 3-5.  Getting to 5 mana is so important for a non-worker win. 

Red is probably the appropriate answer to null rod, but really this deck ascribes to the "F-It" plan when it comes to maindeck null rod.  If you are expecting null rod - don't play this deck.

[nineisnoone]

Another interesting way to think of serum powder is "You get to see your 6 card hand, before your 7 card hand."  Think of this: you draw 6 cards + serum powder.  You don't automull that hand -because- of powder.  You instead look at it as a 6 card hand and decided wethre or not to go to 7.  I just simply can't get behind this.  The math just doesn't do enough to improve your odds of getting a "good" hand.

So cutting mana, to add a card that allows you to muligan into mana is something only congress would get behind.  Basically this turns the deck into a more all-in turn 2 combo deck.  Basically the plan is if you can't win with your opening hand ... just scoop.

But the thing is, wasn't that the case anyways?  It's not like Sphere of Resistance + 7 cards of non-combo goodness is going to win you the game either.  Powder is a card that can really be only evaluated if you understand the specific card that it is replacing.  Personally, I think a one-sided draw 7 is better than anything Spheres/Grid would give you given the nature of the deck. So your math might be right, but I think you're logic is off.  I would mull that 6 card hand with Sphere/Grid, so for me at least Powder is the right choice.

[meadbert]

Another interesting way to think of serum powder is "You get to see your 6 card hand, before your 7 card hand."  Think of this: you draw 6 cards + serum powder.  You don't automull that hand -because- of powder.  You instead look at it as a 6 card hand and decided wethre or not to go to 7.

I definitely agree here.  This is the way to evaluate Serum Powder.  Really the question is are you likely to have a good hand if it only has six cards.  As you mentioned in an earlier post, this deck is very happy with 5 and 6 card hands as long as they are the right 5 and 6 card hands.

Serum Powder's weakness is obvious.  Who wants a colorless mox that costs 3.  Powder is a "dead" draw.  Well, almost.  It does do one thing once the game is started and that is it gets you from 3 mana to 5 mana in one turn.  In other words it gets you to 5 mana 1 turn sooner.  This does not really matter in vintage ...

Getting to 5 mana is so important for a non-worker win. 

Serum Powder does really help with this.  If ever a deck was designed for Serum Powder this must be it!

I am excited to try it.  I will test the modifications that you suggested and get back to you.  Are there any matchups that I should test in particular?  I will probably just test Slaver, Drain Tendrils, Dredge, Shop Aggro and Long if not.

[Bill Copes]

quick note on serum powder experience:

I played them in an aggro prison deck at the 4x shop tournament last month.  The deck wasn't nearly as combo-centric as this (it ran worker+staff, but other than that, prison and juggerbeats), but I found powders drawn later in the game to not be completely terrible.  You always just hold onto them and the either a) become metalworker mana fodder or b) become an excellent bluff card that forces an opponent to waste a mana, a spell and 2 life when they thoughtsieze you to remove garbage.  Since this deck is running Top, you probably won't ever draw them in the late game (does this deck ever even see a late game?  ).

Even in keeping the opening 6 + Powder hand -- shop +powder + mox + sphere won me a few games during the day.

So in 2008, I vote yes on powder in shop combo.

[Harlequin]

The statistician in me still is uneasy about Powder.  Running a Powder deck inevitably means you are not going to be running any maindeck disruption outside of Trinisphere.  This means FOW is going to be an issue.  I just think a medocere hand + sphere is better than a new random 7 hand (where I possibly removed combo peices).  Maybe I'm just playing Powder wrong.

Also, another point about the welder build, you definately run Coalition relic because relic + rings means you can EOT double charge it for giving you 3 colored mana on next turn which can be helpful when comboing out.

Lastly, in testing I 'discovered' a new combo for the deck that actually doesn't involve Metalworker, Rings, or Staff! 

+ Karn + Basault Monolith + Umbral Mantle = infinitely large dude (but not infinite mana).  As you can probably see:  Animate Monolith, Equip Umbral Mantle, Tap Monolith for 3 mana, and use the mana to activate the Mantle... repeat until you can administer a proper beating.

[meadbert]

The statistician in me still is uneasy about Powder.  Running a Powder deck inevitably means you are not going to be running any maindeck disruption outside of Trinisphere.  This means FOW is going to be an issue.  I just think a medocere hand + sphere is better than a new random 7 hand (where I possibly removed combo peices).  Maybe I'm just playing Powder wrong.

Also, another point about the welder build, you definately run Coalition relic because relic + rings means you can EOT double charge it for giving you 3 colored mana on next turn which can be helpful when comboing out.

Lastly, in testing I 'discovered' a new combo for the deck that actually doesn't involve Metalworker, Rings, or Staff! 

+ Karn + Basault Monolith + Umbral Mantle = infinitely large dude (but not infinite mana).  As you can probably see:  Animate Monolith, Equip Umbral Mantle, Tap Monolith for 3 mana, and use the mana to activate the Mantle... repeat until you can administer a proper beating.

Good Find!  That idea occurred to me but I thought it did not work.  For some reason I thought that Basalt Monolith's Mana could not work on itself.  Apparently it now combos with:
Wake Thrasher 2U
Creature - Merfolk Soldier
Whenever a permanent you control becomes untapped, Wake Thrasher gets +1/+1 until end of turn.
1/1

Could he fit?

Also, wouldn't that combo work wiith Mana Vault and Grim Monolith instead of Basalt Monolith.

I have been using Triskelivus instead of Avarice Totum.  Triskelivus also removes Platz and is also pretty busted with Rings out.

For my mana base I dropped all of the blue stuff and instead I am running 4 Shops, 4 Tomb, 4 Wastes, Strip, Wastes and Strip work well with Rings and sort of replaced Resistors.

A final idea I had was Mishra's Factory.  He is pretty good with Umbral Mantle.  Basically you equip factory and tap him to give himself +1/+1.  Then you pay 3 to untap him and give him +2/+2.  The result is you can give him +3/+3 for 3 mana as much as you want.  If you have no combo, this can be convenient for beatdown.  I do not have room for Factory right now though and I think I prefer Wasteland anyway.


EDIT:

I just goldfished 20 games.
I won on turn 2 11 times.
I won on turn 3 5 times.
I won on turns 4 and 5 once each.  Both were because of Karn beats.
I won on turn 7 once when I kept a hand with both Rings and Metalworker and hoped to draw into something, but kept drawing Wastelands.  I should point out that I did have 2 Wastes and a Strip before I won so there was some disruption going on there.

[ipconfig]

I see there are many abilities in the deck but some are not so clear to me:

Time Vault:
Errata:  Time Vault comes into play tapped. ; If Time Vault would become untapped, instead choose one - untap Time Vault and you skip your next turn; or Time Vault remains tapped. ; : Take an extra turn after this one. [Oracle 2006/07/14]

How can i achieve unlimited turns?
As far as i can see i need Ring of Brigthearth and 2 Mana?

First i skip my next turn to untap time vault. Now i immediately tap him to take my extra turn. Then i pay 2 mana and copy the effect of getting an extra turn.
this make one timewalk netto?

Another one what about the thing with infinite pentavus token?
How does he interact with the ring?

Can i do the following:
i pay 1 to remove a counter from pentavus, After that i pay 1 to put the token back as a +1/+1 counter on the pentavus.
With ring on board i pay 2 to copy the effect so he is now a 6/6 instead of a 5/5?

Monolith; Rings:
This was stated in the first posting and doesn't make any sense to me.
since the ring says:
Whenever you play an activated ability, if it isn't a mana ability, you may pay 2. If you do, copy that ability. You may choose new targets for the copy.
So the only thing i can copy is the untap ability of the monolith? so i pay 5 mana 3 + 2 from ring to untap the monolith twice? how do i stack this thing?
i tap monolith to get 3 mana then i use this 3 mana to untap him, i pay another 2 mana to copy this effect. with this on the stack i tap him to gain 3 mana again?

the state was also:
Monolith; Rings + Top/Staff/Win (5 mana needed on turn 2)
???

One of the hard-to-understand things is this:
"Activate the "draw a card" ability on Top copy it.  In response to the copy, Activate Totem targeting the tapped Top.  Resolve Rings and copy the ability targeting something of your opponents.
Now the stack resolves. You steal the card totem takes a trip to the other side of the board.  Then the totem comes back to you trading them the tapped top. Now the top ability resolves last and the top goes to YOUR library. You draw a card and if you copied the ability you then draw the top."


the stack would be like this:
1. draw a card with top
2. draw a card due to ring copying the top
3. exchange totem with top
4. Resolve Rings and copy the ability targeting something of your opponents --> i cant let it resolve (Resolve Rings), since it isn't on top of the stack. the top of my stack is to exchange totem with top

May anyone enlighten me???

[meadbert]

So lets say you want to steal your opponent's mox for whatever reason.  If you do this as Harlequin suggested then you do this.

Activate Top, triggering Rings and choose to copy.  Then in respose to copy activateTotum, targeting your top and Totum and triggering Rings.  With Rings copy targeting Totum and their mox.

Stack is:

Top:
Swap Totum and Mox.
Swap  Totum and Top
Draw and put back top.
Draw and put back top.
Bottom:

First you swap your Totum with their Mox.  You now have their mox and they have your Totum.
Next you swap Totum and Top so they now have your Diving Top.
Now you resolve the first Top activation so you draw a card and put top back on top of your library.  They no longer have your top.
Now you resolve the second Top activation and draw your Top.  The end result is you have stolen a permanent from your opponent.

Everything else is as you explained.  You must wait till your untap phase to untap Vault and then you tap it and copy.  You get two extra turns and skip one of them netting you one extra turn.

You can only copy the untap ability of Basalt Monolith.  This means you need an untapped Monolith a Rings and 2 mana to go infinite.  You tap Monolith going to 5 mana.  You then activate the untap ability and copy it .  The copy resolves and then you then tap Monolith for 3.  Then the original untap resolves and you are left with an untapped Monolith and 3 mana which is 1 more than when you started.

[wiley]

So I had a lull at work for a while and figured I would put down all of the combos that I know of in this deck.  I would like to preface this by saying that I am not a programmer of any kind; the semi correct style of writing just took my fancy.  If I have missed any then please tell me.  Most of this has been said somewhere in this thread already so don’t expect anything new, just organized in a different fashion.

INFINITE MANA[/U]

Metalworker + Staff of Domination + 3 artifacts in hand.

{start}
Tap worker, reveal 3 artifacts for 6 mana.
Activate untap target creature ability of staff, targeting worker.  3 mana floating.
Activate the untap ability of staff. 2 mana floating.
{return to start}

Metalworker + Umbral Mantle + 2 artifacts in hand.

{start}
Equip worker w/ mantle.
Tap worker, reveal 2 artifacts for 4 mana.
Activate umbral mantle.  1 mana floating.
{return to start}

Basalt Monolith + Rings of Brighthearth + 5 mana*
* Mana can be provided by monolith

{start}
W/ at least 5 mana in pool, activate untap ability of monolith.
Rings trigger, pay for rings.
Rings trigger resolves, untap monolith.
Tap monolith for mana.  3 floating, untap trigger on the stack.
Original untap trigger resolves, untap monolith.  3 mana floating.
Tap monolith.  6 mana in pool.
{return to start}

DRAW COMBOS[/U]

Staff of Domination + 6 mana

{start}
W/ at least 6 mana in pool, activate draw ability of staff. 1 floating, +1 card.
Activate untap ability of staff.  0 mana floating, +1 card.
{return to start}

Sensei's Divining Top + Rings of Brighthearth + 2-3 mana

{start}
If 2 mana then Top must be in play, If 3 mana then play top from hand.  2 mana floating.
tap top for draw, rings trigger pay for rings.  0 mana floating.
rings resolve, draw a card & put top on top of library. 0 mana floating, +1 card in hand, sdt on top.
original sdt activation triggers, draw top.  0 mana floating, +1 card, +sdt in hand.
{return to start}

2-4 Sensei's Divining Top* + Thrumming Stone + 1 mana
*Example will be with 4 tops already in play.

{start}
Tap top1, draw a card place top1 on top. 1 mana floating, +1 card.
Tap top2, draw top 1. 1 mana floating, +1 card, +top1 in hand.
Play top 1, ripple4(1) revealing top 2, ripple 4(2) goes on the stack. +1 card.
tap top3, draw a card.  +2 cards.
resolve ripple4(2).  +2 cards.
reveal top3.  +2 cards.
ripple(3) goes on the stack.  +2 cards.
tap top4, draw a card.  +3 cards.
resolve ripple4(3).  +3 cards.
reveal top4, choose not to activate ripple.  +3 cards.
Top4 resolves.  +3 cards.
Top3 resolves.  +3 cards.
Top2 resolves.  +3 cards.
Top1 resolves.  +3 cards.
{return to start}

INFINITE TURNS COMBO[/U]

Time Vault + Rings of Brighthearth + 2 mana

{start}
Untap Time Vault.  2 mana floating, next turn being skipped.
Tap vault, rings trigger, pay for rings.
End turn.
Rings turn begins, gets skipped from untap effect.
Time vault turn begins.
{return to start}

THEFT COMBO[/U]

Avarice Totem + Sensei's Divining Top + 10 mana*
*Can be 7 if Rings of Brighthearth is in play.

{start}
Tap top to draw a card.  10 mana floating.
In response, activate totem targeting top.  5 mana floating.
In response, activate totem targeting the permanent you want.  0 mana floating.
Exchange totem for perm.
exchange top for totem.
draw card, put top on top of your library.
{return to start}

BIG CRITTER COMBOS[/U]

Metalworker + Umbral Mantle + 2 artifacts in hand.

{start}
Equip worker w/ mantle.
Tap worker, reveal 2 artifacts for 4 mana.
Activate umbral mantle.  1 mana floating.*
{return to start}

*When arbitrarily large amount of mana can be evenly divided by 3 stop revealing artifacts.  0 mana floating.\

Karn, Silver Golem + Basalt Monolith + Umbral Mantle + 1 or 4* mana
*4 mana only required when monolith is already tapped

{start}
1.Use karn to turn monolith into a critter.  3 mana floating.
2.Equip monolith w/ mantle. 3 mana floating.
3.activate mantle, untapping monolith.  +2/+2 monolith, 0 mana floating.
4.Tap monolith for mana.  3 mana floating.
{return to step 3}

Mantle + critter + arbitrarily large amount of mana.

Duh?

1 +1/+1 COUNTER TURNS INTO (UP TO) 25 DAMAGE COMBO[/U]

Triskelevus + (up to 4) Rings of Brighthearth + 49 mana

{start}
w/ 49 mana floating activate triskelevus, 4 rings trigger, pay for rings copies.  +5 triskelevites, 40 mana floating.
sac vite1, rings trigger, activate rings. +5 dmg, 4 vites, 32 mana floating.
sac vite2, rings trigger, activate rings. +10 dmg, 3 vites, 24 mana floating.
sac vite3, rings trigger, activate rings. +15 dmg, 2 vites, 16 mana floating.
sac vite4, rings trigger, activate rings. +20 dmg, 1 vites, 8 mana floating.
sac vite5, rings trigger, activate rings. +25 dmg, 0 vites, 0 mana floating.
{return to start, or win}

DECKING COMBO[/U]

Infinite Turns Combo + Academy Ruins + Memory Jar + U mana + (at least 1) Rings of Brighthearth

{start}
1.Get Inf. Turns (preferably through inf mana combo to save time/cause less screw ups)
2.Activate ruins targeting non-jar artifact, rings triggers, pay for it and do the same as before.
3.Repeat step 2 until you have jar + non artifacts in grave.
4.Activate ruins targeting jar.
5.draw jar.
6.activate jar, rings trigger, pay for them if you want to (makes things go faster), do not draw yourself out.
7.repeat steps 3-6 until opponent gouges own eyes out.
{you win}

[Harlequin]

Pretty good:  Three things I would point out...

The Timevault combo requires an effect that can untap the timevault.  You cannot choose to untap timevault whenever you want anymore.  So typically you have to have timevault in play at the begining of your turn and untap it durring the untap step. 

Mantle + critter + arbitrarily large amount of mana.

This actually this doesn't give you anything.  Untapping the creature is part of the cost, meaning it only can be activated if the creature is already tapped.  So you either need a creature who can tap himself, or you need staff in play to tap the creature.


The final point is that you can attack with an untapped Metalworker if you have Mantle and 2 artifacts.  Here's how:

Go to combat, and in the Pre-combat step of the combat phase tap metalworker for 4 mana, and untap him.  Get to where you have mana and an untapped worker.  Now move to the attack step.  Tap Metal worker as attacking and then activate the Mantle to untap him.  Now he is untapped and attacking.

[wiley]

Pretty good:  Three things I would point out...

The Timevault combo requires an effect that can untap the timevault.  You cannot choose to untap timevault whenever you want anymore.  So typically you have to have timevault in play at the begining of your turn and untap it durring the untap step. 

True, though with inf mana combo #3 you can animate vault with Kand, equip mantle and have an infinite number of turns (often irrelevent unless you are looking to kill with jar, and then it is just plain handy)

Mantle + critter + arbitrarily large amount of mana.

This actually this doesn't give you anything.  Untapping the creature is part of the cost, meaning it only can be activated if the creature is already tapped.  So you either need a creature who can tap himself, or you need staff in play to tap the creature.

Forgot about that, but it does lead to an alternative draw combo with Karn, top, mantle and lots o' mana.

Karn the top.
Equip top.
Tap top.
IR untap top, then tap it again.

It turns into X1: Draw 1/3x - 1 cards, then put top into your hand.

I don't know that you would ever actually come in to such a situation where that would be needed but it is another combo.

The thing is that most of the time that you get infinite mana engine #1 or #3 going you have an infinite draw engine online too.  The safest way to win at that point is either via jar or vite pings.

The final point is that you can attack with an untapped Metalworker if you have Mantle and 2 artifacts.  Here's how:

Go to combat, and in the Pre-combat step of the combat phase tap metalworker for 4 mana, and untap him.  Get to where you have mana and an untapped worker.  Now move to the attack step.  Tap Metal worker as attacking and then activate the Mantle to untap him.  Now he is untapped and attacking.

I think I have that one in there, I just didn't specify to go into combat phase first.  It is best to go into combat first, that way you have the inf/inf worker to block with on their turn if need be.

[meadbert]

The final point is that you can attack with an untapped Metalworker if you have Mantle and 2 artifacts.  Here's how:

Go to combat, and in the Pre-combat step of the combat phase tap metalworker for 4 mana, and untap him.  Get to where you have mana and an untapped worker.  Now move to the attack step.  Tap Metal worker as attacking and then activate the Mantle to untap him.  Now he is untapped and attacking.

I thought mana pools got wiped at the end of the first main phase.  Is this wrong?

[Harlequin]

You move to the combat phase.  But there is a step after combat begins but before the Declare Attackers step.  At this point you can float mana right up until the end of combat.

[Prodigal_Sorceress]

Haha, this is ridiculous. I love combos like this. Another suggestion for infinite mana is to use the Basalt Monolith (or Grim Monolith) enchanted with Power Artifact. Useful on it's own, no. Useful with Demonfire / Brain Geyser / Goblin Cannon / Staff of Domination / anything-else-that-benefits-from-infinite-mana, yes.

[wiley]

Power Artifact costs UU.  With only 2 seats, 1 academy, 1 mox and black lotus as blue sources you don't get UU often enough to run it, and when you would you most likely already have another of the three infinite mana combo's at your disposal.

Also, the great thing about 2/3 of the infinite mana combos is that that have great synergy that typically mean you win the game immediately.  The worker mantle one is a win condition in and of itself.

The deck is extremely streamlined currently, to the point that the only truly viable changes [to further support combo] are to make the deck support welder.

I noticed something while playing last night about the thrumming stone and tops.  I greatly enjoyed having 4 tops as that meant I typically had an infinite draw combo by turn 2-3 whenever I saw it.  On the other hand, thrumming stone was sort of dead weight most of the time, often just being a side combo that rarely needed to be there.  While having a repeatable ancestral is really, really good, would it not be better to put something that handles typical null rod.dec builds in its place?  I was thinking something along the lines of caltrops, chalice @ 2, culling scales, ensnaring bridge, jester's cap (if you get it out early enough), masticore, plague boiler, platinum angel, or razormane masticore.  Since the vast majority of null rod toting decks will be fish I think caltrops would be best, possibly cutting 1 time vault and 1 top to bring the count up to 4?  Any thoughts on this?