Griselkicks

[BlackVise]

I haven't had much of a chance to test this deck yet, but in the limited testing I have done it seems to have quite a lot of potential.  

Mana Base:
1x Black Lotus
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Emerald
1x Mox Ruby
1x Mox Pearl
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Vault
4x Underground Sea
3x Island
2x Swamp
4x Polluted Delta
1x Flooded Strand

Creatures:
2x Griselbrand
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Disruption:
4x Force of Will
3x Mental Misstep
3x Duress
1x Flusterstorm

Card Draw:
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Brainstorm
1x Ponder

Tutors:
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor
4x Entomb
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Demonic Consultation

Mana Acceleration:
4x Dark Ritual

Reanimation:
4x Goryo's Vengeance

Storm:
1x Tendrils of Agony

Board Control:
1x Repeal

Other Awesomeness:
1x Time Walk
1x Yawgmoth's Will

Sideboard:
3x Echoing Truth
2x Rebuild
3x Steel Sabotage
4x Pithing Needle
3x Tormod's Crypt

The idea of the deck is to get Griselbrand into the graveyard via Entomb, reanimate him with Goryo's Vengeance and proceed to combo out.

The inclusion of Force of Will, Mental Misstep, Duress and Flusterstorm allows you to disrupt your opponent early and protect your combo, and if need be allows you to play the control role for the first few turns.

So far it seems that although the deck can (and often does) combo out on turn two with counter/discard protection, it does have some consistency issues, which I would like to try to sort out.

Any thoughts or feedback would be very much appreciated.

Thanks!

[Samite Healer]

Seems interesting.  I would think that a major vulnerability in your plan is that graveyard hate definitely hurts your plan significantly more than using Oath to put Griselbrand into play.  Perhaps you might want to try Show and Tell in the board for all the decks that bring in 3 or 4 Cage and multiple Nihil Spellbombs or Crypts.  I also think that 2 Tendrils is unnecessary, especially if you're running Noxious Revival.  I would cut one of those for Blighsteel Colossus and find room for Tinker somewhere.

[BlackVise]

Thanks for the reply! 

Good call on the Show and Tells, I'll add some to the sideboard.

As for Blightsteel Colossus and Tinker - I've considered removing Frantic Search and adding Necropotence and another Entomb, in that case might Time Vault and Voltaic Key be a better addition?

I think you're right about the additional Tendrils of Agony too, I'll remove one. 

[TheShop]

I like this deck idea a lot.  Paying 2 mana at instant speed to draw 14 (or sorcery speed, swing, then draw 21) is awesome.  Responding with a 7/7 flying lifelinker and drawing 14 is so strong no matter what opponent is doing.  It is has a certain flash-esque element to it where your opponent is scared to do anything as long as you have 2 mana up and the dude in the yard.

I think someone said a while back that nothing was more scary to show and tell into play than Bargain. 

[serracollector]

I don't really see the need for snapcasters.  Your goal is an uber Yawg Will>Tendrils.  Necropotence would be nobo as discarded cards are exiiled.  I like the maindeck as is, except -3 snap -1 tendrils, +1 Time Vault, +1 Voltaic Key, +1 Hurkyll's Recall.  TV combo in a deck where you can draw 14-21 cards in 1-2 turns seems obvious to me.  One maindeck hurkyll's will help in case of rods/spheres/MUD in general, and can boost storm easily enuff to win on its own.  Otherwise looks nice.  Definitely would add 1-2 show and tell in SB as well as plenty of MUD and Fish hate, spheres and COTV are your worst enemies. 

Also, another thing I noticed, but wouldn't -1 Frantic Search +1 Thirst for Knowledge be ideal?  They are essentially the same cost if cast EOT, and TFK draws that third card.  Plenty of artifacts btw. etc etc.

Anyways. my 2 cents, otherwise very nice deck.

[BlackVise]

Thanks for the replies! 

The Snapcaster Mages have been really good so far, the ability to recur a draw or tutor spell can outright win games, whilst recurring an early disruption spell can really give you a strong start in the early game. That said, I could see removing one perhaps, going to two copies.

I've tried Thirst for Knowledge, and in most decks I prefer it to Frantic Search, but the ability to untap lands can help you to combo out earlier than Thirst for Knowledge would. I'd quite like to give it another try though.

I agree with you about Necropotence and the second copy of Tendrils of Agony, I'd like to include Necropotence but I think it would nerf the discard spells too much. Any thoughts on adding Yawgmoth's Bargain instead?

The current changes I'm considering:

-1 Snapcaster Mage
-1 Tendrils of Agony
+1 Thirst for Knowledge
+1 Yawgmoth's Bargain/Hurkyl's Recall

Thanks again! 

[Lurker101]

I really like this deck. I've been working on a Legacy deck similar to this for quite some time. Shallow Grave/Corpse Dance/Goryo's Vengeance can do some amazing things.

[BlackVise]

First of all - apologies for the thread necro here, but I've updated the deck quite a lot.

I've removed the Snapcaster Mages, Gifts Ungiven, Frantic Search, Thoughtseize, and one of the Tendrils of Agony, replacing them with:

1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3x Duress
1x Flusterstorm
1x Ponder
1x Demonic Consultation
1x Entomb
1x Repeal

This has given the deck a much more consistent control suite and a much more accessible tutor suite, enabling earlier wins. The addition of Emrakul has also given the deck an alternate win condition, which is much more viable against Stax and gets around Pithing Needle in games 2 and 3.

I've also replaced the Hurkyl's Recalls in the sideboard with 2x Rebuild, as Chalice of the Void@2 is a huge problem for this deck.

Any comments or criticisms on the new build would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

[serracollector]

you cant put emrakul into ur grave. and no snt? u plan on hardcasting him?

[Lemnear]

you cant put emrakul into ur grave. and no snt? u plan on hardcasting him?

Vengeance is an Instant. Works like Loyal Retainers with the shuffle trigger on the stack.

[Methuselahn]

Entomb is bad.

Look at the history of Worldgorger Dragon.  The same things apply here to your Reanimator list.  Any deck that relies on the graveyard to win has to be flexible.  You have to be able to play around the hate, switch strategies, or remove blocks.  Cards like Entomb do one thing VERY well but lack the ability to get you out of trouble, something decks nowadays have to have, in order to be a top tier deck. 

Dragon decks prefered cards like Intuition, Compulsion, or Bazaar. There's a myriad of better cards fighting for the slot that Entomb holds.  These cards benefit you in ways other than just getting a fat creature into the 'yard.  For example, Intuition was also able to tutor for other things like Force of Will, Animate Dead, mana, hate removal, or whatever.  Entomb only puts a creature into the graveyard.  The best Dragon decks were blue, not black.  The popular lists replaced Dark Rituals for blue cards.  Ritual-Reanimator was always bad back then because it ran too many narrow cards.  It didn't have the flexibility to deal with problems like the blue decks. 

Also, Entomb is black and you're a Force of Will deck with 14 blue spells total.  That's rough.


Griselbrand is better than Dragon though.  And more awesome.  You can't use Show and Tell with Dragon.  But you can here.  Instead of having to tutor a bounce spell for Grafdigger's just save yourself a discard outlet and play him from your hand.  Griselbrand is a fine win condition on it's own.  Just make your gameplan to swing with it.   How can you NOT win??  You just drew 14 cards!  Protect it with your Duresses and Forces that you just drew.  You could cut Tendrils for a draw spell. I'd try 2-3 Show and Tell + 3 intution. Both get around Chalice for 2.

Six reanimation spells is about right. I sleep better with seven.

[BlackVise]

Thanks for the feedback, Methuselahn.

I see your point on Entomb but I'm very reluctant to remove it - getting one turn one or two nearly always results in a win by the end of turn two, which is incredibly powerful. Other than that are there any cards that stand out as bad to you?

I'm definitely interested in trying Show and Tell in here once I can make some room for it.

Thanks again!

[Methuselahn]

No problem.

Well, without having played the deck and just looking at the list...

It looks like your manabase could be tweaked.  You're running 22 cards and Rituals.  This seems about right.  Not sure about Mana Vault tho.  You don't have a lot of big spells to use it on.  It could help with hardcasting Griselbrand but I'm not sure that's an ideal plan in this format.  Fetchland count could be bumped up to 6, I suppose.

You mention consistency issues.  You also play with Repeal.  Consider adding Top.  Top may help with that.  Also, you can play some tricks with Top + Repeal to draw cards.  Additionally, if you're set on Tendrils it's a cheap couple of spells to further that storm tactic.

Chalice for 1 seems problematic for you.

Your goal is to get Griselbrand into play, obviously.  If a card is ever dead during a game then ask yourself; 'what would I rather have right now?'.

Good luck.