Whisper Long

[desolutionist]

I'm going to share my new Grim Long style deck that has been giving me undefeated results in the 2-man tournaments on MTGO. 

Night's Whisper is a solid draw engine choice in the current Vintage metagame.  I experimented with several different ratios, included similar cards such as Cruel Bargain and Faithless Looting, and even tried the deck without Night's Whisper before deciding that Whisper Long is a pretty good deck.  Kowal's Slaver list that placed 2nd in the first ever Vintage Premiere Event is solid proof that Night's Whisper is a legitimate draw engine.  Night's Whisper is a 2-mana non-commitment spell that puts you ahead in the early stages of the game.  When going off, Night's Whisper digs deep for business.  And Night's Whisper gives Grim Long that much-needed consistency that has kept Rituals out of the recent top tiers.

One of the best aspects of Night's Whisper is that it gives you a business spell to play on turn one without the use of Dark Ritual or Cabal Ritual.  Unlike Preordain, you're netting an extra card; most of us tend to play the card advantage game so I don't need to explain why this is good.  In addition to being a good card in a vacuum, it's awesome with Dark Ritual + Thoughtseize/Duress.

Sign in Blood was an extremely important part of Pauper Storm; so much so that it would often be tutored for.  Pauper Storm could consistently kill on turns 2-3, not unlike Vintage.  This fact gives me a great appreciation for the "sign in blood effect".  Which is why I've included 4 total copies in my 75.

Anyway, I could finish writing an essay on Night's Whisper but this editor is giving me problems.  I will now post my current decklist.

4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Underground Sea
2 Marsh Flats
1 Badlands
1 Swamp
1 Tolarian Academy

2 Chromatic Sphere
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Lotus Petal
1 Memory Jar

1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain

4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Ritual
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Rebuild

4 Thoughtseize
4 Night's Whisper
2 Duress
2 Tendrils of Agony
1 Sign in Blood
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Mind's Desire
1 Tinker
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Empty the Warrens

sideboard
3 Sign in Blood
3 Ingot Chewer
2 Mountain
2 Duress
2 Empty the Warrens
1 Swamp
1 Rushing River
1 Rebuild

Please leave comments

[zeus-online]

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[WhiteLotus]

I like the idea but some card choices are definitely weird to me, for instance you say your deck is more consistent than traditional long yet you play only 2 tutors, you should add mystical and at least one other tutor between Imperial seal and Grim tutor.

I don't see how chromatic sphere can make the cut but not Ponder and/ or Top.

3 win cons maindeck seems a lot to me, you are bound to draw one in your opener pretty often, and what about the times where you draw 2 of them that seems pretty disgusting, although it let's you take advantage of mini tendrils a lot easier.

I'm not convinced about 4 cabal ritual especially since you're not capitalizing on it with stuff like infernal contract, I'd def See LED in there this deck is the reason it's restricted after all.

Rebuild over Hurkyl seems very ambitious, that one extra mana against shops or when going off will more often than not make all the difference.

Your sideboard looks like it's quite unprepared to deal with shops, ingot chewer is nice to blow up chalices or play into their tempo game but it's only meant to support the Bounce plan imo.


Overall I don't think Long really needs to be more consistent it's already very consistent and the problems it's having are more hate related usually so I am not sure it really wants night whisper although I will give your list a try for testing and write a new comment after I get a real feel of it rather then just how it looks on paper. It looks like it plays very differently than your typical long list although it shares a lot of things with it.

But I think TPS would definitely love having Night's Whisper

[XxtSundaybxX]

I like the list Shawn.

3 win conditions MAY be too much however people are complaining that all the life loss will add up. Mini tendrils are perfect for this.

The only thing that jumps out at me is the chromatic spheres. I tend to think they benefit the most in a deck with burning wish, where you might need to filter a colorless or black mana into red for Wish. That slot might be better as preordain or ponder or a mystical. I'm sure there's a reason you have it in there, this isn't your first rodeo.

[desolutionist]

I want two Tendrils because of Memory Jar and Necropotence; I don't mind ditching the first one if I have to and playing two means that they will come up more and I won't have to burn a tutor on it.  In addition to two Tendrils, I want an alternate win condition to play around True Believer effects.  And EtW is pretty good right now anyway.  Its less of an issue than you think because I don't play Force of Wills.

Chromatic Sphere doesn't matter that much.  I like the interaction it has with Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Sol Ring, etc. You could definitely swap them for Sensei's.  I've kind of strayed away from blue spells (Mystical Tutor) because I don't have islands and I want to be able to play my game against Wastelands.


I bring in the Chewers, Emptys, basic lands, and additional bounce spells against Workshops.  You're correct that the gameplan is to stay in the game with Chewer and then Rebuild everything.

The life loss definitely adds up and can make Necro/Bargain a bit worse, but they're still fairly solid.  If I play turn 1 fetch, Thoughtseize, turn 2 double Whisper, and turn 3 Necropotence I still have 13 life and have already sifted through a bunch of cards.  Usually with Necropotence I only draw enough cards to fill my end + some extras to displace Whispers/fetchlands/useless stuff.

My list might not be ideal, but Night's Whisper is pretty good so I recommend giving it a shot.  Currently, I've actually cut the draw7s completely and am playing 4 Sign in Bloods.  Its pretty nice being able to chain them together.  I'm also experimenting with Praetor's Grasp.

[d8dk32]

It's interesting to see the Chromatic Spheres. I've always fit one into my storm decks, because the ability to turn colorless mana into colored has proved invaluable.

As for the decklist, I think you probably don't need 6 protection effects. 4 might be enough. I think that between all your bombs and a decent draw engine (something many storm decks lack) you probably don't need 2 extra duress-effects to punch through control. Those slots are probably better off as more bombs or tutors. Same with the Sign in Blood. A Mystical Tutor, maybe a Windfall, perhaps Imperial Seal.

Adding a single Doomsday might be interesting. Between all your rituals and the Night's Whispers, it should be easy to be able to build piles that can win the turn you cast Doomsday. Obviously casting DDay means you're all-in, which goes against part of the appeal of Night's Whisper, but Doomsday's a hell of a card and could give you some very powerful options.

[desolutionist]

I've 3-1ed the Vintage Daily, twice.  My current list isn't far from the original, but I've cut the Sign in Bloods and decided to just stick with the Night's Whispers.  I'm also having a love affair with my anti-shop sideboard that packs 5 Mountains and 4 Shattering Sprees.  One card I fear more than anything else is Mystic Remora.  I'm weighing my options now and if anyone has had any success beating this card with Long, please share what has worked for you!

Things that come to mind are:

Dark Confidant
Dwarven Miner
Pack Rat
Vexing Shusher
Gorilla Shaman
Mental Misstep
Red Elemental Blast/Pyroblast
Defense Grid

Back when I was playing East Coast Wins, arch-enemy Joe Brown was playing Mystic Remoras.  I started playing Mental Misstep to counter them, but now that the Remora opponent is also packing their own Mental Missteps, it seems to me that a 2-mana creature would be the best solution to Remora.  I like Pack Rat because its hard to deal with and can overrun the opponent if they continue to pay for Mystic Remora.  Dark Confidant can't really change my storm gameplan at all so I'll eventually have to run into Remora or start discarding.

[Smmenen]

Dark Confidant seems * so good * in this type of deck.  I'm amazed you aren't running it. 

[Twiedel]

Hey there,

Good to read something on rituals again, and I like the list, apart from some things I wanted to point out:

Anything less than a full set of Ingot Chewers and -at least - two Hurkyl's seems just wrong to me. It costs you near to nothing to run these cards, as your matchups against Control can't be shifted as easily by the same ammount of sideboard cards. So for me, it would be +2 Hurkyl's +1 Ingot in a split second. I'll try your heavy Shattering Spree approach, but as for the first list, I don't think it could get there consistently.

Apart from that I can't really see the benefit of additional (worse) Night's Whispers in the Sideboard. As Smmenen pointed out, these slots could easily be Dark Confidants. There is just one reason to pass up on these: You are right now completely immune to creature removal (and, in a way, permanent removal) and in some Matchups you'd want to keep it that way. But against some matchups like a Storm/Combo Mirror or Control decks not sporting much removal or boarding it out, Confidants should be just great as they dodge the best counterspells available against Storm.

A general problem that I can see with this archetype is that not the lack of a draw engine, but the existence of Mental Misstep and Flusterstorm. In my view, Workshops is a matchup that you can win if you really want, but the blue decks, and even the creature decks, have disruption that is just the most efficient ever printed, and it hits a Storm deck where it hurts. So I think there is no way to go down with your protection, if anything I would up it a bit, maybe going with 3 Duress, 3 Thoughtseize, 2 Cabal Therapy (which is really great with Confidants).

Also, I feel like a singleton Toxic Deluge is just exactly what this deck wants to clear the path of disruptive creatures for a game winning turn, whenever they show up. For sure not a wasted sideboard slot.

I also completely agree with less win conditions (especially in the board) and the addition of Mystical Tutor. It is instant speed and can tutor up silver bullets (Toxic Deluge, Hurkyl's) or just the win when you see an opening.

Really looking forward to testing this, Storm is looking quite intriguing as all decks started (once again) to slow down and fight over creatures and planeswalkers. The key question will be if Flusterstorm and Misstep can be answered by more real draw spells, as it seems that cantrips are not enough lately.

Greetings,
Marc

P.S.: Who is running Mystic Remora right now?! Surely, that card is near impossible to beat for you, but you can't really run it maindeck against... first turn Deathrite, second turn Confidant. In my view, the metagame is the worst it has ever been for Remora.

[Hrishi]

Certain Gush Storm decks have been running Remora. I'm not able to find it, but there's a list that won an event recently in Europe that did.

EDIT: Never mind, I'm an idiot. http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=46522.0

[emidln]

Night's Whisper is a tradeoff against Dark Confidant.

A few things about it:

If someone Flusterstroms a Night's Whisper, you are ecstatic. This is roughly equivalent to them Flusterstorming a Preordain in other decks. You can now resolve a bomb.

Dark Confidant has to stick around a long time to draw the same number of cards as Night's Whisper. The lifeloss matters after a couple attacks (meaning you usually need no storm generator at all, just to find a Tendrils), but in the meantime, your opponent is doing things and this deck has no defensive countermagic to stop Oath, vaultkey, Jace, or another Will deck from executing.

Being a creature is particularly worrisome in vintage right now. As a ritual deck, getting your draw engine dealt with via Abrupt Decay/Lightning Bolt is really bad.

Edit: thanks Steve!

[emidln]

Night's Whisper is a tradeoff against Dark Confidant.

A few things about it:

If someone Flusterstroms a Night's Whisper, you are ecstatic. This is roughly equivalent to them Flusterstorming a Preordain in other decks. You can now resolve a bomb.

Dark Confidant has to stick around a long time to draw the same number of cards as Dark Confidant. The lifeloss matters after a couple attacks (meaning you usually need no storm generator at all, just to find a Tendrils), but in the meantime, your opponent is doing things and this deck has no defensive countermagic to stop Oath, vaultkey, Jace, or another Will deck from executing.

Being a creature is particularly worrisome in vintage right now. As a ritual deck, getting your draw engine dealt with via Abrupt Decay/Lightning Bolt is really bad.

I'm also pretty sure that H.Recall isn't included because it's insane online right now (north of 60 tix each).

[zeus-online]

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[desolutionist]

The Gush Remora deck is the same deck that The_Atog_Lord is using to dominate MTGO. 

[zeus-online]

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[Samoht]

The Gush Remora deck is the same deck that The_Atog_Lord is using to dominate MTGO. 

Used*

He's been playing Night's Whisper Control Slaver for the past few days.

[Coopes]

The Gush Remora deck is the same deck that The_Atog_Lord is using to dominate MTGO. 

I wouldn't say it dominated MTGO, nor has any deck besides I guess shops for the first few weeks. But, he was doing well with it, since then he's on NWCS though.

[Smmenen]

Dark Confidant has to stick around a long time to draw the same number of cards as Dark Confidant.

That's definitely true

[zeus-online]

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[Piggyboy1]

what are the sign in bloods in the sideboard for? I look at them and get confused

[desolutionist]

They were for card advantage; drawing more cards than your opponent can trade for.  Dark Confidant is probably better, like Smmenen said.