Does Treasure Cruise/Dig Through Time Have A Place In Combo?

[Meddling Mike]

Khans of Tarkir has given Vintage some powerful new cards with Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time. It seems that nearly every deck that can support the mana cost has opted to include one or both of these cards in their builds. As a result Treasure Cruise has already found itself on the Vintage restricted list while Gifts Ungiven is back in play. I think it's interesting that seemingly nobody has discussed whether or not these cards have any place in Storm combo. Combo likes to draw cards. Combo likes card selection and has a high density of powerful cards to find. Combo should be able to fill up a graveyard relatively quickly to feed the delve costs on these cards. I have a few thoughts on the matter.

Combo is in sort of an awkward spot in that it relies heavily on it's graveyard recursion, possibly more so than any other deck in the format. Other decks have a good amount of chaff that they can feed to their delve cards. Fetch lands, counters, cheap cantrips, serum powders, etc. Combo has some of these things, but in the early game it's going to be hard to pay the delve cost without significantly neutering your Yawgmoth's Will by removing the powerful spells you need. I think because of this we'd be looking for things that fit what the deck is trying to do, but doesn't necessarily stifle a Yawgmoth's Will if it's not there. Creating a mana base with more fetchlands than usual seems like an easy one. Many combo lists already run Gitaxian Probe. Although it's not as versatile as Gitaxian Probe (can be cast for , adds to storm, gives information about opponent's hand) Street Wraith performs a similar function with the upside of being uncounterable and ignoring Sphere/Chalice.

This adds a new problem of what can be cut to accommodate these new cards. Storm lists are already so tight that freeing up slots for Wraith, Cruise and DTT might not be practical. For the sake of the exercise, let's take a look at Jesse Martin's most recent combo list on Morphling.de from November:

1 Black Lotus
1 Chrome Mox
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Duress
1 Grim Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Necropotence
2 Tendrils of Agony
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Chain of Vapor
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Mind's Desire
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Tinker
1 Windfall
1 Wheel of Fortune


Lands (12):
1 Badlands
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Tolarian Academy
3 Underground Sea

SB:
4 Defense Grid
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Leyline of the Void
1 Plague Spitter
1 Rebuild
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Swamp
1 Thoughtseize
2 Tormod's Crypt

There isn't much fat to trim on this list. Every cut we make costs us something. Preordain seems like the 60th card. Ponder isn't a substantial improvement on that. Cabal Ritual seems bad if we're adding cards that will take us off threshold as part of their cost. We could cut Duress, but that takes away one of the strongest set ups for a turn 2 kill. Maybe one of the bounce spells and go down to one copy of Tendrils? Maybe Tinker->Inkwell could be a consideration, we're not even running jar with it, but that cuts off a strong path to victory against most aggro decks. Perhaps some of the weaker tutors like Imperial Seal or Grim Tutor could be cuttable? Dig Through Time digs deep enough that it may function like a tutor does as well as providing card advantage, which neither of these cards do on their own. It's sort of a one in hand or two in the bush comparison. Are we just swapping out cards of a similar power level and making more work for ourselves with the added setup?

The other concern that I have is with the mana cost on Dig Through Time. Even with the full delve cost paid for the spell still requires  to do it's thing. Because the deck has Dark Ritual/Cabal Ritual it's typically better at fulfilling casting costs that require  . The only  spells in the deck are Mind's Desire, a 6 cc finisher, and Inkwell Leviathan, which isn't typically cast for it's actual casting cost. How big of a problem will it be for the mana base to support Dig Through Time?

If we're not going whole hog is there a lesser inclusion we could make of some of these cards? How about just swapping out a Preordain for Treasure Cruise? If it's the only delve card in the deck the burden to fill the graveyard quickly is lessened. Preordain seems better on turn 1, but I would think that Treasure Cruise would be a significant improvement beyond that. It gives some nice options to get the effect of Ancestral Recall without opening yourself up to Mental Misstep or Misdirection. Similarly, would Dig Through Time have any merit as a one-of to tutor for?

I'm interested in hearing what you guys think about this and working with you on it.

[The Atog Lord]

I think that this could be a viable deck going forward. While it didn't make much of a splash in New England, Ritual Gifts was a deck that had some success.

One new card that seems very interesting is Past in Flames. it costs one more to flashback than Recoup. However, it turns on the entire graveyard, meaning it can be used like an extra Yawgmoth's Will with Flashback. So, getting that card into a Gifts pile probably increases the overall power of that Gifts pile.

That said, I think that a deck like this would be trading speed for resiliency. I suspect that some or most of the draw-7s in Ritual Storm would have to be cut to make room for this new engine, as well as some of the fast mana -- e.g. Chrome Mox. Storm has always existed along a continuum of speed and consistency. I think that Gifts would provide an option that allows trading some speed for consistency. Compared to Windfall, for example, Gifts is more expensive and less good on the first turn. But it is more deterministic and becomes better as the game progresses, rather than worse.

[enderfall]

If we're using Past in Flames in Gifts piles, doesn't LED make a lot of sense, too?

[Hrishi]

I think so. The pile of Will, Recoup, Lotus, LED was a great tool from what I understand. I've been working on a Ritual Gifts list myself, although I don't think it's anywhere close to ready.

Point of inquiry, if we're using Gifts and trading our speed for more consistency, wouldn't running FoWs be prudent? I've always been a fan of running them for our shop matchup, even though they do slow the deck down.

[WhiteLotus]

Dig through time and tcruise aren't very well suited for ritual decks, I tried them and most of the time they were either dead cards or win more. Tcruise has applications in particularly grindy blue matchups when you are in tdeck war; Dig would be great if it didnt cost UU since getting to two blue mana to resolve a tutor isn't really what the deck was designed for (as mentioned in the op the only blue card with uu in it's cost that sees consistent play in ritual decks is mind's desire). The delve part was never the hardpart however, since ritual decks tend to generate a lot of cards in their grave quickly. If they had printed a delve card that was a copy of a draw7s or a ritual bomb instead there would be no doubt they would be very good for the ritual pillar, but the role Cruise and Dig fill just isn't efficient enough compared to the ressources they ask you to pour into them for a ritual deck.

I used to play Gifts in Long variants too but it was just too slow and somehow out of place. Ad nauseam should probably be included before Gifts there.

But I think In a tps shell with more control elements and more lands, gifts would be the perfect enabler since draw7s and co are way too unreliable for it.

If you are using Past in flames how does Led make a lot of sense? you can't replay it after. Past in flames has some undeniably strong applications with gifts but not being able to replay the lotus, led and petal are really severe drawbacks much more so than the mana cost.
Is adding a third color really what we want? could be, Red also gives us acess to Burning Wish (more gifts synergy) and wheel of fortune or even sideboard cards like Ingot Chewer and Reb/Pyro.

Gush Storm also makes a really good use of gifts (probably the best imo). Since it naturally runs regrowth and all it wants to do is find fastbond or setup a lethal Ywill and can much easier accommodate Mana drain. (Ritualling into Gifts isn't that good)

Idk who made the list in the op, it looks solid but it seems like it has a few subpar cards maindeck (Inkwell, Time Walk, 2nd tendrils and chrome mox). The sideboard doesn't seem consistent with the metagame realities rituals decks have to contend with as I've come to understand them. No way that list is beating shops consistently post board (Ie win g2 on the play and g3 on the draw) and since it's very likely to loose game ones, it seems poorly positionned in that matchup which you should be gunning at with your sideboard since it's theoretically your worse matchup.
On the other hand it packs hate for dredge which it's supposed to ignore and race with and still be one of it's more favored matchups. Dredge doesn't even see that much play, seems pretty overkill.
I like the plague spitter tech though, gotta be nice vs thalia decks.

For reference, here is my most recent list:

3 Polluted Delta
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Badlands
1 Volcanic Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
1 Island
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Black Lotus
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
2 Mox Opal
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
4 Dark Ritual
4 Duress
2 Defense Grid
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Repeal
1 Hurkyl's Recall
4 Burning Wish
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
2 Gitaxian Probe
2 Preordain
1 Ponder
1 Brainstorm
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Windfall
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Memory Jar
1 Tinker
1 Timetwister
1 Tendrils of Agony

Sideboard
1 Island
1 Mountain
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Ingot Chewer
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Rebuild
2 Defense Grid
1 Shattering Spree
1 Pyroclasm
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Mind's Desire

EDIT I think Gifts definitely has some very strong potential in a ritual shell. I've started to test a Grixs (UBR) list with burning wish and gifts, higher land count and countermagic as disruption as well as the usual combo enablers. Even without brainstorm the deck has pretty consistent draws due to a fair amount of manipulation and a high threat density.
At first I had a lot of trouble to get the deck to 60 cards because i wanted to have 4th gifts, 4th wish, 3rd probe, 2nd preordain, 4th ritual, scroll, blightsteel, snapcaster, time walk and 3rd misstep. but I opted to instead focuss the deck around tendrils and abandon the bot kill which allowed me to cut Timewalk since It's not an optimal slot for a tendrils deck imo, Snapcaster isn't needed to make lethal gifts piles with tendrils.

3 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
3 Dark Ritual
1 Cabal Ritual
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
2 Gitaxian Probe
3 Burning Wish
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Mental Misstep
2 Flusterstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Ancestral Recall
3 Gifts Ungiven
1 Tinker
1 Memory Jar
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Tendrils of Agony

SB: 1 Island
SB: 1 Mountain
SB: 2 Ingot Chewer
SB: 2 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 1 Rebuild
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 2 Mental Misstep
SB: 1 Shattering Spree
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
SB: 1 Yawgmoth's Will
SB: 1 Mind's Desire
SB: 1 Tendrils of Agony

Probably needs a lot of work but I feel like it's very powerful as well as resilient and is a strong base to build upon with further testing.

[EnialisLiadon]

I really like a singleton Treasure Cruise in Doomsday--though my current list has dropped it for the 2nd Hurkyl's Recall.

[desolutionist]

A lot of times the graveyard route becomes unavailable so it helps to have a lot of "bomb" kind draw in your deck to allow Gifts to still be an enabler.  I can see Treasure Cruise and Dig filling that role.

[WhiteLotus]

A lot of times the graveyard route becomes unavailable so it helps to have a lot of "bomb" kind draw in your deck to allow Gifts to still be an enabler.  I can see Treasure Cruise and Dig filling that role.

I totally agree with you, If you storm deck can't win consistently without Yawgmoth's will it's super fragile. That's why i initially included Dig through time, to be a viable alternative in case of cards like nihil spellbomb and open lines like in their eot Dig to bait, untap, bomb mainphase and win. But the UU part really hurt, even though the card was extemely potent 9digging 7 cards deep in a deck full of super powerful cards and low land count can rarely go wrong).
I also tested Treasure cruise, but it was usually win more or a dead card clogging my hand a lot of the time in the maindeck and not really something you want to wish for. Even though it did lead to some very interesting games vs blue decks.

The fact that I Moved Mind's desire to the sideboard recognizes that Ywill will not always be an option. Wishing for desire may seem ultra inefficient to some, but it makes desire a lot better. First of all Mind's desire is rarely a card that you draw naturally with the right setup and often times you have the perfect hand for it but its nowhere to be seen, this way mind's desire is very consistent and often the best card to tutor for in the midgame it also requires only mana and 2 storm prior to wish for it to work where Ywill wants you to have a combination of ritual/lotus/led and another tutor to find tendrils. Getting stuck with one Burning wish is a real thing and this is where Mind's desire Shines. It's also an extremely consistent play since finding tendrils is so easy in burning wish shells.

The gifts list can also do the same thing easily and use Gifts to either setup mind's desire or make a value pile with Necro and co. In case the grave is being hated on.
Short of that you always have hurkyl's recall, chain of vapor or burning wish for shattering spree if ywill is your only out.
It's also one of the reasons I maxed out on missteps in the sideboard since cage, relic and nihil spellbomb are 1 cmc. People can bring in leylines if they want but in the end they will be hurting themselves worse than you. Tormod's crypt is good but as I said above you can easily play around it. Ravenous trap seems very scary especially with only 2 probes for info, this one could be a very real blowout for any gifts deck imo.

But in my experience I've rarely lost to grave hate, Dark ritual decks aren't Gush storm they are far from all in on Will. Cards like Necropotence or Draw7s can easily lead to turn 1/2 free wins.

[Machinus]

let's take a look at Jesse Martin's most recent combo list on Morphling.de from November:

1 Black Lotus
1 Chrome Mox
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Cabal Ritual
4 Dark Ritual
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Duress
1 Grim Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Necropotence
2 Tendrils of Agony
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Chain of Vapor
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Mind's Desire
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Tinker
1 Windfall
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Badlands
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Polluted Delta
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Tolarian Academy
3 Underground Sea

SB:
4 Defense Grid
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Leyline of the Void
1 Plague Spitter
1 Rebuild
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Swamp
1 Thoughtseize
2 Tormod's Crypt

This decklist appers to be missing a Memory Jar or Lion's Eye Diamond. Can anyone confirm the 60th card?

[TheBrassMan]

To expand on the topic, I recently played a TPS list with 1x Dig, 1x Cruise in a two Vintage mtgo dailies, to a 3-1 and 4-0 finish.

List is top list here: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/vintage-daily-2015-03-16

It was by no means archetype-defining, but I was happy with it, and as a pair they won more than one game (but of course this is TPS, it's hard to say if some other bomb wouldn't have won instead). I am considering testing a variant that runs more digs, and more cantrips to support them. Incidentally I tried a version with Gifts in the earlier events and went 2-2, finding myself unsatisfied with the card. Admittedly small sample size, but Gifts in general is on the back burner for me at the moment.

[Hrishi]

I have been testing the same thing. I am testing a variant that runs 4 Preordain and 2 Digs. I've found Dig to just be so good in the deck because it is able to turn the graveyard into a resource in the face of cards like Cage. Interested to see where you end up!

[desolutionist]

Andy what if you were to try something really aggressive at delving w/ Mental Note/Thoughtscour

[TheBrassMan]

I'm not totally opposed to the idea of mental notes, but right now I'm not even on 4 preordain - I would want to try preordain#4 and GitProbe #1-#4 before worrying about Mental Note. My understanding is that people have been running fewer cantrips than that and haven't really had a problem with 4 Dig.

There are other, more combo-friendly enablers, like Wheel of Fortune, or the hilarious Brain Freeze (how's that for anti-mentor technology), that I'd consider trying as well. If TPS continues to be strong for me, I'll likely try a few of these things out.

[Islandswamp]

Dig through time and tcruise aren't very well suited for ritual decks, I tried them and most of the time they were either dead cards or win more. Tcruise has applications in particularly grindy blue matchups when you are in tdeck war; Dig would be great if it didnt cost UU since getting to two blue mana to resolve a tutor isn't really what the deck was designed for (as mentioned in the op the only blue card with uu in it's cost that sees consistent play in ritual decks is mind's desire). The delve part was never the hardpart however, since ritual decks tend to generate a lot of cards in their grave quickly. If they had printed a delve card that was a copy of a draw7s or a ritual bomb instead there would be no doubt they would be very good for the ritual pillar, but the role Cruise and Dig fill just isn't efficient enough compared to the ressources they ask you to pour into them for a ritual deck.

I used to play Gifts in Long variants too but it was just too slow and somehow out of place. Ad nauseam should probably be included before Gifts there.

 I am still quite new to this, so perhaps my opinion doesn't carry much weight, but I agree with you. I play MTGO, I sold off some unused cards and bought power and two storm deck shells, gush based one, and a TPS deck. The TPS deck had Dig and Cruise in it, and I never felt like I wanted to be casting them. I feel like it goes against the plan of using Yawgmoth's Will. The times I tried to cast the cards, I had to try and decide what cards I could afford to delve away. I don't want to delve away Lotus, Petals, or even rituals. Fetch lands are fine to delve away, but many cards are important in the graveyard.

I played Legacy with U/R Delver, and when you can just mindlessly eat your graveyard because it yields no other value to you, then Treasure Cruise is an insane card. If not, then not so much. I even ran into issues with card types, delve, and Tarmogoyf in other decks.

Like I said, I'm new, so seeing someone else with experience who has a similar opinion is very reassuring.

But I think In a tps shell with more control elements and more lands, gifts would be the perfect enabler since draw7s and co are way too unreliable for it.

If you are using Past in flames how does Led make a lot of sense? you can't replay it after. Past in flames has some undeniably strong applications with gifts but not being able to replay the lotus, led and petal are really severe drawbacks much more so than the mana cost.
Is adding a third color really what we want? could be, Red also gives us acess to Burning Wish (more gifts synergy) and wheel of fortune or even sideboard cards like Ingot Chewer and Reb/Pyro.

Gush Storm also makes a really good use of gifts (probably the best imo). Since it naturally runs regrowth and all it wants to do is find fastbond or setup a lethal Ywill and can much easier accommodate Mana drain. (Ritualling into Gifts isn't that good)

Idk who made the list in the op, it looks solid but it seems like it has a few subpar cards maindeck (Inkwell, Time Walk, 2nd tendrils and chrome mox). The sideboard doesn't seem consistent with the metagame realities rituals decks have to contend with as I've come to understand them. No way that list is beating shops consistently post board (Ie win g2 on the play and g3 on the draw) and since it's very likely to loose game ones, it seems poorly positionned in that matchup which you should be gunning at with your sideboard since it's theoretically your worse matchup.
On the other hand it packs hate for dredge which it's supposed to ignore and race with and still be one of it's more favored matchups. Dredge doesn't even see that much play, seems pretty overkill.
I like the plague spitter tech though, gotta be nice vs thalia decks.

For reference, here is my most recent list:

3 Polluted Delta
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Badlands
1 Volcanic Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
1 Island
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Black Lotus
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
2 Mox Opal
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
4 Dark Ritual
4 Duress
2 Defense Grid
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Repeal
1 Hurkyl's Recall
4 Burning Wish
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
2 Gitaxian Probe
2 Preordain
1 Ponder
1 Brainstorm
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Windfall
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Memory Jar
1 Tinker
1 Timetwister
1 Tendrils of Agony

Sideboard
1 Island
1 Mountain
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Ingot Chewer
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Rebuild
2 Defense Grid
1 Shattering Spree
1 Pyroclasm
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Mind's Desire

EDIT I think Gifts definitely has some very strong potential in a ritual shell. I've started to test a Grixs (UBR) list with burning wish and gifts, higher land count and countermagic as disruption as well as the usual combo enablers. Even without brainstorm the deck has pretty consistent draws due to a fair amount of manipulation and a high threat density.
At first I had a lot of trouble to get the deck to 60 cards because i wanted to have 4th gifts, 4th wish, 3rd probe, 2nd preordain, 4th ritual, scroll, blightsteel, snapcaster, time walk and 3rd misstep. but I opted to instead focuss the deck around tendrils and abandon the bot kill which allowed me to cut Timewalk since It's not an optimal slot for a tendrils deck imo, Snapcaster isn't needed to make lethal gifts piles with tendrils.

3 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
3 Dark Ritual
1 Cabal Ritual
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
2 Gitaxian Probe
3 Burning Wish
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Mental Misstep
2 Flusterstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Ancestral Recall
3 Gifts Ungiven
1 Tinker
1 Memory Jar
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Tendrils of Agony

SB: 1 Island
SB: 1 Mountain
SB: 2 Ingot Chewer
SB: 2 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 1 Rebuild
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 2 Mental Misstep
SB: 1 Shattering Spree
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
SB: 1 Yawgmoth's Will
SB: 1 Mind's Desire
SB: 1 Tendrils of Agony

Probably needs a lot of work but I feel like it's very powerful as well as resilient and is a strong base to build upon with further testing.

[/quote]