Main Menu

GBW combo - Pattern-Rector

Started by Tiggupiru, 09-08-2010, 11:58:38 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Tiggupiru

Since there has been some interest of how this deck works (hi mom!), I am going to make some comments about the card choices and the deck as a whole.

First off, the list:

// Lands
    1 [R] Bayou
    1 [R] Savannah
    1 [R] Scrubland
    1 [ZEN] Arid Mesa
    1 [ZEN] Marsh Flats
    1 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
    1 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
    1 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
    1 [ON] Polluted Delta
    1 [ON] Flooded Strand
    1 [ON] Wooded Foothills
    1 [ON] Windswept Heath
    1 [RAV] Overgrown Tomb
    1 [SH] Volrath's Stronghold
    1 [RAV] Temple Garden
    1 [TE] Wasteland
    1 [SHM] Plains
    2 [UG] Swamp
    1 [GP] Godless Shrine
    1 [FUT] Horizon Canopy
    1 [US] Gaea's Cradle
    1 [US] Phyrexian Tower
    1 [IA] Snow-Covered Swamp
    2 [IA] Snow-Covered Forest
    1 [IA] Snow-Covered Plains
    2 [ZEN] Forest
    1 [M10] Sunpetal Grove
    1 [AP] Caves of Koilos
    1 [IA] Brushland
    1 [AP] Llanowar Wastes
    1 [WWK] Stirring Wildwood // ETB tapped, but fixes, and is a solid body that can be Natural Ordered. I think it's good enough, but this can go either way.

// Creatures
    1 [CHK] Sakura-Tribe Elder
    1 [SC] Carrion Feeder
    1 [ROE] Bloodthrone Vampire
    1 [MI] Wall of Roots
    1 [MOR] Reveillark
    1 [FUT] Tarmogoyf // Not critical, but nice offensive/defensive card, probably needed in the aggro metagame.
    1 [UD] Yavimaya Elder
    1 [SHM] Kitchen Finks
    1 [UD] Academy Rector
    1 [ROE] Wall of Omens
    1 [SH] Wall of Blossoms
    1 [FD] Eternal Witness
    1 [10E] Birds of Paradise
    1 [CFX] Noble Hierarch
    1 [IA] Fyndhorn Elves
    1 [FNM] Llanowar Elves
    1 [ON] Nantuko Husk
    1 [US] Phyrexian Ghoul
    1 [M10] Vampire Aristocrat
    1 [ALA] Tidehollow Sculler
    1 [RAV] Dimir House Guard
    1 [DK] Elves of Deep Shadow
    1 [CFX] Knight of the Reliquary
    1 [ZEN] Lotus Cobra
    1 [LRW] Shriekmaw
    1 [ARB] Qasali Pridemage
    1 [WWK] Arbor Elf
    1 [FUT] Fleshwrither // AcademyRectorcycling, I love it.
    1 [CS] Boreal Druid // You need, and want all of these. Even this one. Trust me.
    1 [TSP] Saffi Eriksdotter
    1 [TO] Mesmeric Fiend // Too weak, perhaps? Has a nice synergy, but miserable without outlets.
    1 [CHK] Yosei, the Morning Star
    1 [UL] Karmic Guide
    1 [WWK] Terastodon
    1 [M10] Elvish Visionary // Might be better off as a Sylvan Ranger
    1 [M11] Fauna Shaman // MVP, quite the powerhouse in this deck.
    1 [M11] Viscera Seer
    1 [DIS] Protean Hulk
    1 [M11] Obstinate Baloth // Metagame call, not needed in heavy control/combo environment.

// Spells
    1 [ROE] Eldrazi Conscription
    1 [VI] Natural Order
    1 [IA] Swords to Plowshares
    1 [LRW] Thoughtseize
    1 [M10] Duress
    1 [UD] Pattern of Rebirth
    1 [PS] Eladamri's Call
    1 [EX] Recurring Nightmare
    1 [MOR] Idyllic Tutor
    1 [R] Demonic Tutor
    1 [ARB] Maelstrom Pulse
    1 [AP] Vindicate
    1 [TE] Living Death
    1 [PS] Diabolic Intent
    1 [PT] Sylvan Tutor
    1 [MI] Worldly Tutor
    1 [UD] Yawgmoth's Bargain
    1 [FD] Night's Whisper
    1 [ZEN] Grim Discovery
    1 [LRW] Primal Command
    1 [OD] Tainted Pact
    1 [ROE] Inquisition of Kozilek // Very good discard that I originally was unsure of. Now I think it's almost as good as Duress in this format.
    1 [UL] Crop Rotation
    1 [AP] Phyrexian Arena // A metagame call, can be Loxodon Hierarch or something if you expect lot of aggro.
    1 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
    1 [JU] Cabal Therapy // you have so many discard spells that this can reliably get two cards. Sometimes just gaining information is good enough. Shame that Peek is a blue card.
    1 [RAV] Chord of Calling // I had this couple of times in my hand, but I never had enough creatures or mana to make it work properly. I still think this needs to stay in the deck. Just always mulligan it away.


This is not far from the list I played at Tampere, but there are some inclusions from m11, and with the unbanning of the Hulk, you can go combo off.

The combo might not be obvious just by looking at the list. It basically goes like this:

1)Get Hulk into play with an sacrifice outlet
2)Sacrifice it, and fetch karmic Guide (targeting Hulk) and one mana sacrifice outlet (just to be sure)
3)Sacrifice Hulk, fetch Saffi Eriksdottir, Tidehollow Sculler, and Mesmeric Fiend
4)Sacrifice the Sculler/Fiend duo while their abilities are on the stack so they remove the cards permanently (this step makes sure you don't need to play around anything)
5)Sacrifice Saffi with her own ability, targetting the Karmic Guide and then sacrifice the Guide, which reanimates Hulk
6)Sacrifice Hulk, and get Reveillark
7)Sacrifice Guide and then Reveillark to reanimate Saffi and Guide (targetting Reveillark)
8)Sacrifice Saffi with her own ability, targetting the Karmic Guide and then sacrifice the Guide, which reanimates the creature whose ETB-ability you want to abuse

Rince and repeat.

With the current creatures in the deck, you are able to gain infinite life (Kitchen Finks, Obstinate Baloth), infinite power and toughness (Nantuko Husk, Carrion Feeder), infinite green mana (Wall of Roots), infinite card draw (Wall of Blossoms), infinite lockdown (Yosei), infinite hand disruption (Tidehollow Sculler), and infinite permanent destruction (Terastodon, Shriekmaw).

Even though you can't usually win on the same turn, the game should be unloseable at this point.

Additional targets for Pattern, Rector and Natural Order are:

- Terastodon (I hate Progenitus with passion as I am always unable to cast him, and all he does is bring a hard to deal clock, which is pretty miserable against decks with wraths, moats, edicts and/or combo kill. Naturally there are a number situations where The Don is just worse than Progenitus, but unless your metagame is really bizarre, stick with this)
- Eldrazi Conscription (Sometimes, you have like Phyrexian Tower as your only means to sacrifice a creature, or you have critical combo piece stuck in your hand. This is for those situations, just fetch and bash)
- Yawgmoth's Bargain (Against control. I am still unsure of this being corret card choice for the matchup, but if you are not able to combo off, or don't want to go off against untapped mana or something, this should bring the card advantage you need to close the deal.)

The decklist feels rather solid, there are several cards you can change depending of the expected decks. At the nationals, I expected more of midrange and control decks and thus this list is light on anti-aggro. I was really glad to see the meta filled with aggro as this is not very common thing in Finland, despite the fact my deck was not geared towards dealing with decks like Naya.

I had couple of good things going for me though: combo is traditionally good against field of aggro, and most game ones saw me combo off before opponent even realized they were in a short clock. This obviously gave me unbelievable advantages as I lost the second game every time I was playing against fast aggro, with the exception of monored burn, which still gave me hard time on the second game, but I managed to Natural Order Obstinate Baloth in the nick of time.

Landbase is far from perfect. Many losses I had were caused by not being able to find green mana, or that at least decimated the rest of my chances to mount a comeback after an aggressive start from the opposition. I am unsure which direction to take the lands, or should I add nonland cards to combat the mana screw (e.g. Sylvan Ranger could be decent here). Needs more testing. There are good number of nonbasics as your mana dorks are able to get you out of the blood moon/back to basics range before it can be played, and sometimes you even have the luxury of fetching nothing but basics. You could probably squeeze one or two more of those though.

Not playing Gifts Ungiven is probably just plain wrong. I am going to try cutting a forest and adding Tropical Island to enable this splash.

If you have questions, comments, and/or criticism, don't be afraid to post them.

Pennywise

What about playing Crypt Champion and some of the "Project X"-Stuff to have some more/other Combo-Options?

Tiggupiru

Quote from: Pennywise on 10-08-2010, 11:08:21 AM
What about playing Crypt Champion and some of the "Project X"-Stuff to have some more/other Combo-Options?

I forgot to explain about the version pyyhttu played before I settled back to the original list. That deck basically tried to maximize comboing off with cards like Body Snatcher and the like, which I hated to draw. Stretching this deck to another combo with cards you really don't want to draw, is something I'd like to avoid doing. I am not saying it's bad by default as it can help you combo off, but at the same time I enjoy the ability to bring solid beats against combo/control while working on the kill.

I would consider additional combos to add if they have good synergy with the deck (most Project X cards do), the pieces are not horrible without synergy (like Soul Warden and it's kin are), and the added combo direction bypasses graveyard hate (and this is where the P-X lacks big time) as this deck is already very weak against GY hate.

Tabris

Hey Tiggu, I would like to post your list (maybe with some updates (Kokusho, Angel of Despair instead of Terastodon and Yawgmoths Bargain)on the Highlander blog, since its kinda our Portal for the community. I would explain in short how the deck works and ofc with many colored pictures :D if that works with you.

Georg B

Can you say some words to tainted Pact?
I never wanted to play it in combodecks like this one since you are often forced to take a combopart whitch needs to bein your library, just not to ruin your gameplan totally.

Tiggupiru

Quote from: Georg B on 17-08-2010, 06:06:55 PM
Can you say some words to tainted Pact?
I never wanted to play it in combodecks like this one since you are often forced to take a combopart whitch needs to bein your library, just not to ruin your gameplan totally.

You play it a little differently here. The combo in the deck is not needed always, so in a situation where you flip Karmic Guide or something over, you need to figure out if you need that game plan in this game. You are more than happy to grab an Eldamri's Call or Primal Command with this, or often enough, you just take the first land you find. The card does have potential to screw things up, and it's not the most powerful of cards. In fact, I've replaced this with the Gifts Ungiven. It's not a horrible card, but one of the weakest in the deck.

Quote from: Tabris on 17-08-2010, 01:53:06 PM
Hey Tiggu, I would like to post your list (maybe with some updates (Kokusho, Angel of Despair instead of Terastodon and Yawgmoths Bargain)on the Highlander blog, since its kinda our Portal for the community. I would explain in short how the deck works and ofc with many colored pictures :D if that works with you.

Sure. I can also write a little more detailed guide to play the deck, and translate report of the event I've written in Finnish, if that helps.

P.S. I would not add Kokusho or Angel of Despair in the deck. The Terastodon is fetchable via Natural Order, and the fatty in this slot should be accessible with the Order, as well as with the Pattern. I've begun to think that Bargain is also the best anti-control weapon as the others are either not castable, or unable to provide immediate advantage in case opponent has enchantment removal.

Kokusho is not as good as Yosei, and I would have cut Yosei a long time ago if it weren't for that Recurring Nightmare lock. Angel of Despair is a decent beater, but if you spend two cards (Pattern/order and a creature), and 5+ mana, you really want to find something better than a decent beater. You rarely want the game to go on until you can cast seven mana spells, so it's not very good when cast with mana either.

Tabris

Nevermind the Angel...I absolutly forgot about six mana cost -_-"

but Kokusho kills immediately with the combo going on. I´am very impressed by the deck and I play it often just for the combo going but as you mentioned sometimes you have to go on a aggro-midrange plan.

It would help a lot if you could write some explanations for the blog since its your deck ;)

Tiggupiru

Quote from: Tabris on 18-08-2010, 02:21:25 AMKokusho kills immediately with the combo going on.

While this is true, there is pretty much not a single situation where killing them immediately is relevant. You leave them with no cards in hand, no permanents in play, you with infinite life, and you can attack for infinite damage the next turn (or on the same turn, if you have a sacrifice outlet without summoning sickness, apart from Viscera Seer).

Quote from: Tabris on 18-08-2010, 02:21:25 AMIt would help a lot if you could write some explanations for the blog since its your deck ;)

I send it to you via PM today. I'll combine the stuff I've written in this thread with the new material, so you can pretty much copy-paste it to the blog, with you own points if you have something to add.

Tabris

great. looking forward to hearing from you (hihi IT Crowd scene :D )

Tabris

there you go, I posted your original list, since its your deck I dont want to add my changes.

http://blog.magicplayer.org/2010/08/19/gwb-pattern-rector/

Tiggupiru


Dreamer

Congrats to Janne for the finish, awesome stuff. (Why did you opt for Turboland for the Ropecon tournament, btw?)

I've been playing a similar deck since Janne placed with it at Tampere with the Hulk-less version, and it's proven to be the perfect panacea for my slight disenchantment with the format. It's just nice to play modular combo. Everything synergizes with everything, so switching gears is quite painless. And then there's the combo. Just lovely.

Here's the list I've been playing so far.
It's definitely suboptimal, and has not been modified since Ropecon. The build is overall a bit slower and more controllish (more removal and draw, less manadorks) than Janne's, and budget constraints definitely rear their ugly head with the loss of Goyf and some expensive lands.

Experiences on some current cards so far:
Inquisition of Kozilek: Gold. Every bit as good as Janne says it is.
Progenitus/Terastodon: Primarily an issue of taste for me at least.
Mesmeric Fiend: I'd keep it, every bit of targeted discard helps.
Sylvan Ranger: Very good. Fixes mana and keeps it Moon-proof.

Also, planned diff from the old list:

Cut: Terramorphic Expanse, Evolving Wilds, Murmuring Bosk, Phyrexian Rager, Harmonize, Mortify, Ranger of Eos
Add: Brushland, Llanowar Wastes, Horizon Canopy, Phyrexian Arena, Gifts Ungiven, Eldrazi Conscription, Viscera Seer

I'll also be testing out Terastodon with the new build to see if it feels better in it, and would like to add Top to it, but not sure on what to cut. Bojuka Bog?

Tiggupiru

Quote from: Dreamer on 21-08-2010, 04:43:27 AM
Congrats to Janne for the finish, awesome stuff. (Why did you opt for Turboland for the Ropecon tournament, btw?)

Thanks. In the Ropecon there are never very good prizes (I mean, it's basically a free tournament, not much they can do about it), so I decided to play fun, casualish deck. Like pyyhttu, who played a sweet, sweet Food Chain deck. :)

Quote from: Dreamer on 21-08-2010, 04:43:27 AMMesmeric Fiend: I'd keep it, every bit of targeted discard helps.
Sylvan Ranger: Very good. Fixes mana and keeps it Moon-proof.

What comes to Mesmeric Fiend, I agree. You need this even though it's not the most exciting card. Sylvan Ranger I have to test, but it looks decent on paper.

Quote from: Dreamer on 21-08-2010, 04:43:27 AMWould like to add Top to it, but not sure on what to cut. Bojuka Bog?

I doubt I'd ever consider another ETB tapped land to be added besides Stirring Wildwood, so I would cut Bog. I don't like Path to Exile either, it's a decent piece of removal, but you never want to cast it early anyway. Rampart Growthing an opponent is rarely a good idea for the first four turns or so. I cut it immediatly after Tampere, and never looked back.

Mythrandir

QuoteI doubt I'd ever consider another ETB tapped land to be added besides Stirring Wildwood, so I would cut Bog. I don't like Path to Exile either, it's a decent piece of removal, but you never want to cast it early anyway. Rampart Growthing an opponent is rarely a good idea for the first four turns or so. I cut it immediatly after Tampere, and never looked back.

Bog would depend a bit on the meta i'd expect. i think it's a solid card. As for PtE i completely share your opinion, it's a very good removal card but you rarely want to play it on early turns.

Tiggupiru

Quote from: Mythrandir on 22-08-2010, 02:36:52 PM
QuoteI doubt I'd ever consider another ETB tapped land to be added besides Stirring Wildwood, so I would cut Bog. I don't like Path to Exile either, it's a decent piece of removal, but you never want to cast it early anyway. Rampart Growthing an opponent is rarely a good idea for the first four turns or so. I cut it immediatly after Tampere, and never looked back.

Bog would depend a bit on the meta i'd expect. i think it's a solid card. As for PtE i completely share your opinion, it's a very good removal card but you rarely want to play it on early turns.

Bog is a decent, but this deck is so mana hungry in the first four turns that having a land you control come into play tapped is way too much. PtE is good in White aggros, but unless you need removal really desperately in your combo/control, you really shouldn't play it.