Act 1 - Love:
Ok, well this deck started a while back. I kept seeing bobthefunny's thread for Tibor & Lumia spell slinging. It seemed like a cool deck and I quickly became infatuated with it. I ended up getting my own T&L list a bit after. It was pretty cool. I made mine a storm version. It's still linked in bobthefunny's thread [Here] AFAIK and it was a great deal of fun. I'd combo out on like turn 10-11-12-13-14 and realize every time I could have combo'ed out earlier if I wanted, I just didn't trust the deck enough.
I kept the deck for a while, I loved playing it and my GF even got me those cute pink sleeves you can see in the pics :P. I made a deal with her. Ever time I'd play the deck, I was to text her. I was the to text her to tell her our deck won. This went on for months (but I don't play that much, maybe twice a month for this deck). But I won every game with it. The was cool to me and my gf (she doesn't understand the game, but she likes hearing me/seeing me happy. She'd hear me talk hours on end about my games or cool ideas just cause she likes my voice or cause she likes hearing how "into it" it get.
The problem is, people don't like playing against the deck. I've got a reputation for being a crazy deck builder, sloppy player, and winning like 80% of casual games (I'm not even kidding). This is "only natural", I've been playing since Time Spiral, which is longer than more than half the people in my 4 playgroups and I'm the only one who puts so much research into this game. I'm the only one of those 4 play groups that is actually registered on a forum. I also tend to have stronger decks than them and since I don't get to play much I tend to play alone. This I realized was harmful to the power of my deck as it worked like a cold war. I'd make my decks stronger to compete with the strongest decks I played against - Mine. Then we'd have the once a month get together and they'd be like, since last time I got a booster and added the rare to my deck where as I'd have been trying to tune my control decks to be able to beat my Edric deck in a 1 vs 1. Or my Group Hug to be able to take down my Ramping Riku deck (Note, group hug vs ramp good stuff 1 vs 1 is a crazy bad idea, but it is possible).
I also abstain from using infinite comboes/instant win, not cause my group frowns upon them, but because the players who started before me are all into magic as more of a fun game than a competitive thing and of of those after me only one player knows of them, he used one once, in one of his casual decks that he took apart. This kinda gave me a negative view on them. So storm is one of the closest things to it that I can get, and I absolutely love storm. But due to my play group I tend not to be able to win so much with the same deck over and over. I get "Banned" from playing a deck until they forget about it
Not wanting that to happen to T&L I was trying to find a way to make it more fun. I then realized what I could do. I could just not win. I could combo out. Laughing as I do it. Then deck myself in one glorious turn of casting my whole deck. I get to have my fun, comboing out and people get to have their fun playing their own decks. I get moral victory. This is usually followed by people telling me I could have won if I added Laboratory Maniac to my deck. Usually after ignoring the Grapeshot/Ignite Memories that I discarded to my Thirst for Knowledge.
Anyhow, so the deck stayed the same, but I decided to not win with it anymore. I also (didn't realize at the time) stopped playing the deck. Now in May or so I decided I wanted to make a weird kind of storm deck that was made to fizzle. The original idea was Grixis colored and would involve me going off every turn, spell slinging and then fizzling when I'd run out of mana/draw. Then the next turn I'd go even further. So on. The idea of it was stitched on a Post It that is still beside me. I figured I wanted 25 big draw spells (draw 3 or more), 41 sources of mana and 33 awesome spells. Anyways I don't want to ramble about that too, but I had notes/ideas. I also had the same time the idea to make a casual BUG (60/4) deck based on Heartbeat Combo and the old Cadaverous Bloom decks. This quickly got stuck in my mind for EDH. So the Grixis list wanted to be 4 colors. It wanted green. But there are only 3 color generals and I didn't want to go 5 C. I had to cut a color.
Thing is, Green always added more than black, but since I already had a Riku deck, I didn't want to make a second deck with the same colors. This went on for about a month. Then I thought of one thing. My T&L uses mana rocks to help accelerate the early turns, but on the combo turn they only provide mana once. I also equated the mana rocks to bad ramp. So I wondered what if I added green for the ramp. I thought it would make the mana bad and inconsistent but I was willing to try it. The more I thought of it, the more I liked the idea. I also thought of the engines from my Riku deck that could be ported over. I was at work and that was the longest work deck ever. I couldn't wait to go home. I txted my gf to ask her if she minded if I changed Generals for our deck (in my head T&L are a couple like us) she absolutely had no idea what I was talking about and gave me permission.
I got home, and did this:
If you scroll down a bit (Original Post) you'll see what I posted about it back in june.
Anyhow, the deck was great, it worked awesomely and was awfully consistent. It was good. Too good. I kept it in that state for a while, then took it apart for being too good. My play group would never see this monster.
As I was separating the cards I realized I couldn't remake T&L as I already ported over some cards from it to my Nin deck (made it WAY better). Seeing as I couldn't put it back together, I just remade my Timmy Riku deck and using the leftovers and cards I had lying around I remade my Riku storm list, albeit weaker. I had two Riku lists, which annoyed me. But w/e I never played the storm list against others. People would hate it. I did however, test it extensively against my decks. It did great, I got tons of ideas for it, but never added anything as I didn't want to buy anything for a deck that never sees play.
Then Doctor Church happened. He made a thread about wanting to make a cool deck in U/x where x is G or R. I told him about my two storm decks and pointed him to bob's thread. We then PM'ed a bit while he was asking questions about a U/R version he was making and he re-sparked my interest. I took my Bad Riku Storm deck and my Timmy Riku deck and did what I had done around 6 months ago
And so the deck was re-born. I then decided to update this post after a few days and voila!
The deck isn't actually a fun deck. I would say it's powerful, and feels like a normal storm deck. At a table with 3 other people, one person will enjoy it, and whoever has not seen the deck before might be intrigued, but playing against it is only fun for a few select people. Masochists, those who took a bet against them and those who might try to stop you from comboing off for fun. The deck makes me think of a quote from bobtherfunny's T&L thread.
Once you've played it in a meta a few times, people are like "Yeah, yeah, do you win yet?" and I'm forced to answer "I honestly have no idea for sure, but I'm drawing 14 cards and still have 33 mana floating. How do you think it's going to end?"
Although this doesn't apply entirely to this deck, I've never seen it fizzle. It probably can, but never when I've played it. I've tapped out quite a few times for a giant X Genesis Wave/Epic Experiment, but never has that been the end of it.
Going off isn't that tricky. If you don't feel a counter/they are tapped out and you feel like you have enough mana/reducers to go off, then try it! I always underestimate the deck and end up waiting too much to combo out (I combo and realise I have more than enough resources.) You don't even need Riku on the field. He helps but you can cast him mid combo.
Draw effects, draw/discard effects and Scry effects are one and the same to me. You don't need to draw 3 with your Concentrate. You only need to know you are looking 3 deep. Thoughtflare (draw 4 discard 2 IIRC) is a draw 4. CA is the important part. You also end up with quite a few lands in hand, which you might end up playing, but they are also discardable. Scry 4 = draw 4 for this deck. I don't really know how to explain it, but you have so much redundancy your draws are just to look for cards with the best effect. When you can a draw spell you might have 2 other ones in hand and might draw 2 more. A draw 4 discard 2 lets you find/keep better draw spells than a draw 3 would, and the number of cards in your hands is largely irrelecant, you'll never fizzle due to lack of draw spells. It might be possible with mana, but I've not seen it.
Right now, the deck has a win con but it's accidental. Since the deck is so "unfun" to play against, I started doing this "Hey, this deck is crazy. No opponent has ever killed me while I played this deck. You guys would never be able to kill me!" People gun for me. Then I laugh as I combo out and kill myself. However, since you can reuse any spell to infinity, the Prophetic Bolt does serve as a win con. Adding Labratory Maniac/any win con is really easy. Just add any card(s) to the deck that can win the game if you can recur them to infinity with infinite mana. Yeah :/ the wincon can be anything.
Regrowth effects are actually what I've figured out when the commander decks came out and I was tryin to do something with Riku, to me he just screamed Goodstuff x 2 = 2 Goodstuff. This was incredibly boring. The first combo I found with him is that regrowth effects x 2 = card advantage/infinite use when you have more than one. This gives infinite reusability to any card in the deck that doesn't get exiled.
Genesis Wave and Epic Experiment are pretty cool. You have two things to keep in mind. One, with Riku out, you always want to double them and cast them for 2 less. For 15 mana, you Genesis Wave for 10 twice (20) rather than 12 and Epic Experiment for 11 twice (22) rather than 13. Also, you don't want to tap out for them usually. You want to have an out in case you flip nothing good. However, most of the time, you'll flip untap effects and regrowth effects and just laugh as you keep going. Genesis Wave might seem bad with so many non-permanent effects, but it serves as a MASSIVE ramp spell and gives you a few untappers/regrowth effects in form of creatures in addition to cost reducers and mana multipliers. You might also want to keep mana open so you can copy cards with Riku
I don't remember what I was supposed to write about the untapping effects that aren't ETB. I'm guessing I meant the non-permanent based ones. They rock? Double them when you can. Get them back with regrowth effects. Not sure what else I had to say.
Ohh, posting it here reminded me. I meant stuff like Krosan Restorer. The thing with those guys is that if you copy them with Riku you get two. Rite of Replication (Riku'd) gives you 10. If you add Anger to the deck, or make an Agro wincon (my win con was like that in T&L, stuff like Accelerate, Leering Emblem, Runechanter's Pike, Shadow Rift, Seize the Day do work as a win con with Riku and you can you the Haste granting effects on those little ones as card draw+mana. Might not be a bad investment!
Hey guys, this is a place holder. But here is a picture of my work in progress.
Yup, that is my Timmy Riku deck, and Tibor and Lumia Deck, I got the idea at work, came home and took out 100 cards, suffled the rest together, goldfished a win 3 turns earlier than my T&L deck, with my hand and the top 6 cards of my library, unlike my T&L deck that has to go through my whole deck.
The deck is crazy strong and I'm still working on the decklist. It'll be coming up as I figure it out.
I'm adding Heartbeat Combo as I've already got a red/blue version of it (Mana Flare, Turnabout)
I hope you bring this over to my own Riku Primer thread for discussion there too. If this is a new Riku archetype that is as good as you say it is (and I have in fact played T+L storm with Ignite Memories so believe me I know how good it can be, I'd love to see what green has to offer), I'd love to link your eventual list to my Primer if you wouldn't mind.
Thing with genesis wave for like 60% of the deck is I get tons of ramp, lots of cards in my graveyard and stuff like Eternal Witness/Mnemonic Wall/Past in Flames/Recoup and a lot of untapped lands. My untapped lands also get a huge bonus from all the cost reducers I just got and mana doublers. I can also get Loaming Shaman.
I just started playing commander and picked riku...after a few games the folks in my playgroup are threatening me with mass LD. this seems much more resilient to LD than my 2 counters i run. so let me know how it goes! good luck!
I am used to the T&L thing, but with the inclusion of green it seems you can get your momentum going even earlier. I have all sorts of questions for you. Have you thought about including rampant growth effects? In a similar vein, why did sol ring get cut when making it the decklist for riku. Also curious if manamorphose was worth a shot. You seem to have a lot of mid size draw, do you find cards like prophetic bolt make it any harder to go off?
Pardon the noobness, but what is your kill con? DO you go for minds desire + ???
Some other random thoughts. Regrowth and possibly noxious revival seem easier to abuse than Eternal Witness, and your opponents have a harder time using either of them. Noxious revival to set up experiment, or genesis wave actually sounds pretty slick. Mystic tutor would be similar regarding fixing a nice experiment. Last, Wheel of Fortune is pretty darn efficient draw, it might be worth consideration.
I imagine this deck is pretty all in to the combo I am missing, how soon are you able to get it off?
I just started playing commander and picked riku...after a few games the folks in my playgroup are threatening me with mass LD. this seems much more resilient to LD than my 2 counters i run. so let me know how it goes! good luck!
Not at all Land destruction resistant. You need your lands to go off. If you get stone rained on turn 3, unless you ramp (which isn't unlikely) you are still turn 3. This deck like never misses a landrop. When I last updated it, I took out all the silly win cons (I'll explain that in the op after this) and just added filler. But, if you reach turn 6 with 6 or more lands, you can pretty much combo out immediately. So if you fear mass ld on turn like 7-8-9 then yes, you can laugh it off, but the LD itself gives you shivers.
Unless it's wildfire type LD. If everyone is set back a set amount, I'm guessing you pretty much still laugh
I have all sorts of questions for you. Have you thought about including rampant growth effects?
I have more expensive ramp. I could include rampant growth and have considered it, but when I get cost reducers, the 1G becomes GUR (riku copying) and the 3G of Explosive Vegetation also becomes GUR. But it might be good for something to do on turn 2, I'll try it.
In a similar vein, why did sol ring get cut when making it the decklist for riku.
Sol Ring was given to another deck, back when I did the first riku list in June and I do have an extra laying around, but I'm not sure how good it would be in the deck. Sure it's good, but this deck is heavily contrained by the colored mana. It could accelerate me a bit, but I don't know, I guess it could work. Testing is required. I'll make a "cards to test" list.
I'm not a big fan of it, this deck is so bat**** insane, smaller cards like Manamorphse with Riku and cost reducers end up being like a weird ritual. UR(G/R) Add 4 mana to your mana pool and draw 2 cards? And it's not as good as sol ring early on? I'm not sold on it. But I'll explain the going off process in the OP.
You seem to have a lot of mid size draw, do you find cards like prophetic bolt make it any harder to go off?
Not at all, I don't actually care about the draw in this deck as much as how deep the card lets me go. scry = draw essentially. Prophetic bolt is a "Draw 4"
Some other random thoughts. Regrowth and possibly noxious revival seem easier to abuse than Eternal Witness, and your opponents have a harder time using either of them. Noxious revival to set up experiment, or genesis wave actually sounds pretty slick.
True, but eternal witness gives it back to my hand. In the early combo turn sometimes I get down to like 1 mana getting a copied eternal witness giving me frantic search and another regrowth effect in there. (I don't have regrowth yet, but I do have recollect). The problem is putting it on top of my library requires me to draw more cards, which is fine, but unneeded. Eternal witness is expensive for recursion due to the two colored mana, but has the advantage to being able to return stuff froma genesis wave, I gotta address that though, thanks
Mystic tutor would be similar regarding fixing a nice experiment. Last, Wheel of Fortune is pretty darn efficient draw, it might be worth consideration.
I don't like tutors in here, for some reason the brute force of "I need this card?! I'll cycle through my whole damn DECK to find it!" appeals to me in a way that absolute power does not
Wheel of fortune is nice, but with all the drew, extra draw is not needed. Thing with this, cheaper regrowth effects, sol ring, maybe manamorphose is that they don't make the deck more consistent. I don't remember ever fizzling while comboing off, and if you do. Pass the turn and win if you are still alive (in that case if you think you'll fizzle, fizzle early to make it look like you can't do much. No one will let you live if you went though 40 cards before passing. 6 might be fine). Those cards might, however, make you go off faster. The thought of a pre turn 5 combo turn is funny to me
Nobody in my main group runs infinite anything, but just for funsies I kind of want to make a list with wide loops and lots of cantrips + cheap ramp to get there fast. Nobody in my group would play against it... sounds fun enough to maybe try and design anyways though.
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Um wow, I gotta address that in the OP too, sorry day with the GF. I managed to type one thing before she got here.
But I'll add it in my list of things to address. I did consider land uptappers in the deck, btw. The magus of Candelabra was one that was considered. For a quick answer, if you look at the old T&L list, it had haste granters and untappers are cheap to come by. I could afford to put the dudes in, they just seemed inneficient, but were on my list of things to try.
I agree, untap guys seem very limited with a lack of cross-synergy to the rest of your deck. Actually when I joked about Candelabra, I was thinking to myself voltaic key is to clunky, maybe this is a poor fit.
Oh, and take your time updating on my account. This is more a passing interest for me. Love my T&L.... love non-infinite combo in general. And I don't see myself making your deck any time soon - I have enough projects. Its more the inner mad scientist that wants to theory up the riku. Any sensible parts of me say just don't do it.
In the mean time, I have plenty of decks that need some love. One of them I have been slowly working together is a 5c deck based loosely on an old krark-clan ironworks eggs deck I home brewed. I would imagine has some of the same pitfalls your riku does.. i.e. trying to use resilient engines to makes gigantic numbers, but not slip into infinity engines.
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Well yeah, thats what I was getting at. The T&L deck plays well, is fun cause it's not WTFOMFGBBQ crazy, just crazy. If you read deckhistory part, the "Bad Riku Storm" deck had the same feeling. But the newer version can fight against counter spells. They provide you your "will it work?" and your suspense. Play it vs a few control decks and see
Argh man, ok Riku is strong. After not being able to get him out of my head for a few days , I took T&L cut all the voltron cards, haste enablers etc, 20ish in all. Added in ramp and a few other cards. No infinite combos, no loops. Relatively budget and all, and played a game against Kahlia, and Experimental Kraj.
Scary stuff on the board early, Tamiyo tapping down Kalia etc. One of my turn 6, minds desires was countered (storm=3). On turn 7, I went off, cast mana untappers several times, Minds desire several times. I was about to minds desire all but the last few in my libarary, I already had 60ish points of guttersnipe damage on the board, and a storm count of 20. But itt took like 10 minutes of me playing with myself to get to the last mind desire.
I let my roomates finish the game without me as I solitaired through my library with enough gusto to haymaker a table. The list might be rough still, but effective.
I don't know if I can in good faith play this deck, it was kind of silly, I know it needs proper testing and all, but as fun as it was I don't want to inflict propper testing on my roomies. They kind of enjoyed seeing the engine go off once but still... What to do....
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I know eh, I went through the same thing, except no one was around the first time I comboed off. I am however on exam time until the 16th and everything else is put on the back burner for a bit.
I did some goldfishing and I am developing a style of my own for this deck. I would have fun comparing notes after your exams.
I am having a really hard time not going infinite with it. First it was no more then 1 non creature regrowth because of looping mana untappers through regrowths/riku. Now I have to take damn izzet charm out because I can send E witness and friends to the gy for a loop. I tell ya man, the deck is too efficient for my non infinite self. Its always painful cutting good cards to protect the 'non-infinite clause'.
The whole concept of playing only ramp and draw is funny to me, I knew it was good in EDH - but it is so good that decks with only that can reliably just sort of win super early.
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Yes, Mojo, the deck is crazy in goldfishing, but I suggest trying it 1 vs 1 against a disruptive deck. I go 1 vs 1 vs my Wydween Tempo (my only duel deck). It has tons of control and draw, but still doesn't manage to stop Riku.
Riku is like Ghave, since they double thing/trade 1 for one, stuff that trades 1 for 1/doubles goes infinite with them by accident. Ramp and Draw is the reason why I love UG in EDH, this is like a personification of that concept for me!
EDIT: I forgot Riku control! I'll port over the list from cockatrice and show it.
Mind if I link your list to the Riku Primer (with credit, of course)? I've been playing some T+L Storm goodness for a while now so I have a pretty good understanding how this works, which is to say GOOD. Very creative.
EDIT: But I warn you, the list isn't optimal, it's made for my more casual palygroup. Lack of Palinchron and more easily achievable infinite comboes (that big Nightmare Dragon).
Not to be that guy that brings up an old thread, but have you had any recent updates to this list or changes? It looks like a blast and I just wanted to know if there was any more up to date version
Not to be that guy that brings up an old thread, but have you had any recent updates to this list or changes? It looks like a blast and I just wanted to know if there was any more up to date version
I actually took it apart due to my playgroup not really enjoying this type of deck and then quitting EDH.
It is however pretty easy to work on, just look at how competitive you want it. If you want to make it more competitive add tier 1 mana accel (like Moxes (chrome and stuff not the originals)) to add a bit of speed. It's also stupid easy to go infinite if you want to and that would strengthen it. I intentionally avoided those due to my playgroup.
I also haven't updated to add the other decks hmm. I am a slob.
Your deck is interesting I love storm and I have alot of experience playing this kind of deck. I'll try to maje a detailed post for you between 5-9 pm
Est. the deck looks fun but I think there are ALOT of improvements to be made the current suggestions and cards you want are a good. Yes you do want to play rampant growth yes you should play regrowth. Right now your deck has alot of mana curve issues that I'll go in depth about fixing later. Nice list
Your deck is interesting I love storm and I have alot of experience playing this kind of deck. I'll try to maje a detailed post for you between 5-9 pm
Est. the deck looks fun but I think there are ALOT of improvements to be made the current suggestions and cards you want are a good. Yes you do want to play rampant growth yes you should play regrowth. Right now your deck has alot of mana curve issues that I'll go in depth about fixing later. Nice list
You are the guy with doomsday damia, correct?
The deck was cool, i enjoyed it tons, but my playgroup didnt and as such it was taken appart. It was never super optimal as i knew my geoup wouldnt like it and i am on a budget. Idlike to see your take on a competitive list.
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Now I admit, this looks like poop, I'll spoiler most of the old post and put up the decklist by cmc for now, more updates to come.
2x Epic Experiment
3x Genesis Wave
8 Praetor's Counsel
7 Boundless Realms
6 Opportunity
6 Mind's Desire
5 Prophetic Bolt
5 Mnemonic Wall
5 Tidings
5 Petals of Insight
5 Rude Awakening
5 Anarchist
5 Brilliant Plan
5 Jace's Ingenuity
5 Mysteries of the Deep
5 Stone Calendar
5 Arcane Melee
5 Izzet Chronarch
4 Explosive Vegetation
4 Skyshroud Claim
4 Mystic Retrieval
4 Forsee
4 Careful Consideration
4 Past in Flames
4 Concentrate
4 Rite of Replication
4 Harmonize
4 Solemn Simulacrum
4 Deep Analysis
4 Amass the Components
4 Turnabout
4 Sift
3 Kodama's Reach
3 Call to Mind
3 Search for Tomorrow
3 Deep Reconnaissance
3 Untamed Wilds
3 Primal Growth
3 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Recollect
3 Loaming Shaman
3 Eternal Witness
3 Mana Flare
3 Journey of Discovery
3 Cloud Key
3 Heartbeat of Spring
3 Growth Spasm
3 Dream Cache
3 Reiterate
3 Frantic Search
3 Early Harvest
3 Compulsive Research
2 Reverberate
2 Increasing Vengeance
2 Summer Bloom
2 Recoup
2 Twincast
2 Helm of Awakening
2 Goblin Electromancer
1 Brainstorm
1 Visions of Beyond
12 Forest
12 Island
12 Mountain
List of things I wanna add:
Mana Reflection
the untap Creatures from Urza's
More regrowth effects.
Things to test:
Cheaper ramp (Rampant Growth)
Sol Ring
Manamorphose
Wheel Effects/Draw 7s
Act 1 - Love:
Ok, well this deck started a while back. I kept seeing bobthefunny's thread for Tibor & Lumia spell slinging. It seemed like a cool deck and I quickly became infatuated with it. I ended up getting my own T&L list a bit after. It was pretty cool. I made mine a storm version. It's still linked in bobthefunny's thread [Here] AFAIK and it was a great deal of fun. I'd combo out on like turn 10-11-12-13-14 and realize every time I could have combo'ed out earlier if I wanted, I just didn't trust the deck enough.
I kept the deck for a while, I loved playing it and my GF even got me those cute pink sleeves you can see in the pics :P. I made a deal with her. Ever time I'd play the deck, I was to text her. I was the to text her to tell her our deck won. This went on for months (but I don't play that much, maybe twice a month for this deck). But I won every game with it. The was cool to me and my gf (she doesn't understand the game, but she likes hearing me/seeing me happy. She'd hear me talk hours on end about my games or cool ideas just cause she likes my voice or cause she likes hearing how "into it" it get.
The problem is, people don't like playing against the deck. I've got a reputation for being a crazy deck builder, sloppy player, and winning like 80% of casual games (I'm not even kidding). This is "only natural", I've been playing since Time Spiral, which is longer than more than half the people in my 4 playgroups and I'm the only one who puts so much research into this game. I'm the only one of those 4 play groups that is actually registered on a forum. I also tend to have stronger decks than them and since I don't get to play much I tend to play alone. This I realized was harmful to the power of my deck as it worked like a cold war. I'd make my decks stronger to compete with the strongest decks I played against - Mine. Then we'd have the once a month get together and they'd be like, since last time I got a booster and added the rare to my deck where as I'd have been trying to tune my control decks to be able to beat my Edric deck in a 1 vs 1. Or my Group Hug to be able to take down my Ramping Riku deck (Note, group hug vs ramp good stuff 1 vs 1 is a crazy bad idea, but it is possible).
I also abstain from using infinite comboes/instant win, not cause my group frowns upon them, but because the players who started before me are all into magic as more of a fun game than a competitive thing and of of those after me only one player knows of them, he used one once, in one of his casual decks that he took apart. This kinda gave me a negative view on them. So storm is one of the closest things to it that I can get, and I absolutely love storm. But due to my play group I tend not to be able to win so much with the same deck over and over. I get "Banned" from playing a deck until they forget about it
Not wanting that to happen to T&L I was trying to find a way to make it more fun. I then realized what I could do. I could just not win. I could combo out. Laughing as I do it. Then deck myself in one glorious turn of casting my whole deck. I get to have my fun, comboing out and people get to have their fun playing their own decks. I get moral victory. This is usually followed by people telling me I could have won if I added Laboratory Maniac to my deck. Usually after ignoring the Grapeshot/Ignite Memories that I discarded to my Thirst for Knowledge.
Anyhow, so the deck stayed the same, but I decided to not win with it anymore. I also (didn't realize at the time) stopped playing the deck. Now in May or so I decided I wanted to make a weird kind of storm deck that was made to fizzle. The original idea was Grixis colored and would involve me going off every turn, spell slinging and then fizzling when I'd run out of mana/draw. Then the next turn I'd go even further. So on. The idea of it was stitched on a Post It that is still beside me. I figured I wanted 25 big draw spells (draw 3 or more), 41 sources of mana and 33 awesome spells. Anyways I don't want to ramble about that too, but I had notes/ideas. I also had the same time the idea to make a casual BUG (60/4) deck based on Heartbeat Combo and the old Cadaverous Bloom decks. This quickly got stuck in my mind for EDH. So the Grixis list wanted to be 4 colors. It wanted green. But there are only 3 color generals and I didn't want to go 5 C. I had to cut a color.
Thing is, Green always added more than black, but since I already had a Riku deck, I didn't want to make a second deck with the same colors. This went on for about a month. Then I thought of one thing. My T&L uses mana rocks to help accelerate the early turns, but on the combo turn they only provide mana once. I also equated the mana rocks to bad ramp. So I wondered what if I added green for the ramp. I thought it would make the mana bad and inconsistent but I was willing to try it. The more I thought of it, the more I liked the idea. I also thought of the engines from my Riku deck that could be ported over. I was at work and that was the longest work deck ever. I couldn't wait to go home. I txted my gf to ask her if she minded if I changed Generals for our deck (in my head T&L are a couple like us) she absolutely had no idea what I was talking about and gave me permission.
I got home, and did this:
If you scroll down a bit (Original Post) you'll see what I posted about it back in june.
Anyhow, the deck was great, it worked awesomely and was awfully consistent. It was good. Too good. I kept it in that state for a while, then took it apart for being too good. My play group would never see this monster.
As I was separating the cards I realized I couldn't remake T&L as I already ported over some cards from it to my Nin deck (made it WAY better). Seeing as I couldn't put it back together, I just remade my Timmy Riku deck and using the leftovers and cards I had lying around I remade my Riku storm list, albeit weaker. I had two Riku lists, which annoyed me. But w/e I never played the storm list against others. People would hate it. I did however, test it extensively against my decks. It did great, I got tons of ideas for it, but never added anything as I didn't want to buy anything for a deck that never sees play.
Then Doctor Church happened. He made a thread about wanting to make a cool deck in U/x where x is G or R. I told him about my two storm decks and pointed him to bob's thread. We then PM'ed a bit while he was asking questions about a U/R version he was making and he re-sparked my interest. I took my Bad Riku Storm deck and my Timmy Riku deck and did what I had done around 6 months ago
And so the deck was re-born. I then decided to update this post after a few days and voila!
The deck isn't actually a fun deck. I would say it's powerful, and feels like a normal storm deck. At a table with 3 other people, one person will enjoy it, and whoever has not seen the deck before might be intrigued, but playing against it is only fun for a few select people. Masochists, those who took a bet against them and those who might try to stop you from comboing off for fun. The deck makes me think of a quote from bobtherfunny's T&L thread. Although this doesn't apply entirely to this deck, I've never seen it fizzle. It probably can, but never when I've played it. I've tapped out quite a few times for a giant X Genesis Wave/Epic Experiment, but never has that been the end of it.
Going off isn't that tricky. If you don't feel a counter/they are tapped out and you feel like you have enough mana/reducers to go off, then try it! I always underestimate the deck and end up waiting too much to combo out (I combo and realise I have more than enough resources.) You don't even need Riku on the field. He helps but you can cast him mid combo.
Draw effects, draw/discard effects and Scry effects are one and the same to me. You don't need to draw 3 with your Concentrate. You only need to know you are looking 3 deep. Thoughtflare (draw 4 discard 2 IIRC) is a draw 4. CA is the important part. You also end up with quite a few lands in hand, which you might end up playing, but they are also discardable. Scry 4 = draw 4 for this deck. I don't really know how to explain it, but you have so much redundancy your draws are just to look for cards with the best effect. When you can a draw spell you might have 2 other ones in hand and might draw 2 more. A draw 4 discard 2 lets you find/keep better draw spells than a draw 3 would, and the number of cards in your hands is largely irrelecant, you'll never fizzle due to lack of draw spells. It might be possible with mana, but I've not seen it.
Right now, the deck has a win con but it's accidental. Since the deck is so "unfun" to play against, I started doing this "Hey, this deck is crazy. No opponent has ever killed me while I played this deck. You guys would never be able to kill me!" People gun for me. Then I laugh as I combo out and kill myself. However, since you can reuse any spell to infinity, the Prophetic Bolt does serve as a win con. Adding Labratory Maniac/any win con is really easy. Just add any card(s) to the deck that can win the game if you can recur them to infinity with infinite mana. Yeah :/ the wincon can be anything.
Regrowth effects are actually what I've figured out when the commander decks came out and I was tryin to do something with Riku, to me he just screamed Goodstuff x 2 = 2 Goodstuff. This was incredibly boring. The first combo I found with him is that regrowth effects x 2 = card advantage/infinite use when you have more than one. This gives infinite reusability to any card in the deck that doesn't get exiled.
Genesis Wave and Epic Experiment are pretty cool. You have two things to keep in mind. One, with Riku out, you always want to double them and cast them for 2 less. For 15 mana, you Genesis Wave for 10 twice (20) rather than 12 and Epic Experiment for 11 twice (22) rather than 13. Also, you don't want to tap out for them usually. You want to have an out in case you flip nothing good. However, most of the time, you'll flip untap effects and regrowth effects and just laugh as you keep going. Genesis Wave might seem bad with so many non-permanent effects, but it serves as a MASSIVE ramp spell and gives you a few untappers/regrowth effects in form of creatures in addition to cost reducers and mana multipliers. You might also want to keep mana open so you can copy cards with Riku
I don't remember what I was supposed to write about the untapping effects that aren't ETB. I'm guessing I meant the non-permanent based ones. They rock? Double them when you can. Get them back with regrowth effects. Not sure what else I had to say.
Ohh, posting it here reminded me. I meant stuff like Krosan Restorer. The thing with those guys is that if you copy them with Riku you get two. Rite of Replication (Riku'd) gives you 10. If you add Anger to the deck, or make an Agro wincon (my win con was like that in T&L, stuff like Accelerate, Leering Emblem, Runechanter's Pike, Shadow Rift, Seize the Day do work as a win con with Riku and you can you the Haste granting effects on those little ones as card draw+mana. Might not be a bad investment!
Hey guys, this is a place holder. But here is a picture of my work in progress.
Yup, that is my Timmy Riku deck, and Tibor and Lumia Deck, I got the idea at work, came home and took out 100 cards, suffled the rest together, goldfished a win 3 turns earlier than my T&L deck, with my hand and the top 6 cards of my library, unlike my T&L deck that has to go through my whole deck.
The deck is crazy strong and I'm still working on the decklist. It'll be coming up as I figure it out.
I'm adding Heartbeat Combo as I've already got a red/blue version of it (Mana Flare, Turnabout)
So here were the original lists:
0 Frantic Search
1 Sol Ring
0 Fury of the Horde
1 Brainstorm
1 Quicken
1 Needle Drop
1 Shadow Rift
1 Crimson Wisps
1 Visions of Beyond
1 Flame Jab
1 Izzet Signet
2 Helm of Awakening
2 Ruby Medallion
2 Sapphire Medallion
2 Grapeshot
2 Ovinize
2 Accelerate
2 Psychotic Fury
2 Artful Dodge
2 Reverberate
2 Coalition Relic
2 Manalith
2 Spectral Searchlight
2 Darksteel Ingot
2 Sol Grail
2 Eye of Ramos
2 Heart of Ramos
2 Chronatog Totem
2 Foriysian Totem
3 Electrolyze
3 Burning Vengeance
3 Secrets of the Dead
3 Compulsive Research
3 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Dream Cache
3 Oona's grace
3 Semblance Anvil
4 Leering Emblem
4 Runechanter's Pike
4 Sift
4 Reckles Charge
4 Relentless Assault
4 Concentrate
4 Careful Consideration
5 Brilliiant Plan
5 Mysteries of the Deep
5 Petals of Insight
5 Prophetic Bolt
5 Tidings
5 Jace's Ingenuity
5 River Kelpie
5 Spellweaver Volute
6 Recoup
6 Opportunity
6 Deep Analysis
6 Mind's Desire
7 Mystical Retrieval
7 Seize the Day
7 Increasing Vengeance
9 Blasphemous Act
9 Past in Flames
1 Command Tower
16 Mountain
18 Island
Ignite Memories
Mana Flare
Stone Calendar
:symu::symr: Melek WheelStorm
:symw::symg: Trostani Enchantress (updated 6/5)
:symg::symr::symu: Unexpected Results.dec
Thada Adel Stax WIP
Actually, just posted it :/
I am used to the T&L thing, but with the inclusion of green it seems you can get your momentum going even earlier. I have all sorts of questions for you. Have you thought about including rampant growth effects? In a similar vein, why did sol ring get cut when making it the decklist for riku. Also curious if manamorphose was worth a shot. You seem to have a lot of mid size draw, do you find cards like prophetic bolt make it any harder to go off?
Pardon the noobness, but what is your kill con? DO you go for minds desire + ???
Some other random thoughts. Regrowth and possibly noxious revival seem easier to abuse than Eternal Witness, and your opponents have a harder time using either of them. Noxious revival to set up experiment, or genesis wave actually sounds pretty slick. Mystic tutor would be similar regarding fixing a nice experiment. Last, Wheel of Fortune is pretty darn efficient draw, it might be worth consideration.
I imagine this deck is pretty all in to the combo I am missing, how soon are you able to get it off?
Gitrog Lands
Merieke Ri Berit Flicker
Ramos, Dragon Engine Storm
Not at all Land destruction resistant. You need your lands to go off. If you get stone rained on turn 3, unless you ramp (which isn't unlikely) you are still turn 3. This deck like never misses a landrop. When I last updated it, I took out all the silly win cons (I'll explain that in the op after this) and just added filler. But, if you reach turn 6 with 6 or more lands, you can pretty much combo out immediately. So if you fear mass ld on turn like 7-8-9 then yes, you can laugh it off, but the LD itself gives you shivers.
Unless it's wildfire type LD. If everyone is set back a set amount, I'm guessing you pretty much still laugh
More or less, I'll address this in the OP, Edit incoming. This is true I have more expensive ramp. I could include rampant growth and have considered it, but when I get cost reducers, the 1G becomes GUR (riku copying) and the 3G of Explosive Vegetation also becomes GUR. But it might be good for something to do on turn 2, I'll try it. Sol Ring was given to another deck, back when I did the first riku list in June and I do have an extra laying around, but I'm not sure how good it would be in the deck. Sure it's good, but this deck is heavily contrained by the colored mana. It could accelerate me a bit, but I don't know, I guess it could work. Testing is required. I'll make a "cards to test" list. I'm not a big fan of it, this deck is so bat**** insane, smaller cards like Manamorphse with Riku and cost reducers end up being like a weird ritual. UR(G/R) Add 4 mana to your mana pool and draw 2 cards? And it's not as good as sol ring early on? I'm not sold on it. But I'll explain the going off process in the OP. Not at all, I don't actually care about the draw in this deck as much as how deep the card lets me go. scry = draw essentially. Prophetic bolt is a "Draw 4" Will address in op, Its a mix of got none and Prophetic Bolt True, but eternal witness gives it back to my hand. In the early combo turn sometimes I get down to like 1 mana getting a copied eternal witness giving me frantic search and another regrowth effect in there. (I don't have regrowth yet, but I do have recollect). The problem is putting it on top of my library requires me to draw more cards, which is fine, but unneeded. Eternal witness is expensive for recursion due to the two colored mana, but has the advantage to being able to return stuff froma genesis wave, I gotta address that though, thanks I don't like tutors in here, for some reason the brute force of "I need this card?! I'll cycle through my whole damn DECK to find it!" appeals to me in a way that absolute power does not
Wheel of fortune is nice, but with all the drew, extra draw is not needed. Thing with this, cheaper regrowth effects, sol ring, maybe manamorphose is that they don't make the deck more consistent. I don't remember ever fizzling while comboing off, and if you do. Pass the turn and win if you are still alive (in that case if you think you'll fizzle, fizzle early to make it look like you can't do much. No one will let you live if you went though 40 cards before passing. 6 might be fine). Those cards might, however, make you go off faster. The thought of a pre turn 5 combo turn is funny to me
I'll explain in the op. This is kinda of weird cause to test it I play it vs my dual Wydwen tempo deck. I was surprised but Wydwen beat it once.
Now you just need a candelabra of tawnos
Nobody in my main group runs infinite anything, but just for funsies I kind of want to make a list with wide loops and lots of cantrips + cheap ramp to get there fast. Nobody in my group would play against it... sounds fun enough to maybe try and design anyways though.
Gitrog Lands
Merieke Ri Berit Flicker
Ramos, Dragon Engine Storm
But I'll add it in my list of things to address. I did consider land uptappers in the deck, btw. The magus of Candelabra was one that was considered. For a quick answer, if you look at the old T&L list, it had haste granters and untappers are cheap to come by. I could afford to put the dudes in, they just seemed inneficient, but were on my list of things to try.
Oh, and take your time updating on my account. This is more a passing interest for me. Love my T&L.... love non-infinite combo in general. And I don't see myself making your deck any time soon - I have enough projects. Its more the inner mad scientist that wants to theory up the riku. Any sensible parts of me say just don't do it.
In the mean time, I have plenty of decks that need some love. One of them I have been slowly working together is a 5c deck based loosely on an old krark-clan ironworks eggs deck I home brewed. I would imagine has some of the same pitfalls your riku does.. i.e. trying to use resilient engines to makes gigantic numbers, but not slip into infinity engines.
Gitrog Lands
Merieke Ri Berit Flicker
Ramos, Dragon Engine Storm
Scary stuff on the board early, Tamiyo tapping down Kalia etc. One of my turn 6, minds desires was countered (storm=3). On turn 7, I went off, cast mana untappers several times, Minds desire several times. I was about to minds desire all but the last few in my libarary, I already had 60ish points of guttersnipe damage on the board, and a storm count of 20. But itt took like 10 minutes of me playing with myself to get to the last mind desire.
I let my roomates finish the game without me as I solitaired through my library with enough gusto to haymaker a table. The list might be rough still, but effective.
I don't know if I can in good faith play this deck, it was kind of silly, I know it needs proper testing and all, but as fun as it was I don't want to inflict propper testing on my roomies. They kind of enjoyed seeing the engine go off once but still... What to do....
Gitrog Lands
Merieke Ri Berit Flicker
Ramos, Dragon Engine Storm
The deck is stupid strong though.
Stupid Strong.
I am having a really hard time not going infinite with it. First it was no more then 1 non creature regrowth because of looping mana untappers through regrowths/riku. Now I have to take damn izzet charm out because I can send E witness and friends to the gy for a loop. I tell ya man, the deck is too efficient for my non infinite self. Its always painful cutting good cards to protect the 'non-infinite clause'.
The whole concept of playing only ramp and draw is funny to me, I knew it was good in EDH - but it is so good that decks with only that can reliably just sort of win super early.
Gitrog Lands
Merieke Ri Berit Flicker
Ramos, Dragon Engine Storm
Riku is like Ghave, since they double thing/trade 1 for one, stuff that trades 1 for 1/doubles goes infinite with them by accident. Ramp and Draw is the reason why I love UG in EDH, this is like a personification of that concept for me!
EDIT: I forgot Riku control! I'll port over the list from cockatrice and show it.
:symu::symr: Melek WheelStorm
:symw::symg: Trostani Enchantress (updated 6/5)
:symg::symr::symu: Unexpected Results.dec
Thada Adel Stax WIP
EDIT: But I warn you, the list isn't optimal, it's made for my more casual palygroup. Lack of Palinchron and more easily achievable infinite comboes (that big Nightmare Dragon).
CURRENT DECKS
WUBRG Child of Alara, Pauper Dreamcrusher GRBUW | BGU Muldrotha, Dreamcrusher REDUX UGB | WUB Dreamcrusher Pt. III: Nevinyrral's Disco BUW
I actually took it apart due to my playgroup not really enjoying this type of deck and then quitting EDH.
It is however pretty easy to work on, just look at how competitive you want it. If you want to make it more competitive add tier 1 mana accel (like Moxes (chrome and stuff not the originals)) to add a bit of speed. It's also stupid easy to go infinite if you want to and that would strengthen it. I intentionally avoided those due to my playgroup.
I also haven't updated to add the other decks hmm. I am a slob.
Est. the deck looks fun but I think there are ALOT of improvements to be made the current suggestions and cards you want are a good. Yes you do want to play rampant growth yes you should play regrowth. Right now your deck has alot of mana curve issues that I'll go in depth about fixing later. Nice list
Damia http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=410191
DDFT Legacyhttp://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=505247
Domain Zoo http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=10212429#post10212429
You are the guy with doomsday damia, correct?
The deck was cool, i enjoyed it tons, but my playgroup didnt and as such it was taken appart. It was never super optimal as i knew my geoup wouldnt like it and i am on a budget. Idlike to see your take on a competitive list.