Hi there everybody. My name is Scott Lemenager, I have been playing competitive T1 magic for around 3 years now. I am a regular poster on both www.starcitygames.com and on www.themanadrain.com, and I recently noticed that there was a somewhat new interest on T1 here on MTGSalvation.
Upon looking around I noticed that we were allowed to post primers on quality vintage decks and I felt compelled to introduce (or at least re-introduce) some of you to what has suddenly become a very viable deck choice again. Cerebral Assasin.
To begin a little history on the deck is in order. When Fifth Dawn was released by Wizards over a year ago it included what many believed to be a silly card. This card of course was called possessed portal. At the same time a group of amazing T1 players were working on their ideas on how to best get an early Sundering Titan into play. These players (Team Hadley, aka...the hadley rockstars) had found that Bazaar of Bagdhad NOT Mishra's Workshop was a much more efficient way to bring Titan into play...at the same time they realized that with a good Bazaar engine they could combine the already used Goblin Welder along with Squee, Goblin Nabob to completely lock an opponent out of the game with Possesed Portal....Cerebral Assasin was born...
As a historical reference the final deck list the guys decided on was this...
The deck had so far been extreemly succesful for the team winning them numerous Hadley events and for 4 tourneys was 100% unbeaten in swiss rounds (games not matches!)
Numerous ideas were initially tossed around on the mana drain boards, and after some initial success the deck started to lose favor. This was a trend that I believe was based largely on the fact that the deck lost some suprise factor and many believed that simply running Dragon was the better idea.
The primary death of the deck came about when two seperate events happened...First of these events was the restriction of Trinisphere...while Cerebral assasin did not run Trinisphere itself, it allowed the deck to succeed in a slightly slower environment caused by what people perceived was the dominance of stax and control slaver...With the loss of trinisphere control decks were allowed to adopt faster game plans that made Cerebral Assasins plan not work out quite as well...The second painful thing was the spoiler showing a card called Pithing Needle that could conceivably come along and turn off half of the deck...Which it turns out is only slightly true and in fact CA can utilize its own pithing needles to shut off things that could conceivably hurt it such as wasteland...
When Cerebral Assasin was initially released I immediatly jumped on the idea...I love Sundering Titan (In fact I find it to be the best creature in Magic...just my opinion) and the idea of consistantly dropping him into play on turn 2 was just too good...My initial problem came however when in my small local meta I ran into decks like 4cc or 3cc running 3 disenchants and up to 4 Swords to Plowshares, along with wastelands. I immediatly set about fixing some problems with this matchup (since it made up a decent chunk of my meta) and came up with a version that ran more threats (to out number the amount of disenchants/StP in the area) and at the same time be able to battle the new Oath of Druids decks that had suddenly appeared. This list placed me in several top 8's and was well embraced by the small quantity of players still running cerebral assasin. Duress also became a better idea once trinisphere was restricted since Force of Will was in the deck largely to prevent a disasterous first turn trinisphere.
Being able to up the count to 2 Duplicants after SB was amazing against Oath and the Crucible of Worlds and a general improovement on threat density MD improoved the Keeper matchup.
One of the major differences in this list is that it features the Dragon combo as part of the MD and not striktly as a SB conversion feature...The combo fits nicely into the deck and gives it a serious triple threat feature.
From this point I felt that I had something that worked well, but as always deckbuilders are always tinkering. New ideas are always needed for decks to stay fresh and continue to succeed. However after some toying around with ideas like Living Wish in the MD (which I still feel is viable in the proper meta) I dropped the deck after pithing needle was announced in favor of my previous deck of choice Stax.
As usual I got tired of playing stax and for a recent Black Lotus tourney I felt the time was right for bringing Cerebral Assasin back. This new deck featured some of my innovations from previous tinkering along with some help from Doug Linn (HiVal on SCG and TMD) and Nataz along with other posters like Urza23 and such on SCG. This new version, which I had re-named to Brain Rapist (since it was quite different from the original, yet still was based on the same ideas) Featured the pieces that I feel make this deck a very viable choice for todays meta.
Here is the deck list that got me 5th place at the Eudemonia Black Lotus tourney (43 players in Northern California) I went into the top 8 at 6-1 in 1st place. Game record was 13-3-1.
To give a brief rundown of my matchups it went something like this
Rd1 Bye from a previous top 8 with cerebral assasin.
Rd2 Dragon, I won 2-1-1
Rd3 Stax(roland chang style cronstax) I won 2-0
Rd4 Gifts I won 2-0
Rd5 Oath I lost 1-2
Rd6 Keeper I won 2-0
Rd7 Gifts I won 2-0
Top 8 Gifts I lost 0-2 (he was broken broken both games)
The idea of Reanimate was originally brought up by Team Meandeck on the TMD forums, but was largely rejected initially. This was due in part to the life loss and the fact that people were wanting to replace animate dead with reanimate entirely...the idea of running a little of both seemed to go over some peoples heads, thus the idea was dropped until I began talking about the deck with HiVal (part of team meandeck) At the time I was largely looking to drop the mana curve of the deck due to some game losses coming from only seeing 1 or 2 mana for an entire game (an inherent part of playing CA) Reanimate replaced the one Necromancy I had been running and also the crucible of worlds since when I initially ran reanimate wasteland had taken a vacation. This immediatly showed much improovement due to it speeding the deck up by an entire turn at times. The life loss prooved to be un important since just winning was better than just losing due to being a turn behind or mana screwed...
The second major change came from Dragon decks running entomb...I figured if they could run it well why couldnt Cerebral Assasin (since it has similar ideas) This change also prooved to be potent by allowing for earlier wins and a cheaper mana base. These changes came about largely from the switch from Force of Will to Duress, without this, our mana curve would still be wrecked.
The last little bit of tech came about when HiVal mentioned the idea of only running 3 Squee...I still do not know if meandeck had death spark in mind when they dropped the 4th Squee (actually I just found out they hadnt thought of it...from a report on GenCon the first time one of them had seen it was from a european zombie infestation deck at GenCon), but the card fits amazingly well into this spot...especially in light of Stax and Control Slaver still being the biggest two decks currently and death spark hosing a large portion of their deck. Death spark is too good to not run rather than squee #4...if you cannot see this then you are missing a large part of the game of magic.
So that leaves us with today...Cerebral Assasin can beat Gifts.dec, Cerebral Assasin can beat stax, Cerebral Assasin can definatly beat Control Slaver...My match loss in swiss rounds was to Oath...I hadnt played Duplicants this tourney since Oath had been largely dead in my area...IF oath is a problem for you just run the duplicant as a 2 of (either 1 MD 1 SB, or 2 SB) those along with ray of revelation and/or seal of cleansing should shore up that match as well...With the demise of combo as a large part of the meta we can much more easily run Cerebral Assasin with sucess (Combo is/was the worst matchup for Cerebral Assasin)
Matcup Analysis:
Stax: There are several different types of stax decks in the format currently. Of these probably the worst matchup would be CronStax varients. These decks ability to quickly make my mana base terrible is what makes this matchup difficult at times. In playing this matchup I generally look for hands that are going to drop me a first or second turn at the latest goblin welder, and a hand that doesnt have too many 0cc mana accelerators if I am going second. Going for a quick creature is generally the best way to go about winning this match, or falling back on the dragon combo since these decks dont have too much in the way of MD removal (but duress before comboing off) All in all I find the matchup to be largely dice roll dependant, with skill also figuring into the final match win...50/50 depending on the player and the opening hands.
Control Slaver: This matchup is the original reason Cerebral Assasin ran so well...Cerebral Assasin was designed to beat mana drain decks...Triskelion along with Death Spark shuts off opposing welders and you can use their own to reanimate/animate to make your deck sing...the only thing to watch for is allowing them to Mind Slaver you once and combo you out with your own dragon. All in all this is a very favorable matchup
Gifts: This is a very similar matchup to CS except you dont get to do tricks with their own welders...Sundering Titan is amazing in this matchup, but be sure to have ways to deal with their yawgmoths will in your SB (like Tormod's Crypt...This is also a favorable matchup overall, but can be a little more playskill intensive.
Fish: Some players find this matchup difficult at times since they pack some spot removal and stuff like meddling mage, however if you can resolve an early large threat it is usually enough to win this match...Still it can be tough sometimes. I will give this a 50/50 depending on playskill matchup as well.
Dragon: I find this matchup to be 100% playskill oriented...actually if it was two even skilled players id put dragon ahead by a small margin..In tourney play however I have never lost a match to dragon, however they are all very close matches.
TPS/Long/2-Land Belcher: This is your nightmare matchup, the best of the 3 is TPS since you can hurt them with titans and portal, however this is still tough...these decks are the reason you MUST have platinum angel in your MD. All in all a bad match though...you are probably only 30% likely to win a match against these, and if you have a high number of combo like this in your area (which most do not right now) then you should probably steer clear of Cerebral Assasin.
Oath: This can be a tough matchup at times, you simply need to watch yourself when you play...for example you shouldnt play a first turn welder unless you know you are going to be able to weld something game swinging next turn...Duplicant shines in this matchup, so run him if you are going to play against the deck...Ray of Revelation should own though, and a first or second turn Intuition for 3xRoR should be gg...this matchup is probably 45/55 without duplicant and can be as good as 55/45 with duplicant MD...it really depends on the version...
All in all if you are looking for a fun (very) deck, that is very competitive (with a little practice of course) then Cerebral Assasin is the deck for you...
I know FCG isn't a very good deck at all. Inded I don't play it. But as many people on this forum seem to play it, maybe you could enlighten us as to how good of a matchup cerebral assasin has towards it.
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I havnt tested the FCG matchup in quite some time....
Food Chains problem against the deck was generally that it isnt really any faster, and it generally cannot out aggro cerebral assasin since CAs creatures are much larger and almost as fast...
Sundering Titan also wrecks FCG's mana base and keeps food chain from dropping...
However....Combo can be a problem for cerebral assasin at times and this deck could conceivably combo out before CA can get control of the game...It basically stems from Cerebral Assasin really not liking the role of the control, and Food Chain Goblins can force CA into that role...
That being said...As a cerebral assasin player I would much rather play FCG than say TPS or DeathLong, or even fish...but its not an optimal matchup always for CA...it would really depend though...you could easily set up a good board against FCG if you needed to.
Have you considered running Crucibles in the main of the Brain Rapist list? (Or even in the board) The reason I ask is the mana base seems doomed in a Wasteland heavy enviroment.
-Lance
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Have you considered running Crucibles in the main of the Brain Rapist list? (Or even in the board) The reason I ask is the mana base seems doomed in a Wasteland heavy enviroment.
-Lance
I noticed that too. I guess that in a pinch you could run off of the artifact mana if you hit massed wastelands. I dunno what could be taken out to add a couple of crucibles though.
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"That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die."
- H.P. Lovecraft
Crucible isnt that great in the deck...I was previously running 1 in my earlier Cerebral Assasin lists (as you can see from the second list in the primer) And it primarily in there to battle wastelands...it worked decently from time to time.
However....
There are several reasons why crucible doesnt belong in the deck really...
First off is the fact that most of the T1 community has really determinned that Crucible, when used strickly as anti-crucible tech, is not really that good...In fact if you really are worried about wasteland then Pithing Needle would be much much better...
Second...crucible does very little for the deck...I say very little and not zero primarily because you can use it to spit out a possessed portal lock if you dont have squee or only have 1 squee...
Third, I cannot use crucible as an offensive weapon myself...it would be almost stricktly defensive...
YES, the mana base is terrible for Cerebral Assasin...that is its worst aspect and it is the reason that the Stax and Fish matchups are pretty 50/50 and not purely in favor of CA...the problem is that when you start to cut items for something like crucible or more mana, you start to weaken the overal power of the deck....It took quite a while to figure out that even though the original list ran 24 mana sources, dropping to 21 was what actually worked best for the deck...
The goal needs to be a big first or second or at the latest third turn big big threat (or dragon win or portal lock) With how the deck is designed you should only need, at the most, 3 mana to do this by turn 2 or 3
for example...a somewhat common play with the deck is something like this...
Turn 1,
play land, mox, welder
Turn 2,
play bazaar to dump artifacts, or dump another land to play intuition or thirst for knowledge to get something big into the yard to weld in....you have black availible you can also reanimate/animate something with the mox or land first if you want...
The options are pretty great at this point. This is even easy against control as you can bait with the first turn welder and then reanimate it or on the next turn use reanimate/animate on a better target...
This is hampered by an opponents first turn wasteland true...but with bazaar in the deck that land is not important as long as you have an artifact out...
Another Example...
Turn 1
bazaar and Mox or just bazaar...activate, dump something good (like sundering titan...) Opponent wastes bazaar...
Turn 2
Land (and mox if you havnt yet, or even just land) Reanimate the Sundering Titan...this play can also be even as good as a win if dragon was dumped and you had a mox...this means on turn 2 even with wasteland you can cast Animate Dead on Worldgorger Dragon and probably win or at the worst draw (depending on what else is in your hand...)
Hopefully this helps demonstrate how wasteland isnt even too bad for us...it becomes worse over the course of the game though...but this deck isnt big on the mid game...it is amazing early and amazing late, but the mid game can have a few problems....These are all things you would have to practice on and such though.
Soooo...All of that being said ill give you guys a little something something about what im currently working on...heh
There are several cards that will be availible to us when Portal and Starter become legal later this year...these cards might make a 2 color mana base possible (or even just help smooth the base slightly) which MIGHT make strip mine a possibility...its still kinda in the theorhetical stages right now, but IF I can get a mana base that allows AT LEAST strip mine then crucible as a 1 of or even 2 of at some point MIGHT become feasable again...But I have a long ways to go to get that deck to work better than what I already have...
Any other questions feel free to ask..
EDIT: I also wanted to add something on the crucible....99% of the time I dumped this to bazaar of bagdhad. This means that 99% of the time getting crucible in play involved a must have welder as well...when I dumped crucible the first time part of the reasoning is that it was only good about half the time for me, and a number of times I was having trouble keeping welder in play (this was primarily due to a very high amount off control slaver and stax making stuff like lava dart common occurance...)
This could become a problem again with CS and Stax both proving to be just as good now as they were a year ago...This by no means makes Cerebral Assasin a bad choice (in fact CA is amazing in these times because A: its really good against CS, and B: It forces players to bring in anti-welder hate which lets the rest of the deck go free...) Just make sure that you know going in that welders are going to be plan B much of the time and the animate/reanimate plan will be a little stronger...of course you can always overwhelm stuff like lava dart by playing welder (it then dies) then reanimating welder (which might die again) then playing another welder (at this point they probably arent killing it..but just in case) you can then play either another welder or another animate spell and just have a welder in play all the damn time...another fun choice is to reanimate an opponents welder that you just killed with death spark or triskelion as well...:p
The matchup vs. FCG is actually pretty good. Although wastes can give you problems, once you get a threat down they can't deal with it usually. I have never lost a match to FCG with CA, and I played one at TMD Open who was, 4-0 before I played him. Even a second game Artifact Mutation on my Sundering Titan wasn't enough to beat me. Theres just nothting they can really do to stop you once you get going, and the threats you have are usually just too much, in addition to them having no means by which to deal with things like Dragon usually.
Cruicble, I tried that a long time ago as well, but it just is usually a god-awful card too many times. There are a few times when its good, but that just doesn't justify it, as Lunar said. I tried to include it (this was when CA was only a few months old), but even with 3-4 strip effects, or artifact mana, or anything, it was always just too much mana to dump into something that doesn't really do enough by itself...
@Lunar: I had, at one time, incuded Lightning Greaves in my list, and I found it to be very good at holding the deck together, as no one usually counters it, and it makes your reanimated stuff practically indestructable (theres not too much global removal anymore, except for weenies). Welder, Angel, and hasted Titans, were all good. However, I eventually took it out for space. What is you're opinion on the card, to protect your welders form welder removal that is common now? It might give your deck the edge against decks that rely on it to combat your welder action. And btw, a very good primier, and for a good deck for once! Props.
EDIT: You confused me by having your names start with the same letter, after I deleted my original post and was very tired...
@Lance: I had, at one time, incuded Lightning Greaves in my list, and I found it to be very good at holding the deck together, as no one usually counters it, and it makes your reanimated stuff practically indestructable (theres not too much global removal anymore, except for weenies). Welder, Angel, and hasted Titans, were all good. However, I eventually took it out for space. What is you're opinion on the card, to protect your welders form welder removal that is common now? It might give your deck the edge against decks that rely on it to combat your welder action. And btw, a very good primier, and for a good deck for once! Props.
First, I didn't write the primer, Lunar did. So I'm going to assume this comment was directed at him. I for one think running Greaves could be helpful.
-Lance
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@ Glix are you by any chance the guy who made top 8 day two at waterbury with CA?
His list also included 1 copy of lightning greaves and I have posted it as a solid list on several sites...If that was you then good job...
I do like the card, and its nice being able to drop it on welders AND platz as well...I havnt found a good spot for it in my builds ever though...simply because its not really my style...the greaves can be nice from time to time though, but I was never happy with just one...IF I could justify at least 2 in the deck so as not to be 100% random then I might include them...1 of doesnt go into my builds however because they do nothing towards the actual goal of the deck (which is animating stuff from the yard) It CAN help a little to speed it up for the mid game though, and can help protect things along the way...I just find myself wanting to use that 2 mana early in the game for other things...
The thought of using it is always in the back of my mind though and it joins a whole list of tech cards that I have for the deck...
The only negative comment I would give it is that its primary goal in reality is to defend welders....
I try not to over rely on welder (this will be especially important with welder stax and control slaver both coming on in a big way) hate along the road makes him almost a secondary objective for me...Id rather focus (at least over 50% of the time) on the animate/reanimate process on the big guns, and use the welders (who are basically a turn slower than animate/reanimate) as backups...
Of course each matchup unravels in different fashions, and sometimes welders are the best option...
Double posts are generally bad, but I have a couple of new things to bring forth and I figured since it was my primer I would be okay to do this...
First things first...
I did some testing with Lightning Greaves in the deck..In all cases they proved to be inferior to just about anything else...I would not reccomend them in MOST cases, but maybe some matchups would be cool with them in...
But the main reason for this post is two fold...I have a tourney report, and I wanted to post some prototype ideas for BR Cerebral Assasin, and get some reactions on the list...
TOURNEY REPORT:
I had a small tourney yesterday that I chose to attend here in Sacramento CA...
The turnout was decent considering 1st was only a Beta Sol Ring and all. 16 players showed up and we had a half decent little tourney.
My teammate Tony won the last tournament at this particular location with Ravager (Rivers Affinity) and the meta he ran into last time was mostly janky aggro deck with a spattering of Dragon and Salvager Oath.
That being said I geared CA to fit better into a meta with Fish, Madness, WW and Sligh...
Basically you can take my Brain Rapist list from above and replace a few items.
-4 Duress (not good against aggro eh..)
-1 Possessed Portal (same here)
3 Ray of Revelation
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Seal of Cleansing
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Duplicant
1 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Razormane Masticore (House!)
2 Echoing Truth
The SB worked out decently enough, except it was very light against something like stax (which resulted in my loss in the Swiss rounds)
I will jump to the end for a second. I made top 4, but then decided to concede instead to allow somebody else in (for a little compensation) due to me being extra tired (2 hours of sleep the night before and no food for the day, was terrible and led to bad play) I played absolutely terribly yet still managed to make top 4 even after getting the meta half messed up.
I already stated the meta I expected...however this time it was something like this:
1 CA (Me)
1 5cStax (chang style)
2 Oath (both kinda neat control oath decks) (1 of my team)
2 Gifts (1 of me team)
1 Sensei
1 FCG (my team)
1 Sligh
1 WW
1 Sui Black
1 Kobolds
The rest I didnt see as they all lost early and were down at low tables...
SOOO, I was a pretty decent amount off on my meta predictions...anyhow..
Round 1 is Eric Brown Playing Oath
Ive played with Eric before and he is a very good player (he has won 2 or 3 of the events here and has won a Eudemonia event and top 8 at at least 2 other Eudemonia's)
Game 1 I am on the play and start out with gemstone mine, welder, which resolves, then go. He plays island go. I play bazaar and hit a mox, but no business. He brainstorms EOT. He draws and does NOTHING, yay for me. My turn I dont do much as I dont want to kill my hand with bazaar, I play a land and pass the turn (I dont attack as he plays salvager oath a lot so I want welder availible to deal with any odd artifacts he might throw out at me, just being cautious.) He brainstorms again and then draws for turn...he passes without hitting a land again...ouch. On my turn I play a land then I brainstorm on my own turn and hit some fat after top decking animate dead to go with the animate from my opening hand(it was like Dragon Entomb Demonic Tutor) I tutor up Black lotus, play entomb to grab eternal witness, bazaar away dragon then use floating mana from lotus to play animate which he in turns brainstorms again and forces...then I play the second animate off of my lands and he has no second force and is tapped out so I win...
Game 2 was very similar and my initial hand is almost identical (except I brought in tormods crypt and had that 1st turn as well, I still thought he was playing salvager oath) He gets out 3 lands, but cant find anything to go with them, I end up animating a dragon to untap my lands, then animate sundering titan on the second loop to kill his tropical/volcanic/basic island in one go and end up beating down with the titan before he gets back to a second land...
1-0 2-0
Round 2 is against Mohammed (erics teammate) playing 5color stax...
Game 1 he plays out wasteland, mox, mox, crucible turn 1 before I go...damn, this game is already mostly over but I end up getting out a titan anyways and I get to beat like twice before he finds welder or something to get rid of it...Karn shows up pretty quickly and the game is over.
Game 2 I have a good hand and I end up killing him really quick...until my fatigue kicks in and I forget he is playing 5cStax, for some reason I started thinking about UbaStax and didnt figure he had ray of revelation in there...Im already winning the game with Triskelion and welder out and him only having 2 more turns to live...I end up comboing out with dragon though and he ray of revelations away my permanents...stupid, terrible play, but I can honostly say the whole day was filled with the worst magic ive played in over a year...I end up being a turn away from a gigantic yawgmoths will but he finally hits trinisphere (after getting crucible/strip smokestack all out) to stop me from going mox mox land will and like 8000000 other things...next card was mox so I might have had him afterall...but oh well...
1-1 2-2
Round 3 is Mike? playing Sui Black
Game 1 im on the play, but I have to mull to 5 with only mana crypt twice as my mana sources...I hit gemstone mine welder go with trike/bazaar/vault of whispers in my hand...He plays out swamp, dark rit, hymn (hitting the bazaar and the vault..damn) then black lotus, necropotence (damn good hand for sui) he ends up winning after a while when he edicts the welder and starts killing my hand with hippy...
Game 2 is how the matchup should go and I open much the same with mine, mox, welder go...he doesnt have a hymn this time and plays swamp, rit, necro go (after using it 4 times...) I play out bazaar and drop masticore dragon squee...weld in masticore and pass...his turn 2 hippy dies a quick death and I end up beating him down since he has nothing in his deck to deal with masticore...
Game 3 he plays first and drops first turn negator (my hand is decent but a first turn 5/5 is a little scary...) I get out some stuff, then I get out Razormane masticore after welding it in on turn 3...it keeps negator home, but his turn 2 hippy pings me down to like 6...I hit negator on my next draw step and his board is almost all gone (I think he kept the hippy and that was it...) I weld in a trike that i dropped to hippy and thats the game after a couple of beatdown turns.
so 2-1 4-3
Round 4 is Nik? playing White Weenie...
Well I can safely say that WW has not a chance against anything remotly like CA..these games arent even worth going into much they really werent close (might as well have been playing against T2 WW...it had swords and it swords a welder which was about it...game 2 he had out 3 savannah lions and a silver knight with bonesplitter on it, but that does little against razormane masticore and sundering titan...)
3-1 6-3
Round 5 the dude lets me win since he is 4-0...a draw would have gotten me top 4 as well since I had higher tie breakers than the all 3 of the other players with 9 points...my teammates are paired as well and Tony playing gifts gets the win over Ben playing FCG (since ben wouldnt make it, and tony only could with a win...)
Top 4 is supposed to be
Me
Gifts
Stax
Sligh
But I end up scooping to my round 5 opponent after talking with Eric and I let Eric go to top 4 instead
so top 4 works out like
Oath
Gifts
Stax
Sligh
Stax beats Tony's gifts deck
and Oath beats the Sligh deck
Oath wins in the final match...
This tourney was SUPER poorly played by me, and CA still got me top 4 if I wanted it this time...amazing (I mean I started a Dragon loop against the guy playing sligh in a fun game and forgot to float an extra mana to cast the second animate dead...ouch...THEN I forgot that I still had an extra mana floating anyways from Lotus and took a burn from it...damn, thats how off I was yesterday, lol)
All in all I lucked out really...the tourney could have gone very sour for me due to me playing like crap...it also could have gone much worse if I would have hit another quality deck in round 3 or 4...
I just wanted to post this for anybody thinking about running CA in an aggro type meta....it is great! It eats scrubby decks alive. heh.
Now for the second part of this post...
Yesterday before the tourney I had a meeting for work...obviously this means that I had 3 hours to tinker around with deck lists while making it look like im taking notes (:cool: )
I have been interested in running BR CA with the release of Portal into our format...due to two cards
These two cards are pretty cool for red if you can figure out how to use them right...
1R sorcery, draw 4 cards then discard 3 cards at random...
this seems to fit well with the theme of the deck...I just need some help from others to figure out just how well it can actually work...
Here is the initial prototype BR list for testing that I came up with...oh by the way, BR works great since not only would it be the right colors for the deck, it also happens to be the initials of brain rapist...how cool.
Remember, no garuntees on wheter or not this actually works at all. The idea is this...while sacraficing cool tuff like tinker/ancestral/intuition we gain substitues and improove our mana base signifigantly...
A good example of how goblin lore could work with the deck is this
Turn 1 land mox welder go
Turn 2 goblin lore, dropping 3 cards into the yard, which should hopefully include at least one thing to weld, or to animate...
you get to dig 4 deep through the deck and have pretty good odds of getting something nice into the yard...the odds of hitting fat greatly increases over the course of a game as well...
The drawback is obviously that you could lose something juicy when you do this...
But hey...this is what testing is for...
Imperial seal works decently for this deck as well as with bazaar and goblin lore you can make it a 3cc combo that makes sure you get fat into the yard...Im still not 100% on it since it is sorcery speed, but since we are just BR here it might have to go in there....
Any suggestions you all might have would be appreciated as well. It would be pretty cool to have a much more stable mana base here...oh and btw, the strip mine is kinda random, it doesnt have to be there, same thing with the crucible...they could go for another basic and another threat instead....
the tournament was honostly quite lame...there is a small report (kinda) on star city already for it...but it was really uninteresting, lol...it all came down to some politics between the 3 of us who are obviously quite a bit better than the others (well there was 1 other guy in the top 4 that is decent and plays 5cStax, but my teammate kevin beat him to get him out of the equation) I wont bore you with all the details (honostly the tournament was lame) but I ended up getting 1st with that list there...heh...
any questions on card choices and stuff just let me know...
I played some workstation games against Scott Limoges the other night and kicked some slaver ass...well let me put it this way...I assume it was slaver, I beat him badly enough to where it could have been turbotitan or even an odd gifts deck, lol....the echoing truths are really amazing in here right now...
Upon looking around I noticed that we were allowed to post primers on quality vintage decks and I felt compelled to introduce (or at least re-introduce) some of you to what has suddenly become a very viable deck choice again. Cerebral Assasin.
To begin a little history on the deck is in order. When Fifth Dawn was released by Wizards over a year ago it included what many believed to be a silly card. This card of course was called possessed portal. At the same time a group of amazing T1 players were working on their ideas on how to best get an early Sundering Titan into play. These players (Team Hadley, aka...the hadley rockstars) had found that Bazaar of Bagdhad NOT Mishra's Workshop was a much more efficient way to bring Titan into play...at the same time they realized that with a good Bazaar engine they could combine the already used Goblin Welder along with Squee, Goblin Nabob to completely lock an opponent out of the game with Possesed Portal....Cerebral Assasin was born...
As a historical reference the final deck list the guys decided on was this...
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
4 Animate Dead
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Force of Will
3 Sundering Titan
1 Triskelion
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Intuition
1 Possessed Portal
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Vault
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Shivan Reef
3 Underground River
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
2 Ambassador Laquatus
3 Necromancy
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Red Elemental Blast
3 Rack and Ruin
1 Echoing Truth
The deck had so far been extreemly succesful for the team winning them numerous Hadley events and for 4 tourneys was 100% unbeaten in swiss rounds (games not matches!)
Numerous ideas were initially tossed around on the mana drain boards, and after some initial success the deck started to lose favor. This was a trend that I believe was based largely on the fact that the deck lost some suprise factor and many believed that simply running Dragon was the better idea.
( for more info on dragon you can check out... http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=444493#post444493 )
The primary death of the deck came about when two seperate events happened...First of these events was the restriction of Trinisphere...while Cerebral assasin did not run Trinisphere itself, it allowed the deck to succeed in a slightly slower environment caused by what people perceived was the dominance of stax and control slaver...With the loss of trinisphere control decks were allowed to adopt faster game plans that made Cerebral Assasins plan not work out quite as well...The second painful thing was the spoiler showing a card called Pithing Needle that could conceivably come along and turn off half of the deck...Which it turns out is only slightly true and in fact CA can utilize its own pithing needles to shut off things that could conceivably hurt it such as wasteland...
When Cerebral Assasin was initially released I immediatly jumped on the idea...I love Sundering Titan (In fact I find it to be the best creature in Magic...just my opinion) and the idea of consistantly dropping him into play on turn 2 was just too good...My initial problem came however when in my small local meta I ran into decks like 4cc or 3cc running 3 disenchants and up to 4 Swords to Plowshares, along with wastelands. I immediatly set about fixing some problems with this matchup (since it made up a decent chunk of my meta) and came up with a version that ran more threats (to out number the amount of disenchants/StP in the area) and at the same time be able to battle the new Oath of Druids decks that had suddenly appeared. This list placed me in several top 8's and was well embraced by the small quantity of players still running cerebral assasin. Duress also became a better idea once trinisphere was restricted since Force of Will was in the deck largely to prevent a disasterous first turn trinisphere.
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Black Lotus
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Great Furnace
1 Vault of Whispers
1 Shivan Reef
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Tinker
1 Possessed Portal
1 Necromancy
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Duplicant
1 Eternal Witness
1 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Platinum Angel
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Goblin Welder
2 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Animate Dead
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
2 Triskelion
2 Sundering Titan
4 Duress
3 Intuition
1 Duplicant
1 Possesed Portal
3 Echoing Truth
3 Pyrostatic Pillar
3 Ray of Revelation
2 Blue Elemental Blast
Being able to up the count to 2 Duplicants after SB was amazing against Oath and the Crucible of Worlds and a general improovement on threat density MD improoved the Keeper matchup.
One of the major differences in this list is that it features the Dragon combo as part of the MD and not striktly as a SB conversion feature...The combo fits nicely into the deck and gives it a serious triple threat feature.
From this point I felt that I had something that worked well, but as always deckbuilders are always tinkering. New ideas are always needed for decks to stay fresh and continue to succeed. However after some toying around with ideas like Living Wish in the MD (which I still feel is viable in the proper meta) I dropped the deck after pithing needle was announced in favor of my previous deck of choice Stax.
As usual I got tired of playing stax and for a recent Black Lotus tourney I felt the time was right for bringing Cerebral Assasin back. This new deck featured some of my innovations from previous tinkering along with some help from Doug Linn (HiVal on SCG and TMD) and Nataz along with other posters like Urza23 and such on SCG. This new version, which I had re-named to Brain Rapist (since it was quite different from the original, yet still was based on the same ideas) Featured the pieces that I feel make this deck a very viable choice for todays meta.
Here is the deck list that got me 5th place at the Eudemonia Black Lotus tourney (43 players in Northern California) I went into the top 8 at 6-1 in 1st place. Game record was 13-3-1.
4 Goblin Welder
3 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Death Spark
1 Eternal Witness
1 Entomb
1 Platinum Angel
4 Duress
2 Reanimate
1 Demonic Tutor
2 Triskelion
1 Tinker
1 Possessed Portal
2 Sundering Titan
1 Worldgorger Dragon
2 Intuition
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Yawgmoth's Will
3 Animate Dead
1 Sulfurous Springs
1 Underground River
1 Vault of Whispers
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Shivan Reef
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Red Elemental Blast
1 Possessed Portal
3 Ray of Revelation
1 Echoing Truth
1 Hurkyls Recall
2 Pyrostatic Pillar
To give a brief rundown of my matchups it went something like this
Rd1 Bye from a previous top 8 with cerebral assasin.
Rd2 Dragon, I won 2-1-1
Rd3 Stax(roland chang style cronstax) I won 2-0
Rd4 Gifts I won 2-0
Rd5 Oath I lost 1-2
Rd6 Keeper I won 2-0
Rd7 Gifts I won 2-0
Top 8 Gifts I lost 0-2 (he was broken broken both games)
The major features of this deck are Reanimate and Death Spark along with Entomb.
The idea of Reanimate was originally brought up by Team Meandeck on the TMD forums, but was largely rejected initially. This was due in part to the life loss and the fact that people were wanting to replace animate dead with reanimate entirely...the idea of running a little of both seemed to go over some peoples heads, thus the idea was dropped until I began talking about the deck with HiVal (part of team meandeck) At the time I was largely looking to drop the mana curve of the deck due to some game losses coming from only seeing 1 or 2 mana for an entire game (an inherent part of playing CA) Reanimate replaced the one Necromancy I had been running and also the crucible of worlds since when I initially ran reanimate wasteland had taken a vacation. This immediatly showed much improovement due to it speeding the deck up by an entire turn at times. The life loss prooved to be un important since just winning was better than just losing due to being a turn behind or mana screwed...
The second major change came from Dragon decks running entomb...I figured if they could run it well why couldnt Cerebral Assasin (since it has similar ideas) This change also prooved to be potent by allowing for earlier wins and a cheaper mana base. These changes came about largely from the switch from Force of Will to Duress, without this, our mana curve would still be wrecked.
The last little bit of tech came about when HiVal mentioned the idea of only running 3 Squee...I still do not know if meandeck had death spark in mind when they dropped the 4th Squee (actually I just found out they hadnt thought of it...from a report on GenCon the first time one of them had seen it was from a european zombie infestation deck at GenCon), but the card fits amazingly well into this spot...especially in light of Stax and Control Slaver still being the biggest two decks currently and death spark hosing a large portion of their deck. Death spark is too good to not run rather than squee #4...if you cannot see this then you are missing a large part of the game of magic.
So that leaves us with today...Cerebral Assasin can beat Gifts.dec, Cerebral Assasin can beat stax, Cerebral Assasin can definatly beat Control Slaver...My match loss in swiss rounds was to Oath...I hadnt played Duplicants this tourney since Oath had been largely dead in my area...IF oath is a problem for you just run the duplicant as a 2 of (either 1 MD 1 SB, or 2 SB) those along with ray of revelation and/or seal of cleansing should shore up that match as well...With the demise of combo as a large part of the meta we can much more easily run Cerebral Assasin with sucess (Combo is/was the worst matchup for Cerebral Assasin)
Matcup Analysis:
Stax: There are several different types of stax decks in the format currently. Of these probably the worst matchup would be CronStax varients. These decks ability to quickly make my mana base terrible is what makes this matchup difficult at times. In playing this matchup I generally look for hands that are going to drop me a first or second turn at the latest goblin welder, and a hand that doesnt have too many 0cc mana accelerators if I am going second. Going for a quick creature is generally the best way to go about winning this match, or falling back on the dragon combo since these decks dont have too much in the way of MD removal (but duress before comboing off) All in all I find the matchup to be largely dice roll dependant, with skill also figuring into the final match win...50/50 depending on the player and the opening hands.
Control Slaver: This matchup is the original reason Cerebral Assasin ran so well...Cerebral Assasin was designed to beat mana drain decks...Triskelion along with Death Spark shuts off opposing welders and you can use their own to reanimate/animate to make your deck sing...the only thing to watch for is allowing them to Mind Slaver you once and combo you out with your own dragon. All in all this is a very favorable matchup
Gifts: This is a very similar matchup to CS except you dont get to do tricks with their own welders...Sundering Titan is amazing in this matchup, but be sure to have ways to deal with their yawgmoths will in your SB (like Tormod's Crypt...This is also a favorable matchup overall, but can be a little more playskill intensive.
Fish: Some players find this matchup difficult at times since they pack some spot removal and stuff like meddling mage, however if you can resolve an early large threat it is usually enough to win this match...Still it can be tough sometimes. I will give this a 50/50 depending on playskill matchup as well.
Dragon: I find this matchup to be 100% playskill oriented...actually if it was two even skilled players id put dragon ahead by a small margin..In tourney play however I have never lost a match to dragon, however they are all very close matches.
TPS/Long/2-Land Belcher: This is your nightmare matchup, the best of the 3 is TPS since you can hurt them with titans and portal, however this is still tough...these decks are the reason you MUST have platinum angel in your MD. All in all a bad match though...you are probably only 30% likely to win a match against these, and if you have a high number of combo like this in your area (which most do not right now) then you should probably steer clear of Cerebral Assasin.
Oath: This can be a tough matchup at times, you simply need to watch yourself when you play...for example you shouldnt play a first turn welder unless you know you are going to be able to weld something game swinging next turn...Duplicant shines in this matchup, so run him if you are going to play against the deck...Ray of Revelation should own though, and a first or second turn Intuition for 3xRoR should be gg...this matchup is probably 45/55 without duplicant and can be as good as 55/45 with duplicant MD...it really depends on the version...
All in all if you are looking for a fun (very) deck, that is very competitive (with a little practice of course) then Cerebral Assasin is the deck for you...
For more Cerebral Assasin stuff check out...
http://www.starcitygames.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=274663&start=25
http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/index.php?topic=24006.0
http://www.starcitygames.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=277486
http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/index.php?topic=20135.0
"That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die."
- H.P. Lovecraft
Food Chains problem against the deck was generally that it isnt really any faster, and it generally cannot out aggro cerebral assasin since CAs creatures are much larger and almost as fast...
Sundering Titan also wrecks FCG's mana base and keeps food chain from dropping...
However....Combo can be a problem for cerebral assasin at times and this deck could conceivably combo out before CA can get control of the game...It basically stems from Cerebral Assasin really not liking the role of the control, and Food Chain Goblins can force CA into that role...
That being said...As a cerebral assasin player I would much rather play FCG than say TPS or DeathLong, or even fish...but its not an optimal matchup always for CA...it would really depend though...you could easily set up a good board against FCG if you needed to.
-Lance
Spread the word.
"That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die."
- H.P. Lovecraft
However....
There are several reasons why crucible doesnt belong in the deck really...
First off is the fact that most of the T1 community has really determinned that Crucible, when used strickly as anti-crucible tech, is not really that good...In fact if you really are worried about wasteland then Pithing Needle would be much much better...
Second...crucible does very little for the deck...I say very little and not zero primarily because you can use it to spit out a possessed portal lock if you dont have squee or only have 1 squee...
Third, I cannot use crucible as an offensive weapon myself...it would be almost stricktly defensive...
YES, the mana base is terrible for Cerebral Assasin...that is its worst aspect and it is the reason that the Stax and Fish matchups are pretty 50/50 and not purely in favor of CA...the problem is that when you start to cut items for something like crucible or more mana, you start to weaken the overal power of the deck....It took quite a while to figure out that even though the original list ran 24 mana sources, dropping to 21 was what actually worked best for the deck...
The goal needs to be a big first or second or at the latest third turn big big threat (or dragon win or portal lock) With how the deck is designed you should only need, at the most, 3 mana to do this by turn 2 or 3
for example...a somewhat common play with the deck is something like this...
Turn 1,
play land, mox, welder
Turn 2,
play bazaar to dump artifacts, or dump another land to play intuition or thirst for knowledge to get something big into the yard to weld in....you have black availible you can also reanimate/animate something with the mox or land first if you want...
The options are pretty great at this point. This is even easy against control as you can bait with the first turn welder and then reanimate it or on the next turn use reanimate/animate on a better target...
This is hampered by an opponents first turn wasteland true...but with bazaar in the deck that land is not important as long as you have an artifact out...
Another Example...
Turn 1
bazaar and Mox or just bazaar...activate, dump something good (like sundering titan...) Opponent wastes bazaar...
Turn 2
Land (and mox if you havnt yet, or even just land) Reanimate the Sundering Titan...this play can also be even as good as a win if dragon was dumped and you had a mox...this means on turn 2 even with wasteland you can cast Animate Dead on Worldgorger Dragon and probably win or at the worst draw (depending on what else is in your hand...)
Hopefully this helps demonstrate how wasteland isnt even too bad for us...it becomes worse over the course of the game though...but this deck isnt big on the mid game...it is amazing early and amazing late, but the mid game can have a few problems....These are all things you would have to practice on and such though.
Soooo...All of that being said ill give you guys a little something something about what im currently working on...heh
There are several cards that will be availible to us when Portal and Starter become legal later this year...these cards might make a 2 color mana base possible (or even just help smooth the base slightly) which MIGHT make strip mine a possibility...its still kinda in the theorhetical stages right now, but IF I can get a mana base that allows AT LEAST strip mine then crucible as a 1 of or even 2 of at some point MIGHT become feasable again...But I have a long ways to go to get that deck to work better than what I already have...
Any other questions feel free to ask..
EDIT: I also wanted to add something on the crucible....99% of the time I dumped this to bazaar of bagdhad. This means that 99% of the time getting crucible in play involved a must have welder as well...when I dumped crucible the first time part of the reasoning is that it was only good about half the time for me, and a number of times I was having trouble keeping welder in play (this was primarily due to a very high amount off control slaver and stax making stuff like lava dart common occurance...)
This could become a problem again with CS and Stax both proving to be just as good now as they were a year ago...This by no means makes Cerebral Assasin a bad choice (in fact CA is amazing in these times because A: its really good against CS, and B: It forces players to bring in anti-welder hate which lets the rest of the deck go free...) Just make sure that you know going in that welders are going to be plan B much of the time and the animate/reanimate plan will be a little stronger...of course you can always overwhelm stuff like lava dart by playing welder (it then dies) then reanimating welder (which might die again) then playing another welder (at this point they probably arent killing it..but just in case) you can then play either another welder or another animate spell and just have a welder in play all the damn time...another fun choice is to reanimate an opponents welder that you just killed with death spark or triskelion as well...:p
Cruicble, I tried that a long time ago as well, but it just is usually a god-awful card too many times. There are a few times when its good, but that just doesn't justify it, as Lunar said. I tried to include it (this was when CA was only a few months old), but even with 3-4 strip effects, or artifact mana, or anything, it was always just too much mana to dump into something that doesn't really do enough by itself...
@Lunar: I had, at one time, incuded Lightning Greaves in my list, and I found it to be very good at holding the deck together, as no one usually counters it, and it makes your reanimated stuff practically indestructable (theres not too much global removal anymore, except for weenies). Welder, Angel, and hasted Titans, were all good. However, I eventually took it out for space. What is you're opinion on the card, to protect your welders form welder removal that is common now? It might give your deck the edge against decks that rely on it to combat your welder action. And btw, a very good primier, and for a good deck for once! Props.
EDIT: You confused me by having your names start with the same letter, after I deleted my original post and was very tired...
-Lance
Spread the word.
His list also included 1 copy of lightning greaves and I have posted it as a solid list on several sites...If that was you then good job...
I do like the card, and its nice being able to drop it on welders AND platz as well...I havnt found a good spot for it in my builds ever though...simply because its not really my style...the greaves can be nice from time to time though, but I was never happy with just one...IF I could justify at least 2 in the deck so as not to be 100% random then I might include them...1 of doesnt go into my builds however because they do nothing towards the actual goal of the deck (which is animating stuff from the yard) It CAN help a little to speed it up for the mid game though, and can help protect things along the way...I just find myself wanting to use that 2 mana early in the game for other things...
The thought of using it is always in the back of my mind though and it joins a whole list of tech cards that I have for the deck...
The only negative comment I would give it is that its primary goal in reality is to defend welders....
I try not to over rely on welder (this will be especially important with welder stax and control slaver both coming on in a big way) hate along the road makes him almost a secondary objective for me...Id rather focus (at least over 50% of the time) on the animate/reanimate process on the big guns, and use the welders (who are basically a turn slower than animate/reanimate) as backups...
Of course each matchup unravels in different fashions, and sometimes welders are the best option...
I just try not to lean on them too much.
First things first...
I did some testing with Lightning Greaves in the deck..In all cases they proved to be inferior to just about anything else...I would not reccomend them in MOST cases, but maybe some matchups would be cool with them in...
But the main reason for this post is two fold...I have a tourney report, and I wanted to post some prototype ideas for BR Cerebral Assasin, and get some reactions on the list...
TOURNEY REPORT:
I had a small tourney yesterday that I chose to attend here in Sacramento CA...
The turnout was decent considering 1st was only a Beta Sol Ring and all. 16 players showed up and we had a half decent little tourney.
My teammate Tony won the last tournament at this particular location with Ravager (Rivers Affinity) and the meta he ran into last time was mostly janky aggro deck with a spattering of Dragon and Salvager Oath.
That being said I geared CA to fit better into a meta with Fish, Madness, WW and Sligh...
Basically you can take my Brain Rapist list from above and replace a few items.
-4 Duress (not good against aggro eh..)
-1 Possessed Portal (same here)
+4 Brainstorm (just cause..its really actually kinda cool)
+1 Duplicant
The SB I ran was
3 Ray of Revelation
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Seal of Cleansing
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Duplicant
1 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Razormane Masticore (House!)
2 Echoing Truth
The SB worked out decently enough, except it was very light against something like stax (which resulted in my loss in the Swiss rounds)
I will jump to the end for a second. I made top 4, but then decided to concede instead to allow somebody else in (for a little compensation) due to me being extra tired (2 hours of sleep the night before and no food for the day, was terrible and led to bad play) I played absolutely terribly yet still managed to make top 4 even after getting the meta half messed up.
I already stated the meta I expected...however this time it was something like this:
1 CA (Me)
1 5cStax (chang style)
2 Oath (both kinda neat control oath decks) (1 of my team)
2 Gifts (1 of me team)
1 Sensei
1 FCG (my team)
1 Sligh
1 WW
1 Sui Black
1 Kobolds
The rest I didnt see as they all lost early and were down at low tables...
SOOO, I was a pretty decent amount off on my meta predictions...anyhow..
Round 1 is Eric Brown Playing Oath
Ive played with Eric before and he is a very good player (he has won 2 or 3 of the events here and has won a Eudemonia event and top 8 at at least 2 other Eudemonia's)
Game 1 I am on the play and start out with gemstone mine, welder, which resolves, then go. He plays island go. I play bazaar and hit a mox, but no business. He brainstorms EOT. He draws and does NOTHING, yay for me. My turn I dont do much as I dont want to kill my hand with bazaar, I play a land and pass the turn (I dont attack as he plays salvager oath a lot so I want welder availible to deal with any odd artifacts he might throw out at me, just being cautious.) He brainstorms again and then draws for turn...he passes without hitting a land again...ouch. On my turn I play a land then I brainstorm on my own turn and hit some fat after top decking animate dead to go with the animate from my opening hand(it was like Dragon Entomb Demonic Tutor) I tutor up Black lotus, play entomb to grab eternal witness, bazaar away dragon then use floating mana from lotus to play animate which he in turns brainstorms again and forces...then I play the second animate off of my lands and he has no second force and is tapped out so I win...
Game 2 was very similar and my initial hand is almost identical (except I brought in tormods crypt and had that 1st turn as well, I still thought he was playing salvager oath) He gets out 3 lands, but cant find anything to go with them, I end up animating a dragon to untap my lands, then animate sundering titan on the second loop to kill his tropical/volcanic/basic island in one go and end up beating down with the titan before he gets back to a second land...
1-0 2-0
Round 2 is against Mohammed (erics teammate) playing 5color stax...
Game 1 he plays out wasteland, mox, mox, crucible turn 1 before I go...damn, this game is already mostly over but I end up getting out a titan anyways and I get to beat like twice before he finds welder or something to get rid of it...Karn shows up pretty quickly and the game is over.
Game 2 I have a good hand and I end up killing him really quick...until my fatigue kicks in and I forget he is playing 5cStax, for some reason I started thinking about UbaStax and didnt figure he had ray of revelation in there...Im already winning the game with Triskelion and welder out and him only having 2 more turns to live...I end up comboing out with dragon though and he ray of revelations away my permanents...stupid, terrible play, but I can honostly say the whole day was filled with the worst magic ive played in over a year...I end up being a turn away from a gigantic yawgmoths will but he finally hits trinisphere (after getting crucible/strip smokestack all out) to stop me from going mox mox land will and like 8000000 other things...next card was mox so I might have had him afterall...but oh well...
1-1 2-2
Round 3 is Mike? playing Sui Black
Game 1 im on the play, but I have to mull to 5 with only mana crypt twice as my mana sources...I hit gemstone mine welder go with trike/bazaar/vault of whispers in my hand...He plays out swamp, dark rit, hymn (hitting the bazaar and the vault..damn) then black lotus, necropotence (damn good hand for sui) he ends up winning after a while when he edicts the welder and starts killing my hand with hippy...
Game 2 is how the matchup should go and I open much the same with mine, mox, welder go...he doesnt have a hymn this time and plays swamp, rit, necro go (after using it 4 times...) I play out bazaar and drop masticore dragon squee...weld in masticore and pass...his turn 2 hippy dies a quick death and I end up beating him down since he has nothing in his deck to deal with masticore...
Game 3 he plays first and drops first turn negator (my hand is decent but a first turn 5/5 is a little scary...) I get out some stuff, then I get out Razormane masticore after welding it in on turn 3...it keeps negator home, but his turn 2 hippy pings me down to like 6...I hit negator on my next draw step and his board is almost all gone (I think he kept the hippy and that was it...) I weld in a trike that i dropped to hippy and thats the game after a couple of beatdown turns.
so 2-1 4-3
Round 4 is Nik? playing White Weenie...
Well I can safely say that WW has not a chance against anything remotly like CA..these games arent even worth going into much they really werent close (might as well have been playing against T2 WW...it had swords and it swords a welder which was about it...game 2 he had out 3 savannah lions and a silver knight with bonesplitter on it, but that does little against razormane masticore and sundering titan...)
3-1 6-3
Round 5 the dude lets me win since he is 4-0...a draw would have gotten me top 4 as well since I had higher tie breakers than the all 3 of the other players with 9 points...my teammates are paired as well and Tony playing gifts gets the win over Ben playing FCG (since ben wouldnt make it, and tony only could with a win...)
Top 4 is supposed to be
Me
Gifts
Stax
Sligh
But I end up scooping to my round 5 opponent after talking with Eric and I let Eric go to top 4 instead
so top 4 works out like
Oath
Gifts
Stax
Sligh
Stax beats Tony's gifts deck
and Oath beats the Sligh deck
Oath wins in the final match...
This tourney was SUPER poorly played by me, and CA still got me top 4 if I wanted it this time...amazing (I mean I started a Dragon loop against the guy playing sligh in a fun game and forgot to float an extra mana to cast the second animate dead...ouch...THEN I forgot that I still had an extra mana floating anyways from Lotus and took a burn from it...damn, thats how off I was yesterday, lol)
All in all I lucked out really...the tourney could have gone very sour for me due to me playing like crap...it also could have gone much worse if I would have hit another quality deck in round 3 or 4...
I just wanted to post this for anybody thinking about running CA in an aggro type meta....it is great! It eats scrubby decks alive. heh.
Now for the second part of this post...
Yesterday before the tourney I had a meeting for work...obviously this means that I had 3 hours to tinker around with deck lists while making it look like im taking notes (:cool: )
I have been interested in running BR CA with the release of Portal into our format...due to two cards
Goblin Lore and Counsel of the Court
These two cards are pretty cool for red if you can figure out how to use them right...
1R sorcery, draw 4 cards then discard 3 cards at random...
this seems to fit well with the theme of the deck...I just need some help from others to figure out just how well it can actually work...
Here is the initial prototype BR list for testing that I came up with...oh by the way, BR works great since not only would it be the right colors for the deck, it also happens to be the initials of brain rapist...how cool.
A Vintage Deck, by Scott Lemenager
Prototype for use upon release of Portal/Starter, Created on 2005-08-27Magic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
3 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Death Spark
4 Goblin Welder
3 Animate Dead
2 Reanimate
2 Goblin Lore
1 Wheel of Fortune (could be a third lore or a counsel)
2 Buried Alive
1 Entomb
2 Sundering Titan
1 Triskelion (mabye platinum angel here or in the simulacrum spot)
1 Possessed Portal
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Shivan Hellkite
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Imperial Seal (I dont know for sure on this one...but it fits)
4 Duress
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
2 Bloodstained Mire
3 Swamp
1 Mountain
4 Sulfurous Springs
1 Strip Mine
1 Vault of Whispers
2 Tormod's Crypt (maybe Withered Wretch)
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Pyrostatic Pillar
1 Duplicant
1 Razormane Masticore
4 Random SB cards
Remember, no garuntees on wheter or not this actually works at all. The idea is this...while sacraficing cool tuff like tinker/ancestral/intuition we gain substitues and improove our mana base signifigantly...
A good example of how goblin lore could work with the deck is this
Turn 1 land mox welder go
Turn 2 goblin lore, dropping 3 cards into the yard, which should hopefully include at least one thing to weld, or to animate...
you get to dig 4 deep through the deck and have pretty good odds of getting something nice into the yard...the odds of hitting fat greatly increases over the course of a game as well...
The drawback is obviously that you could lose something juicy when you do this...
But hey...this is what testing is for...
Imperial seal works decently for this deck as well as with bazaar and goblin lore you can make it a 3cc combo that makes sure you get fat into the yard...Im still not 100% on it since it is sorcery speed, but since we are just BR here it might have to go in there....
Any suggestions you all might have would be appreciated as well. It would be pretty cool to have a much more stable mana base here...oh and btw, the strip mine is kinda random, it doesnt have to be there, same thing with the crucible...they could go for another basic and another threat instead....
LMK
Chad Halstead took my list of Cerebral Assasin to the SCG Power event last weekend and placed 17th overall...not too shabby.
basically his list is almost identical to one of mine with the following changes
-1 Thirst for Knowledge
+1 Animate Dead
with one of my older mana bases, heh, how sweet...
here is the link to the whole list on scg.com
http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=13355
also I won a small T1 Mana Drain tournament with the following cerebral assasin list...
4 Bazaar of Bagdhad
4 Goblin Welder
3 Animate Dead
2 Reanimate
2 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Intuition
1 Lim-dul's Vault
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Tinker
1 Entomb
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
2 Sundering Titan
1 Triskelion
1 Duplicant
1 Platinum Angel
1 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Shivan Hellkite
3 Squee, Goblin Nabob
3 Xantid Swarm
2 Echoing Truth
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Vault of Whispers
1 Strip Mine
1 Underground River
1 Shivan Reef
1 Tolarian Academy
3 Ray of Revelation
2 Sacred Ground
3 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Razormane Masticore
1 Possessed Portal
1 Viashino Heretic
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Echoing Truth
Any questions just let me know.
any questions on card choices and stuff just let me know...
also with this list
-1 Lim Dul's Vault
-1 Xantid Swarm
+2 Buried Alive
I played some workstation games against Scott Limoges the other night and kicked some slaver ass...well let me put it this way...I assume it was slaver, I beat him badly enough to where it could have been turbotitan or even an odd gifts deck, lol....the echoing truths are really amazing in here right now...