Geth is all about reverse reanimating your opponent's creature/artifacts with mill so I thought about cranking it up a notch and turning him into the infinite stealy and milling machine. To do this, we need
Infinite mana,
Sac outlet,
Disguise elements 1, 2 as a control game-plan that doesn't degrade consistency
The easiest way to get this online is with a single Buried Alive + Corpse Dance/Shallow Grave at 6/5 mana in one turn. Hitting both buried alive and Corpse dance/shallow grave can be achieved by Insidious Dreams at EOT with some draw effect (such as top/muse/arena) the following turn. Thus, we have the equivalent of a two card infinite mana engine so long as we don't draw into some of the non-overlapping combo pieces. All previous tutors including Dimir House Guard may be part of the sub-chain that hits dreams.
With infinite black mana, we create a infinite mill engine with Dimir House Guard, Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief, Attrition or use our opponent's graveyard such as Sakura Tribe Elder or Yavimaya elder to self-recur mill themselves.
Note that once Ooze hits play, we generate infinite mana without the stack (due to mana abilities). Thus, the engine is resilient to common forms of creature disruption.
Plan B??? (The actual/standard plan)
The standard play
In 1v1, play the deck like MBC, i.e. Big discard (Mind Twist/Shatter/Sludge), creature control with wrath/edict/CIP creature removal effects. On the surface, we have the standard control + Geth stealing and playing your opponent's deck. One can go about playing like this and leading into hilarious board positions with mono-black rearing meta goodies such as Eldrazi, Voltron equipment, Off-color titans, Terastodons... By the time a few sweepers (either by yourself or someone else) resolve and everyone's graveyard becomes primed for infinite recursion/milling.
In multi-player (deck intended for this), the deck is designed with engine cards that deter hate and buy you as much cheap incremental advantage via grave recursion and carddraw.
Necropotence or tutored into it if you feel the board is packing grave-hate: Play the stall game and get someone to wrath artifact enchantments
Corpse Dance: At worse, it buys you recurring chump blockers. In usual cases, it buys you recurring removal and mini-board wipes
Basilisk Collar: Deathtouch deters hate, put this on anything and your opponents will think twice on bashing. Also does wonders with Crypt Rats as a way to gain absurd amounts of life and board wipe.
Goal: Infinite mana/mill engine and win from there
Recursion
Black is a master of recurring both it and its enemy's graveyards. We favor instant speed, versatile, and reusable recursion over the one-time effects. Geth, lord of the vault: Instant speed, reusable, opponent graveyard recursion (skys... err mana is the limit) Corpse Dance: Instant speed, versatile, reusable, own graveyard recursion (abuse CIP effects, and creature combat), combo piece Shallow Grave: Instant speed recur, combo piece Makeshift Mannequin: Instant speed own graveyard recursion Phyrexian Reclamation: Reusable own graveyard recursion, very cheap, does stupid things with infinite mana Profane Command: Versatile removal/evasion/life loss/recursion card Volrath's Stronghold: Reusable own graveyard recursion (doubles as land) Reassembling Skeleton/Bloodghast/Nether Traitor: The little 3 that makes sac stuff win
Unconventional Control Contamination + Geth recursion or Reassembling Skeleton = Lock non-black or those who don't run artifact mana out Attrition + Geth/bloodghast/reassembling skeleton/nether traitor = persistent removal Grave Pact + instant sac outlet = instant mini-board wipe! Withering Boon: Since EDH runs so many CIP creatures, black creature removal just isn't good enough. Black creature counter is better! Imp's Mischief: Redirect effects are always awesome. Give black back some love Snuff Out, Slaughter Pact: Lets you tap out against heavy aggro builds
Other quirky interactions Pawn of Ulamog + Bloodghast/reassembling skeleton + clamp/phyrexian tower/sacoutlet is ramp Corpse Dance + most CIP guys off the top at EOT + sac-outlet = abuse Basalisk Collar + Crypt Rats = Massive wrath + lifegain
Strengths
-Combo: Infinite milling wins games, no need to actually deal damage
-Creature control: Many edict and and non-targeting removal, recurring creature CIP removal, instant speed recursion
-Consistency: Minimizes situational cards. Deck designed so that combo pieces hold their own before completing the engine
Weaknesses:
-The obvious one is grave-hate, so I'm tempted to pack library hate like Jester's Cap, Nightmare Incursion, Sadistic Sacrament
-The second one is tucking Geth, which cuts off milling and forces buried alive/tutor
-Lack of good artifact/enchantment removal (Wheel of Sun and Moon makes this deck cry), otherwise, we ignore their stuff and DIG for the win
Why combo Geth?
-Compared to other combos (two-three card combos) that win on the spot, this one is quite conditional. The following points argue the "fairness" of infinite milling
The actual combo requires, 2 cards in the yard, 1 ooze on the field, 1 sac-outlet, 1 Geth... That's 5, arguably 4 cards right there.
The 2 card enabler, buried alive + shallow grave/corpse dance requires that I don't have the first three pieces in hand, and possibly falls prey to instant removal of creatures on my board that messes up the recursion
My opponents must have creatures in yard, this prevents an early turn 3-4 combo-win depending on whats getting played at the table
!Blue deck
Change log
4/9/11:
Added more descriptions
-boseiju, - mana vault
+basalisk collar, crypt rats
3/4/11:
Too many changes to list, the major one sides ooze combo in place of rings combo
2/26/11:
Too many changes to list, the major one removes ooze combo
2/24/11:
+Yawmoth's will, swamp, doomed necromancer
-Twisted abomination, unholy grotto, corpse connoisseur
1/25/11:
-Mind Twisted/Shatter/sludge, Worn power stone, liliana vess
+Helldozer, Twisted Abomination, nezumi shortfang, sword of fire and ice, bane of the living
1/18/11:
-Reanimate, Animate dead, necromancy
+Sword of Light and Shadow, Junk Diver, Ink-eyes servant of oni, corpse dance
-bane of the living
+shriekmaw
-graveborn muse, dregs of sorrow,
+skeletal scrying
-twisted abomination
+Pilgrim's Eye
1/16/11:
Added description of the standard game play and details on the combo
-Insidious Dreams, Ancient Craving, Ambition's Cost, Phyrexian Totem, Helldozer
+Mind Twist, Mind Sludge, Mind shatter, Worn powerStone, Bane of the Living
Update:
-Insidious Dreams, Ancient Craving, Ambition's Cost, Phyrexian Totem, coalition relic, Helldozer,
+Mind Twist, Mind Sludge, Mind shatter, Worn Powerstone, Armillary sphere, Bane of the Living
Dreams was often too much card disadvantage, and Ancient Craving, Ambition's Cost were too too pricey at 4 mana for 3 cards. Totem is sub-par to Worn Powerstone for its +2. Dozer is better when there're fewer lands ;(
The discard route, like traditional 1v1 Geth MBC, removes grave hate threats and dumps artifact/creatures into the yard for Geth to steal.
-Interesting self mill (and other person mill without Basalt) is Mesmeric Orb + Basalt Monolith and they provides a useful function without the combo. Dont know if you ever want to mill yourself but black loves this
-You could use Mesmeric Orb with your the Rings of BEarth/Cabal Coff combo to self mill, the infinte untapping is the same effect
- Any giant Eldrazi+instant discard outlet or Elixir of Immortality provides instant speed graveyard protection, though the Eldrazi are bad with Necropotence, perhaps you want Elixir if your getting hated on
+ Yawgmoth's Will, replay rituals/reanmite/tutors/use as a crazy infinte mana sink/plays your combo pieces from the GY, and or +Reanimate what more need be said.
+1 Dark Ritual, cut pilgrims eye? or some generic find land thing, or even a land you have heaps. A Turn 1 Phyrexian Arena, Necropotence, or mana fixing artifact could be described as good.
+ 1 Crypt of Aggadeem , same combo as Cabal/Temple/Brightearth with 6 creatures in the bin.
+If you dont think you'll have enough creatures in the bin to justify running Crypt add Twisted Abomination in place of Pilgrims Eye. Instant speed, same effect, also allows Necrotic Ooze to regenerate for 1, evasive
+Lightning Greaves, reanimating Necrotic Ooze is good and well but clued on players and even bad ones will want to respond to it when the graveyard outpiles the library. Comboing the turn you reanimate/play will drascticlly improve your results!
+If you want a really lame card that everyone will hate your for (i love these ones) Exsanguinate, this is the infinite mana sink
+ Crucible of Worlds, replay any milled/destroyed combo lands
+ Doomed Necromancer and drumroll please for everybodys favoirte artifact...
+ The always useful Mimic Vat, using + utility cards like Doomed Necromancer, or annoying board wipes like Fleshbag Marauder
I counted 54 combined lands/fetch/artifacts. Do you find it to many. 48 should be more than enough for an expensive monocolour general. Without ramp i like about 1/4 Artifacts to ramp into and 3/4 land. Thinkng 28 Basics, your 7 utility lands, 12 artifacts, 1 Dark Ritual(as the minium ritual effects, not max) for about 47-48 sources, cutting Kite/basics/sphere
Given up magic because a)its a waste of money b)it sucks the joy out of life c)im doing more interesting things than tapping pieces of plastic that have no intrinsic value.
I encourage you to do the same. Instead of FNM try Friday Night Something Spontaneous. Instead of thousands of hours and dollars on plastic imagine it with a significant other or friends sharing something meaningful. I randomly typed a new password, so bon voyage itches i encourage you to follow suit! Cheers
-Yawg Will is good, definitely will consider it
-Crypt is decent if I ran more creatures, you need something like 23+ in deck to make it consistent enough for abuse
-Ritual is pretty bad and as mentioned, is conditioned on having Necro or Arena in hand early game. It essentially does nothing mid-late game due to other mana sources. This type of shakey mana is why I cut stuff like Bubbling Muck from previous iterations of this deck.
-greaves is added protection (that being said, its only added protection)
-doomed Necro needs a turn to get value and so people will up wary of my shennegains. And if I slowroll buried alive after a turn it comes out, I still need to get through an extra round of opponent untapping phases. Something like Apprentice Necromancer is a bit faster.
-Crucible of Worlds, good card that increases redundancy of stuff like grim discovery. I would run this if I ran some sac-lands (in the form of land d engine) or some fetches (a little harder to justify) or shennegains like Sundering Titan
-Mimic vat is good, i'll have to see how adding more dimensions to the deck affects consistency
- As for the number of mana sources, its somewhat justified as Geth is a mana sink so there's seldom a case of getting mana flooded. Maybe the opportunity costs of some of the above ideas will outweigh Geth stealing stuff hrmm.
EDIT: fleshbag and other mini-edicts on creatures feel more meta-dependent. Also, If i packed more reusable recursion (phyrexian reclaimation e.g.), then I'd run this.
"greaves is added protection (that being said, its only added protection)", the other effect it also gives haste. And for free if its in play. "Unearth effect, equip for free then combo", i dont care about the protection usally, i want the haste
I like the look of Geth, i currently use him as one of my mana sink/win con along side Lich Lord of Unx. I've been trying for 2 weeks to assemable a highy compedative tribal zombie deck. After months of collecting all the power/staple cards and almost every playable zombie im up to my fourth general from Sedris, The Traitor King, Lord of Tresserhorn, Thraximundar and now im on Dralun, Lich Lord and im still not happy and i only have 3 legendary zombies left to try...Geth might be worth a shot, Or i could try finishing what i build :|
Out of curouisty do you remember where/when you discovered or heard about rings of Bearth infinite combo?
Given up magic because a)its a waste of money b)it sucks the joy out of life c)im doing more interesting things than tapping pieces of plastic that have no intrinsic value.
I encourage you to do the same. Instead of FNM try Friday Night Something Spontaneous. Instead of thousands of hours and dollars on plastic imagine it with a significant other or friends sharing something meaningful. I randomly typed a new password, so bon voyage itches i encourage you to follow suit! Cheers
Ah, somehow I forgot about the haste. Lightning greaves is indeed great after some testing as
a)allows ooze to combo out the turn it hits play,
b)protects and gives haste to Geth, magus of coffers (if I need it in play more), Nirkana rev,ooze, hellkite,
Also, I find that Imp's Mischief does wonders as it protects my combos and opens up hilarious plays like redirecting strokes of genuis heh.
Mantle is interesting as it needs Magus on the field (a bit more fragile). The real problem is that outside the combo, the equipment doesn't grant enough utility or interactions with the other creatures in the deck outside of untapping to provide another blocker (but also requires holding mana open). It may become more useful if I start loading the deck with stuff like Avatar of Woe, and Visara the Dreadful.
Another Update:
Added a secondary ooze interaction section
-Mind Twisted/Shatter/sludge: Cutting these guys due to style points in multi-player (if its 1v1, I'd side these in)
+nezumi shortfang, sword of fire and ice: Shortfang gives ooze instant discard without the flip effect, sword gives recurring CA
-Worn power stone: (siding in a more versatile replacement)
+Twisted Abomination: (More stable, can instantly cycle to give ooze regen)
-liliana vess: (gets killed too quickly for a 5 mana tutor to top)
+Helldozer, bane of the living: Deck needed at least 1 LD element and this combos with ooze, Bane of the living is a hidden wrath
Have you considered Thawing Glaciers? It's a great card in conjunction with any of the black big mana effects like Coffers, Lens, Gauntlet, and Revnant, and it plays real nice with Deserted Temple, allowing you to either get two lands in a single turn or bypass waiting a turn.
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Have you considered Thawing Glaciers? It's a great card in conjunction with any of the black big mana effects like Coffers, Lens, Gauntlet, and Revnant, and it plays real nice with Deserted Temple, allowing you to either get two lands in a single turn or bypass waiting a turn.
Indeed, glaciers is great for another recurring land tutor and works with Rings of Brighthearth too. I actually have one coming in today that's gonna see some play testing in the next few days.
Also have you considered Basalt Monolith? It's a decent card on it's own, giving you the ability to store 3 mana between turns and ramping you from 3 mana to 6-7 for an explosive early play, and it infinite combos with Rings of Brighthearth, which you already play. Yes, it's only infinite colorless, but there's a lot you can do with infinite colorless mana, especially given a Rings of Brighthearth. Having Deserted Temple and any black source in play gives you infinite Black mana. Two black plus Exsanguinate kills everybody dead.
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Also have you considered Basalt Monolith? It's a decent card on it's own, giving you the ability to store 3 mana between turns and ramping you from 3 mana to 6-7 for an explosive early play, and it infinite combos with Rings of Brighthearth, which you already play. Yes, it's only infinite colorless, but there's a lot you can do with infinite colorless mana, especially given a Rings of Brighthearth. Having Deserted Temple and any black source in play gives you infinite Black mana. Two black plus Exsanguinate kills everybody dead.
I'd used to run basalt monolith with this but the colorless mana can be a problem. With that said, basalt monolith may still be good enough as a mana rock hardly draws attention ;).
I know about Exsanguinate abuse but I don't run it for several reasons:
-Meta has a fair amount of blue so I've seen many a times where spells gets countered/stolen/copied on the stack
-The card is a dud unless I've generated a lot of mana, its role is limited to a finisher thus reducing its flexibility
I'll post a new update in a few days of stuff tested.
EDIT: Scratch that, the Monolith/Ring is great. With infinite colorless, its enough to land Geth out late-game and grab a whole lot of value with the remaining black
-Dreamstone hedron, snowcovered swamp
+Basalt Monolith, Thawing glaciers
I'd used to run basalt monolith with this but the colorless mana can be a problem. With that said, basalt monolith may still be good enough as a mana rock hardly draws attention ;).
I know about Exsanguinate abuse but I don't run it for several reasons:
-Meta has a fair amount of blue so I've seen many a times where spells gets countered/stolen/copied on the stack
-The card is a dud unless I've generated a lot of mana, its role is limited to a finisher thus reducing its flexibility
I'll post a new update in a few days of stuff tested.
EDIT: Scratch that, the Monolith/Ring is great. With infinite colorless, its enough to land Geth out late-game and grab a whole lot of value with the remaining black
-Dreamstone hedron, snowcovered swamp
+Basalt Monolith, Thawing glaciers
To help combat counterspells, I run a Boseiju, Who Shelters All in my Geth (I play more big MBC than Geth-combo). It rarely crops up to hamstring you when you don't want it (and there are ways to get rid of it, like Demonic Collusion), and it can be tutored for in a pinch. Helps to resolve big bombs like Exsanguinate, Decree of Pain, etc.
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To help combat counterspells, I run a Boseiju, Who Shelters All in my Geth (I play more big MBC than Geth-combo). It rarely crops up to hamstring you when you don't want it (and there are ways to get rid of it, like Demonic Collusion), and it can be tutored for in a pinch. Helps to resolve big bombs like Exsanguinate, Decree of Pain, etc.
Yep yep, I ran boseiju at one point but cut it as the deck didn't pack too many large instant/sorceries. Demonic Collusions however is great card that escaped my mind. Cheers to the sweet find.
Yep yep, I ran boseiju at one point but cut it as the deck didn't pack too many large instant/sorceries. Demonic Collusions however is great card that escaped my mind. Cheers to the sweet find.
Collusion is amazing because it can make use of the lands that start to clutter your hand when you get a Journeyer's Kite and/or Thawing Glaciers thrumming, and using it even twice generally lets you set up a combo. It also helps your deck even further by dropping combo pieces for your Necrotic Ooze. I'd definitely advocate running it over Diabolic Tutor if you want to stay at the same number of tutors.
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Reasons: Sol Ring is imba mana that belongs in a true artifact ramp deck i.e. Red/white. Replaced with Demonic Collusion. The 3 panorama's and two fetches were added to 1) Lower the virtual land/mana sources to 45, 2)ramp with Rings of Brighthearth and Crucible of worlds. Petrified Field recurs combo lands. Crucible replaced grim discovery as more reliable land recursion.
Reasons: Sol Ring is imba mana that belongs in a true artifact ramp deck i.e. Red/white. Replaced with Demonic Collusion. The 3 panorama's and two fetches were added to 1) Lower the virtual land/mana sources to 45, 2)ramp with Rings of Brighthearth and Crucible of worlds. Petrified Field recurs combo lands. Crucible replaced grim discovery as more reliable land recursion.
Yea, sol-ring was a hard cut but I hate seeing games won by this turn 1 drop and the rank of ensuing complaints.
Strip-mine is always a nice option with crucible that I run in decks with a recurring LD theme (i.e. Nath Landfall). I'll probably side it in if I start seeing more coffer/stronghold/cradle/academy ruin abuse in my meta (which may be soon due to GB glisa rearing her head)
I'm not a huge fan of strands of night as I don't run enough huge creature bombs (more utility creatures here) to warrant the sac-land effect.
Minor Update:
-Nevinyrral's Disk, Esper Panorama
+Sol ring, strip-mine
Yea, I miss sol ring too much despite complaints. I think cutting disk was the right as having it come out tapped gives my opponents too many options to play around.
Update: removed the higher cost in favor of low cc sweepers in multi-player. This should buy me more time to combo out. Replaced last two panoramas and snow lands with fetches, land removal, and more land recursion due to a recent surge in power in the meta.
-Revier Demon, sword of light and shadow, nirkana reverant, gauntlet of power, extraplanar lens, all snow covered swamps
+Abyssal Gatekeeper, phyrexian reclamation, ambition's cost, ancient cravings, nevinyrral's disk, terrain generator, swamps
Regarding Revier Demon, sword of light and shadow:
Abyssal Gatekeeper, phyrexian reclamation are much more cost efficient, recurrable, and potent (edict effect).
Regarding mana doublers: Although swamps do matter in the deck, these cards become too great a liability in play. Lens never makes it past a turn and sets yourself up for a 2for1. Gauntlet of power and Reverant are 5-6 mana and the tempo loss too great when they get cleared. Doubling cube is situational. I've opted for more card-draw and removal to improve consistency and to not draw any more attention on the field while running combo.
Note: The average cc of the deck has now dropped to 3.015, which is looking good for combo control.
EDIT: Scratch part of that,
+gauntlet of power, nirkana reverant, duplicant, Myojin of Night's Reach
-Reassembling skeleton, shred memory, buried alive, phyrexian plaguelord
Adding back gauntlet and Reverant as I still miss big black mana despite hate. Lens is gone tho due to 2for1'ing myself in many games. Skeleton and shred memory gone due to too much conditional use. Plaguelord gone as I find drana and housegaurd more useful.
30 Swamp
1 Cabal Coffers
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Volrath's stronghold
1 Strip mine
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Mystifying Maze
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Temple of the False God
The Man Himself
1 Geth, Lord of the Vault
Ramp/Fixing
1 Expedition Map
1 Sol Ring
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
1 Mind Stone
1 Armiliary Sphere
1 Everflowing Chalice
1 Paladium Myr
1 Pilgrim's Eye
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Pawn of Ulamog
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Magus of the Coffers
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Skullclamp
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Phyrexian Rager
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Necropotence
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 Graveborn Muse
1 Dimir House Guard
1 Insidious Dreams
1 Promise of Power
Sweepers
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Damnation
1 Decree of Pain
Disruption
1 Shriekmaw
1 Imp's Mischief
1 Withering Boon
1 Snuff Out
1 Fleshbag Marauder
1 Bone Shredder
1 Contamination
1 Attrition
1 Crypt Rats
1 Slaughter Pact (Cut for NPH Praetor's Grip)
1 Tendrils of Corruption
1 Consuming Vapors
1 Grave Pact
1 Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief
1 Profane Command
1 Mind Twist
1 Mind Shatter
1 Mind Sludge
Grave Matters
1 Reassembling Skeleton
1 Bloodghast
1 Buried Alive
1 Nether Traitor
1 Puppetier Clique
1 Corpse Connoisseur
Self Recursion
1 Phyrexian Reclamation
1 Shallow Grave
1 Yawmoth's Will
1 Corpse Dance
1 Necromancy
1 Makeshift Mannequin
Utility
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Pili-Pala
1 Necrotic Ooze
1 Basilisk Collar
Geth is all about reverse reanimating your opponent's creature/artifacts with mill so I thought about cranking it up a notch and turning him into the infinite stealy and milling machine. To do this, we need
Plan A: Infinite Milling
The way of infinite mana is attained by Necrotic Ooze + Palladium Myr/Magus of the Coffers + Pili-Pala in the graveyard.
The easiest way to get this online is with a single Buried Alive + Corpse Dance/Shallow Grave at 6/5 mana in one turn. Hitting both buried alive and Corpse dance/shallow grave can be achieved by Insidious Dreams at EOT with some draw effect (such as top/muse/arena) the following turn. Thus, we have the equivalent of a two card infinite mana engine so long as we don't draw into some of the non-overlapping combo pieces. All previous tutors including Dimir House Guard may be part of the sub-chain that hits dreams.
With infinite black mana, we create a infinite mill engine with
Dimir House Guard, Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief, Attrition or use our opponent's graveyard such as Sakura Tribe Elder or Yavimaya elder to self-recur mill themselves.
Note that once Ooze hits play, we generate infinite mana without the stack (due to mana abilities). Thus, the engine is resilient to common forms of creature disruption.
Plan B??? (The actual/standard plan)
The standard play
In 1v1, play the deck like MBC, i.e. Big discard (Mind Twist/Shatter/Sludge), creature control with wrath/edict/CIP creature removal effects. On the surface, we have the standard control + Geth stealing and playing your opponent's deck. One can go about playing like this and leading into hilarious board positions with mono-black rearing meta goodies such as Eldrazi, Voltron equipment, Off-color titans, Terastodons... By the time a few sweepers (either by yourself or someone else) resolve and everyone's graveyard becomes primed for infinite recursion/milling.
In multi-player (deck intended for this), the deck is designed with engine cards that deter hate and buy you as much cheap incremental advantage via grave recursion and carddraw.
Recursion
Black is a master of recurring both it and its enemy's graveyards. We favor instant speed, versatile, and reusable recursion over the one-time effects.
Geth, lord of the vault: Instant speed, reusable, opponent graveyard recursion (skys... err mana is the limit)
Corpse Dance: Instant speed, versatile, reusable, own graveyard recursion (abuse CIP effects, and creature combat), combo piece
Shallow Grave: Instant speed recur, combo piece
Makeshift Mannequin: Instant speed own graveyard recursion
Phyrexian Reclamation: Reusable own graveyard recursion, very cheap, does stupid things with infinite mana
Profane Command: Versatile removal/evasion/life loss/recursion card
Volrath's Stronghold: Reusable own graveyard recursion (doubles as land)
Reassembling Skeleton/Bloodghast/Nether Traitor: The little 3 that makes sac stuff win
Unconventional Control
Contamination + Geth recursion or Reassembling Skeleton = Lock non-black or those who don't run artifact mana out
Attrition + Geth/bloodghast/reassembling skeleton/nether traitor = persistent removal
Grave Pact + instant sac outlet = instant mini-board wipe!
Withering Boon: Since EDH runs so many CIP creatures, black creature removal just isn't good enough. Black creature counter is better!
Imp's Mischief: Redirect effects are always awesome. Give black back some love
Snuff Out, Slaughter Pact: Lets you tap out against heavy aggro builds
Other quirky interactions
Pawn of Ulamog + Bloodghast/reassembling skeleton + clamp/phyrexian tower/sacoutlet is ramp
Corpse Dance + most CIP guys off the top at EOT + sac-outlet = abuse
Basalisk Collar + Crypt Rats = Massive wrath + lifegain
Strengths
-Combo: Infinite milling wins games, no need to actually deal damage
-Creature control: Many edict and and non-targeting removal, recurring creature CIP removal, instant speed recursion
-Consistency: Minimizes situational cards. Deck designed so that combo pieces hold their own before completing the engine
Weaknesses:
-The obvious one is grave-hate, so I'm tempted to pack library hate like Jester's Cap, Nightmare Incursion, Sadistic Sacrament
-The second one is tucking Geth, which cuts off milling and forces buried alive/tutor
-Lack of good artifact/enchantment removal (Wheel of Sun and Moon makes this deck cry), otherwise, we ignore their stuff and DIG for the win
Why combo Geth?
-Compared to other combos (two-three card combos) that win on the spot, this one is quite conditional. The following points argue the "fairness" of infinite milling
Change log
4/9/11:
Added more descriptions
-boseiju, - mana vault
+basalisk collar, crypt rats
3/26/11:
+Pawn of ulamog, grave pact, nether traitor, necromancy (other things)
-slaughter pact, duplicant, loxodon warhammer (other things)
3/13/11:
+Bloodghast, consuming vapors, shallow grave, slaughter pact
-Disk, necromancy, 2 other cards
3/4/11:
Too many changes to list, the major one sides ooze combo in place of rings combo
2/26/11:
Too many changes to list, the major one removes ooze combo
2/24/11:
+Yawmoth's will, swamp, doomed necromancer
-Twisted abomination, unholy grotto, corpse connoisseur
2/22/11:
-Myojin, everflowing chalice, ambition's cost, myr retriever, ancient craving
+withering boon, abyssal gatekeeper, barter in blood, revier demon, apprentice necromancer
2/21/11:
-tectonic edge
+mystifying maze
2/19/11:
-vesuva
+boseiju, who shelters all
2/17/11:
+Unholy Grotto
-Swamp
2/14/11:
+Palladium Myr, swamp, buried alive
-mindslash, corpse connoisseur, junk diver
2/10/11:
-Abyssal Gatekeeper, nezumi grave robber
+Mind Twist, mind Shatter
2/4/11:
+gauntlet of power, nirkana reverant, duplicant, Myojin of Night's Reach
-Reassembling skeleton, shred memory, buried alive, phyrexian plaguelord
2/3/11:
-Revier Demon, sword of light and shadow, nirkana reverant, gauntlet of power, extraplanar lens, all snow covered swamps
+Abyssal Gatekeeper, phyrexian reclamation, ambition's cost, ancient craving, nevinyrral's disk, terrain generator, swamps
2/2/11:
-Mana Vault
+Wayfarer's Bauble
2/1/11:
-Jund Panorama, Grixis Panorama, 2snow covered swamp, ink-eyes, helldozer, diabolic tutor, crypt rats, avatar or woe, myojin of night's reach
+polluted delta, bloodstained mire, tectonic edge, grim discovery, innocent blood, fleshbag maurader, damnation, bone shredder, graveborn muse, mana vault
1/30/11:
-Esper Panoraman, Nevinyrral's Disk
+solring, strip-mine
1/28/11:
-sol ring, 6 snow covered swamp, grim discovery
+Demonic collusions, Esper Panorama, Jund Panorama, Grixis Panorama, Verdant Catacombs, Marsh Flats, Petrified Field, Crucible of Worlds
1/26/11:
-Nezumi Shortfang
+Nezumi Graverobber
-Sword of Fire and Ice
+Shred Memory
1/25/11:
-Mind Twisted/Shatter/sludge, Worn power stone, liliana vess
+Helldozer, Twisted Abomination, nezumi shortfang, sword of fire and ice, bane of the living
-Dreamstone hedron, Snow covered swamp
+Basalt Monolith, Thawing Glaciers
1/23/11:
-Fallen angel
+Avatar of Woe
1/22/11:
-Thran dynamo, gilded lotus
+lightning greaves, Imp's mischief
1/18/11:
-Reanimate, Animate dead, necromancy
+Sword of Light and Shadow, Junk Diver, Ink-eyes servant of oni, corpse dance
-bane of the living
+shriekmaw
-graveborn muse, dregs of sorrow,
+skeletal scrying
-twisted abomination
+Pilgrim's Eye
1/16/11:
Added description of the standard game play and details on the combo
-Insidious Dreams, Ancient Craving, Ambition's Cost, Phyrexian Totem, Helldozer
+Mind Twist, Mind Sludge, Mind shatter, Worn powerStone, Bane of the Living
Any suggestions are always welcome.
-Insidious Dreams, Ancient Craving, Ambition's Cost, Phyrexian Totem, coalition relic, Helldozer,
+Mind Twist, Mind Sludge, Mind shatter, Worn Powerstone, Armillary sphere, Bane of the Living
Dreams was often too much card disadvantage, and Ancient Craving, Ambition's Cost were too too pricey at 4 mana for 3 cards. Totem is sub-par to Worn Powerstone for its +2. Dozer is better when there're fewer lands ;(
The discard route, like traditional 1v1 Geth MBC, removes grave hate threats and dumps artifact/creatures into the yard for Geth to steal.
Added a longer description to the game-plan.
Added a sub-theme of evasive creatures to work with ink-eyes and sword of light and shadow.
-Reanimate, Animate dead, necromancy
+Sword of Light and Shadow, Junk Diver, Ink-eyes servant of oni, corpse dance
-bane of the living
+shriekmaw
Has evasion, recurrable with corpse dance
-graveborn muse, dregs of sorrow,
+skeletal scrying
Is instant speed and can help reorder graveyard
-twisted abomination
+Pilgrim's Eye
Another evasive guy that fixes land
-You could use Mesmeric Orb with your the Rings of BEarth/Cabal Coff combo to self mill, the infinte untapping is the same effect
- Any giant Eldrazi+instant discard outlet or Elixir of Immortality provides instant speed graveyard protection, though the Eldrazi are bad with Necropotence, perhaps you want Elixir if your getting hated on
+ Yawgmoth's Will, replay rituals/reanmite/tutors/use as a crazy infinte mana sink/plays your combo pieces from the GY, and or +Reanimate what more need be said.
+1 Dark Ritual, cut pilgrims eye? or some generic find land thing, or even a land you have heaps. A Turn 1 Phyrexian Arena, Necropotence, or mana fixing artifact could be described as good.
+ 1 Crypt of Aggadeem , same combo as Cabal/Temple/Brightearth with 6 creatures in the bin.
+If you dont think you'll have enough creatures in the bin to justify running Crypt add Twisted Abomination in place of Pilgrims Eye. Instant speed, same effect, also allows Necrotic Ooze to regenerate for 1, evasive
+Lightning Greaves, reanimating Necrotic Ooze is good and well but clued on players and even bad ones will want to respond to it when the graveyard outpiles the library. Comboing the turn you reanimate/play will drascticlly improve your results!
+If you want a really lame card that everyone will hate your for (i love these ones) Exsanguinate, this is the infinite mana sink
+ Crucible of Worlds, replay any milled/destroyed combo lands
+ Doomed Necromancer and drumroll please for everybodys favoirte artifact...
+ The always useful Mimic Vat, using + utility cards like Doomed Necromancer, or annoying board wipes like Fleshbag Marauder
I counted 54 combined lands/fetch/artifacts. Do you find it to many. 48 should be more than enough for an expensive monocolour general. Without ramp i like about 1/4 Artifacts to ramp into and 3/4 land. Thinkng 28 Basics, your 7 utility lands, 12 artifacts, 1 Dark Ritual(as the minium ritual effects, not max) for about 47-48 sources, cutting Kite/basics/sphere
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-Yawg Will is good, definitely will consider it
-Crypt is decent if I ran more creatures, you need something like 23+ in deck to make it consistent enough for abuse
-Ritual is pretty bad and as mentioned, is conditioned on having Necro or Arena in hand early game. It essentially does nothing mid-late game due to other mana sources. This type of shakey mana is why I cut stuff like Bubbling Muck from previous iterations of this deck.
-greaves is added protection (that being said, its only added protection)
-doomed Necro needs a turn to get value and so people will up wary of my shennegains. And if I slowroll buried alive after a turn it comes out, I still need to get through an extra round of opponent untapping phases. Something like Apprentice Necromancer is a bit faster.
-Crucible of Worlds, good card that increases redundancy of stuff like grim discovery. I would run this if I ran some sac-lands (in the form of land d engine) or some fetches (a little harder to justify) or shennegains like Sundering Titan
-Mimic vat is good, i'll have to see how adding more dimensions to the deck affects consistency
- As for the number of mana sources, its somewhat justified as Geth is a mana sink so there's seldom a case of getting mana flooded. Maybe the opportunity costs of some of the above ideas will outweigh Geth stealing stuff hrmm.
EDIT: fleshbag and other mini-edicts on creatures feel more meta-dependent. Also, If i packed more reusable recursion (phyrexian reclaimation e.g.), then I'd run this.
I like the look of Geth, i currently use him as one of my mana sink/win con along side Lich Lord of Unx. I've been trying for 2 weeks to assemable a highy compedative tribal zombie deck. After months of collecting all the power/staple cards and almost every playable zombie im up to my fourth general from Sedris, The Traitor King, Lord of Tresserhorn, Thraximundar and now im on Dralun, Lich Lord and im still not happy and i only have 3 legendary zombies left to try...Geth might be worth a shot, Or i could try finishing what i build :|
Out of curouisty do you remember where/when you discovered or heard about rings of Bearth infinite combo?
I encourage you to do the same. Instead of FNM try Friday Night Something Spontaneous. Instead of thousands of hours and dollars on plastic imagine it with a significant other or friends sharing something meaningful. I randomly typed a new password, so bon voyage itches i encourage you to follow suit! Cheers
a)allows ooze to combo out the turn it hits play,
b)protects and gives haste to Geth, magus of coffers (if I need it in play more), Nirkana rev,ooze, hellkite,
Also, I find that Imp's Mischief does wonders as it protects my combos and opens up hilarious plays like redirecting strokes of genuis heh.
-Thran Dynamo, Gilded Lotus
+Lightning greaves, Imp's mischief
EDIT: -Fallen Angel, +Avatar of woe
Added a secondary ooze interaction section
-Mind Twisted/Shatter/sludge: Cutting these guys due to style points in multi-player (if its 1v1, I'd side these in)
+nezumi shortfang, sword of fire and ice: Shortfang gives ooze instant discard without the flip effect, sword gives recurring CA
-Worn power stone: (siding in a more versatile replacement)
+Twisted Abomination: (More stable, can instantly cycle to give ooze regen)
-liliana vess: (gets killed too quickly for a 5 mana tutor to top)
+Helldozer, bane of the living: Deck needed at least 1 LD element and this combos with ooze, Bane of the living is a hidden wrath
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Indeed, glaciers is great for another recurring land tutor and works with Rings of Brighthearth too. I actually have one coming in today that's gonna see some play testing in the next few days.
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I'd used to run basalt monolith with this but the colorless mana can be a problem. With that said, basalt monolith may still be good enough as a mana rock hardly draws attention ;).
I know about Exsanguinate abuse but I don't run it for several reasons:
-Meta has a fair amount of blue so I've seen many a times where spells gets countered/stolen/copied on the stack
-The card is a dud unless I've generated a lot of mana, its role is limited to a finisher thus reducing its flexibility
I'll post a new update in a few days of stuff tested.
EDIT: Scratch that, the Monolith/Ring is great. With infinite colorless, its enough to land Geth out late-game and grab a whole lot of value with the remaining black
-Dreamstone hedron, snowcovered swamp
+Basalt Monolith, Thawing glaciers
To help combat counterspells, I run a Boseiju, Who Shelters All in my Geth (I play more big MBC than Geth-combo). It rarely crops up to hamstring you when you don't want it (and there are ways to get rid of it, like Demonic Collusion), and it can be tutored for in a pinch. Helps to resolve big bombs like Exsanguinate, Decree of Pain, etc.
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Yep yep, I ran boseiju at one point but cut it as the deck didn't pack too many large instant/sorceries. Demonic Collusions however is great card that escaped my mind. Cheers to the sweet find.
Collusion is amazing because it can make use of the lands that start to clutter your hand when you get a Journeyer's Kite and/or Thawing Glaciers thrumming, and using it even twice generally lets you set up a combo. It also helps your deck even further by dropping combo pieces for your Necrotic Ooze. I'd definitely advocate running it over Diabolic Tutor if you want to stay at the same number of tutors.
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-Sol Ring, 6 snow covered swamp, grim discovery
+Demonic Collusion, Esper Panorama, Jund Panorama, Grixis Panorama, Verdant Catacombs, Marsh Flats, Petrified Field, crucible of worlds
Reasons: Sol Ring is imba mana that belongs in a true artifact ramp deck i.e. Red/white. Replaced with Demonic Collusion. The 3 panorama's and two fetches were added to 1) Lower the virtual land/mana sources to 45, 2)ramp with Rings of Brighthearth and Crucible of worlds. Petrified Field recurs combo lands. Crucible replaced grim discovery as more reliable land recursion.
Crucible is always good. Consider Strip Mine and/or Wasteland for further abuse. Also consider Strands of Night.
I'm not sure I can agree with cutting Sol Ring though. You pretty much never don't want to see it.
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Strip-mine is always a nice option with crucible that I run in decks with a recurring LD theme (i.e. Nath Landfall). I'll probably side it in if I start seeing more coffer/stronghold/cradle/academy ruin abuse in my meta (which may be soon due to GB glisa rearing her head)
I'm not a huge fan of strands of night as I don't run enough huge creature bombs (more utility creatures here) to warrant the sac-land effect.
-Nevinyrral's Disk, Esper Panorama
+Sol ring, strip-mine
Yea, I miss sol ring too much despite complaints. I think cutting disk was the right as having it come out tapped gives my opponents too many options to play around.
-Jund Panorama, Grixis Panorama, 2snow covered swamp, ink-eyes, helldozer, diabolic tutor, crypt rats
+polluted delta, bloodstained mire, tectonic edge, grim discovery, innocent blood, fleshbag maurader, damnation, bone shredder
Wasteland is obviously better than Tectonic Edge, but I'm guessing you don't have and can't find one.
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-Revier Demon, sword of light and shadow, nirkana reverant, gauntlet of power, extraplanar lens, all snow covered swamps
+Abyssal Gatekeeper, phyrexian reclamation, ambition's cost, ancient cravings, nevinyrral's disk, terrain generator, swamps
Regarding Revier Demon, sword of light and shadow:
Abyssal Gatekeeper, phyrexian reclamation are much more cost efficient, recurrable, and potent (edict effect).
Regarding mana doublers: Although swamps do matter in the deck, these cards become too great a liability in play. Lens never makes it past a turn and sets yourself up for a 2for1. Gauntlet of power and Reverant are 5-6 mana and the tempo loss too great when they get cleared. Doubling cube is situational. I've opted for more card-draw and removal to improve consistency and to not draw any more attention on the field while running combo.
Note: The average cc of the deck has now dropped to 3.015, which is looking good for combo control.
EDIT: Scratch part of that,
+gauntlet of power, nirkana reverant, duplicant, Myojin of Night's Reach
-Reassembling skeleton, shred memory, buried alive, phyrexian plaguelord
Adding back gauntlet and Reverant as I still miss big black mana despite hate. Lens is gone tho due to 2for1'ing myself in many games. Skeleton and shred memory gone due to too much conditional use. Plaguelord gone as I find drana and housegaurd more useful.
Average cc back up to 3.22 now.