Unspeakable Vengeance

[schild]

So last night, Johnny Cee and I were toying around with the following deck:

Gorya's Vengence                 4
Kuro, Pitlord                        4
The Unspeakable (shhhh!)     4
Iname, Death Aspect            3
Thirst for Knowledge             4
Pulse of the Grid                   4
Mind Wrench                        3
Nezumi GRaverobber              4
Zombify                               4
Slumbering Tora                    4
Island                                   10
Swamp                                 10
Talisman of Dominance            2
Razormane Masticore              2

I've been playing with this deck for about 8 hours straight now. I think I've got it refined to near perfection. Unfortunately I brought the cost from about $25 to $85. I hate me. Anyway, here's the deck as it stands now.

4x Zombify
4x Goryo's Vengeance
4x Kuro, Pitlord
3x Iname, Death Aspect
2x Kyoki, Sanity's Eclipse
2x Eradicate
2x Wrench Mind

4x Catalog
4x Thirst for Knowledge
4x The Unspeakable

4x Slumbering Tora
4x Chrome Mox

9x Swamp
9x Island
1x Shizo, Death's Storehouse

Discuss. Please. This is a deck absolutely no one is playing right now. If We can pimp a version of this enough, we may be directly involved in the banning of a card. I dropped a 9/9 on turn 4 today. Permanently. The guy quit. It was beautiful.

The moxes can be replaced with Talismans. But the deck will run about 60% slower for the first 5 turns. Sure, they run $46 for 4, but they'll be used in every single one of your decks.

[schild]

4x Zombify
4x Goryo's Vengeance
4x Kuro, Pitlord
3x Iname, Death Aspect
2x Kyoki, Sanity's Eclipse
2x Eradicate
2x Wrench Mind

4x Catalog
4x Thirst for Knowledge
4x The Unspeakable

4x Slumbering Tora
4x Chrome Mox

9x Swamp
9x Island
1x Shizo, Death's Storehouse

Changes:

Code:

4x Zombify
4x Goryo's Vengeance
4x Kuro, Pitlord
3x Iname, Death Aspect
2x Kyoki, Sanity's Eclipse
2x Barter in Blood
2x Wrench Mind

4x Catalog
4x Thirst for Knowledge
4x The Unspeakable

4x Slumbering Tora
4x Chrome Mox

9x Swamp
7x Island
2x City of Brass
1x Shizo, Death's Storehouse

Removed 2 islands, put in 2 city of brass. Removed 2 eradicates, put in 2 barter in blood. Weenies are kicking my ass. As is this new Kokusho/Plow Under deck that everyone and their dog is playing.

[schild]

Traded out a Kyoki for a 4th Iname, Death Aspect.

[Johny Cee]

Wail of the Nim and/or Echoing Decay on sideboard for aggro.

[Johny Cee]

Okay.....  I see Nezumi Graverobber is out.

Nezumi REALLY helps out both G/B matchups and aggro/weenie match-ups.

Against G/B: 
An early game Graverobber forces your opponent to either spend time removing him,  or not use land fetching spells (as the graverobber would immediately remove them and start swinging for 4).

This slows down their mana accumulation,  and should give you the time you need to beat the hell out of them.

Also,  Graverobber defeats Witness recursion.  Just wait till the end of the opponents turn to remove cards.  If they play Witness,  in response,  remove the targetted card from the game.


Against Weenie/Aggro:

He's a chump blocker.  Can buy you a turn or two.


My record against both these decks with the original list was pretty decent.  Of course,  Monoblue beat on me, but....

If I make it on tonight,  I have a G/B deck I can fire up.

[Strazos]

Wow, an $80+ deck? Geez...

And I thought I was slick when I gave schild a run for his money a few times with my dorky little starter decks. I don't even neccessarily know what I am doing, I just put cards together that I like and May be able to work together.

[schild]

Nezumi is too slow and too useless past the third turn against a fast deck. Also, with the moxen, I can blow right by him.

[Johny Cee]

Nezumi is too slow and too useless past the third turn against a fast deck. Also, with the moxen, I can blow right by him.

Going to get a few Sickening Shoals....  Manaless discard & creature removal?  Yes, please.

[Johny Cee]

There is discussion on a Goryo based spirit deck on Brainburst.  Luckily, those people aren't the brightest.....

http://forum.tcgplayer.com/showthread.php?t=5867

[schild]

I showed a couple Wizards R&D people it the other night. We may be started a phenomenon here. We must perfect this fucker. Plow Under hurts it too much.

[Raging Turtle]

Looks like fun, but won't it roll over to a dedicated aggro deck?  Reanimator-ish decks don't work consistently without tutoring(Iname is a sloow tutor), and this looks like it won't go off until turn 4 on average.  At which point most decks will have an answer or will be starting to overwhelm you.  There's a lot of high mana cards in that deck I wouldn't want to be cluttering my opening hand, as well.

I'll try to pop online this weekend and catch a few games :)

[schild]

We've had second turn Iname, Unspeakable and Kuros before. Once you drop a Kuro, no deck can stop you. It acts as a WoG also.

[schild]

New problems:
Kokusho destroys the deck. Twice.
Molder Slug destroys the deck in 2 turns.
Cranial Extraction destroys the deck for 4 mana.
Eternal Witness + Any of the above destroys the deck. Gemini style.

There must be ways to deal with these vermin. The best I can think of? Splash white in sideboard, run 4 city of brass, 4 mox, and one UW tapland and one UB tapland.

The other option - we run cranial extraction ourself, and get it back with The Unspeakable, completely destroying their deck in the matter of I don't know 2 turns. It's brilliant, but adds another $40 to the cost of the deck. I might have to dump my Kirtar's Wraths for some extractions.

[schild]

Ok, I've been running the deck with 2 Cranial Extractions - it's very nice. I'm thinking of dumping 2 catalogs for 2 more. I'll see. It obliterates G/B now when I pull the extractions early on. I've never seen whiners like when you extract Kokusho or a Death Cloud.

[Strazos]

That's not the same deck I used my shrines deck against, is it?

[schild]

- 4x Wrench Mind
- 2x Catalog

+ 4x Slumbering Tora
+ 1x Kyoki, Sanity's Eclipse
+ 1x Barter in Blood

Will have performance update later.

Edit: Here's the deck list, as of right now:

9 Swamp
7 Island
2 City of Brass

4 Zombify
4 Goryo's Vengeance
4 Iname, Death Aspect
4 Kuro, Pitlord
3 Barter in Blood
2 Cranial Extraction
2 Kyoki, Sanity's Eclipse
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse


4 The Unspeakable
4 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Catalog

4 Slumbering Tora
4 Chrome Mox

[Strazos]

The real test is if it can go up against my newb Shrines deck.

And once I can come up with 3 Troll Ascetics, I'll throw my super-duper Burn deck at it, complete with Two-Headed Dragons.

[schild]

This Plow Under/Eternal Witness/Double Kokusho shit people are running is the new Affinity. And it's even more annoying. At least with affinity people sacced and ya know, weren't so goddamn self-destructive. It's also another case of everyone chasing after the same deck, then it's just a matter of who draws the ravag...errrr.....kokusho or plow first.

[Johny Cee]

This Plow Under/Eternal Witness/Double Kokusho shit people are running is the new Affinity. And it's even more annoying. At least with affinity people sacced and ya know, weren't so goddamn self-destructive. It's also another case of everyone chasing after the same deck, then it's just a matter of who draws the ravag...errrr.....kokusho or plow first.

That deck really isn't that annoying.  It just tends to beat up on other control decks a bit (especially since it can have a decent matchup against mono-blue between choke, uncounterable creatures, etc.). 

Affinity was complete shit.

Red Deck Wins (and there's alot of it...)  has a pretty solid matchup,  as does Mono-red control.

[Strazos]

Red Deck Wins (and there's alot of it...)

Vas es Das?

[Hoax]

Red decks are back again?

I considered magic for enough time to find out about how incredibly stupid affinity was and then went back to being oblivious to what was happening in the ccg world.

Red is the only color I ever play, everything else is annoying.

[schild]

Red is the only color I ever play, everything else is annoying.

Ironically, red is the only cover I avoid. Intentionally.

[Johny Cee]

Hmmmm.....  Article from Brainburst.  And they went with red.  Damn, might have to get some Through the Breaches and try it.

http://www.brainburst.com/db/article.asp?ID=5085

Can't picture it being superior to the U/B version though.

[schild]

I can beat the red version 9 times out of 10. I've been seeing it a lot lately.

[schild]

Taking Out 2x Serum Visions and 1x Shizo and 1x Swamp.

Replacing it with Miren and Iname as One.



Yes, those are the ONLY 2 cards I'm getting from this half-ass set. Talk about taking a cycle out with a whimper instead of a bang.

BRING ON RAVNICA AND 9TH, BITCHES.

[eldaec]

There is a lot of meh, but...



And not forgetting....

[Shockeye]

wtf

Have I been out of the game too long to see a use for this card?

[eldaec]

No - you really haven't - there has been much wailling and gnashing of teeth.

[AOFanboi]

Have I been out of the game too long to see a use for this card?

Well, it can bring you to threshold, which can be important at times.

Imagine having 3-4 cards in the graveyard and using a creature with a threshold ability. The opponent reacts to the creature knowing you don't have threshold, then you cast this and discard so you pass the 7 card threshold limit ands suddenly your 1/1 Werebear is 4/4.

Also, some cards are cheaper at flashback than the normal casting cost (Flaring Pain), so getting them to the graveyard can be a plus. But these are few.

Also in combination with Ensnaring Bridge to prevent attacks, or "in your graveyard" abilities like Brawn, or to provide food for "remove cards from graveyard" effects like that of Painbringer.

[Margalis]

Is it not possible to change the target of the spell with something like Shunt? It doesn't use the words "target" anywhere so probably not.

It seems especially odd given that a lot of cards in the set are better with more cards in hand. Maybe you could use it with that card where you basically set your hand aside, draw a new hand, play with it for a turn, then get back your old hand? (I think there is a card like that) That could work well with threshold effects...or something...

[Xilren's Twin]

Have I been out of the game too long to see a use for this card?

Well, it can bring you to threshold, which can be important at times.

Imagine having 3-4 cards in the graveyard and using a creature with a threshold ability. The opponent reacts to the creature knowing you don't have threshold, then you cast this and discard so you pass the 7 card threshold limit ands suddenly your 1/1 Werebear is 4/4.

Also, some cards are cheaper at flashback than the normal casting cost (Flaring Pain), so getting them to the graveyard can be a plus. But these are few.

Also in combination with Ensnaring Bridge to prevent attacks, or "in your graveyard" abilities like Brawn, or to provide food for "remove cards from graveyard" effects like that of Painbringer.

Over magic's history, they were lots of times discarding your hand would be valuable.  Fer instance, old school Balance (which among other effects made your opposent equalize number of cards in hand with you) plus this card means you could basically Mind Twist your opponts whole hand.  In todays game, as already mentioned, the ensnaring bridge tactic to prevent people from attacking you.  But to me, the primary use that springs to mind is in any sort of reanimator deck, where step 1 is to get something big and ugly into your graveyard quickly so you can get it into play...

It's the kind of card broken combo decks get made from.
Xilren 

[schild]

I'm gonna make a kickass deck out of one for nothing just because. ^_^