Breaking our Extended Combo

There are many ways to skin a cat or so my Grandma used to say, not that I think she ever skinned a cat,. In magic if cat skinning was a game winning bomb or sorcery, you can bet someone, somewhere  will figure out a way to sneak it through on turn three. Well we at Adventures In The Meta like nothing more than a good tinker with the rules and we’ve been busy this week...

Ramp, is an essential part of the game it’s the ladder rather than the snake., the hare over the tortoise and while slow and steady may often win the race, ramp will win it a lot quicker so long as there’s something other than tunnel at the end of the well... tunnel.   

Back in the day when colour meant something, each colour had its strength and whilst red and black had pops at it, ramp was really the secret squirrel of Green. From the heady days of Channel to  Rampant Growths and fertile grounds and an army of elves  tap dancing back and forth to super pump some enormous great green fattie, green has always been the king of Ramp...  Now there are a million ways to ramp and with the advent of non basic lands, everflowing chalices, infinite Myr loops, Lotus Cobras and Prototypeportallingvoltaickeythroneofgethproliferation basically any one can have a go...But hey this is magic and there’s always another way to do something...

So ladies and Gentelmen We give you Titan ramp Vader style and this is an exclusive combo break... Just remember you heard it here first...

Before we give the game away we’d like to make the following statements...

1.       We are presenting the fastest version (which may not be the smartest play)

2.       If you play it this way you invite answers and despite it being brand new your opponent will spot it in seconds

3.       This combo is unstable and you can make it safer and indeed possibly quicker with money, but this is a budget blog so this is how we do it (and how anyone can )

Titan Ramp...

Ther three main combo pieces are...

Tiaining Grounds

Soulbright Flamekin
 

Inferno Titan  ( although this combo also works with any big red/colourless fattie... i.e. Wurmcoil Engine, Kargan Dragonlord (whom you can pump to madness with this trick)... Platinum Emperion... the list goes on... )

So turn by turn

Turn one lay an island – play the Training grounds

Turn Two – Drop a mountain and play the Flamekin

Turn three – Drop another mountain... because of training grounds you only need one mana to trigger the flamkins ability so  tap all lands to give the flamekin trample 3 times (it doesn’t say different targets) boom you get 8 red mana... use 6 to cast the inferno titan and the game is probably yours... You have so may options here it’s not funny...

If they have no blockers then as he comes in, direct the titan’s 3 excess damage to your opponent’s face, you can then give him haste with Burst of Speed for one extra red mana and double strike with Assault Strobe with the other red...  as he attacks deal the additional 3 damage to his face for 6 total then a 6/6 double striker and the 2/1 flamekin is game...

If he has blockers then do the same thing, but take out the defence as the titan comes in and use the additional 3 when he attacks to pick up the strays... They are still going to take 14 and they won’t have any creatures left...

Of course you could also give the titan trample instead of double strike or play any number of  1 or 2 point red instants.. . or any of the other fatties we mentioned above...

We haven’t printed a start hand or a deck list because this combo is really easy to play...it’s only two cards... build a deck with 3 or 4 sets of playable fatties and your chances of having the land , the training grounds, the flamekin and one of them is pretty good... So go wild...

This is a decent little trick and we know there are better ways to play it, but it’s fun and cheap and there is defiantly a strong extended deck in here somewhere so send us your lists and we’ll put them up...

Tomorrow we’re going to have a crack at standard and we’d love to hear your crazy ideas... Remember this is the week of madness and we want the barmiest suggestions ever We don’t want to know the deck’s deep analysis ...We want to know what madness was behind it... 

Does your deck win by losing... 

Do you have win a 4000/4000 ornithopteras a win condition?  

Can you win by forcing your opponent to scoop the first game and try to sideboard a solution for the second? 

Tell us how and why you’ve built your insane decks and we’ll share your ideas...

And one final word about our Krark’s Thumb deck... 

Thankyou for all the feedback... and we are glad you enjoyed the spirit of the build.... and thanks to Sarah form Ipswich for pointing out I misspelt Franc (a fact that will shortly be remedied. ) but it’s nice to have some girls following the blog.  We’ve actually got a special article coming up for girls who play magic, by a girl that plays magic, so keep your eyes out for that... Back to the comments though... Most of you seemed to notice our disclaimer at the bottom of the article, but a couple of you didn’t...

So for those that didn’t...

YES we know it’s still down to luck...

But having said that...

Although the deck is really cheap (which it is) and the one turn combo is unlikely (which it also is) it does do ok even in longer games because while the turn one kill may be unlikely...

Turn one... Thumb... Turn two... Game of Chaos is easy...

Also if you don’t get that... then turn one Planar Chaos will throw off most other legacy decks. 

Polymorph Redux..

We’re going to have a look at an old friend this week... There once was a time when polymorph was the fringe deck to watch. It made a show at a few tournaments and it also made an appearance as the sideboard for Pyromancer’s Ascension. You might think that with the advent of Mass polymorph we might see a resurgence, but we’re hitting the border of Mirridon Besieged soon and we haven’t even had a postcard. 

So no one’s playing it and it’s in the card shop bargain bucket, sounds like the perfect time for a rethink.  Ladies and Gentlemen I give you a twist on a classic...

I call it 

Critical Mass

 The problem with polymorph was always the reliability, left unchecked and if you were lucky a turn 3 Iona or Emrakul was probably game however if it went wrong, and it so often did, you could spend the entire game with an Emrakul in your hand and no way in hell of getting it out... or worse yet, lay token after token and not catch a sniff of an actual polymorph and trust me numerous as they are eldrzi spawn do not an army make.

Yes, there were pros, without lots of creatures taking up your slots it had loads of room for answers. (if you’ve just started playing or just don’t know what I am on about... Polymorph was a deck build around the premise that you only had one or two creatures in the entire deck and the rest of it was token generation and ways to search for the elusive polymorph which itself was there to cheat one of your two horrendous fatties into play ) So with all those extra spaces you could add in all sorts of madness.. There was a blue/green version with Into the Roils and negates and ponders, there was a red/blue/green version with staggershocks and bolts and Sarkhan Vol and I as I mentioned above there was a blue/red limited edition hidden in the sideboard of Pyromancers Ascension...  The problem is sometimes it just didn’t work.   So I got thinking is there anything I could do to make it more stable, well... this is what I came up with....

You will need.

4 Mass Polymorph

2 Chimeric Mass

4 Squadron Hawk

3 Rusted Relic

3 Glint Hawk Idol

4 Liquimetal Coating

1 Indomitable Angel

1 Emrakul

1 Iona Shield of Emeria

1 Ulamog

4 Everflowing Chalice

4 Preordain

4 Revoke Existence

3 Contagion Clasp

1 Elixir of Immortality

Go the whole hog with Glacial Fortresses, Seachrome Coasts and Celestial Colonnades, which will give you another threat. You don’t need fetch lands, so save yourself the cash and besides the more decks that use fetch lands the sooner we’ll see main deck Leonin Arbiters, with this deck at least you’ll waste 4 spaces in their sideboard.

Ok what makes this deck different from polymorph is that is has actual threats rather than tokens. The Squadron Hawk is a test play, but it does give you decent targets and of course once you find the first one you can strip your deck of all creatures except for your fatties.  As neither Chimeric Mass, Rusted Relic or Glint hawk Idol actually count as creatures until they hit the open air and even then, two of them will need a nudge.

It might not seem like much but a 2/2 flyer is lightyears ahead of an Eldrazi Spawn and it won’t take long before your rusted relics are swinging in for 5 and you can lay the Chimeric Mass for as much as you can spare.  Meanwhile, preordain for the Mass Polymorph and use the liquimetal coating and revoke existence for the serious game threats. Use the clasps for light removal and to pump the chalices and the Chimeric Mass.

If you can resolve a Mass Polymorph for 4 and get the fatties, or as many as you can in, the end of the game can’t be far off...

So let’s look at the creatures one by one...

The four are a team and they’ll work like one too.. 

Emrakul, Ulamog and Iona need little explanation and unlike the original, this deck will actually let you to play them if you need them, but it could take a while, but why the others? well the angel is there to protect Emrakul or Iona, because with the liquimetal coating  you can turn them into artifacts at will and give them instant shroud, bouncing them with Jace was a favourite trick of Blue White Control and you don’t want to go to all that effort just to have the critters sent back to you hand. Keep Emrakul in play for just one turn and you’ll soon see why Eldrazi ramp is one of the top decks. The angel is also playable early gameand good for protecting your investments.

Competitive?  I think it’ll hold its own... It’s certainly a strong fringe/rogue deck, with careful play it could easily be a contender...it's definatelhy stronger than Polymorph, as it can win games without ever  pulling off the trick...And remember you don't have to animate the Mass or the idol, before you polymorph... unless you  need to...

Update

This is just the alpha list and I'm already thinking about dropping the clasps thanks to a suggestion I swap em for negates from a fella named 4 tens...  I reckon he could be right there.,..

New update...

Suggestions for a green blue version have been coming in and its not a bad play... green will give you ramp and more token generation and access to the possibly game swiinging Autumn's Veil and you can use nature's claim or naturalise inplace of revoke existence

Either way I'd strongly suggest swapping the clasps for See beyonds and not negates... as unlikely though it is to draw two or more of your fatties, fate would find it hillarious...