Round 1: Vs. Shardless BUG
Round 2: Vs. Storm
Round 3: Vs. UWR Delver
Round 4: Vs. Shardless BUG
Lands (13)
Spells (47)
Gerry Thompson pointed out several important things in the comments last week
:
– Volcanic Island is awful in a deck that wants to cast Sign in Blood.
– Empty the Warrens is redundant in a deck that has multiple copies of Tendrils of Agony.
– Maindeck Tendrils of Agony #3 (and maybe even #2) is likely worse than Past in Flames.
I quickly changed the deck to reflect his insights. I still wanted a way to “go off” on Turn 1 or 2, so I kept one Empty the Warrens. Badlands was an easy
swap for Volcanic Island, and the added sideboard space let me add another discard spell that could be brought in, much like the second Slaughter Pact in
an Omni-Tell sideboard.
I wasn’t sure about Past in Flames (and have always wanted to run the “Tendrils you for ten, Tendrils you for twelve” plan), but after playing some
matches, it’s clear that the deck wants to be able to cast Past in Flames. Unfortunately, as of right now, I can’t recommend this deck for Magic Online.
Here’s why.
If you watched the videos, you noticed what happened when Epic Experiment resolved. For those of you at work or in a time crunch, here’s the gist:
– Epic Experiment starts resolving.
– All of the cards enter the Exiled zone.
– A notification box pops up: “Would you like to cast ?”
– The only option is No. The “Yes” box is missing, but the space is still there. It looks somewhat Photoshopped.
– I eventually realized that the “Yes” option involved going to the Exiled zone and clicking on the highlighted card, much like the Suspend resolution
functionality. Okay, cool.
– Wait, only one card is highlighted. This isn’t right…
You see, one of the huge draws of Epic Experiment is that you exile all of the cards and then get to choose not only whether to
cast them, but in what order to cast them. So let’s say you cast three rituals and Epic Experiment for six, revealing:
Storm is four. In real life, you could just choose to cast the five rituals and then the Tendrils. “Storm = 9” would then go on the stack, it would
resolve, and you would Tendrils them for twenty with five rituals hanging out on the stack. In Magic Online-land, apparently, the game decides in what
order you can cast the spells you exile.
This is a huge problem for literally anything that doesn’t involve Burning Wish for Tendrils of Agony. It messes with Past in Flames and Tendrils of Agony
alike-for example, you can run into situations where you flip over Past in Flames and a Burning Wish. Let’s say they have a Spell Snare for your Burning
Wish.
In real life, you would stack the Past in Flames first, try to resolve all of your other stuff, they would Spell Snare the Burning Wish, and you would give
it Flashback. No muss, no fuss, still win.
In Magic Online-land, you might have to stack Past in Flames last, meaning it would resolve first, and then they would Spell Snare your Burning Wish after
Past in Flames resolves. Sorry, bucko, you lose. It’s not even your fault! Magic Online just literally doesn’t know how to resolve Epic Experiment in a
manner consistent with real life.
Also, in case you haven’t watched the videos, I’m really salty about them removing the Storm counter from v3. I get that they want people to go to the
Beta, but I’m somewhat used to companies making newer versions more appealing instead of removing features from live products to make them relatively less
appealing.
All in all, though, the deck is a blast. Once they’ve fixed Epic Experiment, I would highly recommend giving it a spin. The best part, aside from sweating
Experiment flips? The price tag, obviously. Badlands is one of the cheapest dual lands, you can use any two black fetchlands you want, and the rest of the
deck is eminently obtainable and customizable. Burning Wish is a great card to own in Legacy, all of the rituals are worth having if you want to build
various Storm decks, and the duals will help you transition toward a Brainstorm + Ponder Storm deck, if you want to do that in the future.
Have fun!