I'm not normally one for a self-bump, but does nobody feel like giving this deck (previous page) a try?

Been having huge amounts of fun with it, and i'd love to others to enjoy the build too, but it hasn't seemed to generate any discussion here. I've had more comments post-game (hate messages and 'nice deck's) than any other deck i've built in the past, so it seems to be doing something interesting.

Traffic isn't exactly heavy these days, these types of self-bumps are necessary to keep the place afloat. It looks solid, but I've already got Monk's infinite turn deck and my own Spider deck plus I've been busy with the whole YouTube thing lately. Once I get all my best decks on my channel I'll be looking for other decks to play and yours would definitely appeal to the Johnny crowd, so I may eventually use a few of them.

Good stuff!

I mainly build so others can appreciate aspects of the game they may not have previously considered, so I like having people play the decks and them getting exposure for that reason, and hopefully contributing to a more vibrant metagame as a result by getting people out of their comfort zones.

It's a shame the game is on the out, but that's a consequence I guess of them not bothering to support it. Hopefully the recent Humble Bundle sale will drive some more players to the forum.

Stevo,

The deck isn't bad...I've been playing around with it since you posted it. It just has an issue winning. It does not interact at all with the opponent, except to block. So, if they get something troubling out, you either die to it or pray you get a spider spawning with enough creatures in the graveyard to be meaningful. Don't get me wrong...when it wins, it wins. But no better than a Golgari Spider deck or any infini-time loop decks would. Just feels weaker than either.

So far, I am 8-19 with the deck and not likely to pick it up again until we either have another DLC or something else changes.

I found that Monk's deck had the same problem so I added just two interactive cards and the consistency went up because of all the self mill and the ability to grab them out of the graveyard.

Regarding win ratio, I'm at about 45-5 with it, though with my Ogre and Seance decks, other people reported hugely lower ratios too, which I can't really explain. They work for me, but without seeing your games, I can't explain why not for you. Maybe I'm just lucky? Maybe I'm not explaining the strategy right? I don't know. I could only really know why your experience differs so much by seeing a recorded game and pointing out where I'd have gone differently.

My decks do have pretty complex and fixed play orders, and aren't usually forgiving of non-optimal plays being combo decks at heart, so maybe that's it. Barney complained about losing with the Seance deck a lot, but then said he sometimes found Seance sitting in his hand for a lot of the game because he always had better plays to make instead, which is contrary to the entire point of the deck. There are no better plays than casting Seance in that deck! Maybe that's the issue here. and you're putting too much focus on a spider win?

The main novelty though is that it goes infinite with amazing consistency. It isn't supposed to be a hybrid deck, but an infinite deck. The spiders are just there to protect it in a very solid manner, and an alt-win if absolutely needed, or a solid opportunity arises. So rather than being a second-best version of both, I'd argue it was a first-rate infinite deck (as far as quality in that area goes) and not really a spider deck at all.

Probably a little harsh in my criticism...my apologies.

The problem with complex decks is that the builder has a better understanding of the whys than the layman(ie, me). I am sure most people can't duplicate my success with my Dune-Brood, but for me, it is amazingly complex and consistent. Everyone gets their own mileage from what they play and what they enjoy playing.

Anyways, I enjoy playing decks you make, Stevo. Please don't take my last post as an affront, it was not intended as such. You, Hakeem, 2Besttest, all make good builds that I emulate and enjoy playing and playing against. Keep walking.

Bonus points to the one who knows what book that is from.

Gawd I hate the infinite turns combo. The only deck I hate more is RDW. But I decided I need to get to know the enemy and gave Grave Concerns a try. Well, I went like 6-0 vs the AI getting used to it and then 6-1 online. Games that last 30+ minutes? Check. Tired fingers from all the clicking? Check. Looking totally geek and retarded playing with, ahem, yourself for dozens of turns like you're the only person around? Check. Yuck. I mean yuck. Yeah, two people out of 7 hung around to see the end of it or if I make a mistake. And you are forced to work like a horse, because once you get the combo running, you have 9 less mana at your disposal, and quite often that equals 0. Miss a Time Warp and you are most likely dead next turn. To draw 4 more land you need on average 10 turns, unless you happen to hit a Cultivate, of course. Count how many clicks that is.

Anyhow. The only loss was to a WW, got a bit of a slow start (although not entirely slow), but eventually got overwhelmed and died by around turn 6.

This deck wins. But you need to be a special kind of person to like playing it. No offense Stevo. I love some of your other decks, the Dark Clouds is my favorite. But not this one.

Oh no, not taken as an affront at all! If anything, I was worried that my post may have seemed like I was being overly defensive and prickly, which wasn't the intention. If someone isn't getting the results I'm getting, It's largely due to a failure in me to explain it properly I feel and I just wanted to see where I'd gone wrong.

As you state, I always assume people will play the deck exactly as I do, and the example of Barney with the Seance deck was to show that this is not always the case though. I'd likely play your Dune-Brood deck and do badly with it at first too if it played contrary to my usual instincts. No matter how good you are, it can always take a while to wrap your head around builds that take a different approach than you're used to.

I build decks mainly for other people to try out, so if the deck isn't working for others as it should, I always want to do my best to change that.



I totally agree with this assesment of the deck, and no offence is taken at all. Once you go infinite, you usually have absolutely no power on the table and no mana to do anything with it. Then you engage in a 20 turn game of solitaire in order to scratch out a win. However... that's the aspect I like! Rather than most infinite decks that find it difficult to go infinite, but then win immediately, this can go infinite really easily, then needs to make a series of optimal plays to win from that. I like the mechanical efficiency to get there, even though it trades that for not much power once it is there.

It's genuinely not for everyone, I get that, but I do feel you've understood what the deck is trying to do there from your description, even if you dislike it. I just wanted people to see what and how it does, and I feel you've grasped that perfectly. It's 100% an acquired taste, and disliking what it does is perfectly legitimate. As a proof of concept though, I think it has to be admired for doing something new and doing it well - whatever people's feelings on what it eventually does.

I don't know if you've played the most recent version of the Dark Clouds deck, but I changed it a while back back to add Banisher Priests which have improved it quite a bit I feel. I always had an irrational dislike of them due to them being a poor Fiend Hunter, but I got over that and added them to a few of my decks, and their perfomance instantly improved.

Just goes to show, like everyone else, I have issues with certain cards and styles that effect my play and build judgment too! Not every card or style is for everyone.

Seeing as the infinite turns deck is mainly based on a prior deck that had really powerful self-mill and defensive capabilities to help you assemble the combo, I thought i'd look into other possible options I could tailor that shell to. Especially as some find infinite turns distasteful.

The shell is quite intricate though, so you only have a few cards you can afford to substitute. As a result, whatever you're assembling needs to pack a huge punch with just a few cards, so I decided to slot in another instant KO combo. Here are the changes for this variant:

-1 Elvish Visionary
-1 Elixir of Immortality
-1 Time Warp
-3 Species Gorger

+2 Bloodghast
+2 Sanguine Bond
+2 Blood Tribute

Essentially you're swapping the possibility of going infinite with the possibility of an instant-kill. It isn't as effective though as you're two creatures down, which makes your Spawns weaker. Sanguine Bond is slower, more obvious, harder to get from the graveyard, and does nothing else on its own. And unless you're swimming in land, the combo takes two turns to assemble, making it less surprising and more disruptable.

However, the Bloodghasts sort themselves out due to the nature of self-mill, Blood Tribute is a more reliable pull than Time Warp due to having two copies, and can be used as a precursor to a spider attack for the kill. Lastly, you can win at 6 mana instead of 9, as the two turn setup allows you to split the costs of the KO.

I still prefer the Time Warp version much more as it feels more elegant doing it in a single, surprising turn instead of having to set things up with Bond, and as a result is easier to pull off too. The core cards also have better uses in isolation, but this is still a legitimate variation if anyone feels like trying it out. It isn't as good, but it's still decent, and it doesn't have the infinite turns stigma.

I also tried a 4-colour version with Vizkopa Guildmages instead of Bonds, but the manabase was horrible, so I wouldn't recommend it. Self-milling a 4 colour deck makes getting what colours you need very unreliable, and you have to stuff the deck with even more Shardlands and Guildgates to compensate, making the deck slower and Cultivate even less effective.

For some reason, I felt the urge to play a Sultai deck since that's one color combo I've never really taken the time to play yet. I saw this deck, and it looks like a lot of fun. I like the idea of a turn 4 Monomania. I've been wrecked by this a few times, and it's not fun, but I've been wanting to do it. I'm also excited to use Dinrova Horror and Species Gorger since I've yet to use either of them very much. I absolutely love the flavor of this deck.

Hakeem, I'm curious if there are any more changes you'd make to make the deck better now that the expansion is out. It looks good to me as is, but I'm not great at seeing cool card interactions and combos.

At first glance .. I'd say it needs a way to interact with the opponent's board besides Dinrova Horror and Shadowborn.

I'd probably swap in some tri-lands with red and add Ground Assault.. or something. You can't have a deck without removal/bounce/etc. IMO.

Maybe
-3 Dimir Guildgate
-3 Golgari Guildgate
+3 Crumbling Necropolis
+3 Jund Guildgate
+3 Ground Assault

But I'm not sure what to take out for the Ground Assaults. I was thinking of taking out Satyr Wayfinder, Elvish Visionary, and Griselbrand. But Griselbrand is so cool, I'd hate to cut him.

I like the land swaps, I'd also drop 1 Swamp for 1 Mountain so you can Cultivate for it.

All the other bombs in the deck have significant ETB powers except Griselbrand.. so I think he's a clear cut. The deck already has a lot of draw creatures.

After that it gets tough though. Monomania is obvious.. but that's one of the cooler cards in the deck. Maybe -1 Cultivate, -1 Phyrexian Rager. I dunno.. it's tough. I wish Black had some better removal options. Maybe Hakeem will chime in when he's not being a YouTube mega-star : )

The deck was a bit of fun, sometimes you got a free win via Monomania, sometimes Skulker got out of hand, and sometimes you got them in the GorgerHorror lock. It's just a worse version of my other BGx decks, though, so I just kinda let it slide.

Griselbrand may as well have an ETB ability though, considering his activated ability doesn't require him to tap. Assuming losing 7 life isn't going to automatically lose the game for you, you can always activate him in response to removal. Losing 7 life and Griselbrand isn't such a huge loss if you get 7 cards in return.

I will say that Griselbrand is likely the cut though. I have never really been a fan of him in decks running more than 2 colors. is just too many hoops for those decks to jump through to play him when you need to.

If you are having issues with needing removal, you may be better off including Dead Reckoning rather than trying to splash more colors for removal. You have plenty of fatties to make it effective removal when you need it to be. It works alongside Treasured Find to gain value off of your self-mill. Also gives you some more redundancy in threats, since with Treasured Find+Dead Reckoning any threat you resolve is likely to just keep coming back even if your opponent is loaded for bear with removal of their own.

I am not really a fan of Monomania here (or just about anywhere to be honest with you). Even with Cultivate I don't really think it is that great. I have considered trying to build a deck around it with stuff like Goblin Electromancer but that is still pretty dubious.

I just jammed it in here because I wanted to play with it. It's a bad card but the few wins you get with it are super-satisfying.

I think Monomania only really has value in a deck that forces draw with something like Howling Mine, but even then, the fact they'll have three cards next turn makes the effect weak and costly. Unless you're also running things like Megrim, then it's often just a costly Mind Rot unless you get lucky and ramp to it early, or are playing a super conservative control deck that has somehow also just tapped out.

I used it to great effect in 2012 in 2HG but only because we used it in conjunction with the Treefolk Deck, which had Heartwood Storyteller and Rites of Flourishing, and we also had Megrim support in the Black deck, so could use it as a KO spell a lot of times by forcing them to stuff their hands, then making them discard for a ton of damage (usually fatal).

As a spell in complete isolation though, it's really not a good card at all.

@Eon

I really don't think there's enough graveyard shenanigans here for Dead Reckoning to work. The only viable options in these colors, for this deck are Prey Upon and Flesh to Dust.. in my opinion. Other than that.. the rest of the options are pretty bad. Its a cultivate deck.. you can get Ground Assault to work IMO.

Sadly, such is the case with most non-targeted discard.

Cards like Mind Rot seem great until you top deck them and your opponent is holding onto 0 cards >.<

In most cases the only time I really want to be playing non-targeted discard is when it is attached to some other sort of value, ala Liliana's Specter or Blightning.