or firebead...

I totally just got home from a very long day out of town and I have to say this brightened by mood quite a bit.

Us Melvins are a thing, we just aren't quite as vocal as the Spikes XD

This is what I have been messing around with since I started this voyage. Totally stealing the Dinrova Horror, although I think I might miss the 2nd Planar Cleansing I took out for it.

The Think Twice is tech against removal last turn...that burned me one game so far.

IMO the weakness of the turbo self-mill is not that Maniac gets killed on the last step (thus requiring think twice to react) but that Seance is removed on the oppos last turn. So in order to stop the loss from Seance removal you either need an alternative way to get Maniac out of your yard on upkeep (Rescue) or a counter spell to stop the enchantment removal.

I am having lots of fun with the deck although 90% of my wins come via the Hoof not Maniac. I may look at putting in Dissolve to protect against Seance getting exiled but so far haven't seen people doing that yet.

The deck has Treasure Find as an alternate for recursion as well, so a little bit of luck and planning can get around that. Alternatively, you can always just hard cast him after you get rid of your GY, then draw a card for the win. Not a huge issue as of yet to have the Seance removed as there isn't many Main Decked enchantment removal spells running around, but I can see where it could ruin your day.

I've found the Craterhoof isn't needed in this deck at all. I'd rather have the second Spider Spawning for defense than the Hoof. Usually, towards the end of your library, you can just go wide and win.

For me you would never have Maniac on the field as the deck cannot protect him the only way this deck wins with Maniac is Seance where you win before even seeing him on the board. My point was if the opps kills you Seance before that last upkeep you loose instead of win.

Regarding Hoof, he owns hard in this deck and I have fairly frequently pulled off turn 6 wins with a spider-hoof. I also have 2 spawnings, and cut the necromancers assistants down to 2 as they don't do much and there is enough mill. The reason I said 90% is because with this deck unless you get to the end of your library hoof is pretty much the only win-con. I just love have a bunch of 0 or 1 power guys then BLAMO 10/10 trample army to the face!

The fastest line this deck can take is:

T1: Island/Crab
T2: Wayfinder
T3: Crab+Wayfinder
T4: Seance
T5: Le Hoof Win or Spiders if there is enough defense then T6 mega hoof!

Not really the point of what people are wanting to do with this deck. The mana is a bit too janky to have early wins like that with one-ofs you have to toss in the bin and get a two-of card on the field, survive a turn, and, oh yeah, actively put creatures down that survive as well. Thinking this will not happen very often in the scenario you posted. If I wanted to win with the Hoof, I've got a perfectly reasonable and ridiculously strong Golgari deck and loves to bring the Hoof down on some unsuspecting opponent.

And who cares about protecting the Maniac? You just have to play smart and pay attention. If they are playing Red or White, don't cast him until the very end (to avoid the exile cards) or shoot him to the bin...I overdraw with this deck quite frequently.

Winning with the maniac takes a bit of skill and patience, which i pretty much the point of the deck, IMO.

I understand but the turbo mill allows you to more consistently land the hoof compared to a deck built for creature damage. It is another 1 off wincon for this deck and it normally allows you to win before you reach the end. So of course you can sit around and not attack so you get the self mill win but most of the time you don't need to. Because you burn through so many cards the scenario I mentioned happens a lot of the time, maybe not on T5 or 6 unless you get the perfect start but certainly by T8.

A friend of mine has suggested that Brain Maggot would be a nice singleton here, primarily to get information about your opponent's hand right before you're about to go off. His suggested cut was Archaeomancer. I'm pondering it.

Thoughts?

you only have one archeomancer in your build right?

Wait a sec....since when do you have friends????


Actually it does make sense considering you are narrowly focused on your one win condition (even though Spiders and Hoof are quite consistent and happen substantially faster - we'll leave you to draw the last breath of fun out of the game with your janky fetish). If I had to cut something though, it would be Gravedigger. Archaeomancer can get a Treasured Find which can get anything. Digger has targets but I think you can normally live without them (you can't live w/o Seance or the Cleansing option and mancer can ultimately lead to both).

elk

Adding maggot? Why? So that you know if you're going to lose before you actually lose. Maggot can't stop anything your opponent might do to interrupt you unless you hard cast it, and if you want to do that, it's better to run more than one copy. I hope you don't plan to tutor that card out from your graveyard (whenever I see someone tutor a brain maggot from a graveyard, I tend to win ;-) ). Otherwise, it just gets exiled at end of turn and the opponent gets his card back.

If your opponent has answers, you're probably hosed. Maggot can't save you.

I had 3 Brain Maggots in my original build. They work out pretty good, but they are not good targets for Seance.

DJ pretty much hit the nail on the head here, though; it won't save you. If you are lucky, it might slow them down a turn but that is about it. I think you are better with the Archeomancer.

It can still feed you information about what to tutor, what to Seance, etc. I'm on the fence but I'm thinking about it. Gravedigger is probably the flex slot, Treasured Find is too important and Archaeomancer's inclusion is a nod to that.

isn't Maggot fairly disruptive when Seanced on opponent's turn?

I haven't gone through intensive testing with all of this but in my build I run 2 Archaeomancers and they are the 4th and 5th treasured finds and the 3rd and 4th planar cleansings.

Brain maggot isn't bad, but Archaeomancer is not the cut. Gravedigger is really only good for getting crabs back, and is so expensive when hard cast that it really only works with seance.

Brain maggot is good at drawing out removal to protect weak creatures like mentor, rabblemaster etc. It isn't hard control, it is the banisher priest of control elements. This is a deck where all the creatures are pretty disposable except the crabs. The crabs speed things up but are not essential.

Honestly once seance is on the board I think it would be reasonably easy to leave some mana open. I like a single negate more than brain maggot... of course it is better with more than 1 archaeomancer.

Gravedigger has been pretty good for me.. I don't get why folks wanna.minimize him. He gets back Crabs, Shadowborn, Archaeomancer and he blocks well. After the Mobius cuts.. I don't really see much improvement happening. The only card I want back in is the second.Planar Cleansing. Against good opponents.. I want to cast PC every match.. the only time it isn't needed is vs bad opponents.

I love how you are all on the PC train now. I remember getting slammed for including PC in my original Seance deck many months ago. Now it's auto include. Glad to see you all on board.

I like the idea of using negate over brain maggot. What has me worried is the reliance on crabs. How is this deck performing against fast decks or tempo decks?

It's fine vs aggro. You can chump for days.. actually take a few of them with you with Necromancers Assistant. It's flyers that pose the biggest threat.. especially Auras. Hero of Iroas with Nimbus Wings is GG.. the deck has no answer since Hakeem hates Reprisal.

I actually think this deck is pretty much done.. at this.point all we're doing is polishing the shine off of a polished turd.

I've crushed a few mono-red and izzet decks with monk's build