Here's my attempt with Enigma Drake + Fling combo, showed to me by Lawdy some days ago and almost optimized yesterday with his help with discussion and testing. The name of the deck is Flingless Drake, because during testing i ended up with more than 20 spells in the graveyard before i have the mana or all the pieces for the combo, so i decided to cut Fling, but then it performed better with Fling obviously.

Flingless Drake

2 x Dispel
1 x Blossoming Defense
4 x Fog
4 x Expedite
1 x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
4 x Take Inventory
3 x Censor
4 x Cathartic Reunion
2 x Fling
4 x Grapple with the Past
2 x Commencement of Festivities
4 x Pieces of the Puzzle
3 x Enigma Drake
2 x Radiant Flames

3 x Island
3 x Mountain
1 x Forest
2 x Wandering Fumarole
2 x Cinder Glade
2 x Sulfur Falls
2 x Hinterland Harbor
2 x Rootbound Crag
3 x Evolving Wilds


The combo is obvious, the deck is not. Super low curve, tons of draw spells and cycling effects (missing cycling lands, cycling fog and cycling sweeper), 36 spells for our drakes.
Dispel and Blossoming Defense for protection and some additional pump just in case, 6 fogs effects (maybe going to 5), Expedite for combo and cycling, Censor for some early value but mostly cycling, Cathartic Reunion and Pieces of the Puzzle to go deep and fill your gy, Grapple with the Past to take back selfmilled drakes but mostly for mana fixing, and Radiant Flames just a couple sweepers.

The sweetest part of this deck is having 36 spells that let you cycle your deck, Pieces always hit 4+ spells, Jace is good to flashback stuff just in case and it goes really well with Expedite. You can turn 2 Reunion, turn 3 play Jace and when they use a removal just Expedite and flip it with 5 cards in gy.

The manabase is a little tricky. My first attempt was with 25 lands, because it's a 6 mana combo and i have another combo deck that doesn't want to miss a land drop and it worked fine. But this is different. Because of Grapple and other draw effects i went down to 22, then i added more cycling spells and went down to 20. I think it could be reduced more, but 3 colors are tough so i think that 20 lands is fine.

I think the deck is almost optimized, there are some little changes possible. Thx to Lawdy for the deck, have fun using it and leave a feedback if you want.

I played a bit with BBB's list:

viewtopic.php?f=61&p=556315#p556315

Creature(5)
1 x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
3 x Enigma Drake
1 x Hazoret the Fervent


Instant(20)
4 x Galvanic Bombardment
2 x Lightning Axe
3 x Censor
3 x Fling
4 x Grapple with the Past
2 x Fiery Temper
2 x Geistblast


Sorcery(8)
4 x Take Inventory
4 x Cathartic Reunion


Enchantment(4)
4x Vessel of Nascency

Land(23)
2 x Wandering Fumarole
3 x Island
5 x Mountain
2 x Lumbering Falls
2 x Forest
2 x Hinterland Harbor
2 x Sulfur Falls
2 x Rootbound Crag
3 x Aether Hub


I made a few changes, taking out 1x Vessel for 1x Torrential Gearhulk. I also worked in some sweepers (Radiant Flames and maybe Kozy's Return), but I can't recall what I cut for them at the moment.

I like the idea of Pieces of the Puzzle more than Vessels. Bugged me that they're Enchantments that don't count towards Drake power. Do you find they're ok even tho they make you pitch Drakes to GY? Grapples reliable enough to get them back?

Gearhulk was great in the deck. Being able to flashback fogs or Flings is very useful, and it's not a terrible target for Flings itself. Hazoret wasn't great and might have been one of the cuts I made for sweepers - I don't believe I was ever able to attack with her (IIRC) and think the only time she was useful in games for me was casting Fling on her.

Well you have only 3 drakes, while you have 4 pieces and 4 grapples. I always finish with multiple drakes or discarding grapple by hand size, so yeah pieces is not a problem for drake. I barely use grapple for drakes, because with all these draw spells i eventually draw it and it stays in my hand until i combo off or i lose.
The problem with Gearhulk, Disciple and other big stuff, despite they are good, is that my curve is low and i have only 20 lands. The most expensive stuff is 3 cmc and when i have more mana i usually want to play more spells and dig more.

Giocher, I played the deck for a couple of games. It fills the graveyard pretty fast, but staying alive has been a major issue. If you don't draw enough Fogs in time, you just die. Against Insult // Injury you die. Direct damage kills you. Flying blockers can be annoying without Fling.

I've still had acceptable results, but I think there are more consistent shells for Enigma Drake. Not as explosive and focused, but also not as fragile.

Thx for the feedback. So one thing i can tell you is that this deck has a lot of key moments and it is difficult to pilot. I still lose because of weird choices, so i feel that it takes time to pilot it well. Reunion is difficult to use, to understand what you can discard and sometimes you get punished. Pieces is almost worse, when you get 4+ spells and need to decide the best 2. For example i lost in the steam koth yesterday against tmp because i took radiant flames over a fog and next turn he played selfless spirit. Turn 2 is crucial, my advice is to never play take inventory (unless you are forced), reunion is almost always good on turn 2, otherwise leaving mana for censor or grapple for mana is the best choice.

About the rest, burn is a bad matchup, really bad, but sometimes you can out race it. One thing i could consider is 1 Pulse instead of 1 Commencement, and test it a bit. 6 fogs are usually enough, considering when you can take some damage and when you discard or draw it. Insult kills this deck pretty much every time, luckily is not very common but i don't see many solutions for it unless it becomes common. Flying blockers can be annoying yeah, if you want you can try the 1 mana cycling spell that makes it unblockable, otherwise just continue to dig, it's very fast to have 20 spells in the gy and you will eventually find fling too.

Yesterday I got into a conversation with Mulletman, and he brought up this archetype. Apparently on xbone there was a deck submission from Godamongstmen, Mulletman took that list and tweaked it a bit, then we ran a few stress tests and I tweaked it further. Also, CGB obliged us by building his take live on stream later in the day ^^.

The deck needs more reps, and I doubt it will be possible to take it to a point where it can beat the best aggro decks we have. It is however, VERY resilient, and should beat midrange decks and mediocrelly built/piloted control decks.

This is where we took it so far, my thanks to Godamongstmen and Mulletman :

4 x Fog

2 x Thing in the Ice
1 x Baral, chief of compliance
3 x Telling Time
2 x Fling
2 x Commencement of festivities
4 x Grapple with the past
3 x Cathartic Reunion
2 x Gather the Pack

2 x Enigma Drake
1 x Geistblast
2 x Radiant Flames
4 x Pulse of Murasa
4 x Pieces of the Puzzle

1 x Greenwarden of Murasa
1 x Rise from the Tides


4/3/3
2 x cinder glade
2 x rootbound crag
2 x hinterland harbor
2 x sulfur falls
3 x evolving wilds
1 x Hanweir Battlements

Ok this deck has multiple wincons and doesnt rely on drake very much. It has less cycling spells, i found that i don't want to get stuck with cards like fogs, fling, drake, etc. without being able to dig more, but mine is all in with drakes.
There are some cards that i don't understand very much, 4 grapple and 4 pulse seems redundant, 2 gather seems ok, i mean it digs a lot but you don't really need this kind of card with few creatures, considering you have 8 grapples. At this point it's better to play Compelling Argument. Another card i don't understand is Greenwarden, i suppose it's good with Pulse.

Actually the drakes ARE the main wincons, you just don't need 3 =). Odds are by t6 you will find one.
Titi is mainly in for defense and a potential different line to fling people out if drakes get exiled. Rise from the tides is there to attack from a different angle. It can't be answered by exiling spot removal, it demands a whipe. Greenwarden is there because of the toolboxing; it's a way to get rise back when you need it, or a way to cast another fog, or get a fling back out of the yard. 4 x grapple and 4 x pulse may be too much, or just right, i'm unsure yet, it might be better to run 1 less pulse.
The thing is though : these things do double duty in both getting back your wincons AND making SURE you hit landdrops. I doubt less than 6 of these effects are correct, since this is what makes the deck consistent AND resilient.

Yeah i know they are the main wincon, i said that they are not the only one as in mine. Idk about Titi, it seems here only to eat their removal and you already have tons of protection with 6 fogs, 4 pulse and recursion, tides is fine.
The difference between these decks is that yours is defensive and resilient, mine digs aggro. Idk which is the best approach, i just wanted to avoid hands without cards to dig, with too many fogs and other situational cards.

The list that was handed to me had 8 fog effects and 4 pulse, cutting 2 fogs was the first thing I did ^^ I don't like the card, but if you gonna play a janky combo in a creature based environment, you need some of this stuff. Thats also why I said the deck needs more reps... the number of fogs and pulses are far from fixed.

Titi eating removal is a good point, but it means mana investment... if they push it, that's bad.... but in most other cases, you got an even trade on mana, and they didn't get to develop so much, which is important, then you can keep making landdrops, gain life, and work towards your gameplan. And if they let you untap with it, you have another wincon on board...

Would I play Time walk or remand over it ? Don't answer that, that was a rethorical question =p Would I play censor over it in this deck ? Probably not, because they do similar things in their failstates, and Titi has more synergy.

Now testing -2 Commencement, +1 Blossoming +1 Pulse. Trying to not always combo off in one turn, but, if i feel safe and my hand let me do it, play Drake early and protect it or take it back, to finish the opponent the turn after.
Also considering Titi atm, but i have no idea what to cut.

Edit: now trying -1 Pulse -1 Expedite, +2 Titi.

So after running some permutations.... CGB ran the list I posited to a 9/1 on xbox, but on Steam ladder the list has been a bit mediocre.

There is just a higher density of decks that put out a fast clock, and if you combine that with the amount of clunky openers this list can offer you, the large tree of decision points each game; means that the deck is certainly not tier 1, even not for ladder play. Giocher's list might be, but honesty compels me that I did put Giocher's list in his hands through a gauntlet and he won 1 game vs a midrange creature deck, and (very narrowly) lost to both control and aggro decks.

Another issue is that even though it is my personal opinion that aggro is better than control this season, the truly spiked out aggro and control list one meets on ladder are .... rare, which might give you a false sense of security when you choose to play this deck. For it to beat either of those archetypes when they are well built, it really needs to get everything going quite right; and our card selection quality is too low to guarantee that.

So... concept is playable, but needs further input.

Awaiting further feedback

velocity and landdrops may or may not be more important than defense or resilience vs an agressive meta, since, this is the only combo deck in Duels I know of that CAN kill on t5. It rarely does, and Giocher needs an attack to connect whilst I need a t2 baral and a perfect curve of spells to get there t5. It a fine rope to walk. 5/6 mana for 'do 20' is something that people should keep working on I think, however, since the only other true combodeck (anointed displacer) is maybe workable in a more proactive deck, but also very tough to protect.

it can do better on ladder surely. i think the key is to play really lots of draw along with fog control and board wipe/bounce. The draws have to draw you fogs... means gather the pack and grapple must have better substitutes. They better be low cost too. Take inventory to me is a must. Don't like TITI or Baral here. Baral is better when you may consider adding some green ramp, but not in this deck. TITI contributes too little to the whole plan...
We can have drake deck building contest. There seem to be fun sparks.

The way I see it telling time and grapple are both +1 on your drake and early on mainly used to get landdrops. Lategame they obviously transition into digspells for the wincon.

I would not cut either of these cards.

Pulse of Murasa lacks the velocity, but adds resiliency, landdrops and defense. It might be right to cut 1 of those for another cathartic.

Gather the pack in my mind is a card to cast either early when you need ABSOLUTELY have to find a titi; but preferably late when you got a fling in hand and need a drake to ohk people. It doesn't help with other things, but it is together with pieces of the puzzle a very cheap way to dig 5 for something, and unlike pieces, this will be very mana efficient to get a drake, and therefore helps alot with the 'goldfish'.
I don't think titi can get there by itself reliably. Consider it a wall that becomes a 'free' crush of tentacles if not dealt with. It buys you time, but it does not necessarily win.
Both cards add elements, but I agree, that those are 4 debatable slots.

If you want to disregard the baral nut - draw, then you now have 6 card slots (maybe a 7th by ditching another fog effect) to improve the deck.
I don't think you cut greenwarden or tides; since they add alot of depth to your gameplan. Greenwarden or another such effect is almost mandatory, since if the deck is running grapples, there is a very real risk to mill both your flings.

In my defense, against control Disciple shifted completely the advantage bar, it's a card i cannot do much about since mine is a >50% spells deck. The only chance is to aggressively make you run out of gas in the gy, hoping that you have not a stacked hand too. Against aggro it was weird, Pieces of the Puzzle whiffed, i should calculate the probability. (Edit: if i calculated it well the probability is 0.0084, not saying it should not happen, but not against you )


I have another one



Anyway here's further feedback. Baral is in definitely. I want velocity? Baral is velocity, only 1 turn with Baral it's like 3 turns without. I won against a good gb energy/counters aggro deck (not in ladder) because of Baral. Without him i would have lost because i needed 2 more turns and 2 more fogs to play all the spells i played with him. It's also good turn 4/5, not only turn 2, and if he dies it still bought some time and a removal and if there is not big pressure we can bring it back.
About the rest, as discussed with Rabs, some of the spells are situational and since aggro is the main problem we should tune this deck for the aggro matchup. Titi is a possibility that i should consider more, but having also Baral i'm trying to not put too many creatures.

Changes that i'm testing from the original list.
-1 Blossoming Defense, +1 Pulse of Murasa. In general Defense is good, sometimes a bit narrow, and maybe we dont need too much protection, so i prefer to leave only 2 Dispels to protect Fling. Pulse is never a dead card, 3 mana is ok also being a 1 of, and sometimes the lifegain is useful, against burn or ballista or other kind of stuff.
-3 Censor, +3 Telling Time. Censor was always an ok card, sometimes you leave mana for Grapple and Censor on turn 2 and sometimes you counter something. After turn 2 you only cycle it, that is not a bad thing in this deck because it's essentially the way you want to use mana in this deck. Censor could be also better against aggro, but now i'm testing Telling Time that can smooth a bit your early game.
-2 Commencement, +2 Baral. The problem is the lack of space, so i cut 2 fogs effect to add Baral, and as i said before if he sticks at least one turn it gives you value as one more turn and a fog. Also i'm using Pulse, that is a pseudo fog, but i can see adding a 5th fog, not a 6th.

Further testing will be about Titi, i think i tried it too fast and if we care more about aggro we should find a place for it. Also not sure about Censor/Telling Time.

Edit: some speculation. What about +2 Titi -2 Dispel? In general we have more grapples and drakes than the opponent removals. It makes the control matchup worse, but we could try to be more aggressive in that matchup, winning by attacking with early drake and maybe flipped titi, trying to make them run out of gas, using fling only as a counter for removal but not as main plan. Only speculation.

Disciple indeed was quite certainly the best highend I could've drawn there I get however to thump my chest for playing her on 7, recognizing her worth in the matchup, instead of waiting till 8/10 like I usually do when not under pressure

In deference to the disciple, I have changed my avatar yet again. Kefnet is a bit of a wannabe compared to her anyway. She deserves it... almost every time I got a 'cool story to tell' about playing any blue based control deck, it's a complicated version of 'oops disciple made it possible'.

Regarding the deck : I've been playing your version a bit (including tweaks) and I like the extra velocity, I couldnt help but cut some expedites though, whilst keeping the haste land and a pair of pulses. I think, as also was shown in our stress tests, that baby jace isn't necessary here... I mean it's a great card and all, but the 'i'll expedite it and make a pw to keep digging', which you did multiple times and then failed to get sufficient value to win, is a bit too cute for me, I'd rather maximize 2 drops here that are non-permanents and get an immediate effect/information.

Ok probably my last built with this deck.

1 x Dispel
4 x Fog
3 x Expedite
1 x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
2 x Thing in the Ice
2 x Baral, Chief of Compliance
4 x Take Inventory
3 x Censor
4 x Cathartic Reunion
2 x Fling
4 x Grapple with the Past
4 x Pieces of the Puzzle
1 x Pulse of Murasa
3 x Enigma Drake
2 x Radiant Flames

3 x Island
3 x Mountain
1 x Forest
2 x Wandering Fumarole
2 x Cinder Glade
2 x Sulfur Falls
2 x Hinterland Harbor
2 x Rootbound Crag
3 x Evolving Wilds


A short discussion about some cards. Titi and Baral do a lot of work and seem definitely worth it. Titi is good against aggro and is an alternative wincon, even one attack makes life easier for drake. Baral was already discussed, he makes almost every spells a 1 cmc spell and let you gain 1 or 2 turns if he sticks for one turn, this way you don't need fogs desperately.

Telling Time was only an ok card, but in general i felt it was slow and expensive (2 cmc!), so i went back for Censor that is definitely better. It was my opinion even before trying Telling Time, but i wanted to try it.

One copy of Pulse seems very good, i don't really want more since it costs a lot. It is a pseudo fog, and i'm ok with 4 copies of real fogs for now, but as i said before depending the meta i can see a 5th copy along with Pulse, but not a 6th.

Blossoming Defense seemed a bit situational and not needed. In general having a creature instead of Defense has the effect of eating a possible removal, with the difference that Titi and Baral are less situational.

Dispel is probably the only card i still have doubts about. It could be either 0, 1 or 2 copies. In general we can make the same reasoning as for Defense, since we are not going all in with the combo but we have it only as main plan with other plan b. The matchup against control is much worse without it though, but i suppose that combo has to accept control as bad matchup in a non sideboarded format. I'm keeping one copy instead of one Censor, and depending on how meta evolves it can go back to 2 copies. (Edit: probably i will cut 1 Expedite instead of 1 Censor)

I built and played some games with the OP list and really liked it.

Only played 3 games so far (small sample size), but I never won with fewer than 6 lands in play. I think it could run Gearhulk ok. I didn't need it to win, but it would have been helpful (always something you can pitch to Reunions if in hand early). Alternatively Greenwarden might be worth running - giving you access to any spell in the yard and not exiling the spells you recast. I often had a full hand and had to discard things EOT (one game casting 4 Puzzels in succession, lol) - so having an option to recur things would make for easier decisions on what's ok to discard.

I don't know if this is something that can be fixed, but the mix of Instants and Sorceries was clunky at times. In one game I had to hold off playing Renunion and Puzzle in order to keep Censor mana open. I was paranoid if I tapped out Opp would drop a Liliana that I wouldn't be able to answer. Still won the game just fine, but that part was a little frustrating early in the game.

My only advice about this is play more with this deck. You will feel by yourself that you don't need Greenwarden or Hulk or anything to recurr (just in case you have Jace). Missing landdrops is very difficult because of the draw spells, grapples etc.

About discarding eot and about reunion, discarding is not bad because it means you have the best 7 cards in hand and you fill your gy for the combo. But i usually don't chain pieces too much unless i need a fog desperately. Reunion is a bit tricky, especially knowing what to discard on turn 2. Easy choices are drake and take inventory, about the rest you need to know well your deck and maybe guess your opponent's deck from his first turn.

About Censor, don't leave mana open for it, unless you have grapple and you think you want to use it for mana. If you have also reunion most of the times using reunion is better, also discarding censor. Liliana is not a problem for this deck, is a do nothing for 4 turns, and you have also 1 or 2 turns more after her emblem, but you should already have won

The game I was running the constantly overfull hand was just tough because depending on how things developed some spells would be more or less useful. One really tough pitch was Dispel, which I pitched in favor of keeping more draw spells (still digging for Drakes, which finally showed up when I got under 20 cards in library) and held my breath hoping that wouldn't come back to bite me later (it didn't - had a Fling to cast in response to the instant speed removal Opp tried to use).

I'll def play with it more before making changes. Still feeling inclined to run Gearhulk or Greenwarden, but will stick to your recommendations for now. I do think it's better than BBB's version. Digs harder, and Fog effects more useful in surviving long enough to assemble the combo than burn spells. It's super fun to pop off 20 damage out of nowhere - and I had games where it was via Fling and games it was via the haste instant.