@Whoever said that: It only means that can't cast spells from their hand for the rest of the game. Anything in the graveyard or other zones can be cast freely.

True they can play 1 spell a turn if it is flashed back but considering the type of deck that is trying to play lockdown I think it would be easy enough to counter whatever one spell they play a turn from their graveyard.

Which is annoying. They can also cast stuff from the pool and if their deck builds more card advantage than yours, you might end up topping by the time you resolve the pool and they will eventually resolve a threat of their own when you top a land rather than a spell... I haven't really figured out a way to break this yet and make it viable in a tourney format. Any ideas are welcome.

They can't cast stuff from the pool... They play a spell which is their 1st and only spell of the turn allowed by Curse of Exhaustion then Knowledge Pool says they, "may cast another nonland card" therefore if they choose to do so it is their 2nd cast spell of the turn so it is countered by the curse.

Oh... wow, I'm dumb. Lol

I was wondering why everyone was talking about the combo... I didn't understand why it was so good because the deck had to be so mana intensive and turn consuming to play and actually profit from it. Time to brew again... Makes Ray of Revelation much better I guess...

Guess I should actually read the cards before I try to build with them, huh?

I'd build green/white with ramp and white removal. Throw in a couple bombs and go.

pool of exhaustion would work best imo in a turbo fog w/g .. the most annoying deck in existance

speaking of which im going to help a friend build it today lol sun titans with orings and fiend hunters will be his main removal aside from doj and fog clinging mists moonmist and blunt the assault will all make appearances with CoE and knowledge pool as finishing moves

I do agree that this combo "could" be viable but seems like it would belong in a possible Bant setting or GW ramp. I say bant because it gets access to Grand Architect so really you "could" go:

Turn 1: Bird

Turn 2: Grand Architect.

Turn 3: Curse OR Knowledge Pool.

Turn 4: Curse OR Knowledge pool.

so why not fog? out of curiosity?

Not saying you cant do fog it is just really hard to win with that deck. If you do a sort of Bant control than perhaps you have better chance overall I wouldnt rate the deck idea as competitive at least not yet. What made fog so good in the past was Time Warp and Jace, the Mind Sculptor working hand in hand to win usually 78% of the games.

With how much aggro is going around it seems like it would work but cards and decks like these are what we call "skill testers". This means one of 2 different things. The first meaning is the skill and knowledge to NOT use cards that seem gimmicky and happy fun. The other is that any skilled player should be able to beat these decks. Granted luck exists for a reason but if you give 2 decks there best hands and draws the aggro deck will win because the fog deck will run out of steam and lose to a ridiculous board state that the fog deck let stand.

So if anything GW fog would be best because you get access to Day of Judgment but int he long run you WILL need blue to have access to draw power and win condition. Also against any deck running blue you WILL see an increase in counter spells not to mention Control decks dont need to do damage to you to win Rites of Flourishing is hurting you just as much when they use Increasing Confusion Jace, Memory Adept Nephalia Drownyard. Even if you have an Elixir of Immortality the odds are stacked against you in the long run because of Karn Liberated or any decent planeswalker ultimate.

Fog also loses to Hellrider which is seeing play in GR Aggro.

Eh. my whole meta is pod and Geralf's Messenger-less u/b control

I am talking for tournament level mostly. You never know what decks you will see at fnm

Why do you think "Dudes with Swords" isn't running black's , and Invisible Stalker. Counterspell backs up swords from whatever may try and kill them while Forbidden Alchemy helps you get the pieces you need (and put the skeleton in the yard).

This deck is what I play when I'm not playing Pristine Control at my local FNM's and it wins just as frequently (3-0 3/4 weeks in the month). What weakness does it have that my meta just doesn't see aside from Nihil Spellbomb and Grafdigger's Cage?

This is a deck that I am far too lazy to put together and I don't feel like I could build competently but I think it would be extremely competitive if built correctly.

The core of the deck:

Mystic Retrieval

Runic Repetition

Once you have these cards in your graveyard and/or hand, you can proceed to net infinite card advantage. However this is rather mana intensive so you would need:

Semblance Anvil

Increasing Ambition

These two cards allow you to quickly (kind of) and efficiently allow for massive card advantage. The mana reduction effect isn't even needed really against non-control decks as you could have sweepers and other such stuff.

I feel like this would be the basis of the deck:

4 Faithless Looting

4 Mystic Retrieval

4 Runic Repetition

3 Semblance Anvil

2 Increasing Ambition

If retrieval and repetition were instants I would agree 100% with you about it's potential. It being sorcery, you are looking at quite a few turns before you can get the engine running with access to counters.

Interesting idea for sure though. Might toy around with it and see if it works.

@jkarnes:

I agree that Reassembling Skeleton can be a real power house in the right deck just like any card that gives you constant advantage. The main issue is NOT however with the decks main board. Aside from UB Zombies and Faeries (a while back) UB in an aggro hasn't always been good because of its side board options(Faeries were just broken..almost. UB Zombies has a fundamental weakness in ALL UB Zombie decks and that is in fact the Side Board. Lets take a look at Andrew Wilson's 2nd place UB Zombie deck from Star City 5k at Tampa:

2 Culling Dais

3 Nihil Spellbomb

1 Evil Twin

2 Phyrexian Obliterator

2 Go for the Throat

2 Distress

2 Zombie Apocalypse

1 Swamp

UB has 1 notorious problem with its consistence and that is NON-Creature removal aka better have a Ratchet Bomb to get rid of that Gideon Jura. With that flaw we have exploits. Reassembling Skeleton loses horribly against Curse of Death's Hold and if your saving your counter for that enchantment you will probably lose to your opponents removal or battlefield state.

Last weekend we saw a 2nd place deck with 15 Planeswalkers yes...15! and it lost to a deck that could provide answers and guess what? It ran white.

White right now has the BEST side board options bar none. When your facing down UB Zombies and RG Aggro it seems like Celestial Purge is a good card as well as Timely Reinforcements not to mention main board Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite's.

With any control variant also comes graveyard hate and if you rely too much on your graveyard to do the work you will be exploited and you will lose.

This is mainly why we don't see UB Bladers.

So than how is it different from UW Delver? Glad I asked.

UW Delver has a side board as such:

2 Sword of Feast and Famine

2 Phantasmal Image

2 Oblivion Ring

3 Celestial Purge

1 Divine Offering

1 Corrosive Gale

3 Revoke Existence

1 Timely Reinforcements

Lets see of those 15 how many are white? 10.

Not to mention UW Delver wins most games thanks to Moorland Haunt which UB does not have access to.

Also, going 3 colors in an aggro deck will usually do worse than 2 colors in an aggro deck.

Hope that answers your question.

What, in your opinion, would the best sideboard cards be for a w/b token deck against wwr?

Would you run a U/R Delver deck? I feel that the synergies between and Stromkirk Noble are surprisingly unexplored and I'm wondering why. Theoretically it would seem to me like the two colours could create an incredibly strong tempo deck. Is it a case of other colours being able to do the same but better?

wwr?

I have run UR Delver at a qualifier. I feel the deck isnt as...threat and tempo heavy as it needs to be. The deck overall can be very good especially with Runechanter's Pike and Grim Lavamancer but I lost mainly because of excessive amounts of land.

meta with more zombies,human,ramp,delver,t.steel,lil rdw lil mono green agro and some random decks....few control

would like with my heartless brew BW heartless Curse (check it out) another bw deck..im usually good at these but im running out of ideas, maybe more outside help willbe good

Oh sorry, that was a typo. WRR, Wolf Run Ramp. My bad.

@burkek - I recommend...

Mortarpod - Being able to instant speed ping off an Inkmoth Nexus is great, considering most WRR wins come from it anyways.

@burkek:

Depends on the colors but I will assume BW.No particular order:

1) and Inferno Titan in WRR.

2) Shrine of Loyal Legions WRR runs a lot of board wipes. Activating this EOT and swinging next turn for game can be huge.

3) Sword of Feast and Famine

4) Gut Shot seems good again can kill inkmoth as well as other creatures in a wide range.

Put this in the older thread by accident, I shall repost it here as it is where it belongs.

You mentioned in your previous thread that you were surprised by how little is played. Is that still the case?

I had toyed around with the idea before deck:im-not-sure-what-to-call-this-standard but never did too much with it. Do you think that a B/R control deck could come out with or should it just be left to Heartless Summoning variants?

Neither. In all honesty it could work in a grixis deck but my idea of fun is copying a flipped shaman with Phantasmal Image or Phyrexian Metamorph and just protecting them lol however. I have recently been testing them in a GR aggro deck as another way to inflict both combat damage and non combat damage.

That and I think Ambush Viper belongs in the deck along with Brimstone Volley

Curse of Death's Hold does indeed stop the 12 1/1 creatures that carry swords.

I see your point about White just having better tools right now. I didn't really stop and think why most of the decks in the format run White; however, having done with your comments so I now see why.

Given the decks that we see running the metagame show (Spirit/Delver Blade & WRR), I wonder if a Rock deck could do well in the current format.

Rock would not mind taking the hits from a Delver early because it ideally will strip a counterspell from the opposition's hand to open for the kill spell of choice and from that point just grind out with "Generally Mean Cards."

Against WRR, we have access to kill spells, landy spells, curses, select discard, and deathtouch creatures. (W/ random lifegain).

I have put together a prototype (no land, unoptimized, unbalanced, just a general card pool) Rock w/ Sideboard for the purposes of discussion, it can be found here: Rawked

To those who wanted to know about the Knowledge Pool and Curse of Exhaustion deck.

Finally, a combo deck :)

It's a little clunky but it's pretty good.

what do yall think about a deck based around creature removal, with cards like Falkenrath Noble, Massacre Wurm

@ SplodyCopter:

If your going to go in that route with the way tokens are right now it will be hard to accomplish with 3 Honor of the Pure's on the field.

I recall there being a combo with Falkenrath Noble but I actually forgot it if anything I think it was the heartless combo just adding in life gain.

Otherwise I dont think the deck would be that good.

What if it was your own creatures getting removed? I've had an idea that would probably be B/W or G/B/W. It could use something similar to your B/W control deck you made a while back, using things like Culling Dais and Altar's Reap on Doomed Traveler's. I'm thinking it would use alot of creatures that have leave the battlefield effects or create tokens. For example:

4x Falkenrath Noble

4x Doomed Traveler

2x Mausoleum Guard

3x Solemn Simulacrum

2x Mikaeus, the Unhallowed

And green could work in here too. It could run Birds of Paradise and Rampant Growth to speed into these high costing creatures. Other green creatures that would work well would be Strangleroot Geist and Viridian Emissary. This is just an idea though.

Still not a realistic deck to try and win with.

What about this?

RUG Vengeance

Earlier I asked about the viability of a classic Rock style deck in standard and I think I got breezed over by the raw volume of comments.

What do you think of something like this: Upon this Rock for standard? I go over all my choices in this article