Introduction:
Do you like combo decks? Wheels effects? Drawing lots of cards? Control? If you said yes to all of those, look no further than here. This is a deck made with several "house rules" in mind. There are NO infinite combos included in this deck list, NO infinite turns or multiple turns, NO hard lock out, and can win with damage OR labman. if you want to make a version of this deck that include those, be my guest, this was more of a project i started that i couldn't stop tuning.
Strategy:
The linchpin of this deck is
Smothering Tithe
(ST) without it the deck becomes very slow and susceptible to vulnerability from the other players. Thus the choice for
Lavinia, Azorius Renegade
to helm this deck to stop
Force of Will
and
Pact of Negation
from stopping you when you find the perfect time to go off. If your meta plays cards like
Praetor's Grasp
this deck will likely crumble to it, making this deck cap out in the "High Power" class at the very best, and will never be in the cEDH. That said, this deck is still very fast, and wins out of no where most of the time, just remember to hold up some mana from counterspells.
Win Con:
Main win-con:
Smothering Tithe
+ all the "Group Draw" spells = lots of mana. From there you can cast
Laboratory Maniac
and draw enough to deck yourself. if you don't have lab man out, you can get to it by drawing exactly how much cards in your library, cast labman, then another draw spell. (Possible addition of
Enter the Infinite
?)
Second Win-Con:
Psychosis Crawler
+ "Big Draw" spells. This only really works if you're not playing against any heavy life-gain decks that has been accumulating life up till now.
Third Win-Con:
Knowledge Pool
+
Lavinia, Azorius Renegade
if your Smothering Tithes gets hated out.
That said, now how do we reliably get ST consistently in this deck? Well I'll now go through all the tutor chains in this deck to get there starting from the shortest to longest:
Smothering Tithe
in hand (Total cmc: 4)
Idyllic Tutor
> ST to hand (Total cmc: 7)
Enlightened Tutor
> ST to top of the deck, then draw (Total cmc: 5 + draw)
Long-Term Plans
> ST third from the top >
Brainstorm
/
Ponder
/
Preordain
/
Sensei's Divining Top
> ST to hand (Total cmc: 7)
Now we're Pod racing:
Transmute
Drift of Phantasms
> Idyllic tutor > ST to hand (Total cmc: 10)
Transmute
Dizzy Spell
> Enlightened tutor to hand > ST on top (Total cmc: 8 + draw)
Mystical Tutor
> Enlightened tutor to top of the deck > ST to top of the deck (Total cmc: 6 + draw x2)
Mystical Tutor > Idyllic Tutor to top > ST to hand (total cmc: 8 + draw)
Merchant Scroll
> Dizzy spell transmute > enlightened tutor > ST to top (Total cmc: 10 + draw)
Spellseeker
> Enlightened Tutor > ST to top (Total cmc: 8 + draw)
Merchant Scroll > Mystical Tutor > Enlightened tutor to top > ST to top (Total cmc: 8 + draw x2)
Recruiter of the Guard
> Spellseeker > Enlightened Tutor > ST to top (Total cmc: 11 + draw)
Muddle the Mixture
> Merchant Scroll > Dizzy spell transmute > enlightened tutor > ST to top (Total cmc: 13 + draw)
There's a few more chains, but those are even worse than these last few, and not worth mentioning. As most of these chains are not dependent on getting it all done in a single turn, don't let the total cmc intimidate you too badly.
Side Note:
Obscure includes:
Stratus Dancer
and
Willbender
the main reason for these 2 are for when you're again green decks that run
Krosan Grip
. Morph mechanic does NOT use the stack (similar to playing lands) as a result even with split second, you can still counter or redirect the krosan grip protecting the ST.
Upgrades to consider first:
Sensei's Divining Top
this should replace
Crystal Ball
asap, this deck runs a fairly low land count, so you want to be able to dig into your library as much as you can, but you'll also want to run all the fetch lands to really make SDT worth running in the deck.
Austere Command
should get replaced by
Cyclonic Rift
. it's just better in every way.
Silent Gravestone
can be replaced by any of the grave hate cards,
Rest in Peace
being one of the best.
Other than that mana base is where most of the upgrades should go into as this deck functions on very limited mana and need the best lands it can muster to be as efficient as possible.
If running Infinite combos aren't taboo or against your house rules, switch out all the land based ramp for mana rocks, and run
Isochron Scepter
+
Dramatic Reversal
combo. Faster, and more reliable.
Cards that didn't make it:
Forced Fruition
and
Teferi's Puzzle Box
: they seem like obvious choices for what the deck does; but generally this deck is going off the turn ST is in play, not the following turn, making these card too slow to be of value and the cmc isn't worth the slot.
End Notes:
This Deck is very glass-cannon similar to elfball, if you get wiped before you can resolve your smothering tithe and wheels, you'll be spending several turns trying to recuperate otherwise dying in the process as this deck has very few creatures for blocking and heavily reliant on reading the board and knowing when and what to counter to stay alive.
Link to the Original Deck List
Smothered in Cards v2.0
