The instant speed of it though makes it as good as a counterspell (assuming you have the mana open). And you can end of turn dig for Vampiric Tutor to set up into your combo turn. Making your intentions known will always happen to some extent. If I see a late game Vamp Tutor or the like, I can usually assume something big is coming my way. its just one of those things unfortunately.

I guess i'll try that. Will play with the group again today. This time with a Kaalia of the Vast, Talrand, Sky Summoner and Iroas, God of Victory in the pod.

Hopefully I get to see how Heartless Summoning in play. I'm really excited to try it.

So I was able to play several games last night. Won 3 out of 4 games in a pod that had Brago, King Eternal and Kaalia of the Vast and 1 of 2 when an Iroas, God of Victory joined us.

After winning the first 2 games, the guys decided to gang up on me for the rest of the games. Lol

Heartless Summoning was awesome! it allowed me to combo out on turn 4 and 5 in the first two games.

Mystical Teachings was indeed a good card. I'm just not sure if I want to take out Ponder for it. I'm thinking of taking out Foresee (although I really like this card) or Long-Term Plans instead.

I also discovered I could win as early as turn 3. Last night, I pulled off a:T1 fetch, took Watery Grave and cast Sol Ring to cast Helm of Awakening. (Had Sensei's Divining Top in hand but decided against playing it to avoid making it obvious that I was planning to combo off early);

T2, played an Island, cast Sapphire Medallion using Sol Ring. At the end of an opponent's turn, casted Vampiric Tutor to get Future Sight.

T3, played Forbidden Orchard, then Future Sight, then Sensei's Divining Top. :-)

Drew the entire deck to play Mana Vault (for free) to play Grim Monolith (floating 1), to then play Gilded Lotus, giving me enough mana to cast Tendrils of Agony.

Awesome T3 win dude!

Lol. Yeah. Everyone was shocked the game ended that quickly. Funny thing was 2 guys had one mana open with Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile in hand. Good thing I tutored for Future Sight instead of Magus of the Future.

Impulse, Mystical Teachings, Foresee, Ponder. Which 2 do you guys think will be best for the deck?

Atm, i'm leaning towards Impulse and Mystical Teachings since both are instants and I really have this bad habit of trying to keep the instants, sorceries, creatures, etc. even or divisible by three. Lol

I would agree with those two. They seem like the better options. I also just like instants so much more than sorceries.

Same here. Still a big fan of Ponder though. And now i'm thinking of taking out All Is Dust. Choosing between Ponder and Monastery Siege.

I need your opinions guys.

Necropotence or Greed?

On the one hand, Necropotence draws X cards for X life and 3 mana as opposed to Greed which draws X cards for X(2) life and X+4 mana.

On the other hand, Greed allows me to draw cards at instant speed (assuming I have mana to spend), does not make me skip my draw phase and does not exile cards that I discard.

I personally prefer Greed. I think it gives more flexibility in that you don't have to spend any life and you still get a draw step. Not to mention the triple black (especially for me) is a bit hard costed.

Having to skip that draw phase is indeed a big consideration. However, the mana Greed requires to draw cards seems so limiting. If you find 3 black mana hard costed, that kind of limits your ability to draw cards doesn't it?

Usually I only need to supplement my draw by one or maybe 2 a turn depending on what's happening. I find getting 2 black mana is easy enough, but 3 can be a challenge (normally most of what I want is Blue/Green). And because I'm not skipping my draw step, I get a card from that too, so its not so bad.

That makes sense. And now that I think about it, Greed doesn't cause any problems when played alongside Monastery Siege and Mind Over Matter.

Also, i'm thinking of bringin back Treasure Cruise or Ponder to replace Kira, the Great Glass-Spinner. Not sure if I still need the protection it provides since I hardly have any creatures left in the deck.

Not to mention you still have Spellskite, and Kira upsets Ghostly Flicker.

Yep. Will playtest it over the weekend. Thanks!

Decided to switch Necropotence back in. Greed was just too slow.

You just can't beat Necro's value.

True. The second ability hurts the deck quite a lot, though. :(

Yeah, It plus Monastery Siege is not the best combination. But on the whole, I think Nerco will give you faster plays.

I can always choose "Dragons" if Necro is in play. Lol.

I'm looking for a slot for Insidious Dreams. I just realized how powerful it can be with Reanimate and Shallow Grave in the deck. Especially since I can draw the cards using Brainstorm, Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise.

What do you guys think of this card: Recall?

It looks quite interesting and viable in a combo deck like mine.

Sorcery speed replacement that needs as well as discarding stuff? seems really bad. The card would only be good once you've got infintie mana. Ohterwise its effectively 5 mana and 2 cards to get 2 cards back from your graveyard. You're better off just running Psychic Spiral or something.

I was thinking of it in terms of discarding cards like Palinchron to return tutors or Reanimate back to my hand. The cost looks a bit overwhelming but considering how strong the synergy of the deck is, one card back to my hand is more often than not enough to start a chain of events leading to a combo. It happens quite a lot actually.

But then again, I can't seem to find any card I can take out for it anymore. Lol. My priority is to get Insidious Dreams a slot (possibly for Diabolic Tutor.

I would look into Increasing Ambition tbh. comes in for 5 (but only need ) and has flashback. The benefit is that if you have half of your infintie mana combo, you can tutor for the other half and then flashback to get your win con. Then I would look at Insidious Dreams and only then maybe would I consider running Recall. Remeber, if your deck has redundancy/recursion effect, then overall the ability to tutor for new stuff is usually greater than the ability to recur only what you've already played. Because at worst, yo ucan get stuff like Archaeomancer to recur the stuff.

Increasing Ambition just costs too much (not to mention it is a sorcery) for a tutor. I like that it has flashback but at this point, I am trying to finish games as early as I can. My playgroup always has at least 2 guys applying pressure on me so Increasing Ambition is just too slow.

I found out that the fastest way for me to win is via recursion. I tend to make the most out of Reanimate and Shallow Grave. This involves sending creatures to the graveyard, hence the inclusion of cards like Insidious Dreams and Monastery Siege. More often than not, I try and go for the win by turn 5 which means mana will be quite limited (for me and my opponents). If that doesn't work, I either rely on the deck's resiliency or just Yawgmoth's Will my way to victory.