So you just choose any reanimator and pull back angel of glory's rise?

Yeah that would work. You can also look Memory's Journey and Pull From Eternity to never deck yourself.

This deck looks awesome and I have considering switching to this deck from Zur which is my current deck. I am curious though without noxious revival what do your intuition piles typically look like and have you considered that card at all?

Also, while the deck is incredibly fast I've found in testing that it feels a lot less safe than what I'm used to so what would your advice be for playing the deck to go off asap but safely?

If you free up slots using haunted dead couldn't you add a disciple of the vault to win with LED and salvager combo?

You could add a Disciple of the Vault, but why would you? If you have Salvagers+LED you already have infinite mana, can cast Thrasios, and activate his ability enough times to draw your deck and win the game so it would be at best redundant and at worst a dead draw.

Hey man I like your deck so much that I built it myself. It helped that I had most of the cards already and I'm working on acquiring the few cards that I am still missing. What I've noticed from playing so far is that the hermit druid combo is the fastest/easiset combo to pull off, with turn 3 wins happening regularly. The second most common combo to pull off is the salvagers/LED combo, which I have accomplished as early as turn 2 on occasion. Somewhat surprisingly, I have never pulled off the buried alive combo. The other combos seem faster and easier to tutor for. I was thinking about removing the recursion and buried alive for more protection for the druid combo. What are your thoughts on this?

Here's my version:

Thrasios Combo

wavesport001 Honestly, it depends on your meta. If not a lot of people are running graveyard hate, it's perfectly fine to go full ham on the Druid line. I would try to avoid cutting Buried Alive however, as this is your main backup line (which feeds the Salvagers + LED combo).

needs an intuition section

+1

Could you theoretically use Lotus Bloom instead of LED for the infinite mana combo? The price of LED these days is a bit painful

Rogue_Toaster Since Auriok Salvagers returns the artifact to our hand, we are not able to use Lotus Bloom.

Black Lotus is the only other card which works with that combo, and that's sadly banned.

Sorry, could someone explain what Arid Mesa does here please? Can see how it adds anything.

Also same for the other pay 1 life search for X or Y cards. With no basic lands I can't see how they help. I'm pretty new so must just be missing something.

They allow you to search for the dual lands, because lands like Tundra and Hallowed Fountain have the basic land types in the name.

Hey man I absolutely love your deck, and you were the inspiration to break apart karador and get into the t1 team.

I have a few questions:

what do your intuition piles look like, mine are usually around snapcaster/shallowgrave/hermit druid, or if i need a solution something like snap/swords/hermit and i ask someone who im not gonna hit with the swords.

have you considered recruiter of the guard for this deck, Im considering adding it over a Mystical Tutor, or maybe enlightened tutor since it has more targets to hit (Trinket Mage, Hermit Druid, etc)

have you thought about Apprentice Necromancer as another creature fetchable recursion?

mystic remora v necropotence: do you find that you have enough black to get necro out, and if so necro or intuition for my deck? I feel like mystic remora is just sooo good in competetive groups...

also ive been wrestling with the phantasmagorian swap out for the 1b:discard two cards card.

and one last thing, Whats your opinion on taking out one mana dork to slot in pithing needle? It seems very strong against a large number of combo decks liek food chain and chain veil, is that not enough to be worth it?

thanks man you are a legend!

also someone else commented about it, but what do you do if your lab maniac gets praetor's grasp'd? ie suggestions that said: walking ballista or disciple of the vault as back up

drshakalu Sorry for the late response!

The Intuition piles look like either: Hermit Druid + Reanimate + Shallow Grave, or Force of Will + Pact of Negation + Mental Misstep. The deck runs a fair bit of redundancy so you can get whatever effect you want most of the time, be it removal, draw, recursion, etc.

I have indeed considered Recruiter of the Guard. IMO we run enough tutors already to get Hermit Druid with. I would much rather run Mystical Tutor and Enlightened Tutor as they're cheap and can be cast at instant speed. You can get any piece of removal, draw, recursion, or disruption you need with Mystical Tutor, and any rock or Lion's Eye Diamond with Enlightened Tutor if you're going for a hard cast Auriok Salvagers. Recruiter of the Guard costs three mana which doesn't sit well with the rest of the deck.

After some games a few weeks back I realised packing in some creature based reanimation could be good. At two mana, Apprentice Necromancer is very good but the need for haste bothers me.

Necropotence recently came out of the list for Ad Nauseam, which is much more powerful than Mystic Remora. Mystic Remora was cut in the early stages for Rhystic Study, which also consistently performed poorly.

I can tell you from experience: "You do not want to cut Phantasmagorian for Haunted Dead."

In regards to Pithing Needle, if your meta requires you to run it, I would definitely take a dork out to run it. We're tight on slots currently, but you could also cut Pull from Eternity if you need the dorks in.

In regards to Praetor's Grasp, I haven't had to worry about that too much. It's recently shown itself a few times in my online meta, so I've been toying with finding a slot for the new Walking Ballista, which would give us an alternative wincon with whichever line we take.

Did you not include the Karmic Guide + Saffi Eriksdotter line because you don't like it in the deck or is it just not worth it? I'm just curious because if you have the sac outlet in play it can provide the protection by getting Academy Rector + Grand Abolisher and then sacrificing Rector to get Animate Dead or another reanimation enchantment to take the Safi line if you expect the interaction.

Smerz That line would outright replace the current combos which are in the deck, and IMO it's not worth it at all. The way things are now, we don't need to re-use Hulk from the GY at all and we get protected with Grand Abolisher as soon as Hulk's ability resolves. The Saffi line adds too many opportunities for out opponents to interact with our win, so it wasn't included.

Ok. I had just been curious after seeing several similar builds playing those lines

whats the point of flickerwisp?

Shallow Grave vs Animate Dead?

drshakalu if there is a hate piece stopping you from winning with flash hulk you can get flickerwisp instead of grand abolisher to remove it and win

Vexton instant speed vs. sorcery speed.

Hi tenrose,

Just wanted to ask some questions.

PLAN A: Hermit Druid

1. Activate Hermit Druid

2. Mill your library

3. Cast Dread Return (needs 3 creatures) targeting Necrotic Ooze. (a) Put Narcomoeba to the battlefield (from Library), (b) Play a land then return Bloodghast, (c) Unearth Fatestitcher for Blue Mana

4. Use Necrotic Ooze to win

-> Wall of Roots -> Add Green mana to your mana pool

-> Blighted Bat -> Use Green mana to give Ooze Haste

-> Devoted Druid -> Put -1/-1 counter

-> Channeler Initiate -> Remove -1/-1 counter, add one mana of any color

-> Walking Ballista -> Put +1/+1 counter to Ooze then you can remove +1/+1 counter to deal 1 damage to opponents. Repeat.

CASE 1: You only have Hermit Druid on the battlefield.

You need 3 creatures to Flashback Dread Return so you need to:

a. Narcomoeba must be in your Library

b. You need a land in your hand for Bloodghast or;

c. You need an extra Blue mana source for Fatestitcher

d. or you must have at least 1 creature in the battlefield (plus a/b/c)

CASE 2: If one of the combo piece is in your Hand

a. You can use Phantasmagorian to discard the combo piece (you must have 3 cards in hand)

b. Cast the combo piece

• Wall of Roots -> Needs combat or removal

• Blighted Bat -> Needs combat or removal

• Devoted Druid -> Can kill herself

• Channeler Initiate -> Needs combat or removal

• Walking Ballista -> Cast for 0

c. Find a way to discard your combo piece in hand

QUESTION #1: Let's say Phantasmagorian is in your hand or exiled. And you can't cast your combo piece. Is there a way to win on the same turn? Or you will really need to do A. Phantasmagorian, B. Cast to die and C. Discard the combo piece?

CASE 3: If one of the combo piece was exiled (Devoted Druid, Channeler Initiate, or Walking Ballista)

a. Go with the Laboratory Maniac route

QUESTION #2: We don't have Riftsweeper or Pull from Eternity. So our only way to win is to go Lab Maniac route? (not considering combat damage win). Is that right? Or do we have other way?

IrvRai

question 1: survival of the fittest, windfall, and hapless researcher each allow us to discard a card. generally if you have phantasmagorian in your opening hand you would mulligan if you don't have one of the above also. i've never run into a scenario where i can't use phantasmagorian's ability. tactical mulligans are key. if you top deck him, well that's tough luck sadly! if you feel the need, lab maniac Sigi's list runs Cabal Coffers, which can be used to target yourself. it also acts as a sac outlet for hulk.

question 2: riftsweeper and pull aren't needed because we run several lines of win. in general your opponents are more likely to exile your graveyard or make you draw a card before labman comes out, so having one of your pieces exiled isn't end of the world. take a look at the included Memory's Journey. it's our emergency escape button if anything we can win from is being targeted for exile.

Blighted bat?