Hey guys. So I decided that I had too few pauper decks and too many friends, so I built a control deck around bouncing the Nightmares from Torment.
THE COMBO
So a quick recap for those of you who don't know the "bouncing your Mesmeric Fiend" trick (Full Disclosure: I am not a Judge!):
Rule 603.3 " Once an ability has triggered, its controller puts it on the stack as an object thats not a card the next time a player would receive priority. See rule 116, Timing and Priority. The ability becomes the topmost object on the stack. It has the text of the ability that created it, and no other characteristics. **It remains on the stack until its countered, it resolves, a rule causes it to be removed from the stack, or an effect moves it elsewhere**."
Notice what's not listed in that bold text? If the source of the triggered ability is removed from the battlefield. That means that when the triggered ability goes to resolve, it doesn't care about the source of the ability (unless the specific text of the ability references the source, such as that of Fanatic of Xenagos).
Now look at Mesmeric Fiend and its siblings (ugly, ain't they? but in a cute kind of way). Notice how the "enters the battlefield" ability and the "leaves the battlefield" ability are separate Thing is, players receive priority with abilities on the stack, and can respond to them. And here's where things get filthy.
The separation of these two abilities means that when the etb ability triggers, you can respond by bouncing or flickering the creature, causing the "leaves the battlefield" ability to trigger. This does nothing, and the card Mesmeric Fiend exiled just gets exiled forever.
Here's a play-by-play:
We cast Mesmeric Fiend with one Blue source open.
Mesmeric Fiend resolves and enters the battlefield.
State-based actions check.
Mesmeric Fiend's ETB ability triggers and is put on the stack.
The stack now looks like this:
-- "Target opponent reveals his or her hand and you choose a nonland card from it. Exile that card."
When we receive priority, we cast Saving Grasp, targeting Mesmeric Fiend. The stack now looks like this:
--Saving Grasp
--"Target opponent reveals his or her hand and you choose a nonland card from it. Exile that card."
Saving Grasp resolves and is put into our hand. The ETB ability is still on the stack.
State-based actions check.
Mesmeric Fiend's LTB ability triggers and is put on the stack.
The stack now looks like this:
--"Return the exiled card to its owner's hand."--"Target opponent reveals his or her hand and you choose a nonland card from it. Exile that card."
The abilities on the stack go to resolve in FILO (First In Last Out) order, so the LTB ability attempts to resolve first.
The LTB ability references a card that doesn't exist, as no card has been exiled with Mesmeric Fiend yet, so the ability is countered.
The ETB ability goes to resolve, and you exile a nonland card from your opponent's hand.
The stack is now empty.
Now notice that by the time the ETB ability goes to resolve, Mesmeric Fiend is back in our hand, and the LTB ability has already triggered. This means that the card is basically exiled forever where your opponent will never see it again.
Oh, and you can recast Mesmeric Fiend flashing back Saving Grasp to get their next-best card next turn. : )
CARD BREAKDOWN
The Eponymous Nightmares:
Mesmeric Fiend: The lowest CMC and face of the deck. He's a good way to start robbing your opponent of resources in the early game so you can set up for the mid. Also helpful that you can hit anything but land with this little guy, so he doesn't just blank against a creatureless control deck or no-spells aggro deck.
Faceless Butcher: Creature removal on a stick!... That we'll likely never attack with. Still, all removal is good removal, and this guy puts those pesky opponents' creatures exactly where you want them: Exile.
Soul Scourge: Our win-con. He drains the opponent when you abuse his Nightmare abilities, and a 3-power flyer can just make life totals go down on his own.
Petravark: Worth splashing Red for. The land-hate is a way to ensure that you're well ahead of your opponent on resources late-game, especially when you're (likely) robbing them of two lands a turn with this lil' guy.
Phyrexian Rager: An honorary Nightmare, this guy is just an abuseable ETB effect with the most powerful three words in the game: "Draw a card". The life loss doesn't matter. And you don't even need to be gross with this guy and play out the bounce and blink at instant-speed, because he doesn't have a second ability to abuse.
Bound and Blink:
Saving Grasp: While blinking is usually better than bounce, because that way you don't have to replay the creature, in this case the 1-CMC mana cost on both activations of this guy is so. good. And really, we want to be recasting these creatures anyway. It gives us more control (no pun intended) than blinking.
Momentary Blink: That said, a blink effect at istant-speed with flashback? Hell yes.
Snap: You know what's cheaper than 1? Zero. I like zero. This allows for the most "on-curve" activations of the trigger abuse, but it also sets us back a number of turns. Still, good is good.
Ghostly Flicker: Good on creatures and lands. Yay! blink the Radiant Fountain you used to cast this along with Petravark and get ahead on life and land!
Countermagic:
Daze: Obvious 4-of. I considered also having Counterspell because it is just plain good, but decided against it because of the cost. Might reconsider, though.
Land:
Mostly, these are just the gainlands from KTK, because we want some lifegain in our mana base. These combos are quite mana-intensive, and having some way to keep ourselves ahead on life (that also fixes us colors) is a must. I also added Radiant Fountain because the lifegain outweighs the colorless mana production.
EDIT:
After playtesting with Soul Scourge, immediately cut in favor of 2-of Counterspell and 2-of card:Night's Whispers for card advantage.
