Séance: Ultimate toolkit?
Deck Help forum
Posted on April 25, 2012, 6:30 p.m. by Witteee
So, upon searching for my new "great" discovery, in efforts not to play anything seen at my meta, I have come at a crossroads with Seance. Everywhere I go I see forum posts and people are practically giving them to me for free, but with the effects of soulbound and the things that can be done before Scar's Block rotates out, are disgusting. The crossroads I have come to are a multitude of colors and splashing. I have basically every land but the green/red ones, and I don't know if I should focus red/white and target blue with Seance triggers, or play blue/white and hit red for Seance triggers. I mean, getting almost triple value of cards that hit the battlefield is outrageous. The biggest advantage is being able to add something to the battlefield scenario every turn, effectively playing any creature in your graveyard for free, and giving them ALL flash. The biggest targets I see for hitting on their turn are similar to the way that Venser, the Sojourner, control decks are played and forcing them to skip their attack step, and exiling a Stonehorn Dignitary becomes a free white Fog (more or less). I haven't been able to pinpoint which other creatures with ETB effects to target, but I would assume either more skaab dingleberries to mill yourself or hit a Snapcaster Mage and target another one drop spell like Faithless Looting (to cycle cards) or thoughtscour (tap two blue, to draw two cards and mill 4? OKAY SOUNDS COOL lol).
Red can really start to steal the show if you play it right with Seance. On your upkeep every turn, there are more than enough haste-faceted creatures (Hellrider, Hero of Oxid Ridge, Markov Warlord <--especially him!!!) to essentially play a threat at the beginning of each upkeep which means a neat ETB effect like not being able to block, or getting land with a Solemn Simulacrum AND have I mentioned these aren't spells so they cant be countered?????? you could do even better and play a Drogskol Captain turn 3, but I wouldn't think there would be much in the graveyard to work with on turn 4, rendering anything put into play with Seance Hexproof. Seance is also a legitimate way around someone thinking they are being smart and siding in Grafdigger's Cage but since the exiling of the creature makes the token pop into play, you aren't directly casting, or playing, creatures from your graveyard/library (I'm pretty sure, at least).
Bottom line is that turn 5 you can do a HEFTY amount of damage without even tapping mana or casting a spell.
OTHER COLORS: I have been broadening my horizons to other colors because I have been realizing you don't even need to play the colors thoroughly in order to have these behemoths hit the field and reap the benefits of G/W/B. Enter toolkit day-dreamer Rune-Scarred Demon and find WHATEVER YOU WANT FO FREE, then play it the same turn! WOWOW lol. I know the cards aren't top tier, but think about the hurt that could be placed on someone who isn't prepared for Deranged Outcast and Elder Cathar. You essentially put your opponent on a 3 turn clock with an [[invisible stalker] for 2 mana.
The Rune-Scarred Demon is cool on either turn, preferably theirs because you want to have a 6/6 flyer in the air to block (just in case). I mean on your turn, you could Seance an Essence of the Wild, cast Postmortem Lunge on a kessig-cagebreakers and call it a wrap. Not to mention all the cards dropping in Avacyn Restored which dump +1/+1 all over anything you connect to them with, I do apologize last time I looked at the list it was only at like 163 spoiled so I don't have an absolute grasp of everything in the set, but I have an idea that Champion of Lambholt is pretty friggen broken in a deck like this. The tokens generated by Seance retain their original attributes, so if the card being exiled is a human, its a human and a spirit. Rip a Wolfir Silverheart sit back, and watch them sweat lol (or a Timberland Guide or Trusted Forcemage for that matter).
So, as a general consensus, would you say I'm crazy to say that Seance doesn't have some power behind it? Even just as a possible Win-con late game, pull out a Grand Abolisher to make sure that whatever you play during your turn is going to stick and ensure you the win.
One last play I like is playing Seance in U/W, hitting Rune-Scarred Demon on your turn after you untap, search for Cackling Counterpart which copies it for 3 mana to let you search for another Cackling Counterpart if you want, but the copied token stays in play I believe....for 3 MANA.
Seance + Urabrask the Hidden + any creature works pretty well.
April 25, 2012 8:38 p.m.
Urabrask the Hidden is ok i suppose, but no more than a one of. He fits better at home in a Genesis Wave deck where you dump a whole lot and swing. If I were to Seance him on my turn, I don't get the benefit of his secondary ability, and if I Seance him on their turn, my creatures don''t get haste =/. I think I am better off sticking to creatures who have haste, or have a really good ETB ability which I can soul link with like Lightning Mauler.
Priest of Urabrask on the other hand, blink him in on my upkeep, start with 3 red mana floating? if i can manage him into the graveyard, he can take care of my red sources incase Seance says adios...hmmm....
April 25, 2012 11:34 p.m.
I would also have to test play around with the Sundial of the Infinite in order to see if the benefit of having the creature stick around is worth maybe not getting a creature into the graveyard. for instance...turn two I can mulch, or i could Sundial of the Infinite, which seems to get to where I need to be sooner?
April 25, 2012 11:41 p.m.
yeah Seance is fun.
i use it in my w/r token deck Intangible Virtue+Hellrider token lol
April 26, 2012 4:23 a.m.
for Urabrask the Hidden I meant to have it on the field not getting it by Seance. You have it on the field and then get any creature you want back and swing the same turn.
Btw Sundial of the Infinite will it make it so your creature lasts for two turns instead of one. On your turn get a creature. Do anything else you need to do in that turn. End the turn. Then it will be exiled at the end of their turn. Only worth it if you find that you need the extra blocker.
Also as Sagi007 said Intangible Virtue is a really good idea. I would put mimic vat as well in the deck so that you can have several creature token cards. That would be when you could use Sundial of the Infinite. Get a creature with Intangible Virtue on the field, swing, end the turn, then block on their turn.
April 26, 2012 9:57 a.m.
I like the ideas, thanks for taking the time to check out my thread.
@miasma, Misthollow Griffin seems really cool, but I think I need a decent Sacrifice outlet to get it back into my graveyard to exile it again. However you are right and it would play again and again and again, however it doesn't have any extra umph that other cards do to make it any more than an annoyance.
@morgoroth, Grave Titan sounds cool and Myr Battlesphere for sure because those extra tokens stay in play which is always nice. I don't exactly know how I feel about Intangible Virtue yet. I haven't put a lot of consideration into token generating creature yet, but I might.
I have been thinking about how I can strike a balance, not only between land and spells, and mana curve aside, but on creatures and instants/sorceries/enchantments/non-creature artifacts. I only have enough room in the deck for a X amount of spells and right now I am thinking that X is around 32-33.
I plan on 23 or 24 land, and 4 Seance leaving me with 32-33 slots of playables and in order to do it right I have to pack the deck with as many ETB effect creatures and self mill/cycling as possible.
Under non creature considerations are as follows:3-4x Mulch4x Faithless Looting3-4x Faith's Shieldpossibly 1-2x Unburial Rites
With that said, I feel like I should be playing Naya-Seance, targeting blue creatures like Armored Skaab, Geralf's Mindcrusher and black creatures like Massacre Wurm, Rune-Scarred Demon and possibly Griselbrand.
I have plenty of options to make this work, but I don't think this deck can work without main coloring white so I ensure double plains on turn 4 to play Seance. I might be able to do away with it, by means of Mycosynth Wellspring, Avacyn's Pilgrim and Sphere of the Suns but they are both 2 drops and I don't think they would let me have enough graveyard targets in the subsequent turns.
This is going to be a tough cookie to crack, but it can be done and mark my words it will be lol! Thanks for the help guys.
April 26, 2012 8:14 p.m.
Also some good etb creatures are Blade Splicer, Wing Splicer, Master Splicer, Maul Splicer, Vital Splicer , Sensor Splicer. A 3/3 golem isn't bad at all.
April 26, 2012 8:23 p.m.
you know, I was considering the splicers just because of Precursor Golem. If I bust out a Precursor Golem on their turn and Cackling Counterpart it, I'll have like a whole buttload of golems lol. at the end of the turn my Precursor Golem disappears but ill have a bunch of bodies...worth considering at least.
April 27, 2012 12:46 a.m.
platinum_demon says... #16
I made Seance Griffin around Seance and Misthollow Griffin. So far it's looking pretty good.
April 27, 2012 2:36 a.m.
well, in regards to Swiftfoot Boots, I'm not sure how to squeeze those in. As I was saying before There isn't a whole lot of room in the deck for non creatures because the idea behind Seance is to be able to have answers to opponents threats on their turn and still beef myself up on my own turn. I would say a large majority of these answers and what-not are coming from etb abilities so i can take advantage of it on their turn as well as mine.
Ideally, having creatures enter the battlefield as boardwipes and such would really help my cause and combining that with any creature that leaves soemthing behind on its way out would ultimately help as well. Cramming my deck with equipment, alternate enchantments and artifacts doesn't help me much. This is a relatively new type of deck that is wholly unconventional, but I feel like it has serious amounts of potential. I am going to make a rough decklist and post it up here and see what people have to say about it. Questions as to why I put things up and what benefit they give the deck are all valid and I welcome them. I want to see if my ideas make sense to others and I want to catch my opponents by surprise, which if I receive questions from you all, will prove my efforts worth while.
Thanks for the feedback guys, I appreciate your help and look forward to constructive criticism and feedback on my deck.
Witteee says... #2
Oh, I was just tossing ideas around in the noggin and came out with Massacre Wurm
(Seance
'd)+Cackling Counterpart
on my turn or your turn! and if you're playing as many of those broke-back Lingering Souls
decks as I am, you can wipe em all out and nail them for 16 on the way out lol (all get -4/-4 and anytime a creature hits the graveyard from the battlefield they lose FOUR life lol???....for three mana at instant speed, its outrageous!)
April 25, 2012 8:03 p.m.