[Discussion] Briarbridge Patrol +Tamiyo's Journal combo
Standard forum
Posted on April 7, 2016, 8:52 p.m. by bobano
It's a pretty loose combo, but an investigate deck with both Briarbridge Patrol and Tamiyo's Journal on the field would allow for some ridiculous plays.
Tap Tamiyo's Journal, sac 3 clues, tutor a huge threat, put onto the battlefield for free using Briarbridge Patrols ability. Do this potentially every turn.
maybe if you use eldrazi scions and Cryptolith Rite you could make this more reliable
April 7, 2016 9:49 p.m.
iBleedPunk says... #4
Cryptolith Rite is ridiculous with Scion tokens. T6 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger is gg lol
April 8, 2016 12:20 a.m.
I've been considering building this. Plugs very easily into a Gx shell. Tireless Tracker is right at home. Then just add cheap-ish investigates, a few (1-2) massive bombs to pull out, and then just midrange shell. My gut says Golgari though Selesnya seems like the natural fit. Maybe Abzan?
April 8, 2016 7:09 a.m.
Simic seems like it would be the best colors for the investigate side of the house but you are trading counters for removal and i would prefer removal and investigate a lot more :)
April 8, 2016 9:05 a.m.
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger would be a great play off this cheat but you won't get the cast triggers because he's not being cast into play. And to be fair - you can cast Newlamog on turn 5 with just Standard ramp. You need a real way to accelerate this combo if you want it to win games. Or maybe find an immediate win condition.
April 8, 2016 9:35 a.m. Edited.
I was actually thinking of a naya deck. Nahiri, the Harbinger is a secondary way of cheating out a huge threat (plus it tosses the creature into our hand for Briarbridge Patrol) and can help filter our hand a bit. Thraben Inspector is an alright T1 play, and Dragonlord Atarka is a nice hit of either cheat.
Plus then we can maybe work out a burn secondary plan in Ghirapur AEther Grid and Pia and Kiran Nalaar. It's still ungodly slow though...
April 8, 2016 9:47 a.m.
So I'm seeing this for the original combo in mind:
Turn 1: Thraben Inspector 1 Clue
Turn 2: Deathcap Cultivator
Turn 3: Briarbridge Patrol
Turn 4: Tamiyo's Journal (Hopefully 2 clues from damage off Briar)
Turn 5: Upkeep trigger on Journal (Three Clues) Combo achieved.
That's a lot to ask four in five turns. You could maybe try and cram that combo in four turns using Cryptolith Rite but then we are just talking way beyond the realm of reasonable and you still have to hit all your land drops.
An interesting find. I applaud you for that. But not something that can be simply seen as practical.
April 8, 2016 10:02 a.m.
bobano I like the sound of that.
TMBRLZ, that's why it wouldn't be a "combo" deck, just a strong synergy plugged into a midrange deck.
April 8, 2016 10:53 a.m.
I think you slightly misjudge the term "combo." There's a difference between "combo" and "infinite combo."
Modern and Legacy elves are both considered combo decks because they do a bunch of really synergetic things to play a lot of creatures, create a lot of mana, and inflict a lot of damage on and potentially kill your opponent. The processes don't have to be infinite.
I consider a technique like this pretty "combo" for Standard.
It's a combination of specific cards to achieve a unique interaction.
April 8, 2016 11:39 a.m.
Right, but it wouldn't be a combo deck. Just a deck with a combo. See what I mean? Like, the goal wouldn't necessarily be streamline activating this. Just have it as a win-button in an existing midrange shell.
April 8, 2016 12:22 p.m.
Then it just feels like you're wasting spots in a midrange shell from my opinion. I guess if Clues actually became a decent archetype it might work but otherwise it seems like too much work for too little reward overall.
April 8, 2016 12:37 p.m.
I think it all really depends on whether or not there is a way to make Briarbridge Patrol work without Tamiyo's Journal, and just be over the top with it.
Because no matter what, a Dragonlord Atarka or Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger for 6 mana, plus a draw 3 seems fantastic
April 8, 2016 12:53 p.m.
So does a turn 4 Dragonlord Atarka followed by a Turn 5 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger in a typical ramp shell.
April 8, 2016 2 p.m.
Don't forget that with Tamiyo's Journal, you don't have to have the Ulamog/Atarka in hand, and you don't need 6 mana.
Briarbridge Patrol doesn't care if you sac'ed the clues for it's own card draw... only that you sac'ed 3 clues. - The sac'ing to the Journal counts. So, sac 3 clues to the journal to fetch for Ulamog/Atarka... put it into play at end of turn.
April 8, 2016 2:02 p.m.
Oops.... also meant to add that you don't have to have Briarbridge Patrol on the Battlefield when you sac the clues...
You can sac to the Journal, fetch for Patrol, play Patrol, put large creature into play at end of turn.
April 8, 2016 2:09 p.m.
So... best 'Goldfish' hand...
T1: Fortified Village revealing Plains - Play Honored Hierarch
T2: Plains, Thraben Inspector, Thraben Inspector - Swing with Hierarch for Renown.
T3: Forest, Briarbridge Patrol - Possibly block on their turn for a token.
T4: Tamiyo's Journal, Swing if you didn't get to block... Fetch for Ulamog/Atarka, put it into play at end of turn. - If they didn't block, you do it on T5 instead.
April 8, 2016 2:17 p.m. Edited.
TMBRLZ, yeah, but straight ramp has always been an incredibly swingy archetype. This could be a midrange beatdown deck with the random free big finisher.
Again though, it would have to be a good stand-alone beatdown deck that happens to have the "combo", rather than a dedicated combo-deck. Or else ramp would be really obviously better.
April 8, 2016 2:17 p.m.
TMBRLZ, I disagree. I think Briarbridge is an ok if overcosted creature as is and the journal is an ok if overcosted card advantage generator. Running 2-3 of each is a pretty minimal price to pay for a potential blowout. I can understand why you would disagree, and it may turn out through testing to be awful- but I wouldn't discount it yet.
April 8, 2016 2:18 p.m.
I'm not discounting it by any means.
I'm questioning it's competitive merit.
Speed is everything in Magic.
April 8, 2016 2:20 p.m.
I'm an avid fan of infinite combos and fresh discoveries of synergies and the like so I respect this discovery in every way. I just question if its worth it.
I was continuously looking for infinite combos for Standard when we experienced the last rotation. The only things out there before Oath were that god awful Scalelord combo that takes forever and the infinite combo with Jeskai Ascendancy and Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper + Soulfire Grand Master . I respected the latter combo much more but it still took too much time to set up and left tons of pieces exposed.
I didn't like the turn 5 capacity of the Brood Monitor + Eldrazi Displacer combo either... so I made it turn 4 capable:
NEWEST INFINITE COMBO! TURN 4 POTENTIAL!
Standard
SCORE: 31 | 23 COMMENTS | 3821 VIEWS | IN 11 FOLDERS
I've seen two good ideas for infinite loops/combos so far from this new Standard, this being one of them, but like the other one I've seen so far I question it's speed. The number of pieces directly affects the time it takes to fire off and the amount of time it takes to fire off directly affects the amount of protection it needs and then you have the conflicts of cram vs protect when you're building the list.
Granted you're trying to slide this into a midrange variant, but even then, that even further raises the question: Is it even worth it or are there simply better options out there?
April 8, 2016 2:28 p.m.
Enabling combos or "focused synergies" like this in Standard take a lot of effort and a decent handful of turns.
You have to measure the weight of build time and actually responding to the person trying to kick in your door and slap your wife around.
April 8, 2016 2:31 p.m.
TMBRLZ I think you're over-estimating the importance of speed (in standard and modern) and under-estimating the importance of reliability. Ramp and turn 4 combos are great if you can pull it off 90% of the time, but otherwise they are literally do nothing decks.
I believe that the best decks attack on multiple angles and have multiple win-cons. Which is why I think that if someone could get this working in a beatdown deck it could be really good. Probably not, but who knows?
April 8, 2016 3 p.m.
I guess when I said Speed earlier consistency and reliability was implied as I said it. Sorry if that wasn't clear. Speed is "How quickly can you win?"
Can you do it right away? No? Well then Speed also becomes "How quickly can you get there?"
Speed is also implying the costs of everything as well. Decks like Jund in modern rely on multiple things that are capable of winning them the game. But often these pure midrange decks rely a bunch of relatively mana-cheap self-contained wincons (Tarmogoyf, Huntmaster of the Fells Flip, Tasigur, the Golden Fang, etc.), and then a bunch of even cheaper spells to stop your opponent dead in their tracks. Removal of one form or another (Inquisition of Kozilek, Terminate, Lightning Bolt).
Standard, I understand, is a slower and less reliable format on average. But I still question if it's going to be reliable given the two turns you have to spend using ALL of your available mana to play the cards to achieve your side-combo, not to mention having to have played a bunch of things that produce clues up until this point to maximize the usefulness of that combo.
So we're going to be building a midrange deck, which by definition is going to go find the most versatile and effective cards in a group of colors and slam them down to win, but this midrange deck somewhere in there has to be able to regularly utilize clues in it's build and if the opportunity presents itself spend a couple turns on roughly turn 4 through 7 playing things that let us cheat a big creature into play.
I can see this working, but I question if it's going to be viable against decks that will be trying to kill you by turn 5 or 6. What I'm worried about is you ending up having better cards in your hand or having to play cards to react to a problem presented to you, meaning you won't necessarily have the time to make use of this trick. So you may just end up with dead cards, which may ultimately prove useless in board altogether.
I'm not trying to be difficult or an ass (or long-winded). I'm just saying I question the viability of utilizing this tactic if it may just simply be regularly overwhelmed by better ones, based on the costs of these cards and the reward from achieving the trick.
I'm not saying it can't be good.
I'm just saying I'm not readily seeing it be good.
I wish you luck in building it and testing it however, in all sincerity.
April 8, 2016 3:26 p.m.
bensnowclark says... #26
Well I took this and put it in to WG Humans and omg it works so well, the synergy between cards is nuts.
This is my deck - http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/tamiyos-investigations-gw-humans/ - and while I've yet to build a sideboard, although it's pretty obvious what will go in it, the deck itself plays like a crazy person.
Always has 3 clues or more by turn 5 (normally more), so immediate sac, fetch up a creature or land depending on my board state, then the triggers, 9 life gain from one mole, three +1/+1 counters on any Tireless Trackers, three 1/1 Human Soldier tokens from Ulvenwald Mysteries which triggers Thalia's Lieutenant giving it three +1/+1 counters, then if you tutored a creature you get to put it on the battlefield for free at the start of the end step.
And that's the aggressive play style (one game I actually had two moles and gained 18 life), if you come up against an opponent running more removal then you shift the Journal from being activated on your turn to your opponents. Whatever they do that threatens you, sac, gain your life, creatures, counters, etc. but also tutor up the instant you need to stop their plan in their tracks, best part being that you get to do all this for free saving the mana to be able to cast the instant you just tutored.
This is where this card is being overlooked, in a synergistic deck designed to work together this card is tutoring, gaining huge life swing, making your guys immune to Languish and just all around smacking face for absolutely no mana investment whatsoever, hell you don't even need to pay mana for your creatures, you can get one free every turn and that's on top of all the token creatures you'll be getting. With Sigarda out it gets even better making them hexproof so targeted removal stops working (just wish she was naturally a little bit tougher to stop lightning axe) and if you get bored and have spare mana you can start exiling your graveyard since you won't be getting it back anyway and get more token guys buffing Thalia's Lieutenant even more.
The big thing I have to playtest is do I add in my playset of CoCo's? This deck only has 5 creatures not able to called up by CoCo which makes 24 out of 60 cards able to be put in to play with CoCo, that's a pretty strong case to include it, that's actually a higher number of creatures than my very consistantly good Elf deck ran. Would love to get some opinions.
DrFunk27 says... #2
Not a combo -- just "good" synergy. Although the overall mana cost for this is a little too high for standard.
April 7, 2016 8:56 p.m.