Oversoul
The Tentacled One
Hey, yet another thread inspired by "The Nayan Trial" mentioned by Psarketos in the Tendrils of Agony thread. But this doesn't fit the theme of exploring options for Storm combo decks or analyzing the Modern format, so yeah, I started another thread.
I was reminded of this deck: http://www.casualplayers.org/article/get.php?action=getarticle&articleid=1578
I designed that deck in 2005 as a response to one of DarthFerret's contests, seen here: http://www.casualplayers.org/forums/threads/single-card-deckbuilding-contest-mark-v.13052/
I didn't play the deck back then, but I did later run with it for a while, I think in 2008 and 2009. The deck isn't especially good and there are some opponents that it just loses to outright. Certain setups of cards are highly resistant to losing against this kind of defensive deck. But I did pick up some wins against reasonably good decks, and some of those games remind me a bit of how Psarketos described his "The Nayan Trial" deck.
If the old article doesn't make it clear enough, the gameplan for this deck is to survive early on, then build up to the following conditions, in whatever order makes the most sense at the time...
By today's standards, this is probably not the best use of Overburden. But in my experience, it was a halfway decent casual prison deck. And notably, its primary win condition was just about the most bland thing possible: "wait for the opponent to die."
I'm curious. Does this beat The Nayan Trial, lose to it, or draw? If a simlarly-behaving deck, perhaps one designed for Modern (obviously it would need to run different cards, with Overburden and such being pre-Modern) were run in place of The Nayan Trial, what would the reaction be? It seems like the idea is that The Nayan Trial leaves room open for a win with an alternate win condition card, leaving the opponent alone, but making itself nigh-untouchable behind a wall of infinite life. This one, in contrast, just buries both players under an avalanche of "you can't play stuff" and then wins by trying to make sure that it has an endless supply of cards and the opponent does not.
I was reminded of this deck: http://www.casualplayers.org/article/get.php?action=getarticle&articleid=1578
I designed that deck in 2005 as a response to one of DarthFerret's contests, seen here: http://www.casualplayers.org/forums/threads/single-card-deckbuilding-contest-mark-v.13052/
I didn't play the deck back then, but I did later run with it for a while, I think in 2008 and 2009. The deck isn't especially good and there are some opponents that it just loses to outright. Certain setups of cards are highly resistant to losing against this kind of defensive deck. But I did pick up some wins against reasonably good decks, and some of those games remind me a bit of how Psarketos described his "The Nayan Trial" deck.
If the old article doesn't make it clear enough, the gameplan for this deck is to survive early on, then build up to the following conditions, in whatever order makes the most sense at the time...
- Have Nature's Revolt. All lands are creatures.
- Have Overburden. Whenever a creature enters the battlefield, its controller is forced to bounce a land.
- Have mana-producing artifacts, so that you don't need your own lands for mana.
- Use Evacuation to bounce all creatures, including the lands.
- Use Hurkyl's Recall on your opponent to get rid of any mana-producing artifacts the opponent might be using.
- Use Soldevi Digger to replenish your own library as needed.
- If your opponent drops a land, taps it for mana, lets it bounce, then immediately casts a 1-drop creature to present an attacker, use Innocent Blood to get rid of it.
- Wait for the opponent to die.
By today's standards, this is probably not the best use of Overburden. But in my experience, it was a halfway decent casual prison deck. And notably, its primary win condition was just about the most bland thing possible: "wait for the opponent to die."
I'm curious. Does this beat The Nayan Trial, lose to it, or draw? If a simlarly-behaving deck, perhaps one designed for Modern (obviously it would need to run different cards, with Overburden and such being pre-Modern) were run in place of The Nayan Trial, what would the reaction be? It seems like the idea is that The Nayan Trial leaves room open for a win with an alternate win condition card, leaving the opponent alone, but making itself nigh-untouchable behind a wall of infinite life. This one, in contrast, just buries both players under an avalanche of "you can't play stuff" and then wins by trying to make sure that it has an endless supply of cards and the opponent does not.