BR - The Apocallypse

[DarkRequiem]

This is a deck that I've been thinking about for a long time; ever since I saw Ignorant Bliss actualy.
It is mostly a fun deck because a. I run WAY TOO FEW copies of the combo cards and b. the combo itself's way too costy.
First off, if someone remembers a better way to run this combo (more efficient cards) let me know, please.
Also, if someone thinks of a better support for this deck, let me know. I'm not sure of what to use to support it (so ended up with haste creatures which I think have a good synergy with the combo) and I'm using what might be way too much mana accel.
Besides all that I've been thinking about running a 40 card deck instead, so that the pieces of the combo come out easier. Or if someone remembers a better way to get them through a better tuttoring engine (as far as I remember, I'm using my only 2 real tutors), please name the cards.

The combo itself goes with Worldgorger Dragon + Apocalypse + Ignorant Bliss where the Dragon its the table, removing from game my permanents. Then I put Apocalypse and Bliss on the stack, so that Bliss resolves first, removing my hand from the game. Apocalypse removes everything else, returning my permanents due to the dragon's removal. At the end of my turn I get my hand back.
The result? My opponent ends with nothing on the table and his whole hand facing my hand and everything on my side of the table ready for the kill through haste.


LANDS:
9 Mountain
7 Swamp
3 Tainted Isle
1 Rakdos Carnarium
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

SPELLS:
4 Dark Ritual
4 Pyroclasm
3 Seething Song
2 Ignorant Bliss
1 Apocalypse
1 Diabolic Tutor
1 Howling Mine
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Rhystic Tutor

4 Goblin War Buggy
4 Furnace Spirit
3 Lightning Elemental
3 Suq'Ata Lancer
2 Mirri the Cursed
1 Eron the Relentless
1 Hellhole Rats
1 Keldon Champion
1 Storm Entity
1 Worldgorger Dragon


The Furnace Spirit works quite well here since I can swing them for an unblockable huge ammount of damage after the combo is played.
Eron isn't a great card the way I see it, but it should work well in this deck.
Storm Entity should also be huge after playing at least the Dragon + Apocalypse + Bliss + X mana accel spells. I have one doubt, though. If I remove it with the Dragon it returns to the game as it was before removal or does it get a new ammount of +1/+1 counters, re-checking the ammount of spells played after it was removed?

Please, let me know what can be improved here and I'll check on what I have.

[fatguy_poolshark]

I dont know honestly... like most of your decks you need more of your combo cards lol. BTW the most rediculous combo with worldgorger dragon is World Gorger Dragon + animate dead. Because of the current errata on animate dead you get infinite mana and if you put a bazaar of Baghdad out(yeah i know none of us own one) you get infinite card draw. All you need is an instant speed kill card.. say pyromantics would work.

[DarkRequiem]

Yeah, I know. More cards needed. I can change it to play on MWS and that way I'll add 3 Apocalypse, 2 Bliss and 2 Dragons. But they are out of reach for my pocket as it is. You know about the car and lets just say the crystal ball reveals a future too dark to me on the wallet matter. :(
I really love Apocalypse though and I hope they reprint it on X. It might make it easier to buy.
And I know of that infinite combo that can go wild! :) But I want this to run an Apocalypse combo instead in this deck.

[Mogg]

When you get your combo off, you won't really need a whole lot in play to win, because your opponent will have nothing, so I'd suggest cutting down on the number of creatures.

// Lands
10 Swamp
1 Rakdos Carnarium
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Tainted Peak
2 Cabal Coffers
4 Molten Slagheap

// Creatures
3 Nightmare
2 Worldgorger Dragon
4 Twisted Abomination

// Spells
3 Ignorant Bliss
4 Diabolic Tutor
4 Pestilence
3 Seething Song
2 Apocalypse
4 Tendrils of Corruption
4 Phyrexian Arena
3 Dark Ritual

While this list isn't particularly good, it might give you some ideas. I decided that while the combo is red, the deck is primarily black, so I left in Molten Slagheap and Seething Songs to make sure you still get the red requirement you need on that one turn. I think this deck should focus on just stalling the early game of aggro decks and against control you just build up mana until you can go off and win with a Nightmare or Twisted Abomination. Instead of trying to combo fast (which is hard when the combo involves 4 cards (counting Seething Song and more than ten mana), you should just eventually draw into what you need. Black some other good draw, I just had a hard time thinking of things at the moment. As a last note, there's more Blisses than any of the other combo cards because it can also be cycled in the early game if you need somethign else. I hope this helps.

[DarkRequiem]

Wow! That's a much more aggressive deck!

I like the way it runs since it keeps the Apocalypse spirit to it. Yet, isn't it too much direct damage centered? I mean, board cleaning through the combo plus pestilence plus Tendrils? Isn't that too much?

I specialy enjoy what you did with the lands. The mana base suits this deck quite well.

The creatures are also nice killers. I need to check on how many Abominations I have. And I'm thinking Void Maw. Question is, when Void Maw is removed through the Dragon, what happens to the creatures it removed from the game? They're still removed, right? But when it comes back into play can I still use those creatures to inflate it? That'd be cool.
Another creature that seems interesting here, albeit a bit expansive and needing a better red mana base would be Vampiric Dragon, no? But then again 2 mana for one damage on one creature vs. 1 mana for one damage to anything... Ok, forget the dragon.
I'd also still keep the Storm Entity and might bring Korlash, Heir to Blackblade.

But then again the 1of's are killing me. I need to spend money on the deck. But this time only after the concept is done. I might rework it a little bit more tomorrow based on your idea, Mogg.

[Mogg]

Korlash's would be better than Nightmare, but I didn't know how many you had and right now it would be the only really expensive card in the deck. I suggested Twisted Abomination because you can cycle it in the early game. Also, keep in mind that if you have any Blood Crypts, you can swampcycle for them, but it's not really a problem if you don't, because you should be able to get enough red from Seething Song and Molten Slagheap.

I think you may be mixing Tendrils of Corruption up with another card. Tendrils is creature removal that gains you a lot of life at the same time, helping you to survive your Pestilence and Phyrexian Arena (hence the high Urborg count).

I think Twisted Abomination and Nightmare / Korlash, Heir to Blackblade are plenty in the way of win conditions. Once you've removed your opponent's board from the game, pretty much any creature that can hit hard should be enough.

One last thing, when Void Maw, or any card for that matter, is removed from the game, it will "forget" what it was before, so cards it removed from the game will still be removed from the game, but your Void Maw won't be able to take advantage of them.

[DarkRequiem]

Ok, based on what I have I can do something like this:


LANDS
10 Swamp
3 Mountain
3 Tainted Peak
1 Bottomless Vault
1 Everglades
1 Molten Slagheap
1 Rakdos Carnarium
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

CREATURES
3 Twisted Abomination
2 Nightmare
2 Worldgorger Dragon
1 Entropic Specter
1 Korlash, Heir to Blackblade

SPELLS
3 Consume Spirit
3 Dark Ritual
3 Dash Hopes
3 Ignorant Bliss
3 Pestilence
3 Seething Song
2 Apocalypse
2 Greed
2 Diabolic Tutor
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Rhystic Tutor
1 Tendrils of Corruption


I only have 1 Demonic Tutor but I know where I can get a 2nd one. Since I need more tutors, I placed my Rhystic one in the deck. I still need another though.
Having only 1 Tendrils of Despair, I placed Consume Spirits on the deck since they do about the same, although they tend to me less effective. Yet, Tendrils are common so its easy to get the whole 4 of them.
Having only 1 Arena, I added 2 Greeds. Although not as good, they can do the job too.
Do I really need 4 Pestilences?
And added 3 Dash Hopes so that no one ends up disrupting my combo with whatever counterspell they have (there are a few blue decks on my meta). Besides, it helps setting up the tempo for my deck to explode. A 4th one is needed but I don't own it just yet.

I'm missing one Twisted Abomination, but that's cool. I'm not sure on what should I place on its place. Considering Avatar of Woe, Entropic Specter, Grinning Demon, Hunted Horror, Ihsan's Shade...
The Demon's a bit bad because it'll add to the side effect caused by both Arena and Greed. The Shade's a bit costy. Specter plays well after the combo. Even if my opponent gets to play a land and a spell it'll still be a 5/5 flier. The Avatar's a nice remover, but do I really need it? And the Horror's a cool creature that'll do a whole lot of damage. I don't like the sideback though. Not on this deck.
So, most probably I'll add the Specter instead of that 4th Abomination. What do you think?

The lands... Well, I only own 1 Urborg and 1 Slagheap. Although I can get a few more Slagheaps by the end of the month, I'm not sure if I can get new Urborgs since they must be expansive.

My other problem is that this is a mana expansive deck, isn't it? Should the land count be 24? I always thought it to be a bit high.

[Mogg]

Slagheaps are cheap, and don't bother searching for Blood Crypts. I was just pointing out the synergy if you happened to have some. Most of the cards I suggested are commons or uncommons, though.

Also, don't run Greed. Black has some other good draw, and Greed just isn't good, sorry. 6 mana and 4 life to draw 2 cards just isn't worth it. What I'd suggest is trying to find some cards for one or two mana that can help out your early game. Night's Whisper or something like it could be a decent addition.

I didn't really have any good ideas for the early game, but you do need some sort of defense to survive until Tendrils and Pestilence.

[DarkRequiem]

Yeah, I know. I was thinking that an expansive idea of a deck. What do you think of Mourning Thrull? 4 of them?

And Greed's a bit bad, true. But I need to find out more Arenas and those aren't cheap. I'll see what I can do about it.
Oh! And I remembered I have 1 Howling Mine and I can get my hands on 1 more.... Maybe. Although that'll beneffict my opponent too, fastening his deck a little bit.
I can play with things like Demon's Horn and Throne of Bone, although I don't really enjoy those cards that much because they slow down my game. Still, they might be considered as SB for those very agressive decks. No?

[DarkRequiem]

Ok, here's the latest version of the deck:


LANDS - 24
10 Swamp
7 Mountain
3 Tainted Peak
2 Ebon Stronghold
1 Rakdos Carnarium
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

CREATURES - 7
3 Twisted Abomination
1 Entropic Specter
1 Pardic Dragon
1 Storm Entity
1 Worldgorger Dragon

ARTIFACTS - 3
2 Thran Dynamo
1 Grim Monolith

SPELLS - 26
4 Seething Song
3 Apocalypse
3 Dark Ritual
2 Arc Blade
2 Consume Spirit
2 Diabolic Tutor
2 Ignorant Bliss
2 Pyroclasm
2 Pyrostatic Pillar
2 Brainspoil
1 Rhystic Tutor
1 Void