Repeatable Recursion

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Repeatable Recursion

Postby DocLawless » Wed Apr 23, 2014 4:13 pm

I'm working out an idea for a deck that uses a reanimator engine, and I need to minimize my reliance on cards like Animate Dead and Reanimate. 1-for-1ing or 2-for-1ing myself to animate creatures out of my own graveyard, or someone else's graveyard, isn't going to cut it, so I need ideas for repeatable recursion effects. Currently I am running [card]Volrath's Stronghold[/card] (though 'yard to hand is strictly worse than 'yard to battlefield), Sheoldred, Whispering One and Geth, Lord of the Vault with Lim-Dul the Necromancer as the general, but Lim-Dul will shortly become Chainer, Dementia Master as Chainer has a lower CMC and his reanimate effect is less conditional.

[card]Strands of
Night[/card] and Corpse Dance are two options I have my eye on already, but Strands has a steep price even if I'm running Crucible of Worlds to offset the cost of a Swamp. And who's to say I'll even have Crucible and Strands in play at the same time.

I'm not against the notion of the deck developing into a multicolor deck if another idea/general presents itself (except Karador, because there is already another Karador deck at the table), but for now it's mono-black.
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Postby DarthStabber » Wed Apr 23, 2014 10:48 pm

I've got a bad lim-dūl deck that I play with my scrubbier friends and I can say that he is a blast, even as part of the 99 (ascendant evincar was the original commander followed by kuro, pitlord then chainer, and now it's Lim). It looks like you are intent on pushing the reanimate harder than my pile, which is mostly mono black zombie tribal and boat load of kill spells (it started out as just good stuff, the zombie tribal element came around when lim took the helm). I warn you that chainer is easier to activate, but the board position he creates is frighteningly frail. If you build specifically to use/abuse him it will probably be better, but it makes go for the throat or oblivion ring into a onesided wrath.
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Postby DocLawless » Thu Apr 24, 2014 2:05 am

Weird, I moved into Lim-Dul the same way, by starting with a scrubby Mikaeus deck and eventually a zombie tribal.

I haven't quite gotten my head around Chainer yet. He seems to be forcing me into more of a suicide black shell, just in pure theorizing. I'll need sac outlets to control the exiling effect, life gain to offset his cost... may be better to try and win by attrition with Chainer. But the idea of creating a Kokusho loop through a free sac outlet like Phyrexian Altar or Spawning Pit, recurring and repeating... that's an actual threat.
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Postby DarthStabber » Thu Apr 24, 2014 3:46 am

Be careful, best laid plans of mice and men and all. I've not seen chainer be anything but glass jawed, it has the potential to be insane, but you absolutely need to have a free sac outlet or you are begging to get your backside handed to you.
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Postby DocLawless » Thu Apr 24, 2014 4:00 am

Yeah, and the guys at my table will do it and laugh.

Balthor the Defiled is an idea, but every other deck at the table will have black and/or red creatures in their graveyards too so I'm hesitant to go that route. That leaves Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed, which isn't a bad choice at all...
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Postby Stardust » Thu Apr 24, 2014 2:26 pm

Phyrexian Reclamation is good. Oversold Cemetery can be good in the right deck and with the right group. You might try Nim Deathmantle with Chainer too - that way you can double the EtB ability and get them to stick around permanently.

Chainer is definitely powerful, but you're right that you need that sac outlet. There are plenty of options out there - try to stick with the free ones as much as possible (Spawning Pit is really good, for example). I run a similar deck, actually, but with Ghost Council at the head so I don't have to worry about sac outlets. Chainer's in the 99.
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Postby Stardust » Thu Apr 24, 2014 2:26 pm

I forgot Coffin Queen! Play her. She's good.
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Postby Stardust » Thu Apr 24, 2014 3:57 pm

Something that just occurred to me, why do you want so much redundancy for your general? Chainer is powerful, always available, and does exactly what you need. I play tons of recursion in Ghost Council because I need that. On balance I get to play fewer sac outlets. Seems to me that you should do the opposite - play a few good recursion spells and tons of sac outlets. You've already got access to repeatable recursion every game. How much more do you really need?
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Postby DarthStabber » Thu Apr 24, 2014 4:15 pm

Something that just occurred to me, why do you want so much redundancy for your general? Chainer is powerful, always available, and does exactly what you need. I play tons of recursion in Ghost Council because I need that. On balance I get to play fewer sac outlets. Seems to me that you should do the opposite - play a few good recursion spells and tons of sac outlets. You've already got access to repeatable recursion every game. How much more do you really need?
Probably more than it would seem, unless you like losing to hinder and the like.
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Postby DocLawless » Thu Apr 24, 2014 5:18 pm

Something that just occurred to me, why do you want so much redundancy for your general? Chainer is powerful, always available, and does exactly what you need. I play tons of recursion in Ghost Council because I need that. On balance I get to play fewer sac outlets. Seems to me that you should do the opposite - play a few good recursion spells and tons of sac outlets. You've already got access to repeatable recursion every game. How much more do you really need?
I was just thinking that, actually. Shifting from Lim-Dul to Chainer means I have a recursion source I'm not trying to draw into, so I can devote slots in the deck to other things.

The deck is still trying to gel. Its actually between a zombie tribal Lim-Dul deck that isn't very good,
and whatever it's trying to turn into. Chainer is better recursion than Lim-Dul, but he changes the strategy a bit because he's more suicide black than reanimation. I guess I should just roll with it.
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Postby DocLawless » Thu Apr 24, 2014 5:18 pm

I run tutor to deal with tucking.
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Postby Stardust » Thu Apr 24, 2014 5:20 pm

Something that just occurred to me, why do you want so much redundancy for your general? Chainer is powerful, always available, and does exactly what you need. I play tons of recursion in Ghost Council because I need that. On balance I get to play fewer sac outlets. Seems to me that you should do the opposite - play a few good recursion spells and tons of sac outlets. You've already got access to repeatable recursion every game. How much more do you really need?
Probably more than it would seem, unless you like losing to hinder and the like.
Chainer's not the type to lose to Hinder. Black has tutors and Chainer's not necessary for the deck to function anyway.
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Postby DarthStabber » Thu Apr 24, 2014 5:32 pm

Clearly I am misunderstanding how the deck is supposed to work then. I assumed chainer reanimator, but doc is talking a more aggressive variation.

And if even if you are running 2-5 tutors that means little if they aren't in your hand when he gets tucked. I've seen it happen before, decks that have no business folding to tucks do so anyway.
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Postby Stardust » Thu Apr 24, 2014 6:37 pm

Tucks still suck. Losing your general is awful for any deck except certain combo decks. But Chainer doesn't need to reanimate to win. He's still got big, quality creatures that can just get there. If he were going all-in on a Dedge strategy, pitching his hand to 'yard just to bring it back for cheaper, then yeah, Chainer's necessary. But that's not going to be a good Chainer deck anyway, and isn't the direction Doc's going from the sounds of it.
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Postby DocLawless » Thu Apr 24, 2014 7:18 pm

I spent my whole lunch break thinking about it, and I have decided that I don't know how to build a deck predicated on the possibility that I won't draw into any of the answers that I put into the deck specifically to deal with the one thing that might happen and could be really difficult to deal with. I thought about it so hard people were asking me if I was okay. :p

I don't feel compelled to rely on Chainer for recursion though. Not solely. Having access to his ability consistently is really nice, but I've got him, Lim-Dul (maybe as one of the 99), Sheoldred, Geth, Volrath's Stronghold, Nim Deathmantle, maybe Oversold Cemetery, a bought-back Corpse Dance, and the few really good spell recursions like Reanimate and Animate Dead. Going straight from the 'yard to the battlefield is important here. Grave to hand is acceptable sometimes,
but will usually be too hungry for mana. Grave to top deck is unacceptable.

As to aggressive vs. controlling, I haven't actually settled yet. Lim-Dul was an aggressive deck. Chainer may or may not work out the same way. But the switch from the Necromancer to Chainer was solely based on Chainer having a better recursion power than Lim-Dul.
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Postby DarthStabber » Thu Apr 24, 2014 11:15 pm

It's a power/resilience question, however given the amounts of mass removal typically flying around a commander game the frailty issue is unlikely to come up (my personal opinion is that outside of MUC, aggressive/pressure, and certain combo decks you should start with 10 mass removal spells, but that's just me, and as stated in another thread by ham removal is gay).
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Postby DocLawless » Thu Apr 24, 2014 11:37 pm

I started with about that in targeted removal so I could cherry pick what I steal with Lim-Dul.
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Postby DarthStabber » Fri Apr 25, 2014 6:55 am

what about phyrexian reclamation as an additional option for cards? It's like greed on 'roids.
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Postby DocLawless » Sun Apr 27, 2014 8:49 pm

Might not be a bad idea. I've had it in my maybe pile since I started.

I've started looking at Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed as an alternative to Chainer. Or, rather, if Chainer was an alternative to Lim-Dul, Xiahou Dun is another alternative to Lim-Dul. Obviously they are two different decks.
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Postby DarthStabber » Mon Apr 28, 2014 2:04 am

You could try king macar the gold cursed if you want to get silly.
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Postby DocLawless » Mon Apr 28, 2014 3:23 am

I wonder if there's enough tap/untap in Black to make that a thing.
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Postby DarthStabber » Mon Apr 28, 2014 5:03 am

The only actually black tapper I can think of is rathi trapper, but they made kind of a deal over it being such a weird ability in black which leads to believe he might be the only one. Beyond that you can fill the void with artifacts.

[cards]icy manipulator
deserter's quarters
Amber prison
Springleaf drum
Witch's eye
Crown of empire
Puppet strings
Ring of gix
Siren song lyre
Staff of domination
Trip noose
Tumble magnet
Hankyu
Paradise mantle
Surestrike trident
Viridian longbow
Wolfhunter's quiver
Thornbite staff
Umbral mantle[/cards](umbral mantle untaps instead of taps, but allows kill as an instant)
Last edited by DarthStabber on Mon Apr 28, 2014 5:54 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby DarthStabber » Mon Apr 28, 2014 5:39 am

Equip king macar with umbral mantle and paradise mantle, now for every mana you invest you kill something and give him +2/+2 (I know it costs 3 to activate umbral mantle but paradise mantle gives you 1, and the gold token gives you another reducing the effective cost to one). And you're in black so you have plenty of access to tutors (just not the cheap blue artifact ones). Add heart stone and it becomes free (not infinite, unless an opponent has infinite creatures). Either way you clear a path for a metric ton of commander damage.

Stupid 3-4 card combos FTW!
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Postby DarthStabber » Mon Apr 28, 2014 5:51 am

More options for untaps
[cards]Thousand year elixir
Jandor's saddlebags
Magewright stone[/cards]
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Postby razzliox » Tue May 20, 2014 4:44 pm

[quote="[url=viewtopic.php?p=218596#p218596] Currently I am running [card]Volrath's Stronghold[/card] (though 'yard to hand is strictly worse than 'yard to battlefield)[/quote]

Note that it doesn't even do that; it's 'yard to top of library. Not even card advantage.

Your commander's probably Chainer then, right?
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Postby DocLawless » Tue May 20, 2014 5:08 pm

What gave it away? Was it the whole thread I have for Chainer?

Actually, I go back and forth between Chainer and Xiahou Dun, depending on what I feel like. I started entertaining the notion of splashing white to get better recursion sources, but I realized what I really wanted was for it to be faster. So I've been entertaining black/green options, maybe even going as far as black/green/blue and playing Mimeoplasm or Damia.

I don't know why I thought Stronghold put that card in my hand when I posted that. It's been a consistently underwhelming card.
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