Intuition in a couple combo decks for 1.5

JonPatton · Joined: 11 Dec 2005 Posts: 149

Neither of these decks are here to break the format. However, they revolve around a couple cards I haven't seen flaoting around.

I was wondering why I didn't see more Intuition in Legacy. There are a wealth of interesting decks that can be build around Intuition. Bomberman and an old Survival-style combo deck came to mind.

Has anyone tried a take on the Great Whale/Palincron/Could of Fairies - Recurring Nightmare combo? I was thinking about this, and it occurred to me that it could slip into any number of types of builds and it wouldn't have to be an all-in combo. The Glare lists running the infinite life combo in T2 are a good example of the kind of thing I mean. This would help keep pithing needle from detroying the deck (something solidarity doesn't need to deal with).

Traditionally it was run in Survival builds to create infinite mana. However, a City of Traitors and an Underground Sea would work perfectly fine now that we have Storm spells.

I'm not saying these are "better" combos than solidarity; it's not. Solidarity goes off at instant speed. Here's an all-in shell I was thinking of:

Creatures:
3 Cloud of Fairies
3 Palinchron
1 Eternal Witness
2 Merfolk Traders
3 Wall of Blossoms
4 Dark Confidant
(16)

Enchantments
4 Recurring Nightmare
(4)

Search and Draw
4 Brainstorm
4 Intuition
2 Cunning Wish
(10)

Glue
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Force of Will
1 Brain Freeze
1 Repeal
(10)

Mana
3 City of Traitors
4 underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
4 Island
1 Swamp
1 Flooded Strand
4 Poluted Delta
(20)

Sideboard:
1 Crop Rotation
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Brain Freeze
1 Stifle
1 Trickbind
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Echoing Truth
1 Misdirection
4 Blue Elemental Blast

The mana seems solid enough. Nothing you cast main deck costs more than one of any color mana.

I'm a little disappointed it can't go off before the 3rd turn (beacuse you can't lay the City first turn or it'll die the next turn and you won't have two lands in play), so I dropped moxes in favor of more land. However, it seems more proactive than Solidarity, and it can stall for a few extra turns with a Wall of Blossoms.

This is essentially a two-card combo: Inuition + Recurring Nightmare, because you can intuition the creatures you need into the grave. The best Intuition depends on what's in your graveyard or hand and in play. You can also just get three Cabal Therapies and Mind Twist them.

This deck has dropped Survival from the older versions to avoid the heavy green commitment and the damage Pithing Needle can cause. Pithing Needle can still hit the Nightmare, however. Resurrecting the old-style deck would be easy. You just take a recent Survival-Toolbox list and add in two Palinchrons as a side-combo.

This deck, however, strikes me as a complicated Solidarity deck. It has all of the same weaknesses, plus two new ones (Pithing Needle and Swords to Plowshares), and in return gains some stall tactics that give it time versus Threshhold and Goblins and some proactive disruption in the form of discard.

An Intuiotion deck could also go the following route:

4 Salvagers
3 Trinket Mage
(7)

3 Intuition
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
3 Cunning Wish
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Wrath of God

(24)

1 Lotus Eye Diamond
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
1 Aether Spellbomb
1 Pithing Needle
1 Engineered Explosives

(5)

4 Flooded Strand
3 Volcanic Island
4 Tundra
2 Plains
6 Island
3 City of Traitors

(22)

Sideboard:
1 Brainfreeze
1 Repeal
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Aluren
3 Orim's Chant
3 Fire/Ice
1 Lightning Helix
3 Isochron Scepter
1 Trickbind (or Stifle, if you prefer)

Where the deck is Bomberman, and Scepter after Sideboarding if it decides to be. This gives it more game against Pithing Needle, as they would need to needle more than one thing, and you can take care of them in the time it takes to find another. It can take its good ole time comboing aout, playing control for a long time, it has 4 Aluren effects in the sideboard to give it game against combo decks (Mana burn fizzle FTW), a small Trinket Mage toolbox, and intuition to dump the goods into the grave the turn before you plop down your Salvagers.

Ending thoughts:

The Recurring Nightmare - Palinchron combo uses up a lot of slots. However, it does have a lot of wiggle room, and I can see it fitting into a looser deck that can afford three slots dedicated to the combo that might also want to run Intuition. Reanimator is one such deck. Recurring Nightmare, for one thing, ought to see more play in Reanimator, and Intuition is strictly better than Buried Alive in a deck that wants to play Force of Will anyway. (Dark Ritual-Burried alive is also not as spectacular as it once was, since I find I'd rather set up for two turns with Reanimator to make sure I win.) You can also Intuition for three Animate Deads if you ditched an Akroma already. It's very versitile.

The second list I can't say is "better" than The Game, but it does have more options. It can stop an opponent's disruption with counters and answers, it can do the T1 Salvagers bit where it blows up all permanents between 1 and 5 and beats down with a handfull of counters, and it can go balls-to-the-wall and combo out as early as possible. The deck can be sped up by dropping the Counterspells, 1 Wish, and the Wraths, adding an Intuition, 4 Mox Diamond, adding a Brainfreeze maindeck, one City of Traitors, and two Ancient Tombs. There might be a place for a single Gifts, as well.

KeySam · Joined: 14 Oct 2005 Posts: 322

I see a lot of Salvager decks. But i like the Reccuring Nightmare combo, why didnt you splice in this deck in an Survival of the fittest deck? I mean Reccuring Nightmare would be great anyways in Survival of the fittest? i must say ill do this and try it out i like the idea very mutch and if its done right i think it could be an huge improve to survival of the fittest. thats it for know maybe i post a list later Smile

I mean with intuition.

Hacko · Joined: 13 Sep 2004 Posts: 18

I thought all the untapping creatures from urza had gotten erratas to prevent the untapping from happening when reanimated...

Hacko · Joined: 13 Sep 2004 Posts: 18

7/15/2006 The text “if you played it from your hand” was removed, returning the card to its original wording and functionality.

Oh dear god Shocked

...... <goes do palin combo deck>

JonPatton · Joined: 11 Dec 2005 Posts: 149

I didn't include a Survival list because there are a lot of them around . . . and there should be an old list (from 1998 or so), if you can find it; I think Zvi is credited with creating it. He used Great Whale (at the time, Pali hadn't been printed yet, and they got errataed, I believe, before it came out).

Edit: Regarding the Salvagers deck, I thought Intuition should have been a shoe-in, allowing the deck to run fewer slots on the combo (you can run a singleton of the lotus and a spellbomb). Gamekeeper runs a greater risk of fizzling when you don't hit a Therapy AND dredge the combo pieces.