Swans Combo

4 Tendo Ice Bridge
4 Reflecting Pool
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
1 Academy Ruins
1 Watery Grave
1 Steam Vents
1 Island
1 Gemstone Mine
1 Breeding Pool
4 Swans of Bryn Argoll
4 Lotus Bloom
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Ponder
4 Chain of Plasma
4 Telling Time
4 Remand
3 Pentad Prism
3 Chrome Mox
3 Thoughtseize
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Conflagrate
SB: 1 Thoughtseize
SB: 1 Engineered Explosives
SB: 2 Krosan Grip
SB: 3 Pact of Negation
SB: 4 Pollen Lullaby (anti-aggro slots)
SB: 4 Boil

This deck is retarded beyond belief. It's immune to Extirpate and Gaddock Teeg when played properly. The kill is Chain of Plasma on Swans, drawing your whole deck, then playing Moxen and flashing back Conflagrate on their face. Sure, you can't play Conflagrate with Teeg in play, but you can just aim the last Chain at Teeg. If you want to play around Extirpate, just draw your deck, make 3 red mana via Moxen or lands, hardcast Conflagrate for zero, then flash it back without passing priority.

You can go off on turn 3 with a Pentad Prism and a Mox, or on turn 4 with just a Lotus Bloom. Engineered Explosives, Thoughtseize, and Remand help you set up and defend against counters. The only thing that really hoses you is Earwig Squad or Cranial Extraction. Cabal Therapy rotating really helps all combo decks. Counterbalance is annoying too, but there's lots of answers for that in the deck. The anti-aggro slots were Devastating Dreams til we realized it rotates, so maybe they'll be Pyroclasms, Goyfs, or Tombstalkers. Sun Droplet could help buy time but I think a simple fog effect like Pollen Lullaby might be better than that. That would also stop Earwig Squad for a turn, as would Remand.

I really like this deck! Is it too early to start testing? Will Alara be legal when Berlin hits? So many questions! Maybe we should hold off on EDH to concentrate on Extended.

It's never too early to start testing, I've started putting together a gauntlet. Yes, Shards will be legal for Berlin. This is probably the best combo in Extended so far, though sometimes you just wanna be a CounterTopGoyf deck. Replacing Counterspell sucks, but I've been using Cryptic Command and Spell Snare pretty well.

I think its easier to flesh out the format and see what Shards changes instead of seeing what Shards brings, then trying to flesh out the format with less than a month to test.

I obviously thought of Mana Leak as soon as my head hit the pillow last night. I've been testing with that and it's been as good as Counterspell the vast majority of the time.

LSV Swans

// Lands
1 Breeding Pool
1 Cascade Bluffs
3 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
9 Snow-Covered Island
2 Steam Vents

// Creatures
2 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Swans of Bryn Argoll

// Spells
3 Blood Moon
4 Chain of Plasma
4 Chrome Mox
2 Condescend
1 Conflagrate
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Firespout
2 Mana Leak
4 Ponder
4 Spell Snare
4 Thirst for Knowledge

// Sideboard
SB: 1 Blood Moon
SB: 2 Engineered Explosives
SB: 2 Ancient Grudge
SB: 2 Gigadrowse
SB: 2 Muddle the Mixture
SB: 2 Pact of Negation
SB: 3 Remove Soul
SB: 1 Vexing Shusher

LSV said he was going to test a SB strategy that involved removing some of the counterspells (Remove Souls, I think) for 3 Ancestral Visions. Which seems random, but you need more card drawing in blue mirrors, and Visions is by far the best. GerryT hates the 2 Condescends and would tell you to play 2 more Mana Leaks. This deck is generally pretty decent against Elves and Zoo but weaker against Faeries.

I don't mind the condescends since you are able to get around spell snare. All-in red is annoying game one, but not unwinnable, you just have to mulligan super aggressively. Game 2 you get echoing truth which means you can't really lose. Elves is good just due to removal and a quick win, and tron is bad because of blood moon. I am trying to brew up some decks since i just bought 8 moxes and all the fetch lands for me and jimbobs collection. We should play some time.

neux wrote:I don't mind the condescends since you are able to get around spell snare.

So you like it because it's more expensive, to play around one spell? You realize that there are way more spells in Extended that Leak will counter that Condescend won't? Playing around Spell Snare and playing into Kird Ape, Glimpse of Nature, etc is pretty terrible.

I was going to say that you have to cast Chain of Plasma to win anyway and they can just Spell Snare that.

I actually tested Swans against UB Tron and lost like 75% of the games preboard. Postboard was slightly better but not much. A quick Blood Moon is good, if it's quick enough to get around Condescend (or they don't have it, or tapped out for Signet). But they can just play Explosives for 3 off a Signet and move on if you don't have Swans+Chain quickly assembled. The real problem is that if you ever get into any kind of lategame situation you're pretty screwed. In the deck's defense, I didn't have Ancestral Visions in my board. That might not even be good against Spell Burst though, much like the deck in general. You can't really fight it with just four Mana Leaks/Condescends, and it's hard to even with six or eight counterspells postboard. They have so much more card drawing than you, and when they start chaining through it, it becomes hard to resolve spells or control your own turn.

I always play around Kird Ape.

I know this sounds stuipied but why not play theives fortune over thirst of knowledge??

Card advantage. Even though you don't have a ton of artifacts to discard, Mox goes dead quickly and Explosives is dead sometimes. I would play Telling Time before I'd play Thieves' Fortune.

You also have extra copies of blood moon etc. That is why I also like condescend. You can discard it to thirst.

You can discard Mana Leak to Thirst...

Ben, is this guy just fucking with me?

Just a random thought, but would gigadrowse be a viable SB card to be used in a similar fashion as Dragonstorm used it in standard last year?

@GerryT: yes.

@HurkleBeast: apparently LSV agrees with you because there are two copies in his SB. As much as some storage lands would juice your Drowses, I'm not sure they're right. I wouldn't mind boarding a couple of lands anyway since you only have 20.

In all seriousness, yes mana leak is better than condescend. I am not sold on what I want to play yet for the season, I need to play quite a few more games with the different decks to figure it out.