Brewing a Combo

Posted on April 13, 2011

About a year ago, watching the trials at GP: Columbus, I noticed an abundance of a deck that piqued my interest: Hive Mind combo. While it appeared to be shaky in terms of draws, it has some very strong ones that rivaled the power of any Storm combo deck. I watched someone go turn-one Ancient Tomb, Lotus Petal, Show and Tell out Hive Mind, play a Pact, and ask the opponent how he would like to pay for his copy. While the deck faded out of the spotlight in favor of more redundant Storm combo decks and Show and Tell bringing Emrakuls and Progenituses to class, in preparing for Providence, I've been looking at possible low-hanging fruit in the form of underdeveloped combo decks. Rather than just throw down a list, I'm going to walk through the steps of actually building the deck. This is just one option for a new combo deck, and the process used here should be strong for jump-starting another one. My next project is likely Auriok Salvagers–Lion's Eye Diamond, but other viable options include Power Artifact–Grim Monolith or just reshaping an existing pairing like Painter's Servant–Grindstone.

As an advance warning, this article might devolve a bit too far into being a train of thought at times. I've tried to edit it for clarity.

Reasons to Be Hive Mind

There's really no point to building a deck if it is just a worse version of another one. Sure, you can Shallow Grave your Magus of the Jar, but is that actually a better Storm deck than Ad Nauseam or a better draw-seven deck than High Tide? Here are the reasons I found you would want to be Hive Mind.

Resilience to traditional Storm hate – You have Show and Tell to beat Gaddock Teeg and Meddling Mage, and can combo through a Canonist given an extra turn. You don't care about Chalice, and Spheres are mediocre at best, as you only need to cast two spells to win. You also dodge all of the specific Emrakul hate and random Pithing Needle effects. Even Pridemage doesn't matter, as you play your Pacts immediately after Hive Mind hits play. Mindbreak Trap doesn't interact with you at all unless your Hive Mind was spell three, and Leyline of Sanctity does absolutely nothing. The traditional combo killer of Counterbalance is hard-pressed to stop your 3- and 6-mana spells, as their Pact copies don't actually trigger the enchantment.

Lim-Dul's Vault – The deck has the ability to immediately kill off a Lim-Dul's Vault resolution and an untap, and definitely has it in two turns. I'll take 2 mana to win the game where I can.

Pact of Negation – One of your combo pieces is also a protection spell.

Potential Problems

Now that there is an established reason to proceed, what problems will be encountered along the way?

Hive Mind costs 6 – You need ways to reliably get this card into play. You can't rely on assembling the three-card combo with Show and Tell.

Vulnerability to discard – When you are looking for a specific four-of to win, and you want to ship dead extra copies, a single Duress on one hits hard.

Vulnerability to Daze, Stifle, and Spell Pierce – If your opponent understands what you are doing, he can counter his Pact copies with a Stifle on the Hive Mind trigger or taxing counter targeting his copy that he pays for. Extra Pacts can beat this, but the deck has to be built with this in mind.

Shipping the turn – You can get Bolted out on your opponent's upkeep or something similar. Price of Progress in particular could be awkward, as it happens twice due to Hive Mind.

Your opponent can pay – This is the least realistic, as if the game goes this long, you will likely have a second Pact to seal the deal.

So, with that in mind, here's what I'm looking at for a first list:

Mana

I'll come back to this in a minute, but I'm looking to have about twenty-eight sources. In Extended, I found eighteen lands and twelve Rituals was sufficient for a turn-four kill, and the cantrips and Rituals only get better here, letting you cheat a bit more on mana. That leaves around thirty-two actual cards to play.

Combo

Hive Mind – Four. You need this to win.

Pacts – Based on my experience in Amsterdam with a Hive Mind deck, nine was enough to just have one when you went for the win. In general, when you want to draw one of a specific card type every game, the minimum you want is nine, and up to twelve is correct, but the low end is fine if you have a ton of cantrips. Having this high of a Pact density made the deck a lot more like a one-card combo where you just have to find Hive Mind. Four Pact of the Titan and four Pact of Negation is a for-sure, as they are the hardest to pay for and the best outside of the combo. This leaves a single flex slot. Slaughter Pact is versatile, so I'll start there.

Card count: 13

Search

Brainstorm – Four. You are a two-card combo with a reasonable number of potential dead cards, making this an almost Ancestral.

Lim-Dul's Vault – I hate this as a four-of, as multiples are dead, so I'll start at three.

Intuition – Doesn't fit my dream of turn-three kills perfectly, so I don't want it often, but it's still a tutor. Two it is.

Enlightened Tutor – Only finds half the combo and makes the mana three colors. Off the team.

More cantrips – Depending on how much room is left after the necessary cards, I can see up to six of these. Around ten cantrips (including Brainstorm) is where you start seeing diminishing returns and clogging your hand, with Storm being an exception, as you can almost directly translate cantrips into more mana from the Rituals you find.

Card count: 22 (+6 cantrip?)

Protection

Possibilities here are Force of Will and Duress effects. Hand-disruption helps solve the Daze issues, but might not line up well with the combo curve depending on the number of turn-one plays the deck has. Force costing an extra card could also become an issue, with Lim-Dul's Vaults and extra Pacts also burning your hand size, and no card draw to grind backup. There will likely be three to five cards here, which combined with the four Pact of Negation gives you seven to nine. Given that against decks where you need backup, you don't usually have to kill on turn three, this should be enough that you can find one or two when you need it.

In addition to these cards, you have access to Show and Tell. In this deck, Show and Tell acts as a pseudo-Duress by letting you cast Hive Mind without exposing it on the stack. If your opponent counters the Show and Tell, that's one out of the way, and if he doesn't, he just dies. I definitely want a full set of this card, as it enables the curve-out kill with Lim-Dul's Vault as well as doubling as a mana source and letting me skim a few more for actual cards. With the set, I'll likely only play twenty-seven cards that actually make mana.

Card count: 29 (+6 cantrip and 4 to 5 disruption spells?)

Here seems like a good point to look at the mana as we are approaching the maximum amount of spells, and I've covered all the main categories (combo, search, and protection).

Mana

The bare minimum number of colored lands for this kind of deck is sixteen, so that leaves around eleven slots for acceleration. The primary options I'm looking at are Lotus Petal, Chrome Mox, Dark Ritual, and some double-mana land. Cabal Ritual likely won't be Thresholded, and Lion's Eye Diamond doesn't have any Infernal Tutors backing it here. Lotus Petal and Chrome Mox double as Pact of Negation targets, letting you use it in the combo. This leads me to believe I want a lot of these, and I think I specifically want four Petals and two Chrome Moxes. More Moxes would likely stress my hand size a little too much. Going back for a second, even looking at Mox in the first place makes me want to play discard over Force of Will due to possibly running out of cards. Mox also is almost a land, letting me cut down to fifteen actual lands.

That leaves six slots for double lands and Dark Rituals. Dark Ritual seems very good when casting Hive Mind, but double lands have synergies with Intuition and Show and Tell that have to be recognized. Ultimately, I went with three Ancient Tombs and three Dark Rituals, partly just to see how each worked. Ancient Tomb was chosen over Crystal Vein and City of Traitors, as I wanted multiple uses and didn't expect to use it enough for the life loss to matter.

In terms of actual lands, I'm just going to port my Storm mana base minus an Island and a Misty Rainforest. The colored requirements don't seem to need more Seas, so if it isn't broken, why fix it?

Wrapping Up

If you've been counting along, this leaves us with four open slots. If I am running discard, I probably want a fourth copy just to have it when I want it, leaving three slots for random Ponders.

"Hive Mind 1.0"

The next step is to just goldfish a bunch.

Game 1: Turn one, Lim-Dul's off a Mox leads to a turn three with discard backup.

Game 2: Triple Brainstorm hand leads to a turn four with discard plus double Negation backup. At this point, I realize the deck, unlike Storm, is light on Rituals to jump-start after using mana to cantrip and Duress on the last turn, and eleven 1-drops might be too many.

Game 3: Turn-two Lim-Dul's leads to turn four with double discard. I realize now Slaughter Pact sucks, as it needs a target, and Intervention Pact is better against the tempo decks I will presumably need help against. At the very least, they probably can't pay the White, while Black is possible.

Game 4: I keep the full combo and only 3 mana, but a Ponder on three finds a Show and Tell to go with my other drawn land for the win with Duress and Pact backup. I notice I've had to fetch a Sea on turn one or two a lot more than I would like so far. I want Black for discard and Lim-Dul's, but then want to play Ancient Tomb, Brainstorm, and Show and Tell all on turn three, which means double Blue. Ancient Tomb might have to change, or Duress might if Wasteland is an issue.

Game 5: I keep Hive Mind, Pacts, and Ponder into mana for a turn-four kill with Pact backup.

Game 6: Mulligan a no-lander into more garbage into a five-lander with only Swamp for my Blue spells. A Blue source shows up on three to let me start cantripping, and I still manage to kill on turn four with Duress backup.

Game 7: I mull a hand with no dig or Hive Mind into one with Vault, Hive Mind, Brainstorm, and Duress. Vault finds me a third land, Show and Tell, and another Vault to find the Pact for a turn-four kill with Duress backup.

Game 8: I keep Hive Mind, Show, Blue Pact, Ponder, two lands, Petal. Ponder finds me the other 0-cost artifact for the turn-two kill. Had I needed to, I could have kept the Ponder stack with another Negation and set up to kill on four with backup.

Game 9: I keep Duress, Intuition, Show, Brainstorm, Ancient Tomb, and a fetch. I Intuition on two for Hive Mind and Brainstorm into a Pact for the turn three with Duress backup.

Game 10: I mulligan a hand of double Intuition, Negation, four lands including an Ancient Tomb (should have kept, would probably be a turn-four kill) into a six with Hive Mind, Show, and Negation. I Show in the Hive Mind on two and draw a spell for the kill on turn three (the spell was Intuition, which would get more Pacts to make the kill turn-three with Negation).

Over that ten-game set, there was an average kill turn of 3.4 with disruption every game if necessary (which would raise the average to 3.6) and often double disruption. Not a bad start. The main thing to look at is whether I have the right disruption based on the mana being weaker to Wasteland. Other than that, the list ran pretty smooth. I never wanted more Dark Rituals when I had access to Show and Tell most of the time, but they were nice the couple of times I needed other ways to get there. Cutting one might be fine if you added more easy ways to get Show and Tell. Ancient Tomb did its job of casting spells that cost very well. The amount of color-producing lands was not an issue, but basic Swamp should be a singleton at most, and Verdant Catacombs forced a lot of fetches for Seas that would have been unnecessary with a Misty Rainforest. For now, I'll make them more Blue fetches. Petals and Moxen did their job well, but the counts might be better off as three of each so you have more turn-one Vaults and turn-two Intuitions without losing a mana source for the next turn. That is likely something that requires a lot more testing against Wasteland decks.

"Hive Mind 1.5"

Sideboard (0)

Here is where I pass it to you. If you want to seriously consider this deck for Providence or other events, this is how I would test. Each time, keep playing until you are winning or figure out why you are losing and if it can change.

Start with just a clock on the other side, like Cat Sligh.

Repeat, but with Goblins. Now you have a clock and land destruction. Learn how to specifically not lose to a Wasteland.

Move on to a Blue deck that isn't soul-crushingly impossible to beat. I would advise a NO-Bant build without Daze, like Caleb Durward's list from Atlanta. This will teach you how to manage cantripping into not only the combo but an answer to Force.

Now that you are proficient with cantrips, move to a discard deck like W/G/B Junk. This will teach you how to use cantrips to hide cards against Hymns and Duresses.

Move on to a Blue deck with heavier resistance. Landstill is a good option here, but for this specific deck, 4C Counterbalance is another option. Learn how to play a long game here.

Finally, face the facts and play your worst matchup. Here, that is Team America and Merfolk. Figure out what you can do to mise a victory and run with it.

A final thought on sideboard options: . I would strongly consider Defense Grid or splashing Green for Xantid Swarm or City of Solitude to beat Daze decks (though these don't beat Stifle). For combo mirrors, I would lean toward your own hate, such as Chalice of the Void (cool Ancient Tombs!) or graveyard hate over more Duresses, as you are still a bit slower than Storm and Dredge, but the Duresses might be there anyways for Dazes. In terms of Dredge hate, you want a mix of the artifacts to dodge Needle. Leyline is bad, as you can cantrip or Vault into the hate. Any leftover slots are probably either a card-draw engine to combat Hymns (I would consider Phyrexian Arena) or random creatures to mise out Fish (i.e., Tombstalker). You likely don't need the random bounce most combo does, as you naturally beat all the hate permanents. I thought about Emrakul, but with only Show and Tell, it is slightly awkward. You don't really want Doomsday out of the board, as you beat the decks it is good against anyway and have issues with the Blue Wasteland decks as-is. If Defense Grid isn't good enough, mising Emrakuls might be a legitimate out, however.