Laboratory Maniacs

Hello and welcome back to the Lab Maniacs! Today marks the debut of Season 2 of Competitive EDH Gameplay!

Many of you joined us in playing and watching our Community Stream a couple days ago, but for those who didn’t, you’ll be able to catch the action later in the season, as we’ll be putting all those games up for you to watch at your leisure!

Our game today features Simon, Cameron, Sigi, and Dan. They are playing Food Chain Prossh, Skyraider of Kher , Keranos, God of Storms Stax, Combo Sidisi, Brood Tyrant and Grixis Twin with Jeleva, Nephalia’s Scourge , respectively.

Decklists:

• Food Chain Prossh: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/prossh-paper/
• Keranos Stax: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/keranos-blood-moon/
• Combo Sidisi: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/all-nightmare-long-2/
• Grixis Twin: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/02-04-17-grixis-twin-copy/

Food Chain Prossh is an old standby, and needs little introduction. You rush to play Food Chain, make unbounded mana with Prossh, and win with a variety of outlets for the situation.

Keranos is a somewhat newer stax list. It is a much harder stax shell than many floating around right now, attempting to get out a few lock pieces, maybe play Keranos, and then use a land wipe like Wildfire or Back to Basics to cut down on the table’s mana, while slowly grinding out a win.

Combo Sidisi uses one of several graveyard-centric combos to kill the table, mostly with Necrotic Ooze utilizing Walking Ballista ’s activated abilities.

Finally, Grixis Twin is a slower combo deck, that aims to win with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Pestermite -type interactions, while playing a tempo game with an above average amount of interaction, or by simply reanimating Jin-Gitaxias.

In this table, Prossh or Sidisi are aiming to win before Keranos can really get much hate into play, or before Jeleva can begin controlling the board with various spell-based interactions. A longer game favors Keranos and Jeleva, though the type of longer game matters a great deal. Sitting on no permanents except a Keranos is a great position for that deck, but if everyone is trapped under permanent-based hate, a deck that can get a Jin-Gitaxias off of few resources is in a good spot. Unless Prossh or Sidisi can combo off quickly, this game could drag out for quite a while the slower decks jockey for control. A positive for the two combo decks is that they are not based on assembling a critical mass of spells, like storm lists. They can also topdeck a pair of cards on two consecutive turns and win out of nowhere, so the slower decks will have to always be on guard.

Please enjoy Episode 1 of Season 2 of the LabManiacs. We’ll see you in game!