Every now and then I set out on a new quest. A quest, to appease my inner Johnny, Combo Player. Not too long ago I ran into the Cascade Swan deck. I'm prototyping a remake of this deck for some testing on MTGO and at my local shop.
For those who have not had the pleasure of seeing this combo, a brief introductory on the schwiftyness of the machinations is in order.
Card #1: The Bird (Swans of Bryn Argoll)
Card #2: The Bolt (Seismic Assault) Or, the shock if you want to get specific.
Card #3: The Lands (Island)
The combo is one of the more simple ones really. Seismic Assault is one of the better parts of the combo, as it can protect you from most types of early game aggression; However, it has a very sly ulterior motive.
Enter Swans of Bryn Argoll, the bird that opponents will learn to fear. While most creatures you want to protect, The bird is basically a flying pinata that never runs out of that sweet, sweet, card advantage.
And thus, the only thing we need left for the combo is a land in hand. (Two if you do not feel like playing the odds) Any land will do, Seismic Assault is not partial to what land is use to activate it, and the bird is not particular to how it is pummeled.
Begin the carnival of fun and slight insanity!
Step #1: Discard Land card to activate Seismic Assault's ability.
Step #2: Target Swans of Bryn Argoll with Seismic Assault's ability.
Step #3: Deal 2 damage to Swans of Bryn Argoll and draw 2 cards.
Step #4: Repeat.
Step #??: Discard all remaining Land cards, to pay Seismic Assault's ability.
Step #??+1: Deal X damage to opponent where X is 2 times the number of Land cards you discard.
Of course, no combo deck is complete with out ways to search for the combo. What better way is there to do that, then to search for one of the pieces and play it outright on the same turn!? Enter "Cascade", A mechanic that has been used and abused by all formats. Using our Kathari Remnant or our Stormcaller's Boon we search out and play one of our Seismic Assault's. If the bird is already in play, then 99.9% of the time we can start our combo. (0.01% for those games where you still somehow manage to not have a land)
"But Egad!" I hear you scream. "What about getting the bird? The cascade only hits the Seismic Assault, and if I include a higher costed cascade spell, It may not even hit the bird!" We got you covered right there as well my friend. Welcome to the wonderful land of "Transmute" Where for a small fee, you can search for a card of the same converted casting cost of the card with transmute. (Thus allowing our cascade to still be 100% accurate, and actually allowing us to search for our cascade cards if needed as well.) We have two options open to us, Clutch of the Undercity and Dimir House Guard. While you could easily run both, I would caution against that.
Since Lands are our source of damage, we do not want to thin them out too much. Feldon's Cane is a great sideboard for this purpose. While it does have the chance to mess up the cascade, it can push up to 2X the damage that you could normally do.
Some quick maths:
Without Feldon's Cane
44 lands (Base count)
-4 lands in play (Lands left: 40)
-23 lands discarded to draw more lands (Lands left: 17)
-17 lands discarded to deal damage to opponent (Lands left: 0)
17 x 2 = 34
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Max Damage Without = 34
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With Feldon's Cane
44 lands (Base count)
-5 lands in play (Lands left: 39) The extra land is to cast the cain after you have payed for one of the many 4 costs the combo uses.
-22 lands discarded to draw more lands (Lands left: 17)
-16 lands discarded to deal damage to opponent (Lands left: 0) Keep one for after you crack the cane
+38 lands (Play and crack Feldon's Cane)
-22 lands discarded to draw more lands (Lands left: 17)
-17 lands discarded to deal damage to opponent (Lands left: 0)
16 + 17(33) x 2 = 66
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Max Damage With = 66
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Both of the above equations are mathed under the "Best of circumstances". So it unlikely to always get max damage out of both instances; However, it does validate the point of side boarding in Feldon's Cane when you need that extra push, or you need to use your lands to remove annoyances or threats.
If you made it this far, you are by far as much a stats junky as I am, and I thank you.
If you liked the deck, feel free to throw up a +1 or just tell me so in the comments. Suggestions are accepted as always.
Bless all your faces, and good luck out there Gordon.
