[Deck] BG Vengevine

[4eak]

Vengevine seems ripe for the pickin'. VV is somewhat midrange, which means you want some form of disruption to go with it. Blue looks pretty weak, and Black looks fantastic. Hence, BG Vengevine. Vengevine is a strong card to build around, and Bloodghast seems to fit nicely into whatever BG deck can abuse Vengevine as well.

Here's a take on BG Vengevine:

// Lands - 21
4 Forest
4 Swamp
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Marsh Flats
1 Dryad Arbor

// Mana Dudes - 6
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Elves of Deep Shadow

// Discard Outlets - 10
4 Oona's Prowler
4 Fauna Shaman
2 Zombie Infestation

// The "Build Around" Cards - 8
4 Vengevine
4 Bloodghast

// Additional ToolBox - 7
3 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Shriekmaw
1 Eternal Witness
1 Tarmogoyf
1 Viridian Zealot

// Hand Destruction - 8
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Thoughtseize

// Sideboard
SB: 4 Nature's Claim
SB: 4 Duress
SB: 1 Shriekmaw
SB: 1 Fleshbag Marauder
SB: 1 Big Game Hunter
SB: 1 Brain Gorgers
SB: 1 Kitchen Finks
SB: 1 Phyrexian Revoker
SB: 1 Gaddock Teeg

It should perform acceptably against combo, and it has its own combo to try and race aggro and recursion can win attrition wars. The recursion of the deck performs admirably against control as well.



peace,
4eak

[264505]

Maybe consider Life from the Loam. Any deck with the ability to abuse Zombie Infestation should be able to get an engine going. If its strictly used one or 2 times to drop ghasts or vines into the yard, its not all that useful.

[4eak]

I have worries about both Fauna Shaman and Zombie Infestation. The problem is that there aren't a lot of alternative discard outlets that I like. Prowler is pretty sweet becomes you activate it multiple times a turn, you can use it the turn it comes into play, and it is dangerous enough on its own. Fauna can be 'meh' in some matches (and, in others, it is godly) -- being unable to dump cards because of removal sucks -- Zombie Infestation shines where Fauna fails. You also want to have more than 8 discard outlets, I think.

Infestation is one of the first cards I would cut (which makes Loam less useful in this case). I don't know what to do about it. Perhaps going for a slightly better manabase is preferable, as hardcasting VV and BG is common enough.



peace,
4eak

[klaus]

Loaming Shaman seems like a a strong SB choice - I wonder, why so few GSZ lists abuse him. I realize 3G maybe too slow against Dredge.dec, but it's quick enough against Loam.dec and friends.

Putrid Imp might be an okay replacement for Infestation.

I'm not sold on 8 Duress effects with Shriekmaw being your only creature removal. Postboard 12 is just overkilll. If you wanna fight combo/control there are better weapons. You should add Bayous (well in theory) and be able to support Hymns.

Either way -2 MD discard spells + 2 Smother looks solid - keep in mind that you wanna be able to stall against aggro until Vengevines hit the scene.

I'm missing a Thrun somewhere among those 75 too.
-

Just my 2 Pence.

[4eak]

Hymn, Bayou, Putrid Imp are not legal. (Remember, this is the Modern Format Forum)

Dredge is probably dead (DR banned). Loaming Shaman was originally in the list, but until I see major reasons to run him (I don't just yet), I'll be leaving him out.

Thrun is interesting, I will try it.

I'd still rather have more Shriekmaw than Smother -- they activate VV, pitch to Fauna, and they fly for beats when hardcast.

Discard also looks quite important against the various combo decks out there. It should buy enough time to race.


peace,
4eak

[4eak]

The banning of GSZ forced me to change the deck, but because I still have Fauna shaman, I'm still more comfortable running 1-of's than usual.

Decklist:

// Lands - 22
4 Forest
4 Swamp
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Marsh Flats
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Dryad Arbor

// Mana Dudes - 6
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Elves of Deep Shadow

// Discard Outlets - 9
4 Oona's Prowler
4 Fauna Shaman
1 Zombie Infestation

// The "Build Around" Cards - 8
4 Vengevine
4 Bloodghast

// Additional ToolBox - 5
1 Eternal Witness
1 Tarmogoyf
1 Viridian Zealot
1 Shriekmaw
1 Kitchen Finks

// Hand Destruction - 9
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Thoughtseize
1 Raven's Crime

// Lonely Loam - 1
1 Life from the Loam

// Sideboard
SB: 2 Shriekmaw
SB: 1 Fleshbag Marauder
SB: 1 Big Game Hunter
SB: 1 Gatekeeper of Malakir
SB: 1 Vampire Nighthawk
SB: 1 Phyrexian Revoker
SB: 4 Nature's Claim
SB: 3 Kitchen Finks
SB: 1 Thrun, the Last Troll

Loam is surprisingly good in this deck. The deck can get mana-hungry, and it allows you to recur for use with Crime, Infestation, and Arbor (which is useful for activating both VV and BG).


peace,
4eak

[Sims]

4eak, how about a singleton Scryb Ranger? While blue might not necessarily be super prevelant in this format, the ability to untap Shaman and use it more as Survival is strong, enables you to reuse a forest or a mana critter to cast another creature to trigger vines, and Flash means it can make at least 2 surprise blockers in a pinch (itself + untapping a vine for instance).

[4eak]

That makes perfect sense. I think I'll cut Tarmogoyf for it (I don't say that sentence often, but when I do...).


peace,
4eak

[Mr. Safety]

I think you're missing a great opportunity with Loam/Crime here. I have been playing 2 Loams and 3 Raven's Crimes in my BUG list for the past 2 weeks...certifiably awesome-sauce. In the late game, you shut your opponent out easily. I would understand your 1-ofs with Gifts Ungiven, but I'm using Gifts x2 and still running 3 Crimes/2 loams. They are just that good.

So for your setup, I would suggest this:

-3 Inquisition of Kozilek
+2 Raven's Crime
+1 Life from the Loam

Raven's Crime can be used on yourself easily enough, and is pretty much impossible to disrupt.

Considering your discard-heavy focus, I'd want Crime//Punishment in your 75 somewhere as well.

[morgan_coke]

Why do you not have Liliana2 in there as a 4x for a discard outlet? I'm really confused by that, especially with your birds/elfs ability to consistently land her on turn 2.

[Maveric78f]

Liliana and Pod want to integrate the deck. Roughly, something like that.

// Lands - 20
4 Forest
4 Swamp
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Marsh Flats

// Mana Dudes - 6
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Elves of Deep Shadow

// Discard/Sacrifice Outlets - 12
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Fauna Shaman
4 Birthing Pod

// The "Build Around" Cards - 8
4 Vengevine
4 Bloodghast

// Additional ToolBox - 6 (for ramping up to 4CC)
3 Eternal Witness
3 Kitchen Finks

// Hand Destruction - 8
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Thoughtseize

The basic idea is that Bloodghast can be sacrificed every turn to fetch for Witness and Finks. Which in turn can be sacrificed to find Vengevine. It may be slow but the fact you can chain discard with witness on seize/kozilek or alternately gain life with finks make me think it can be efficient. The good thing about this list is that we don't play any bad card without any engine (except maybe bloodghast). The other good thing is that it's not as much graveyard dependent as it used to be.

[4eak]

That is a very interesting approach, Maveric. It moves away from aggressiveness, but it clearly has long term staying power. I'm not sure if this is necessary or not, as the deck already has an impressive mid and late game. Liliana does look tailormade for the deck though =). Birthing Pod, even though it is highly abusable, isn't so convincing on paper. I'll try it out anyways.



peace,
4eak

[DragoFireheart]

This is going to be the next deck I want to work on. Black is going to be the best control color in this format as the only major cards it loses are Hymn and Sinkhole.