GB Vengevine [Hogaak Placeholder Thread] [Archive]

ReAnimator

12-04-2017, 04:44 PM

Way back, before Survival was banned rather than running UG, UGW or GBW, I was running a straight GB Aggro version. I top 8’d a bunch of local events with it, the strengths it had vs the more stock lists were that it’s agro plan A was very strong and could beat people on it’s own, and then if you needed to go to the late game you had your survival engine for that. It was also very very fast, you could kill on turn 2 and 3 without that much trouble with is pretty insane especially just off of creatures, not that it was the focus, but nice when it happened.
(Turn one putrid imp discard 2 vengevines and a rootwalla, swing for 8, turn two, swing with everything and pump rootwalla for 12 exactly)

Fast forward to today, and there are a whole bunch of new goodies to help make this work. The survival version didn’t even have access to all the awesome Return to Ravnica GB cards. So I’ve dusted it off and started toying around with it again. It still has the turn 2 and 3 kills, which is nice, it doesn’t have the late game inevitability of Survival of course, but it does now have somewhat of a draw engine and tools to better grind out the late game. The fast kills are in no way the point of the deck just a side benefit if they do happen. It’s possible I should remove more of the interactivity and focus on those explosive early turns, but I would worry about combo matches a lot. I’m more interested in being semi well rounded than a glass cannon. If I was all in I would just be on dredge, so it’s better to play with those strengths and flexibility in mind.
Because we aren’t on Blue, there is a way higher degree of inconsistency here, so I’m trying to fix that, but I’m not quite sure how or if it’s even possible.

This is very much a work in progress, I’m just brewing and having fun at this point, but I feel there is enough going on here that it’s worth exploring.

GB Vengevine

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Putrid Imp
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Cryptbreaker
2 Gravecrawler
4 Lotleth Troll
4 Vengevine
3 Hollow One

3 Cabal Therapy
3 Collective Brutality
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Driven to Despair

4 Bayou
1 Pendelhaven
1 Forest
3 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
5 Black Fetches
2 Green Fetches

So a few card notes on specific choices:

Cryptbreaker
I’m testing this out, it does a lot of heavy lifting for a 1 drop. It can draw cards, make creatures and be a discard outlet. Those are all things this deck is very much interested in. The big knock against it, is that it doesn’t do much in multiples, or attack well, and I really don’t have a ton of zombies in here, so it can take a bit to get online. That being said this deck isn’t trying to just abuse it as much as possible, and it still does good work even with that low zombie count.

Hollow One
I want a cheap and big back up creature other than vengevine, but hollow one does require you to jump through some hoops, and is way less impressive off the top. It’s been ok, but not fantastic, and sometimes a bit clunky. It’s possible that cutting back on the interactivity and pushing the synergies more would let Hollow One shine more, like the RB and RG lists you are seeing in modern right now. Without the draw engines in this build he may be the wrong solution to this problem. It is nice that he doesn’t get affected by graveyard hate or killed by most removal in the format. Street wraith could be a consideration here, to help out with this creature and to maybe shave a few lands, but I don’t know if that’s enough incentive for the life loss involved.

Driven to Despair
This card is really great and can do some absurd things in here. But it is very situational. I’d love to jam the full 4 but there just isn’t room, and it isn’t always good. Vs the decks with a lot of creature interactivity it can be pretty lack luster, but if you can get a big board presence early this will do some absurd things. The evasion it provides is also not to be underestimated.

Abrupt Decay
Oddly enough I’m pretty unhappy with this spell right now. You need some sort of removal, but not being able to deal with bigger creatures (anglers can be an issue) and things like Jace and batter skull that cost more than 3. Pulse is fine out of the board or even one main but it is expensive and clunky. Not sure what the best interactive option is.

Cabal Therapy
3 is a weird number for this spell, but honestly you don’t always want to be sacrificing a creature, and you can’t always do it for free. Vs the fair decks this isn’t super great, just fine, but you need something to be competitive with combo game one, and can always be boarded out.

While this is fairly graveyard dependent it isn’t wholly dependent, we don’t have goyf or bloodghast here so grave hate isn’t as bad as it could be. That being said, surgicals on vengvines are an issue and I’m not sure what the best way to combat this is. Ground Seal is cool, but It shuts off deathrites. Other catch all grave hate isn’t as bad, as you can still operate and hard cast things and play a fair and normal game, to some extent.

I’ve tested a one of Dryad Arbor just for potential synergies with therapy and getting an extra body for driven. But it’s gotten in the way more than it has helped so I’ve cut if for now, green isn’t very valuable in here so you don’t want too many mono green sources.

Sideboard

There are a world of options to play with here. The tricky part is the deck doesn’t operate that well if you dilute the creatures too much, so if there are creature based options those are preferred, as you can board in more things with out diluting your deck. However all the high impact sideboard cards are non creatures for the most part. My big question is if I want a bunch of reactive and hate cards or if I should try to be proactive and protect my own synergies.
I am fairly soft to sweepers, but Golgari Charm and other options don’t really help protect from a deluge or something similar, not sure what to do there.

Things that I want more of after board:

Creature removal:
Push, Go for the Throat, Dismember, Pulse, Decay, shriekmaw, Lilly, Edict, Pernicious Deed,
Big Game Hunter is a fun one and works really really well with your over all plan. How many you want depends on your meta, if you have lots of sneak and show, eldrazi, or reanimator, I’d want to be up to 3 or 4 of these.

Combo Disruption:
Therapy number 4, Lilly, Chains of Meph, Hymn, Surgical, Thoughtseize, Pithing Needle

Graveyard hate:
Leyline, Surgical, Macabre, Spellbomb, Sc-Ooze

Matchup specific cards and catch alls
Golgari Charm, Dread of Night, Carpet of Flowers, Pernicious Deed, Shapers Sanctuary, Marsh Casualties

I’m going to try to get out to some local events over the holidays and hopefully some real world testing will answer some of these questions.

Current list:

4 Putrid Imp
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
4 Lotleth Troll
4 Cryptbreaker
2 Diregraf Colossus
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Vengevine

3 Abrupt Decay
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Collective Brutality

4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Marsh Flats
3 Polluted Delta
4 Bayou
3 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Hanni

12-04-2017, 05:00 PM

Some important cards to consider that are not in your list:

Carrion Feeder
Dark Ritual
Entomb
Buried Alive
Contamination
Liliana of the Veil
Mutavault
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Filth
Brawn
Fatal Push
Zombie Infestation
Squee, Goblin Nabob

Hanni

12-04-2017, 05:20 PM

Fox

12-04-2017, 07:00 PM

The whole Vengevine thing is fine, but Bloodghast is probably just a better starting point.

Among your better discard enablers are traditionally Faithless Looting and Careful Study. There are other, newer cards that can fill this role including things like Wharf Infiltrator and Chart a Course, which can move you away from the graveyard. These are ofc blue, but there is also the idea of Leovold and Geier Reach Sanitarium/Cephalid Coliseum. If you're really dedicated to the green/black approach, there's some pretty dumb stuff you can do with Amonkhet cards like Archfiend of Ifnir and Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons.

Looking at the creatures in your list, DRS is great, but the rest is pretty questionable outside of the value triangle of Gravecrawler, Carrion Feeder (doubtful that this should be a 4x), and other zombies (Bloodghast). Basking Rootwalla is fine, but probably needs a better plan than maybe running him will allow me to make a 4/3 haste in a DRS format. Putrid Imp and Hollow one just aren't going to work very well (you're not getting away with playing Hollow One in legacy without Faithless Looting, at which point that's our 1-drop, not Imp). Cryptbreaker is in all likelihood too slow; this card is probably more at home in a Standstill shell that for some reason wants a creature over Innocent Blood??? Lotleth Troll and Vengevine are highly conditional - one requires a very real pitch zombie plan that runs directly into yard hate, and the other isn't all that realistic compared to the power level of what you're trying to achieve.

Buried Alive probably just has to be Entomb. Driven // Despair should be Sylvan Library, if anything like that. Once you get to the point of Entomb (where we aren't just playing reanimator), Vengevine should start looking like a worse and worse Bridge from Below; a card that is more effective as a tutored singleton even. If the point is to not be Zombardment and use Rootwalla, I think there is something to be said for Archfiend/Looting/Hollow One as the payoff idea to build around.

If I really can't dissuade you from running Vengevine, the creature you're looking for has to cost 1, have competitive stats, and bounce itself. The card you are looking for is Greenbelt Rampager.

Manroe

12-05-2017, 01:54 AM

I do like the idea but Goblin Bombardment is really hard to pass up on. As far as the Hollow One goes though, what about using Mox Diamond as an accelerator and enabler alongside dakmor salvage?

Mr. Safety

12-05-2017, 08:01 AM

Bloodghast and Buried Alive both seem very good to me. Bloodghast is just pure gas with Carrion Feeder and Cabal Therapy. I would even consider playing Dark Ritual in this deck, just to get faster starts and enable t1 Buried Alive. Similar to Pox, Dark Ritual allows for broken starts while being a pitch card to Liliana/Collective Brutality in the mid-late game.

ReAnimator

12-05-2017, 01:26 PM

First of all, thank you everyone for your freedback! Lots to chew on.

A few general comments, I’m mostly not interested in going more all in on the graveyard, as I think the logical end game of doing so is usually dredge or reanimator. The thing those decks can’t do is play a legitimate plan b or plan c. I would like this to be a functional deck when going up against graveyard hate, as that is where the strength lies in it’s ability to not crumble to hate and have a legitimate plan b. Similar to Zombardment and others. That being said Bloodghast is fine to play around with as it can be more slow rolled.

I’ve run Zombardment and Contamination decks in the past many times. I’m not really interested in building a Contamination deck as it requires a lot of build around, and I’m already building around other things here, it also doesn’t really mesh with the current game plan, it would be a totally different deck.

I don’t have anything that costs more than 2 in here, realistically. I don’t think Buried Alive is fast enough or flexible enough to do good work here. It seems pretty slow and clunky in a deck that is trying to be faster.
Entomb I could get behind, but it starts to eat up lots and lots of slots and cuts back on your creature slots. Also it plays into your graveyard dependency more and starts leading you down the path of just being a bad reanimator deck. I’ll test it out and see how it goes, but my initial feeling is that it’s not going to accomplish what I want. I could be wrong.

I’ve run Carrion Feeder engines before, maybe this is the right shell to put that back into, it’s a one drop and a zombie, and gives a different engine to threaten with, though it is affected by graveyard hate.
One interesting interaction with Carrion Feeder and Gravecrawler, is Diregraf Colossus. It becomes a very broken token engine pretty quickly, might be something to explore.

I can see cutting Rootwalla’s for more zombies, it makes you way less explosive though as turn 1 and 2 vengevines are way harder to get in play. If I’m less all in though getting a turn 2 or 3 vengevine can still be fine.

Dark Rituals are an interesting idea, I worry about being even less consistent though because of them. The upside is that it will enable the early explosive plays that we are looking for even without rootwalla.

With Carrion Feeder in, Bloodghast starts making more sense, but it’s not a zombie, might be hard to squeeze in.

I’ll test out a new list tonight, dropping the Rootwallas and Hollow ones, for the Carrion Feeder engine and Colossus, I’ll try out dark rituals as well to see if they help bridge that gap in speed.

@Fox I like some of your thoughts but some of your suggestions confuse me a bit. Why would I be building a -1/-1 Themed counter deck? How can you ever justify a 3BB casting creature that doesn’t win the game on the spot? You say cryptbreaker is slow, well not as slow as a 5 drop for sure. Rampager is a cool creature, but getting triggers for Vengevine isn’t a problem at all, it’s not like we need to activate it every turn either. Seems even more niche than something like rootwalla.

morgan_coke

12-05-2017, 03:36 PM

Man, I have a whole thread on this deck concept somewhere, though it's old and dated now. You really want to go heavy on the draw and discard stuff. I ended up in 4c iirc. Something like (updated for today)

4x Careful Study
4x Faithless Looting
4x Cabal Therapy
3x Collective Brutality
3x Deep Analysis

4x Squee, Goblin Nabob
4x Vengevine
4x Bloodghast
4x Gravecrawler
4x Basking Rootwalla
4x Prized Amalgam
1x Haakon, Stromgald Scourge
1x Skaab Ruinator

20 lands

I ended up ditching the concept because it ended up just being a worse version of Dredge. It's a really fine line between "all in on taking advantage of graveyard beats and ending up a worse version of Dredge" and "all in on being able to hardcast stuff and being a worse version of Rock"

MD.Ghost

12-06-2017, 05:40 AM

For reference, this is an experimental list that I put together about a year ago:

Lands (20)
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Marsh Flats
2 Polluted Delta
4 Bayou
3 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Mutavault

Creatures (20)
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Putrid Imp
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
4 Vengevine

Spells (20)
4 Buried Alive
2 Contamination
4 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Liliana of the Veil
4 Abrupt Decay

With Fatal Push and Collective Brutality in the card pool now, I'd definitely cut some number of Thoughtseize and/or Abrupt Decay for some. I'm not even sure how good Liliana is right now, either.

The premise behind Carrion Feeder was that he gave resiliency to Swords to Plowshares and Terminus for Gravecrawler and Vengevine, and was a solid backup threat to the Vengevine plan when combined with Gravecrawler.

Contamination can be difficult to setup and is a little clunky, but it is brutal against most decks in the format.

I'm not saying this list is any good, or any better than yours, just that this was where I ended up with the concept last year. I have not worked on it at all since then.

EDIT: Also, Entomb may be better than Buried Alive. Buried Alive is slow, and although powerful, Entomb would be better at setting up Contamination locks. Entomb is faster to set up Vengevine beats (turn 2) as opposed to Buried Alive (turns 3 or 4), too.

I would transform Hannis list to something like this:

// 60 Maindeck

// 25 Creature
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Putrid Imp
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
3 Vengevine
3 Lotleth Troll
1 Vengeful Pharaoh
3 Bloodghast

// 6 Instant
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Entomb
1 Darkblast

// 20 Land
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Marsh Flats
2 Polluted Delta
4 Bayou
3 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Mutavault
1 Scrubland

// 9 Sorcery
2 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Collective Brutality

// 15 Sideboard
SB: 2 Null Rod
SB: 2 Tidehollow Sculler
SB: 2 Fleshbag Marauder
SB: 2 Sylvan Library
SB: 3 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Path to Exile
SB: 2 Golgari Charm

Looks like some fun and in the past i really enjoyed Walking Dead etc. you can get some good interaction with the cards. Its maybe still to weak for legacy but a lot of players will underestimate a brew like this so you can easily outplay some situations if you have done your homework and knew whats to do with this pile of cards.

ReAnimator

12-06-2017, 11:49 AM

So I tested this a little last night vs Grixis delver to see how it ran and it wasn’t too bad, I learned a lot about certain cards and some directions I want to go.

What I was playing with feedback form here:

4 Putrid Imp
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
4 Lotleth Troll
4 Cryptbreaker
2 Diregraf Colossus
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Vengevine

3 Abrupt Decay
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Collective Brutality

4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Marsh Flats
2 Polluted Delta
4 Bayou
3 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Crypbreaker is super strong and worth building around and supporting. It does a lot of heavy lifting in here. I’m not surprised it was a cornerstone of a standard deck for a long time. With the addition of a bunch more zombies it can really get going fast.

The Feeder / Crawler engine is great, people here were right it adds an extra dimension and it doesn’t take much for a crawler to get out of hand. It is a very mana hungry engine though, the basic forest got in the way a few times not just with this, but with 16 one drops on B you are often on 2 of them turn 2 and the forest can really screw up your tempo.

Diregraf Colossus surprised me, it’s sort of like a young pyromancer, and if you have a Cryptbreaker out it starts cascading out of control very quickly.

Dark rituals were something I tried at Mr.Safety’s suggestion, but it’s really not what the deck is looking for. Because of the activated abilities in here and when you have crawler / feeder going, having permanent mana sources is just way more desirable. The explosiveness wasn’t worth the greater lack of consistency, and if you have a Lotleth and a Cryptbreaker in play you are going to want lands, not one shot activations. Worth trying out for sure though.

@morgan, yeah that’s not the direction I want to go at all, for the reasons you stated, it doesn’t really have many advantages at that point over just being dredge, and since it’s all in on that strategy it can’t really play out like a normal deck when you need too.

@MD.Ghost That list is really close to where I’m at now and what I tested last night. A few things I’m doing different. I think Mutavault is probably too greedy this deck can be very colour intensive so much so that I want to cut the basic forest from my list. You might be able to support a couple if you had more urborgs which work well with bloodghasts too. I like the idea of the mini entomb package it just eats up a lot of slots. So I’ll have to test that out.

Hanni

12-07-2017, 11:22 AM

ReAnimator

12-07-2017, 03:01 PM

Keep in mind, the list I posted was built for a different metagame, back when CounterTop Miracles was the most played deck. Cards like Mutavault and Abrupt Decay were much more valuable then. Cutting Mutavault for more Swamps seems better now. Without Mutavault, there is no point in having Urborg.

I still think Contamination is incredibly powerful. If not maindeck, then at least sideboard.

I'm not sold on Lotleth at all. There are only 8 creature cards you would want to discard to it. Otherwise, it's extremely mediocre.

I can get behind Cryptbreaker. The deck definitely benefits from a high count of both 1cc creatures and zombies, so it makes sense. The abilities seem a bit too slow for Legacy, but it does give the deck some more midrange power by being able to convert excess lands or other dead cards into zombie tokens later on, should the game go that long. The ability to tap down a pile of weak zombies to draw a card seems decent, though I'm not sure how often that it would come up. Still, being 1cc and a zombie has me sold.

I'm not sold on Diregraf Colossus. It is rarely going to come into play with multiple counters, and the only way you're making a bunch of tokens with it is with the Feeder/Crawler engine, which seems win-more. I realize that there are enough zombies to naturally make a couple of tokens with it if you sequence properly, but it's 3cc. Even in this shell, it pales in comparison to Monastery Mentor.

If you cut Lotleth and Diregraf, you could fit more discard, removal, Entomb, Contamination, Liliana, Buried Alive, whatever. Personally, I'd advocate for 4 Entomb and 2 Contamination.

There is a point for urborg but it's minor, saving life points off of fetches is relevant for Cryptbreaker, every extra life you have could be a card. I just have to figure out if Urborg helps out my opponents more than me.

I might try contamination out of the board, i do love the card, just not sure it has the support or if it's more effective than other sideboard hate. I worry that people are going to bring in yard hate anyway, so it might be hard to keep going. It also has the problem of needing a Basic Forest in your mana base, and a way to set up making it fetchable easily.

Lotleth isn't super amazing but it'a actually really really hard to kill in the format right now. STP's are at the lowest they've ever been. Something like Grixis or Czech pile have no real answers to it, and the trample is relevant vs protection creatures in D&T, and vs young pyro tokens. The regenerating can keep something like a Angler at bay indefinitely which is nice too.

Cryptbreaker was deceptively amazing when i started testing it. You have a ton of 1 drops in here, so often you can just start activating the draw on it turn 2, which is way better than swinging in for 3 or 4 damage. There have been a few games in testing where i was just drawing 2 cards a turn from turn 2 onwards, the fact that it does more than that later was really great.

I'm not sold on Diregraf either. Your points are valid, it might be too win more, and it might not be strong enough on it's own. It's been testing better than i thought it would be, so i'll give it a shot for a bit longer, but i think you are right and it isn't going to be there in the end.

Thanks for the awesome feedback.

Fox

12-07-2017, 07:37 PM

@Fox I like some of your thoughts but some of your suggestions confuse me a bit. Why would I be building a -1/-1 Themed counter deck? How can you ever justify a 3BB casting creature that doesn’t win the game on the spot? You say cryptbreaker is slow, well not as slow as a 5 drop for sure. Rampager is a cool creature, but getting triggers for Vengevine isn’t a problem at all, it’s not like we need to activate it every turn either. Seems even more niche than something like rootwalla.
I'm not advocating some all-out -1/-1 counter plan, it's just so effortless to take a strategy like this and have a few unintentionally-supported Archfiends to go way over the top for very low risk [cycling; there is no obligation to ever cast it]. When I look at the original deck idea I see at least three reasonably competitive [non-blue] decks whose concepts were mashed together to make the original list - Looting/Rootwalla/Archfiend/Hollow, Rootwalla/Vengevine/more build-around with concepts like Rampager, and then Zombardment. While all of these approaches are less-winning (probably) than B/R reanimator, one wall I keep running into with Vengevine is that the G/B approach feels worse than Zombardment...and if you really focused on green, it should probably just be elves.

The main decision fork you're going to run into is whether or not your deck wants the zombie value engine, or if it wants to really try and maximize Rootwalla in some way. I think it's going to be pretty difficult to find the slots to do both at once, particularly if Vengevine is still in the mix. When you tally up Rootwalla/Bloodghast/Gravecrawler, you're reaching a critical mass of cards that are telling you to play Faithless Looting and Cabal Therapy - for the sake of simplicity let's say these are all playsets so we have 20 slots solved. We know we're running DRS x4 and at least 4x slots of Brutality/Decay and now we're really only working with 12 slots as roughly 20 are reserved for lands. Those last 12 slots can't really support Vengevine as we want more value, more powerful synergies, more PWs, more interaction, and potentially the 1 mana black instant (Rit or Entomb).

There might be a competitive Vengevine build, but I'd be more inclined to have 58 cards that have a plan which happens to align with Archfiend. I think the effect is more powerful than potentially assembling repeatable 4/3 haste creatures, while also attacking on a different axis. The starting point for me would be:
Creatures (18)
-DRS x4
-Basking Rootwalla x4
-Bloodghast x4
-Gravecrawler x4
-Archfiend of Ifnir x2

Spells (22)
-Cabal Therapy x4
-Faithless Looting x4
-Collective Brutality x3
-Abrupt Decay x1
-Entomb x4
-Liliana of the Veil x2
-Thoughtseize x2
-Bridge from Below x1
-Contamination x1

Lands (20)
-Cavern of Souls x2
-Badlands x3
-Swamp x2
-Bayou x2
-Verdant Catacombs x4
-Bloodstained Mire x4
-Polluted Delta x2
-Mutavault x1

SB options I like:
-Abrupt Decay
-Surgical Extraction
-Contamination
-Krosan Grip
-Vengeful Pharaoh
-Toxic Deluge
-Sulfur Elemental
-Dread of Night
-Diabolic Edict
-Sylvan Library
-Ground Seal (maybe...if you expected a lot of SCM/StP and are open to boarding out DRS)
-Leyline of the Void
-Liliana, the Last Hope
-Fatal Push
-Darkblast

In terms of value, more zombie creature types for Gravecrawler would have been fine [Carrion Feeder]. In my list I'm deferring that value into Entomb synergies and open to the idea of hiding a zombie in the manabase w/ Mutavault. The list checks the synergistic combos box, without derailing the plan, with Archfiend and Contamination. Another approach could have been Hollow One, although it moves away from a Gravecrawler emphasis. The walkers are there, and the additional interaction slots are properly filled (Thoughtseize). The mana base is probably generally okay, and the number of Decay can be optimized with relative ease.

ReAnimator

12-08-2017, 10:25 AM

Thanks for this Fox, I totally understand your thought process, and you are probably right that the logical end game of any deck like this is just bad dredge or bad reanimator. You are right on the not having enough slots to go for all the synergies.

I think in the list you posted, there really isnt’ a reason to be green. Root Walla could probably be hollow one, you’d probably need street wraiths as well. I know the RB Hollow one lists that are seeing play in modern right now are running some call to the nether worlds as well, which can make an interesting engine with Wraith and Archfiend.

I guess for my exploration I want to explore the zombie based list I posted. With a small VVine engine that isn’t all in on it. But I’ll test out the Entomb engines, and other builds.

Really appreciate your thoughts.

Mr. Safety

02-11-2019, 08:08 AM

Curious where you left off with this ReAnimator? DRS was likely the reason this deck couldn't get off the ground but also one of the best enablers of the strategy. Without it, I've been brewing a list lately due to the hotness of the Dark Ritual/Buried Alive/Arclight Phoenix interaction. I think that Bg can play a similar game with Vengevines, Bloodghasts, and to a smaller extent Hollow Ones. Attacking for 9 with hasty flyers is likely better than attacking for 12 with hasty 4/3's but the difference is that we would have access to Abrupt Decay and other forms of disruption to fight the metagame. Here is my theoretical list, dropping the zombie engine (Gravecrawler/Carrion Feeder) for Street Wraith/Hollow One.

4x Putrid Imp
4x Basking Rootwalla
4x Vengevine
4x Hollow One
4x Bloodghast
4x Street Wrath
1x Tombstalker
1x Vengeful Pharaoh

4x Thoughtseize
2x Collective Brutality
4x Dark Ritual
4x Buried Alive
2x Abrupt Decay

4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Marsh Flats
2x Windswept Heath
1x Bayou
2x Blooming Marsh
4x Swamp
2x Forest
1x Treetop Village

2x Pithing Needle (could be Ground Seal)
2x Diabolic Edict
4x Faerie Macabre
1x Maelstrom Pulse
2x Sylvan Library
1x Liliana, the Last Hope
3x Hymn to Tourach

The idea is to piggyback on your premise of using the graveyard, but not going all-in (unless it can play around it, for example t1 blast of Vengevines or Hollow Ones.) I really leaned out the disruption package, possibly too much, but I'm not sure. In testing this list I have found that it is decent at explosive starts and can grind ok, but not fantatastic. It really wants 2 4-power threats by turn 2 to really put the pressure on.

kinda

02-11-2019, 08:28 AM

Curious where you left off with this ReAnimator? DRS was likely the reason this deck couldn't get off the ground but also one of the best enablers of the strategy. Without it, I've been brewing a list lately due to the hotness of the Dark Ritual/Buried Alive/Arclight Phoenix interaction. I think that Bg can play a similar game with Vengevines, Bloodghasts, and to a smaller extent Hollow Ones. Attacking for 9 with hasty flyers is likely better than attacking for 12 with hasty 4/3's but the difference is that we would have access to Abrupt Decay and other forms of disruption to fight the metagame. Here is my theoretical list, dropping the zombie engine (Gravecrawler/Carrion Feeder) for Street Wraith/Hollow One.

4x Putrid Imp
4x Basking Rootwalla
4x Vengevine
4x Hollow One
4x Bloodghast
4x Street Wrath
1x Tombstalker
1x Vengeful Pharaoh

4x Thoughtseize
2x Collective Brutality
4x Dark Ritual
4x Buried Alive
2x Abrupt Decay

4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Windswept Heath
2x Marsh Flats
1x Bayou
2x Blooming Marsh
4x Swamp
2x Forest
1x Treetop Village

2x Pithing Needle (could be Ground Seal)
2x Diabolic Edict
4x Faerie Macabre
1x Maelstrom Pulse
2x Sylvan Library
1x Liliana, the Last Hope
3x Hymn to Tourach

The idea is to piggyback on your premise of using the graveyard, but not going all-in (unless it can play around it, for example t1 blast of Vengevines or Hollow Ones.) I really leaned out the disruption package, possibly too much, but I'm not sure. In testing this list I have found that it is decent at explosive starts and can grind ok, but not fantatastic. It really wants 2 4-power threats by turn 2 to really put the pressure on.

I really like the deck, but rootwalla is a bad card imo and bloodghast too I think. I would cut these two for nimble mongoose and tarmogoyf. The deck in my mind would be eva green with an oops I win combo in the deck. I would cut tombstalker and pharaoh for more brutalities too or discard liliana.

Edit: maybe bob over goyf?

Mr. Safety

02-11-2019, 09:29 AM

I really like the deck, but rootwalla is a bad card imo and bloodghast too I think. I would cut these two for nimble mongoose and tarmogoyf. The deck in my mind would be eva green with an oops I win combo in the deck. I would cut tombstalker and pharaoh for more brutalities too or discard liliana.

Edit: maybe bob over goyf?

Thanks for the thoughts! I really appreciate it.

I think Gurmag Angler would probably be slightly better than Tarmogoyf. Rootwalla is a bad card by itself but enables free creature plays to trigger vengevines. It isn't the worst as a mana-sink if I get flooded, too. Gurmag could be another 1-mana card to trigger Vengevines.

I think Mongoose could be good as a substitute for Hollow One if I went with Dark Confidant, which I think is a great suggestion. It would give me more 1-mana threats that don't ding me for 5 if flipped with Confidant. I'm a little hesitant on Mongoose however because it's one of the worst threats in RUG Delver lately, some people switching over to Hooting Mandrills in some number instead of Mongoose. I'll have to keep them in reserve. I'm also playing Street Wraiths, which are fantastic at getting cheap Hollow Ones and allow me to trim down to 18 lands. That's a lot of high-mana cards, risky for Bobs.

Liliana of the Veil is really not great in legacy anymore. I don't think she's bad, but I don't think I can afford to dedicate too many slots to slow discard outlets. I think Ritual into Buried Alive is a faster, more reliable way to get Vengevines for cheap. I feel like if I wanted to grind there are better Black mid-range decks. I think for an agro deck to be viable it needs to be quick onto the board. I'd love to play Wild Mongrel, but even at 2 mana it's slow. Ditto on Lotleth Troll.

Bloodghast is there as a secondary outlet to Buried Alive. If my Vines get surgical-ed (very possible) I can still assemble 6 power with triple Bloodghast. They are easier to trigger too, just needing a land drop. I can typically hold an uncracked fetch in reserve.

Great thoughts, just letting you know why I came to this configuration. I'll keep all of your ideas in reserve if I see any glaring holes they could help. Also keeping Big Game Hunter, Stinkweed Imp and Darkblast on my testing list.

EDIT: Also Stitcher's Supplier, great with Cabal Therapy if I decide to use that.

maharis

02-11-2019, 12:53 PM

I played this in a league, think I went 2-3 or 3-2. Fun but very inconsistent. However, here's an idea if you want it:

4 Stitcher's Supplier
4 Bloodghast
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Gravecrawler
4 Vengevine
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Putrid Imp
2 Carrion Feeder
2 Cryptbreaker
1 Filth

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Assassin's Trophy
1 Life from the Loam

3 Bayou
2 Swamp
2 Forest
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Marsh Flats
2 Windswept Heath

I don't remember the sideboard, probably 4 Thoughtseize, 4 Surgical, 4 Thorn of Amethyst, 3 Krosan Grip or something like that.

Mr. Safety

02-11-2019, 01:13 PM

Thanks! If you don't mind me asking, where were the inconsistencies? What were the matchups? Was it hate or the deck losing to itself that made it play out poorly?

Prized Amalgam has been on my mind but I wanted to avoid creatures I can't cast. Interested on your take with that creature in particular. In general I'd love to know if you were happy with the zombie engine or if it was too 'all-in'.

Again, like ReAnimator started with, I'm looking for a deck that can puke out 4/3's and 4/4's turns 1-2 but not be so dependant on the graveyard that a single piece of hate wrecks me. Post-board I'm looking to be a much more 'fair' deck with Hymns and Libraries to grind out games.

FTW

02-11-2019, 01:46 PM

I designed a deck like this about 7 years ago, after Survival was banned and R2R was first spoiled. Even though enemy DRS hoses the deck, DRS wasn't so widely played right after it was printed (Abrupt Decay had the bigger hype), so it did pretty well in that meta.

The original core list was something like this, and had a transformational SB into Eva Green to dodge grave hate (boarding out Bloodghasts first for a partial transformation, or more for full transformation).

//Creatures: 34
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
4 Basking Rootwalla
3 Putrid Imp
4 Lotleth Troll
4 Wild Mongrel
3 Bloodghast
4 Vengevine

//Spells: 7
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Abrupt Decay

//Lands: 19
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Marsh Flats
3 Windswept Heath
4 Bayou
2 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

//Sideboard: 15
4 Dark Confidant
2 Tarmogoyf
2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Thoughtseize
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Disfigure

In different iterations I swapped in things like:
-All-in version: 4 Dark Ritual + 3 Buried Alive
-Toolbox version: 4 Green Sun's Zenith, Fauna Shaman and utility singletons
-Stinkweed Imp as more discard fodder/deathtouch blocker/gravefuel
-Zombie Infestation over Wild Mongrel
-Liliana of the Veil for a grindier version with better game against both control and Reanimator / NoPro / SnT (before Griselbrand was printed, when an edict was a good enough answer to Emrakul and Progenitus)

The deck ran a full 15-16 creatures you're happy to discard as fodder, 8-11 madness outlets, 11-12 recursive threats, and "grow" combos with Carrion Feeder and Lotleth Troll.

Trample+regenerate Lotleth Troll surprisingly wins a lot of games by itself against nonwhite decks. Troll is also a hard-to-kill zombie to enable Gravecrawler.

Mongrels + Trolls + Carrion Feeders let me bluff attacks into enemy boards without actually growing your guys, which was good in that creature-heavy X/2 meta of Maverick and Stoneblade, but I wouldn't run Mongrel today.

That many 1 drops and the Carrion-Crawler recursion made it easy to trigger Vengevines.

Carrion Feeder also saves Vengevines/Ghasts from StP/Terminus and was OP vs Batterskull/Jitte.format. For these reasons, the Carrion-Crawler combo had a lot of synergy in a Vengevine Madness build.

Undiscovered Paradise was old tech to recur Bloodghasts (or get another card to pitch to Mongrel).

Dark Confidant always got boarded in. The deck pitches its hand fast and is hungry for card draw to recover. The new Madness Asylum Visitor might be worth testing, but Bob is never bad in a low curve deck.

The SB swap caught a lot of people off. Turns out good cards are good, and making them mull to gravehate while boarding out Bloodghasts + Buried Alives gives you a good matchup.

I abandoned the deck years ago as the meta changed.

Hollow One + the banning of DRS are great reasons to consider this archetype again.

When I tested Buried Alive in the old list, it also had DRS to play Buried Alive turn 2 (without Dark Ritual) and Carrion-Crawler combo to exploit Dark Ritual mana without Buried Alive, so at least the cards weren't dead without the combo. Buried Alive could also grab Bloodghasts or Gravecrawlers if Vengevines got Extracted. Often I just played the deck without Dark Ritual (accelerating Buried Alive with mana dorks), then boarded out Buried Alive most game 2/3 because the payoff wasn't good enough to waste resources defending against gravehate.

Going all-in on Buried Alive may not be good. Dark Ritual + Buried Alive doesn't help trigger Vengevine (while it does trigger Phoenixes), so you still need to cast 2 more creatures. The ideal hand is Turn 1 Land + Dark Ritual + Buried Alive, Turn 2 Land + 2 1cc creatures. That's a very specific sequence and without cantrips or protection (unless you wait another turn). Also 4/3 Vengevines get blocked by Anglers, Goyfs, Germs, Knights, Mom + dork, TNN, and random 1/1 tokens. It's not as "sure" a clock as 3 Phoenixes.

Because you're running creatures instead of cantrips, it's a lot harder to assemble multi-card Buried Alive combos in this shell. Sometimes you have Magical Xmas land, but more often you're playing a fair game. It won't be as consistent as Phoenix. It's also less explosive and easier to disrupt, since you attack the turn after Buried Alive instead of the turn you cast it. It also doesn't recover from removal/blockers as easily. It's more awkward to cast 2 more creatures than it is to chain 3 cantrips (Gravecrawler recursion helps a lot, which is why Carrion-Crawler was in my old build).

OTOH, the big advantage this archetype has over Phoenix is that you're able to run a lot of threats. They're stuck in a spell-heavy shell with few threats. Even if your Vengevine plan gets stopped, you have many other threats to answer. Resilience and grindiness is where this deck could shine. That's why I usually played for a more balanced game instead of going all-in on Buried Alive with Dark Ritual.

With Vengeful Pharaoh you probably want another discard outlet, like Lotleth Troll or Cryptbreaker or Fauna Shaman so you can maintain the lock without Putrid Imp. Outlets that let you discard multiple cards at once for 0 mana (Putrid Imp, Lotleth Troll, Noose Constrictor, Zombie Infestation) are also good with Hollow One.

If you're going for a zombie build with Carrion-Crawler combo, Cryptbreaker is a great new zombie to include.

Without Carrion-Crawler, I might start with something like this

//Creatures: 31
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Noble Hierarch
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Putrid Imp
4 Lotleth Troll
4 Bloodghast
4 Vengevine
4 Hollow One
1 Vengeful Pharaoh

//Spells: 11
4 Thoughtseize
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Buried Alive

//Lands: 18
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
2 Marsh Flats
4 Bayou
3 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Undiscovered Paradise

With either Putrid Imp or Troll out, it's easy to play Hollow One for 0-1 mana.

Mana dorks are good. They're 1cc dorks to trigger Vengevine or discard as fodder. They enable turn 2 Buried Alive without the card disadvantage/dead slot of Dark Ritual. They let you get ahead on mana in fair games, even hardcasting Vengevine in a pinch. I'd probably start with mana dorks over Dark Ritual. It's less explosive but may be more consistent.

Dark Ritual might be easier to support in a zombie build, where you can use the mana on Carrion+Crawler or draw more cards with Cryptbreaker to make up for the card disadvantage.

//Creatures: 32
4 Cryptbreaker
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Putrid Imp
4 Lotleth Troll
4 Vengevine
4 Hollow One

//Spells: 12
4 Dark Ritual
4 Thoughtseize
4 Buried Alive

//Lands: 17
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Marsh Flats
2 Windswept Heath
4 Bayou
2 Swamp
2 Forest
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Another option is to play Fauna Shaman and maybe GSZ too with some toolbox cards like Quirion Ranger (untaps), Big Game Hunter (lol kills Emrakul and Griselbrand and 5/5s at instant speed for 1 mana), Vengeful Pharaoh, Gaddock Teeg (combo, Terminus), etc..

//Creatures: 30
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Putrid Imp
1 Quirion Ranger
4 Fauna Shaman
1 Lotleth Troll
3 Bloodghast
4 Vengevine
4 Hollow One
1 Vengeful Pharaoh

//Spells: 12
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Thoughtseize
4 Buried Alive

//Lands: 18
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Marsh Flats
2 Windswept Heath
3 Bayou
3 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Savannah
1 Dryad Arbor

//Toolbox Sideboard:
1 Big Game Hunter
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Knight of Autumn
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Scavenging Ooze

Edit: Prized Amalgam also looks like a great new card to include.

Mr. Safety

02-11-2019, 02:35 PM

Wow, excellent post. Many thanks. I have been trying to figure out how to accelerate correctly and now I've been debating Birds of Paradise instead of Dark Ritual. DR means I can do two things: t1 setups with Buried Alive or some combination of discard/Imps, or feed the bigger cost creatures in the mid-game. Birds of Paradise means I am offering up a Bolt target and at the earliest t2 Buried Alive/combos. However, Birds trigger Vengevine and work with Lotleth Troll. The biggest reason for avoiding Lotleth Troll so far is that it can only discard creatures for value whereas Imp and Brutality can discard any dead cards to enable Hollow Ones. Wild Mongrel is easier to cast and can also discard anything for value. Dark Ritual was also there to enable a smaller land count (18) while allowing me to hard-cast Street Wraiths/Hollow Ones in the mid-game even though I didn't have a discard outlet. Street Wraiths also help me dig for lands.

I like the zombie engine, it's very powerful, especially with the grow creatures of Carrion Feeder/Troll. I'm a little wary of conditional threats beyond fast VV's and HO's, just because the investment can be undone so easily. I just want to spam a bunch of 4 power dudes out and get attacking.

What I really like, easily the most informative part of your post, is the templating that you laid out. That is exactly what I needed to really start evaluating card choices and ratios. Awesome.

Interesting point about Scavenging Ooze (which I am really leaning towards out of the board): it can fizzle a Surgical Extraction while growing. I think of all the super-gro creatures you have listed this is easily the best, with Carrion Feeder being 2nd due to efficiency. I don't want Tarmogoyf's out of the board, they will already be gunning for the graveyard. Scavenging Ooze allows my cycling creatures to do double duty (Wraiths and Hollows) by drawing me cards and making a big Scooze.

Confidant I've already addressed: it's pretty risky given Hollow Ones, Street Wraiths, and Vengevines potentially digging my own life total hard. Hollow One is what is really driving me to build this so I think for now Dark Confidant needs to be on the back burner for card testing.

As for splashes, these are the two I'm considering: red for Looting + PFire/Grove engine and white for StP + Lingering Souls. Both of those have value cards that can be discarded to enable Hollow Ones. Both offer some decent sideboard options as well, something Bg might struggle with.

Again, super big thanks.

FTW

02-11-2019, 06:39 PM

Thanks. Glad to be of help brewing.

The biggest reason for avoiding Lotleth Troll so far is that it can only discard creatures for value

Yeah that's the biggest drawback. In my original build, I hedged by running a higher creature count and Wild Mongrels too (to pitch extra lands for value). DRS also helped fix the harder mana cost and get value out of discarded lands. Lots of synergy.

Also, without Hollow Ones it was less important to be able to pitch multiple lands early.

However, Birds trigger Vengevine and work with Lotleth Troll.

That's why I went with dorks. They're a turn slower but more synergistic and better topdecks. Topdeck Ritual is bad. Topdeck dork triggers Vengevine, sacs to Carrion Feeder, or pitches to Troll. Both Vengevine and Troll want a high creature count. Also with DRS it was a no-brainer. That card was too good not to play in BG. Birds is less clear-cut.

Wild Mongrel is easier to cast and can also discard anything for value.

If you like Mongrel, consider Noose Constrictor. It blocks Delvers and Phoenixes. Most cards today don't care about color.

Also, if you're playing stuff like PImp/Mongrel/Constrictor over Trolls, Lingering Souls is on the table. I couldn't run it because I needed creatures.

Street Wraiths also help me dig for lands.

Is Street Wraith that good? It helps you dig for the card you would have drawn if Street Wraith wasn't there. It has no relevant interaction with Vengevine, Buried Alive, Bloodghast or discard outlets. Best case it reduces Hollow One's cost by 2 but you still need another discard outlet, either Collective Brutality with 3 modes (needs targets) or PImp/Mongrel. Would it be better to just pitch 2-3 cards that want to be in your yard?

Wraith leads to more awkward mulligans in combo decks. It might do the same here.

Interesting point about Scavenging Ooze (which I am really leaning towards out of the board): it can fizzle a Surgical Extraction while growing.

Yeah, both that and DRS could for value.

Goyf isn't great when they bring in gravehate, but Scooze can have the same problem (e.g. with Relic and Rest in Peace). I was happy with a mix. You may want to start with 4 Oozes and see how it goes.

I like the zombie engine, it's very powerful, especially with the grow creatures of Carrion Feeder/Troll.

Carrion Feeder was great for me because it grows quickly (also grows with Bloodghasts + fetches/Paradise!), but also because it protects your guys from exile/Terminus or lets you profit when they try to kill things. If they shoot removal at Carrion Feeder instead of bigger threats, you're doing well, because it cost you so little investment. It's like Spellskite in that sense.

Viscera Seer could work for card selection. Sac outlets enable a more resilient midgame.

I'm a little wary of conditional threats beyond fast VV's and HO's

It's a risk. The nice thing is the threats all depend on different conditions, but in a way that synergizes. Troll is a discard outlet that grows. HO wants you to discard things but doesn't care about gravehate. VV and recursive threats want to be pitched to your graveyard, but can also be found with Buried Alive without a discard outlet. Carrion Feeder protects recursive threats, or it can eat dorks and tokens even if you have no graveyard or discard outlet.

Feeder may not be up your alley, but it's helpful to diversify threats instead of going too linear.

Confidant I've already addressed: it's pretty risky given Hollow Ones, Street Wraiths, and Vengevines potentially digging my own life total hard.

True. My build capped at 4cc with Vengevines. No Hollow Ones or Street Wraiths.

Asylum Visitor might be a non-awful alternative to Bob in a high curve deck. You're dumping your hand fast anyway, and you can cast it for Madness.

I like the white splash for Lingering Souls, especially with Carrion Feeders. At that point you're getting closer to Zombardment.

PFire offers removal that you otherwise lack. See which you need more of in your games: threats or answers.

Just be careful about running too many spells and not enough ways to get back Vengevines. I had that problem before. You need enough low cost creatures, otherwise well-timed hand disruption can shut you off Vengevine.

Mr. Safety

02-11-2019, 08:00 PM

I think of all the suggestions Carrion Feeder is by far the best. Its another cheap creature to trigger Vines and the synergy with Bloodghast is pretty big (same with Troll.)

You've really got me thinking about cutting Street Wraiths. It only helps Hollow One drops. I think that is the first spot to start considering Feeder/Troll/Viscera Seer slots.

I'll work out some numbers based on the templates you put forth. That will help me get to the right spot.

Edit: oh yeah, if i decide to go Troll + Gravecrawlers i would jam some Mutavaults in there.

Mr. Safety

02-12-2019, 06:24 AM

Updated list, I think I'm getting closer.

4x Putrid Imp
4x Birds of Paradise
4x Basking Rootwalla
4x Vengevine
4x Bloodghast
4x Hollow One
3x Lotleth Troll
2x Gurmag Angler
1x Vengeful Pharaoh

3x Thoughtseize
2x Cabal Therapy
3x Buried Alive
2x Collective Brutality
2x Abrupt Decay

4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Marsh Flats
2x Windswept Heath
1x Bayou
2x Blooming Marsh
4x Swamp
2x Forest
1x Treetop Village

Sideboard
3x Scavenging Ooze
2x Hymn to Tourach
1x Maelstrom Pulse
2x Sylvan Library
4x Faerie Macabre
2x Diabolic Edict
1x Darkblast

So that gives me 30 creatures, which is around the number I think is needed based on most of the lists posted. I took out Street Wraiths because they were only there to feed Hollow One. Putrid Imp and Lotleth Troll should do the same thing but with more upside, less downside. Birds are now my acceleration, which still allow for a t2 Buried Alive. Breaking it down:

Spam-threats - 14 (Vengevine, Hollow One, Bloodghast, Gurmag Angler)
Graveyard enablers - 12 (Putrid Imp, Lotleth Troll, Collective Brutality, Buried Alive)
Disruption - 10 (Thoughtseize, Therapy, Brutality, Decay, Pharaoh)
Acceleration/Enablers - 8 (Birds, Rootwalla)
Lands -18

I think this is a good place to start. It is lower on disruption than a typical Rock/Eva-Green deck but it is also very focused on it's own game plan. I think for a deck like this in this slower metagame, it needs to force opponent's to deal with what it is doing rather than try and answer what they are doing. It will always have the same weakness to combo decks where discard is too slow, other than graveyard decks which I think it can deal with just fine (Faerie Macabre, Scooze.) The alternative take I think (in straight Bg) is to cut the Anglers/shave a couple other spots to get in Carrion Feeders. I like that approach, especially where it rewards Bloodghasts and fetchlands.

My one big quandary now is how to sideboard. Taking the creature count down is ok if I'm replacing it with creatures (Scooze, Faerie) but cramming in the disruption will make some cuts more challenging. I suppose the weakest links are Bloodghasts and Rootwallas, especially if I'm trying to work around hate and hard-cast Vengevines. Those are basically just engine pieces. With Dark Ritual it was easy to just board out the rituals, but I also feel like I would be siding out Rituals a lot. It makes sense to just make the maindeck more solid and figure out sideboarding later.

If I play this week, this will be the list I take. I need 3x Birds of Paradise but I'm sure the shop has them. If not I can sub in Elves of Deep Shadow or Llanowar Elves in some number to make up for it.

Hanni

02-12-2019, 07:39 AM

The strength of this deck is the ability to put multiple threats into play on turns 1-2. For that reason, I would splash white for Tireless Tribe and run Lotus Petal. Putrid Imp and Basking Rootwalla are obviously critical pieces, in addition to the Vengevines and Hollow Ones. What you add in addition to that is up to you. Most of the best other options have already been suggested in previous posts.

Buried Alive aside, there's really no reason to run mana dorks. The deck is built to cheat on mana, and while the mana dorks could help to hardcast Vengevines, you really don't need to hit 3+ mana often. Dark Ritual is going to be better in a Buried Alive shell, if you go that route.

pettdan

02-12-2019, 08:05 AM

Hanni

02-12-2019, 08:31 AM

mistercakes

02-12-2019, 08:48 AM

for vengevine i like intuition. at least you can then end step intuition for 3 vengevine, then on your main phase cast vengevine and a 1 drop then attack for 12. cloudvine ftw.

Mr. Safety

02-12-2019, 09:40 AM

Honestly, Buried Alive just seems too slow for what this deck wants to be doing. The strength here is flooding the board on turns 1-2, and the only time Buried Alive is going to contribute to that is if you can ritual it out on turn 1.

When I get a few minutes, I'll put together a list that I would start from.

Looking forward to the list!

I think I will end up cutting some number of Buried Alive, probably 1-2. I think it is likely better on curve to replenish if I get hosed after a turn 1-2 spamming. Even getting 3x Bloodghast with Buried Alive is a decent amount of pressure.

I really like the Lotus Petal idea. I don't like the mana-dorks as non-threats either, I just saw them as a necessity. Lotus Petal provides green, which means I can do t1 Lotleth Troll. The most busted starts are always t1 Putrid Imp so t1 Troll is very similar. Definitely doing that because Dark Ritual doesn't make green mana. EDIT: Call me crazy, but is Elvish Spirit Guide a way to augment the plan? This is the acceleration Turbo Depths uses, which is amazing in that deck (coming from experience.)

-4 BoP
-1 Buried Alive

+4 Lotus Petal
+1 Open

I feel like I could cut a discard spell (going down to 4) and try and get something like Carrion Feeder in here. I wish Nimble Mongoose would be more reliable, just because a 3/3 shroud for G would be way ahead of the curve. Maybe 2 copies?

Mr. Safety

02-12-2019, 09:43 AM

This looks interesting! I just wanted to add a link to this decklist that ChristoferV has been experimenting with, it's a fair shell around Fauna Shaman and Vengevine. It's built more for fun than to be super competitive at this point, as I think ChristoferV put it, but since you discussed such an approach recently I thought why not link it.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?32280-M-O-S-T-Merieke-Opposition-(Survival)-Tradewind-Rider&p=1062699&viewfull=1#post1062699

I started messing with a list myself but nothing reasonable came out of it yet. I think Prized Amalgam seems pretty good, and you get Brainstorms too if you go for a BUG version, so I'll have a look at that. I think if going for Dark Rituals, Hymn is a pretty useful maindeck inclusion. T1 Dark Ritual into Thoughtseize and Hymn is a pretty good way to buy time vs both combo and control decks. The combo in this version, any Vengevine + Buried Alive/Intuition deck, is less aggressive it seems than a Phoenix version, so you probably need to build it a bit more controlling. Then Hymn seem like they could work. Disrupt the opponent, then smash in with your grindy creatures.

If going for a control version, it might make sense to use Intuition instead, and this would also open up for 1 of Loam + 1 Wasteland. I guess this is going too far at this point though, it's probably better to start with an aggressive version.

Thanks for the link and comments! I do agree on Hymn but I feel it's a sideboard strategy (as I'm moving away from Dark Ritual.) I'm looking to blast g1, similar to dredge or any other fast aggressive deck, and then drop some of the graveyard reliance for additional control. I agree that an aggressive version is the way to go, simply because a control version would be a little difficult to muster. Aggro Loam is probably the best mid-range/controlling semi-dredge deck. Out of simple blue dual land availability I'm staying away from blue. I can splash white or red (I have Scrublands and Taigas/Groves) but I'm not sure I want to do that yet. Thanks again!

pettdan

02-12-2019, 09:48 AM

Asthereal

02-12-2019, 09:50 AM

I tried IntuVine before. It was underwhelming from a threat perspective, but UGx is always playable because of the other cards it allows us to play.
I found in this case that I wanted a Bant-ish list instead, because that's more streamlined and focused.
Intuition is good but slow, and just casting Jace instead of tooling around with Vengevines felt stronger.

Buried Vines I tried as well. It worked sort of with Gravecrawlers and Lotleth Trolls next to just good cards, but I never got it to tournament level.
I added a few mana dudes to accellerate into Buried Alive, and the Crawlers made sure the 2nd Buried Alive stayed relevant.
Some removal and some discard round things up, and the deck looked okay. It did, however, struggle big time against Combo and Miracles.

Mr. Safety

02-12-2019, 09:52 AM

Here's a 2 minute list based on Hanni's suggestion, it makes some sense to use the 1 cmc enablers actually.

4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
2 Lotleth Troll
4 Vengevine
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Bloodghast
4 Hollow One
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Swords to plowshares
18 lands

Very cool. I have everything but the Tireless Tribes and the Prized Amalgams, both easy to find. I like StP, it's better removal, and I can make that mana base happen easily.

4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Marsh Flats
2x Windswepth Heath
1x Bayou
2x Scrubland
1x Blooming Marsh
1x Concealed Courtyard
2x Swamp
1x Forest
1x Plains
1x OPEN (Urborg, Savannah, Mishra's Factory, Karakas, Treetop Village)

Sideboard has plenty of options as well, with white giving a big boost with Canonist, Disenchant, Zealous Persectution, maybe even Lingering Souls.

ReAnimator

02-12-2019, 10:20 AM

Wow Mr. Safety this was quite the necro (ironically).
I haven't been fooling around with this at all in quite some time, and i appreciate all the discussion i'll have to read through this all later.

There are so many different ways to explore this style of deck, going all in, going very conservative, different colours, and now with DRS gone it's probably worth revisiting. Terminus is still the biggest issue for any deck like this.

Hanni

02-12-2019, 10:34 AM

I started working on a preliminary list as a starting point, but space is really tight (as it always is when building new decks).

As I mentioned before, I believe the core to be Tireless Tribe, Putrid Imp, Basking Rootwalla, Vengevine, and Hollow One.

Beyond that, I like the idea of building upon the synergy of the deck by increasing the discard outlets, creatures we want to discard (or don't mind discarding), and of course, more free creatures.

The strength of the deck is in its ability to flood the board with creatures quickly, which should certainly be the primary focus. To that end, I like the complement of Bloodghast, which is basically free when discarded. Between Bloodghast, Basking Rootwalla, Vengevine, and Hollow One, that's 16 free creatures.

Of course, we need more discard outlets to increase consistency. Since I am unaware of any other 1cc creatures with the ability to discard multiple cards without tapping, we have to move up to a 2cc creature. Lotleth Troll is clearly the best choice here. Permanent +1/+1 counters, trample, and regenerate put it league's ahead of every other 2cc option. The fact that it's a zombie is great too, which is relevant for Gravecrawler. The other option would Zombie Infestation, but I dislike the fact that you have to discard 4 cards to make Hollow One's free.

Despite not being free, Gravecrawler is still a great addition here, IMO. It doesn't mind being discarded and it's a great way to trigger Vengevines. A 2/1 body for one mana is solid, and helps contribute to flooding the board and applying pressure.

I like the idea of running Carrion Feeder for it's ability to protect the board of exile effects (Swords to Plowshares/Council's Judgment) and Terminus, as well as being able to sacrifice in response to life gain triggers from Batterskull (or even Griselbrand). Improving the Miracles and D&T matchups seems pretty worth it, to me. They also increase the zombie count for Gravecrawler, and improve the ability to retrigger Vengevines with Gravecrawler's midgame, so I'm pretty sure they're worth running. I'm thinking 2 copies is probably the correct amount, but I'm not sure.

The problem is that the above package takes up almost the entire deck. If I run 20 lands, or 16 lands and 4 Loutus Petals, that leaves me with 6 remaining slots for Cabal Therapy and Thoughtseize, but that's it. I really wanted to run some removal too, but I don't really have any space.

At any rate, here's my rough draft list as a starting point:

B/g/w Fiendish Nature

Lands (16)
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Marsh Flats
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Polluted Delta
3 Bayou
3 Scrubland
1 Swamp
1 Undiscovered Paradise

Creatures (34)
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Putrid Imp
4 Lotleth Troll
2 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Bloodghast
4 Vengevine
4 Hollow One

Spells (10)
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
4 Lotus Petal

16 lands may be too few for Bloodghast, I'm not really sure. I like the speed that Lotus Petal offers, but maybe the deck needs to cut them for more lands to properly support Bloodghast... I don't know.

Some interesting other cards I could see being included...

Wasteland
Mutavault
Prized Amalgam
Memnite
Big Game Hunter
Vengeful Pharaoh
Collective Brutality
Swords to Plowshares
Abrupt Decay
Zombie Infestation
Bridge from Below
Entomb
Buried Alive

Maybe some of those could be decent sideboard options. Maybe the main deck Thoughtseize should be Collective Brutality? Again, I don't know.

EDIT: Maybe I should splash blue and run Prized Amalgam instead of Bloodghast? Like, cut the Undiscovered Paradise and a Scrubland and a Bayou for two Underground Seas and the 2nd Swamp?

EDIT2: Maybe the cut should be Carrion Feeder and Thoughtseize for Prized Amalgam? Manabase would be 8 fetches, two of each dual, 1 Swamp, 1 Undiscovered Paradise? Actually, I quite like that idea... it puts the deck up to 20 free creatures.

B/g/w/u Fiendish Nature

Lands (16)
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Marsh Flats
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Polluted Delta
2 Bayou
2 Scrubland
2 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
1 Undiscovered Paradise

Creatures (36)
4 Gravecrawler
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Putrid Imp
4 Lotleth Troll
4 Bloodghast
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Vengevine
4 Hollow One

Spells (8)
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Lotus Petal

Mr. Safety

02-12-2019, 11:33 AM

Awesome feedback! Just a few questions to help me wrap my head around this, if you don't mind:

1) Do we need 12 permanent discard outlets (like Putrid Imp)? Could we operate on 10 with them being 4 Imp/4 Troll/2 Brutality, or 4 Imp/4 Tribe/2x Troll and/or Brutality?
2) Are gravecrawlers worth the slots? As a threat it's fairly anemic, it's strength is being able to be played out of the graveyard. I don't have experience with the old zombie-engine based Vengevine deck, this is all new to me.
3) I was thinking that 18 lands and 4 Petals should be enough mana, but that brings up Mutavault. How many do you think could be supported? (Note: dependant on Gravecrawler inclusion)
4) Bad matchups seem to be: Storm, Miracles, Lands, Depths. They all have faster combos or ways to completely neuter the plan, or in the case of Lands/Depths both (Crop Rotation into Bojuka Bog, followed by a 20/20.)
5) Your lists are definitely 'all-in', so I'm assuming its your opinion that this is needed to be competitive?
6) What would you do to make it less 'all-in' so removal could be added? I'm worried that 4 slots are necessary in some mix (StP, Fatal Push, Decay, Brutality.) Banking on discard to get there may be correct, but it makes me uneasy (similar to your statement.)
7) Could I replace undiscovered paradise with Dakmor Salvage?

Hanni

02-12-2019, 11:58 AM

The problem with relying on Collective Brutality as a discard outlet is that it's only going to let you discard two cards at most, so it cannot make Hollow One's cost 0, which is a big deal.

I think the consistency provided by running Imp/Tribe/Troll is pretty important, particularly without cantrips, although I would trim from Lotleth Troll before trimming from the other two. The difference between 1cc and 2cc on the discard outlet is huge.

Gravecrawler isn't the greatest, but it does a lot of what you want. The deck does need enough density of 1cc creatures to trigger Vengevine, and Gravecrawler being a good creature to discard improves synergy with Hollow One. As a recursive creature, it has synergy with Prized Amalgam. One mana for a 2/1 isn't as good as zero mana for 4/4's, 4/3's, 3/3's, and 2/1's, but it's not horrible either. Ultimately, I think it does enough to be worth it, but I could be wrong.

I have no idea what the bad matchups are yet, but I'm sure some of them could be addressed with the sideboard.

The list is all-in to improve consistency. It's a starting point. It's possible that maybe the deck could trim back on it, although as I've said, the strength of this deck is the ability to flood the board on turns 1 or 2... without that, this deck is worse than other options (like Pheonix). The benefit here is that unlike Dredge, going all-in doesn't completely fold to graveyard hate postboard, since we can hardcast everything if we have to.

I'm not even sure if maindeck removal is necessary. This is more like a combo deck than a fair aggro deck, so it shouldn't be necessary to kill opposing creatures in most fair matchups. Having removal in the board for Marit Lage, possibly even Griselbrand and Emrakul, would probably be a good idea though. Personally, I'd rather have a playset of Thoughtseize maindeck before dipping into removal, although Collective Brutality is very tempting.

I definitely would want answers to Leyline of the Void and Rest in Peace in the board, so Assassin's Trophy sounds pretty good for that.

Dakmor Salvage sounds cool with Mox Diamond, but there's definitely not enough lands in the lists I proposed for Diamond. Salvage doesn't do what Undiscovered Paradise does for Bloodghast though, so I don't think it's a replacement. The fact that Paradise makes mana of any color is really nice in the 4c list too... I actually wouldn't mind finding room for more copies.

tescrin

02-12-2019, 12:27 PM

ReAnimator

02-12-2019, 12:40 PM

if the plan is all in on game ones, but still being functional after board unlike dredge, i wonder if exploring Tolarian Winds might be a different deck/strategy. You'd probably have to go with street wraiths and maybe even memnites to support vengevines, but it would really turn on hollow ones. My fear with going with an all in strategy is at what point is it just a worse all in deck than Oops or belcher or dredge, but the board and playing fair doesn't really get those post board games back because you have too many essential pieces. Not sure.

Mr. Safety

02-12-2019, 01:05 PM

NOTE: I understand this may require a second thread, but I want to post musings here to point out some interesting synergies that are being missed by being straight BG

I think it may be more interested to use BUG; mostly because:
* Shardless agent allows you to guarantee Vengevine recursion (or nearly guarantee, depending on build;) If building around this synergy it may be hyper-reliable in the mid-game. It's noteworthy that the Buried Alive and Vengevine can't be hit by shardless, which seems like a plus.

* Cavern Harpy (and if there are any other cards like it) can cast by themselves multiple times. Some of the supporting cards for Harpy in Aluren also allow you to bounce dudes back. This self-bounce seems like a natural way to get a 2-4 mana trigger for Vine

* Combining with the (now deprecated?) BUG Aluren deck may allow a two-sided win con. Insta-gib via fast aluren combo, or secondary win con of Mid-range aggro.

I know this isn't quite related to what you're doing; but the synergies of Shardless and Cavern Harpy seem too neat not to point out. It also addresses most issues brought up about bad MUs: Aluren combo can go off T3 easily if not interacted with; meaning you can race combo and out-value Miracles/Fair decks. This also opens up running FoW, which obviously helps slow opposing combo; making those bad MUs have that much more potential.

If I come up with a list that seems reasonable maybe I'll start a thread and then cross reference it here for anyone interested.

EDIT: It could also be considered as a sideboard plan to swap between a graveyard combo vs aluren combo

Shardless Agent is the best argument for a blue splash so far, easily. Nice catch, it really rewards a high-creature count. The usual blue stuff would have to be left out (Brainstorm, Ponder, Daze) but Careful Study might make the cut. EDIT: Aluren is way outside of my comfort zone, sorry I can't contribute.

I'm also looking at Flamewake Phoenix for the red splash. Looting, PFire, and Phoenix make a decent package for the red splash. It might not be good enough but the efficiency is pretty huge. I think if I avoid the zombie engine it could be squeezed in.

4x Pimp
4x Vine
4x Rootwalla
4x Bghast
4x Hollow
3x Lotleth Troll
4x Phoenix
1x Vengeful Pharaoh
4x Looting
4x Pfire
4x Thoughtseize
2x Collective Brutality
18x Lands, 3 of them Groves

Hanni

02-12-2019, 01:10 PM

NOTE: I understand this may require a second thread, but I want to post musings here to point out some interesting synergies that are being missed by being straight BG

I think it may be more interested to use BUG; mostly because:
* Shardless agent allows you to guarantee Vengevine recursion (or nearly guarantee, depending on build;) If building around this synergy it may be hyper-reliable in the mid-game. It's noteworthy that the Buried Alive and Vengevine can't be hit by shardless, which seems like a plus.

* Cavern Harpy (and if there are any other cards like it) can cast by themselves multiple times. Some of the supporting cards for Harpy in Aluren also allow you to bounce dudes back. This self-bounce seems like a natural way to get a 2-4 mana trigger for Vine

* Combining with the (now deprecated?) BUG Aluren deck may allow a two-sided win con. Insta-gib via fast aluren combo, or secondary win con of Mid-range aggro.

I know this isn't quite related to what you're doing; but the synergies of Shardless and Cavern Harpy seem too neat not to point out. It also addresses most issues brought up about bad MUs: Aluren combo can go off T3 easily if not interacted with; meaning you can race combo and out-value Miracles/Fair decks. This also opens up running FoW, which obviously helps slow opposing combo; making those bad MUs have that much more potential.

If I come up with a list that seems reasonable maybe I'll start a thread and then cross reference it here for anyone interested.

EDIT: It could also be considered as a sideboard plan to swap between a graveyard combo vs aluren combo

Shardless Agent seems pretty good at playing the value plan, although the only matchup where you would need more value would be Miracles... the recursion engines in this deck would make Grixis Control a good matchup already without needing Shardless Agent.

Cavern Harpy is cool, but way too slow. Paying UUBB to recur Vengevines doesn't really make any sense. The point is to cast 0 mana Basking Rootwalla's and Hollow One's to trigger them, or two 1cc creatures at worst.

I see where you are trying to go with this, by essentially trying to hybridize it with BUG Aluren, but they are two very different decks. This deck can goldfish on turn 2 already, so it doesn't need to add Aluren for a combo kill... the deck is already an aggro/combo deck.

Maybe transforming into Aluren postboard would be a good idea instead of trying to fight against graveyard hate, but I'm not sure there's enough space in the sideboard to do that.

Hanni

02-12-2019, 01:28 PM

if the plan is all in on game ones, but still being functional after board unlike dredge, i wonder if exploring [card]Tolarian Winds[/cards] might be a different deck/strategy. You'd probably have to go with street wraiths and maybe even memnites to support vengevines, but it would really turn on hollow ones. My fear with going with an all in strategy is at what point is it just a worse all in deck than Oops or belcher or dredge, but the board and playing fair doesn't really get those post board games back because you have too many essential pieces. Not sure.

The all-in plan isn't really comparable to something like Oops or Belcher, though. Getting a turn 1 Putrid Imp countered doesn't fizzle the deck like Force of Will does to Belcher. Once a discard outlet resolves, the only thing fizzling the deck is graveyard hate or Terminus. Even if the opponent keeps discard outlets from resolving, the deck can still cast most of its creatures and play a generic beatdown game. The deck could even run Cavern of Souls if the meta was that heavy on countermagic.

This deck is more like a graveyard-based affinity deck than something like Belcher or Oops. This deck isn't a glass cannon. Dredge is the all-in version, which is more broken in game one, but folds harder to graveyard hate postboard.

This deck is all-in on aggro, but it can certainly survive against graveyard hate postboard. Surgical Extraction is the most commonly played hate, which isn't even that powerful against us. If our turn 1 involves playing a Tireless Tribe, discarding a Vengevine, a Prized Amalgam, a Bloodghast, and putting a Hollow One into play... Surgical on Vengevine is only a speed bump. We still have a Tireless Tribe and Hollow One in play, and next turn we get a Bloodghast and Prized Amalgam... and that's not counting whatever we can do with two mana. All I'm trying to say is, this deck doesn't fold to Surgical, and can certainly have answers to deal with other forms of hate if needed.

Hardcasting Bloodghast's, Amalgam's, and Vengevine's isn't the greatest thing to be doing, but there will certainly be games where this plan will still get the job done. Plus the deck has two solid non-graveyard dependent threats with Lotleth Troll and Hollow One.

I'm not saying that this deck is the next big thing, tier 1, blah blah blah, I'm simply saying that I think this deck has legs. It does some things worse than other similar options, but it also does some things better. If nothing else, this seems like an absolutely fun concept to brew with.

Mr. Safety

02-12-2019, 02:16 PM

FTW

02-12-2019, 02:59 PM

I really like Tireless Tribe for speeding up the explosive Hollow One starts.

With the 8 1cc discard outlets instead of the Buried Alive plan (less consistent), I agree mana dorks aren't needed. That was a remnant from my old build that was closer to a fair deck (without the explosiveness of Hollow One). Maybe Elvish Spirit Guide or Chancellor of the Tangle, otherwise nothing.

I'm starting testing with this:

//Creatures: 33
4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Basking Rootwalla
2 Gravecrawler
3 Lotleth Troll
4 Bloodghast
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Vengevine
4 Hollow One

//Spells: 9
3 Thoughtseize
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Abrupt Decay

//Lands: 18
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Marsh Flats
3 Windswept Heath
3 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Undiscovered Paradise

//Sideboard: 15
4 Faerie Macabre
3 Silent Gravestone
3 Big Game Hunter
3 Carrion Feeder
1 Thoughtseize
1 Maelstrom Pulse

-11 discard outlets, 8 active on turn 1 (+Therapies on yourself)
-18 creatures that want to be discarded
-11 fat threats
-20 free critters

Sideboard is a work in progress.

Faerie Macabre - grave hate that also enables Hollow One, pitches to Troll, and can be hardcast

Big Game Hunter - madness creature that kills Emrakul / Griselbrand / etc off Show and Tell or instant-speed discard outlet

Carrion Feeder - vs white decks. Protects your team from Terminus and StP, hoses Jitte counters and Batterskull lifegain, alternate threat that profits when other things die and combos with the weaker recursive dorks to grow

Silent Gravestone - Protect you from Surgical. This build is now too invested in the grave plan to SB into a fair deck, so protection is a thing.

I put Gravecrawlers to have more fodder and more 1ccs to trigger Vengevine, but the zombie count is low and another 2/1 that can't block is pretty bad. It maybe just be better to have something else in that slot like:
- 1cc utility: Carrion Feeder / Slitherhead / Mother of Runes / Sylvan Safekeeper / Fume Spitter / Veteran Explorer
- Card advantage: Asylum Visitor / Stinkweed Imp / Squee, Goblin Nabob / Sylvan Library / Land Tax (lol discard fodder but slow)
- Mana accel: Chancellor of the Tangle (adds mana, then can be discarded for value)
- Protection: Chancellor of the Annex (protects you, then can be discarded for value)
- Spells: Swords to Plowshares, Lotus Petal

I really want to play this deck just to troll people with Big Game Hunter.

Mr. Safety

02-12-2019, 03:31 PM

I really like Tireless Tribe for speeding up the explosive Hollow One starts.

With the 8 1cc discard outlets instead of the Buried Alive plan (less consistent), I agree mana dorks aren't needed. That was a remnant from my old build that was closer to a fair deck (without the explosiveness of Hollow One). Maybe Elvish Spirit Guide or Chancellor of the Tangle, otherwise nothing.

I'm starting testing with this:

//Creatures: 33
4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Basking Rootwalla
2 Gravecrawler
3 Lotleth Troll
4 Bloodghast
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Vengevine
4 Hollow One

//Spells: 9
3 Thoughtseize
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Abrupt Decay

//Lands: 18
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Marsh Flats
3 Windswept Heath
3 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Scrubland
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

//Sideboard: 15
4 Faerie Macabre
3 Silent Gravestone
3 Big Game Hunter
3 Carrion Feeder
1 Thoughtseize
1 Maelstrom Pulse

-11 discard outlets, 8 active on turn 1 (+Therapies on yourself)
-18 creatures that want to be discarded
-11 fat threats
-20 free critters

Sideboard is a work in progress.

Faerie Macabre - grave hate that also enables Hollow One, pitches to Troll, and can be hardcast

Big Game Hunter - madness creature that kills Emrakul / Griselbrand / etc off Show and Tell or instant-speed discard outlet

Carrion Feeder - vs white decks. Protects your team from Terminus and StP, hoses Jitte counters and Batterskull lifegain, alternate threat that profits when other things die and combos with the weaker recursive dorks to grow

Silent Gravestone - Protect you from Surgical. This build is now too invested in the grave plan to SB into a fair deck, so protection is a thing.

I put Gravecrawlers to have more fodder and more 1ccs to trigger Vengevine, but the zombie count is low and another 2/1 that can't block is pretty bad. It maybe just be better to have something else in that slot like:
- 1cc utility: Carrion Feeder / Slitherhead / Mother of Runes / Sylvan Safekeeper / Fume Spitter / Veteran Explorer
- Card advantage: Asylum Visitor / Stinkweed Imp / Squee, Goblin Nabob / Sylvan Library / Land Tax (lol discard fodder but slow)
- Mana accel: Chancellor of the Tangle (adds mana, then can be discarded for value)
- Protection: Chancellor of the Annex (protects you, then can be discarded for value)
- Spells: Swords to Plowshares, Lotus Petal

I really want to play this deck just to troll people with Big Game Hunter.

I think if you end up playing with either of the Chancellors than some sort of Reanimate variant could be very good. Discarding for value is ok, but I think will water the deck down. Even something like Dread Return or Exhume could be very good if that's the route you take.

Hanni

02-12-2019, 04:11 PM

After looking at the mana costs of my 4c list, I retweaked the manabase a bit.

Lands (16)
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Marsh Flats
2 Bayou
1 Scrubland
1 Underground Sea
1 Savannah
1 Swamp
2 Undiscovered Paradise

That changes to color source balance to 15 black, 13 green, 12 white, 11 blue.

Of course, the actual color sources go up once Lotus Petal is factored in, too.

I definitely think the 2nd Undiscovered Paradise is where I want to be at in the 4c list. It not only improves the manabase by providing mana of any color, it also makes Bloodghast significantly better. I don't think I want more than 2 though; they are pretty bad in multiples.

ReAnimator

02-12-2019, 04:19 PM

I'm not saying that this deck is the next big thing, tier 1, blah blah blah, I'm simply saying that I think this deck has legs. It does some things worse than other similar options, but it also does some things better. If nothing else, this seems like an absolutely fun concept to brew with.

Agreed all around. Yeah totally fun space to brew in, like the OP says i've had versions of something like this off and on for almost a decade now :)

The real "problem" is there are just soooo many directions to go in, and infinite cards to test.

Also with your 4 colour list it might be worth exploring a 5 colour mana base. The damage it inflicts on you will probably be irrelevant in most matches and it would prevent a lot of bottle necks in the face of wasteland. The downside is the amount of triggers you get for bloodghast, but it might be worth considering.

Hanni

02-12-2019, 04:28 PM

Agreed all around. Yeah totally fun space to brew in, like the OP says i've had versions of something like this off and on for almost a decade now :)

The real "problem" is there are just soooo many directions to go in, and infinite cards to test.

Also with your 4 colour list it might be worth exploring a 5 colour mana base. The damage it inflicts on you will probably be irrelevant in most matches and it would prevent a lot of bottle necks in the face of wasteland. The downside is the amount of triggers you get for bloodghast, but it might be worth considering.

I'm not sure it's necessary to do that, though. The thing with the 4c list is that I'm rarely interested in hardcasting Prized Amalgam's, so the blue splash is as tiny as it gets, and the white splash is literally for 4 cards. I'm rarely hardcasting Rootwalla's, and pumping them is of minor relevance... Vengevine's are almost never getting hardcasted, and so the green splash is mainly just for 4 cards too.

Between Undiscovered Paradise and Lotus Petal providing mana of any color already, it seems fine sticking to the fetch/dual configuration. If I were to experience mana issues in testing, I would reconsider, but I don't believe that will be the case.

With that said, if I decided to try out Faithless Looting or Flamewake Phoenix, I would certainly do a rainbow manabase.

kinda

02-13-2019, 10:36 AM

Hanni

02-13-2019, 11:11 AM

I downloaded modo and realized all the cards I need for this are extremely cheap except the fetches. Work in progress definitely, but I'm thinking something like this. Was tempted to try and find room for reanimate but don't want to be too committed to the gy. Would rather be able to side out buried/venge for natural order or something.

3 assault formation
3 glimpse of nature
4 cabal therapy
4 buried alive

4 tireless tribe
4 ornithopter
4 phyrexian walker
4 vengevine
2 dark confidant
1 gaddock teeg
1 lotleth troll
1 doran, the explorer
3 green sun's zenith

4 dark ritual
2 culling the weak
4 bayou
4 marsh flats
4 verdant catacombs
2 scrubland
2 swamp
2 gaea's cradle
1 forest
1 dryad arbor

SB:
4 natural order
2 protean hulk
1 fauna shaman
1 sylvan safekeeper
1 assault formation
3 thoughtseize
3 abrupt decay

I don't really understand what this list is trying to do?

You don't have enough cheap/free creatures to cast to make effective use of Glimpse, there's a bunch of rituals + Cradle but the only cards worth accelerating into are Buried Alive and GSZ, there's space dedicated to making walls/high toughness creatures good but the only good one have for that is Phyrexian Walker... the list is all over the place.

I'm not trying to be rude, but... was this a troll attempt? If not, I apologize, but my criticisms of your list still stands; it's a pile of jank.

kinda

02-13-2019, 11:59 AM

I don't really understand what this list is trying to do?

You don't have enough cheap/free creatures to cast to make effective use of Glimpse, there's a bunch of rituals + Cradle but the only cards worth accelerating into are Buried Alive and GSZ, there's space dedicated to making walls/high toughness creatures good but the only good one have for that is Phyrexian Walker... the list is all over the place.

I'm not trying to be rude, but... was this a troll attempt? If not, I apologize, but my criticisms of your list still stands; it's a pile of jank.

It definitely might be the wrong direction but think you're missing a couple interesting interactions:

tireless tribe/ornithopter/phyrexian walker work with doran and assault formation
dark ritual/culling plus buried plus 2 0 drops gets you vengevines turn 1 and one drops open up turn two scenarios. greenbelt rampager was suggested which is tempting
Drawing 2 or three cards with glimpse is the goal, still think that merits inclusion but haven't tested glimpse as they are expensive in paper
The natural orders in the board probably need to be patterns unless I change the creature base, the dark rits/cradles help to ramp here. Protean hulk plus 0 drops and doran/sylvan safekeeper/teeg is strong

I'll test, and see how it goes. The list is admittedly things I would like to do more than objectively good choices.

Hanni

02-13-2019, 12:33 PM

It definitely might be the wrong direction but think you're missing a couple interesting interactions:

tireless tribe/ornithopter/phyrexian walker work with doran and assault formation
dark ritual/culling plus buried plus 2 0 drops gets you vengevines turn 1 and one drops open up turn two scenarios. greenbelt rampager was suggested which is tempting
Drawing 2 or three cards with glimpse is the goal, still think that merits inclusion but haven't tested glimpse as they are expensive in paper
The natural orders in the board probably need to be patterns unless I change the creature base, the dark rits/cradles help to ramp here. Protean hulk plus 0 drops and doran/sylvan safekeeper/teeg is strong

I'll test, and see how it goes. The list is admittedly things I would like to do more than objectively good choices.

I hadn't considered Tireless Tribe with Assault Formation, so that's my mistake, but making Ornithopter a 2/2 is super low impact.

I'm not saying the deck doesn't have some lines that can go broken, but the deck lacks coherencey and consistency. There are way too many separate game plans and mini combos going on; there's going to be a ton of akward hands where nothing lines up.

I don't mean to stifle innovation or persuade you against brewing by any means, I just wasn't sure if you were serious or not.

kinda

02-13-2019, 02:29 PM

I think you're right that it is too inconsistent, might go with a prison version. The abyss is $2 online. Not sure if I want chalice or dark ritual.

4 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Buried Alive
4 Vengevine
4 Ornithopter
4 Phyrexian Walker
3 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Spellskite
2 vault skirge
3 Assault Formation
3 The Abyss
4 Bayou
4 Marsh Flats
2 Swamp
1 Forest
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Gaea's Cradle
4 Ancient Tomb

Mr. Safety

02-13-2019, 02:32 PM

Pimp already becomes a 2/2 flyer once threshold is achieved, which I think will happen fairly often (especially with 8+ fetches, Lotus Petals, and just generally filling the graveyard with dudes.) It is conditional on the graveyard, but it already has super synergy with the deck. Ornithopter offers nothing beyond a free creature. The other comparison is Rootwalla, which for a common is nothing short of busted with Pimp/Troll/Vengevine.

It's got a ton of really cool interactions; I think Glimpse is actually worse than Beck // Call. It costs another mana but it triggers when Vengevines enter the battlefield.

ReAnimator

02-13-2019, 04:20 PM

@kinda

I think you really need to make your own thread. Your lists don't really make any sense and have no real relevance to the topic at hand other than having a tiny bit of over lap card wise.

kinda

02-14-2019, 01:15 PM

@kinda

I think you really need to make your own thread. Your lists don't really make any sense and have no real relevance to the topic at hand other than having a tiny bit of over lap card wise.

Vengevine has 1 legacy result in 2018 on mtgtop8 and 0 in 2019. Maybe it's possible the best shell for the card is not trying to create an updated version of UG madness? I think the phoenix deck has shown that buried alive is decently strong. After that though with vengevine, unlike phoenix where cantrips are clearly strong, there really aren't any restrictions beyond needing creatures in the deck.

Hanni

02-14-2019, 01:48 PM

Vengevine has 1 legacy result in 2018 on mtgtop8 and 0 in 2019. Maybe it's possible the best shell for the card is not trying to create an updated version of UG madness? I think the phoenix deck has shown that buried alive is decently strong. After that though with vengevine, unlike phoenix where cantrips are clearly strong, there really aren't any restrictions beyond needing creatures in the deck.

Pheonix being a better Buried Alive deck doesn't make Vengevine inherently or strictly worse. It does mean that making Vengevine viable will likely require a different approach, however.

The power here lies in the decks ability to drop it's entire hand on the board within the first few turns, and is extremely threat dense to offer resiliency with the backup plan.

Pheonix is a fun brew, for sure, but it comes with its own set of strengths and weaknesses.

Mr. Safety

02-14-2019, 02:29 PM

Vengevine has 1 legacy result in 2018 on mtgtop8 and 0 in 2019. Maybe it's possible the best shell for the card is not trying to create an updated version of UG madness? I think the phoenix deck has shown that buried alive is decently strong. After that though with vengevine, unlike phoenix where cantrips are clearly strong, there really aren't any restrictions beyond needing creatures in the deck.

Buried Alive is good in the Phoenix deck because it not only tutors for the creatures but is part of the combo. Dark Ritual + Buried Alive is 2/3 of the requirement for Phoenix to come back. It isn't a t1 deck, but that's ok, it can Thoughtseize or t1 Delver (not sure what it plays currently) and t2 play 2nd land, Dark Ritual, Buried Alive, Ponder = 9 attack power t2. Very likely lethal by turn 3.

The card that makes Vengevine potentially playable in 2019 is Hollow One. Without Hollow one, and to a smaller extent Collective Brutality, this deck wouldn't even interest me.

Hanni

02-14-2019, 02:34 PM

Also wanted to mention that I made a few more tweaks to my 4c list.

I've dropped down to 14 lands, cutting down to 6 fetches, 1 Bayou, and 0 Underground Sea, with 4 Undiscovered Paradise.

Long story short is that this deck doesn't need very much mana to work, outside of wanting land drops to trigger Bloodghast's. Sometimes, all the deck needs is a single mana to go off. Consider a hand of Undiscovered Paradise, Tireless Tribe, Vengevine, Prized Amalgam x2, Bloodghast, Hollow One. That's an opener that basically dumps its entire hand onto the board turn 1 (well, Bloodghast won't hit the board until turn 2, but yeah). A hand like that is not uncommon.

This deck wants land drops for Bloodghast, but definitely does not want to flood on mana sources. Two mana is pretty much the top of the curve, for either Lotleth Troll, or casting two 1cc creatures in a turn to enable Vengevine recursion.

Going up to 4 Undiscovered Paradise is a huge improvement for triggering and retriggering Bloodghast, especially with the lower land count.

With the two available spaces, I can fit the 2 Carrion Feeder's back into my list. These guys feel very important to the engine, IMO. Not only do they improve Swords to Plowshares matchups, they're also pretty important for helping to recur Vengevine's and Prized Amalgam's in the midgame by sac'ing Gravecrawler's, or even Bloodghast's (this only works for Prized Amalgam, obviously). Upping my 1cc creature count, zombie count, and adding another backup threat are all pretty solid points, too.

Here's my current list:

B/G/w/u Fiendish Nature

Lands (14)
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Marsh Flats
1 Bayou
1 Scrubland
1 Savannah
1 Swamp
4 Undiscovered Paradise

Creatures (38)
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Putrid Imp
4 Lotleth Troll
2 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Bloodghast
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Vengevine
4 Hollow One

Spells (8)
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Lotus Petal

EDIT: I'm not 100% sold on the Savannah... I might decide to turn that into a Bayou or Underground Sea.

I also haven't decided how to construct the sideboard yet, which could also influence the construction of the manabase.

ReAnimator

02-14-2019, 03:45 PM

Vengevine has 1 legacy result in 2018 on mtgtop8 and 0 in 2019. Maybe it's possible the best shell for the card is not trying to create an updated version of UG madness? I think the phoenix deck has shown that buried alive is decently strong. After that though with vengevine, unlike phoenix where cantrips are clearly strong, there really aren't any restrictions beyond needing creatures in the deck.

Sure there is no accepted agreed upon list or anything and this is new.

HOWEVER spamming a list with Sword of Fire and Ice, Chalice, The Abyss, and Assault formation, WITH NO EXPLANATION, is not only rude but it's completely nonsensical. Like it is the very definition of off topic unrelated spam and i don't think any mod would have a problem deleting it and giving a warning.

Hanni

02-14-2019, 03:59 PM

Buried Alive is good in the Phoenix deck because it not only tutors for the creatures but is part of the combo. Dark Ritual + Buried Alive is 2/3 of the requirement for Phoenix to come back. It isn't a t1 deck, but that's ok, it can Thoughtseize or t1 Delver (not sure what it plays currently) and t2 play 2nd land, Dark Ritual, Buried Alive, Ponder = 9 attack power t2. Very likely lethal by turn 3.

The card that makes Vengevine potentially playable in 2019 is Hollow One. Without Hollow one, and to a smaller extent Collective Brutality, this deck wouldn't even interest me.

I agree. Hollow One is absolutely the reason why Vengevine may finally be Legacy viable again, and is certainly what drew my interest in. I mean, sure, the deck could have ran Memnite instead as additional free creatures alongside Basking Rootwalla, but there's a massive difference between 0 mana 1/1's and 0 mana 4/4's.

Prized Amalgam is also a pretty cool addition. They're not as good as actual Vengevines, but they increase the body count of creatures that you can dump in the yard and get back for free. It only takes one other recursive creature to bring them back, and 3/3 is still a solid size.

FTW

02-15-2019, 01:10 AM

Here's my current list:

B/G/w/u Fiendish Nature

Lands (14)
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Marsh Flats
1 Bayou
1 Scrubland
1 Savannah
1 Swamp
4 Undiscovered Paradise

Creatures (38)
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Putrid Imp
4 Lotleth Troll
2 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Bloodghast
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Vengevine
4 Hollow One

Spells (8)
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Lotus Petal

EDIT: I'm not 100% sold on the Savannah... I might decide to turn that into a Bayou or Underground Sea.

I also haven't decided how to construct the sideboard yet, which could also influence the construction of the manabase.

I like the direction you're going. By cutting down on mana sources you can cram in all the relevant creatures and be more explosive on turn 1s. I thought multiple Undiscovered Paradise would be too many and too awkward with lands bouncing back to hand, but they also fix your mana on turn 1 very well.

Maybe +1 Carrion Feeder -1 Gravecrawler. Feeder is really good in a lot of cases even without Gravecrawler. It combos with Bloodghast/Amalgam recursion too, grows off stuff dying, and saves you from Terminus/StP. OTOH Gravecrawler is the slowest and least threatening of the creatures you want to pitch.

For the sideboard, seriously consider a couple copies of Big Game Hunter. I'm not just trolling. With one of your 12 discard outlets on board, this card is a 1 mana instant that kills Emrakul, Griselbrand, Gurmag Angler, Tombstalker, Thought-Knot Seer, Reality Smasher, Knight of the Reliquary, Tarmogoyf, Sire of Insanity, Tidespout Tyrant, Iona, Elesh Norn, Chancellor of the Annex... It's your best card to bring it against SneakShow, Reanimator, and Eldrazi. It also kills any midrange guy that could profitably block Vengevine and Hollow One.

Some number of Faerie Macabre is probably good: BR Reanimator, Phoenix decks, Loam, even for Grixis Control and Storm.

You need some outs to Leyline of the Void and Grafdigger's Cage. Maybe Nature's Claim or Fragmentize. They also deal with stuff like Pithing Needle, Relic, Crypt, Ensnaring Bridge...

Surgical and Faerie Macabre don't necessarily hurt you that much since you have so many different threats. You could bring in some Silent Gravestone, but you might be better off just having another creature in the opener instead and trying to brute force your way through it. Needs testing.

You need outs to turn 1 Chalice of the Void on the play. Really badly. Abrupt Decay is tough on so few mana sources, but you don't have many other options.

Turn 1 Blood Moon on the play wrecks you, but I think you're better off praying to dodge Red Stompy than trying to board against them. Chalice / Moon / Trinisphere + sideboard hate is just death.

Mr. Safety

02-15-2019, 07:16 AM

You need outs to turn 1 Chalice of the Void on the play. Really badly. Abrupt Decay is tough on so few mana sources, but you don't have many other options.

Turn 1 Blood Moon on the play wrecks you, but I think you're better off praying to dodge Red Stompy than trying to board against them. Chalice / Moon / Trinisphere + sideboard hate is just death.

With such an all-in strategy it could be completely correct to just sideboard a couple extra lands, just taking out a couple of redundant/lower power level cards (Bloodghast seems like the obvious choice.) Sideboarding with such a linear strategy will always be a chore but giving yourself a few extra percentage points by stabilizing mana seems like a reasonable way to spend 2 sideboard slots. I think the correct answers to Blood Moon or Chalice are obviously Ancient Grudge and Ray of Revelation. Wear // Tear is also decent. Blood Moon is the bigger issue than Chalice I think. I see the uphill battle, so praying to avoid Red Stompy and therefore conceding the low win percentage (on the draw) is understandable as well. Winning the die roll is pretty important, practice them dice!

I'm glad you're doing this Hanni because it will set a boundary for how fast/explosive/glass cannon the deck can be. That sets a benchmark for how to tweak in the other direction for stability (Faithless Looting and/or maindeck removal.)

FTW

02-15-2019, 07:55 AM

I think the correct answers to Blood Moon or Chalice are obviously Ancient Grudge and Ray of Revelation. Blood Moon is the bigger issue than Chalice I think.

Both are very dangerous on the play, before you've cast a discard outlet.

How do you pay the mana cost for Ray of Revelation with Blood Moon out in the aggressive list? Notice the manabase of 1 basic (Swamp). Even if you board in more lands, they're probably not basic Plains. With Blood Moon on the play, you won't even have a discard outlet yet, so you need 1W for Ray: Lotus Petal + land (Mountain) + Ray or you scoop. Even when you go first and stick a discard outlet, generating either 1W or G through Moon needs a spare Petal.

Chalice stops you from sticking a discard outlet. It also counters Cabal Therapy, Basking Rootwalla, Carrion Feeder, Gravecrawler and most of the cheap SB answers you'd want to run. You're stuck relying on Lotleth Troll or hardcasting the slow guys in a land-light deck. Chalice is easier to kill (e.g. Ancient Grudge), but it still Time Walks you at least 2 turns until you can get the mana to kill it, then you can stick a PImp the next turn. When you go first, you can discard Grudge to PImp and then cast it for 1 mana easily, but you may not even need to kill it if you have PImp.

I see the uphill battle, so praying to avoid Red Stompy and therefore conceding the low win percentage (on the draw) is understandable as well.

It's a small percentage of the meta. Trying to break the lock when they go first is such an uphill battle (you need to board in 2cc answers to both Chalice and Blood Moon and extra lands and then draw them with Lotus Petals), it's not worth wasting the SB slots. Every deck has some abysmal matchups. Hope to never face them or win the die roll.

If you ignore Moon, Abrupt Decay is a more versatile 2cc answer than Ancient Grudge and can come in for more matchups. For non-Chalice decks, 1cc answers seem better.

pettdan

02-15-2019, 08:00 AM

You could sideboard two-ish Ash Barrens to help with extra lands and finding basics through Blood Moon. They even combo with Hollow One.

Hanni

02-15-2019, 09:15 AM

I like the direction you're going. By cutting down on mana sources you can cram in all the relevant creatures and be more explosive on turn 1s. I thought multiple Undiscovered Paradise would be too many and too awkward with lands bouncing back to hand, but they also fix your mana on turn 1 very well.

Maybe +1 Carrion Feeder -1 Gravecrawler. Feeder is really good in a lot of cases even without Gravecrawler. It combos with Bloodghast/Amalgam recursion too, grows off stuff dying, and saves you from Terminus/StP. OTOH Gravecrawler is the slowest and least threatening of the creatures you want to pitch.

For the sideboard, seriously consider a couple copies of Big Game Hunter. I'm not just trolling. With one of your 12 discard outlets on board, this card is a 1 mana instant that kills Emrakul, Griselbrand, Gurmag Angler, Tombstalker, Thought-Knot Seer, Reality Smasher, Knight of the Reliquary, Tarmogoyf, Sire of Insanity, Tidespout Tyrant, Iona, Elesh Norn, Chancellor of the Annex... It's your best card to bring it against SneakShow, Reanimator, and Eldrazi. It also kills any midrange guy that could profitably block Vengevine and Hollow One.

Some number of Faerie Macabre is probably good: BR Reanimator, Phoenix decks, Loam, even for Grixis Control and Storm.

You need some outs to Leyline of the Void and Grafdigger's Cage. Maybe Nature's Claim or Fragmentize. They also deal with stuff like Pithing Needle, Relic, Crypt, Ensnaring Bridge...

Surgical and Faerie Macabre don't necessarily hurt you that much since you have so many different threats. You could bring in some Silent Gravestone, but you might be better off just having another creature in the opener instead and trying to brute force your way through it. Needs testing.

You need outs to turn 1 Chalice of the Void on the play. Really badly. Abrupt Decay is tough on so few mana sources, but you don't have many other options.

Turn 1 Blood Moon on the play wrecks you, but I think you're better off praying to dodge Red Stompy than trying to board against them. Chalice / Moon / Trinisphere + sideboard hate is just death.

I thought multiple Undiscovered Paradise would be akward too, but it's not actually that bad. The deck doesn't really need to commit too many lands to board anyway. Outside of Feeder/Crawler and Rootwalla pumps, the deck doesn't really need mana every turn. Undiscovered Paradise is just so good with Bloodghast that it's worth running the playset.

Maybe a 3/3 split of Feeder/Crawler would be better than the way I have it now, I'm not sure. Don't forget that Cabal Therapy can also sac Bloodghast midgame to recur Amalgam's, and Vengevine is recurrable by simply casting two topdecked one drops.

I agree with most of what you are suggesting for the sideboard. I haven't really gotten around to figuring it all out, though.

There are some key things to consider:

1) What are the bad matchups, and how are they fixed? If other combo decks are faster, then I probably need answers. White gives access to hatebears, black can provide more discard, there are other tools for more specific matchups like graveyard hate, creature removal, etc.

2) How impacted is this deck by the sideboard cards of other decks, and how do we combat this? We might have a great matchup game one against something, but if their postboard plan (i.e graveyard hate) tilts the matchup, we need to be able to address this. Do we play a transformational plan (independent of the graveyard), or do we fight the hate with cards like Nature's Claim, Pithing Needle, Silent Gravestone, etc?

These are questions I need to figure out the answers to before I formulate a sideboard plan.

As far as Chalice of the Void is concerned, I actually like Cavern of Souls as an answer to it. Cavern of Souls seems like a fantastic card to bring in against most of the format (i.e decks with Force of Will). I wish I could run them maindeck, but I don't want to cut Lotus Petal for them. I suppose I could cut the Savannah and trim on more fetchlands, but that may impact my ability to cast Cabal Therapy and sideboard cards. I am considering it though... Force of Will is everywhere, and resolving a discard outlet is critical for this deck...

As far as Blood Moon is concerned, I'm not worried about it. Basic Swamp + Lotus Petal is about as good as it's going to get for playing around it. I cannot afford to run any more basics. Nature's Claim is important for dealing with most forms of permanent-based graveyard hate, and can also deal with a Blood Moon, so that's how I plan to deal with it. If I have a Lotus Petal, it's possible that I can just ignore it... turn 1 Petal into Imp/Tribe, dump my hand onto the board seems perfectly serviceable.

Hanni

02-15-2019, 09:23 AM

You could sideboard two-ish Ash Barrens to help with extra lands and finding basics through Blood Moon. They even combo with Hollow One.

This is very sweet tech for dealing with Blood Moon, but it's way too narrow I think. Dragon Stompy is a fringe deck as it is, they don't always get to go first, and they don't always have a turn 1 Blood Moon when they do.

Mr. Safety

02-15-2019, 09:29 AM

Both are very dangerous on the play, before you've cast a discard outlet.

How do you pay the mana cost for Ray of Revelation with Blood Moon out in the aggressive list? Notice the manabase of 1 basic (Swamp). Even if you board in more lands, they're probably not basic Plains. With Blood Moon on the play, you won't even have a discard outlet yet, so you need 1W for Ray: Lotus Petal + land (Mountain) + Ray or you scoop. Even when you go first and stick a discard outlet, generating either 1W or G through Moon needs a spare Petal.

Chalice stops you from sticking a discard outlet. It also counters Cabal Therapy, Basking Rootwalla, Carrion Feeder, Gravecrawler and most of the cheap SB answers you'd want to run. You're stuck relying on Lotleth Troll or hardcasting the slow guys in a land-light deck. Chalice is easier to kill (e.g. Ancient Grudge), but it still Time Walks you at least 2 turns until you can get the mana to kill it, then you can stick a PImp the next turn. When you go first, you can discard Grudge to PImp and then cast it for 1 mana easily, but you may not even need to kill it if you have PImp.

It's a small percentage of the meta. Trying to break the lock when they go first is such an uphill battle (you need to board in 2cc answers to both Chalice and Blood Moon and extra lands and then draw them with Lotus Petals), it's not worth wasting the SB slots. Every deck has some abysmal matchups. Hope to never face them or win the die roll.

If you ignore Moon, Abrupt Decay is a more versatile 2cc answer than Ancient Grudge and can come in for more matchups. For non-Chalice decks, 1cc answers seem better.

I agree with all of this. Just discussion fodder. I think the Ash Barrens idea isn't terrible from pettdan.

Hanni

02-15-2019, 09:49 AM

Actually, the more I think about Cavern of Souls, the more I really want to run them maindeck. If the deck can resolve a discard outlet, the rest of the combo is impossible to interact with outside of graveyard hate or Terminus. Spot removal on the discard outlet doesn't stop the discarding from happening, Vengevines trigger on cast, etc. Between Cavern of Souls and Lotleth Troll, Chalice for 1 is no longer a problem. Beating Force of Will and Daze game one is just so huge...

pettdan

02-15-2019, 10:11 AM

Hanni

02-15-2019, 11:40 AM

Playing one or two lands in the sideboard is quite narrow, and if one chooses to do that, then Ash Barrens is an option. I wasn't really discussing whether this should be done or not, but 14 maindeck lands does seem quite low. It won't be easy to hardcast anything when RiP or Leyline shows up. So playing lands in the sideboard helps vs wasteland, graveyard hate to some extent, as well as blood moon. Just something to consider. Cavern is nice, probably worth testing, but it also makes the mana base more fragile.

14 lands equates to a little less than 1/4 of the deck being lands, which still means you're likely going to see 1-2 during the first couple of turns, which is all you need. That's also not accounting for the Lotus Petals, which can certainly be used to cast sideboard cards.

You are right that the manabase isn't setup to reliably hardcast Prized Amalgam's nor Vengevine's, but that's by design. Everything else can realistically be hardcast with a Leyline on the board, though. At any rate, I certainly don't want to board into more lands postboard to be able to hardcast Prized Amalgam or Vengevine through a RIP or Leyline... I'd rather board into Nature's Claim.

I'm not worried about Wasteland or Blood Moon enough to want to board into more lands either. The idea behind me wanting Cavern of Souls in the board is more about beating Force of Will, Daze, and Chalice of the Void (and to a lesser extent, Counterbalance) than about upping the total land count... although I really think I need to fit them into the maindeck. They certainly make the manabase more fragile, and it's a legit concern about having less sources to cast sideboard cards with, but being able to ignore Force of Will seems huge, so I don't know.

pettdan

02-15-2019, 11:48 AM

tescrin

02-15-2019, 11:54 AM

I think this deck may want to take a page from Manaless to get around Blood Moon and things and just have Phantasmagorian in the side or something. May work better with Entomb?

EDIT: another idea is to run Crop Rotation as a way to find Undiscovered Paradise or Cavern of Souls when needed, reducing the number of copies needed (maybe 2 each?); this also improves your anti-gravehate or allows you a karakas, while also maybe giving you a mutavault for Gravecrawler?

Hanni

02-15-2019, 12:40 PM

Ok, all points seem valid. So far I've only test drawn a few hands with an early version, but I was surprised by how inconsistent my starting hands were. Either all enablers or all graveyard creatures, also often light on mana. My initial guess is that I'll need to go for a cantrip shell to make it work, making it a very different deck. But that's just very early guessing.. Did anyone run a few test games yet?

The deck is built with redundancy in the same way a deck like BR Reanimator is. Sometimes you may not draw the mix of what you need; that's what mulligans are for. In the same way Reanimator needs Faithless Looting, a fatty, and a reanimation spell, we need a discard outlet, creatures to discard, and a way to return them.

Luckily, the requirements for returning our creatures are pretty easy to meet... Vengevine needs two creatures to be cast, Bloodghast needs us to play a land, and Gravecrawler wants us to have a zombie in play. The deck is built to have a sufficient amount of these things.

Cantrips could help to improve consistency, but it comes at the cost of tempo loss. Compare UB Reanimator to BR Reanimator. I don't think this deck is powerful enough if you take away its speed. At that point, you probably need to also be running Thoughtseize, and then... you might as well just play Buried Alive and Arclight Phoenix.

kinda

02-15-2019, 01:02 PM

Anyone want to stream on twitch? I'm still skeptical that getting a single 4/3 haster with a madness style deck is the best direction, but I haven't tested that build. Would be happy to see it had some legs!

FTW

02-15-2019, 01:02 PM

Actually, the more I think about Cavern of Souls, the more I really want to run them maindeck.

I was also thinking about Caverns main, especially in the 4 color list. For your first play it's great fixing, it beats Stifle, and you don't have to worry about Chalice or FoW or Daze on your turn 1 discard outlet. It makes your turn 1 better, but your midgame worse (harder to play "fair"). Maybe the all-in deck doesn't care?

Caverns naming Zombie casts Putrid Imp, Lotleth Troll, Carrion Feeder, Gravecrawler and even the blue for Prized Amalgam! Very useful. You won't even need any blue duals, because they're only to hardcast Amalgam.

For Tireless Tribe you have to name something useless like Human. You'll still get your uncounterable outlet on turn 1, but then you have a useless land for the rest of the game. It could be awkward if your first set of creatures gets killed and then you topdeck uncastable PImp. Maybe that's too narrow to worry about.

The big drawback is it's much harder to cast colored noncreature spells, namely Cabal Therapy and sideboard answers. Worst case with Therapy, you can pitch it to a discard outlet and cast it for Flashback, so maybe it's not a big deal as long as you stick that discard outlet.

It's also harder to regenerate Lotleth Troll (4 lands produce colorless, 4 lands bounce to your hand), but again maybe that grindiness is less relevant if turn 1 is explosive enough.

SB cards become trickier. Silent Gravestone (Surgical, Faerie Macabre, Scavenging Ooze) and Pithing Needle (Crypt, Relic) are colorless, so that's fine. Gravestone also hoses BR Reanimator and Grixis GY recursion, so it does double duty as gravehate. Big Game Hunter is a Human (works with Tireless Tribe)! Cards like Nature's Claim though become a lot harder to support with Caverns.

Do we want Ingot Chewer and friends instead of Nature's Claim/Fragmentize? They're 1cc creatures for Vengevine, pitch to Lotleth Troll, dodge Chalice of the Void, and can be uncounterable with Caverns if the game depends on killing some combo piece backed by countermagic. That could shift us to a rainbow manabase (Mana Confluence or Ancient Ziggurat over fetches and duals).

Ash Barrens seems bad. You need basics main and then Ash Barrens, too many bad lands. We could just play rainbow lands instead. This isn't Pauper Madness.

Phantasmagorian seems bad. LED Dredge doesn't run it. Manaless runs it because they literally have 0 options that cost mana.

Hanni

02-15-2019, 01:52 PM

I do like the idea of Ingot Chewer and Wispmare quite a bit, although that does tax more sideboard space and loses the versatility that Nature's Claim offers by being able to hit both artifacts and enchantments, so I don't know.

Shifting to a rainbow manabase may make more sense if I'm already trying to run a playset of Undiscovered Paradise and Cavern of Souls, although I did appreciate the ability to fetch the basic Swamp when necessary, so again, I don't know.

Certainly there is much food for thought.

Mr. Safety

02-15-2019, 06:58 PM

I got some spare time today so i sleaved up my straight Bg version. I tested Street Wraith and its absolute garbage, all the criticism of it has been confirmed. Lotus Petal was similarly bad. I had plenty of lands (still on 18) to play out the curve and the petals were only good turn 1, and only if i could maximize the impact. In the blind it was just too risky. I replaced the street wraiths with Stinkweed Imps and the Lotus petals with 2x Gurmag (very good) and 2x Therapy. After a few more games i realized as Hanni suggested that i needed more discard outlets, 10 just isn't enough. I loved that Brutality, even if countered, could enable Stinkweed or other synergies. On a whim when i ordered Trolls i got a set of Sickening Dreams. I added 2 of them as another unconditional discard outlet that whipes out small dudes and gives reach.

I'm definitely landing in mid-range territory. It can be explosive but is more likely to want disruption first and then pick a turn where i can spam out 3-4 threats. Controlling the timing seems to help get around grave hate.

Updated list, this is what i will take to the Sunday weekly:
4x Pimp
4x rootwalla
4x bloodghast
4x vengevine
4x hollow one
4x lotleth troll
4x Stinkweed imp
2x gurmag angler
4x thoughtseize
2x cabal therapy
2x collective brutality
2x sickening dreams
2x abrupt decay
4x verdant
2x marsh flats
2x windswept heath
1x bayou
2x blooming marsh
4x swamp
2x forest
1x dakmor salvage

Sideboard
2x scooze
2x sylvan library
2x hymn
2x diabolic edict
4x faerie macabre
1x Bitterblossom
1x liliana, the last hope
1x maelstrom pulse

Inkfathom

02-16-2019, 06:25 AM

I tried out some games with Hanni's list + a 5 color manabase:

4 Tireless Tribe
4 Hollow One
2 Carrion Feeder
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Putrid Imp
4 Lotleth Troll
4 Gravecrawler
4 Vengevine
4 Bloodghast
4 Lotus Petal
4 Undiscovered Paradise
2 City of Brass
4 Mana Confluence
4 Cavern of Souls

Sideboard
2 Big Game Hunter
3 Wispmare
2 Ingot Chewer
3 Faerie Macabre
2 Pithing Needle
3 Collective Brutality

I had a lot of fun with it! This deck is super hard to mulligan with because you have to weigh the odds of topdecking one of the cards you need to make your hand good. I had more success when I didn't just mulligan to a blazing-fast start--against some decks, Cabal therapy and some creatures is good enough. Unfortunately, some hands I felt obligated to keep had an early hollow one and not much else, and the hollow one just got swordsed and I lost.

Lotus petal was amazing--it lets you get vines on turn 1 without rootwalla, put bloodghasts into play t1, enables t1 lotleth, and even just lets you hardcast amalgam. I really liked the 5color manabase, by the time I was getting wastelanded I had usually either lost already or had enough on board to win on its own. Cavern was awkward a couples times, and since I think I want assassin's trophy in the board, it gets worse. However, there are so few noncreature spells in the deck and resolving a t1 discard outlet is so important that I think they're necessary. Speaking of trophy, I feel like a more versatile card for the sideboard is better--it kills cards like young pyro (so annoying for this deck) as well as the chalice, rip, leyline, etc. that this deck is worried about. Trophy is worse than decay against counterbalance, and giving our opponents lands is relevant, but I think it's important to be able to kill leyline. Then again, this deck can sometimes pull out wins against graveyard hate via the hollow one plan :wink:

Lotleth troll was good in some matchups, but I sided it out a lot for the brutalities, which are generally better vs. aggro and combo. Both are kinda slow and bad with hollow one, and they're bad enough in multiples that it's probably best to have a 2/2 or 3 troll/2 brutality split in the main. Bloodghast was the worst recurring creature in the deck, and often I didn't hand a land to get it back, so I think cutting one for a land makes some sense. This also makes it easier to cast assassin's trophy.

Here's where I'm at now:

4 Tireless Tribe
4 Hollow One
4 Cavern of Souls
2 Collective Brutality
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Putrid Imp
4 Mana Confluence
2 Lotleth Troll
4 Gravecrawler
4 Vengevine
3 Bloodghast
4 Lotus Petal
4 Undiscovered Paradise
2 Carrion Feeder
3 City of Brass

Sideboard
2 Big Game Hunter
3 Faerie Macabre
2 Pithing Needle
2 Collective Brutality
4 Assassin's Trophy
2 Wispmare

Inkfathom

02-16-2019, 06:31 AM

Oh, and asylum visitor could be a great maindeck or sideboard card given how quickly we dump our hand. Only problem is it might not be enough to set up our combos again, especially the ones involving hollow one.

Mr. Safety

02-16-2019, 08:31 AM

Your experience of some disruption/a few creatures being better than all-in is the same as mine. If you can blast out 12 power turn 1 that can get there, but i think patience is rewarded if you can't do that. Just getting 1-2 creatures isn't enough unless you've attacked their hand already.

I might maindeck the Libraries, cutting 2 slots somewhere. I think it could be very good to set up explosive plays. I'm still on 18 lands so the 2 for library isn't an issue.

Inkfathom

02-16-2019, 12:19 PM

Don’t get me wrong, the all-in plays are still the best (at least with the 14 lands + petal version). It’s just that you can’t always mulligan to a draw with multiple big creatures on turn 1.

Sylvan library is kind of a nice idea since this deck can pay life for it more than most, though.

morgan_coke

02-16-2019, 05:11 PM

The two biggest problems I always ran into with this deck were I wanted U and R for Faithless Looting and Careful Study, but also Black for Amalgam and Bloodghast, and Green for Vengevine. If there was a good second version of either looting or study in either color this would get a lot easier.

Mr. Safety

02-18-2019, 07:48 AM

I think there is a RUG Hollow-Vine deck posted on here somewhere that attempts to correct the 'need both Looting and Study' conundrum. It drops the black creatures and discard, which is a completely different approach. Once you have blue you're looking at stack interaction for disruption rather than discard. For me, I'll always prefer discard over blue stack-based interaction because it can be proactive. For an agro deck, being proactive is fairly important. I also think that once you dip into blue and red strongly the Phoenix deck is likely a better avenue. I would take any sort of looting effect in black or green, but I don't think it would get printed. It has become solidly a red mechanic. So I have to settle for Sylvan Library and Stinkweed Imp. The red splash is still on the table for Looting, Flamewake Phoenix, and the PFire engine.

EDIT: Found it

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?32672-RUG-Hollow-Vine

Rook1e

02-18-2019, 07:57 AM

I have a long and unhealthy obsession with Vengevine in Legacy and I have tried to make it viable countless times over the years. Recently I was playing Commander, and as I cast Nostalig Dreams I suddenly get the realization that it has the potential to be outright broken with Vengevine and Hollow One. I haven't had much time to play recently, so I unfortunately haven't put this thesis to the test. However, this was what I quickly put down on paper for me to return to at some point. Thought you guys and gals could maybe do something with it:

Creature (24)
4x Basking Rootwalla
4x Gravecrawler
4x Hollow One
4x Putrid Imp
4x Street Wraith
4x Vengevine

Land (17)
4x Bayou
4x Bloodstained Mire
2x Forest
2x Swamp
4x Verdant Catacombs
1x Wooded Foothills

Sorcery (15)
4x Buried Alive
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Nostalgic Dreams
3x Thoughtseize

Instant (4)
4x Dark Ritual

Mr. Safety

02-18-2019, 08:01 AM

I was eyeing Nostalgic Dreams as well because you can discard Hollow ones and then get them right back, making them free. It's definitely something to keep an eye out for. I think if that is the route to take then Buried Alive isn't really necessary. Big discussion earlier in the thread about DR/BA and I've come to the conclusion that it takes up too many slots, not allowing for interaction once you cram all the dudes you need in there. I'm currently on Stinkweed Imp + Gurmag Angler (which is the fairest way to play those 2 cards, lol) and it has been really great. I'm tempted to go up to a 3rd Gurmag.

I think Street Wraith is something that could work with the Buried Alive plan, but I found it incredibly underwhelming. I didn't want my SW's to be dependent on timing, so If I had SW but no HO's I would wait on playing them. I don't like the feeling of waiting for the right timing with cards like that, I want to be pressuring my opponent. I have found that landing a PimP or Troll is the best way to cheat HO's into play, just discarding for value (Vines, Ghasts, Rootwallas, Therapies, extra lands) and then firing off the HO's.

Putrid Imp = Pimp
Hollow One = HO

I officially request that this deck be renamed "Pimpin' Tha Ho's"

Rook1e

02-18-2019, 08:05 AM

I was eyeing Nostalgic Dreams as well because you can discard Hollow ones and then get them right back, making them free. It's definitely something to keep an eye out for. I think if that is the route to take then Buried Alive isn't really necessary. Big discussion earlier in the thread about DR/BA and I've come to the conclusion that it takes up too many slots, not allowing for interaction once you cram all the dudes you need in there. I'm currently on Stinkweed Imp + Gurmag Angler (which is the fairest way to play those 2 cards, lol) and it has been really great. I'm tempted to go up to a 3rd Gurmag.

I think Street Wraith is something that could work with the Buried Alive plan, but I found it incredibly underwhelming. I didn't want my SW's to be dependent on timing, so If I had SW but no HO's I would wait on playing them. I don't like the feeling of waiting for the right timing with cards like that, I want to be pressuring my opponent.

Could very well be that BA + DR is not the place to. But the prostepct of discarding some number og Vengevine and picking up H1's and casting them all are mount-watering

EDIT: SW is also disgusting with ND, which is why I opted for them.

Mr. Safety

02-18-2019, 08:09 AM

Good catch with ND + Wraiths. You can discard them, get them back, draw more cards, then enable Hollow Ones (maybe even drawing into a few.) I really like this interaction. It supercharges the graveyard interactions all in one turn, which I think is the key to making this deck work. I think I'll pick up a few ND's.

I still think the DR/BA probably needs to be a Thoughtseize/Therapy/Brutality/Decay/AssTrophy. Having anti-combo plays in the main will be pretty critical.

EDIT:Nostalgic Dreams for reference.

EDIT #2:Restless Dreams possibly better? Only does creatures, but is cheaper and much easier to cast at B than GG.

Rook1e

02-18-2019, 08:12 AM

Mr. Safety

02-18-2019, 08:16 AM

So how would you set up a ND-build?

I think Restless Dreams is probably better, which I was confusing with Nostalgic Dreams. The GG I think is a deal-breaker unless you play something like Birds of Paradise.

4x Putrid Imp
4x Basking Rootwalla
4x Bloodghast
4x Vengevine
4x Hollow One
4x Street Wraith
4x Lotleth Troll
2x Gurmag Angler

3x Thoughtseize
2x Cabal Therapy
2x Collective Brutality
2x Abrupt Decay
3x Restless Dreams

18x Lands

Alternatively the Gurmags and Decays could become Gravecrawler x4 and some number of lands be Mutavault. I am a little wary of switching from Sickening Dreams, just because I have really liked the utility from that card. EDIT: Restless works very well with Stinkweed Imp, getting back a pair of dorks to trigger vengevines.

Rook1e

02-18-2019, 08:20 AM

I think Restless Dreams is probably better, which I was confusing with Nostalgic Dreams. The GG I think is a deal-breaker unless you play something like Birds of Paradise.

4x Putrid Imp
4x Basking Rootwalla
4x Bloodghast
4x Vengevine
4x Hollow One
4x Street Wraith
4x Lotleth Troll
2x Gurmag Angler

3x Thoughtseize
2x Cabal Therapy
2x Collective Brutality
2x Abrupt Decay
3x Restless Dreams

18x Lands

Alternatively the Gurmags and Decays could become Gravecrawler x4 and some number of lands be Mutavault. I am a little wary of switching from Sickening Dreams, just because I have really liked the utility from that card. EDIT: Restless works very well with Stinkweed Imp, getting back a pair of dorks to trigger vengevines.

Restless Dreams definitely looks better!! Good find. However, I am not sold on Bloodghast in this deck. IMO Ghast needs to be in a grindy, value GY strategy. This decks wants to be more of a 'one big explosive turn'-deck I think.

EDIT: After fidgetting a bit around with the previous list, this would be my 'new' starting point:

Land (18)
2x Badlands
3x Bayou
4x Bloodstained Mire
1x Forest
2x Swamp
4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Wooded Foothills

Creature (24)
4x Basking Rootwalla
4x Gravecrawler
4x Hollow One
4x Putrid Imp
4x Street Wraith
4x Vengevine

Sorcery (16)
4x Cabal Therapy
2x Collective Brutality
4x Faithless Looting
3x Restless Dreams
3x Thoughtseize

Instant (2)
2x Abrupt Decay

Mr. Safety

02-18-2019, 08:40 AM

Restless Dreams definitely looks better!! Good find. However, I am not sold on Bloodghast in this deck. IMO Ghast needs to be in a grindy, value GY strategy. This decks wants to be more of a 'one big explosive turn'-deck I think.

Free 2/1's, sometimes with haste, has a tendency to make the deck pretty explosive. If there was a better creature I'd definitely play it. I am playing Stinkweed Imp as well, so I get free Bloodghasts pretty often. It rewards mid-late game lands that would otherwise be dead. I can understand using Gravecrawler instead because you aren't using Stinkweeds. However, I really think you need more zombies to make Gravecrawler work, probably at a minimum a set of Trolls and 1-2 Mutavaults. As was mentioned earlier in the thread, Carrion Feeder can be pretty good with Gravecrawler, too.

Last thought: I'm fairly certain that Stinkweed Imp will be a necessary evil, if only to shore up the Dark Depths matchups.

Rook1e

02-18-2019, 08:44 AM

Free 2/1's, sometimes with haste, has a tendency to make the deck pretty explosive. If there was a better creature I'd definitely play it. I am playing Stinkweed Imp as well, so I get free Bloodghasts pretty often. It rewards mid-late game lands that would otherwise be dead. I can understand using Gravecrawler instead because you aren't using Stinkweeds. However, I really think you need more zombies to make Gravecrawler work, probably at a minimum a set of Trolls and 1-2 Mutavaults. As was mentioned earlier in the thread, Carrion Feeder can be pretty good with Gravecrawler, too.

Last thought: I'm fairly certain that Stinkweed Imp will be a necessary evil, if only to shore up the Dark Depths matchups.

You plan is to chump forever with stinky or?

Gravecrawler is much better with Vengevine, but getting the # of zombies right is always tough. This list, as stated, is a starting point and by no means final.

EDIT: I actually think I'm gonna take a page out of the Modern Hollow One deck and play Insolent Neonate over Gravecrawler

Mr. Safety

02-18-2019, 09:16 AM

You're still way short on zombies. I think Gravecrawler is going to disappoint you.

Yes, chumping with Stinky, and doing it every turn by dredging. It should feed me Bloodghasts to put pressure on while they attack, too.

kinda

02-18-2019, 01:16 PM

Restless getting dazed would be gg right? In this all in version I imagine chancellor of the annex could be good.

FTW

02-18-2019, 02:13 PM

It looks like this list is going 2 ways:

1) Explosive all-in turn 1 list: Tireless Tribe & Putrid Imp, multicolor manabase, Lotus Petal, many creatures and few spells. SB strategy for this would need to be defense against gravehate, because you're too committed to the interactions to board into a fair deck.

2) Grindier list. GB-based, more stable manabase, more disruption or recursion. SB strategy could be boarding out grave stuff for interactive stuff.

For the grindy version, zombie tribal seems appealing. You get the protection of Caverns combined with sources of card advantage.

//Creatures: 36
4 Putrid Imp
4 Gravecrawler
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Cryptbreaker
4 Lotleth Troll
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Vengevine
4 Hollow One

//Spells: 7
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
2 Collective Brutality

//Lands: 17
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Bayou
2 Swamp
2 Forest
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

//Sideboard: 15
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Assassin's Trophy
2 Sickening Dreams
3 Asylum Visitor
3 Faerie Macabre
1 Pithing Needle

Cryptbreaker provides cheap card draw and a backup discard outlet.

Stinkweed Imp should help dig into more gas over the course of the game and can also be cast to block and kill enemy threats. Stitcher's Supplier could work as a cheaper zombie version, but the 1/1 body doesn't do much beyond helping draw cards with Cryptbreaker, triggering Vengevine and pitching to Carrion Feeder.

Bloodghast seemed like the weakest creature and the easiest cut. It might be correct to cut some Hollow Ones instead because it's harder to support without Tireless Tribe, while Stinkweed Imp/Prized Amalgam pushes me towards wanting more graveyard recursion. Maybe something else could be cut for Bloodghasts.

---------------------------

For the all-in version, Restless Dreams seems much worse than Tireless Tribe. You need X legal targets in the graveyard when you announce casting the spell, before you discard X cards for the cost. It will almost never happen on turn 1. How will anything get in the yard?

Magical Xmas Land scenario: Street Wraith + Hollow One + Restless Dreams (3-card combo). Cycle 1 Street Wraith. Cast Dreams with X=1 on Street Wraith, discarding Vengevine or Bloodghast or Rootwalla. Cycle Street Wraith again. Cast Hollow One for 0 mana (3 cards discarded). If you have a second Hollow One, you could get Vengevine back for free, but that's rarely going to happen.

Is that worth playing Dreams? I just don't see the value. Tireless Tribe looks so much better for the all-in version.

//Creatures: 36
4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Basking Rootwalla
3 Carrion Feeder
3 Gravecrawler
3 Lotleth Troll
3 Bloodghast
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Vengevine
4 Hollow One

//Spells: 6
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Collective Brutality

//Mana: 18
4 Lotus Petal
4 Undiscovered Paradise
4 Cavern of Souls
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Swamp
1 Bayou
1 Scrubland

//Sideboard:
4 Nature's Claim
2 Faerie Macabre
3 Big Game Hunter
3 Silent Gravestone
2 Pithing Needle
1 Vengeful Pharaoh

The sideboard is still a mess. I'm assuming we lose most to combo (Reanimator and SneakShow are popular) and graveyard hate. The sideboard is built with those matches in mind. If other things become worse matchups, the board needs to be adjusted.

Inkfathom

02-18-2019, 02:40 PM

The all-in version doesn’t just lose to combo, you have discard and a fast clock and big game hunter can kill emrakul at instant speed. Miracles is probably a much worse matchup, they can counter your discard outlet, kill it if you don’t go off t1, swords your hollow ones and vines, and terminus to fuck you over.

Mr. Safety

02-18-2019, 02:40 PM

I missed the nuance of Restless Dreams. It's garbage. If I could discard the same creatures I target to return it would be insane, but as you say the targets have to be legal before casting (and discarding is part of the cost.) Bummer. Nostalgic Dreams would be the same. Both unplayable I think. I'll stick to Sickening Dreams, but I wouldn't play it sideboard. It's a maindeck discard outlet. Post-board it could stay in against Young Pyromancer and Elves, but beyond that I don't like the card disadvantage as a 'fair' card.

I think the strength of a deck like this is it's ability to switch from graveyard dependent g1 into a 'fair' rock deck sideboard. People board in grave hate that doesn't really blow us out like it would a traditional dredge deck. The sideboard strategy is going to be absolutely critical to whether this deck can really win matches. For now I'm planning on boarding out Stinkweed Imps/Sickening Dreams (because all-in on the graveyard isn't great) for Sylvan Library, Hymns, Bitterblossom, and Liliana TLH against control decks like Miracles/Grixis Control. Scavenging Ooze comes in against anything that is leaning on Surgical for their graveyard interaction, so slow-rolling Scooze before Vengevine-ing and Bloodghast-ing is key. Edicts, Scooze, and Faeries come in against Reanimator/traditional Dredge/Lands/Turbo Depths.

I think the flexible cards for my approach are the targeted discards and Stinkys. I don't want to sideboard too much, but enough to really blunt the edge of grave hate.

Inkfathom

02-18-2019, 03:06 PM

Also, FTW, I'd play fragmentize or maybe abrupt decay over nature's claim in your sideboard. I get that claim is easier to cast, but you really don't want your opponent gaining life.

Interestingly, I think the all-in version can kind of work around grave hate. Early hollow ones backed up by hardcast amalgams have won games for me when my opponent clearly just mulled to find grave hate. I'm trying out asylum visitor in the board to support this plan and to have something else that eats removal. It can also get you a card before it dies if your opponent is tapped out and you madness it, which can be very relevant against control.

FTW

02-18-2019, 05:33 PM

Also, FTW, I'd play fragmentize or maybe abrupt decay over nature's claim in your sideboard. I get that claim is easier to cast, but you really don't want your opponent gaining life.

Good point. I had Fragmentize in earlier versions for that reason. I put Nature's Claim in that one because of the manabase. Fetchlands improve Bloodghast. Basic swamp is good in some matches. I don't want to fetch turn 1 Scrubland unless the hand has Tireless Tribe and no other white source, because green mana is useful more often. That tilted me towards Claim. Maybe it's better to just play all rainbow lands in the all-in version.

Rainbow land pros:
-Easier to support colored costs for sideboard cards: Fragmentize, Ingot Chewer (a 1cc answer to Chalice), Abrupt Decay..
-Dodges Stifle
-Opponent could confuse you for Dredge and concede.

Rainbow land cons:
- Bloodghast is worse without fetchlands
- No basics to get vs Assassin's Trophy, Path to Exile, Ghost Quarter...
- Scoop to nonbasic hate

Re: Sickening Dreams

Game 1 it's pretty bad against spell-based decks, just a slow discard outlet. It has anti-synergy with any weenies you have out and Basking Rootwalla (Rootwalla will enter play before Dreams resolves, then die). It's much better against aggro, hatebears or tokens, when you're using it both to discard and kill things.

Both pre- and post-board it's great against Death and Taxes and Soldier Stompy, which rely on creature-based disruption like Containment Priest, Phyrexian Revoker, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, and Thalia, Heretic Cathar, and Sanctum Prelate. You don't have to discard your whole hand. X=1 or X=2 are valid modes. You can use it to kill things, enable Hollow Ones, or bait gravehate with only 1-2 guys in the bin.

If you play it main, I'd leave it in for more matches. Without it, we need some other removal for hatebears. Massacre or Pyroclasm or Marsh Casualties or Dread of Night?

For the all-in version with rainbow mana, what about some Firestorms SB? It cheaply answers hatebears, but it does need X legal targets (including you and opponent).

What would you put in the board to help against Miracles? I put 4 Cavern of Souls maindeck to fight counters and Carrion Feeders to fight Swords and Terminus. Other than more discard, I couldn't think of much else.

Inkfathom

02-18-2019, 05:53 PM

Good point. I had Fragmentize in earlier versions for that reason. I put Nature's Claim in that one because of the manabase. Fetchlands improve Bloodghast. Basic swamp is good in some matches. I don't want to fetch turn 1 Scrubland unless the hand has Tireless Tribe and no other white source, because green mana is useful more often. That tilted me towards Claim. Maybe it's better to just play all rainbow lands in the all-in version.

Rainbow land pros:
-Easier to support colored costs for sideboard cards: Fragmentize, Ingot Chewer (a 1cc answer to Chalice), Abrupt Decay..
-Dodges Stifle
-Mana Confluence -> Putrid Imp -> Discard Prized Amalgams and Bloodghasts and Stinkweed Imp and Cabal Therapy -> flashback Therapy. Opponent could confuse you for Dredge and concede.

Rainbow land cons:
- Bloodghast is worse without fetchlands
- No basics to get vs Assassin's Trophy, Path to Exile, Ghost Quarter...
- Scoop to nonbasic hate

You bring up good points, and I never really considered the mostly-rainbow manabase. In general, I've found that by the time your opponents are hating on your lands, you don't need to cast any more spells. Discard outlet + land from hand + rootwalla reanimates vengevines anyway. In the case of blood moon, you can lotus petal -> fragmentize, and this deck can definitely win without casting a spell after t1. Plus, 4 undiscovered paradise is usually enough to get back bloodghasts I've found.

Game 1 it's pretty bad against spell-based decks, just a slow discard outlet. It has anti-synergy with any weenies you have out and Basking Rootwalla (Rootwalla will enter play before Dreams resolves, then die). It's much better against aggro, hatebears or tokens, when you're using it both to discard and kill things.

For the all-in version with rainbow mana, what about some Firestorms SB?

I haven't come across a situation where I was locked out by creatures, but I can see cards like containment priest and thalia heretic cathar being really annoying. Firestorm is nice because it's reach and clears out blockers, both effects we want. The only problem I can see is that normally our discard effects want to happen on turn 1, when firestorm is weaker. However, it seems like a very strong sideboard card. Thank for this, I'll try it out.

What would you put in the board to help against Miracles? I put 4 Cavern of Souls maindeck to fight counters and Carrion Feeders to fight Swords and Terminus. Other than more discard, I couldn't think of much else.

I think the way this deck is most likely to beat miracles is to get a really strong turn 1 and dodge/discard a terminus. For that reason, I can't think of a sideboard option that doesn't just dilute our gameplan. We probably just have to accept the bad matchup.

Hanni

02-18-2019, 09:03 PM

Getting to 3 mana might be rough, but Lost Legacy/Unmoored Ego would be good against Miracles. Swords to Plowshares is only mildly annoying in the matchup; Terminus is the actual problem. Removing Terminus from the game before going off seems like a legitimate plan.

Is Miracles alone worth boarding those for? Would they be reliable enough to to bring in against combo matchups? I doubt it, but it might be worth testing.

Inkfathom

02-18-2019, 09:19 PM

Hanni

02-18-2019, 09:37 PM

I don't think 14/15 lands and 4 lotus petals is enough to support casting 3 mana cards with any reliability. Plus, if you do have 3 lands and legacy/ego, you probably don't have a strong combo and your opponent can save counterspells for it.

Is gaddock teeg or meddling mage where we want to be?

Edit: Legacy and ego are probably good options for the fairer build.

Stubborn Denial and Circular Logic are other possible options.

I doubt Miracles keeps much countermagic in... probably just Force of Will. Counterspell is too slow, Flusterstorm doesn't hit creatures, and we have Cavern of Souls.

Inkfathom

02-18-2019, 09:42 PM

Good points.

FTW

02-18-2019, 10:34 PM

I like Stubborn Denial a lot more than Lost Legacy. The rainbow manabase makes it feasible. Most players won't see it coming.

Is Invasive Surgery too narrow to matter in enough other matchups?

Hanni

02-18-2019, 11:40 PM

Invasive Surgery is probably the best option, since it will unconditionally answer Terminus. It's also good against most combo decks, which makes it versatile enough to be worth sideboard space. It's unfortunate that it cannot counter Surgical Extraction, though; Flusterstorm would be even more versatile, but I think it would be much less reliable against Terminus specifically.

Mr. Safety

02-19-2019, 06:09 AM

Mr. Safety

02-19-2019, 08:08 AM

Hanni

02-19-2019, 09:12 AM

Regarding the all-in version: aren't you just playing a Belcher style deck by trimming the lands way back and trying to be a t1-2 deck? You're actually playing fewer initial mana sources than Belcher (which has around 20, not counting LED because it isn't an initial mana source to start the chain.) You're aiming for explosive but playing fewer initial mana sources than arguably the most explosive t1 combo deck in the format. I'm not criticizing, just trying to understand where you're coming from. The question of critical mass is really the big question for any version of this deck. The grindier version eschews redundancy for resilience, the combo version eschews protection for speed. I worry the critical mass of synergies might not be enough for the Bg grindy version but I fear losing too many games to inconsistency/lack of interaction g1, and I really want to be winning g1.

I'm headed to the local this week, maybe getting some matches in against actual opponents will help, lol.

You're looking at the all-in deck the wrong way. Initial mana sources are irrelevant; you run the amount that is required. The deck only needs one or two mana; 20 of the creatures in the deck are free, and with the exception of Lotleth Troll, the rest cost one mana.

Why isn't the all-in version as grindy? Because it runs less discard, spot removal, and lands? Those cards slow the game down, but don't inherently make the deck better at grinding. The all-in version has a multitude of recursive creatures that gives the deck more than enough grind to beat most of the fair decks decks (such as Grixis Control and D&T).

The point of the all-in approach is to increase the consistency of the deck by increasing its redundancy and synergy. More pieces interact with more pieces to more consistently enable hands to "work." It doesn't just make the deck faster, it also makes the deck more consistently able to cheat a pile of creatures into play.

You also mention that the all-in version has less resilience, but I fail to understand what you mean. Resilience to what? The deck doesn't need discard or creature removal to beat Delver decks if it can put a Putrid Imp into play off of a Cavern of Souls and then dump a pile of creatures onto the board, for example.

Resilience to graveyard hate postboard, maybe? I don't really think the fairer versions are any less affected, but regardless, the all-in version has enough tools to beat graveyard hate postboard.

If anything, the all-in versions should be much stronger game one against fair decks, not worse. It may be softer to combo with less maindeck discard, but then again, this deck can kill on turns 2-3 itself, so the combo matchups are likely a toss-up in game one (for the all-in version).

If you're looking for a slower, more disruptive approach, I don't see why you wouldn't just play Buried Phoenix. The strength to the Vengevine approach is the speed and the critical mass of threats. Think BR Reanimator compared to UB Reanimator as an example of what I mean.

Mr. Safety

02-19-2019, 09:39 AM

Great post, thanks. I did indeed mean resilience to gravehate, but also resilience to mana-disruption. I'm trying to avoid the Wasteland dilemma. Waste your 1 land, Daze your discard outlet, GG.

My perspective was basically that both decks can win over 2 turns, the disruption maindeck version does it on turns 3-4. The 'all-in synergies' wins over 2 turns, turns 2-3. I was looking at it as the difference between Turbo Depths and Lands; both can make a t2 Marit Lage but one is dedicated to doing it as fast as possible while the other is ok with playing a more disruptive game. I could be way off here, but that is my perspective currently.

I don't want to mislead; I'm still getting a significant board presence by turn 3, if not lethal, and closing games out pretty handily. I think either version is well-placed as a 'dredge' deck that doesn't spread graveyard synergies over several turns. We really only need one big turn to set up synergies and blast out a bunch of threats.

As I posted, I'm testing this out on Friday, will let you know how it goes. If I'm really unhappy with results I can easily switch over to your approach. I'm only about 12 cards off (Amalgams, Tireless Tribe, and a few lands.) I'd be happy to see any version do well, it's a fun strategy that just *might* be a legitimate pure agro deck in legacy.

Inkfathom

02-19-2019, 09:58 AM

I’ve actually found wasteland to be pretty bad against our deck unless we get a very slow start. The deck generally wants to dump its hand on turn 1, and I wouldn’t keep a hand with only 1 land if I couldn’t at least play a discard outlet on turn 1. Daze is good but it does little on the draw and does nothing against cavern.

Hanni

02-19-2019, 10:25 AM

Lotus Petal can help to beat Daze and Wasteland as well.

FTW

02-19-2019, 07:36 PM

@FTW: Sickening Dreams isn't just for wiping, its an unconditional discard outlet like Brutality that doesn't need to resolve to get the job done. The reach is actually relevant as well, sometimes trimming 1/2 a turn off (damage itself and can get opponents to 10 or less for hasty Bloodghasts.) It was the testing against Grixis Delver that convinced me it was worth testing (Daze is a card.)

Yeah, I just meant it can also be used for X=1 or X=2 (mini-wipe) instead of for X=5 (all-in discard your hand). It has many modes. It's still relevant post-board vs hate because you don't have to go all-in. You can still use it in a fair game to wipe weenies and bait graveyard hate by pitching Bloodghasts. If you board it out, the deck lacks creature removal.

You shouldn't need Sickening Dreams to beat Daze. Instead of playing a 2cc unconditional outlet, you could play a 1cc creature outlet and leave up 1 mana. That beats Spell Pierce too. Also Cavern of Souls. For the explosive version, Firestorm is a 1cc unconditional discard outlet that also kills things if it resolves.

If you're boarding into a fair deck, does it make sense to run Aether Vials sideboard? You can Vial in all your threats instead of using the graveyard. No one will expect it.

FTW

02-19-2019, 07:40 PM

FTW

02-19-2019, 08:09 PM

You also mention that the all-in version has less resilience, but I fail to understand what you mean. Resilience to what?

I can't speak for where Mr. Safety is coming from, but when I differentiated between an all-in approach and grindier approach, it was based on these distinctions:

1) Fetchlands and basics vs rainbow lands. The first means better Bloodghast recursion and more resilience to mana denial. By mana denial, I mean early Blood Moon (Dragon Stompy) or a turn 1 counter followed by Wasteland (Delver). Wasteland on its own is not that dangerous if we already resolved a discard outlet, but the 1-2 punch of counter+Waste is devastating. Less than half of opening hands will have Caverns, so it's a risk.

2) Being fully-committed to the madness/graveyard plan. The less explosive list has a better shot of having a transformational sideboard into a plan B.
I used that in my old BG Vengevine madness deck 7 years ago. It was a more effective way to dodge gravehate than boarding in reactive answers (e.g. boarding out Bloodghasts, Buried Alive and Vengevines for Dark Confidants, Thoughtseize and Abrupt Decay). It was hedging between an explosive deck and a fair deck, the way Survival lists used to.

The explosive plan can't pull that off. There are too many cards committed to the main plan and a lower land count. You're not winning a fair game. That means the sideboard needs to be answers to gravehate, instead of a plan B. Dredge has the same problem. It's hard to win game 2, not knowing which hate to board against. If you bring in Nature's Claim and they have Surgicals, awkward... Still, this has more diverse threats than Dredge and should be harder to hate out.

3) Threat diversification into cards that are both enablers and alternate win conditions: e.g. Lotleth Troll, Carrion Feeder, Cryptbreaker. These cards don't help you get the explosive turn 1 Hollow One starts, but they play dual roles of enabling your free guys or also threatening to win the game on their own, even if your graveyard is hated out or Hollow One takes StP. Cards like that reduce your turn 1 explosiveness rate but increase your chance of winning through spot removal or a Tormod's Crypt.

I found the threat diversification angle very useful in my old Vengevine Madness deck, but that was before Hollow One. That was also in a metagame full of creatures (Maverick, Stoneblade, D&T), where having the grow guys grinded out wins. I have yet to test whether in 2019 you win more matches by having more explosive turn 1s or by hedging with alternate win conditions. In this meta, explosiveness is probably the right call.

Hanni

02-19-2019, 11:11 PM

I can't speak for where Mr. Safety is coming from, but when I differentiated between an all-in approach and grindier approach, it was based on these distinctions:

1) Fetchlands and basics vs rainbow lands. The first means better Bloodghast recursion and more resilience to mana denial. By mana denial, I mean early Blood Moon (Dragon Stompy) or a turn 1 counter followed by Wasteland (Delver). Wasteland on its own is not that dangerous if we already resolved a discard outlet, but the 1-2 punch of counter+Waste is devastating. Less than half of opening hands will have Caverns, so it's a risk.

2) Being fully-committed to the madness/graveyard plan. The less explosive list has a better shot of having a transformational sideboard into a plan B.
I used that in my old BG Vengevine madness deck 7 years ago. It was a more effective way to dodge gravehate than boarding in reactive answers (e.g. boarding out Bloodghasts, Buried Alive and Vengevines for Dark Confidants, Thoughtseize and Abrupt Decay). It was hedging between an explosive deck and a fair deck, the way Survival lists used to.

The explosive plan can't pull that off. There are too many cards committed to the main plan and a lower land count. You're not winning a fair game. That means the sideboard needs to be answers to gravehate, instead of a plan B. Dredge has the same problem. It's hard to win game 2, not knowing which hate to board against. If you bring in Nature's Claim and they have Surgicals, awkward... Still, this has more diverse threats than Dredge and should be harder to hate out.

3) Threat diversification into cards that are both enablers and alternate win conditions: e.g. Lotleth Troll, Carrion Feeder, Cryptbreaker. These cards don't help you get the explosive turn 1 Hollow One starts, but they play dual roles of enabling your free guys or also threatening to win the game on their own, even if your graveyard is hated out or Hollow One takes StP. Cards like that reduce your turn 1 explosiveness rate but increase your chance of winning through spot removal or a Tormod's Crypt.

I found the threat diversification angle very useful in my old Vengevine Madness deck, but that was before Hollow One. That was also in a metagame full of creatures (Maverick, Stoneblade, D&T), where having the grow guys grinded out wins. I have yet to test whether in 2019 you win more matches by having more explosive turn 1s or by hedging with alternate win conditions. In this meta, explosiveness is probably the right call.

It's still possible to play the all-in list with a fetch/dual/basic manabase. I only moved towards Undiscovered Paradise and Cavern of Souls because they dramatically improve the deck. I could still run a 3 fetchland 1 Bayou 1 Scrubland 1 Swamp manabase, but the upside to playing 4 Mana Confluence 2 City of Brass is improved color consistency, and the ability to run blue and red sideboard cards like Invasive Surgery, Flusterstorm, Firestorm, Ingot Chewer, Wear//Tear, etc.

There's still a possibility to play a transformational sideboard plan with the all-in list, I just don't think it's necessary. The deck already has non-graveyard dependent threats, and is much more resilient to graveyard hate than Dredge.

Even if the anti-graveyard plan can be akward if we board wrong, I don't believe boarding into a fairer plan is actually good enough to win games against most decks postboard. You may get some points for blanking some graveyard hate, but you're still going to be a worse version of The Rock or Maverick or whatever, and those decks aren't performing well right now as it is.

My all-in list is playing those alternate threats, though. I'm not running Cryptbreaker, but I do have 4 Lotleth Troll and 3 Carrion Feeder, in addition to Basking Rootwalla's and Hollow One's.

The fact is, the only real differences I'm seeing between the all-in in list and the fairer lists is that I cut 4 lands for 4 Lotus Petal to speed up the deck (which seems fine to me since the deck doesn't need to generate mana every turn), less discard (which is less necessary with Cavern of Souls and a faster clock), and no maindeck removal (which is only really necessary against other aggro/combo decks like Infect and Elves). Otherwise, the variations are mostly similar.

I'm obviously biased in my opinion, but I believe the creature-heavier (all-in) list is the better approach.

Mr. Safety

02-20-2019, 06:54 AM

Cool discussion, I just wanted to add in that one very potent threat that somewhat gets around grave hate is Gurmag Angler. The most commonly played graveyard hate is Surgical Extraction and Gurmag works around that fairly easily. Gurmags need to delve so Leyline of the Void and Rest in Peace are still non-bo's with it, but Surgical/Faeries/TCrypts are all able to be worked around. Containment Priest doesn't do anything to it either.

Hanni

02-20-2019, 10:07 AM

I don't think Gurmag Angler is very good, at least in the creature-heavier list, even as a transformational plan out of the sideboard. My list simply does not put enough fodder in the graveyard. Even if I were to switch to an 8+ fetch manabase + Lotus Petal, there's still not enough fodder. The cards that I discard are intended to be returned to play. I don't run any cantrips, and very few instants/sorceries.

Gurmag would probably work in lists with Faithless Looting and such, and certainly works if you're running Stinkweed Imp, but I almost never hit Threshold for Putrid Imp in my current rainbow list, and Gurmag would be completely uncastable for me.

Against the targeted graveyard hate where Gurmag would excel, I would rather board into Silent Gravestone, I think.

Another interesting fact about the faster all-in list, is that it can get underneath the slower hate like Rest in Peace and Containment Priest.

Honestly, the more I think about the deck, its matchups, and the sideboard plans, the more convinced I am that this deck is better than Dredge. It's not quite as powerful in game one, but still powerful enough to beat the fair matchups all the same, and is significantly more resilient to graveyard hate postboard.

Cavern of Souls making the initial discard outlet uncounterable is huge, and gives the deck a resilience to Force of Will and Daze that (LED) Dredge doesn't have.

I've been trying to make a viable Vengevine deck for years to no avail, but I really feel like we're onto something here. Again, this isn't Tier 1 by any means, but I certainly think the deck could achieve a 5-0 run on MTGO.

Inkfathom

02-20-2019, 10:15 AM

Mr. Safety

02-20-2019, 12:03 PM

Hanni

02-21-2019, 11:20 AM

Hmm, I haven’t had quite such positive results with the deck, I feel like the deck just mulls to obvilion way too often or I keep a hand that needs one thing to work and I never draw it. It’s possible I’m playing it wrong, but it feels too inconsistent to be very strong deck for me so far.

I suppose that's fair. Despite attempting to improve consistency with redundancy, this is still essentially a combo deck; it requires a combination of certain cards in order to "work." Sometimes, the deck is just not going to draw the right cards, and without cantrips, you are at the mercy of the topdeck.

Unlike a deck like BR Reanimator, which can technically go off on turn 1 with only 4 cards (land, Ritual/Petal, Entomb, reanimation spell), this is more of a critical mass deck. Being a critical mass deck means that it does not mulligan well, and so you're sort of stuck between a hand that needs one more piece, or mulligan'ing into a potentially worse hand.

Despite that, though, the deck does work more often than not, and even when it doesn't get the lightning fast starts, it can still beat a good number of fair decks game one by virtue of sheer threat density and unkillable threats that can grind them out in the midgame.

You may be looking at failure based on whether or not the deck can assemble a board on turn 1 or 2, but there are a non-zero number of games where the deck can still win even when it does not.

Regardless, I think the deck is a pretty good deck, and if nothing else, it's the most competitive Vengevine deck that I've been able to come up with since I started trying to make Vengevine viable after Survival got banned.

Inkfathom

02-21-2019, 11:32 AM

You may be looking at failure based on whether or not the deck can assemble a board on turn 1 or 2, but there are a non-zero number of games where the deck can still win even when it does not.

Yeah that's still definitely a thing, but I still only have about a 50% winrate in mtgo tournament practice with it. Again, I might just be playing it wrong, but idk

Hanni

02-21-2019, 11:36 AM

Yeah that's still definitely a thing, but I still only have about a 50% winrate in mtgo tournament practice with it. Again, I might just be playing it wrong, but idk

If you don't mind me asking, what have been your matchups so far, what have you beaten and what have you lost to, etc.

Mr. Safety

02-21-2019, 12:37 PM

You may be looking at failure based on whether or not the deck can assemble a board on turn 1 or 2, but there are a non-zero number of games where the deck can still win even when it does not.

QFT

Just because going all-in is the goal doesn't mean you can't draw into nutty topdecks and get there. As with any combo deck, in my experience, patience is rewarded. Pick your window, and sometimes that window isn't t1-2.

Inkfathom

02-21-2019, 12:49 PM

Hanni

02-21-2019, 12:59 PM

Beat: Hypergenesis, manaless dredge x2 (same guy), miracles (1 game), unknown stompy, monoblack reanimator, enchantress, ANT, grixis delver (with bitterblossom), monoblack discard, goblin stompy, lands, junk loam, eldrazi, punishing jund?, pox, punishing maverick, turbo depths, bant
Lost to: Junk midrange, grixis phoenix x2 (same guy), miracles, LED dredge, UR delver, UB delver, sneak and show, burn x2 (same guy), monoblack reanimator, monowhite control, grixis delver, lands, RUG delver, UB show and tell?, goblin stompy, maverick

MTGO tournament practice is kind of an amalgamation of jank, as you can see. I think the deck lost to itself more than it lost to other decks.

That's a pretty interesting spread, as there doesn't seem to be any sort of trend in what you beat and what you lost to.

Were these best 2 out of 3's involving sideboard, and if so, were the losses mainly in games two and three once graveyard hate became a factor, or were there a lot of game one losses? Were any losses due to you scooping them up prematurely?

It's hard to make sense of that matchup data because it looks like you've both won and lost to the same major archetypes, so it's hard to determine what are good matchups that you lost and what are bad matchups that you won.

Could you go into a tiny bit more detail about what losing to yourself is like?

What cards or strategies from the opponent's do you feel that the deck has problems with?

Inkfathom

02-21-2019, 04:25 PM

That's a pretty interesting spread, as there doesn't seem to be any sort of trend in what you beat and what you lost to.

Yeah, I think there's just such a high variance with this deck that we can beat or lose to almost any deck.

Were these best 2 out of 3's involving sideboard, and if so, were the losses mainly in games two and three once graveyard hate became a factor, or were there a lot of game one losses?

There were some of both, but post-board losses were more common. I think a lot of that has to do with our opponents knowing how to mulligan in addition to graveyard hate. There were some hands I kept that basically lost to surgical, but there were also games like one against maverick where they had 3 swords and/or path by turn 3. If all those were in the opponent's opener, it's unlikely they would keep it game 1, and this deck has a very hard time beating it.

Were any losses due to you scooping them up prematurely?

I don't like conceding until I'm actually dead, but there were a few times when I scooped because I got frustrated when I had a small chance of winning.

Could you go into a tiny bit more detail about what losing to yourself is like?

As you mentioned, this deck mulligans quite poorly. I felt obligated to keep some hands that could be good but could be awful depending on what an opponent has (e.g. a t1 hollow one with nothing else, or a hand with lotleth troll as your only discard outlet [which loses to thoughtseize or wasteland]). There are also times where you just mulligan to 4. There were many games where I just needed to draw a specific card (different cards each time) and never did.

What cards or strategies from the opponent's do you feel that the deck has problems with?

I feel like with the sideboard and the nut draw the deck has, it can beat almost anything. With that said, there are a few cards I struggled to beat: this deck scoops to a tabernacle at pendrell vale with many draws for example. Other cards that were difficult to beat: chalice of the void, blood moon, young pyro and a ton of spells, wasteland with some draws, terminus. Reanimator felt difficult too because this deck basically loses to any fatty and the deck can be faster than ours. Sideboard cards helped, but sometimes there's just nothing you can do. One game I therapied two blood moons out of my opponent's hand, and they ripped a third one and I just lost.

As I was writing this, I was thinking about some cards that could solve some of our problems. I looked back at faithless looting, but the fact that it doesn't work very well with hollow one or vengevine probably means this deck doesn't want it. Gamble is very interesting at making the deck more consistent. There's a chance you get screwed by it, but the fact that most of the cards in the deck want to be discarded makes me at least want to try it. It also helps lotleth troll cast hollow one. Bomat courier is super interesting as at least a sideboard card. Control decks have to answer it, and it's great at putting vengevines or potentially hollow ones into play. Tortured existence could maybe be a good sideboard card for grindy matchups, but it's probably too slow. I considered lion's eye diamond, but it can't work with hollow one unless we put in jank like shadow of the grave. I'll do some more testing.

Inkfathom

02-21-2019, 04:44 PM

The more I think about it, the more I like gamble. It gets discarders if you need one, it gets rootwalla for vengevine, it gets gravecrawler/bloodghast for amalgam and it gets vengevine to just put more power on the board.

Inkfathom

02-21-2019, 06:49 PM

Gamble has been amazing so far. I think we should just be playing 4 of it.

FTW

02-21-2019, 10:13 PM

Thanks for posting your test results.

Gamble has always been one of my favorite Magic cards. Glad to see it has a home here. What did you cut for Gambles?

Inkfathom

02-21-2019, 10:21 PM

I cut 3 lotleth troll and 1 carrion feeder (was running 3 of each). Because the deck can more consistently go off by turn 2 now, I didn't feel the need for slower, grindier cards. Lotleth troll has won me games before, but it's much worse than a 1-drop at discarding and we can find our 1-drop discarders more consistently now. Relying on the actual body to win the game is not where we want to be.

Inkfathom

02-21-2019, 11:12 PM

Mr. Safety

02-22-2019, 07:01 AM

With gamble in the deck, we can play tutor targets in the sideboard: big game hunter maybe can go to 1 copy, and asylum visitor, coffin purge, and ancient grudge are all good to have access to.

Edit: maybe scourge of nel toth too?

Vengeful Pharaoh and BGH are both pretty powerful Gamble targets, and I wouldn't be opposed to something like Life from the Loam out of the sideboard, especially if the mana-base ends up being super fragile (I'm thinking mostly because I want to jam Grove of the Burnwillows, which can make for fragile mana.) Entomb does the same, but Gamble provides a little more value (being in hand sometimes will be better than in the grave, for instance.) I like this technology; I was trying Burning Inquiry in my earliest tests with jund colors and I was quite disappointed with it's random nature. Gamble seems like an all-star. I have a couple in my binder so as soon as I finish acquiring the other red cards I need (Flamewake, Lootings, a couple fetchlands to make it work) Gamble will be part of the mix.

Rough Gamble list:

4x Putrid Imp
4x Vengevine
4x Bloodghast
4x Hollow One
4x Flamewake Phoenix
4x Basking Rootwalla
3x Lotleth Troll
2x Gurmag Angler
1x Vengeful Pharaoh
1x Stinkweed Imp
1x Big Game Hunter

4x Faithless Looting
2x Thoughtseize
2x Cabal Therapy
3x Punishing Fire
2x Gamble

4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Bloodstained Mire
2x Wooded Foothills
1x Bayou
1x Taiga
1x Badlands
3x Grove of the Burnwillows
1x Urborg, tomb of Yawgmoth
2x Swamp
1x Forest

Gamble acts as a 2nd Rootwalla very effectively. If you have 1 Rootwalla or 1 rootwalla/1 Gamble you basically have the same thing, so triggering Vengevines is going to be easier. With any other 1-2 drop creature and 3-4 mana available it does the same: Bloodghast/Troll/PimP/Stinkweed/BGH + Gamble. Gamble's interaction with Rootwalla is going to be pretty big I think. It should allow for similar interactions as the zombie engine but with a little more flexibility. I really like this idea. EDIT: I am assuming a hand size of only 1-2 cards for these interactions, it's obviously different with more cards in hand. I like that it is a way to gas-up after the initial plan is spent. It can also turbo-charge dredging if needed with the 1-off Stinkweed.

Hanni

02-22-2019, 10:40 AM

I like the idea of Gamble, but I'm not sure if I'm completely sold yet. Cutting Lotleth Troll for it means you're more susceptible to Chalice of the Void. It's susceptible to most forms of countermagic. The random discard will most likely be irrelevant, but it's still possible that it discards something you didn't want to discard. It also costs mana, potentially slowing down the deck. It also makes Cavern of Souls even more akward.

With that being said, it would certainly increase the consistency of the deck dramatically, and I'm not opposed to trying out new things.

It would also improve postboard matchups where you aren't sure what anti-graveyard hate to bring in, by bringing in 1 of each, and then being able to tutor for the right one.

I wouldn't cut Lotleth Troll completely, because the card is still fantastic in some matchups and is a non-graveyard dependent threat. I would rather trim down on Carrion Feeder and Gravecrawler instead. So something like cutting 2 Lotleth, 1 Feeder, 1 Crawler from my current list for 4 Gamble.

My list would look like this:

5c Fiendish Nature

Lands (14)
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Undiscovered Paradise
4 Mana Confluence
2 City of Brass

Creatures (34)
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Putrid Imp
2 Lotleth Troll
2 Carrion Feeder
2 Gravecrawler
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Bloodghast
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Vengevine
4 Hollow One

Spells (12)
4 Gamble
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Lotus Petal

Inkfathom

02-22-2019, 11:24 AM

What matchups is lotleth troll good against? I've had the most success with it against decks like grixis control, where they have a hard time killing it if it regenerates. Problem is, I just don't think it's worth waiting to 3 mana to play it and keep up regeneration mana, and you have problems if your opponent has a gurmag angler. I'd rather just beat down with gravecrawlers, bloodghasts, and amalgams. Maybe it should be in the sideboard, but this deck has so little sideboard space. Idk.

FTW

02-22-2019, 11:44 AM

Troll was really good for me in the old list when you could play DRS on turn 1 and Troll turn 2 with regeneration mana up. Turn 3 is slow. You could use Petal and play it turn 2. Also, you can hold back creatures. If they try to Bolt it you grow it in response. That's usually the best way for it to beat combat and beat removal. The bluff factor is huge and can lead the opponent to misplay. Against control you can probably afford to play slower to hold back responses so they can't remove your threats. The matches it wins are the ones where there's less pressure to race anyway.

It plays out the same way as Wild Mongrel did in the old UG Madness/Thresh decks, except the growth is permanent and it regenerates. Sometimes you just use it to pitch everything and you don't care if it dies. Other times you attack over and over holding cards in hand to protect it, reacting to their plays. Nonwhite decks have a very hard time answering it, especially when the cards you pitch to it become threats too.

Mr. Safety

02-22-2019, 12:57 PM

My trolls are usually 4/3 or bigger most of the time, at times as big as 6/5. It's another 4+ power threat that can power through and win fast. It's also a free discard enabler like Putrid Imp. It also has an incredibly underrated keyword ability for legacy: trample. It gets by TNN's and can go toe-to-toe with Gurmag because of regeneration. I'm actually convinced that even in a red-splashed list I will keep at least 2-3 Trolls in there.

I'm also not sold that Gamble needs to be a 4-of either. I see it as an Entomb with occasional upside. I'm definitely going to be testing Gamble with Punishing Fire, another graveyard value engine that can provide reach and removal to get threats through.

Inkfathom

02-22-2019, 01:11 PM

@FTW Ok, that makes sense actually. For now I’m really liking the 15th land and gravecrawler and bloodghast are great, so I’ll see if I miss lotleth troll.

@Mr Safety You’re basically playing a different deck at this point, our deck really wants 4 gamble because it needs a 1-mana discarded by turn 2. For your list, it might not make sense.

Mr. Safety

02-22-2019, 11:12 PM

I played tonight, went 2-2. Beat miracles and merfolk, lost to miracles and sneak/show. I'm convinced i need red in the deck, will detail the matches if anyone is interested.

I made a few changes: -4 stinkweed imp, -2 gurmag, +4 street wraith, +2 vengeful pharoah . Hollow Ones were super bad mid/late game with imps, and i was very happy with wraiths. 180 degree turnaround, and i'll explain why below in the red splash. Pharoah was for removal, and it was bad without a discard outlet. Bettet with looting i think.

Observations: if you want to play a jund style deck, this is probably a better apporach. It turns corners very quickly, unlike jund.

New list for testing:
4x pimp
4x rootwalla
4x vengevine
4x bloodghast
4x hollow one
2x lotleth troll
4x street wraith
1x vengeful pharoah

4x faithless looting
3x thoughtseize
3x cabal therapy
3x PFire
1x gamble
1x liliana the Last Hope

18x lands (3x grove of the Burnwillows)

I think 4x looting/wraith will gas up this deck in the right way and i would have loved to have pfire last night.

Mr. Safety

02-25-2019, 08:41 AM

I did some testing, and admittedly I don't have the lands to make a perfect jund-colored mana-base in legacy. However, I think the inclusion of Grove of the Burnwillows in a base-black deck is going to cause trouble regardless. Neither green or red are the primary colors of the deck. The red mana is the most useful for Looting, but it's still not the best option. So I'm not wasting too much time on this version and instead going straight to the white splash, which I think brings a lot to the table. I think the mana is way better because it doesn't rely on splash-color lands as a part of it's disruption.

4x Putrid Imp
4x Tireless Tribe
4x Basking Rootwalla
4x Bloodghast
4x Vengevine
4x Hollow One
2x Lotleth Troll

3x Thoughtseize
3x Cabal Therapy
4x Swords to Plowshares
2x Collective Brutality
3x Lingering Souls
1x Liliana, the Last Hope

4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Marsh Flats
2x Windswept Heath
2x Scrubland
1x Bayou
1x Blooming Marsh
1x Concealed Courtyard
2x Swamp
1x Forest
1x Plains
1x Utility Land (most likely Karakas)

Sideboard
2x Sylvan Library
1x Painful Truths
1x Vindicate
2x Abrupt Decay
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Ethersworn Canonist
2x Zealous Persecution
1x Bitterblossom
2x Hymn to Tourach

It has 12 discard outlets, 8 of them setting up explosive t1 plays. I will happily discard Lingering Souls to Tireless Tribe to make free Hollow Ones. Liliana has proven to be incredible in the mid-late game, just pure gas, and is great against some of the grindier decks.

DISCLAIMER: this is likely the grindiest version yet, it's definitely trying to be a Rock deck with extended graveyard synergy. It's more aggressive than traditional Rock/Deadguy but plays a very similar game plan with discard/removal/efficient threats. I'm excited to try this out. I'm sad I couldn't cram in Street Wraiths, but I think the plan of Collective Brutality and Liliana will be more powerful if slowing the deck down slightly. Tribe being a fat-ass wall against some decks will be fantastic.

Mr. Safety

06-12-2019, 09:24 AM

Hogaak has me brewing for this deck again. Without Hogaak there were some very explosive starts, sometimes racing even the combo decks, but with Hogaak I think it might actually be feasible to put lethal on board t1-3. I can't help but want to abuse the explosive Dark Ritual/Buried Alive combo for Bloodghasts/Vengevines/Hogaak/GGT/Stinkweed Imp. I like Mind Rake here as well because its another discard outlet that also disrupts. Dark Ritual means it *could* be fast enough. Golgari Grave Troll is there to enable Hogaak's further down the line. Hollow One doesn't cast Hogaak so I think Prized Amalgam is the correct addition.

Starting list:

4x Putrid Imp
4x Basking Rootwalla
4x Bloodghast
4x Vengevine
4x Lotleth Troll
4x Prized Amalgam
4x Street Wraith
3x Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis
1x Golgari Grave-Troll
4x Cabal Therapy
2x Mind Rake
4x Dark Ritual
4x Buried Alive
4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Polluted Delta
2x Windswept Heath
2x Bayou
2x Swamp
1x Forest
1x Dakmore Salvage

T1 combos: Dark Ritual + Buried Alive, Dark Ritual + Mind Rake, Putrid Imp + shenanigans. Not going to even attempt a sideboard just yet. I might need more dredgers to feed Hogaak, but this is a starting point.

ReAnimator

06-12-2019, 10:53 AM

Mr. Safety

06-12-2019, 11:21 AM

I've been following the new Bridgevine decks in modern, and they are looking possibly ban worthy powerful. They can easily win on turn 3 and sometimes turn 2.
They have a legit plan A and plan B, they are resilient, not completely shut down by graveyard hate (though it can be rough for sure).

I have to think just starting with that backbone and adding 4 cabal therapy and some dual lands probably is a good place to start. Maybe putting in rituals too or petals. I don't think Buried alive is necessary especially with Altar of Dementia in the mix.

The lists are still in their infancy but have already put up absurd results.
I'd imagine Neonate is probably worse than PImp.
Not sure what you would cut for Therapies exactly.

Here is a sample modern list that 5-0'd:

Creature (30)

4 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
4 Insolent Neonate
4 Stitcher's Supplier
4 Bloodghast
2 Stinkweed Imp
4 Vengevine
4 Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis

Sorcery (4)
4 Faithless Looting

Artifact (4)
4 Altar of Dementia

Enchantment (4)
4 Bridge from Below

Land (18)
3 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Marsh Flats
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs

Good catch! I think it would be -4 Neonate, +4 Pimp, -4 Carrion Feeder, +4 Cabal Therapy. Gravecrawler gets a little worse without Carrion Feeder, but I don't think it's a deal-breaker. I don't know if the red splash is worth it for Faithless Looting, Pimp does a lot of heavy lifting. I'm not sure Altar of Dementia is worth it in the Legacy version, I almost think it would be better to have some sort of Dread Return package. We get to upgrade Stinkweed Imps to GGT's as well, which is a decent DR target.

I'd still like to see what Mind Rake could do for the deck. I also think 1-2 Vengeful Pharaoh could be decent, at least in the sideboard. I'll keep tabs on the modern deck and see where it goes.

ReAnimator

06-12-2019, 03:51 PM

Mr. Safety
I think you are vastly underestimating the power here. This can mill someone out turn 2!

Watch some of it in action, it's pretty absurd.
https://youtu.be/ws8EECCw7DQ

You can't cut alter, or feeder otherwise your bridges do not work well enough.

With a couple of bridges and a hogaak and alter you can go infinite and mill someone out.
Just mill your self till you hit a hogaak and 2 bridges then you can keep casting hogaak over and over generating extra zombies once you hit another bridge it starts going larger.

mistercakes

06-13-2019, 12:42 AM

Wow just watched some videos, this deck is the real deal. It's incredible how well these cards synergize with each other.

Having access to dread return and cabal therapy is pretty big here, as it's relatively important to interact with opponents compared to modern.

Will think of some options as well, I'm sure there's some other cards being overlooked that fit well within this strategy.

FYI, there's a game where he goes turn 1 stitcher. Turn 2 he ends up with 15 power on the board and doesn't even have an altar in play.

Mr. Safety

06-13-2019, 08:34 AM

ReAnimator

06-14-2019, 09:27 AM

Mr. Safety

06-14-2019, 09:42 AM

So i'm wondering if Red is worth it in here, or if just being straight GB is better.

Shenanigans and Faithless looting are the best red has to offer, neonate is meh, Anger is a consideration but without entomb probably not great. Putrid imp while less strong than looting has a ton of other synergies to make up for it. You need green for enchantment hate anyway, and hard casting VVines while not something that will come up often is still a thing.

My biggest question is if Rituals are worth it or not? Extra lands are good with Crawler and Bloodghast, but being explosive is valuable too.

I think i'm going to start with this and go from there, and see if i need the added power of looting is needed or not and if rituals perform at all.

4 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
4 Putrid Imp
4 Stitcher's Supplier
4 Bloodghast
4 Vengevine
4 Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis

4 Altar of Dementia
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy

4 Dark Rituals
4 Bayou
4 Swamp
8 Fetches

Not sure how fancy you can get with the mana base. I think with Rituals you want to keep it basic. But if you cut them i would want to try out a Phyrexian Tower and maybe a Cabal Pit or 2, just for some main deck interaction.

Sideboard would probably start like this i would think:
4 Leyline
4 Assassin's trophy
as a base and then other options could be:
2 Collective Brutality
3 Thoughtseize / Hymn / Mindrake
2 ?

I've got a legacy 1k Coming up in a couple of weeks, probably give this a spin if i can get Hogaak's.

I think it's about as streamlined as you can get without splashing red. You're just cutting Looting for Therapies and Neonates for Pimps. I'm going to work towards getting this list together as well. I have much of the deck, but I'm missing Gravecrawlers, Alters, Hogaks, and Bridges.

I don't think it will pay to become cute with the mana-base. The only utility land you might want is 1-2x Dakmor Salvage. It allows your low land count to still enable Bloodghasts. I think you can cut 1-2x Swamps to fit them in. I also wonder if we can cut the true dredge cards entirely; I think the current modern lists are still using 2x Stinkweed Imp.

I'm looking forward to your feedback!

ReAnimator

06-14-2019, 11:20 AM

My worry with the dredge cards is that without looting we really don't have a way to get maximum effect from them, we can only do it once per turn. My instincts are to just cut them entirely. I worry with Salvage that it a) doesn't dredge for a significant amount, and b) having a ETB Tapped land is going to really hamper the explosive draws. Having Salvage alongside Rituals seems to be at cross purposes in my mind, but it's all theoretical right now, so in practice it might work out better.

I think i'll try one of each of the lands (salvage, cabal pit, tower) and just gold fish it a bunch of times and see if any of them get in the way or are clunky.

Good luck buying the singles, they are sky high right now because of modern. I'd try testing before committing.

Mr. Safety

06-14-2019, 08:05 PM

Good advice. Dakmor salvage wouldn't be for dredging, just for enabling land drops even if you 'dredge' it with Stitcher. You only have 16 lands, which is pretty low for bloodghast. Having watched the modern deck in action, bloodghast is pretty important for paying the cost for Hogaak.

ReAnimator

06-17-2019, 10:56 AM

So i've done some Goldfishing (the best quality of testing, lol) and i think Dark Rituals are very very explosive, and led to some turn ones with 11+ power in play. But i think it leaves us more open to disruption, i'm not worried about being fast, as this should be faster than most non combo things, i'm worried about consistency and how it performs in the face of disruption. So to that end i think Rituals don't really fit for now, unless the meta suddenly warrents explosive speed at the sake of consistency. The one big hit to cutting Ritual is it makes the sideboard Leylines very clunky, but that might be ok.

I think the first 40 cards are pretty set in stone for now. It's the last 20 (the lands and a flex slot or two) where the tough decisions are.

16-19 lands seems reasonable.
There are a lot of options (as discussed before) for utility lands.
We need a bunch of fetches for Ghast, and a decent amount of targets to fetch.
I'm going to try a bunch of 1 of's and see which help and which hurt.

I like the idea of one Undiscovered Paradise that Zombardment sometimes runs, as it helps Ghast be constantly fueled.

The Dakmor Salvage i worry about ETB Tapped lands, cause we really can't stumble, but it might be fine, i really don't want more than one.

I like the Cabal Pit as it's a free roll pretty much.

I also think a one of Phyrexian Tower is pretty reasonable, it can help accelerate, and having an extra sac outlet for suppliers and bridges is pretty great. The colourless is pretty rough as we don't have any things to sink it into, so might not be worth it.

Cavern of souls is also a possibility but i don't think our 1 casting cost zombies are getting countered very often, and it interferes with the sideboard.

Urborg is a possibility to slow roll fetches for Ghast, but again all these longer game synergies aren't really that helpful when things are going according to plan, and opens us up to more disruption.

I'm going to try this, and see how it goes
4 Bayou
2 Swamp
8 Fetches
1 Undiscovered Paradise
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Cabal Pit
1 Dakmor Salvage

2 Flex slots.

But i fully expect to cut one or two of these, and maybe add another basic or fetch.

I think for the flex slots i'm going to try out 2 crypt breakers. They have a million synergies, and can help with more grindy games where people try to slow us down. It might not contribute enough when things are going well, but should be pretty good when they aren't. I like it post board too, as it can play around grave hate pretty well. Having more discard outlets is very welcome too.
Zombie Infestation is another possibility here.

johncarvalho

06-17-2019, 01:39 PM

Im working on a Zombardment list with Hogaak at the moment. From my testings, dakmor salvage and shenanigans are nice, (chalice for 1 really hurts the deck!). Also 1 of undiscovered paradise ia really nice with ghasts.

My build have 1 of Anger also, sometimes you just dont have altar to mill your opponent, but you can hit right away with the recent made zombies from bridges/feeders, making a 2turn clock or something... Maybe he is a fit here as well.

ReAnimator

06-19-2019, 09:48 AM

Mr. Safety

06-19-2019, 11:49 AM

https://media.wizards.com/2019/m20/en_J3kJLv7DZs.png

johncarvalho

06-23-2019, 07:57 AM

So after some more testing i think Faithless looting is necessary. It pains me to go to a 3 colour list again, but the requirements are really minor.

With only Putrid Imp, i wasn't hitting enough self discard. Looting smooths things out, and also helps you with the low land count. Cryptbreaker wasn't really good enough for the main.

Going to 3 colours means all the cute utility lands need to be cut, other than Undiscovered Paradise and possibly the Phyrexian tower.

I've gone down to 17 lands and cut the 4th Altar and cryptbreakers for the 4 looting.

I like the 1 of Anger idea, now with mountains, but i don't think there is room, and without entomb i don't think it will be reliable enough.

I'm trying something like this, its an adaptation of my bombardment list to play altar instead of it, and no vengevines:

Main:
4 Altar of Dementia
1 Anger
3 Badlands
4 Bloodghast
3 Bloodstained Mire
4 Bridge from Below
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Carrion Feeder
4 Entomb
4 Faithless Looting
4 Gravecrawler
2 Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis
3 Marsh Flats
1 Phyrexian Tower
3 Polluted Delta
3 Scrubland
1 Shenanigans
4 Stitcher's Supplier
3 Swamp
2 Thoughtseize
1 Undiscovered Paradise

Sideboard:
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Silent Gravestone
2 Swords to Plowshares
3 Wear // Tear

- EE is great in my meta as there is lots of dnt/tribal stuff, and destroys chalices. The MB shenanigans is also for chalice, you can entomb for it (if they are on the play you are screwed btw:laugh:)
- Silent Gravestone+Leyline is great against graveyard decks, and also a form of protection from us. Gravestone is also excellent vs arcanist/snapcaster decks.
- A little removal is necessary for those pesky Marit Lage and other annoying stuff.
- Anger lets you be very aggressive even without altar, it puts a lot of pression over the opponent.

I played a similar list earlier this week (just 1 hogaak and 3 bombardments/3 altars instead of 4 altars, and 18 lands, only lost match was due to flooding/mull to 5:mad:).

ReAnimator

06-24-2019, 01:21 PM

Player USAZ managed to get a 5-0 in a legacy league with this:

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-league-2019-06-22

Creature (24)4 Bloodghast (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BBloodghast%5D)4 Carrion Feeder (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BCarrion%5D+%5BFeeder%5D)4 Gravecrawler (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BGravecrawler%5D)4 Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BHogaak,%5D+%5BArisen%5D+%5BNecropolis%5D)4 Insolent Neonate (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BInsolent%5D+%5BNeonate%5D)4 Stitcher's Supplier (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BStitcher%5D+%5BSupplier%5D)
Sorcery (10)4 Cabal Therapy (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BCabal%5D+%5BTherapy%5D)4 Faithless Looting (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BFaithless%5D+%5BLooting%5D)2 Thoughtseize (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BThoughtseize%5D)
Artifact (4)4 Altar of Dementia (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BAltar%5D+%5Bof%5D+%5BDementia%5D)
Enchantment (4)4 Bridge from Below (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BBridge%5D+%5Bfrom%5D+%5BBelow%5D)
Land (18)3 Badlands (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BBadlands%5D)2 Bayou (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BBayou%5D)4 Bloodstained Mire (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BBloodstained%5D+%5BMire%5D)2 Polluted Delta (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BPolluted%5D+%5BDelta%5D)3 Swamp (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BSwamp%5D)2 Undiscovered Paradise (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BUndiscovered%5D+%5BParadise%5D)2 Verdant Catacombs (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BVerdant%5D+%5BCatacombs%5D)
60 Cards
Sideboard (15)3 Cryptbreaker (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BCryptbreaker%5D) 2 Goblin Bombardment (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BGoblin%5D+%5BBombardment%5D)2 Golgari Charm (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BGolgari%5D+%5BCharm%5D) 4 Hymn to Tourach (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BHymn%5D+%5Bto%5D+%5BTourach%5D)2 Surgical Extraction (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BSurgical%5D+%5BExtraction%5D) 2 Tormod's Crypt (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+%5BTormod%5D+%5BCrypt%5D)

Looks pretty standard, though I don’t know why you wouldn’t want putrid imps.

I went a disappointing 2-3 yesterday. That being said, 2 of my losses were in 3 games, and the deck felt good, I had some run bads and some mulls to oblivion. I’d for sure run the deck again with some changes.

Here’s a quick and dirty run down:
R1 Eldrazi Stompy: He lands a Chalice turn 1 after winning the die roll. I probably would have killed him on turn 2 if I was on the play.
Game two on the play he doesn’t have chalice, and I win on turn 4 ish.
Game Three he lands a first turn chalice and I had mulled looking for answers (he had leylines as well) so I couldn’t really keep a hand without answers. He drops a bunch of eldrazi’s and runs me over quickly.

R2 Miracles: We have a back and fourth battle but he has a lot of interaction and once I run out of gas he has a Narset to lock out the lootings in my yard and sticks a mentor to put me away.
Game 2 he force of wills my first 2 plays but never gets the card advantage back and I run him over.
Game 3 went long, I dumped a bunch of cards in my graveyard but almost none of them were relevant, just all the cards that don’t do anything, except for a Hogaak. I try to attack his hand but he has a surgical a snapcaster and a STP. If I had hit a bridge I would have been fine, but a Hogaak doesn’t really do anything against a hand like that. He puts me away after I stall out.

R3 Esper Stone Blade: I rip apart his hand and I’m able to run him over before he can find his footing.
Game 2 I don’t know what sort of hate he has, but I have lots of discard again, and he can’t really stop my creatures.

R4 Eldrazi Stompy again.
Game one he wins the die roll which is everything in this match up, he has a double mimic draw and kills me on turn 3.
Game two I get some stuff going but he has lethal on board and I have to go for it, he has a Faerie Macabre to shut it all down.

R5 D&T I’m able to run him over and he doesn’t have enough interaction to stop it. Having a Jitte Equipped isn’t really enough to stop 8/8 tramplers.
Game 2 I put a VVine and Hogaak in play on turn 2. He still almost stabilizes with a Mirran Crusader and a batterskull. But I rip a timely Assassin’s Trophy to stop him before it gets out of control.

Some notes and observations on the deck.
Not being able to block with most of your creatures can really hurt.
Bloodghast was pretty underwhelming all told. Not sure it adds enough, I might trim down on these a bit.
Putrid Imp was great.
Assassin’s trophy out of the board was the best catch all. It takes care of whatever hate they might have, Be it leyline or Containment priest.
This deck is pretty hard to play and sequence, I didn’t have close to enough reps to play well and that totally hurt me. I’ll need to test and practice a lot before I take it for a spin again.

@john I like the list you posted, it’s a less explosive but more resilient build. I’ll have to try it out. Though I really like vengevines and just bashing people. Entomb is powerful and big draw though.

Mr. Safety

07-03-2019, 11:46 AM

I'm trying to put together a coherent list to test with Buried Alive again, mostly because there is another turn 1 payoff card with Rotting Regisaur. I think it would end up having at least 2 Hogaaks and some number of actual dredgers, probably 1 of each Putrid Imp and Golgari-Grave Troll (to play around Surgical Extraction.) I think t1 Buried alive and getting 3 engine pieces rolling could be very good. Regisaur is slower as a discard outlet, but is more powerful than Insolent Neonate. It's a long shot, but Imma try.

Eldariel

07-04-2019, 11:49 PM

The deck wants to actually draw into some cards, which is why I think Faithless and Neonate are pretty key. Being able to draw the Altar in particular is big game; you can't mill it. That said, having more consistent discard outlets (PImp, CTherapy) compared to the Modern version seems quite nice as the Modern version is often stuck with Bridges and Vengevines in hand unable to do anything with them. It's always tricky to pick what to cut though; ideally you at least want 4 Bridges/Hogaaks/Altars as those are the key enablers. Hogaak is also quite nice vs. non-Leyline grave hate, but of course they're a bit rough to land vs. Leyline in particular.

Mr. Safety

03-13-2020, 07:58 AM

Active necromancy here...

So the deck that started the thread has essentially become the deck we all know as 'Hogaak'. It's based on all of the same synergies but adds Bridge/Alter for a combo finish.

So is there still a place for an agro version of Vengevine/Hollow One? I'm not sure, but I think the fact that several cards overlap with Death's Shadow means it might be possible to just play an agro deck that doesn't fold to hate like Hogaak. In this test version it's much more akin to a pure agro deck with Reanimator synergies. Street Wraith + Reanimate is known Shadow tech > Wraith is a known Hollow One enabler > Careful Study/Putrid Imp allow for cheap Hollow Ones > Careful Study/Putrid Imp feed Reanimate + Chancellor of the Annex > Reanimate causes life loss which feeds Death's Shadow. This might be too 'cute', but the overlapping synergies might possibly be enough to take a hybrid deck that would normally have consistency proglems and make it playable. Plus, with the budget manabase of Fetch + Shocks it should be pretty affordable. In earlier test versions, as far back as 2017, Putrid Imp allowed for the most explosive starts. Putrid Imp or Careful Study in opening hands should make for at least one 4-powered threat on-board turn 1, hopefully 2 to make this legitimately powerful enough for legacy standards.

For now, the splash color that makes the most sense is green (so on occasion I can hardcast Vengevine with Bayou + Lotus Petal.) This also gives access to some of the better answers to permanents out of the sideboard like Abrupt Decay, Assassin's Trophy, and Return to Nature.

Aggro Reanimator

Creatures - 29
4x Death's Shadow
4x Putrid Imp
3x Bloodghast
4x Hollow One
4x Vengevine
4x Street Wraith
4x Chancellor of the Annex
2x Bazaar Trademage

Sorceries - 13
4x Cabal Therapy
1x Thoughtseize
4x Careful Study
4x Reanimate

Artifacts - 4
4x Lotus Petal

Lands - 14
4x Polluted Delta
4x Verdant Catacombs
3x Watery Grave
1x Bayou
1x Swamp
1x Cephalid Coliseum

Sideboard
3x Abrupt Decay
1x Return to Nature
3x Ashen Rider
1x Iona, Shield of Emeria
2x Surgical Extraction
1x Coffin Purge
2x Stubborn Denial
2x Brazen Borrower

It's definitely a rough list, which only testing will show weaknesses beyond the theoretical ones (which have been discussed/continue to be discussed in the Trademage thread.) I'm down to 2 Trademages for a couple reasons:

1) Putrid Imp is a more reliable early turn enabler
2) Trademage is actually better as a Reanimate target or mid-game re-fill g2 if I can manage to deal with their grave hate. I'll have some draw steps to refill my hand to have chaff to discard, then 'go off' with Trademage once I can cast Decay/Return/Borrower to deal with Nature RIP/Leyline/Cage/etc.

Trademage, while being the inspiration for trying this kind of deck, is actually the weakest link due to it's mana coast a 2U. It's a flying threat, which will hopefully be it's redeeming value. I can see t1 Therapy/Thoughtseize/Careful Study and then t2 Land/Trademage/Hollow One for 7+ power on the board. I can also envision t1 Study/Therapy/Thoughtseize into t2 Imp/Reanimate Trademage/Hollow One and be super-charged with Vengevines. Death's Shadow should be a pretty solid backup threat. If other threats get nuked I can still just drop a 9/9 for B. Imp is actually a legitimate threat, attacking for 2 in the air once threshold is hit. The other weaker card in here is Bloodghast; it's basically free and fodder for discard outlets but it's actually not very useful outside of Therapy flashbacks. This is another potential place for cutting/pasting as I test.

On the sideboard, it's basically just added disruption to fight against control decks and other combo decks. Ashen Rider is for Show and Tell, Iona is for Burn/Storm/non-blue decks where I can really push synergies without worrying about Force of Will, Surgical/Purge/Return to Nature is for Reanimator/Dredge/random combo, Borrower/Decay/Return to Nature is for Moon Stompy decks and also to fight Depths, Delver, and other random matchups where Decay is good.

Regarding Gurmag Angler: I can't afford to nuke my own graveyard if I plan on using Reanimate aggressively. Once I decided to get Chancellor x4/Reanimate x4 into the deck it becomes much more risky to play Gurmags.

This is just an experiment, one I intend to try at the LGS once I get a chance to go. Attendance has been spotty lately, so it doesn't always fire. This past week was planned but coronavirus madness has everybody staying away. *shrug* This gives me more time to adjust. With Breech being banned I think people are going to relax a little on hard graveyard hate, moving back to Surgical. This deck doesn't like Surgical but it can work around it readily enough. If Trademage ends up being good enough as a Reanimate target, or just overperforms in general, I'll cut something for a 3rd copy. I can always lean a little heavier on the reanimator tech and swap it with Entomb, or maybe even Buried Alive. If I end up with Buried Alive I'll likely swap Lotus Petal out for Dark Ritual.

Closing thoughts: this is likely just a worse version of Hogaak, or a worse version of RB Reanimator. However, it's going to be fucking FUN, and that's what I want.

FTW

03-13-2020, 11:18 AM

Looks fun but worse than Hogaak or Reanimator by trying to do a bit of everything while still having graveyard weaknesses.

Especially with Putrid Imp + Reanimate, it feels bad to discard any creature that isn't Griselbrand. Sure Bazaar Trademage draws you 2 cards and lets you discard some, but Griselbrand draws 7 and lets you discard some...

Mr. Safety

03-13-2020, 11:31 AM

I know, I know...again, the idea is to get Trademage + Hollow One + Vengevine. Fun is what I'm looking for, not necessarily the most competitive graveyard deck.

My next test will be with Buried Alive + Dark Ritual...which rewards me for having 3x Bloodghast/Vengevine in the graveyard. It's above rate for getting dudes to turn sideways but way below rate considering what it could be (Griselbrand/Iona.)

FTW

03-13-2020, 12:58 PM

Buried Alive seems better than Intuition, especially with Ritual acceleration. Worth testing.

Mr. Safety

03-14-2020, 01:10 PM

Buried Alive seems better than Intuition, especially with Ritual acceleration. Worth testing.

It's my next test, the first one was bad. Trademage has to be the first discard outlet because I'm actually down 2 cards. The discards have to be high value creatures and I have to draw into a Hollow One. If not, it just falls flat.

Trademage, while being an interesting card, is not good unless I can discard dredgers. Dredge cards don't support Shadow/hollow one and lead directly to better decks. So Buried Alive + Dark Ritual are the next step.

Interestingly, I could see something monoblack with maybe 20 lands and Smallpox + Gurmag. Breaking the symmetry could be good enough to make an aggro Smallpox setup with Reanimate/Hollow One/Shadow synergies.

FTW

03-14-2020, 05:02 PM

It's my next test, the first one was bad. Trademage has to be the first discard outlet because I'm actually down 2 cards. The discards have to be high value creatures and I have to draw into a Hollow One. If not, it just falls flat.

I recommend the Chalice version or a Noble Hierarch for that reason. Ramp fixes that.

Trademage is much better when its the first discard outlet. It feels really bad on turn 3 after casting turn 1 Careful Study, because by then you've already discarded the things you wanted to discard and you barely have any cards left. To hit 3 lands + Trademage and have any interaction on turns 1-2, you don't have many cards left. To be able to cast Hollow One, you need 3 other cards to discard and space to keep a Hollow One, and you'll have no cards in hand left after. I tried it and it was always tight. It's very all-in. It was better to use the 1cmc spells as enablers and only use Trademage as a flyer to get past Goyfs and Anglers, at which point it's a bad Serendib Efreet. Discarding Dredgers isn't enough, because playing Dredge.dec with 1cmc discard is just better.

You really need to ask yourself why am I using Bazaar Trademage as an enabler instead of Careful Study and how can I get value from that?

I found the Chalice version solved that problem. Turn 1 you play disruption, which slows down the opponent and buys you tempo, then turn 2 you play your discard outlet while you still have cards in hand. 1cmc discard could not fit into that strategy, so Bazaar Trademage actually adds value and fills a role you can't get with other cards. Also sometimes I just hardcast Vengevine or Hollow One for full mana. Sol Lands.

Buried Alive could also work, seems great with Vengevines and other grave stuff, but you still have the problem of "what does turn 3 Trademage add?". Maybe Birds of Paradise instead into T2 Buried Alive or T2 Trademage. Having 8 turn 2 enablers at 3 cmc adds redundancy and consistency.

Edit:

//Creatures: 30
4 Birds of Paradise
1 Gilded Goose
1 Noble Hierarch
1 Quirion Ranger
4 Baleful Strix
2 Fauna Shaman
1 Tarmogoyf
1 Lotleth Troll
1 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
1 Prized Amalgam
4 Bazaar Trademage
4 Vengevine
4 Hollow One
1 Vengeful Pharaoh

//Spells: 7
4 Green Sun's Zenith
3 Buried Alive

//Planeswalkers: 3
3 Oko, Thief of Crowns

//Lands: 20
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Polluted Delta
2 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
2 Snow-Covered Forest
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Swamp
1 Volrath's Stronghold

//Sideboard: 15
3 Veil of Summer
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Faerie Macabre
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Collector Ouphe
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Big Game Hunter
1 Murderous Rider
1 Asylum Visitor
1 Questing Beast

This has 10 Turn 1 ramp cards to ramp into 8 3cmc enablers (Trademage, Buried Alive, Lotleth with regen mana open) or Oko or GSZ stuff.
There's also 2cmc smoothing via Strix and Fauna Shaman to help curve into the bigger plays.
Buried Alive can get 3 Vengevines, but it can also grab a mix of creatures including value singletons like Uro or Vengeful Pharaoh
Postboard you can board out some graveyard dependent stuff for more toolbox via GSZ and Shaman

Mr. Safety

03-14-2020, 06:42 PM

Good thoughts. I really like the toolbox nature of your BUG version, but I think Trademage is still a liability. I think I'm going to drop Trademage altogether and play Putrid Imp/Careful Study as my t1 enablers, and go Dark Ritual into Burid Alive as my "combo". I want some number of gurmags because Dark Ritual into Gurmag provides 4 of the 7 mana needed while still only tapping 1 land (ideally) so I can play another 1 drop to trigger Vines. I want to include some number of silver bullets for Buried Alive, but I'm not sure how to squeeze them in. I also feel it's likely better to just add more careful studies (looting) if i need more gas.

Here's to brewing bad decks! If i had Chalices i would build that version for sure. It's a beefed up stompy deck that really emphasizes the old definition of stompy: disruption then big dudes for the win.

FTW

03-14-2020, 10:26 PM

Yeah that sounds like a good plan, probably more consistent than forcing Trademage.

If you run Necrotic Ooze (easy to support with Dark Rituals), that opens up more silver bullet options for Buried Alive (e.g. Walking Ballista + Phyrexian Devourer). If one of the bullets is stuck in hand, Ooze can even copy Putrid Imp to discard it. Good synergy with your deck.

Vengeful Pharaoh's another good bullet, just need 1 in the deck.

If you play Red for Faithless Looting instead of blue for Careful Study, that also enables a 1-of Ox of Agonas or a Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger (not sure if Kroxa is actually good enough to run though).

I like Big Game Hunter in the SB of black madness decks. It's a sneaky foil to Show and Tell, killing Emrakul and Griselbrand and other nasty stuff. Putrid Imp enables it at instant speed, letting you even respond to Sneak Attack, Reanimator, Tin Fins... Even kills Goyfs and Anglers. Does a lot of work for 1 mana for a card that sees no Legacy play!

Mr. Safety

03-15-2020, 10:19 AM

Rough list:

4x death's shadow
4x Putrid imp
4x Bloodghast
4x Vengevine
4x hollow one
4x street wraith
2x gurmag Angler
1x vengeful pharaoh
1x wonder

4x careful study
4x cabal therapy
4x dark ritual
4x buried alive
2x reanimate

4x polluted delta
4x verdant catacombs
4x watery grave
1x swamp
1x cephalid Coliseum

Sideboard
1x big game hunter
1x iona, shield of Emeria
4x faerie macabre
2x brazen borrower
2x surgical extraction
1x echoing truth
2x thoughtseize
2x stubborn denial

Deep Analysis *might* be good enough. I'm sticking to blue for sideboard cards. I need something to deal with Leyline of the void and red doesn't. Blue gives only temporary answers, but they apply in many different situations. Sticking to 2 colors keeps the mana base rock-solid.

FTW

03-15-2020, 08:23 PM

If you're not playing Bazaar Trademage, what's wrong with the original GB Vengevine shell? Does Death's Shadow add much value?

//Creatures: 29
4 Putrid Imp
4 Gravecrawler
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Bloodghast
4 Lotleth Troll
4 Vengevine
4 Hollow One
1 Vengeful Pharaoh

//Spells: 15
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Once Upon a Time
4 Buried Alive

//Lands: 16
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Polluted Delta
2 Prismatic Vista
2 Bayou
4 Snow-Covered Swamp
1 Snow-Covered Forest
1 Undiscovered Paradise

//Sideboard: 15
3 Thoughtseize
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Faerie Macabre
2 Gurmag Angler
1 Big Game Hunter
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Asylum Visitor
1 Collector Ouphe

OUAT should be a nice upgrade adding consistency.
Other cards that could make the main: Prized Amalgam, Basking Rootwalla (Bloodghast is probably the weakest slot)

Decay can't kill Leyline, but you could board out a lot of the grave stuff:
-4 Buried Alive
-1 Pharaoh
-3 Bloodghast
+8 fair cards

There was also the version with the 8 1-drop enablers: Putrid Imp and Tireless Tribe.

Mr. Safety

03-16-2020, 07:59 AM

I think the list is cool, something that could be a solid tier 2.5 agro deck at the LGS that could take advantage of a particular metagame. It has just enough spice to be interesting, but not so much that it will fall flat due to it's own variance.

The small issue with that list is that you are all-in on Putrid Imp/Lotleth Troll to get free/cheap Hollow Ones without Street Wraith; Street Wraith is a way to make HO's cheaper for almost no cost. The idea with Death's Shadow was that once you have Street Wraith you are just shocklands away from enabling 5/5's or better for B. Shadow being a 1-mana creature means that doubling up is easy to trigger Vengevines, which are also high-value targets to discard with Putrid Imp/Lotleth Troll. The way I look at it, if there is an agro deck to be made with this setup, not a combo one a-la-Hogaak, then the creatures have to be way above rate and efficient enough to run on few lands (in order to fit in enough synergies to make it worthwhile.) To me that was Death's Shadow, and to a smaller extent Gurmag Angler. Tarmogoyf would be the next natural inclusion, but at 2 mana is much harder to achieve to double up unless you specifically have free Hollow One/Rootwalla opportunities.

Some observations from testing against Death and Taxes and Show and Tell this weekend (goldfishing): the best parts of the deck are the pieces that are included in other decks, such as Bloodghast + Cabal Therapy, Chancellor of the Annex + Putrid Imp/Careful Study + Reanimate. I didn't get many cheap/free Hollow Ones. Once I dropped Trademage, Hollow One quickly became the weak link. All of the combos I wanted to pull off were better with other creatures (Shadow, Gurmag, even Putrid Imp was better as a 2/2 flyer for B.) The biggest issue with Hollow One is that it's a 'combo' that only results in a 4/4 vanilla creature. If I'm not getting multiple Bloodghast/Vengevines in the process it's a pretty lame agro plan.

Oddly enough, I think the deck absolutely needs another 4 cantrips to go along with Careful Study. Brainstorm seems to be the most obvious way to just smooth everything out. This would make some other part of the deck become the weakest link, and so on, until the deck reaches a final destination of UB Reanimator, RB Reanimator, Dredge, or Hogaak. I think if I want to play a deck with Bloodghast and Vengevine, Hogaak is it. Hollow One (as noted above) doesn't give enough payoff unless I 'combo' out with Vengevines.

So where does that bring me? I think it brings me to a fork in the road where I need to do something with Buried Alive + Vengevine or other creature combos, and this needs to be the central combo/synergism of the deck. The means to that goal should support and synergize with that goal but also be effective enough to fight in the Legacy arena. Chancellor of the Annex was surprisingly good, a high value target in the graveyard that slowed down opponent's and was a very quick clock. Opening hand it was very good at allowing for uncontested t1 setups.

Here is my starting point:

Cantrips
4x Careful Study
4x Brainstorm

Disruption
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Chancellor of the Annex

Combos
4x Buried Alive
4x Reanimate

That's 24 cards in the deck so far, which leaves 19 slots for creatures and mana acceleration. I think at this point it's a necessary inclusion to have acceleration, probably in the form of a creature so I can jam it into the same slots as creatures.

Graveyard synergy creatures
4x Vengevine
4x Bloodghast

Enablers/Acceleration
4x Putrid Imp
4x Birds of Paradise

That leaves me with 7 slots left. Those 7 slots need to be high-impact, a way to make the three mana Buried Alive be enough to win games. Ideally at least 4 of them should be 0-1 mana to trigger Vengevines. Hollow One really isn't going to cut it, it's just too unreliable. Brainstorm might change that, it might not. If Brainstorm enabled it I would include it, but it doesn't, so I'm leaving it behind.

So 7 slots left, the rest is basically locked in. There are several avenues to go:

Pure Aggro plan (biggest dudes for 1 mana)
4x Death's Shadow (shocklands necessary, sideboard Sylvan Library/Thoughtseize seems smart)
2x Gurmag Angler (biggest dude for B you can get outside of enabled Street Wraith)
1x Wonder (giving evasion to the big dudes seems really good)

Reanimator Plan (cheap/sometimes free dudes to support Vengevine activations and high-value Reanimate targets)
4x Basking Rootwalla
1x Iona
1x Griselbrand
1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite

And finally, the last idea, which I am dubbing "the Crazy Delver plan". This gets the instants/sorceries up to 22, 6 of them traditional Delver cantrips with Brainstorm/Ponder. Gurmag is just another fat 1-mana creature to trigger Vengevines, getting the total of cheap dudes up to 13 (likely enough with 10 cantrips to enable it.) Playing t1 Delver will completely mislead opponents as to what I'm on. Delver won't flip reliably on it's own, but that isn't the primary goal. The goal would be to mislead, provide a cheap creature to trigger vengevines, and to be a 3/2 flyer occasionally that can help close out games. Twenty-two sorceries/instants seems quite low though, most decks that play Delver are looking for 26+.
4x Delver of Secrets
1x Gurmag Angler
2x Ponder

I like the idea of having a primary Vengevine strategy, which can put a ton of pressure on opponents, with a Reanimator backup plan that can really overwhelm opponents' disruption. I love the idea of a pure GB Vengevine agro deck, it's right up my alley, but it seems so weak compared to Hogaak where you can just -4 Buried Alive, -4 Dark Ritual, +4 Alter of Dementia, +4 Bridge from below and have a combo deck with a backup agro plan. I'm leaning towards the Shadow plan currently, with the addition of Brainstorm to really smooth things out (so essentially -4 Hollow One, +4 Brainstorm.) It means fewer creatures to trigger Vengevines but better ways of finding them rather than relying on top-deck draws.

If nothing else, this is a fun thought project! Thanks for indulging me.

Mr. Safety

03-17-2020, 10:00 AM

Blood Pet

A way to double up on creatures for only B? It isn't acceleration but it's essentially a 'free' creature that provides B to play Shadow/Imp and even pays 1B for Gurmag by itself, in order to trigger Vengevines. Testing shall commence! I think it's a better way to go than Hollow One, possibly not as good as Birds of Paradise. I do like that it can be played t1 and still allow a t2 Buried Alive with a 2nd land drop.

EDIT: Just another round of disappointing attempts at this kind of deck. *sigh* It's fun to attempt but it's depressing to fail.

zhumanji

08-06-2020, 07:10 AM

Mr. Safety

08-06-2020, 07:40 AM

The deck works, to varying degrees, in almost every combination mentioned in the thread. The issue has always been that Dredge, Hogaak, and Reanimator are all better graveyard decks. Another avenue is to play Arclight Phoenix with Dark Ritual/Buried Alive, which has it's own issues.

If I were to attempt this now I would probably play UB colors, just for the most consistent manabaseand the biggest creatures for the lowest mana.

Rough idea:

4x Putrid Imp
4x Death's Shadow
4x Bloodghast
4x Vengevine
4x Hollow One
4x Bazaar Trademage
4x Street Wraith
2x Gurmag Angler

4x Careful Study
4x Lotus Petal
2x Reanimate
3x Thoughtseize
3x Daze

4x Polluted Delta
3x Scalding Tarn
2x Verdant Catacombs
4x Watery Grave
1x Swamp
1x Cephalid Colliseum

Sideboard
2x Brazen Borrower
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Faerie Macabre
4x Force of Will
5x OPEN (should be blue card for FoW)

This is just a rough list. It *might* work out ok, especially given how well Dredge has been doing lately. This is definitely faster than Manaless Dredge and any non-LED start from traditional Dredge. I could easily see Death's Shadows coming down turn 2, turn 3 easily, and being huge. I always liked the idea of Bazaar Trademage, but it just doesn't work out typically. This is similar to the UB Shadow deck but uses the graveyard a lot more directly to make faster threats.

FTW

08-06-2020, 07:41 AM

Came across this thread cause I was wondering if a good deck can be built around/using Vengevine.

@Mr. Safety Did you give up after this or were you able to find a way to make this deck work?

I was able to make a viable deck out of this engine back around 2011-2013. It was very similar to Reanimator's list in the OP. The same shell is probably not viable now, with Legacy power creep. (or more accurately, the power creep has turned it into Hogaak combo)

Mr Safety's recent ideas have been interesting. Also curious to see if any of them worked.

Edit: nevermind, ninja'd. So you're still on the Death's Shadow plan.

Mr. Safety

08-06-2020, 08:23 PM

I did some gold fishing against some of the top decks at the time (it was d&t, sneak/show, UR delver, turbo depths) and I found it wasn't great. It needed the nuts to compete. Daze may change that, I like the idea of having that available. The weak point was always Bazaar Trademage; three mana is a lot, even with Lotus Petals. The enablers need to be faster, always available turns 1-2 to be strong enough. Two lands and a lotus petal for Trademage is still a pretty weak combo, all told. I think it might be straight up better to cut Trademage for Brainstorm. That puts the creature count at only 26, which is getting low, but it also really helps to filter into the RIGHT creatures.

I really see no reason to avoid Shadow, it's the biggest creature you can play for 1 mana. Street Wraith is essential for Hollow One and Thoughtseize is good enough on its own, it just happens to also synergize with Shadow. It's nice to have a non-graveyard dependent threat as well.

The other option over Trademage is Buried Alive to turbo charge Vengevines. Its really, really bad if you can't get it turn 1-2 with Dark Ritual. BA/DR also enable a different creature: arclight phoenix. At that point it's just a better avenue than Vengevine/groundpounders.

In blue there is also Hapless Researcher, not a bad idea, a better Insolent Neonate. I never got around to trying Blood Pet, it just didn't offer any velocity. I still needed the nuts to be competetive, and lotus petal is actual acceleration that also feeds Gurmag like Blood Pet.

I always loved the idea of this deck, it just doesn't work as good as it looks.

FTW

08-06-2020, 09:36 PM

Yeah Trademage just feels lacklustre here.

Years ago I was on the Dark Ritual + Buried Alive plan to make Vengevine more explosive (backup 3x Bloodghast or 2xVengevine+1xGhast to dodge Surgical). Postboard I would board out Buried Alive and Bloodghasts for fair cards like Dark Confidant and disruption, to be less graveyard dependent. That plan was a lot better when Bob was actually good and when Deathrite Shaman enabled T2 Buried Alive (DRS also just made the BG Eva Green shell much better in general, and was an amazing 1-drop for Vengevine). Now without DRS and with Arclight Phoenix, Buried Alive for Vengevine just isn't worth it anymore.

I think any enablers need to be 1-2 cc. Trademage and Buried are both too slow. Collective Brutality is maybe the only 2cc card good enough to be worth slowing down a turn. Otherwise 1cc enablers like Hapless Researcher, Stitcher's Supplier and Tireless Tribe seem better. Maybe you can use Asylum Visitor to draw more cards if you have enough ways to empty your hand. Splashing red would give Faithless Looting and Ox of Agonas.

Edit: What if Jund colors are just better now? Blue is offering weak cards without FoW main:
Careful Study vs Faithless Looting
Bazaar Trademage vs Ox of Agonas/anything that costs less than 3

//Spells: 12
4 Faithless Looting
4 Thoughtseize
4 Cabal Therapy

//Creatures: 30
4 Putrid Imp
4 Stitcher's Supplier
4 Death's Shadow
4 Bloodghast
4 Vengevine
4 Hollow One
4 Street Wraith
2 Ox of Agonas

//Lands: 18
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills
3 Blood Crypt
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Stomping Ground
1 Badlands
1 Bayou
1 Taiga
1 Swamp
1 Mountain

//Sideboard: 15
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Collective Brutality
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Faerie Macabre
1 Abrade
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Pyroblast
1 Dismember
1 Liliana's Triumph
1 Veil of Summer

That's a lot more proactive disruption to attack combo and control decks, rather than relying on Daze to catch people by surprise. Cabal Therapy has a strong interaction with Stitcher's Supplier and Bloodghasts. Supplier doesn't work with Hollow One or Death's Shadow, but it does synergize with Vengevine, Bloodghast, Ox, Therapy, and Faithless Looting.

Mr. Safety

08-07-2020, 07:59 AM

I like the Supplier + Therapy synergy, it makes a full set of Therapy worth it.

I'm really curious what Brainstorm + Daze can do for the deck, so I might tinker with that a little. Hapless Researcher also seems good just because it's another creature to feed Vengevine. Sometimes I forget just how well Brainstorm can take a mediocre pile and elevate it to something better. Not having Force of Will maindeck is fine, it's really for the combo decks. Sideboarding out Vengevine for a full set of Force of Will should shore up those matchups nicely. Blue also gives me Cephalid Coliseum, which not only dings for life when using for mana but can supercharge graveyard synergies and get me out of a Brainstorm lock. If I'm being truly honest with myself, I kind of want UB Shadow to be good in the metagame but it isn't so I'm looking for an alternative avenue to tweak it to adapt. Making a faster agro deck that doesn't auto-lose to combo seems like a good option. However, I realize I'm not playing around with any new cards, which means it probably won't be fantastic. New cards are really the only way to improve a deck that has been sidelined.

Then I'll try for the Jund version you have brewed up, it looks pretty good. Abrade and Pyroblasts in the board are very, very good and finding a way to jam in Veil of Summer seems reasonable. By naturally playing green the backup of hardcasting Vengevine is reasonable as well.

FTW

08-07-2020, 08:33 AM

If you're more interested in using this as a way to make UB Shadow viable with an alternate plan, Brainstorm seems really good. Stubborn Denial might be strong too, since you have even more 4-power than Shadow normally does.

Mr. Safety

08-07-2020, 10:37 AM

Good thought! Stub is definitely a way to sideboard, potentially really good alongside Forces. Yeah, that's where I'm at right now. I just don't think a non-blue graveyard-based deck, outside of Dredge, can do well currently. Hogaak and BR Reanimator have really dropped off in popularity and the multi-colored Astrolabe midrange decks are everywhere. Rather than fight them with a bad (non-Arcanist) delver strategy I figure I'd just try and beat their face in. With the consistency of Brainstorm + Careful Study I think it might actually be consistent enough to load 8-10 power worth of creatures by turn 2, some with haste. That should be fast enough to get in under the mid-range decks, but we'll see. I like that many of the threats are recursive, like BLoodghast/Vengevine, and that Hollow One is never dead because it can always just draw extra cards in the mid-late game to find a Shadow/Angler/disruption to grind through. Some number of Stitcher's Supplier would be decent in here, I'm trying to at least jam a singleton in here maindeck. I'll jam some this weekend and report back. Without Therapy Supplier isn't as good, but I can always cut the Dazes for Therapies (probably correct)

New List:

4x Putrid Imp
4x Death's Shadow
4x Bloodghast
4x Vengevine
4x Hollow One
2x Gurmag Angler
4x Street Wraith
1x Vengeful Pharaoh

4x Careful Study
4x Brainstorm
3x Thoughtseize
3x Daze
1x Reanimate
4x Lotus Petal

4x Polluted Delta
3x Scalding Tarn
1x Marsh Flats
4x Watery Grave
1x Swamp
1x Cephalid Coliseum

Sideboard
2x Brazen Borrower
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Faerie Macabre
4x Force of Will
2x Stubborn Denial
2x Dismember
1x Diabolic Edict

Honestly, this deck wasn't on my radar screen *at all* until zhumanji necro-ed it a couple days ago. It scratches the brewing itch I always have, especially when my GB Lantern list sort of flopped recently.

FTW

08-07-2020, 10:55 AM

Looks good. How good is Lotus Petal? Without the slower 3cc stuff, most your action just costs 1 mana. Is the acceleration still worth the card disadvantage? That could be a good slot for more interaction, before cutting Daze.

Mr. Safety

08-07-2020, 12:49 PM

I want to try it, for 3 specific reasons:

1 - It could allow for t1 Vengevines. Land, Lotus Petal, Putrid Imp, discard Vengevines, 2nd Imp, attack.
2 - It allows me to play t1 Thoughtseize PLUS a cantrip or Imp
3 - It feeds Angler really well

If it doesn't do it's job, that could easily be where I drop in Stitcher's Supplier before cutting Daze.

Edit: I would have to add lands, I'm only on 14 currently.

Mr. Safety

08-07-2020, 02:46 PM

Tested against Sneak/Show and D&T, 5 games each pre-board. Dnt went 4-1, Sns I went 3-2 (got luck on the play once, no lands but double petal and Street Wraith.) I did really like Daze, but what really surprised me was how many games Vengevine just didn't matter. I have had games where I had a Street Wraith and 5/5 shadow t1 and just raced Sns after a t2 thoughtseize. So far Lotus Petal has enabled some incredible plays, including a t1 Gurmag.

Pretty fun so far! Vengevines are discarded for value or shuffled away with Brainstorm. Hollow One's are a redraw after turn 2 or so and make sure I always have something to do with my mana. Its promising, and just as I posited Brainstorm has been nutty good at pulling it all together.

FTW

08-07-2020, 04:08 PM

Interesting. It sounds like Petals are really helping to enable explosive openings.

Without Cabal Therapy, is Bloodghast worse than Basking Rootwalla? I guess you don't have any green sources (yet), but Rootwalla can block, potentially get bigger, and helps trigger Vengevine.

E.g. Turn 1
PIMP -> discard Rootwalla, Vengevine, other card -> Madness Rootwalla. Vengevine returns. (Hollow One works too)

Bloodghast is just value to discard, but it doesn't trigger Vengevine, it can't block, and it's slower to hardcast. Prized Amalgam is another potential recurring beatdown creature (that also pitches to FoW). It works well with Ghast but doesn't trigger Vengevine either.

In my original BG Vengevine decks I always ran Gravecrawler, because it was such an easy way to get a double cast for 2 mana even in topdeck mode. Without easy ways to trigger Vengevine, I can see why it's underperforming and getting shuffled away more. Without green sources, you can't even hardcast them either.

Finally another option is to just run Oko, Thief of Crowns. Because you can. Oko not only wrecks fair decks, but you can Elk your 2/1s and 1/1s into good threats. Or just trade a Bloodghast for their best creature, and still get Ghast back after it dies.

Mr. Safety

08-07-2020, 09:07 PM

Bloodghasts have haste usually by turn 3, which has provided lethal. So far it's good, and BB is easy to cast. Without green in the deck Rootwalla is really unfit.

I basically need everything to be huge or free. I'm debating a 3rd Gurmag, its absurdly easy to cast turn 2. Vengevines are fine, they show up often enough, I just mean to say that hardcasting them isn't as profitable (so far) as just trading it for other cards. Giving Imp flying isn't irrelevant, either.

I do really appreciate your comments about Therapy. Daze is ok so far, it allows me to just go for combos t1 with 'free' protection, but Therapy with Bloodghast (and Supplier if I get that in there) is just outstanding.

Oko is a good idea, but 3 mana is still a lot. I feel like this deck can support blue or green, but not both reliably. Maybe Petals can help with that. Maybe just a Bayou would be smart for options out of the board like Oko, Veil of Summer, and to hardcast Vengevines with a Petal. I don't know how valuable Abrupt Decay is for what I'm doing, but it's another option.

One card that has been pretty good as a 1-of is Coliseum. It really helps mid game Hollow Ones happen.

Still curious about Wonder; it could potentially be good enough.

Mr. Safety

08-08-2020, 09:29 AM

Five games against Burn, 1-4. I might have to concede this matchup.

Debating whether it would be better to just jam Faithless looting instead of Brainstorm. It certainly makes the Hollow One payoffs easier. If I do that, Daze has to go in favor of Therapy so I have more valuable discards.

EDIT: I will try the above after 30 or so games with the Daze version. I need to see where the real holes are, not be misled by simple variance. I also need to re-evaluate a couple cards, namely:

Prized Amalgam
Hogaak, Risen Necropolis
Hedron Crab

Those cards could be crucial to getting agro wins. Amalgam is hard-castable in UB easily, gives another payoff with Bloodghast making it better. Hogaak is just the biggest creature that can come back from the graveyard. Crab is another card on-color that can turn fetchlands into pure gas with Vengevine/Bloodghast but doesn't do anything to support the Hollow One synergy.

Hanni

08-13-2020, 10:30 AM

If you're going to go back to the older plan (discard outlets vs putting cards from the top of the library into the graveyard), why deviate from the shell I posted before?

Tireless Tribe is critical to having the density of discard outlets to make the deck function, and being a 1cc creature is just as important for enabling the explosive turn 1 plays. It's much better than cards like Careful Study. Being a creature is so important for the all of the synergies with the rest of the deck. Being a repeatable discard outlet is also extremely important for discarding midgame topdecks that you want in the yard (or dead cards in hand to trigger a topdecked Hollow One). You also usually want to discard more than 2 cards in the opener, and you need to discard at least 3 to make Hollow One cost 0 mana. You're building the deck wrong if you aren't running Tireless Tribe.

The addition of Once Upon a Time and the new mulligan rule dramatically improves the consistency and fixes most of the issues the deck had with occasionally losing to itself.

5c Fiendish Nature

Lands (14)
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Undiscovered Paradise
4 Mana Confluence
2 City of Brass

Creatures (34)
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Putrid Imp
2 Lotleth Troll
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Hollow One
2 Gravecrawler
4 Bloodghast
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Vengevine
2 Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis

Spells (12)
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Once Upon a Time
4 Lotus Petal

I used to run Carrion Feeder, but it was literally the weakest creature in the deck. It's great against Terminus, but unnecessary against Swords to Plowshares, and the tricks with Gravecrawler and Bloodghast are minor.

Hogaak is a little slow in here without fetchlands, and cards like Stitcher's Supplier and Faithless Looting, but it can still come down fairly consistently by turn 3, and as early as turn 1 with the right draw. Getting cast from the graveyard can contribute to recurring both Vengevine and Prized Amalgam, too. The fact that it's another free and recurring threat contributes to the mass density. Not to mention 8/8 trampling ends games fast. It's basically this decks finisher if the initial rush is insufficient.

Gravecrawler is still suspect due to being the next worst creature in the deck, due to costing mana and having a tiny body, but I feel that it pulls enough weight, especially with Cabal Therapy, to still be worthy of inclusion.

I'm pretty sure the deck is capable of running Force of Vigor in the sideboard instead of Nature's Claim to deal with problems like Leyline of the Void and Blood Moon, which is a massive improvement.

The deck was pretty sick before, and much better now with the new inclusions and new mulligan rule. It's pretty resilient to Force of Will and Chalice of the Void, and plays through graveyard hate much better than Dredge. It's definitely beastly against the midrange Oko decks that are rampant in the metagame right now.

In regards to a comment earlier about why to play this deck instead of the standard Hogaak lists, would be the speed. While Hogaak can develop a more powerful board with multiples of Bloodghast, Vengevine, zombie tokens, and Hogaak, it takes a bit more setup and is slower to get going. Think S&T vs Reanimator. Where Hogaak consistently goes off turns 2-3 and kills turns 3-4, this deck consistently goes off turns 1-2 and kills turns 2-3. Sometimes, being faster has its advantages. Being able to get under the hate or kill a turn faster can be all the difference sometimes. Being different also makes it require slightly different disruption from the opponent to sufficiently attack it.

Mr. Safety

08-13-2020, 02:04 PM

I was trying to make something work that didn't fold to grave hate, which was where the Shadow/Daze plan came from.

I'll probably pick up the cards to test this, I'm only 10 cards away from having this built.

Hanni

08-13-2020, 02:13 PM

This deck is fairly resilient to graveyard hate. It gets under the slower more effective hate like Rest in Peace and Containment Priest, has redundancy to reduce the impact of single target stuff like Surgical Extraction, and can still cast most of its threats through a Leyline of the Void (albeit at dramatically reduced efficiency). It also runs enough green cards to sideboard Force of Vigor, and has access to all 5 colors to open it up to vast array of other sideboard options too.

I'm not sure that Daze does enough vs graveyard hate, especially without the other tempo tools like Wasteland, and Deaths Shadow is just a big vanilla creature. Swords to Plowshares is seeing enough play these days, and the deck is already somewhat soft to it, that I don't think that's the backup plan that I would want to be on. You can already cast Lotleth and discard some creatures (especially Basking Rootwalla) to cast Hollow One without regard to the graveyard, and you can regularly hardcast Gravecrawler and Bloodghast as well.

Are people even playing significant sources of maindeck graveyard hate these days?

Mr. Safety

08-13-2020, 05:05 PM

Good points. My thinking wasn't to fight grave hate, just convert into a Shadow deck post board. I had Thoughtseize and Street Wraith already... add shocklands and it's a passable Shadow deck post board.

I do like your version though, I'm definitely going to build it.

Hanni

08-14-2020, 09:37 AM

Faerie Macabre looks insane as graveyard hate in the sideboard. It can be grabbed with Once Upon a Time on turn 0 and then played if we are on the draw, dodges countermagic, can't be discarded by Collective Brutality or Duress, discards to Lotleth for pump, discounts the cost of Hollow One later on if our initial discard outlet gets dealt with, and does enough to stop most graveyard strategies for the turn or two that we would need.

Collector Ouphe is pretty high up the curve, but seems solid against quite a few archetypes. I'm not sure yet on it, but creatures in general out of the sideboard are great with Once Upon a Time, and all of the other creature synergies we have. If we can cast it turn 1 off of a Lotus Petal, that seems like a pretty solid start against Storm and Karn matchups.

Big Game Hunter is fantastic against Emrakul; less good against Grislebrand but still gets the 7/7 lifelink off the table. Sucks that it doesn't also deal with Marit Lage, but still probably worth consideration. Madness creatures in general are just sweet with the rest of our gameplan.

I'm still thinking of other cards we might need based on matchups, as well as our plan vs opposing graveyard hate, but I think we want mostly 0cc and 1cc options in most cases, with creature options being the best when possible. Most likely to include some number of Veil of Summer since that card is just absolutely insane vs most of the format, although I'm not sure if that is something we would need.

Some other creature options could include:

Gaddock Teeg
Carrion Feeder
Mother of Runes
Giver of Runes
Qasali Pridemage
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
Tomik, Distinguished Advokist
Phyrexian Revoker
Big Game Hunter
Nightshade Assassin
Vengeful Pharaoh

(I'll add more to this list later as I think of them)

We probably need an answer for Infect, Elves, and Goblins, and I think Firestorm or Force of Despair are our best options, with Firestorm likely getting the nod. Sickening Dreams is okay, but the cost is prohibitive, and the same is true for Zealous Persecution, although they are certainly stronger than the other two. I think Plague Engineer is simply way too slow, unfortunately. I suppose Contagion is another option, but I'm not sure if it would be strong enough.

Mr. Safety

08-14-2020, 09:51 AM

With that in mind, here is a rough draft for a sideboard:

4x Faerie Macabre
3x Force of Vigor
2x Veil of Summer
3x Thoughtseize
3x OPEN

I'm not sure whether there is merit to Pyroblasts/conditional counters in the sideboard, but it looks like a solid 3 or more slots open to address the metagame. I'm not sure Veil of Summer should be at 2, that's the average for what most decks play, but it could be more. I think Therapy + Thoughtseize is very good against Sneak/Show, but maybe Surgical is just a necessity even with the Faerie Macabres. I could go either way based on testing.

The tribal decks are coming back into popularity (Goblins, Elves, Humans, even some Merfolk) so I wonder if some sort of anti-tribal card is necessary in the sideboard, Darkblast coming to mind. I also think a Marit Lage answer is pretty important, it's probably the best combo deck ATM. Diabolic Edict does the job, and in some cases we can just race. If the Mox Diamond/Dark Confidant version becomes popular we are in good stead, but if the Turbo Version with Not of This World stays popular that's a tougher nut to crack. If storm establishes more of a presence more copies of Veil would be smart.

I like our matchup against traditional Dredge, actually. Faerie Macabre is a free answer that can actually accelerate our game plan by enabling Hollow Ones. Our creatures are generally bigger as well, so that's a bonus. As you say, Once Upon a Time can be powerful at feeding Faerie's to combat them.

Curious what you think the sideboard would shape up to be. I also remembered I don't have any Caverns, which could be problematic. They are pricey and fairly important I'd say.

Hanni

08-14-2020, 10:24 AM

I like the idea of exploring free options like Leyline of Sanctity as well, although I'm not sure that we would need that card specifically.

There are also cards that play exceptionally well with our gameplan, like Wispmare and Ancient Grudge.

Also, don't forget that we also need to worry about fighting other graveyard hate, so things like Silent Gravestone also have relevance. Even something like Swan Song could be a strong option. Pithing Needle can put in work too and deals with Marit Lage. Also, I like Seal of Removal better for Marit Lage than Diabolic Edict, because it is much easier for them to beat Edict and is better vs S&T, although maybe Karakas would be even better? There's also Path of Exile and Assassin's Trophy too.

I'm also not even sure what I would want to cut from the maindeck for sideboard cards, which has a huge impact on how we build the sideboard too.

Mr. Safety

08-14-2020, 12:16 PM

I think the first cards to go on the cutting block are Cabal Therapy (for more relevant interaction) and Once Upon a Time. Those cards super-charge the agro plan but don't enable it as good as Imp/Tribe. The other weak spots would be anything that is ultra graveyard dependant and can't be hardcast: Hogaak and Hollow One seem the weakest. While Hollow One doesn't need the graveyard, it also costs a whopping 5 mana and cause absurd card disadvantage if we utilize other cards to enable it. We just don't have any fat to discard like spare lands or dead spells.

I like Ancient Grudge and Pithing Needle. We could also play a Crop Rotation/Karakas/Bojuka Bog sideboard plan, which is pretty compact. It's card disadvantage but it wouldn't be for the blue matchups anyways.

Hanni

08-14-2020, 12:27 PM

I don't think it's that simple. It really depends on the matchup. Cabal Therapy is extremely important for a number of matchups, and Once Upon a Time is also about more than just improving the aggro plan; it helps reduce mulligans by ensuring the opening hand has the correct combination of pieces and mana. It then digs for gas in later turns when we have no other use for the mana, and can dig for creature/land sideboard options. In fact, Once Upon of Time may make land options like Karakas more valuable than other non-creature non-land options. Maybe in a few matchups we could trim a copy or two, but cutting all of them is probably wrong.

I'm also not sure that cutting Hollow One is where we want to be either, because we still want to dump our hand before graveyard hate comes online (and it's a threat that sticks even if the opponent responds with say a Surgical Extraction). Also, discarding Basking Rootwalla's go into exile before coming into play instead of the graveyard, so you can use them to reduce the cost of Hollow One without card disadvantage. I'd be much more interested in cutting Prized Amalgam first, since it depends on other creatures getting reanimated in order to trigger, and Gravecrawler because it is still the weakest threat in the deck.

I'd also cut Lotleth Troll before Tireless Tribe or Putrid Imp if it's not a matchup where Troll is really good. I can dig cutting Hogaak though, since it's the hardest one to enable.

It's also possible that instead of straight cutting specific things, we trim a copy or two from a few things.

Beyond that, the maindeck is really tight, so we really have to evaluate each matchup and keep the sideboarding minimal for each one.

Mr. Safety

08-15-2020, 10:36 AM

Great thoughts, you've obviously done your homework. I wasn't suggesting cutting the 1-mana enablers, no way.

I like the plan of trimming across the board, making the plan a little less dense but not hamstringing the strategy entirely. I could see cutting 1 of each of Amalgam, Troll, and Hogaak for 3x sideboard tech (not Force of Vigor, in that case it may be correct to cut Hollow One, your thoughts are appreciated here.) I think sideboarding can only consist of 3-5 cards at most, the decknos just too tight. It's like boarding with manaless dredge, honestly

Mr. Safety

08-19-2020, 09:31 AM

I've tested a little bit, just against Death and Taxes so far. The deck has absurdly explosive starts in non-blue matchups, but not always. Sometimes I end up with lethal turn 2, sometimes it's just a Hollow One, Bloodghast, and Prized Amalgam which can be good but not neccesarily game-winning. Against D&T specifically, a single StP followed up by SFM > Batterskull just completely blanked the game plan. There is quite a bit of a 'glass cannon' feel to this deck. I may have just been too impulsive, wanting a fast start even if it was sub-par. It will take some time to figure out when to go for t1 shenanigans or to wait a turn or two to establish something more decisive.

Once Upon a Time is incredibly good here, no doubt. It's the most powerful I've seen the card be in any of my testing in various decks (which is admittedly not very much.) What really softens the deck is it's lack of removal...something needs to be worked into the deck, either a Vengeful Pharaoh or Big Game Hunter, or even something as simple as Dismember or Fatal Push. The deck is super tight, so I don't know what to do here, maybe just keep it in the sideboard. Fatestitcher seems pretty decent actually, because it taps down a blocker, is easy to Unearth, and supports a swarm approach.

I can't help but want to tweak it! Hogaak seems counter-productive, there just isn't enough dead fodder in the graveyard to feed him without compromising the other synergies. I don't want to exile Vengevines or Bloodghasts just to get an 8/8 Plow-ed. My initial thoughts are to up the Gravecrawler count or to add in something that could help supercharge the other threats. This could be where Pharoah/BGH gets added in. I wouldn't be opposed to something like Stinkweed Imp or even trying to find a way to massage the numbers for Chancellor of the Annex +1-2 Reanimates.

Hanni

08-20-2020, 01:50 PM

It's okay to be explosive on turn 1, even if it's not going to be enough to grind out the entire game. The deck topdecks into mostly gas that will continue to add to the board state, and many creatures lost in combat (or to non-exile or Terminus removal effects) keep coming back. It's generally a good idea to sandbag creatures in hand past the initial burst to allow you to assemble additional bursts in the midgame. Keeping excess Tireless Tribes, Putrid Imp's, and Basking Rootwalla's in hand is almost always the correct thing to do. Sandbagging threats that you cannot immediately recur like Vengevines and Amalgam's is also correct for a number of reasons. It can be sometimes be correct to sandbag Gravecrawler and Bloodghast as well.

Some hands can demolish D&T with Cabal Therapy rips and a few quick bodies. Additionally, Lotleth and Hogaak are fairly good at smashing through ground stalls.

Batterskull itself is certainly a nuisance, but easily handled postboard with Force of Vigor. This is another reason to sandbag Rootwalla's and such. You should be getting parity out of this card often due to the multitude of targets. Cabal Therapy is also really good at snagging equipment when they don't cast SFM off of a Vial.

Postboard, you definitely want to bring in a mass removal effect, but keep in mind that you want to hit Containment Priest, possibly with a Mother of Runes on the board. Pithing Needle as a 1-of is also solid. Other options could include Carrion Feeder to grind through StP effects. Strength of Lunacy could be cool too, but is possibly too narrow; Mother of Runes is probably just better.

The deck could pack maindeck removal, but it really has to be a synergistic creature or land. Big Game Hunter is narrow, and I don't think Vengeful Pharaoh deals with the sort of threats we want to be dealing with properly, but I'm not saying they couldn't be viable. Nightshade Assassin seems like the most generally playable one, although 2 mana is expensive and it means properly managing hand resources for the black card count. Still, if I was going to run maindeck removal, it would be Nightshade. Ruthless Sniper could also be sweet, but possibly too slow.

I'm not convinced that the deck needs maindeck removal, but some sort of -x/-x sweep is definitely necessary. Elves, Goblins, and Infect are all going to be extremely difficult without it. Chord of Calling is a really interesting option for enabling hosers like Plague Engineer. Conclave Tribunal is also pretty cool. Mob could be okay, although Tribunal is likely better. I still would prefer creature-based options for single target removal effects though. I've searched for creature-based mass removal, but cannot find anything good enough for those at 2cc or less (Orzhov Pontiff is the best I could find but costs 3 mana, which is just not cheap enough to be playable).

Hogaak isn't powered up by the Delve mechanic, but by the Convoke mechanic. If you can get one or two junk cards in the yard, you tap 5-6 creatures to power him out. By midgame, you might have several more junk cards in the yard, and possibly even more bodies on board, which makes him even easier to enable. He's mostly used as an over-the-top midgame creature (turns 2-4), to push through game states where you need a finisher, like against a Batterskull or a bunch of chump blockers. Obviously, if you're losing all of your onboard creatures, he can be difficult to cast, but you should always end up with enough resources unless you're opponent is using effects like multiple StP, Terminus, or graveyard hate.

Chancellor of the Annex is a solid disruption piece, but I'm not sure I like Reanimate in here. Dread Return could also work, although I'm not sure if there are enough hands that can multi-recur threats to enable it consistently. Endless Obedience could possibly work too, but it's a lot harder to cast it for 0. However, I'm not sure I like the direction this plan would take the deck in, and I'm not sure it would even be worth it. You have to cut too much business away from the main engine to enable a far less consistent second engine. I think I'd rather run Dark Triumph if I wanted a harder punch with the initial burst, rather than trying to reanimate a fatty (cutting rainbow lands for a fetch/dual/Swamp config), but that's not something I want to do either.

Stain the Mind is a really cool option as a sideboard card for combo matchups, or even against problem cards like Terminus. Anje's Ravager could be cool as a sideboard creature that gets brought in against matchups that require a grind, since he's graveyard independent as a threat and fuels an insane amount of resources everytime he attacks.

There's not really much room to tweak the maindeck; Gravecrawler and Hogaak are the only two cards I could realistically see being cut, but I feel like they are both better than any other options available. The only maindeck cards I would consider would be removal (like Nightshade) or an engine card (like Ravager).

The sideboard is the main area that I feel could use some work, tbh. I'm still far away from narrowing this down into a solid 15.

Mr. Safety

08-20-2020, 07:03 PM

Great thoughts, I know most of my discussion is based on inexperience.

I really like Chancellor, I want it to work, but I'm not sure it's worth it. What do you think about Chancellor sideboard for combo matchups? I also think Dread Return is likely the only good reanimate spell to include, if any. I like the 'free' disruption from Therapy and Chancellor against Storm and Sneak/Show, and even against Reanimator.

What are you thinking for sweepers? Plague Engineer, Toxic Deluge, Zealous Persecution, and Golgari Charm come to mind.

Hanni

08-20-2020, 07:54 PM

jhhdk

08-21-2020, 03:29 AM

I've been toying with idea of abusing recursiveness of creatures like gravecrawler and bloodghast (and vengevine) by using cards like fleshbag marauder, innocent blood and recurring nightmare.
Maybe that is a different deck.

EDIT: spelling

Mr. Safety

08-21-2020, 08:14 AM

I really like what Chancellor does for Reanimator, but I just don't know if it does enough for us. The early game disrupt is great, don't get me wrong, but it just doesn't do enough for us otherwise. Yeah, we can discard it to pump Lotleth or reduce the cost of Hollow One, but we don't run the density of reanimation spells that Reanimator does, and it's going to clunk up the deck more than it is going to help, I think. Reanimation spells are pretty bad for us; most of our creatures reanimate themselves.

I agree, without Entomb it's an unreliable plan (and honestly not good enough.) The only remaining question is whether having 4x Chancellor/Xx Dread Return is worth it in the sideboard. I don't think so, simply because we will already face a bunch of grave hate. Going deeper into graveyard synergies likely doesn't seem smart (unless it's something like Firestorm, which accomplishes the main goal while being synergistic.)

Whether or not it's worth it as an opening hand disruption vs other disruption is questionable. It costing 0 mana is fantastic, but needing to reveal it from the opening hand is suspect. We also can't dig into it turn 0/1 with Once Upon a Time vs other creature/land options.

It's basically Daze, right? I liked Daze in the Shadow version, but the mana-base can't handle that. If Chancellor is a worse version of Daze and we don't even want Daze, I think its out.

Thalia seems pretty reasonable against Storm, as does Collector Ouphe. We already have Faerie Macabre vs Reanimator and Storm, and we can have Big Game Hunter/Karakas for Reanimator/S&T, along with Force of Vigor vs Omnitell.

The rainbow land manabase allows for some really good sideboard options, so Thalia seems alright. Ethersworn Canonist is another card that historically has been good against Storm, and honestly we could just play Deafening Silence. It isn't a creature but it's only 1 mana to cast and doesn't affect our game plan very much at all. With 5 colors available we could play Eidolon of the Great Revel in the sideboard.

All I'm saying is that we have plenty of other options for dealing with combo decks, and we want as many of those options to play double duty in other matchups while synergizing with our deck construction as much as possible.

I wrestle with this point, because without experience I don't know whether to go for sideboard cards that augment synergies or to just pick the most efficient hate cards and move away from graveyard reliability to blunt opposing hate cards. Right now the most played grave hate is Surgical Extraction, which isn't too hard to work around. Dredge is doing well in the current environment, so it's only a matter of time before we see Leylines and other hate. Thankfully we can answer the hate and have 1 big turn, rather than relying on several turns to leverage the graveyard (like Dredge.)

I realize Annex hits other decks too, but it has to be in the opener to do anything, and is a dead draw if we draw into it. I won't cross it off the list without testing it, but I think there are better options.

I think we can cross it off; it isn't the best option even if all we had were 3 colors of mana available. With all 5 available we can safely say it won't make the cut.

We probably need Wasteland/Ghost Quarter for Tabernacle (or Pithing Needle on Wasteland), so a Crop Rotation package could be possible, although I like the idea of Weathered Wayfarer or Elvish Reclaimer to dig for lands more, since they are creature based. I think Wayfarer gets the nod because it's a Nomad (same as Tireless Tribe for Cavern), and it's activated ability costs less. It's also card advantage vs parity, and it's unlikely for us to grow Reclaimer to 3/4 in most games. I'd consider Reclaimer more if I cut the rainbow lands for a 3 fetch/Bayou/Scrubland/Swamp manabase, but I think the rainbow lands are better overall. Wayfarer just works better with our much lower land count, in most cases, although it does make Bojuka Bog worse (sorcery speed).

I don't know if we should warp around Tabernacle, it's not very common to see. We would need a minimum of 7 slots dedicated to it: 4x Crop Rotation and 1x Wasteland/Karakas/Bojuka Bog. None of those cards synergize with our main plan. It's cool, it's efficient, it's flashy, but ultimately with 5 colors available I think we can come up with a better option that is more compact (same argument as Chancellor, really.) If we don't play Crop Rotation and instead play Wayfarer or Reclaimer we are now at the mercy of removal actually hurting us, in exchange for a fairly slow plan (summoning sickness on the dudes.)

As far as sweepers go, they have to cost 2cc or less. 3cc is too expensive for this manabase, and too slow in most cases even if we could make our first three land drops without eating a Wasteland. Free is always best, but the free options mostly suck, and I don't think Firestorm is going to work (since we likely don't have much left in hand to discard when we are ready to cast it), so we're stuck choosing between the 2cc options.

Double-costed spells like Golgari Charm, Zealous Persecution, Marsh Casualties, and Devastating Dreams are a tough sell though, since they cannot be cast from Cavern of Souls, so I'm thinking Sickening Dreams or Chord of Calling + Pontiff or Engineer (or whatever 3cc+ creature) are our best options. Pyroclasm is also a thing; I don't like that it can't deal with Mom + Containment Priest, but Sickening Dreams can't either. There's also Electrickery, Volcanic Spray, or even Forked Bolt as other options. Ruthless Sniper could also be an option, despite being slow.

Honestly though, whatever the choice, I think it needs to be able to deal with x/2's. I still haven't figured out what I want to do for the sweeper slot yet, unfortunately.

Firestorm and Pyroclasm both have the disappointing aspect of *not* dealing with True Name Nemesis. Zealous Persecution does double duty by pumping our team while killing opponent's stuff. Sickening Dreams doesn't target and gives reach. Chord of Calling is another option that isn't compact enough to really be worth cramming in (in my opinion, testing could change that.) Sickening Dreams will be the easiest to cast and the easiest to take full advantage; it's an enabler that doubles as hate. We really need to be reactionary in that situation, but not too greedy. If we get a 2-for-1 on the exchange that should be plenty, especially if we end up with valuable creatures binned. Opponent's won't have the luxury of waiting even a turn to deploy their game plan, but we will have absurd tempo if we can hit 2+ creatures with Dreams, quicken the clock, and still get our threats active.

EDIT: Fuck. After rereading Firestorm, it might actually be our best option. I thought it was 1 damage divided per card discarded, but it's 1 damage to each. Discarding 2 cards deals 2 damage to 2 targets each, discarding 3 deals 3 damage to 3 targets each. It still requires a fairly hefty discard investment to sweep, so I'm skeptical, but it only costs 1 mana and it's instant, which are both such a big deal. It can also hit the opponent, so it gives us the same reach as Sickening Dreams. I'll go back to trying Firestorm first. I think the key is to wait to explode with creatures until turn 2, where you can cast Firestorm and still cast two creatures (Rootwalla, Hollow One, or Lotus Petal) to trigger Vengevines. In that case, you could also Firestorm first and then play the second land to immediately trigger Bloodghast's too. I think I'm sold on Firestorm, to be honest.

Firestorm targets so I think it's less viable than Dreams. It might be corner cases (TNN) that affect it, but again, with 5 colors available I think we should look at card effectiveness before any other metric (provided it lands in the mana cost range we can handle.)

I'm curious about a couple cards and whether they have a place in here: Stinkweed Imp and Cephalid Coliseum. Neither of them really takes away from the main game plan, but can also super-charge turns. Rebuilding seems to be more reliable when binning 5 cards or doing a loot for 3, and Imp does a fairly good job at being a utility blocker.

EDIT: also curious about Reckless Bushwhacker. It gives the deck a more combo-esque game plan, should be easy enough to enable with a free Hollow One/Lotus Petal/Rootwalla or just getting to three mana with Petal and playing a Tribe/Imp, and it supports the Vengevine plan (Vengevine trigger resolves first so it still attacks for 5). I thought about Goblin Bushwhacker but the RR cost seems to be prohibitive. I played a modern zoo deck for a little while that played Wild Nacatl, Kird Ape, and Burning Tree Emissary so I could attack big on turns 2-3 with Reckless Bushwacker. Just a thought, janky as hell, but the fun-factor would be huge.

Hanni

08-21-2020, 11:19 AM

In regards to Fleshbag Maurauder and Recurring Nightmare; those cards are way too slow for the Legacy metagame these days. Innocent Blood is also a worse removal spell compared to other options, even if we can afford to self-sacrifice.

I agree that Annex and reanimation spells is not the way to go with this deck.

I like Thalia better than Eidolon because it is easier to cast than Thalia. Deafening Silence is cool, but possibly too narrow. To be honest, I have a better solution for everything that I will discuss at the end of this post.

I think the sideboard needs to be a combination of efficiency, effectiveness, and synergy with the rest of the deck. I know it sounds complicated, but with enough time invested, we will come up with it.

I also believe most of the best anti-graveyard hate options have already been listed in this thread. Force of Vigor, Pithing Needle, and Firestorm deal with most of the permanent based hate, and Silent Gravestone deals with targeted spell based hate. There might be some hate that falls between those cracks, but we still have discard as a catch-all too.

The fetch manabase does have some advantages though, so the rainbow manabase isn't strictly better. The basic Swamp is nice, and fetches improve Bloodghast and Hogaak. Still, color consistency and 5c options in the sideboard make me prefer the rainbow manabase for now.

I'm not necessarily trying to warp around Tabernacle, I simply wanted an answer to it, and Weathered Wayfarer seemed like a great tool to incorporate a land toolbox. It's reasonable that this plan is too slow and vulnerable to actually work out.

Honestly, Tabernacle itself is really only played in lands as a 1-of, and is only really problematic when it comes down quickly and is supported with Wasteland. Either stopping Crop Rotation/Gamble or Wasteland does enough to limit its effectiveness. We have the tools to deal with these without needing to actually destroy Tabernacle, so I'm fine with emphasizing those options instead. I'll discuss these more at the bottom of this post.

I'm actually okay with Firestorm targeting, and I could care less about True-Name. Obviously, Mom + Containment Priest is an issue, but I think we can deal with that situation, and Sickening Dreams doesn't deal with this either. Firestorm costing 1 and being instant speed makes it infinitely better, IMO. I'm almost positive that this is the removal option we want for the matchups where we need it to deal with.

Big Game Hunter can also be included for the other creature problems that Firestorm doesn't handle, like Emrakul (or any other large threat other than Marit Lage). Probably like 2 Firestorm and 1 Big Game Hunter, with possibly a 1'of Karakas and a 1-of of one of the other generally good options like Nightshade Assassin or something, depending on space.

Stinkweed Imp costs 3 to cast, which makes it unplayable. I don't think we need to dredge. Coliseum will never have Threshold.

Bushwhacker could be alright, but I think the cost is prohibitive and the effect unnecessary.

Okay, so down to business. Stain the Mind is absurd. It literally deals with nearly every deck in the format. Whether to dismantle combo decks, to stripping away Swords to Plowshares or Terminus, to taking away key bombs, to acting as graveyard hate, to simply shred opponents hands in tandem with Cabal Therapy, this thing does it all. Oftentimes, we can cast it turn 1 for zero mana, but it should almost always cost 1 or less and be castable on turns 1 or turn 2. At zero mana, it's an Unmask on steroids; even at 1 mana, it does the exact same thing as Cabal Therapy without the flashback but with the ability to Cranial Extraction a card from the game.

Between Cabal Therapy and Stain the Mind, the deck can literally destroy the gameplan of nearly every deck in the format. No real need for creature removal maindeck when you can strip the opponent of whatever problems they have before they get a chance to cast them. Obviously in games where the opponent has the ability to prevent us from putting our initial creature burst on the table, it's not going to do much, but even postboard against graveyard hate, we should still be able to get enough creatures into play within the first couple of turns to make it castable.

Having a turn 1 where you dump some creatures on the board and then shred the opponents hand is almost always going to be enough to get there against just about every deck in the format. I'm not saying that it is going to make this deck an instant tier 1 strategy, but the power level is pretty absurd. Obviously it can get countered, but we can potentially bait with Cabal Therapy, and postboard Veil of Summer can put in some work. Obviously many opponent's will have their own Veil of Summer's, so that might take away a little bit of its sting, but the power level still makes it beyond worth it.

I definitely want this thing maindeck. My initial reaction is to cut Gravecrawler and Hogaak for 4 copies. 4 may be too many, since we don't really want to be convoking every turn, but we can certainly pay some amount of mana for it in later turns, and I'd like to start with 4. It's definitely a card I'd like to see in most opening hands. It's possible that Hogaak still deserves 1-2 slots, especially since this can kind of help enable Hogaak by being graveyard fodder, but I think the necessity of a midgame finisher diminishes if we can remove both threats and answers. Even with an anemic board of like a Putrid Imp, Rootwalla, Bloodghast, and Prized Amalgam... if the opponent has no threat (like SFM/Batterskull) or answers (like Swords to Plowshares), we can probably still close the game out. Gravecrawler was a solid inclusion for helping to enable Amalgam's and Vengevine's (and discards with minimal drawback for Hollow One), but it still costs 1 mana for a 2/1 that can't even block in a deck that wants to spend 1 mana on a discard outlet and then put everything else into play for free.

To close out, I also believe that Tomik, Distinguished Advokist is probably our best sideboard option for dealing with Tabernacle, pretty much Lands in general, while having splash against other strategies like Turbo Depths and such. WW could be a little difficult to power out, but it shuts off Wasteland, Thespian's Stage, Life from the Loam, Crop Rotation, Elvish Reclaimer, Maze of Ith, Ramunap Excavator, and a ton of other shit, with an ass of 3 and beating for 2 in the air. It's possible to cast turn 1 off of a Lotus Petal, which would be backbreaking against most Lands starts. Creature based means it synergizes with the rest of the deck. Of course, Stain the Mind does a great job of pre-emptively snagging Crop/Gamble to keep Tabernacle off of the table, and it can also snag whatever else to help us push through, too.

I'll post an updated list with a preliminary sideboard sometime today.

Hanni

08-21-2020, 12:10 PM

5c Fiendish Nature

Lands (12)
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Undiscovered Paradise
4 Mana Confluence

Creatures (32)
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Putrid Imp
2 Lotleth Troll
1 Ruthless Sniper
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Hollow One
4 Bloodghast
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Vengevine
1 Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis

Spells (16)
3 Once Upon a Time
3 Gamble
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Stain the Mind
4 Lotus Petal

Sideboard (15)
2 Veil of Summer
4 Force of Vigor
2 Firestorm
1 Big Game Hunter
1 Tomik, Distinguished Advokist
2 Faerie Macabre
1 Silent Gravestone
1 Pithing Needle
1 Karakas

The sideboard is just a rough draft of good cards right now. There's still several dozen other good options to consider, and it desperately needs playtesting to be tweaked according to the current metagame, especially in regards to problematic matchups. However, this is the starting point that I'd work from.

Mr. Safety

08-21-2020, 06:51 PM

Very cool, I'm sold on Stain the Mind. So Gravecrawler and Hogaak are the cuts, which seems ok to me. I think Stain the Mind does a lot to give an alternative axis of interaction, something the deck really needs.

I'm going to start working on getting the cards I need for this, it isn't many. It has given a spark of inspiration for a new deck, and that is really fun.

On a whim I'm grabbing some odd cards like Call to the Netherworld and still grabbing some Hogaaks.

Edit: So the deck is really close to being straight BG (functionally) so I am revisiting what it would look like in just those colors. Losing Tireless Tribe would be the biggest loss due to it being a 1-mana enabler, so maybe keeping in white is still correct. Lotleth Troll is not as good at 2 mana, even with Lotus Petal to power it out. The tradeoff is better mana and fetchlands for Bloodghast (which feed Hogaak.)

A single Scrubland alongside 4 lotus petals should do the trick with a couple Bayou, basic swamp, and black fetches.

Hanni

08-23-2020, 06:46 PM

There is some value to running 3 fetch, 1 Bayou, 1 Scrubland, and 1 Swamp, but you pretty much have to run 4 Cavern of Souls and 4 Undiscovered Paradise regardless. At which point, you get access to a basic Swamp and a couple of fetchlands, but you give up some mana consistency for some mana stability, and you limit yourself with possible sideboard options.

Mana consistency is better than stability in this particular deck, and I feel like Firestorm alone is worth the rainbow manabase. Tomik is also really good at dealing with quite a few popular decks in the format that can otherwise be hard to deal with, and even has splash damage against other decks, such as Infect (prevents them from pumping Inkmoth and shuts off Crop Rotation). Casting Tomik with the rainbow manabase can be difficult, but it's significantly harder with the fetch configuration.

I'm no longer on Hogaak, so I'm even less concerned about the fetchlands, although fetches/swamps does open up options like Massacre in the sideboard.

In either case, I would not, under any circumstances, cut Tireless Tribe.

Mr. Safety

08-24-2020, 07:14 AM

I'm an idiot...I wanted fetchlands for Bloodghast but I completely forgot about Undiscovered Paradise taking care of that issue. Hogaak is a card I just want access to, not necessarily something I will include. I actually really like the Stain the Mind list you posted, I think the creatures are trimmed as low as possible to feed synergy while still giving access to some really good disruption.

Talk to me about Stitcher's Supplier, have you tried it in any variation yet? I'm wondering about Village Rites and Tendrils of Despair synergies, along with it being on-color and feeding the graveyard. Hogaak may be out, but the synergies from that deck might help tune this one. I'm also super curious about Cabal Therapist, which seems pretty spicy but likely not good enough. All of these cards contribute towards a grindier game-plan rather than all-in. Looking at Stain the Mind and how it can really hamstring decks makes me want to become a little more resilient rather than fast.

Hanni

08-24-2020, 08:59 AM

Well, it's like you said, the creatures are basically trimmed as low as possible. If you trim any more, you risk having hands that simply don't do anything. You need specific combinations of stuff for the whole thing to work.

You need your initial discard outlet, creatures that reanimate, and then you need to be able to reanimate those creatures. If you have Vengevine, you really want a Hollow One or Basking Rootwalla, but Lotus Petal and another 1cc creature will also work. If you have Amalgam, you need either Vengevine or Bloodghast, and a way to get those guys reanimated.

You can't really trim on lands, because you need them for Bloodghast, and you really don't want to cut Lotus Petal, because it increases the consistency of the broken starts. Without the fast starts, you're a worse version of the standard Hogaak lists.

So what's left is the non-creature spells. For Village Rites, I feel like it competes with Once Upon a Time, but that card helps stitch the deck together. Multiples in the opener aren't ideal, but even with 2, you're digging 5 deep for whatever piece you need for 0 mana on turn 1, and then you can cast the 2nd copy on turn 2+ to dig another 5 deep for more gas in the midgame.

I suppose you could split Once Upon a Time with Village Rites, but Village Rites is a blank until you go off (only fuels the midgame), whereas Once Upon a Time increases your consistency of going off initially. The card advantage of Village Rites is pretty good, but I'm not sure that it is necessary. I'm not even sure that I like it better than Anje's Ravager, to be honest.

If we were to draw cards, we'd really like to be drawing them before we first go off; Village Rites does not help with that. Having a midgame refuel is nice, but 2 cards by itself isn't that much, and running it dilutes our opening burst. At least with Ravager, it's an engine card that keeps refueling, and by the midgame, the 2cc cost is much less of an issue.

I do not think Tendrils of Despair is better than Cabal Therapy nor Stain the Mind. Letting the opponent choose the cards is a weak effect, and even if it does hit two cards for 1 mana, I'd rather choose the card and see my opponent's hand.

Cabal Therapist is certainly interesting. I'm always interested in creature options, and the cost and power level are certainly there. Not getting the Therapist effect until turn 2+ is certainly a drawback, but it would still be effective I think.

I like that you can potentially keep fueling it every turn, especially with Bloodghast + Undiscovered Paradise, although you usually only need to rip the opponents hand apart at the beginning of the game in most cases. It is a little slow, but in addition to Therapy and Stain the Mind, it doesn't seem too bad.

I dislike that it is soft to creature removal. Against Swords to Plowshares matchups, I'd rather lose Therapist than a Vengevine, but against decks with Lightning Bolt, it might be a liability.

Since you want Cavern of Souls to name your initial discard outlet's creature type, it's unlikely to be cast uncounterable... not really a knock though, since neither Cabal Therapy nor Stain the Mind are uncounterable either.

With that being said, as a 1cc creature, it's great for simply being able to trigger Vengevines, especially in the midgame, so that aspect is definitely relevant. It can also be grabbed with Once Upon a Time, which is pretty sweet.

I do like that Therapist gives us a sacrifice engine to help enable midgame Amalgam's more consistently.

A good portion of the time, the first Therapy effect will whiff. With Cabal Therapy, you simply sac a guy and the second casting hits something. With Stain the Mind, it's pretty likely that even if you miss hitting a card in their hand, you're still removing all copies of that card from the game. Both Cabal Therapy and Stain the Mind usually have an impact right away. With Cabal Therapist, it takes a turn, and it's possible that you don't get any value until it triggers for a second time on the turn after that, so it's a bit slow on its own. However, in combination with the other discard effects, it gets much better.

Opening up with a turn 1 Therapist into an explosive turn 2 with Stain the Mind or Cabal Therapy would be a pretty strong start, assuming Therapist doesn't die right away. That then gives you another Therapist rip the following turn, which is probably enough to dismantle most opponents hands. Still much slower than a Therapy + Stain the Mind opener, but increasing the consistency of the discard plan seems worth it still.

Casting Therapy, Therapist, and Stain the Mind between the first two turns would be pretty sick, actually.

I would not cut any Cabal Therapy. Stain the Mind and Once Upon a Time, on the other hand, are bad in multiples. It seems reasonable to trim one of each.

With the two free spaces, I'm torn between Therapist and Ravager. However, I'm much more interested in the first few turns than I am with the midgame, so for now, Therapist gets the nod. I may change my mind later and cut the Therapist's for Anje's Ravager, Nightshade Assassin, Ruthless Sniper, Gravecrawler, or Hogaak.

As far as Stitcher's Supplier goes, that's a different deck. We only have 12 cards we actually want to put into the graveyard. Stitcher's Supplier does not synergize with Basking Rootwalla or Hollow One. Stitcher's Supplier, and similar effects like Hedron Crab, are better suited for the standard Hogaak lists.

tl;dr Once Upon a Time and Stain the Mind are not great in multiples, so trimming 1 of each seems like a good idea. I really like the dynamic that Cabal Therapist would add to this deck, essentially increasing the consistency of destroying the opponent's hand during the first few turns of the game in tandem with Cabal Therapy and Stain the Mind. Therefore, I will be modifying my list above to include these changes.

Mr. Safety

08-24-2020, 02:30 PM

Honestly, the only place I would trim is maybe 1x Stain the Mind. OUAT is *nuts*, pure and simple. I wouldn't cut any copies. Stain the Mind seems to be the natural place to trim simply because it needs the main plan to succeed in order to be castable, which means any hand with more than one Stain is basically an automatic mulligan. OUAT does the opposite: it can undo a mulligan pretty easily by converting into another threat or land. The first Stain the Mind should be backbreaking, the rest of our effort should be put into closing the game. Just theoretical of course, I still need to get some real testing in.

Therapist I think will be an interesting test...I like that it's a creature to trigger Vengevines and it provides another avenue of discard. The cost is correct at B, but as you say, it's slow. Lotleth Troll is also slow but basically neccessary, it's there as discard outlets 9+10 and as a creature that doesn't need the graveyard to become a serious threat. Menace isn't a terrible ability, either (something I always forget Therapist brings.)

EDIT: I'm really digging the tricks this deck can do as well. There is all of the Therapy/Stain the mind shenanigans that can really make this deck good against combo and the ways double Basking Rootwalla can enable Vengevines on our opponent's turn.

How do we feel about Darkblast? Is that just worse than Firestorm?

Hanni

08-24-2020, 04:40 PM

Well, the first Once Upon a Time is nuts, but every copy beyond the first in the opening hand is not. Paying 0 mana to dig 5 is nuts, but paying 2 mana is not. Having two copies in the opener isn't horrible; if you can make 2 land drops and have nothing significant to spend mana for on turn 2, you can spend it on the 2nd copy to dig for more gas. However, if you don't have two lands or if you do have other stuff you do want to cast on turn 2, it's a blank until the midgame. 3+ copies in the opener is usually a mulligan. Cutting to 3 copies will make the deck more consistent overall I think.

Same goes for Stain the Mind. One copy is fantastic, and while there will be some matchups where you want two copies, you can only cast one copy per turn at the expense of tapping your threats and not attacking. It's okay when they have summoning sickness, but you're hurting your clock to convoke multiple turns in a row. Drawing 3+ copies in the opener is usually a mulligan. Same as Once Upon a Time, cutting to 3 copies will make the deck more consistent overall.

Beyond that, we have two open slots to work with. It might simply be correct to fit the Gravecrawler's back in to make the deck run more smoothly, but I'm willing to test out other options in these flex slots. I really like the concept behind Therapist, but I guess I'll have to see how it actually works in practice.

Darkblast is definitely worse than Firestorm. Darkblast only deals with a single x/1 per mana investment, whereas Firestorm is a single mana sweeper that can basically clean the board against aggro matchups. We don't need to keep killing stuff, we usually just need a one time sweep to close a game out. Blazing Volley is another consideration for that slot, but I really feel like our mass removal option needs to be able to deal with x/2's, and being an instant is a nice bonus.

Mr. Safety

08-24-2020, 07:06 PM

I figured Darkblast is less conditional; topdecked Darkblast when your hand is empty could steal some games. It can kill x/2's by dredging during the draw step. *shrug* Just some thoughts.

Edit: Force of Despair?

Hanni

08-24-2020, 11:34 PM

Force of Despair only deals with creatures that have come into play that turn, so it's too conditional.

The way I usually play the deck, I tend to float cards in hand during the midgame, so I should usually have at least a couple of cards to discard to Firestorm during the midgame. However, I haven't playtested with it much, so maybe I'm wrong.

If I was going to run something else, it would probably be Pyroclasm.

Mr. Safety

08-25-2020, 07:45 AM

That all makes sense. I was looking for 'free' options, and the only ones I could come up with were Massacre (need to run fetches/basic Swamp), Marrow Shards (only deals 1 damage, and only to attackers), and Force of Despair (only free on their turn and conditional.) If Engineered Plague only cost 2 mana I would say that is the card to use, but unfortunately it's at 3 mana so essentially unplayable, especially considering Plague Engineer is just a strict upgrade.

I haven't heard anything about Death and Taxes in a long time, and Maverick is basically a fringe deck at this point in Legacy history, but Esper Vial is a real deck ATM. I was looking at Pyrokinesis, which would be very good, but we don't have nearly the red count to pull that off.

What about Umezawa's Jitte? It isn't super efficient but it could really swing grindier games.

Hanni

08-25-2020, 09:13 AM

The fact that Firestorm costs a single mana, sweeps creatures with as much toughness as you have cards to discard, is instant, and can go to face as reach puts it in a class above all of the other options that we have available.

You just have to wait to go off until turn 2 or 3, so that you can wreck the opponent's board at the same time (assuming Firestorm is in your opening hand and not a topdeck). I tend to hold cards in hand in the midgame so that I can make another burst later, so that sort of works to enable a topdecked Firestorm.

Jitte is way too mana hungry to work in this deck, and too slow for what we would need it for anyway. We grind really well by having sticky creatures that keep coming back after they die. Stain the Mind removing Swords to Plowshares from the game does a lot to shore up those matchups. The most important thing to address in postboard games where we would need to grind is to be able to deal with their graveyard hate.

I wish there was some sort of etb creature at 0cc-2cc (with whatever additional cost that we could reasonably satisfy) that gave all creatures-2/-2 until end of turn, but that's probably never going to happen.

non-inflammable

08-25-2020, 09:51 AM

I wish there was a some sort of etb creature at 0cc-2cc

I enjoy reading all the deck tech, thanx for posting; discord is meh.

this type of creature was discussed in other threads. the only creature that's close to what you want is necroplasm.

Mr. Safety

08-25-2020, 05:25 PM

Well, Firestorm it is. I don't currently have any but I can proxy them for now.

The closest I can come up with for creature-based repeatable removal is either Grim Lavamancer or Plagued Rusalka. Grim will be hard to feed and Rusalka seems too conditional, not as good as Firestorm.

FTW

08-27-2020, 10:36 PM

Where are you at with the maindeck now?

I like the shift back to the old 5c madness builds we had before with Imp + Tireless Tribe. 8PImp.dec has more explosive turn 1s.

I loved Lotleth Troll in the original version years ago, but it seems too slow for recent metas. Casting it with regeneration mana open is a pipe dream if you want to use it as a Madness enabler. The old version could curve T1 DRS into T2 Troll with B open, a MUCH stronger sequence worth delaying a turn. The regeneration ability was most useful for bluffing attacks into blockers and fighting Goyf ground wars, but that was a thing of older metas. Another part of its value was being a Zombie for Gravecrawler tricks, but once you cut the Gravecrawler+Carrion Feeder engine Troll loses yet more value. Without B open, it trades 1-for-1 too easily and seems worse than 1 cmc outlets.

Is turn 1 Faithless Looting or Insolent Neonate better in slots 9-10 than Troll? Without the DRS line, there isn't a good reason to wait till T2 to start discarding. At 2 mana, Collective Brutality seems better, providing relevant interaction immediately. It also makes Therapies better.

Cabal Therapist is a great idea and "goes off" with Bloodghast, generating more immediate interaction than Carrion Feeder's cuteness.

Firestorm is a classic Dredge SB card that I used to run in this deck sometimes. It's good in creature-heavy matchups for explosive changes to the board state.

Jitte and Plague are way too slow. This deck is not control and can't durdle with mana. Jitte is very mana hungry and a poor fit with painlands.

I usually ran Decays somewhere in the 75. Magic is an interactive game. Vomiting out 4/4s and 2/1s isn't always enough. But this deck needs a high creature count and can't afford to waste too many slots on interaction, so you really want your few interaction spells to hit. Decay being uncounterable is big. Therapy also plays around disruption well between the mind games and flashback value.

I think 4 Paradise is too many. They're great with Bloodghast, but having 2 out at once is awful tempo.

//Rainbow Lands: 14
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Mana Confluence
3 City of Brass
3 Undiscovered Paradise

//Creatures: 32
4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
2 Cabal Therapist
2 Gravecrawler
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Bloodghast
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Vengevine
4 Hollow One

//Spells: 14
4 Once Upon a Time
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Faithless Looting
3 Abrupt Decay

//Sideboard: 15
2 Firestorm
2 Faerie Macabre
1 Big Game Hunter
1 Karakas
1 Collective Brutality
2 Thoughtseize
2 Veil of Summer
2 Silent Gravestone
2 Force of Vigor

Rough SB. Balance between anti-combo, anti-aggro, anti-control, and anti-hate will depend on the meta.

With Prized Amalgam in the deck, I think Gravecrawler is worth another look. They enable each other. Crawler is also a cheap way to trigger Vengevine in topdeck mode, from hand or graveyard. Without it there's a shortage of castable creatures to really get good value from Vengevine, and there's a shortage of recurring creatures to trigger Amalgam. Crawler solves both at once. You will often have Cavern @ Zombie for PImp, which helps.

Edit: Part of me has always wanted to have the stones to bring in postboard Doran, the Siege Tower as a plan B that doesn't depend on the graveyard and is hilarious with Tireless Tribe.

Hanni

08-28-2020, 04:12 AM

My current maindeck (and sideboard) is the one listed in the middle of this page (page 11).

Lotleth Troll is a necessary evil. You need a permanent based repeatable discard outlet, and there are no other 1cc options. Faithless Looting, Insolent Neonate, and Collective Brutality aren't good enough. You have to discard 3+ cards to make Hollow One cost 0 mana, you often need to discard 3+ to dump your hand, and you want to be able to discard topdecked Vengevine's and Amalgam's midgame (and whatever else to enable midgame Hollow One's)..

You don't need to cast Lotleth Troll and have regeneration mana up immediately. You simply need to resolve it in order to be able to dump your hand. Against removal, you can continue to discard in response. Against Swords to Plowshares, it's going to die anyway, and against Bolt, it can grow past 3 toughness. If it dies to Fatal Push, it's whatever; the important part is that it enables the rest of your hand. You shouldn't need to worry about regenerating it until the following turn when it is capable of attacking, where you should have the mana to regenerate it if necessary.

Lotleth Troll is certainly slower, but the deck has Lotus Petal to still enable it on turn 1, and even on turn 2, that's still okay. The deck has 8 free creatures between Rootwalla and Hollow One, which makes it work.

Being a zombie for Gravecrawler was only a piece of why it was ran before, and Gravecrawler may still find its way back in eventually.

Decay is certainly something that could be ran, but supporting a double color costed non-creature spell can be difficult in this deck. I was exploring cheaper or creature based options first, which is why I arrived at my current list. Force of Vigor gives us free removal for artifacts/enchantments, while Firestorm and Big Game Hunter give us removal that costs 1cc.

4 Paradise is a necessary evil to enable Bloodghast with only 14 total lands. There are plenty of games where we only need a single source of mana, so it's usually not an issue. We don't use mana the same way that normal decks do. In the midgame, I usually hold on to stuff until I can get another little burst assembled.

Gravecrawler could certainly make its way back in, but it would be in the Therapist slot for me, because again, Lotleth Troll is a necessary evil. For now, I think there is a sufficient amount of bodies to recur midgame Vengevine's (again, I hold topdecked stuff in hand to assemble another mini burst in the midgame), but Gravecrawler would certainly make things run smoother, and I may end up cutting Therapist for Gravecrawler in the future.

I see that you cut Lotus Petal; I would advise against that. You need the additional mana sources, and Petal enables the faster starts more consistently. If you do go that route, without increasing the land count, let me know how it tests out.

I think Stain the Mind is way too good to not run some copies, and that you will get stuck with uncastable Decay's too often, but there is certainly room for trying different things.

Mr. Safety

08-28-2020, 09:41 AM

Edit: Part of me has always wanted to have the stones to bring in postboard Doran, the Siege Tower as a plan B that doesn't depend on the graveyard and is hilarious with Tireless Tribe.

You my friend are an evil genius...I am a sucker for anything Lorwyn-related and I actually used Doran as anti-Tnn tech at one point.

I'm torn on Stain the Mind maindeck. It's a card with a decent floor and a very high ceiling, ranging from 'get rid of your StP' to 'win the game right now.'

Abrupt Decay may be a necessary evil, but I think Force of Vigor needs to be vetted first. It's free and we can enable it easily, leaving our mana open to feed the creature plan.

I think we want 10 repeatable creature-based discard outlets, it's just a necessary evil with Vengevine. Once Upon a Time might be enough to squeak out playing only 8-9, but I don't think that's a reliable approach. Having more than one outlet isn't bad at all considering one may get countered (no Cavern opener) and the fact that the majority of them are 1-mana creatures to enable getting Vengevine back. If another 1-mana 'discard up to 3 cards' creature gets printed I think we swap immediately, but until then I think Troll just has to be there. If Gravecrawler becomes too important to the gameplan I think Troll gets even more important. I don't think Burning Inquiry is good enough, but has that been tested yet?

I am still torn about Chancellor of the Annex...I want it to work really bad, just because t1 is so fundamental to the gameplan. A man can dream...

FTW

08-28-2020, 10:43 AM

Decay is certainly something that could be ran, but supporting a double color costed non-creature spell can be difficult in this deck. I was exploring cheaper or creature based options first, which is why I arrived at my current list. Force of Vigor gives us free removal for artifacts/enchantments, while Firestorm and Big Game Hunter give us removal that costs 1cc.

Decay was very strong in the BG build. It's harder with the 5c low-land version, but I think it's still worth it.

Dredge and TES often run it too, despite low land count. The main reason is decks like that (and this) can't afford to run too many removal slots without diluting the core engine and really need the first copy to kill the thing you want to kill. Missing sets you far back. Uncounterable is very strong. Also, Decay hits almost anything. With most others, you have to choose between a Disenchant or creature removal, and you could draw the wrong one (if they've diversified their hate like they should).

FoV is a nice new tool. The problem is your green count is low to support it (and it's counterable). Decay increases the green count making FoV better. With Decay I have 15 MD green even without Troll, while you just have 13, and there aren't many other green cards worth playing.

You don't need to cast Lotleth Troll and have regeneration mana up immediately.

Not mandatory, but in my experience it helped add value to the card. It beats Decay and Fatal Push. It lets you block immediately, especially OTD. It stops Bolt without being forced to discard (holding back cards can be useful for bluffing or playing around hate, especially postboard) and without having 4 creatures (with just 3 they can respond to one activation to kill 4/3 Troll). You lose to StP either way, but if they use StP on Troll then Vengevine and Amalgam just got better. StP is torn between too many targets.

Being a zombie for Gravecrawler was only a piece of why it was ran before, and Gravecrawler may still find its way back in eventually.

Not the only reason, but it was useful. My original builds of this deck 8ish years ago ran Carrion Feeder + Gravecrawler + Lotleth Troll, so there was a significant zombie subtheme. The higher zombie count made Gravecrawler easy to recur. Gravecrawler could be double cast in one turn (sac via Feeder or Therapy) to trigger Vengevine even with no hand and bad topdecks, recovering from disruption, providing 2nd and 3rd winds. Gravecrawler was also a grow combo with Feeder. Feeder gave a sac outlet to protect recurring creatures from StP and Terminus, keep counters off Jitte, and swarm around Batterskull lifelink (Stoneblade was much more common then). Both Feeder and Troll use the recurring creatures to be significant Grow threats, aside from just being enablers. Beatdown plan B was strong even through graveyard hate. DRS provided incredible mana boosting, fighting through Wasteland, allowing Troll regeneration, hardcast Vengevine, faster Carrion-Crawler growth, and turn 2 Buried Alive. There was a lot of synergy between the pieces, and they transformed well into a grindy fair deck postboard.

Now with Hollow One and without DRS, the 5c build seems less synergy-oriented and more linear and explosive: discard outlets and free creatures. Troll shone more with its synergies, grindiness, and plan B utility. As just a discard outlet it's weaker than the others. That makes me question if it still is necessary.

Relying on drawing Petal + Troll is a 2-card combo. You shouldn't need to get lucky for your backup engine. The backup engine is supposed to bail you out of bad hands.

Lotleth Troll is a necessary evil. You need a permanent based repeatable discard outlet, and there are no other 1cc options.

My idea was that OUAT + London Mulligan + Faithless Looting should help dig into the 8 copies of PImp/Tribe. Your older build had 10 copies to consistently have an outlet, but that was pre-OUAT pre-London.

Looting doesn't just discard 2 cards. It also digs for more cards, something none of the others do. That should get more gas and more mana, while still pitching 2 cards for value.

Another 2 cmc outlet to consider is the new Seasoned Hallowblade. Zombie Infestation is a bit awkward requiring double discard, but it also lets you pitch noncreatures and provides lasting value via multiple bodies.

I see that you cut Lotus Petal; I would advise against that. You need the additional mana sources, and Petal enables the faster starts more consistently. If you do go that route, without increasing the land count, let me know how it tests out.

I never liked the card disadvantage of Petal. It seemed less important without Lotleth Troll. Most things cost 1 mana. Dredge runs off 12-14 lands. Looting and OUAT should help dig into more lands, something the previous build couldn't do. In theory, that should be enough to compensate, but it needs testing. I might need to increase the land count. I have a 15th land in the SB (Karakas) and considered a 16th.

Hanni

08-28-2020, 01:32 PM

You my friend are an evil genius...I am a sucker for anything Lorwyn-related and I actually used Doran as anti-Tnn tech at one point.

I'm torn on Stain the Mind maindeck. It's a card with a decent floor and a very high ceiling, ranging from 'get rid of your StP' to 'win the game right now.'

Abrupt Decay may be a necessary evil, but I think Force of Vigor needs to be vetted first. It's free and we can enable it easily, leaving our mana open to feed the creature plan.

I think we want 10 repeatable creature-based discard outlets, it's just a necessary evil with Vengevine. Once Upon a Time might be enough to squeak out playing only 8-9, but I don't think that's a reliable approach. Having more than one outlet isn't bad at all considering one may get countered (no Cavern opener) and the fact that the majority of them are 1-mana creatures to enable getting Vengevine back. If another 1-mana 'discard up to 3 cards' creature gets printed I think we swap immediately, but until then I think Troll just has to be there. If Gravecrawler becomes too important to the gameplan I think Troll gets even more important. I don't think Burning Inquiry is good enough, but has that been tested yet?

I am still torn about Chancellor of the Annex...I want it to work really bad, just because t1 is so fundamental to the gameplan. A man can dream...

The random discard on Burning Inquiry can be hit or miss, and I'd hate to accidentally discard my Hollow One's, but the draw 3 discard 3 aspect of it isn't horrible. I'd still rather pay an extra mana for Lotleth though. Potentially uncounterable with Cavern, repeatable, able to discard everything you want (and nothing you don't), and the fact that it's a decent threat on its own are all pretty good things, IMO.

Hanni

08-28-2020, 02:04 PM

Decay was very strong in the BG build. It's harder with the 5c low-land version, but I think it's still worth it.

Dredge and TES often run it too, despite low land count. The main reason is decks like that (and this) can't afford to run too many removal slots without diluting the core engine and really need the first copy to kill the thing you want to kill. Missing sets you far back. Uncounterable is very strong. Also, Decay hits almost anything. With most others, you have to choose between a Disenchant or creature removal, and you could draw the wrong one (if they've diversified their hate like they should).

FoV is a nice new tool. The problem is your green count is low to support it (and it's counterable). Decay increases the green count making FoV better. With Decay I have 15 MD green even without Troll, while you just have 13, and there aren't many other green cards worth playing.

Not mandatory, but in my experience it helped add value to the card. It beats Decay and Fatal Push. It lets you block immediately, especially OTD. It stops Bolt without being forced to discard (holding back cards can be useful for bluffing or playing around hate, especially postboard) and without having 4 creatures (with just 3 they can respond to one activation to kill 4/3 Troll). You lose to StP either way, but if they use StP on Troll then Vengevine and Amalgam just got better. StP is torn between too many targets.

Not the only reason, but it was useful. My original builds of this deck 8ish years ago ran Carrion Feeder + Gravecrawler + Lotleth Troll, so there was a significant zombie subtheme. The higher zombie count made Gravecrawler easy to recur. Gravecrawler could be double cast in one turn (sac via Feeder or Therapy) to trigger Vengevine even with no hand and bad topdecks, recovering from disruption, providing 2nd and 3rd winds. Gravecrawler was also a grow combo with Feeder. Feeder gave a sac outlet to protect recurring creatures from StP and Terminus, keep counters off Jitte, and swarm around Batterskull lifelink (Stoneblade was much more common then). Both Feeder and Troll use the recurring creatures to be significant Grow threats, aside from just being enablers. Beatdown plan B was strong even through graveyard hate. DRS provided incredible mana boosting, fighting through Wasteland, allowing Troll regeneration, hardcast Vengevine, faster Carrion-Crawler growth, and turn 2 Buried Alive. There was a lot of synergy between the pieces, and they transformed well into a grindy fair deck postboard.

Now with Hollow One and without DRS, the 5c build seems less synergy-oriented and more linear and explosive: discard outlets and free creatures. Troll shone more with its synergies, grindiness, and plan B utility. As just a discard outlet it's weaker than the others. That makes me question if it still is necessary.

Relying on drawing Petal + Troll is a 2-card combo. You shouldn't need to get lucky for your backup engine. The backup engine is supposed to bail you out of bad hands.

My idea was that OUAT + London Mulligan + Faithless Looting should help dig into the 8 copies of PImp/Tribe. Your older build had 10 copies to consistently have an outlet, but that was pre-OUAT pre-London.

Looting doesn't just discard 2 cards. It also digs for more cards, something none of the others do. That should get more gas and more mana, while still pitching 2 cards for value.

Another 2 cmc outlet to consider is the new Seasoned Hallowblade. Zombie Infestation is a bit awkward requiring double discard, but it also lets you pitch noncreatures and provides lasting value via multiple bodies.

I never liked the card disadvantage of Petal. It seemed less important without Lotleth Troll. Most things cost 1 mana. Dredge runs off 12-14 lands. Looting and OUAT should help dig into more lands, something the previous build couldn't do. In theory, that should be enough to compensate, but it needs testing. I might need to increase the land count. I have a 15th land in the SB (Karakas) and considered a 16th.

What are you worried about hitting with Decay in game 1? Most of the stuff we are worried about usually comes in against us in postboard games. Neither TES nor Dredge maindeck Decay. TES has cantrips to dig for the mana needed, and neither deck runs Cavern of Souls, which doesn't cast it. I've not seen Decay's from Dredge... usually they are on Nature's Claim or Firestorm.

Without Petal, you literally have 10 lands that will cast it, and you need 2 of them. It's not reliable enough. Postboard, it doesn't deal with Leyline, which is one of the primary targets that we would want a removal spell for.

The green spell count may be a bit low and something to figure out how to improve, but Force of Vigor is a much better spell to deal with most graveyard hate, counterable or not. I'd rather run copies of Nature's Claim before Abrupt Decay, even if it doesn't deal with Containment Priest and even if it is counterable.

I've played the old builds, but Gravecrawler + Carrion Feeder just isn't a strong enough plan anymore. Sinking mana into Carrion Feeder is way too slow, trades horribly with Ice-Fang Coatl, and the fringe benefits don't outweigh drawing bad cards that don't do anything significant.

The deck is intended to be linear. You want to put a bunch of creatures into play as quickly as possible and kill the opponent before they are capable of stabilizing. The deck has interaction with the discard package to remove cards that would allow the opponent to do so, and we can grind in the midgame with creatures that keep coming back, but the goal is to get under the opponent and overwhelm them.

It's not about relying on Troll + Petal. It's about Petal increasing the consistency of going off on turn 1. Sometimes you'll have a Putrid Imp but no Basking Rootwalla or Hollow One to get Vengevine into play; Lotus Petal and another 1cc creature allows us to go off. Lotus Petal casting a 1cc outlet, discard Bloodghast's, play land gives us turn 1 Bloodghast's. Sometimes, we have Lotleth as our outlet, and Lotus Petal allows us to go off on turn 1 instead of turn 2. Lotus Petal can also improve our ability to cast Cabal Therapy on turn 1 prior to going off. So on and so forth. Lotus Petal increases the consistency of the broken starts.

If you cut Petals, you should probably be replacing them with some number of lands.

Lotleth is better than the other 2cc options. Faithless Looting isn't strong enough because we need to be able to discard more than 2 cards for the one mana spent.

FTW

08-28-2020, 03:26 PM

What are you worried about hitting with Decay in game 1?

T1 Chalice @ 1 shuts us down hard. Decay can't be cast off Cavern, but if we have Cavern we don't care about Chalice. (In general Cavern is a problem, so I need more lands).

Decay also kills Planeswalkers, Ensnaring Bridge, combo engines, and other problems.

0 removal MD seems bad because we are not as explosive as Storm, Reanimator, Dredge or Hogaak. Those decks don't run MD removal because in G1 they do unfair things and are the aggressor (the faster/more dangerous deck). They only need removal postboard to answer hate. This will not always be the faster deck. This is explosive aggro, but not pure combo. We're turning 4/xs sideways. If we wanted speed we would be Hogaak. This is less explosive but has more resilient lines. Aggro has a higher need for interaction, even if it's just removing a blocker to clock a turn earlier.

Dredge has sometimes SBed Decay, depends on the meta. Claim is harder to resolve against blue decks and Chalice decks. FoV is good against Chalice/Leyline decks, but against blue decks with Cage/Crypt you're way behind if it gets countered.

Decay doesn't answer Leyline, but FoV does. I'm running Decay in addition to FoV and Firestorm, not instead of. Decay boosts the chance of FoV killing Leyline, by being a playable green card. Looting's card draw also increases FoV consistency.

I've played the old builds, but Gravecrawler + Carrion Feeder just isn't a strong enough plan anymore. Sinking mana into Carrion Feeder is way too slow, trades horribly with Ice-Fang Coatl, and the fringe benefits don't outweigh drawing bad cards that don't do anything significant.

I agree, and that's why I've cut Carrion Feeder too. But it does change the dimensions of the deck. Lotleth Troll was a house in the original deck. It gets worse and worse in the modern meta and as other cards get cut (DRS, Carrion Feeder + Gravecrawler).

Troll is much worse in the linear plan, that was my point.

Faithless Looting isn't strong enough because we need to be able to discard more than 2 cards for the one mana spent.

Lotleth Troll discards 0 cards for the 1 mana spent.

If you're on the Troll plan, you're playing for turn 2 anyway. Looting (on top of 4 OUAT) gives a chance of digging into Putrid Imp/Tireless Tribe on turn 2, which is no slower than Troll. Looting is not a main engine but a bridge. For hands without Hollow One, Looting may discard enough cards too. The big thing is it draws into new cards, which nothing else does, so it sets up better turn 2s. Looting makes OUAT marginally better by filtering redundant copies into gas, so 4 copies should be fine. Looting also helps dig into interaction and play a less all-in postboard game.

I'll have to test it more. It may not be enough, but Troll is pretty bad and I think should be cut if there's any way the deck can run without it.

Mr. Safety

08-31-2020, 03:20 PM

FTW

08-31-2020, 05:01 PM

Hanni

09-01-2020, 06:28 AM

T1 Chalice @ 1 shuts us down hard. Decay can't be cast off Cavern, but if we have Cavern we don't care about Chalice. (In general Cavern is a problem, so I need more lands).

Decay also kills Planeswalkers, Ensnaring Bridge, combo engines, and other problems.

0 removal MD seems bad because we are not as explosive as Storm, Reanimator, Dredge or Hogaak. Those decks don't run MD removal because in G1 they do unfair things and are the aggressor (the faster/more dangerous deck). They only need removal postboard to answer hate. This will not always be the faster deck. This is explosive aggro, but not pure combo. We're turning 4/xs sideways. If we wanted speed we would be Hogaak. This is less explosive but has more resilient lines. Aggro has a higher need for interaction, even if it's just removing a blocker to clock a turn earlier.

Dredge has sometimes SBed Decay, depends on the meta. Claim is harder to resolve against blue decks and Chalice decks. FoV is good against Chalice/Leyline decks, but against blue decks with Cage/Crypt you're way behind if it gets countered.

Decay doesn't answer Leyline, but FoV does. I'm running Decay in addition to FoV and Firestorm, not instead of. Decay boosts the chance of FoV killing Leyline, by being a playable green card. Looting's card draw also increases FoV consistency.

I agree, and that's why I've cut Carrion Feeder too. But it does change the dimensions of the deck. Lotleth Troll was a house in the original deck. It gets worse and worse in the modern meta and as other cards get cut (DRS, Carrion Feeder + Gravecrawler).

Troll is much worse in the linear plan, that was my point.

Lotleth Troll discards 0 cards for the 1 mana spent.

If you're on the Troll plan, you're playing for turn 2 anyway. Looting (on top of 4 OUAT) gives a chance of digging into Putrid Imp/Tireless Tribe on turn 2, which is no slower than Troll. Looting is not a main engine but a bridge. For hands without Hollow One, Looting may discard enough cards too. The big thing is it draws into new cards, which nothing else does, so it sets up better turn 2s. Looting makes OUAT marginally better by filtering redundant copies into gas, so 4 copies should be fine. Looting also helps dig into interaction and play a less all-in postboard game.

I'll have to test it more. It may not be enough, but Troll is pretty bad and I think should be cut if there's any way the deck can run without it.

Well, Chalice @ 1 can either be beaten by going off turn 1 on the play, Cavern of Souls, or Lotleth Troll. 6 ways to get past a turn Chalice 1 Chalice on the draw may not be great, but I don't think it warrants maindeck Abrupt Decay in a deck that is going to be unable to cast it in most games.

Decay does deal with some problems, but it's just too cost prohibitive. Planeswalker's are mostly irrelevant, and Bridge will often can take too long to work properly. Our creatures come down way too fast, and we have plenty of 1/x and 2/x creatures. How many decks are running it maindeck anyway... Moon Control?

This deck is more explosive but less powerful than Hogaak. Most Hogaak decks don't start cheating in creatures until turn 3, whereas we can do it turn 1. The Hogaak decks do more broken things by getting swarms of 2/2's and Hogaak in addition to Bloodghast and Vengevine, but they don't get going as fast.

I agree that sometimes we won't have enough bodies to close a game out before an opponent can stabilize, causing us to have to grind into the midgame, but I'm not sure that necessarily warrants maindeck removal. The plan with Stain the Mind was to remove the obstacles that we would need to deal with, and/or to shred an opponent's hand in tandem with Cabal Therapy, so as to not necessarily need maindeck removal. Maybe I am wrong on this point.

If I was going to maindeck removal, it would almost certainly be either Nightshade Assassin or Ruthless Sniper. It's certainly possible that I could cut the Cabal Therapist's for one of those in a future list.

I should have stated my problems with Faithless Looting better. While it does draw into the deck to access more resources, it doesn't do the things this deck wants. We need to be able to discard more than 2 cards, and we need to cast creatures. Looting does not trigger Vengevine, nor does it make Hollow One cost 0 mana. So you are essentially wasting a turn to dig two resources deep into the deck, because you still need one of the other discard outlets to actually function.

Troll may cost 2, but it's a creature body and it discards 3+ cards. It's potentially uncounterable with Cavern, and can be grabbed with an opening hand Once Upon a Time. It just does what this deck needs it to do, where Looting does not.

Hanni

09-01-2020, 06:33 AM

Hanni, how has Stain the Mind performed so far? I'm really tempted to play Faithless Looting in that spot, cut 1 of the Trolls (still play 1) and get a Hogaak in there. Once we incorporate Faithless Looting we can discard redundant copies of Once Upon a Time, play some fetchlands, and get 1-2 Hogaak's back in. Just a thought. I have a full set of Stain the Mind to play around with, it still seems really good, especially in the combo matchups.

In most games you should be able to get enough bodies on the board within the first couple of turns to enable it, and it does a lot of work. It may be correct to cut back to 2 copies and maybe fit 1-2 more in the board for specific matchups, but it still needs more testing.

Hogaak is still an interesting option, but in order to really make it work (consistently able to cast by turn 2), we basically need to change a bit of the structure of the deck. Fetchlands and Looting are certainly a big part of that, but I'm not sure that making those changes are worth it. I would be interested in hearing about your results if you do test out those changes.

Hanni

09-01-2020, 06:40 AM

If Stain is mainly good in the combo matchup, would it work in the SB?

It seems hard to get going against disruptive decks (e.g. blue tempo, blue midrange). You need to have a substantial board presence to pay the cost, then forgo an attack step to cast it, and Extracting one card from their deck won't win you the game.

Stain the Mind the mind doesn't need a substantial board presence to be castable, just to be cast for free. 3 bodies casts it for 1B on turn 2, for example. You'll usually want to cast it for free when you can, but it's not as difficult to cast for us as say Hogaak would be.

In matchups where there isn't necessarily a key card we want to remove (vs like a Delver deck), it can still contribute to discarding cards from their hand in tandem with Therapy, so it's not horrible. Against midrange, removing Swords to Plowshares is a pretty big deal. Most decks aren't equipped to consistently stop us from exploding out within the first couple of turns, so having the body count is usually not an issue.

Still, I could see trimming it down to 2 copies and putting 1-2 in the board for specific matchups.

Mr. Safety

09-01-2020, 07:31 AM

In most games you should be able to get enough bodies on the board within the first couple of turns to enable it, and it does a lot of work. It may be correct to cut back to 2 copies and maybe fit 1-2 more in the board for specific matchups, but it still needs more testing.

Hogaak is still an interesting option, but in order to really make it work (consistently able to cast by turn 2), we basically need to change a bit of the structure of the deck. Fetchlands and Looting are certainly a big part of that, but I'm not sure that making those changes are worth it. I would be interested in hearing about your results if you do test out those changes.

Good thoughts, I read your response above as well. I'm not advocating for Looting specifically, just looking for discussion about Stain the Mind. While Troll is a necessary evil (I am convinced) I was more interested in how good Stain the Mind was testing out. I think if Stain the Mind isn't pulling its weight in enough matchups it could be a sideboard option. At that point I feel that we don't *necessarily* need to add more creatures, we could add in spells to that slot. Faithless Looting seemed to be the most powerful at maintaining consistency while still supporting the linear game plan (as opposed to a utility removal, disruption, etc, like Abrupt Decay or Thoughtseze for examples.) EDIT: I saw your comments on cutting to 2 copies main, more in the board. That's another good option.

I think you narrowed in on why I wanted to discuss Looting: in order to enable Hogaak, I think Looting has to be part of the plan. Looting provides 3 'mana' to cast Hogaak if we discard fodder like extra OUaT/lands. If we discard Hogaak/dudes then we are setting up for another turn. Looting costs a mana, but we will often have 2 mana turn 1. Looting/Hollow One turns are acceptable even if we have to pay 1 for Hollow One. Looting could get us access to a 1-mana dork as well. So the question becomes: if given the choice, would we rather spend 2 mana for a Looting + 1 mana enabler/Therapy turn 1-2; or would we rather spend 2 mana on a Lotleth troll turn 1-2. I can't help but think that the Looting openers will likely be less explosive but more valuable, putting a level of consistency into the deck. If Once Upon a Time is this deck's Brainstorm, Looting would be this deck's Ponder. Looting is tied directly to whether Hogaak is viable, IMHO right now. No Looting, no Hogaak. If Looting, Hogaak becomes possible. I don't really think Gurmag Angler is on the table, even with Looting, because discarding it is so bad. Hogaak in the yard is just fine.

My cards are in the mail, so I will sleeve up and test as soon as I get them. Unfortunately, I still don't have access to Undiscovered Paradise and Cavern of Souls. I can proxy them easily enough, but if I end up trying Looting/Hogaak I'll rework into fetch/duals alongside some rainbow lands to feed delve.

EDIT:

First draft:

4x Putrid Imp
4x Basking Rootwalla
4x Tireless Tribe
4x Vengevine
4x Bloodghast
4x Prized Amalgam
4x Hollow One
2x Lotleth Troll
1x Hogaak

4x Cabal Therapy
3x Faithless Looting
4x Once Upon a Time
4x Lotus Petal

4x City of Brass
2x Gemstone Mine
4x Verdant Catacombs
1x Marsh Flats
1x Bayou
1x Blood Crypt
1x Swamp

Sideboard
3x Stain the Mind
2x Surgical Extraction
3x Force of Vigor
2x Pyroclasm
2x Veil of Summer
3x Silent Gravestone

No Faerie Macabres, but I'm not sure how important that is to the gameplan. It can *theoretically* help you cast Hollow Ones, but I would never want to be pressured into playing FMacabre at a sub-optimal time. If I could somehow squeeze in 4 copies then it might be reasonable, but without the set I don't think the interaction will show up often enough to make a statistical difference.

Pros of Looting/Hogaak: smooths out draws, gives additional consistency, Hogaak is a huge beater with trample, one more green card to enable Force of Vigor and 3 more ways to dig for it (or other sideboard cards) post-board.

Cons: Hogaak is legendary (weak to Karakas), Hogaak doesn't encourage swarm attacks (taps down dudes to play him), he's slower onto the board, Faithless Looting doesn't synergize with Once Upon a Time, mana-base gets somewhat weaker (trading fetchlands/duals for Cavern/Undiscovered Paradise to feed delve.)

Pros of maindeck Stain the Mind: outs to combo decks, Swords to Plowshares, any deck with a lynchpin card like Life from the Loam out of Lands, easy to turn on with fast dudes.

Cons: It may not have a strong enough impact to warrant tapping creatures to enable it (racing may be better), it's uncastable if we can't get enough creatures to make it cost 1 or less (maybe 2...), it can't be grabbed with OUaT

Please feel free to chime in with additional pros/cons of any mix of these cards. This is really the final stage of pre-testing theorycrafting, Stain the Mind vs. Faithless Looting. It may be correct to split them 2/2, or 3/1 in either direction, but everything else is pretty much locked in. Whether to include a single Hogaak or not seems fairly low-impact, and doesn't make sense with Stain the Mind tapping creatures, which Hogaak also does, so it fights for the same tempo-eating space.

Mr. Safety

09-08-2020, 07:04 AM

Close, but no cigar. Two mana is too much. I like that it's an actual *cast* from graveyard, which can trigger Vengevine, but Hogaak is also cast and is a lot bigger and he isn't at a full set. I am pretty sure with Vengevine, Bloodghast, Basking Rootwalla, Prized Amalgam, and Hogaak we have enough 'want to discard' creatures to feed synergies. I like this new card, it's just not efficient enough for this particular deck.

https://www.mtgpics.com/pics/big/znr/125.jpg

FTW

09-08-2020, 08:42 AM

2 mana looks too slow for what this deck wants to do. It looks great for Pox though. That deck has been stuck attacking with vanilla bears for too long (Mishra's Factory, Nether Spirit, Bloodghast, 2/2 morphs).

Mr. Safety

09-08-2020, 09:24 AM

Yeah, I definitely like it for Pox. The closest equivalent was Undead Gladiator, which is ok but far too cumbersome at 3 mana to cast (and double black.) However, even for Pox, the fact that it can't block is a real downside. That factor more than anything else is what holds Bloodghast back in Pox. If Bloodghast could block it would be a natural 4-of in Pox, easily.

I was hoping for another free-ish graveyard synergy creature from this set, but this won't cut it.

On another note, I think it's time to reevaluate Cabal Therapy in this deck. We don't have any tricks (Veteran Explorer, Stitcher's Supplier) and there seems to be an argument for playing maindeck Veil of Summer instead of Therapy. It still allows us to 'combo', is card parity, and it's efficient enough. I think I'm going to try playing some number of Veil of Summer maindeck over Therapy, maybe even a 2/2 split. I was listening to an episode of the Eternal Glory podcast that spoke about Therapy recently and how bad it is in Vintage Hollow-Vine but how good it is in Legacy Hogaak: Stitcher's Supplier makes all the difference. We aren't doing Supplier in here so I think Therapy is a synergistic disruption for the deck, but possibly not a necessary maindeck one. It's a quandary that needs solving.

Options for replacement:
Veil of Summer (straight swap)
Cabal Therapist (iffy...it's slower, but also a creature to enable Vengevines)
Insolent Neonate (creature + discard synergy for Vengevine/Hollow One)
Street Wraith (pure velocity, feeds Hollow Ones)
Hogaak + Faithless Looting (lean further into this)
Stain the Mind (maindeck instead of Therapy)
Utility slots (additional lands, BGHunter, Lightning Axe/Fatal Push/utility removal)

Hanni

09-09-2020, 03:23 PM

I don't agree that Veil of Summer is better than Therapy in here. Aside from being more narrow across the field, Cabal Therapy has the potential to remove multiple cards from an opponent's hand between the multicasting of it. It can also be beneficial in the midgame to sac a Bloodghast to recur an Amalgam. The fact that Therapy synergizes better with Stain the Mind (and to a lesser extent, Cabal Therapist) is icing on the cake.

I'm still on the list I posted before, except I'm down to 2 Stain the Mind and 1 Cabal Therapist, with 2 Ruthless Sniper in their place.

Mr. Safety

09-09-2020, 06:36 PM

I missed Ruthless Sniper, I need to nab some. Thanks for the insight.

Hanni

09-09-2020, 07:35 PM

I missed Ruthless Sniper, I need to nab some. Thanks for the insight.

No worries. I feel like they are the best option for removal maindeck because they are 1cc to trigger Vengevine, are human (which we name with Cavern for Tribe), and they provide repeatable -1/-1 counters. We typically won't need removal until turn 2+, so the cost isn't so bad, they can apply counters the turn they come into play, and the 1/2 body is quite nice. Shrinking a Dreadhorde to 0/2 renders it useless, and it munches up most of the problematic creatures in the format. Even just shrinking a bigger creature like Batterskull can make a big difference. Since the activation cost is colorless, we can even use Cavern of Souls mana to pay for the cost.

I feel like 2 Stain the Mind is the correct amount since we almost never want to cast more than 1, which should help increase the consistency of the main plan by not being flooded on too many non-combo pieces. 4 Therapy, 2 Stain, and 1 Therapist still gives us 7 discard effects, which should be plenty.

I also moved up to 4 Force of Vigor in the sideboard, cutting a Tomik for it. The card is pretty critical against most forms of hate, and the extra copy helps buff the green card count to 17 (19 in matchups where we would also bring in Veil).

Mr. Safety

09-10-2020, 02:29 PM

The old curmudgeon in me wants to jam Lightning Axe and Darkblast, but I understand that Sniper being a creature is a strict upgrade for Vengevine triggers and helps with Bloodghast tricks, which in turn can enable Amalgams.

I'm planning on sleaving this up either tonight or tomorrow night, I'll drop in a note with my final configuration. I still want to try Hogaak/Faithless Looting, but that means I have to pass on Stain the Mind. It's a quandary, but I have all the cards I need to try some different things and play around. Hogaak gives me another 1-2 green cards for Force of Vigor and Faithless Looting helps me dig into it post-board.

Hanni

09-10-2020, 03:01 PM

The problem with Hogaak in here is a matter of resources. Hogaak takes 7 cards between creatures on the table and cards in the yard, which we aren't really built to feed properly. Faithless Looting and Once Upon a Time alone aren't really enough. Hogaak is much better supported in the standard shell with Stitcher's Supplier, Hedron Crab, and Alter of Dementia to help feed the yard... plus the healthy amount of fetchlands they run.

Stain the Mind is significantly easier to cast because it costs 5 instead of 7, with some of the cost being able to come from lands/Petal mana.

Faithless Looting itself isn't horrible on the basis that it digs you 2 resources deeper off of the top, but it's extremely clunky to spend a mana on a card that neither triggers Vengevines nor reduces the cost of Hollow One to zero mana. You're basically wasting turn 1 to dig 2 resources deeper for a slightly more impactful turn 2. I'd rather just go off turn 1 as consistently as possible.

If I were to go the route of digging for more resources, I 'd rather run Anje's Ravager. That way you're still going off on turn 1, but you also have an engine to fuel additional resources on turns 3+. You can put Anje's Ravager into play on the opponents EOT on turn 2, and then start digging deeper for additonal resources for more bursts starting on turn 3.

Another option which I explored before Once Upon a Time was printed, was Gamble. Gamble tutors for exactly what you need, but it's risky, and it suffers the same tempo problems as Faithless Looting in that it doesn't help increase the consistency of the turn 1 bursts.

I feel pretty comfortable with my current list, with the exception of the lone Cabal Therapist. Therapist is awesome in theory, but it's ability is just too slow I think. I still want to try it some more, but it's probably better off as something else. The fact that its creature type is Horror doesn't play nice with Cavern, either.

FTW

09-10-2020, 03:11 PM

I'm planning on sleaving this up either tonight or tomorrow night, I'll drop in a note with my final configuration. I still want to try Hogaak/Faithless Looting, but that means I have to pass on Stain the Mind. It's a quandary, but I have all the cards I need to try some different things and play around. Hogaak gives me another 1-2 green cards for Force of Vigor and Faithless Looting helps me dig into it post-board.

Sounds like a good tweak to me. Good luck!

Not convinced about Hogaak either (we struggle to fuel Delve without Stitcher's Supplier), but I'm pro-Faithless Looting.

@Hanni: We're never casting it when there's a better turn 1 play. But in real magic games you don't always have magical Xmas land. It's nice to think of the deck as this ultra linear T1 PImp -> make a bunch of free creatures, but not all games will play out that way, especially through disruption and postboard. In those other games, Looting's digging should improve interactive lines of play and set up a later explosive turn. Looting is not there to make T1 Hollow Ones. It's there for the games where we need to do something else because of what the opponent is doing, or because we didn't draw one of the 8 PImps, or to dig into more gas after the first wave fails.

Hanni

09-10-2020, 04:33 PM

Sounds like a good tweak to me. Good luck!

Not convinced about Hogaak either (we struggle to fuel Delve without Stitcher's Supplier), but I'm pro-Faithless Looting.

@Hanni: We're never casting it when there's a better turn 1 play. But in real magic games you don't always have magical Xmas land. It's nice to think of the deck as this ultra linear T1 PImp -> make a bunch of free creatures, but not all games will play out that way, especially through disruption and postboard. In those other games, Looting's digging should improve interactive lines of play and set up a later explosive turn. Looting is not there to make T1 Hollow Ones. It's there for the games where we need to do something else because of what the opponent is doing, or because we didn't draw one of the 8 PImps, or to dig into more gas after the first wave fails.

I understand what you're saying, and I agree that the turn 1 plays don't always happen, but my goal is to try and increase the consistency of them as much as possible. It's for that reason that I'm running cards like Once Upon a Time and Lotus Petal.

It's still possible to go off turn 1 with a Faithless Looting and a Lotus Petal, of course, but if we're going that route, Gamble might be more consistent than Faithless Looting. You may end up discarding a critical piece like an initial discard outlet or Hollow One, but you also get to tutor for exactly what you need to make the hand work.

I wouldn't cut Lotleth Troll for Faithless Looting, but maybe they could be cut for Gamble. Unfortunately though, that makes Once Upon a Time digging for an initial discard outlet less consistent, so I'm still not convinced to cut Lotleth Troll. Troll is a pretty solid threat on its own too, which is another big reason why I prefer it.

If we can't go off until turn 2, I don't dislike the idea of leading off turn 1 with a discard spell instead. Maybe some number of Thoughtseize in addition to the Therapy and Stain the Mind would be a better idea. It can help deal with problems like Force of Will when we don't have a Cavern, clear out Swords to Plowshares, etc.

EDIT: On second thought, the Thoughtseize plan is loose. It can't be cast off of Cavern, and if we're casting it off of Undiscovered Paradise, we're unlikely to go off on turn 2. Honestly, Gamble is probably the best solution if more consistency is what the deck needs.

Mr. Safety

09-10-2020, 05:49 PM

Hanni

09-10-2020, 06:26 PM

1) I don't think Looting is a 4-of, I'm trying 3 for now and 1 hogaak
2) I'm still on the fence about Hogaak as well, but with looting/fetches I think I can support 1 copy, maybe at the most 2. He's still a monster of a threat. Threatening lethal as early as turn 3 seems slightly more favored with Hogaak in the mix.

Hogaak as a one-of is probably fine. I was running 2, but I basically cut them for Stain the Mind. Now that I'm down to 2 Stain the Mind, running a single copy in my list might actually be a good idea.

I'm also not against Faithless Looting, I just dislike a lot of aspects about it for the way this deck works. Discarding two cards may make it harder to go off with cards you want to discard on turn 2 to make Hollow One free or Lotleth Troll bigger. I guess if you're drawing 2 you might hit another one you want to discard, but it's iffy. It does support Hogaak better, but I'm not sure this deck should be going out of its way to feed Hogaak.

I like what Gamble brings to the deck, though. It's risky because it can hit initial discard outlet's and Hollow One, but it's a one mana tutor for any card in your deck. Most of the times, this deck just needs one more specific card to make a hand pure gas, and this can help with that more than two random off the top. It also gives you the ability to tutor for sideboard cards, which is pretty powerful.

Maybe I cut 1 Ruthless Sniper and the 1 Cabal Therapist for 2 Gamble. I could also see running a 1-of Hogaak in the board for matchups where an 8/8 trample is necessary. With 3 Once Upon a Time and 2 Gamble, digging for 1-of creatures will be much easier. Gamble also promotes the plan of holding cards in the midgame to go off for bursts.

Gamble would make options with Flashback and Madness much better, like Ray of Revelation and Big Game Hunter, so I might need to tweak my sideboard a bit.

EDIT: I cut 1 Sniper, 1 Therapist, and 2 City of Brass for 3 Gamble and 1 Hogaak maindeck.

I ran the numbers, and 12 lands + 3 Once Upon a Time divides into 2 within the first 8 turns, which is perfect. Once you add in 4 Lotus Petal, that bumps up to 3 in 9.5 turns, which is plenty. Gamble can tutor for a land too, especially Undiscovered Paradise to enable Bloodghast. Gamble helps to assemble the correct pieces you need to go off, and they also can tutor for one-of's.

Hogaak works well as a one-of to tutor for, since he's fine if he gets discarded or not, and he's a powerful finisher that should be able to close games out in the midgame (once we have enough resources). The fact that he costs 0 mana and can help to trigger Amalgam and Vengevine is a nice bonus. Adding Gamble as another "cantrip" feeds the yard better for Hogaak, albeit not as well as Faithless Looting.

The other one-of's in the sideboard become significantly better, too.

I decided to cut Veil of Summer for Thoughtseize in the sideboard, since it's better at fighting combo and graveyard hate than Veil of Summer while still dealing with countermagic, and it synergizes better with Cabal Therapy and Stain the Mind. It also deals with other hate that Veil can't deal with, like Chalice of the Void and Swords to Plowshares.

My current list now is:

Lands (12)
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Undiscovered Paradise
4 Mana Confluence

Creatures (32)
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Putrid Imp
2 Lotleth Troll
1 Ruthless Sniper
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Hollow One
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Bloodghast
4 Vengevine
1 Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis

Spells (16)
3 Once Upon a Time
3 Gamble
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Stain the Mind
4 Lotus Petal

Sideboard (15)
2 Thoughtseize
4 Force of Vigor
2 Firestorm
1 Big Game Hunter
1 Tomik, Distinguished Advokist
2 Faerie Macabre
1 Silent Gravestone
1 Pithing Needle
1 Karakas

This list should be way more consistent now.

Mr. Safety

09-10-2020, 07:18 PM

Hanni

09-10-2020, 09:26 PM

Gamble seems cool, I have a couple I can test.

I was also looking at Ancient Grudge, another strong card.

I like that looting is another way to dig for lands/Petals/gas. If we are essentially a 'combo' deck, then having 7 cantrips (Once/Looting) we will more consistently hit broken t2's. Busted t1's won't happen as often, but I think lethal by t3 is still at a legacy power level.

Edit: I'm also perfectly fine discarding looting to a t1 Tribe/Imp to make Hollow One happen. Mid game recharge will be a lot more consistent with Looting, especially if we can cobble together 3 lands .

Busted turn 1's can still happen with Looting or Gamble with a 1 land + Lotus Petal hand.

Usually you wouldn't need to dig for another land with Gamble when you can either grab a 1cc discard outlet or a Hollow One/Basking Rootwalla, and it can still grab gas too, but I get what you are saying.

The flashback on Looting is nice, but I'm never expecting to have 3 lands on the table at the same time.

The big difference is how much you value 2 random off the top vs 1 specific card, and how much of a drawback 1 random discard is vs 2 specific cards. I can see this being a toss up, with Looting having less risk but less reward.

Personally, because this deck is essentially trying to combine specific cards together, I value the ability to tutor more than two random off the top.

Mr. Safety

09-11-2020, 07:37 AM

Busted turn 1's can still happen with Looting or Gamble with a 1 land + Lotus Petal hand.

I figured as much, it's just adding another layer to it, one more step. That step can sometimes make it go from garbage to good, or from good to amazing. The floor of Looting is pretty high, but the ceiling isn't as high as Gamble. Gamble on the other hand could fetch the enabler and then discard it, doing absolutely nothing. *shrug* I'm slanted towards Looting, if either become obvious that they are good enough to include.

The flashback on Looting is nice, but I'm never expecting to have 3 lands on the table at the same time.

I wasn't really thinking about flashing it back, I think that's a pipe dream. I wasn't clear enough: I meant a top-decked Looting with a couple cards in hand and 3 lands could feed a new swarm, definitely better than just using draw-steps in legacy where you could die waiting for them.

The big difference is how much you value 2 random off the top vs 1 specific card, and how much of a drawback 1 random discard is vs 2 specific cards. I can see this being a toss up, with Looting having less risk but less reward.

I'm ok with less reward in the main strategy if it makes my sideboard answers more consistent. That's a tradeoff I'm perfectly fine accepting. EDIT: I understand Gamble could tutor for sideboard cards, but the first time I Gamble for Force of Vigor and I discard it I'm going to lose my shit, lol.

Personally, because this deck is essentially trying to combine specific cards together, I value the ability to tutor more than two random off the top.

We're combining specific cards, but it isn't 2-3 specific cards like a traditional combo deck. We're still a critical-mass combo/aggro deck like Dredge, or even comparable to something like Sylvan Library in old Zoo lists. Zoo wouldn't play a tutor, but Library was fucking NUTS at feeding cards. (Don't think I haven't considered Library for this deck, I have, it's just too expensive. Maybe sideboard tech.) I think this is just a difference in approach, and I'm definitely going to try both. I'm not married to either, and I'm not advocating for Looting over Gamble, just looking at different templating.

Hanni

09-11-2020, 08:19 AM

It definitely makes sense to try both cards. I can understand the hesitation to try Gamble, since it is definitely a risk vs reward sort of card.

Digging 2 deep and then waiting to go off until turn 2 actually gives you 3 more cards due to the draw step, which is probably enough to have a strong turn 2. I suppose we also don't need to kill faster than standard Hogaak as long as we can still get under the hate and provide enough pressure to close the game out fast enough.

I'd cut the Ruthless Sniper and Gamble for 4 Faithless Looting when I do playtest it, since it's unlikely I'll find Sniper when I need it without the ability to tutor for it, although I do think I'd fit a copy in the sideboard to come in along with Firestorm for the Elves, Infect, D&T, and Goblins matchups.

Hogaak definitely becomes more consistent on turn 2 with Faithless Looting, so I'm also curious if it would make sense to go back up to 2 copies. Getting Hogaak into play on turn 2 is pretty sick, especially considering it can contribute to triggering Vengevine and Amalgam, and costs 0 mana. 4 creatures on the board + delving 3 cards is all it takes to cast it, which seems pretty realistic with Faithless Looting + Once Upon a Time to feed the yard.

Something like this maybe?

Lands (12)
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Undiscovered Paradise
4 Mana Confluence

Creatures (30)
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Putrid Imp
2 Lotleth Troll
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Hollow One
4 Bloodghast
4 Vengevine
4 Prized Amalgam

Spells (18)
4 Once Upon a Time
4 Faithless Looting
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Stain the Mind
4 Lotus Petal

Sideboard (15)
2 Thoughtseize
4 Force of Vigor
2 Firestorm
1 Ruthless Sniper
1 Big Game Hunter
2 Faerie Macabre
1 Silent Gravestone
1 Pithing Needle
1 Karakas

I'm sad to trim down to 1 maindeck copy of Stain the Mind, but the rest of the list should be way more consistent now. It definitely feels way more streamlined.

I'd rather have Stain the Mind in the sideboard over Thoughtseize once we know what we are playing against. It doesn't help strip graveyard hate out of an opponent's hand prior to going off, but it can absolutely cripple decks, and it only requires a 3-4 creatures and 1-2 lands on the board to be castable and effective. It's also essentially graveyard hate too, which is pretty awesome.

I've watched some games of standard Hogaak, and sometimes they don't even get going properly until turn 4, so that still gives me hope that getting a slower start (on turn 2) with this deck is still enough to get there.

Ray of Revelation and Ancient Grudge are still really strong considerations for the sideboard, but I'm not sure that they are better than Force of Vigor. Force of Vigor is free vs 1-2 mana, can hit both artifacts and enchantments, can blow up 2 copies at once (like a double Leyline start), and we have 15 maindeck green cards to give us 19 green cards postboard to sufficiently support the pitch cost.

Mr. Safety

09-11-2020, 05:11 PM

So it only took about 5 games to see that Hogaak is wrong, not even 1. Looting has been *ok*, still not worth 4 copies. I am cutting Hogaak for maindeck Stain the mind, and finding room for a 2nd. The deck needs just a tad more interaction than just 4 therapy. I will try that first, then try a mix of stain/gamble.

I don't like less than 14 lands, too risky. Looting might be enough to make it work, but I'm a little hesitant. Once upon a time is excellent, easily the best dig this deck could hope for. It *should* allow for 12 lands, it would need extensive testing to prove out percentages.

I'm on this list currently:
4x imp
4x tribe
1x lotleth troll
4x ghastly
4x Hollow
4x vine
4x amalgam
4x rootwalla
4x once
3x looting
2x stain
4x therapy
4x city of brass
2x gemstone mine
4x verdant
2x flats
1x bayou
1x godless shrine
1x Blood crypt

Troll has been largely unnecessary, having 8 1 mana enablers and Once/Looting to find them has been really solid. I don't like cutting to less than 30 creatures, and cutting a green one at that seems suspect. I might just cut something else for Stain #2, not sure what.

Edit: we should be looking at Ingot Chewer as well; it gets around chalice and still triggers Vengevine. Wispmare might be ok as well.

Hanni

09-11-2020, 06:01 PM

Mr. Safety

09-11-2020, 06:49 PM

Even with the Faithless Looting, Hogaak wasn't working out? I was hoping it would be more consistent to come into play on turn 2, but if it's not worth it, then it is what it is. I'll cut down to 1 Hogaak in the list I posted for another Stain the Mind instead.

I think trimming down to 12 lands makes a lot of sense when you run the numbers. Flooding out on mana sources is just as bad as being manascrewed in a critical mass deck like this. Most games only require a single mana source to go off. Bloodghast obviously requires an additional land to trigger, but that's still possible with a single land if it's an Undiscovered Paradise. Hitting 3 mana sources by turn 2-3 is fine, but we really don't want to see any more than that. Especially with Once Upon a Time to dig for lands, I think 12 makes a lot of sense.

Troll still does a lot for this deck. Between Cavern and Lotleth, we have 6 outs to a Chalice on 1, which can both be grabbed with Once Upon a Time, which also dodges Chalice. Having extra initial discard outlets is fine in case the first one eats a Force of Will, and Lotleth is just extremely powerful for the cost. Being non-graveyard dependent is another huge boon.

If I cut 1 Hogaak for the 2nd copy of Stain the Mind, I'll switch back to Thoughtseize in the sideboard.

So far my testing has been against Turbo Depths and Pox w/Ensnaring Bridge. Turbo Depths was a pure race, very close pre-board. Pox was fine as long as I kept them off bridge. I played 6 games, 3 each matchup, drew Hogaak 3 times, cast it *zero* times. I could muster up around 5 mana (perfect for Stain!) But not the 7 for Hogaak, not in enough time to count. In standard Hogaak Altar really makes Hogaak playable, it's just a feedback loop that's insane. We can't really delv, we're closer to old style Affinity than Hogaak, we want to just vomit our hand onto the board. I may be wrong, but Hogaak doesn't seem great right now.

Signal Pest looks interesting, but likely not good enough.

With the change to 12-13 lands I think I can safely squeeze in 2x stain the mind and keep the 2 trolls.