[Deck] 43 Lands

[why]

I'm new to the deck and planning on running a list like Kurt Speiss' (probably just the 75 for now), which focuses heavily on the combo. Unfortunately, I've been unable to find much information on this version of the deck and how to play it. Some of it's intuitive and matches other versions, but it's clear that a lot changes by having a faster wincon, a combo, a way to win past graveyard hate, etc.

I've watched Kurt's matches from the open and the tournament reports by Rampart here, but I can't find any other up to date content. Can you point me to any matches, video, reports, primers, etc with the updated version of deck? I especially want to see video, because I definitely miss things and it'd be great to watch someone more experience playing the deck.

[Rampart]

I'm new to the deck and planning on running a list like Kurt Speiss' (probably just the 75 for now), which focuses heavily on the combo. Unfortunately, I've been unable to find much information on this version of the deck and how to play it. Some of it's intuitive and matches other versions, but it's clear that a lot changes by having a faster wincon, a combo, a way to win past graveyard hate, etc.

I've watched Kurt's matches from the open and the tournament reports by Rampart here, but I can't find any other up to date content. Can you point me to any matches, video, reports, primers, etc with the updated version of deck? I especially want to see video, because I definitely miss things and it'd be great to watch someone more experience playing the deck.

I am very green to the deck too. I don't think there any video's yet or at least not from what I found of the R/G Combo Lands build. SCG doesn't normally put lands on video, and understandably so. You said you where able to watch Kurt's matches, are you local to Maryland?

[why]

I am very green to the deck too. I don't think there any video's yet or at least not from what I found of the R/G Combo Lands build. SCG doesn't normally put lands on video, and understandably so. You said you where able to watch Kurt's matches, are you local to Maryland?

Sorry, I just saw some games at the SCG Invitational in New Jersey.

I definitely like the dedicated combo version of lands that Speiss runs. I'm surprised by the lack of Karakas. It seems like an excellent silver bullet answer to Emrakul. I don't know if there's space in the maindeck for it (seems like you have to decide if it has more or less utility than Bojuka Bog), but I would think it's important enough to deserve a sideboard slot.

Splashing white for Canonist probably comes at the cost of basic forest in the decklist. I think I'm going to do this for my current testing and see if I feel like Canonist is necessary to beat storm, etc or if I can just make use of Sphere / Chalice. Surgical Extraction might also be an option against storm.

Speiss' list:
maindeck:
-1 savannah
+1 forest
sideboard:
-3 ethersworn canonist
+1 karakas
+2 chalice of the void

I'm also a little confused by Seal of Primordium, to be honest. I imagine it's decent against Omniscience and Blood Moon, which I imagine is the reason you want it over something like Krosan Grip.

[Rampart]

Sorry, I just saw some games at the SCG Invitational in New Jersey.

No worries, I was just curious.


I definitely like the dedicated combo version of lands that Speiss runs. I'm surprised by the lack of Karakas. It seems like an excellent silver bullet answer to Emrakul. I don't know if there's space in the maindeck for it (seems like you have to decide if it has more or less utility than Bojuka Bog), but I would think it's important enough to deserve a sideboard slot.

I have Karakas in the sideboard. Karakas is not as great as it appears, and is better in the Reanimator matchup then it is in the Sneak Attack matchup. A good Show and Tell Player will put in a Sneak Attack of the Show and Tell then use the Sneak Attack to put in the Emrakul, if you bounce the monster then they now have the ability to put Emrakul in again with the Sneak Attack and attack you.


Splashing white for Canonist probably comes at the cost of basic forest in the decklist. I think I'm going to do this for my current testing and see if I feel like Canonist is necessary to beat storm, etc or if I can just make use of Sphere / Chalice. Surgical Extraction might also be an option against storm.

I have cut a fetchland for a forest, it became really apparent to me as I played the deck that there was an overabundance of fetchlands to the actual amount of fetchable lands. Canonist is the best card in the sideboard hands down. Canonist is also good against the following decks Elves and OmniTell in addition to all the storm variants while the chalice just isn't as good, and can be played around or through


I'm also a little confused by Seal of Primordium, to be honest. I imagine it's decent against Omniscience and Blood Moon, which I imagine is the reason you want it over something like Krosan Grip.

I think it is a personal preference, you have to understand that Kurt is a truly above average player. I haven't had a chance to talk to him about the list yet, but I am sure it has to do with maximizing the amount of mana that you can have during a turn, a deck like lands tends to tap out almost every turn so being able play a seal and have it sit in play might be worth it to him, IDK. I prefer K-Grip.

[dimignon]

Hi Guys, it's been a while since I posted anything.

In 3 weeks I will play the national championship here in Brazil and I am thinking of playing with the following list:

Lands 5 Colors

Main:

Lands
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
3 Maze of Ith
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Tolaria West
2 Tranquil Thicket
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Taiga
1 Windswept Heath
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Forest
1 Academy Ruins
1 Karakas
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Dark Depths
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Glacial Chasm

Spells

2 Enlightened Tutor
3 Punishing Fire
3 Intuition
3 Crop Rotation
4 Life from the Loam
4 Exploration
4 Mox Diamond
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Zuran Orb

Sideboard:
4 Dark Confidant
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Krosan Grip
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Humility
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Trinisphere
1 Sphere of Resistance
1 Cursed Totem
1 Tormod's Crypt

Any thoughts about the list?

[Serbitar]

The mana base looks greedy as f*ck with only 3 Fetches (and fixing with Crop Rotation seems iffy) – I wouldn't expect to cast my spells reliably, especially stuff like Humility or transmuting Tolaria West. I would cut at least one color, probably white first. I'm also counting 61 cards. So for the MD I'd go -2 E.Tutor, +1 Manabond, -Savannah, +Fetch

[Anen]

Any thoughts about the list?

Usually we play white for SB options, including Thalia and Canonist.

[civet five]

I have cut a fetchland for a forest, it became really apparent to me as I played the deck that there was an overabundance of fetchlands to the actual amount of fetchable lands. Canonist is the best card in the sideboard hands down. Canonist is also good against the following decks Elves and OmniTell in addition to all the storm variants while the chalice just isn't as good, and can be played around or through

I have come to the same conclusion. Too many times have I desperately needed to be able to fetch another land, and you get "flooded" by lands that don't produce mana. A Riftstone Portal in my 60 helps with that, but I missed the basic Forest so I run both. Still unsure if I will keep Riftstone Portal main though.



I think it is a personal preference, you have to understand that Kurt is a truly above average player. I haven't had a chance to talk to him about the list yet, but I am sure it has to do with maximizing the amount of mana that you can have during a turn, a deck like lands tends to tap out almost every turn so being able play a seal and have it sit in play might be worth it to him, IDK. I prefer K-Grip.

I think this is spot on. In some games, you're trying to PFire their board before they can take over, and you need as much available mana as possible (PFire + Recursion + Loam). I also think Seal has the benefit of being an enchantment that sits there, as very few decks are going to have enough enchantment removal at their disposal to kill it, so it gets to sit there and wait until they play their thing. I still go back and forth between Krosan Grip, Seal and Wear//Tear, though I think Seal currently gets my nod as I'm dealing with a lot of Goblins and DNT in my meta right now.

[Anen]

I was at the Eternal Weekend in Philadelphia yesterday. I only played the GPT side event as I didn't wanted to wake up at 6am to go to the main event.
Side event was a 2pm. 26 people registered.

First the list:
1 Academy Ruins
1 Bayou
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Dark Depths
1 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Karakas
1 Mishra's Factory
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Savannah
1 Taiga
1 Thespian's Stage
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Tranquil Thicket
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Tolaria West
3 Tropical Island
3 Maze of Ith
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland

1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Zuran Orb
4 Mox Diamond
4 Exploration
3 Punishing Fire
4 Intuition
4 Life from the Loam

SB: 2 Krosan Grip
SB: 4 Dark Confidant
SB: 3 Chalice of the Void
SB: 3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
SB: 3 Ethersworn Canonist

R1: Sneak Attack.
G1: He opened fetch + basic mountains. I am like "God please no BloodMoon.Deck R1 again..". He durdles, plays a Sneak. He has only one mountain (Volc were wastelanded) and I have a Karakas. I keep praying but at some point he droppped Griselbrand, activate it, find a Lotus Petal, and drop Emrakul.
G2: I opened with T1 Thalia. She goes home supported by Ports and Wastelands.
G3: I opened with T2 Thalia + Mox to not get Dazed. T4 Canonist, T5 Canonist. He is now at 5. He ask "How many cards in hand?" I said 1. He SnT using a Tomb as I keep Porting his other lands. I look at my card (Maze of Ith) and decide not to drop it. Untap, draw, drop Maze, attack with Thalia and Canonists, and I use Maze on the blocked one to prevent lifelink. GG.
1-0

R2: Jund.
I was sitting next to him R1. He was vs. Elves. At the some point the Elves player played Glimpse and the Jund player was really desperate, so when he said "Oh God" we all had some laugh. Really nice guy during our match too.
G1: He opened with double DRS, I have no PFire.. He followed with Liliana.. Amazing ! I am sitting with 3 lands in play, nothing else vs. double DRS + Lili.. Anyway I draw Tabernacle, play it and pass. He drew, then Tabernacle says goodbye to DRS. Now I just have to deal with Lili which keeps ticking up.. He drops Goyf, I have the Maze, he has no wasteland. He -6 Lili, splitting Maze vs. my 4 others lands. I keep the 4 lands and take one hit from Goyf. My turn: PFire to finish Liliana, Loam into Maze. I start stalling a bit, wastelanding all his lands then finally kill him with Marit.
G2: I played Bob T2. He Decayed. I top-deck another Bob, and slam hit on the table ! We both laughed ^^ The following involves me playing 3 Exploration, 3 Port, Waste, PFire and Loam. GG
2-0

R3: Esper Blade, without DRS.
G1: PFire his T2 SFM, PFire Jace. I keep constraining his 4 basics mana base, using GQuarter at some point. He scoops to have enough time for G2/3.
G2: He extirpates my Loams and PFires. I established the waste-lock with Crucible, while Ensnaring Brigde keeps him from attacking. I also establish the EE-lock with academy ruins. It is now just a matter of time before I find a window to safely kill him with Marit.
Very nice opponent, very grindy matches.
3-0

R4: RUG Delver.
G1: He has no pressure, I wastelock him. GG
G2: He still has no pressure. At some point, he has 4 lands in play and drop 2 Goyfs. I am a bit suprised.. Next turn, he drops another Goyf and a mangoose. Woot that is a lot of creatures coming out of nowhere. I die..
G3: Chalice on 1 after clearing the board. He has the Goyf, and I can't find a way to deal with it.. Games ends in a draw in extra turns. He was playing a bit slow for me, maybe I should have make him noticed, or not ^^
3-0-1

R5: RUG Delver.
I am standing first ! My opponent is third so we drew.
3-0-2

Top8: Esper Blade, same opponent from R3.
G1: Wastelock, PFire, blabla this ones goes well. His life went up to 41 but that did not really mattered.
G2: I know he is playing extirpate, so I bring in the Chalices. He extirpates my GQuarter, so he is sitting on 3-4 lands all game. At some point, he has Clique + Snap + SFM with Jitte + Batterskull in play. I am saved by the Glacial Chasm. But he finally extirpates it.. I dredge a last time, then I scoop. He is like "I won a game vs. Lands !" ^^
G3: I'll sum it how on how I lost. I have a 2 Exploration in play, Thicket and Loam in hand. I can choose to play around Clique, or play around Extirpate, but not both. I chose Clique because he had 3 mana open, but he had Extirpate in hand. Loam is out, I have no gas. Jace kills me.

I went home with 50$ credit, which bough a Taiga.

Kudos to Ben (Jund) and Michael (Esper), I had a really good time playing against you.

[KntrellCL]

Today I did top4 in a side event on the GP Chile [3-1-1]. I won against MUD 2-0, Jund 2-0, lost against RUG 1-2, won against Elves 2-0 and intentional draw against Reanimator on finals.

Against RUG... I mull to 5 in G3.... 1 LFTL, 1 Ghost Quarter, 1 Thespian's Stage, 1 Tropical Island, 1 Engineered Explosives.

I played loam T3 (Ghost quarter his land and play a Mox Diamond pitching a Maze) took back both lands... and the played from the top of the deck a surgical extraction... then he wasteland'ed my Thespian... drew 3 nimble 1 Goyf, stifle my EE and GG.

Last night I cut my cycle lands to make space for more Thespians/Dark Depths lands... it worked very well... pretty consistent with the combo and the stages were pretty fine.

My 75 cards:


Spells [24]

Engine [7]
4 Life from the Loam
3 Intuition

Removals [7]
4 Punishing Fire
3 Engineered Explosives

Utility [1]
1 Zuran Orb

Acceleartion [9]
4 Exploration
4 Mox Diamond
1 Manabond

Lands [37]

Control Lands [12]
4 Rishadan Ports
4 Wastelands
3 Maze of Ith
1 Ghost Quarter

Mana Source [12]
3 Tropical Island
2 Taiga
1 Savannah
1 Forest
3 Fetchs G/x
2 Grove of the Burnwillows

Utility Lands [8]
3 Tolaria West
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Glacial Chasm
3 Thespian's Stage

Legendary Lands [5]
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Karakas
1 Academy Ruins
2 Dark Depths

SB [15]

3 Thalia, Guarian of Thraben
1 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Krosan Grip
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Dark Depths

[lordofthepit]

Looking to dabble with this deck for fun, although it really isn't my style. Who knows, maybe it will grow on me.

Just a quick question--what's the strategy against Rest in Peace? It seems that there are good ways to play around other graveyard hate--saving a cycler for Tormod's Crypt/Relic of Progenitus, Chalice on 1 for Extirpate effects and Deathrite Shaman, Cursed Totem or Engineered Explosives for Deathrite and Scavenging Ooze, etc. I'm also aware that you often bring in creatures like Dark Confidant in game two and sideboard out cards like Manabond in order to hedge.

Rest in Peace seems especially awkward since it's both a graveyard sweeper as well as a replacement effect, and it doesn't get touched by any of our other measures besides a preemptive Chalice on two (which is both slow as well as self-defeating). Do we just take the aggro role in matchups where we suspect Rest in Peace then, pushing aggressively with Dark Confidant, Thalia, and manland beats while disrupting their mana? Do we more aggressively try to assemble Dark Depths combo? Or do we play the game as normal and just hope they don't "have it"?

[OneBigSquirrelGod]

Looking to dabble with this deck for fun, although it really isn't my style. Who knows, maybe it will grow on me.

Just a quick question--what's the strategy against Rest in Peace? It seems that there are good ways to play around other graveyard hate--saving a cycler for Tormod's Crypt/Relic of Progenitus, Chalice on 1 for Extirpate effects and Deathrite Shaman, Cursed Totem or Engineered Explosives for Deathrite and Scavenging Ooze, etc. I'm also aware that you often bring in creatures like Dark Confidant in game two and sideboard out cards like Manabond in order to hedge.

Rest in Peace seems especially awkward since it's both a graveyard sweeper as well as a replacement effect, and it doesn't get touched by any of our other measures besides a preemptive Chalice on two (which is both slow as well as self-defeating). Do we just take the aggro role in matchups where we suspect Rest in Peace then, pushing aggressively with Dark Confidant, Thalia, and manland beats while disrupting their mana? Do we more aggressively try to assemble Dark Depths combo? Or do we play the game as normal and just hope they don't "have it"?

Not a lot of decks play this card anymore. And explosives, seal of primordial, and Krosan grip takes care of it.

[Tyrio]

Not a lot of decks play this card anymore. And explosives, seal of primordial, and Krosan grip takes care of it.

I don't know about that; any deck with access to white (UWR Delver, Miracles, DnT, Goblins, Deadguy Ale?) probably runs a few in the board since it's by far the best graveyard hate spell in the format.

Honestly I don't know if there's much you can do to play around RiP other than saving removal for it. Saving a cycle land to protect Loam doesn't do much if you can't get rid of the RiP. I would say if you know they have RiP but haven/t played it yet, aggressively go for the kill (tutoring for Marit Lage) but make sure you can recur the pieces since they're one-ofs and losing them makes the game much harder. If they've already landed RiP I would probably just wait until I could remove it before making Marit Lage.

This probably only applies to Control Lands; Combo Lands can probably ignore RiP and just play around StP.

[Phelix]

also importantly - are you doing anything new vs true-name nemesis? explosives as always is an answer.

im now running oblivion stone in the board.

[Rampart]

also importantly - are you doing anything new vs true-name nemesis? explosives as always is an answer.

im now running oblivion stone in the board.

So I finally added blue to the deck and piloted it at our weekly legacy tournament. I played 3 UWR Delver decks in a row. Two of those delver decks some TNN but it never really mattered, as I was able to remove it with relative ease or just race with Marit Lage. I also played a couple games against the TNN before the tournament started and I went something like 5-1 in games against it. as this point in time I wouldn't be concerned with TNN as I think the deck is pretty well set up against it. Between racing with Marit Lage, or EE locking him out, or wastelock/tabby, or just out gaining life with ZOrb, or ensnaring bridge keeping TNN at bay their is lots of ways to keep him back

[fdiv_bug]

So I finally added blue to the deck and piloted it at our weekly legacy tournament. I played 3 UWR Delver decks in a row. Two of those delver decks some TNN but it never really mattered, as I was able to remove it with relative ease or just race with Marit Lage. I also played a couple games against the TNN before the tournament started and I went something like 5-1 in games against it. as this point in time I wouldn't be concerned with TNN as I think the deck is pretty well set up against it. Between racing with Marit Lage, or EE locking him out, or wastelock/tabby, or just out gaining life with ZOrb, or ensnaring bridge keeping TNN at bay their is lots of ways to keep him back

That's reassuring to me, as I haven't yet had the chance to test against TNN. Would you be willing to share your current list?

[Rampart]

That's reassuring to me, as I haven't yet had the chance to test against TNN. Would you be willing to share your current list?

yeah sure, its a little unusual as I cut all the cycle lands and focus more on the Stage/DD combo (which suits my play style more)

4x life from the loam
4x Exploration
1x Manabond
3x Punishing Fire
3x Intuition
4x Mox Diamond
2x Engineered Explosives
1x Zurn Orb
1x Crucible of Worlds

1x Savannah
2x Taiga
3x Tropical Island
1x Forest
3x Grove of the Burnwillows
4x Wasteland
3x Rishadan Port
1x Ghost Quarter
3x Tolaria West
1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
3x Maze of Ith
1x Glacial Chasm
1x Academy Ruins
1x Karakas
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Wooded Foothills
1x Verdant Catacomb
1x Misty Rainforest
3x Thespian Stage
2x Dark Depths

Sideboard
4x Sphere of resistance
3x Ethersworn Canonist
3x Krosan Grip
1x Engineered Explosives
3x Ensaring Bridge
1x Tormod's Crypt

[Jastern101]

OneBigSquirrelGod,

What list of lands are you running.

[OneBigSquirrelGod]

OneBigSquirrelGod,

What list of lands are you running.

I wish I knew... Lol

After SCG Columbus, I was still a little hesitant on stage/depths, because its a 2 card combo. I took stageless lands to somerset, and didn't do too hot in the invi, so I added 1 and 1, and realized the true power of it in the somerset open. Since then, I upped it to 2/1 in Cleveland, then 3/2 in the Indy invitational, where I finished 6-2 in legacy. I played in the open in Indy, and went with 4/2, which I finished x-3, which was terrible (IMO). I know everybody has their own opinions on mb cards, and SB, but I was very unhappy without blue while testing. I did run crop rotation for a while, which the card is bonkers, HOWEVER, the format is shifting back to what it was last summer, with sneak n show and stoneblade on the rise, so I've been analyzing a little more on what I'm doing for DC.

I am going to drop the combo out of my deck for the GP. It's good, and can just kill someone out of nowhere... But I can't durdle around with a bridge out, when I can kill them and they can emrakul me. Tar pit just kills them, with a bridge out. Now that being said, I might be crazy. But I have yet to see a lands deck with the combo do good in a big tourney. Now to drop punishing fire seems bad though, so I'll stick to that combo. With StoneBlade also faring very well in Dallas, and being such an easy deck to pilot, I am going to add crime back in the deck. Probably only 1-2, but it seems like Jace is gonna make a comeback. Reanimator is on the rise, so to think I'm going to out tempo dazes, forces, and tide spouting, seems far fetched. Crime can solve that. A little circumstantial for reanimator, but I like to live on the edge.

Now to reiterate this again, stage/depths is not bad. It is just not where I want to be in DC. I kept changing the deck, dropping a maze, the tar pit, the cycle lands, the ghost quarter, then a port, and I found myself losing to rug delver more frequently, and not hiting my consistencies of the deck And American delver. I am going back to basics (no pun intended), and I'm going to play full on control. It has not steered me wrong yet... However TNN may require a 3rd explosives.

Let the quotes and Critiquing begin.

PS: if you do want a list, find me on Facebook. Not too hard...

Edit: I apparently spell on a 3rd grade level...

[cuthbertthecat]

I wish I knew... Lol

After SCG Columbus, I was still a little hesitant on stage/depths, because its a 2 card combo. I took stageless lands to somerset, and didn't do too hot in the invi, so I added 1 and 1, and realized the true power of it in the somerset open. Since then, I upped it to 2/1 in Cleveland, then 3/2 in the Indy invitational, where I finished 6-2 in legacy. I played in the open in Indy, and went with 4/2, which I finished x-3, which was terrible (IMO). I know everybody has their own opinions on mb cards, and SB, but I was very unhappy without blue while testing. I did run crop rotation for a while, which the card is bonkers, HOWEVER, the format is shifting back to what it was last summer, with sneak n show and stoneblade on the rise, so I've been analyzing a little more on what I'm doing for DC.

I am going to drop the combo out of my deck for the GP. It's good, and can just kill someone out of nowhere... But I can't durdle around with a bridge out, when I can kill them and they can emrakul me. Tar pit just kills them, with a bridge out. Now that being said, I might be crazy. But I have yet to see a lands deck with the combo do good in a big tourney. Now to drop punishing fire seems bad though, so I'll stick to that combo. With StoneBlade also faring very well in Dallas, and being such an easy deck to pilot, I am going to add crime back in the deck. Probably only 1-2, but it seems like Jace is gonna make a comeback. Reanimator is on the rise, so to think I'm going to out tempo dazes, forces, and tide spouting, seems far fetched. Crime can solve that. A little circumstantial for reanimator, but I like to live on the edge.

Now to reiterate this again, stage/depths is not bad. It is just not where I want to be in DC. I kept changing the deck, dropping a maze, the tar pit, the cycle lands, the ghost quarter, then a port, and I found myself losing to rug delver more frequently, and not hiting my consistencies of the deck And American delver. I am going back to basics (no pun intended), and I'm going to play full on control. It has not steered me wrong yet... However TNN may require a 3rd explosives.

Let the quotes and Critiquing begin.

PS: if you do want a list, find me on Facebook. Not too hard...

Edit: I apparently spell on a 3rd grade level...

I agree that stage/depths feels unnecessary, at least when you aren't building your deck around it. I've been playing with lands a bit on mtgo, and stage-depths always just feels like a clunky afterthought that you want nowhere near your hand most of the time. I think that fires+grove and tar pit are easily good enough to win games and have much better versatility in the deck.

[Ingo]

But I have yet to see a lands deck with the combo do good in a big tourney.


There was a lands deck (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=59751) with the combo that ended 13th on Starcitygames tourney in Cleveland.

[GoldenCid]

There was a lands deck (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=59751) with the combo that ended 13th on Starcitygames tourney in Cleveland.

Hate planewalkers in lands

[OneBigSquirrelGod]

Hate planewalkers in lands

I'm a friend of Shane's, and he said liliana did a lot of work. However, with black being your 4th color, I don't think you can consistently hit the double black on turn 2/3. I struggle at times to hit UU with 3 trops, and the 4 moxes. Also not a fan.

Although Ashiok might not be too bad in the sideboard to steal a TNN to kill them with

Jace could help evade some creatures...

Sorin Markov could help against jaces...

Liliana of the dark realms could fetch out the singleton Bayou

And Koth the Hammer could turn the singleton mountain into a 4/4...

Maybe we should SB Chain to the rocks.....

[KntrellCL]

I played a little 30 man tourney yesterday and I did pretty poorly... (2-2)... I won against Merfolk and Death n Taxes by far and I lost against Show n tell, Tin-Fins....

The main deck was working just wonderful, I think the SB was lame...

4 Life from the Loam
4 Exploration
1 Manabond
3 Intuition
4 Punishing Fire
1 Zuran Orb
3 Engineered Explosives
4 Mox Diamond
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
3 Maze of Ith
1 Ghost Quarter
3 Thespian's Stage
2 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Tropical Island
2 Taiga
1 Savannah
1 Forest
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Windswept Heath
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Mishra's Factory
2 Dark Depths
3 Tolaria West
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Karakas
1 Academy Ruins
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

SB [15]

3 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Tormods Crypt
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Dark Depths
2 Krosan Grip

The three copies of Engineered Explosives were awesome! Taking care of multiple Merfolks pretty quickly, even when he counter'd my first EE... I didnt need to T.West for ruins and activate... I just put the second copy on play.

I also felt the lack of the cycle lands... or the lack of lands on my graveyard since Im playing 3 stages...(fetchlands, cycle lands, tolaria west, etc).

The single Factory was the last add... it work quite good (1 Mishra's Factory + 3 Thespian's Stage could be a plan C to win, after Marit Lage and Punishing Fire plans), but Im thinking to put Riftstone Portal in its place... what do you guys think?

Ethersworn was pretty poor against Show n Tell and Tin fins... both kill me just with 1 spell by turn. I was missing my dear Thalia for this MU's. Also the Enlightened Tutor toolbox on sideboard didnt work as expected... but they came on every match almost...

I dont know for these changes

-2 Ethersworn Canonist -1 Dark Depths +3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben?
-2 Enlightened Tutor +2 Trinisphere?

-1 Mishra's Factory +1 Rifstone Portal?


Any help would be apreciate

[Rampart]

The single Factory was the last add... it work quite good (1 Mishra's Factory + 3 Thespian's Stage could be a plan C to win, after Marit Lage and Punishing Fire plans), but Im thinking to put Riftstone Portal in its place... what do you guys think?

I like the portal in the R/G Gamble builds but I don't think you really need it in the 4c/5c Builds as you have much more color producing lands. If you like factory why do you want to cut it? do you feel like you struggled to get the Grove/P.Fire going with only two groves, but with a full playset of P.Fires?


Ethersworn was pretty poor against Show n Tell and Tin fins... both kill me just with 1 spell by turn. I was missing my dear Thalia for this MU's. Also the Enlightened Tutor toolbox on sideboard didnt work as expected... but they came on every match almost...

Ethersworn doesn't really interact well against the sneak attack builds, but Tin Fins should absolutely have been shut down, its really difficult for them to operate under Ethersworn.

Do you like Chalice of the Void? I have cut them completely from my sideboard for Sphere of Resistance

[Ingo]

Do you like Chalice of the Void? I have cut them completely from my sideboard for Sphere of Resistance

I play the R/G build online, and have problems with UW decks, due to a combination of RIP, swords, surgical extraction or snapcaster mage. So I board in 3 chalices for chalice on one, avoiding swords, and go for the token as fast as possible. It's not ideal and would like to cut back on them, any other suggestions how I should deal with these troublesome cards?
I do like 1 chalice as a turn1 gamble-target against storm.

[snorlaxcom]

PS: if you do want a list, find me on Facebook. Not too hard...

Edit: I apparently spell on a 3rd grade level...

Sent you a friend request for a list!

[KntrellCL]

I like the portal in the R/G Gamble builds but I don't think you really need it in the 4c/5c Builds as you have much more color producing lands. If you like factory why do you want to cut it? do you feel like you struggled to get the Grove/P.Fire going with only two groves, but with a full playset of P.Fires?



Ethersworn doesn't really interact well against the sneak attack builds, but Tin Fins should absolutely have been shut down, its really difficult for them to operate under Ethersworn.

Do you like Chalice of the Void? I have cut them completely from my sideboard for Sphere of Resistance



I could not imagine a loam deck without Chalice of the Void... especially against GY hate and to protect your Marit Lage.....


Since we started with the Dark Depths combo, my oponents are more comfortable to kept removal on main deck.... i wonder if that is playing against us.

Concern the groves... I used to play 3 copies of grove of the burnwillows, but 2 were sufficient with the tutor effects.... I like the full P. Fire package against any DRS deck... but +1 grove wouldnt be bad at all...

[Rampart]

I play the R/G build online, and have problems with UW decks, due to a combination of RIP, swords, surgical extraction or snapcaster mage. So I board in 3 chalices for chalice on one, avoiding swords, and go for the token as fast as possible. It's not ideal and would like to cut back on them, any other suggestions how I should deal with these troublesome cards?
I do like 1 chalice as a turn1 gamble-target against storm.

I was talking about a 4c lands list which has different tools to work with then the Gamble builds. While the two decks play with the same lands shell, how the decks play out are very different. The Gamble build has a little bit more explosiveness and sacrifices some of the inevitability in comparison to the 4c lists. Sideboard choices are not apples to apples comparison.

How I would sideboard and approach game two the UW matchup would depend on what type of lands deck that I was playing and If I won or lost the first game and what type of build of UW. I think the 4c list has a better control plan in this matchup with EE lock, the Gamble builds are more combo oriented so you have to create an opportunity to win either by exhausting there resources (lands or cards in hand) or by picking an opportunity to score a free win with the combo. Again I don't think its an apples to apples comparison

[OneBigSquirrelGod]

I like the portal in the R/G Gamble builds but I don't think you really need it in the 4c/5c Builds as you have much more color producing lands. If you like factory why do you want to cut it? do you feel like you struggled to get the Grove/P.Fire going with only two groves, but with a full playset of P.Fires?



Ethersworn doesn't really interact well against the sneak attack builds, but Tin Fins should absolutely have been shut down, its really difficult for them to operate under Ethersworn.

Do you like Chalice of the Void? I have cut them completely from my sideboard for Sphere of Resistance

Chalice is good against Dredge,RUG Delver, StoneBlade, and all storm decks, as well as stopping cant tips in most and all of s&t decks.

Trinisphere is good against all storm decks, dredge, omniscience decks.

Sphere of resistance is alright against storm, dredge, and just slows the omniscience decks 1 turn of killing you. I would think Thalia would be better. Sphere seems to me as more of a patch, opposed to a lock.

[Rampart]

Chalice is good against Dredge,RUG Delver, StoneBlade, and all storm decks, as well as stopping cant tips in most and all of s&t decks.

Trinisphere is good against all storm decks, dredge, omniscience decks.

Sphere of resistance is alright against storm, dredge, and just slows the omniscience decks 1 turn of killing you. I would think Thalia would be better. Sphere seems to me as more of a patch, opposed to a lock.

I'll have to try the COTV again after the GP or during a grinder. I don't want to change my deck too much before the GP as I have 4-0'ed the last two weekly legacy events I have played in. I am pretty comfortable with my side board plans currently but you have much more experience with the deck then I do.

[Serbitar]

One thing I learned about the Gamble version is that you absolutely want Dark Confidants in the board. I understand the idea that the Dark Depths plan is already somewhat graveyard independent and the want to play hatebears instead. But the fair matchups just become so much worse. People tend to have removal for Marit Lage (Plow, Karakas, Needle, Wasteland) while also attacking your graveyard.

I still believe G/R/x will be the way to go as long as we have to play red cards. I love Tolaria West and Academy Ruins in this deck, but playing Tolaria West and Grove of the Burnwillows is already asking to get color screwed. And you want to play at least black on top of that.

[Ingo]

One thing I learned about the Gamble version is that you absolutely want Dark Confidants in the board. I understand the idea that the Dark Depths plan is already somewhat graveyard independent and the want to play hatebears instead. But the fair matchups just become so much worse. People tend to have removal for Marit Lage (Plow, Karakas, Needle, Wasteland) while also attacking your graveyard.

I still believe G/R/x will be the way to go as long as we have to play red cards. I love Tolaria West and Academy Ruins in this deck, but playing Tolaria West and Grove of the Burnwillows is already asking to get color screwed. And you want to play at least black on top of that.

Can I ask what your sideboard looks like? I would like to limit myself to R/G/B (and no W), you seem to be on these colors.
I am curious how you would board against RIP and STP, aside from dark confidant.

[Serbitar]

Right now I'm running (with Kurt Spiess's MD -Savannah, +Bayou, -Bog, +Karakas)

4 Dark Confidant
2 Dark Depths
3 Sphere of Resistance
1 Chalice of the Void
3 Krosan Grip
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Bojuka Bog

The anti combo cards are a bit up in the air. I realise that I would probably need to devote more slots to stand a chance here, but on the other hand I cannot convince myself that it is worth it. The matchups will remain bad and you lose valuable slots against other decks. Maybe it makes sense to choose more narrow, more impactful cards against a popular combo strategy (just e.g. (I realise the nombo with Dark Depths) Ensnaring Bridge against SnS) and go empty against other ones?
A generic boarding plan against non combo decks with permanent based hate looks something like +4 Dark Confidant, +2 Dark Depths, +3 Krosan Grip, +Oblivion Stone, -2 Manabond, -4 Gamble, -Karakas, -Crop Rotation/Punishing Fires/Maze of Ith. Depending on deck you might also want the Chalice.

[Rampart]

I'll have to try the COTV again after the GP or during a grinder. I don't want to change my deck too much before the GP as I have 4-0'ed the last two weekly legacy events I have played in. I am pretty comfortable with my side board plans currently but you have much more experience with the deck then I do.

Ok, I was wrong about chalice. Just won my GP DC grinder with lands.

[GoldenCid]

I will do my best with a personal GUb version today.

[Phelix]

I will do my best with a personal GUb version today.

looking forward, also would like to see Ramparts list?

[Raystar]

Also trying a peculiar Gbuw list tomorrow in preparation for a big tournament at the beginning of December, I'll post the list if the results are not too embarrassing :)

[civet five]

Ok, I was wrong about chalice. Just won my GP DC grinder with lands.

I thought it might have been you when I saw that decklist - no cycling lands in the 75:)

http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpwas13/welcome#1

[Raystar]

Played in a small tournament today (17 people) with a "non usual" build for a split in the final. The build I played is:


4 Mox Diamond
4 Life from the Loam
4 Exploration
2 Manabond
4 Crop Rotation
3 Entomb
4 Engineered Explosives

1 Academy Ruins
3 Bayou
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Dark Depths
1 Forest
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Karakas
3 Maze of Ith
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Rishadan Port
1 Savannah
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
3 Thespian's Stage
2 Tranquil Thicket
3 Tropical Island
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills


Sideboard
3 Dark Confidant
1 Dark Depths
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Krosan Grip
2 Sphere of Resistance
3 Swan Song
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben


We played 5 turns of swiss and Top8 and we had pretty much all the usual Legacy meta (I will post the link on TCDecks when and if it will be available).

Here you go with a quick run down of the matches:

- 1st Match: Daniele with EsperBlade (featuring TNN)

G1: we both started the game pretty fast with him on Stoneforge Mistyc + Batterskull and me attacking his mana base with a Wasteland and a single Rishadan Port. I managed to hold him a bit with a Maze of Ith but the deck decided to crap on me not dredging any other Port for his 4 basic lands and not showing a tutor nor a piece of the combo...I died with tons of mana killed by a Jace that survived a couple of countered EE. Out go 2 manabond, 3 entomb and a Loam; In 3 Dark Confidant, 2 Thalia and a DD.
G2: The deck decided that I didn't have to win the match and after a mulligan to 6 (without a life from the loam) proceeded to show me 3 consecutive Mox Diamond from the top of the deck....I died horribly. Not a good start of the tournament...

0 - 0 - 1

- 2nd Match: Massimiliano with Death&Taxes (featuring Mangara)

G1: I couldn't believe it, in testing the build seemed extremely consistent and it was crapping on me again. I lost quickly to a ton of equipments with only 2 lands on the board. At this point I was almost tempted to call the day and dismount the deck...I decide to hang on and side out the same set of the previous game siding in 3 Confidant, 2 Krosan Grip (for RiP) and a DD
G2: a 20/20 indestructible beater on turn 2 with my opponent tapped out...good times
G3: I waste a Port, a Cavern and a Karakas and proceed to summon Marit Lage that gets StPed twice with me winning the game at 59 life points

1 - 0 - 1

- 3rd match RUG (don't remember the name of my opponent, sorry :( )

G1: another crappy hand and I get punished by a delver coupled with a wasteland, a stifle, double pierce and double bolt...nobody could beat that :) Same siding as the first match.
G2: quick Marit Lage (3rd or 4th turn) and we go to the third game
G3: I don't remember very well but I think I denied his mana and played Marit lage quickly for the win again. The oppo wanted to stifle the combo but the judge explained that he could only stifle the Stage activation giving him another turn to find a solution.
Feeling better now, the deck his working as expected even if it was supposed to win G1s not G2s and G3s....

2 - 0 - 1

- 4th match Antonio with GRB Nic Fit (without Scapeshift)

G1: when I saw the red mana I feared scapeshift and I tried to control his red mana sources. In the meanwhile he is beating with 2 explorers. When the explorers get the company of a witness, I drop Glacial Chasm that gets copied by Stage the turn after. The board is stalled in this way for a couple of turns and he gets more presence with an huntmaster. I finally draw a Crop Rotation and combo out. Same siding as the match with D&T
G2: he keeps a hand a bit shaky with mana and gets punished by my denial. After a bit I combo again and win.

3 - 0 - 1

- 5th match against Tin Fins. I was paired up and we decided to draw to get into top8

3 - 1 - 1

- Quarterfinals against the Tin Fins I IDed during the swiss.

G1: a very difficult match-up in G1 but I can give him a surprise with crop rotation into Bojuka Bog. I obviously don't see crop (or anything else :) ) in the first 7 and mulligan into a hand with crop, karakas and other stuff but lacking green mana. I keep hoping to draw G (I'm on the play and hoped that the karakas would be enough). Unfortunately he has the nuts and combo out during the first turn with me not being able to do anything. I side in everything except for the 2 krosan grips and side out 2 loams, 2 manabond, 3 entomb, 3 EE, Tabernacle and 2 maze of ith.
G2: I keep a hand with turn one canonist and some denial that slows him down enough to be able to play a second canonist and kill him
G3: I mull to a very bad 5 with swan song and dark confidant but only a bayou...I feel very lost but he doesn't have an exceptional hand and I manage to top deck the denial I need followed by canonist, spere of resistance and a second swan song. I beat him down and counter one of his entomb when he is at 4 then proceed to play EE to get rid of the token and make the remaining 4 damages
I'm very happy that my sideboard worked out, I feel a lot more confident going forward.

- Semifinals against the Esper Blade deck that had beaten me during the swiss

G1: he keeps a hand a bit weak on lands and gets punished out of it. I combo off after a while because the deck refuses to provide the needed support and risked a return from the opponent. In addition to the same siding strategy of the swiss match I sided in the 2 krosan grips and sided out another loam.
G2: I control his Batterskull with double maze of ith until I'm able to combo out and he doesn't have the StP that would save his life.

We split the finals (opponent was on Jund), we were pith tired and decided not to risk :)

The deck is bonkers, it provides a very strong sideboard strategy against combo and it seems to play well against the meta. There were two Elfs decks in the room but I haven't met them, they would have probably been a difficult matchup.

[GoldenCid]

I will do my best with a personal GUb version today.

Well i did my best effort but i didnt do it so well.
It was:

R1 Rock (BG): 1-1
R2 UWr miracle: 0-2
R3 UWb stoneblade: 1-1
R4 Rock (BGW): 1-0
R5 Drop: Date with my wife! :laugh:

Here is my decklist an my rationale:

/ Lands
1 [IA] Glacial Chasm
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
1 [LG] The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
4 [MM] Rishadan Port
1 [JU] Riftstone Portal
1 [SOM] Forest (1)
3 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
4 [DK] Maze of Ith
4 [TE] Wasteland
3 [FUT] Tolaria West
2 [R] Tropical Island
1 [LG] Karakas
2 [ON] Tranquil Thicket
1 [R] Bayou
1 [WWK] Creeping Tar Pit
1 [DIS] Breeding Pool
1 [DIS] Ghost Quarter
1 [WWK] Bojuka Bog
1 [PLC] Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 [B] Bayou
1 [4E] Mishra's Factory

// Spells
1 [IA] Zuran Orb
4 [RAV] Life from the Loam
3 [TE] Intuition
4 [US] Exploration
1 [EX] Manabond
2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
1 [SH] Ensnaring Bridge
4 [SH] Mox Diamond
1 [MR] Mindslaver
1 [MR] Oblivion Stone
1 [FD] Crucible of Worlds
1 [TE] Cursed Scroll

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [MI] Cursed Totem
SB: 4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
SB: 1 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 3 [EVE] Raven's Crime
SB: 1 [SOM] Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 1 [RTR] Abrupt Decay
SB: 3 [EX] Sphere of Resistance

I was expecting midrange deck and combo stuff so i decided go for disruption: `Raven's Crime anoying for combo and good against control. Go up to 2 EE main deck because i expected shaman and reduced my instant / sorcery as much as i could and added cursed scroll which was awesome all day killing shaman, clique and PW.
As you see i faced 2 shaman decks and played very decent against them winning the G1 both times.
I wanted also a card against combo that dont cut my own cards. CotV, althogh very good, eats my moxes (the 2nd one), my eplorations and loam (at 0, 1, 2 respectively) so i took Sphere of resistance.

The deck was solid but i made a few mistakes specially against miracle when i didnt realize entreat the angel at instant speed (i hurt my self with fetchs and canopy).

Off course punishing lands could savemy my as* in the rocks MU but i'm gladanyway with my playstyle.

The main concern i had was when to side in confidant. I think i had chance to do it against control MU but i didnt choosing discard instead. Was it right?

GC.

[Phelix]

i think that vs control, the confidants are particularly awesome.

you have plenty of stuff to take out, like:

4 maze of ith
1 tabernacle
1 karakas
2 life from the loam (since he has surgical)
1 intuition

lets you add:
4 Dark Confidant
1 abrupt decay
1 krosan grip
3 Ravens Crime


i think the scrolls are cute, and make sense. I played them in the board about three years ago as there was alot of tribal and maverick around at the time.



Well i did my best effort but i didnt do it so well.
It was:

R1 Rock (BG): 1-1
R2 UWr miracle: 0-2
R3 UWb stoneblade: 1-1
R4 Rock (BGW): 1-0
R5 Drop: Date with my wife! :laugh:

Here is my decklist an my rationale:

/ Lands
1 [IA] Glacial Chasm
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
1 [LG] The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
4 [MM] Rishadan Port
1 [JU] Riftstone Portal
1 [SOM] Forest (1)
3 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
4 [DK] Maze of Ith
4 [TE] Wasteland
3 [FUT] Tolaria West
2 [R] Tropical Island
1 [LG] Karakas
2 [ON] Tranquil Thicket
1 [R] Bayou
1 [WWK] Creeping Tar Pit
1 [DIS] Breeding Pool
1 [DIS] Ghost Quarter
1 [WWK] Bojuka Bog
1 [PLC] Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 [B] Bayou
1 [4E] Mishra's Factory

// Spells
1 [IA] Zuran Orb
4 [RAV] Life from the Loam
3 [TE] Intuition
4 [US] Exploration
1 [EX] Manabond
2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
1 [SH] Ensnaring Bridge
4 [SH] Mox Diamond
1 [MR] Mindslaver
1 [MR] Oblivion Stone
1 [FD] Crucible of Worlds
1 [TE] Cursed Scroll

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [MI] Cursed Totem
SB: 4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
SB: 1 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 3 [EVE] Raven's Crime
SB: 1 [SOM] Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 1 [RTR] Abrupt Decay
SB: 3 [EX] Sphere of Resistance

I was expecting midrange deck and combo stuff so i decided go for disruption: `Raven's Crime anoying for combo and good against control. Go up to 2 EE main deck because i expected shaman and reduced my instant / sorcery as much as i could and added cursed scroll which was awesome all day killing shaman, clique and PW.
As you see i faced 2 shaman decks and played very decent against them winning the G1 both times.
I wanted also a card against combo that dont cut my own cards. CotV, althogh very good, eats my moxes (the 2nd one), my eplorations and loam (at 0, 1, 2 respectively) so i took Sphere of resistance.

The deck was solid but i made a few mistakes specially against miracle when i didnt realize entreat the angel at instant speed (i hurt my self with fetchs and canopy).

Off course punishing lands could savemy my as* in the rocks MU but i'm gladanyway with my playstyle.

The main concern i had was when to side in confidant. I think i had chance to do it against control MU but i didnt choosing discard instead. Was it right?

GC.

[GoldenCid]

i think that vs control, the confidants are particularly awesome.

you have plenty of stuff to take out, like:

4 maze of ith
1 tabernacle
1 karakas
2 life from the loam (since he has surgical)
1 intuition

lets you add:
4 Dark Confidant
1 abrupt decay
1 krosan grip
3 Ravens Crime


i think the scrolls are cute, and make sense. I played them in the board about three years ago as there was alot of tribal and maverick around at the time.

Yeah i think you are right. But probably i'd keep some mazes since they stop germ token and cliques easily. Bojuka bog could be a choice....i know it annnuls snapcaster but i'm very confortable with maze. Mindslaver also due to it high cmc.

And i really loved scroll! It's so easy to activate.

thx

GC.

[snorlaxcom]

Went 5-0-4 at the gp with no byes. All my draws were definitley winnable with tighter play. I just need to learn how to think and prioritize a bit faster while still making optimum plays. I underestimated how difficult the amount of triggers, draw effects, and overall board state slowed down my thinking. More games should shake this off.

I venture to say this is more complicated to pilot than Tendrils and Ichorid. I now have to give even more respect to Lands players that have turned out results in a sizable event.

Thanks onebigsquirrelgod for the advice and constructive criticism on my games. I learned a lot.

[Serbitar]

Played in a small tournament today (17 people) with a "non usual" build for a split in the final. The build I played is:


4 Mox Diamond
4 Life from the Loam
4 Exploration
2 Manabond
4 Crop Rotation
3 Entomb
4 Engineered Explosives

1 Academy Ruins
3 Bayou
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Dark Depths
1 Forest
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Karakas
3 Maze of Ith
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Rishadan Port
1 Savannah
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
3 Thespian's Stage
2 Tranquil Thicket
3 Tropical Island
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills


Sideboard
3 Dark Confidant
1 Dark Depths
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Krosan Grip
2 Sphere of Resistance
3 Swan Song
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben



I think this list is very interesting. Could you maybe talk a bit more about the reasons behind this build? Do you think EE is better than Punishing Fires in the current meta or is it just a substitute so you can run Confidants (same goes for Gamble vs Entomb)? Do we need 3 Tropical Island for 1 blue card (4 after board)? This is confusing me because I would have thought the reason of only dipping into blue for Ruins (and not for Tolaria West) would be to have better mana.

[Raystar]

I think this list is very interesting. Could you maybe talk a bit more about the reasons behind this build? Do you think EE is better than Punishing Fires in the current meta or is it just a substitute so you can run Confidants (same goes for Gamble vs Entomb)? Do we need 3 Tropical Island for 1 blue card (4 after board)? This is confusing me because I would have thought the reason of only dipping into blue for Ruins (and not for Tolaria West) would be to have better mana.

Yeah, you are right, I didn't comment enough on the build.

EE instead of Punishing Fire: we play PF because of Shaman, sure it helps in other match-ups but shaman is the main reason that forced the inclusion of PF. My reasoning has been as it follows:

- You play PF on the second turn if possible (on average). The same happens with EE, you play it at 1 on the first turn and then clear the board in your second turn. So, basically, EE is about half a turn slower than PF but solves the same issue.
- 4 EE are needed because you want to see it in your opening hand against shaman (the same as PF)
- EE works around the issue that PF had when trying to kill a shaman if it got countered and then removed by shaman...EE can't be removed. In addiction you may loose one against a Ooze but you'll be able to dig for another sooner or later.
- It forces blue in the mana base to make sure that you have U available for Academy Ruins activations. I used 3 Tropical and only 1 Savannah to make sure that, if needed, I could use swan song and activate Ruins in the same turn. In addition your W silver bullets in the sideboard are "fire and forget" while you really want your U sources to stay on the board.
- Playing the GRB "combo" version I felt frustrated by decks that would try to control the board (artefact based decks, Miracles, etc.), if they stick a piece of hate (chalice, needle, RiP...) you may probably have to go to G2 :)
- EE plays very well the G2 synergy with Confidant, you can just use them once and they may clear the piece of board that you need cleared before combing out.

Entomb instead of Gamble:

- I hate the variance of Gamble.
- Entomb enables crazy plays with loam and is totally synergetic with the combo and the engine. In my opinion it gives the deck the little bit of consistency that it was missing.
- G2 Entomb goes out pretty much all the time and get basically replaced by Confidant for the reasons that we all know

Intuition and Tolaria West:

- I started playing Lands a looooong time ago :) Until some months ago I wouldn't leave home without 3 Intuition and 3 Tolaria West...guess what? they are less consistent than 4 Crop Rotations and 3 Entombs in the combo build. Sure, Tolaria can't be countered but it is so slow in comparison with crop and entomb that the "combo" version is a lot better without. The same applies to Intuition, too slow and too easily captured by the U heavy meta we face
- very often you go for their throat even when you would loose in the medium term with the board state you have: you crop/entomb into the missing piece of the combo and gg. Tolaria and intuition require setup and some form of control of the game state that you can't afford anymore with the speed of the current decks.

Swan Song:

- Yesterday it was the first time I took SS to a tournament, they allowed my G3 win against Tin Fins and they are probably the best help that the deck can get against Sneak and Show

Basically, I believe that the combo route is the one to go for and this is the best combo enabling build that I could put together that would maintain the strong controlling aspects of Lands.

Does this clear some of your doubts? I'm looking for help on the build to nit pick my choices, so, please, feel free to shoot at it and I'll be very happy to discuss :)

[Raystar]

Yeah, you are right, I didn't comment enough on the build.

EE instead of Punishing Fire: we play PF because of Shaman, sure it helps in other match-ups but shaman is the main reason that forced the inclusion of PF. My reasoning has been as it follows:

- You play PF on the second turn if possible (on average). The same happens with EE, you play it at 1 on the first turn and then clear the board in your second turn. So, basically, EE is about half a turn slower than PF but solves the same issue.
- 4 EE are needed because you want to see it in your opening hand against shaman (the same as PF)
- EE works around the issue that PF had when trying to kill a shaman if it got countered and then removed by shaman...EE can't be removed. In addiction you may loose one against a Ooze but you'll be able to dig for another sooner or later.
- It forces blue in the mana base to make sure that you have U available for Academy Ruins activations. I used 3 Tropical and only 1 Savannah to make sure that, if needed, I could use swan song and activate Ruins in the same turn. In addition your W silver bullets in the sideboard are "fire and forget" while you really want your U sources to stay on the board.
- Playing the GRB "combo" version I felt frustrated by decks that would try to control the board (artefact based decks, Miracles, etc.), if they stick a piece of hate (chalice, needle, RiP...) you may probably have to go to G2 :)
- EE plays very well the G2 synergy with Confidant, you can just use them once and they may clear the piece of board that you need cleared before combing out.

Entomb instead of Gamble:

- I hate the variance of Gamble.
- Entomb enables crazy plays with loam and is totally synergetic with the combo and the engine. In my opinion it gives the deck the little bit of consistency that it was missing.
- G2 Entomb goes out pretty much all the time and get basically replaced by Confidant for the reasons that we all know

Intuition and Tolaria West:

- I started playing Lands a looooong time ago :) Until some months ago I wouldn't leave home without 3 Intuition and 3 Tolaria West...guess what? they are less consistent than 4 Crop Rotations and 3 Entombs in the combo build. Sure, Tolaria can't be countered but it is so slow in comparison with crop and entomb that the "combo" version is a lot better without. The same applies to Intuition, too slow and too easily captured by the U heavy meta we face
- very often you go for their throat even when you would loose in the medium term with the board state you have: you crop/entomb into the missing piece of the combo and gg. Tolaria and intuition require setup and some form of control of the game state that you can't afford anymore with the speed of the current decks.

Swan Song:

- Yesterday it was the first time I took SS to a tournament, they allowed my G3 win against Tin Fins and they are probably the best help that the deck can get against Sneak and Show

Basically, I believe that the combo route is the one to go for and this is the best combo enabling build that I could put together that would maintain the strong controlling aspects of Lands.

Does this clear some of your doubts? I'm looking for help on the build to nit pick my choices, so, please, feel free to shoot at it and I'll be very happy to discuss :)

Also, I forgot: TNN wants EE!! PF is not going to be enough. Before you could control Mongoose with Bojuka Bog, now you have to kill the mini progenitus or you die quickly. Even better if they stick a CC3 sword on it :)

[GoldenCid]

Went 5-0-4 at the gp with no byes. All my draws were definitley winnable with tighter play. I just need to learn how to think and prioritize a bit faster while still making optimum plays. I underestimated how difficult the amount of triggers, draw effects, and overall board state slowed down my thinking. More games should shake this off.

I venture to say this is more complicated to pilot than Tendrils and Ichorid. I now have to give even more respect to Lands players that have turned out results in a sizable event.

Thanks onebigsquirrelgod for the advice and constructive criticism on my games. I learned a lot.

Lands is a deck that demands multiple choices in a single game. So not only is one of the most expensive decks in the format but also one which leaves almost no place for mistakes. So i encourage you to play more and more.
could you share your list?

GC

[Serbitar]

(explanations)

Thanks for clearing stuff up. Basically I figured as much. Gotta test whether EE>Fires is something I'm truly happy with. I still feel you could open up some slots in the mana base. I would suggest going -Bayou, -Tropical Island, +Fetch gaining one slot and maybe even cutting the Forest for a second. Candidates for inclusion would be a third Thicket, fourth Maze, fourth Stage, Urborg, Ghost Quarter or even an alternate win condition like Tar Pit.

[Phelix]

strongly urge you to not cut forest.

if your looking for alternate win, consider play the good old wurm harvest.

[Raystar]

strongly urge you to not cut forest.

if your looking for alternate win, consider play the good old wurm harvest.

Yes, the forest is going to stay. What I would consider is to cut a tropical for a Ghost Quarter, it's always been in the back of my mind but I have never had the time/opportunity to test it.

[Phelix]

I play the ghost quarter in all the builds, as part of the spine of the deck, it gives you a bunch of new avenues, and I find it essential.

[snorlaxcom]

Yes, the forest is going to stay. What I would consider is to cut a tropical for a Ghost Quarter, it's always been in the back of my mind but I have never had the time/opportunity to test it.

I wish I could fit in a fourth trop in some games.

Here is my list that went 5-0-4

1 Windswept Heath
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs
3 Tropical Island
1 Taiga
1 Bayou
1 Forest
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Tranquil Thicket
2 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Tolaria West
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Karakas
1 Academy Ruins
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Glacial Chasm
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
3 Maze of Ith
3 Intuition
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Crucible of Worlds
3 Punishing Fire
4 Life from the Loam
1 Raven's Crime
1 Manabond
4 Exploration
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Zuran Orb
4 Mox Diamond

SB
3 Krosan Grip
3 Trinisphere
4 Dark Confidant
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Chalice of the Void

I went 2-1 on Friday's grinder where I had a pyroclasm instead of EE and ostone was in the side instead of Kgrip #3. When i regrouped that evening I moved ostone to main for another Kgrip and EE in the side instead of pyroclasm. Pyroclasm is great against SFM, DRS.dec, D&T, and Elves but EE overlaps against TNN and having red mana is not as reliable for the other mu. Kgrip is a must for miracles, S&T, and nonbasic land hate.

Since starting Lands 3 months ago, this weekend was the first time I used md Raven's crime and Urborg (where I had stage and Barbarian ring). 1 DD was soley in the sb to cirvumvent gy hate for g2/g3 once I had a better idea of what nonessential cards could be swapped.

After this weekend, however, my gerry T. token will continue to collect dust. Marit Lage didn't help with the prison strategy at all and crime was bonkers all day. Even with no Urborg in play the manabase still has the potential to rip up the hand. I felt like I had Liliana in the deck whenver I dredged into crime and even Intuition increased in versatility and power.

I disagree with lists cutting Thicket because they don't run manabond, but then are still running crime. The thicket saved my Loam from DRS against bug and I never lost my Loam to a draw step clique. Thicket + Loam can also do extra work with raven's crime. I was told that Loam is the green Ancestral Recall, but now I can put this CA to use with a green Mindtwist. It's the best feeling seeing AD thrown into the bin then sticking a fastbond. Thicket also allows you to stock up on lands in hand to have future loams resolve and critical P.fires resolve that may be targetting a jace or DRS. Additionally, there are no worries about a potential swords for tarpit beats. All of this equates to games you are going to win by CA anyway and that got me thinking that the Marit Lage pieces are just chaff. Having Marit Lage in my deck on Saturday would have actually lost me games because I would have lost control of the game state. Granted, I am not the premier Lands pilot, but crime's versatility gets the nod here.

4 Chalice/3 Trinisphere combined with the manabase disruption handily prompted my ANT opponent into concession both games. They definitely accomplish a lock over a Thalia or another less impressive taxing effect or hate bear.

This deck was a blast to play even if my opponents didn't get it. Go Lands go!

[schof]

Yeah, you are right, I didn't comment enough on the build.

EE instead of Punishing Fire: we play PF because of Shaman, sure it helps in other match-ups but shaman is the main reason that forced the inclusion of PF. My reasoning has been as it follows:

- You play PF on the second turn if possible (on average). The same happens with EE, you play it at 1 on the first turn and then clear the board in your second turn. So, basically, EE is about half a turn slower than PF but solves the same issue.
- 4 EE are needed because you want to see it in your opening hand against shaman (the same as PF)
- EE works around the issue that PF had when trying to kill a shaman if it got countered and then removed by shaman...EE can't be removed. In addiction you may loose one against a Ooze but you'll be able to dig for another sooner or later.
- It forces blue in the mana base to make sure that you have U available for Academy Ruins activations. I used 3 Tropical and only 1 Savannah to make sure that, if needed, I could use swan song and activate Ruins in the same turn. In addition your W silver bullets in the sideboard are "fire and forget" while you really want your U sources to stay on the board.
- Playing the GRB "combo" version I felt frustrated by decks that would try to control the board (artefact based decks, Miracles, etc.), if they stick a piece of hate (chalice, needle, RiP...) you may probably have to go to G2 :)
- EE plays very well the G2 synergy with Confidant, you can just use them once and they may clear the piece of board that you need cleared before combing out.

Entomb instead of Gamble:

- I hate the variance of Gamble.
- Entomb enables crazy plays with loam and is totally synergetic with the combo and the engine. In my opinion it gives the deck the little bit of consistency that it was missing.
- G2 Entomb goes out pretty much all the time and get basically replaced by Confidant for the reasons that we all know

Intuition and Tolaria West:

- I started playing Lands a looooong time ago :) Until some months ago I wouldn't leave home without 3 Intuition and 3 Tolaria West...guess what? they are less consistent than 4 Crop Rotations and 3 Entombs in the combo build. Sure, Tolaria can't be countered but it is so slow in comparison with crop and entomb that the "combo" version is a lot better without. The same applies to Intuition, too slow and too easily captured by the U heavy meta we face
- very often you go for their throat even when you would loose in the medium term with the board state you have: you crop/entomb into the missing piece of the combo and gg. Tolaria and intuition require setup and some form of control of the game state that you can't afford anymore with the speed of the current decks.

Swan Song:

- Yesterday it was the first time I took SS to a tournament, they allowed my G3 win against Tin Fins and they are probably the best help that the deck can get against Sneak and Show

Basically, I believe that the combo route is the one to go for and this is the best combo enabling build that I could put together that would maintain the strong controlling aspects of Lands.

Does this clear some of your doubts? I'm looking for help on the build to nit pick my choices, so, please, feel free to shoot at it and I'll be very happy to discuss :)


Very helpful, thank you.

As much as I like PF+GOTB, this makes me reconsider it very seriously.

[OneBigSquirrelGod]

I wish I could fit in a fourth trop in some games.

Here is my list that went 5-0-4

1 Windswept Heath
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs
3 Tropical Island
1 Taiga
1 Bayou
1 Forest
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Tranquil Thicket
2 Creeping Tar Pit
3 Tolaria West
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Karakas
1 Academy Ruins
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Glacial Chasm
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
3 Maze of Ith
3 Intuition
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Crucible of Worlds
3 Punishing Fire
4 Life from the Loam
1 Raven's Crime
1 Manabond
4 Exploration
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Zuran Orb
4 Mox Diamond

SB
3 Krosan Grip
3 Trinisphere
4 Dark Confidant
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Chalice of the Void

I went 2-1 on Friday's grinder where I had a pyroclasm instead of EE and ostone was in the side instead of Kgrip #3. When i regrouped that evening I moved ostone to main for another Kgrip and EE in the side instead of pyroclasm. Pyroclasm is great against SFM, DRS.dec, D&T, and Elves but EE overlaps against TNN and having red mana is not as reliable for the other mu. Kgrip is a must for miracles, S&T, and nonbasic land hate.

Since starting Lands 3 months ago, this weekend was the first time I used md Raven's crime and Urborg (where I had stage and Barbarian ring). 1 DD was soley in the sb to cirvumvent gy hate for g2/g3 once I had a better idea of what nonessential cards could be swapped.

After this weekend, however, my gerry T. token will continue to collect dust. Marit Lage didn't help with the prison strategy at all and crime was bonkers all day. Even with no Urborg in play the manabase still has the potential to rip up the hand. I felt like I had Liliana in the deck whenver I dredged into crime and even Intuition increased in versatility and power.

I disagree with lists cutting Thicket because they don't run manabond, but then are still running crime. The thicket saved my Loam from DRS against bug and I never lost my Loam to a draw step clique. Thicket + Loam can also do extra work with raven's crime. I was told that Loam is the green Ancestral Recall, but now I can put this CA to use with a green Mindtwist. It's the best feeling seeing AD thrown into the bin then sticking a fastbond. Thicket also allows you to stock up on lands in hand to have future loams resolve and critical P.fires resolve that may be targetting a jace or DRS. Additionally, there are no worries about a potential swords for tarpit beats. All of this equates to games you are going to win by CA anyway and that got me thinking that the Marit Lage pieces are just chaff. Having Marit Lage in my deck on Saturday would have actually lost me games because I would have lost control of the game state. Granted, I am not the premier Lands pilot, but crime's versatility gets the nod here.

4 Chalice/3 Trinisphere combined with the manabase disruption handily prompted my ANT opponent into concession both games. They definitely accomplish a lock over a Thalia or another less impressive taxing effect or hate bear.

This deck was a blast to play even if my opponents didn't get it. Go Lands go!

It was great meeting ya. That damn draw bracket will get you every time. At least you did good in the first gp with the deck.

[Phelix]

6 lands that come into play tapped, combined w. 5 that dont produce mana at all, seems like alot?

[snorlaxcom]

6 lands that come into play tapped, combined w. 5 that dont produce mana at all, seems like alot?

I seldom had hands where this was a problem. The deck curves out perfectly and is augmented with 4 Mox. The format now is not fast enough that you are dead by T3 because of the presence of so many midrange strategies. The tapped lands are not as much of a liability. Fastbonds are usually cast on turn T2/3 on the draw anyway. Opposing wastelands are usually saved for an impending utility land rather than disrupting the actual manabase.

Taking all of these reasons into consideration the utility lands are not the conventional "land", but need to be thought of as the deck's version of an uncounterable spell that uses the 1 land drop rule. Urborg is the icing on the manabase cake that allows for faster Ostone activations and Port lock down.

[Alicanto]

Question: some users have previously ran Geist of Saint Traft in this build. Do you think it would be worth it to cut them/ replace it with Extirpate or Surgical Extraction as well as Snapcaster Mage in the Sideboard? You don't need to keep the Mage around (dies to Tabernacle) but in essence that's 8 Surgical Extractions or Extirpates, and could help destroy a tough game 2 match up. (Keep Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth in this proposed deck idea.)

[Serbitar]

How exactly would Surgical Extraction help our rough matchups?

[snorlaxcom]

Question: some users have previously ran Geist of Saint Traft in this build. Do you think it would be worth it to cut them/ replace it with Extirpate or Surgical Extraction as well as Snapcaster Mage in the Sideboard? You don't need to keep the Mage around (dies to Tabernacle) but in essence that's 8 Surgical Extractions or Extirpates, and could help destroy a tough game 2 match up. (Keep Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth in this proposed deck idea.)

I don't understand your question/scenario.

I would never run geist with this manabase and much less replace those sb slots with yardhate. So you want 4 extirpate/surgical with 4 snapcaster? What is this accomplishing? That much mana is already enough for Intuition, which you are hopefully siding out for the rough matchups (miracles) and more mana than a chalice at one. This makes you have interaction after turn 2 or just dead if you mean storm combo.

Keep thinking outside the box because that's how innovations arise, but don't mess with something that already works.

[Alicanto]

I don't understand your question/scenario.

I would not ever run geist with this manabase and much less replace those sb slots with yardhate? So you want 4 extirpate/ surgical with 4 snapcaster? What is this accomplishing? That much mana is already enough for Intuition which you are hopefully siding out for the rough matchups(miracles) and more mana than a chalice at one. This makes you have interaction past turn 2 or just dead if you mean storm combo.

Keep thinking outside the box because that's how innovations arise, but dont mess with somerhing that already works.

Well the OP talks about Extirpate as good graveyard hate. In my meta, people will counter (FoW/ Daze) or force me to discard something (Duress, Thoughtseize, etc.) I was thinking to get rid of whatever they use, then Surgical Extraction or Extirpate would be good. I know it's not so bad if you have something discarded, but it will still help you to get rid of their cards, be it counterspells or discard, or whatever.

[Phelix]

currently playing silly version w. top/counterbalance. its better than id have thought. and the three terminus in the board are quite good vs reanimator and true name.

[entity]

currently playing silly version w. top/counterbalance. its better than id have thought. and the three terminus in the board are quite good vs reanimator and true name.

Sounds fun. Mind sharing the decklist? (Here or via PM)

[Razorwynd]

currently playing silly version w. top/counterbalance. its better than id have thought. and the three terminus in the board are quite good vs reanimator and true name. This has piqued my interest… please do share =]

[Phelix]

will post decklist real soon - just got a Collection for 12K in, gotta sort that first.

[snorlaxcom]

Well the OP talks about Extirpate as good graveyard hate. In my meta, people will counter (FoW/ Daze) or force me to discard something (Duress, Thoughtseize, etc.) I was thinking to get rid of whatever they use, then Surgical Extraction or Extirpate would be good. I know it's not so bad if you have something discarded, but it will still help you to get rid of their cards, be it counterspells or discard, or whatever.

You should play to have the Loams Forced if you suspect they have it, then have a fastbond resolve right after. Daze should not be hitting anything relevant if you play correctly. On the play you can slam down the accelerants, but be conservative on the draw if your opponent represents a daze or two. Some RUG pilots are using a couple pierces so keep that in mind.

Even though the primer is dated, yes extirpate is ok gy hate, but what mu is it for? Just Loam? OK, but for anything else you would be cutting sb slots of cards that actually help our problem mu. If gy hate is absolutely necessary I would opt for Bog and crypt as they can be tutored for and are reusable. The deck is resilient to counters and discard. If they happen to keep in discard spells or permission that's even better for Lands(save for counterbalance). In this case Chalice at one stops Top and kgrip/AD/EE stops a resolved CB soft lock. I don't know why you would want to Extirpate irrelevant cards and it looks pretty silly to have extirpate in hand and a chalice set at one. Derp.

Between, bob, kgrip/AD, and 6-8 combo prison pieces there are maybe 1 or 2 slots to change.

What is your sb?

[GoldenCid]

And how Dark Depths did for you up to now? Has anybody considered packing it just in side as "sourprise". Most opponents side out the critter removal and we come with little mary as a faster win.

What can you tell?

GC.

[snorlaxcom]

And how Dark Depths did for you up to now? Has anybody considered packing it just in side as "sourprise". Most opponents side out the critter removal and we come with little mary as a faster win.

What can you tell?

GC.

I win g1 so many times that having a 20/20 is just win more and at that point I need to be playing not to lose with such little time left on the clock.

The slots for stage and depths are not worth it in my experience as they have a consistency issue in g1's prison strategy and they also meddle with the precious and so few available sb slots. My DD was in the sb when I use to run it in an attempt to dodge yard hate, but my experienced opponents (D&T) assumed I had it anyway and kept in relevant removal for bobs too. My unexperienced opponents may still keep in creature removal because they have so few cards to side in vs Lands. The latter case has happened to me multiple times because they still hope to remove the tarpits and now bob if we go to g3. With proper control you should be able to beat these pilots without Lage's help.

Cute for FNM or small local event, but I don't believe in it for a gp.

[Alicanto]

You should play to have the Loams Forced if you suspect they have it, then have a fastbond resolve right after. Daze should not be hitting anything relevant if you play correctly. On the play you can slam down the accelerants, but be conservative on the draw if your opponent represents a daze or two. Some RUG pilots are using a couple pierces so keep that in mind.

Even though the primer is dated, yes extirpate is ok gy hate, but what mu is it for? Just Loam? OK, but for anything else you would be cutting sb slots of cards that actually help our problem mu. If gy hate is absolutely necessary I would opt for Bog and crypt as they can be tutored for and are reusable. The deck is resilient to counters and discard. If they happen to keep in discard spells or permission that's even better for Lands(save for counterbalance). In this case Chalice at one stops Top and kgrip/AD/EE stops a resolved CB soft lock. I don't why you would want to Extirpate irrelevant cards and it looks pretty silly to have extirpate in hand and a chalice set at one. Derp.

Between, bob, kgrip/AD, and 6-8 combo prison pieces there are maybe 1 or 2 slots to change.

What is your sb?

My sb was a little janky haha. I had these:

3 Banefire (instead of Punishing Fire)
2 Propaganda
1 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Smokestack
1 Relic of Progenitus (completely mind blanked on Bojuka Bog! Great, now need to add this to my deck.
2 Ray of Revelation
1 Emrakul (not bad, actually)
2 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Trinisphere

actually my decklist was the following and I still like it, just need to tweak it a little.

60 cards Main deck

Artifact: 9
3 Howling Mine
4 Mox Diamond
1 Zuran Orb
1 Ensnaring Bridge

Spells: 16
4 Exploration
4 Manabond
1 Propaganda
4 Life from the Loam
3 Enlightened Tutor

Land: 35

1 Academy Ruins
1 Dark Depths
1 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Island
1 Karakas
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Thespian Stage
1 Volcanic Island
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
3 Maze of Ith
2 Savannah
2 Tranquil Thicket
3 Tolaria West
3 Tropical Island

Karakas could be changed and/ or Island could be changed. I want to try out Raven's Crime. I like the Howling Mines in it.

Edit: Originally tried out Oreia's list, and much as I love Geist of Saint Traft, he just wasn't working for me.

[snorlaxcom]

My sb was a little janky haha. I had these:

3 Banefire (instead of Punishing Fire)
2 Propaganda
1 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Smokestack
1 Relic of Progenitus (completely mind blanked on Bojuka Bog! Great, now need to add this to my deck.
2 Ray of Revelation
1 Emrakul (not bad, actually)
2 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Trinisphere

actually my decklist was the following and I still like it, just need to tweak it a little.
........



How do you win game one if you resolve a bridge? Deck the opponent? I have Punishing Fire main because he handles DRS quite well, answers planeswalkers
(scarey for this deck), and serves as a wincon.

Don't know what meta you have, but look out for LED based decks and I doubt you can win against miracles.

[Alicanto]

How do you win game one if you resolve a bridge? Deck the opponent? I have Punishing Fire main because he handles DRS quite well, answers planeswalkers
(scarey for this deck), and serves as a wincon.

Don't know what meta you have, but look out for LED based decks and I doubt you can win against miracles.

Not much LED decks in my meta. There's one guy who runs it but wasn't playing it that night. I'm still pretty new to lands. I had to sell my old lands deck for college money a year ago :frown:

Mainly people scoop when I would waste/ Loam lock them and yeah, make them draw out too. Banefire is okay as a finisher. Emrakul is good once you cast him anyways.

[snorlaxcom]

Not much LED decks in my meta. There's one guy who runs it but wasn't playing it that night. I'm still pretty new to lands. I had to sell my old lands deck for college money a year ago :frown:

Mainly people scoop when I would waste/ Loam lock them and yeah, make them draw out too. Banefire is okay as a finisher. Emrakul is good once you cast him anyways.

At least you can turn your hobby into cash if need be. You could condense your list and give room for better %s. What decks are giving you trouble?

[Alicanto]

At least you can turn your hobby into cash if need be. You could condense your list and give room for better %s. What decks are giving you trouble?

Goblins/ Elves because they're pretty fast and sometimes I can't get chasm/ Tabernacle/ bridge/ propaganda out in play quick enough. I need to have some K-grips instead of the Ray of Revelations in case I do need to destroy a bridge and attack with Emrakul/ Geist/ manlands.

Nic- Fit: played this recently and don't really know how to get around this. I haven't played legacy very long and when I played a year ago, already the decks have changed a bit since then.


Has anyone considered the land Unstable Frontier to turn Chasm into a basic land until end of turn? And I have been reading the Lands primer on mtgsalvation too. There was some talk of using Cursed Scroll in place of Punishing Fire. Maybe I will change out my Howling Mines for 3 Crop Rotation instead.

[snorlaxcom]

Goblins/ Elves because they're pretty fast and sometimes I can't get chasm/ Tabernacle/ bridge/ propaganda out in play quick enough. I need to have some K-grips instead of the Ray of Revelations in case I do need to destroy a bridge and attack with Emrakul/ Geist/ manlands.

Nic- Fit: played this recently and don't really know how to get around this. I haven't played legacy very long and when I played a year ago, already the decks have changed a bit since then.


Has anyone considered the land Unstable Frontier to turn Chasm into a basic land until end of turn? And I have been reading the Lands primer on mtgsalvation too. There was some talk of using Cursed Scroll in place of Punishing Fire. Maybe I will change out my Howling Mines for 3 Crop Rotation instead.

Scroll doesn't work well with all the singletons, too slow to kill a T1 DRS (or lackey), easy AD target, and can't be recovered as fast as fires. It's a win-more card. You also have 3 howling mine so that's a nombo right there.

Is frontier supposed to be mana fixing on your chasm? Just play city of brass then because with chasm out you don't take damage.

Goblins gets better with p.fire. If you don't have fire then use 4 maze. That was the standard config before fires and works more consistently in your list with multiple manabonds and draw effects. I would look to add 2-3 Intuitions because resolving one against creature spamming decks should be gg (ie elves). Piles take a while to think about though, but it can expedite a Marit Lage kill too.

Nic has ooze which needs to be answered. Pfire answers this pretty handily... Deed wipes the accelerants, so amass a board presence before this. They don't have waste, so Maze + pfire will give you enough time to setup a lock before they stick a thrun. Look at a nic fit list again. There is nothing scary about it. Lands has more than enough tools to beat them g1 and they have loads of dead cards. SB chalice on one makes port shine and kgrip is a beast here. They may just be better at racing you with howling mine.

[Alicanto]

Scroll doesn't work well with all the singletons, too slow to kill a T1 DRS (or lackey), easy AD target, and can't be recovered as fast as fires. It's a win-more card. You also have 3 howling mine so that's a nombo right there.

Is frontier supposed to be mana fixing on your chasm? Just play city of brass then because with chasm out you don't take damage.

Goblins gets better with p.fire. If you don't have fire then use 4 maze. That was the standard config before fires and works more consistently in your list with multiple manabonds and draw effects. I would look to add 2-3 Intuitions because resolving one against creature spamming decks should be gg (ie elves). Piles take a while to think about though, but it can expedite a Marit Lage kill too.

Nic has ooze which needs to be answered. Pfire answers this pretty handily... Deed wipes the accelerants, so amass a board presence before this. They don't have waste, so Maze + pfire will give you enough time to setup a lock before they stick a thrun. Look at a nic fit list again. There is nothing scary about it. Lands has more than enough tools to beat them g1 and they have loads of dead cards. SB chalice on one makes port shine and kgrip is a beast here. They may just be better at racing you with howling mine.

Alright, nix the Scroll and the Howling Mines (just need to figure out what cards to buy now...) And frontier was supposed to be another "stage" on chasm to not lose the life. Like on the upkeep of my turn, change chasm into a basic land and not lose the cumulative life.

[snorlaxcom]

Alright, nix the Scroll and the Howling Mines (just need to figure out what cards to buy now...) And frontier was supposed to be another "stage" on chasm to not lose the life. Like on the upkeep of my turn, change chasm into a basic land and not lose the cumulative life.

Current oracle text:
"Cumulative upkeep—Pay 2 life. (At the beginning of your upkeep, put an age counter on this permanent, then sacrifice it unless you pay its upkeep cost for each age counter on it.)"

So the trigger will still hit the stack at the start of the upkeep and resolve regardless if chasm now changes to a basic land and loses all abilities in the upkeep.

[Alicanto]

Current oracle text:
"Cumulative upkeep—Pay 2 life. (At the beginning of your upkeep, put an age counter on this permanent, then sacrifice it unless you pay its upkeep cost for each age counter on it.)"

So the trigger will still hit the stack at the start of the upkeep and resolve regardless if chasm now changes to a basic land and loses all abilities in the upkeep.

Ohh ok. I and some people on Gatherer were thinking that it would not be cumulative upkeep. Thanks for clearing that up!

[Jastern101]

Hey all, my first real post on these forums. I mostly just look over this post (and the one on MTG Salvation) for any new ideas or approaches people talk about on Lands. I've been playing it for a little bit over a year and a half. I've been working on experimental lists for a while. I took one to GP DC and it was way too inconsistent.

I recently did a write up on a local tournament I went to. It's a bit too long for this forum read, so it's on a google Doc.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sJFGSl6wUzcERn9Ugt8ir-he1l6b4cPwTiCnGJYR_ok/edit?pli=1

Basically, I won all of our bad match ups and lost 2 of our decent - good match ups. My breakers were not good enough to get me into top 8.

I'm unsure if I am going to stick with crop rotation. 3 feels like too much. I only ever really want to see 1 in a given match up really and I found myself to be drawing multiples of them much too often. Since I've made the cut, I see them just the right amount.

Bojuka Bog is a great card, but I don't think it has as great of an effect that we want it to. I would prefer it to be a tranquil thicket, or bump up my groves.

[snorlaxcom]

Hey all, my first real post on these forums. I mostly just look over this post (and the one on MTG Salvation) for any new ideas or approaches people talk about on Lands. I've been playing it for a little bit over a year and a half. I've been working on experimental lists for a while. I took one to GP DC and it was way too inconsistent.

I recently did a write up on a local tournament I went to. It's a bit too long for this forum read, so it's on a google Doc.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1sJFGSl6wUzcERn9Ugt8ir-he1l6b4cPwTiCnGJYR_ok/edit?pli=1

Basically, I won all of our bad match ups and lost 2 of our decent - good match ups. My breakers were not good enough to get me into top 8.

I'm unsure if I am going to stick with crop rotation. 3 feels like too much. I only ever really want to see 1 in a given match up really and I found myself to be drawing multiples of them much too often. Since I've made the cut, I see them just the right amount.

Bojuka Bog is a great card, but I don't think it has as great of an effect that we want it to. I would prefer it to be a tranquil thicket, or bump up my groves.

I wouldn't play this deck with less than 3 groves since DRS decks are so heavily played and he can really hamper the game plan. DRS has to die. I'd snap cut the Bog for a Grove #3 and I am close to adding a fourth in my own list. Grove+Pfire also makes the deck less reliant on Mazes and Fastbonds for survival (critical vs Delver) and can buy lots of time vs Stoneforge packages.

Crop Rotation here seems fine because you have Marit Lage pieces to assemble and you can sac a an early thicket or Twest to then recycle. Also, getting utility lands into play EOT saves time and mana from main phase Loaming and using a Twest. It's easy to play around taxing counters with it and responding to a Wasteland basically acts as a Stifle. You may be able to use Riftstone Portal here.

I am trying out entomb now to serve as an extra Pfire, Loam, and land target.

[Jastern101]

Yea, I will be cutting the bog for a third Grove. I personally haven't had trouble finding Grove, I've had more trouble finding P.Fires for the moments when I need them. But I do prefer consistency over the few possible chances(which haven't even occurred in the past 3+ tournaments I've gone to) where crop rotating into Bojuka Bog acts as a groundbreaking play.

I wasn't stating that Crop Rotation has been underwhelming or anything close to that. The issue with Crop Rotation is that it isn't a necessary spell. Those two slots are the most flexible slots in the deck. I've debated over changing them out to allow me to run Manabond, 2nd EE's + Oblivion Stone, Gamble/Entomb, ect... I suppose the issue is, I haven't found the cards to fill the slots to make myself satisfied with this version of the overall deck. Granted, Crop rotation has been the closest I've found in doing that. I was stating that I would cut them for Gamble/Entomb because if you don't have Life from the Loam active, then you are probably hurting which both of those tutors solve, and if it is active, Entomb simply requires you to Life the land you would've gotten with Crop rotation and then spend (one of) your turn's land drop on it.

I am interested in your thoughts on entomb. Have you tested the slots you have entomb in as Gamble as well? if so, which would you prefer?
In the sight of Rest in Peace/GY removal, I feel that I would prefer Gamble depending on how you would sideboard post-games.

[snorlaxcom]

Yea, I will be cutting the bog for a third Grove. I personally haven't had trouble finding Grove, I've had more trouble finding P.Fires for the moments when I need them. But I do prefer consistency over the few possible chances(which haven't even occurred in the past 3+ tournaments I've gone to) where crop rotating into Bojuka Bog acts as a groundbreaking play.

I wasn't stating that Crop Rotation has been underwhelming or anything close to that. The issue with Crop Rotation is that it isn't a necessary spell. Those two slots are the most flexible slots in the deck. I've debated over changing them out to allow me to run Manabond, 2nd EE's + Oblivion Stone, Gamble/Entomb, ect... I suppose the issue is, I haven't found the cards to fill the slots to make myself satisfied with this version of the overall deck. Granted, Crop rotation has been the closest I've found in doing that. I was stating that I would cut them for Gamble/Entomb because if you don't have Life from the Loam active, then you are probably hurting which both of those tutors solve, and if it is active, Entomb simply requires you to Life the land you would've gotten with Crop rotation and then spend (one of) your turn's land drop on it.

I am interested in your thoughts on entomb. Have you tested the slots you have entomb in as Gamble as well? if so, which would you prefer?
In the sight of Rest in Peace/GY removal, I feel that I would prefer Gamble depending on how you would sideboard post-games.

Between the 1CMC tutors it depends what you are gearing towards. You lose a card with all of them.

Gamble is no doubt the most powerful, but you could be blown out by its draw back effect and timewalk yourself.

I have been liking the Entomb in my list, but I do have more black mana with the extra Tar Pit and an Urborg. It has been serving as a low powered Intuition, but has been quite impressive competing with decks running taxing counters and DRS. I am in favor of Entomb for Lands because I can EOT a critical piece with the most information available, which has great synergy with the control element of the deck. Although it cannot get a fastbond, I know Entomb won't hurt my hand and this makes the card itself become less of a liability because the target will always get binned. The limitation of only binning something can be annoying for a topdeck without a Grove in play.

Crop Rotation being only limited to transfiguring lands doesn't get your Loam engine active nor reliably complete the Pfire combo. There is no Cradle in the deck to look for, but having Marit Lage and winning the game can justify this inclusion.

Etutor gets you a fastbond or sb lock piece guaranteed. I never liked going for another color now with Pfire in the deck, but some still make it work. It paints a target on what to counter or AD the next turn and it doesn't assemble a Loam engine or Pfire combo (crucible is loose).

Vs decks that are running RiP I probably already take out Entomb to add EE or Kgrip/AD, so I wouldn't know how sb games would change. I like the tutors to make G1 more consistent, but in either case they are easily boarded out (similar to Manabaond).

[apple713]

I need some help guys. I'm a dark depths playing testing out this shell (lands Shell). I goldfished a few games and it looks like it has some fast plays that can get depths out quick. The more relevant part is its consistency in getting there. Between gamble and crop rotation and loam it seems like it gets there about as fast, probably a turn slower, as the all in build i was going for. From what I can tell just from the goldfishes it seems like p fire is going to be very good at holding creatures at bay / buying a few turns. Port answers a few of the problems that the all in build suffered from. I'm overall satisfied and looking forward to testing.

The issues / questions I have are...

The deck folds to combo game 1. With a sideboard devoted almost entirely to combo is that enough?

The deck also folds to blood moon. 3 grips in the board enough? doesn't seem like it. With S&T running moon and painter on the rise is this deck well positioned in the meta?

Not to sure about the control match ups but against miracles id imagine theres not much they can do especially if port is holding them back.

Is DRS a big enough problem to mess with loams or does p fire balance it out?

Also I'm sure this list could use a karakas somewhere. It was poached from a recent top 8 on october but was running 4 hexmages with almost no way to cast them. I swapped the hexmages for gambles.


4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
4 Dark Depths
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Thespian's Stage
3 Maze of Ith
2 Taiga
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Savannah
1 Windswept Heath
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Punishing Fire
4 Crop Rotation
3 Life from the Loam
4 Exploration
4 Manabond
4 Mox Diamond
4 Gamble
SB: 3 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 4 Sphere of Resistance
SB: 1 Crucible of Worlds
SB: 1 Trinisphere
SB: 2 Chalice of the Void
SB: 3 Krosan Grip

[Jastern101]

So you're running the "combo" lands build. First of all, this build doesn't auto-lose game 1 to other combo decks. You can turn 1 Manabond, dump full hand of lands with the 20/20 combo into play and then kill them the following turn. That's just about as fast as any other combo deck just using a creature to seal the deal.

I would reduce the number of Dark Depths you are running to 3 or 2. From people I've spoken to about the combo version, 2 seems to be the right number in the main. They sideboard the other 2 for the combo match ups so that they can go off faster.

Go ahead and increase the number of tranquil thickets you have with those available slots. The ability to cycle-dredge life from the loam with Manabond in play allows you to accelerate way to fast for any fair deck.

I would also reduce the number of Manabonds you are running to 2 or 3 of. most likely a 2 of. The card introduces many problems as it can make many keepable hands, although still keepable, very awkward to play out.

In addition to this, I personally am a fan of Ghost Quarter, running a basic forest (this will help against blood moons btw), and karakas.

Since you are running Savannah, I suggest cutting two of your Sphere of resistance and running 2 Thalia. She has the same effect but she makes for a great beater when you can't rely on your 20/20 combo.

From here I'll just go over your questions 1 by 1 to make sure I covered all of them:

1. Combo decks. You are a combo deck, There should be quite a few hands where you can make a 20/20 on turn 1 or 2 and race other combo decks just as quickly.

2. The deck does fold to blood moon however, there are very few decks that main deck blood moon. Some Miracle decks and Imperial Painter. Again, you are a combo deck with this version of lands. Your entire objective is to throw a 20/20 out there and get the kill as quickly as possible. Against miracles, this may be somewhat more difficult. Remember to port/wasteland them off their white at the end of their second main phase, then make your 20/20, kill them on your turn. Sideboarding K-grips is fine. 3 sounds like a fine number. I personally run 4 artifact/enchantment removal spells, however, I usually play the control/grindy version of lands. This will also help against back to basics, Helm/Rest in peace combo, Grindstone combo, Omni-tell, ect... Keep around 3-4 ench/artifact removals in your sideboard. I'm from MD and I know Speiss/Spoken with him quite a few times. Though not close friends, he seems like a really good player. Look at his lists for combo lands. He runs a different kind of artifact/enchantment hate. I'm not sure why, but I am sure he had good reason for it. So consider it.

3. You can help your Show and tell Match up by running Karakas. Helps a bunch when you don't have the other half of your combo, you can crop rotate into it and bounce whatever they put into play. post board you can put in your K-grips to deal with Blood Moon and Sneak Attack. Remember that with multiple red, Sneak attack + Emrakul will get around your Karakas.

4. You are absolutely right. Port is a big player in this match-up. You're objective is going to be to keep them off of playing helm(since you probably won't keep them off of Rest in Peace. They run Swords to Plowshares & Terminus. The two big spells that actually deal with your 20/20, so keep them ported off white when you go for your kill.

5. DRS can cause a lot of problems. Fortunately, all of the decks that play that guy really only run Force of Will as their counterspell. So usually a Punishing Fire is all you need to clear him off the board. Those decks also don't run removal for your 20/20. So if you can just throw that out there on the board before they get a chance to put a wasteland into play, you will win.

So... in all,

Just from glancing over your list, I would:

-2 Dark Depths
-2 Manabond
-1 Crop Rotation

(I just realized you are only running 3 Life from the loam)
+1 Life from the loam
+2 Tranquil Thicket
+1 Karakas
+1 Forest

You should check out some of Kurt Speiss' Lands builds. He took one to an invitational and an open and did well in both. Those are good lists to check out if you are trying to play the combo version of lands.

[Ingo]

4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
4 Dark Depths
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Thespian's Stage
3 Maze of Ith
2 Taiga
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Savannah
1 Windswept Heath
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Punishing Fire
4 Crop Rotation
3 Life from the Loam
4 Exploration
4 Manabond
4 Mox Diamond
4 Gamble
SB: 3 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 4 Sphere of Resistance
SB: 1 Crucible of Worlds
SB: 1 Trinisphere
SB: 2 Chalice of the Void
SB: 3 Krosan Grip

I like the fact that you're maxing out on the combo with 4 manabond. It makes you combo out way faster, but also makes you more vulnerable to graveyard-hate. Also, game two gamble or manabond can screw you over since you mostly can't afford to use them as you should have some hate in hand.

A solution could be to run Cabal Therapy as combohate, since its the only card available that functions from the yard (apart from raven's crime). You should run dryad arbor as well then, and enough fetchlands to reliably get it and flashback CT. The more discard you add in your sideboard (thoughtseize or duress), the more info you'll have to effectively cast CT.
One big advantage of CT is any matchup running swords to plowshares, since you can discard it before making the token, or at least you have knowledge if its safe to combo. So perhaps this card compensates the graveyardvulnerability of running 4x manabond as its more likely that the token endures swords.
I have been experimenting with CT in this way, but you need excellent knowledge of all decks to max out on its use, especially when you're brainstormed in response.

I find Chalice an excellent gamble target against fast combo as ANT, belcher or oops all spells, since the chance of keeping chalice after gambling (5 out of 6 on the play) are probably better than the normal odds against these matchups.

If you run 4x manabond, you should run seal of primordium instead of Krosan Grip, as you can cast it and fully abuse manabond loam/thicket, whereas Krosan Grip would be discarded or stop you from chaining lands. Its also a turn faster to cast, improving your odds against mooneffects. Once its out its out (whereas Grip needs a forest or three open mana to be effective).

[snorlaxcom]

Played in a small tournament today (17 people) with a "non usual" build for a split in the final. The build I played is:


4 Mox Diamond
4 Life from the Loam
4 Exploration
2 Manabond
4 Crop Rotation
3 Entomb
4 Engineered Explosives

1 Academy Ruins
3 Bayou
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Dark Depths
1 Forest
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Karakas
3 Maze of Ith
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Rishadan Port
1 Savannah
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
3 Thespian's Stage
2 Tranquil Thicket
3 Tropical Island
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills


Sideboard
3 Dark Confidant
1 Dark Depths
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Krosan Grip
2 Sphere of Resistance
3 Swan Song
2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben


We played 5 turns of swiss and Top8 and we had pretty much all the usual Legacy meta (I will post the link on TCDecks when and if it will be available).

Here you go with a quick run down of the matches:

- 1st Match: Daniele with EsperBlade (featuring TNN)

G1: we both started the game pretty fast with him on Stoneforge Mistyc + Batterskull and me attacking his mana base with a Wasteland and a single Rishadan Port. I managed to hold him a bit with a Maze of Ith but the deck decided to crap on me not dredging any other Port for his 4 basic lands and not showing a tutor nor a piece of the combo...I died with tons of mana killed by a Jace that survived a couple of countered EE. Out go 2 manabond, 3 entomb and a Loam; In 3 Dark Confidant, 2 Thalia and a DD.
G2: The deck decided that I didn't have to win the match and after a mulligan to 6 (without a life from the loam) proceeded to show me 3 consecutive Mox Diamond from the top of the deck....I died horribly. Not a good start of the tournament...

0 - 0 - 1

- 2nd Match: Massimiliano with Death&Taxes (featuring Mangara)

G1: I couldn't believe it, in testing the build seemed extremely consistent and it was crapping on me again. I lost quickly to a ton of equipments with only 2 lands on the board. At this point I was almost tempted to call the day and dismount the deck...I decide to hang on and side out the same set of the previous game siding in 3 Confidant, 2 Krosan Grip (for RiP) and a DD
G2: a 20/20 indestructible beater on turn 2 with my opponent tapped out...good times
G3: I waste a Port, a Cavern and a Karakas and proceed to summon Marit Lage that gets StPed twice with me winning the game at 59 life points

1 - 0 - 1

- 3rd match RUG (don't remember the name of my opponent, sorry :( )

G1: another crappy hand and I get punished by a delver coupled with a wasteland, a stifle, double pierce and double bolt...nobody could beat that :) Same siding as the first match.
G2: quick Marit Lage (3rd or 4th turn) and we go to the third game
G3: I don't remember very well but I think I denied his mana and played Marit lage quickly for the win again. The oppo wanted to stifle the combo but the judge explained that he could only stifle the Stage activation giving him another turn to find a solution.
Feeling better now, the deck his working as expected even if it was supposed to win G1s not G2s and G3s....

2 - 0 - 1

- 4th match Antonio with GRB Nic Fit (without Scapeshift)

G1: when I saw the red mana I feared scapeshift and I tried to control his red mana sources. In the meanwhile he is beating with 2 explorers. When the explorers get the company of a witness, I drop Glacial Chasm that gets copied by Stage the turn after. The board is stalled in this way for a couple of turns and he gets more presence with an huntmaster. I finally draw a Crop Rotation and combo out. Same siding as the match with D&T
G2: he keeps a hand a bit shaky with mana and gets punished by my denial. After a bit I combo again and win.

3 - 0 - 1

- 5th match against Tin Fins. I was paired up and we decided to draw to get into top8

3 - 1 - 1

- Quarterfinals against the Tin Fins I IDed during the swiss.

G1: a very difficult match-up in G1 but I can give him a surprise with crop rotation into Bojuka Bog. I obviously don't see crop (or anything else :) ) in the first 7 and mulligan into a hand with crop, karakas and other stuff but lacking green mana. I keep hoping to draw G (I'm on the play and hoped that the karakas would be enough). Unfortunately he has the nuts and combo out during the first turn with me not being able to do anything. I side in everything except for the 2 krosan grips and side out 2 loams, 2 manabond, 3 entomb, 3 EE, Tabernacle and 2 maze of ith.
G2: I keep a hand with turn one canonist and some denial that slows him down enough to be able to play a second canonist and kill him
G3: I mull to a very bad 5 with swan song and dark confidant but only a bayou...I feel very lost but he doesn't have an exceptional hand and I manage to top deck the denial I need followed by canonist, spere of resistance and a second swan song. I beat him down and counter one of his entomb when he is at 4 then proceed to play EE to get rid of the token and make the remaining 4 damages
I'm very happy that my sideboard worked out, I feel a lot more confident going forward.

- Semifinals against the Esper Blade deck that had beaten me during the swiss

G1: he keeps a hand a bit weak on lands and gets punished out of it. I combo off after a while because the deck refuses to provide the needed support and risked a return from the opponent. In addition to the same siding strategy of the swiss match I sided in the 2 krosan grips and sided out another loam.
G2: I control his Batterskull with double maze of ith until I'm able to combo out and he doesn't have the StP that would save his life.

We split the finals (opponent was on Jund), we were pith tired and decided not to risk :)

The deck is bonkers, it provides a very strong sideboard strategy against combo and it seems to play well against the meta. There were two Elfs decks in the room but I haven't met them, they would have probably been a difficult matchup.

How has this been doing? I don't like EE as the only critter removal as d&t has revoker on it and flickerwisp can blank it. The 2 Kgrip will be pretty extended on that mu as is. Do you not like pfire in your meta? DRS can still easily remove academy and ee on T1 can still be AD. I like Entomb with pfire to search it out.

[apple713]

@ INGO & @ Jastern

I've tinkered my list quite a bit. I took out punishing fire and grove all together. Punishing fire begs for a long matchup and doesn't really eliminate any problems the combo runs into. DRS stops the Loam engine but if you have the combo you're pretty well set. I've played a lot of dark depths and the cards that hurt it are, wasteland, karakas, maze of ith, and swords to plowshares. Most decks that run DRS don't also run swords, so I won't need to recur the combo once its assembled.

I decided that entomb was great for getting loam because loam is essential if you don't have a crop rotation / acceleration.

Manabond was underperforming. It was good in some hands and bad in others. Since the land count for this version is low manabond got the axe entirely. running entomb, with gamble and 3 loams means that i'll start digging on t2 usually. Gamble is worth keeping because it tutors for my missing land too. If I have a depths/stage in hand and need the other I can tutor for the other piece and take a "gamble". Usually pays off because its being cast with several cards in hand. If I have a loam in hand then its doesn't even matter.

Exploration lets me still get a t2 token
Hexmage gets me a t2 token

Darkblast might earn a spot because of entomb.
I have 3 spots open in board. Not sure if they need to go towards combo or what. I was thinking maybe 1 riftstone portal to entomb in response to a blood moon or something so that I can cast my seals. Riftstone also helps the non mana producers.

Chasm has been lack luster in here. Since this version doesn't want to really lock the opponent out and instead goes for the kill it seems like a wasted slot.

This version plays much less like a lands deck and more like a depths deck. It looks like lands but its different.

Gemstone and city were put in instead of duals because Gamble is good when you can cast it t1, as is exploration and crop rotation. Playing with hexmage means that you need the black mana too. playing with fetches meant that situations would come up when i took the wrong one. Nothing has come up yet where I have regretted the city/gemstones.

urbogs benefit the lands that don't produce mana which is nice.

Biggest problem for the deck is surgical extraction, DRS is a close second. Chalice on 1 is the only answer it seems. Too bad they banned mental misstep.

Volraths stronghold has potential here because it can recur hexmage which can kill planes walkers. Other than that maybe recur an eternal witness but that seems like a long shot. If stuff has gotten to that point its probably over for you any ways.

Spells - 26

3 Entomb
4 Crop Rotation
3 Life from the Loam
4 Exploration
4 Vampire Hexmage
4 Mox Diamond
4 Gamble

Lands - 34
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
4 Dark Depths
4 Thespian's Stage
3 Maze of Ith
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Karakas
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 City of Brass
3 Gemstone Mine
1 Bojuka Bog


SB: 4 Sphere of Resistance
SB: 4 Chalice of the Void
SB: 4 Seal of Primordium
SB: 3 Open slots




Final thoughts - so far the deck seems more consistent than the other versions I've played. It has some weaker match ups and I haven't really done nearly as extensive testing with it as the other versions.

No matter how you cut it the deck has lots of potential to be quick. there are 2 (hexmage depths and urborg / exploration depths stage land land) ways to make a t2 token and win on t3. In my other versions it only had 1 way (hexmage)

Also, I don't like discard against combo decks. It's not good enough. with brainstorms and tops keeping the important cards on top and them still having the potential to top deck it makes discard weaker than other answers. I prefer sphere and chalice. Possibly thorn too. Just haven't decided on the last few slots in the board.

[snorlaxcom]

@ INGO & @ Jastern

I've tinkered my list quite a bit. I took out punishing fire and grove all together. Punishing fire begs for a long matchup and doesn't really eliminate any problems the combo runs into. DRS stops the Loam engine but if you have the combo you're pretty well set. I've played a lot of dark depths and the cards that hurt it are, wasteland, karakas, maze of ith, and swords to plowshares. Most decks that run DRS don't also run swords, so I won't need to recur the combo once its assembled.

I decided that entomb was great for getting loam because loam is essential if you don't have a crop rotation acceleration.

Manabond was underperforming. It was good in some hands and bad in others. Since the land count for this version is low manabond got the axe entirely. running entomb, with gamble and 3 loams means that i'll start digging on t2 usually. Gamble is worth keeping because it tutors for my missing land too. If I have a depths/stage in hand and need the other I can tutor for the other piece and take a "gamble". Usually pays off because its being cast with several cards in hand. If I have a loam in hand then its doesn't even matter.

Exploration lets me still get a t2 token
Hexmage gets me a t2 token

Darkblast might earn a spot because of entomb.
I have 3 spots open in board. Not sure if they need to go towards combo or what. I was thinking maybe 1 riftstone portal to entomb in response to a blood moon or something so that I can cast my seals. Riftstone also helps the non mana producers.

Chasm has been lack luster in here. Since this version doesn't want to really lock the opponent out and instead goes for the kill it seems like a wasted slot.

This version plays much less like a lands deck and more like a depths deck. It looks like lands but its different.

Gemstone and city were put in instead of duals because Gamble is good when you can cast it t1, as is exploration and crop rotation. Playing with hexmage means that you need the black mana too. playing with fetches meant that situations would come up when i took the wrong one. Nothing has come up yet where I have regretted the city/gemstones.

urbogs benefit the lands that don't produce mana which is nice.

Biggest problem for the deck is surgical extraction, DRS is a close second. Chalice on 1 is the only answer it seems. Too bad they banned mental misstep.

Volraths stronghold has potential here because it can recur hexmage which can kill planes walkers. Other than that maybe recur an eternal witness but that seems like a long shot. If stuff has gotten to that point its probably over for you any ways.

Spells - 26

3 Entomb
4 Crop Rotation
3 Life from the Loam
4 Exploration
4 Vampire Hexmage
4 Mox Diamond
4 Gamble

Lands - 34
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
4 Dark Depths
4 Thespian's Stage
3 Maze of Ith
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Karakas
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 City of Brass
3 Gemstone Mine
1 Bojuka Bog


SB: 4 Sphere of Resistance
SB: 4 Chalice of the Void
SB: 4 Seal of Primordium
SB: 3 Open slots




Final thoughts - so far the deck seems more consistent than the other versions I've played. It has some weaker match ups and I haven't really done nearly as extensive testing with it as the other versions.

No matter how you cut it the deck has lots of potential to be quick. there are 2 (hexmage depths and urborg / exploration depths stage land land) ways to make a t2 token and win on t3. In my other versions it only had 1 way (hexmage)

Also, I don't like discard against combo decks. It's not good enough. with brainstorms and tops keeping the important cards on top and them still having the potential to top deck it makes discard weaker than other answers. I prefer sphere and chalice. Possibly thorn too. Just haven't decided on the last few slots in the board.

I was brewing a jund lands list myself, but auto-included pfire. The other thing I didn't like was shutting yourself off with chalice at 1. Having recurable removal for planeswalkers is great though. Hexmage can also remove counters from chalice so it's not that bad if you are stalling to assemble the combo.

Blood moon is brutal here, but you dont have space for fetches. My rough mu with lands in general is miracles. Sb seals are great there if they resolve(nice against omnitell too).

The random matches can be annoying vs a midrange junk deck or similar maverick list where they run swords and drs. D&t has many ways to deal with marit. They can block for days with just a mom and flying dork. Flickerwisp and swords can keep up with marit too. Karakas is whatevs vs lands. Although, I'd probably add a pyroclasm to the side or sulfur elemental if that deck is a problem. Mindcensor does a lot of work in this mu.

So definitely add a darkblast md so you can kill flying dudes before they get a sword equiped(d&t or vs clique). Great tricks with thicket.

This looks like a lot of fun to play!

Edit: With so few green sources and do nothing lands I would md a riftstone portal if chasm is contributing so little. Having a tabernacle out also buys time against many aggro decks and is a brutal surprise once crop rotated in. Have you tried this out before?

Some number of dark confidant has always been strong in the sb when the manabase can handle him.

[KaristaDispel]

1 Academy Ruins
1 Dark Depths
1 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Glacial Chasm
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Karakas
3 Maze of Ith
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Rishadan Port
1 Savannah
1 Taiga
1 Thespian's Stage
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
3 Tolaria West
2 Tranquil Thicket
3 Tropical Island
4 Wasteland
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
35 Lands

1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Enlightened Tutor
4 Exploration
3 Intuition
4 Life from the Loam
1 Manabond
1 Oblivion Stone
3 Punishing Fire
1 Zuran Orb
26 Spells

Sideboard:
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Chalice of the Void
1 Cursed Totem
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Geist of Saint Traft
2 Krosan Grip
3 Trinisphere

What my list is looking like at the moment. Long time lurker, first time poster. I love this archetype and traded into it after coming into an artist signed Tabernacle. I still play the control shell and a lot of my local meta is creature and midrange mostly. At some point I will try the all in combo versions.

[OneBigSquirrelGod]

Kiora, the Crashing Wave. Seems like a very legitimate card.

2GU

+1 prevent all damage dealt to and from a permanent an opponent controls.

-1 draw a card and play an additional land

-5 put a 9/9 kraken into play every end step (emblem)

Starts with 2 loyalty.

Let's discuss.

[civet five]

Kiora, the Crashing Wave. Seems like a very legitimate card.

2GU

+1 prevent all damage dealt to and from a permanent an opponent controls.

-1 draw a card and play an additional land

-5 put a 9/9 kraken into play every end step (emblem)

Starts with 2 loyalty.

Let's discuss.

1) dies to lightning bolt AFTER you tick it on the first turn
2) TNN
3) It seems like its an Explore for 2 more mana.

I don't know that the emblem ability is stronger than a Marit Lage token, and Marit Lage can race (yes, this can race too. just several turns after it comes down).

[Serbitar]

Kiora, the Crashing Wave. Seems like a very legitimate card.

2GU

+1 prevent all damage dealt to and from a permanent an opponent controls.

-1 draw a card and play an additional land

-5 put a 9/9 kraken into play every end step (emblem)

Starts with 2 loyalty.

Let's discuss.

Looks like a solid sideboard card to replace Confidant in non-black lists. Might be one mana too expensive though.

[Raystar]

Looks like a solid sideboard card to replace Confidant in non-black lists. Might be one mana too expensive though.

It seems pretty good to me: +1 is a Maze of Ith, works pretty well in the control shell (it's in-color and the cost is not "horrible"), creates a non-stoppable win condition, it seems to be only weak to bolt/punishing fire, it has great synergy with the main deck engine of Lands, doubles up synergy with Confidant post-board...It seems a bit more than legit :)

I may be looking at it too optimistically but I really think it may open up some new/interesting control variants of the deck.

[snorlaxcom]

1) dies to lightning bolt AFTER you tick it on the first turn
2) TNN
3) It seems like its an Explore for 2 more mana.

I don't know that the emblem ability is stronger than a Marit Lage token, and Marit Lage can race (yes, this can race too. just several turns after it comes down).

You can select TNN as this doesn't target, but is still very narrow because it can only deal with one TNN. Pretty sure decks have more than 1 in them. The psuedo exploration is fun to see again in current cards. I want one for edh.

However, if planeswalkers were added then JTMS just dwarfs Kiora. Bs every turn greatly accerates the deck's options when tossing multiple blanks and aggresively dredging. You can only draw ONE card every other turn with this new planeswalker... Plusing gives jace sizable loyalty and makes the prison strategy even stronger as you can hit crucial spells and not limit yourself to creature interactions. They will also never hit another land. Lands already noms on creatures, but if you do unsummon then their already stressed manabase will lead to a time walk. I fail to see any improvement over jace.

TNN hasn't been much of an issue for me as greedy manabases run him. Tabernacle and chasm + Orb do so much work in these mu. Adding another ee helps too as many decks now spam equipment and you can get huge ca.

[Fatal]

+1 prevent all damage dealt to and from a permanent an opponent controls.

It works vs TNN.

[Holly]

It works vs TNN.

Nope it targets.
+1 Until your next turn, prevent all damage that would be dealt to and dealt by target permanent an opponent controls.
As written on the card.

[kravkenov]

Hi guys,

These time I'm slowly moving from combo deck (ANT and Doomsday Tendrils) to control.
I tried a couple of months Death & Taxes, but figured out I just don't like playing with creatures based deck in control builds. So here I am, Lands (just read the last +30 pages of this thread to be 'on topic').

I saw two (let say three) typical shell for land :
- Punishing Fire control shell
- Raven's Crime control shell
- Dark Depths + Thespian Stage combo (heavy) oriented

I really like how Raven's Crime can be an all-star against lot of deck, especially combo based deck.
I also fully understand how important Punishing Fire is against Planewalkers/Deathrite Shaman/random creatures decks.

But is there a solid 75 around that fits both, Punishing Fire and Raven's Crime ?

[snorlaxcom]

Hi guys,

These time I'm slowly moving from combo deck (ANT and Doomsday Tendrils) to control.
I tried a couple of months Death & Taxes, but figured out I just don't like playing with creatures based deck in control builds. So here I am, Lands (just read the last +30 pages of this thread to be 'on topic').

I saw two (let say three) typical shell for land :
- Punishing Fire control shell
- Raven's Crime control shell
- Dark Depths + Thespian Stage combo (heavy) oriented

I really like how Raven's Crime can be an all-star against lot of deck, especially combo based deck.
I also fully understand how important Punishing Fire is against Planewalkers/Deathrite Shaman/random creatures decks.

But is there a solid 75 around that fits both, Punishing Fire and Raven's Crime ?

My list posted on pg 116 has both. I would like to have two crimes in there. I am currently trying DD again. A happy medium between the 3 I am hoping to establish. What kind of combo are you refering to? Storm, Omnitell, painter, ichorid, reanimator? Crime is not useful in all "combo" matches.

What has done the most work for me against storm has been the sheer number of lock pieces g2/3. Crime is weak here generally because they have so much redundancy compared to the lock pieces which prevent them from playing magic. Chalice at one on T1 is ideal and nulls crime anyway. I like crime more in attrition matches and control.

Show and tell decks can still bs and ponder cards to arrange the win on top deck, so if you do keep crime here then side in all kgrips.

[Rampart]

My list posted on pg 116 has both. I would like to have two crimes in there. I am currently trying DD again. A happy medium between the 3 I am hoping to establish. What kind of combo are you refering to? Storm, Omnitell, painter, ichorid, reanimator? Crime is not useful in all "combo" matches.

Have you thought about cutting a manabond and intuition to slot of pair of Entombs in? if offers you virtual PFires, RCrimes and Loams?


What has done the most work for me against storm has been the sheer number of lock pieces g2/3. Crime is weak here generally because they have so much redundancy compared to the lock pieces which prevent them from playing magic. Chalice at one on T1 is ideal and nulls crime anyway. I like crime more in attrition matches and control.

Crime is a fine card game one against storm, but I agree with you completely about G2/3. The lock parts are much better game two and three then Crime. Basically if you can assembly two lock pieces the game is really tough for the storm player to win as long as you have a reasonable clock.

[snorlaxcom]

I started after I mentioned it a couple of posts ago. Started with manabond and have yet to slip another entomb in, but it probably will be the Intuition. I like the 2-2 configuration.

Currently trying dd agian, but going back to entomb if Marit doesn't work out. Too greedy to have both because black sources have become an issue when tarpit is cut and ee #3 added. Cut bridge md too.

[Rampart]

I started after I mentioned it a couple of posts ago. Started with manabond and have yet to slip another entomb in, but it probably will be the Intuition. I like the 2-2 configuration.

Currently trying dd agian, but going back to entomb if Marit doesn't work out. Too greedy to have both because black sources have become an issue when tarpit is cut and ee #3 added. Cut bridge md too.

Why can't you play entomb and DD? I like having the DD as it gives you a puncher's chance against combo game one and a real clock G2/3 with your lock parts.

I want to try a black splash for the next weekly legacy event, do you mind sharing your decklist?

[kravkenov]

This the 75 I sleeved up :

4 Life from the Loam
4 Exploration
4 Mox Diamond
1 Crucible of World
1 Zuran Orb

3 Intuition
3 Engineered Explosive
3 Punishing Fire
2 Raven's Crime
-------------------------
25

1 Academy Ruins
2 Tolaria West
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Karakas
1 The Tabernacle
3 Maze of Ith
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Tranquille Ticket
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Dark Depths
1 Thespian Stage
4 Westland
1 Ghost Quarter
3 Rishadan Port
3 Grove of the Burnwillow
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
-------------------------
26

1 Forest
1 Bayou
1 Taiga
3 Tropical Island
1 Verdant Catacomb
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Windswept Heath
-------------------------
9

SIDE
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Sphere of Resistance
1 Tormod's Crypt

2 Krosan Grip
1 Free Slot


At first I planned to pack Crop Rotation (3 Crop, 2 Intuition, 2 Punishing Fire and no Glacial Chasm).
Being able to make a Marit Lage at instant speed is great, but I think 3 intuition and Glacial Chasm is more important.

What do you think about it ? Is there any missing point ?

[Rampart]

This the 75 I sleeved up :

4 Life from the Loam
4 Exploration
4 Mox Diamond
1 Crucible of World
1 Zuran Orb

3 Intuition
3 Engineered Explosive
3 Punishing Fire
2 Raven's Crime
-------------------------
25

1 Academy Ruins
2 Tolaria West
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Karakas
1 The Tabernacle
3 Maze of Ith
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Tranquille Ticket
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Dark Depths
1 Thespian Stage
4 Westland
1 Ghost Quarter
3 Rishadan Port
3 Grove of the Burnwillow
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
-------------------------
26

1 Forest
1 Bayou
1 Taiga
3 Tropical Island
1 Verdant Catacomb
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Windswept Heath
-------------------------
9

SIDE
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Sphere of Resistance
1 Tormod's Crypt

2 Krosan Grip
1 Free Slot


At first I planned to pack Crop Rotation (3 Crop, 2 Intuition, 2 Punishing Fire and no Glacial Chasm).
Being able to make a Marit Lage at instant speed is great, but I think 3 intuition and Glacial Chasm is more important.

What do you think about it ? Is there any missing point ?

You should try to fit in a Creeping Tarpit or another kill condition. Only having one DD/Stage copy is asking for trouble without another way to efficiently kill your opponent

[snorlaxcom]

^My list
-canopy
-bog
-crime

+port
+tarpit
+ostone
+tolaria west

With dif sb

Stage can at least copy pit so it's almost having two of them.

The entomb one can cut an intuition and an ostone. It's 61 md. The 3 ee may be overkill so that could get taken out if 2 entombs are desired for 60 md.

[Ingo]

An experimental deck just won Starcitygames Indianapolis. It combines lands and pox in an innovating way, here's the list (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=62390).

[Claymore]

I think he tried to go all-in on the Loam and Entomb synergies (Ray of Revelation, Coffin Purge) where instead he needs some good ol' 4x answers in the board to kill RiP.

Very solid starting point at least, its a blast to watch.

[snorlaxcom]

My jund list had more pfire, but this is interesting too. No explorations or AD. Looting is nice since you don't have cycle lands and can still dig for lili. All symetrical discard and looting combos well with squee and loam. Not as explosive as RG Lands, but it's nice to see this archetype being exploited in the meta. Ray can handle RiP Nicely, but he must have had god draws against counterbalance with this curve for any chance at winning.

[Ingo]

I think he tried to go all-in on the Loam and Entomb synergies (Ray of Revelation, Coffin Purge) where instead he needs some good ol' 4x answers in the board to kill RiP.

Very solid starting point at least, its a blast to watch.

He did face RIP, I saw the video (added the link (http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/492936471)), he was up against death and taxes and was facing it almost immediatly. But Liliana provided a softlock while RIP cut of the yard, compensating the loamengine. Very grindy.

[TraxDaMax]

He did face RIP, I saw the video (added the link (http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/492936471)), he was up against death and taxes and was facing it almost immediatly. But Liliana provided a softlock while RIP cut of the yard, compensating the loamengine. Very grindy.

And his draws weren't even that great. Game was close though, and Cedric Philips sure was excited when the deck was playing vs DnT :D

[KntrellCL]

You guys shouldnt be result-oriented. The death n taxes guy just had one of the worst mana screws ive ever seen. I just cant believe how weak that list is against RIP... it was too much. In the finals he had the game won and took him like forever to change from "not losing" to be winning and he LOST 15 minutes later... is just too much. And he is almost 90% lost against combo pre and post board.

[snorlaxcom]

Ditto on the result oriented notion. The opponents played suboptimally and used their own wastes to lock themselves out of the game.

The list is basically bg pox with fringe red.

The sb is nonexistent for rough matches. Ray is cute but needs to be alongside AD. Nice job dodging blood moon all day, especially considering there are no basics to work with. Bob is a rough sb option here without spirit in play because you need to pox aggressively, but he still seems like a reasonable option to help combo matches. Sylvan library or miri's guile could be just as good here. I would like to see a greater number of spheres, or hell, even therapy to get cute with spirit. Unsure why Gamble is not here to bin more stuff or have a card potentially go to hand. Gamble would be mitigated by a squee/spirit/looting/pfire/ loam etc. discard. Looting is already here so there are sufficient ways to be digging I guess. The Tabernacle #2 in the sb just pains me.

To many things to critique, but nice finish against the unchecked greedy manabases in the meta.

[Ingo]

You guys shouldnt be result-oriented. The death n taxes guy just had one of the worst mana screws ive ever seen. I just cant believe how weak that list is against RIP... it was too much. In the finals he had the game won and took him like forever to change from "not losing" to be winning and he LOST 15 minutes later... is just too much. And he is almost 90% lost against combo pre and post board.

I have to admit that I am also a poxplayer, and charmed by this hybrid version, which makes me a bit biased. I always found there was a common ground between both decks, seems like Haas found that spot by packing smallpox and Liliana. Loam+waste+smallpox+ Liliana is BGPOX's disruptive core, alongside recurring Pfires you have an incredible disruptive package in manadenial (that D&Tplayer got smallpoxed a couple times) or a Liliana softlock. Seems very strong against greedy manabases with DRS, Stoneforge packages, TrueNameNemesis. I did miss the explosiveness of exploration though. This deck might have serious flaws, nevertheless this is the best result for both pox and lands in a long time and is doubtfully just a lucky streak. He certainly deserves credit for experimenting like this.

Being weak to RIP, as being soft to combo, is definitely the flaw of this build. But I assume he anticipated a low amount of gravehate, which was the case and payed off. Dropping entomb and faithless looting (Im not too fond of squee and spirit either) for crop rotation, gamble, Pfire or exploration could help, and take it closer to the RG comboversion, which is what I would experiment with.

[Jastern101]

So it seems that reanimator of many variants is becoming popular. A big problem I would like to note is Tidespout Tyrant... Probably Ashen Rider as well.

I've been playing Lands for a while, however I have only run into Reanimator a few times. Our game 1 matchup seems to be a really low percentage, and the primary reason for this is because of the above two creatures they choose to reanimate. Our only real maindeck answer to this problem is;

1) Hope they bin their creature on their own turn giving you a turn to transmute into bog

or

2) Run crop rotation and hope that the game 1 you play against them, you have a crop rotation in the opening hand... and they don't have a force of will.

Anyone have any input on this Match-up?

[Phelix]

they can ONLY win w. tidesprout.

our counters are ensnaring bridge, winning first, gilded drake, and whatever yard hate you want to run. But sure, if they know how to play the matchup, its unfavorable.

[Phelix]

Being weak to RIP, as being soft to combo, is definitely the flaw of this build. But I assume he anticipated a low amount of gravehate, which was the case and payed off.

I think the Black version, with access to discard, is really not that soft to combo, compared to other builds. ofc you could be silly like me at GP Amsterdam, and play 13 sideboard Cards in the matchup - then it favorable :P

[snorlaxcom]

So it seems that reanimator of many variants is becoming popular. A big problem I would like to note is Tidespout Tyrant... Probably Ashen Rider as well.

I've been playing Lands for a while, however I have only run into Reanimator a few times. Our game 1 matchup seems to be a really low percentage, and the primary reason for this is because of the above two creatures they choose to reanimate. Our only real maindeck answer to this problem is;

1) Hope they bin their creature on their own turn giving you a turn to transmute into bog

or

2) Run crop rotation and hope that the game 1 you play against them, you have a crop rotation in the opening hand... and they don't have a force of will.

Anyone have any input on this Match-up?

I try to get Orb(needle is usually on maze/karakas) or leave a waste/ghost quarter up to combat Ashen Rider's trigger and save utility lands at the very least. You can still Ghost Quarter lock them out, but only play Tabernacle if you have them with no mana in play and/or lock pieces to prevent them from reanimating Rider again.

The only route to combat an impending Tidespout is to use taxing lock pieces+waste/port to prevent them from casting multiple spells once in play. S&T can bypass chalice, so there may be time to land thalia/sphere or even canonist. With only one Tidespout in the deck, I would personally aggressively mull to chalice on one and hope they don't have him in hand.

Don't wait for g3 to board in art/encht hate. Aside from possibly hitting an animate dead, needle needs to be stopped and some lists use leyline too.

[Eldar]

Yeah I lost my win and in at SCG: Cleveland to Tidespout Tyrant, was close to beating it just punted. I think the only way to beat that guy is mana denial them so that tabernacle locks it out, and when it dies hope they give you an opportunity to bog. That or simply main start main decking a tormod's crypt to transmute for with tolaria west might help.

[snorlaxcom]

Yeah I lost my win and in at SCG: Cleveland to Tidespout Tyrant, was close to beating it just punted. I think the only way to beat that guy is mana denial them so that tabernacle locks it out, and when it dies hope they give you an opportunity to bog. That or simply main start main decking a tormod's crypt to transmute for with tolaria west might help.

Crypt can be countered, needled, bounced(etruth/vensor)and discarded. It is also harder to play through taxing effects, which can be an issue if you can't cast crypt in the same turn it has been tutored up. I always preferred bog because there is only one gy hate card needed in the deck and you can loam it back as soon as you dredge into it too.

Crypt poorly overlaps with tendrils based decks because we want chalice at 0, so that's a nombo right there.

I think the bog should be enough since the board already forces the combo player to "have it". Crypt is too low impact vs other decks to warrant the sb slot, but you can make a case if you predict lots of dredge, tinfins, and reanimator.

[Eldar]

Wasn't going to argue the advantages/disadvantages of crypt with you. I was simply saying that it is a much harder card to play around if it sticks, and against reanimator if crypt sticks its hard for them to deal with. If they waste a needle on it, then they aren't using it to stop your maze of ith or oblivion stone. As it stands myself I run a bog main and a crypt board, but if you are that worried about tyrant then perhaps you should have the crypt in the main if reanimator is that much of a concern. I have been playing lands to great success for a long time and I know the deck in and out. One graveyard hate card is just speculation on your part also. I have played the deck with two before and it is very nice, not always necessary mind you but nice in certain situations.

However if you want to go into the pros/cons of bog then you do need to keep in mind it can get exiled by deathrite while crypt cannot. And honestly I like to play cards that aren't very narrow, thus I currently run a bog main and a crypt board. I do not however run crop rotation, but I plan to do so when I play next weekend at Columbus, I just haven't had the time to tweak the list to accommodate it.

[apple713]

I was brewing a jund lands list myself, but auto-included pfire. The other thing I didn't like was shutting yourself off with chalice at 1. Having recurable removal for planeswalkers is great though. Hexmage can also remove counters from chalice so it's not that bad if you are stalling to assemble the combo.

Blood moon is brutal here, but you dont have space for fetches. My rough mu with lands in general is miracles. Sb seals are great there if they resolve(nice against omnitell too).

The random matches can be annoying vs a midrange junk deck or similar maverick list where they run swords and drs. D&t has many ways to deal with marit. They can block for days with just a mom and flying dork. Flickerwisp and swords can keep up with marit too. Karakas is whatevs vs lands. Although, I'd probably add a pyroclasm to the side or sulfur elemental if that deck is a problem. Mindcensor does a lot of work in this mu.

So definitely add a darkblast md so you can kill flying dudes before they get a sword equiped(d&t or vs clique). Great tricks with thicket.

This looks like a lot of fun to play!

Edit: With so few green sources and do nothing lands I would md a riftstone portal if chasm is contributing so little. Having a tabernacle out also buys time against many aggro decks and is a brutal surprise once crop rotated in. Have you tried this out before?

Some number of dark confidant has always been strong in the sb when the manabase can handle him.


Thanks for the tips.

Currently the deck is gold fishing an average of t2-t3 token generation...mainly turn 2 or turn 4 with some t1's (mox mox depths hexmage victory!)


riftstone portal
darkblast
crippling fatigue
the tabernacle at pendrell vale
cabal pit
flame jab


with entomb these are all possibilities and good ones. Im just trying to figure out what to cut for them. That will come with more testing. Crippling fatigue is getting serious consideration strictly because of DRS. While the recursion theme is not necessary for this deck to function it certainly makes it less consistent and slower.

Dark confidant might be good but not sure what I would bring it in against... Against combo it seems too slow, against control / aggro , they'll have removal since its the only creature in the deck.... other than marit lage

If there was a fling land that might be worth looking into for the sword issues but It's very very hard to find a catch all answer for the problems this deck faces and i feel like improving the consistency / speed is really the best way to handle issues like swords.

***EDIT Flame Jab seems to be a great answer to DRS since it cannot be removed from game between castings. New DRS will have summoning sickness and give you a window to discard 2 lands to kill it. With Punishing fire it can be RFG before it returns to your hand. It also requires grove and gains opponent life. Further more, Flame jab can be used under bloom moon. Not to terribly effective by still something to possibly buy you turns.

I'm seeing the following situation play out quite often. T1 DRS my t1 gamble for flame jab, t2 kill DRS

T1 pass Oppoentn t1 DRS, EOT entomb Flame jab, t2 kill DRS

I think as a 1 of its going to be good.

[HardBrain]

hi, everyone here.
im testing now quite popular jund depths. i made some changes like +1 Cabal Pit in main to figure with small trouble creatures. also i try 1x worm harvest and it works revelant! most players wait with their plan for my Merit but if i am not sure that i can, i kill them by worm army.

but why i post here? i try to find good sideboard against SneakShow deck and agains Unfair Dex like ANT / TES ...anyone test this deck?

For now:
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Nether Spirit - still in testing

2 Crop Rotation
4 Entomb
1 Punishing Fire

4 Faithless Looting
4 Life from the Loam
1 Raven's Crime
4 Smallpox
1 Worm Harvest

4 Mox Diamond

4 Liliana of the Veil

1 Badlands
2 Bayou
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Maze of Ith
1 Taiga
3 Thespian's Stage
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Karakas
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Dark Depths
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Cabal Pit
1 Ghost Quarter

SB: 1 Punishing Fire
SB: 4 Chalice of the Void
SB: 2 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Crop Rotation
SB: 2 Innocent Blood
SB: 1 Ray of Revelation
SB: 1 Ancient Grudge
SB: 3 Ensnaring Bridge

[Ingo]

I think the Black version, with access to discard, is really not that soft to combo, compared to other builds. ofc you could be silly like me at GP Amsterdam, and play 13 sideboard Cards in the matchup - then it favorable :P

Out of curiosity, what were these 13 cards, black discard?

[psilance]

Todd Anderson had an interesting take on this deck. He claimed his reanimate sideboard was really good against other combo decks.
http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/deck_tech_jund_depths_with_tod.html

hi, everyone here.
im testing now quite popular jund depths. i made some changes like +1 Cabal Pit in main to figure with small trouble creatures. also i try 1x worm harvest and it works revelant! most players wait with their plan for my Merit but if i am not sure that i can, i kill them by worm army.

but why i post here? i try to find good sideboard against SneakShow deck and agains Unfair Dex like ANT / TES ...anyone test this deck?

For now:
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Nether Spirit - still in testing

2 Crop Rotation
4 Entomb
1 Punishing Fire

4 Faithless Looting
4 Life from the Loam
1 Raven's Crime
4 Smallpox
1 Worm Harvest

4 Mox Diamond

4 Liliana of the Veil

1 Badlands
2 Bayou
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Maze of Ith
1 Taiga
3 Thespian's Stage
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Karakas
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Dark Depths
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Cabal Pit
1 Ghost Quarter

SB: 1 Punishing Fire
SB: 4 Chalice of the Void
SB: 2 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Crop Rotation
SB: 2 Innocent Blood
SB: 1 Ray of Revelation
SB: 1 Ancient Grudge
SB: 3 Ensnaring Bridge

[psilance]

I also agree with Todd about exploration, however I would like to see that number go up to 4. I played around with Haas' stock list. The lack of Exploration was irresponsible at best.

[TraxDaMax]

I also agree with Todd about exploration, however I would like to see that number go up to 4. I played around with Haas' stock list. The lack of Exploration was irresponsible at best.

I haven't really missed Exploration. Cutting Liliana however seems absurd to me. But having Exploration can help end games faster , so I'll have to try it over Liliana. Still, even though Raven's Crime/Loam gets our opponents hellbent aswell, I really like having options with Liliana.
She also couldn't care less about our graveyard, where Crime/Loam obviously does.
If however you play Exploration, Glacial Chasm should definately be considerd somewhere in the 75 in my opinion.

Edit: Ofcourse I'm talking about Jund Depths. Lands is a different deck.

[Anen]

Can people talk about Jund Depths here (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?27346-Jund-Depths) please?

[snorlaxcom]

Can people talk about Jund Depths here (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?27346-Jund-Depths) please?

^This, please...

My record against bug delver is 1-4-1. It is a frustrating matchup. I have the worst dredging here and the early hymns hurt(vs jund this is never the case). Does anyone have a better record against them to help me out? I always face one or two in my shop and for sure at scg opens. I am working in pfire and grove #4 to combat early hymns and still keep drs off the board.

[kravkenov]

Hi everyone,

Since several weekss, I learn to play with Lands. I managed to do fairly well in my group of friends.
Some times, here and there a just lack black mana. So I add an Underground Sea in place of one of the three Tropical Island (to keep the count of blue mana for Transmute). I also cut Crucible of Worlds for a single Gamble.

What do you think about ?
Here is the 75 :

//Artifact (8)
3 Engineered Explosives
4 Mox Diamond
1 Zuran Orb

//Enchantment (4)
4 Exploration

//Instant (6)
2 Entomb
2 Intuition
2 Punishing Fire

//Sorcery (6)
1 Gamble
4 Life from the Loam
1 Raven's Crime

//Land (36)
1 Academy Ruins
1 Bayou
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Dark Depths
1 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Glacial Chasm
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Karakas
3 Maze of Ith
3 Rishadan Port
1 Taiga
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Thespian's Stage
2 Tolaria West
2 Tranquil Thicket
3 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
1 Windswept Heath

SB: 4 Chalice of the Void
SB: 3 Ensnaring Bridge
SB: 3 Krosan Grip
SB: 4 Sphere of Resistance
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt

[snorlaxcom]

Sea is fine with entomb, but change that heath to a misty before anything else. I wouldn't ever go below three of any card you want to see in the majority of games. Intuition played as an instant demonic tutor has made it way more versatile in this deck. Having at least three copies makes dredging into said card more probable when being forced to dredge aggressively.

[kravkenov]

Sea is fine with entomb, but change that heath to a misty before anything else. I wouldn't ever go below three of any card you want to see in the majority of games. Intuition played as an instant demonic tutor has made it way more versatile in this deck. Having at least three copies makes dredging into said card more probable when being forced to dredge aggressively.

Yes I forget to update my list but yes, I removed that Windswept Heath for a Misty Rainforest (;
The Underground Sea added really help to setup when opening with an Entomb.

With 2 Entomb, I am more confortable to find Life from the Loam or any utility land I need later.
I prefere it over crop rotation for now.

I will stay with the 2 Intuition / 1 Gamble configuration for a while.
Intuition is very great, but a bit slow. Gamble is cheaper and give you anycard (ok, Gamble you any card).
I might go for 3 Intuition / 0 Gamble later. Time will tell.

Thanks for your advises Snorlaxcom :)

[snorlaxcom]

^This, please...

My record against bug delver is 1-4-1. It is a frustrating matchup. I have the worst dredging here and the early hymns hurt(vs jund this is never the case). Does anyone have a better record against them to help me out? I always face one or two in my shop and for sure at scg opens. I am working in pfire and grove #4 to combat early hymns and still keep drs off the board.

Bump. Any help for his mu? All I can do is pfire and grove# 4 without drastically affecting my other percentages. Any play tips here?

[Serbitar]

Bump. Any help for his mu? All I can do is pfire and grove# 4 without drastically affecting my other percentages. Any play tips here?

Maybe you could talk a bit more about what is hurting you in this matchup? I haven't played it a lot, but on paper it looks as if you win if you can kill Deathrite in a timely fashion (so PF #4 should be a good call).


On another note, I wondered if we could steal some tech from Andersons Jund Depths board: I'm talking about the Reanimate plan against combo decks. Of course, you would need a specific MD (with Entombs) but the BUG list a few pages back could do it. Is this plan too unreliable without the digging of Faithless Looting? Is it a bad plan in the first place?

[snorlaxcom]

Bad.

It's a nonrecurable, two card combo weak to countermagic. Besides requiring 4 entomb you also need a manabase to reliably always play reanimate by turn two. Useless if you draw the fatties. Faithless looting, liliana, and smallpox mitigate this drawback in pox decks, so expect to see similar sb plans from that archetype.

Even with twest, access to a single chalice in the opener is hard enough. Adding more factors to a sb plan that might get here and has no other interactions with the deck? No thank you. I'll spend my 6 sb slots elsewhere.

Jund depths would rather have chalice vs combo but can't as they fold to it.

You could reasonbly do this if you wanted to use more cmc1 cards like crop rotation. This cuts Intuition in favor of speed and playing around taxing counters aggressively.

[DragoFireheart]

This deck looks interesting and someday I may try it, but Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon terrify me.

[snorlaxcom]

This deck looks interesting and someday I may try it, but Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon terrify me.

Pfire and mox all day err day.

Sux to be lands g1 if it happens turn 1, but if you know they have moons then playing around them g1 is certainly not as challenging as before. G2 helps with seals, AD, or a reliable kgrip. TNN hate overlaps here too(i.e. EE lock@3).

[ESG]

Bump. Any help for his mu? All I can do is pfire and grove# 4 without drastically affecting my other percentages. Any play tips here?

BUG Delver usually doesn't run any basic lands or Stifle, so Wasteland lock is easy to achieve. The game plan should be Wasteland lock plus an early Tabernacle and/or multiple Mazes to buy you time to find Tabernacle. I've played the matchup from both sides and can say that it should be 60-40 or better in Lands' favor for Game 1. The versions of Lands that focus on Transmute are more reliable at putting this together because the BUG player's countermagic can't disrupt the tutoring. The Entomb versions are the weakest because of the susceptibility to Deathrite Shaman. Punishing Fire + Grove can also be a big problem unless they open with Tarmogoyfs. Maze of Ith stops all BUG's creatures unless they are running Nimble Mongoose. The BURG deck runs Mongeese, but BUG Delver usually doesn't.

[snorlaxcom]

BUG Delver usually doesn't run any basic lands or Stifle, so Wasteland lock is easy to achieve. The game plan should be Wasteland lock plus an early Tabernacle and/or multiple Mazes to buy you time to find Tabernacle. I've played the matchup from both sides and can say that it should be 60-40 or better in Lands' favor for Game 1. The versions of Lands that focus on Transmute are more reliable at putting this together because the BUG player's countermagic can't disrupt the tutoring. The Entomb versions are the weakest because of the susceptibility to Deathrite Shaman. Punishing Fire + Grove can also be a big problem unless they open with Tarmogoyfs. Maze of Ith stops all BUG's creatures unless they are running Nimble Mongoose. The BURG deck runs Mongeese, but BUG Delver usually doesn't.

What is the best sb plan vs bug?
-3Intuition
-1Crime
-1Crucible/chasm

+4 Chalice
+1 Cursed Totem

Recently I have taken out 4 Exploration instead of the 3Intuition + another card. Exploration has honestly been very underwhleming and rarely stays in play between aggressively setting ee@1, a nombo with a chalice set to one, or an instant AD target if I have a loam going. Very low impact in all my games and gets worse when they bring in golgari charm...

[ESG]

What is the best sb plan vs bug?
-3Intuition
-1Crime
-1Crucible/chasm

+4 Chalice
+1 Cursed Totem

Recently I have taken out 4 Exploration instead of the 3Intuition + another card. Exploration has honestly been very underwhleming and rarely stays in play between aggressively setting ee@1, a nombo with a chalice set to one, or an instant AD target if I have a loam going. Very low impact in all my games and gets worse when they bring in golgari charm...

I would cut Manabond before Exploration, but I don't know your exact list. I found one by you on Page 116, so I'm basing my advice on that. I probably would board out O. Stone because BUG Delver doesn't commit much to the board. It's also slow. Engineered Explosives is just better at doing the same thing. If I had access to two Tabernacles, I would board in a second one. I wouldn't board out Crucible.

Edit: Also, if you do board out Explorations, you should board out Ensnaring Bridge, because without them you aren't going to be able to empty your hand fast enough for it to be good in the matchup.

[snorlaxcom]

I would cut Manabond before Exploration, but I don't know your exact list. I found one by you on Page 116, so I'm basing my advice on that. I probably would board out O. Stone because BUG Delver doesn't commit much to the board. It's also slow. Engineered Explosives is just better at doing the same thing. If I had access to two Tabernacles, I would board in a second one. I wouldn't board out Crucible.

Edit: Also, if you do board out Explorations, you should board out Ensnaring Bridge, because without them you aren't going to be able to empty your hand fast enough for it to be good in the matchup.

I like 3 ee main since the gp and TNN decks. Ostone was for TNN and show and tell decks, but it does seem innefficient here. I actually do have another tabernacle, but two are used for tribal dominant formats, no? Bridge was meant to supplement maze and can be recurred back. I had games where drs just exiles my maze when I dredge into them and I have no protection left from 5/6goyfs. Bridge is admitedly not the best answer to thier delvers, but pfire,ee, and any maze usually ties them up(ebridge currently in sb since marit is md). Thanks.

[ESG]

I actually do have another tabernacle, but two are used for tribal dominant formats, no?

Try out two Tabernacles and see if that makes the matchup better for you. BUG Delver doesn't run very many lands, so Tabernacle plus Wasteland is crippling more often than not.

[psilance]

Recently I have taken out 4 Exploration

This is one of the best cards in the deck and helps you establish wasteland lock way earlier/easier. I would advise against ever taking this out. (in my opinion of course)

Depending on the BUG list, some people are not even running GY hate, so you can leave your intuitions in, if that is the case.

[HammerAndSickled]

Hey guys, I'm gonna be running my favorite deck at the SCG open today! It's my Jace build, as follows:Spells:24
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Mox Diamond
1 Zuran Orb
2 Enlightened Tutor
4 Exploration
1 Manabond
4 Life from the Loam
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Intuition
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor


Lands:36
1 Academy Ruins
1 Bayou
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Dark Depths
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Karakas
4 Maze of Ith
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Riftstone Portal
4 Rishadan Port
1 Savannah
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Thespian's Stage
3 Tolaria West
1 Tranquil Thicket
3 Tropical Island
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills


Sideboard:15
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Pithing Needle
1 Cursed Totem
1 Sphere of Resistance
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Trinisphere
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Smokestack
1 Batterskull

I really dislike and disagree with the Jund list (any non blue list really) because they give up so much play an versatility without Intuition, Academy Ruins, and Tolaria West. E-Tutor is also necessary in my opinion for finding all of the important cards in a given matchup while protecting them from discard. With this build of the deck I find that any non-combo matchup is easily winnable with good prediction and tight play, and the combo decks are beatable post board by establishing early Chalices/Spheres and assembling Depths.

[Anen]

Lands on stream round 9 !

[snorlaxcom]

Hey guys, I'm gonna be running my favorite deck at the SCG open today! It's my Jace build, as follows:Spells:24
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Mox Diamond
1 Zuran Orb
2 Enlightened Tutor
4 Exploration
1 Manabond
4 Life from the Loam
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Intuition
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor


Lands:36
1 Academy Ruins
1 Bayou
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Dark Depths
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Karakas
4 Maze of Ith
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Riftstone Portal
4 Rishadan Port
1 Savannah
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Thespian's Stage
3 Tolaria West
1 Tranquil Thicket
3 Tropical Island
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills


Sideboard:15
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Pithing Needle
1 Cursed Totem
1 Sphere of Resistance
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Trinisphere
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Smokestack
1 Batterskull

What happened with this list for the day?

[Lt. Quattro]

What happened with this list for the day?

I hope he made a last minute change of heart and and is now the lands player in the finals.

[Valtrix]

Nope, is somebody else. The player who won said he moved away from intuition builds for quite awhile.

[That nice guy]

http://www.mtgpulse.com/event/15798#221318

Looking at the above list, I was wondering how important running more than 2 Port was. I hardly ever win with its help.

I'd rather have it be faithless loothing, a black splash, or anything else.

Also, I'd like to see more cursed totem in the side. Since the deck can't beat Show and storm.


So yea, I wanna hear reasons to keep 2 ports. you could just copy it with stage BTW.

[snorlaxcom]

http://www.mtgpulse.com/event/15798#221318

Looking at the above list, I was wondering how important Port was. I hardly ever win with its help.

I'd rather have it be faithless loothing, a black splash, or anything else.

Also, I'd like to see more cursed totem in the side. Since the deck can't beat Show and storm.


So yea, I wanna hear reasons to keep port.

Port is better than wasteland in many of my games. Would never go below 4. Do not understand how it doesn't help win games.

Edit: Totem for storm? Tinfins? Bog or the 6 spheres + chalice seem more relevant. Show and tell is 3 mana so manadisruption is a thing here.
Karakas and maze is good enough vs grisel and friends. A 20/20 also kills sneak&show when maxing all the pieces after siding. Deck is solid. Even with less pieces than blue lands, Kurt's list is still no utopilot. Port is a t1/2 play so I would want 4.

Getting ports tapped and wasted at your eot vs d&t is a thing. Got to cut off swords and karakas when marit attacks or prevent a meddling or RiP. You want to hit port when you dredge. Blue lists get cute with it and sometimes run 3 but also dredge into twest and have intuition.

[That nice guy]

Port is better than wasteland in many of my games. Would never go below 4. Do not understand how it doesn't help win games.

Oops, should said more than 2 port.

Incoming Edit.

[HammerAndSickled]

My list ended up going 5-3 and then I dropped cause I was starving and didn't want to play another hour for the chance at $50, considering word going around was that most X-3's wouldn't make it and my tiebreakers blew, since two of my match wins were to no-shows. Congrats, though, to the lands player who won! He is a local that I know quite well and we were all proud of him. His list eschewed control elements for much quicker speed in assembling waste lock, PFires, and the Depths combo. My only change to the deck before the event was cutting the sideboard Batterskull for a Helm of Obedience. Mostly because I just really wanted to get someone off of their own RiP, and the dream came true!

Round 1 was against Esper Stoneblade. I won game 1 pretty handily, assembling wasteland and ghost quarter to lock him out, and I was behind a Maze of Ith for his only threat. He scooped at about the 20 minute mark, which was a good play for him because it left him with plenty of time to close games 2 and 3, but it also gave me the time to see how many basics he ran by looping Ghost Quarter. This can be good info to have for the rest of the match, because you can decide when it's right to ghost quarter over doing something proactive, but since he ran 5 basics I wasn't about to try it again until I was way ahead. I brought in the second EE, Needle, O-Stone, Metamorph, and possibly Smokestack. I didn't bring in the helm because he discarded a few lingering souls and Snapcasters game 1, so it didn't seem like he'd run RiP. Game two I kept a hand with no acceleration effects but double Wasteland and Ensnaring Bridge, and got punished for it by his fetching up basics and landing an early TNN, then countering my Ensnaring Bridge. At one point i get to Metamorph the TNN and attempt a race since i was at a higher life total than him, but he lands Jitte and I can't find EE in time before i fall behind and lose the race. This was unfortunately an omen of things to come: this control version of Lands needs a much better answer to TNN for it to be competitive. Game three I had a good start with a Port and a few Wastelands, but eventually we got to a situation where he had a Stoneforge Mystic in play with five lands on the upkeep and I have Tabernacle. He untaps and moves to draw his card, and out of habit from playing this deck I say "wait, I wanna port you on the upkeep" so I do, he draws and plays Jace, fate seals and passes. I then realize that we missed the Tabernacle trigger so I call the judge. He initially rules that since I missed the trigger, my opponent gets to choose whether it goes on the stack, but I remind him that Tabernacle gives the opponent's creatures an ability which he controls, so the judge refers it to another judge, who rules that we take the default action (kill Stoneforge) and slaps my opponent with a Game Rule Violation warning, which makes me feel like a dick because I always try to be a kind and courteous opponent and I don't wanna scum over my opponent in future rounds because of a common mistake. If we hadn't missed the tabernacle trigger, it's likely he would have paid for Stoneforge (he told me he drew the Jace that turn), I would have been allowed to port a second land after Tabernacle, and then he wouldn't be able to cast Jace, and next turn I would have Wasted and passes with double port up. In testing all Stoneblade variants are great matchups, as they are very weak to resolved Ensnaring Bridge as well as usually having a mana base weak to Port, but things happen!

Round two was a slaughter. I played against someone who I had sat next to yesterday in the Standard event, and I had overheard her telling her opponent she played Merfolk, so I came in expecting another easy matchup. I was wrong. She had insane draws, vial into lord into TNN, vial in Lord. Not a single Mutavault for me to waste, double Force of Will for my EE and Ensnaring Bridge, and a Wasteland for my Maze of Ith keeping me on life support. I board in the second EE, O-Stone, and board out Karakas and Urborg. Game two I have an insane start with double mox, exploration, and Crucible, with a Wasteland in the yard and a Tabernacle for turn two. She starts on Vial, thus ignoring everything I have, getting vial to 3 and slamming TNN. She again had the force for my Bridge and the Waste for my Glacial Chasm, and I died. Again, this matchup is usually favorable, since everything but TNN gets mazed and Tabernacle usually does a lot of work, while EE is super strong at clearing boards and they have no answer to Depths combo, but early TNNs can be brutal.

I lived the dream in round 3, facing RiP miracles. Usually a bad matchup, I played to a situation where I was under RiP and my opponent had Counterbalance, but I was reasonably sure I had run my opponent out of Forces with a crucible and a Jace. So I cast EE at 5, sunburst 2, and counterbalance didn't flip one of the two remaining Forces so it resolves and I blow the RiP and CB. I then waste his Karakas and start to assemble Depths, when he strangely just plays and activates Helm. I'm like "for one?" And he says yes, so I just mill a fetch land and EoT make a 20/20. I think he thought I'd just scoop to helm, forgetting that the RiP had been blown up turns ago or something. I board in Chalice of the Void, Needle, O-Stone, Smokestack, and Helm. I naturally draw the Helm in my opener, alongside a Port and two Chalice. So I hatch the plan in my head to just jam everything I can to bait out counters and hope he casts RiP and walks into it. The plan works, as over the first four turns I throw out Chalice at 1 into Force, Chalice at 1 into Counterspell, Jace into Spell pierce, and my opponent resolves a Counterbalance and a Rest in Peace. With only one card in hand I'm pretty sure the way is cleared for my Helm, and it resolves and I get him good! One of the highlights of the day, by far.

Round 4 I get a default win because my opponent is a no-show (probably having just picked up his second loss and neglecting to officially drop) but round 4 I played against MUD with the 12post manabase. I foolishly keep a hand that has no mana disruption, but a pair of Maze of Ith and a Jace, so it'd be strong against most creature-based decks and have at least a little game against Stoneblade variants. My opponent opens t1 cloudpost, t2 Vesuva, Chalice at 1, t3 some land, Lodestone golem, I play Jace and bounce it, t4 Ancient Tomb, Karn Liberated, exile your Jace. I have absolutely zero outs in my deck so I scoop instantly. I punish him for it games 2 and 3, though. I had insane luck, my openers in both hands had turn 2 waste lock. Game two was mox, mox, exploration, trop, turn 2 Crucible, waste you. He durdles a bit then scoops. Game three he leads on Cloudpost, I go mox, exploration, Urborg, wasteland you, turn 2 Loam. He doesn't scoop this one but the land I discarded to Mox was Tolaria West, which allowed me to transmute for Depths combo by turn 5. He hastily signs the match slips and tells me something like "it takes a special kind of asshole to play that deck" before storming off. Apparently he forgot that he's playing Chalice of the Void and Trinisphere too. We're birds of a feather :P

I get another good matchup round 6 in the form of UWR delver. They don't have Mongoose like RUG or Deathrite like BUG, Stoneforge is slow and weak to Maze, their manabase is awful, and so the only thing you have to worry about is True-Name. I don't remember a ton about this matchup but game 1 involves a lot of Wastelands and Ports, game 2 there was a sweet play where my opponent was down to just a basic Island and had a flipped Delver attacking me, underneath my Tabernacle so he could only pay for Delver and attack me. I have Academy Ruins in hand, so I play out Trinisphere. His only option is to Daze, thus killing his Delver on the upkeep since he no longer controls an island. He replays island and passes, I play Academy Ruins, then he draws Tundra and plays Rest in Peace. I activate academy to save Trinisphere, draw it and slam it on the next turn. So he's stuck on two lands and under a Sphere, but I'm locked out of my graveyard. Over the next few turns I waste the Tundra, and by the time he draws back up to three lands I've got Chalices at 1 and 2. He slams True-Name Nemesis as his only play, but I'm ahead on life and race it with a Tar pit and a Zuran Orb.

Round 6 was a testament to how weak Delver decks are to mana denial, but my round 7 against RUG went quite differently. He won the roll and lead with Mongoose, I lead with Port and pass. He slams Goyf, and over the next few turns I try to wasteland him, hoping he'll miss a land drop and give me some breathing room but he drew at least 5 lands and had countermagic for my bridge and wasteland for my Maze and I succumbed rather quickly to the beatdown. Game two was much different. I pulled ahead early with an exploration effect and then got Bridge down, which he was pretty cold to, but he threatened me quite a bit by drawing Loam and wasting me a few times.Luckily he was tapping out each turn and didn't have force, and I resolved chalices at 1 and 2, which basically was game if he didn't run Krosan Grip. I saw a destructive revelry so I assumed no Grip was present. Unfortunately the chalices also stopped me fon wining the game, since they shut off my Enlightened Tutor and Loam. Eventually I draw Smokestack, and start grinding him out. He concedes to this with about 5 minutes left on the clock. I thought we could establish a draw which would still leave us probable for top 32, but my opponent has a blistering start with a Mongoose and a Goyf, Forced my Chalice at 1, lost my Maze to a Wasteland, and got bolted out. Tough luck but his deck cooperated better than mine.

I intended to drop at x-3, but one of the guys in my carpool was still in a draft so I played another round, since I love legacy and don't get a ton of opportunities to play it competitively. Unfortunately when I sat down my opponent was again absent, so I waited the ten minutes to pick up some extra PWPs before I informed the judge my opponent was gone and marked drop on the slip and made the trek back home. There was only one round to go but my friends were done their draft and we were all hungry so we left.

Overall my deck felt versatile and given enough time I felt sure I could adapt to most threats. True-Name Nemesis continues to be a problem, though on its own you can race it, establish Bridge or Chasm lock, or outlive it with Zuran Orb. The problems occur when it comes out quick, is assisted by lords or equipment, or is backed by sufficient disruption. I didn't get to play against combo, though as you can tell the board is pretty stacked against them and my build gives me unique access to the hate cards with Enlightened Tutor, Intuition, Tolaria West, and Jace. I also think that none of my matches could have been won with Punishing Fire, though my day was remarkably Deathrite-free. And it's not like Red Lands has any additional ways to beat TNN or combo, so since our creature matchups are already good I like this build's ability to hedge it's bets. In conclusion, though Kurt's list obviously got the big W I wouldn't write off the blue build just yet. It has the tools to succeed in the metagame and there's no better feeling than a Jace behind a lock.

[Parax]

"it takes a special kind of asshole to play that deck"

lol as someone who used to play White Stax and now is playing lands, i find this extremely entertaining. Kudos on the finish man.

[snorlaxcom]

lol as someone who used to play White Stax and now is playing lands, i find this extremely entertaining. Kudos on the finish man.

Scg before this one jund opponent ignored my match and was drawing on his life pad. I proceeded to deck him game one with 8minutes left. Got him g2 in less than 5min.

I went 5-3-1 (82nd) and punted my draw vs ant by not having proper mana for lethal tarpit swing and he tendrils me for the draw.

Blue Lands is still a powerful legacy choice especially on the scg circuit. I have been on it since june and the learning curve is pretty steep. Logged in some corner cases and misplays not to be repeated. Siding is still a challenge with this deck.

[Parax]

As someone who is still really green to the deck. i know what you are talking about. I think my meta is really horrible for lands, but playing it in a tough meta (2 ipainter decks) helps me a lot with fighting thru main deck hate. Nothing better than having them go off, and you durdle with academy ruins shenanigans.

[apple713]

In regards to getting blown out by blood moon. Whats yalls best answer?

Im thinking krosan grip. Since the 2 most dominant decks that run it use counterspells. Miracles and sneak and show.

Ive heard

seal of clensing
Golgari charm
Ray of revelation

Are there other options?

[Serbitar]

In regards to getting blown out by blood moon. Whats yalls best answer?


There is also Abrupt Decay of course which shares some merits of Krosan Grip but can be hard to cast once Moon is in play. Another answer would be Oblivion Stone. Generally I'd agree Grip is the best nowadays because of the need to kill moon through counters and being single colored. In the past I liked O-Stone to fight Moon because the decks that played it were the likes of Enchantress and Dragon Stompy.

[Rampart]

In regards to getting blown out by blood moon. Whats yalls best answer?

Im thinking krosan grip. Since the 2 most dominant decks that run it use counterspells. Miracles and sneak and show.

Ive heard

seal of clensing
Golgari charm
Ray of revelation

Are there other options?

I wouldn't forget the main deck option of Engineered Explosives. Most four/five color lists run it as a two of.

[HammerAndSickled]

My answer between main and side is two engineered explosives and an o-stone.

[kravkenov]

In regards to getting blown out by blood moon. Whats yalls best answer?

Im thinking krosan grip. Since the 2 most dominant decks that run it use counterspells. Miracles and sneak and show.

Ive heard

seal of clensing
Golgari charm
Ray of revelation

Are there other options?

Personnaly, I run 3 EE main deck with 3 Tolaria West to get it. It's a real thing to run at least 2 EE.
If you suspect Blood Moon coming soon, you can always drop one preventivly with 3 counter.
Same is true with Mox Diamond, as it will still make your mana color of choice even under Blood Moon :)
Post sideboard, there is also Krosan Grip (always castable with our lone Forest) and Abrupt Decay, but in this case you rely on your Mox to produce black mana.

[Admiral_Arzar]

Went 3-0-1 and top-4'd my local with this list (my adaptation of the recent SCG winning list):

4 Exploration
3 Manabond
4 Gamble
2 Crop Rotation
4 Life from the Loam
4 Punishing Fire

4 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Maze of Ith
4 Rishadan Port
4 Thespian's Stage
4 Wasteland
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Taiga
1 Bayou
1 Forest
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Dark Depths
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Karakas
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Tranquil Thicket

Sideboard
1 Dark Depths
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Sphere of Resistance
2 Crucible of Worlds
3 Krosan Grip
4 Leyline of the Void

Round one I managed to draw against U/B Tezzeret control. I lost the die roll (in fact I lost every die roll that day) and my nut hand folded quite quickly as my opponent had turn one Chalice at one. He eventually conceded an extremely long game one after I set up Tabernacle/multiple Ports/active Grove/Fire/Loam vs. his several Baleful Strix and Jace. Game two he opened with both turn one Chalice and a Leyline of the Void. I eventually lost this game to a swarm of thopter tokens after failing to draw a Grip or Decay for an extended period of time. By then we were in turns so there was no game 3. Round two I beat a homebrew Turboland deck - it played Horn of Greed which led to a board state where each of us had 10+ lands on the battlefield. Round 3 was against Merfolk. I drew Tabernacle in both openers while my opponent stalled at two lands both games for an extended period of time. Needless to say, land-light draws out of aggro decks do not beat Tabernacle + Port and other shenanigans. Round 4 was against BUG Delver. I had to play around Deathrite Shaman a lot this match, but eventually got there both games (with help from sideboard Crucible game two). Tempo decks without basics fold hard to this deck unless they get extremely aggressive draws.

In conclusion, I like this deck but I find it is extremely vulnerable to Chalice. The blue versions are much more resilient due to Intuition, Tolaria West, and maindeck EE. This deck is powerful and at times explosive though, so if your meta is low on Chalice have at it, it'll be a good time.

[Rampart]

In conclusion, I like this deck but I find it is extremely vulnerable to Chalice. The blue versions are much more resilient due to Intuition, Tolaria West, and maindeck EE. This deck is powerful and at times explosive though, so if your meta is low on Chalice have at it, it'll be a good time.

I have been playing this deck for months now and have never lost to a chalice. I have actually casted a bunch of chalices, but not lost to one. I can understand that if your playing game one against an opponent/deck that you don't know and drops a COTV on one and disrupts your hand buts its not bad if you draw a loam and or P-Fire.

[kravkenov]

Hi, last couple of weeks, I played the deck in my local arena. I did pretty well, but fall into serious troubles when my opponents droped Surgical Extraction on my Life from the Loam or Punishing Fire.

Since I already run 2 Entomb maindeck, is it completly wrong to try the Emrakul as a anti-gravehate tech (in sideboard of course). With 2 Tranquil Thicket in backup, there is now 4 ways to save my loam at instant speed.
What do you think about ? Is it something already tested ?

My current sideboard :
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Sphere of Resistance
3 Ensarning Bridge --> go to 2 Esarning Bridge + 1 Emrakul
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Crucible of Worlds

[Rampart]

Hi, last couple of weeks, I played the deck in my local arena. I did pretty well, but fall into serious troubles when my opponents droped Surgical Extraction on my Life from the Loam or Punishing Fire.

Since I already run 2 Entomb maindeck, is it completly wrong to try the Emrakul as a anti-gravehate tech (in sideboard of course). With 2 Tranquil Thicket in backup, there is now 4 ways to save my loam at instant speed.
What do you think about ? Is it something already tested ?

My current sideboard :
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Sphere of Resistance
3 Ensarning Bridge --> go to 2 Esarning Bridge + 1 Emrakul
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Crucible of Worlds

That's not an optimal plan. What happens if you dredge Emrakul? you loose your entire graveyard. If you entomb for Emrakul, you loose your entire graveyard including your loam.

If you want some more graveyard redundancy add an additional Crucible and run two in your board or play an additional tranquil thicket either in your board or maindeck

[Serbitar]

Dark Confidant is also still pretty good vs Surgical Extraction (even more so if there is a Crucible you can find).

As far as I remember, some Dredge lists ran Memory's Journey when Snapcaster-Surgical was the most common gravehate. That's probably awful though (again, you still lose your Loam), and I'd rather play 4 Thickets or a Sensei's Top if I were super worried about Extraction.

[snorlaxcom]

Hi, last couple of weeks, I played the deck in my local arena. I did pretty well, but fall into serious troubles when my opponents droped Surgical Extraction on my Life from the Loam or Punishing Fire.

Since I already run 2 Entomb maindeck, is it completly wrong to try the Emrakul as a anti-gravehate tech (in sideboard of course). With 2 Tranquil Thicket in backup, there is now 4 ways to save my loam at instant speed.
What do you think about ? Is it something already tested ?

My current sideboard :
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Sphere of Resistance
3 Ensarning Bridge --> go to 2 Esarning Bridge + 1 Emrakul
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Crucible of Worlds

You might as well crypt yourself or use gaea's blessing.

But srsly a couple options here;
Chalice@1
Trinisphere
Crucible
Bob
Mo thicket
Stream of Conciousness
Krosan Reclamation
Memory's Journey

Chalice + crucible/bob is usually enough but if your meta likes surgicals then try those instants out. Without chalice@1 at least Pfire should be fine as long as you return it with two groves out which forces them to have double surgical in hand. The sb is already tight so use those slots according to the meta. I see more RiP so prob up the grip count.

If you reeeeeally wanted to you could use your own surgicals and fail to find in response.

[kravkenov]

I'd rather play 4 Thickets or a Sensei's Top if I were super worried about Extraction.


You might as well crypt yourself or use gaea's blessing.

Ha thank you, that is a great secret tech. Didn't think to Crypt myself in response of Surgical.
I added a Tranquil Thicket too, then post sideboard there are 3 copy available instead of 2.

I was looking for a "Noxious Revival with flashback", but fail to find.
I think Krosan Reclamation just fit my expectations :)

With all your explications, Emrakul is clearly not the way to go.

thanks!

[plus_ten]

save my loam at instant

Anyway, an old tech I used to run is 'Pull from eternity', which allows you to bring your loam from Exile back to your graveyard after the fact.

The new Depth-stage tech dodges the yard quite well, so I have moved away from an anti-hate-heavy board to a combo-hate-heavy board.

PS. I play a control heavy packing Enlightened-Rotation-Entomb. Still brewing, I haven't logged into the source in 3~4 years and likewise, haven't played legacy during that time... :\

[lambert101]

Does anyone have a good introduction for the Kurt Spies GR combo lands? That seems like my style of control with a combo finish. I am particular interest in rationale behind the deck design because I love the 4 ports, 4 waste, and 4 maze.

[Tyrio]

Does anyone have a good introduction for the Kurt Spies GR combo lands? That seems like my style of control with a combo finish. I am particular interest in rationale behind the deck design because I love the 4 ports, 4 waste, and 4 maze.

It's simply the 4/5C Lands shell without the artifact package and with two sets of 1 mana tutors instead. It has the potential to free Momma Lage very quickly (t2-4) and plays very well through traditional graveyard hate since it can find the combo pieces without relying on Loam. In the downtime between Marit Lage summons you can still play the traditional mana denial/lands control game with Ports, Wastes, Punishing Grove and Maze. Its Crop Rotations can be quite powerful with 1-ofs like Glacial Chasm, Karakas, Bojuka Bog and Tabernacle at instant speed.

Downsides to the deck are that it is quite inflexible compared to Intuition lists. It has few outs to things like Blood Moon, Ensnaring Bridge and creatures like True-Name Nemesis and Wild Mongoose. If your first Crop Rotation get's countered or your combo gets disrupted by Karakas or Wasteland, it's very difficult to defend yourself against the aforementioned men. True Name Nemesis being everywhere now can make games very rough.

[KntrellCL]

I need an advice on this....

Im having a big tournament on sunday and always plays Lands. But the rise of combo here is abysmal.... so I was thinking... which decks are good against combo in general? MUD (Staxs) and Death n Taxes... since this decks are the most similar to lands, may be we could play lands on game 1 and turn into a good stax deck game 2...

My deck list for first game:

Punishing Lands

Lands [Game 1]

Engine [8]
4 Life from the Loam
3 Intuition
1 Crucible of Worlds

Acceleration[9]
4 Exploration
1 Manabond
4 Mox Diamond

Removal [6]
3 Punishing Fire
1 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Engineered Explosives

Assist [1]
1 Zuran Orb


Control Lands [13]
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
4 Maze of Ith
1 Ghost Quarter

Mana Lands [12]
2 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Tropical Island
2 Taiga
1 Savannah
1 Forest
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Windswept Heath
1 Misty Rainforest

Assist Lands [10]
2 Tranquil Thicket
3 Tolaria West
1 Glacial Chasm
2 Karakas
1 Academy Ruins
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

Combo Lands [2]
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Dark Depths


SB// [15]
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Chalice of the Void


Stax Lands [Game 2]

Stax Lands [18]
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
1 Dark Depths
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Ghost Quarter
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
4 Maze of Ith
2 Karakas

Assist [4]
1 Academy Ruins
2 Tranquil Thicket
1 Glacial Chasm

Mana Lands [12]
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs
3 Tropical Island
2 Taiga
1 Savannah
1 Forest
2 Grove of the Burnwillows

Staxs Core [23]
3 Thorn of Amethyst
4 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Mox Diamond
2 Engineered Explosives

Pseudo Crucible [4]
4 Life from the Loam

Having all the good stuff against combo and yet having a clock isnt a bad idea... Also, this SB package helps against control too (miracles, etc) playing thalia as a beater, port waste chalice and phyrexian against jace or other stuff.... I really want it to play a 2nd Karakas, but since none of my cards on sb were good on main deck... I put the 2nd kakaras main, helping the match against show n tell and making my second game more consistent.


I have a lot of faith on this since I have been losing JUST against combo... all other fair decks are pretty much controlled and I have always played something like 3 Thalia, 4 Bobs, 4 Krosan Grip, 4 Chalice of the Void.

Other cards to consider: Spirit of Laberynth, Smokestack, Lodestone Golem....

Please, Let me know your opinion guys!

[kravkenov]

I need an advice on this....

[...] and turn into a good stax deck game 2...

[...] Other cards to consider: Spirit of Laberynth, Smokestack, Lodestone Golem....

Please, Let me know your opinion guys!
This is an interesting point of view, but imo there are better sideboard options :

Sphere of Resistance > Thalia/Thorn of Amethyst
Sphere is much more resiliant and tax everything, not just non-creature.

Pithing Needle > Phyrexian Revoker
Same reason, much more resiliant

These creatures and Taxes effects will always hurt our game plan (Punishing Fire, Life from the Loam, Explosive) while being sometime useless against others creatures and less powerful.

Smokestack is a real killer against lot of deck.
Just land it and let it doing its job.

My sideboard for reference :

4 Chalice
3 Sphere of Resistance
3 Smokestack
1 Crucible of Worlds
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Tormod's Crypt

[KntrellCL]

This is an interesting point of view, but imo there are better sideboard options :

Sphere of Resistance > Thalia/Thorn of Amethyst
Sphere is much more resiliant and tax everything, not just non-creature.

Pithing Needle > Phyrexian Revoker
Same reason, much more resiliant

These creatures and Taxes effects will always hurt our game plan (Punishing Fire, Life from the Loam, Explosive) while being sometime useless against others creatures and less powerful.

Smokestack is a real killer against lot of deck.
Just land it and let it doing its job.

My sideboard for reference :

4 Chalice
3 Sphere of Resistance
3 Smokestack
1 Crucible of Worlds
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Tormod's Crypt

Why did i used thalia and revoker? Because they are a clock also... you cant win only with needle or sphere without a real clock.

Also, it doenst matter if you cant tax creatures because you want this cards against combo... i wouldnt use sphere of resistance or needle against aggro since my entire main deck is better against aggro. You just want this cards against combo.

I give it a thought on smokestack, but being a 4 drop that doesnt do anything until next turn its only good against miracles or something like that.

[Phelix]

Im liking Canonist more and more, over thalia. The accumulation of tax effects, and waste-effects in your deck are good, but id probably cut at least one thalia for another canonist. against the bad matchups - it stops them Cold, even if we are not doing so great at the mana denial plan.

[kravkenov]

Why did i used thalia and revoker? Because they are a clock also... you cant win only with needle or sphere without a real clock.

vs combo, I still think Sphere of Resistance is doing a better job than Thalia.
You can Entomb/Intuition/Gamble and recur it with Academy Ruins, not Thalia.
Plus splashing W just for Thalia... Black give you Entomb, Raven's Crime and a strong clock, Creeping Tar Pit.

Smokestack is king against decks that run in looong/laaate game (UW Miracle and co).

[KntrellCL]

vs combo, I still think Sphere of Resistance is doing a better job than Thalia.
You can Entomb/Intuition/Gamble and recur it with Academy Ruins, not Thalia.
Plus splashing W just for Thalia... Black give you Entomb, Raven's Crime and a strong clock, Creeping Tar Pit.

Smokestack is king against decks that run in looong/laaate game (UW Miracle and co).

Do you think against combo you will recur a sphere? Your critical turn is max on turn 3. Any card to attack is good... either thalia or tar pit. But cards like entomb or ravens crime are weak against drs. Also, if you think thalia is bad because you cant recur it... why our deck has always run 4 bobs on sb? Because our strategy changes on game 2... you cant dredge agressively to protect your gy and good pieces...

I think some of you needs to think more on what match up we need to sideboard really... you need creatures for game 2 or you wont going to win against combo... period...

[Rampart]

Do you think against combo you will recur a sphere? Your critical turn is max on turn 3. Any card to attack is good... either thalia or tar pit. But cards like entomb or ravens crime are weak against drs. Also, if you think thalia is bad because you cant recur it... why our deck has always run 4 bobs on sb? Because our strategy changes on game 2... you cant dredge agressively to protect your gy and good pieces...

I think some of you needs to think more on what match up we need to sideboard really... you need creatures for game 2 or you wont going to win against combo... period...

Thank you for writing this post. Now I don't have to write it

[snorlaxcom]

Thank you for writing this post. Now I don't have to write it

^This.

[Anen]

Can I also quote your post KntrellCL? Because I fully agree with it.

[kravkenov]

Kntrell, imo Thalia is better than Sphere if your combo-player need they life points to combo-off. At first, I see Reanimator and TES, not that much.
I spoke about recurring Sphere because in certains situations, this might save you games (not in the early turns, of course...). No need to take a higher air...
Can you list the combo-deck you are facing, so we can speak about something more concret that just "combo" ?

On your others cards to consider,
Spirit of Laberynth : keep in mine it dosent work with Ad Nauseam and Dark Confidant as they reveal, not draw cards.

[KntrellCL]

Mark, any good ant player will sideboard in abrupt decay and bouncing effects, so you need to disrupt at the same time of attacking their lives... this is the key against combo. Im playing two karakas main against reanimator and sneak attack. Thalia is just nuts against reanimator because all their reanimation spells are sorcery speed... cards like bojuka bog wont help against reanimator, where chalice does... you can tap their black mana all day long and beat them to death hopelly.

Karakas is one of my favorites cards on the deck... its turn off emrakul and griselbrand and revoker turns off sneak and griselbrand... if you have revoker maze and karakas... thats all for them..

[kravkenov]

I will start as if you dont want to go 5 colors, so playing Thalia dont allow you to run Creeping Tar Pit.
So, your main combo matchups are Storm (let say ANT and TES, because DDFT isnt that populare) and Sneak Show.

> Against ANT, life points dosent matter that much. they can combo off even at very low life.
Here, Thalia/Revoker arnt really better or worse than Sphere/Pithing Needle + Creeping.
In a lack of Abrupt Decay, a wired ANT play might be an first taxed Grap shot, then few setup and eventually a kill turn.

> TES is muuuch more life dependant. Thalia/Revoker are going to hurt very hard, much more than Creeping.

> Sneak Show isnt that much life dependant. Thalia/Sphere and Revoker/Needle are just doing the same job.
But it give you a blocker, just in case. Sphere/Needle dont.

In these three scenari, once you take the advantage with taxes-effect or Needle-effect, it dosent really matter if it come from Thalia/Revoker or Sphere/Pithing Needle. In both case, you will have the time to seek for your beater (in my case Creeping Tar Pit).

Now, does Thalia/Revoker worth the lose of a main Creeping Tar Pit, plus being weak to all creatures removal and direct damage... Even if combo-deck dont usually run these cards. On the other hand you dont have to invest time to find a beater...


Overall, your game 2 strategy dosent really change from mine, only your tools.
But at the time, I dont want to cut Creeping Tar Pit, so I wont play white.


[...] Cards like Entomb or Raven's Crime are weak against DRS.
Absolutly, in my local, there is only three decks that play DRS (2 Jund, 1 home-made Junk).
So I still play Entomb, Raven's Crime and Creeping Tar Pit, who always shine.


Please, Let me know your opinion guys!
Imo cutting main-black for sideboard-white turn the deck a bit weaker (because no Creeping Tar Pit) while adding some good answers with bodies to your worse matchups.
With more DRS than me, this could be the way to go as keeping black just for one man-land and no Dark Confidant might be wrong.

[KntrellCL]

I do love creeping tar pit and have won plenty of games smashing them 3 per turn, but creeping was put on the first place to get rid off planeswalker, which punishing fire also does. My manland now is dark depths.

The only reason I cut B from my list was to make a more consistent game 2 deck (the second karakas was my 16nd sb card).

One thing i cant agree with you is the fact that sphere isnt thalia and needle isnt revoker, the time investing to find creeping tar pit (which is almost a 4 drop since it came to play tapped) is just too slow comparing to landing beaters with hate... needle is good in aggro decks but with no pressure they will find answer on your eot and win on their turn. Not even ensnaring bridge is a good answer to sneak attack, they will bounce it and win at some point.

[snorlaxcom]

I do love creeping tar pit and have won plenty of games smashing them 3 per turn, but creeping was put on the first place to get rid off planeswalker, which punishing fire also does. My manland now is dark depths.

The only reason I cut B from my list was to make a more consistent game 2 deck (the second karakas was my 16nd sb card).

One thing i cant agree with you is the fact that sphere isnt thalia and needle isnt revoker, the time investing to find creeping tar pit (which is almost a 4 drop since it came to play tapped) is just too slow comparing to landing beaters with hate... needle is good in aggro decks but with no pressure they will find answer on your eot and win on their turn. Not even ensnaring bridge is a good answer to sneak attack, they will bounce it and win at some point.

Do you replace the bayou with a savannah?

[KntrellCL]

Do you replace the bayou with a savannah?

Yes... I cut 1 bayou... went back to 3 fetchs (I was using 4 as I was playing 5 colores) cut bog and tar pit (0.5 B sources)

[kravkenov]

KntrellCL, while you are going white for Thalia, isnt Meddling Mage just better than Revoker in your Game 2 plan ?
Ou it is too much colored-mana (UW).

[snorlaxcom]

Yes... I cut 1 bayou... went back to 3 fetchs (I was using 4 as I was playing 5 colores) cut bog and tar pit (0.5 B sources)

I may do the same and add a riftstone because I am facing too many moon decks where I should otherwise take g1.

[KntrellCL]

KntrellCL, while you are going white for Thalia, isnt Meddling Mage just better than Revoker in your Game 2 plan ?
Ou it is too much colored-mana (UW).

Meddling mage soubds really good, but i should tweak the manabase a little (going up to 4 fetchs) because i dont think i can hit uw consistently right now



I may do the same and add a riftstone because I am facing too many moon decks where I should otherwise take g1.

Thats what you should do if there are too many moon effects in your meta...

Also, you may want 4 krosan grips in the sb and play 4 fetchs so you can get your forest out as quickly as possible.

[Raystar]

Hello folks, I won my LGS tournament yesterday with the the following:

Spells:24
4 Mox Diamond
3 Crop Rotation
4 Entomb
4 Exploration
1 Manabond
4 Life from the Loam
4 Punishing Fire

Lands:36
2 Bayou
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Dark Depths
1 Forest
1 Glacial Chasm
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Karakas
3 Maze of Ith
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Rishadan Port
2 Taiga
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
4 Thespian's Stage
2 Tranquil Thicket
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard:15
2 Dark Depths
4 Sphere of Resistance
3 Spirit of the Labyrinth
3 Thorn of Amethyst
3 Krosan Grip

We had 4 turns of Swiss and top 4, a quick overview of my match ups is:

1st turn TNN Bant: 2-0 - a very unfair match-up, he really didn't have a chance against denial, PF and the combo.
2nd turn Esper Blade with TNN: 2-0 - another very unfair match with my opponent never able to create any issue.
3rd turn Team America (the guy that won a huge tournament in December with the same deck): 2-1 - I didn't get in the match during game 1 with the deck refusing to provide any support. G2 was very close (he got a nut draw) and G3 was the typical slaughter against blue based aggro-control
4th turn Reanimator: ID
Semifinal UWR Delver with TNN: 2-1 - G1 and G3 were a total blow-out while he managed to win G2 with me a turn short to win.
I split the final prize against Reanimator and got the win.

I'm very happy with the list, it is extremely consistent and very we'll placed against the actual aggro-control meta. It is a "combo" version but it plays the control game very consistently and doesn't tax your stamina between matches (important for me...I'm too old for this game ;) )

[fimo]

@Raystar: why are you not playing 1 savannah if you are planning to sideboard spirit of the labitinth? why playing krosan grip over abrupt decay if you are playing black anyway?

I am very attracted by the more comboish version of lands that won the last starcity open (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=62811). There are few choices that I don't get though, so I hope that some of you land-lovers can give me some insights:

- 2 dark depths in the SB, for what MU? I guess that you board these in against combo decks that you want to race. But is it really a good idea? isn' t it better just to board extra hate? Drawing 2 dark depths is so akward.

- Tutor package. Kurt Speiss goes for 4 gamble, 3 crop rotation. I like both of those choices actually. However I wonder why nobody plays living wish/burning wish. Both wishes find the combo pieces (scapeshift is a card) and they offer a great versatility in answering all sort of threats.

- only one win condition. Isn' t too dangerous to play dark depths as the only wincon? punishing fire doesn t count :). Playing wishes can open to alternative win conditions in case dark depths is no viable anymore

[Philipp2293]

Congratz on the finish!

Honestly I'm also a bit concerned about the lack of fetchable white sources to support spirit ;) I'm pretty set on playing Miracles at GP Paris, but I think I'll bring some version of Lands for fun on Friday Grinders (already got my 2 byes).

@Fimo:

-Krosan Grip/Abrupt Decay Tradeoff: I think this is a meta question. If you're playing Delver/TA decks all day I wouldn't mind having some extra removal in the SB, but on the other hand Decay doesn't hit Sneak Attack, Omniscience, Dream Halls. (Leyline of the Void, but this doesn't really see play=.

- The 2 Depths are not only for increasing your clock, but also for decks running massive GY-Hate, so that you have more options of naturally assembling your combo while completely ignoring the grave.

-Tutor Package: You also have to keep in mind that running Wishes decreases your SB Space, which is absolutely needed to adress akward MUs (mainly combo) and hate. Also, the number of potencial targets for wishes is limited by SB Space anyway, while Gamble and Crop Rotation are basically Demonic Tutor for most of your Deck. Also, Crop Rotation enables instant speed wins out of nowhere (and is another way to save Punishing Fire from a DRS activation, even thought that's a bit awkward if you have to handle it this way)

Anybody rocking Lands at Paris? :smile:

[Lt. Quattro]

Hello folks, I won my LGS tournament yesterday with the the following:

Spells:24
4 Mox Diamond
3 Crop Rotation
4 Entomb
4 Exploration
1 Manabond
4 Life from the Loam
4 Punishing Fire

Lands:36
2 Bayou
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Dark Depths
1 Forest
1 Glacial Chasm
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Karakas
3 Maze of Ith
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Rishadan Port
2 Taiga
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
4 Thespian's Stage
2 Tranquil Thicket
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard:15
2 Dark Depths
4 Sphere of Resistance
3 Spirit of the Labyrinth
3 Thorn of Amethyst
3 Krosan Grip

We had 4 turns of Swiss and top 4, a quick overview of my match ups is:

1st turn TNN Bant: 2-0 - a very unfair match-up, he really didn't have a chance against denial, PF and the combo.
2nd turn Esper Blade with TNN: 2-0 - another very unfair match with my opponent never able to create any issue.
3rd turn Team America (the guy that won a huge tournament in December with the same deck): 2-1 - I didn't get in the match during game 1 with the deck refusing to provide any support. G2 was very close (he got a nut draw) and G3 was the typical slaughter against blue based aggro-control
4th turn Reanimator: ID
Semifinal UWR Delver with TNN: 2-1 - G1 and G3 were a total blow-out while he managed to win G2 with me a turn short to win.
I split the final prize against Reanimator and got the win.

I'm very happy with the list, it is extremely consistent and very we'll placed against the actual aggro-control meta. It is a "combo" version but it plays the control game very consistently and doesn't tax your stamina between matches (important for me...I'm too old for this game ;) )

Grats on the finish, did any of those TNN decks playing white play rest in peace?

[Raystar]

Grats on the finish, did any of those TNN decks playing white play rest in peace?

Of course and they all kept hands that were non-optimal containing RiP...in the meanwhile I would combo out with 4 Stages, 4 DD and 3 CR :)

Regarding the Savannah: you are totally right, but I was so scared of removing a Taiga or a Bayou that I decided to run the risk...my reasoning was that I would go for a tax effect and that would build me enough time to find W if needed.

Maybe (and it is a BIG maybe) I could exchange the 4th Entomb for a Savannah...

[Raystar]

- Tutor package. Kurt Speiss goes for 4 gamble, 3 crop rotation. I like both of those choices actually. However I wonder why nobody plays living wish/burning wish. Both wishes find the combo pieces (scapeshift is a card) and they offer a great versatility in answering all sort of threats.

- only one win condition. Isn' t too dangerous to play dark depths as the only wincon? punishing fire doesn t count :). Playing wishes can open to alternative win conditions in case dark depths is no viable anymore

Tutor package: I think that the only real drawback of running Entomb instead of Gamble is having to splash back. Entomb is superior to Gamble in many ways and I have always had problems in the past with the variance induced by Gamble. With Entomb you are in control and you can play the stack in your favor.

Win condition: Punishing Fires counts. A lot. Very often you are denied the combo for some reason and you switch completely to the control plan: your denial is amazing and if you manage to keep up you can very quickly put yourself in a situation where you are firing 2 or 3 PF each turn. Entomb is very good at finding PF and all the aggro-control meta is so fragile in terms of mana bases that this scenario is a lot more feasible than you think :) The old Lands lists played BW and they did well at the time, unfortunately the pace of an actual Legacy game is such that you can't afford to loose one of your early turns of the game to BW. The actual Lands lists are doing goo because they are fast as hell, they play cheap tutors and accelerates quickly into the combo.

I actually tried a "full green" list with crop rotations and living whishes...very cute, but also very slow. It had the problems of Gamble (sorcery, clunky) but it was slower...

I also strongly believe that we don't need Dark Confidant in the SB: TNN and friends are fast and unstoppable, we either play the EE route or we decide that we don't care and go for the combo as quickly as possible. I'm convinced that the second route is the right one, it also opens up 3 (THREE!!!!!) slots in the SB to possibly improve our combo match-ups.

[spike7777]

Hello folks, I won my LGS tournament yesterday with the the following:

Spells:24
4 Mox Diamond
3 Crop Rotation
4 Entomb
4 Exploration
1 Manabond
4 Life from the Loam
4 Punishing Fire

Lands:36
2 Bayou
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Dark Depths
1 Forest
1 Glacial Chasm
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Karakas
3 Maze of Ith
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Rishadan Port
2 Taiga
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
4 Thespian's Stage
2 Tranquil Thicket
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard:15
2 Dark Depths
4 Sphere of Resistance
3 Spirit of the Labyrinth
3 Thorn of Amethyst
3 Krosan Grip

We had 4 turns of Swiss and top 4, a quick overview of my match ups is:

1st turn TNN Bant: 2-0 - a very unfair match-up, he really didn't have a chance against denial, PF and the combo.
2nd turn Esper Blade with TNN: 2-0 - another very unfair match with my opponent never able to create any issue.
3rd turn Team America (the guy that won a huge tournament in December with the same deck): 2-1 - I didn't get in the match during game 1 with the deck refusing to provide any support. G2 was very close (he got a nut draw) and G3 was the typical slaughter against blue based aggro-control
4th turn Reanimator: ID
Semifinal UWR Delver with TNN: 2-1 - G1 and G3 were a total blow-out while he managed to win G2 with me a turn short to win.
I split the final prize against Reanimator and got the win.

I'm very happy with the list, it is extremely consistent and very we'll placed against the actual aggro-control meta. It is a "combo" version but it plays the control game very consistently and doesn't tax your stamina between matches (important for me...I'm too old for this game ;) )

This list is very close to the one I have been evolving to. Do you ever want a second manabond or any number of gambles? I've been playing 2 manabond and 3 gambles in the place of port, but I have been debating going to your list, more or less.

[Raystar]

This list is very close to the one I have been evolving to. Do you ever want a second manabond or any number of gambles? I've been playing 2 manabond and 3 gambles in the place of port, but I have been debating going to your list, more or less.

I would love to have a second manabond but the list is very tight and it has been very difficult for me to fit another. My feeling is that between 4 entombs and 3 crop rotations there is enough tutoring to make the deck work very efficiently and you can't afford to hinder your denial strategy by removing any number of ports.

As I said, I prefer to have to splash for B than to have to play gamble, I hate variance and gamble is too much of a variance card.

[dafrk3in]

As I said, I prefer to have to splash for B than to have to play gamble, I hate variance and gamble is too much of a variance card.

Gamble is less reliable but more versatile. I've used it plenty of times to get a card into my hand when it would've been useless in my graveyard (e.g. Manabond, Krosan Grip, Sphere of Resistance). Also, sometimes it's preferable for Loam to land in your hand rather than your graveyard. Finally, you're adding a bit of variance by adding a color to your deck. There are going to be some games where you want to cast Entomb but you only have a Taiga or a Grove.

[Serbitar]

To add, I also Gamble for combo pieces without having Loam every now and then. But the biggest downsides of Entomb are color issues and not being able to tutor Exploration/Manabond.

[Raystar]

@Gamble vs. Entomb: all very true guys. I still prefer the consistency that Entomb brings, G1 you need Loam or PF and Entomb is the master at that, especially against DRS or in response to items on the stack. I have been burned too many times by Gamble's variance especially when the game is advanced and you don't have a ton of cards in your hand anymore.

I also think that there is a very significant difference in the type of variance induced by using Gamble or splashing B for Entomb: while Gamble induces a totally random effect (only mitigated by the fact that you may not be concerned in discarding Loam or PF, but in that case Entomb is more efficient), you have ways to manage the inclusion of B in many fashions (fetch lands, Moxes, mulliganing). I may be mistaken but I prefer to try and guide the deck towards producing the B I need than to discard what I just tutored getting an auto-generated 2 for 0.

I'm also not very keen in tutoring for exploration/manabond, the risk of fizzling that play is so high (unless you are playing against a deck that is not giving you any pressure but that is probably a win anyway) that I would never make it.

All of this said we are probably looking at a very close match between the two cards and it may just boil down to playing preference and feeling. I personally prefer to be in control of the outcome of my line of play and sacrifice a bit of versatility against the risk of just losing to variance.

[junitor]

i rule the earth with this deck list:

slayer's stronghold , ancient tomb and shizo, death house FTW!!

http://deckstats.net/decks/6749/61994-my-jund-lands-deck?saved=1&lng=en

Lands (34)
1 Barren Moor Land
1 Bayou Land - Swamp Forest
1 Cabal Pit
3 Dark Depths
1 Forest
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
1 Karakas Legendary Land
3 Rishadan Port Land
2 Wooded Foothills Land
1 Glacial Chasm Land
1 Maze of Ith Land
1 Ancient Tomb Land
1 Swamp Basic Land - Swamp
2 Taiga Land - Mountain Forest
3 Thespian's Stage Land
1 Slayers' Stronghold Land
1 Tranquil Thicket Land
2 Verdant Catacombs Land
4 Wasteland Land

Spells (26)
3 Crop Rotation Instant
3 Entomb Instant
4 Exploration Enchantment
4 Gamble Sorcery
3 Life from the Loam Sorcery
3 Manabond Enchantment
4 Mox Diamond Artifact
2 Punishing Fire Instant

Creatures (1)
1 Nether Spirit Creature - Spirit

61 Cards

Sideboard (15)
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Chains of Mephistopheles
1 Maze of Ith
1 Duplicant
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Crop Rotation
1 Coffin Purge
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Tower of the Magistrate
2 Pithing Needle
15 Cards

still wondering if i should take out nether spirit.

[snorlaxcom]

i rule the earth with this deck list:

slayer's stronghold , ancient tomb and shizo, death house FTW!!

http://deckstats.net/decks/6749/61994-my-jund-lands-deck?saved=1&lng=en

Lands (34)
1 Barren Moor Land
1 Bayou Land - Swamp Forest
1 Cabal Pit
3 Dark Depths
1 Forest
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
1 Karakas Legendary Land
3 Rishadan Port Land
2 Wooded Foothills Land
1 Glacial Chasm Land
1 Maze of Ith Land
1 Ancient Tomb Land
1 Swamp Basic Land - Swamp
2 Taiga Land - Mountain Forest
3 Thespian's Stage Land
1 Slayers' Stronghold Land
1 Tranquil Thicket Land
2 Verdant Catacombs Land
4 Wasteland Land

Spells (26)
3 Crop Rotation Instant
3 Entomb Instant
4 Exploration Enchantment
4 Gamble Sorcery
3 Life from the Loam Sorcery
3 Manabond Enchantment
4 Mox Diamond Artifact
2 Punishing Fire Instant

Creatures (1)
1 Nether Spirit Creature - Spirit

61 Cards

Sideboard (15)
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Chains of Mephistopheles
1 Maze of Ith
1 Duplicant
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Crop Rotation
1 Coffin Purge
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Tower of the Magistrate
2 Pithing Needle
15 Cards

still wondering if i should take out nether spirit.

Chalice at 1 rules this.

Yes, take out spirit for maze or for 60 cards. Tower is a wasted sb slot, just use maze. Foothills makes no sense when it can't get the basic swamp.

EDIT: missing port #4

[junitor]

Chalice at 1 rules this.

Yes, take out spirit for maze or for 60 cards. Tower is a wasted sb slot, just use maze. Foothills makes no sense when it can't get the basic swamp.

EDIT: missing port #4


thanks for the advise, now, i shall rule the universe with the new deck list.

Lands (35)
1 Barren Moor Land
1 Bayou Land - Swamp Forest
1 Cabal Pit
3 Dark Depths
1 Forest
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
1 Karakas Legendary Land
4 Rishadan Port Land
1 Glacial Chasm Land
1 Maze of Ith Land
1 Ancient Tomb Land
1 Swamp Basic Land - Swamp
2 Taiga Land - Mountain Forest
3 Thespian's Stage Land
1 Slayers' Stronghold Land
1 Tranquil Thicket Land
4 Verdant Catacombs Land
4 Wasteland Land

Spells (26)
3 Crop Rotation Instant
3 Entomb Instant
4 Exploration Enchantment
4 Gamble Sorcery
3 Life from the Loam Sorcery
3 Manabond Enchantment
4 Mox Diamond Artifact
2 Punishing Fire Instant

61 Cards

Sideboard (15)
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Chains of Mephistopheles
2 Maze of Ith
1 Duplicant
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Crop Rotation
1 Coffin Purge
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Pernicious Deed
2 Pithing Needle
15 Cards

[snorlaxcom]

Haha, yes. Forget spaghetti monster. Marit rules all!

[Phelix]

http://mtgpulse.com/event/15923#223204


Sooo we get another Hero making top with a classic lands build, interesting after seeing some varations in the past months (gamble and poxlands).

Instant [6]
3 Intuition
3 Punishing Fire

Sorcery [4]
4 Life from the Loam

Artifact [10]
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Mox Diamond
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Zuran Orb

Enchantment [5]
4 Exploration
1 Manabond

Land [36]
1 Forest
1 Bayou
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Glacial Chasm
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Maze of Ith
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Rishadan Port
1 Taiga
1 Thespian's Stage
3 Tolaria West
3 Tranquil Thicket
3 Tropical Island
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Academy Ruins
1 Karakas
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Dark Depths

61 cards


Sideboard:
2 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Dark Confidant
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Krosan Grip
2 Swan Song
1 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Sphere of Resistance

[Phelix]

note the absence of white, and the combo hate in the board that comes with it.

and the addition of swan song in the board - a card i have never tested for this deck.

also bojuka bog is maindecked.

what do you guys think of this list?

[Serbitar]

Despite having become more of a Gamble-Lands proponent, I really like that list (other than 61 cards; maybe cut MD Crucible or MD Bog?). I think it is wise to somewhat focus the combo hate towards to most likely matchup (here: Sneak and Show).

[Phelix]

i dont face sneak show much at all here in nothern europe (or at BoM) for some odd reason, but ANT and Omni quite prevalent, the spheres are good against them, but unimpressive vs sneakshow.


if i wanted to fight sneakshow, id play the third bridge in the sb, and maybe even pithing needle/second karakas/gilded drake ala GP Ghent list.


Ghent sideboard:
4 Dark Confidant
2 Gilded Drake
1 Raven's Crime
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Cursed Totem
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Tormod's Crypt

[snorlaxcom]

The deck is nothing new. Very similar to what I ran in the gp last year, also 61 cards. Swan song is fine vs s&t because chalice for 1 is swingy and using rebs or bebs is a hit or miss. Songs solve the moons post board in addition the the AD/grips and revokers that are brought in. Seems correct in s&t heavy env but not as strong vs tendrils. They really hate chalice for zero.

[Tyrio]

Hey guys, it was me that t8'ed in Nashville. They actually transcribed the list wrong; there are only 60 cards and 2 Tranquil Thickets. My record that day was:

2-1 Affinity
2-0 RUG Delver
2-1 Merfolk
2-0 RUG Delver
1-2 BUG Delver
2-1 UR Omnitell
2-0 RG Combo Lands
1-1-1 Deathblade (unintentional draw)
1-0-1 Junk (went to time but I won game 1)

0-2 Sneak and Show

I designed the SB around the Sneak and Show because I absolutely despise the MU and bring in like 14 cards. It still wasn't enough in quarters though =/. I was thinking of maybe 1 Chalice in the board we could Westtolaria for and put on 0, but couldn't find space I didn't want to cut any more Bobs. Luckily for me I played against good match ups most of the day and only had to play 1 combo match in the Swiss (UR Omnitell - squeeked by with Spheres).

Would we ever bring in Gilded Drake/Duplicant et. all in against other decks? I tend to shy away from such targeted SB cards but maybe that's what we have to do to beat the SnS menace.

[snorlaxcom]

Hey guys, it was me that t8'ed in Nashville. They actually transcribed the list wrong; there are only 60 cards and 2 Tranquil Thickets. My record that day was:

2-1 Affinity
2-0 RUG Delver
2-1 Merfolk
2-0 RUG Delver
1-2 BUG Delver
2-1 UR Omnitell
2-0 RG Combo Lands
1-1-1 Deathblade (unintentional draw)
1-0-1 Junk (went to time but I won game 1)

0-2 Sneak and Show

I designed the SB around the Sneak and Show because I absolutely despise the MU and bring in like 14 cards. It still wasn't enough in quarters though =/. I was thinking of maybe 1 Chalice in the board we could Westtolaria for and put on 0, but couldn't find space I didn't want to cut any more Bobs. Luckily for me I played against good match ups most of the day and only had to play 1 combo match in the Swiss (UR Omnitell - squeeked by with Spheres).

Would we ever bring in Gilded Drake/Duplicant et. all in against other decks? I tend to shy away from such targeted SB cards but maybe that's what we have to do to beat the SnS menace.

Nice mu indeed. The only time I lose to Sneak is when the moon me. I try to preemptively set ee for 3 but sometimes don't have time to do it if I have to play around pierce. I'm going to try a seal or two instead of a cursed totem. Seal also comes in off their s&t too. I like chalice too much to drop it.

[GoldenCid]

http://mtgpulse.com/event/15923#223204


Sooo we get another Hero making top with a classic lands build, interesting after seeing some varations in the past months (gamble and poxlands).

Instant [6]
3 Intuition
3 Punishing Fire

Sorcery [4]
4 Life from the Loam

Artifact [10]
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Mox Diamond
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Zuran Orb

Enchantment [5]
4 Exploration
1 Manabond

Land [36]
1 Forest
1 Bayou
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Glacial Chasm
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Maze of Ith
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Rishadan Port
1 Taiga
1 Thespian's Stage
3 Tolaria West
3 Tranquil Thicket
3 Tropical Island
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Academy Ruins
1 Karakas
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Dark Depths

61 cards


Sideboard:
2 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Dark Confidant
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Krosan Grip
2 Swan Song
1 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Sphere of Resistance

i love seeing this kind of lands deck making it quite well. Intuition decks kicks the board when it resolves. -All that lans need nowadays is kill shaman / ooze fast and punishing fire shines.

[cuthbertthecat]

Hey guys, it was me that t8'ed in Nashville. They actually transcribed the list wrong; there are only 60 cards and 2 Tranquil Thickets. My record that day was:

2-1 Affinity
2-0 RUG Delver
2-1 Merfolk
2-0 RUG Delver
1-2 BUG Delver
2-1 UR Omnitell
2-0 RG Combo Lands
1-1-1 Deathblade (unintentional draw)
1-0-1 Junk (went to time but I won game 1)

0-2 Sneak and Show

I designed the SB around the Sneak and Show because I absolutely despise the MU and bring in like 14 cards. It still wasn't enough in quarters though =/. I was thinking of maybe 1 Chalice in the board we could Westtolaria for and put on 0, but couldn't find space I didn't want to cut any more Bobs. Luckily for me I played against good match ups most of the day and only had to play 1 combo match in the Swiss (UR Omnitell - squeeked by with Spheres).

Would we ever bring in Gilded Drake/Duplicant et. all in against other decks? I tend to shy away from such targeted SB cards but maybe that's what we have to do to beat the SnS menace.

Hey man, nice work. It's good to see the (in my opinion) much more interesting lands variant do well. In my experience, the best way to beat Sneak and Show has been with a needle effect and a Karakas, or with Thalia and mana denial, but you're right in that the conditional targeted sideboard cards aren't the greatest because they do nothing against the Sneak Attack part of the deck which is the part we can't really beat. Unfortunately, there is really no realistic way to sideboard enough stuff to beat Sneak and Show, it mostly just involves getting lucky.

[snorlaxcom]

Hey man, nice work. It's good to see the (in my opinion) much more interesting lands variant do well. In my experience, the best way to beat Sneak and Show has been with a needle effect and a Karakas, or with Thalia and mana denial, but you're right in that the conditional targeted sideboard cards aren't the greatest because they do nothing against the Sneak Attack part of the deck which is the part we can't really beat. Unfortunately, there is really no realistic way to sideboard enough stuff to beat Sneak and Show, it mostly just involves getting lucky.

Revokers are pretty nice since they put some pressure with bobs and always dodge pierces while being proactive disruption.

[kravkenov]

Congratulation for your top8!
My friends toped 16 with Junk Depth (Sébastien Delay, who made the trip from Geneva/Switzerland ;)

Until now, my sideboard was :
(with a pretty good sideboard plan for severals match-ups.)

4 Chalice of the Void
1 Crucible of the Worlds
4 Sphere of Resistance
1 Raven's Crime
1 Tormod's Relic
1 Raven's Crime


Jund and other Deathrite Shaman decks are populating down here, as other grave-hate post board.
Now, I wonder more and more if I should not go with 4 Dark Confidant.
Removing Raven's Crime (which I really love) a Chalice, an Abrupt Decay and the Thormod's Crypt :

3 Chalice of the Void
1 Crucible of Worlds
4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Dark Confidant
3 Abrupt Decay (or Krosan Grip, dont know yet which is better)


When you board-in Dark Confidant, do you remove Life from the Loam ? (keep 1 or 2 to Intuition/Entomb)?

[Phelix]

Congratulation for your top8!

When you board-in Dark Confidant, do you remove Life from the Loam ? (keep 1 or 2 to Intuition/Entomb)?

You board him in, to have a clock, and an engine (with the benefit of not relying that much on your yard)

Take out your yard dependant intuitions imo, and keep a number of loams in.

[Tyrio]

Congratulation for your top8!
My friends toped 16 with Junk Depth (Sébastien Delay, who made the trip from Geneva/Switzerland ;)

Until now, my sideboard was :
(with a pretty good sideboard plan for severals match-ups.)

4 Chalice of the Void
1 Crucible of the Worlds
4 Sphere of Resistance
1 Raven's Crime
1 Tormod's Relic
1 Raven's Crime


Jund and other Deathrite Shaman decks are populating down here, as other grave-hate post board.
Now, I wonder more and more if I should not go with 4 Dark Confidant.
Removing Raven's Crime (which I really love) a Chalice, an Abrupt Decay and the Thormod's Crypt :

3 Chalice of the Void
1 Crucible of Worlds
4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Dark Confidant
3 Abrupt Decay (or Krosan Grip, dont know yet which is better)


When you board-in Dark Confidant, do you remove Life from the Loam ? (keep 1 or 2 to Intuition/Entomb)?

Thanks! I saw the Junk Depths list in t16 and like it a lot. I probably would have played something similar if not for TNN shoving so many other decks out of the format =/.

I usually board out something like the Manabond (I don't think Manabond did anything for me all day), the Intuitions, Karakas and Bojuka Bog (if they're not applicable, obv) maybe 1 Loam for some combination of Bob, Decay and other match-up specific cards (Revoker against DRS, Bridge against dudes). Intuition and the Loam come out to play around Surgical/RiP, but I usually don't go below 3 Loams unless it's against combo.

[snorlaxcom]

Depends on the mu. Vs storm combo/Ichorid I bring in bob, but vs U(xx) combo decks and control (Miracles) I swap Bob for Intuitions. Entomb is weak vs Miracles and I would take out Entomb them since chalice does much more work than an active Loam/Pfire.

I keep my loams at 4 vs combo. I use them just to keep my land drops going and never needed to resort to cutting one for an sb card even after bringing in 12 cards.

AD is pretty meh and not the greatest on the manabase. It is easier to keep hands with green source and Kgrip vs a hand banking on GB+AD. Grip is preferred because it hits brown yard hate and Leyline, two things AD is very inefficient at or can't do. It also has extra uses against rough matchups like omnitell/sneak decks. They also can't be misdirected vs Miracles and can kill top, which is a big game.

I don't see any other advantage for AD other than hitting DRS or KotR. Ok, it can't get countered vs CB flip...sure

[kravkenov]

Thanks! I saw the Junk Depths list in t16 and like it a lot. I probably would have played something similar if not for TNN shoving so many other decks out of the format =/.

I usually board out something like the Manabond (I don't think Manabond did anything for me all day), the Intuitions, Karakas and Bojuka Bog (if they're not applicable, obv) maybe 1 Loam for some combination of Bob, Decay and other match-up specific cards (Revoker against DRS, Bridge against dudes). Intuition and the Loam come out to play around Surgical/RiP, but I usually don't go below 3 Loams unless it's against combo.

He is playing at Paris right now for the GP with the same 75 list. It will probably be a bit harder to make a good result here in Europe, because of combo.
Then we will both play for BOM in Annecy. I will bring in my Lands, with a bit of help, I will dodge the bad match ups in early turns ;)


My 75 is a classic Lands list with 2 Entomb and(http://cl.ly/TvjE/untitled.pdf)
Still want to pack Raven's Crime and going to 3 Punishing Fire.

I want to talk more on sideboard and plan, and ask you want do you think about.

SB: 3 Chalice of the Void
SB: 1 Crucible of Worlds
SB: 4 Dark Confidant
SB: 3 Krosan Grip
SB: 4 Sphere of Resistance


JUND CASCADE <-- Still need help on this sideboard plan
outs :
1 Karakas
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Urborg Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Tranquil Thicket

ins :
4 Sphere of Resistance
1 Crucible of Worlds


BLACK STORM COMBO
outs :
1 Karakas
1 Urborg Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Tranquil Thicket
2 Intuition
1 Academy Ruins
3 Maze of Ith
1 Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

ins :
4 Dark Confidant
4 Sphere of Resistance
3 Chalice @1


SNEAK SHOW AND TELL
out :
1 Urborg Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Tranquil Thicket
2 Intuition
1 Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
4 Punishing Fire
1 Groove of the Burnwillows

ins :
4 Dark Confidant
4 Sphere of Resistance
3 Krosan Grip

DELVER (RUG(UWR/BUG)
SHARDLESS
outs :
1 Karakas
1 Glacial Chasm
2 Intuition
2 Entomb
1 Urborg tomb of Yawgmoth

ins :
3 Chalice @1
4 Sphere of Resistance


There is no D&T in my local, so I still dont have any plan for it.

What do you think about my plans ?

[snorlaxcom]

What do you think about my plans ?

Link doesn't work

[Phelix]

"BLACK STORM COMBO
outs :
1 Karakas
1 Urborg Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Tranquil Thicket
2 Intuition
1 Academy Ruins
3 Maze of Ith
1 Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

ins :
4 Dark Confidant
4 Sphere of Resistance
3 Chalice @1"

You take out the urborg, but bring in your Black Cards?
you probably dont need glacial chasm for games 2 and three, but tranquil can dig for good Cards/cast enchantments.

[snorlaxcom]

I would take out all pfire vs storm combo. The anti-creature lands can be cut for sure, but cutting anymore can weaken mox diamond hands.

[Tyrio]

SB: 3 Chalice of the Void
SB: 1 Crucible of Worlds
SB: 4 Dark Confidant
SB: 3 Krosan Grip
SB: 4 Sphere of Resistance


I'm not sure exactly what your main deck is because your link is broken, but I would probably try something like:

Jund will bring in Surgicals, so you'll want your Tranquil Thickets. I haven't tried out the Spheres against them, but it seems very mediocre. I would do something like

-1 Karakas -2 Intuition, -1 Manabond
+4 Dark Confidant

Storm
-1 Karakas, -1 Glacial Chasm, -3 Maze of Ith, -1 Academy Ruins, -2 Engineered Explosives, -1 Oblivion Stone, -1 Ensnaring Bridge, -1 Tabernacle (if they're not on TES),
+3 Chalice of the Void, +4 Sphere of Resistance, +4 Dark Confidant

You can also try boarding in Krosan Grips to get their Petals if they play them out early or an LED if the spell they cast afterwards isn't Hellbent-Infernal Tutor. I haven't playtested enough against Storm to know the efficacy of that play (probably pretty low), but the alternative is probably keeping in PFires in hopes to nab their own Dark Confidants if they run them or getting them if they Ad Nauseam too low. Intuition is pretty slow, but in desperate times you can Intuition for triple hate pieces.

Show and Tell
-1 Glacial Chasm, -1 Life from the Loam, -2 Engineered Explosives, -1 Maze of Ith, -1 Tabernacle, -1 Zuran Orb, -2 Entomb, -1 Bojuka Bog, -4 Punishing Fire,
+4 Dark Confidant, +4 Sphere, +3 Krosan Grip, +3 Chalice of the Void

Chalice is only okay because it doesn't directly hit their combo pieces, but it slows them down. You can also try keeping the PFires in and swapping out some other mediocre lands if they Griselbrand twice.

Delver
Generally have Surgicals/RIP
-1 Karakas, -3 Intuition, -2 Entomb, -1 Manabond
+4 Dark Confidant, +3 Chalice of the Void

Our matchup against Delver is already very, very good, so you can maybe forego the Dark Confidants for just the Chalice (taking out some number of Karakas, and Intuition I suppose). I don't bring in the Spheres against them because they aren't really needed and the prospect of getting tempo'd out under our own Spheres is probably very real.

Shardless
-1 Karakas, -2 Intuition, -1 Manabond
+4 Dark Confidant

Sideboarding isn't too tough. Against fair decks i.e. decks with grave hate you want to take out some of your graveyard reliant cards (Intuition, Entomb) and some of your toolbox cards (Bojuka Bog, Karakas) for your Dark Confidants. Against combo you just board out all your anti-creature/permanent cards for most of your sideboard.

[KntrellCL]

I'm not sure exactly what your main deck is because your link is broken, but I would probably try something like:

Jund will bring in Surgicals, so you'll want your Tranquil Thickets. I haven't tried out the Spheres against them, but it seems very mediocre. I would do something like

-1 Karakas -2 Intuition, -1 Manabond
+4 Dark Confidant

Storm
-1 Karakas, -1 Glacial Chasm, -3 Maze of Ith, -1 Academy Ruins, -2 Engineered Explosives, -1 Oblivion Stone, -1 Ensnaring Bridge, -1 Tabernacle (if they're not on TES),
+3 Chalice of the Void, +4 Sphere of Resistance, +4 Dark Confidant

You can also try boarding in Krosan Grips to get their Petals if they play them out early or an LED if the spell they cast afterwards isn't Hellbent-Infernal Tutor. I haven't playtested enough against Storm to know the efficacy of that play (probably pretty low), but the alternative is probably keeping in PFires in hopes to nab their own Dark Confidants if they run them or getting them if they Ad Nauseam too low. Intuition is pretty slow, but in desperate times you can Intuition for triple hate pieces.

Show and Tell
-1 Glacial Chasm, -1 Life from the Loam, -2 Engineered Explosives, -1 Maze of Ith, -1 Tabernacle, -1 Zuran Orb, -2 Entomb, -1 Bojuka Bog, -4 Punishing Fire,
+4 Dark Confidant, +4 Sphere, +3 Krosan Grip, +3 Chalice of the Void

Chalice is only okay because it doesn't directly hit their combo pieces, but it slows them down. You can also try keeping the PFires in and swapping out some other mediocre lands if they Griselbrand twice.

Delver
Generally have Surgicals/RIP
-1 Karakas, -3 Intuition, -2 Entomb, -1 Manabond
+4 Dark Confidant, +3 Chalice of the Void

Our matchup against Delver is already very, very good, so you can maybe forego the Dark Confidants for just the Chalice (taking out some number of Karakas, and Intuition I suppose). I don't bring in the Spheres against them because they aren't really needed and the prospect of getting tempo'd out under our own Spheres is probably very real.

Shardless
-1 Karakas, -2 Intuition, -1 Manabond
+4 Dark Confidant

Sideboarding isn't too tough. Against fair decks i.e. decks with grave hate you want to take out some of your graveyard reliant cards (Intuition, Entomb) and some of your toolbox cards (Bojuka Bog, Karakas) for your Dark Confidants. Against combo you just board out all your anti-creature/permanent cards for most of your sideboard.


Glacial chasm works on game 2 against show n tell since they bring in progenitus to fight karakas

[kravkenov]

should work now http://cl.ly/TvjE/untitled.pdf

But if not :

//Artifact (8)
3 Engineered Explosives
4 Mox Diamond
1 Zuran Orb

//Enchantment (4)
4 Exploration

//Instant (8)
2 Entomb
2 Intuition
4 Punishing Fire

//Sorcery (4)
4 Life from the Loam

//Land (36)
1 Academy Ruins
1 Bayou
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Dark Depths
1 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Glacial Chasm
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Karakas
3 Maze of Ith
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Rishadan Port
1 Taiga
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Thespian's Stage
3 Tolaria West
2 Tranquil Thicket
2 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland

SB: 3 Chalice of the Void
SB: 1 Crucible of Worlds
SB: 4 Dark Confidant
SB: 3 Krosan Grip
SB: 4 Sphere of Resistance

[GoldenCid]

should work now http://cl.ly/TvjE/untitled.pdf

But if not :

//Artifact (8)
3 Engineered Explosives
4 Mox Diamond
1 Zuran Orb

//Enchantment (4)
4 Exploration

//Instant (8)
2 Entomb
2 Intuition
4 Punishing Fire

//Sorcery (4)
4 Life from the Loam

//Land (36)
1 Academy Ruins
1 Bayou
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Dark Depths
1 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Glacial Chasm
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Karakas
3 Maze of Ith
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Rishadan Port
1 Taiga
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Thespian's Stage
3 Tolaria West
2 Tranquil Thicket
2 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland

SB: 3 Chalice of the Void
SB: 1 Crucible of Worlds
SB: 4 Dark Confidant
SB: 3 Krosan Grip
SB: 4 Sphere of Resistance

I like your list but maybe im an old school player. Lands should start like:

4 Wasteland
4 Port
4 Maze
1 Chasm
1 Z. orb
4 Exploration
4 Loam
3 Intuition

+

35 Other cards

[Serbitar]

So, does anyone know about the Lands player that finished 17th in GP Paris?

[Darklingske]

I believe his list is featured in a decktech on the mothership with the event coverage. Search for Farmville

[Philipp2293]

Not the same guy - Farmville did top 16. I played Lands (RG Gamble Version) in grinders on Friday, got paired vs Ub Omnishow in the first one and vs Tin Fins in the second one, was just able to snatch one game each match. But the deck itsself felt pretty consistent and crushed most Non-Combo, non-miracles MUs in testing easily with every second starting hand feeling like a nutsdraw.

[Megadeus]

Is miracles generally just a tough MU due to their ability to main deck rest in peace?

[Tyrio]

Is miracles generally just a tough MU due to their ability to main deck rest in peace?

Well, most lists don't main it anymore. Pre-board recurring EE and PFire are all-stars to keep them off their wincons. If they steal a Loam early with VClique and then land Jace the game can get tough.

Post-board they'll have RiPs, some hateful men and more ways to find them than we do for our hate. I'd say the match up is in our favor pre-board and maybe slightly in their favor post.

[Serbitar]

Miracles is though because their usual draw neither cares about our creature defenses nor our mana denial. They also have solid answers to Loam in Counterbalance and Clique and it is hard to steal a game with Marit Lage. Of course it gets even worse if they maindeck Rest in Peace or, God forbid, Back to Basics. I guess blue Lands with recurring EE has much more game here.

[Phelix]

their surgicals/snapcastersurgicals are tough.

EE shines in this matchup, and if they play well, they remove it.

another mathcup where wurmharvest shines.

[kravkenov]

Is miracles generally just a tough MU due to their ability to main deck rest in peace?

First game, the key is to set up an Academy Ruins / Engineered Explosive lock.
You can dodge Counter-Lock by over-paying Engineered (i.e. 3 green mana + 3 blue mana = 2 sunburst), and landing Explosive @0 will kill they Angels.

[snorlaxcom]

Is miracles generally just a tough MU due to their ability to main deck rest in peace?

As soon as you identify your opp on miracles get ee in play on 2 and get ruins in hand or in play. They can't win with this setup. Respond to trigger with Ruins once RiP resolves. Try not to lose any ee to their RiP triggers or static effects if possible. You will need them all. Port makes this more likely to happen since they don't run many lands for a control deck and you can continue making land drops.

Edit: bummer

[Valtrix]

What you mentioned above doesn't actually work. Even if you respond to the RIP trigger, since RIP is in play it's replacement effect still happens. Note that the sacrifice of EE is in the cost of activation, so your EE will be subject to RIP's replacement effect. There's no way for you to use EE to plow up a RIP without having the EE get exiled.

[Megadeus]

That is indeed true. It unfortunately does not work out the way that you want it too. What builds are everyone on right now?

[Tyrio]

It seems most people are enamored with the RG Combo version and to a lesser degree the Jund list. I think both lists are quite fragile and will probably be rocking the good ol' Intuitions at SCGATL.

[mulder]

What does this deck do against Show and Tell?

[snorlaxcom]

What does this deck do against Show and Tell?

Karakas is playable I hear.

[mulder]

Karakas is playable I hear.

Yeah but you only play one copy and if your opponent draws 14 in response i don't think you're gonna win usually.

[Tyrio]

Sneak and Show is a pretty horrible matchup. RG Lands might be able to combo out faster but otherwise Sneak Attack, Emrakul and 2 red mana beat pretty much all versions of Lands. Game 1 they do auto-lose to Ensnaring Bridge if you can get into play though \o/

Unless you have pretty targeted sideboard hate there's not a lot you can bring in. Krosan Grip can be okay in conjunction with Karakas. Sphere/Thorn are pretty mediocre. Chalice seems okay but if you're on RG it eats alot of your own deck as well. Swan Song and Revoker seem okay.

[Rampart]

Sneak and Show is a pretty horrible matchup. RG Lands might be able to combo out faster but otherwise Sneak Attack, Emrakul and 2 red mana beat pretty much all versions of Lands. Game 1 they do auto-lose to Ensnaring Bridge if you can get into play though \o/

Unless you have pretty targeted sideboard hate there's not a lot you can bring in. Krosan Grip can be okay in conjunction with Karakas. Sphere/Thorn are pretty mediocre. Chalice seems okay but if you're on RG it eats alot of your own deck as well. Swan Song and Revoker seem okay.

I am not sure that the Sneak and Show matchup is horrible in the same way the High Tide/Omni-Tell matchup is. I don't think the matchup is favorable by any stretch and if they have the nut hand its pretty tough for any deck to beat them. But Lands does have the tools to slow them down and win and your always going to need a combination of sideboard hate to beat them game two or three.

also sometimes they bring in blood moon, its the pits :rolleyes:

I think the RG Land build is better against them then the traditional 4/5 color builds are

[Megadeus]

What about SB'ing like Thalia, Chalice, and Revoker? kind of turn into a D&Tish style post board vs the combo decks?

[sarahiscute]

[QUOTE=

I think the RG Land build is better against them then the traditional 4/5 color builds are[/QUOTE]


RG Land, u mean the one used by :

Kurt Speiss
1st Place at StarCityGames.com Legacy Open on 1/26/2014 ???

[Tyrio]

RG Land, u mean the one used by :

Kurt Speiss
1st Place at StarCityGames.com Legacy Open on 1/26/2014 ???

Yes. RG (Combo) Lands is the one packing Crop Rotations, Gambles and full set of Dark Depths in the 75. It can combo extremely quickly and retains a lot of the traditional 4/5C Lands control elements like Rishadan Port, Maze of Ith and PFire. However, it sacrifices a lot of 4C Lands' protection in that it doesn't run an artifact suite (Ensnaring Bridge, Engineered Explosives, Zuran Orb). It's also somewhat fragile against TNN and Wild Mongoose but much more resilient against grave hate. It has a better match-up against combo than 4C Lands because it has the potential to win very quickly.


What about SB'ing like Thalia, Chalice, and Revoker? kind of turn into a D&Tish style post board vs the combo decks?

That's already what Lands does. 4C and RG usually have something like 8~ slots devoted to combo consisting of some amalgamation of Sphere/Thorn (Sphere is probably better because it hinders Elves), Chalice and Trinisphere. Thalia et al. probably aren't used as often because of the white commitment. 4C Lands has maybe up to 9 sources of white (Savannah, 4 Mox, 3 Fetches, 1 Karakas) which is pretty iffy for casting hateful men.

Artifact hate is pretty mediocre against Sneak and Show which is why I tried out things like Revoker and Swan Song against them. I think both of those cards are pretty new in Lands' sideboard and while they obviously didn't save me in Nashville I think they deserve more testing.

[dafrk3in]

Artifact hate is pretty mediocre against Sneak and Show which is why I tried out things like Revoker and Swan Song against them. I think both of those cards are pretty new in Lands' sideboard and while they obviously didn't save me in Nashville I think they deserve more testing.

I played against Sneak and Show on stream (Dzy piloting it) here: http://www.twitch.tv/dzyl/b/502996701 starting at about 3:30. I assumed before the match started that he was on storm, so I mulliganed a bit aggressively game 1. Sphere / Thorn are okay, but can't be relied upon for too long because they will get bounced. Ghost Quarter to get rid of basics is only strong if you pair it with bojuka bog because eventually emrakul will hit the graveyard to get them back. I think the best way to approach this is to try to combo off as quickly as possible, using Sphere / Thorn / Karakas to buy a bit of time.

If game three, when he cast show and tell, I have depths / karakas / sphere / krosan grip in hand. I decided to be conservative and drop sphere to prevent me from dying immediately to lotus petal sneak attack emrakul. Do you think that's correct?

[Serbitar]

What's the other line? Putting in Depths and making a 20/20? If so, your line seems pretty conservative indeed, but I think it makes sense with your hand as you are pretty safe anyway. If he knows you're running Spheres he would have played Petal pre SnT, if show in Sneak, play Petal were his line.
I'm more suprised that you did not cast Sphere on your turn (which opens you up to Petal-Tomb-Sneak).

[dafrk3in]

What's the other line? Putting in Depths and making a 20/20? If so, your line seems pretty conservative indeed, but I think it makes sense with your hand as you are pretty safe anyway. If he knows you're running Spheres he would have played Petal pre SnT, if show in Sneak, play Petal were his line.
I'm more suprised that you did not cast Sphere on your turn (which opens you up to Petal-Tomb-Sneak).

Agreed on petal pre snt if his plan is emrakul petal sneak attack since he already saw sphere game 2. Great thinking, I'll remember that next time.

I didn't play sphere because i expected to be blown out by a counterspell

[Megadeus]

That's already what Lands does. 4C and RG usually have something like 8~ slots devoted to combo consisting of some amalgamation of Sphere/Thorn (Sphere is probably better because it hinders Elves), Chalice and Trinisphere. Thalia et al. probably aren't used as often because of the white commitment. 4C Lands has maybe up to 9 sources of white (Savannah, 4 Mox, 3 Fetches, 1 Karakas) which is pretty iffy for casting hateful men.

Artifact hate is pretty mediocre against Sneak and Show which is why I tried out things like Revoker and Swan Song against them. I think both of those cards are pretty new in Lands' sideboard and while they obviously didn't save me in Nashville I think they deserve more testing.

Sad. I like using Thalia because she is Sphere + Clock (albeit a slow one). 4 Color seemed fine with her with only 10 sources though. I think she may be good enough. Revoker seems solid considering the same thing in that it disrupts Sneak Attack/LED while creating a clock.

[Sparkii]

I split the finals of the $1k at channelfireball yesterday with the following list:

Lands: 37
1 Academy Ruins
1 Bayou
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Dark Depths
1 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Glacial Chasm
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Karakas
3 Maze of Ith
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Rishadan Port
1 Savannah
1 Taiga
2 Thespian's Stage
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Tolaria West
1 Tranquil Thicket
3 Tropical Island
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
1 Wooded Foothills

Instants: 8
3 Intuition
3 Punishing Fire
2 Crop Rotation

Sorceries: 4
4 Life from the Loam

Enchantments: 4
4 Exploration

Artifacts: 8
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Mox Diamond
1 Zuran Orb

Sideboard: 15
3 Dark Confidant
1 Chalice of the Void
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Thalia, guardian of Thraben
2 Krosan Grip
3 Sphere of Resistance
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Phyrexian Revoker

Revoker is very good, I brought it in almost every matchup for things like vials, DRS, jace, Liliana, even gravehate like relic.

[kravkenov]

A short report from my last Legacy Open, in Bourgoin-Jallieu, France, 38 players (as I remember).

First, my 75 :

//Artifact (8)
3 Engineered Explosives
4 Mox Diamond
1 Zuran Orb

//Enchantment (4)
4 Exploration

//Instant (8)
2 Crop Rotation
3 Intuition
3 Punishing Fire

//Sorcery (4)
4 Life from the Loam

//Land (36)
1 Academy Ruins
1 Bayou
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Dark Depths
1 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Glacial Chasm
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Karakas
3 Maze of Ith
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Rishadan Port
1 Taiga
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Thespian's Stage
3 Tolaria West
2 Tranquil Thicket
2 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland

SB: 3 Chalice of the Void
SB: 1 Crucible of Worlds
SB: 4 Dark Confidant
SB: 3 Krosan Grip
SB: 4 Sphere of Resistance


I usually play 2 Entomb in place of the Crop Rotation. But at the last minute, I proceed to change these two, as I expect lot of Gravehate with Darkrite Shaman every where.
This was a really good move. I really love to combo at instant speed with Crop Rotation, even if I loose the versatility of Entomb.

Match 1 - Sneak - Show and Tell (Griselbrand Emrakul)
Round 1
I lead with Mox and Exploration. He follow by a land drop and go.
I then drop a land, cast Life from the Loam, dredge into it with Thicket and start to lock the board with a wasteland.
A bit of draw go later, he eventually Show and Tell a Griselbrand while I show a Maze of Ith. He Draw 7 and fall to 12 PV.
I then lock him out of lands, and he scooped.
Round 2
out : -1 Life from the Loam, - 3 Explosive, -1 Maze of Ith, -1 Zuran Orb, -3 Punishing Fire, -1 Groove, -2 Thicket, -1 Academy Ruins, -1 Crop Rotation
ins : +4 Dark Confidant, +4 Sphere, +3 Krosan Grip, +3 Chalice
He lead with a land drop and go.
I follow by a land, 2 Mox and 2 Sphere.
He was half to scoop, but keep fighting with another land drop and go.
I draw Exploration, drop a land, play Exploration.
He scoop.
2-0 (1-0-0)

Match 2 - UWR Patriot Delver
Round 1
A ver good starting hand with Dark Depths, Crop Rotation, Life from the Loam and Lands.
I managed to make my token in the end of his 3th turn, and win on mine.
Round 2
out : -1 Karakas, -2 Intuition, -2 Explosive, -2 Punishing Fire
ins : +4 Dark Confidant, +3 Chalice
He lead with land and go.
I drop a land, Mox, and cast Dark Confidant, which get Forced.
He draw a bolt (I think) and send it into my PV.
I didn't find any good card while he cast TNN.
Round 3
Pretty the same scenario, except I didn't see Dark Confidant or any combo piece.
1-2 (1-0-1)

Match 3 - UW Miracle
Round 1
A very slow game, He start beating with snap caster, and I eventually make a 20/20 end of his turn (with Crop Rotation) while he was full tap.
Round 2
outs : -1 Karakas, -1 Tabernacle, -3 Maze of Ith, -1 Glacial Chasm, -1 Punishing Fire
ins : +4 Dark Confidant, +3 Krosan Grip
He quickly find Jace, and I didn't find any answer, and loose the game off the ultimate.
Round 3
He quickly land Rest in Peace and few turn later Miracle 4 Angels.
On my side, I start the Creeping Tar Pit beat-down.
End of his turn, the judge say end of time, last 5 turns.
I managed to make a 20/20. He didn't find any Terminus / STP or Jace.
In the very last turn, he was creature-less. I attack and prey for victory.
He use his Top 4 time with 3 fetch to finally find the only Vendilion Clique he packed and stop my token.
I was in depression :/
1-1 (1-1-1)

Match 4 - BWG (Mom, Shaman, Thoughtseize, STP, Scryb Ranger)
Round 1
I really was loosing this round. He was with 2 Shaman and Scryb Ranger. No way to use Life from the Loam.
He put me at 3 PV. Then I finally draw Punishing Fire, kill all his Shaman (luckily he dosent really know how to remove my punishing Fire from the game. When I cast it, he promptly tap he second Shaman to remove my Punishing Fire. I then say "in response, I take a red mana from Groove, and return it into my hand".)
My Maze and this punishing Fire save the game. I then start to Life from the Loam, and few turn later I made a 20/20.
He loose while all his friends where sitting near him. At the end of the game, they tell he was with STP in hand but didn't know it works with indestructible.
Round 2
outs : -1 Karakas, -2 Intuition, -1 Glacial Chasm
ins : +4 Dark Confidant
Dark Confidant where king. I draw me so many cards while not loosing a single PV from it.
Few turns later I fight his PV with a 20/20.
2-0 (2-1-1)

Match 5 - UW Miracle (again...)
Round 1 and 2 where so identical.
He already knew what I was playing. I think he mulligan because of that (twice).
Jace made the work while he kept all his STP and terminus for Creeping Tar Pit and the token.
0-2 (2-1-2)

Match 6 : I was upset, drop and go home with my car.


Overall, the deck is not that easy to play. You really have to control the white mana from your opponent while locking the board, which take time.
I never end a single match under 45minutes.A good move could be +1 Dark Depths and +1 Thespian to draw more naturally into it.

I say thank you to my friend who give me Tabernacle for this tournament.

[GoldenCid]

A short report from my last Legacy Open, in Bourgoin-Jallieu, France, 38 players (as I remember).

First, my 75 :

//Artifact (8)
3 Engineered Explosives
4 Mox Diamond
1 Zuran Orb

//Enchantment (4)
4 Exploration

//Instant (8)
2 Crop Rotation
3 Intuition
3 Punishing Fire

//Sorcery (4)
4 Life from the Loam

//Land (36)
1 Academy Ruins
1 Bayou
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Dark Depths
1 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Glacial Chasm
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Karakas
3 Maze of Ith
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Rishadan Port
1 Taiga
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Thespian's Stage
3 Tolaria West
2 Tranquil Thicket
2 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland

SB: 3 Chalice of the Void
SB: 1 Crucible of Worlds
SB: 4 Dark Confidant
SB: 3 Krosan Grip
SB: 4 Sphere of Resistance



Your list looks pretty standard and i want ot congrat you for pushing lands despite the result (which is just a circunstance).

Some ups and down of your list:

-Many peolple would say that urborg is not necesary but i really like the card as much as riftstone portal. Makes our no mana lands mana bombs.
-3 EE is great manner for dealing TNN nowadays i think it's a necesary number.
-Make consistent oponent mana control is hard job. Run a full set for port for this aim. If you are going to win with a guy (tar pit or mary) your best friends are port and wasteland and in the case pit, zuran orb adds to the list.
-Why did you choose U-sea? Maybe a second bayou or the 3rd trop are better options. Remember that you actualy run 4 mox, urborg and 1 bayou for getting 1 black mana.
-In agreement with you i think that crop rotation and perhaps camble are the best tutors that you can have beside intuition.


I split the finals of the $1k at channelfireball yesterday with the following list:

Lands: 37
1 Academy Ruins
1 Bayou
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Dark Depths
1 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Glacial Chasm
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Karakas
3 Maze of Ith
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Rishadan Port
1 Savannah
1 Taiga
2 Thespian's Stage
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Tolaria West
1 Tranquil Thicket
3 Tropical Island
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
1 Wooded Foothills

Instants: 8
3 Intuition
3 Punishing Fire
2 Crop Rotation

Sorceries: 4
4 Life from the Loam

Enchantments: 4
4 Exploration

Artifacts: 8
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Mox Diamond
1 Zuran Orb

Sideboard: 15
3 Dark Confidant
1 Chalice of the Void
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Thalia, guardian of Thraben
2 Krosan Grip
3 Sphere of Resistance
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Phyrexian Revoker

Revoker is very good, I brought it in almost every matchup for things like vials, DRS, jace, Liliana, even gravehate like relic.

Would you mind to share a brief report?

GC.

[Sparkii]

http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/legacy-type-1-5/established-legacy/control/535484-primer-lands?comment=188