[Card] Root Maze

[Nihil Credo]

This card has been brought to my attention from the newly-developed Extended GW hate decks. It seems like it could be a good card to run in Legacy as well. Here's what it hits:

- Threshold: Fetchlands have Suspend: 2, can be Wastelanded, and creatures can't block the turn they come out.

- Storm combo: A turn 1 win becomes almost impossible (if you drop Maze on the play). Lands CIP (in particular, TES' Undiscovered Paradise is a blank), and Petal+Moxes provide either storm or mana, but not both. Charbelcher also has to wait a turn to be activated (a pain if you don't get LED), and Warrens tokens can't block the turn you play them.

- Goblins: Mana development slows to a crawl, especially with fetchlands, and Goblins' haste is turned off (turning sweepers from good to really, really good). However, Aether Vial somehow fixes both these problems.

- Landstill: Pretty much the same as Threshold.

- Cephalid Breakfast: Sutured Ghoul has to wait a turn, and their manabase is hit even harder than Threshold's.

- Ichorid: Their namesake is turned off, leaving Zombie tokens as the only win conditions.

Maindeck, the card could boost up a sort of R/G Zilla Stompy deck, which could:
- Eschew fetchlands in favour of shocklands (this also opens up Burning-Tree Shaman)
- Run Spirit Guides for acceleration, thus enabling plays like T1 Ape+Maze
- Run Pyroclasm in the SB to own Goblin
- Capitalize on the mana denial aspect by running Wastelands. Maybe even Crack the Earth would be playable, since Mazes make for excellent sacrifices (duplicate, late draws, or even to get to play an untapped land first).


Thoughts? Are there other uses for such a card? Is the Maze Stompy idea worth pursuing?

[ReAnimated]

This is DEFINATLEY a possiblity in my mind. With the fall of storm combo and the rise of *****/Landstill the combined Speed of Stompy and the Disruption of Maze it seems like a contender in the new format. And of course it's going to play Tarmogoyf. :rolleyes:

EDIT: Also with a GW build with Gaddok Teeg and Swords and such removal this deck might see tier 1.5ish soon

[TheCramp]

Would this give dwarven miner time to be a bomb?

Edit: Barook beat me to it, but I still like root maze. And think the question still stands.

[Barook]

Artifacts and lands come into play tapped.

No tapped creatures at all.

Rude comments removed.

-PR

[Nihil Credo]

Ouch, remembered wrong: I thought it was a symmetric Kismet.

Well, not hitting creatures doesn't make it entirely unplayable - it's still a massive tempo hit on your opponent's manabase. However, it becomes near-useless in the Goblins and Ichorid matchups.

[Maveric78f]

Anyway, it's a great card in the metagame and it is a rare green answer to combo decks.

[ReAnimated]

Uhm that atually makes the idea of a Stompy/Zoo deck better agianst *****/landstill .

[BreathWeapon]

It's fairly savage in Goblins if you cut your Fetchlands for dual/shock lands. I used it instead of Mogg Fanatic to pick up a Mox awhile back, I think I mentioned it in the new DTB Goblin thread.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

We tested it for a while in Enchantress's SB, but the problem is that it doesn't hit creatures or LED, so it's pretty much just against fetch-lands.

[rufus]

We tested it for a while in Enchantress's SB, but the problem is that it doesn't hit creatures or LED, so it's pretty much just against fetch-lands.

http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=135251

The text is:
Artifacts and lands come into play tapped.

Root maze is will hose many LED-based storm combos as a consequence. It has some solid potential as elf deck tech.

[Nightmare]

http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=135251

The text is:
Artifacts and lands come into play tapped.

Root maze is will hose many LED-based storm combos as a consequence. It has some solid potential as elf deck tech.
http://magiccards.info/mr/en/272.html

The text is:
Sacrifice Lion's Eye Diamond, Discard your hand: Add three mana of any one color to your mana pool. Play this ability only any time you could play an instant.

Note the lack of the tap symbol. It has some solid potential as anti-Root Maze tech.

[Zach Tartell]

Root Maze is extremely tech with Choke. The problem is it doesn't kill LED. I just wish it had to tap.

[rufus]

The text is:
Sacrifice Lion's Eye Diamond, Discard your hand: Add three mana of any one color to your mana pool. Play this ability only any time you could play an instant.

Note the lack of the tap symbol. It has some solid potential as anti-Root Maze tech.

Oook! I keep forgetting how subtly weird LED is.

Root Maze does still slow down Chrome Mox and Lotus Petal so it should buy a turn (or three) against storm decks that use those. Much less effective against Belcher, and basically pointless against Solidarity. Really the artifact combo hosers (Sphere of Resistance, Trinisphere, and Chalice of the Void) seem like stronger anti-combo options for green.

[sammiel]

root maze is incredible against solidarity, if anyone was still playing it. they play 6-8 fetches, which means maze completely wrecks the speed at which they try to sculpt their hand to go off.

More caps please. - Zilla

[Phantom]

It's an occasionally useful unaggressive card that wants to be played in aggressive decks and often costs you as much tempo as it costs them. That's not a good start. Also, it forces you to run a crappy mana base devoid of the library thinning fetches that aggro decks love so much, so you'll flood more than you should. All this for what? To slow combo down a turn and mildly impact Aggro/Control and Control's tempo at the cost of good cards (fetches and whatever you were going to play in the Maze slot)?

I'm not usually the negative Nancy of new ideas, but I'm not seeing much potential here. If I were going to run it, I would build the deck completely around it. Maybe a Black/Green/Blue Land Destruction deck? One cool thing is that you can needle their fetches before they crack them.

[DeathwingZERO]

I'm pretty sure the only time I've ever seen Root Maze successful was in the Stasis Maze decks of old. Other than that, I'm pretty sure we're not going to turn this into the "uber-Time Walk" people want it to become. It's very mediocre against storm combos (they really only need 1 to 2 lands at most, and LED is greatly abused), Ichorid is fine waiting a turn, and decks like Thresh and such will just play around it, losing only small amounts of tempo in comparison to a stompy deck building this.

[Atwa]

Combined with Ankh of Mishra, Root Maze can be very strong. Taking 3 turns and 5 damage to get the first mana from your fetchland really hurts.

I'm currently trying a U/G weeniedeck with these two card, and although it has it's weaknesses, it has a decent powerlevel.