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Aggro_zombies
12-27-2007, 05:45 PM
Diglett.dec
What is Diglett.dec?
Diglett.dec is a :g::b: aggro-control deck that splashes :w: for the use of Astral Slide and Swords to Plowshares. The deck's goal in the early game is to build its resources by playing its mana fixers and accelerators while applying disruptive pressure on the opponent via discard. Once it stabilizes, it can end the game quickly by beating down with large creatures backed up by Astral Slide to remove blockers.

How did Diglett.dec evolve?
Diglett.dec was born indirectly from my fetish for CiP effects, particularly ones you can use over and over and over again. This love for 187 creatures eventually fueled my love for Astral Slide, which in turn led to the development of Diglett’s predecessor deck, Jigglypuff (in case you’re wondering, yes, I do name all my decks after Pokemon. Don’t ask). Jigglypuff was only green and white and used cards like Wall of Blossoms and Sakura-Tribe Elder as defensive creatures with Jotun Grunt and Loxodon Hierarch being your primary offensive ones. The deck was solid but uninspired and had trouble with both Goblins and Solidarity, and after trying but failing to fix both these problems I dropped it shortly after the release of Coldsnap to work on other projects.

Fast forward to a year and a half later, after the release of Lorwyn. With this set’s release, a number of very good creatures in Jigglypuff colors are floating around in the Legacy card pool, the most important of which is Tarmogoyf. Furthermore, shortly after Goyf’s release, a certain Sean DeCoursey wrote an article (http://mtgsalvation.com/695-slide-is-the-new-aggro-control.html) for MTGSalvation about the use of Tarmogoyf in Astral Slide. While I found the article intriguing at the time, and felt that fast and powerful offensive creatures like Goyf could be the solution to Jigglypuff’s problems (or part of it, anyway), I didn’t begin to put two and two together to get IngSoc until early December. At the time, I was looking for some constructive use for Doran, since what is effectively a 5/5 guy for three mana in one of my favorite tribes just seemed so cool to me. Unfortunately, as bad-ass as Doran is, I could not for the life of me find a deck where I liked him, and I had sold my 3 non-foil copies and given up on the Siege Tower when I stumbled across the remnants of my old Slide deck while digging around in my collection. At this point, a number of things hit me in quick succession:
1) Sean DeCoursey had written about a Doran-colored Slide deck in that article,
2) I had never previously tried a black splash in Slide, but I remembered such a deck doing well in a local tournament some time back,
3) Doran is a bad-ass motherfucker,
4) Treefolk Harbinger is pretty good with both Doran and Astral Slide.
Reeling from the flashflood of epiphany I had just been submerged in, I realized that there might be a deck somewhere in all of this, perhaps even a competitive one. And so, after a half-hour of furious building and rebuilding, the following was born…

4 Treefolk Harbinger
4 Wall of Roots
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Eternal Witness
1 Doran, the Siege Tower

4 Astral Slide
3 Solitary Confinement
3 Life from the Loam
4 Renewed Faith
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Orim’s Chant

2 Savannah
2 Bayou
4 Forest
4 Plains
4 Windswept Heath
4 Tranquil Thicket
4 Secluded Steppe

I had high hopes for this build but initial playtesting results were disappointing. The deck consistently felt underpowered – as one observer noted, it “didn’t do anything broken” – and the core engines of the deck took too long to bring online. While the deck’s synergy was great, it felt too weak to be viable. A number of changes were made, the most significant of which involved dropping the Treefolk, but the deck didn’t fare much better here either.

I was on the verge of giving up on Diglett.dec as unplayable when I had an interesting conversation with a friend who lurks here under the name of “Twinkee.” I don’t recall exactly what was discussed, but a number of important things came out of it: first, that the deck as-is was too weak to be played; second, that Astral Slide is nice but not game-breaking enough to devote an entire deck to; third, that Life from the Loam is a retarded draw engine. Since the LftL draw engine was simply too good to pass up, I decided that any changes to the deck would need to keep the deck primarily in green. Looking at the :w::b::g: color combination, I realized that there was already a deck trying to do what I was doing, but in a different way: The Rock. Plugging Life from the Loam into the Rock would allow me to add Astral Slide as well, which could replace the Genesis/Stronghold recursion engines that deck sometimes uses and give me a potent offensive and defensive weapon.

A number of things were reworked, but I think the biggest difference between this version and its predecessor is not the card changes but rather the logic behind the deck. The big tipping point came once I realized that Slide shouldn’t be the main focus of the deck, but rather an accessory to it. The first Diglett.dec was much like a bad build of Survival: with its namesake enchantment in play, it was powerful, but it tended to flounder badly if that didn’t happen. One of the important things to keep in mind when building Survival is that the deck has to work both with and without Survival in play. Why shouldn’t that apply here? Taking the focus off Slide in favor of making the deck good freed up a lot of restrictions I had placed on myself and allowed me to significantly restructure the list to bring it up to snuff. With that in mind, I present: Diglett.dec.

The List
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Wall of Roots
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Eternal Witness
2 Loxodon Hierarch
3 Shriekmaw

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Thoughtseize
3 Life from the Loam
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Astral Slide

4 Barren Moor
4 Tranquil Thicket
4 Bayou
1 Overgrown Tomb
3 Savannah
1 Scrubland
1 Forest
4 Windswept Heath

Sideboard:
4 Gaddock Teeg
4 Krosan Grip
7 Undecided Slots


Card Choices:
Birds of Paradise: The classic one-mana accelerator and fixer is quite good here in multiple ways. First, it gives you mana of any color in the early turns, when the deck is at its most vulnerable. Secondly, and more importantly in some ways, they become expendable after about turn four or so and therefore make excellent Therapy fodder.

Wall of Roots: Chosen for much the same reasons as the Birds, the Wall makes mana without tapping itself and is large enough to contain rampaging enemy Goyfs for the first few turns without biting the dust. As an added bonus, you can Slide out your Wall to reset the number of counters on it, and it flashes back Therapy like a pro.

Tarmogoyf: He’s big, he’s cheap, he stomps on all kinds of shit in this format. Yeah, I’ll take him.

Eternal Witness: Almost a “duh” choice in any deck playing green and Astral Slide together, Eternal Regrowth is the gal that allows this deck to play the control game. People tend to scoop when you get Witness and Slide in play, but even without Slide Witness is still good at retrieving dead Goyfs/discard and blocking things.

Loxodon Hierarch: This is one of the more open slots right now, and the Elephants may get dropped later. My logic here was that Hierarch is big and has an ability that plays well with Astral Slide while still being good in Slide’s absence. Testing has shown him to be so-so without an active Slide and a “win more” with one, but the big body is always appreciated. Might still become Exalted Angel.

Shriekmaw: The Salamander-Parrot of Doom is perfect for this deck. Not only is he a 3/2 evasive attacker, which is excellent in games where you can’t get Slide to stick, he kills shit. That’s really important in a wide variety of matchups, and helps give the deck an edge in a lot of cases. That you don’t have to pay full price to nerf a guy is an added bonus.

Astral Slide: In my last primer, I justified this with, “It’s an Astral Slide deck, what the fuck did you expect?” The deck has come a long way since then, so I probably have to work a little harder to explain it this time. First, Slide piggybacks on your (insane) draw engine without taking up much room. Second, it can be used to remove blockers from the game, effectively giving all of your Goyfs and Elephants “This creature can’t be blocked except by Nimble Mongoose.” You can also use it defensively in the early game to remove scary attackers, or to block with your own guys, assign combat damage, and then Slide them out to save them. Finally, Slide allows this deck to settle in for the long game, if things go awry, since it gives the deck a great deal of inevitability. The best analogy I can think of for Slide is that it’s a kind of Counterbalance that only works on creatures that are in play, but draws you cards too. With an Astral Slide out, combat tilts decidedly in your favor.

Life from the Loam: This is the most batshit insane draw engine made since Necropotence. I mean, seriously. This thing ensures a never-ending supply of cycling cards to power up Slide as well as ripping through your deck at a stupid rate. Hi5!

Swords to Plowshares: Standard spot removal for decks running white. Not much to say here.

Cabal Therapy and Thoughtseize: it’s a bit difficult to justify the two discard spells separately, even though the work in different ways, so I’m lumping them together. Basically, the discard is one of the big improvements this deck has because it gives you some active, disruptive cover to resolve key spells under. I cannot even begin to describe how awesome turn one Seize, turn two Birds, Therapy, flash back Therapy is. Therapy’s ability to removal multiple cards, combined with Thoughseize’s ability to pick off dangerous singletons while letting you look at the opponent’s hand, gives the deck quite a more power than it previously had. The shift away from passive disruption (Solitary Confinement, Chant) that did nothing to correct problem situations is big here, since you no longer have to worry about what will happen when your cover gets blown. Recovering from crippling hand destruction on turns one and two is very difficult for many decks, and the choice of these two spells in particular ensures that your discard is very rarely dead in any given matchup.

Gaddock Teeg: Shriekmaw tends to be bad against combo because of its high cost and a lack of useful targets for it to kill. While it isn’t dead, it isn’t really great either. Enter Teeg. Teeg is a bear that shuts down all of combo’s win conditions, starting on turn two, and he beats for only one less damage than Shriekmaw while doing so three turns faster. He’s also some good against control as a way to stop a lot of sweepers and business spells, whereas Shriekmaw tends to be okay but not great.

Krosan Grip: Deed and EE are a kick to the balls for you, the former more so than the latter. You can mitigate both somewhat by Sliding Witness out in response and then letting her grab Slide when she pops back in, but why try to repair the damage when you can just stop it from happening in the first place? This also takes care of other random problem utility cards like Needle, Chalice, Humility, etc.

Cards Not Included:
These are the things that didn’t make the cut…or at least, the ones that I can think of off the top of my head. If someone mentions something else I considered and rejected, I’ll add it here.

Vindicate: The most flexible targeted removal spell in my colors didn’t make it in because it simply isn’t powerful enough. Three mana for a one-for-one trade with your opponent seems poor even if it has greater flexibility than your other removal spells.

Hoofprints of the Stag: I mention this because it was in the deck at one point, and it may come up. Yes, you do draw a retarded amount of cards, and yes, should you wish to do so you could make a 4/4 flying token every turn. However, by the time the game gets to the point where you’re able to fully abuse this card, you don’t want to have to tap three mana on your turn just to win more. Quite often, I would play games where Hoofprints built up 10+ counters because I would rather keep the mana open for cycling cards.

Wall of Blossoms: Wall of Roots is just plain better, because it produces mana and has a five-point ass. This is actually relevant because Tarmogoyf can easily and quickly grow to a 4/5, but has trouble getting beyond that. The card draw is useful but not so much when compared to acceleration or the ability to hold off almost every problem creature in the format indefinitely.

Some Notes:
This deck is actually quite forgiving of play mistakes, as long as you don’t make grievous ones. That said, I’ll outline the general approach I take to playing the deck, as well as a few tips to keep in mind, before I get to the matchups.

Play Tips: Your first few turns are quite crucial with this deck, as you have a wide variety of plays open to you. Which is the correct one? If you don’t know what your opponent is playing, or aren’t sure, it’s probably best to lead off with discard spells to act as reconnaissance. If you’re on the draw, their turn one play should give you some idea of what to name with Therapy, but if you’re shooting blind and don’t have a Thoughtseize, my default assumption if Therapy resolves is that my opponent is most likely playing some sort of Threshold deck, and I usually name some sort of counter with it. Even if your initial Therapy misses, you will gain valuable information about what the opponent is playing as well as targets for future Therapies.

If, however, you do know what your opponent is playing, your first few turns may change. Against control or Threshold decks, it is best to lead with your Birds and Walls so that you can out-resource your opponent as quickly as possible. Players with access to more resources over the course of the game tend to win, and you are basically in a superior position once you get Loam active - the key is making it there intact. Against Goblins and combo, the best play is again to lead with your discard. Ripping powerful cards buys you time to set up a defense and put your opponent in a position they cannot recover from. Discard is especially good against Goblins because there are some spells (Matron, Ringleader, SGC) that you don’t want your opponent to resolve.

Second, what do you do when you draw multiple Astral Slides (and you occasionally will)? That depends largely on the matchup. In aggro matchups, it’s generally best to play them all out so you can get the most removal mileage out of each cycling card, and it also allows you to tag one of your guys and one or more of theirs per cycle card. If you have more Slides than relevant targets, you can target one guy with more than one Slide trigger and let the ones after the first fizzle. In control and aggro-control matchups, you generally want to hold extra Slides because the chances of them answering Slide are better, and they have fewer creatures for you to worry about. Slide is mostly irrelevant versus combo because they often won’t have creatures that you can beneficially Slide out.

Third, when should you use StP instead of Slide or Shriekmaw to remove guys? You generally want to save Swords for the guys that you feel you’d want to Slide out every turn – in other words, the really dangerous threats. You’ll also want StP guys with CiP abilities if they’re dangerous enough – this goes without saying, but just in case someone misses it, DO NOT SLIDE OUT YOUR OPPONENT’S CIP GUYS. For the record, I do not have personal experience in this matter. Swords is also your best way to deal with Bob, since Shriekmaw can’t touch him and he tends to become a problem. Finally, Swords is excellent against man lands where Shriekmaw isn’t.

Finally, what do you do about graveyard hate? That depends largely on what the hate is and what they do with it. If the hate is Crypt or Leyline, Grip that shit and don’t worry about it. If you don’t have Grip, keep a cycle land in your hand at all times for emergency dredges on Loam (if it’s Crypt), or just try to avoid cycling cards until you can draw Grip (if it’s Leyline). The real problem here is Extirpate, since there’s nothing you can do about it and a smart opponent can neuter you if they hit the right things. If you know they have it, you’ll want to allocate all of your draw resources to getting as many guys as possible into play as quickly as possible to go for the damn-the-torpedoes beatdown victory. Also, only cycle ONE of your two different cycle lands - hold all copies you draw of the other so that you still have cycle cards if they peg your first cycle land. Losing Loam is a pain in the ass but not GG. Losing your cycling cards is quite often fatal unless you were within spitting distance of winning or your opponent is unlucky.

Sample Hands: To do this, I sat down and goldfished the deck (preboard, obviously) quite a large number of times to see what general things you want to look for in an opening hand. Well, let me rephrase that. Before I began working on this primer, good opening hands for Diglett.dec were like pornography: tough to define, but I knew them when I saw them. Hopefully this is an adequate demonstration of what I consider to be a good hand. Try to evaluate the hand before you read my decision.
~Hands will come later, I’m tired.~


Matchup Analyses:
~In the works~
Yeah, yeah, I’ll catch shit for this from somebody, but my sideboard is only half-done and I’m trying to figure out what to dedicate the remaining slots to before I wrap up this section. My testing has been against:

Green Goblins
Red Thresh (with a tempo focus)
Black Thresh (with a control focus, Counterbalance main here)
TES
Ichorid
WUBG Landstill
Chalice Aggro (Dragon and Faerie)


Goblins: Even to marginally in your favor. Whether you win or lose depends a lot on the relative explosiveness of your respective opening hands. The bit about wanting to maximize your early-game activity is doubly true here. Try to nab CiP effect Goblins and Piledrivers with your discard and get a Slide active ASAP. Slide + Shriekmaw is pretty much good game for them.

Red Thresh (tempo version): to clarify – this deck runs 4 Stifle, 4 Wasteland, and more Threshold guys than normal these days, with what is essentially an aggro focus. This matchup is about even to slightly unfavorable for you. Birds are very fragile in the face of burn, and you often can’t recover from heavy anti-mana pressure in the early game. That said, Wall of Blossoms is GOLDEN here because it is retardedly difficult to get rid of for them and it produces mana. Also, getting a Loam going is usually good game unless you’re so far behind that it doesn’t matter. Basically, if you can weather the early disruption, your game plan is better than theirs. The problem is that whether or not you can weather it (heh) is largely up to their draws, since a Wasteland followed by a Fire on your Birds can tip the match away from you.

Black Thresh (control version): Positive. The biggest threats they have are Counterbalance and Bob. Ripping one or both with early discard basically seals the game for you, as you tend to beat Threshold in the long run (think Red Thresh, but without mana disruption). That said, a resolved Counterbalance is game over for you and you should try as hard as possible to prevent this from happening in game one (game two gets better because you have Grips). Bob can give you a run for your money in the card advantage department and allow them to draw into (and play) Counterbalance, so he should never be allowed to live more than a turn if you can help it.

TES: Even to slightly unfavorable. Hands with heavy discard are golden here, and you generally want to remove their mana accelerators in the first few passes. Therapy is usually better than Thoughtseize because you can get more mileage out of it, and sacrificing Birds right away to flash back Therapy is often the best possible play when you’re trying to keep them from going off. Therapy first for LED and then take anything else relevant that you see – hitting LED slows them down and a second pass on their hand will only hurt further. However, without discard to throw them off balance early on, you tend to lose.

Ichorid: X___X

Landstill: Marginally in your favor. Deed makes you a sad panda, and counters on your important spells do as well, but that doesn’t mean you lose. You’re going to be in for the long haul here, so try not to be too liberal with your life total in the early game. Good Therapy targets are sweepers (especially Deed) and things that let them recur lands (in the builds I’ve tested against, it’s usually Crucible). Standstill should only be blown by discard spells, because that way you can quickly neutralize anything good they get with it. The longer they wait to drop Standstill, the better-off you are, and an active Goyf can win you the game if you resolve it before they can resolve Seal of Ancestral Recall. Slide is really good here because getting one in play gives them essentially no way to win.

Chalice Aggro: Depends, but both are roughly even. Chalice at one and two stunt your development massively, perhaps even fatally, but if they don’t do both or you’re on the play then you can still gun for a fast Goyf/Slide. Life gain from Jitte gives you problems, but if they’ve got no guys to attach it to, it becomes a lot less dangerous (hint hint). Like Goblins, this gets markedly better for you the longer you live, as weathering the early game allows you to play power cards they have no answers for and turn things around. Prime Therapy targets are Chalices and equipment.



My biggest issue with this deck right now is how it tends to get rolled early on by mana disruption. Suggestions?

zulander
12-27-2007, 06:01 PM
I didn't see you put Wall of Blossoms on the "been there done that" list. Have you tried him out? I guess he may not be necessary since you run a lot of cycling but he could help find Doran faster. Also, I know he's not too good but how about the black cycler (forgot his name) that cycles for 2life and there's the green one that cycles on a land sac. Just some options!


Also, I would try out thoughtseize over Orim's Chant, have you tried this at all?

Fairly well written primer, seems like the deck could be a silent killer in an aggro metagame.

Aggro_zombies
12-27-2007, 06:01 PM
DECK NEWS AND UPDATES

1-12-2008: I'm working on fixing the OP to reflect the build that is currently being tested. It will most likely take me a few days to make all the necessary corrections, so please be patient.

Nihil Credo
12-27-2007, 06:09 PM
Given that the deck is practically two-colour, fills the graveyard quickly, has uses for colourless mana, and runs Life from the Loam, can a couple spots be cut in the manabase for Nantuko Monasteries? While there's no particular synergy with the rest of the deck, a 4/4 first striker is a nice addition to any deck if the price is that small.

EDIT: I also occasionally have trouble with the 'edit' feature. My suggestion is to use the "Go advanced" button: it seems not to have such problems there.

Whit3 Ghost
12-27-2007, 06:10 PM
I'm not sure how many cyclers you need, but wouldn't Pulse of the Fields be decent, at least as a 2 of over some of the Renewed Faiths? This is obviously a no-go if your list is already tight on Cycling cards, but if you can spare a few slots, it seems better then Faith here.

Peter_Rotten
12-27-2007, 06:11 PM
In case I need it. Also, I wanted to edit my post to make it easier to read, but for some reason it won't save my edits...:confused:

Try "Go Advanced" (unless that is an Admin only option).

I want to second the inclusion of Street Wraith. He seems like a natural inclusion for cheaper Sliding. But of course, we have to wonder what to replace. Maybe you could shave off a land or two, but you said that the Renewed Faith were pretty necesary. Could you take out a Witness? Overall, it's a tough fit for a card that does "nothing."

Nihil Credo
12-27-2007, 06:22 PM
Couple more things. #1:


Hand 1: Forest, Thicket, Thicket, Steppe, Slide, Goyf, Wall of Roots.
Send it back. You don’t want to play your cycling lands for mana if you can possibly avoid it, which means you need to hit another land with either an EoT Thicket or your next turn’s draw step so you can play your Wall and follow it with either a Slide or a Goyf. You *can* hold onto this, which may be the correct decision against a slow deck like control, but against anything capable of moving at a faster-than-glacial-speed pace, it’s not worth the risk. By the way, if one of those Thickets had been a Savannah, Heath, or Plains, this hand would have been godly.What's wrong here with: T1 Steppe, go. T2 Forest, Wall of Roots, go. T3 Astral Slide (using Wall's ability if needed). T4 (or T3 if you've drawn a non-CIP land) start getting it on with the two Thickets in your hand?

#2:
TES: Even pre-board.Kidding, right? Short of your first nine cards being 3 Chant, 4 Goyf, 2 land, I can't see you beating this one. And I can't imagine how you could set up Solitary Confinement and put TES on a fast enough clock to beat Burning Wish.

Kadishack
12-27-2007, 06:27 PM
Could you take out a Witness? Overall, it's a tough fit for a card that does "nothing."

You can't take out the 2nd witness because if one gets sworded that is it. Plus with the 2 witnesses it allows you to combo for a chant lock. Actually I would put more witnesses in myself because they are very helpful.

Also, why no Eternal Dragon? I always loved this guy in the deck.

technogeek5000
12-27-2007, 06:29 PM
You could probably play dark confidant in this list. It fills your hand for confinement when you dont have life from the loam.You can probably play e plauge but it seems that they are going to bring in enchantment hate anyways against you. I also agree that the fast combo matchup is alot worse then you say it is.

Aggro_zombies
12-27-2007, 06:32 PM
Wow, lots of commentary. Thanks for the edit tips, it worked this time around. Okay...

Monastery: The last time I tested these was in the straight :g::w: version of the deck and I disliked not being able to tap them for colored mana. That said, they are pretty big guys, but the three mana investment on your turn to make a 4/4 feels eerily reminiscent of Hoofprints of the Stag...still, I'll give them a whirl, probably with -1 to each basic, +2 Monastery.

Street Wraith: Yeah, I know, I'm torn on this one too. The free cycling is hot, but the life loss isn't, and...well...he doesn't do anything otherwise, like you said. I mean, I could cast him if I bend over backwards, but...he was in the deck initially but he got cut in favor of Chant (I think) at some point during testing. I could put him back, but he felt lackluster except as Slide fodder.

TES: Eh, well, couple things. First, I may have hit an incompetent pilot, I'll admit that. I can test this against someone else this evening, but I don't know if I'll have time. But...do note that they don't always go off in the first two turns, and if they don't, you can drop Confinement and gun for Doran/Goyfs ASAP. A Doran, 3/4 or so Goyf, and a Harbinger are 12 damage per turn, and this isn't entirely unrealistic. Again, I will admit that this matchup is less good than it looks without Teeg, because then they have two different problem permanents to answer on top of Chant disruption.

Pulse of the Fields: The list does occasionally feel tight on cycling cards until you get Loam, so I'm not sure what the right call here is. I'm also not sure what matchups it would help that simply playing Renewed Faith wouldn't, but I'll look into it.

Thanks for the comments, guys!

EDIT:
Plague: I want to try Elephant Grass instead because what I really need is something to cover me for the first few turns. Once I stabilize I can let it die, but in the meantime I really need something that hits fast and keeps me afloat for 2-3 turns. It would also help against Ichorid, a lot, because of its speed. Btw, I guess Ichorid would probably be a better analogue for the fast combo matchup, except instead of a bunch of Goblins or Tendrils, you have to deal with a shitload of hasty zombies on turn 1-2. Ugh. I may consider Abeyance again, but the hell if I know where I'll put it.

Eternal Dragon: I ran him at one point but Harbinger is a better land searcher and the Dragon is kinda lame until you can start recurring him.

Bob: ...no. This deck has problems with life loss and no way to stack the top of your library. You'd lose an average of about 2 life per turn to this guy, which is bad.

More Witness: Yes, I feel this way as well, but I don't know what to cut. It's possible that I'd cut a fourth Wall, but that card is so vital in the early game that I really don't want to...

Sample Hand discussed by Nihil: You can do that, but I should have mentioned that Wasteland is very bad for you if you try that. It's still worth doing if you suspect you can get away with it.

Sanguine Voyeur
12-27-2007, 06:42 PM
Edge of Autumn can be a free cycler that can help you get to Slide mana if you're screwed. The sacrificed land might not even matter with Life from the Loam.

Slag
12-27-2007, 06:49 PM
Now, it may just be a cute trick, but I remember some standard deck a thousand years ago that ran mesmeric fiend and slide, which would allow them to play the fiend, slide it out with the comes into play trigger on the stack (putting the leaves play trigger on the stack on top), effectively tying a castigate onto their fiend. Might be okay in the board for the control mirror.



Ichorid: X___X

That was the funniest thing I've seen all day.

Kundalini
12-27-2007, 07:52 PM
When I tried a Green-White version of this deck, Loxodon Hierarch used to be MVP: he gains obscene amount of life with slide, provides beats, blocks and an alternate protection for your critters!

That was a different deck (using krosan tusker and eternal dragon as mana engines) but why not including Hierarch anyway?

Peter_Rotten
12-27-2007, 07:57 PM
What's funny is that I see this as one of those decks that is hard to figure out what you SHOULDN'T put in. All of those suggestions seem at least reasonable (Fiend in the SB for combo/control). SO where do we draw the line between necessity and just cool?

Tacosnape
12-27-2007, 08:23 PM
You need Nantuko Monestary. It's not a question.

If they can keep you off Astral Slide, which most decks will attempt to do, you have exactly five intimidating cards in the deck. 4 Tarmogoyfs and 1 Doran, The Siege Tower. And you have absolutely no way to protect them.

Monestary gives you much-needed inevitability against Control by getting your Loam Engine, and makes your deck actually function if you can't get a Slide to stick.

Aggro_zombies
12-27-2007, 08:27 PM
What's funny is that I see this as one of those decks that is hard to figure out what you SHOULDN'T put in. All of those suggestions seem at least reasonable (Fiend in the SB for combo/control). SO where do we draw the line between necessity and just cool?
This has been my dilemma. So far, I've been looking to include cards that are flexible, objectively strong, or both; early and mid-game plays are important, and I've tried to set the deck's curve such that you can develop fairly consistently and quickly. The biggest thing, though, has been whether or not a card is a one-trick horse. In a deck like this where space is at a premium, I need options out of my "non-givens." That's why things like Street Wraith ultimately didn't make the cut - they did only did one thing when I needed them to be flexible.

zulander
12-27-2007, 08:35 PM
I think the deck needs more threats and I'm not so sure that 4x monastaries are the best solution, so here's a list of creatures to help out that low threat density.

1. Exalted Angel (really really really good with doran.)
2. Eternal Dragon
3. Loxodon Heirarch
4. Krosan Tusker
5. Tivadar of Thorn (goblins matchup)

Ewokslayer
12-28-2007, 09:23 AM
Shriekmaw: The deck runs black, but it doesn’t run the Terminator? Well…I’m still up in the air over this one, but I’ll lay out my arguments for not including it to see what the rest of you think. First, he costs five mana, which is quite a lot considering his only colored mana requirement is the color you have the least access to. Secondly, he’s not so hot with Doran. Third, targeting their guys with Slide accomplishes much the same thing, albeit in a less permanent manner, and I wasn’t sure I wanted that much redundancy with Swords already in the deck. That said, he is a one-parrotsalamanderthing killing machine, so…

You never mention Shriekmaws wonderful synergy with Slide. Was this just overlooked? Double Terror and a 3/2 Fear for 2 mana and whatever the cyclying cost (obviously with slide out) seems hot.

Pinder
12-28-2007, 01:55 PM
You never mention Shriekmaws wonderful synergy with Slide. Was this just overlooked? Double Terror and a 3/2 Fear for 2 mana and whatever the cyclying cost (obviously with slide out) seems hot.

I concur. After reading your reasoning I figured you were probably right, A_Z, but being able to pay 1BW (or some other color) for a Terror, and then another Terror with a 3/2 fear attached, seems awfully good to me. Did you realize that sliding out Shreikmaw means he doesn't die when he comes back in? Synergy with Doran is not so hot, but if you have Doran, you have, well, Doran. A 5/5 on the table that turns your Harbingers into 3/3s and your Walls into 5/5 blocking machines will probably outweigh the fact that Shriekmaw is only a 2/2 fear. That you can slide to nuke a dude.

Okay, now that I've thought about it, I'm not sure there's a reason not to run our beaked slamander friend.

On a cursory note, I liked the name 'Chocolate Rain' for this deck as well, you know.

Kadaj
12-28-2007, 02:26 PM
With my limited testing, I can definitely vouch for two things. First, more Doran. Maybe even just a second copy, but I repeatedly found myself needing backup copies for whatever reason. Second, Shriekmaw. 3 for 1s are hot I hear, and blowing decks out of the water with his effect seems amazing.

3eowulf
12-28-2007, 02:58 PM
I had the chance to test the deck a little vs. Combo and Control and I must say the results are really bad.
Having almost no clock at all and absolutely no disruption makes you almost a bye.

Since the deck seem to have already a good chance vs. Aggro I'd probably drop things like Shriekmaw (altough nice), Faith and 1 or 2 Slides (too slow) to make room to some form of disruption.

Aggro_zombies
12-28-2007, 02:59 PM
You never mention Shriekmaws wonderful synergy with Slide. Was this just overlooked? Double Terror and a 3/2 Fear for 2 mana and whatever the cyclying cost (obviously with slide out) seems hot.
Well, actually, I didn't realize you could evoke it and then target it with Slide. I'm still kinda fuzzy on the timing issues of the evoke ability. JUDGE!

EDIT: An update:
I ended up not being able to do much testing last night because something came up on my end, but my testing partner and I pushed the session off until later today. Also, since the overwhelming consensus seems to be that I need more mens, I'll most likely fiddle with the list to accommodate that prior to testing, then put up the list I tested. Right now I'm thinking -1 Faith, -3 Chant, +1 Witness, +3 ???, Profit! -2-3 lands, +2-3 Monastery.

EDIT 2: Considering for the +3 ???, in no particular order -
Exalted Angel
Mystic Enforcer
Hierarch
Temple Acolyte and another Doran
Garruk
Krosan Tusker

Aggro_zombies
12-29-2007, 03:43 AM
Okay, as promised, results from today's marathon six hour testing session (well, more like five since we went to eat and stuff):

Today my testing was preboard against UGwb Threshold running 4 Thoughtseize, 4 Confidant, and 4 Swords in the off-colors. This deck is a nightmare matchup not in the sense that it is unwinnable, but in the sense that it exposes a lot of my deck's flaws. A lot of changes were made in an attempt to fix them. First, the bad things:

1) My posted list had no maindeck solutions to Counterbalance. Counterbalance does not flat-out win the game for the Thresh player, but it does make it excruciatingly difficult for you. It seems that my previous testing against white-only Thresh had suffered from use of an outdated list (CounterTop engine in the board as opposed to the main), and the red Thresh list used doesn't run that engine main either (but that deck's tempo game is infinitely better than mine, so it's irrelevant). CounterTop is more of a threat than I estimated it to be, but Krosan Grip does tilt things back in my favor.

2) Games with Counterbalance on the table were still winnable for me, but games with Counterbalance and Bob were not. Bob can only be answered with Swords in my posted list, and Swords < Counterbalance. Those two combined meant that I was out-card advantaged by my opponent 100% of the time.

3) I remember why I disliked Solitary Confinement now. The card is good but only situationally so; Goblins and combo are the best applications for it, but it is "meh" in Thresh and terrible against control. It has since been moved to the sideboard in favor of other cards maindeck.

4) We tested Shriekmaw, and the more I test it the more divided I become on whether or not the card deserves a place here. Against Thresh, the best play is to hit Goyf, but pretty much all your other removal spells do the same thing. In the absence of an opposing Goyf you have to pay the full five and kill one of your own creatures to get him in play (because Mongoose, Bob, Tombstalker, and Enforcer all trump him one way or another). I suppose he would be mediocre against Goblins (you would almost always evoke him pre-Slide to kill something, making him a worse Terror), and he sucks in combo and control (again, you have to kill one of your own guys when you play him). A lot of your early game drops are expendable (more on this later), but if I was going by that logic then Greven il-Vec is a viable candidate because, even though he's one mana more, he's a 7/5. That doesn't mean he's good, or even playable, but it just means that Shriekmaw doesn't feel worth it.

5) One suggestion (as yet untested) was to drop the tree contingent entirely and run Birds, more Shriekmaw, and more Witness. Unfortunately, not only did this tank my threat density yet further, it also left me with gaping vulnerabilities in the early game. I may still consider it but only if I can find a satisfactory creature base.

6) The deck relies heavily on Doran, so yes, if I'm going to continue to run him I'm going to run at least two main.

7) Living Wish made a brief appearance in the deck but the Wishboard ate up too many valuable slots and didn't improve anything.

Whew, a lengthy list of concerns there. Don't dismiss the deck as unplayable yet, though:

4 Treefolk Harbinger
3 Wall of Roots
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Eternal Witness
2 Doran, the Seige Tower

4 Astral Slide
3 Life from the Loam
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Mox Diamond

4 Tranquil Thicket
4 Secluded Steppe
3 Barren Moor
4 Bayou
4 Savannah
4 Windswept Heath
2 Nantuko Monastery

SB:
4 Gaddock Teeg
4 Krosan Grip
4 Orim's Chant
3 Solitary Confinement

Changes:
Therapy - I was skeptical (and still am) but this card has turned out to be very good, surprisingly. In the absence of Doran your early creatures are basically defensive (Wall of Wood and Wall of Roots) and are therefore expendable if you want to keep yourself alive. Hitting your opponent with double Therapy in one turn is a significant blow, with them losing their two best cards and you losing...Wall of Wood. Seems strong. It is also a maindeck solution to Counterbalance, albeit a preemptive one.

Mox Diamond - Mox Diamond is awesome. I'm not sure why I overlooked it in the initial construction of the deck, but it makes me that much faster. The deck now has a number of explosive turn one plays, some of the best being land, Harbinger, Mox, Therapy, flashback Therapy and land, Mox, Wall of Roots, cycle a card or play a Harbinger. The addition of the Diamonds allows the deck to set up a very formidable early-game defense. Also, with the land changes I made, it alleviates some of my vulnerability to Wasteland.

Loss of Renewed Faith - The ability to go "shields up" quicker has alleviated some of the life management issues this deck had, and the heavier focus on black allows me to make all of my cycling cards recurrable with Life from the Loam. Those two factors combined to make Faith lackluster, and it was replaced with Barren Moor.

There were a lot of contributors to this list (some of them I don't even know, Kronicler will have to help me out here), and this is my take on one of the more promising evolutions of the deck. Yes, the threat density is low, and yes, the deck still has issues, but it's moving in the right direction. I've decided to essentially abandon my worst matchups - this is not a deck to play if there's a lot of Ichorid around - in favor of strengthening the marginal to good matchups: aggro and aggro-control. Control needs more testing and combo needs post board testing (lawls @ Hate.sideboard), since game 1 against combo will only be good at the expense of all of my other matchups. Some ideas I want to explore further:

1) EE main. With Mox Diamond I can now set Explosives at all relevant points in the casting-cost chain, so it is worth investigating. Where it would go is beyond me.

2) Shriekmaw. I swear this card is going to drive me insane. The love-hate relationship I am developing with it doesn't help much either.

3) Monastery. It's been decent so far but its best application has been as a deterrent to attackers.

4) Guys with power greater than zero. Swords to Plowshares is retarded against my deck. Wall of Roots is the most expendable right now if I can find a one or two cc guy with power greater than zero that's actually good. Suggestions appreciated.

Whew! If I think any more about this deck tonight, my head will explode. I'll ask some people I know if they can test some changes for me, but right now testing will have to wait until early next week since it looks like I'll be busy over the weekend.

Thanks for the help, and I'll see what I can do. I refuse to believe that there's not a competitive deck in this concept somewhere.

Slag
12-29-2007, 05:19 AM
If you're looking for an answer to problem cards like counterbalance that also hits creatures, you could try oblivion ring. It doesn't have direct synergy with your deck, but it's rarely dead.

Kronicler
12-29-2007, 06:44 AM
Yowza, what a post! Yeah, I don't even know who we tested with and / or who helped us with the deck lol, except they are all pretty good players. In response to oblivion ring, the only synergy I can see is that you can ring something early and then slide it out and attach it onto a larger threat in the late game, so in that way you don't have to "save" it for the better thread as it can always be slid onto the most relevant thing. Doesn't seem horrible, especially as an answer to CB / Top.

Kronicler

EDIT: I'm fuckin stupid, please ignore most of the above post (the part about oblivion ring).

Aggro_zombies
12-29-2007, 06:46 AM
Yowza, what a post! Yeah, I don't even know who we tested with and / or who helped us with the deck lol, except they are all pretty good players. In response to oblivion ring, the only synergy I can see is that you can ring something early and then slide it out and attach it onto a larger threat in the late game, so in that way you don't have to "save" it for the better thread as it can always be slid onto the most relevant thing. Doesn't seem horrible, especially as an answer to CB / Top.

Kronicler
You can't Slide Ring, it's not a creature.

Kronicler
12-29-2007, 06:48 AM
Whups, I forgot to read the card. Oh well, I lose at life. My bad.

Kronicler

P.S. WOW Slide would be nuts if it did what I thought it did (remove target permanent). Lawl, during your upkeep slide out your mana base. GG.

Aggro_zombies
12-29-2007, 06:53 AM
Whups, I forgot to read the card. Oh well, I lose at life. My bad.

Kronicler

P.S. WOW Slide would be nuts if it did what I thought it did (remove target permanent). Lawl, during your upkeep slide out your mana base. GG.
What does RTFC means, by the way?

facepalm.jpeg

TrialByFire
12-29-2007, 09:53 AM
What does RTFC means, by the way?

facepalm.jpeg


Read The Fucking Card

Aggro_zombies
12-29-2007, 05:16 PM
Read The Fucking Card
...

facepalm.jpeg

Okay, so I did a pretty exhaustive search of Gatherer last night for low casting cost guys to replace Walls with, and I came up with the following:

Temple Acolyte
Werebear
Watchwolf
Epochrasite

Of those, Werebear seems the most promising because he still produces mana and he turns into a significant threat in the absence of Doran, which is a boon. Epochrasite is cute with Slide but Werebear feels better. I will commence testing it immediately...on Monday.

noobslayer
12-29-2007, 06:28 PM
You could also test the slightly worse Wall of Blossoms. Slide + Blossoms = equals a draw and loam recursion engine.

EDIT: I read your sentiments on it. I think the only relevant (and it is significant I guess) is when blocking Werebear, Tarmogoyf, and Jotun Grunt.

galeng
01-04-2008, 09:05 AM
Card Choices:
Treefolk Harbinger: This is the replacement creature for Sakura-Tribe Elder. I ended up going with the Harbinger over the Elder because it was cheaper (and thus faster), could block a lot more things and live to talk about it, and worked well with Astral Slide. In the process of testing the deck I discovered that he also works quite well as fetch lands 5-8, since he can grab nonbasic Forests as well. Later in the game, he becomes an effective 3/3 for :g: with Doran in play. The best part? If you have just one in play, you can Slide the Harbinger out to search for his buddy, then Slide out his buddy…and so on, until you’ve got all four and every Forest in your deck on the board. A small army of 3/3 guys, four cards, and a shit-ton of land is good by just about any standards.


God no. Birds of paradise is just better in every way. I wouldn't astral slide this as there are better targets in your deck.



Wall of Roots: Chosen for much the same reasons as the Harbinger, the Wall makes mana without tapping itself and is large enough to contain rampaging enemy Goyfs for the first few turns without biting the dust. As an added bonus, you can Slide out your Wall to reset the number of counters on it, and with Doran in play it becomes a formidable blocker.


Sure. Card advantage with astral slide.



Tarmogoyf: He’s big, he’s cheap, he stomps on all kinds of shit in this format. Yeah, I’ll take him.


I'm gonna say no, because you have nothing to make it bigger than a 0/1 unless youre gonna rely on your opponent.



Eternal Witness: Almost a “duh” choice in any deck playing green and Astral Slide together, Eternal Regrowth is the gal that allows this deck to play heavy control. Your best play with her is probably recurring Chant (especially against sorcery-speed combo), but she can also recycle dead men or grab back cycling cards in the absence of Life from the Loam.


Sure, but probably 3 or even 2, because it only just fights removal, but slide could be good (only need one out for this)



Doran, the Siege Tower: He’s big, he’s cheap, he stomps on all kinds of shit in this format. Yeah, I’ll use copy-and-paste.


Ok. Birds would really help here though.



Astral Slide: It’s an Astral Slide deck, what the fuck did you expect? On a more serious note, this card basically gives you infinite CiP effects from all your guys as well as acting a never-ending stream of quasi-Swords on your opponent’s guys. Getting hit by Goyf or Doran is rough, but getting hit by both and not being able to do anything about it is worse. You can also use it defensively in the early game to remove scary attackers from the game, or to block with your own guys, assign combat damage, and then Slide them out to save them.


Right.



Life from the Loam: This is the most batshit insane draw engine made since Necropotence. I mean, seriously. This thing ensures a never-ending supply of cycling cards to power up Slide as well as providing fodder for Confinement. Hi5!


Yep. Brokeness straight from the 43 lands idea.



Solitary Confinement: I have a very deep, personal dislike for this card, but it solves a lot of problems with this deck, so I’ll set my misgivings aside and run it. First, it provides you with a way to stabilize in the face of a disadvantageous board position by effectively shutting your opponent’s strategy down while buying you the time you need to dig around for answers. Second, it allows to go on the offensive when facing superior numbers, since your threats are all most likely of superior quality to the guys on the home team…and the best part is, your threats are virtually immortal. Watching hordes of Goblins get crushed beneath the feet of an army of marauding Goyfs is incredibly satisfying. And third, it makes the combo matchup a little easier on you.


This is random. Maybe sideboard, because its pretty crap vs most of the meta.



Swords to Plowshares: Standard spot removal for white decks. Not much to say here.


If you didn't have it I would have flamed you. Good job.



Renewed Faith: One thing this deck has problems with is stabilizing at a reasonable life total. You can occasionally have difficulty assembling your control package in the face of fast beats, and Goblins is but one Krosan Grip or Disenchant away from removing your Confinement and overrunning you. Renewed Faith helps you get out of the low-life danger zone as well as acting as a non-land cycler to trigger Slide. You can even hard cast it in emergency situations, although this doesn’t come up often.


Probably the best non-land cycling card, so good pick.



Orim’s Chant: The most obvious application of this card is as a lock on sorcery-speed combo when used with Witness and Slide, but it actually does a lot of things for you. First, it’s always a Time Walk. Secondly, and more importantly in some matchups (Goblins), it’s an early-game Fog. It also has the virtue of baiting out counters in Threshold when you want to try to resolve Slide or Confinement – Chant them, let them Force it, and then drop Slide.


The only disruption you have, so its gotta be there.



Gaddock Teeg: One of the final pieces that clinches the combo match for you, as Teeg is a bear that shuts down all of combo’s win conditions. Combine this with Chant and Confinement and you have a lot of hate cards that combo has to deal with if it wants to win. Furthermore, Teeg hits an important slot on your Combo Curve of Hate – Chant at one, Teeg at two, Confinement at three. PWNT. He’s also some good against control as a way to stop a lot of sweepers and business spells (Humility makes you sad ;-; ).


Almost counts as disruption. Main deck is a good choice.



Krosan Grip: Deed and EE are a kick to the balls for you, the former more so than the latter. You can mitigate both somewhat by Sliding Witness out in response and then letting her grab Slide when she pops back in, but why try to repair the damage when you can just stop it from happening in the first place? This also takes care of other random problem utility cards like Needle, Chalice, Humility, etc.


It's good but I'd say sideboard if that was already not the plan (I don't wanna check). Clear could be a good option main deck.



Shriekmaw: The deck runs black, but it doesn’t run the Terminator? Well…I’m still up in the air over this one, but I’ll lay out my arguments for not including it to see what the rest of you think. First, he costs five mana, which is quite a lot considering his only colored mana requirement is the color you have the least access to. Secondly, he’s not so hot with Doran. Third, targeting their guys with Slide accomplishes much the same thing, albeit in a less permanent manner, and I wasn’t sure I wanted that much redundancy with Swords already in the deck. That said, he is a one-parrotsalamanderthing killing machine, so…


Yes, do it. 3 or 4 main deck. Amazing slide target and ridiculous card. Remember you can evoke if you need to. Only 1 black needed to cast.



Vindicate: The most flexible targeted removal spell in my colors didn’t make it in because: 1) it costs three mana in a deck with a pretty choked 3cc slot, 2) it costs black in a deck trying to minimize its black use, and 3) it doesn’t do anything that I can’t do better with other cards. Also tapping down three mana on your turn is three mana you don’t have open for responses and tricks on your opponent’s turn.

Hoofprints of the Stag: I mention this because it was in the deck at one point, and it may come up. Yes, you do draw a retarded amount of cards, and yes, should you wish to do so you could make a 4/4 flying token every turn. However, by the time the game gets to the point where you’re able to fully abuse this card, you don’t want to have to tap three mana on your turn just to win more. Quite often, I would play games where Hoofprints built up 10+ counters because I would rather keep the mana open for cycling cards.


Nah to both of these. You've already filled all the threat and removal slots (if you go maw)



Goblins: Even to marginally in your favor. Whether you win or lose depends a lot on the relative explosiveness of your respective opening hands. The bit about wanting to maximize your early-game activity is doubly true here. Try only to fetch basics if you can help it and shoot for an early Confinement. At that point, you can relax a little bit, but just be careful to maintain the Confinement at all times.


Maybe. Doran and Walls of Blossoms is gonna screw them hard. And Doran doesn't use lube.



Red Thresh: Not positive. Guys you can handle, but guys and burn are bad, bad news. To be fair, the build of red Thresh I’ve been testing against is designed to beat control and runs 4 Wasteland, 4 Stifle, 8 burn spells, Goose, Goyf, and Werebear, so you tend to just get stomped by sheer explosiveness if you’re not on the play. That they can burninate your blockers out of the way is not helpful.

White Thresh: Positive. Resolving an early Slide here is key, but try to have the mana to Chant them first to bait counters. With Slide down, CounterTop becomes a lot less painful since you have Witness recursion to get back countered stuff. Note that a lot of your important business spells are in the 3cc bracket and therefore largely out of CounterTop range. Grip and possibly Teeg (to stop Force and EE) in game two will most likely make this matchup heavily in your favor. Oh yeah, Swords Enforcer right away. That shit hurts.


How are these two so different when theyre the same deck with a difference of 4 removal cards (bolt, fire/ice(maybe)/swords)?



TES: Unfavorable pre-board. Go for hands with Plains and Chants in them, so that if they Chant you, you can Chant them back. Get down Confinement ASAP and start beating. If they do anything the least bit threatening, Chant them. Note that, unlike Goblins, they can remove your Confinement game one.

Ichorid: X___X


Lol, yeah. Your only answer to combo is chant, and ichorid doesnt cast spells.
Sideboard chalice and crypt maybe.



Landstill: Marginally in your favor. Deed makes you a sad panda, and counters on your important spells do as well, but that doesn’t mean you lose. Again, use Chant as cover for your Slides and Witnesses. If you get both down, you win. Confinement is essentially irrelevant here because their clock is balls slow and you can overrun them with huge guys before they can muster much of a defense. Your best plan is an early game Zerg rush backed up by Chant and Swords on their lands, and to go for Witness/Slide if the game goes long to give you inevitability. Try not to pop a Standstill until your cycle engine is online, but once it is, the one-shot dosage of three extra cards is generally irrelevant compared to the twenty gajillion extra cards you’re drawing…per turn. Keep at least one cycle land in hand at all time so you can Slide Witness in response to Deed activations.


You say the matchup is in your favor but then you list countless ways in how the matchup is a lot of trouble. What are your advantages?



Chalice Aggro: Depends, but both are roughly even. Chalice at one and two stunt your development massively, perhaps even fatally, but if they don’t do both or you’re on the play then you can still gun for a fast Confinement. Life gain from Jitte gives you problems, but if they’ve got no guys to attach it to, it becomes a lot less dangerous (hint hint). Like Goblins, this gets markedly better for you the longer you live, as weathering the early game allows you to play power cards they have no answers for and turn things around. These matchups are the ones where you will most likely be hard casting Renewed Faith.


Agree

This deck is basically Rifter without Rift and instead Slide.
So I guess it can be called Slider.
There's an idea for you.

technogeek5000
01-05-2008, 03:24 PM
New land in Morningtide for this deck. i think it would be a automatic 4-of.

Murmuring Bosk (Rare)
Land - Forest

As Murmuring Bosk comes into play, you may reveal a Treefolk card from your hand. If you don't, Murmuring Bosk comes into play tapped.

Tap: Add B or W to your mana pool. Murmuring Bosk deals 1 damage to you.

Sanguine Voyeur
01-05-2008, 03:28 PM
New land in Morningtide for this deck. i think it would be a automatic 4-of.

Murmuring Bosk (Rare)
Land - Forest

As Murmuring Bosk comes into play, you may reveal a Treefolk card from your hand. If you don't, Murmuring Bosk comes into play tapped.

Tap: Add B or W to your mana pool. Murmuring Bosk deals 1 damage to you.Seems worse then Caves of Koilos and Godless Shrine, and I'm aware of the fact that it's a forest. The deck only runs five treefolk.

Nihil Credo
01-05-2008, 04:05 PM
Being a forest means it produces G as well as W and B, which makes it a good deal better than Caves and Shrine. I agree, though, that I wouldn't run it without increasing the Doran count (or finding some excellent Treefolk/Changeling, but the deck's tight enough so I'm not counting on it).

Sanguine Voyeur
01-05-2008, 04:21 PM
Being a forest means it produces G as well as W and B, which makes it a good deal better than Caves and Shrine.Forgot about that, I only realized the fact that it can be fetched with Harbinger. I Still think it's too slow, functioning as a tap land and all.
or finding some excellent Treefolk/Changeling, but the deck's tight enough so I'm not counting on itThere really aren't. There's suboptimal removal in the form of Nameless Inversion from Lorwyn and the barely playable Chameleon Colossus and Unstoppable Ash from Mourning Tide.

Anusien
01-06-2008, 03:43 PM
When I tested the deck in Extended, I was very excited by the inclusion of Sterling Grove and Wall of Roots. Sterling Grove is actually surprisingly good to set up the lock; TES and similar decks might not have 2 ways to destroy enchantments. Then again, it was a slow card I always kept wanting to push aside too.

Wall of Roots is ridiculous. Play it. The inability to fit it is one of my greatest regrets in my 3C Confinement Slide deck.

By the way, you have the ability to get Chalice, Abeyance, Orim's Chant, Boil (in red), Duress, Thoughtseize and more. Stalling combo or Threshold was never the problem; you just had difficulty getting a clock afterwards. I think Doran makes leaps and bounds here against combo, but I'm extremely worried about what it does to the Threshold matchup.

I'm worried about Solitary Confinement though. Most decks you care about can touch green for Krosan Grip and hit you hard that turn, so I'm not sure it's as easy to go all in on Confinement and win the way it was months ago.

Aggro_zombies
01-06-2008, 05:27 PM
Good to see some commentary, and I'll post to say I'm still working on this deck. More on that in a sec.

About the land: Meh? I stopped using Harbingers in favor of Birds, and Doran is holding onto his slot by the...bark of his teeth, I guess? The only virtue I see is that it's a Forest that fixes all my colors at once, but that doesn't mean it's any good. Also, unless a bah-roken treefolk comes out in Morning Tide, Harbingers are probably out of the deck entirely.

Wall of Roots: I'm considering going back to it.

An interesting idea came up when talking with a friend the other day. I won't elaborate much here, but one thing we were hashing out was why the deck consistently feels underpowered when played. We came to the conclusion that this deck was playing like a bad Survival deck: in other words, with Survival (Slide) in play it rocks, but without its signature card it tends to flop around. After putting our heads together for a bit, I hit upon the idea that this deck may have potential if you look at it in a new light: instead of Slide as the "build around me" card, why not Slide as a utility card that takes advantage of a deck's use of cycling? That said: I'm currently testing a :g::b: Rock-like build of the deck running Life from the Loam as the draw, and a white splash for Swords and a few Slide. It has potential...stay tuned.

Kokusho17
01-08-2008, 05:11 AM
Have you tried Riftstone Portal (maybe a one of)?

Happy Gilmore
01-08-2008, 10:07 AM
So why diglett.dec? How bout Mudkips.dec? I mean...who doesn't like mudkips?

Kokusho17
01-08-2008, 11:54 AM
Whats A Mudkip?

Aggro_zombies
01-09-2008, 02:29 AM
Whats A Mudkip?
http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o226/jbrennan0512/1180078226876.jpg
I herd you liek him.

I'm going to run this up here because it's been showing potential in my initial round of MWS testing. Kronicler, PM me so we can meet on Friday.

// Lands
4 [ON] Tranquil Thicket
4 [ON] Barren Moor
4 [ON] Windswept Heath
4 [A] Bayou
4 [A] Savannah
1 [A] Scrubland
1 [OD] Forest (4)

// Creatures
4 [RAV] Birds of Paradise
4 [FUT] Tarmogoyf
4 [MI] Wall of Roots
3 [FD] Eternal Witness
2 [RAV] Loxodon Hierarch
3 [LRW] Shriekmaw

// Spells
3 [RAV] Life from the Loam
4 [JU] Cabal Therapy
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
4 [FNM] Swords to Plowshares
3 [ON] Astral Slide

Astral Slide has gone "zomg its ur deck" to "A nice compliment to your overall strategy and a good plan B if the ground stalls." The deck plays much like an aggro-control deck now with the option of going full control in the long game (albeit with less spectacular bombs than a real control deck). The deck still uses Life from the Loam as its draw but replaces Genesis or Stronghold (seen in some Rock builds) with Slide, which does mostly the same thing but also has the option of removing blockers and recurring non-creature cards. Also, it works naturally well with the cycling draw engine you're running (I believe the appropriate term here is "synergy"). The extra discard is powerful early-game disruption and significantly improves the deck's ability to fight Threshold and combo in game one. And of course, you've got big guys: Goyf, Hierarch, and Parrot-Salamander of Doom. Your mana accelerators become expendable in the mid- to late-game, and make excellent flashback fodder for Therapy.

No SB as of yet, but I'm thinking auto-ins are Teegs, with perhaps Grips.

Aggro_zombies
01-12-2008, 05:27 AM
Sorry for the double post, but I'm bumping this to say that I'm reworking the OP and that the deck is much better now.

znoyes
09-14-2008, 09:34 PM
What about Tilling Treefolk:

2G

1/3

Treefolk shaman

When it comes into play, return up to two lands from your graveyard to your hand.

It comboes with slide big time. Also goes with rift, if you have red. It can be searched for with harbinger (gives him a purpose)

Aggro_zombies
09-14-2008, 11:16 PM
What about Tilling Treefolk:

2G

1/3

Treefolk shaman

When it comes into play, return up to two lands from your graveyard to your hand.

It comboes with slide big time. Also goes with rift, if you have red. It can be searched for with harbinger (gives him a purpose)
Oh Jesus, big necro.

No, I haven't thought about that, mostly because I stopped working on this deck prior to Eventide and the last version of the deck didn't even have Harbingers in it. They weren't that good on their own and they were only marginal with Doran. Dropping them and reorganizing the main deck didn't improve anything and led me to believe that Slide decks in this mold were not viable in Legacy, so I went over to playing Aggro Loam.

Thanks for the suggestion, though.

EDIT: I guess I'll elaborate a bit, since I'm avoiding doing my Microbiology homework anyway. Having logged a lot of hours with this deck in testing, I can say that it has two main problems: a lack of space, and a split focus. The first is a somewhat obvious so I'll work with the second. The deck has two major focuses (foci?): controlling the long game with Astral Slide, and going on the offensive in aggro-control style a la Threshold (I really need to learn how to do accent marks with the keyboard...). These two are not entirely compatible. The first plan is rather mana-intensive and requires the deck to have some way to weather the early game so that it can establish a secure board position. The second plan basically supersedes the first because Threshold aggro-control is actually fairly quick and requires almost no mana to operate. Because of this, the deck plays inefficiently and a bit schizophrenically most of the time, with the result that both of the deck's potential game plans end up getting watered down and losing to decks dedicated to control or aggro-control (this deck is aggro-control-control).

The solutions I saw for this were to split the deck and either make it Astral Slide control, or more of a Rock deck with Slide backup. Neither plan worked. Astral Slide.dec is horrid in Legacy as it's essentially both slower and inferior to Landstill and Stax, the two most important control decks in the meta. The problems with the deck can best be summed up by a comment from a friend of a friend: "In Legacy, decks you play do broken stuff. If your deck doesn't do anything broken, it's not good." He was perhaps exaggerating a bit (he plays Standard quite a bit, after all), but he's not far from the truth. I have found Astral Slide as a build-around-me card to be consistently underpowered when compared with, say, drawing three whenever an opponent does something, or making all of the opponent's spells cost :3: from turn one. First, in terms of Legacy time, it takes forever and a day to set up an Astral Slide "lock," even if you run asstons of acceleration. Secondly, your whole lock falls apart with well-timed graveyard hate. Thirdly, it does nothing to cards like Nimble Mongoose, which keel over dead to, say, EE+Ruins lock out of Landstill (also a graveyard-dependent lock). Thirdly, the best trick you can pull off with Astral Slide is Eternal Witness recycling your yard. This is decidedly yawn when you realize that, with all the effort you have to go through to do that, you should just win. Stax's lock takes a bit of effort to set up, but if it makes it, it will often force a concession on the spot. Active Slide does no such thing.

Taking the deck in more of a Rock direction opened a whole other can of worms. At that point, Slide and the requisite support cards felt unnecessarily redundant, and made the deck slower and weaker. The big question here was "If you're going aggro with disruptive elements, aren't there faster and better choices than Slide? And if you're thinking about having a long game plan with Slide, aren't you doing the whole aggro-control thing wrong?" When I tried to design a more Rock-oriented deck, the first thing to get cut was almost always Slide, which sent up red flags and made me realize that the two ideas were essentially incompatible. You either run Slide, or you run The Rock, or you run a shittier version of both of them mashed together. The Rock is The Rock and has its own strengths and weaknesses, and Slide's list of weaknesses is far longer than its list of strengths. This deck was just...underwhelming.

On to your suggestion: Tilling Treefolk is godawful. First, it's a 1/3 for three mana. It's absolutely terrible in anything but dedicated Slide, and only marginal there. Shit, he's not even playable in Limited, unless you're trying to do some sort of weird Retrace deck. If I wanted a small body and CiP ability for three mana, I'd play Witness and at least give myself a choice of what to retrieve. Oh wait...I already play Witness. Never mind. Second, his ability is worse than Life from the Loam and can only be justified by saying that running him reduces your reliance on said Sorcery and therefore makes the deck less susceptible to graveyard hate. This is true...until you realize that losing your cycling lands puts you in exactly the same spot, except now instead of a worthless dredge card, you have a worthless twenty-turn clock. For three mana. Seems poor.

Anyway, I switched over to Aggro-Loam a while ago because it has many of the same general features I like about this deck, except with the benefit of being good. I'm touched that you resurrected my long-dead pet project, but unfortunately, like most of my pet projects, it's not very good except as a cool casual deck and maybe something in Extended this season.

Thanks though.