Mono Savannah Hate

Since the top DTBs are now blue control decks, hating on manabases and blue shells seems good.

Legacy has some powerful hate cards, but many decks cannot run them without also hurting from the drawbacks.

The idea is that this deck runs no fetches, no cantrips, no tutors, no Islands, and no Brainstorms. That means you get to run a bunch of hate cards that punish the Legacy format for playing Magic while not suffering from any of the drawbacks yourself.

Chalice of the Void: Hating out cantrips, combo, and tempo like nobody's business.

Choke: Oh, you wanted to tap Islands for mana? Awkward.

Suppression Field: Oh, your manabase depends on fetchlands? Awkward. Also: planeswalkers, Ant War, Wasteland, Rishadan Port, Aether Vial, and equipment just got a lot more durdly.

Leonin Arbiter: See above fetchland comment. Also tutors.

Spirit of the Labyrinth: Oh hi Brainstorm.

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben: Also messing up cantrips and spell-based strategies

Karakas: Goodbye 15/15s and 20/20s. Please play normal creatures.

Here's a rough idea of a list. It looks a bit like a GW Hatebears deck, except also running Chalice, Suppression Field and Choke along with fast mana. The goal is to land a 2cmc lock piece on turn 1 and another on turn 2, then beatdown.


//Mana: 26
4 Savannah
4 Razorverge Thicket
4 Cavern of Souls
2 Horizon Canopy
1 Karakas
3 Ancient Tomb
4 Chrome Mox
4 Elvish Spirit Guide

//Artifacts and Enchantments: 10
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Suppression Field
2 Choke

//Creatures: 24
4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Spirit of the Labyrinth
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Knight of Autumn
3 Loxodon Smiter
2 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
2 Palace Jailer

//Sideboard: 15
4 Rest in Peace
3 Path to Exile
3 Containment Priest
2 Sanctum Prelate
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Choke
1 Gaddock Teeg


Explaining the other card choices...

The creatures:
Phyrexian Revoker - Shutting down yet more activated abilities, especially against combo. This may prove redundant in a deck with 4 Suppression Field, so I only have 2 copies to start.

Knight of Autumn - Such a flexible card. Kills artifacts and enchantments. Pads your life total. Goes on beatdown mode. Also 2 colors for Chrome Mox.

Loxodon Smiter - I haven't seen this card played in a while, but an uncounterable 4/4 seems like a good beater. Comes down for free when Liliana or Kolaghan's Command makes you discard. 2 colors for Chrome Mox.

Thalia, Heretic Cathar - Even more fetchland hate. Also shuts down Sneak Attack and makes blocking more awkward.

Palace Jailer - Removal. Card draw. It performs pretty well in D&T, Soldier Stompy and 5c Humans.


The mana:
Savannah - Taps for G and W. Enters untapped. No drawbacks. Seems good.

Razorverge Thicket - Taps for G and W. Enters tapped later on, but enters untapped early to help land those turn 1 and turn 2 hate pieces.

Horizon Canopy - Taps for G and W for moderate lifeloss. Draws cards in a pinch. With Suppression Field it will cost 3, and with Spirit you will have to remember to draw on opponent's EOT only, so I am only at 2 copies.

Cavern of Souls - This is a questionable inclusion, because there's no explicit tribal theme here and there are also 6 colored noncreature spells. There are many creatures with overlapping types though. The idea is that given a specific hand and matchup, you can decide what to name with Caverns to help force through whichever piece you really need to land to skew the matchup, without worrying about FoW or Daze. It won't necessarily be the most common type in your hand. Hopefully there are enough other things that tap for either G or W that you can deal with this tapping for colorless the rest of the time.

Karakas - Hates out unfair creatures. Protects Thalias.

Ancient Tomb - Helps power out turn 1 Chalice or Heretic Cathar (to screw up fetches). Helps play around Daze. Because you don't have too many 2X stuff, 4 copies would be excessive. Maybe 2 is correct.

Chrome Mox - Helps land the turn 1 lock piece. Some gold options to imprint, so this can potentially tap for G or W.

Elvish Spirit Guide - Helps land the turn 1 lock piece. Helps play around Daze. Comes down as a creature later.



The sideboard:
Rest in Peace - Standard GY hate for a deck that aims to play 2cc spells on turn 1 and doesn't run any GY stuff itself. Obviously it comes in against Reanimator and Dredge and Lands, but it also has value against Storm and Grixis and anything else with grindy graveyard recursion.

Path to Exile - The interaction with Leonin Arbiter is cute, usually just exiling a creature without giving them a land or life or anything. Bad with Chalice though. Maybe there's a better choice for this slot. Some targeted removal in the 75 seems good though.

Containment Priest - Messes up a range of cheatyface strategies from Reanimator to SneakShow to Vial aggro to GSZ tutoring. 2 cmc hatebear. Obviously fits in well.

Sanctum Prelate - Chalice #5-6, hitting things above 1 cmc more efficiently than Chalice. Even name 6 to shut down Terminus.

Umezawa's Jitte - Vs other creature-heavy decks. Maybe this should be 2 copies, since there is no Stoneforge to find it.

Choke - The 3rd copy to really drive the nail in blue decks, especially once they start boarding in answers to the first few hate pieces.

Gaddock Teeg - More "you can't play magic" stuff for combo and control.



Other creatures to consider:
Aven Mindcensor - more fetch/tutor hate, as a surprise. good with Ancient Tomb mana.

Recruiter of the Guard - If Leonin Arbiter goes, this should be a 4-of to find strategic answers more smoothly

Scavenging Ooze - maindeck graveyard hate

Losing the die roll to delver will be problematic. I suggest some jitte or sofi. With tomb you could run them without stoneforge.

Edit: this also makes hardcasting esg late game reasonable.

haven't spent too much time looking at it, but a singleton sylvan isn't the worst idea. i would also have a few more answers to threats in here. it seems very preventative, but you have no reactive answers other than a singleton karakas.

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Originally Posted by mistercakes

haven't spent too much time looking at it, but a singleton sylvan isn't the worst idea. i would also have a few more answers to threats in here. it seems very preventative, but you have no reactive answers other than a singleton karakas.

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Sylvan's a nonbo with Spirit of the Labyrinth, so I'd have to cut some Spirits. Maybe.

Yeah it's heavily proactive. The only reactive answers main are Karakas and 2 Palace Jailer (plus 3 PtE and 1 Jitte SB). It's metagamed against blue control (Miracles, Grixis) and combo, but does have a lack of answers against fair decks. Maybe that's too unbalanced. Eldrazi Stompy and turn 1 Delver will be awful.

What would you recommend as a reactive answer main? StP and PtE are a nonbo with Chalice. Oblivion Ring? Jittes? Banisher Priest? Kitchen Finks to gain back life? I couldn't think of much better than Palace Jailer. Ghostly Prison?

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Originally Posted by kinda

Losing the die roll to delver will be problematic. I suggest some jitte or sofi. With tomb you could run them without stoneforge.

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I was avoiding equipment because Suppression Field. 4 to equip. 2 to remove each counter from Jitte. Paying 6-10 mana before you get any counters on Jitte (then 2 to remove each counter) seems way too slow. On the plus side it means enemy Jittes aren't a threat to your X/1s and X/2s! SoFaI is 7 mana to end up on a creature, then you can't even draw the card if Spirit is out.

Maybe Jitte is still worth it. Suppression Field won't always stick early, and those are the games you're more likely to be behind anyway. 2 Jittes main and move Revokers to the SB? Equipment does make all the 2/2s less bad

What if we make this mono-Plateau Hate instead? We lose Choke, but red has better reactive answers built into creatures. Red gives Simian Spirit Guide, Avalanche Riders/Goblin Ruinblaster, Flametongue Kavu, Manic Vandal, Jaya Ballard, Task Mage, and other stuff.

Or mono-Scrublands Hate? Black for Ravenous Chupacabra/Shriekmaw, Dark Confidant (draws through Spirit), Tidehollow Sculler, Plague Mare, Plaguecrafter... . However we lose Spirit Guides.

I realized Green isn't doing much here other than Knight of Autumn, Spirit Guides and Choke.

Red already is a DNT version.

I think green is good, but I would look to maverick, and make it a stompy shell. Or play Maverick.

Why no wastelands and gqs with Ramunap Excavator? Why no GSX?

Riftstone Portal with Mox diamond?

I'm not saying "just play the other decks", I support trying stuff out. This DOES sounds similar to those decks though.

I don't think you need 4 spirit of the labyrinth nor 4 leonin arbiters, unless paired with GQ similar to modern dnt.

I've long had similar ideas of mox+riftstone+ramunap+kotr+chalice+thalias etc+GQ's+leonins

I really like this concept. This deck looks pretty freaking sweet. If you're looking for another color Blue could be nice. You get Meddling Mage which answers whatever card they can play through all your disruption letting you fully lock them down. You could also play TNN which is very resistant to removal.

Edit: also in the SB Tsabo's Web could be good against decks like Lands.

Maybe I should have written a better primer to explain the motivation, but this is still in early brew stages.

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Originally Posted by compacta_d

I don't think you need 4 spirit of the labyrinth nor 4 leonin arbiters, unless paired with GQ similar to modern dnt.

I've long had similar ideas of mox+riftstone+ramunap+kotr+chalice+thalias etc+GQ's+leonins

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Without Suppression Field or Chalice, you could use Leonin Arbiter + Path to Exile/Ghost Quarter for good value. Also Excavator and KotR. That's more of a Maverick build with an Arbiter LD hate twist.

The purpose of Arbiter here is more to be a back-up Suppression Field to deploy on turn 1, something that Modern cannot do (no fast mana) so they use Arbiter differently. Suppression Field really needs to land on turn 1-2. Later in the game it's much worse. With both Suppression Field and Leonin Arbiter and the mana accel, there's a high chance of casting one casting one on turn 1. If resolved, it means your opponent cannot activate fetchlands. That wrecks a lot of manabases. They have to naturally draw 2 non-fetches. Even if they fetched turn 1 on the play, they may not get their second mana source.

Then you back that up with cards like Chalice of the Void, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben and Spirit of the Labyrinth to shut down cantrips, so they can't even use cantrips to try to dig into more non-fetches for mana. They have to rely on random variance to draw them out. (maybe 4 Spirits is still too many)

The idea is that this should really punish all those greedy blue decks that lean too heavily on cantrips and fetchlands to smooth their games. Once you force them to play fair magic, without tutoring or fetching or cantripping, their decklists get a lot worse. Meanwhile you beat them down with creatures. That's the intended gameplan anyway. I need to balance it so this doesn't suck against nonblue decks and has ways to answer resolved threats.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by compacta_d

Red already is a DNT version.

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This isn't DNT. It's Turn 1 Chalice / Suppression Field / Arbiter deck with hatebears backup, more of a Prison strategy than a Vial Aggro strategy. Rishadan Port, Aether Vial, Mom, 1 drops, and Stoneforge don't fit here, so I think there's enough fundamental difference in the core and strategy to not be a DnT variant.

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Originally Posted by compacta_d

I think green is good, but I would look to maverick, and make it a stompy shell. Or play Maverick.

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Maverick's a great deck, just a very different strategy. They play 1 drops, not turn 1 Chalice. Suppression Field and Leonin Arbiter don't mesh with core cards like GSZ, Mom, Stoneforge, Knight of the Reliquary, Scryb Ranger... This deck wants to abuse Suppression Field and Arbiter to shut down most conventional Legacy strategies. I looked at Maverick builds but couldn't find much else that synergizes with these lock pieces. A stompy shell may be a better direction.

Are there any good White stompy or Green Stompy creatures that answer resolved threats or end the game quickly? That's what this deck really needs.

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Why no wastelands and gqs with Ramunap Excavator? Why no GSX?

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I thought about it. Suppression Field makes Wasteland/GQ pretty durdly. I also want to avoid too many colorless sources so the manabase is still consistent without fetches.

GSZ is bad with Arbiter. Even without Arbiter, there aren't many green creatures to fetch. So far Knight of Autumn and SB Gaddock Teeg, that's about it. Most is white. I can just play 4 Knights, so that part is easy. Recruiter of the Guard might be better than GSZ? Or maybe if I get more green silver bullets.

Quote:

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Riftstone Portal with Mox diamond?

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Could be good. I'll play around with the manabase.

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Originally Posted by Amon Amarth

I really like this concept. This deck looks pretty freaking sweet. If you're looking for another color Blue could be nice. You get Meddling Mage which answers whatever card they can play through all your disruption letting you fully lock them down. You could also play TNN which is very resistant to removal.

Edit: also in the SB Tsabo's Web could be good against decks like Lands.

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Thanks! I'll think about Blue. It means no Choke, but Meddling Mage and TNN add some depth.

Sweet idea

Tariff, Council´s Judgement, Cataclysm are all worth considering as removal.

The Arbiters + Mindcensors and GQ package looks like a good strategy.

I decided to go a different route, cutting the Arbiters but still going strong on Chalice + Suppression Field. Without Arbiters I have access to Recruiter of the Guard, which I think helps smooth out the deck a lot and enables a toolbox approach, so I don't need so many copies of the hatebears that are only conditionally useful.


Suppressed


//Mana: 26
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Chrome Mox
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Savannah
4 Cavern of Souls
3 Razorverge Thicket
1 Karakas
2 Horizon Canopy

//Stax: 12
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Suppression Field
3 Trinisphere
1 Sylvan Library

//Creatures: 23
4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Spirit of the Labyrinth
1 Tarmogoyf
1 Containment Priest
1 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Recruiter of the Guard
3 Aven Mindcensor
2 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
2 Knight of Autumn
3 Palace Jailer

//Sideboard:
3 Rest in Peace
3 Ghostly Prison
2 Choke
1 Containment Priest
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 True Believer
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Knight of Autumn
1 Sanctum Prelate
1 Kalonian Hydra


The deck is still light on maindeck answers to resolved threats (3 Palace Jailer + 1 Karakas), but at least it has Recruiters to find Palace Jailer and the random Tarmogoyf to duke it out. Postboard there's Ghostly Prison to hold off aggro.

This deck looks sweet. I've several times tried to break suppression field. It just seems so good. Another route to take would be to include path to exile and then thorn of amathyst instead of chalice. But I love chalice though ...