U/B/g The Mind Harvester

[Anusien]

I am so down on the Loam plan right now. Maybe it's awesome if everyone switches to Grafdigger's Cage, but I feel certain all the Snapcaster decks (i.e., the best decks in the format) will stay on Extraction. And if Loam gets Extracted, the deck won't be doing much. You have not THAT many slots devoted to the Loam package, but you are relying on it to fix your mana and to generate incremental advantage..

I really wonder if you'd be better served by replacing the Loam package and Intuitions with Tarmogoyf and something like Shackles or Threads. You aren't relying on your removal as much anymore because you can block. You have a more consistent way to generate late-game advantage. And because you can actually clock them, you have an improved matchup against combo decks.

[routlaw]

I don't think most decks can afford to bring in card-negative gravehate like extractions in this matchup. I would bring in Spellbombs or Relics if I could, but you can easily find yourself a card or two down and lose a fight over Jace if you play extractions. Cycle lands are also incredible for protecting Loam.

Shackles is a fine card in the format and I'm not unhappy to play it. It's less good now than it was when the tribal decks were around, however, and I've always felt that in a control deck that wants a decent mana base, Shackles is best in two colors and not three.

Tarmogoyf as a wincon is garbage in this format outside of mostly-blue aggro/control decks, IMO (and a cursory check of TC decks shows this out). Even the deck hellbent on stuffing as many green creatures as possible into the deck doesn't play him. It's not a terrible suggestion but it doesn't fit the deck's idea at all.

[Hanni]

While I do not agree that the Snapcaster decks are the best decks in the format, I cannot dispute the prevalnce of the Mage in the format.

Surgical Extraction hitting Loam doesn't scare me. I can cycle Loam in response, I can counter the SCM, I can discard the hate before I set up Loam, etc. Hitting Loam is a lot less worrisome than hitting Jace or Wom Harvest. The lightness of my win conditions is the bigger issue. Without Loam, this deck doesn't function much differently than BUGstill, especially considering how bad Standstills are. But without any win conditions, I can't win at all.

Maybe instead of the Thoughtseizes, I should run Clique. Or maybe even a 1/1 split of Gigapede and Vengeful Pharaoh, to up my win condition diversity. Thrun and Eternal Witness would also be viable. Shriekmaw and Creeping Tar Pit too. Would probably want a Stronghold if I go the non-recurrable creature route.

Good point to bring up Anusien, albeit for a slightly different reason. I'll do some testing and then post my changes.

[The Treefolk Master]

I'm starting to play the deck, this is my current list: (some ideas borrowed from sdematt's post in the BUG Thread):

3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Bayou
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Cabal Pit
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Volrath's Stronghold
3 Wasteland

3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Thrun, the Last Troll

4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Spell Snare
2 Counterspell
3 Ghastly Demisde
4 Pernicious Deed
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Intuiton
1 Worm Harvest
1 Life from the Loam
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Smother
1 Noxious Revival


The Thrun has been super awesome so far, buying as time, or clocking the opponent.

Snapcasters are quite good, usually to rebuy a counterspell, or rebuy a removal and chump. A pair of them is not a weak clock at all. They need further testing, but have been nice so far.

The Noxious Revival turns Intuition into Demonic Tutor when searching for 2 cards. It's a bit clunky and the worst top deck ever if you draw it without something that lets you draw, but it also allows us to stop Surgical Extraction.

Haven't tested the SB, but this is where I am right now:

4 Leyline of the Void (not sold on these)
3 Kitchen Finks (Burn = Sad Face)
2 Vendilion Clique (combo, control)
2 Spell Pierce (combo, control)
1 Raven's Crime (should be able to auto win the control & combo matchup if unattended).
1 Darkblast (mega-awesome, Maverick, UW Stoneblade, Elves, etc)
2 Cards (Haven't thought on these yet: ideas are 2 Inquisition of Kozilek, another Noxious Revival vs. Surgical, Damnation, Maelstrom Pulse as an extra removal & jace killer, Explosives + Ruins).

Any thoughts?

I really like the deck, it feels like ITF, a deck I've always wanted to play, but my incursion into the format was after that deck was viable).

[Anusien]

Shackles is MUCH better against Stoneforge and Delver decks than Tribal decks.

[Hanni]

I love Shackles. If you've ever looked in my Superfriends thread, then you probably know that. If not, suffice to say I ran 3 copies in that deck religiously for a long time.

This is a different deck. It's very difficult to support Shackles with my manabase, and run 4 Deeds which often pop for 3+

The deck runs such a large mass of removal that I really see no need for Shackles in here, unfortunately.

@ Treefolk

Kitchen Finks got nothin on Zuran Orb vs Burn and other similar hyper aggressive strategies.

[sdematt]

My list is super similar.

Manabase

2 Snapcaster
2 Thrun

2 Liliana
3 Jace

3 Force of Will
3 Spell Snare
2 Mana Leak
4 Brainstorm
3 Ghastly Demise
1 Darkblast
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Life from the Loam
1 Worm Harvest
2 Intuition
2 Damnation
1 Putrefy
1 Noxious Revival
1 Maelstrom Pulse

Board:
1 Pernicious Deed
3 Tarmogoyf
3 Spell Pierce
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Krosan Grip
2 Virtue's Ruin
1 Flusterstorm/Gilded Drake/Metamorph

-Matt

[Hanni]

I did some thinking about Thrun vs Gigapede. When I break it down, the only benefit of Thrun I can think of is costing 4 instead of 5 and having regenerate for less tempo loss when blocking.

Gigapede is tutorable and recurrable. Being counterable is largely irrelevant. Shroud vs Hexproof makes no difference in this deck. Gigapede plays nicer with Innocent Blood. 6 power makes for a faster clock on a clean board. Gigapede can block and kill Goyf's, and possibly even Knight's. Gigapede plays a lot nicer with Dredge.

In the cases where Thrun would be better, Worm Harvest is better than both of them... by a lot. In fact, Worm Harvest is better than both of them almost always, but as an additional wincon, Gigapede gets the award IMO.

I'm not sure the deck really needs more than 4 Jace 1 Harvest 1 Gigapede as win cons. If it did, I'd probably go with Creeping Tar Pit, since having an extra land that taps for U and B isn't bad. I'm definitely sold on cutting 1 Thoughtseize for 1 Gigapede, but I'm still up in the air for what to replace the other one with.

[Anusien]

Thrun fights Tarmogoyf and Batterskull and Factory so much better than Gigapede. It also works MUCH better when you don't have Loam online.

[Hanni]

Thrun fights Tarmogoyf and Batterskull and Factory so much better than Gigapede. It also works MUCH better when you don't have Loam online.

Not sure how Thrun fights off a 4/5 or 5/6 Tarmogoyf better than Gigapede, who trades with the Goyf rather than chump + regenerate (Goyf still lives). Against Batterskull, sure, but the difference isn't that big. Against Factory, I have tons of answers, from Wasteland to Cabal Pit to tons of 1/1 Worm tokens.

Basically, my point is that this deck really doesn't fear the cards you just listed, because it runs a billion and one answers to those things in the first place. The only reason to even consider Gigapede over the superior Harvest and Jace wincons is because it increases the decks win conditions, as to not get blown out by Surgical/Extirpate. There is way more synergy with Gigapede within the shell of this deck than there is with Thrun.

Also, the point about Thrun being better without Loam doesn't make sense. So Gigapede costs 1 more mana. I don't see how that makes it worse than Thrun without a Loam, since this deck can still hit 5 lands without Loam. Besides, this is an Intuition/Loam Control deck afterall, so cards that work better with those spells should get the nod over those that don't.

I'm thinking the deck only needs a 4/1/1 split of Jace, Harvest, and Gigapede anyway. If my opponent is capable of hitting all three of those with Surgical in a single game without me having a way to counter it or otherwise prevent it from resolving, then I deserve to lose that game.

[The Treefolk Master]

When thinking about it, the biggest reason to run Thrun instead of Gigapede was that, if you're in desperate need to stick a dude, Thrun is guaranteed to come down, while Gigapede can be countered. Counterspell + Force of Will can keep Gigapede out long enough for your opponent to kill you or gain a large advantage with stuff like Jace.

On the other hand, I do own a Foil Gigapede...

[Hanni]

Spell Snare and Spell Pierce don't effect Gigapede, so you're looking at Counterspell, Force of Will, and Daze.

You're only seeing Counterspell against Control decks, where simply recasting him next turn is fine.

Against Force of Will, unless it's a tempo move that results in you losing before Gigapede sticks next turn, is just fine with me. 2 for 1 yourself over it, I'm just gonna cast him again.

Against Daze, yea, that could be painful. I'm still casting him again next turn, though.

I mean, anything with blue in it, unless it's aggressive (U/R Delver, etc), is probably a good matchup. This deck is soft to hyper aggressive decks like Burn, but dominates control mirrors.

Here's my revamped list:

U/B/g The Mind Harvester

// Lands (24)
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
4 [R] Underground Sea
2 [R] Tropical Island
1 [R] Bayou
2 [UNH] Island
1 [UNH] Swamp
1 [UNH] Forest
2 [ON] Lonely Sandbar
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
1 [TE] Wasteland
1 [OD] Cabal Pit

// Creatures (1)
1 [ON] Gigapede

// Spells (35)
1 [EVE] Worm Harvest
2 [ISD] Liliana of the Veil
4 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 [IA] Brainstorm
4 [TE] Intuition
1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
4 [IA] Counterspell
4 [AL] Force of Will
1 [EVE] Raven's Crime
2 [OD] Innocent Blood
2 [OD] Ghastly Demise
1 [RAV] Darkblast
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
4 [AP] Pernicious Deed

// Sideboard (15)
SB: 4 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
SB: 2 [ARB] Maelstrom Pulse
SB: 2 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 4 [IA] Zuran Orb
SB: 1 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 [SOM] Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 1 [WWK] Bojuka Bog

I'm still considering Buried Ruin for the fact that it can put a Crypt or Orb into hand, and therefore into play, immediately.

[Mr. Safety]

I've been messing around with this deck style for a few days. My main questions are:

1) How many Intutions do you really need? I can probably get 2 (have none now) within my budget, maybe three if I can get a good deal.

2) How many man-lands should I play? Currently using 2x Creeping Tar Pit and 1x Treetop Village.

3) I have noticed that Daze is fairly well useless so far...am I off base? I've been maindecking 3x Spell Pierce and I've been happy with those.

4) Is it enough to have 2x Jace, 1x Worm Harvest, and man-lands for win-cons? I really want to squeeze in more copies of Loam, Raven's Crime, some additional spot removal, discard, etc.

5) I've been digging Forbidden Alchemy as a dig option, using two so far.

My current list for reference:

3x Wasteland
1x Underground Sea
1x Bayou
4x Misty Rainforest
3x Verdant Catacombs
2x Island
2x Swamp
1x Forest
2x Creeping Tar Pit
1x Treetop Village
1x Lonely Sandbar
2x Barren Moor
1x Tranquil Thicket

1x Eternal Witness
1x Thrun, the Last Troll

2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3x Pernicious Deed
2x Maelstrom Pulse
3x Life from the Loam
2x Intuition
1x Worm Harvest
3x Raven's Crime
4x Brainstorm
3x Force of Will
2x Spell Snare
3x Spell Pierce
2x Forbidden Alchemy
1x Profane Command
4x Innocent Blood


Anyways, looking for direction and way to mise the big $$$ dual lands. So far the extra basics have been fine, especially by reducing Wasteland effectiveness against me. It means I can't run Hymn to Tourach but I think Raven's Crime is enough given the Loam engine. My biggest reason for using multiples of Raven's Crime/Loam are to allow me to use Intuition for other control factors (if I can nuts draw into Loam/Crime with Brainstorm, Alchemy, Jace.) It may be a pet card concoction but I love the Witness/Profane interaction which adds a win-condition to the deck.

Thanks for any help!

[Plm]

Hi there!

I went to a small tournament today with the mind harvester, and scrubed hardcore.

Here is what I sleeved :



3 Pernicious Deed
2 Innocent Blood
2 Ghastly Demise
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Darkblast
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Damnation

1 Life from the Loam
1 Raven's Crime

4 Brainstorm
3 Intuition

4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Gigapede
1 Worm Harvest

3 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
1 Mana Leak


1 Creeping Tar Pit
3 misty rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
3 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
1 Wasteland
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Academy Ruins
2 Lonely Sandbar
1 Maze of Ith
1 Forest
1 Cabal Pit

SB: 3 Tarmogoyf
SB: 3 Flusterstorm
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 1 Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 2 Zuran Orb
SB: 2 Krosan Grip

Round one vs tribal vampire RB from modern 2/0

All those hasty critters are annoying to deal with at ritual speed, but no problem. I win stabilize slowly and resolve intuition for loam, harvest and stuff (can't remember , don't matter)

Game 2 I side in the goyfs, turn one raven's crime enable turn 2 bolt proof goyf, that's all she wrote.

As we say : a vaincre sans péril, on triomphe sans gloire .



Round 2 vs gobs, full pimp ! 1/1

Game 1 is long and difficult after a mulligan to 5. I finally win with loam, harvest, maze & cabal pit , wihout seeing any intuition.

Game 2 gob does what gob do.

Time is called at the start of game 3 , draw.

Pwaa horrible mach up, fast agro with CA and mana denial. I'm glad to get a draw.



Round 3 vs merfolk with landstill. 0/2

Deed + sorcery speed removal sucks vs mutavault.

Game 2 zuran orb gives tarmo the power to block ! gigapede comes in to try racing but I loose because I top deck innocent blood instead of any other removal.

What did I say about agro with CA ?



Round 4 vs zombardement 0/2

Game 1 I loose after a long battle. recuring power is to strong for my deck, and loam engine is mana hungry.

Game 2 leyline stop annoying recursion, but discard eat my deed, I draw 6 (six fucking 6 , like 2 times 3 , or 1+2+3, or my nefew's number of finger on one hand, like 1/4 of the lands of the deck; men can you believe that?) lands in a row (this with fetching to suffle the deck and so).
My opp feel sorry for me. Me too !





That's what real scrubing looks like.

All in all, I felt that the deck was too slow and too mana intensive (vs gob it was a pain).

Playing only tribal was painfull, I would have liked to be paired against miracle control or maverick wich were positive in testing, alas.

Goyf was a star from the side board but playing only one type of deck shift my view.


I might try to take a page of the nic fit book and use veteran explorer in order to have the mana. The deck is impossible to beat in the late game, it has INEVITABILITY, the problem is surviving.
I was also very disapointed with lilianna witch shine once you have the loam engine online but is meh before that.

[Hanni]

Okay, so Valtrix totally inspired me to revisit this deck. I'm definitely thinking that going 4c and splashing white is the way to go right now. Swords to Plowshares alone was never enough justification to go into white, but with Terminus being just as splashable as Swords to Plowshares with its single white mana cost, there is no good reason not to. Terminus is far more powerful than Pernicious Deed for dealing with creatures, and there are only a few Tier 2 strategies where a mass sweep of noncreature permanents is beneficial. Most decks with noncreatures permanents only run a few, and of those few, most are 3cc or less. Enter Abrupt Decay. So Terminus replaces Deed as my sweeper of choice, and Abrupt Decay fills in the role of dealing with noncreature permanents. Check. For matchups where I need answers to larger cc noncreature (or even creature) permanents, there are tons of sideboard options, such as: Vindicate, Maelstrom Pulse, or even Deed.

Through re-evaluation, Snapcaster Mage is definitely where I want to be again. I was on the fence with Snapcaster before, when my 1cc removal consisted of Innocent Bloods and Darkblast, but Swords to Plowshares and Abrupt Decay tear that fence down.

I obviously need to add Sensei's Divining Top to make Terminus work, which isn't a problem at all considering how insanely powerful that card is, independently, for just about any control deck. Although... Scroll Rack is another option that also happens to be crazy powerful with Loam, so that's another possibility instead. In Top's defense though, I do like the idea of being able to bring in Counterbalance from the sideboard. Having CounterTop postboard would dramatically improve this decks worst matchup(s): Burn, Sligh, and Zoo.

I need to go to bed soon, but I will definitely be working on brewing something up over the weekend.

EDIT: I totally forgot to mention Engineered Explosives. The deck should already be running at least 1 Explosives because of the Acadamy Ruins toolbox. EE is yet another piece of the removal package that justifies dropping Deed. With access to 4 colors of mana now, it can finally blow up Jaces' in the mirror.

I'm thinking that with the right tweaking, this deck has the potential to be a metacrusher, without sacrificing its other matchups. Mmmm the possibilities.

[pe5e]

So Valtrix inspired Hanni and he inspired me to take a look at this deck.
I thought about Hannis ideas and here is my list for the moment:

//CQ and CA
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Brainstorm
2 Life from the Loam
2 Intuition
4 Sensei's Divining Top
//Removel
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Terminus
2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Darkblast
2 Disfigure
1 Engineered Explosives

//Counter
3 Force of Will
2 Counterspell

//Winoptions
1 Batterskull
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

//Manabase
1 Academy Ruins
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
1 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
2 Tundra
1 Savannah
1 Lonely Sandbar
2 Island


//SB
2 Pernicious Deed
3 Counterbalance
4 Thoughtseize
3 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Vindicate

This is my first try for a 4c Loam list. I am not sure about the removel package but for now its fine. Intuiton is redicilous powerful and i would like to play the third if i find a slot for it.

Batterskull is by far the best winoption after jace for this deck in my opinion. It`s tutorable via Intuition, races aggro, has a great synergy with terminus, can be defended with enough mana und is recursionable with Academy Ruins.
Worm Harvest is too slow and not that powerful when you are at low life.

The manabase is fine for now. It has only 3 ultility lands so far but i think that`s a good number for a 4c deck. The manabase should at least run 22 lands und work without loam.

That´s my experence so far and i would like thoughts of others about it. Especially the Hanni list would be interesting^^.

My 2 cents pe5e
(Apologise for my bad english)

[Hanni]

Necromancy.

I was tinkering with this deck a few months ago, trying a 4c list with Swords to Plowshares. I did pretty poorly with it, but I attribute most of that with how difficult this deck is to pilot. Regardless, the list definitely needed a bit of work.

At any rate, Fatal Push has me thinking about this deck again. This will be my starting point:

UBGw The Mind Harvester

Lands (23)
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
1 Bayou
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Lonely Sandbar
1 Cabal Pit
1 Academy Ruins
1 Wasteland

Creatures (0)

Spells (37)
1 Worm Harvest
1 Garruk Relentless
2 Liliana of the Veil
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Brainstorm
4 Intuition
1 Life from the Loam
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
1 Raven's Crime
4 Fatal Push
2 Abrupt Decay
4 Pernicious Deed
1 Engineered Explosives

Sideboard (15)
3 Vendilion Clique
3 Duress
2 Diabolic Edict
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Karakas
1 Nomad Stadium
1 Ghost Quarter

When I playtested this deck a couple of months ago, I tested a list with 2 Snapcaster and 2 Jace instead of 4 Jace, but that was a horrible decision. This deck absolutely wants 4 Jace; Jace is the glue that holds this deck together.

Also, the manabase was horrid. I found myself unable to cast Counterspell quite often, so I cut 2 for 2 Spell Pierce. I didn't have any issues casting Pierce, but it was a dead card quite often. Moving back to a solid 3 color manabase and going back to 4 Counterspell should fix those problems.

The lone Tundra is there to give me access to EE@4 maindeck vs Miracles and Nomad Stadium postboard vs Burn.

I probably won't get around to playtesting this deck again for a while, but when I do, I'll post my findings/results/etc. Despite the difficulty with piloting this deck, I do enjoy playing the "kill all the things" strategy.

[Hanni]

Maybe this deck can fill the void of a hard control deck now thst Miracles is gone?

I've made a couple tweaks to the I posted before. I'll refrain from posting them until I get to do some actual testing, though.

[H]

Maybe this deck can fill the void of a hard control deck now thst Miracles is gone?

I've made a couple tweaks to the I posted before. I'll refrain from posting them until I get to do some actual testing, though.

I had "goldfished" the lost you posted above a bit and a couple observations I made:

I think Spell Snare might be better than Spell Pierce here (I could be wrong though).

I think running a single Red dual is better than a White one, because you can feign a REB effect, or sideboard one if you really want to.

I really enjoyed playing it though, but you are right, it is very grindy and it seems that when you win it's by a hair's breadth. Just the kind of deck I like, really.

[Hanni]

I'm actually back to 4 Counterspell, no Pierce. Snare could be good, but this is the kind of deck that definitely values more versatile and less conditional answers like Counterspell.

I also cut the basics for more fetches/duals, which makes casting Counterspell even easier. Although, without Miracles, mana denial may come back in force and make me reverse that decision.