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Thread: SCGLA: RG Combo Lands

  1. #1

    SCGLA: RG Combo Lands

    what's up guys.

    i played RG combo lands at SCGLA this last weekend to an unspectacular-though-respectable finish. my list is similar to kurt spiess's list, though i think i'll be mixing it up a little in the upcoming weeks based on a couple of chronic underperformers (maindeck glacial chasm -- i'm looking at you). anyways, my list was:

    3 crop rotation
    4 gamble
    4 exploration
    2 manabond
    4 life from the loam
    4 mox diamond
    4 punishing fire

    4 wasteland
    4 rishadan port
    4 grove of the burnwillows
    2 taiga
    1 forest
    1 glacial chasm
    1 karakas
    1 the tabernacle at pendrell vale
    4 thespian's stage
    2 dark depths
    3 tranquil thicket
    4 maze of ith
    4 green fetches

    sb:

    3 sphere of resistance
    1 chalice of the void
    1 trinisphere
    2 bojuka bog
    1 crop rotation
    2 phyrexian revoker
    2 dark depths
    3 krosan grips

    round 1 -- UWr miracles

    i don't remember these games too well, but they were brutal. at one point i was one land short of being able to put him off all of his white sources so i could go for the EOT lage (which is guaranteed to get there w/o white mana up for terminus or STP) and then he drops a karakas. so i get another port and drop it -- i'll kill him next turn! but he drops another white source. ugh. we durdle around and he eventually gets a jace online. i have to go for the lage but it's a desperation play. he has the swords and i lose to jace ultimate.

    the second game goes even worse. the only memorable thing that happened was that at one point i tapped a grove for red mana and gave him a point of life. my opponent "responds" with a brainstorm. i tell him he can't respond to the grove because it's a mana ability and that he can instead respond to whatever i'm going to do with the mana. i don't understand why he would even want to respond to a mana ability, but he pushes the issue and calls a judge over. we explain the situation and the judge issues him a warning for trying to cast a spell when he doesn't have priority. owned.

    he beats me soundly, but i get the moral victory.

    games: 0-2
    record: 0-1
    moral victories: 1

    round 2 -- punishing jund

    i got paired against my friend, who was borrowing the deck. i knew what he was on and that the match would be an easy one. game 1 i hold back a crop rotation until i find the first combo piece. i find and drop a thespian's stage after a couple of turns, then crop rotate into a dark depths on his end of turn without fear -- playing against non-blue decks is awesome. game 2 he puts on pressure with goyfs and DRS. i find a couple mazes of ith to hold off the goyf onslaught, but can't complete the stage/depths combo despite my dredging. eventually a third goyf and second drs come down and i die.

    game 3 was funny. i have a really strong opener, and on my (i believe) turn 3 i have a seven card hand which includes gamble. i can gamble for a dark depths and if the gamble hits anything but the depths i've got a guaranteed win on the following turn (i know my opponent's 75 since he's my friend). if my gamble hits the depths, i don't have any way to recur it and i'm going to be in a pretty bad position. so i go for it, and naturally i discard the depths. at this point i'm thinking how embarrassing losing to jund is going to be and how gamble is my absolute least favorite magic card. my opponent swings, plays something i don't care about and passes the turn. naturally, i rip the one remaining copy of depths in my deck, make marit lage at my opponent's EOT, and kill him. the magic gods giveth, and the magic gods taketh away. my opponent goes on serious life tilt for the rest of the day.

    games: 2-1
    record: 1-1
    friends i've defeated in an embarrassing fashion: 1

    round 3 -- UWR delver

    my opponent is a cool guy with a bunch of SCG top 8 pins on his playmat and he's unsurprisingly a really tight player. i don't remember the first game too well, but i believe game 1 started with me on the wasteland plan for a while, and after a few loam dredges + wastes, i assemble the combo and kill him. game 2 my opponent gets an early RIP, but i have a k-grip waiting for him. i assemble the combo, but make what has to be by far the most common play mistake when piloting this deck: i don't make marit lage at the right time.

    sidebar: when to make marit lage

    when you assemble the stage depths combo, there are broadly two times you should consider actually making the beasty: your EOT / your opponent's upkeep OR your opponent's EOT. the reason to pull the trigger before your opponent's main phase is one card: wasteland. if your opponent drops a wasteland they can stop you from going off by leaving it untapped (because they can kill the depths in response to the stage activation). if you think your opponent will drop a wasteland on their main phase, go for the early marit lage.

    there are things you can do to fight back against your opponent's wastes. the most obvious is having an active life from the loam to reset the combo after he wastes you. however, anything that forces him to blow his waste will work too. this includes a waste of your own; a rishadan port and a land to activate the port with; or two thespian's stages and the mana to activate both of 'em.

    the reason to wait on the marit lage is more obvious -- you play around sorcery speed answers to the beasty by waiting until your opponent's EOT. the most common sorcery speed threats -- by far -- are jace and lili.

    in light of our little sidebar, it's clear that UWR delver falls under the category of decks where we go for lage before the opponent's main phase (since they run wasteland, but no jace or lili). like an idiot, i assembled the combo and passed the turn without pulling the trigger. i realize my mistake right as we entered the opponent's mainphase and sure enough, he rips a wasteland off the top. daaaamnit. so we sit there with me threatening the combo for a few turns while some durdly creatures beat me up (he can't waste me, cause i can combo off in response). fortunately, i dig up a wasteland, which forces his hand and lets me make lage. he sends lage plowing (ugh!) and i go up to 33 life. this buys me enough turns to find a loam, get back the combo and do it all over. my opponent doesn't have the swords this time and he dies to a couple swings from the big boy.

    my opponent told me after the match that he left 2 out of 4 swords in as an answer to lage. i've noticed more and more pilots doing that lately, and it's definitely the right thing to do -- people are catching on.

    games: 2-0
    record: 2-1

    round 4 -- feces bant (sam pardee)

    my opponent gets a quick start and i don't have the combo onboard, so i go for the grind plan. i waste a couple of duals and p-fire a hierarch. i try to apply pressure with waste recursion and tabernacle while hiding behind a maze of ith but a true-name nemesis comes down and my opponent seals the deal.

    i don't remember much of game 2, but i believe i make a fast lage and it eats a swords. so i wait a couple of turns and remake the lage FTW?? not sure on this one.

    game 3 i have a turn 1 lage hand but i decide not to go for it because i have no way to recur the combo pieces if he has a swords or a karakas. i had a manabond and some other cool stuff in my hand that i wasn't interested in dumping to the manabond. this was almost certainly a misplay. i think my chances of winning on the spot are higher than my chances of winning a protracted game, but -- you know -- hindsight is 20/20 and all that. i almost stabilize but jace, karakas, wastelands, TNN and KOTR happen and i die.

    this matchup feels really bad -- it's a good thing nobody plays this deck anymore.

    games: 1-2
    rounds: 2-2

    round 5 -- monoblue omnishow

    this match was against another of my friends, a good player who is probably the person i have played the most legacy matches against, so we know each other's decks and skill levels. i was scared of the bounce out of his washboard going in, but in-terms of speed, i'd say the decks are pretty similar. counterspells on my crop rotations were also something to be wary of. i win the roll and draw my seven, which turns-out to be the stone-cold nuts. i can goldfish a turn 1 lage off a manabond, so i go for it. the manabond gets countered, so i have to settle for a turn 2 or 3 lage instead. my opponent dies.

    i bring in 12 cards and my opponent's on the play. we each mulligan to 6. on my turn 1 i go for an exploration which gets forced. so i go for a turn 2 exploration, which also gets forced. my opponent, totally out of gas from dumping his hand countering my explorations, has to let a turn 3 crop rotation resolve. marit lage rears his tentacled head and my opponent dies with something like 1 card in hand and 2 islands in play.

    games: 2-0
    record 3-2
    friends i've defeated in an embarrassing fashion: 2

    round 6 -- death and taxes

    when i played 4 color control lands, this matchup was a cakewalk. as we'll see, that's not the case with combo lands.

    game 1 he opens with ghost quarter => aether vial. wtf?! i put him on some weird D+T build with leonin arbiter and lots of mindcensors, but it turns-out his deck was just a little budget and is otherwise standard. i assemble punishing fire + grove of the burnwillows, but i have to loam back the burnwillows, get back the punishing fire, and take care of his mom before i can start mowing-down the team of creatures that's beating me down. thalia plus ghost quarter makes that plan take forever and i die to beatdown before i can stabilize.

    game 2 my opponent drops an early karakas which puts me on the grind plan yet again (the combo plan isn't that good against D+T anyways, since they have flickerwisp, karakas, swords, and flying chump blockers). the grind plan ends in failure as my opponent drops lots of basic plains to support a brimaz and serra avenger, which make my punishing fire look pretty silly. thalia joins the team to slow my punishing fire recursion down to a crawl and i die in spectacular fashion.

    i've played this matchup with combo lands a few times and it feels BAD. i'd love to hear suggestions for how to improve my D+T game.

    games: 0-2
    record 3-3

    round 7 -- punishing jund

    i drop an early thespian's stage with a crop rotation in-hand to defend against wasteland. the wasteland doesn't show, so i rotate into the combo on his EOT and kill him on turn 3 or 4. game 1 against jund is amazing.

    i only board-in bojuka bog and a crop rotation and off we go. eventually we get to a point where he has one card in hand and only one black mana source. he misses a land drop, so that last card is probably not a land. i have the combo assembled, and this is clearly one of those situations where you go for lage before the opponent's main phase, since lili is less of a concern than wasteland off the top. on his turn, he draws the third land and plays........ensnaring bridge. daaaaamnit!! i have no outs, and we durdle for a long time until i find a punishing fire and he finds a lili. i have to punishing fire the lili while leaving-up a grove to defend against extraction effects. he drops some DRS's, which also get the p-fire treatment. he finds a p-fire too and we are off to the races. he extracted my wastelands, so he has a reasonable number of lands in play (enough to hit me for one or two points of damage a turn on net). i have something like 10 lands at this point and i end up winning the race by one turn. good games, cool opponent.

    games: 2-0
    record: 4-3

    round 8 -- ANT

    i realize what my opponent is on turn 2. he kills me turn 3.

    i board in all 15 cards and we each mull to 6. my 6 is disgustingly good with 2 sphere of resistance and a k-grip. my opponent concedes after he gets stuck on one land and sees the 2nd sphere of resistance.

    game 3 i take a mulligan and keep 1 lander with taiga, gamble, trinisphere, sphere of resistance, phyrexian revoker, and something else. after i don't see a second land for a turn or 2 i decide i have to gamble for a second land -- i choose port since my opponent has two basics at this point. feels bad. gamble hits the sphere of resistance, and the next turn my opponent duresses the trinisphere out of my hand. ruh roh! next turn i obviously draw a land (another port), drop revoker naming lion's eye diamond and pass the turn, praying that my opponent doesn't kill me. he continues to sculpt and passes. i draw my fourth land and go on the D+T plan -- i beat him down while double-porting him on upkeep. this goes on for a few turns. he finds a volcanic, but i immediately find a wasteland for it. he finds a third basic, but i find a thespian's stage which turns into a third port. finally, revoker has beat him down to 1 life and he has to go for it. by this time, i've drawn a crop rotation, and i rotate into a bojuka bog in response to a crucial cabal ritual. he whiffs and phyrexian revoker gets in for the tenth and final hit. again, cool opponent and good games.

    games: 2-1
    record: 5-3

    round 9 -- BUG delver

    game 1 goes on forever. i spend most of the game slowly hemorrhaging life as he nickels and dimes me with the occasional DRS activation or delver that gets in around a punishing fire. i have a dark depths and i'm dredging DEEP with multiple tranquil thickets and loams dredging multiple times per turn trying to find ONE OF FOUR thespian's stages to seal the game. i get 2/3rds of the way through my library without seeing a single one (!) and lose the game to a wasteland on my glacial chasm.

    game 2 we each mull to 5 and i assemble the combo very quickly. he dies.

    we start game 3 with almost no time left on the clock. i mull to THREE, but it's actually a solid start with an exploration and a loam online. i get some mazes going and start to stabilize, but time is called.

    games 1-1-1
    final record: 5-3-1

    props:
    - all my opponents, who were really cool guys (except my round 1 opponent).
    - manabond and all the degeneracy it allows.
    - thespian's stage. ETB untapped, makes mana, copies random utility lands, and just generally doesn't afraid of anything.
    - punishing jund.

    slops:
    - gamble. god i hate that card.
    - glacial chasm and karakas for being next-to-useless the whole day.
    - only running three fetchable lands.
    - death and taxes.

    hope you enjoyed it. the maindeck changes i'm going to try are:

    -1 karakas
    -1 glacial chasm
    -1 tranquil thicket
    -1 gamble

    + 3 faithless looting
    +1 taiga

    the chasm can go to the side since it autowins against decks like elves and dredge. karakas is better SB material, too.

    i'd be very interested to hear any and all feedback.
    Last edited by ph88; 07-29-2014 at 11:08 PM.

  2. #2
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    Ziveeman's Avatar
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    Re: SCGLA: RG Combo Lands

    Hey I was your Round 3 (UWR Delver) opponent. It was nice to meet you. Fun match!

    In Game 2, I was in a dilemma since I had multiple creatures and multiple Wastelands versus three Maze of Iths and three Ports. I might have been able to pressure you faster if I had just Wastelanded the Mazes to let my Delvers and Mages attack, but I'm pretty dead to Marit Lage, though I guess with the Ports I can't really Waste the Thespian's Stage.

    Oddly I was considering playing Tsabo's Web to combat the various Dark Depths decks (though it doesn't actually stop the combo itself...), though I decided against it as I didn't expect to see many Lands deck...and I played vs two, haha. Ah well.
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  3. #3

    Re: SCGLA: RG Combo Lands

    it was nice meeting you too -- good games!

    yeah there were a ridiculous number of lands decks in the room -- tsabo's web would have been a really strong choice. and it even cantrips! i think keeping me off the combo is the right choice if you don't have the swords in your hand, but that's still not a great plan. that matchup is pretty heavily in the combo land's player's favor i'd say.

  4. #4

    Re: SCGLA: RG Combo Lands

    Sounds like Liliana could have helped out in some of your matchups!

  5. #5
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    Re: SCGLA: RG Combo Lands

    Thanks for the report, it was a great read as I recently started playing a (BG) Depths deck myself.

    As you say, both Death & Taxes and Bant are pretty.. hard matchups. As is Miracles.

    Vs. Miracles it's not unusual, for me anyway, that the games go on for 10++ turns and a lot of the turns just end up as draw, go.
    In this situation, a Loam+Ghost Quarter engine can put the miracle player on a clock of sorts.
    While they usually don't let you destroy their entire mana base, it does force them to put their own plans in motion much faster, which means they are more likely to leave an opening for a impromptu Marit Lage.

    As you noted, Death & Taxes and Bant, unlike most other fair decks, actually have several ways to interact with our combo, which is why I mull pretty aggressively for a quick combo hand, particularly against DnT.
    I play 4x Chalice of the Void maindeck, which obviously helps a lot (as it does vs. 90%+ of all decks) if you land it turn 1 on the play.

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