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Thread: [Deck] RUG Lands

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    [Deck] RUG Lands


    Disclaimer:
    This thread is for the RUGx Control version of Lands. The previous 8 years of discussion can be found here
    For the RG Combo Lands thread, go here.
    For the Jund Depths (aka Loam Pox + red) thread, go here.

    Table of contents:
    I. History
    II. Strategy
    III. Main Deck
    a) Manabase
    b) Loam Engine
    c) Tutors
    d) Mana Disruption
    e) Removal (creature and non-creature permanents)
    f) Utility (life gain, gy hate, Academy, etc.)
    g) Core list
    IV. Sideboard
    a) White
    b) Blue
    c) Black
    d) Red
    e) Green
    f) Colorless
    g) Lands
    h) Bad cards
    V. Into the Arena
    a) Matchup Analysis
    b) Tips and Tricks
    VI. Links
    a) Sample Deck lists
    b) Reports
    c) Videos
    d) Pimped Decks
    VII. Credits


    I. History

    Lands was developed in 2006 and first earned mainstream recognition when it went 7-0-1 at German Nationals. The earliest versions of the deck ran 43 lands (hence the name of the deck for many years) and ran a unique card advantage engine powered by Life From the Loam and Mulch and driven by the accelerants Exploration and Manabond. The deck ran a mana denial plan with Wasteland and Rishadan Port, which could easily take over a game combined with the Loam engine. The kill? Nantuko Monastery, or even Roar of the Wurm, at least in the first lists.

    /Note by Tao:
    The deck was initially developed in my small student flat back then. A friend of mine (S. Thomsen, the guy who went 7-0-1 and is an exceptional player with this deck with consistent X-1 or X-0 finishes) came to me and showed me a list on a German site (mercadia.de). It was quite close to what he later played but very unrefined. It had no SB and used Standstill as card draw but it already had the main engine of Exploration, Manabond, Maze, Tabernacle, Wastelands, Ports, Cycle Lands, Factories and Loam. We tinkered around with it a bit and were surprised because it performed extremely well, playing good against most things and auto-winning against the deck to beat Landstill. We refined the list (adding Barbarian Ring, Mulch, Nantuko Monestary, a SB, getting rid of Standstill and a few bad lands) and the deck was heavily favored against everything with the exception of the bad matchups Solidarity and Burn with PoP. /end Note

    From there Lands shifted from primarily mono-green into a red-green deck that capitalized on the power of Gamble and Burning Wish as versatile tutors. Players soon realized the potential in Tolaria West and began testing builds of the deck that used blue instead of red. Tolaria West's flexibility proved to be a great fit for the deck, and the equally flexible tutor Intuition joined the deck. Decks dropped the number of Lands down below 40, as the deck began to use a greater number of artifacts such as Mox Diamond with Academy Ruins. These decks also began to run a "big finisher" artifact, usually Oblivion Stone or Mindslaver.
    Soon after Intuition was developed, certain players began to see Enlightened Tutor as a card that could potentially give the deck even more flexibility. Michael Caffrey Top 32ed with the deck at a Star City Games Open and wrote a primer for Enlightened Tutor Lands, found here. Mental Misstep was then printed, and, like many other decks, Lands was hated out and drifted out of the meta. Now that Misstep is long gone of the meta, it's a great place for Lands, overrun by tempo decks and unstable manabases. Most players now use either Intuition or Enlightened Tutor as the main engine for the deck alongside Life From the Loam.

    Due to this deck’s usage of obscure cards, high learning curve, being an acquired taste, and ever increasing monetary value, Lands isn’t really a format staple. However, when wielded by a competent pilot Lands has the tools to dispatch of every non-combo deck in the format. Its résumé includes top 8’s at multiple Star City Games opens and placing in the top 16-64’s at various Grands Prix.


    II. Strategy

    Ideally, each game should go something a bit like this-
    1. Resolve an accelerant (Manabond, Exploration, Mox Diamond to a lesser extent).
    2. Disrupt your opponent’s mana with the use of Rishadan Port, Wasteland, and Ghost Quarter (the Quarter usually needs to be recurred several times to have any real effect, however, against decks with the mono-nonbasic manabase it’s a fifth wasteland).
    3. Tutor for or naturally have a Life from the Loam or Crucible of Worlds to recur Wasteland and Ghost Quarter to further decimate your opponent’s manabase.
    4. Play a Maze of Ith or Glacial Chasm to stall any threats your opponents have resolved.
    5. Get Tolaria West with Life from the Loam, transmuting for answers to threats that are still presenting a problem. Search for Zuran Orb if you fear burn.
    6. Transmute Tolaria West for a manland and win the game.
    If every game was as cut and dry as this, Lands would easily be the best deck in the format and people would be crying for the banning of Life from the Loam. In actuality, quite a few games can go awry depending on the level of interaction your opponent can force. Let’s go through the steps again, but see what happens when our opponent can interact, and when the lands player plays sub optimally. For this example, the Lands player is playing against a build of RUG Delver that has eschewed Stifle for Spell Pierce-
    1. Get Exploration off of Tropical Island Daze’d.
    2. Wasteland the opponent once, they draw four fetches afterwards. Complain about how lucky the opponent is.
    3. Get your Intuition, Enlightened Tutor, Entomb, Gamble, etc. Spell Pierced.
    4. Play a Glacial Chasm to your opponent’s board of four threats, they Wasteland it and put you to six life.
    5. Transmute Tolaria West for Zuran Orb in a desperate attempt to stay alive.
    6. They turn you into a Phyrexian Negator for a turn and Spell Snare the Life from the Loam you draw on turn 8. You die to a board of creatures.
    7. Dismiss Lands as a clunky, terrible deck reserved for petdecking Legacy scrubs. After all, you couldn’t possibly have misplayed or missed some subtle interactions, right?

    In this sequence of events, the Lands player made a series of mediocre plays that spiraled out of control as the game progressed. Let’s go through these plays-
    1. The Lands player ran the Exploration into an island without a mana open. It’s usually unwise to do this, although if the island in question is Tundra, the chance of your opponent running Daze is significantly less.
    2. Wasteland was fired off with no intent of recurring it. Wasteland can be used strategically to cut your opponent off of mana on a turn where you want to resolve a spell, such as the one that was Spell Pierced in step three. If instead of Wastelanding the first land that was seen, the Lands player had waited until the opponent tapped low for a threat and had only one available mana source, the Lands player could have Wastelanded their mana source at the end of a phase so the mana the opponent would float would empty and then cast their tutor effect when they receive priority in the next phase, leaving Force of Will to be the opponent’s only answer.
    3. The opponent shouldn’t have had mana to Spell Pierce the tutor effect in the first place if Wasteland was utilized correctly.
    4. If the tutor effect had resolved, you would likely have a more elegant answer to the board of attacking creatures, such as Ensnaring Bridge, Academy Ruins with Engineered Explosives, or a Life from the Loam to recur the Glacial Chasm if it was indeed you’re only out.
    5. If the game had stabilized in step 4, the Tolaria West could search for the Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, ensuring that the opponent couldn’t commit any more threats to the board.
    6. The Zuran Orb would be unnecessary as well, outside of adding insurance against runner-runner burn effects from the opponent.

    Your playstyle should change based on the matchup. Against slow control decks, resolving an accelerant isn’t as high a priority, as simply making a land drop each turn is often enough to keep up with them. Against fast aggro decks, stabilizing the board with Maze of Ith and Engineered Explosives until you can resolve Zuran Orb is often the best strategy. Against combo, this decks Achilles’ heel, the best plan is to disrupt their mana and gain enough life to make winning for them impossible, or to tutor for a silver bullet that helps the matchup. Against aggro control, keeping the impact of their Knight of the Reliquary to a minimum by tutoring for redundant lands and keeping them off four mana for Jace, the Mind Sculptor are crucial.

    When playing this deck, keep in mind that stabilizing and locking up the board is priority number one, and that winning the game afterwards is elementary. Don’t bother tutoring for a way to win until you are very comfortable with the board state. If anything, if your opponent isn’t scooping, make the first game go longer than it has to. After all, a 1-0 win is still a win. Recur Mox Diamond every turn with Academy Ruins to deck your opponent if they won’t concede (each turn, stack and play the Mox Diamond, don’t discard a land so it dies, rinse and repeat). Starting game two with five minutes on the clock with the match in your favor is something you’ll get used to as a Lands player, and it feels great.

    Doing things for the most time value is a very crucial aspect of playing this deck. If you’re Rishadan Porting your opponent at upkeep with multiple Ports, announce and resolve them individually. If you’re recurring Ghost Quarter, resolve the activations individually and cut your opponent’s deck after each search. If you transmute Tolaria West knowing what you want to search, look through your entire deck to make sure you aren’t overlooking anything, and count it up to see how many more times you can dredge. If you have a Manabond in play and don’t wish to use it, announce the trigger and declare that you aren’t resolving it. Things like this don’t add too much time separately, but doing many of them per game often leads to forty-minute game ones, which is exactly where this deck wants to be. This may sound like borderline cheating, but it’s actually playing in a fashion that allows for no confusion on the events of the game, while also being beneficial to this deck’s strategy.


    III. Main Deck

    III.a) Manabase

    *Forest
    Yes, a basic Forest. It helps you do things under Blood Moon and allows you to capitalize on mutual search effects and to play around Wasteland. You only need one.

    *Duals
    4-6 green duals. Depends on 4th/5th color splash and sb plan.

    *Fetchlands
    Run 3-5. Diversify names to minimize effects from Surgical Extraction/Extirpate/Pithing Needle.

    *Grove of the Burnwillows
    Leave as the last used green/red source when life totals matter, ie vs Storm. A crappy Taiga at face value, but when paired with Punishing Fire it has the potential to completely invalidate creature strategies, thus leaving life totals trivial. Green source that invalidates opposing Submerge, a card that may see play postboard vs. Marit Lage and friends.

    *Mox Diamond
    Mini accelerant that synergizes incredibly with the deck. Enables a T1 Loam in order to start dredging immediately and T1 sb hate.

    III.b) Loam Engine

    *Life from the Loam
    Core of the deck that circumvents most strategies in Legacy. This is a one card engine that feeds itself with the dredge mechanic after being cast into an empty yard. Difficult for the opponent to interact with in G1 and combats discard and countermagic very well. Protect this card above all others. Priority target for our tutors.

    *Exploration
    Primary accelerant that translates CA from Loam into board position.

    *Manabond
    Secondary accelerant, it can potentially provide explosive starts. Harder to work with than Exploration. Run 1-3 and board them out to play around gy hate.

    *Crucible of Worlds
    Loam #5. Run 1 MD/SB for metas with Snapcaster/Surgical. Allowing draw steps while still having access to the yard's lands is strong vs counterbalance. Pair with waste/ghost q to decimate manabases or play along smokestack to out attrition grindy scenarios.

    *Tranquil Thicket and Horizon Canopy
    A way to leverage the CA from Loaming and can be used to dredge multiple times in one turn. Both can "save" Loam from targeted gy hate Horizon Canopy helps with the White splash, but the life loss is not irrelevant. Canopy synergy with Crucible is can run away with games.

    *Sylvan Library
    On color library manipulation that can translate to ridiculous CA when paired with Loam and Zuran Orb. Not a replacement, but still a compliment to the Loam engine and avoids using the graveyard. With dredging and shuffle effects this can help dig for sb cards.

    *Sensei's Divining Top
    Allows for optimal information when deciding to dredge vs draw, saves us from our Bobs, and saves Loam from targeted gy hate. However, it is a huge mana sink and some players usually have something else to do when maximizing their mana each turn. Has benefit over Sylvan Library by being recurred with academy and has more potential to find sb cards.

    *Dark Tutelage
    An alternate CA engine. The black commitment may be a stretch in some builds and it may be weak as a T3 play vs non-control decks. If not hit with Abrupt Decay this can overwhelm the board even without a Loam.


    III.c) Tutors

    Know what you are tutoring for when searching your deck. Stay attentive during each game and constantly evaluate the board state and graveyards to best utilize each tutor. These tutors all have the ability to cause judge warnings for slow play during resolution and the amount of searching and shuffling can eat much of the clock for an already slow deck, so practice. A lot.

    *Tolaria West
    Gets any land, recurs, and can also find things with CMC 0 (EE/chalice). You can also use it to find Mox Diamonds if there's not really anything else to do. If you have to play around choke you can Twest for Twest. 3 is optimal, but no less than 2.

    *Intuition
    Offers more flexibility than any of our other tutors, but it comes at a great price - it is very slow. It costs 2 mana more than any of the other tutors and it often takes a couple turns to fully set up after an Intuition. However, resolving one should lead to winning the game and being instant speed allows you to cast it at the most opportune instance. Your own deck construction and sideboard plan will dictate if you are able use this as a Demonic tutor (at least 3 copies of a card). Most difficult tutor to correctly use, but the sheer power of it can overlook a suboptimal pile. Experience is the best training tool here. These can often be boarded out vs countermagic or RiP/LoTV.

    *Crop Rotation
    An on-color tutor at instant speed that plays well around soft counters and can act as a pseudo Stifle against an opposing Wasteland. Running it into a Force of Will is still an even trade card wise, but they lose 2 spells and we can Loam back the sac’d land. Run with a basic forest and you'll always have a land to cast this. Not a deck staple because of inability to fetch Loam, but has become more present since the Dark Depths/Stage combo.

    *Gamble
    Despite the card name, this card isn’t often a gamble. Either a), you’re searching for Loam and you don’t really care what you discard, or b), you’re searching for an accelerant and your hand is likely already padded with lands/Pfire. More playable in Lands than before with the increase in red mana sources. Much easier to resolve around soft counters than Intuition.

    *Enlightened Tutor
    Need to recur Wasteland? Search Crucible of Worlds. Have Loam, but you can only play one land a turn? Search for Exploration/Manabond. Scavenging Ooze threatening to destroy your graveyard? Search Cursed Totem/EE. RUG Delver putting a bunch of dudes on the board? Search Ensnaring Bridge. Gets better postboard, unlike many of this deck’s tutors. However, its inclusion may stress the manabase if you go 5 colors and not as impactful with metas full of Abrupt Decay and Golgari Charm.

    *Entomb
    Instantly finds dredge spells, retrace, flashback, Pfire, and silver bullet lands if your land recursion is online. Can be an easy cut after boarding because gy hate invalidates this card fast.


    III.d) Mana Disruption

    *Wasteland
    Main mana denial plan. Can also force opponents to take suboptimal actions when targeting his or her own fetches/wastes.

    *Rishadan Port
    Primary way for denying basic lands. Tapping an opponent down on upkeep or during combat can make or break many games. Combined with Wasteland, Port can also force crack fetches making brainstorms less powerful and having opponents choose a land prematurely. They usually fetch a basic and this speeds up Ghost Quarter's Strip Mine function. Porting a Wasteland will cause the opponent to sub optimally pick a target or lose it to our own Wasteland. Good strategy for protecting our other utility lands before we deploy them.

    *The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
    Completes the main mana disruption plan vs creature decks and slows down the output of spells.

    *Ghost Quarter
    Strip mine #5 vs greedy manabases. Serves as an alternate Wasteland if Waste is Extirpated, Extracted, or Needled and can also be used to Quarter lock someone - recurring Ghost Quarter enough times to entirely lock your opponents out of mana. Extra utility vs cantrip setups, Counterbalance/Top, and Etutor targets.


    III.e) Removal

    *Maze of Ith
    Aggro decks primarily target this with Wastelands and Ports to edge in damage, so put more in play to not get blown out. Compliments Tabernacle in locking down mana, while Ports and Wastes will complete the mana denial. After recurred a few times you may find your opponent uninterested in playing, perfect! Recognize when you need to develop a board early vs saving yourself from damage.

    *The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
    A sweeper if the opponent controls less lands than creatures and an out to shroud creatures when combined with LD. It may seem to be a luxury to own, but no other card in Magic can duplicate this effect. A must for Lands.

    *Karakas
    Too strong in Legacy not to be main decked. It also provides white in E-Tutor builds and allows sb legends to be saved.

    *Punishing Fire
    CA engine when paired with Grove of the Burnwillows. Some decks auto-lose between this and Maze of Ith. Great vs countermaigic, discard, and planeswalkers. Serves as another wincon.

    *Engineered Explosives
    Most versatile answer to permanents that is recurred with Academy and tutorable with Twest. Access to 5 colors allows most permanents to be answered md. At least 1 in the 75. Multiple EE in metas with many Miracles, TNN, and mongeese.

    *Oblivion Stone
    Much slower than EE, but has the upside of being able to save our stuff and blowing up their entire board. Easier to activate in lists with Urborg/Riftstone Portal. Strong vs Miracles, shroud creatures, and MUD.

    *Smokestack
    Used to out grind and perfect for "land, go" style matches and an out to a resolved blood moon or leyline. Pair with Worm Harvest to sac an opponent’s whole board while you chump block.

    *Barbarian Ring
    Delayed removal that is uncounterable and another wincon. Reasonable answer vs Meddling Mage that has named Pfire or EE and great against colored protection effects since it is colorless damage. Takes a few turns to turn on, so not the ideal solution for DRS metas and less likely to be active postboard, but still another way to manage Planeswalkers. Strong with Crucible and adds another red source for Pfire.

    *Cabal Pit
    Can only hit creatures and provides no relevant mana otherwise. Same drawbacks as Barbarian Ring. Performs better in BUG control decks.

    *Blighted Fen
    Edict effect that increases the power of tutors. It doesn't rely on threshold and can be tutored and then deployed in the face of countermagic to kill TNN, nimble mongoose, and more shroud creatures.

    III.f) Utility

    *Academy Ruins
    A powerful recursion engine for artifacts like Engineered Explosives or Tormod’s Crypt. Once the board is locked, it can be an alternate win condition by recurring a Mox Diamond (cast Mox, don’t pitch a land, Mox goes to graveyard, repeat). Can keep us “alive” after a Jace ultimate, but you will need a good board presence to win this one. Good vs. artifact removal as it allows us to recur our lock pieces.

    *Glacial Chasm
    Our best "Oh, shit!" button. It has many drawbacks, but most of them mean nothing to the deck when your opponents cannot deal damage and when you're recurring lands every turn. It easy-wins against decks without Wasteland that seek to kill through ground damage (Elves, Dredge) since it results in an infinite loop with Life From the Loam + Zuran Orb/Exploration. Be very aware that you can get blown out by Wasteland when using it. Often times when you have to play this card, it implies that you’ve misplayed at some point to back yourself into a corner where Chasm is your only out. In games where you’re forced to go for Chasm, evaluate what you could’ve done differently that game and where things went wrong. It can also give you time to find an answer against True-Name Nemesis. You only need one.

    *Zuran Orb
    A good card in a deck that runs more than half lands. It should see a place somewhere in your 75, though it is often a meta call whether it should be md or sb and can singlehandedly win against some decks. Allows you to recur Glacial Chasm indefinitely without an active Exploration.

    *Thespian’s stage
    Unlike the single shot copy effect and entering tapped like Vesuva, Stage can add to board redundancy and gives utility lands insurance against Wasteland. So you think you can win by EOT wasting my Tabernacle? Nope. You can also establish a lock from all damage with Glacial Chasm and never give an opportunity for Burn when the shields are down (mainly Price of Progress). The ability to adapt to a changing board state makes the deck better equipped to control the game. It can also protect itself from Wasteland by copying a basic land and can then copy any other land in the future. You will find many more clever plays in each match as you gain experience. Serves as part of the wincon, so the opponent will be on tilt if they see this one out. Use 1-4.

    *Dark Depths
    Lands is well known for being that one deck in the room that always goes to time and then struggles not to draw after turns are completed. Then come Summer 2013 and the following rules change addressing the Legend Rule.
    704.5k If a player controls two or more legendary permanents with the same name, that player chooses one of them, and the rest are put into their owners' graveyards. This is called the "legend rule".
    This has enabled a combo between Thespian's Stage + Dark Depths. Thespian's Stage targets and successfully copies Dark Depths. Legend Rule rule says you have to sacrifice one, so the original Dark Depths goes to the grave. The Dark Depths copy now in play has no Ice Counters and immediately triggers. Marit Lage hits the field when this trigger resolves. This instant speed activation can end games in one turn since few decks are above 20 life and we have removal for most fliers in the format. Both combo pieces can be reclaimed by Loam, so a Karakas or Swords on your token doesn't stop the inevitable end and the life gained only fuels the time you have to lock the board and reset the combo pieces. Aside from pitching to a Mox, the land provides no utility to the board. The numbers on these depends on how fast you want to combo kill, but having at least one can still end games quickly and conclude your rounds.

    *Bojuka Bog
    Can be either MD or SB as a meta call. Until Encroach becomes a thing, Bog avoids selective discard spells/abilities and can be safely tutored for with Twest to be deployed when needed.

    *Ensnaring Bridge
    Longtime staple in the 75 as the deck often drops its hand quite quickly. Bridge shuts down tons of decks for good if it resolves. Has been seeing less use since the Dark Depths combo and printing of Abrupt Decay.

    *Mindslaver
    Creates a lock when recurred with Academy Ruins, but costing 13 mana for the loop and being vulnerable to gy hate makes it an unreliable wincon. Builds with this run Riftstone Portal or Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.

    *Worm Harvest
    Makes a horde and can easily attack under an Ensnaring Bridge. Presence of lands in the graveyard is a drawback since we want lands in play. It deals with planeswalkers and provides a fast clock, but bad with Tabernacle.

    *Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
    Huge in a deck that runs 6-8 lands that don't produce mana. Is in big-mana build with Oblivion Stone, Mindslaver, and Manabond. You can consistently Port the opponent and attack with 2 Tarpits, but it allows your opponents' fetches to tap for mana.

    *Riftstone Portal
    Urborg is preferred for big mana builds and in Deathrite Shaman metas, but this is on color, one sided, and avoids Wasteland. Great option to beat Blood Moon when combined with Entomb or Etutor for a Mox Diamond.

    *Creeping Tar Pit
    Keeps the board clear of planeswalkers when combined with Pfire. A wincon and taps for relevant colors. 1-2 were used before Marit Lage.

    *Mishra's Factory
    It is an effective blocker, can answer Planeswalkers on a clear board, and can be a win condition. It doesn't help the manabase and has quickly become outclassed. Many lists ran 2-4 before Tarpit was printed.

    *Treetop Village
    Benefit of being on-color and only 2 to activate. Is not as reliable in answering planeswalkers compared to the Tarpit and is still outclassed by many legacy board states; Tarmogoyf, equipped creature, True Name Nemesis, etc.

    *Inkmoth Nexus
    The -1/-1 counters can accumulate and kill Tarmogoyf and Nimble Mongoose. Sneaks under an Ensnaring Bridge, too. Not a good choice as your only wincon as it can never deal with Jace, but a fine inclusion if you want a way to win vs Life.

    *Nantuko Monastery
    Has generally fallen out of favor and Threshold should not be relied on with Deathrite Shaman metas. Doesn't add relevant colors and is even less reliable in G2/3.

    III.g) Core list


    1 Forest
    2 Tropical Island
    1 Taiga
    3 Fetchlands
    3 Grove of the Burnwillows

    4 Wasteland
    4 Rishadan Port
    3 Maze of Ith

    2 Tolaria West
    1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
    1 Academy Ruins

    4 Life from the Loam
    4 Mox Diamond
    4 Exploration
    3 Punishing Fire
    2 Intuition
    1 Engineered Explosives

    43 fixed spots.

    Wincons are plentiful and flexible and we don't need many. Tailor to your meta/playstyle.

    IV. Sideboard

    • The Man Plan: Because in Games 2 and 3 your opponents will bring in graveyard hate and because they will most likely be boarding out much of their removal, bringing in creatures that act as alternative engines or lock pieces can be huge.
    • The general rule in Lands is to play permanent based hate with huge impact in the game.
    • Do not oversideboard especially by removing “useless” lands. You need a decent number of them to power Mox and Exploration. Postboard, Intuition is a very easy cut and so is Punishing Fire against combo.


    IV.a) White

    *Knight of the Reliquary
    Has been used as a postboard creature, but not usually recommended. Crop Rotation on a beatstick, but a 3 drop is poor early game and does not provide us card advantage. Knight is still vulnerable to gy hate, something we are trying to not to rely on G2/3. Also needs white + Forests consistently.

    *Geist of Saint Traft
    Needs a consistent white source in the manabase, but a sizeable clock that invalidates removal. Not many sb have space for 3-4 slots as white builds most often devote board space for Etutor or Thalia. Good vs control decks that plan around having many turns to setup. Maze can still protect Geist on the ground if a surprise blocker ever shows up, while the Angel can still connect.

    *Aven Mindcensor
    Supplements LD plan by disrupting fetches/ghost quarter, but also helps vs decks that revolve around toolbox game plans.

    *Ethersworn Canonist
    Stops Storm (Elves to a degree) from doing their thing while also presenting a clock. Multiple can be in play and not only limited to Etutor lists. Can be recurred with Academy Ruins.

    *Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
    A reasonable factor to add white in your build, Thalia can be deployed T1 and makes Port and Waste extremely hard to fight through. Can be saved with Karakas. Pair it with Canonist to establish a lock vs Storm Combo and see their life total plummet.

    *Circle of Protection: Red
    Insurance vs Burn and goblins. Effective with Etutor.

    *Ray of Revelation
    If you really hate enchantments. A good answer to Leyline of the Void if already in hand and a Leyline casted later in the game. A fine answer to Rest in Peace because destroying it with Ray’s first casting will remove RiP from play and Ray will then go to the yard to blow a future RiP. However, RiP's trigger will exile all yards similar to Relic of Progenitus. A more versatile answer is preferred.

    IV.b) Blue

    *Swan Song
    Good vs Sneak and Show style combos.

    *Flusterstorm
    Vs Storm Combo that compliments chalice. Not strong vs A+B style combos.

    *Mana Maze
    For that guy that tries to roll over you with high tide, suck it.

    *Meddling Mage
    Namely for show and tell or matches where certain cards can't be addressed once played.

    IV.c) Black

    *Dark Confidant
    A phenomenal creature in a deck whose total CMC often equals 30. Spinning him T1 off a Mox is a very good way to put a start in your favor. He also puts in a sizeable clock against combo decks and can serve as a blocker if necessary. He is the primary choice for the man plan.

    *Extirpate
    Generally better than Surgical Extraction is because we have access to black and don't like getting our spells countered, but being able to cast the latter for free isn't irrelevant. It's the best hate for other Loam decks and generally good. Extirpate has utility in most MUs since they can hit fetches at worst and real problem cards at best.

    *Leyline of the Void
    Obviously the best graveyard hate card, but it's the hardest to get into play and having to mull into it really sucks since it loses a ton of its effectiveness after the first turns, even if we do manage to draw and play it. That, and the fact that you need a set means that 1 Leyline usually isn't good enough. Best vs Dredge, one of our best matchups…

    *Abrupt Decay
    Answers many problem permanents early in the game like a Blood Moon and Counterbalance, but with the added benefit of removing creatures like Deathrite Shaman, Meddling Mage, and Magus of the Moon through countermagic. The black requirement may be an issue against an early Blood Moon effect and this can’t hit Sneak Attack, Omniscience, Helm of Obedience and Leyline of the Void. Suboptimal at answering artifact gy hate and can be targeted by Misdirection, Divert, or similar options and protection effects can still be activated in response.

    *Raven’s Crime
    In conjunction with Urborg/Loam you can set up a powerful discard engine. Great against control decks. A little light versus combo as the setup is not as streamlined early in the game. Alongside Chalice for 1 is a nombo.

    IV.d) Green

    *Krosan Grip
    Uncounterable artifact/enchantment removal. An underrated way to deal with artifact gy hate because they must be activated at sorcery speed or it gets blasted when we get priority. We can wait for 3 mana to answer the yard hate and resume operations as usual. There is extra value in dodging Misdirection and Flickerwisp interactions. Use on Rest in Peace to preserve EE for future lock as blowing RiP with EE leads to an exiled EE. Good vs Miracles and Painter and if you hate Batterskull.

    *Primeval Titan
    Good versus Show and Tell decks. Can also be sided in against control decks as it gets the two parts of the DD/Stage combo and more mana disruption.

    *Choke
    Vs heavy blue basic manabases and compliments port. Symmetrical effect can be softened by only using 2 Trops and playing a Twest early if blue mana is needed.

    IV.e) Red

    *Ancient Grudge
    Ray of Revelation’s friend. Only if you really hate artifact/equipment or decks with Aether Vial, but usually a good matchup anyway. You can make a case if MUD is giving you trouble.

    *Red Elemental Blast/Pyroblast
    Similar stack interaction to Swan Song, but can catch Meddling Mage, TNN, and Jace.

    IV.f) Colorless

    *Tormod's Crypt
    The quintessential one-shot GY hate. It is super strong in our deck since we can a) transmute for it with Twest and b) recur it infinitely with Academy Ruins. Run at least one SB, and maybe even 1 MD in E-Tutor builds with GY-heavy metas.

    *Grafdigger's Cage
    GY hate that doesn't hinder us and may deserve a maindeck slot alongside E-Tutor in metas with lots of Green Sun’s Zenith, Reanimator and another angle to combat Past in Flames.

    *Chalice of the Void
    Meant for Storm combo, but Chalice for 1 on turn one is very strong in Legacy. Good inclusion that can be tutored up via Twest.

    *Trinisphere
    Most crippling Storm hate card and good vs. Omniscience, but slow to deploy.

    *Mindbreak Trap
    Good against Storm, although it is best when paired with another piece of hate, preferably one that provides a clock. Not a good inclusion because of its lack of versatility and increased appearance of Sneak and Show style combo decks.

    *Pithing Needle
    Stops problematic activated abilities like Scavenging Ooze, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Relic of Progenitus and Sneak Attack. A fine inclusion if Chalice isn’t out for 1.

    *Phyrexian Revoker
    Does the same thing as Needle, but with a clock. Can name Lion Eye’s Diamond against Storm. Extra perk over Needle in ability to dodge Spell Pierce and playable around Chalice for 1. Use Pfire and Academy to reset named card if needed.

    *Phyrexian Metamorph
    A decent inclusion to kill other Legends before rules change, but narrow uses since then.

    *Null Rod
    Good against Storm, Affinity, Painter, and Helm combo, but it does shut down more of your own cards. A weak slot.

    *Cursed Totem
    Great against GW creature spamming strategies like D&T and Elves. It can stop Deathrite Shaman and Scavenging Ooze. Extra utility in preemptively handling Griselbrand's ability. If you expect large numbers of Elves and Maverick style decks, then it can be maindecked.

    *Sphere of Resistance
    Another taxing effect that can be played T1 with Mox. Unlike Thalia, it taxes everything (Elves). Plays very well with Ports and Wastelands. However, it provides no clock against Storm.

    *Sylvok Replica
    An E-tutorable and Academy-recurable enchantment/artifact killer that can attack.

    *Helm of Obedience
    “Nice Rest in Peace you have there.” A hate card that works great versus another single hate card. You might prefer something more versatile.

    IV.g) Lands

    *Boseiju, Who Shelters All
    For counter heavy decks, Counterbalance, and Chalice. Allows you to freely resolve Loam, Pfire, and Intuition at the cost of some life.

    *Tower of the Magistrate
    An pseudo Maze against Stoneblade. Giving the equipped creature protection from artifacts will cause equipment to fall off. Against Batterskull, it makes the germ token a 0/0 creature. Against Swords of X and Y, it makes the sword fall off, allowing us to PFire or Abrupt Decay the creature. It also has fringe applications against Affinity and MUD.

    V. Into the Arena

    V.a) Match-ups analysis


    Very Positive

    Affinity
    It is hard to imagine losing this one, ever. They don’t have Wasteland for any meaningful interaction to hit a Maze and we have insane CA with EE, Pfire, and Tabernacle/Waste. They can do nothing once locked by Chasm, but Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas needs to be dealt with.

    B(g) Pox
    We are both Attrition decks, but Lands has superior CA engines making Smallpox and all of their control cards quite terrible against us. Their Cursed Scrolls get Explosives’d, while their Nether Spirit and Tombstalker get lost in a Maze of Ith. Pfire answers everything else they can dump and Tabernacle can manage their Worm Harvest or Pack Rat. They have the occasional Bojuka Bog and Abrupt Decay for some meager interaction. Leyline of the Void is always a possibility from them, but don't overthink this one. Play Chalice for one and pick your favorite wincon to seal the deal.

    Dredge
    Almost a bye. Their discard can't touch our game changing lands and many lists don’t have outs to Glacial Chasm or Ensnaring Bridge. Tabernacle + Waste is huge here and playing Mazes saves Ichorid damage. Their Dread Return target is usually Legendary, go Karakas! Waste/Zuran Orb your own manland exiles their Bridges or Orb +Loam + Bog is good enough. Postboard, you can recur Tormod’s Crypt with Academy Ruins. You can get blown out by slow hands and their T1 land, LED, Faithless Looting. Chalice and taxing effects do real work.

    Positive

    Death and Taxes
    Has slow starts allowing us to find Pfire, EE lock, or amass a huge field with Exploration and Maze. However, don’t rely on Maze/Chasm. Their mana denial is the best for a non-Loam deck and can buy time for Aether Vial to tick up for an alpha strike. Lookout for Flickerwisp and scumbag bird Aven Mindcensor. With no source of CA without an equipped Sword, EE lock is important to maintain. Postboard, be prepared to fight against Rest in Peace.

    G/W/x Maverick
    They have Green Sun Zenith to fetch Scavenging Ooze, Knight of the Reliquary, and Deathrite Shaman all of which are very good against us. This is just another creature spamming tactic and EE + Pfire will blow them out. Their threats give us a life total to setup properly. If you’re concerned about this matchup, Cursed Totem turns this matchup into very positive.

    Merfolk
    Tabernacle is very good against their jam a bunch of lords plan, and they can’t beat Ensnaring Bridge. On occasion, they can bury you in permission and sideboard back to basics, but it’s rare that they have permission with a formidable clock. EE lock = gg.

    Reanimator
    We have Maze, Karakas, and Glacial Chasm main. Tidespout Tyrant will be the main creature to address G1. G2 will bring a shroudy guy like Inkwell Leviathan to the party and his plus 1 is Ashen Rider. Zuran Orb will save utility lands from Rider. Marit is bigger than anything they can bring to the table. Taxing effects and mana disruption will be most effective here to prevent a fast combo and managing Tidespout’s triggered ability.

    RUG Delver (Canadian Threshold)
    They are an aggro deck with a bad manabase and mostly taxing and conditional counters. RUG can sometimes ride a Nimble Mongoose for 21 with heavy permission backup, but often you’ll just resolve an Engineered Explosives or Ensnaring Bridge and win. Tabernacle acts as another sweeper and Zuran Orb has to be answered.

    Shardless BUG
    They have no fast tempo plays like delver/daze that blow us out as Shardless usually wants to fight in the mid/late game. Aside from Deathrite Shaman and Force of Will, this matchup brings little resistance. They do indeed pack Liliana of the Veil, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Ancestral Visions, and 23-24 lands, so going the LD plan may not work here. Focus on a Pfire loop or EE lock and things should be gravy. G2/3 be ready for Nihil Spellbomb/extractions and the occasional Scavenging Ooze.

    UWR American Delver (Patriot)
    Pfire shines against yet another delver deck, but this one plays 1/2 "threats" for 2 mana. They do have Delver/Daze tempo openings, but have little to back it up past turn 3. Keep them off True-Name Nemesis mana because she can get out of hand in multiples. EE can remove anything here faster than Tabernacle (if it resolves) because they don't carry Stifle. Stay out of burn range. Marit Lage is nice way to gain 20 life if Zuran Orb is not available. G2/3 has the usual suspects of Rest in Peace and Meddling Mage.

    Slightly Positive

    BUG Delver
    The BUG shell loses Nimble Mongoose and burn, but gains some interaction; Deathrite Shaman, Abrupt Decay, and planeswalkers that demand answers. Pfire delivers here, but be aware that each build may vary in the number of Dark Confidant/True-Name Nemesis/Tombstalker/Vendilion Clique. Their discard plays may prompt us to run into a Daze/Spell Pierce more often than the RUG variant. The longer you can play around their soft permission the more impact your CA engines will have. Expect Surgical Extraction, Nihil Spellbomb, and Golgari Charm from their board. Some even pack Null Rod now.

    Goblins
    This matchup is tricky because of their heavy basic manabase and their incredible lategame thanks to Goblin Ringleader. If you have mana available, PFire as much as you can. You should not let their board extend. Your Mazes are generally useless vs. 4 Wasteland + 4 Ports + a swarm of 1/1 and 2/2. Tabernacle is the all-star for this matchup and the only reason it’s slightly positive, it’ll win you most of your games if you keep them off hasty dudes. Be careful of Goblin Warchief + Goblin Piledriver, that can be a fatal alpha-strike.

    Jund
    A deck with permanents all vulnerable to Maze, EE, or Pfire with a poor CA strategy vs us topped off with no countermagic. However, Jund also plays answers to all your cards in the name of Deathrite Shaman, Abrupt Decay, Liliana of the Veil, Wasteland, timely discard, and burn to just kill you. Do not expect to stick an Exploration. Postboard, you should plan around Surgical Extraction and possibly Scavenging Ooze. Things can come apart fast if they hit the right cards.

    Rock
    This MU is extremely dependent on the Rock lists. Some resemble G/W/B Maverick more closely, and can be problematic, while others opt for no utility creatures and are very bad against Maze. Watch out for postboard Extirpate.

    U/W/x Stoneblade
    Their primary win con of five Batterskull attacks is very bad against us, but their Jace, the Mind Sculptor plan is very good. Keep them off four mana at all costs, and if they do resolve Jace, Punishing Fire him to death. You can Port them on your turn to take them off white if they have more sources than you have Ports to enable Tarpit beats upon Jace's face. Vendilion Clique and True-Name Nemesis are irritating. Oblivion Stone out of the board is very good against them as often their converted mana costs vary too much to make Explosives reliable. Postboard, be prepared to face Rest in Peace and Meddling Mage.

    Coin Flip

    UWx Miracles
    Heavy basic manabase, so your denial is not very effective and all your creature removal cards that are nearly dead G1 may force you to mulligan otherwise strong hands. The Academy Ruins + EE lock is good at killing Jace and Counterbalance. If you go for the combo, waste/port their white sources/Karakas during combat and make the token at end step, but beware of Vensor or a surprise Clique blocker. You can also try to Ghost Quarter their Plains as they usually run only 2. Postboard, you will certainly face Rest in Peace and potentially Blood Moon and Meddling Mage. These matches usually go to time unless somebody has a fast combo kill.

    Other Loam decks
    Guess what? We actually get to race in this matchup! Really comes down to who draws Waste-lock first supported by Exploration and Crucible.

    Slightly Negative

    Elves!
    Like Dredge, Elves doesn’t run Wasteland and thus has a hard time beating a Glacial Chasm lock. Be careful of Deathrite Shaman that can interact with your lock. If your plan is to rely on Tabernacle to slow them down, keep your Wasteland for their Gaea’s Cradle as they run a full playset. Elves can have very fast kills. As soon as they hit the critical point of 3 creatures without summoning sickness, you must be able to survive a Natural Order into Craterhoof Behemoth.

    MUD
    A Chalice of the Void/Trinisphere deck. Chalice will usually be preemptively set on 1, but there is a high chance it resolves on 2 to stop your Loam. A combination of Ancient Tomb/City of Traitors/Glimmerpost/Cloudpost/Grim Monolith can bypass your denial and is enough for them to power out something big. Lodestone Golem can be a huge threat if backed by Wastelands. Kuldotha Forgemaster can tutor for their bombs like Blightsteel Colossus or Spine of Ish Sah. Postboard, you may have to deal with Ensnaring Bridge and Tormod’s Crypt. Grip key pieces and EE away the most cards possible. Pfire should still be present to answer metalworker.

    Nic Fit
    More basics than usual. We only care about Scavenging Ooze and Deathrite Shaman, so set EE for 2 and have Pfire ready. Have a board established before Primeval Titan comes down because he will fetch Bojuka Bog/Karakas and the extra mana will increase their output. They have little game vs an instant 20/20 backed up by Wastes. SB Chalice and Revoker are really good here and Kgrip has uses vs Tops/Libraries and Pernicious Deed.

    Sneak & Show
    Karakas is good against Show and Tell, but sucks against Sneak Attack if they have RR open. Mana denial on their Sol lands helps us develop and Maze/Glacial Chasm can deal with Griselbrand. Emrakul, the Aeons Torn is not easily stopped because of the annihilator trigger, so Ensnaring Bridge is the best card here. G2/3 they have bounce and even bring in Blood Moon. It’s winnable, but Lands is the clear underdog.

    U/R Delver

    Another list that has a lot of basic lands. If you can resolve Zuran Orb before you die you’re often in good shape, however that is no easy feat. The fewer Price of Progress they run, the better the matchup is. Blood Moon will come in postboard.

    Negative

    TES / ANT / Other Storm Combo
    TES manabase is awful, but ANT usually plays some basics. With an active Zuran Orb, each land you drop means they have to generate more storm to kill you. Crop Rotation into Bojuka Bog can mess their Past in Flames plan. If they storm into Empty the Warrens, Tabernacle or Chasm usual seals the deal. Dark Depths increases our win chances with a fast kill. Postboard we usually have the tools to slow them down with Chalice/Sphere. The man plan with Thalia/Dark Confidant/Canonist is very effective to put pressure on their life total.

    Aluren
    A slow combo deck that works well against our MD anti-creature tools if played well. They have discard and/or counters for your Crop Rotation, so don’t expect to fight with a fast Marit Lage. Minus Krosan Grip, you can’t disrupt them once the combo is in motion. Your only hope is a heavy mana denial strategy to prevent them from ever reaching 4 mana. If you have mana don’t hesitate to Port/Waste their fetches. G2/3 bring all the taxing you have to support your mana denial strategy.

    12 Post
    Most lists are playing MD Pithing Needle to protect their Cloudpost and Glimmerpost from Wasteland and a single resolved Primeval Titan is enough to cancel all your mana denial. Their lategame allow them to play Eldrazi each turns; you don’t want to fight here. They usually do not play Force of Will, but instead rely on Repeal, Flusterstorm and Swan Song so try to resolve a Crop Rotation into Marit Lage through these cards.

    Burn
    You should rush to assemble Glacial Chasm and Zuran Orb. Crop Rotation can negate the first Price of Progress thanks to Glacial Chasm. Thespian’s Stage allows you to copy Chasm during your upkeep to have a constant burn shield. Take advantage of the fact that most Burn opponents are inexperienced and ask them if they can actually beat the Chasm (get one in German \o/). Often times they don’t realize that they can and you’re off to game 2. Against an experienced pilot, don’t expect to win too many.

    Very Negative

    Imperial Painter
    Do not expect to win a lot of games against this match-up. It has access to a fast combo kill with Grindstone + Painter’s Servant and it is disrupting our lands with MD Blood Moon. Sometimes a Wasteland and a Port will get there, you just need a good amount of luck. Chalice for 1 if you got it.

    Show and Tell decks (Hive Mind / Omnitell)
    Both usually are mono-U decks. Hive Mind can just chain a bunch of Pacts together which we can’t really interact with. You best hope here is to accumulate a lot of mana to pay for the Pacts, or to kill them before with Marit Lage. Omniscience negates all your denial and wins out of nowhere. A devoted sb can change this to slightly positive.

    High Tide
    Another mono-U combo deck. We have many dead cards G1, so mulligan aggressively to get an accelerant out and have a clear plan for attacking with Marit Lage. EE for one is important for hitting Candelabra of Tawnos and having effective Port activations in their upkeep. G2 we have the hate to put us back in the match. Lookout for Cunning Wish target, Rebuild.

    V.b) Tips and Tricks

    *Intuition piles 101:
    • Life from the Loam + any 2 lands = gives you the lands in hand
    • Life from the Loam + Academy Ruins + any artifact = gives you the artifact in hand
    • Life from the Loam + Grove of the Burnwillows + Pfire = removal for most creature decks
    • Life from the Loam + Urborg + Raven’s Crime = vs control/combo decks and keeps hand size low for Ensnaring Bridge
    • Life from the Loam + Urborg + Worm Harvest = Worm Army for defense/wincon
    • 3 Exploration/3X of any card = Exploration in hand/Demonic Tutor


    *Often times, lategame Rishadan Ports shouldn’t be used to tap lands at upkeep when it doesn’t realistically matter, but left open in case some trick presents itself.

    *If you have Life from the Loam in graveyard and Tranquil Thicket in hand and you suspect your opponent has Vendilion Clique in hand, don’t dredge if you want the Loam. Instead, wait until your main phase, cycle the thicket, and dredge for the draw. This way, you can cast the Loam before your opponent gets priority to Clique it away.

    *If you have Loam + Tolaria West and you’re not really doing anything, transmuting for Mox Diamond to speed you up is a fine option.

    *Let your Tabernacle triggers resolve in your opponent’s upkeep before Porting them.

    *Manabond triggers whether or not you want to put your hand into play; if you want to bait an opponent’s stifle, announce the Manabond trigger at cleanup. If they stifle it, it gets countered, and if it resolves you can choose not to put lands into play if you wish.

    *You can Ghost Quarter your own land to search up a Forest if you need green. Similarly, if you have a land in play that you wish to recur with Loam (Tolaria West, Tranquil Thicket, Bojuka Bog), you can Waste it to get it back with Loam.

    *You can put more mana into Engineered Explosives to increase its converted mana cost while on the stack. For example, if you want to play Explosives for two around a Spell Snare, you can pay 1UG to make its converted mana cost three while on the stack but still resolve with two sunburst counters. This is also useful for beating Counterbalance and playing around Chalice of the Void.

    *The converted mana costs of Engineered Explosives and Chalice of the Void that are in play are always zero, despite the number of counters on them or their converted mana cost while they were on the stack.

    *If you can avoid it, don’t activate your manlands into open white mana. If you can’t avoid it, at least try to have Ghost Quarter, Wasteland, Zuran Orb, or Pfire at the ready in case they do try to Swords to plowshares it.

    *If your opponent is running taxing counters, they are very easy to play around by just waiting a turn or two. Try not to run your Exploration into Daze or Spell Pierce

    *You can Maze your own attacking creatures. This is relevant with Mishra’s Factories and against opposing creatures with flash. If you have two attacking factories and a Maze of Ith against their one blocker, you can animate and attack with both, Maze whichever one they block, and then use its pump ability to pump the unblocked one. If your opponent flashes in something and blocks a relevant creature such as a postboard Dark Confidant, you can simply Maze your creature before damage.

    *You can Maze your own creature post combat damage step at the "end of combat step" (it is still an attacking creature) if Maze is going to be wasted next turn and you want a blocker up or to get the mana back from the manland.

    *Be cautious of what land you sacrifice to Crop Rotation or when transmuting because an Extirpate/Extraction can throw a wrench in your plans for the card you were intending to tutor for. Have a plan B target.
    Attached Images
    Last edited by snorlaxcom; 08-06-2016 at 07:49 PM. Reason: spelling/grammar is hard

  2. #2
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    Re: [Deck] Lands

    VI. Links

    If you want your link added to the following list, send me a PM

    VI.a) Sample Decklists

    The following list are from the StarCityGames circuit. Please do not restrict your deck building to the these lists.

    *08/12/2012 SCG Kansas City, Alex Olson, 2nd
    *10/28/2012 SCG New Orleans, Jody Keith, 10th
    *12/16/2012 SCG Los Angeles, Jody Keith, 8th
    *03/24/2013 SCG Kansas City, Tom McLeod, 6th
    *04/21/2013 SCG Seattle, Dan Mortensen, 10th
    *06/16/2013 SCG Colombus, Bobby Kovacs, 3rd
    *10/06/2013 SCG Cleveland, Shane Kelley, 13th
    *12/15/2013 SCG LasVegas, Sammy Trueman 16th
    *02/09/2014 SCG Nashville, Eric Yu, 7th
    *04/06/2014 SCG Milwaukee, Alex Daily, 13th

    More lists on TC Decks and mtgtop8.com.



    VI.b) Reports

    *01/2012, Malacoda, SCG Los Angeles, 5-3
    *02/2012, Malacoda, SCG Cincinnati, 5-3-1
    *03/2012, Cuthbertthecat, GP Indianapolis, Top 64
    *07/2012, Phelix, GP Ghent, 16th (part 1)
    *07/2012, Phelix, GP Ghent, 16th (part 2)
    *08/2012, Cuthbertthecat, SCG Kansas City, 2nd
    *02/2013, Go_Gaels, SCG Atlanta, 21th
    *02/2013, TBryant23, 5-3-1
    *03/2013, Corrosion, SCG Kansas City, 6th
    *04/2013, LegoEgo, GP Strasbourg, Day 2
    *05/2013, Zynque, Bazaar of Moxen, 10th
    *07/2013, OneBigSquirrelGod, SCG Colombus, 3rd
    *11/2013, Anen, Eternal Weekend Side Event, Top 8
    *03/2014, markkugel, Bourgoin-Jallieu France, 2-2-1
    *04/2014, Sonofmogh, SCG Milwaukee, Top 16
    *05/2014, Tyrio, SCG Knoxville, 19th
    *11/2014, Snorlaxcom, GP NJ, 212th
    *3/2015, BillyButtons, SCG PIQ, 19th

    VI.c) Videos
    * 08/2010, Eli Kassis, Deck Tech
    * 04/2011, Michael Caffrey, MTGO
    * 05/2014, Bahra, MTGO Legacy Daily, 2-1
    * 01/2016, Snorlaxcom's Youtube channel for Lands

    VI.d) Pimped Decks!

    *03/2012: Cuthbertthecat’s deck. Theme: Foil
    *10/2012: Anen’s deck. Theme: Japanese non-foil.
    *01/2014: Phelix’s foil Jap Ports.
    *3/2014: Sparkii's deck. Theme: Foil
    *11/2014: Snorlaxcom’s deck. Theme:Cultured Lands


    VII. Credits
    08/2006: Tao for initially creating the 43 Lands thread.
    03/2012: Cuthbertthecat and Malacoda for rewriting the whole primer.
    05/2014: Snorlaxcom, Anen, and OneBigSquirrelGod for updating the primer and providing the sweet banner.
    Last edited by snorlaxcom; 01-31-2016 at 10:24 AM. Reason: added videos link

  3. #3

    Re: [Deck] Lands

    great job on the new primer. So, what's everyone's thoughts on the new exploration art in conspiracy?

  4. #4

    Re: [Deck] Lands

    Nice work, I especially like the Reports section of the primer. It's helpful to others to see lines of play and other interactions between decks. :)

  5. #5

    Re: [Deck] Lands

    Nice thread! If I ever get some more card spending money I may find myself visiting this primer more...
    Legacy decks-
    MUD

    "Of course you should fight fire with fire. You should fight everything with fire."

    "You can build a perfect machine out of imperfect parts."

  6. #6
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    Re: [Deck] Lands

    Quote Originally Posted by amalek0 View Post
    great job on the new primer. So, what's everyone's thoughts on the new exploration art in conspiracy?
    Not a fan. The little hand is the only way the name relates to the art. Pretty loose to me.

  7. #7
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    Re: [Deck] Lands

    Nice updated thread!

    How do you feel about creating another section that addresses common areas of hate against the deck (blood moon, extractions, RiP, etc) and use it as a way to share tip, tricks, and techniques players use to combat that hate?

    Bryan

  8. #8

    Re: [Deck] Lands

    Quote Originally Posted by bryanzoll View Post
    Nice updated thread!

    How do you feel about creating another section that addresses common areas of hate against the deck (blood moon, extractions, RiP, etc) and use it as a way to share tip, tricks, and techniques players use to combat that hate?

    Bryan
    how you play around hate depends a ton on your configuration. If you have white, usually there's cannonists and thalias backed up by ray of revelation. if that's the case, you can hold the ray/kgrip/EE at 2/3 to blow RIP/Bloodmoon respectively, they're permanent based hate. Be mindful with RIP and leyline of the void that you won't get your EE back, but with ray it will end up in the graveyard. For extraction, you can hold tranquil thicket to cycle in response to the extraction to protect your loam. Good opponents won't try to extract your loams, they'll go for your punishing fires, wastelands, or some part of the depths combo. In the case of that, the only out you really have is to board appropriately--don't go all in on punishing fire, or engineered explosives. It's why I never board out my tarpit, because it's the third line of defense against problematic planeswalkers, particularly liliana. Obviously, if you suspect blood moons or it's a deck with tons of wastelands (jund, U/x/x delver, death and taxes) fetch a basic forest early.

  9. #9
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    Re: [Deck] Lands

    Quote Originally Posted by amalek0 View Post
    great job on the new primer. So, what's everyone's thoughts on the new exploration art in conspiracy?
    Art isn't terrible, but OG art and border are too sweet to pass up
    Quote Originally Posted by Richard Cheese View Post
    I've been taking shitty brews and tier 2 decks to tournaments and losing with them for years now. Welcome to the club. We meet for cocktails after round 6.
    Quote Originally Posted by Stevestamopz View Post
    Top quality german restraint there.

    If I'm at the point where I'm rage quitting, you can bet your kransky that I'm calling everyone involved a cunt.

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    Re: [Deck] Lands

    i think ill stick w. my korean ones.

    if it was old border... i might go foil japanese.


    also, will upload full scanned deck soon - and its nice ;)
    "Brainstorm and Fetchlands are interesting although I don't know if Brainstorms alone are worth it right now, because Stifle is a common card. " -Peddi 2015.

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    Re: [Deck] Lands

    So I went 2-1-1 last night with the following list:

    4 Exploration
    1 Manabond

    1 Crucible of Worlds
    1 Engineered Explosives
    1 Ensnaring Bridge
    1 Zuran Orb
    4 Mox Diamond

    2 Crop Rotation
    3 Intuition
    3 Punishing Fire

    4 Life from the Loam

    1 Forest
    1 Bayou
    1 Bojuka Bog
    1 Ghost Quarter
    1 Glacial Chasm
    3 Grove of the Burnwillows
    3 Maze of Ith
    1 Misty Rainforest
    4 Rishadon Port
    1 Taiga
    1 Thespian's Stage
    3 Tolaria West
    2 Tranquil Thicket
    3 Tropical Island
    1 Verdant Catacombs
    4 Wasteland
    1 Wooded Foothills
    1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
    1 Dark Depths
    1 Academy Ruins
    1 Karakas

    Sideboard:
    2 Chalice of the Void
    2 Krosan Grip
    2 Sphere of Resistance
    3 Dark Confidant
    1 Riftstone portal (way too many blood moon effects in my meta)
    1 Ensnaring Bridge
    1 Engineered Explosives
    2 Phyrexian Revoker
    1 Abrupt Decay

    (P) = on the play
    (D) = on the draw

    Match 1 - Elves
    G1(P): Opened with a hand that had grove of the burnwillows, mox diamond, exploration and punishing fire...snap keep against any unknown deck (right?). In any case..it was clearly a brutal game 1 for my opponent. Controlled it with PFire the early game, then just locked him out and went for the kill with DD & Stage.

    Out: 3x intuition 1x Bojuka Bog
    In: 2x Chalice, 1x EE, 1x Ensnaring Bridge

    G2(D): Opened with turn 1 exploration, mox diamond, and chalice on 1 to his turn 1 nettle sentinel. I didn't have any CA going, but clearly he wasn't doing much besides swinging sideways for 2 a turn. I get a maze in play at 12 life to stop the sentinel, his next turn is GSZ for 3 getting viridian shaman blowing up chalice and playing a bunch of 1 drops. I top deck an EE and blow up the board for 1 and maze can keep shaman at bay. 2 turns later I get PFire to kill his 2 doods on board, and with 1 card in hand he just scoops...the devastating affects of PFire I guess?? O_o

    2-0

    Match 2 - Food Chain Combo
    This was against a long time friend of mine and we both knew what each other was playing but never playtested the matchup before. I felt going into it I had the stronger deck and he felt the same.

    G1(P): I keep a hand with 2 PFires (no grove), a mox diamond, and a Life from the Loam. I'm pretty sure the only reason I got excited was the 2 PFires, reflecting on it, it might have been the wrong decision as I didn't have exploration or manabond to compliment the Loam (let me know what you guys think). First couple of turns went exactly how I thought they would, turn 1 I play mox, land, and pass. His turn 1 his DRS met its fate with PFire #1. I play land go, his turn 2 DRS met its fate with PFire #2. I draw another land and decide to try to get something going now, casting loam, and passing the turn. A few turns later I loamed away every non-land card in my deck it seemed while he got a food chain and griffin in play. A few turns later Tidespout Tyrant appeared and my board-state disappeared.

    Out: 1x Bojuka Bog, 3x Intuition, 1x Ensnaring Bridge, 1x Tabernacle, 1x Glacial Chasm
    In: 2x Sphere of Resistance (NOTE: It is important to note that mana generated from Food Chain cannot be used to pay for extra costs to cast creature cards), 2x Phyrexian Revoker, 1x Abrupt Decay, 2x Krosan Grip

    G2(P): I mulliganed to 5 this game as my first 2 hands were all lands and no business. I settled for a hand with 1 PFire and a Mox Diamond. Game starts real slow as I PFire his Hierarch keeping him at 2 mana. Mid-game I still have no CA engine going but had a Krosan Grip for his 1st Food Chain....next turn food chain #2 hits and so does an Emrakul.

    For this matchup, I'm not sure what I would have done differently. Reflecting on it, I would want to bring in Dark Confidants just to try to avoid their GY hate as they run Relic of Progenitus so they can exile their GYs as well. I am working on getting 4 Sphere of Resistance in the SB, so the extra 2 would come in as well.

    2-2

    Match 3 - Sneak and Show
    I know my opponent is on Sneak and Show as I saw their last match.

    G1(D): Opened with Exploration, Mox Diamond, Loam, tolaria west, fetch, and trop. Good enough for me. Tolaria was transmuted for a karakas which stayed in hand until he show and telled. Down came sneak attack and down came karakas. Next loam for me was real good has it had a pair of wastelands which took out his untapped red source and his tapped red source (woot woot). He durdles and finds 1 red source but without a second karakas has him locked down still, 2x transmutes from west finds DD & Stage, and he found out a 20/20 is larger than a 15/15.

    Out: 1x EE, 1x Tabernacle, 1x Glacial Chasm, 1x Zuran Orb, 2x Inutition
    In: 2x Revoker, 1x Riftstone Portal, 2x Krosan Grip, 1x Ensnaring Bridge

    G2(D): I am able to start with a turn 1 Revoker on Sneak Attack with a karakas in hand. His turn 2 blood moon hurts =( ...in retrospect I knew he had blood moons in the deck and should have kept a stronger hand than what I did. Regardless of the board state...we both durdle for what seemed like ages until he lands a show and tell with emrakul. Since there is all of 1 minute left of the clock I run down the time a bit and there is no game 3 once emrakul swings a 2nd time.

    3-3

    Match 4 - Manaless Dredge

    G1(P): I open a hand with forest, loam, crop rotate, and zuran orb, and diamond. I play forest, diamond, orb and pass. He moves to discard discarding phantasmagorian. I play land go. He winds up getting half his GY in his bin on his turn...EoT Crop Rotation into Bojuka Bog makes him sad...as does me sacrificing bog to orb and recurring it next turn with loam...GG

    G2(P): Not the same hand as game 1...but it had exploration, loam, bog, and wasteland. GG

    5-3

    All in all I felt like my play skills were moderate at best last night. I was second guessing myself a lot and questioning my lines of play. I felt like crop rotations were sub-par (minus the 1 game against dredge) and will turn them into other cards (open to suggestions). My sideboard is a work in progress at the moment.

    Let me know if you guys have any comments.

  12. #12

    Re: [Deck] Lands

    mainboard looks solid. I don't like crop rotations main, and I like the second manabond better than the third intuition main, but that's personal preference as both generally come out g2/g3. I'd dump the rotations from the mainboard for a second explosives and another flex slot, maybe the second stage or the third thicket? Maybe mainboard riftstone portal if there's a heavy blood-moon presence locally (painter's/stompey variants etc).

  13. #13

    Re: [Deck] Lands

    I have some complaints about the primer.

    From the primer: "Doing things for the most time value is a very crucial aspect of playing this deck... This may sound like borderline cheating, but it’s actually playing in a fashion that allows for no confusion on the events of the game, while also being beneficial to this deck’s strategy."

    First of all, I think that advice like this has no place in a primer like this. I think that the goal of a primer like this should be to give people information to win with a deck on its own merits (by winning games of Magic) rather than using the maximum allowed amount of time possible to complete every action. People use shortcuts all of the time, because most members of the community have decided that the best way to decide a Magic match is to finish three games of Magic. Advising people to spend the maximum amount of time possible on each action makes is seem like the deck is not good enough on it's own and that it's constructive to focus efforts towards increasing the amount of time spent on actions during games instead of improving your deck or your ability to pilot it. Finally, this advice is completely useless for people that play the deck online.

    From the primer: " Take advantage of the fact that most Burn opponents are inexperienced and ask them if they can actually beat the Chasm (get one in German \o/). Often times they don’t realize that they can and you’re off to game 2. Against an experienced pilot, don’t expect to win too many."

    You're advising people to take advantage of new players. This is terrible for the community as a whole, and I don't think that advice like this has any place in this primer. This advice also makes it seem like the deck is not good enough on its own merits, and that it's constructive to figure out new ways to mislead new players instead of improving your deck or your ability to pilot it. Finally, it also seems like you're implicitly advising people to misrepresent their cards to inexperienced players. That is cheating.

  14. #14

    Re: [Deck] Lands

    Quote Originally Posted by dafrk3in View Post
    I have some complaints about the primer.

    From the primer: "Doing things for the most time value is a very crucial aspect of playing this deck... This may sound like borderline cheating, but it’s actually playing in a fashion that allows for no confusion on the events of the game, while also being beneficial to this deck’s strategy."

    First of all, I think that advice like this has no place in a primer like this. I think that the goal of a primer like this should be to give people information to win with a deck on its own merits (by winning games of Magic) rather than using the maximum allowed amount of time possible to complete every action. People use shortcuts all of the time, because most members of the community have decided that the best way to decide a Magic match is to finish three games of Magic. Advising people to spend the maximum amount of time possible on each action makes is seem like the deck is not good enough on it's own and that it's constructive to focus efforts towards increasing the amount of time spent on actions during games instead of improving your deck or your ability to pilot it. Finally, this advice is completely useless for people that play the deck online.

    From the primer: " Take advantage of the fact that most Burn opponents are inexperienced and ask them if they can actually beat the Chasm (get one in German \o/). Often times they don’t realize that they can and you’re off to game 2. Against an experienced pilot, don’t expect to win too many."

    You're advising people to take advantage of new players. This is terrible for the community as a whole, and I don't think that advice like this has any place in this primer. This advice also makes it seem like the deck is not good enough on its own merits, and that it's constructive to figure out new ways to mislead new players instead of improving your deck or your ability to pilot it. Finally, it also seems like you're implicitly advising people to misrepresent their cards to inexperienced players. That is cheating.
    I wrote the first quote and it's just good advice for any slow control deck in general, and even more so for how the deck was configured at the time. The deck wasn't heavily played, so people didn't know what half of your cards did. In addition, you had to win games with creeping tar pit rather than a 20/20 in a format where RUG Delver and Miracles were the top dogs, both of which played loads of spot removal. In such a format, games are going to go long as is, so playing slowly to avoid any confusion is really just for the best and can avoid game losses and such by acting too fast without giving your opponent proper time to respond. The fact that playing slowly and deliberately when you're up a game is beneficial to your odds to win the match is pretty negligible, because playing like that in general with any deck will usually lead to increased odds at winning a match, time constraints or not. I mean, if you're hellbent on finishing a match in 3 games, 2 of which you had to rush yourself through, you should probably steer clear of slow control decks in any format. As for playing the deck online, obviously it doesn't matter for that. Just ignore advice about non-chess clock management if you're playing online. Online and paper are quite different, and I'm sure every MTGO player realizes this when it comes to discussions of time management in Magic.

    As for the second quote, I didn't write that one, and I agree that its pretty scummy. I think that it's mostly for humor though.

  15. #15

    Re: [Deck] Lands

    Quote Originally Posted by cuthbertthecat View Post
    I wrote the first quote and it's just good advice for any slow control deck in general, and even more so for how the deck was configured at the time. The deck wasn't heavily played, so people didn't know what half of your cards did. In addition, you had to win games with creeping tar pit rather than a 20/20 in a format where RUG Delver and Miracles were the top dogs, both of which played loads of spot removal. In such a format, games are going to go long as is, so playing slowly to avoid any confusion is really just for the best and can avoid game losses and such by acting too fast without giving your opponent proper time to respond. The fact that playing slowly and deliberately when you're up a game is beneficial to your odds to win the match is pretty negligible, because playing like that in general with any deck will usually lead to increased odds at winning a match, time constraints or not. I mean, if you're hellbent on finishing a match in 3 games, 2 of which you had to rush yourself through, you should probably steer clear of slow control decks in any format. As for playing the deck online, obviously it doesn't matter for that. Just ignore advice about non-chess clock management if you're playing online. Online and paper are quite different, and I'm sure every MTGO player realizes this when it comes to discussions of time management in Magic.

    As for the second quote, I didn't write that one, and I agree that its pretty scummy. I think that it's mostly for humor though.
    You say that "doing things for the most time value is a very crucial aspect of playing this deck." There is a big difference between doing that and playing carefully to avoid confusion. For example, asking your opponent to shuffle and present his deck after one Ghost Quarter activation only to use Ghost Quarter again immediately, which you advocate, goes well above and beyond playing carefully to avoid confusion.

  16. #16
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    Re: [Deck] Lands

    Quote Originally Posted by dafrk3in View Post
    From the primer: " Take advantage of the fact that most Burn opponents are inexperienced and ask them if they can actually beat the Chasm (get one in German \o/). Often times they don’t realize that they can and you’re off to game 2. Against an experienced pilot, don’t expect to win too many."

    You're advising people to take advantage of new players. This is terrible for the community as a whole, and I don't think that advice like this has any place in this primer. This advice also makes it seem like the deck is not good enough on its own merits, and that it's constructive to figure out new ways to mislead new players instead of improving your deck or your ability to pilot it. Finally, it also seems like you're implicitly advising people to misrepresent their cards to inexperienced players. That is cheating.
    Have you ever played against Burn with Lands? Personally I find the Burn matchup very uninteresting. Guide, Bolt, Bolt, Price, you're dead.. WoW that was entertaining.
    The german note is not about misrepresenting the card because guess what, you can play cards in any language at Magic. If my opponent asks me what Chasm do, I will tell him the exact Oracle text, no less, no more. I am not going to shoot myself in the foot by telling him "Hey look, during my upkeep I am going to be vulnerable to instant burn, so please unload your hand now." That would be pretty stupid..

  17. #17

    Re: [Deck] Lands

    Quote Originally Posted by dafrk3in View Post
    You say that "doing things for the most time value is a very crucial aspect of playing this deck." There is a big difference between doing that and playing carefully to avoid confusion. For example, asking your opponent to shuffle and present his deck after one Ghost Quarter activation only to use Ghost Quarter again immediately, which you advocate, goes well above and beyond playing carefully to avoid confusion.
    Well, your opponent could well have a response between ghost quarters, such as brainstorm, which I'm sure they would love a chance to cast between your activations if they so desire. There's also the issue of letting the mana they likely floated empty out of their mana pool between phases, which you can't do if you're shortcutting. Those 2 reasons alone are reasons to never shortcut on stuff like ghost quarter, way too much can go wrong and the only real upside is placating your opponent, which is not why I tend to play Magic.

  18. #18

    Re: [Deck] Lands

    Quote Originally Posted by cuthbertthecat View Post
    Well, your opponent could well have a response between ghost quarters, such as brainstorm, which I'm sure they would love a chance to cast between your activations if they so desire. There's also the issue of letting the mana they likely floated empty out of their mana pool between phases, which you can't do if you're shortcutting. Those 2 reasons alone are reasons to never shortcut on stuff like ghost quarter, way too much can go wrong and the only real upside is placating your opponent, which is not why I tend to play Magic.
    not only that, but for back to back ghost quarter activations, you have to replay your ghost quarter, which can trigger things etc... there's plenty of reasons not to shortcut any interaction that gives your opponents chances for a free shuffle, particularly in legacy where brainstorm is ubiquitous and one of the top decks to beat runs 4x sensei's divining top. As to having a german copy of glacial chasm, isn't the original text on it different than the strict oracle text anyway? I don't own an original copy anymore to compare, all mine are FTV's. Also, it's always fair to ask your burn opponent if they can beat it, the same way I ask my opponents in standard if they can beat my resolved aetherling or in modern if they can beat my resolved knowledge pool + teferi mage, or like asking if your opponent can break out of smokestack + trinisphere with no permanents in play. It's a valid way to save yourself the agony of finishing a game that's already over.

  19. #19
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    Re: [Deck] Lands

    Quote Originally Posted by bryanzoll View Post
    So I went 2-1-1 last night with the following list:...
    I would have boarded out more; -Orb, Chasm, 2Crop, Manabond, E.bridge

    Replacing with; +3bob, 2chalice, 1ee

    Keep them off dork mana and discard with chalice@1. Bridge/chasm does nothing vs tidespout and ee will already be in for 3 for insurance vs Food chain. Bob will drawz all da hate.

    That should help a bit with the current list, but get more spheres if this deck becomes more of an issue. Canonist may have value here.
    Last edited by snorlaxcom; 06-01-2014 at 07:19 AM.

  20. #20

    Re: [Deck] Lands

    To those responding to my comments, reread the sections of the primer that I pointed out. Based on reading them, what do you think those sections advocate? I am all for careful play. For example, resolving Rishadan Ports individually is obviously important. This shouldn't be something that's done to take as much time off of the clock as possible. It should be done because it improves the Lands player's chance of winning the game. I think that the sections should be rephrased so it's clear what you're advising players to do.

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