[Deck] RUG Lands

[kravkenov]

I used to play 4 crop, 2 Gamble and 2 Intuition with a 3/3 Thespian/depths split.
Intuition is really strong against deck that cannot recovery from an Explosives lock, if you don't want to play Intuition consider going R/G because Tolaria is even more slower than Intuition and keeping blue dosent make sens at this point.

Smockstack is no-more (imo) a good lock piece because it's hell slow and usually don't have a huge impact fast enough to be relevant. I really prefer Trinisphere instead.

About Chalice, it's a matter of personal feeling. Chalice is huge against tempo and burn deck, but it will blank your Exploration/Crop/Gamble which isn't that sweet. Instead I would better go to taxes effect, which are less impactful on your side than opponent side and do a very great job at slowing opponent while letting you use your key spell (exploration, crop, gamble).

[Crimhead]

Any suggestion for that engine?("source of ca")
I am not thinking on splashing black for Confidant, and the only other option seems Sylvan Library.

Sylvan Library (main) and/or Tireless Tracker (SB).
You will rarely need a backup engine G1, so TT from the board is fine.
Anything else is probably too slow for this deck.

[Pilhas]

Sylvan Library (main) and/or Tireless Tracker (SB).
You will rarely need a backup engine G1, so TT from the board is fine.
Anything else is probably too slow for this deck.

Thanks for the input, I'll test the TT then since I don't want to change the main too much(pretty used to it)

[Crimhead]

Crucible Of Worlds can also give you CA. And you can dredge or Intuition* into it thanks to Academy Ruins. It tends to be better if you've already your graveyard a little bit before losing the Loam. It's also fantastic with Wasteland + Exploration. Better than a Loam for Waste-locking. It's also better for reassembling Marit Lage.

*If Loam is Extracted, Intuition for Crucible + double T.West. otherwise both Ruins and Crucible get put in your graveyard with no means of recursion.

[n0ct3m89]

Tireless tracker, crucible, and sylvan and possibly top are other sources of ca if you dont want to play bob.

Against miracles i tend to board out an exploration, the karakas, the mazes, and a crop rot or two if im bringing in a bunch of cards. Keep in punishing. Its a way to pressure jace, their creatures, and can keep monks under control.

[Crimhead]

Also if you are cutting back to three Gambles you could easily drop down to a singleton Taiga to make room for a Crucible or Library.

[Pilhas]

Also if you are cutting back to three Gambles you could easily drop down to a singleton Taiga to make room for a Crucible or Library.

That might not be a good ideia. Can't run the crucible(don't have it) but have lib.
Can you show me your typical SB?

Can't fit trackers in there

[Crimhead]

I've yet to run Trackers in RUG, but I see no reason they couldn't fit. A typical board for me:

3 Spere of Resistance
3 Chalice
1 Nethervoid
4-6 Grip/Decay

2-4 other cards such as Vortex, Needle, 4th Crop Rotation; or something"cute" like Nephalia Drownyard, Helm, Cursed Totem, etc.

Without black you're limited to the four Grips. You can run a 3Sphere or fourth SoR instead of Nethervoid. There is certainly room for Trackers if you want them.

[n0ct3m89]

My sideboard looks like this (cuz im a psychopath)

3x grip
3x bob
3x thalia, guardian of thraben
2x ethersworn canonist
1x zorb
1x 3sphere
1x chalice
1x sylvan

[Pilhas]

Thank you for the help,

I think I'll run

4 Spheres
3 Chalice
4 Krosan Grip
1 DD(3rd)
3 - EE(3rd)/Zuran Orb/Needle/Sylvan Lib(2nd)/Boseiju


Since I never tested the Trackers, I prefer going with Lib(which I tested).
Will tell you how it went.

[kravkenov]

Thank you for the help,

I think I'll run

4 Spheres
3 Chalice
4 Krosan Grip
1 DD(3rd)
3 - EE(3rd)/Zuran Orb/Needle/Sylvan Lib(2nd)/Boseiju


Since I never tested the Trackers, I prefer going with Lib(which I tested).
Will tell you how it went.

In the present meta - lot of Counterbalance (Miracle) and Chalice (Eldrazi) - I would advise to play Boseiju in the main, and play more taxes effects.
I would also say that these problematics cards come very quickly on board, and playing more Stages / Depths make the deck lot more fast and reliable for the Witch early game, while still giving you a very strong mid and late game with the 3 Explosives and mana-hate. Until now, I was very successful with my 4 Crop, 2 Gamble, 2 Intuition and 1 Boseiju (instead of Bojuka), 4 Stages, 3 Depths.


My current list is as follow

3 Engineered Explosives
4 Mox Diamond
4 Exploration
3 Punishing Fire
4 Life from the Loam
4 Crop Rotation
2 Gamble
2 Intuition

3 Thespian's Stage
3 Dark Depths
3 Maze of Ith
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Academy Ruins
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
2 Tolaria West

1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Windswept Heath
1 Forest
3 Tropical Island
2 Taiga
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland



4 Trinisphere
4 Krosan Grip
2 Sphere of Resistance
1 Zuran Orb
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Karakas
1 Crucible of Worlds

[snorlaxcom]

I drove (blasting party music for more hype) to SCG Baltimore this weekend and played in two challenges (2-1-1 w/bye & 3-0-1 won friendly ID) on Saturday and the Classic (24th of 119 with 4-2-1) on Sunday. I had a bye in the first challenge event so 14 matches over the weekend were Miracles (2-1-1, UID), UR Delver (2-0), BUG Delver (1-1), Eldrazi (1-0), Esper Deathblade (0-1), D&T (1-0), Elves (1-0), Belcher (0-0-1, UID), Mono U Control (0-0-1, ID & won friendly match). Didn’t find a notebook to record my matches, but I tried a couple of things out from online matches and last minute swaps. From my typical list I noted some changes (in an effort to be a bit more aggressive while still having miracles addressed G1):

+ 1 Crop Rotation
+ 1 DD
+ 1 Thespian’s Stage
+ 1 Glacial Chasm
+ 1 Worm Harvest

- 1 EE
- 1 Karakas
- 1 Fetch
- 1 Crucible of Worlds

Yes, now 61 cards. For the Challenge events on Saturday I didn’t see much need for Karakas, but I put it back in for Sunday cutting Ghost Quarter after not having activated it at all on Saturday. GQ is used to fight extractions/Needles on Wastelands, but didn’t run into that much. I hate the card in my opener, but Chasm is back in after being out for some years. Upping crop and stage numbers and expecting infect/belcher/burn on the weekend it wasn’t much opportunity cost in the end. I was thinking of making this slot Boseiju, but decided against it after reviewing my tools vs Miracles G1.

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

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

Sideboard: I tried out Trackers for the first time by using a flex slot and a revoker slot. I wasn’t satisfied with the manabase for bobs, so this was a good time to try out something besides Sylvan Library.
2 Tireless Tracker
4 Krosan Grip
3 Trinisphere
2 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Chalice of the Void

Sunday Legacy Classic

R1 BUG Delver
G1 He leads with ponder and I go hog wild when Intuition resolves.
G2 Crop for a dude.

1-0-0

R2 Paul Michel on BUG Delver (sans goyf for mongoose)
G1 fuzzy memory, but I lose. I take note of the mongeese and think the deck could be some BuRG variant.
G2 Assuming he has no dazes I jam a t2 Trinisphere and it sticks. I pfire his t1 delver on my t3 and pass. He remains on one land and I find a grove. He scoops when I play Loam.
G3 T1 delver beats for many turns, while my starting 5 dictates I setup chalice and Trini. I finally get a maze, but he lands Winter Orb and I have no time to address delver #2.

1-1-0

R3 Elves
G1 T1 drs off a bayou and I then lead with T1 EE@1 not realizing he was on Elves. He slow rolls dudes and avoids 1 cmc, but I go with t2 pfire. He has dryad, Nettle, & Visionary so two mana to pop EE or 3 mana to buy back pfire is getting outpaced and unable to prevent him from doing a NO. I have 2 Crop for DD combo or chasm if need be. He fires of one NO putting me to 10. Ok. I play stage and have combo ready to kill him. He gets out Hoofs #2 forcing me to chasm at 10 life. I sac a land to chasm and have to wait some turns to play the next crop for DD, but it’s all good cause 6 life into chasm is all I need to win. On my turn I pay 2 life and play a land. He then plays the life loss elf twice and I die.
G2 Combo him fast.
G3 Lock pieces.

2-1-0

R4 Eldrazi
G1 plays some dorks I can shoot with pfire and has a shit manabase.
G2 He mulls to 5 and I keep 6. I take some hits from mimic before shooting it and getting enough mana to shoot the 3/3 endless one while at 6 life. Know I can take a hit from a hastey dude and kills the other dorks it’s all gravey. I’m dredging loam in the meantime for combo pieces or wasteland. I have two ports knocking off 2 sol lands. He hits me for 5 then I find a maze to hold off dude. Ports keep him off of 4 mana, but I don’t divide the activations separately in the beginning phase among the upkeep and draw, so he uses 4 mana to untap a grim monolith and now has that plus cavern and wasteland for mana. Knowing he can play smasher for the win I was screaming inside, but he doesn’t find it and I dredge a wasteland + combo and wreck the manabase.

3-1-0

R5 Justin Miller on Miracles
G1 knew he was on miracles and had T2 EE@2. Had some ports going and blew up CB when it showed up. Loam setup was going full ham, but wasn’t finding win con fast enough. Took too much of the time here.
G2 He had mentor and I couldn’t kill it. He extracted pfire and loam.
G3 had ports to keep off mentor and Jace, while loam going. When I got combo turns were over.

3-1-1

R6 D&T
G1 seeing T1 plains vial was nice. I lead with thicket and t2 Exploration to pfire some dork. T3 Intuition I made a pile for Harvest, Wasteland (on his Karakas) and DD forgetting I didn’t have Loam out yet. I wanted to change out DD for the Loam I thought I presented, but I already put the 3 on the table. I had a huge field in a couple of turns, while pfire was roasting everything on his side. I found Loam and dredged some turns later to Worm Harvest ftw (refer to meme above).
G2 I opened with Grip, EE, twest + stuff. He had T1 vial and I was thinking of doing T1 EE, but I led with twest because I was going to save EE for cmc2 and grip was reserved for Vial. He plays stoneforge T2 getting SoFI. He gets Vial to 2 and throws Thalia in. Waiting to hit 4 mana stinks and I get knocked down to 9 by the time I grip sword, waste Karakas and then EE@2. He has Brimaz hit me down to 5 has RiP and ticks Vial to 4 for Wilt-Leaf Liege.
G3 I have a combo hand with pfire and grip, but all my colors are off of Mox. I lead with land and he leads with Vial. I play mox + stage then pass to wait for his EOT to grip Vial. I get it, then untap I play depths and ready to go off, but he has Karakas up and port, so is not safe to go off yet. Then couple of turn are back and forth with our land drops as he gets a waste out and I draw consecutive stage, port, and depths. I have a maze to pitch to the second mox to free up options since he won’t play creatures in this board state. He taps port and plains for ratchet bomb and I make my move to wasteland (staged his earlier) his karakas and port his waste. He cantripped off of a horizon canopy with mana floating before I changed to combat, but found no other land. I made dude and attacked. He later told me he didn’t have swords in hand and played bomb to kill the token. Nah bruh. My hand still had double crop and pfire.

4-1-1

R7 Michael Sol on Esper Deathblade
He said I looked like I wanted to play. It was still a win-and-in for 8th place since my opponents have done well putting me at the highest position in the draw bracket.
G1 did my thing and he only had a couple of forces for interaction, but scooped after pfire loop and combo.
G2 T2 TNN and me stumbling. He got a second TNN and no EE in sight.
G3 slow game, but boiled down to 2 drs and stoneforce swinging for 1 with one drs on guard duty for my yard. I had tabernacle taxing 3 of his mana +maze and later found a port to tap him out of his basics, but he went to drs #3 and was attacking for 2. All the while I was dredging and never hit a pfire in the next 6 dredges. He forced a Loam once and forced an EE @1. Turn after I died I flipped pfire with double grove in play. Lame.

4-2-1 (24th of 119) so I got 12 EMA packs and some T2 packs from the prize wall because it looked better to sit on that than store credit.

Tracker was cool and I’d like to try out more sb games with him to form a conclusion, but he looks promising. Harvest was doing some work over the weekend g1 and I like the slot. Nice to have another preboard slot vs miracles and helped G1 where I didn’t want to lose two lands to gamble the outcome. I still want to try out riftstone portal with Harvest/Intuition. I couldn’t see anything else to trim before the event, but it could be a thicket or move Karakas to the sb. I was noticeably combo'ing more often, so that was fun. I'd like to test more vs BUG Delver and D&T. I handily take G1 only to lose G2 due to a fast dork/goyf draw and G3 gets to be a toss up if I mull into oblivioin. Some games could be sped up back there. Is annoying to start at 48-47 minutes left cause there is little time for opponent to sit.

Fun time playing paper again. Anybody else play this weekend? I saw some RG in the room, but only friend I knew playing Lands was Dave Long and he went 2-3 drop. No Lands in the T16.

[kravkenov]

Nice report. Dont you ever miss the 3rd Explosives ? Especially with Intuition ? Because I feel sometimes the Explosives-Loam-Tolaria Intuition pile a bit too slow.

[Pilhas]

Forgot to tell you guys how it went.

First tournament with the deck and I finished 4-2-1.

I only got favourable MU so it should go a lot better.



R1 Eldrazi 2-1
R2 Shardless 2-0
R3 4C Delver 0-2
R4 Some kind of Delver(can't remember) 2-0
R5 Shardless 0-2
R6 UG Cloudpost 2-1
R7 Shardless BUG 1-1-1(he slow played like a bitch, and we both got out of Top16)


Only grind, should be able to win all rounds but I am still green with the deck.

I played the 3 Gamble+2 Intuition that some1 suggested and I like it.
Missed the 2nd Taiga a lot.
Missed 2nd sylvan lib in the sideboard.

[snorlaxcom]

Nice report. Dont you ever miss the 3rd Explosives ? Especially with Intuition ? Because I feel sometimes the Explosives-Loam-Tolaria Intuition pile a bit too slow.

I swapped it for Harvest, so it wouldn't have mattered in the cases where I needed EE vs BUG delver rnd2 or rnd7 vs TNN because I never drew the Harvest slot and said to myself "should have been EE #3". Between 3 pfire, 3 maze, 2 twest, 2 copies of EE, and 2 thickets (to dredge faster) I drew enough removal where EE #3 didn't feel as necessary. I didn't make an Intuition pile for ruins + EE + Loam because pfire was enough or I tutored up a combo for the finish.

[Crimhead]

I'm heading a lot about Tireless Tracker, planning to test with her soon (but I'm on a R/G kick for a little bit).

Has anybody tried her in RUG, and do we like her in this build?
Has anybody tried main-decking one plus a Volrath's Stronghold (makes a nice Intuition pile)? Is Tracker good enough to warrant that much space?

[snorlaxcom]

I'm heading a lot about Tireless Tracker, planning to test with her soon (but I'm on a R/G kick for a little bit).

Has anybody tried her in RUG, and do we like her in this build?
Has anybody tried main-decking one plus a Volrath's Stronghold (makes a nice Intuition pile)? Is Tracker good enough to warrant that much space?

Went 2-2 in yesterday's FNM beating 2 burn decks and losing to UR Delver and Grixis delver. Tracker was great vs blue decks. I could have taken down UR delver if I was more aggressive at cracking clues to win the race vs TNN, but I wasn't planning out attacks rather trying to piece Marit Lage together. In sb games vs Grixis he easiliy outgrew zombie fish which had to be on chump block duty. I'll probably go to tracker #3 for a Grip #4. I take out Intuitions/Loam for him anyway and having 3 instead of 2 is where I want to be.

I was thinking of having it main, but Stronghold is a bit too much on the manabase of an already 3 color deck. I only go more than 3 colors if it is absolutely necessary (ie Omnishow w/ DTT). Harvest is more compact as a wincon and compliments Intuition better. If I were to tutor for lands then it'd probably be for Marit or EE/pfire lock.

[barcode]

Volrath's Stronghold seems overkill for so few creatures.

People reading the RGCL thread know how I feel about Tireless Tracker. tl;dr - card's nuts (in RGCL), play 4.

[Crimhead]

Volrath's Stronghold seems overkill for so few creatures.

We run Academy Ruins mostly for just EE.

Do you run Tracker in RUG too?

[snorlaxcom]

We run Academy Ruins mostly for just EE.

Yea mostly for EE, but the difference is that the EE lock can be tutored via twest g1 so that pairing makes more sense than Stronghold. I'd probably run KotR MD over Tracker if I wanted to find a slot for Stonghold if we are counting on having an undisturbed gy for so long.