1: The card is way too narrow.Originally Posted by jereminus
2: Generally, non-land cards in the deck need to have a very high impact to be included since one of the main advantages of playing the deck is that you get to "draw" extra cards with loam.
Hi guys. Last Saturday I piloted RG lands to the top8 finish at the 95 men Moscow Legacy open. I played Loxmatii's list with an aggregate sideboard:
Lands:
4 Thespian's Stage
2 Dark Depths
2 Green fetchlands
1 Forest
1 Bayou
2 Taiga
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Rifstone Portal
3 Tranquil Thicket
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
1 Ghost Quarter
3 Maze of Ith
1 Tabernacle
1 Karakas
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Bojuka Bog
Spells:
3 Crop Rotation
2 Manabond
4 Exploration
4 Mox Diamond
4 Life from the Loam
4 Punishing Fire
4 Gamble
//61 cards
Sideboard:
1 Dark Depths
3 Sphere of Resistance
3 Chalice of the Void
1 Primeval Titan
3 Krosan Grip
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Zuran Orb
1 Choke
My games:
Round1 2-0 Affinity, felt like eating a tasty piece of cake
Round2 2-1 UR-burn, G1 it was easy, G2 lost to Price of Progress, G3 found Zuran Orb, but got a Needle on Stage, so had to win with P-fires for a 1000 years
Round3 1-1 Mirror match, playing mirror match is like fighting in a dream. G1 I mull to 5, he had fast combo, but I got crop to waste his attempt in response. Then he destroys my manabase and for 15 minutes we are trying to topdeck any business. Eventually I manage to stabilize on mana and got loam. He gots his loam the next turn and suddenly the game turns into a great whirlwind, where each player is trying to combo off first and at the same time bitch up the opponent. In the end I was more nimble. G2 he puts chalice at 1 and shows fast combo. Additional turns are announced while we are shuffling. The judge asks us not to play g3. I appeal and we are allowed to start. I got a very nice hand but it's a 1 turn slower than I can afford.
Round4 2-1 Miracles, G1 I have stage+depths+exploration+gamble for loam and he can't afford playing Balance because every turn he needs to find an answer for the token. G2 he has double Balance and RIP and I only have 1 decay and 1 Krosan Grip, and my choke is FoWed. I manage to put Titan in play, but find stage+depths instead of stage+chasm and die to entreat. We have 10 minutes more but my opponent decides to give me a win, because he's not confident in his decks while I am.
Round5 2-1 DnT, I have to play against my good friend and a teammate, with whom I made the road to Moscow that day. We playtested a bit in a train and the matchup felt very difficult for me. G1 we both have a goldfish, but I can reassemble the token with loam and he can't StP it every turn. G2 he fixes my manabase with revoker, wasteland and port. G3 he has a mulligan and doesn't find answer for the token in time.
Round6 2-0 Miracles, G1 he assembles top+loam+2cmc on top before I can find combo with loam. I have 4 p.fires but I can fire only in rare moments when he is forced to crack fetches or play Dig through time. After nearly 30 minutes of that suffering I manually find 2 ports, ghost quarter and Dark Depths. I start taking counters off manually. By that time he has 2 plains and 1 tundra, with all other white sources already wastelanded. He desperately brainstorms with Jace in search for Entreat, keeping a 2cmc and a terminus on top. I make a ghost of one of his plains and tap another plains and tundra. Making sure his white mana is burned, I create a token at his end step. That game was a real try out for both players. But I made no mistakes and was rewarded. G2 he FoWs my chalice, I gamble for choke after he's tapped out for a batterskull, but he Forces choke. Nevertheless, I feel safe with a Krosan Grip and loam, even with his top+balance. I make sure he doesn't win this game.
Round7 id
Top8
0-2 DnT, Again I have to play against my friend, but this time he wins the match and the whole tournament. In both games he has an StP PLUS Whisp and wastes my resources. And in G2 I keep a Krosan Grip, but he has double RiP, wastes my only green source and puts revoker on Mox. Anyway, I feel very happy for both of us. In finals he wins against burn, the deadliest match up for me and I heave a sigh of relief.
My feelings after the tournament:
- missed the versatility of RUG lands very much. CB+top would not be a problem at all with a EE or Tolaria West.
- had issues with colored mana, especially while playing against DnT. The 5th Mox Diamond wanted dead or alive.
+ SB felt very solid. I was happy I had 5 uncounterable cards for destroying CB
+ a single Titan is a boomerr against Miracles. However, would like to try Assault as well. But there can be only one.
+ Would not go out from home without Zuran Orb. At least it can be found with Gamble.
- Can't say I needed choke that much. Can be turned into the 4th sphere or 2nd Zuran orb
+ Didn't miss Depths №4 at all, even in G3 against Mirror.
Last edited by door; 12-08-2014 at 09:13 AM. Reason: fixing grammatics + some details
Nothing is true, everything is permitted...
Thank you for the report and congratulations on your result, especially considering you faced Miracles twice.
That round 6 game 1 looks both laborious and rewarding, as this particular matchup often is.
And I agree about DnT, it's difficult. I'd usually consider us slightly favored, but if it's a strong DnT pilot AND they have experience against Lands, then I'd actually consider us slightly unfavored over 3 games.
Congrats on the finish Door. I don't think you had easy matchups in facing multiple D&T and Miracles, but you fared quite well against them. RUG lands has a better anwer in EE-lock in these matchups, I see why you missed the versality of RUG.
About lacking colored mana, a suggestion is to cut a Riftstone Portal and a Tranquil Thicket for a fetchland and a Horizon Canopy. Riftstone portal is great if it gets in the yard, but dredging into it is a longshot and otherwise you'd have to play and waste/crop it, so its advantage probably doesn't outweigh that it doesn't produce G. Horizon Canopy provides G, provides a draw and can be rotated for.
Thanks for posting the report by the way, I like reading them and I'd wish more players would do so.
A short tournament report for interested parties.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/userblog...ds-3-epic-loot
Interesting read cause your reports are very detailed. Boarding out crop rotation did surprise me, I mostly go the other way around, maxing out on the combo game two with all copies of crops/depths. You mentioned you missed the fourth crop rotation, why is that so? It seemed to me you mostly boarded for the long, grindy game without crops. Courser of Kruphix makes sense in that context, similar to a confidant in a RUGlist.
Should you cut down on the chalices, I would test a single Zuran Orb. Gambling into one seems like a fine backup plan against burn / delverburn.
Got a a slightly bigger event this weekend, I am torn between running a single Primetime or a Sylvan Library. The first being way more powerful than the latter, also way more expensive to cast. I like Sylvan Library a lot, especially versus white decks where an sworded token fuels extra draws. Im always happy to see that one, where I am often unhappy to see an early Primetime with it's six mana castingcost.
Glad you enjoyed the read.
I missed the fourth Crop Rote because it's just so damn versatile. Not only does it often secure auto-wins when you have one piece of the combo but not the other, it also finds utility lands when you need to form your fortress. Playing four just seems like the right number to me, even though I've seen lots of lists with just three.
I boarded out the Rotes mostly to make room for the Coursers, which I really wanted to see in action this tournament--which, as you said, makes for a grindier game. However, the accepted version of RG, as it stands, doesn't really have the versatility to meet the demands of the grindier game. It wins by either comboing, or setting up a really quick lock with Loam, Waste, and Ports. Since my inclination, though, is to go for the prison-type game, I'm thinking of trying some alternative card choices for my next event (one of which could be Zuran Orb). We'll see how it goes.
Peace.
Do you already have some idea's on these alternative choices?
I ran for some time a hybrid list, with 1 EE, 2 Trop Isles, 2 TolariaWest, 1 Academy Ruins (trading out with -1 manabond, -2 tranquil thicket, -1 PFire, -1 ghost Quarter) 61 cards total. I wanted the best of both worlds, cheap tutors and combofocus of RG, and TWest with EE lock from RUG. I did have mana issues with it, between reliably having R and UU (Tolaria West), although it had kind of the same manabase of RUGlands. Also manabond and EE / Tolaria West wasn't ideal. But having the EE lock and some tools to assemble it felt real good.
I am interested in porting the Ruins/EE lock from Rug to increase maindeck answers while mostly maintaining Rg's oops, I win qualities. Here's what I think I'll try out next time. Take the normal Rg list, then:
-1 Punishing Fire
-2 Tranquil Thicket
-2 Manabond
+2 Engineered Explosives
+1 Buried Ruin
+1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
+1 Horizon, Canopy
Between Mox Diamond, Bojuka Bog, Horizon Canopy, and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, I should be able to reliably set EE to three (though setting it at lower numbers will be way more frequent) while only losing one green source. Perhaps even the final Tranquil thicket could even become a Bayou so that I can fetch for a third color when I need to and possibly have a couple of Abrupt Decays on the board. Rest of the deck stays Rg Combo Lands, though admittedly slower with the tradeoff (hopefully) of being able to play a more versatile game.
That's the idea. We'll see how it turns out.
I played the Belgian Legacy Cup this weekend, and finished 8th out of 102 players. Cause I like reading reports, I'd like to share one as well:
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/userblog...-cup-8th-place
Any comments or tips would be appreciated, especially on siding - hope you enjoy the read.
What matches aside from storm do you board in spheres for?
Anything you want to slow down. Burn, Blue Cantrip decks like Omnishow and Mana greedy but mana light decks like RUG.
It is better to ask and look stupid then keep your mouth shut and remain so.
I hope your afterlife is filled with eternal torment.
Fuck. Which one of my quotes do I drop for this?
I've been testing against a bunch of decks over the past week with 4 sphere and 1 thorn in the sideboard.. The spheres feel unnecessary against RUG. They also don't seem to be particularly great against omnitell or sneak and show from the few matches I tested with them. It seems like they take up a lot of room for just two matchups that aren't incredibly popular. That being storm and elves.
Also has anyone tried playing a containment priest in the sideboard? I'm not sure if it's worth trying or if it's just worth conceding the matchup all together.
Problem with offcolor sideboardcards against combo, is that you need your (white) manasource along your hate. That reduces your odds by quite a bit. And even then these decks are prepared to deal with hatebears. At least the spheres are very synergetic with the manadenial plan, slowing your opponent down while you try to combo first.
I don't think Sneak show is like conceding without specific hate. Karakas with Krosan Grip backup is quite good, and Needle works well on Sneak Attack. Omnitell is a different story though.
Played against Ascendancy last night, that I feel will be the easiest of all the combo decks to fight when you learn how it works. I would suggest watching some videos, it's quite the glass cannon that fails with pinpoint targeting of the combo cards. Also, due to needing to leave early to go to work last night was the first week playing this deck I have not gone 3-1 or better. I went 2-1 drop leaving for work. (Handing the win to my 3rd round opponent as there was no reason to kick him out of the cash if I was leaving anyway.) I have not has so much fun with a deck since Goblins where a thing.
It is better to ask and look stupid then keep your mouth shut and remain so.
I hope your afterlife is filled with eternal torment.
Fuck. Which one of my quotes do I drop for this?
Haven't played it yet, but it seems very manageable. Lots of nonbasics, punishable creaturewincons, spheres against the cantrips into oblivion. It reminds me of elves or infect, creaturebased combodecks that are vulnerable to manadenial and punishing fire. I certainly prefer this above some other combomatchups.
Is the primer still being worked on? This version of the deck placed top 4 and another one at 19th place.
I'd sure like to hear from someone who did well in Philly with this deck if they see this.
Today I am become death. The destroyer of worlds. -Oppenheimer
I'm still in contact with Kurt at my lgs, but his comp died and he said he's been busy in the meantime these past weeks. He still intends to submit a primer. It was indeed a good meta for Loam strategies in general.
This is Dave Long. I top 4ed the event. I'll put together a write up as soon as I can. Hopefully tomorrow. I'd be happy to answer any questions anyone had about the event or the list.
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