[Deck] Turbo Depths

[Lio]

There is significant difference between Steely Resolve and Not of this World. Steely resolves forces you to spend 2nd turn playing your protection instead of searching for your combo pieces. On the contrary Not of this World is nice surprising trick to punish the opponent who kept just Karakas or single removal without FoW. It is also better topdeck in the turn when you need to go off. Yes, the card is not MB material. Not at all. But definitely deserves the SB slot as it does exactly what we need exactly when we need it. In my opinion this card is better than discard spell in the matchups where Not of this World actually matters,

[apple713]

There is significant difference between Steely Resolve and Not of this World. Steely resolves forces you to spend 2nd turn playing your protection instead of searching for your combo pieces. On the contrary Not of this World is nice surprising trick to punish the opponent who kept just Karakas or single removal without FoW. It is also better topdeck in the turn when you need to go off. Yes, the card is not MB material. Not at all. But definitely deserves the SB slot as it does exactly what we need exactly when we need it. In my opinion this card is better than discard spell in the matchups where Not of this World actually matters,

not of this world is clearly better for the reasons you pointed out, but i was just pointing out another option. I would agree that its better in SB than the discard but i believe adrien was more concerned with losing to combo. and since NOTW doesn't help against combo it's lack of diversity didn't make the cut.

[Prätor]

Hello!
I am an austrian player and enjoying to read your discussion. I am playing dark depths combo for a year and actually love it. In my opinion Not of this World is also relevant for main because it depends on meta. If it's full of Miracles, DnT, Maverick, Stoneblade, Lands, Uwr Delver... I am glad to have it, maybe 2 MB and 2 SB. Clearly it's badly against combo, but therfore I want to bring another card.
I don't want to miss Swan Song in this Deck, it's good against combo and counters almost every card that stops Marit Lage.. The most important StP, Terminus, Bloodmoon, Echoing Truth,... First it looks some kind of weird because of the 2/2 flying blocker but with Seijiri Steppe and Shizo, Death's Storehouse you can ignore that. :-)

[Lio]

Why don't we want Not of this World against combo decks like ANT? After the sideboard they will bring in bounce spells as Chain of Vapor or even Karakas. Sure, we can use our discard, but primarily the discard plays the role of disruption of their combo pieces to slow them down. We can protect our wincon by free spell and focus the mana somewhere else.

[TLK]

I'm always wary about my opponent having a flying blocker. It means they have one more turn to find an answer/combo off (if they're a combo deck). I realize Steppe gets around this, but it requires you to have another search piece in your hand. I'm not against testing Swan Song by any means, though I have few ways to cast it given the list I'm playing.

[apple713]

Hello!
I am an austrian player and enjoying to read your discussion. I am playing dark depths combo for a year and actually love it. In my opinion Not of this World is also relevant for main because it depends on meta. If it's full of Miracles, DnT, Maverick, Stoneblade, Lands, Uwr Delver... I am glad to have it, maybe 2 MB and 2 SB. Clearly it's badly against combo, but therfore I want to bring another card.
I don't want to miss Swan Song in this Deck, it's good against combo and counters almost every card that stops Marit Lage.. The most important StP, Terminus, Bloodmoon, Echoing Truth,... First it looks some kind of weird because of the 2/2 flying blocker but with Seijiri Steppe and Shizo, Death's Storehouse you can ignore that. :-)

id be interested to see your list if you have time. Shizo is a card i've known about but haven't bothered incorporating into the list because of the tight room constraints. its possible our metagames are significantly different. You are right NOTW could be a meta call if your meta was flooded with those decks but i guess here its not so much. Obviously in smaller local tournaments

Why don't we want Not of this World against combo decks like ANT? After the sideboard they will bring in bounce spells as Chain of Vapor or even Karakas. Sure, we can use our discard, but primarily the discard plays the role of disruption of their combo pieces to slow them down. We can protect our wincon by free spell and focus the mana somewhere else.

im not sure how you are side boarding but pyroclast hits ALL bounce spells. it also hits ponder, brainstorm and other digging cards.

[TLK]

Right, I'd rather have Blasts than grant my opponent a flying blocker. Against non-blue combo decks, obviously Swan Song > REB. It just depends on the meta. I think discard/NOTW/Swan Song are flex slots in the board.

[Prätor]

I played a lot of Dark Depths Combo versions like lands, pox depths and junk depths but now I prefer the Turbo Depths Deck because it's the solidest. I am playing just local legacy tournaments with 10-30 players. This is my meta adjusted list.

4 Vampire Hexmage
4 Crop Rotation
3 Expedition Map
3 Into the North
4 Sylvan Library
4 Pithing Needle
2 Not of this World
3 Swan Song
2 Abrupt Decay
4 Lotus Petal
3 Elvish Spirit Guide

4 Mana Confluence
3 Gemstone Mine
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yagmoth
1 Snow-covered Forest
4 Dark Depths
4 Thespian's Stage
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Sejiri Steppe
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
1 Karakas
1 Ghost Quarter


1 Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Golgari Charm
3 Thoughtseize
2 Not of this World
2 Slaughtergames
2 Pyroblast
3 Thorn of Amethyst

I had some discard main but the most combo Decks are Reanimate and Dredge and so the main bojuka is good enough.
The meta is full of control and Delver Decks and most of the time my only problem was miracles. My list is very fast with the Petals, Spirits and Into the North. It's my strategy against treasure cruise to kill them before they cast it. T1 Library is also great. A big point for Swan Song is miracles because I often lose against terminus. Also the Slaughtergames in SB are not so bad. I tried first to take away their win con like Entreat and Jace, but it doesn't work. Another time I took all their removal like StP and Terminus but it also was not so good. I think the perfect plan is to take Terminus and Entreat because you have post board 10 answers for Jace and with NotW and Crop Rotation enough answers for StP. A Needle on Sensei's Divining Top is also very important. Maybe you got some more tips against miracles for me.

[apple713]

Martin Pelikan, you have put the deck on the map here. congrats!

Quoting CARSTEN KOTTER

"It should be reasonably obvious what this deck is trying to accomplish: thaw out Marit Lage as soon as possible and attack for the full twenty in a single swing. There are two things that are really interesting to observe. The first is Martin's manabase, which I can only explain as a budget choice - I can't imagine how the five color land base plus Copperline Gorges is actually better than a couple of fetches with Bayous, a Badlands, and a couple of Taigas (let me know if I'm missing something here).

However, performing this well means there might not be an easy way to ameliorate a deck, and given we're talking about taking second place in a 144-player event here, and a rather competitive one from my experience playing in the event myself, this is actually quite the good sign.

To finally get to the thing - other than a rare archetype doing really well - that brought me to feature it today, take a look at that number in front of Sylvan Library. A full four copies of Green's - slightly weaker - version of Necropotence is something I've been waiting to see non-blue players do for a long time now. The card is already pretty insane just for what it does - often playing out like a green Ancestral Recall that leaves a Mirri's Guile behind.

In this deck, the card is pure genius though. With a clock this fast, you can afford to pay the life in almost any matchup. The most beautiful thing though, is that most of the format has exactly two efficient answers to the Dark Depths combo: Wasteland - which the four maindeck copies of Pithing Needle are clearly meant for - and Swords to Plowshares. If there's a Sylvan Library in play when the latter happens, I'm not even sure I could actually be sad about losing my 20/20. I guess I like drawing cards a little too much for my own good, don't I?"

[adrieng]

Here is the link of the video of me playing against painter and losing game two on an obviosu missplay and my opponent being lucky.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YJo...a2EvKHcS8sg0oQ

[apple713]

Here is the link of the video of me playing against painter and losing game two on an obviosu missplay and my opponent being lucky.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YJo...a2EvKHcS8sg0oQ

was the misplay because you used grudge when you should have used expedition map? that way you would have had the mana free to use grudge in the event he does get his combo and still make the token eot.

[adrieng]

I had a second grudge in graveyard in case off (two grudge in graveyard) and yeah I should have crack the map EOT to have that double grudge backup.
Didn't thought that he could win with only top in play, though that was quite unlikely he found the third painter + the second grindstone.

[wortwelt]

Maybe this doesn't belong in here, yet I think despite coming from a different approach, this may be useful.

I'm testing this approach for over two months now and I became fairly confident in it:

BG Depths 1.0
1 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Crop Rotation
4 Thoughtseize
4 Deathrite SHaman
4 Dark Confidant
3 Vampire Hexmage
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Living Wish
2 Life from the Loam
3 Liliana of the Veil

3 Dark Depths
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Thespian's Stage
1 Swamp
1 Forest
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Bayou
3 Wasteland

SB
1 Vampire Hexmage
1 Dark Depths
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Sejiri Steppe
1 Bojuka Bog
4 Not From This World
2 Choke
2 Extirpate
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Golgari Charm

With this list, I went to GP Strasbourg to play in Sideevents. I went 3-1-2, losing only to Reanimator (which won the die roll and Griselbranded me T2 both games) And one draw was practically a win, since I would've killed him in the sixth extra turn. On the second day, I went 4-2, losing only to Death and Taxes and UW Control. My Approach obviously isn't full-on combo but plays much more like Tarmo-Twin in Modern. Due to the Hymns and Thoughtseizes, I have a little more time and can generally be slower, hence I'm running Living Wish and feel that for this deck, it might actually add a lot of consistency. I found that this version of Dark Depths is pretty good at killing all sorts of Delver variants.
The deck does not care much about the first Marit Lage being handled, it can easily produce a second or a third one (I beat Miracles in the first event by eventually producing Marit Lage 3 times - if they Sword it, I have a lot of time to set up again). There's also the alternative route to victory in simply chipping away their life total with Deathrite and attacks. Since they need to be afraid of a fast 20/20 all the time, this puts them in an awkward position.
I think one of the deck's strenghts is the fact that it acts like a more traditional Rock deck, giving it more game against midrange and aggro. Deathrite was almost always amazing, as was Bob (crazy, I know!) Also, the manabase allows you to play Choke. The wastelands plus Life from the Loam sometimes give you easy wins, as does Thoughtseize into Hymn into Liliana.

Death and Taxes obviously puts a lot of pressure on the deck, and this matchup may well be better for the full-on combo deck. This is a matchup I'm trying to improve. Since Strasbourg, I've been experimenting with the following changes:
-1 Liliana
+1 Sensei's Divining Top

SB
-4 Not From This World
+4 Rite of Consumption
-1 Bojuka Bog
+1 Extirpate

I've been very satisfied with the Rites in every non-blue matchup. I may need more against small white creatures, though. I'm considering Massacre and Dread of Night. I'm also considering an alternative beater for Living Wish out of the board, but haven't found anything satisfying yet (Thrun?).
However, I'm still wondering if this is the right thread for me, since the stock list in the primer is very different from what this deck is trying to do.

[apple713]

I added a matchup analysis but it's pretty brief. If y'all have suggestions let me know.

[adrieng]

Went 4-1 at last tornament I beat patriot delver 2-0, stoneblade DTT 2-0, lost to storm 1-2 then omni show 2-0 and storm 2-0.
It could have been way worse with all these combo decks I faced but I mulliganed properly was somehow lucky.
I tested with classic build and -1 reclamation sage +1 creeping tar pit in side for miracle mainly and extirpate.

On the matchup analysis Jund and shardless are favorable but certainly not a 90-10 something like 65-35.
Death and taxes is (50-50) and sneak show (55-45 slightly favorable) are not unfavorable matchups neither is painter but closer to 50-50.
Omni show is 50-50. Lands is 50-50 you can sometimes lose to wast.lock. Burn is not 70-30 you can sometimes lose to it something like 60-40.
The two worse matchups are miracle and storm and random things like Turbo reanimator BR.
Miracle is unfavorable something like 40-60 so is storm.

After testing I don't agree to play tabernacle maindeck I have 4th scrying in this place. Not even sure it belongs to side, YP.decks are good matchups.

[apple713]

Went 4-1 at last tornament I beat patriot delver 2-0, stoneblade DTT 2-0, lost to storm 1-2 then omni show 2-0 and storm 2-0.
It could have been way worse with all these combo decks I faced but I mulliganed properly was somehow lucky.
I tested with classic build and -1 reclamation sage +1 creeping tar pit in side for miracle mainly and extirpate.

On the matchup analysis Jund and shardless are favorable but certainly not a 90-10 something like 65-35.
Death and taxes is (50-50) and sneak show (55-45 slightly favorable) are not unfavorable matchups neither is painter but closer to 50-50.
Omni show is 50-50. Lands is 50-50 you can sometimes lose to wast.lock. Burn is not 70-30 you can sometimes lose to it something like 60-40.
The two worse matchups are miracle and storm and random things like Turbo reanimator BR.
Miracle is unfavorable something like 40-60 so is storm.

After testing I don't agree to play tabernacle maindeck I have 4th scrying in this place. Not even sure it belongs to side, YP.decks are good matchups.

i made some changes to the matchup analysis. I accepted most of your suggested changes but something seems unbalanced. The only unfavorable matchups are miracles and storm? Also, I can't even remember a time when i lost to jund or shardless. 90:10 is maybe too much (losing 1 out of 10 games), however i couldn't possibly fathom that you lose almost 1 out of every 3 games. If you are losing that much you probably need more practice. They have almost no interaction with your deck. Even post board no sideboard.

Anyone else care to give feed back on the matchups?


I changed the tabernacle and added karakas

[adrieng]

i made some changes to the matchup analysis. I accepted most of your suggested changes but something seems unbalanced. The only unfavorable matchups are miracles and storm? Also, I can't even remember a time when i lost to jund or shardless. 90:10 is maybe too much (losing 1 out of 10 games), however i couldn't possibly fathom that you lose almost 1 out of every 3 games. If you are losing that much you probably need more practice. They have almost no interaction with your deck. Even post board no sideboard.

They have 4 wasteland surgical/loam after side some discard liliana for your hexmage and decay for your needle.
An unanswered dark confidant is sometimes problematic as is library. Shardless has sometimes strix to block and fow.
That's not nothing. Averaged of the times you'll win but not always.

Manaless dredge is a bye but classic dredge is unfavorable even after side 40-60 ; they have sometimes nut draws and cabal for your crop rotation.

Also high tide is not a 65-35 matchup more likely 50-50 with DTT/snap (I am talking of the last version of the deck with reset) they have a lot of answers to your disruption and your marit lage. I don't have a lot of test against the new version but it's way harder than spiral-tide.

Yes from my testing the only bad matchups are Miracle/Storm/12Post/LEDDredge/MonoRedStompy/Poison(45-55)/DeathAndTaxes(Japanese version)/MonoRedSneakAttack.

That's not a lot but it is certainly not nothing.

[Xanthos]

Any updates or changes to the decklists in the original guide? Also a sideboard guide for the turbo list would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[apple713]

Any updates or changes to the decklists in the original guide? Also a sideboard guide for the turbo list would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

there are not really any major changes and there probably won't be unless new cards come out. The deck has been tested significantly and there just isn't much else to tweak. It hasn't seen widespread recognition because there are only a handful of people playing this list. Most jam it into other shells.

I probably won't get around to that turbo list sideboard till after xmas. Adrien's list changes slightly, we just -1 tabernacle for sylvan scrying and added Karakas to board. I can start putting the most recent changes in bold.

[Corto]

You mentioned apostle blessing, steely resolve and such.
Did you ever think about sylvan safekeeper ?
It's quite on the all-in side, with the potential blow out of losing one land, but isn't it quite good to protect Marit Lage ?