[Primer] R/G Lands

[OldSpellMaster]

I play it in Turbo Depths quite a bit and it's surprisingly good. Main benefits are: 1) You can sacrifice it to a Diabolic Edict and save Marit Lage, 2) Colorless damage against D&T, 3) When blocking can take down a Leovold, and 4) Alternate win-con, don't underestimate a Factory and a few Thespian's Stages!

5) compared with Maze of Ith: It produces mana.

[Admiral Nobeard]

I'm waiting for the day that Lands turns into an a 44 land amalgam of "wtf is this", and where our only spells are 4 Loam, 4 Rotation, 4 Gamble, and 4 Exploration. One can only dream though. Has anybody tried just a "core spells only" version?

[j2los]

I'm waiting for the day that Lands turns into an a 44 land amalgam of "wtf is this", and where our only spells are 4 Loam, 4 Rotation, 4 Gamble, and 4 Exploration. One can only dream though. Has anybody tried just a "core spells only" version?

The more lands, the better mox gets, so I don't think you can make that cut. Cutting PFire is debatable. If Deathrite ever gets banned you can make an argument for that. The other problem is, the more lands, the better Manabond gets too though...

[Epeirogeny]

Thats a good point. I had a look at some of the details:

Four decks are running 35 /25 Lands/Spells. Two are running 36/24
Top four of the six have 2 Tranquil main. Two of those also have Sheltered. Good against Extraction. Daryl had a 3rd Tranquil sided. 22nd has a Canopy.
Four of the six have 2 Maze, the other two have 3.
Four of six have Barb Ring.
Only one does not have Bog main.
Half have Karakas main, one has in the side and two choose not to run it.
Everyone ran 4 Depths.
Four decks ran 3 fetches, two ran 4.
Five decks ran Manabond as a 1 of.
Vortex is main in three decks. Each as a 1 of. All three decks cut a Punishing.

Tracker was all over the place. The most run was 3, the least was 0.
Four decks ran Drop, three of them only ran 1 copy.
Grip was in every side, most as a 3 of 4 of.
If you include Pithing Needle, everyone ran at least 5 permanent forms of Combo hate. Jody had the lowest number at only 4 Sphere plus a Needle.
Choke was played in the 16th place build. I think this is a smart move of late.

I think the builds are rather close at first glance, but are diverging when it comes to interaction. A reduction in Maze seems fine and an increase in Depths back to four seems normal.

Thanks for this analysis.

So with Karakas having the biggest cut, are we just accepting Show and Tell as basically an automatic loss? I had to play against the deck three times in the first four rounds of SCG DC. It felt awful. Was able to squeak out a win against one of them but even with Karakas it is tough to grind out those wins.
The problem I have had with cutting Karakas is that Show and Tell is such a popular deck due to its low cost and ease to pilot. I do not get that one win without it in my 75.

[Plague Sliver]

Recorded a Legacy Lands mini-primer with Jarvis "THE CHAMP" Yu this week. Could be an interesting listen for some of y'all.

https://humansofmagic.com/2017/11/25...eader-special/

(Part 2)

[Wiktul]

Recorded a Legacy Lands mini-primer with Jarvis "THE CHAMP" Yu this week. Could be an interesting listen for some of y'all.

https://humansofmagic.com/2017/11/25...eader-special/

(Part 2)

Really nice interview and interesting insight into Jarvis's look at the deck, thanks! :)

How do you feel about Sylvan Library in sideboard? I was considering and testing it for a while, but I still didn't make up my mind.

+ fantastic option to dodge the hate
+ good in fair matchups (if comes early)
+ provides information when (not) to dredge things like Exploration, Cropp Rotation or other sideboard cards
+ best "green brainstorm" we can get
+ great in mirror match

- kind of a dead draw in the late game
- drains us out of life (which is usually not very high at all and not retrievable by means other then Swords to Marit)
- useless against Leovold

What are your thougts?

[jarvisyu]

Really nice interview and interesting insight into Jarvis's look at the deck, thanks! :)

How do you feel about Sylvan Library in sideboard? I was considering and testing it for a while, but I still didn't make up my mind.

+ fantastic option to dodge the hate
+ good in fair matchups (if comes early)
+ provides information when (not) to dredge things like Exploration, Cropp Rotation or other sideboard cards
+ best "green brainstorm" we can get
+ great in mirror match

- kind of a dead draw in the late game
- drains us out of life (which is usually not very high at all and not retrievable by means other then Swords to Marit)
- useless against Leovold

What are your thougts?

I've tried it once or twice, and I'm not a huge fan here as of right now (I may change my mind later). I think it's an excellent card in a deck with more fetchlands, or with some ways to gain life.

[TLK]

Question for Lands gurus: is Sneak & Show at all winnable? Seems miserable to me.

[OldSpellMaster]

Question for Lands gurus: is Sneak & Show at all winnable? Seems miserable to me.

Sure, with a lot if luck maybe. But you can't really plan something against it.
Fast spheres and mana denial could stop him long enough to get a 20/20. I would say Sneak Attack is the top 1 card you don't want to hit the table.
But... Oh... I'm still not a guru...

[Ingo]

Question for Lands gurus: is Sneak & Show at all winnable? Seems miserable to me.

Not a guru at all, but I play the matchup often as its played a lot here. I usually know G1 that Im facing S&T (as I know the opps), and I think its unfavorable but deft winnable G1. Thing is, their quickest win involves S&T giving you a landdrop acceleration as well. And they need an additional turn to swing too (except for Omniscience). That's a potential of two turns we gain in comparison to other combodecks (like Storm).

An accelerated combohand has decent chances of taking the game against them. For example, Stage-mox-gamble-4randomcards isn't a great hand, but on the play G1 versus S&T i'd keep. Play Stage, mox, gamble for Depths (75% chances you'll keep it). They need to combo on their T1, because on our T2 we play land and can use their T2 S&T for landing Depths and swinging first T3.
It sounds a bit like Magic Christmas land, but besides exploration, there are actually quite some accelerated possibilities between Croprotation, Ancient Tomb, Gamble and Mox.

There's a huge difference when you don't know your opponent plays S&T G1, because you usually keep hands based on loam and acceleration, rather than a quick combo.

[barcode]

Question for Lands gurus: is Sneak & Show at all winnable? Seems miserable to me.

Really the only cards you need to worry about are Blood Moon and Sneak Attack. Their deck can be anemic to Chalice of the Void on 1 and Sphere of Resistance makes their three- and four-mana spells very expensive. Primeval Titan will make their Show and Tells a liability since we should be able to win off it.

If you have Pithing Needle in your sideboard you need it for this matchup: Needle Sneak Attack and you'll have a much easier time with it.

[Thoughtsauce]

I posed this question to Jody Kieth on his stream last night, curious about other thoughts here:

If you don't have access to Drop of Honey, do you believe in the current meta that it is better to simply race things like TNN and Leo/Deathrite, or to convert to a list splashing an Engineered Explosives package? Not the full Intuition lists of old, but like Trop/Academy/EE.

[Dice_Box]

I play an EE list, if you can do that I say go with it. I do find setting up EE can be slow though, fishing it out of the bin, losing a draw step and then 5 mana to play and crack. All said it's the best option you have unless you plan to splash Black or White.

[Claymore]

With only 2 Drops in the deck, do you Gamble for it?

[Dice_Box]

I think I have Gambled for everything at least once. Even Mox Diamond with a Moon on the table. Gamble is a tutor with a possible kick in the teeth. If you need something use it as a tutor as it's often worth the risk. Just Loam as much as you can first to pad out your hand.

[Crimhead]

Hooray, DTB!

Not surprising looking at the other decks in that list - 3 fair decks with excessively greedy mana, Miracles, plus our second least hated (and very winable) combo match. Excellent field for Lands!

Actually it's about the most well rounded DTB we've seen in a long time.

1x Tempo
1x Midrange
1x Stompy
1x Control
1x Prison (Prison/Combo)
1x Combo

Even blue dominance is minimal (at least for Legacy). Great time to be playing Lands. :D

One question - how do the team events figure into the DTB calculations?

[Dice_Box]

It doesn't. Its rather new and there has been little time to adjust for it.

[Dice_Box]

Nearly there. Looking for Beta Duals now.

[Crimhead]

No FS Groves?

[Dice_Box]

I don't like the art.

I put up all the photos in the Discord channel.