So, this is a weird deck, I'll admit.
Remembered Hunting Grounds for some reason, and decided to try it out. The list is incredibly cheap on MTGO so there wasn't really a downside to giving it a shot.
Here's an unoptimized list:
4 Hunting Grounds
4 Reanimate
2 Progenitus
2 Worldspine Wurm
2 Iona, Shield of Emeria
2 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
4 Faithless Looting
4 Careful Study
3 Izzet Charm
4 Ponder
4 Spell Pierce
3 Duress
5 Island
1 Mountain
4 City of Brass
4 Mana Confluence
4 Riftstone Portal
2 Swamp
3 Fragmentize
4 Pithing Needle
2 Bojuka Bog
2 Volcanic Spray
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Ray of Revelation
I had another build that didn't have Reanimate in it, so I could generally take all the damage in the world from the pain lands, but with Reanimate it's pretty stupid to have taken 5 or 6 damage before being able to take a bunch more. A few things I immediately would like to change are swapping out the City of Brass for Gemstone Mine, acquiring 4 Lotus Petals, and maybe finding better cards to Reanimate or keep in hand.
Jin Gitaxias is powerful, but I don't need to deck myself. Really, the deck has a ton of filtering already, I just thought I'd give him a shot.
I like the Worldspire Wurm, but it's not the greatest since it can't be Reanimated (which, when this was an exclusively Hunting Grounds deck, it made sense that it shuffled, now it really doesn't make sense). Same for Progenitus. Iona is clearly good.
What I'd really like are ideas for Reanimate targets that effect the board state, a sweeper (maybe Elesh Norn?), something that nukes artifacts, maybe something that's castable (for those times where they nuke the graveyard)... things like that.
It's weird, it needs work, but it's fun, and a little more resilient than Reanimator. Not really a combo deck either, just different.
Thoughts?
Saving this space for junk + update notices, etc.
What about lotus petal You can also breakthrough for 1 or 2 and hold a creature, while triggering threshold instantly
Not sure how budget you want to be, but FoW is a card you want to be able to draw into. After that, Entomb is a card you need to have, if for no other reason than to put a card with dredge into the yard to turning on threshold almost immediately. Still with 8x painlands but no lifelinkers (Grisel), you're probably not going to be able to race most decks. There's a lot of interesting things going on here, but budget mana bases over 5 colors will lead to many build order losses.
With the 11x self-discard outlets, it's a shame that there isn't any madness afoot. As far as Hunting Grounds goes, it's a pretty cool concept, but in a deck of uncastable threats it's probably going to act like deploying Standstill when behind on board.
Lotus petal is on my list for sure. Breakthrough looks good, but I like the filtering aspect of loot cards quite a bit, it allows me to keep some of my reactive cards that aren't necessarily part of the plan but help the deck respond to threats.Originally Posted by Von
Not sure about FoW, just because the number of blue cards is pretty low. Entomb I would like to test, definitely. Dredge cards? ehhh... I'm not a super fan of not knowing what's going into the yard. Threshold usually gets achieved by turn 2 just by looting and casting spells.
Part of the OG post is talking about how I really am not into the painlands at all, I'm probably going to reduce the Mana Confluences to 3, find space for 4 Lotus Petals, and get 4 Gemstone Mines, just haven't had the chance + extra cash. Mainly testing how a deck like this would work, how fast it can go off, whether or not to keep hands with Duress and Spell Pierce or to keep hands with looters and Hunting Grounds, vs different matchups, that kind of thing.
Not really a fan of Griselbuddy's draw ability, it'd be kind of a waste in this deck since I'm not trying to storm off, but I did think about it just for the lifelink. Any other targets that would help the Reanimate cost? Or try SB Exhume instead of Reanimate? With Entomb it would be neat to be able to have a diverse set of creatures chilling in the deck.
Was also thinking about just "good cards" (StP, Bolt, etc) instead of flashback cards or multifunction cards (Izzet Charm). Not sure yet.
It's VERY interesting that you mention Standstill, because I did not realize it would play out very similarly when I built the deck, but yes, definitely. Any ideas for a cheap utility creature that's just good when it hits at dealing with stuff? Swiftspear, Goblins, Delver are all pretty harsh if I don't have Reanimate early enough in the game.
Sterling Grove and Eladamri's Call are also cards.
I like Eldamiri's call, but again, I'm looking through 4, sometimes 7 cards in my deck a turn with all the looting and the Ponders. Even thinking of taking out Enlightened Tutor just because multiple Hunting Grounds are dead draws.
Sterling Grove is a sweet card in Enchantress, but most of the time Hunting Grounds just protects itself by its own nature. Unless someone Probed and you didn't have a loot card (so they're sure you don't have a fatty waiting in your hand) they likely won't risk playing anything into Hunting Grounds, at least for a few turns. Storm will most likely try to assemble a win before playing cards into Hunting Grounds, and that's where Iona is just too good....
But anyway... it's a fun deck.
deck's target is to cheat a fatty into play through a sorcery-speed condotional spell.
Show and tell does the same for 1 colored mana and of the best color of the format..
Different cards have different effects?
Play Show and tell, dude.
I am just saying you can simply play
4 Mental Note
4 Grapple with the Past (also to retrieve an utility creature like Loyal Retainers or the fatty for Hunting Grounds)
10 fetchlands
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
and you should be consistently in threshold on turn 3, at that point resolve Grounds or Reanimate a fatty.
just again: what does this deck do that UB Reanimator with SnT doesn't do already?
Well, for one, the deck is specifically about making Hunting Grounds work (it's in the title), so saying I shouldn't make the deck because Show and Tell exists is anti-productive, second, comparing the two is like comparing Standstill and Hatching Plans. Hunting Grounds results in a game state much like Standstill except it's one-sided, it's like casting a Show and Tell except it's one-sided. It's a one-sided Show and Tell Standstill. Different. Better? Probably not, but the point is to try Hunting Grounds and get it to a point where it has consistency and a basic list, not copycat a deck.
Sorry, you might be actually trying to help, I'm just sick of people pooping on ideas in this forum and just shutting shit down because there are tier 1 decks that exist. Id rather develop openly than in a vacuum and get eyes on something than durdle around in the open play area of MTGO.
I like your list/additions though, and if it turns out that one or two colors ending up being just the best options (Blue Green Black and no Red) then I'd most likely cut the prism lands and go heavy on fetches and duals. I just think Faithless Looting is too good in red not to put in there somewhere, and flashing back Volcanic Spray against Unflipped Delver and a Pyromancer + a few tokens is pretty rad. I def need to test more cards, but for now I enjoy having Mana Confluence and the option of running red and white cards.
I like the idea, i'd cut the additional colors for a safer manabase and go with something like this:
4 Hunting Grounds
3 sterling grove
4 Commune with the gods
2 benefaction of rhonas
4 loyal retainers
3 griselbrand
6 legendary finishers that don't shuffle back in, iona, elesh, akroma, new emmy come to mind
4 chalice of the void
4 mox diamond
3 banishing light
1 ghostly prison
1 runed halo
1 solitary confinement
1 city of solitude
3 ancient tomb
1 city of traitors
4 windswept heath
3 flooded strand
3 wooded foothills
3 savannah
1 forest
1 plains
I know switching retainers for Reanimate/SnT Package is probably strictly better, though at that point we could just be playing Sneak&Show/Reanimator imo, and I just really wanted to put retainers in there :)
I felt taking a stompy shell was best since the pieces are already expensive as is and we dont really NEED any 1-drops. I thought about enlightened tutor, but chalice is just so well positioned right now and grove makes a decent impression while protecting our pieces. Commune & benefaction can find any of our pieces (except chalice sadly) or just throw some creatures to the yard for retainers. With ten fetches, discard from mox diamond & six commune-effects threshold seems fairly easy to reach, possibly even t1 (fetch, mox, commune; then t2 hunting groumds). I guess it plays a bit like a hybrid between stompy/prison and reanimation style combo and with chalice and the other enchantment based lock pieces it feels like its not even that bad if hunting grounds plays like a onesided standstill effect.
Also on a sidenote, I really like GW for sideboard colors, we could put in any bears (teeg, pridemate, prelate) and more hate like choke, rule of law of 3-Ball come to mind, most of which (the bears too!) can be found via commune effects, some even tutored for with grove.
I haven't actually had time to test it apart from goldfishing a few games and I'm certain the numbers and enchantment silverbullets are fairly unoptimized, but it seems really fun to take to an fnm or something imo.
I'd just ask myself what the deck actually wants to do and cut unnecessary cards/colors, your list seems a bit all over the place, though a really cool idea.
This is great, this definitely could be the way this card wants to be played.
I've tabled it recently after just an absolutely massive string of losses against Deathrite/BUG decks, and "even-or-less" matches against other combo, mono-black reanimator, etc. It's hard to find what Hunting Grounds is actually doing, I was generally treating it like a Standstill after playing 10 or so matches but it gets behind quickly on board against decks that either cheat creatures into play or just play out a lot of stuff. Nut draws are generally hard to come by.
Another thought/next revision is going to be filling the deck with smaller creatures with ETB abilities and some cantripping. Many people call the bluff if I have HG in play and 3-4 cards in hand (none of which are a big creature), so it would be nice to be able to empty the hand if they do decide to play into it. Would also help balancing the board state against "good cards" decks.
I have to wait a bit before diving deeper.
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