Exploration Excavator

[Wild_Island_Appeared]

Introduction:
Legacy as a format (at the time of writing this thread) has begun to roughly approach a state of xerox vs prison. The [Delver of Secrets] decks have homogenized their lists even more so than traditionally. Grixis Delver and Czech Pile are widely considered the best versions of delver with BUG delver slightly behind. Now what do these decks do that is so fundamentally powerful? They are extremely fast, low to the ground strategies that can leverage the strength of small efficient threats and wasteland/daze/force of will to back them up and keep the opponent off balance. Now no deck is perfect so what do they sacrifice in order to accomplish these goals? They are very linear with large quantities of 1 cmc spells and cannot afford to play basic lands as they need severely low land counts to operate without flooding while at the same time meeting their incredibly taxing color requirements.

This leaves a glaring weakness in these decks that has begun to be exploited more and more by what are colloquially referred to as "Stompy" decks. Red Stompy goes after these kinds of decks by playing the 8 "true" sol lands in the format to generate mana as quickly as possible along with petal/simian to get down the fastest locks possible. The most common of which being [Chalice of the Void], [Blood Moon], and [Trinisphere] in an attempt to lock the xerox decks out of the game from turn 1 as trying to attack them from more traditional fair axis has proven difficult to say the least. Eldrazi decks have also risen to some prominence as they get access to a whopping 16 possible "sol" lands as well as retaining tribal synergy to play [Cavern of Souls] as well. They too get to utilize [Chalice of the Void] but the amount of mana they can generate can quickly outpace the xerox decks capacity to slow them down.

What is interesting is that both of these kinds of deck share a similar weakness. They cannot interact favorably with basic lands. Wasteland proof and Bloodmoon proof these cards are the only way to consistently advance ones mana in this format... or is it?

What if we could combine the capacity of xerox decks to keep our opponents off balance with their mana and the "Stompy" decks capacity to quickly outpace the opponent in mana resources? This question was the basis for my attempt at creating the deck outlined below.

Main Deck

Creatues (16):
4x [Knight of the Reliquary]
4x [Dark Confidant]
3x [Thalia, Guardian of Thraben]
3x [Ramunap Excavator]
1x [Gaddock Teeg]
1x [Scavenging Ooze]


Spells (18):
4x [Mox Diamond]
4x [Exploration]
4x [Chalice of the Void]
2x [Sylvan Library]
2x [Abrupt Decay]
2x [Green Sun's Zenith]


Lands (26):
4x [Verdant Catacombs]
2x [ Windswept Heath]
2x [Savannah]
1x [Bayou]
1x [Scrubland]
1x [Forest]
1x [Swamp]
1x [Dryad Arbor]
4x [Wasteland]
4x [Ghost Quarter]
2x [Horizon Canopy]
1x [Karakas]
1x [Cabal Pit]
1x [The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale]


Sideboard:

4x [Leyline of the Void]
2x [Choke]
2x [Swords to Plowshares]
2x [Chains of Mephistopheles]
1x [Toxic Deluge]
1x [Maelstrom Pulse]
1x [Reclamation Sage]
1x [Tireless Tracker]
1x [Abrupt Decay]


Discussion:

Any legacy aficionado should immediately look at this list and come to the conclusion that it feels extremely familiar. The deck is heavily based on 4c Loam sharing an absolutely massive portion of both the maindeck and sideboard with 4c Loam. The differences however are worth examination. This deck has no LotV, no punishing fire, and none of the namesake loams. These are all cards aimed at grinding an opponent out of the long game. I shaved these cards out and attempted to put in a much more explosive "lock" package instead.

First red flag: Playing 4 1-cmc cards in a chalice of the void deck. I realize that many consider this blasphemy outright. Allow me to explain. 4c Loam is an incredibly powerful deck but many of its opening hands without Mox Diamond can be anywhere from pretty anemic to downright awful, especially on the draw. The 4 [Exploration] gives the deck a massive boost to the number of playable openers and very often allows us to play a turn 2, 2-cmc threat through daze backup and/or with simultaneous mana denial. Now this power does not come free of charge, it is true that you can get exploration stranded in hand under your own chalice on 1 but to be honest if the chalice resolved and is sticking, its doing a lot more damage to them than it is to you (on average).

I have been playing 4c Loam for a long time now and have had some serious trouble with the Stompy Moon decks. Turns out having only 1 basic in your mana base leaves you really susceptible to Bloodmoon even with Mox Diamonds. Turns out even just the second basic, along with less stringent color requirements, makes the deck opperate MUCH more smoothly in these matchups. On the other end of Stompy, eldrazi has no way to respond to a resolved exploration.

Being able to pump out multiple lands a turn allows us to advance our mana base while sending strip mines their way every turn. (No basic lands? How does the full 4 [Ghost Quarter]'s taste?) God forbide you ever manage to establish the [Ramunap Excavator] [Exploration] soft lock they are just out of the game. [Ramunap Excavator] is also no slouch in a deck with so many different utility lands. The capacity to reuse all of them and in some cases, reuse them multiple times a turn seems like a good way to produce inevitability for the deck.

Speaking of [Ghost Quarter] this card is a serious beating in the metagame atm. None of these xerox decks play basic lands and their midrange cousins often only have 2 of them max as well. This is a metagame shift that Miracles players have already isolated with the emergence of [Back to Basics] miracles becoming the most popular version (in terms of performance.)

Being already so hellbent on the mana denial plan already I also decided to put [Thalia, Guardian of Thraben] into the deck as well. Xerox and combo alike really struggle to get past thalia with mana denial backup.

The Sideboard:

4x [Leyline of the Void] - We cannot beat Br reanimator without these, they go too fast and have too many ways around our soft permission otherwise. These also have nice splash damage against things like Dredge, ANT, Tin Fins, Lands, etc.

2x [Choke] - More mana denial against blue decks. Often gets a 2-for-1 with FoW. Also fairly important against Miracles as they are very resilient to the rest of our mana denial.

2x [Swords to Plowshares] - There are plenty of decks we want to board some number of our chalices out against and plenty of those play creatures.

2x [Chains of Mephistopheles] - This is a bit of a pet card for me but I have also run 2-chains 4c Loam to great success in the past as well. The idea here is just increasing the number of haymaker 2-cmc drops available against blue decks in general. Maybe should be a 1 of or maybe even tossed altogether but it really puts dents in against decks like ANT, SnT, and Miracles.

1x [Toxic Deluge] - There is an argument for this being a 1 of in the main deck but the raw number of X/1's we play seems to push me the other direction.

1x [Maelstrom Pulse] - Generic catch all. Good in nearly every matchup, especially post board when the hate tech comes in. Hitting multiple [Rest in Peace]'s is heavenly. Also puts in a surprising amount of work against ANT. They have to drop all of their 0-cmc artifacts before you have a chance to chalice them and its also a backdoor answer for a fast empty.

1x [Reclamation Sage] - Amazing against stompy decks and post board hate junk from other decks. GSZ makes it much more potent.

1x [Tireless Tracker] - Any matchup that wants to grind with you this guy puts in work. Exploration and Excavator are 2 of his best friends. There is a fair argument that I should play more of them similar to lands decks but atm it conflicts with my chains in many matchups.

1x [Abrupt Decay] - Generic catch all, I bring it in in nearly every matchup. Game 1 I commit to my linear strategy but game 2 you will almost always need more of these type of effects.


Important Cards Not Currently in the SB:

[Golgari Charm] : This is usually the swiss army knife of the sb and likely I should be playing at least 1 but DnT seems to be nearly extinct on MTGO so I haven't felt myself reaching for it just yet. (Obviously this card has many other applications this example just came to mind first.)

[Garruk Relentless] : Good solid walker with a very modest mana requirement. If Miracles was more prevalent I'd be more inclined to bring him back into the fold.

[Containment Priest] : SnT decks seem to be very rare atm and I already have quite a bit of graveyard hate.

[Thoughseize] : 4c Loam sometimes plays these, this deck is much better against all kinds of combo decks making it unnecessary.

(There are probably many more I'm leaving out here)

In the end the deck is very similar to 4c Loam. It has much more upfront power in that it has more powerful turn 1 plays but it trades out some of its grinding power to do so. In the end I feel like it's a meta call as to which one you should play but atm I think this version has just a bit more punch against the current boogeymen.

[JackaBo]

I like a lot of this. However i strongly believe that you are playing 2-6 removal spells too few. Versus delver chances are they play turn 1 delver. Then you may lock them out with chalice and thalia and still die. Relying on a creature only for land recursion may be dangerous vs the heavy removal decks, pile and miracle.

[Alexeezay]

Agreed with JackaBo. You probably want a Loam in here. What about an Azusa, lost but Seeking to have a zenithable Exploration?

[kinda]

I like a lot of this. However i strongly believe that you are playing 2-6 removal spells too few. Versus delver chances are they play turn 1 delver. Then you may lock them out with chalice and thalia and still die. Relying on a creature only for land recursion may be dangerous vs the heavy removal decks, pile and miracle.

This, a maze of Ith tutor target seems reasonable.

[Wild_Island_Appeared]

In my modo testing so far the deck does certainly seem too light on ways to kill creatures in the main deck. My only question would be what to remove for these spells? My only thoughts are either to remove some number of Thalia or remove a GSV bullets in Scooze and/or Teeg.

Atm I think moving scooze and a thalia for the third decay and pulse but am open to suggestions in this department.

As for loam again I'm at a loss for how to fit it. Either I would want to remove a library for a loam or simply put the loam in the board for grindier matchups.

On the point for Azusa I actually hadn't even thought of that card but as with the rest of the suggestions am at a loss as to how one would fit it. I think its fairly rare you would ever be able to drop an Azusa and Excavator tho so I'm hard pressed to see the merit.