[Budget] Blue Ox

[orcishlumberjack]

Blue Ox is a Red/Green ramp deck that utilizes Orcish Lumberjack to churn out four and five drops as early as turn 2. Living Wish and Burning Wish provide the deck with the ability to tutor up silver bullets, and the Punishing Fire + Grove of the Burnwillows engine allows this deck to outgrind opponents. The threat spots are all pretty flexible and dependant on your meta.

Maindeck
Ramp

4 Orcish Lumberjack
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Tinder Wall
4 Veteran Explorer

Threats

1 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Master of the Wild Hunt
1 Nissa, Vital Force
2 Regisaur Alpha
1 Shifting Ceratops
1 Thragtusk
1 Thrun, the Last Troll

Removal

2 Lightning Bolt
3 Punishing Fire
2 Pyroclasm

Utility Spells

2 Burning Wish
4 Crop Rotation
3 Living Wish
2 Pulse of Murasa

Lands

4 Cinder Glade
7 Forest
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Karplusan Forest
5 Mountain

Sideboard

1 Bojuka Bog
1 Choke
1 Eternal Witness
1 Farseek
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Pithing Needle
2 Pyroblast
1 Pyroclasm
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Regrowth
1 Ruination
1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
2 Scavenging Ooze


Any advice is appreciated, and feel free to ask about card choices.

[FTW]

What's the origin of the name Blue Ox?

With all those silver bullet green fatties, why not play 4xGreen Sun's Zenith on top of the Living Wish package? (also 1 Dryad Arbor). Lumberjack + Zenith lets you grab any creature from the deck.

Titania, Protector of Argoth is probably the best green 5 drop to cheat out with Orcish Lumberjack, though it's much better if you run some fetchlands. You can return the land you sacrificed to Lumberjack, or you can return a fetchland and crack it (making a 5/3 token) still getting a land back.

How tight a budget are you on? Wooded Foothills and Stomping Ground don't cost that much even if you can't afford Taiga.

Burning Wish has few targets in your SB, you're spread too thin between all the different angles. I'd cut Burning Wish and stick to the creature tutors (4 GSZ and 4 Living Wish). You can get pretty much every effect you need on a creature.

Crop Rotation seems really bad (only finds Grove?). Just Living Wish for your land. Put one Grove in the Wishboard. Also Tinder Wall and Pulse seem weak.

How about something like this?


//Creatures: 20
4 Orcish Lumberjack
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
1 Eternal Witness
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Master of the Wild Hunt
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Thragtusk
3 Titania, Protector of Argoth

//Spells: 18
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Living Wish
3 Punishing Fire
3 Pyroclasm

//Lands: 22
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Prismatic Vista
1 Windswept Heath
2 Stomping Ground
1 Cinder Glade
3 Mountain
3 Forest
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Dryad Arbor

//Wishboard: 15
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Vexing Shusher
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
3 Veil of Summer

[orcishlumberjack]

What's the origin of the name Blue Ox?

With all those silver bullet green fatties, why not play 4xGreen Sun's Zenith on top of the Living Wish package? (also 1 Dryad Arbor). Lumberjack + Zenith lets you grab any creature from the deck.

Titania, Protector of Argoth is probably the best green 5 drop to cheat out with Orcish Lumberjack, though it's much better if you run some fetchlands. You can return the land you sacrificed to Lumberjack, or you can return a fetchland and crack it (making a 5/3 token) still getting a land back.

How tight a budget are you on? Wooded Foothills and Stomping Ground don't cost that much even if you can't afford Taiga.

Burning Wish has few targets in your SB, you're spread too thin between all the different angles. I'd cut Burning Wish and stick to the creature tutors (4 GSZ and 4 Living Wish). You can get pretty much every effect you need on a creature.

Crop Rotation seems really bad (only finds Grove?). Just Living Wish for your land. Put one Grove in the Wishboard. Also Tinder Wall and Pulse seem weak.

How about something like this?


//Creatures: 20
4 Orcish Lumberjack
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
1 Eternal Witness
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Master of the Wild Hunt
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Thragtusk
3 Titania, Protector of Argoth

//Spells: 18
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Living Wish
3 Punishing Fire
3 Pyroclasm

//Lands: 22
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Prismatic Vista
1 Windswept Heath
2 Stomping Ground
1 Cinder Glade
3 Mountain
3 Forest
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Dryad Arbor

//Wishboard: 15
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Ghost Quarte
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Vexing Shusher
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
1 Craterhoof Behemoth
3 Veil of Summer

Paul Bunyan's companion was named Babe the Blue Ox, so I named the deck after him since Orcish Lumberjack is the core card of the deck. I'll definitely include Titania even though I won't be running many fetchlands. I'm on a ~200 dollar budget, and the deck's at a bit over 150 right now. I don't want to run Wooded Foothills since they're 20 each, and that cuts in to a large portion of the budget. Crop Rotation is in the deck so I can convert non-forest lands into forest for Lumberjack. Pulse is very good, it gets dead utility creatures back, brings back forests for Lumberjack, gets Veteran Explorer, and buys a turn against aggro decks. Tinder Wall provides some redundancy with my 1-drops. I like the look of your list, here's how I would keep it within budget range:


//Creatures: 20
4 Orcish Lumberjack
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Eternal Witness
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Master of the Wild Hunt
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Thragtusk
2 Regisaur Alpha
2 Titania, Protector of Argoth

//Spells: 18
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Pulse of Murasa
2 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Living Wish
3 Punishing Fire
3 Pyroclasm

//Lands: 22
3 Stomping Ground
6 Cinder Glade
5 Mountain
4 Forest
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Dryad Arbor

//Wishboard: 15
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Vexing Shusher
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
3 Veil of Summer


According to TCGPlayer, this list is $205.

[FTW]

Ah ok there's a tight budget constraint.

Pulse of Murasa is great in Pauper magic, but Legacy is a fast format. Eternal Witness fills most of the same roles, except you can tutor for it, it can get back any card type, and it can actually trade with an attacker instead of just buying you life. Would another Witness be better?

[orcishlumberjack]

Ah ok there's a tight budget constraint.

Pulse of Murasa is great in Pauper magic, but Legacy is a fast format. Eternal Witness fills most of the same roles, except you can tutor for it, it can get back any card type, and it can actually trade with an attacker instead of just buying you life. Would another Witness be better?

Yeah, I think I'm gonna cut a Pulse for a Witness. I'll still keep one Pulse in the deck because it has some major benefits that Witness doesn't have (lifegain and instant speed).

[mistercakes]

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...=1#post1071257

A Japanese player has a bunch of good finishes with a lumberjack list. Check it out, it has a lot of cool interactions.