[Deck] Turbo Depths

[t000]

Anyone else have tried Deathrite in this deck? Im playing a BG version (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...l=1#post868308) and the shaman does wonders for me

- Main function: Manaramp of any color
- Alternative use: Works under Bloodmoon/Back to Basics
- Alternative use: Protects us from Surgical/Extirpate buy always eating you own depths/thesipan
- Alternative use: If opponent has +21 life, we can damage opponent so Marit is '1-hit kill'
- Alternative use: Gains us life to use on Sylvan Library
- Alternative use: Wincondition no 2 (works under Solitary Confinement/Glacial Chasm/Ensnaring Bridge etc)
- Alternative use: Graveyard hate main deck
- Alternative use: Target for opponents Swords to Plowshare, witch is 1 less card to worry about for our token

[apple713]

TLDR -> its possible to efficiently run eldrazi to beat miracles for only 5 -7 slots either in SB or Maindeck.


I think i've found a way to deal with the miracles matchup with the least amount of slots. I haven't tested it too much in this deck but was tinkering around with another deck and thought it might apply here.

the 12 post shell is too much too much to incorporate into this list, but we can use a condensed version of the Eldrazi, which is what makes the 12 post matchup so good against miracles.

With cabal coffers and Urborg tomb of yawgmoth. The real benefit here is that we already run 4 urborgs, so the only land addition would be cabal coffers, karakas, eye of ugin, and the eldrazi. The smallest amount of slots this could probably take is 5 if you run 2 coffers and 7 if you run 4. You probably don't need 4 coffers since you'll have time to search them out against miracles and thespian stage can copy them. Honestly you may not even need karakas since 1 emrakul is often times enough to cripple miracles enough. I realize that one of the benefits 12 post has that this wouldn't is the primeval titan but with all the land tutors we have it shouldn't be an issue and miracles doesn't typically have a fast enough clock for us to worry. Also, instead of trying to main deck these cards you could try to sideboard them.

with 6 lands, including ugin, coffers, and urborg you can start searching for eldrazi, you'll also have 9 mana to cast an ulamog. with 8 lands including those previously mentioned you'll have 13 mana, enough to cast emrakul. This is only 4 land drops more than we are aiming to make anyways with the Dark depths route. With the plan to use titania, you need at least 6 land drops to be able to green sun for her anyways and there is a fairly good chance it'll get countered, which is something that won't happen with the eldrazi route. Also keep in mind that the more coffers you get the less land drops you'll need to ramp up to where you need to be.

The mana generated by coffers is also significant in the case that we end up with a needle on hexmage, and a needle on stage. Albeit, that in all my games that hasn't happened to me more than 3 times it can happen.

Not sure how relevant it is but you would also have a few creatures in your deck that you could put into play when opponent plays show and tell making those matches less terrible. Also, emrakul does have a usable effect against painter decks and even just having 1 main can help.

Anyways, i thought i'd get some opinions before i did major testing.

stuff about death rite shaman

consider this, does the shaman improve the matches that the deck has trouble with anyways? If he doesn't, then he's not really necessary. He doesn't improve the miracles match nor any of the combo matches so in my opinion he's more or less a dead card. You are taking something else out of the deck that could be use to combat the larger issues that we face. The other question that you can ask is does he do anything more efficiently than another card in the deck? the answer to that is also no. He's an accelerant and after many iterations we have left accelerants out of the list. For him to even be an efficient accelerant, you would have to include fetch lands which weakens the mana base, and leaves you vulnerable to stifle.

These are the matches that need to or could be improved

Miracles
Ad Nauseum

Sneak and Show
Painter
Reanimator
Lands
Death and Taxes
Omni-tell (less of a threat now)

[komondor]

I haven't been following legacy/this thread much but I love that cabal coffers line. Sick. I've been playing 4c aggro loan from Lille lately but I might be playing this again next time

[apple713]

Deathrite shaman

Ok, so I may not have given Deathrite shaman his fair consideration so I’ll be testing him along with Cabal Coffers.

First off, I would make different arguments for Deathrite Shaman than were previously made. I talked to a MTGtheSource lurker yesterday and he made some good points.

It HELPS several of the problem matches but they still need additional help from the sideboard

Miracles - Consumes swords, keeps snap caster in check, forces them to deal with it due to life loss.
Ad Nauseum - Keeps threshold Down, hurts past in flames
RUG - Consumes a bolt thats not directed at face, keeps threshold down
Reanimator - remove creatures from being reanimated
Dredge - removes dredge creatures
Lands - Eats life from the loam and other lands problematic such as wasteland

Does not help the combo matches such as sneak and show / omni / high tide in the same ways that red elemental blast would.


Eldrazi Plan

First of all let me say that I cut 2 maze, 1 sylvan scrying, 1 titania, 1 safe keeper, -1 pyroblast, and added 2 cofferes, 1 eye of ugin, 1 Emrakul, 1 primeval titan, karakas

I really like having this plan. For a small addition of cards it gives you a very viable plan B. It’s nice that you don't really have to alter your play style too much. Once you realize that your opponent is playing a deck that is going to make it hard for you to win with Dark depths, just switch to Plan B. You have to realize this before you start making Marit Lage tokens to conserve land drops. Mainly against miracles / Death and taxes / lands / various other decks with karakas, wasteland, swords, bounce.

The main thing to keep in mind is that just because you switch to plan B doesn't mean that you cant still win with dark depths if the coast clears up. Also, keep in mind that coffers allows you TONS of man and you can still remove counters from dark depths the long way. This came up in a couple games where I had coffers online but not Ugin. I started removing 5 counters a turn from depths with mana, so he had to wasteland the depths instead of the coffers and by that time i had a stage in play and depths in hand so i was able to combo out the following turn for 3 mana (urborg, stage, depths)

The only problem I ran into was that because you are not running 4 coffers and only 1 ugin you have to typically search for them more, or you have to hit a primeval titan. Against Miracles it was difficult if they got a t2-t3 cb lock on me because then I couldn’t actively search for them. In the games they didn’t get the early CB lock they got crushed. This leads me to believe that the inclusion of Abrupt decay instead of Pyroblast would be better. Sure you have Krosan Grip from the board but having more answers doesn't hurt, especially since many of their sideboard choices are artifacts / enchantments as well. I think at that point the match would be a cake walk. Needle for top, decay for counterbalance / monastery mentor, grip for CB and SB hate, and eldrazi plan for swords / terminus.

You might think that this plan would be weak to wasteland but the opponent has to make a tough decision on attacking plan B and weakening themselves to plan A. Opponents did not seem to attack plan B. Even if you have a wasteland attack coffers / ugin, you can always copy them with thespian stage. Furthermore, you have main deck pithing needles for wastelands anyways.



Abrupt Decay

The other card I also liked was Abrupt Decay but it may be more out of convenience than necessity. If combined with Eldrazi plan, miracles becomes a cake walk, even with moon.

Miracles - Does ALOT of work here hitting CB, Monastery Mentor, SDT if they tap it
RUG - Hits Delver which can block Marit, or goyf to stop the clock
Painter - Hits EVERYTHING, magus, blood moon, painter, grindstone, even under painter effect. With the eldrazi plan and abrupt decay, this match gets much better.
D&T - so many targets although I like Deed here better, but deed gets hit with phyrxian revoker


Mana Balance

The colored mana situation in adrieng’s most recent list is pretty bad. I lost numerous games due to colored land issues. I think abrupt decay might be a better approach than pyroclast so red can be excluded and that would allow for a more stable mana base.

I think that submerge is not as big a problem as it used to be and it may be safe to run more forests in the mana base such as bayous and fetchlands. Fetch lands would increase the dig potential with sensei’s divining top, and fetch lands will tap for mana with urborg out so there isn't a dire need to use them right away.
I’m not sure if I posted this on the primer but I think the minimum colored mana sources to include a color is 11. Since Adrieng’s list accommodated basic forests red and black mana was short. So keep in mind that you need at least 11 colored mana sources for each color you want to include.



I’d like to try to find a way to include DRS, the eldrazi plan b and abrupt decay without compromising the integrity of the dark depths combo. If I come up with something i’ll post it.

Also consider that if you have a plan B main deck you can free up some sideboard slots to focus on Combo.


EDIT


This is what I brewed recently and will try testing. After a handful of games it seems good. DRS, and abrupt decay have shown use, but not gotten to test the eldrazi route yet. Mana seems fine. Still deciding if i need sylvan safe keeper, tabernacle, maze of ith, or REB, Karakas, Cavern of Souls.


Lands

2 Forest
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Thespian's Stage
4 Dark Depths
4 Bayou
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Swamp
1 Eye of Ugin
2 Cabal Coffers
1 Sejiri Steppe

Spells

4 Crop Rotation
4 Expedition Map
3 Pithing Needle
3 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Sylvan Library
3 Abrupt Decay

Creatures

1 Veteran Explorer
4 Vampire Hexmage
3 Deathrite Shaman
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Primeval Titan

Sideboard needs work as i just threw it together. Probably could cut a grip and a deed with the maindeck abrupt decays. If you do you have 4 total open slots.

SB: 2 Variable slots
SB: 3 Pernicious Deed
SB: 1 Bojuka Bog
SB: 3 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Gaddock Teeg
SB: 2 Primeval Titan
SB: 3 Sphere of Resistance

[Fatal]

I glad that Eldrazi route was packaged and added as alternative to this deck :-). Keep going and thank you for adding Coffers as alternative to mine construction: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...Nic-Feat-8Post

[adrieng]

I have been testing many things (from titania+veteran/orcish lumberjack) and I am back to classic stuff with a slightly change which improve the miracle matchup.
Denaturing the deck by playing cards that are not tutor/disruption such as mana dork makes every tempo matchup worse where you won't topdeck as good as before.
The cabal coffers might not work against miracle they are not as slow as before they can kill just with mentor so fastly, you don't have the time to eldrazi them away.
The thing is to play chalice of the void maindeck and don't care whether it shut off many cards from your deck cause often you can still combo off what matters. But it shutt offs swords+top they can maybe miracle once but not twice.
Chalice also improves the ant matchup.
Played a 8 man tornament the 8 best of the region went 4-3 beating sneak show, miracle, bug tempor, shardless lost to poison miracle and turbo rea(BR). I played the duress version instead of chalice.
I feel the not of this world are good vs miracle and enough for death and taxes/maverick to solve those matchups without passing by toxic deluge. Elf might be an issue.



4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Dark Depths
4 Thespian's Stage
4 Copperline Gorge
1 Forest
4 Mana Confluence
1 Gemstone Mine
1 Maze of Ith
1 Mox Diamond
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Sejiri Steppe
1 Sensei's Divining Top

4 Crop Rotation
4 Vampire Hexmage
4 Expedition Map
4 Sylvan Scrying

4 Pithing Needle
4 Sylvan Library

3 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Duress/ 4th chalice
3 Chalice of the Void

SB: 4 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Bojuka Bog
SB: 4 Not of This World
SB: 3 Ratchet Bomb
SB: 2 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Chalice of the Void
1 Marit Lage
1 Elemental

[TLK]

Is Chalice really that good in your maindeck (assuming you are playing it on 1 to stop StP) with so many 1-drops?

[adrieng]

Yeah chalice is what makes the ant and miracle matchups winnable.
It looks contrintuitive (that's why I didn't try it before) but against some decks you don't want to cast it but against others (miracle+ant) you want to play first/second turn needle/map/reb their CB/ crop into thespian,
then when you are sure you can combo off chalice of the void or even before to shutt of tops. Miracle plays CB which if not answered properly will block anyway all your one drops, so blocking
both yours and opponent's one makes the matchups fair.
Miracle and ant being the two most difficults matchups chalice@1 is very appropriate in this deck.
Also against lot of decks when you draw naturally the combo playing chalice@1 won't slow down your clock while opponents will be disrupted.

[apple713]

I have been testing many things (from titania+veteran/orcish lumberjack) and I am back to classic stuff with a slightly change which improve the miracle matchup.
Denaturing the deck by playing cards that are not tutor/disruption such as mana dork makes every tempo matchup worse where you won't topdeck as good as before.
The cabal coffers might not work against miracle they are not as slow as before they can kill just with mentor so fastly, you don't have the time to eldrazi them away.
The thing is to play chalice of the void maindeck and don't care whether it shut off many cards from your deck cause often you can still combo off what matters. But it shutt offs swords+top they can maybe miracle once but not twice.
Chalice also improves the ant matchup.
Played a 8 man tornament the 8 best of the region went 4-3 beating sneak show, miracle, bug tempor, shardless lost to poison miracle and turbo rea(BR). I played the duress version instead of chalice.
I feel the not of this world are good vs miracle and enough for death and taxes/maverick to solve those matchups without passing by toxic deluge. Elf might be an issue.

Miracles is faster now because of mentor but with the addition of Abrupt decay you hit CB or monastery mentor. Most decks run ~2 mentors so it shouldn't be an issue of having a decay for them. Still more testing required before I start recommending it whole heartedly.

Chalice is nice. Against ant you can play it on 0 to hit led and petal which is about as good as on 1. Chalice on 2 is good to against infernal tutor.

On a separate note on of the commander cards sparked my interest. His ETB ability is better than hexmages sacrifice ability. T6 is significantly slower but it has other applications too. It Kills ALL planes walkers, removes counters from aether vial, it can't be targeted by Karakas. Against Lands when both players have dark depths out, he consumes both sets of counters and becomes the largest creature on the field. Furthermore, if we run cavern of souls he's a vampire like hexmage and they can both be cast with it. If you cast it against miracles they'll likely need a terminus to survive since 1 swords won't solve both marit Lage and the 11/11 flying vampire. I'm not saying that he;s the answer to everything but he may be worth consideration.

[Blastoderm]

I've been playing a split of 2 Not of this World and 2 Steely Resolve in my sb. Steely Resolve is amazing against stupidity like Lands and Death&Taxes. Also snapcaster/swords decks.

Yeah chalice is what makes the ant and miracle matchups winnable.....

Miracles is a good matchup for me. It's been a long time since I lost to Miracles.

Edit: Might as well post my list. I've played three tournaments with it. Two weeklies at my store going 3-0-1 and 4-0. A monthly where we split top 4. I mainly face a combination of Delver, Miracles, Midrange/Control (Maverick, Shardless, Stoneblade, D&T). I used to play GB Loam with smallpox/deluge/decay/exploration but then I realized that it's better to just win instead of durdle.

Maindeck:
4 Sylvan Scrying
4 Sylvan Library
4 Crop Rotation
4 Thoughtseize
3 Duress
4 Vampire Hexmage
4 Pithing Needle
4 Expedition Map
2 Sensei's Divining Top

4 Dark Depths
4 Thespian's Stage
4 Bayou
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Sejiri Steppe
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
1 Swamp
1 Forest

Sideboard:
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Krosan Grip
2 Steely Resolve
2 Not of this World
2 Extirpate
2 Dread of Night (can be disfigure, toxic deluge, massacre, golgari charm...)
1 Bojuka Bog

[adrieng]

Blastoderm I've been playing a split of 2 Not of this World and 2 Steely Resolve in my sb. Steely Resolve is amazing against stupidity like Lands and Death&Taxes. Also snapcaster/swords decks.
Miracles is a good matchup for me. It's been a long time since I lost to Miracles.

Your version is quite the same that the old one i played but you play duress/seize instead of red splash for more pyroblast/red elemental. Reb are definitely better against miracle and still not enough from testing. You should have a slightly bad miracle matchup.
Chalice strengthen lot of matchups from miracle which is now slightly positive, it changes at all point this matchup. The ant matchup become ok, the cloudpost matchup become ok.
I am sold on the chalice. You have to play them if you want to make this deck really better.

I am testing a 3 off tainted pact which have been ok. They are good at finding what you need either a card to combo or to find a protection card or digg for it.
Computing it shows 6.8 cards in average. Wanted to play a one off city of brass instead of mana confluence but it is not worth it it add just 0.1 card in average.



4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Dark Depths
4 Thespian's Stage
4 Mana Confluence
4 Copperline Gorge
1 Forest
1 Gemstone Mine
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Sejiri Steppe
1 Maze of Ith
1 Mox Diamond
1 Sensei's Divining Top

4 Vampire Hexmage
4 Expedition Map
4 Crop Rotation
3 Sylvan Scrying

2 Pyroblast
2 Red Elemental Blast

4 Pithing Needle
4 Sylvan Library
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Tainted Pact

SB: 4 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Bojuka Bog
SB: 4 Not of This World
SB: 3 Ratchet Bomb
SB: 2 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Chalice of the Void
1 Marit Lage
1 Elemental

[Blastoderm]

I'm 4-0 in my last Miracles matchups. They can't beat steely resolve.

[apple713]

I'm 4-0 in my last Miracles matchups. They can't beat steely resolve.

terminus....

Steely resolve is good but the issue i ran into was that you have to play it before you combo out and so that leaves it susceptible to removal. Sylvan safe keeper seems to do a better job in general because it can protect itself.

[adrieng]

Quote Originally Posted by Blastoderm View Post
I'm 4-0 in my last Miracles matchups. They can't beat steely resolve.
terminus....

Steely resolve is good but the issue i ran into was that you have to play it before you combo out and so that leaves it susceptible to removal. Sylvan safe keeper seems to do a better job in general because it can protect itself.

That's just bad miracle opponent ; Did they play mentor ? did they cast at least once wear tear/disenchant/blood moon/council/engineered explosives ?

Miracle player will bring all their disenchant.like effect after side +blood moon. They have a clock thanks to mentor.

Chalice is so good here.

Also not playing at least a one off maze of ith is so wrong

[Blastoderm]

That's just bad miracle opponent ; Did they play mentor ? did they cast at least once wear tear/disenchant/blood moon/council/engineered explosives ?

Miracle player will bring all their disenchant.like effect after side +blood moon. They have a clock thanks to mentor.

Chalice is so good here.

Also not playing at least a one off maze of ith is so wrong

I haven't played against Mentor miracles.. just Entreat. I've never lost to Blood Moon because I fetch basics. They are slow, so perhaps that's why I found it easy to eventually get a Marit Lage through. Also, Extirpate/Surgical is amazing vs Miracles. You can get rid of their Swords or Terminus. Or you can force a deck shuffle if they draw with top. Surprise protection from white with crop rotation also wins games.

Maze of Ith is great, I should include one.

[vereno]

A Sultai Depths deck just finished 26th at the Legacy Open this weekend. List: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=95718

Seems pretty good, anyone play a similar list?

[apple713]

A Sultai Depths deck just finished 26th at the Legacy Open this weekend. List: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=95718

Seems pretty good, anyone play a similar list?

I haven't played that exact list but I have played with all of those cards at some point or another. Brainstorm is awkward because it doesn't always get you what you need. Its good but most of the time you would rather just have a tutor. The list runs ALOT of tutors and seems excessive. The deck never had issues with consistently getting the combo it just always had issues with getting marit lage to stay in play / protecting him.

For the little blue that he added I don't think its worth weakening the manabase. Since he's playing 4 moxes which i think is overkill because it leads to a lot of dead cards, i think loam is an auto include.

That's just bad miracle opponent ; Did they play mentor ? did they cast at least once wear tear/disenchant/blood moon/council/engineered explosives ?

Miracle player will bring all their disenchant.like effect after side +blood moon. They have a clock thanks to mentor.

Chalice is so good here.

Also not playing at least a one off maze of ith is so wrong

Since you've gone back to discard main deck have you also tried sadistic sacrament? It would significantly help your ANT matches when used in conjunction with discard. I imagine between discard, chalice, and sadistic you'd greatly improve.

i've been testing it in another deck I'm brewing but i see that it has applications here.

[Negator77']

A Sultai Depths deck just finished 26th at the Legacy Open this weekend. List: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=95718

Seems pretty good, anyone play a similar list?

Hey, this is my list. If you or anyone else is interested, I can post a brief write-up of the 15 rounds.

I haven't played that exact list but I have played with all of those cards at some point or another. Brainstorm is awkward because it doesn't always get you what you need. Its good but most of the time you would rather just have a tutor. The list runs ALOT of tutors and seems excessive. The deck never had issues with consistently getting the combo it just always had issues with getting marit lage to stay in play / protecting him.

For the little blue that he added I don't think its worth weakening the manabase. Since he's playing 4 moxes which i think is overkill because it leads to a lot of dead cards, i think loam is an auto include.

The Mox's can sometimes lead to awkward draws and do get boarded out in slower matchups like Death and Taxes and Miracles. Slowing down into a Needle/disruption version in game two is fine in those spots. In some matchups, the speed is just absolutely needed imo. One of the major points of this version is to maximize the number of turn two and turn three tokens while also seeing/casting disruption early. Brainstorm and Mox perform double duty and are absurd when found early together. A sequence of Mox into Brainstorm, play and sac a fetch shuffling away anything poor/extra, discard spell on turn one isn't that uncommon and very powerful. Brainstorm also helps blunt the effect of extra Mox's in a deck with so many shuffle effects. The extra speed, discard, and cards like Flusterstorm have turned several of the combo matchups into favorable ones, inlcuding Storm.

[apple713]

While I was testing other decks I came across a shell that I thought would be good for this deck. I started testing with it and it performs better than I expected and I haven't tweaked it much. The shell I took it from was designed to deal with combo and control very well.

The list

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Thoughtseize
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Liliana of the Veil
4 Abrupt Decay

4 Vampire Hexmage
4 Crop Rotation
4 Sylvan Scrying

3 Sylvan Library
2 Life from the Loam
2 Mox Diamond

Lands - 23
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Bayou
4 Thespian's Stage
4 Dark Depths
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Wasteland

SB: 4 Hymn to Tourach
SB: 2 Pernicious Deed
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
SB: 1 Karakas
SB: 1 Bojuka Bog
SB: 2 Toxic Deluge


Discussion of the choices

The deck runs 7 discard spells, which is a good start vs combo. It has proven to be very good at buying a critical turn or two. The discard also serves to strip swords to plowshares and other bounce spells. So it serves two critical purposes.

Liliana of the Veil: Liliana is very good against combo decks but it is often too slow. Here it does a few things. Against the slower decks like miracles it can keep the few creatures they have in check. It can cut their hand down so they can't hold onto swords to plowshares. Lilli's ultimate is not wasted either, it can force them to make difficult decisions in games that get hung up.

Chalice of the Void: Great vs combo decks and for preventing swords to plowshares. Usually decks that its good against don't have a way to deal with it game 1. The decks that can deal with it do so with abrupt decay and thats actually one of our better matches so it doesn't really matter.

Although this COULD hurt us because of the 1 drops we run it doesn't have to. We run 7 one drop discard spells, and 4 crop rotations. Where chalice can be a great play on T1 usually, but in this deck it's often a 2+ drop and thats fine. T1 we can cast our discard spells which are more effective in the first turns. If it has to it can pull a 1 drop from their hand too. Late game discard is often wasted anyways so after the initial couple you draw they would be dead cards anyways. The only thing it really hurts is late game crop rotations. If you are holding a crop rotation and have a chalice you can crop rotation first or just delay the chalice depending on what the opponent is playing.

Additionally, against combo decks chalice can be played on 0, or 2. Yes this deck does have two drops but sometimes its ok. For example, against RG combo lands, G1 chalice on 2 just shuts them off of loam and punishing fire.

Even if we shut off some of our cards the benefit often outweighs the detriment. Adrieng also made several remarks about including chalice as well and he was very positive about it.

Abrupt Decay: Abrupt decay is actually my new favorite card EVER. Its amazing against Miracles and amazing against tempo decks. It also hits a lot of random things in between. The card buys us time against tempo decks which has often been a race. It's also creature removal against difficult matches like D&T. I really couldn't imagine playing a deck without it in this meta.

Sylvan Scrying: this was the choice over expedition map because of the negative interaction between expedition map and chalice. Since this deck does not have mana issues sylvan scrying is a good choice and actually even better because it cost 1 less mana to search.

Life from the Loam: Since the deck runs sylvan library because of the obvious synergy life from the loam is a great way to make even better use of it. There are only two because I don't want the strategy to depend on loam but because you can mill the 3 top cards and see new ones with library it also works to filter through your deck quickly. Additionally i've found it to be useful at getting the combo back a second time if you need to. Lets say you make your token turn 4, on your 5th turn you can attack with it and if it gets destroyed you can loam back stage and depths, and make it another token the following turn.

Loam is good at digging by itself. by dredging your lands into your grave. The best part is that because the deck doesn't rely on this you can use it when you know it's safe. Some decks don't have an answer to dredge. Other decks that run DRS which do have an answer for it are good matches for us anyways. Furthermore if they see us dredging or casting it game 1 they might bring in grave hate which will generally be wasted agains us because we don't need it to be effective.

There are only 2 so if you find that its wasted you don't really hurt too bad. Additionally it keeps your hand full to have something to discard to liliana if you need to.

Mox Diamond: Previosly mox diamond has been written off because it leads to dead draws and is pretty bad in multiples. The reason I've chosen to include it is because I only included 2. This way multiples are not really an issue at all but you are always happy to see that first one. It helps give the deck the speed boost it needs against faster decks like combo. It enables T1 chalice and T1 Loam. It helps with the mana base and not getting blown out by Blood moon / magus.

Negator77 ran 4 and he said it was fine. He also had brainstorm to shuffle them back. I find two to be the perfect number. You don't need it every match but its really helpful in a lot of matches.

Wasteland: This was more of an afterthought but its proven very useful. With the inclusion of loam it makes a lot of sense. Furthermore you don't have to name a card with pithing needle too early and won't get destroyed like Pithing needle.

Sideboard

Hymn to tourach : This is a very odd choice that i don't think i've seen before. I played it in the sideboard while i was testing other decks and it stuck around for this one. When combined with all of the single target discard it really strips the opponents hand down quickly and then liliana becomes even more potent. It's really just there against combo decks and i find it really important because we've had so much trouble with them in the past. Even though its random, combined with the other things in the deck it just works.

Surgical Extraction: has been good vs reanimator decks and decks that have the ability to recur wasteland / swords to plowshares. You can bring it in against dredge and various other decks.

tabernacle at pendrell vale: Great against dredge and other decks with swarms of creatures like goblins. Also a good counter to Empty the warrens. I don't know if it'll stick around because it may not be needed but it definitely has its purpose. It can help vs D&T but i don't think i've brought it in against them.

Korsan grip: Even though we have abrupt decay, krosan grip hits things that abrupt decay can't hit. There are not many of them but i think its worth including.

Pernicious deed: Helps against permanent heavy decks. Miracles, D&T, heavy creature decks. DESTROYS affinity. It has a lot of uses. It's been slow in the past but that slowness is slightly less of a problem with the moxes to accelerate and, the discard to slow.

Toxic Deluge: Like deed it hits creatures. very useful against D&T and merfolk. Additionally, It can hit reanimated creatures and creatures like primeval titan, griselbrand, and emrakul that would otherwise not be able to be hit with decay. Although those are usually dealt with by karakas deed is just another way to deal with them.



Overall the deck plays very well. It has ALOT of resiliency and consistency. It runs the same number of tutors as previous versions and a similar number of card draw. It doesn't seem to run out of gas like it has in the past. Also, because of the changes its a lot more versatile.

The decks previous weakness were Combo decks, Miracles, Painter. I think you'll find, like i have, that the combination of discard, liliana, chalice are very effective against those decks. Additionally, abrupt decay has improved tempo matches and D&T. Along with many SB cards. If you are able to wipe the board with deed / deluge and stick a liliana D&T has a very had time coming back because they lack card advantage.

I think the reason it performs better against combo / control / D&T is because there is a greater saturation of cards that are effective against the decks we are weak against.

Against combo 14 cards
7 single target discard
4 chalice
3 liliana

Against Control - 20
7 single target discard
4 chalice
3 liliana
2 Loam
4 Abrupt decay

Tempo - 12
4 Abrupt decay
2 Mox diamond
2 Life from loam
4 Chalice

The only immediate change i'd like to make is to find a way to include sejiri steppe. It was left out by accident but Ive only missed it once...Then I top decked an abrupt decay and it didn't matter. Id also like to optimize the sideboard and that will only come with lots and lots of games to find out the decks new weaknesses if it has any.

Test it, let me know what you think. Give me some feedback.

[Kl'rt]

Hey, this is my list. If you or anyone else is interested, I can post a brief write-up of the 15 rounds.

I am very interested in seeing your write up. I'm sure others are too.


Thanks