[Deck] Lockout

[Vacrix]

Lockout Version 1.0

Land (24)
4 Windswept Heath
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flood Strand
1 Underground Sea
1 Scrublands
2 Savannah
1 Tundra
2 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Plains
1 Island

Creatures (13)
3 Cunning Lethemancer
3 Ethersworn Cannonist
1 Meddling Mage
3 Tarmogoyf
3 Plaguespitter

Search (8)
4 Living Wish
4 Worldly Tutor

Cantrip (8)
4 Brainstorm
4 Remand

Board Sweepers (7)
3 Pernicious Deed
4 Engineered Explosives

Sideboard (15)
1 Academy Ruins
1 Volrath’s Stronghold
1 Plaguespitter
1 Cunning Lethemancer
1 Ethersworn Cannonist
1 Tarmogoyf
1 Meddling Mage
2 Vexing Shusher
3 Yixilid Jailer
3 Chill


GENERAL GAME PLAN:
Lock the opponent out against combo, play out and tutor up threats against control, and stall aggro til you can blow the board and follow up with the EE/Academy Ruins lock.




AGGRO:
Stuff you want to see in your opening hand:
Pernicious Deed
Plague Spitter
Engineered Explosives
Tutors
Remand
Tarmogoyf
Ethersworn Cannonist

Stuff you’d rather not see in your opening hand:
Cunning Lethemancer
Meddling Mage

You have a couple board sweepers against aggro:
Plague Spitter is a nice constant lock to prevent the opponent from playing anything that has 1 toughness. I have tested it in other decks and I have found that it is most effective against Elves, however, it is very good against goblins. Elves can’t get rid of it. Goblins can but more likely he will burn it maybe with a mogg fanatic, lightning bolt, or gempalm incinerator then an StP. If he burns it, it deals 1 to everything if it hits the grave so you still blow the board at least of 1 toughness creatures when it comes down. If the goblin matchup is too difficult, Tividar of the Thorn could be a nice add to the board I think. You also have essentially 8 tutors for plague spitter and 3 spitters MD so its like have 11 of them. Pretty good deal. You can attack with it too because if the opponent blocks with it, he loses the rest of his creatures because it deals damage when it hits the grave. Sometimes they will block it too just so they can play down more stuff, just to hit a Deed or EE on the following turns.

Pernicious Deed can blow the board too.

Engineered Explosives is like Deed. Also it can be relevant that you run 4 colors because then you can get rid of high costing permanents like Braids with it. Also, once the board is blown, you can tutor up Academy Ruins to lock aggro out for the rest of the game, or until they draw a wasteland.


You have a couple ways to stall aggro:

Tarmogoyf is a nice blocker until you can blow the board, and it doesn’t die to plaguespitter.

Ethersworn Cannonist can slow down your opponent from playing a shit ton of permanents and overrunning you before you get a chance to blow the board.

Remand is like a time walk in that your opponent has to replay that 2 drop next turn, and Remand digs deeper into your deck for more answers.


The game plan:
Stall in the first couple turns with Remands and the mentioned creatures. You can tutor up Plague Spitters and cantrip into Deed or EE. Once you have blown the board, try to play down a canonist to slow them from rebuilding too quickly. Then you can lock them out of the game with Academy Ruins.

Post board, you don’t get anything. Aggro is supposed to be the easy matchup.




CONTROL:
Stuff you want to see in your opening hand:
Cunning Lethemancer
Tutors
Remand
Tarmogoyf

Stuff you’d rather not see in your opening hand:
Plaguespitter
Meddling Mage
Deed
Ethersworn Cannonist
EE

Game plan:
Draw countermagic and creature removal with goyf’s and cunning lethemancers. You aren’t really going to use those to win. Instead you are going to try to get down a Vexing Shusher that way you don’t have to deal with their countermagic anymore. Living Wish is big here. You can search for Vexing Shusher or Volrath’s Stronghold. Stronghold won’t get back the creatures that get StP’d but it will get them back if your opponent plays a board sweeper or if your opponent counters your creatures. Its an alternative because of StP on shusher, but then again wasteland on stronghold. It depends.

Post board you board out:
1 Deed

Board in:
1 Vexing Shusher

Now you can search for shusher with either worldly tutor or living wish. I think the control matchup should be decent.

Please note that you can remand your own spells with remand, and replay them on the next turn.




COMBO:
Stuff you want to see in your opening hand:
Meddling Mage
Tutors
Remand
Cunning Lethemancer
Ethersworn Cannonist
Engineered Explosives

Stuff you’d rather not see in your opening hand:
Deed
Plaguespitter

Game plan:
Lock your opponent out of winning with either Cannonist or Mage. Either one stops them and brings the beats at the same time. EE is good for getting rid of your opponents mana sources while he is going off. Remand is counter magic. Cunning Lethemancer is another way to lock your opponent out, but its better than MM or canonist in a way in that it prevents the opponent from rebuilding and puts pressure on to find an answer for it. You have 8 tutors, so essentially 3 cannonist, 1 mage, and 8 of either, that 12 answers for combo. You can also kill empty the warrens tokens with your board removal if they try to play around MM.

Against Ichorid you want your board removal more than anything else. MM kinda stops them a little but not much. Cannonist is not really that good here either. Tutor up goyf’s with worldly tutor as they will be huge and try to win as fast as possible. Search for Yixilid Jailer with Living Wish. Post board, you get 2 MD Yixilid Jailers, so you are essentially running 10 MD. This matchup is ok.

Burn:
You lose.
Board in Chill and pray.




Questions:
- Hypnotic Specter over Lethemancer?
- How many Deed/EE?
- Yixilid Jailer or Withered Wretch?
- Anything else in the board?
- Could something better be in the remand/brainstorm slots?
- Are there any very weak matchups besides burn (maybe discard and stompy)?
- FoW?
- Dark Confidant in the MD?
- How should I structure the land base, as this has 4 colors?
- What creatures should I run in the board/MD to get rid of artifacts/enchantments?


EDIT:

Also, crime and punishment fits into both colors and its another blow the board spell. should i run it?

[Mordenkaynen]

At first, interesting deck and good (at my taste) opening post. Thanks for general gameplan introduction. However, after words about what deck tries to do, I'd like to see HOW it works. If it's not clear now it's ok if you edit the o.p. later.

Then I'm also curious about decks that limits the opponent in different ways. There is another interesting creature: Gaddok Teeg. You see, while it has dis-synergy with EE it can do much more job than MM: it forbids tendrils, belcher, EtW; wrath, humility, geddon, other global removal; smokestack, planswalkers; random crap like enduring ideal, dragon form, wildfire. So is worth consideration (1 copy with tutors..).

It seems that you have some problems with dragon stompy, reanimated and other big guys.. may be 1 copy of mangara? (also living wish can fetch karakas, but it looks too "cool tech" heavy).

Witness? I'm not sure but it can be interesting.. A card for "cool staff" decks)

Note: if you use living wish over eladamri's call you eat 5 slots only to copy those ones in MD. But yeah, wish fetch lands also..


- Hypnotic Specter over Lethemancer?
It depends on your meta. With this 4c manabase I'm not sure about specter. However, hyppie has evasion when attacks and is CA (more or less often than lethemancer?).

- Yixilid Jailer or Withered Wretch?
Don't forget Jotun Grunt. It can be better than both especially since you have too many small non-reliable creatures.

- FoW?
No. Too few blue cards.

- Dark Confidant in the MD?
Once again, many weak creatures MD. Think about him in last order.

- What creatures should I run in the board/MD to get rid of artifacts/enchantments?
You may try harmonic sliver as a wish target, but it depends on your meta: if you face many artifacts you can run 1 veridian shaman MD etc.

Yea, with those cantrips, sweepers and small creatures you can run 1 tombstalker (if not any Grunts).

[Vacrix]

At first, interesting deck and good (at my taste) opening post. Thanks for general gameplan introduction. However, after words about what deck tries to do, I'd like to see HOW it works. If it's not clear now it's ok if you edit the o.p. later.

Then I'm also curious about decks that limits the opponent in different ways. There is another interesting creature: Gaddok Teeg. You see, while it has dis-synergy with EE it can do much more job than MM: it forbids tendrils, belcher, EtW; wrath, humility, geddon, other global removal; smokestack, planswalkers; random crap like enduring ideal, dragon form, wildfire. So is worth consideration (1 copy with tutors..).

It seems that you have some problems with dragon stompy, reanimated and other big guys.. may be 1 copy of mangara? (also living wish can fetch karakas, but it looks too "cool tech" heavy).

Witness? I'm not sure but it can be interesting.. A card for "cool staff" decks)

Note: if you use living wish over eladamri's call you eat 5 slots only to copy those ones in MD. But yeah, wish fetch lands also..

wow thanks

jotun grunt, never thought of that. i figured it would be better to just lock them out of their grave until they find an answer no? ichorid wins pretty quickly. grunt seems like it would be sick against thresh though. i will test it.

gaddock teeg does seem like a better choice. never thought of that. i think that the dissynergy with EE is a little irrelevant though because you shouldnt be dropping teeg against aggro anyway.


im thinking these changes:
- 2 MM (1 from the board, 1 from the MD)
- 1 volrath's stronghold (from the board)
- 3 yixilid jailer (from the board)

+ 2 Gaddock Teeg (1 in the board)
+ 1 Karakas (it is pretty sick tech)
+ 3 Jotun Grunt (3 in the board)


cards i am going to test:
mangara (could be nice vs. big shit like renanimator/dragonstompy, etc)
eternal witness (has synergy with the board sweepers. not sure if i need it vs. aggro but i will see soon enough.





thoughts on these?
- unearth (it reanimates anything i have in here so i think it could be sick)
- man-o'-war (could be a nice tutor target to bounce fatties)
- mother of runes (a way to protect your creatures from removal, especially basically creating a lock vs combo so they can't remove your shit while you smash their face)




by the way, when you said HOW it works vs. what it tries to do, you mean you want me to give sample hands and how to go about playing against whichever matchup?


and yeah i figured that lethemancer would be much harder to play so i cut hippie for it.

i'm going to test this build tonight or tomorrow against various decks and see what needs works.

thanks for the help

[Mordenkaynen]

Ok.

you mean you want me to give sample hands and how to go about playing against whichever matchup?
Mostly the second. You see, I like sweet techs, but they need to be seen not only on paper.

- man-o'-war (could be a nice tutor target to bounce fatties)
No. In legacy fattie =/= slow creature. Five mana for temporal slowing down.. I think no unless there are many reanimators in your meta. And you know, karakas is a secret tech against Akroma)

About others: I think test the deck at first, and then try new things. :laugh: But I can't keep from saying about Doran. This guy is not only fat, but weakens Ichorid's gameplan, weakens piledriver and negates cranial plating.

So once again, test at first and discussion then.

[Mordenkaynen]

Any news?

[Pee-Dee-2]

What is about an Erayo in this Deck? Could be good with cards like the Canonist and Gaddock Teeg.

[MGB]

This is a very cool deck idea.

Maybe a way to update this for a more modern Legacy metagame would be to play Thalia and friends?

[penmanship]

Lockout Version 1.0

Land (24)
4 Windswept Heath
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flood Strand
1 Underground Sea
1 Scrublands
2 Savannah
1 Tundra
2 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Plains
1 Island

Creatures (13)
3 Cunning Lethemancer
3 Ethersworn Cannonist
1 Meddling Mage
3 Tarmogoyf
3 Plaguespitter

Search (8)
4 Living Wish
4 Worldly Tutor

Cantrip (8)
4 Brainstorm
4 Remand

Board Sweepers (7)
3 Pernicious Deed
4 Engineered Explosives

Sideboard (15)
1 Academy Ruins
1 Volrath’s Stronghold
1 Plaguespitter
1 Cunning Lethemancer
1 Ethersworn Cannonist
1 Tarmogoyf
1 Meddling Mage
2 Vexing Shusher
3 Yixilid Jailer
3 Chill


GENERAL GAME PLAN:
Lock the opponent out against combo, play out and tutor up threats against control, and stall aggro til you can blow the board and follow up with the EE/Academy Ruins lock.
If you want tempo run daze over the remand, free counters are much better in the format full of dumb sneak and show lol. If you want to constrict people and beat them on board just play a bunch of taxing stuff such as stated before like thalia, even thorn of amethyst could be good.

Sweepers: Either the deeds or engineered explosives will work, you have an engine that will continuously use EE no point in having 4. After you get the engine online the one past the first could possibly be a dead draw. Besides you run brainstorm anyways so you'll find at least one a game, if you have the EE then no deeds, replace them with targeted removal, you don't want to have to destroy your own board just to remove something like a peacekeeper, KoTR, V Clique, Tarmogoyf. LIke Abrupt Decay or even Maelstrom pulse.

Lands: Since you're trying to lock people out you should adjust your mana base to be something of Death and Taxes. Wastelands and Rishadan Ports to further restrain them from doing anything. Your deck also appears to be a bit greedy with its mana so have you considered maybe Deathrite Shaman? But the karakas is a definite yes, it is something that reanimator can't beat, it is something that sneak and show has a bit of trouble with.

Tutors/creatures: You have 8 tutors so essentially you're currently running 11 theoretical copies of Tarmogoyf(4 worldly tutors+ 4 Living Wish+3 actual goyf) What i would suggest doing is instead of running multiple copies of a few creatures is more less copies but more creatures. run more main deck hate that you can tutor up like Scavenging Ooze or even a Gaddock Tegg or qasali pridemage. That is the reason why Birthing Pod decks are doing so well in Modern and the reason maverick is resilient against "fair" decks. They are very good toolboxes. Maybe Bob even as more card draw to even make card advantage with him + Lethemancer? Mother or Runes? idk lol.

Overall: I really enjoy the idea behind this deck! i really wish you luck with it, sorry i couldn't recommend to many changes just ideas really.

[Megadeus]

To be fair, OP made this deck in 2008 when a lot of good cards in the current meta did not exist and the landscape was different.

[Lemnear]

Necroing 6 year old threads and criticize cardchoices is brillant