Ugr Landshark

[FoolofaTook]

I've been toying with this in a Dreadstill and Threshold heavy environment. It has very positive matchups against both archetypes and does fairly well against a lot of other decks as well. The big weakness at the moment is Team America, based largely just on Tombstalker. It's also weak against Elves, but I don't see enough of the deck to know how weak.

The list is derived from Ugr Canadian Threshold and is not as good as that list at the moment but I see possibilities in it.

Creatures

4x Tarmogoyf
4x Nimble Mongoose

Disruption

4x Stifle
3x Ice Storm
3x Stone Rain
4x Wasteland
4x Force of Will
4x Daze
4x Lightning Bolt

Cantrips

4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder

Alternate Kill

1x Land's Edge

Mana Lands

3x Flooded Strand
3x Polluted Delta
4x Tropical Island
4x Volcanic Island
3x Island

Sideboard

4x Tormod's Crypt
3x Pyroclasm
3x Red Elemental Blast
3x Blue Elemental Blast
2x Krosan Grip

The basic premise of the deck is that many Legacy decks are currently running very tight on mana and that denying them a couple of lands early is often enough to beat them assuming you can find your own threats in time. When I was putting the deck together I was working on the assumption that old school landkill would not work due to the prevalence of Force of Will and Daze in the meta, however I wanted to give it a try based on the assumption above.

What I've dicovered is that in truth there are way too many decks trying to get by a land or two short of their actual needs. This is because there are way too few decks working aggressively to deny mana to the opponent in the crucial first few turns. The decks that are opportunistically working to deny mana, like Canadian Threshold, Team America and Dreadstill are producing better results than you'd think they were capable of glancing at the lists on paper.

This list is not as strong as those lists, but it shows promise with further development. One of the things that surprised me as I started working on the list is how little Daze and Force of Will actually effect the course of play. Daze turns into: Ice Storm or Stone Rain for a spell (Daze) plus tempo (the returned Island) - this is a favorable trade-off for Landshark. Force of Will turns into two spells (Force of Will plus the pitch spell) for the landkill spell - this is also a moderately favorable trade-off.

The other thing that I'm considering adding, but have not yet been able to pull off effectively, is Trinisphere. The problem is that the lock piece, while it does not effect the cast landkill or Wasteland, interferes with Stifle and the cantrips enough to make it of questionable value to the deck.

[scrow213]

This looks interesting, but... Land's Edge? Really? I mean, you are not going to get much damage through with that. Also, have you tried Ghost Quarter? I know it's not stellar, but a lot of decks pack a small number of basics, and this can cause them to draw fewer lands. And it helps keep Landstill (and others) off-color. Although without Crucible, it's maybe not so good.

[FoolofaTook]

Land's Edge is just an alternate win con to draw into. That slot could easily be other things and probably will wind up being something else. The way it works right now is for those stalemates where they keep drawing into just enough land to stay active and get some threats on the board. I stockpile land in my hand until I have 3 or 4 and then drop Land's Edge for the win, like a 6 or 8 point DD. The point is that even when the deck is not running optimally and shutting the opponent down it is forcing them to play out land and making the ultimate result with Land's Edge very favorable.

Ghost Quarter is a thought, because the deck does try to segregate mana and keep the opponent off of his green or blue. The nice thing about Wastelands is that they deprive the opponent of a land with only Stifle as the likely response. The Ice Storms and Stone Rains have the advantage that they kill basic lands, which really helps against decks like Dreadstill.

[morgan_coke]

For the role you're describing, Banefire would do a hell of a lot more good than Land's Edge.

[FoolofaTook]

For the role you're describing, Banefire would do a hell of a lot more good than Land's Edge.

Banefire is an interesting option. It requires me to keep dropping land though to maximise it. I like playing with just 4 or 5 at most land on the board and letting the rest pile up in my hand. Gives the deck a little bit more resilience against unexpected turns of events. Banefire would be another removal device though in a deck that is light on removal before it tunes, so it might well be a better option than Land's Edge.

A singleton Trinisphere is probably better than either though. I'm just very averse to locking pieces that are not reliably found, particularly in a deck where the landkill is occasionally absent in favor of creatures and counters.