Lowland WW

[morgan_coke]

I keep seeing everyone trying to build WW like Goblins or Merfolk or Elves, and I just don't think it's got a tribe that's strong enough to pull it off. Soldiers and Kithkin have similarities to those other tribes, but they just don't have the kind of broken cards needed to pull off their game.

The idea is in some ways similar to Rabid Wombat with the low land count, but it lacks the crazy number of cyclers/cantrips that deck had. I don't think it will be quite viable until a variant of suppression field is printed so you can effectively run "8" of the card, but it does probably use S-Field better than any other deck out there right now.

The basic plan is to pop out 4-6 power on the first two turns, then beat face for three turns while you plow/path their dudes and shut down their mana with Field and Orb/Armageddon.

I think to be truly effective the deck will need to splash a color, though whether that's Red for burn, Blue for draw, or Black for Disruption I'm not sure. Both Tithe and KotWO can grab dual lands, so you're not really hurting even with a field out on the mana fixing.

Mana
16x Plains
4x Tithe
4x Knight of the White Orchid

Disruption
4x Suppression Field
4x Armageddon/Ravages of War (Winter Orb?)

Beats
4x Elite Vanguard
4x Savannah Lions
2x Isamaru, Hound of Konda
4x Jotun Grunt
4x Serra Avenger
4x Spectral Procession

Removal
4x Path to Exile
2x Swords to Plowshares

Sideboard
4x Silence
4x Abeyance
3x Disenchant
4x Honor of the Pure/Wilt-Leaf Liege

Like I noted before, it's pretty easy to splash at least one color thanks to tithe/kotwo, below I'll list the primary things the deck would gain from each color, in addition to Wasteland vulnerability.

Tundra/Blue: Daze, Stasis, Stifle, Meddling Mage

Scrubland/Black: Dark Confidant, Tidehollow Sculler, Vindicate, (Spectral Lynx?)

Savannah/Green: Tarmogoyf, Gaddock Teeg, Krosan Grip

Plateau/Red: Lightning Bolt, Incinerate, Lightning Helix, Chain Lightning

I'd feel a lot better about this deck if there was a card that's functionally similar to Suppression Field available so you could run "eight" of them, but there isn't, so I think either Winter Orb or an Armageddon effect are the best supplementals to it currently available.

[(nameless one)]

No love for Vials?

[morgan_coke]

Vial + Suppression Field = Bad Times.

[Elfrago]

Vial + Suppression Field = Bad Times.

Then you just found what to cut for Vial.



Beats
4x Elite Vanguard
4x Savannah Lions
2x Isamaru, Hound of Konda


Those guys are outdated. Cut them, splash green and add the green white borderpost, Tarmogoyf, Knight of the Reliquary and maybe even wild nacatl with a singleton Plateau.

[sco0ter]

Why do you want 8 Suppression Field (effects)?
Against some decks 1 is already too much...

I think the closest you can get is either Damping Matrix or Pithing Needle, depending on what you want to shut down.
If you want to shut down Fetchlands, then Path to Exile is kind of contra productive, too...

Why is Honor of the Pure in the SB? Don't you miss pump? I imagine winning a game with mostly 2/1's is hard... Your opponent just needs to play a Kird Ape or something and you don't want to attack anymore...

[Aggro_zombies]

So, if you can't stick Suppression Field, you get raped in half by Counterbalance and/or a single Tarmogoyf? Sign me up for that one...

There's also the fact that this won't have a positive matchup against Landstill or some other sort of blue-based control deck. A single Factory mops up almost all of your early offense, and EE wipes you out at every stage of the game. In that scenario, Suppression Field is a minor annoyance and Armageddon is something you save your Forces for.

Speaking of which, Armageddon in a deck without Vial seems rather bad. You have no way to break the symmetry, so unless you're ahead you'll most likely be shooting yourself in the foot.

Also, Pyroclasm and Firespout > this entire deck.

Basically, this thing loses to Zoo (or any deck playing red), Counter-Top, probably Aggro Loam, definitely TES, maybe Landstill.

As for your splashes: green is hands-down the best because of Tarmogoyf. Knight of the Reliquary and Terravore can show up as well to make a quasi-Terrageddon deck, but I don't think that would be good.

The only other worthwhile splash is red, because the deck really lacks reach.

[morgan_coke]

Ech, this was even more poorly received than I thought it would be.

Really I was just trying to explore a way to profitably utilize Suppression Field and it's non-negative interactions with Tithe and Knight of the White Orchid since those tow cards can to some degree take the mana/colorfixing place of fetches that Field shuts down.

I was hoping for some constructive criticism and helpful ideas on how to advance this goal. I guess it's my fault for not more explicitly laying out the goals of this post. I'm well aware that the decklist in the first post isn't competitive, it's meant as a launching point, not an endstate.

All of that out of the way, Green does seem like the best splash for a variety of reasons. Given that, here's a sample list.

Mana
8x Plains
4x Savannah
4x Temple Garden
4x Tithe
4x Knight of the White Orchid

Beats
4x Gaddock Teeg
4x Serra Avenger
4x Tarmogoyf

Disruption
4x Suppression Field
4x Winter Orb
4x Root Maze
2x Ethersworn Canonist

Removal
4x Path to Exile
2x Swords to Plowshares

Path helps to turn on Tithe/KotWO and doesn't matter at all if there's an Orb out since they can't untap the land anyways.

I really wonder if it might be possible to go with a dual splash - something like 8 plains, 4 savannah, 4 scrubland to get Bob and Sculler into this.

No sideboard yet because it'll just be pointlessly picked apart when the maindeck isn't even close set yet. Assume some sort of anti-red card, either pump, lifegain, or absolute law, a couple of silence effects, and some kind of disenchant effect, probably either a mix of seals or grip or pridemage.

And yes, A_Z, without a field in play, thresh would tear this apart rather brutally.

[Eldariel]

And the chances of Field resolving vs. a deck with Spell Snare, Daze, Force & Countertop are what, 0.05%? This new version seems to lack efficient beatdown. It also seems to lack Evasion which WW has traditionally used to negate its comparatively small creatures' inability to fight the bigger ones.

Overall, I think you need much heavier commitment towards beating Countertop Thresh. It's one of the top decks and an absolute nightmare match-up to you. At the very least, Vial ('cause let's face it, Field isn't reliable to resolve) and Qasali Pride-Mage seem like musts.

[beastman]

Green will give you pridemage and noble heirarch, which pump your guys during attack, and of course, goyf. Also, grip out of the board.

[Aggro_zombies]

It might be best to drop Fields altogether (from the main, anyway), and go in a more Angel Stompy-ish direction with equipment. Jitte, SoFI, and perhaps even Behemoth Sledge give your creatures teeth and increase your chances of being able to fight through a Counter-Top lock (your equipment is more difficult to counter with Counterbalance and can potentially allow any creatures you drop ahead of the lock to go all the way).

Basically, you have 4 Noble Hierarch, 4 Qasali Pridemage, 4 Tarmogoyf, 4 KotWO, some number of Serra Avenger, and some creature costing more than two mana (Baneslayer?). You run 2 Jitte, 2 SoFI, some number of Sledge, perhaps some number of Mask of Memory.

Swords is probably better than Path when all your guys are huge, so switch the numbers on them or just drop Path.

Vial is non-negotiable. With a creature curve like that, it's your only hope against things with blue.

Winter Orb is almost strictly an anti-control card. Thresh can operate effectively on only one mana, especially versions using Daze. Most other non-control decks in the format only need one or two lands to implement their game plan, although not having more will slow them down.

Root Maze is mediocre, but I guess it's good against fetches. By the way, you should really run fetches of your own since they work so well with the Tithe effects and, when combined with those, will rapidly thin lands out of your library. In a deck with little to no card drawing, improving the overall quality of your draws that much is huge.

Teeg is also mostly an anti-control card, but it helps your combo matchup somewhat. I wouldn't run more than two in the main since it only stops Force out of Thresh. Admittedly, that's a good thing, but you kinda want it have a bigger body for its cost when you're trying to race Counter-Top.

Thorn of Amethyst probably belongs in here somewhere as part of your disruption suite, possibly in the place of some of the Teegs. Only decks like Zoo or Goblins can completely ignore it, so it can be useful.

This is, of course, a lot more cards than you can fit into one list. Your priorities are Vial, a stable creature base (Goyf, Pridemage, Knight, something finisher-y), and then disruption and equipment. I'd run at least four pieces of equipment, but more will definitely make your deck merrier if you can get away with it.

EDIT: Even having said that, this deck will still be only marginally playable, and only in control-heavy metagames. Here's why:

- Tithe and Knight of the White Orchid will almost always be irrelevant after turn two or three against everything but control. Zoo can kill you with some combination of Taiga and either Savannah or Plateau, and Threshold decks rarely need to get to more than three mana (only usually versions running Sower). Combo will go off before you can do anything relevant, since you just wasted your first few turns looking for lands instead of applying pressure. And even if you're playing against control, your curve right now is so low that you really don't care about making land drops after turn two. Why are you playing all this mana fixing when your most expensive spell costs two mana?

- Your deck is in a bad spot halfway between Angel Stompy and Zoo. On the one hand, Zoo plays ultra-efficient creatures and then finishes the game with burn; on the other hand, Angel Stompy plays good high-end creatures and dresses them up with powerful equipment. The deck plays sorta-efficient creatures and supplements burn and equipment with a disruption suite that is either totally irrelevant or easily circumventable by probably 80% of the format.

- Angel Stompy (and Stompy in general) is of questionable playability right now, so veering in that direction is probably weak. Stompy decks are basically completely eclipsed by Zoo, which hits just as hard, but does so faster and more consistently. Any attempts to model the deck after Zoo are going to end up being decks that are sorta like Zoo, except infinitely worse.

- The only bear that's widely playable in the format right now is Qasali Pridemage, and that less because he's a bear and more because he's a Seal of Cleansing that beats and helps win Tarmogoyf wars. Bears are simply too weak and too slow, with even Serra Avenger pushing the envelope of playability to the breaking point (only just crossing the line thanks to evasion). Knight's first strike is irrelevant without equipment to make him bigger, and Teeg and Canonist are only useful in some matchups.

On the plus side, this seems like it could be a fun casual deck to play.