Bg Land Destructor

[gvbarroso]

Well, I've always been a fan o LD decks. This is why I'm trying to build something of this archetype that works in Legacy.

Would something like the list below be at least a bit competitive?

4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Bayou
6 Swamp

4 Sinkhole
4 Rain of Tears
4 Icequake
4 Choking Sands

4 Dark Ritual

4 Dark Confidant
4 Vampire Nighthawk

4 Smother
2 Cursed Scroll
4 Pernicious Deed

The Kill Conditions are scarce and weak, I know. This is just the first list that came to my mind and I hope we can develop it.
Also, any ideas for the sideboard? The green splash gives the possibility of playing Krosan Grip etc...

Thanks

[Aggro_zombies]

Tarmogoyf and Tombstalker, for sure.

The problem with land destruction is that most decks in Legacy can get by just fine on a couple lands. Better cards would be something like Contaminate, which prevents an opponent from dropping a land and then immediately playing a spell.

Also, Top and Sylvan Library do all sorts of unfun things to this deck. Only one of them can be efficiently answered by Deed, though.

[beastman]

I have never seen a land destruction deck do well in a tournament. The problem is, if an opponent plays a turn 1 heirarch, you lose, turn 2 goyf, you lose, birds of paradise, lose. There is no way to handle all the early threars people will throw at you.

[Meekrab]

http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/6894/icestorms.jpg
Just sayin'.

You'd probably be better off with just Sinkhole/Ice storm/Wasteland and then Goyfs and other aggressive things to exploit the tempo gain from your opponent not playing his spells.

Also, what is a "Glacial Sism"? Searching Starcity for cards that start with "Glacial" doesn't bring up a land destruction spell.

[EssKay]

I used to play B/G land destruction back in the Ice Age block days. After quitting and getting back into Magic last year, I tried to play that deck in local Legacy tournaments and learned that the archetype is just not that valid anymore. The curve of the entire format is just too low now, and there's so much acceleration. Goyf, Tombstalker, Daze, FoW, Chrome Mox, Mox Diamond, Dark Ritual...that's just a handful of cards that you see all the time that make life a pain in the ass for LD, not to mention Crucible of Worlds, which basically ruins your whole game plan.

The problem with the classic LD archetype is that to keep your opponent off their land consistently, you need to land early LD, and keep it going for at least the first few turns. Then, you need to continue to have LD in hand for any land they drop, so you either need recursion or drawing power. After all that, you have very few slots left for threats/removal.

The only effective LD deck I've seen recently was a homebrew mono-red that ran Blood Moon/Magus, Stone Rain, and Pillage. If you really want to play LD, consider that strategy with some Magnivores.

[morgan_coke]

I think the most effective way to run dedicated mana denial in Legacy right now is to use a green base, not a black one.

Thermokarst, Ice Storm, Winter's Grasp, Wasteland, and Rishadan Port provide a 20-slot LD suite, and Fyndhorn/Llanowar Elves provide the acceleration needed for consistent early LD. Rancor and Garruk can turn your mana dudes into legitimate threats, and Harmonize and Witness provide draw/card advantage.

Say something like:

4x Llanowar Elf
4x Fyndhorn Elves
4x Boreal Druid
4x Eternal Witness

4x Garruk Wildspeaker
4x Harmonize
4x Rancor/Gaea's Anthem

4x Thermokarst
4x Ice Storm
4x Winter's Grasp

4x Wasteland
4x Rishadan Port
12x Forest

The real problem with decks like this though, is that they're pretty inflexible. That is, they can be made to do the LD thing well, but if they are, then they really aren't good at anything else. Which is a problem when their primary plan fails. Which is why the best LD decks in Legacy are Team America, Goblins, Eva Green, and 43 Lands. These decks all combine tempo-based mana denial with quick clocks and other forms of disruption. A dedicated LD deck combines mana-denial with.. more mana denial. Also, fetchlands make LD spells cry. As does Daze, the formats second most common counter.

[MMogg]

Not sure about Green as the only choice. Basically you could use black (as in the OPs list), which gives you access to hand destruction and creature destruction; or you could use green, which seems the most inflexible; or you could use red, which also has spot removal (burn) for first turn mana producers and red also gives access to land sweepers like Tectonic Break. There is another option of splashing white for Armageddon as well as – if you were running black – Vindicate.

My first "competitive" deck ever was Ponza, so I have a soft spot for it. Yet, soft spot or not, it has been supplanted in Legacy by Tempo Thresh. Wasteland and Stifle do exactly what old school Ponza was meant to do: delay your opponent a few turns so you could get out a beat stick (was Masticore or a big dragon) and beat them down in a few turns. Thresh does that well enough now because the beat stick is no longer 4 mana, but 2. LD was never about killing all your opponent's lands ad nauseum, rather, just long enough to give you a couple turns advantage so that they hadn't the ability to answer your threats. :g:,:r: or :b: based LD would have a hard time competing with a LD spell costing :u:.

[Kangaxx]

Aren't LD effects most effective with taxing effects such as Trinisphere and Sphere of Resistance etc.?

I'd definitely recommend Dues of Calamity. Then maybe cut the Rituals for Birds of Paradise.

[EssKay]

If you wanted to go with Green, I wouldn't bother with Deus, just run a Green Chalice Aggro shell with mana elves and Natural Order/Progenitus thrown in as a win-con. I'm stealing a list from ryO! as an example:

[2x] Llanowar Elves
[2x] Fyndhorn Elves
[4x] Tarmogoyf
[2x] Wickerbough Elder
[3x] Orhan Viper
[4x] Elvish Spirit Guide
[3x] Scryb Ranger
//spells
[4x] Natural Order
[4x] Chalice of the Void
[4x] Trinisphere
[3x] Garruk Wildspeaker
[3x] Umezawa's Jitte
[1x] SoFI
[1x] Progenitus
//Land
[8x] Forest
[4x] Misty Rainforest
[4x] Ancient Tomb
[4x] Wasteland

Take out Jitte, SoFI, Scryb Ranger, and Wickerbough Elder for Ice Storm and Thermokarst/Winter's Grasp. I would probably drop the Vipers for 2x Terravore and 1 more LD spell, and possibly replace Garruk with Root Maze, since you have a lot of non-land mana sources.

Still, I think this is marginally worse than GCA, and that mono-red may still be the way to go for modern LD.

[syssc9]

Back in the day (Oh lord, here I go again...) LD decks usually ran Nether Void to shut the opponent out and something simple like Black Vise would eat them alive. All you had to do was keep them below 3 mana... Today we have uncounterable creatures (Nether Void couters) etc, etc. but we also have Trinisphere and Sphere of Resistance as Kangaxx mentioned. I always had good luck with The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale for crowd controll. We also had Strip Mine back then, and no 1 or 2 land decks.

[EssKay]

Without a heavy discard package, LD will always get hosed by ANT and Belcher, and even with it Goblins/Merfolk is going to be a huge pain b/c of Vials. Basically everything in Legacy is a pain b/c almost every deck can run on 2-3 lands, so LD at this point is best as early game disruption. I wish it weren't so, I used to love running B/G LD with Black Vise and Strip Mine. Possibly one of the most annoying decks ever to play against.