Scapeshift, UGR

[woremak]

So I was watching the coverage of PT Amsterdam, and they said Scapeshift [/CARDS} was the most played deck of the weekend. Of course, these decks aren't really that similar to the ones from last extended season, which Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa piloted to a top 8 at GP Houston. I went and reread his tournament report and two things struck me.
1) Scapeshift is a very powerful combo that really only needs one card
2) The deck seems capable of beating creature based decks fairly easily

When I first played Scapeshift I was struck by the fact that it can virtually ignore what the opponent does and just kill out of nowhere. The immediate decrying counter-argument is that there are numerous decks in legacy that can do this, all of which require fewer than seven lands in play to win the game. But again, there are some more things which occurred to me while rereading PV's report.
1) Scapeshift is legitimately a one card combo. As opposed to Natural Order, which requires a creature in play, or Show and Tell, which requires a second card in hand, Scapeshift only needs to be cast to be effective (I understand that the seven lands are an important factor, but decks normally play out lands so this is less of a specific restriction)
2) Scapeshift kills and is not commonly answered. I've seen plenty of Emrakul's get Edicted, and the same goes for Progenitus. While Valakut can be stifled, I have seen fewer stifles of late, and that only stops one of the triggers.
3) The sideboard hate against a Valakut kill is narrow or not played. Cards like Runed Halo and Leyline of Sanctity, while answers, are uncommon cards and still easily answerable.
4) Seven lands is doable. I didn't see this as a reasonable factor, until I read the Death Cloud thread and realized that given the vast cardpool of legacy, getting seven lands into play is no big deal.
5) Firespout is really good right now. Look at the CounterTop lists from Columbus, it's a good reason to play red.
and finally:
6) If Jace, the Mind Sculptor breaks mirror matches, then playing acceleration to a get turn three Jace seems pretty good.

so here is my first draft of a scapeshift deck for legacy, pretty much taking the Top 8 deck from GP Houston and subbing out cards.

[CARDS]
4 Sakura Tribe-Elder
2 Wood Elves
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstrom
3 Spell Pierce
3 Firespout
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Search for Tomorrow
4 Ponder
4 Scapeshift
1 Counterspell
4 Taiga
4 Volcanic Island
2 Tropical Island
3 Forest
3 Island
1 Mountain
2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn


The manabase especially could be worked out a lot better, but I think this deck really has potential to compete and could be really good. Or it's entirely terrible, as is often the case with abstract conjecture. So the question is, can this work?

[Jeff Kruchkow]

Veteran Explorer. You already run your own way to kill him, might as well play it.

[Maveric78f]

Jace looks bad in a deck where you can hardly protect it. Spell Snares or additionnal Counterspells look better.

Also, you don't play enough fetches.

I highly doubt that 3*Firespout is enough to protect your ass, the time you find&putintoplay 7/8 lands and you find&resolve Scapeshift.

Wood Elves are too expensive, as proposed by Jeff, Veteran Explorer is awesome against anything Tribal. With him*4, I would even dare trying to replace Firespouts with Lightning Bolts or Fire/Ice (that can finish the opponent when Scapeshift is played @7 lands.

[martyr]

Veteran Explorer is kind of meh, he'll eat a lot of StPs in game one, and against decks that don't care if you have a 1/1, you're banking on it being a good idea to Firespout to kill him, as well as not caring that you give your opponent two lands. Couldn't you easily work the Scapeshift win into a CounterTop list? You'd have no (or few) creatures main, and the protection Counter/Top gives you against combo decks could shore up that match quite a lot.

EDIT: Coiling Oracle might be a bit better than Wood Elves or any of the other options, if you're trying to port a Ramp deck into Legacy.

4x Coiling Oracle
2x Sakura Tribe Elder
4x Veteran Explorer

4x Brainstorm
3x Sensei's Divining Top

4x Counterbalance
4x Force of Will
3x Spell Pierce
4x Firespout

4x Scapeshift

24x lands

I guess? I dunno, that's just off the top of my head. You could very easily splash other colors as well, given that you're going to be fetching quite a few lands. Black could get you Pernicious Deed, Thoughtseize, etc.

[idraleo]

Isn't Coiling Oracle better than Wood Elves or Veteran Explorer? He put's the land directly on the board, is Force pitchable, and at his worst he let you draw a card.

[Scatterbrain]

My version with black instead of blue, still really really sketchy, but I threw in the dark depths combo in case of leyline of sanctity, which should probably be boarded in with 4 living wishes. The Veteran Explorers are awesome with Cabal Therapy, and Reap and Sow is there over anything else because it can find Dark Depths. I originally had this with 4 scapeshifts and 3 pernicious deed/maelstrom pulse main, but I felt burning wish added a lot of consistency.

2 Thoughtseize
4 Vampire Hexmage
3 Wood Elves
3 Burning Wish
3 Crop Rotation
2 Reap and Sow
4 Search for Tomorrow
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Veteran Explorer
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Scapeshift

1 Dark Depths
2 Wooded Foothills
4 Taiga
2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Bayou
4 Badlands
2 Mountain
2 Forest
1 Swamp

Sideboard:
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Thoughtseize
1 Shattering Spree
3 Krosan Grip
1 Firespout
1 Scapeshift

[Gocho]

Reap and Sow is there over anything else because it can find Dark Depths.

If you use it only to find Dark Depths you can try Silvan scrying. Is cheaper, but put the card in your hand.

1-2 Flagstones of Trokair is a must have for any Valakut deck. Casting Scapeshift with 7 lands deals 18 damage.
But If you have 7 lands, with a single Flagstones in the board, you can turn it into letal.
- Cast Scapeshift, sacrifice all lands.
- Triggered effect of Flagstones brings Plateau.
- Resolve Scapeshift, seeking for 2 Valakut and 5 mountains dealing 30 damage.

You can add Harrow or Crop Rotation to make them better. But they are worse than other cards without Flagstone in the board.
Tithe could be an option, but is too situational to be better than Lay of the land, Search for tomorrow[cards] or [cards]Safewright Quest.

[woremak]

Yeah, Coiling Oracle seems a lot better than Wood Elves. As for Veteran Explorer, seems pretty good too.
You also have a ton of shuffle effects, which should mitigate the fetching problem. You need about 11-12 mountains for consistency, which explains some of the awkward four-ofs.
Jace could (should?) probably be cut, but I'd like to find a way to play more card draw then, as the deck can't really win without Scapeshift and he's okay at finding it.

The counterbalance idea is kind of cool, but when would you play counterbalance? If explorer is in the deck, then ideally you'd want to drop him t1/t2 to chump, and proceed to start searching for scapeshift/ramping more. When do you have time to set up the counterbalance lock, assuming you're in a race against an aggro deck? It seems like a fine sb strategy if you want to up percentage against combo, but doesn't really seem to work without a way to clean up an early mess (as firespout is good at stalling but bad against Goyf, etc.)

[martyr]

I like the black idea. The only real reasons people are playing red is for Burning Wish or to take advantage of Valakut being red-themed. The former is a good reason, the latter is not. So, you leave red out except for the red duals (obv) and the Firespout. Just pretend like it's not there. Your selective ramp, fetchlands, and card drawing gets you the colors for your action spells, with maybe one basic mountain for Firespout in relevant matchups, and leaves the rest of them in there when possible for Valakut.

Black gives you Innocent Blood (pretty damn good, answer to early Emrakul's, etc) and Cabal Therapy (sacs Explorer, Coiling Oracle isn't needed after it comes into play), as well as extra board control in the form of Deed if you need it.

Win Conditions
4x Scapeshift
2x Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle

Ramp
4x Coiling Oracle
4x Veteran Explorer

Disruption/Protection
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Force of Will
4x Innocent Blood
4x Firestorm
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder

Lands
22x Lands (other than Valakut)

Hitting an Oracle early game can get you a turn ahead, pushing your realistic fundamental turn to around 6 or 7, and a Veteran Explorer can do much, much more. In the meantime, you're cantripping, killing creatures, stripping their hand, and maybe even swinging for a bit. If I'm not mistaken, taking your opponent down to 15 (shouldn't be too crazy-hard, what with Force of Will and Fetchlands and all) you only need 6 lands to "go off", so swinging with your creatures up until the turn before you can go off might be really relevant.

Pretty blue light, so Force might have a hard time being cast. Of course, you could fiddle with the numbers a bit. I doubt 4x Firespouts are really needed, or Innocent Bloods, so you could easily cut one of each for a Jace TMS or two. Personal Tutor might also be an option, although the deck has no real card advantage, so it might be too much of a tempo loss.

[woremak]

I like the black idea. The only real reasons people are playing red is for Burning Wish or to take advantage of Valakut being red-themed. The former is a good reason, the latter is not. So, you leave red out except for the red duals (obv) and the Firespout. Just pretend like it's not there. Your selective ramp, fetchlands, and card drawing gets you the colors for your action spells, with maybe one basic mountain for Firespout in relevant matchups, and leaves the rest of them in there when possible for Valakut.

Black gives you Innocent Blood (pretty damn good, answer to early Emrakul's, etc) and Cabal Therapy (sacs Explorer, Coiling Oracle isn't needed after it comes into play), as well as extra board control in the form of Deed if you need it.

The real thing is, why play black? It makes all your basic land searching worse as you now have to play more nonbasics, and that also means a deck that's vulnerable to wastelands gets more vulnerable.
I think the RGB approach is interesting, but I'd like to focus on a blue-based version, at least in this thread.
I think the deck needs ten accelerants, at least, and that number should be higher if some of those are oracles, as without ponder/brainstorm set up they whiff more that half the time.
The current set I'm working with is:
4 Explorer
3 STE
4 Oracle
as hitting a land with oracle is sweet. I really like firespout a lot in this deck, but I agree it needs more anti-aggro stuff, and I'm thinking that it's really Goyf or Lightning Bolt...

[Scatterbrain]

The real thing is, why play black? It makes all your basic land searching worse as you now have to play more nonbasics, and that also means a deck that's vulnerable to wastelands gets more vulnerable.
I think the RGB approach is interesting, but I'd like to focus on a blue-based version, at least in this thread.
I think the deck needs ten accelerants, at least, and that number should be higher if some of those are oracles, as without ponder/brainstorm set up they whiff more that half the time.
The current set I'm working with is:
4 Explorer
3 STE
4 Oracle
as hitting a land with oracle is sweet. I really like firespout a lot in this deck, but I agree it needs more anti-aggro stuff, and I'm thinking that it's really Goyf or Lightning Bolt...

Yea, this is ther reason I had 4 goys in the board of the list I posted above. The matchup against zoo is terrible since your fundamental turn is going to always be one behind theirs unless you draw a firespout/pernicious deed or something, but generally a cabal therapy stripping a goyf and another card will buy you the extra turn you need. With 4 goyfs you are able to stall everything they have or draw out burn spells early. They also give you a fast clock against other combo decks.

You fundamental turn assuming you go all in on on scapeshift and draw into it will be turn 4 or turn 5, and a splash will probably low that down by a turn, but the tradeoff is that you get to play disruption in the form or Force of Will or Cabal Therapy/Thoughtsieze.

Also, either splash does not need to make you basic land searching any worse - you are almost always finding Forests. I also was testing Hunting Wilds before I went with the Depths combo too - it will fetch Bayou and Taiga, and also provides a win condition in case all of your Scapeshifts get countered.

[woremak]

I'm sorry, I wasn't terribly clear, the why play black was directed towards a four-color deck, not a three color one.

[kravkenov]

Howdy,

I usually play 43 lands (RUG version), but these days I try to find a kind of control Scapeshift/Valakut deck.
I just found the one from Marshall Arthurs, 14th at SCG Pittsburgh 31 july 2011.
Yes, it is a bit outdated, but can we make a little update to see if this is a viable competitive deck ?

For reference, here is Marshall's list from SCG : http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/deck/769


// Main Deck
4 Exploration
4 Explore
4 Force of Will
4 Intuition
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Life from the Loam
4 Prismatic Omen
2 Punishing Fire
2 Scapeshift

1 Forgotten Cave
2 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Maze of Ith
1 Mishra's Factory
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Stomping Ground
4 Taiga
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Tropical Island
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
4 Volcanic Island
2 Wasteland

// Sideboard
1 Academy Ruins
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
3 Mindbreak Trap
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Scapeshift
2 Sower of Temptation
3 Sundial of the Infinite

[Nihilis]

There is a Scapeshift version in Jund colors in the Nic Fit thread, which might be interesting to get some ideas from. Also, I believe Arianrhod (the maker of the Nic Fit ScapeWish deck) was going to work on a RUG version so it could be interesting to swap ideas or keep track of develoments.

Having played the ScapeWish deck myself to decent succes, I can only say that Scapeshift is certainly viable in Legacy.

[kravkenov]

I already saw the Nic Fit Jund Scapeshift thread.
The thing is that I really want to stay in RUG color.
Veteran Explorer + Cabal Therapy are extremly strong against deck that dosent run basics.
But with Miracle and UR/Delver running both basics, and being deck to beat (or at least popular decks), I dont think giving them more mana from Veteran will help to *not lose against them*.

Marshall's list dosent give basic to opponent while staying close to 43 Lands strategy.
Plus I very like Sundial of Infinite in Sideboard, I always wish to find it a home (;