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JCLe
12-07-2010, 10:13 PM
Introduction

This is a deck that I've been working on for the past few months. Please excuse my imperfect english as it is not my first language.

I will write a more in depth match-up analysis if this thread ever leaves the developmental area. The very brief introduction does not explain everything you've got on every match-up, and the crop rotation engine is very skill intensive as you have to be able to plan turns ahead against some match-ups. The main match-up where you basically have your own mistakes to blame most is goblins. Some no brainers include EOT Boseiju against blue or Bojuka Bog in response to VV trigger, etc.

Goal and brief match-ups

The goal is quite simple, it's the basic show and tell deck after all. The strategy differs from the usual one though. It is a cantrip heavy deck designed to pretty much crush most of aggro matchup (merfolk / survival are harder, merfolk is the worst match-up by far). It also pretty much never loses to counterbalance, and does fair against landstill. More even matchups are combo decks and sligh'ish strategies.

The crop rotation engine is very underrated right now as it completely nulls the wasteland tempo strategies (worst case scenario, you lose a land and a card, they lose their waste and a card(counter)) The basic idea is to semi-control until turn 3-4 (if you are slow on the find and have to fetch no mana lands)

Tested and to test ideas

I will try to update this as ideas come in. If you guys have good ideas as well, it will be posted here.

Lim-dûl's Vault

Some people might suggest a Lim-dûl's Vault variant to abuse Eureka more and improve the landstill matchup as well as adding more slower consistency to the deck. If you want to try it out, start with (+1 Eureka / -1 SnT, +4 Lim-dûl's Vault / -4 sorcery speed cantrips, -3 Progenitus / +3 Targets (Ex. 1 Form of the Dragon, 1 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker, 1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind).

A basic swamp and a second forest in that list is quite useful but costs some mana base consistency as far as turn 1 cantripping goes.

Decklist

Mana sources (20)

4x Tropical Island
4x Verdant Catacombs
4x Misty Rainforest
3x Lotus Petal
1x Forest
2x Island
2x Underground Sea

Land Toolbox (7)

1x Dryad Arbor
1x Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Karakas
1x Maze of ith (unsure about Mishra's Factory in lieu of this -> mana comes in handy sometimes. I prefer the maze for now)
1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

Spells (25)

4x Crop Rotation
4x Brainstorm
4x Force of Will (Total blue : 18, these get sided out often against non blue decks)
3x Preordain (I know I'll get bashed on for this, they've been treating me good)
3x Sensei's Divining Top
4x Show and Tell
3x Eureka

Creatures (7)

4x Emrakul, The Aeons Thorn
3x Progenitus

Sideboard

4x Form of the Dragon (amazing in alot of machups, esp. blue control)
4x Extirpate

(This part needs work, been testing a wasteland in here)
4x Vexing Susher
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Wipe Away
1x Echoing Truth

List commentary

A card that was tested intensively in the sideboard was elephant grass, and it was pretty good, although the matchups it improved were already fine.

Turn 1 SnT happens a bit, and turn 2 is more probable. That is what makes the non blue aggro matchup so good. Goblin is the only non blue matchup where I've lost some matches, although the new petal / tomb plan helps ALOT.

Conclusion

I'm getting pretty tired right now, I will expand this a little more as you guys post your questions and what not, I had a much more in depth strategy written out but my computer froze as I was almost done which is a little frustrating. The page sure looked better than this.

Please post suggestions as I will be able to answer constructively if I have already tried it, believe me this is far from the first draft of the deck.

Thank you for your help.

Gocho
12-08-2010, 04:41 AM
I suppose that the most common way to win is:

T1: Tropical/Island -> Cantrip
T2: Blue land + Petal/Crop Rotation (for Ancient Tomb) + S&T

If you have Eureka but not S&T, you go to T3.
Top is slower than Ponder. You play almost no defense, except for crop tricks, and need all the speed that you can get.

And you need something to slow combo decks in your SB, 4 Dispel seems a cheap option.

JCLe
12-08-2010, 11:43 AM
I suppose that the most common way to win is:

T1: Tropical/Island -> Cantrip
T2: Blue land + Petal/Crop Rotation (for Ancient Tomb) + S&T

If you have Eureka but not S&T, you go to T3.
Top is slower than Ponder. You play almost no defense, except for crop tricks, and need all the speed that you can get.

And you need something to slow combo decks in your SB, 4 Dispel seems a cheap option.

Top wrecks slow matchups though, that is mostly why it's included. It pretty much makes any hand keepable versus a reasonable clock if you have a couple fetches + a opener land.

I used to have a sideboard for combo, however most of the time the slots were needed in other matchups, I can see the bounce spells going out but that is pretty much it, the forms + extirpates make some matchups very good in your favor.

You don't necessarily need all the speed you can get, if you are talking about aggro match-ups (my guess since you said no defense)
versus zoo for example, a maze of ith turn 1 or 2 will slow them down considerably, and you can shut them down if they over commit 1 drops (3 creatures on turn 2) with the tabernacle. A constant turn 3-4 emrakul / progenitus drop is more than fine in alot of matchup considering you don't play versus god hands all the time and that you can get those broken draws as well.

Against vial wasteland matchups, if they waste you, its a tempo gain for yourself, and in a hand with no crops you can just cantrip to another land or whatever you need. Sure, merfolk isn't very easy, but goblins is not a match-up you hate to see.

I can see tops going out for dispels or pierce versus combo, it's definitely something I have to look into again.