U/B/g The Mind Harvester [Archive]

Hanni

08-02-2011, 08:04 PM

It's the Mind Harvester!

This is a deck inspired by various Intuition/Loam decks from the past. Back in 2006, I put a little bit of development into a deck called Aggro DAT (Dredge-a-Tog). Later, I helped Goaswerfraiejen and Solpugid develop a similar deck that took many names (first TarmoTog, then Intuition-Thresh, and most recently River Rock). I also contributed a little bit to a deck called "It's the Fear!"

Fast forward to Fall 2011.

This deck is a control deck built around the Intuition/Loam engine. I've tried experimenting with Intuition/Loam in several blue-based aggro/control shells lately, but the deck has turned into a pure control deck everytime I'm done tuning it. The slow nature of Intuition/Loam has proven (to me) to be more effective in a control shell.

I think the name itself should be pretty obvious as you examine the decklist.

Current Decklist (as of 8/27/2020)

UGbw Yorion Intuition

Lands (28)
3 Prismatic Vista
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
2 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
3 Snow-covered Island
1 Snow-covered Forest
1 Snow-covered Swamp
1 Snow-covered Plains
1 Cabal Pit
1 Karakas
1 Blast Zone
4 Wasteland
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Field of the Dead
1 Dark Depths

Creatures (10)
4 Ice-Fang Coatl
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath

Spells (42)
2 Oko, Thief of Crowns
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
4 Arcum's Astrolabe
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Intuition
2 Life from the Loam
4 Exploration
4 Force of Will
2 Force of Negation
4 Thoughtseize
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Abrupt Decay

Sideboard (15)
1 Yorion, Sky Nomad
1 Narset, Parter of Veils
1 Ashiok, Dream Render
2 Force of Negation
3 Veil of Summer
2 Force of Vigor
1 Assassin's Trophy
2 Dead of Winter
2 Surgical Extraction

Old Decklist (as of 8/6/2011)

U/B/g The Mind Harvester

// Lands (23)
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
4 [R] Underground Sea
2 [R] Tropical Island
1 [R] Bayou
2 [UNH] Island
1 [UNH] Swamp
1 [UNH] Forest
2 [ON] Lonely Sandbar
1 [OD] Cabal Pit
1 [TE] Wasteland

// Spells (37)
1 [EVE] Worm Harvest
4 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 [IA] Brainstorm
4 [TE] Intuition
1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
4 [IA] Counterspell
4 [AL] Force of Will
2 [LRW] Thoughtseize
1 [US] Duress
1 [EVE] Raven's Crime
2 [OD] Ghastly Demise
2 [OD] Innocent Blood
1 [TE] Diabolic Edict
2 [MBS] Go for the Throat
4 [AP] Pernicious Deed

// Sideboard (15)
SB: 4 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
SB: 2 [PLC] Damnation
SB: 2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 2 [M10] Pithing Needle
SB: 1 [ON] Gigapede
SB: 1 [IA] Zuran Orb
SB: 1 [SOM] Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 1 [WWK] Bojuka Bog
SB: 1 [TSP] Academy Ruins

Original Decklist:

U/B/g The Mind Harvester

// Lands (23)
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
4 [R] Underground Sea
2 [R] Tropical Island
1 [R] Bayou
2 [UNH] Island
1 [UNH] Swamp
2 [ON] Lonely Sandbar
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
1 [SH] Volrath's Stronghold
1 [TE] Wasteland

// Creatures (3)
3 [LRW] Shriekmaw

// Spells (34)
1 [EVE] Worm Harvest
4 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 [IA] Brainstorm
4 [TE] Intuition
1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
1 [EVE] Raven's Crime
4 [IA] Counterspell
4 [AL] Force of Will
2 [OD] Innocent Blood
2 [ON] Smother
3 [FD] Engineered Explosives
4 [SH] Mox Diamond

// Sideboard (15)
SB: 4 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
SB: 2 [AP] Pernicious Deed
SB: 2 [PLC] Damnation
SB: 2 [M10] Pithing Needle
SB: 1 [ALA] Fleshbag Marauder
SB: 1 [TO] Llawan, Cephalid Empress
SB: 1 [IA] Zuran Orb
SB: 1 [SOM] Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 1 [WWK] Bojuka Bog

Fundamentally, the deck does what your average blue-based control deck does: destroy some creatures, draw some cards, counter some spells, and then drop a Jace TMS. It is the way that this deck goes about doing those things that seperates it from other similar control decks.

There's no fancy way of saying it; this deck abuses the graveyard. This opens the deck up to graveyard hate postboard, but it gives the deck a tremendous amount of power that is worth the Achilles Heel.

Intuition/Loam is a monster of a card advantage engine. It's slower than the more commonly played Standstill and Ancestral Visions, but it is far more powerful.

On it's own, casting Life from the Loam grants the same card advantage as Standstill. While it only draws lands instead of business, the deck has numerous means to convert the lands into business, and honestly... how often does a Standstill draw a grip of lands anyway?

Some people think Intuition is overpowered in a deck like Hive Mind, where it is essentially a Demonic Tutor for 3. What many people fail to realize, is that Intuition in a Loam shell, is essentially 3 Demonic Tutors for 3.

Intuition for Life from the Loam and Worm Harvest is extremely underrated, and incredibly powerful. Loam itself ramps into the necessary mana for Harvest, quickly and easily. Spamming 1/1 tokens on the board helps to stabilize the ground against aggro, and gives the deck a near impossible to deal with win condition against control. By midgame, it's not out of the question to go into Empty the Warrens-mode and spam out 10 1/1 tokens a turn.

Intuition also sets up alot of other powerful engines.

Raven's Crime turns every land into a discard spell. While Raven's Crime may be lackluster against aggro decks that drop their entire hand in the first few turns, it absolutely destroys opposing control and combo decks, which do in fact make up a big portion of the metagame. Some people think the best way to resolve a Jace TMS is to cast a Vendilion Clique first to clear the way; I happen to think casting Mind Twist is better.

Academy Ruins and Volrath's Stronghold set up the ability to recur removal. Between 3 Shriekmaw and 3 Engineered Explosives, one of them is bound to end up in the graveyard prior to casting an Intuition. The 3rd card in the Intuition pile (since you're likely grabbing Loam and Harvest) is usually going to be the missing piece to whatever removal combo is available. If both Shriekmaw and Engineered Eplosives are in the graveyard, then the choice becomes dependant on the particular matchup and situation.

Shriekmaw itself is extremely underrated. While Shriemkaw may be a little more conditional than the other normally conditional black removal spells, there are many benefits associated with the elemental. As a creature, he is able to destroy Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and Bridge from Below. Additionally, hardcasting Shriekmaw is really good; they lose a guy, and you get a 3/2 body with Fear. The body itself can block/trade with an attacker, or can itself become an evasive attacker/win condition. In this deck, with Volrath's Stronghold, the Maw is amawzing.

The removal package is rounded out with a diverse package. Some sacrifice effects, some targeted effects, and EE's can deal with a wide variety of permanents. With Mox Diamond, EE can easily deal with 4cc stuff, and even hit 5cc stuff sometimes.

Force of Will and Counterspell are bread and butter, respectively. They are the glue which holds the deck together, answering most of the randomness you might find in the format. The deck does not run Spell Snare and Mental Misstep because the deck does not need narrow countermagic; it has a various array of removal to deal with early resolved stuff instead. Nothing is worse than holding a grip of Mental Misstep and Spell Snare, only to watch the opponent cast a Show and Tell, Natural Order, Jace TMS, or whatever the case may be.

Jace TMS is Jace TMS. 4 copies has been great in testing.

The singleton Wasteland gives the deck answers to problematic lands like manlands, is tutorable, and can be recurred.

Lonely Sandbar and Life from the Loam go hand in hand. Sandbar pitches to Mox Diamond's early, cantrips during a land flood, and converts lands into business once Loam is online. Postboard, it can used to effectively prevent most forms of graveyard hate from hitting Loam.

Mox Diamond and Life from the Loam go hand in. The acceleration into turn 2 Intuition and/or turn 3 Jace TMS should not be overlooked. Against a deck where the difference between 1cc removal and 2cc removal is relevant (like Goblins and Zoo), a turn 1 Mox Diamond fixes my "heavy with 2cc removal" problem.

I think that about covers everything concerning the maindeck. The sideboard is still in its testing phases, and so for now, I will leave that area up for discussion. However, I have been pleased with it so far. There are way too many available options though, so there is no way this deck will ever have a perfect sideboard.

EDIT: WOAH. Post 1,666... for a thread I title'd The Mind Harvester. Interesting...

woremak

08-02-2011, 08:50 PM

I'd consider an E. Witness, largely just so you can get more value out of Volrath's Stronghold. Plus, it's kind of cute with Innocent Blood.

Hanni

08-02-2011, 09:04 PM

I'd consider an E. Witness, largely just so you can get more value out of Volrath's Stronghold. Plus, it's kind of cute with Innocent Blood.

I had considered him for the immediate +1 CA, but I have no idea how to fit him in. The maindeck is extremely tight, and there is no spell in the deck that I think Eternal Witness would be better than.

Aside from that, the Stronghold -> Witness plan is rediculously slow. Unless he's grabbing something cheap like Innocent Blood or Brainstorm, I should be in a dominating game state if I can recur him with Stronghold, cast him, and then cast the spell I got back.

I know ITF used to run him, but man was that deck slow as balls.

woremak

08-02-2011, 09:08 PM

I hear that, but if you're looking for space I could see cutting a Shriekmaw. That said, a deck playing 4x Jace probably has more than enough CA to worry about anything like that.

Dsch

08-02-2011, 09:43 PM

Awesome deck mate, seriously.
A question from someone thinking about sleeving it up: how do you play around the games 2 and 3 grave hate?

Hanni

08-02-2011, 09:46 PM

After playtesting, I'm thinking 4 Lonely Sandbar's is way too many. Too many inconsistent openers, and this deck doesn't need cycling the same way Aggro Loam does.

-2 Lonely Sandbar
+1 Tropical Island
+1 Bayou

Greenpoe

08-02-2011, 11:19 PM

Have you tried Maelstrom Pulse over EE? EE recurs with ruins, but Pulse can kill Tombstalker, 4 CMC stuff, and it's cheaper if you're going for anything other than a zero/one-drop.

Only 1 Wasteland? I see that you've already got Ruins and Stronghold tapping for colorless, but still you can pitch extra Wastes to Diamond or retrace or Brainstorm/Jace it away.

Why not Smallpox? You've got Loam+friends, so losing a land isn't a big deal.

klaus

08-03-2011, 07:41 AM

4 intuition seems greedy.
And your creature hate suite deserves pimpage, which is, why id go -1 intuitiOn + 1 spotremoval/shackles

Hanni

08-03-2011, 05:22 PM

Awesome deck mate, seriously.
A question from someone thinking about sleeving it up: how do you play around the games 2 and 3 grave hate?

Thanks. Grave hate is only a hinderance, not a deterrent. Without the graveyard, the deck is still very similar to a deck like UBG Landstill in that it destroys creatures, counters spells, and the drops a Jace TMS.

Against traditional graveyard hate like Tormod's Crypt and Relic of Progenitus, the deck plays around those by holding a Lonely Sandbar in hand and floating a U. That way, if they hit the graveyard, you can still return your Life from the Loam. You lose everything else that was in the graveyard, unfortunately, but the deck doesn't actually need the graveyard to win the game; it just makes it alot easier.

Extirpate on Loam can be an issue, but the deck can still get value out of an already on-board Ruins/Stronghold, and Worm Harvest can still be cast via topdecked lands.

Aside from Extirpate, there's also the option to counter their graveyard hate.

Have you tried Maelstrom Pulse over EE? EE recurs with ruins, but Pulse can kill Tombstalker, 4 CMC stuff, and it's cheaper if you're going for anything other than a zero/one-drop.

Only 1 Wasteland? I see that you've already got Ruins and Stronghold tapping for colorless, but still you can pitch extra Wastes to Diamond or retrace or Brainstorm/Jace it away.

Why not Smallpox? You've got Loam+friends, so losing a land isn't a big deal.

I had considered Maelstrom Pulse for the sideboard, but ultimately decided it wasn't worth it. Tombstalker is one of the only creatures that is hard to deal with. 2 Innocent Blood maindeck and 2 Damnation sideboard should be enough ways to deal with it, unless of course you expect alot of Tombstalker in your meta. In that case, I would drop the 2 Smother or 2 Innocent Blood for 2 Maelstrom Pulse.

Engineered Explosives is not a spell that should be dropped from this deck. It may be slow, but it can act as a sweeper against many decks, and the recursion with Ruins is a huge component of this deck. Engineered Explosives is really, really good.

I only run 1 Wasteland because this deck is not a tempo aggro/control deck. This is a mana hungry control deck. I want to consistently make land drops every turn, not aggressively destroy my opponent's lands. This deck is also fairly color intensive at times. The singleton Wasteland is there as a means of dealing with utility lands and manlands. Since Smother also deals with manlands, the deck essentially has 3 removal spells to deal with manlands, one of which can be tutored with Intuition and recurred with Life from the Loam.

With Ruins and Stronghold already being nonbasic lands that tap for colorless, more Wasteland's are only going to weaken the decks manabase. The fact that I can shuffle extras away or pitch them to Mox Diamond does not change the fact that they will cause more inconsistent starts from not having the proper colored mana sources. I could see maybe cutting 1 Bayou for 1 Wasteland, going up to 2 copies; that may actually be a good idea. More than 2 just seems very greedy.

Preboard, Worm Harvest is another way of dealing with manlands. Postboard, Pithing Needles can come in as additional answers to manlands.

As far as Smallpox goes, I have not tried it yet. This deck is not built around attacking the opponent's manabase, though. I can see a version running Tabernacle, Sinkhole, etc making good use out of Smallpox. In this particular deck, Smallpox is going to be much worse than Innocent Blood more often than not. This is a mana hungry control deck. I want my land drops. Smallpox does the opposite.

4 intuition seems greedy.
And your creature hate suite deserves pimpage, which is, why id go -1 intuitiOn + 1 spotremoval/shackles

Why is 4 Intuition greedy? Intuition is to this deck as Standstill is to UGB Landstill. Intuition is my draw engine. 2U may cost 1 more than Standstill, but with Mox Diamond, I can accelerate into it. It's also instant speed, which means I can stay untapped to cast Smother, Counterspell, Brainstorm, etc, if I need to; I cast it EOT when I'm able to.

There are also plenty of targets for Intuition, so it's not like it's dead in multiples. Even in a situation where I no longer need Intuitions, the deck has 4 Brainstorm and 4 Jace TMS to shuffle it away, and 4 Force of Will to pitch it to. Fact is, I want to see Intuition every game, and the sooner the better. 4 Intuition is as much the right number as 4 Jace TMS is. In fact, I'd sooner cut 1 Jace TMS from this deck before I'd cut an Intuition.

As far as the removal goes, I wouldn't mind having an 11th removal spell. The deck has been performing just fine with 10, though. The fact that this deck has the ability to recur its removal spells increases the actual removal density to a much higher count than 10. Also, don't forget that Worm Harvest can essentially be considered a removal spell, and Jace's -1 (bounce) adds additional creature control as well.

As far as Shackles specifically, this deck cannot support it very well. My UW Control deck runs 3, because it's absolutely amazing in that deck. In here, I run too many non-Islands, and only 1 basic Island, to really make Shackles work properly. I had originally tried it, because I frickin love that card, but it just doesn't work that well in here. Maybe as a singleton to tutor for postboard against a deck like Merfolk it could be good, but against any deck with Tarmogoyf or anything larger than a 3/x, it's pretty bad.

The Treefolk Master

08-03-2011, 05:48 PM

Hanni

08-03-2011, 05:56 PM

Is the acceleration provided by the Moxes really necessary? I mean, you're in no hurry to play your spells..

I could however by biassed by my lack of moxes.

As you're running Loam, isn't Dust Bowl superior to Wasteland? By casting Loam, you can destroy 3 lands, while with Wasteland you only kill 1.

What do you think of adding a basic forest?

The acceleration provided by Mox Diamond is awesome. Turn 1 Shriekmaw/Smother is great against aggro, and turn 2 Intuition sets the deck up very quickly. Accelerating into Worm Harvest is incredibly powerful, and have you ever cast a turn 3 Jace TMS? It's pretty awesome. The recurring removal engines are fairly mana hungry, and Mox Diamond helps to speed that up. Turn 1 Counterspell is amazing against fast combo decks. Postboard, turn 2 Deed and turn 3 Damnation are also really good against aggro decks.

There are some games where I have a hand with a Mox in it that I don't use, because I don't need the accel. In these cases, I usually hold onto it until I hit Brainstorm, Jace TMS, or Intuition/Loam. In the case of Brainstorm/Jace TMS, I just shuffle it away. In the case of Intuition/Loam, the extra accel in the midgame is great. The cases where I don't use Mox early are few and far between though; the only time I don't is against slower decks, and this format is pretty fast.

Dust Bowl is better in a deck that doesn't use Life from the Loam. With Life from the Loam, Wasteland is alot stronger. With Dust Bowl, you're still losing a land drop, except it's costing you 3 mana vs Wasteland being free.

I am not opposed to running a basic Forest, and have considered it. The deck runs 1 Life from the Loam as its only green spell though (since Worm Harvest can be cast for black mana), so it's a totally useless color until you draw Loam/cast Intuition, outside of casting EE@3. Don't forget that Mox Diamond can provide green, and is also immune to Wasteland.

I can see a basic Forest becoming more necessary postboard if I bring in Pernicious Deed or Viridian Zealot. For now, I've been doing fine without it, but I wouldn't disagree with those who would prefer to add a basic Forest.

Anusien

08-03-2011, 06:32 PM

3 Shriekmaw 0 Fleshbag Marauder is almost certainly wrong.

There are no tools in here to beat Hive Mind.

Hanni

08-03-2011, 06:41 PM

LOL. I haven't seen you around in such a long time, and the first post I do see is in my thread, about Hive Mind. :)

Fleshbag Marauder certainly is a good option. I had considered it as a sideboard option, but forgot to include it in my sideboard for some reason, and that probably is wrong.

Maindeck though, it's a tough call. 3cc for a sac effect is iffy. Definitely great for dealing with Progenitus, and it can deal with Phyrexian Dreadnought and Tombstalker. I shall consider such things. I don't think discluding it from the maindeck is "most certainly wrong" though. As a control deck, something like that is meta dependant. Shriekmaw is alot better against a deck like Zoo or Merfolk, for example, which are arguably worse matchups for this deck than decks packing Phyrexian Dreadnought, Progenitus, or Tombstalker.

As far as tools to beat Hive Mind. Heh. Counterspell and Force of Will gives me 8 hard counters that I can cast as early as turn 1 via Mox Diamond. If they take too long to sculpt, or the countermagic can slow them down long enough, Raven's Crime is an absolute blow out. If they try to go off early with Emrakul, I have Shriekmaw. Hive Mind does NOT always have the turn 2 Hive Mind, as much as all the whiners in the [Let's bitch about] Show and Tell thread would disagree.

Postboard, the extra 4 Spell Pierce give me plenty of time to setup Raven's Crime for the blow out. Plus, if I have a Mox Diamond on the board, paying 4R for a Pact of the Titan is fun.

I do loathe when people do absolutely no playtesting and then make blank statements about how X deck gets demolished by Y deck, or X deck has no outs to Y spell, or... you get the point. Thanks for reminding me about Fleshbag Marauder, though.

I'm going to cut 1 Virdian Zealot for 1 Fleshbag Marauder in my sideboard, since Virdian Zealot is unecessary. The OP decklist has also been edited to reflect this change.

Mon,Goblin Chief

08-03-2011, 07:23 PM

Hanni

08-03-2011, 07:35 PM

Love the concept, though I have to say I hate your manabase.

First and foremost, you want more lands to support Moxes (you will generally need three lands in your starting hand to make Moxen actually good enough). I'd go to at least 24, probably adding a Wasteland (Intuition for Loam, double Wasteland makes mana-denial a very potent strategy if the opportunity arises without forcing you to give up every drawstep). You might even want to consider a Maze or two in removal-slots because it can be Intuitioned for and will enable Moxen even if it doesn't produce mana itself.

I haven't had many issues with the manabase, though I agree that the 2nd Bayou should probably be a 3rd Tropical Island or 2nd Island.

24 Mox Diamond is the generally accepted number for decks like Aggro Loam that do not run Brainstorm. 4 Brainstorm's easily make up for running 1 less land. 24 lands with Mox Diamond would be better, and I had originally tried really really hard to keep the deck at 24 lands. What spell is worth cutting to fit it though?

Maze of Ith is mostly unecessary in here. Good card, but I rarely have issues with single large attackers that don't have Protection From Everything, etc. Without a hard sweeper like Damnation maindeck, forcing the opponent to overextend because of Maze of Ith doesn't help me as much as it would otherwise. It's definitely not bad, and being tutorable is nice, but Maze of Ith essentially sets me back a land drop. I'd rather have a hard removal spell in most cases. Might be good as a sideboard option, but I think it would dilute the maindeck.

I'll edit the OP decklist to include 1 Bayou and 2 Island (which may become 1 Bayou and 3 Tropical Island later).

In addition I think you want a single off-color dual to reliably be able to EE for 4 (Jace again).

Honestly, I'm not too worried about having more ways to answer opposing Jaces. Jace is something that I do want to be able to deal with, but the deck has more ways than just EE@4 to deal with it. I run 4 Jace of my own to Vindicate opposing Jaces, and Worm Harvest tokens are very savage at assassinating opposing Jaces. This deck has a really good opposing control matchup as is; is weakening the manabase by running an off-color dual worth it? I'm not so sure. Not gonna rule this one out, though.

Some non-mana related comments:
I think making room for Mental Misstep over some of the spot-removal is probably a good idea. The ability to interact on turn 0 with most of the format is something that I've learned to love more and more the more I play with the card.

I know that everyone in the format thinks Mental Misstep is nuts and belongs in nearly every deck (I'm not saying that you do, just saying that in general), but I don't. When evaluating Mental Misstep in a deck like this, it is important to consider what problematic 1cc spells this deck has to worry about (since not all decks value the opponent's spells equally), and what spells I would have to remove to fit it in.

Vial, Top, Nacatl, and Lackey. Those are the only 4 relevant 1cc spells that I can think of that I would want a turn 0 answer to.

*I've smashed Goblins the last 4 times I've played against it, so I'm not too concerned with Lackey.

*I run 10 removal spells to deal with Nacatl, and although a fast Zoo start can be problematic, the 2 life loss is relevant.

*Top is a problem, but most decks running Top are slower matchups, which I tend to have a very strong matchup against as is.

*Vial is definitely worth Misstep'ing, but I do run EE MD and Deed/Needle postboard. Mental Misstep is pretty lousy against everything else Merfolk would cast, and the 2 life loss is extremely relevant in that matchup.

Regardless, Mental Misstep is still very good against those 4 spells.

However, in most every other situation, Mental Misstep is going to be a narrow counterspell that doesn't deal with the problems I need it to. Counterspell, on the other hand, does exactly what I want it to. UU is very easy for this deck to achieve, and there are far more spells with a cc larger than 1 that require me to have an answer to them.

I don't run Standstill, so I don't need to clear the board turn 1 so I can resolve a turn 2 Standstill. I also run Mox Diamond, which enables turn 1 Counterspell/Shriekmaw/Smother.

I guess basically what I'm saying is, Mental Misstep is definitely a good card, but what would it replace in this deck, exactly? Counterspell is a much better spell for this deck, and the additional removal seems more relevant than a conditional counter that costs me 2 life.

There are many decks that I play that run Mental Misstep, that gain a tremendous amount of benefit from doing so. I don't think this deck gains nearly as much. If I didn't run Mox Diamond's, I would likely run Mental Misstep instead.

Trying out a Shackles like klaus suggested also seems like a very good idea.

Anyone who has paid attention to my U/W/x CounterTop Walker and Countertop Superfriends threads knows how much I love this card. My manabase has gained several more Islands since the last time I tried Shackles in here, so maybe I'll try it again. I'm still skeptical about my Island count, but we'll see.

SB-options:
Darkblast should be considered, I think, just because it's easily accessible and very good against a number of cards/decks (Confidant, Lavamancer).
Maelstrom Pulse is also something I'd want, simply because there are so many Jaces in the format.
Thoughtseize seems much better than Spell Pierce simply because it gives you a second angle of attack against combo.
I'd also consider a random Ensnaring Bridge just because a number of decks just lose to it and you could stay low on cards if you so choose.

All good options, aside from Ensaring Bridge. This deck will rarely, if ever, stay low on cards. Unlike a deck like Countertop Thopters, this deck is all about card advantage. Forcing myself to keep a low hand count, to try and use an anti-aggro tool that is mostly unecessary since I already run a large number of removal spells, doesn't seem like it's worth the hassle.

Hanni

08-03-2011, 09:51 PM

Just because Anusien brought it up, I thought it would be interesting to share this.

I just 2-1'd SNT Hive Mind on MWS (take it for what you will).

In game 1, he EOT Intuitions, which I Counterspell. He EOT Intuitions again. I have a fetch in play, cast Brainstorm, draw nothing relevant, crack fetch, let it resolve. He grabs 3 Show and Tells. On his turn, he casts Show and Tell. I have a fetch in play, cast Brainstorm, draw nothing relevant, crack fetch, let it resolve. He drops an Emrakul. Ok, sweet, I have a Shriekmaw in hand. Next turn, I untap, cast Shriekmaw. He has the FoW. I cast Brainstorm, draw nothing relevant, lose. I also cycled two Lonely Sandbar's during the game. 3 Brainstorms and 2 Sandbar's deep, 1 Counterspell and 1 Shriekmaw? Ouch. I lose to Emrakul of all things. I have 9 maindeck answers to a resolved Emrakul, not counting the countermagic, Intuition (which can grab 3x FoW if necessary), and Raven's Crime. Oh well.

-2 Smother
-3 Engineered Explosives
+4 Spell Snare
+1 Fleshbag Marauder

I dominated both postboard games. Between Spell Pierce, Counterspell, and Force of Will, my opponent simply was unable to resolve anything.

In game 2, I had an early Brainstorm into FoW + Spell Pierce for a Show and Tell + FoW. I got a nice speed boost early from a Mox Diamond, which EOT accelerated me into a Loam/Crime/Harvest pile off of an EOT Intuition. Two turns of Raven's Crime and he had no hand, and then on the following turn when I made a bunch of 1/1 tokens, he scooped.

In game 3, I countered two early Show and Tell's, one he had FoW backup for (I think I had something like 1 Pierce, 1 CS, 1 FoW + blue spell). On turn 4, I dropped a Jace, and started drawing cards. He tried several attempts to hardcast a Hive Mind a little later on, and for one of those I actually had to use Intuition to grab 3 FoW (pitching a Jace), which I was hoping to use to setup a Crime-lock the following turn. I cast another Intuition a little later on, that he had a Ravenous Trap for. I had 3 Spell Pierce in my hand at this point (he had 4 Islands and a Grim Monolith, after I hit his Ancient Tomb with a Wasteland), and decided to Fateseal. Fateseal did the trick, as I never needed to use the 3 Spell Pierce sitting in my hand. He scooped after Jace hit 13 counters, and his following draw step yielding nothing relevant.

In game 3, after he scooped, he showed me a hand of 4 Pacts, 2 Emrakul's, and 1 Spell Pierce.

I love how dropping a Jace on an empty board shuts down 4 of his win conditions. Having the opponent rely solely on Hive Mind getting there is nice. In the meantime, Jace keeps drawing me cards so that I have more answers than he can deal with, ultimately fatesealing him once I feel comfortable in doing so. Go go Inspector Jace!

Mon,Goblin Chief

08-04-2011, 06:14 AM

I haven't had many issues with the manabase, though I agree that the 2nd Bayou should probably be a 3rd Tropical Island or 2nd Island.

24 Mox Diamond is the generally accepted number for decks like Aggro Loam that do not run Brainstorm. 4 Brainstorm's easily make up for running 1 less land. 24 lands with Mox Diamond would be better, and I had originally tried really really hard to keep the deck at 24 lands. What spell is worth cutting to fit it though?

Maze of Ith is mostly unecessary in here. Good card, but I rarely have issues with single large attackers that don't have Protection From Everything, etc. Without a hard sweeper like Damnation maindeck, forcing the opponent to overextend because of Maze of Ith doesn't help me as much as it would otherwise. It's definitely not bad, and being tutorable is nice, but Maze of Ith essentially sets me back a land drop. I'd rather have a hard removal spell in most cases. Might be good as a sideboard option, but I think it would dilute the maindeck.
I hate relying on Brainstorm to fix my mana woes for me. I also always add one more land once I'm done building my decks, though ;)
Maze was more meant as a way to turn one of your removals into a Mox enabler than anything else, btw (also bringing you to 24 lands).

I'll edit the OP decklist to include 1 Bayou and 2 Island (which may become 1 Bayou and 3 Tropical Island later).

Honestly, I'm not too worried about having more ways to answer opposing Jaces. Jace is something that I do want to be able to deal with, but the deck has more ways than just EE@4 to deal with it. I run 4 Jace of my own to Vindicate opposing Jaces, and Worm Harvest tokens are very savage at assassinating opposing Jaces. This deck has a really good opposing control matchup as is; is weaking the manabase by running an off-color dual worth it? I'm not so sure. Not gonna rule this one out, though.

Jace is so powerful if it stays in play for a turn or two (I know you know that) that I'd definitely want an easily Intuitionable answer. It doesn't even end with Jace (he's just the worst offender). Something like Elspeth also needs an answer ASAP. Honestly, you will get Wastelanded a lot anyway with that manabase so making the second basic Island you just added or the remaining Bayou into a Tundra/Volc doesn't seem like much of a cost to power up your EEs significantly.

I know that everyone in the format thinks Mental Misstep is nuts and belongs in nearly every deck (I'm not saying that you do, just saying that in general), but I don't. When evaluating Mental Misstep in a deck like this, it is important to consider what problematic 1cc spells this deck has to worry about (since not all decks value the opponent's spells equally), and what spells I would have to remove to fit it in.

Vial, Top, Nacatl, and Lackey. Those are the only 4 relevant 1cc spells that I can think of that I would want a turn 0 answer to.

*I've smashed Goblins the last 4 times I've played against it, so I'm not too concerned with Lackey.

*I run 10 removal spells to deal with Nacatl, and although a fast Zoo start can be problematic, the 2 life loss is relevant.

*Top is a problem, but most decks running Top are slower matchups, which I tend to have a very strong matchup against as is.

*Vial is definitely worth Misstep'ing, but I do run EE MD and Deed/Needle postboard. Mental Misstep is pretty lousy against everything else Merfolk would cast, and the 2 life loss is extremely relevant in that matchup.

Regardless, Mental Misstep is still very good against those 4 spells.

However, in most every other situation, Mental Misstep is going to be a narrow counterspell that doesn't deal with the problems I need it to. Counterspell, on the other hand, does exactly what I want it to. UU is very easy for this deck to achieve, and there are far more spells with a cc larger than 1 that require me to have an answer to them.

I don't run Standstill, so I don't need to clear the board turn 1 so I can resolve a turn 2 Standstill. I also run Mox Diamond, which enables turn 1 Counterspell/Shriekmaw/Smother.

I guess basically what I'm saying is, Mental Misstep is definitely a good card, but what would it replace in this deck, exactly? Counterspell is a much better spell for this deck, and the additional removal seems more relevant than a conditional counter that costs me 2 life.

There are many decks that I play that run Mental Misstep, that gain a tremendous amount of benefit from doing so. I don't think this deck gains nearly as much. If I didn't run Mox Diamond's, I would likely run Mental Misstep instead.

Blanking the opponent's first turn is just so huge, it feels like I want Misstep in every blue control-deck. The reason Misstep doesn't belong in every deck exactly is that it becomes rather mediocre later in the game. Whenever something can draw a ton of cards, though, just trading one for one with whatever random threat becomes a viable lategame use for a early game powerhouse. That's what makes MM better in control than in anything else imo, it just never becomes actually dead because you plan to trade 1 for 1 for the win anyway.
Ever since I've started hitting cantrips with Misstep in the dark, the card has risen even more in my esteem - people tend to rely on Brainstorms, Ponders and Hierarch/Zenith a lot to turn borderline hands into keepable ones. It also deals with a significant number of random cards you would like to answer with from a multitude of decks even if no heavily played Archetype has them, they add up (Thoughtseize, Stifle, Exploration, REB, Surgical Extraction, half of every non-Hive Mind combo-deck, Mother of Runes, etc etc).

You just gain so much tempo if Misstep connects, it isn't even funny. I look at it less as a solution for something particularly annoying and more as a Time Walk that sometimes costs life instead of mana. Early game, it usually is just that (having Misstep in hand often plays out as 'would you like to mulligan to make your opponent mulligan and skip their first turn play' - I'd generally answer yes to that question against half the decks in the format. The other half just happens to rely on Brainstorm a lot, giving you a great value-target later). Late game it trades for something random to buy time to either draw more cards or to make sure your recursion-engines don't get raced.
I would never play them instead of Counterspells, though, as both fill totally different roles (stack control vs getting to the lategame safely). I'd probably start by cutting Smothers (though I'd take care to look for situations during testing where I'm missing removal because of drawing Misstep) and see what else is least necessary during playtesting to get up to the full four.
I might be wrong and this deck is more interested in more actual removal but not at least starting out with them to see how they do just seems wrong considering the cards powerlevel in draw-heavy control decks.

All good options, aside from Ensaring Bridge. This deck will rarely, if ever, stay low on cards. Unlike a deck like Countertop Thopters, this deck is all about card advantage. Forcing myself to keep a low hand count, to try and use an anti-aggro tool that is mostly unecessary, doesn't seem like it's worth the hassle.

As to EBridge: I wasn't thinking of it as an anti-aggro tool (as you mentioned you won't be able to keep your handsize that low) but more as a silver bullet against NO RUG, Reanimator and other decks that have almost nothing but high-power creatures with ridiculous protection abilities. Keeping your handsize down low enough to stop Goyfs as well as the fatties seems like a solid plan there.

RainbowPenguin

08-04-2011, 06:37 AM

It was probably wrong of him to keep in Emrakul, but nice result anyways.

The deck looks pretty sweet, I have to say, although a bit slow.

Hanni

08-04-2011, 05:20 PM

I hate relying on Brainstorm to fix my mana woes for me. I also always add one more land once I'm done building my decks, though ;)
Maze was more meant as a way to turn one of your removals into a Mox enabler than anything else, btw (also bringing you to 24 lands).

Counting 4 Brainstorms as the 24th land to satisfy Mox isn't the same as Brainstorm fixing mana woes. We're not talking about a 1-land opener with a Brainstorm, hoping it's going to dig for the 2nd land. We're talking about being able to take advantage of a Mox Diamond in the opener.

In general, with 23 lands, this deck will not be having mana woes very often. This deck has also 4 Intuition and 1 Life from the Loam to assist in consistently hitting more land drops past the first 3. In testing, mana woes haven't been an issue, and I've been able to get great value out of Mox Diamond.

Jace is so powerful if it stays in play for a turn or two (I know you know that) that I'd definitely want an easily Intuitionable answer. It doesn't even end with Jace (he's just the worst offender). Something like Elspeth also needs an answer ASAP. Honestly, you will get Wastelanded a lot anyway with that manabase so making the second basic Island you just added or the remaining Bayou into a Tundra/Volc doesn't seem like much of a cost to power up your EEs significantly.

I can understand the logic here. I like the extra basic Island for the games where my opponent has a Wasteland in play and I want to ramp to 2UU for Jace.

However, cutting the basic Island for a Volcanic Island (or whatever) offers the same amount of blue color sources, so I get what you mean.

On a sidenote, a possible sideboard option that is a tutorable/recurrable way to deal with Jace TMS is Vampire Hexmage, but I do not think the deck needs it. If I ran Gifts Ungiven over Intuition, a pile consisting of a Dark Depths, Volrath's Stronghold, Life from the Loam, and Vampire Hexmage would be pretty cool, though.

Mental Misstep

I understand how strong Mental Misstep is. In control decks like UW Blade Control and UBG Landstill, Mental Misstep is a great way for those decks to transition from the early game to the midgame, where their card advantage engines and/or superior card quality take over.

As far as hitting cantrips with Misstep, I think this is a really strong play for aggro/control decks that are capable of capitalizing on the tempo gains. For control decks, I think it's a better gameplan overall to conserve resources to answer problematic things as opposed to hitting a cantrip. A turn 1 Brainstorm doesn't always mean the opponent doesn't have a good hand with relevant lands/threats/spells.

Like I said, if I wasn't running Mox Diamond, I would run Mental Misstep. Both are similar, in the fact that they help transition from the early game to the mid game. While Mental Misstep may offer some tempo by hitting the opponent's Noble Hierarch or Brainstorm on turn 0/1, neither of those spells are actually threatening.

Mental Misstep is great because of its speed, but its weakness is in its narrowness. I'm running Mox Diamond because of its speed, and I don't feel like this deck needs a narrow countermagic spell to increase the speed any further. With Mox Diamond, the dynamics of the early game for this deck are much different in comparison with other similar control decks; not only because of the increased speed, but also because of the loss of a card.

While it can definitely be argued that Mental Misstep would be better in this deck than Mox Diamond, I cannot justify cutting removal for Missteps. If you want to suggest Mental Misstep over Mox Diamond, I would have to ask that you test Mox Diamond in here before making any conclusions. Mox Diamond is really, really good in this deck.

As to EBridge: I wasn't thinking of it as an anti-aggro tool (as you mentioned you won't be able to keep your handsize that low) but more as a silver bullet against NO RUG, Reanimator and other decks that have almost nothing but high-power creatures with ridiculous protection abilities. Keeping your handsize down low enough to stop Goyfs as well as the fatties seems like a solid plan there.

Ah, ok. That's understandable now. Ensaring Bridge is definitely nice against Progenitus. I already run 9 maindeck answers to a resolved Emrakul, so I'm not sure that I need any more. As an answer to Progenitus, it seems great, so I will consider it for the sideboard. Between Innocent Blood, Fleshbag Marauder, and Damnation, I don't know if it will actually be needed, though. I need to do a little more playtesting against NO Pro decks, still.

Hanni

08-05-2011, 07:04 PM

So after more playtesting with this deck, I've come to some conslusions:

1) The Intuition/Loam/Retrace engine is really, really good.
2) The removal recursion engines are too slow.

I really wanted to make the Ruins/EE/Strongold/Shriekmaw removal engines work, but they were very subpar. The deck still tested well, but I rarely got value out of the removal combos. More often than not, setting up a Worm Harvest was much faster, and overall more effective at shutting down opposing aggro.

There have been games where Mox Diamond has been absolutely huge, but there have also been games where the card disadvantage has killed me. Between FoW and Mox Diamond, I'm losing too much card advantage early. This is normally okay if I get a Loam engine online early, but that's not always the case.

Without Ruins, it's hard to justify EE over Pernicious Deed. With Pernicious Deed, it's hard to justify Mox Diamond.

An oldschool card popped into my head today, that replaces my urge to recur removal. Anyone remember Cabal Pit? Ruins and Stronghold are slow, and don't provide card advantage; Cabal Pit is much faster, and is card advantage through Life from the Loam. Cabal Pit is awesome against Tribal, and can kill x/4 creatures when necessary. Removal recursion urge satisfied, without a bunch of slow clunky spells. Works for me.

Cutting Shriekmaw for less conditional removal improves some matchups. More importantly, Shriekmaw is 2cc sorcery speed removal, which didn't jive well with Counterspell and Intuition. Hardcasting Shriekmaw was rarely relevant in testing. Cutting EE for Deed improves some matchups too.

U/B/g The Mind Harvester

// Lands (23)
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
4 [R] Underground Sea
2 [R] Tropical Island
1 [R] Bayou
2 [UNH] Island
1 [UNH] Swamp
1 [UNH] Forest
2 [ON] Lonely Sandbar
1 [OD] Cabal Pit
1 [TE] Wasteland

// Spells (37)
1 [EVE] Worm Harvest
4 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 [IA] Brainstorm
4 [TE] Intuition
1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
4 [IA] Counterspell
4 [AL] Force of Will
2 [US] Duress
1 [LRW] Thoughtseize
1 [EVE] Raven's Crime
2 [OD] Ghastly Demise
2 [OD] Innocent Blood
1 [TE] Diabolic Edict
2 [MBS] Go for the Throat
4 [AP] Pernicious Deed

// Sideboard (15)
SB: 4 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
SB: 2 [PLC] Damnation
SB: 2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 2 [M10] Pithing Needle
SB: 1 [ON] Gigapede
SB: 1 [IA] Zuran Orb
SB: 1 [SOM] Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 1 [WWK] Bojuka Bog
SB: 1 [TSP] Academy Ruins

The 2/1 Duress/Thoughtseize can become Mental Misstep, but I decided I wanted to try the discard package first. Being able to attack the opponent's hand and counter their spells is a really nice combo that I've had really good success with in the past (in UWb Fish). The knowledge of knowing the opponent's hand invaluable, and the proactive disruption is fantastic at allowing me to resolve a game-winning Intution or Jace TMS. Again, these can (and may) become Missteps later, but I'd like to try the discard first.

I'm still keeping an Academy Ruins in the sideboard, since it's allows me to run a small artifact toolbox. Intuition for Loam/Ruins/Orb was an absolute bomb against Burn and Sligh in testing, which are arguably my two worst matchups, so for that pile alone, I think the toolbox is worth running.

Gigapede is nice to bring in against decks that plan on attacking my win conditions. Graveyard hate (especially Extirpate) and Pithing Needle have the potential to shut me down. The extra tutorable win condition can be good sometimes.

Well, that's all I have for now. After I get sufficient playtesting in with this new list, if it does in fact perform much better than the original list, I'll edit my OP with this decklist instead of the old one.

catmint

08-05-2011, 07:28 PM

I tested your first build and I had similar conclusions. I like your update and looking forward to test it.
MM has to come in, but not vs. discard.
I think between all the counterspells, deed, thoughtseize and cabal pit it is not necessary to run 7 removal spells.

I am going to test this MD with:
- 1 Underground Sea, -1 Misty Rainforest, -2 removal, -1deed, 1 counterspell
+ 1 Wasteland, +4 Mental Misstep, +1 Sylvan Library

...and replace the duress with thoughtseize...

don't know if the mana base will do, but beeing able to fetch basics helps a lot...

Hanni

08-06-2011, 08:10 PM

So after alot of playtesting with the new configuration, I'm really happy with it. The deck has been absolutely amazing, to say the least. A few things:

1) Cabal Pit is fantastic. It's suprising just how many creatures with 2 toughness or less are seeing play these days.

Here's a small list of creatures I've run into so far in testing:

Dark Confidant
Stoneforge Mystic
Grim Lavamancer
Mother of Runes
Vendilion Clique
Noble Hierarch
Birds of Paradise
Goblin Guide
Scryb Ranger
Qasali Pridemage
Spellstutter Sprite

You'll notice I didn't even include any Goblins, Merfolk, Elves, Affinity creatures, or anything like that, which are also fantastic targets for Cabal Pit. It even does a good job against attacking manlands. Then there's also fringe creatures like Putrid Imp, Xantid Swarm, so on and so forth. At this point, I'd say the Cabal Pit is a mandatory land for this deck until the format changes.

2) 4 Deed + 4 Jace is just really strong. There have been many so many postboard games now where my opponents open with a turn 0 Leyline or have some form of graveyard hate, and I just sweep the board with Deed, drop a Jace, and fateseal ftw.

3) The 3 discard spells are still very much open for debate, as I consider these my flex spots. So far, I've been happy with the discard, but cases can easily be made for Mental Misstep or Spell Snare in their place. For now, I've swapped to a 2/1 split of Thoughtseize/Duress since the lifeloss from only 2 Thoughtseize's has not been a big deal, and the ability to hit creatures is really good.

Overall, I think this deck is incredibly powerful. This deck takes all of the best things about UBg Landstill, and improves alot of the bad things. The most important aspect of any Legacy control deck is a strong manabase, and this deck definitely has a strong manabase; tons of color sources, 4 basics, and 4/1 Intuition/Loam. Also, Standstill is a conditional draw engine, whereas Intuition/Loam is not, and while it may be slower, it is much stronger.

I'll edit the OP decklist to include my most recent list.

The Treefolk Master

08-07-2011, 12:38 PM

Have you playstested only in MWS or versus known opponents too?

It would be really awesome if you could film some of you're matches, load them to youtube and paste them here, as therefore we could see the deck on action (if you're already playing it online, it doesn't take much extra time to film & upload).

I really think Misstep > Discard from what I've been able to test, but I could be wrong.

You could run 1 Shriekmaw & 1 Stronghold SB vs. midrange decks.

Hanni

08-07-2011, 01:11 PM

Have you playstested only in MWS or versus known opponents too?

Purely MWS based testing. I don't have any known opponent's that I can playtest against. I've logged alot of games though, so I have had the chance to play against some good opponent's. I have played against some janky decks, but I've seen quite a few Tier 1 and Tier 1.5 decks too.

If you'd be interesting in playtesting with me Treefolk, send me a PM.

It would be really awesome if you could film some of you're matches, load them to youtube and paste them here, as therefore we could see the deck on action (if you're already playing it online, it doesn't take much extra time to film & upload).

I don't have any programs on my computer that film things, and I've never uploaded any videos to Youtube before, so that would be a new experience for me. Maybe I'll experiment with that later. Could you send me a PM explaining the process, where to download the program, etc?

I really think Misstep > Discard from what I've been able to test, but I could be wrong.

As I've said, these are my flex spots. There are some matchups where Mental Misstep would be alot better than the discard, and there are other matchups where the discard is better.

You could run 1 Shriekmaw & 1 Stronghold SB vs. midrange decks.

What midrange decks would you suggest this for? I only ask this because, for the most part, I've been destroying midrange decks.

My toughest matchups so far have been Burn and Sligh.

The Treefolk Master

08-07-2011, 03:33 PM

Sadly, I don't have much time to playtest online, most of my testing comes from playing with my friends/local stores. Also, my internet connection sucks, and collapses every 5 minutes.

I've never recorded myself, but I think I know how to do it, I'll send you a PM.

Ignore what I said about Shriekmaw, I forgot it should be a good match up.

Concerning your bad matchups, you could try a few Kitchen Finks to buy you time, at least untill you can get Zuran Orb-Loam going, which should be GG.

Have you considered dropping 1 Deed (or something else) for 1 Explosives and finding room for 1 Ruins MD. The Intuition pile Loam-EE-Ruins is really tempting. I know it is slow, but you should be able to buy some time with spot removal, and then steal the game with the Lock.

Isn't Cabal Pit slow?

Hanni

08-07-2011, 04:12 PM

Concerning your bad matchups, you could try a few Kitchen Finks to buy you time, at least untill you can get Zuran Orb-Loam going, which should be GG.

Kitchen Finks doesn't sound bad, but I'm kinda thinking more Zuran Orb's would be better. Zuran Orb is gg against those decks.

Have you considered dropping 1 Deed (or something else) for 1 Explosives and finding room for 1 Ruins MD. The Intuition pile Loam-EE-Ruins is really tempting. I know it is slow, but you should be able to buy some time with spot removal, and then steal the game with the Lock.

It's possible, but I'm not sure if it would be necessary. Like you said, it's slow. I do bring it for some postboard games, though. I would definitely not cut any Deeds to fit them. My flex spots are the additional discard, so if I were to try and fit it, I'd cut from those.

Isn't Cabal Pit slow?

Definitely not. EOT Intuition for Loam/Pit/X. Untap, cast Loam, play Pit, kill dude. It stunts my manabase development, so I suppose it could be classified as slow in that way. As far as being slow at killing a creature, it's not. I'd likely be Loam'ing anyway, but even if you count the cost of Loam, that's still 1GB + land drop, which is infinitely faster than 5GU + X (X = Whatever I set EE to).

Recurring EE is alot stronger than Cabal Pit, but it is alot slower.

With Ruins/EE, I have to skip a dredge to get EE back, too (although not always relevant).

Iron Buddha

08-08-2011, 04:05 AM

Are 4 Intuition really necessary? The first is obviously very strong, but the second? the third?
Intuitively I would change -1 Intuition, +1 SDT.

routlaw

08-08-2011, 04:29 AM

Are 4 Intuition really necessary? The first is obviously very strong, but the second? the third?
Intuitively I would change -1 Intuition, +1 SDT.

Keep in mind that Intuition can also get piles like FOW,FOW,FOW with some ridiculous combo kill on the stack or Deed,Deed,Deed at EOT. Triplet Intutions are powerful tutors when you need one card from your deck and you need it right then. You'll still want another Intuiton later for setting up the win. Four seems fine.

Cabal Pit is awesome. When you are loaming it back late game, just having it on the board wrecks a lot of creatures your opponent could play. Using it twice in a turn, while expensive, is not out of the realm of possibility for slightly bigger creatures late-game and lets Jace keep fatesealing away.

catmint

08-08-2011, 05:19 AM

don't you feel that you ca run -1 deed, -1 couterspell, -2 removal for 4 MM?
I feel if you play it like this includig 3 thoughtseize it would provide a much better early game and the deck runs so much removal anyway....

what do you think?

Hanni

08-08-2011, 07:09 PM

Are 4 Intuition really necessary? The first is obviously very strong, but the second? the third?
Intuitively I would change -1 Intuition, +1 SDT

Intuition is arguably more powerful than Jace TMS in this deck, at least preboard (before the opponent brings in a few handfuls of graveyard hate). I would sooner cut a Jace TMS before I would cut an Intuition.*

*I'm not advocating for cutting any Jace TMS, I'm just making a point.

First of all, you absolutely want to see one every game. Running 4 increases the chance of seeing one.

Secondly, there is no shortage of the amount of things that Intuition can grab. Aside from the occasional 3x piles (like triple FoW), here’s what you can grab with Intuition:

Maindeck
Life from the Loam
Cabal Pit
Wasteland
Lonely Sandbar
Lonely Sandbar
Raven's Crime
Worm Harvest
(Fetchland)

Postboard
Academy Ruins
Zuran Orb
Engineered Explosives
Pithing Needle
Nihil Spellbomb
Bojuka Bog

Basically, unless you’ve drawn all 4 Intuition’s, you’re not going to be at a loss for targets. How often will your opponent discard your Intuition? How often does the opponent counter your Intuition?

Excess Intuitions, if they do become excess, are pretty easy to get rid of. Brainstorm and Jace TMS do a good job… and a lot of times you will be forced to pitch an early Intuition to a Force.

As far as Sensei’s Top’s go, I had considered them. If I were to make room for them, they would come out of the flex spots. I still need more testing to determine if I want some or not. At this point, I’ve been satisfied with my current draw engine, and the deck has been fairly mana hungry early… but I do love me some Top’s.

don’t you feel that you ca run -1 deed, -1 counterspell, -2 removal for 4 MM?
I feel if you play it like this including 3 thoughtseize it would provide a much better early game and the deck runs so much removal anyway….

what do you think?

If I could run 5 Deeds, I would.

I won’t say that the 4th Counterspell is mandatory, but I (personally) would not lower my Counterspell count. The deck can easily hold UU open, and it answers nearly everything. Once the deck drops a Jace, there really is no replacement for displacement (Counterspell).

I’m happy with my removal package right now. The format is very aggro-centric. Even combo decks these days are using creatures to win (at least as alternate wins). The large removal package prevents early damage, which helps transition this deck to the midgame, where the raw power of this deck is able to take over.

The deck already runs 4 Force, 4 Counterspell, and 1 Crime as its base disruption package. The deck has 3 flex spots to fit additional disruption. I do not think the deck needs more than 12 disruption spells, at least not maindeck, and Crime is tutorable.

However, this is how I’ve built the deck to fit my needs, suit my play style, etc. If you happen to think the deck would work better with less removal and more disruption, I’m not going to tell you that you’re wrong. Play test that configuration vs the current one, and if it works better for you, then go with it.

Nizmox

08-08-2011, 09:44 PM

I'm really keen to try out this list. It's something I have been wanting to try ever since I first picked up UBG landstill. Loam is a card that wants to be abused and UBG landstill really does not abuse it to the fullest.

I have a few questions on card inclusions though...
* I'm not sure about cutting MM/snare for discard, it's something I'll have to try for myself. When playing UBG landstill I found myself using mental misstep and spell snare to stall my opponent till I could deed and or pop ancestral visions. Discard doesn't seem like it would be as good, although in this case you're stalling until you get the loam engine going.
* Is it a good idea to cut factories? You lose the synergy with Standstill but they are still great chump blockers, protect Jace and recur with Loam.
* I'm adverse to running more than 4 straight removal spells. Cards like Putrefy and Pulse are ok because they can target non-creatures, but it seems like alot of straight creature removal.
* Is Maze of Ith worth including? It forces opponents to overcommit into Deed and recurs with Loam. Even as a 1-of it might be good? CAB Jace runs Maze and seems to do well.
EDIT: * Also Tabernacle seems like it would be good if you can afford it?

I'm currently missing intuitions so once they arrive I'll post my thoughts.

ThomasDowd

08-09-2011, 12:05 AM

I agree that 7.5 removal spells+ 4 deed may be a bit much, but that's just from looking at the list, i may try to get some games in soon before the weekend.

have you ever found yourself wanting another loam? but with intuition and the card draw i think 2 is fine.

also have you missed the mox diamond's at all?

deed besides the point (like you can get reallllly janky and play a singleton ruins with loam, just saying) I just think that the acceleration is probably worth it.

but i like it, crime with an active loam seems like it can put alot of games away.

catmint

08-09-2011, 04:59 AM

Besides of the tier decks, there is a lot of budget burn/affinity in my local meta.
Is the academy ruins tutor package with EE, Zuran Orb, (Null Rod?) fast enough from your experience?

we intuition earliest turn 3 for loam, ruins and zuran orb so we can gain life on turn 5 unless we have a brainstorm. Sounds like we only need to disrupt 1-2 times to stabalize in time.

Do you think a turn 5 Null Rod is good versus affinity? Probably too late, because we have to deal with the creatures anyway... It would also helps vs. storm though...what do you think?

What is your experience versus dredge? Turn 4 bojuka bog is only good enough if we have a solid counter package and a deed for the tokens right? .. and they can still recover. What do you think about Tormods Crypt as recurring option for the Academy ruins package? 1 turn slower but recurring...?!

Versus dredge i thik the 4 MM are also very helpful....

What do you think about replacing 1 removal with Maze of Ith?

Hanni

08-09-2011, 03:10 PM

* I'm not sure about cutting MM/snare for discard, it's something I'll have to try for myself. When playing UBG landstill I found myself using mental misstep and spell snare to stall my opponent till I could deed and or pop ancestral visions. Discard doesn't seem like it would be as good, although in this case you're stalling until you get the loam engine going.

As I've already said, the discard can easily be replaced by MM or Snare. I've chosen to playtest with discard for now because I like what it does for the deck.

* Is it a good idea to cut factories? You lose the synergy with Standstill but they are still great chump blockers, protect Jace and recur with Loam.

Mishra's Factories are bad creatures that tap for colorless and die to both Wasteland and creature removal. Landstill runs them to support their draw engine. Even with Loam, why would I recur a 2/2 when I can recur a horde of 1/1 tokens instead? Not running Factory makes my manabase a lot more stable. The only manland I would consider for this deck would be Nantuko Monastery, but I'm not in white. Although between Monastery, Nomad Stadium, and StP... there are some compelling reasons to splash for white.

* I'm adverse to running more than 4 straight removal spells. Cards like Putrefy and Pulse are ok because they can target non-creatures, but it seems like alot of straight creature removal.

I'm not sure what the issue is with running 7 spot removal spells. If you look at the UBg Landstill thread, those lists also run 10-12 removal spells. This is not an aggro/control deck; I don't have Goyf or Batterskull to hold down the fort. With Jace being one of my two win conditions, keeping the board clear is pretty important. I can see the benefits to running Putrey or Pulse in place of a couple of spot removal spells, but they are a bit costly - regardless, that still keeps me at 10-12 removal spells.

After playtesting with the deck, you'll come to appreciate the 7 effecient spot removal spells. If not, go ahead and cut some.

* Is Maze of Ith worth including? It forces opponents to overcommit into Deed and recurs with Loam. Even as a 1-of it might be good? CAB Jace runs Maze and seems to do well.

Maze of Ith isn't bad, and is worth consideration. Not tapping for mana is an issue, though.

EDIT: * Also Tabernacle seems like it would be good if you can afford it?

Tabernacle is awful in here. I do not attack my opponents manabase to get any sort of value out of it, and one of my two win conditions makes a swarm of 1/1 tokens.

have you ever found yourself wanting another loam? but with intuition and the card draw i think 2 is fine.

The only time I ever want a second Loam is postboard vs graveyard hate, but even then, playing around hate with Lonely Sandbar removes the need for a 2nd one. In the case of Leyline of the Void or Extirpate/Surgical Extraction, a 2nd Loam wouldn't matter anyway.

also have you missed the mox diamond's at all?

I do miss the Mox Diamonds, but the deck has been more stable and consistent without them. FoW + Diamond was huge card disadvantage. In an aggro/control shell it might not matter, but too much -CA in a control deck is bad. If I ran 4 Life from the Loam's in addition to the 4 Intuition's, going back to 4 Diamond's would likely be really good... but the deck would lose way too many control elements if I did that.

Besides of the tier decks, there is a lot of budget burn/affinity in my local meta.
Is the academy ruins tutor package with EE, Zuran Orb, (Null Rod?) fast enough from your experience?

Deed rapes Affinity, and this deck has plenty of spot removal (even with the two GFTO) to get to Deed mana.

Vs Burn, the matchup is tough. Cut the MD discard for MD Mental Misstep, and SB more lifegain effects. If you can buy enough time with Misstep (hardcast), Pierce, Counterspell, and FoW, you should have enough time to get an Orb lock online. If Burn is a big player in your meta, consider running more Zuran Orb. I'm actually considering fitting more in my board, to be honest.

What is your experience versus dredge? Turn 4 bojuka bog is only good enough if we have a solid counter package and a deed for the tokens right? .. and they can still recover. What do you think about Tormods Crypt as recurring option for the Academy ruins package? 1 turn slower but recurring...?!

Dredge is difficult preboard. MD Mental Missteps are huge here. If you can get a Deed on the board, it can be blown for 0 to kill off Zombie tokens. Spamming 1/1 tokens is really good, if you live long enough to get to the midgame. Postboard, Bojuka Bog is a nice immediate answer, but recurring Nihil is a lock. If you don't have the time to get the Nihil lock going, go for a Loam/Bog/Wasteland pile. Wasteland'ing the Bog and replaying it isn't nearly as effecient as recurring Nihil, but it does get the job done.

thefreakaccident

08-10-2011, 02:26 PM

Have you considered exploration? Turn 2 jace seems pretty strong. It also lets you truly power with loam instead of using it for a crappy draw engine.

Hanni

08-15-2011, 08:49 PM

I had an idea pop into my head while I was half asleep the other day. I have no idea why or how. Anyway, I remember seeing a few guys in the Landstill thread suggesting Tombstalker. Since I do have 3 flex spots right now, and since I only have two win conditions right now, Tombstalker has merit. It doesn't get hit by my Deeds, and a black 5/5 flier can dodge alot of commonly played removal. As a body, it's great on defense (and protecting a Jace TMS), and it's a 4 turn clock on its own.

Again, this is just a thought. It needs playtested before I actually determine anything. However, the removal package would need to change some. I'll figure out a better removal package after I do some playtesting.

For testing purposes, I will be trying these changes:

-2 Thoughtseize
-1 Duress
-2 Innocent Blood
-1 Ghastly Demise
+2 Tombstalker
+1 Darkblast
+2 Dismember
+1 Diabolic Edict

Have you considered exploration? Turn 2 jace seems pretty strong. It also lets you truly power with loam instead of using it for a crappy draw engine.

It's in a similar boat with Mox Diamond. The Mox offers better accel early, while the Exploration offers better accel mid-late. I think the accel early is more valuable, but they both still bite the dust to Deed, and require an active Loam to make up for the card disadvantage. Either way, it's not something I'll rule out until I test with it, since it could be alot better than my initial impressions.

As far as using Loam for a crappy draw engine... if you think that Loam is a crappy draw engine, you should probably play a few games with the deck first. This deck is built around abusing Loam. Intuition/Loam is the most powerful draw engine I've ever played with.

EDIT: I keep tinkering with the removal suite. I'm rocking this atm:

1 Cabal Pit
1 Darkblast
1 Diabolic Edict
2 Dismember
2 Go for the Throat
2 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Pernicious Deed

I'm sure it's going to keep changing till I find a package I like.

Mr. Safety

08-17-2011, 08:14 AM

I am having a good time in my decks with Dismember and Maelstrom Pulse as well. Nice call there...

Just curious how you feel about Standstill or Ancestral Visions...I feel that both work really well (Visions more so) considering 4 P-Deeds in the maindeck. Standstill seems really strong if you've established board control and have a Jace rockin' (although is it win more?) I don't think I saw them in the lists, and I know you have the Loam Engine to work with Lonely Sandbar and you have Brainstorm for filtering.

My last comment is this: your deck seems to really be playing well. I suggest leaving it alone for a while and just getting a better feel for it (although from your history, you've been tinkering with Blue/Rock decks for a long time...) Good luck! I just love the concept for this deck, it's just awesome.

Infinitium

08-17-2011, 09:23 AM

This is extremely similar to a deck I used to run up until JTM was printed, except that it also ran Spellweaver Helix to set up infinite turns with Temporal Manipuation and 2x Life from the Loam. The point was that the entire combo was tutorable using 2 Intuitions (where the first one would get Academy Ruins, a Loam and EE/Crime to buy time to cast the second), and that the only truly dead card was Helix itself (which incidentally only needed a single Intuition for Loam/Loam/Warp to do its thing). Once locked out the opponent proceeded to get eaten by Worm Harvest/Gigapede.

This enabled the deck to simply win come turn 6-7, as opposed to trying to protect a win condition and possibly letting the opponentcome back into the game. I eventually gave up on the deck since it lacked good graveyard independent win conditions, but Jace might have changed that.

The Treefolk Master

08-17-2011, 09:02 PM

If anyone is interested, this is the list I'm testing to lots of success:

4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest
2 Lonely Sandbar
1 Cabal Pit
1 Wasteland
1 Worm Harvest
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Brainstorm
4 Intuition
1 Life from the Loam
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
1 Raven's Crime
1 Ghastly Demise
2 Innocent Blood
1 Diabolic Edict
2 Go for the Throat
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Mental Misstep

SB: 4 Spell Pierce
SB: 2 Damnation
SB: 2 Engineered Explosives
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Gigapede
SB: 1 Zuran Orb
SB: 1 Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 1 Bojuka Bog
SB: 1 Academy Ruins

I'm considering removing 1 Innocent Blood for 1 Targeted Removal at Instant Speed, maybe dismember (a recurring issue with the list is that once I have used one of my targetted removals, I can't intuition for 3 more if I must answer something, as there are only 2 Go for the Throats and 1 Ghastly Demise in the deck).

Raven's Crime has been absurdly power, many times I intuition for loam-crime-harvest, and totally slaughter their hand. As soon as the deck has a window (when it is not under pressure) to cast Intuition, it will take over if there is no significant opposition.

Mental Misstep has tested better than the discard spells.

Hanni

08-17-2011, 09:12 PM

Looks like a pretty good list. I playtested a few games with Mental Misstep, and they were hit and miss. When they were good, they were really good. When they weren't, they were dead spells that I wished were something else. Being blue for FoW is a big plus, though. Overall, I like it.

How has Gigapede been in testing? I originally had 1 in my board, but I never brought it in. I cut it for the 2nd Zuran Orb.

This enabled the deck to simply win come turn 6-7, as opposed to trying to protect a win condition and possibly letting the opponentcome back into the game. I eventually gave up on the deck since it lacked good graveyard independent win conditions, but Jace might have changed that.

Control decks and combo decks are fundamentally different. Control decks don't try to protect a win condition, they control the board. Countermagic, discard, removal, etc keeps the table clear, and card advantage puts the control player ahead. Once the coast is clear, a win condition comes down to seal the game up. In old Control decks, the actual win condition was largely irrelevant, so long as it could seal the game up (think Serra Angel, Morphling, etc). These days, win conditions are multi-purpose. Take Worm Harvest for example. Yes, a swarm of 1/1 tokens is definitely a way to win, but it also really good at holding the ground against opposing aggro. The win conditions in this deck protect themselves, for the most part.

metamet

08-25-2011, 01:33 PM

While I like what you've done with the deck, I assume/hope that some of the inspiration for it stemmed from this post: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?9413-Deck-UBGx-Landstill&p=563318&viewfull=1#post563318

I have been happy with Academy Ruins and a single EE in the main. Right now, however, I am looking into the viability of running Ancient Tombs (and perhaps working in the Thopter Sword combo... maybe somehow) in order to push out Intuition/Jace/Worm Harvest even quicker.

edit: Figured I would include a deck list I've been tweaking. I've taken a few of your suggestions as well. Keep up the great work!

CORE cards: 12
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Brainstorm

COUNTER suite: 11
4 Mental Misstep
3 Counterspell
4 Force of Will

REMOVAL suite: 5
2 Dismember
1 Innocent Blood
1 Darkblast
2 Maelstrom Pulse

NUMMY suite: 8
4 Intuition
1 Life from the Loam
1 Worm Harvest
1 Raven's Crime
1 Engineered Explosives

LANDS:24
2 Island
1 Forest
2 Lonely Sandbar
4 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Ancient Tomb
1 Academy Ruins

jedi_gof

08-26-2011, 03:36 AM

I have been playing a similar deck to quite some succes as well Hanni.

I however, like to push some odd cards, in the case Vengeful Pharaoh. He works like a charm i this deck, especially along with jace. He is also basically 1cc removal with entombs. I run entombs(3) in addition to 1-2 intuitions. I also run 1 darkblast main and 2-3 loams, as i abuse the grave even more...

routlaw

08-29-2011, 01:02 AM

I ran this at my local shop today and got some pretty poor pairings (1 Merfolk, 2 Ichorid, 1 Burn ) with equally poor draws (mulled a lot) for the deck. I didn't feel that the Spellbomb recursion pile is enough to beat Ichorid, especially on the play. I'll drop the Bog and make room for a set of Leylines alongside the Spellbomb.

One note, I ran maindeck Misstep over the discard and it seemed fine. This might actually be a mistake, as the draw-go nature of the deck makes getting early information about hands very valuable for planning purposes, i.e. figuring out the best set of plays to walk them into getting blown out by Pernicious Deed. I think there's merits to both approaches.

I felt fine in the removal suite against Merfolk and while the deck does take a while to win you will get there against creature decks. Because there is in general so little to do during your own turn it doesn't drag out too bad at all.

Overall my main concern after playing the deck is that the deck is extremely mana hungry and really wants some way to "get ahead" on lands. It's hard to play out your hand with this deck and you are always wanting more lands. A lot of the endgame strategies for this deck are similar to the kind the same ones that Lands ran, and there they had a huge set of acceleration to get them to the point where they could execute those plays and convert the engine to card advantage much quicker.

Anyway, thanks for the deck list. I am going to try to test it out more and not get too discouraged by my results due to some pretty rough (IMO) pairings. If I had played control/midrange/tempo decks I think I would have done much better.

Hanni

08-29-2011, 01:29 AM

catmint

08-29-2011, 05:58 AM

I can agree with Hanni. I took it to a local tourney and so far I only played elves, NO Rug and TA. So, I am not a control player and therefore did very poorly with this "hardcore" control deck.

I made some suboptimal choices costing me games!

I played to slow and did not close a game (1 extra round missing for the kill), so I had a draw.

I was not prepared beeig always the last one to finish having NO BREAKS for 5 hours.

Now I know what I have to prepare for if I want to run this deck and how much I have to practice first.
Not going to pilot it in my local tourney again though where a lot of budget affinity and burn decks are, which are very tough to beat.

catmint

08-29-2011, 05:58 AM

metamet

08-29-2011, 11:56 AM

From my experience so far, I would say that 3 Ancient Tombs allows for the deck to do some absurd things.

T2 Intuition
T3 Jace, TMS
Play and blow up Pernicious Deed and Engineered Explosives extremely quickly.

Anyone else played with Tombs? I'm happy with it so far.

Hanni

08-29-2011, 05:11 PM

While I like what you've done with the deck, I assume/hope that some of the inspiration for it stemmed from this post: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...l=1#post563318

I actually never saw that post until you posted the link, sorry. It's funny how similar are lists are, though.

From my experience so far, I would say that 3 Ancient Tombs allows for the deck to do some absurd things.

T2 Intuition
T3 Jace, TMS
Play and blow up Pernicious Deed and Engineered Explosives extremely quickly.

Anyone else played with Tombs? I'm happy with it so far.

I'm not sure how you can realistically support Ancient Tomb. You run 4 Misstep and 2 Dismember, so you're likely losing quite a few life points just from those. Usually you'll crack a few fetches early, so that's a few more life points. I know from my experience with the deck, once the Loam engine is online, I usually take 4+ additional damage from fetches. If Ancient Tomb dealt two damage upon entering play instead of every time you tap it, that would be one thing, but you cannot really afford to tap the thing more than once.

If you're hellbent on running them, then you most definitely need Zuran Orb(s) and an Academy Ruins maindeck.

I've been doing fine without the acceleration, since I am able to slow the game down alot with all of the removal (vs aggro) and the countermagic (vs combo), enough so that accelerating into Intuition or Jace a turn early is not as critical as it is in the aggro/control versions I've playtested in the past. However, I'm not denying how sick a turn 2 Intuition or turn 3 Jace is. I'd sooner run Mox Diamond or Exploration before I'd run Ancient Tomb, though.

jedi_gof

08-30-2011, 07:12 AM

Hanni, ever considered the cards i suggested?
Entomb are stronger than it appears in this deck, so strong in my build that it quickly beat out intuition... at least 1 vengeful pharaoh should be fitted in as remowal also. I have have great results with both in similar builds

Hanni

08-31-2011, 08:18 PM

Entombs seem overkill to me. This deck doesn't need the Loam engine online on turn 1. The deck should be able to consistently make land drops up until 3-4, and will be busy casting removal, Counterspell, etc to stabilize early. The deck wants the Loam engine in the midgame to consistently hit land drops past 3-4, and to generate card advantage. Early game, unless the deck mulls heavy, it doesn't need the card advantage.

Intuition is perfect because I cast it as I approach the midgame (3-4 lands, turn 3-4), and then it not only sets up the Loam engine, it sets up other synergistic engines like Worm Harvest, Raven's Crime, Lonely Sandbar, etc.

If I was running Entomb, I could justify Vengeful Pharaoh, but without it, the guy seems meh. Without a discard outlet, the only way to set it up would be to randomly dredge into it (unlikely and inconsistent), or to "Brainstorm" it back on top and then dredge it. Both plans seem incredibly loose. As a win condition, a 5/4 Deathtouch for 3BB is lackluster, and as a removal engine, the creature still deals damage first, so me/Jace is still taking damage before the creature dies. It's not bad, but without Entomb, it's not a good fit.

On the other hand, I think the new Liliana, Liliana of the Veil, would be a good fit in here. 1BB for a Sorcery speed Edict that sticks around is solid. If the opponent swings into her, thats 1BB for an Edict and some life gain (basically). If she sticks around, she can possibly get two Edicts off for 1BB - I'm cool with that. 3+ Edict's is just gravy. The discard is most likely going to hurt the opponent far worse than us, especially with an active Loam going. In fact, I can see the discard ability being really good against combo and control. The ultimate also seems impressive; imagine nuking 4+ lands of the opponent's in the control mirror. At the very least, I want to playtest with her.

From my list in the OP:

-2 Thoughtseize
-1 Duress
-1 Innocent Blood

+2 Vendilion Clique
+2 Liliana of the Veil

I've also tuned my sideboard up a bit:

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [ARB] Maelstrom Pulse
SB: 2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 2 [PLC] Damnation
SB: 1 [WWK] Bojuka Bog
SB: 1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
SB: 3 [IA] Zuran Orb
SB: 4 [ZEN] Spell Pierce

Jakobian

09-21-2011, 03:30 PM

I'm really curious what your opinion is on the following modification:
+1 Vengeful Pharaoh

-1 removal spell (probably ghastly demise?)

VP seems like it'd have some really sick interactions with dredging life from the loam to put VP back in the graveyard. You could also raven's crime yourself to get rid of it from your hand, and late game it also offers an alternate win condition, especially since he's a 4 turn clock by himself. The deck already runs heavy on the black mana base. I could imagine making an intuition pile of VP, raven's crime, and life from the loam right off the bat, dredging the loam the next turn (possibly after a well-placed brainstorm to put lands on top of library) then raven's criming yourself once (assuming they'd choose for you to keep the VP in hand) and your opponent a couple times, setting up a pretty devastating next turn for the opponent.

Also, I agree with your thoughtseize/duress vs. mental misstep evaluation. I'd rather pay 2 life and get rid of their best thing in hand at any point during the game than pay 2 life to counter something which might be insignificant mid-to-late game.

Another question I have is, what's your opinion of the spell "Explore"? It seems like it would essentially do the same thing as mox diamond, minus the drawback of the deed ending it's bonus.

Could you maybe write up a brief primer on what intuition piles to make vs. various legacy decks? Do the piles change that often? Without playtesting the pile I would be apt to make most often is raven's crime, life from the loam, wasteland/lonely sandbar but I could be way off.

Looking forward to hearing your feedback!

Infinitium

09-21-2011, 04:46 PM

Problem with Pharao is that in the situation he's arguably good in - resolved Intuition, you out of the red zone, opponent without answers etc, the deck is already in control and winning. I dislike Clique as well - being evasive is hardly relevant when it constitutes a 6-turn clock with fetches, and 3cc for some disruption and a blocker seems lackluster.

Jakobian

09-21-2011, 06:33 PM

Why would pharaoh only be good when your opponent is out of answers and you're out of the red zone? I would think it'd be useful as soon as you can cast intuition, I.E. turn 2 or 3 depending on the build. It could easily make opponents overextend into Pernicious Deed. Or simply make them hold off til they think they're getting value out of their attack (like with a 2/3 tarmogoyf they might wait til it gets bigger before attacking). Plus depending on what your hand is like you could make it instant-speed removal with intuition and an outlet to discard to, though I'm not sure what that might be. (or if you ran 3x vengeful pharaoh instead of 3 of the removal spells it would be surefire instant speed removal, but I wouldn't be able to justify taking up 3 slots for VP's... I still think it merits a 1-of slot and could be abuseable.

ThomasDowd

09-23-2011, 02:45 PM

@ routlaw

This is one of the most difficult decks I've ever piloted. This isn't a deck that you just toss together and expect to dominate tournaments with. Every turn, there is a rediculous amount of choices that you can make, yet there is only one or two optimal choices each time. When to dredge, when to cycle, what to grab in an Intuition pile, when to start making Worm Harvest tokens, when to drop Jace TMS, it's all very complicated. Don't get discouraged from one event. This is the sort of deck that takes alot of practice to pilot well. I've been playing control decks for years, and compared to an auto-pilot control deck like my U/W Control deck "The Justice League" (I play it on auto-pilot, anyway), this deck requires far more playskill.

Luckily, the practice pays off. The deck is incredibly powerful, and has answers to literally everything between its 75. In addition to that, the card advantage that this deck produces is absurd. As long as you can reach the midgame, which this deck has tons of tools to make sure it does, this deck can and will dominate just about anything. As far as being mana hungry, it can function on low lands (3-4), but it does get mana hungry once the Loam engine gets going. Luckily, Loam helps the deck hit consistent land drops every turn, which works out really well. In fact, one of the strongest aspects of this deck vs other control decks is its ability to make consistent land drops every turn via Loam.

how do you feel about the control mirror? I understand that making land drops with loam+ card advantage will probably pull you out in this one (raven's crime recursion let's you just win). but with recent banning of misstep, CB/ top will make a resurgence as the control deck of choice, since storm players will pour out of the hole they've been hiding in the past few months.

basically i like the aggro match, and the combo match, the various control/aggro- control mirrors is a little concern but they are probably ok, since i haven't spent much time with the deck or played those matches (for some reason people hate playing control mirrors, weird, right?) i was wondering if you had any insight.

I like the addition of lilliana (good v combo/control(discard) good v control/aggro( edict))

how have you been handling GY hate? deeding it away? plus leyline seems pretty much unanswerable (i mean there's deed but that's 7 mana on one turn or over two turns used to get rid of it), i mean you can play grip

Hanni

09-23-2011, 08:08 PM

I've been awol for a while, sorry guys.

First of all, now that Misstep is banned, Discard definitely gets the nod. However, I'm going to pursue the Liliana/Clique split first.

@ Vengeful Pharaoh

I've already expressed my opinions on this guy. I don't think he does enough to warrant his conditional uses. If the creature died before I took damage, I'd be all over this guy. Since that's not the case, there's just too many hoops involved with getting him going, and his effect is only mediocre. Especially now with Liliana, this deck already has plentiful access to removal, with both Cabal Pit and Liliana offering multiple removal effects when applicable.

@ Explore

I haven't tried it, but the effect is rather weak. One additional land and a cantrip for 2 mana at sorcery speed isn't the strongest play.

@ Intuition piles

I think I talked about several in the thread, so you may find some helpful info if you read through. The threads only 3 pages long, so it shouldn't be too much info to sift through.

I don't have the time right now to write up a brief primer, unfortunately. I'm swamped with work and school, sorry.

@ Control Mirros/Countertop

I love control mirrors actually, since this deck has such a strong mid-late game. If Intuition resolves, it's gg. Most control decks have little to no answers to a Loam/Crime/Harvest pile, which wrecks them in short order.

As far as Countertop goes, Deed is a great way to keep it off the board. Deed + postboard Grips should be sufficient.

@ Graveyard hate

Yes, Deed is pretty good at destroying permanent-based gy hate, like Crypt, prior to casting Intuition. Discard and countermagic can keep it from doing damage as well. However, it's game dependant. Some games, my opponent gets a few gy hate pieces together early, and I simply play the "keep the board clean, drop a Jace, win" gameplan. This deck abuses the graveyard, but it's not dependant on its graveyard, and can win without it.

ThomasDowd

09-24-2011, 10:48 AM

thanks for answering my questions, will try to give this a whirl when i finally get a bayou and another trop and deeds.

naarou

09-25-2011, 04:05 PM

Here's where I'm at with this deck:

// MD

4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Academy Ruins
1 Cabal pit
1 Wasteland
1 Lonely Sandbar

4 Pernicious Deed
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Innocent Blood

4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Brainstorm
4 Intuition
2 Ponder

4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil

1 Life from the Loam
1 Raven's Crime
1 Worm Harvest

// SB

3 Spell Pierce
2 Krosan Grip
2 Ghastly Demise
2 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Tombstalker
1 Zuran Orb
1 Pithing Needle
1 Nihil Spellbomb

---

I used to play BUGStill a while ago and one of my major complaints with that deck was the lack of diverse win conditions. If your jace and factory got extirpated you were literally out of ways to win. This deck has the following soft and hard win cons:

Jace (hard)
Liliana (soft)
Raven's crime lock + LftL (soft)
Worm Harvest tokens + LftL (hard)
Engineered Explosives + Academy Ruins (soft)
Wasteland + LftL (soft)

SB:
Zuran's Orb + LftL (soft)
Tombstalker (hard)
Vendilion Clique (hard)

This diversity is important in my opinion in a meta filled with surgical extractions and extirpates. The boarded creatures have been invaluable in testing and often times win me game 2 despite getting my jace extracted, leaving my opponent looking dumbfounded as to the fact that I boarded in creatures. I'm certainly interested to see where this thread goes in the coming weeks.

Hanni

02-25-2012, 03:45 PM

I'm sad this thread died :(

Reading through several pages of the [Deck] BUG Control [Team America control style] thread reminded me about this deck, which I had totally forgotten about. Anyway,

U/B/g The Mind Harvester

// Lands (23)
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
4 [R] Underground Sea
2 [R] Tropical Island
1 [R] Bayou
2 [UNH] Island
1 [UNH] Swamp
1 [UNH] Forest
2 [ON] Lonely Sandbar
1 [OD] Cabal Pit
1 [TE] Wasteland

// Spells (37)
1 [EVE] Worm Harvest
2 [ISD] Liliana of the Veil
4 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 [IA] Brainstorm
4 [TE] Intuition
1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
4 [IA] Counterspell
4 [AL] Force of Will
1 [EVE] Raven's Crime
2 [LRW] Thoughtseize
2 [OD] Innocent Blood
2 [OD] Ghastly Demise
1 [RAV] Darkblast
1 [MBS] Go for the Throat
4 [AP] Pernicious Deed

// Sideboard (15)
SB: 4 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
SB: 2 [ARB] Maelstrom Pulse
SB: 2 [FD] Engineered Explosives
SB: 2 [WWK] Bojuka Bog
SB: 1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
SB: 4 [IA] Zuran Orb

Snapcaster Mage could be an interesting addition, although it would force alot of maindeck changes to work well. Actually, I'm not even sure it would be better than Eternal Witness for this deck, but who knows. SCM is an interesting idea nonetheless.

I think I may play with this deck a bit when I get some time. I remember having alot of fun with it in the past.

routlaw

02-27-2012, 09:10 AM

Instead of the pile of Zuran Orbs vs. Burn decks, you could always board in the entire Gigapede-Iona-Unburial Rites Intuition pile. You'd have to run a white source somewhere for the Unburial Rites flashback, but that plan backed up by countermagic seems pretty strong in the other big linear combo matchups (Show and Tell/Dredge/Storm/Reanimator) too.

It's a bit soft to gravehate, but so is the rest of the deck and generally speaking those combo decks aren't playing a lot of gravehate to begin with. Gigapede himself isn't a bad sideboard card to have around anyway.

I played the deck and really enjoyed it for quite a while, and liked it's game plan a bit more than generic Goyf beats (which I thought was terrible) or the Standstill/Jace plan (because Standstill in control decks found a way to be even worse now than it was a year ago).

I did play 3 IoK over Thoughtseize and the fourth Deed, a 3/3 split of the Planeswalkers instead of 4/2, and a maindeck Ruins/Explosives pile over the Darkblast and one of the Underground Seas. I should find a way to get the Darkblast back in there. I have found Explosives to be exceedingly good in the current metagame against the fair decks and advocate finding a way to get a ruins/explosives pile in maindeck.

Edit: RE: Snapcaster, I'm not a fan of him unless you have a way to utilize the 2/1 body you get from the recoup. This deck doesn't really have much use for the 2/1 beater part of Snapcaster Mage outside of blocking/chumping, and that's just not enough. It also makes Innocent Blood, likely the decks' best removal spell, much worse.

Hanni

02-27-2012, 11:29 AM

The Unburial Rites idea is interesting and something I may try out at some point. It seems a bit too slow against Burn though.

I'm actually considering running Buried Ruin instead of Academy Ruins to speed up the Orb plan vs Burn.

This deck plays around gravehate pretty well, all things considered. Plus, it has tools to fight it built into the deck naturally (discard, Deed, etc)

I tried Ruins + EE before but it was a bit slow, and EE itself was not nearly as good as Deed at the time (heavy Merfolk meta). The meta has changed significantly, and so maybe it's time to revisit that plan. Cabal Pit seems a lot better than EE right now though. It was good before, but it looks to be especially good in this meta. It's a hell of a lot faster than EE, and only requires 1 slot in my Intuition pile. I'll still try maindeck Ruins/EE again though.

I feel the same way about Snapcaster right now. I don't think he's worth bastardizing my maindeck.

Anusien

02-27-2012, 01:27 PM

I am so down on the Loam plan right now. Maybe it's awesome if everyone switches to Grafdigger's Cage, but I feel certain all the Snapcaster decks (i.e., the best decks in the format) will stay on Extraction. And if Loam gets Extracted, the deck won't be doing much. You have not THAT many slots devoted to the Loam package, but you are relying on it to fix your mana and to generate incremental advantage..

I really wonder if you'd be better served by replacing the Loam package and Intuitions with Tarmogoyf and something like Shackles or Threads. You aren't relying on your removal as much anymore because you can block. You have a more consistent way to generate late-game advantage. And because you can actually clock them, you have an improved matchup against combo decks.

routlaw

02-27-2012, 01:41 PM

I don't think most decks can afford to bring in card-negative gravehate like extractions in this matchup. I would bring in Spellbombs or Relics if I could, but you can easily find yourself a card or two down and lose a fight over Jace if you play extractions. Cycle lands are also incredible for protecting Loam.

Shackles is a fine card in the format and I'm not unhappy to play it. It's less good now than it was when the tribal decks were around, however, and I've always felt that in a control deck that wants a decent mana base, Shackles is best in two colors and not three.

Tarmogoyf as a wincon is garbage in this format outside of mostly-blue aggro/control decks, IMO (and a cursory check of TC decks shows this out). Even the deck hellbent on stuffing as many green creatures as possible into the deck doesn't play him. It's not a terrible suggestion but it doesn't fit the deck's idea at all.

Hanni

02-27-2012, 02:13 PM

While I do not agree that the Snapcaster decks are the best decks in the format, I cannot dispute the prevalnce of the Mage in the format.

Surgical Extraction hitting Loam doesn't scare me. I can cycle Loam in response, I can counter the SCM, I can discard the hate before I set up Loam, etc. Hitting Loam is a lot less worrisome than hitting Jace or Wom Harvest. The lightness of my win conditions is the bigger issue. Without Loam, this deck doesn't function much differently than BUGstill, especially considering how bad Standstills are. But without any win conditions, I can't win at all.

Maybe instead of the Thoughtseizes, I should run Clique. Or maybe even a 1/1 split of Gigapede and Vengeful Pharaoh, to up my win condition diversity. Thrun and Eternal Witness would also be viable. Shriekmaw and Creeping Tar Pit too. Would probably want a Stronghold if I go the non-recurrable creature route.

Good point to bring up Anusien, albeit for a slightly different reason. I'll do some testing and then post my changes.

The Treefolk Master

02-27-2012, 02:28 PM

I'm starting to play the deck, this is my current list: (some ideas borrowed from sdematt's post in the BUG Thread):

3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Bayou
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Cabal Pit
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Volrath's Stronghold
3 Wasteland

3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Thrun, the Last Troll

4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Spell Snare
2 Counterspell
3 Ghastly Demisde
4 Pernicious Deed
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Intuiton
1 Worm Harvest
1 Life from the Loam
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Smother
1 Noxious Revival

The Thrun has been super awesome so far, buying as time, or clocking the opponent.

Snapcasters are quite good, usually to rebuy a counterspell, or rebuy a removal and chump. A pair of them is not a weak clock at all. They need further testing, but have been nice so far.

The Noxious Revival turns Intuition into Demonic Tutor when searching for 2 cards. It's a bit clunky and the worst top deck ever if you draw it without something that lets you draw, but it also allows us to stop Surgical Extraction.

Haven't tested the SB, but this is where I am right now:

4 Leyline of the Void (not sold on these)
3 Kitchen Finks (Burn = Sad Face)
2 Vendilion Clique (combo, control)
2 Spell Pierce (combo, control)
1 Raven's Crime (should be able to auto win the control & combo matchup if unattended).
1 Darkblast (mega-awesome, Maverick, UW Stoneblade, Elves, etc)
2 Cards (Haven't thought on these yet: ideas are 2 Inquisition of Kozilek, another Noxious Revival vs. Surgical, Damnation, Maelstrom Pulse as an extra removal & jace killer, Explosives + Ruins).

Any thoughts?

I really like the deck, it feels like ITF, a deck I've always wanted to play, but my incursion into the format was after that deck was viable).

Anusien

02-27-2012, 02:50 PM

Shackles is MUCH better against Stoneforge and Delver decks than Tribal decks.

Hanni

02-27-2012, 03:01 PM

I love Shackles. If you've ever looked in my Superfriends thread, then you probably know that. If not, suffice to say I ran 3 copies in that deck religiously for a long time.

This is a different deck. It's very difficult to support Shackles with my manabase, and run 4 Deeds which often pop for 3+

The deck runs such a large mass of removal that I really see no need for Shackles in here, unfortunately.

@ Treefolk

Kitchen Finks got nothin on Zuran Orb vs Burn and other similar hyper aggressive strategies.

sdematt

02-27-2012, 05:42 PM

My list is super similar.

Manabase

2 Snapcaster
2 Thrun

2 Liliana
3 Jace

3 Force of Will
3 Spell Snare
2 Mana Leak
4 Brainstorm
3 Ghastly Demise
1 Darkblast
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Life from the Loam
1 Worm Harvest
2 Intuition
2 Damnation
1 Putrefy
1 Noxious Revival
1 Maelstrom Pulse

Board:
1 Pernicious Deed
3 Tarmogoyf
3 Spell Pierce
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Krosan Grip
2 Virtue's Ruin
1 Flusterstorm/Gilded Drake/Metamorph

-Matt

Hanni

02-27-2012, 06:03 PM

I did some thinking about Thrun vs Gigapede. When I break it down, the only benefit of Thrun I can think of is costing 4 instead of 5 and having regenerate for less tempo loss when blocking.

Gigapede is tutorable and recurrable. Being counterable is largely irrelevant. Shroud vs Hexproof makes no difference in this deck. Gigapede plays nicer with Innocent Blood. 6 power makes for a faster clock on a clean board. Gigapede can block and kill Goyf's, and possibly even Knight's. Gigapede plays a lot nicer with Dredge.

In the cases where Thrun would be better, Worm Harvest is better than both of them... by a lot. In fact, Worm Harvest is better than both of them almost always, but as an additional wincon, Gigapede gets the award IMO.

I'm not sure the deck really needs more than 4 Jace 1 Harvest 1 Gigapede as win cons. If it did, I'd probably go with Creeping Tar Pit, since having an extra land that taps for U and B isn't bad. I'm definitely sold on cutting 1 Thoughtseize for 1 Gigapede, but I'm still up in the air for what to replace the other one with.

Anusien

02-27-2012, 06:20 PM

Thrun fights Tarmogoyf and Batterskull and Factory so much better than Gigapede. It also works MUCH better when you don't have Loam online.

Hanni

02-27-2012, 07:24 PM

Thrun fights Tarmogoyf and Batterskull and Factory so much better than Gigapede. It also works MUCH better when you don't have Loam online.

Not sure how Thrun fights off a 4/5 or 5/6 Tarmogoyf better than Gigapede, who trades with the Goyf rather than chump + regenerate (Goyf still lives). Against Batterskull, sure, but the difference isn't that big. Against Factory, I have tons of answers, from Wasteland to Cabal Pit to tons of 1/1 Worm tokens.

Basically, my point is that this deck really doesn't fear the cards you just listed, because it runs a billion and one answers to those things in the first place. The only reason to even consider Gigapede over the superior Harvest and Jace wincons is because it increases the decks win conditions, as to not get blown out by Surgical/Extirpate. There is way more synergy with Gigapede within the shell of this deck than there is with Thrun.

Also, the point about Thrun being better without Loam doesn't make sense. So Gigapede costs 1 more mana. I don't see how that makes it worse than Thrun without a Loam, since this deck can still hit 5 lands without Loam. Besides, this is an Intuition/Loam Control deck afterall, so cards that work better with those spells should get the nod over those that don't.

I'm thinking the deck only needs a 4/1/1 split of Jace, Harvest, and Gigapede anyway. If my opponent is capable of hitting all three of those with Surgical in a single game without me having a way to counter it or otherwise prevent it from resolving, then I deserve to lose that game.

The Treefolk Master

02-27-2012, 07:41 PM

When thinking about it, the biggest reason to run Thrun instead of Gigapede was that, if you're in desperate need to stick a dude, Thrun is guaranteed to come down, while Gigapede can be countered. Counterspell + Force of Will can keep Gigapede out long enough for your opponent to kill you or gain a large advantage with stuff like Jace.

On the other hand, I do own a Foil Gigapede...

Hanni

02-27-2012, 07:55 PM

Spell Snare and Spell Pierce don't effect Gigapede, so you're looking at Counterspell, Force of Will, and Daze.

You're only seeing Counterspell against Control decks, where simply recasting him next turn is fine.

Against Force of Will, unless it's a tempo move that results in you losing before Gigapede sticks next turn, is just fine with me. 2 for 1 yourself over it, I'm just gonna cast him again.

Against Daze, yea, that could be painful. I'm still casting him again next turn, though.

I mean, anything with blue in it, unless it's aggressive (U/R Delver, etc), is probably a good matchup. This deck is soft to hyper aggressive decks like Burn, but dominates control mirrors.

Here's my revamped list:

U/B/g The Mind Harvester

// Lands (24)
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
4 [R] Underground Sea
2 [R] Tropical Island
1 [R] Bayou
2 [UNH] Island
1 [UNH] Swamp
1 [UNH] Forest
2 [ON] Lonely Sandbar
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
1 [TE] Wasteland
1 [OD] Cabal Pit

// Creatures (1)
1 [ON] Gigapede

// Spells (35)
1 [EVE] Worm Harvest
2 [ISD] Liliana of the Veil
4 [WWK] Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 [IA] Brainstorm
4 [TE] Intuition
1 [RAV] Life from the Loam
4 [IA] Counterspell
4 [AL] Force of Will
1 [EVE] Raven's Crime
2 [OD] Innocent Blood
2 [OD] Ghastly Demise
1 [RAV] Darkblast
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
4 [AP] Pernicious Deed

// Sideboard (15)
SB: 4 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
SB: 2 [ARB] Maelstrom Pulse
SB: 2 [SOK] Pithing Needle
SB: 4 [IA] Zuran Orb
SB: 1 [DK] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 [SOM] Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 1 [WWK] Bojuka Bog

I'm still considering Buried Ruin for the fact that it can put a Crypt or Orb into hand, and therefore into play, immediately.

Mr. Safety

09-03-2012, 09:34 AM

I've been messing around with this deck style for a few days. My main questions are:

1) How many Intutions do you really need? I can probably get 2 (have none now) within my budget, maybe three if I can get a good deal.

2) How many man-lands should I play? Currently using 2x Creeping Tar Pit and 1x Treetop Village.

3) I have noticed that Daze is fairly well useless so far...am I off base? I've been maindecking 3x Spell Pierce and I've been happy with those.

4) Is it enough to have 2x Jace, 1x Worm Harvest, and man-lands for win-cons? I really want to squeeze in more copies of Loam, Raven's Crime, some additional spot removal, discard, etc.

5) I've been digging Forbidden Alchemy as a dig option, using two so far.

My current list for reference:

3x Wasteland
1x Underground Sea
1x Bayou
4x Misty Rainforest
3x Verdant Catacombs
2x Island
2x Swamp
1x Forest
2x Creeping Tar Pit
1x Treetop Village
1x Lonely Sandbar
2x Barren Moor
1x Tranquil Thicket

1x Eternal Witness
1x Thrun, the Last Troll

2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
3x Pernicious Deed
2x Maelstrom Pulse
3x Life from the Loam
2x Intuition
1x Worm Harvest
3x Raven's Crime
4x Brainstorm
3x Force of Will
2x Spell Snare
3x Spell Pierce
2x Forbidden Alchemy
1x Profane Command
4x Innocent Blood

Anyways, looking for direction and way to mise the big $$$ dual lands. So far the extra basics have been fine, especially by reducing Wasteland effectiveness against me. It means I can't run Hymn to Tourach but I think Raven's Crime is enough given the Loam engine. My biggest reason for using multiples of Raven's Crime/Loam are to allow me to use Intuition for other control factors (if I can nuts draw into Loam/Crime with Brainstorm, Alchemy, Jace.) It may be a pet card concoction but I love the Witness/Profane interaction which adds a win-condition to the deck.

Thanks for any help!

Plm

09-23-2012, 01:11 PM

Hi there!

I went to a small tournament today with the mind harvester, and scrubed hardcore.

Here is what I sleeved :

3 Pernicious Deed
2 Innocent Blood
2 Ghastly Demise
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Darkblast
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Damnation

1 Life from the Loam
1 Raven's Crime

4 Brainstorm
3 Intuition

4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Gigapede
1 Worm Harvest

3 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
1 Mana Leak

1 Creeping Tar Pit
3 misty rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
3 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
1 Wasteland
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Academy Ruins
2 Lonely Sandbar
1 Maze of Ith
1 Forest
1 Cabal Pit

SB: 3 Tarmogoyf
SB: 3 Flusterstorm
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 1 Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 2 Zuran Orb
SB: 2 Krosan Grip

Round one vs tribal vampire RB from modern 2/0

All those hasty critters are annoying to deal with at ritual speed, but no problem. I win stabilize slowly and resolve intuition for loam, harvest and stuff (can't remember , don't matter)

Game 2 I side in the goyfs, turn one raven's crime enable turn 2 bolt proof goyf, that's all she wrote.

As we say : a vaincre sans péril, on triomphe sans gloire :frown: .

Round 2 vs gobs, full pimp ! 1/1

Game 1 is long and difficult after a mulligan to 5. I finally win with loam, harvest, maze & cabal pit , wihout seeing any intuition.

Game 2 gob does what gob do.

Time is called at the start of game 3 , draw.

Pwaa horrible mach up, fast agro with CA and mana denial. I'm glad to get a draw.

Round 3 vs merfolk with landstill. 0/2

Deed + sorcery speed removal sucks vs mutavault.

Game 2 zuran orb gives tarmo the power to block ! gigapede comes in to try racing but I loose because I top deck innocent blood instead of any other removal.

What did I say about agro with CA ?

Round 4 vs zombardement 0/2

Game 1 I loose after a long battle. recuring power is to strong for my deck, and loam engine is mana hungry.

Game 2 leyline stop annoying recursion, but discard eat my deed, I draw 6 (six fucking 6 , like 2 times 3 , or 1+2+3, or my nefew's number of finger on one hand, like 1/4 of the lands of the deck; men can you believe that?) lands in a row (this with fetching to suffle the deck and so:mad:).
My opp feel sorry for me. Me too !

That's what real scrubing looks like.

All in all, I felt that the deck was too slow and too mana intensive (vs gob it was a pain).

Playing only tribal was painfull, I would have liked to be paired against miracle control or maverick wich were positive in testing, alas.

Goyf was a star from the side board but playing only one type of deck shift my view.

I might try to take a page of the nic fit book and use veteran explorer in order to have the mana. The deck is impossible to beat in the late game, it has INEVITABILITY, the problem is surviving.
I was also very disapointed with lilianna witch shine once you have the loam engine online but is meh before that.

Hanni

09-27-2012, 11:24 PM

Okay, so Valtrix totally inspired me to revisit this deck. I'm definitely thinking that going 4c and splashing white is the way to go right now. Swords to Plowshares alone was never enough justification to go into white, but with Terminus being just as splashable as Swords to Plowshares with its single white mana cost, there is no good reason not to. Terminus is far more powerful than Pernicious Deed for dealing with creatures, and there are only a few Tier 2 strategies where a mass sweep of noncreature permanents is beneficial. Most decks with noncreatures permanents only run a few, and of those few, most are 3cc or less. Enter Abrupt Decay. So Terminus replaces Deed as my sweeper of choice, and Abrupt Decay fills in the role of dealing with noncreature permanents. Check. For matchups where I need answers to larger cc noncreature (or even creature) permanents, there are tons of sideboard options, such as: Vindicate, Maelstrom Pulse, or even Deed.

Through re-evaluation, Snapcaster Mage is definitely where I want to be again. I was on the fence with Snapcaster before, when my 1cc removal consisted of Innocent Bloods and Darkblast, but Swords to Plowshares and Abrupt Decay tear that fence down.

I obviously need to add Sensei's Divining Top to make Terminus work, which isn't a problem at all considering how insanely powerful that card is, independently, for just about any control deck. Although... Scroll Rack is another option that also happens to be crazy powerful with Loam, so that's another possibility instead. In Top's defense though, I do like the idea of being able to bring in Counterbalance from the sideboard. Having CounterTop postboard would dramatically improve this decks worst matchup(s): Burn, Sligh, and Zoo.

I need to go to bed soon, but I will definitely be working on brewing something up over the weekend.

EDIT: I totally forgot to mention Engineered Explosives. The deck should already be running at least 1 Explosives because of the Acadamy Ruins toolbox. EE is yet another piece of the removal package that justifies dropping Deed. With access to 4 colors of mana now, it can finally blow up Jaces' in the mirror.

I'm thinking that with the right tweaking, this deck has the potential to be a metacrusher, without sacrificing its other matchups. Mmmm the possibilities.

pe5e

10-03-2012, 08:54 AM

So Valtrix inspired Hanni and he inspired me to take a look at this deck.
I thought about Hannis ideas and here is my list for the moment:

//CQ and CA
3 Snapcaster Mage
4 Brainstorm
2 Life from the Loam
2 Intuition
4 Sensei's Divining Top
//Removel
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Terminus
2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Darkblast
2 Disfigure
1 Engineered Explosives

//Counter
3 Force of Will
2 Counterspell

//Winoptions
1 Batterskull
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

//Manabase
1 Academy Ruins
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
1 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
2 Tundra
1 Savannah
1 Lonely Sandbar
2 Island

//SB
2 Pernicious Deed
3 Counterbalance
4 Thoughtseize
3 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Vindicate

This is my first try for a 4c Loam list. I am not sure about the removel package but for now its fine. Intuiton is redicilous powerful and i would like to play the third if i find a slot for it.

Batterskull is by far the best winoption after jace for this deck in my opinion. It`s tutorable via Intuition, races aggro, has a great synergy with terminus, can be defended with enough mana und is recursionable with Academy Ruins.
Worm Harvest is too slow and not that powerful when you are at low life.

The manabase is fine for now. It has only 3 ultility lands so far but i think that`s a good number for a 4c deck. The manabase should at least run 22 lands und work without loam.

That´s my experence so far and i would like thoughts of others about it. Especially the Hanni list would be interesting^^.

My 2 cents pe5e
(Apologise for my bad english)

Hanni

03-28-2017, 03:24 PM

Necromancy.

I was tinkering with this deck a few months ago, trying a 4c list with Swords to Plowshares. I did pretty poorly with it, but I attribute most of that with how difficult this deck is to pilot. Regardless, the list definitely needed a bit of work.

At any rate, Fatal Push has me thinking about this deck again. This will be my starting point:

UBGw The Mind Harvester

Lands (23)
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
1 Bayou
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Lonely Sandbar
1 Cabal Pit
1 Academy Ruins
1 Wasteland

Creatures (0)

Spells (37)
1 Worm Harvest
1 Garruk Relentless
2 Liliana of the Veil
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Brainstorm
4 Intuition
1 Life from the Loam
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
1 Raven's Crime
4 Fatal Push
2 Abrupt Decay
4 Pernicious Deed
1 Engineered Explosives

Sideboard (15)
3 Vendilion Clique
3 Duress
2 Diabolic Edict
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Karakas
1 Nomad Stadium
1 Ghost Quarter

When I playtested this deck a couple of months ago, I tested a list with 2 Snapcaster and 2 Jace instead of 4 Jace, but that was a horrible decision. This deck absolutely wants 4 Jace; Jace is the glue that holds this deck together.

Also, the manabase was horrid. I found myself unable to cast Counterspell quite often, so I cut 2 for 2 Spell Pierce. I didn't have any issues casting Pierce, but it was a dead card quite often. Moving back to a solid 3 color manabase and going back to 4 Counterspell should fix those problems.

The lone Tundra is there to give me access to EE@4 maindeck vs Miracles and Nomad Stadium postboard vs Burn.

I probably won't get around to playtesting this deck again for a while, but when I do, I'll post my findings/results/etc. Despite the difficulty with piloting this deck, I do enjoy playing the "kill all the things" strategy.

Hanni

04-25-2017, 08:46 AM

04-25-2017, 08:57 AM

Maybe this deck can fill the void of a hard control deck now thst Miracles is gone?

I've made a couple tweaks to the I posted before. I'll refrain from posting them until I get to do some actual testing, though.

I had "goldfished" the lost you posted above a bit and a couple observations I made:

I think Spell Snare might be better than Spell Pierce here (I could be wrong though).

I think running a single Red dual is better than a White one, because you can feign a REB effect, or sideboard one if you really want to.

I really enjoyed playing it though, but you are right, it is very grindy and it seems that when you win it's by a hair's breadth. Just the kind of deck I like, really.

Hanni

04-25-2017, 09:07 AM

I'm actually back to 4 Counterspell, no Pierce. Snare could be good, but this is the kind of deck that definitely values more versatile and less conditional answers like Counterspell.

I also cut the basics for more fetches/duals, which makes casting Counterspell even easier. Although, without Miracles, mana denial may come back in force and make me reverse that decision.

04-25-2017, 10:06 AM

I'm actually back to 4 Counterspell, no Pierce. Snare could be good, but this is the kind of deck that definitely values more versatile and less conditional answers like Counterspell.

Yes, yes. I had forgotten why I had Snare in there at all. I do like Snare though because it lets you nab a turn two Stoneforge on the draw, which in my very, very limited "testing" presented Equipment as a bit of an issue game 1 (mostly fast Batterskull). Again, it wasn't much data though, so variance most probably.

I also cut the basics for more fetches/duals, which makes casting Counterspell even easier. Although, without Miracles, mana denial may come back in force and make me reverse that decision.

I can see a case for Stifle (and so maybe RUG Delver) coming back, but I'm not sure how effective that would be versus this, outside their nut draws.

mgrinshpon

04-27-2017, 11:00 AM

My metagame has a lot of Landstill in it (which is weird but awesome) and I've been noticing that in control mirrors, it'd be nice to hold up mana for counter wars yet still maintain card advantage. Accumulated Knowledge seems like a good fit for a deck like this- one that runs almost entirely in the opponent's end step. After cutting a Vedalken Shackles (which felt terrible every game), putting in Worm Harvest, and trying to fit Accumulated Knowledge into the list, this is what I've arrived at. It's an unpolished mess, though, and I'm not sure that Ponder wouldn't just be better in the AK slot. I feel like I never have enough early interaction, yet I'm unclear on what to cut.

Deathrite Shaman is very difficult for the deck below. Another Fatal Push may be warranted.

The sideboard is largely meaningless, but Baleful Strix+Academy Ruins is awesome. The sideboard could use a few more of them if the meta becomes 40+% Delver and Stompy.

Land(23):
1 Academy Ruins
1 Forest
2 Island
2 Lonely Sandbar
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
3 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
1 Wasteland

Instants/Flash (28):
2 Abrupt Decay
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Brainstorm
4 Counterspell
2 Fatal Push
4 Force of Will
3 Intuition
1 Spell Pierce
1 Spell Snare
3 Snapcaster Mage

Everything Else (9):
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Pernicious Deed
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Life from the Loam
1 Worm Harvest

Sideboard:
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Baleful Strix
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Flusterstorm
1 Krosan Grip
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Engineered Plague
2 Pithing Needle

Hanni

04-27-2017, 11:35 AM

Raven's Crime is way too important in combo and control matchups to not run the singleton in the maindeck. Especially if you're meta is heavy on Landstill, you definitely want the ability to convert Loam card advantage into Mind Twist locking your opponents.

JackaBo

05-04-2017, 09:41 AM

I'm considering something like this.

UBgr Jace Loam value

Creatures:4
4 Snapcaster Mage

Spells:33
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Brainstorm
3 Fatal Push
1 Ponder
1 Raven's Crime
1 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare
2 Counterspell
2 Life from the Loam
3 Punishing Fire
2 Intuition
1 Kolaghan's Command
3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Force of Will
1 Nissa, Vital Force
1 Worm Harvest

Lands:23
1 Academy Ruins
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland

Sideboard not done but general ideas:
Artifacts for intuition piles
Cheap interactions for the fast decks.
No grind cards, the CA engine is unparallelled.
For wasteland decks: only black removals/sweepers to ensure resilience to colourscrew.

Poron

05-04-2017, 11:09 AM

play a Volrath's Stronghold and some high value creature.

No Pernicious Deed? Ok, EE + Ruins is good

No Abrupt Decay and 4 Snapcaster? What's the sense?

mgrinshpon

06-19-2017, 11:26 PM

I just saw stryfro play Entomb+Vengeful Pharaoh+4x Predict on his twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/153023035). List looked sweet af and it looked a lot better than Intuition+cards.

Hanni

07-06-2018, 04:19 PM

With DRS gone, this deck looks like it has some serious potential.

I know this deck was originally supposed to be a hard control deck, but now I think it makes more sense to be more of a combo deck. I'd still pack some removal of course, but I think going deeper into the combo and lighter on removal is a much better plan, at least maindeck.

What I mean by deeper is to include cards like Exploration and Merchant Scroll. The plan is to Intuition for Loam/Stage/Depths and be able to make a 20/20 every turn until one sticks, and then you kill the opponent. Exploration isn't necessary, but it speeds the deck up dramatically. Merchant Scroll tutors for Intuition, Force of Will, or Chain of Vapor postboard, which makes it such a perfect fit.

The ability to also include a copy of Worm Harvest in the sideboard gives the deck added resiliency to effects like Surgical and Pithing Needle, postboard.

Sample list:

BUG The Mind Harvester

Lands (21)
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Wasteland
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Dark Depths

Creatures (3)
3 Snapcaster Mage

Spells (36)
2 Jace, the Mindsculptor
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Intuition
1 Life from the Loam
4 Exploration
4 Thoughtseize
4 Force of Will
3 Fatal Push
2 Abrupt Decay

Sideboard (15)
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Raven's Crime
1 Worm Harvest
1 Karakas

Options include doing more fancy things with the manabase, such as...

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Lonely Sandbar
Ghost Quarter
Glacial Chasm
Creeping Tar Pit
Treetop Village
The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
Maze of Ith
Academy Ruins

...among others.

There's also options like Baleful Strix, Engineered Explosives, Counterspell, Liliana of the Veil, and many more.

Not really sure what I want to do with the sideboard just yet, but some number of Flusterstorm makes sense, as does Diabolic Edict and Toxic Deluge. More blue instants also sound good because of Merchant Scroll, like Hydroblast.

Hanni

07-10-2018, 03:03 PM

Tweaked the list a bit more, based on the new direction it's taken.

BUG Intuition Depths

Lands (21)
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Wasteland
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Dark Depths

Creatures (4)
4 Snapcaster Mage

Spells (35)
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Merchant Scroll
4 Intuition
1 Life from the Loam
4 Exploration
4 Force of Will
4 Thoughtseize
4 Fatal Push
2 Abrupt Decay

Sideboard (15)
3 Flusterstorm
1 Hydroblast
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Echoing Truth
1 Raven's Crime
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Toxic Deluge
2 Krosan Grip
1 Worm Harvest

I'm kind of considering starting a new thread, since the deck can no longer be called The Mind Harvester... since I cut Jace.

The original list and lists throughout this thread were control decks with a combo-esque finish. This new approach is combo/control.

At any rate, Jace simply does not make sense in a combo deck with very little removal. Snapcaster Mage is simply much better at doing what this deck wants. The deck still needs an adequate amount of removal since it is on the slower side compared to other combo decks. The deck can afford to spend slots on removal due to how concise and precise the combo is.

I may be wrong about how I feel about Jace and add it back in later, so for now, I'll keep posting in this thread.

The sideboard is currently designed to fight postboard hate and opposing combo decks, with a couple of Deluge's to assist against aggro.

I absolutely believe this deck has the power to be a serious contender in the Legacy format now.

somethingdotdotdot

07-12-2018, 07:27 PM

Hanni

07-12-2018, 07:40 PM

Unsure if it's been mentioned in this thread before, but this is starting to become very similar to the BUG lands deck here: http://www.buglands.com/

For the list itself--I don't see why 4x intuition and 4x merchant scroll are in the deck--they seem like very clunky cards in today's environment. I'm unsure why merchant scroll is included over additional cantrips like ponder; and 4 intuitions just seems like there would be a bunch of extras clogging up your hand a non-trivial amount of the time. Just my opinion as I've dabbled with this archetype now and again the past couple of years.

There's nothing clunky about having 4 Intuition at all. It's the one card combo of this deck. It's like saying Show and Tell decks should run less than 4 Show and Tell.

I'm already running 4 Ponder. Merchant Scroll tutors for Intuition, which is the primary gameplan of this deck. Considering it can also tutor for protection (FoW/Flusterstorm) and removal (Echoing Truth) makes it a perfect fit. I could run Preordain instead, but I'm perfectly fine paying one more mana to tutor for exactly what I need.

I've seen the BUG Lands list, and it's not really similar to my current approach. I'm not trying to play a Lands strategy with tons of utility lands and tons of mediocre tutor targets for Intuition. My focus is to resolve an Intuition to then power out a 20/20 indestructible flyer every turn until I win the game. The rest of the deck is built to support that gameplan.

Also, Exploration does a lot to speed the deck up and makes Merchant Scroll, Intuition, Snapcaster Mage, and Life from the Loam less clunky. The spot removal + SCM plan buys me plenty of time to go off against most decks. The discard + SCM buys me time to go off against combo decks. The deck may not be perfect, but it feels very powerful to me right now, and I will continue to optimize it further.

apple713

07-13-2018, 12:52 AM

Your deck is so dependent on that 1 strategy that g2 it probably gets wrecked. G1 is strong though I'm sure. I feel like it needs something more than just 1 stage and 1 depths. You won't win with a snap caster to the face so something else would help I'm sure. I feel like warm harvest should come in every game because opponents will be gunning to surgical when you intuition.

You can defend against surgical if you change a few cards to incorporate a wish board. For every 1 surgical they pull off you just need 1 living wish to get the land back. That would strengthen the strategy and provide some more options. Wish boards are slower but since you are running 4 explorations it might be ok. Wishboards let you do amazing things like find cards to blow out the opponent. If you add 1 glacial chasm you will be able to hold up against alot of decks that can't find an answer to that. 1 of Karakas or bojuka bog. Yeah I know it probably doesnt work with the design concept of the deck but winning is winning...

JackaBo

07-13-2018, 07:13 AM

While i can dig the depths approach the draw this deck is loam plus jace and the incredible card advantage that does give!? It's also a combo that break the symetry of loam making it work in a non-land based shell. Put some jace in there, hanni!

Hanni

07-13-2018, 08:57 AM

I realize that the deck is all in game one on a single gameplan, and I am mostly fine with that. Also, in postboard games, my plan is to fight through the hate like Surgical with the additional Flusterstorm's, along with the maindeck Thoughtseize and SCM. The plan was to bring in Worm Harvest every time.

However, I was thinking about this last night before I even saw your post, and I do want to be maindecking the Worm Harvest, in addition to the Raven's Crime.

My reasoning for that is varied, but I will break it up into two major points:

1) Games where I don't have Exploration in play. The Stage/Depths plan without Exploration is slow and doesn't impact the board for several turns. There will be games where I need to impact the board immediately, and a Raven's Crime + Worm Harvest pile does that.

2) Karakas. If my opponent has Karakas, my plan right now is to go for Wasteland. However, with only 1 copy, I'm most likely forced to spend my first Intuition grabbing it, which means I'm not grabbing the Stage/Depths combo. Worm Harvest is a pretty solid plan against D&T in game one if they have Karakas.

I'm going to cut 1 SCM and 1 Fatal Push to fit in 1 Raven's Crime and 1 Worm Harvest.

For now, I'm going to replace the two free sideboard slots with Jace, although I'm not sure if that's correct.

I'm also considering cutting 1 Verdant Catacombs for 1 Ghost Quarter, to increase my chances of naturally drawing into an answer to Karakas while also giving me the angle to dismantle manabases if I need to (would mostly be used against Miracles, but maybe Stoneblade, Big Eldrazi, and Food Chain too).

Bojuka Bog in the sideboard is way too slow, and without Crop Rotation, it's sorcery speed. It would probably be fine against Lands and Dredge, but it's ineffective against Reanimator.

On the other hand, I would like to fit a Karakas in somehow.

I don't think Glacial Chasm is worth it for me. It requires 2 Thespian's Stage to assemble a lock, which I don't have, and tutoring for it to by me time doesn't accomplish anything.

I don't think Living Wish is worth it, at all. If I was built like Turbo Depths, with multiple copies of Stage/Depths, and my plan was to assemble A+B, it would be good. However, it's just not going to do enough for me here.

I don't really want to be on Jace game one. My plan is not to grind out card advantage, it's to combo off. It's too hard to support Jace in here without adding more removal, and there are a number of matchups where it's going to be bad, such as RUG Delver and Infect. I'd be happy seeing it against Miracles and Stoneblade though, which makes it much better in the sideboard than in the maindeck, IMO.

apple713

07-14-2018, 02:28 PM

I don't think Living Wish is worth it, at all. If I was built like Turbo Depths, with multiple copies of Stage/Depths, and my plan was to assemble A+B, it would be good. However, it's just not going to do enough for me here.

The main purpose for living / cunning wish is to let you fight through the hate easier. It was never intended for you to piece together the combo. It also lets you play a better more effective side board. This strategy doesnt work in turbo depths because the goal is to win faster. Your strategy is very slow and it could work here much better.

Hanni

07-14-2018, 09:24 PM

I already have a two mana tutor that can grab ways to fight through hate with Merchant Scroll, which also happens to grab my combo card. It also has awesome (pitches to Force of Will). Living Wish doesn't do as much for this deck as Merchant Scroll does.

Cunning Wish is nice because it is instant speed and grabs more possible cards, and is an option instead of Merchant Scroll, but the difference between 2cc and 3cc is also a big deal. I think having 4 Intuition's maindeck is pretty important, but I wouldn't rule out Cunning Wish, and it is something I would like to test with as well.

Hanni

11-21-2018, 11:09 PM

It's been a while since I posted, and I still never got around to doing any serious testing yet, but I think Assassin's Trophy shores up a lot of holes in this deck. It deals with Karakas, Maze of Ith, Marit Lage (by destroying Stage in response to the sac), Gurmag Angler, planeswalkers (JTMS), and postboard Leyline of the Void, in addition to the stuff Decay was already dealing with like Ensnaring Bridge. Giving some opponents a basic land seems perfectly acceptable, all things considered.

I also think having a singleton Gifts Ungiven could be extremely good, which can be grabbed with Merchant Scroll, particularly in situations where the opponent has Karakas, since I can grab Loam/Stage/Depths/Wasteland. I'm not entirely sure yet though. Of course, if I were to swap to Cunning Wish, I would certainly run a copy in the sideboard.

I'm also thinking a singleton Crucible would be fantastic in the sideboard.

I need to tweak a few more things still, and get some playtesting in at some point, but I think that switching Abrupt Decay into Assassin's Trophy is a significant improvement that makes this deck even more resilient. I'll post an updated list at a later time.

EDIT: I'm also curious how the deck would perform with Preordain instead of Merchant Scroll. The deck would certainly be better at finding Exploration, which is an important component of the deck, but relying on finding 4 Intuition with 0 tutors seems highly suspect. Another idea could be to run a split of Preordain and Gifts, but I'm not sure about that either...

There are definitely some different configurations that I'd like to try out, at any rate.

JackaBo

11-22-2018, 02:22 AM

What’s your current list, Hanni? Blue loam is ever intriguing

Hanni

08-27-2020, 10:20 AM

So I was working on this deck for a long time, and I was going to post about it a while ago, but then I stopped messing around with magic for a while. When I was still working on it, the companion rule hadn't changed, although the deck still needs to run 80 cards, and Yorion is still good despite the rules change.

Anyway, the deck basically builds around the Snowko shell and becomes a sort of cross between Lands and Snowko. Astrolabe helps stitch the mana together by converting the colorless lands into color-producing sources, and enables the 4th color nicely. The shell still has all of the the grindy 2-for-1's, chocked full with spell interaction, removal, and some Planeswalker's, but it has acceleration with Exploration, additional grind with Life from the Loam, and the one card combo engine of Intuition. Intuition can either make a fast 20/20 that you can potentially remake every turn, make a nearly unstoppable swarm of 2/2's zombies every turn, or go for Uro when you need another utility card and/or you lack an Exploration in play to go for one of the other more busted options.

Before I delve any deeper, here's my current list:

UGbw Yorion Intuition

Lands (28)
3 Prismatic Vista
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
2 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
3 Snow-covered Island
1 Snow-covered Forest
1 Snow-covered Swamp
1 Snow-covered Plains
1 Cabal Pit
1 Karakas
1 Blast Zone
4 Wasteland
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Field of the Dead
1 Dark Depths

Creatures (10)
4 Ice-Fang Coatl
3 Snapcaster Mage
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath

Spells (42)
2 Oko, Thief of Crowns
2 Teferi, Time Raveler
4 Arcum's Astrolabe
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Intuition
2 Life from the Loam
4 Exploration
4 Force of Will
2 Force of Negation
4 Thoughtseize
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Abrupt Decay

Sideboard (15)
1 Yorion, Sky Nomad
1 Narset, Parter of Veils
1 Ashiok, Dream Render
2 Force of Negation
3 Veil of Summer
2 Force of Vigor
1 Assassin's Trophy
2 Dead of Winter
2 Surgical Extraction

The deck is sort of a pile of goodstuff.dec, but it all synergizes pretty well. Most of the cards are standard fare for a Snowko deck.

I prefer Leo over Narset in the maindeck because I feel like it is better against the majority of the format overall. I chose Leo over more copies of Uro because I don't need a powerful threat to close games out the same way as traditional Snowko when I can Intuition into Dark Depths or Field of the Dead; Leo is intended as a disruptive element that effects most of the decks in the format, and I already have Exploration to ramp out lands.

For this reason, I also run Teferi. Being able to shut down most forms of interaction that stop me from going off with Intuition/Depths is pretty busted.

Thoughtseize is chosen over cards like Dovin's Veto or other countermagic because the proactive disruption plays a bit better with the combo-nature of the deck. It's also a fantastic turn 1 play, especially when you lead with a turn 1 Exploration, setting up a turn 2 Intuition pretty nicely.

When going for Field of the Dead, Thespian's Stage can copy it, allowing me to keep the package more concise.

Brainstorm and Ice-Fang Coatl (or even Ponder with Teferi on the board) can protect Life from the Loam from graveyard exile effects, so I no longer need cards like Lonely Sandbar or Waterlogged Grove.

Ice-Fang Coatl and Snapcaster Mage can insulate my 20/20 from Edict effects.

Naturally drawn Loam's can help fuel Exploration, and there are enough juicy land targets that can put in work as well. The card advantage can also be converted into business spells with Brainstorm when extra lands in hand are not needed.

I've cut a lot of the other old stuff that is just no longer needed anymore, like Worm Harvest and Jace the Mind Sculptor. The deck is no longer The Mind Harvester anymore, so maybe at some point I'll start a new thread.

The deck grinds just as well as Snowko, but goes way over the top with more powerful/faster ways to turn the corner and finish games. The deck shores up a critical weakness of typical Lands decks by having strong interaction against combo decks or turn 1 Blood Moon's while being less all-in with its graveyard/Loam dependence. Overall, I feel like this deck is getting the best of both worlds.

Exploration as acceleration helps this deck to get out ahead in most matchups, allowing it to play through Waste/Daze/Pierce from Delver decks, Waste/Port/Thalia vs D&T, and just otherwise start casting its bombs/disruption faster vs everything else.

The sideboard isn't set in stone, but I feel like it gives the deck the remaining tools it needs to deal with everything in the format. There are obviously hundreds of options available here given the four colors we have access to.

I've considered numerous other cards for this deck between maindeck and sideboard, but this is what I have settled on. Cards like Sevinne's Reclamation could still find a way in the deck at some point, but I'm pretty happy with the current configuration. I'm also of the opinion that Dead of Winter is better in here than Plague Engineer, but maybe I'm wrong. I'd be happy to list the tons of other cards I've considered for this deck if anyone would be interested in it.

I wasn't sure if I should have posted this brew before placing with it in some events first, but since I don't plan on actually participating in any tournaments at any point in the near future, I guess it doesn't really matter. Hopefully if someone does, I'm given the credit for my brew, but it's whatever. I never really got any credit for creating the basis for Miracles, so I've conditioned myself to no longer care about my standing in the magic community.

Enjoy folks. This things a mufuckin beast.