Buried Ooze

[soltakar]

I recently came back to playing Magic, and I’ve always enjoyed played decks that revolved around recurring creatures. So when I saw Ken Adams’ Buried Ooze deck from SCG Baltimore I knew that I wanted to play it. For reference, the list he played was:

1 Phyrexian Devourer
1 Triskelion
1 Necrotic Ooze
1 Basking Rootwalla
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Bloodghast
4 Fauna Shaman
3 Noble Hierarch
1 Quirion Ranger
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Vengevine
4 Buried Alive
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Reanimate
4 Thoughtseize
3 Forest
1 Swamp
4 Bayou
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Gaea's Cradle

Sideboard:
1 Big Game Hunter
4 Dark Confidant
1 Terastodon
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Progenitus
4 Natural Order

Not having the Natural Orders, or really thinking that the deck needs the NO Prog coming out of the side board (and not having Brainstorm to shuffle it back should it be drawn), I decided that a non-transform sideboard was better for my needs. I decided on the following as my first iteration of the deck:

1 Phyrexian Devourer
1 Triskelion
1 Necrotic Ooze
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Bloodghast
4 Fauna Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Vengevine
3 Dark Confidant
4 Buried Alive
4 Reanimate
4 Thoughtseize
4 Hymn to Tourach
2 Forest
3 Swamp
3 Bayou
1 Bloodstained Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Volrath’s Stronghold
4 Wasteland

Sideboard:
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Perish
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Pithing Needle
2 Krosan Grip
1 Thrun, the Last Troll

I took this list to the Knight Ware Tournament in LA on 8/21/11 and went 3-2-1. I beat NO RUG, Goblins, and U/W Stoneforge, lost to Hypergenesis and Bant, and tied with Zoo. I wanted to switch out the 2 Inquition out for Maelstrom Pulse at the last minute for some spot creature removal, but once I got to the tournament I realized that I forgot them at home.

I felt that the deck performed pretty well, and that my lack of experience and playtesting was the main source of losses. As I thought it would be, the lack of spot removal cost me the match against Bant, made it impossible for me to close Zoo out, and almost cost me the match against NO RUG. Other issues that I feel needed to be addressed after playing the tournament were that the double black for Hymn made it difficult to cast at times, even though it didn’t happen I was constantly worried about flipping the Devourer or Trike with Bob, and with Birds being my only 1 drop creature it was difficult at times to recur the Vengevines.

With those thoughts in mind I’ve made the following changes:

1 Phyrexian Devourer
1 Triskelion
1 Necrotic Ooze
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Noble Hierarch
3 Bloodghast
4 Fauna Shaman
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Vengevine
1 Big Game Hunter
2 Smother
4 Buried Alive
4 Reanimate
4 Thoughtseize
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Forest
2 Swamp
3 Bayou
1 Bloodstained Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Volrath’s Stronghold
3 Wasteland

Sideboard:
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Krosan Grip
3 Dark Confidant

I’m still not 100% on the Smothers or the Big Game Hunter, thinking of possibly replacing them with 2 Shriekmaw and a Basking Rootwalla. The new Liliana looks like she would be awesome in the deck. Looking for advise and ideas.

[danyul]

I was playing this deck for awhile but have recently moved on to other decks. Anyway, I had some budget issues so I was running a mini Stoneforge Mystic package instead of Tarmogoyfs and I never used Dark Confidant. Other than that, our lists were pretty similar.

I would definitely think about running the singleton Quirion Ranger. It gives your combo inevitability once you stick a Fauna Shaman. The Basking Rootwalla always felt like a dead draw so I cut that early on. Also I always ran the full 4 Birds+4 Hierarch. That gives you every opportunity to hit your turn 1 mana ramp and also gives you spare dudes to try to activate Vengevines. Your mileage may vary.

This is a subtle thing, but I much preferred Shriekmaws over Big Game Hunter. Sometimes you have spare Reanimates sitting in your hand and being able to evoke Shriekmaw and Reanimate it again has won me a couple games.

About Hymn, that damn thing is like the Black Force of Will. I dont remember having many problems hitting double Black when I ran my version. But I was playing 9 Fetchlands and the full 4 Bayou. More than a few times I've blown somebody out by Hymning their goodshit away and then Reanimating it for myself. Also it's your trump card VS other combo decks. Just my two cents.

How are you handling graveyard hate? It always gave me enough of a headache that I really liked the transformational sideboard. Alot of times in game two I would just side out the combo entirely for NOProg plus a few other things. You can play some mindgames with that once you get to game three.

I also splashed a bit of white for SFM and Quasali Pridemage/Gaddock Teeg out of the sideboard.

Anyway, that was my experience with the deck. I hope that gave you some ideas.

[dahcmai]

There's an old thread about this style. It's actually fairly long and can offer quite a few ideas on what worked well and what didn't. Worth the read. I played it for a while and found it interesting, though I did stick with my own build.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?19026-Non-Survival-Ooze (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?19026-Non-Survival-Ooze&highlight=ooze)

[soltakar]

@danyul - I agree with you on the Hymns, which is why I put them in the first place. It may have just been bad luck with not getting the correct colored mana. I'm only running 3 Bayou because I don't currently have the 4th, ditto on the Gaea's Cradle.

I would like to run the full amount of Hierarchs and the Quirion Ranger but I don't honestly know what I would pull for them.

@dahcmai - I've read that entire thread and felt the decks were closer to reanimator with the ooze combo added in. This deck, at least how I play it, is more like a beatdown or midrange with ooze combo added in. I do appreciate the help.

[Arew]

The NO-Pro package in the board is *really* powerful. And you don't need Brainstorm, when you can just Cabal Therapy it away, or Fauna Shaman it away. I also agree that you want all the Hierarch's and the Quirion Ranger. I played this deck at SCG-Cinci in a last minute audible to 4-4 finish, which was partly due to my inexperience with the deck, and losing round 8 to a friend playing Four Horsemen, which is a terrible matchup.

Also, on Shriekmaw vs Big Game Hunter, in Ken Adams original sideboard, after SCGCinci, I just took out the Jitte for a Shriekmaw and ran both before I gave the deck up.

[danyul]

@soltakar - I would actually move some of your creature removal to the SB.

IMO, this deck isn't very good right now. At least in my metagame. It's decent versus control and combo matchups but against straight aggro it seems to be pretty bad. That's just my experience. I see you trying to address that with all the removal in your SB. Do you side out the combo for that stuff and just turn into a Rock deck?

[soltakar]

@soltakar - I would actually move some of your creature removal to the SB.

IMO, this deck isn't very good right now. At least in my metagame. It's decent versus control and combo matchups but against straight aggro it seems to be pretty bad. That's just my experience. I see you trying to address that with all the removal in your SB. Do you side out the combo for that stuff and just turn into a Rock deck?

I wanted some creature removal because I was having a hard time dealing with V. Clique in NO RUG, and stoneforge and KotR from Bant. It would have also made it easier to deal with zoo to be able to remove a creature or two.

I was probably not as aggressive as I needed to be against NO RUG and Bant, so I got into the mid/late game and had to try and grind out wins. I feel that some creature removal would have helped in those types of games. Looking at it now, you're probably correct in moving removal to the sideboard and just bring it in for those matches.

LA is pretty home to combo decks, with a large showing of U/W control. I think the deck can do well here. I just need to come up with a good list and get more practice in.

Thanks again for the ideas.