capitacom
12-24-2011, 08:51 AM
I have been testing the following deck as a variation of BGW junk, but in the current meta it has some strong points going for it. Mainly being able to play punishing fire, red elemental blast and ancient grudge. First of all the list:
Lands – 24
4 Wasteland
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Volrath’s Stronghold
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Mountain
2 Badlands
2 Bayou
Creatures – 13
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Terravore
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Kitchen Finks
2 Green Sun’s Zenith
Spells- 24
4 Punishing Fire
4 Liliana of the Veil
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Terminate
1 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Hymn to Tourarch
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Life from the Loam
Sideboard-15
4 Red Elemental Blast
4 Thoughtseize
2 Ancient Grudge
3 Extirpate
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Darkblast
The most important synergy is that of punishing fire and liliana, which allows you to make better use of her ability. Life from the loam is another good card to pitch to liliana and is very strong in the lategame to allow you to wastelock and recur your threats via volrath's stronghold.
With punishing fire, liliana, lightning bolt, terminate, maelstrom pulse and pernicious deed you have a nice selection of removal.
The rest of the deck is quite similar to that of BGW junk, sans kotr. I found terravore to be the best beater to replace it, although you don't really want more than one so I chose for a green sun's zenith package. Kitchen finks and scavenging ooze are useful targets as well, and kitchen finks especially is a great creature to recur. Lifegain is also important to compensate for the fetches and bob.
Bloodbraid elf is an omission, and it might be right to play it again, but I never really liked it in this deck. To be able to play it consistently on t4-5 you want to have 3 mox diamond because of wasteland, but mox diamond is also a terrible cascade. It also meant that green sun's zenith was out because it would be another terrible cascade. And you take 4 when you reveal it with confidant which is problematic against burn and zoo. Although it is a good card, you would have to alter the list and take out other strong cards and up your curve.
The sideboard improves the combo matchup more with thoughtseize and blasts. Ancient grudge is a nice card to pitch to liliana and good against blade decks, affinity, painter/grindstone and a number of lesser played decks.
Extirpate is the most solid graveyard removal (I didn't want to reveal leyline of the void for confidant), and good against snapcaster mage, loam decks and reanimator while being fine against dredge.
Pernicious deed and darkblast are additional cards you can bring in against swarm/tribal decks, against which they are both solid.
From my testing you have no really good matchups except tribal decks which can't deal with your removal suite, but few bad matchups either (reanimator and storm are probably the worst but these get much better after boarding). Punishing fire gives you an extra win condition against control in game one which is very useful and hard for them to deal with, especially once you have loam running. The sideboard is pretty general and can be tuned for a specific metagame but greatly improves your control and combo matchups which were somewhat weak.
One of the main things I'm not sure about is the 5 removal spell suite of 2 terminate, 2 bolt, 1 pulse and if this should be 4 terminate, 1 pulse or 2 terminate, 2 ghastly demise, 1 pulse, or some other combination. Let's discuss!
Lands – 24
4 Wasteland
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Volrath’s Stronghold
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Mountain
2 Badlands
2 Bayou
Creatures – 13
4 Dark Confidant
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Terravore
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Kitchen Finks
2 Green Sun’s Zenith
Spells- 24
4 Punishing Fire
4 Liliana of the Veil
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Terminate
1 Maelstrom Pulse
4 Hymn to Tourarch
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Life from the Loam
Sideboard-15
4 Red Elemental Blast
4 Thoughtseize
2 Ancient Grudge
3 Extirpate
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Darkblast
The most important synergy is that of punishing fire and liliana, which allows you to make better use of her ability. Life from the loam is another good card to pitch to liliana and is very strong in the lategame to allow you to wastelock and recur your threats via volrath's stronghold.
With punishing fire, liliana, lightning bolt, terminate, maelstrom pulse and pernicious deed you have a nice selection of removal.
The rest of the deck is quite similar to that of BGW junk, sans kotr. I found terravore to be the best beater to replace it, although you don't really want more than one so I chose for a green sun's zenith package. Kitchen finks and scavenging ooze are useful targets as well, and kitchen finks especially is a great creature to recur. Lifegain is also important to compensate for the fetches and bob.
Bloodbraid elf is an omission, and it might be right to play it again, but I never really liked it in this deck. To be able to play it consistently on t4-5 you want to have 3 mox diamond because of wasteland, but mox diamond is also a terrible cascade. It also meant that green sun's zenith was out because it would be another terrible cascade. And you take 4 when you reveal it with confidant which is problematic against burn and zoo. Although it is a good card, you would have to alter the list and take out other strong cards and up your curve.
The sideboard improves the combo matchup more with thoughtseize and blasts. Ancient grudge is a nice card to pitch to liliana and good against blade decks, affinity, painter/grindstone and a number of lesser played decks.
Extirpate is the most solid graveyard removal (I didn't want to reveal leyline of the void for confidant), and good against snapcaster mage, loam decks and reanimator while being fine against dredge.
Pernicious deed and darkblast are additional cards you can bring in against swarm/tribal decks, against which they are both solid.
From my testing you have no really good matchups except tribal decks which can't deal with your removal suite, but few bad matchups either (reanimator and storm are probably the worst but these get much better after boarding). Punishing fire gives you an extra win condition against control in game one which is very useful and hard for them to deal with, especially once you have loam running. The sideboard is pretty general and can be tuned for a specific metagame but greatly improves your control and combo matchups which were somewhat weak.
One of the main things I'm not sure about is the 5 removal spell suite of 2 terminate, 2 bolt, 1 pulse and if this should be 4 terminate, 1 pulse or 2 terminate, 2 ghastly demise, 1 pulse, or some other combination. Let's discuss!