[Deck] Living Dead Girl

[Hanni]

B/g/u Living Dead Girl
AKA Can't Block!

// Lands (20)
4 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
4 [R] Bayou
3 [R] Underground Sea
1 [R] Tropical Island

// Creatures (29)
4 [7E] Birds of Paradise
4 [RAV] Elves of Deep Shadow
4 [TO] Putrid Imp
4 [SC] Carrion Feeder
4 [DKA] Gravecrawler
4 [ZEN] Bloodghast
4 [ROE] Vengevine
1 [JU] Wonder

// Spells (11)
4 [IA] Brainstorm
3 [TE] Intuition
4 [OD] Buried Alive

// Sideboard (15)
SB: 4 [WWK] Nature's Claim
SB: 4 [JU] Cabal Therapy
SB: 3 [US] Duress
SB: 4 [WL] Null Rod

First of all, I want to address what will be the most commonly asked question: "why play this over Dredge."

Well, this deck has the ability to be a dumb aggro deck. While the graveyard certainly is important, and graveyard hate can wreck this deck, the deck is a bit more resilient to graveyard hate than Dredge. Again, this deck has the ability to be a dumb aggro deck.

Secondly, it's something new to play with. It never hurts to explore new deck ideas. If they turn out to be failures, or worse than existing ideas, it happens. Progress is not made without trying to innovate, and you must fail before you can succeed.

Anyway, onto the deck itself.

The new card, Gravecrawler, is what spawned this idea for me. I really liked the reanimation effect, and how well it plays with Carrion Feeder and Vengevine. I really like Vengevine, and finding a way to make it playable with Survival being banned is still something I'd like to try and do.

There is alot of synergy and mini-combos in here. Carrion Feeder can grow extremely large with Gravecrawler, Bloodghast, and Vengevine. Putrid Imp can discard early Vengevines and Bloodghasts for explosive starts, and Wonder can give my entire creature base flying. 8 mana dorks help accelerate out a turn 2 Buried Alive or Intuition, and the extra mana can be spent on the Feeder/Crawler combo. The mana ramp can also help accelerate into hardcast Vengevines if necessary.

The deck is pretty linear; get a bunch of creatures in the graveyard, cheat them back into play, and swing for massive amounts of damage, possibly in the air.

I run 12 Zombies right now to feed Gravecrawler. I had considered Mutavault as additional zombies. Those may eventually make it into the deck at some point later on.

A red splash for Faithless Looting and Squee Goblin Nabob is also possible, particularly in a build with Zombie Infestation and Bridge from Below.

Suggestions are welcome. And please don't bash the deck idea too harshly.

[Mr. Safety]

I'm guessing Fauna Shaman is left out for the more powerful options of Buried Alive and Intuition.

Nice setup, I'm just curious why you picked Elves of Deep Shadow as your second mana-dork...is it simply for black mana? I would think Noble Heirarch would still be pretty good by providing blue mana for Intuition.

I'm also curious why you would pick Brainstorm over Careful Study. With no 'true' dredge cards, it doesn't trigger the massive graveyard dump you would normally get (as if you were dredging a Stinkweed Imp or Golgari Grave Troll.) I understand Brainstorm's great uses with the fetchlands, I'm just not sure if it's worth the tradeoff of potentially setting you up better turn 1 with Careful Study.

EDIT: Jeesh, now I can't get that stupid Rob Zombie song out of my head...it's going to be a long Thursday.

[Hanni]

Haha. You know what's funny is that before I posted the decklist, I kept thinking of a good name for it. Thought of a few gimicky Zombie names like Night of the Dead, and then that song popped up on my music player.

Fauna Shaman is incredibly slow without untap effects, and would require a restructure of the deck to accommodate it, whereas Intuition is a bomb by itself.

Brainstorm is excellent in this deck, but Careful Study can be a replacement for more explosive openings. That's really something that needs tested, to be honest. I just plugged Brainstorm in because it's Brainstorm, and it has performed very well in testing, but Study may be better.

The blue from Hierarch casts 7 spells in the deck (8 w/ Wonder). Exalted is nearly irrelevant in a deck that wants to swing with multiple creatures each turn. The Feeder/Crawler combo requires black mana, in as much volume as available. I run only 1 non-black source for that reason, also. Deep Shadow works better for the deck, IMO.

EDIT: Actually, Careful Study would be a lot better. Thank you for the suggestion. My 12 creature package is actually better in my graveyard than in my hand (well, with Gravecrawler there's little difference). That means Study has the potential to be a draw 2 for 1 mana (+1 CA). It ups my discard outlets to 8 for more broken starts. More discard outlets also means more consistency with Intuition. When I get home from work, I'm gonna swap the Brainstorm's for Study's.

[GGoober]

This deck is a little awkward lol. Usually a fan of your decks but this deck seems weak for risking an unstable manabase, and seems to lose to Goyfs (can't block) or Scavenging Ooze (lol).

The 8 birds accelerating into turn 2 Intuition/Buried Alive doesn't really seem as consistent as other decks where the birds accelerate into GSZ/Knights because casting Intuitions/Buried Alives still require to have a secondary condition before the Vengevines can start coming back into play.

Is 12 'VV'ish creatures needed in the deck? I feel that Gravecrawler/Bloodghast are still significantly weaker than VV if you're planning on the cheating route. Those slots could be filled with Cabal Therapy/Inquisition/Thoughtseize/Daze/FoW etc.

[Freggle]

Cabal Therapy/Inquisition/Thoughtseize/Daze/FoW etc.

No this deck has 4 too few Smallpox, and 3 too few Eternal Witness.

[rufus]

A red splash for Faithless Looting and Squee Goblin Nabob is also possible, particularly in a build with Zombie Infestation and Bridge from Below.


You're already splashing :u:, so Careful Study is going to be an easier fit than Faithless Looting.

There are a couple of interesting zombies with unearth such as Fatestitcher and Rotting Rats

There's also a possible combo package, though it's not really strong enough to be a primary plan:
Phyrexian Altar and Buried Alive -> Gravedigger,Extractor Demon/Fatestitcher (or Intuition->Gravedigger/Extractor Demon if there's already a zombie on the field.)

I think the deck needs to pack disruption if you want to have a competitive chance against fast combo.

[Hanni]

This deck doesn't care about blocking Tarmogoyf because it races him. Same goes for Knight. The only "care" part about Knight is Bojuka Bog.

Scavenging Ooze, on the other hand, is a threat. In playtesting so far, I've been able to race Ooze, getting my Vines into play before he can do any serious damage, but he is definitely a problem. It may be a good idea for me to fit Snuff Out somewhere in my 75 to deal with him.

If you playtest with the deck some, you'll find that the deck has no problems fulfilling the secondary conditions after casting Intuition/Buried Alive. The deck runs 20 1cc creatures for triggering Vine, with a single Carrion Feeder on the board allowing a tutor package of Vine/Vine/Crawler if you have an empty hand. Turn 1 mana dork, turn 2 Buried Alive is more broken than what Maverick can do, aside from GSZ for Ooze vs me :p

The greatest strength of this deck, to me, is its synergy and consistency. So yes, I do think the 12 self-reanimating creatures are needed. Ghasts apply great additional pressure, and multiple Ghasts with a single topdecked fetchland can grow Carrion Feeder to epic proportions. I often turn my 1cc 1/1 critter into a 10/10 in two turns and outsize the 5/5 Knight of the Reliquary on the other side of the table. If I have a Wonder in the yard, it gets pretty savage.

My deck is a redundant aggro deck in the same vein as a deck like Maverick, except I can skip running removal because I can give my guys flying and I go on the beatdown faster (think Affinity here). The difference is that this deck has a weakness to graveyard hate. The deck is more broken than Maverick, and less affected by graveyard hate than Dredge (although Dredge is more broken). I don't think the deck needs discard or countermagic maindeck, but if I did fit some, it would be Cabal Therapy.

I bring the discard in from the sideboard to address faster linear decks like Burn and Combo. I can still goldfish turn 3-4 though.

[Koby]

This deck might have a good matchup against RUG delver and Stoneblade, but I feel that your Maverick matchup will be horrendous. That goes too for any deck packing a dedicated Ooze engine, because it really takes out a lot of steam from the alpha-strike. Sure, a quick Vengevine might put Maverick up against a wall, but once they stabilize the deck is filled with sub-par creatures trying to interact with the King of Combat.

The deck might need another Falter that doesn't rely on the graveyard.

[Freggle]

This deck might have a good matchup against RUG delver and Stoneblade, but I feel that your Maverick matchup will be horrendous.

Right. Maverick can not beat an early and persistent Smallpox. It hits their t1 dork their fetched dual and the worst card remaining in hand.

Bump up the lands and dump your recursive guys in the yard with Smallpox it is a really good disruptive card.

[Mr. Safety]

I remember an aggro-Survival variant right before SotF was banned...it played Vengevines, Bloodghasts, Birds, Intuition, Buried Alive...and Necrotic Ooze. I'm not sure if you want to go that route, but Ooze seems to make for some even greater redundancy. I'm not sure what (if any) shenanigans you can do with Ooze, but it seems like a decent swiss-army knife.

EDIT: come to think of it, I'm confusing my decks. I was thinking of Survival/Ooze combo. The list I was thinking of didn't play oozes, just Vines, Bloodghasts, Intuitions, and Survivals.

[Anusien]

Decks that lose to Extraction seem like the worst thing in the world right now. Decks that lose to Extraction AND Cage?!

[Hanni]

I guess that's why Dredge is a DTB?

Hai guys. Stop please making new decks and innovating, for Extraction n Grafdigger > fromat.

Regarding the Maveric matchup, I've faced Maverick three times now. Two of the builds was blue splash. I 2-0'd it twice, and lost 0-1 to the other (MWS crashed at the beginning of our second game).

People don't know what I'm playing in g1 and don't grab Ooze fast enough. That's my experience with it anyway. In g2, I've been able to get a swarm of 4/3 hasties into play before they get Ooze online. 3 matches isn't enough playtesting against them, and I haven't been hit with an overwhelming amount og graveyard hate from them postboard yet, so I won't make any blanket statements about this matchup yet. If it does become an issue, Virtues Ruin is one sided, Perish could be useful, although Submerge or Snuff Out (or maybe even Mind Harness) could be strong options too.

Or I could board in Therapy's... clearing out GSZ's seems pretty good.

[Koby]

I wonder if a Red splash for Goblin Bombardment could help to justify the Faithless Looting option, turning from Blue for Wonder/Careful study to a Jund build with Looting and Bombardment. Something to consider for inevitability.

Zombie + Gravecrawler + Bombardment is pretty efficient engine.

[Aggro_zombies]

There's a difference between innovating for innovation's sake, and innovating to solve some problem or exploit some opening in the format.

What problem does this deck solve? What opening does it exploit? Why is it, in short, not Dredge But Worse?

Dredge can mise wins by comboing people out. This deck, as far as I can see, has a slower "combo out" than Dredge does. Even the best-case scenario, fireballing people with multiple Vengevines, takes work to set up and relies on cards that cost multiple mana.

People also don't really know how to play around Dredge. The difference between a good Dredge player and a bad one is the difference between night and day. Blowing Crypts as soon as things start to get scary and Extracting Bridges may cut it against the bad Dredge players, but good ones will get you regardless. As for this deck, you get hurt by a lot of the same incidental hate, and your guys are (by and large) just as bad without the graveyard engine going. Yeah, okay, sure, you can cast them and beat down. You can't see it, but I am literally quaking in my boots at the thought of a bunch of 1/1 and 2/1 guys coming after me.

I mean, I guess your deck is interesting, but why would I ever want to play it, or even care about it? Because it beats up on opponents of dubious quality on MWS?

[Anusien]

I am fairly comfortable Dredge is more resilient to most forms of hate than this deck. It beats Leyline and Cage better, but bites it much more to everything else.

Sure, it's worth exploring ideas. But at a certain point you have to step back and say, "What does this deck do well? What does this deck do poorly?" Reanimator seems like an awesome deck, until you realize it's a worse version of Hive Mind, especially when it comes to battling graveyard hate (since GY hate is much more prevalent than Thoughtseize).

[Hanni]

I love when the rag tag crew come into my threads and bash nearly every new deck idea I make, like decks like Aggro Loam and the like are any better right now.

I also thoroughly enjoy when people do absolutely no playtesting with a deck whatsoever, and come in blabbing ideas about why they think the deck sucks, or why they would run cards X and Y over cards A and B.

This deck folds to hate worse than Dredge? Laff.

Look guys, I can only take so many 'insightful' comments in every thread I make before I question why you're even bothering to post in them at all, especially when you try and speak with such authority with a deck you've never even bothered to play a game or two on MWS with first before thinking you know everything.

Here's an idea. If you don't like the deck, don't fucking post in the thread. Its pretty simple. Did I claim that this deck was a metacrusher that was DTB material? No, I didn't. This is my attempts at making a playable Vengevine deck. And I'm sure there are those out there that would like to find a way to break their Vengevines out for their next local Legacy get together.

If you think Extraction + Grafdigger makes new graveyard strats obsolete, go start a thread in Format Discussion for that. No need to post bullshit one-liners in here.

tl;dr stop harassing my threads Anusien.

[Mr. Safety]

Hater's gotta hate...

Just a thought here: Infernal Tutor. If you have a Vengevine/Bloodghast in play and an active Putrid Imp, you're looking at doubling up either of those nicely. If you've already dumped your hand into the yard it becomes Demonic Tutor, setting you up with whatever you need (most likely another duder.) At first glance, I think Intuition is a better option but playing Demonic Tutor has it's allure.

You've got Wonder in there...Genesis? It seems like a pretty efficient way to get mana-dorks back to double up for Vengevine triggers. If you bring back Dryad Arbor you get any number of Bloodghasts back as well...all for the low, low price of :2::g:. I would play a miser's copy of and Genesis alongside Wonder. It doesn't take up too much space and can easily drop into your Buried Alive/Intuition piles.

[Hanni]

I think Diabolic Intent has more synergy with the deck than Infernal Tutor, but I don't see why the deck would need a tutor that costs 2 mana for 1 card when it has two better tutors that tutor for 3 cards for 3 mana.

Genesis would be good against heavy duty hardcore removal decks, but this deck is quite capable of bringing its guys back after a sweeper. A single land brings back all Bloodghasts for free, a single Zombie allows me to play my Gravecrawlers for B (vs paying 2G + B). 1 Feeder + 1 Crawler will trigger Vengevines for BB, and the deck runs 29 creatures to make topdecking creatures to trigger Vengevines fairly easy. Genesis is a good idea, but I don't think its necessary in here. The deck already has plenty of guys it wants to tutor for as is.

Keep the suggestions coming though. The Careful Study suggestion you made was gold.

[Aggro_zombies]

I love when the rag tag crew come into my threads and bash nearly every new deck idea I make, like decks like Aggro Loam and the like are any better right now.

I also thoroughly enjoy when people do absolutely no playtesting with a deck whatsoever, and come in blabbing ideas about why they think the deck sucks, or why they would run cards X and Y over cards A and B.

This deck folds to hate worse than Dredge? Laff.

Look guys, I can only take so many 'insightful' comments in every thread I make before I question why you're even bothering to post in them at all, especially when you try and speak with such authority with a deck you've never even bothered to play a game or two on MWS with first before thinking you know everything.

Here's an idea. If you don't like the deck, don't fucking post in the thread. Its pretty simple. Did I claim that this deck was a metacrusher that was DTB material? No, I didn't. This is my attempts at making a playable Vengevine deck. And I'm sure there are those out there that would like to find a way to break their Vengevines out for their next local Legacy get together.

If you think Extraction + Grafdigger makes new graveyard strats obsolete, go start a thread in Format Discussion for that. No need to post bullshit one-liners in here.

tl;dr stop harassing my threads Anusien.
Hey, remember that time when Blue-White Tempo was hands-down the best deck in the format because its creators wiped the floor with all the DtB on MWS, and everyone who pointed out that maybe it wasn't the most awesome thing ever were wrong because they just hadn't tested it?

I think pointing out reasonable and obvious problems a deck has is both a reasonable activity and an obvious one. If you want your deck to have a glaring weakness to graveyard hate because "you can just cast your Vengevines and/or 2/1s", that's fine - but pointing out the fact that that particular plan may not be the best idea is also worthwhile.

I was also under the impression that a competitive Legacy forum existed to share competitive Legacy deck ideas. Sorry, but I don't consider a deck that you, and you alone, can do well with because you, and you alone, can manage to mop the floor with it on online, unsanctioned events to really be an indicator about a deck's capabilities. I would expect a deck's creator to do well with his or her own deck.

The point Anusien and I want to make is that this deck sacrifices Dredge's combo-esque potential and ability to sidestep a lot of the format's stack-based control for dubious gains. Whether or not you want to take that seriously is up to you, but don't attack people for pointing out that your deck is squishy to graveyard hate and "I can cast my Jackal Pups" is not a convincing counterargument.

EDIT: While we're on the subject, you also seem kind of squishy to Snapcaster + a bunch of one-for-one removal spells. Like, if Stoneblade were to side in Extraction and Path against you while keeping the Snapcasters and Jitte main, how do you beat that? Particularly if they focus removal on your recurring guys? Do you honestly try to beat them by feeding your Elves and Birds into a Carrion Feeder and pray they don't topdeck Brainstorm, Snapcaster, Path, or Swords? Or do you try to beat down with a bunch of 1/1s? Or do you hope your Vengevines live and don't get blocked + Extracted or exiled? It seems like your game plan relies on a lot of things going right for you and a lot of things going wrong for the opponent. Also, how do you sideboard for this match? Bring in, like, almost all of your board and side out what? If you cut too many guys, it's harder to trigger VVines without Gravecrawler; if you side out tutors, your topdeck mode is bad; if you side out some combination of the two, it seems like you're diluting your deck a lot without actually answering their hate plan well.

Or what about RUG? Delvers can race you pretty well early unless you want to chump with Imps, and then you need to worry about Bolt - Snapcaster - Bolt in the midgame backed by Tarmogoyfs stabilizing on the ground. What do you do if you can't resolve Imp or a timely Intuition/Buried Alive? Die? Try to race with hardcast 1/x and 2/x guys, some of which will die every combat? That seems suspect to me.

What about Maverick, particularly the red-splash versions with Punishing Fires? So you side in Therapies to get their GSZs (assuming they don't just cast them right away), but how do you beat them consistently killing your enablers? Land, Bloodghast every turn? Hardcast Vengevines into their (most likely) larger Knights? Pray you can get there with your singleton Wonder in the yard? Don't you, say, want some removal lest you get wrecked by Ooze and large blockers in games 2 and 3? A creature-based deck that is not a fast combo deck (like Dredge or Reanimator) that has no actual creature removal whatsoever seems very, very loose.

[Mr. Safety]

The last thought on my mind (and then I'll stop trolling your thread) is whether or not you have enough raw discards outlets like Putrid Imp. I'm wondering if you could do this:

-1 Elves of Deep Shadow
+1 Wild Mongrel

I was tempted to suggest Oona's Prowler, but it would be 100% abysmal against anything graveyard based (dredge, reanimator, Loam.) The evasion, potential disruption, and the 3/1 flying attacker seem so good for :1::b:...it's just so risky given the absurd amount of small-dude removal running rampant (Punishing/Groves, Grim Lavamancer, Ghastly Demise, and Lightning Bolt seem to be everywhere right now...not to mention Snapcaster doubling up on all of the non-PFire spells) tied in with the risk of enabling your opponents, resulting in an embarrassing fist-pump and shout of glee.

One more (I swear!): is a misers Eternal Witness worth a slot? Countermagic on your Intuitions/Buried Alive will suck. I realize your threat density is very high (did you say 29 dudes?), so it may not be worth the slot. Given your acceleration potential and your creatures having a healthy dose of resilience to non-exile removal it only seems natural to want EVERYTHING in your graveyard to be available.

That's all I got right now.

EDIT - Random ideas:

Dread Return (borrow some of Dredge's tech)
Stinkweed Imp (ditto)
Shriekmaw (removal + threat for consistency)
Cabal Therapy (smooth with Gravecrawler/Bloodghast)
Noxious Revival (probably a worse version of Eternal Witness...but free and instant speed)

[lyracian]

If you are playing B/U anyway would Diregraf Captain not help? I also like the idea of using Smallpox although it may not really work well with your own mana dorks.

I love the deck name even if I do not see any connection between it and no blocks? It may be a bad deck, but as you say you wont know until you give it a try and any Zombie deck is worth trying out.

[Hanni]

Aggro Zombies, I didn't mean to snap, so don't take my post the wrong way. Most of that was directed towards Anusien, who first called me "amateurish" in my Blue Sligh thread after making horrible suggestions, and then popped in here with a one-liner that was absolutely stupid.

The argument against graveyard hate is valid, I realize that. Going into this thing, I knew graveyard hate would be an issue, obviously. I playtested with an Intuition Vengevine deck before, right after Survival got banned, and so this deck creation wasn't started without any prior experiences with those issues.

As far as Snapcaster + 8 Plows + 4 Extirpates, sure. If I don't sideboard into Duress + Therapy to rape their hand first before putting sensitive cards into my graveyard, those cards are going to wreck me. I don't see how this deck would fold to that gameplan any worse than Dredge would. Dredge losing Bridge and having its Ichorid's Plow'd falls apart. At least this deck can try and drop some more dudes and swing, especially if the opponent hasn't drawn into SFM + equipment, cause a 2/1 Snapcaster isn't going to stand up to a swarm of 2/1's. And 4 Snapcaster + 8 Plows alone isn't enough to exile every single one of my 29 creatures.

Besides, looking at Gravecrawler and Bloodghasts as Jackal Pups is incorrect. Aside from Pups drawback, he's a vanilla 2/1 and that's it. Gravecrawlers and Bloodghasts keep coming back from the dead and maintain pressure, especially once the opponent gets to 10 or less life. You also cannot overlook that fact that even 1-2 turns of Carrion Feeder + Crawler/Ghasts can grow Feeder into a massively large creature that rivals the likes of creatures like Knight of the Reliquary, Countryside Crusher, Terravore, Scavenging Ooze, and other "grow" creatures. The beauty here is that he is a 1cc creature.

As far as gravehate is concerned, aside from being able to dodge it by either bringing in Null Rod, Nature's Claim, or Cabal Therapy (depending on the matchup), the deck can still play through graveyard hate.

Let's assume a scenario like this, just for arguments sake. I go turn 1 Birds. I have not opened myself up to graveyard hate yet, so there's no "Bridge from Below" in my graveyard for their Extraction to hit. Turn 2, I cast Intuition for Vine/Vine/Gravecrawler. On turn 3, I cast Carrion Feeder, and in response, my opponent Extractions my Vines. I proceed to grow my Feeder several points with Gravecrawler, and pass the turn. On my following turn, I cast Buried Alive for Bloodghast x3, drop a fetch, recur Bloodghasts, sac them, crack fetch, recur Bloodghasts. Spend extra mana on Feeder/Crawler interaction, and end up with a massively large Carrion Feeder, 3 Bloodghasts, and a Gravecrawler on the board.

Even if my opponent topdecks another graveyard hate spell at that point, they cant blow my yard like they could against Dredge, and I have a massive board presense. Switch a Bloodghast with a Wonder for ton of airborne damage if the situation calls for it. Now the opponent not only needs an answer to a swarm of "Jackal Pups," they also need an answer to a 10/10 or larger Carrion Feeder.

The deck is alot more resilient to graveyard hate than Dredge, and still goldfishes on turn 3-4. Maybe it doesn't have the broken turn 2-3 goldfish, but the deck isn't an all-in combo-esque deck that rolls over to graveyard hate. The deck is a dumb aggro deck that uses its graveyard to do broken things (less broken than Dredge), but can manage to still be a dumb aggro deck even if the opponent hits me with graveyard hate. A swarm of 2/1's may not seem scary to you, but if you don't keep drawing graveyard hate, they will keep coming back into play.

The deck can also race graveyard hate if an opponent doesn't mulligan into one. First turn Careful Study pitching Vines into turn two 2 creatures, swing for 8 still puts on a strong board presence, especially if the two creatures I put into play are a Carrion Feeder and Gravecrawler. The deck doesn't need a Study turn 1, either. It can also do strong turn 2 starts like that with a turn 2 Putrid Imp + another creature, draw depending of course.

My point is, you guys came into this thread with baseless accusations of this deck being a pile of garbage, it being unplayable because it "folds to graveyard hate," and blanket statements of "Dredge is a better deck," without even playing a single game on MWS to determine if your opinions were enough to deserve coming in and flaming the deck idea.

I DO want this deck to be competitive. If I didn't, I would have posted it in Casual. At the same time, this is the forum for New and Developmental, and I never read anywhere that a deck had to be Tier 1 quality to be worthy of getting a thread. Hell, both Maverick and Nic Fit started out as "jank" decks in N&D with people just like you and Anusien bashing the hell out of them. Where are those decks now? In the DTB forum.


Or what about RUG? Delvers can race you pretty well early unless you want to chump with Imps, and then you need to worry about Bolt - Snapcaster - Bolt in the midgame backed by Tarmogoyfs stabilizing on the ground. What do you do if you can't resolve Imp or a timely Intuition/Buried Alive? Die? Try to race with hardcast 1/x and 2/x guys, some of which will die every combat? That seems suspect to me.

Delvers can race... Delver comes into play turn 1, has less than a 50% chance of flipping without an upkeep Brainstorm, and even blindflipped swings for 3 on turn 2. This deck has the ability to swing with 1-4 Vengevines on turn 2. Now, if you would have said that Blue Sligh could race this deck, that would be one thing. That deck can most definitely goldfish this deck with the right draws.

The only spell in RUG Tempo's maindeck that scares me is Stifle. Mongoose is slow, Tarmogoyf can be slow. I run a ton of mana dorks and enough lands otherwise to play around Daze, I don't actually need to resolve a Buried Alive/Intuition to go hardcore spam the board Affinity style beatdown (which you'd know if you were to goldfish with the deck even a handful of times), and I run 7 of my tutor bombs that I can eventually force one through. If I fetch heavy Underground Seas, Wonder will allow me to fly over Tarmogoyfs, and my 2/1 "Jackal Pup" army suddenly becomes scary. Or, you know, swing in with three 4/3's, or a large 10/10.

I'm not saying this deck is a metacrusher, but you act like this is a pile of jank that wouldn't win a single game in a tournament, and that is blatantly false.


What about Maverick, particularly the red-splash versions with Punishing Fires? So you side in Therapies to get their GSZs (assuming they don't just cast them right away), but how do you beat them consistently killing your enablers? Land, Bloodghast every turn? Hardcast Vengevines into their (most likely) larger Knights? Pray you can get there with your singleton Wonder in the yard? Don't you, say, want some removal lest you get wrecked by Ooze and large blockers in games 2 and 3? A creature-based deck that is not a fast combo deck (like Dredge or Reanimator) that has no actual creature removal whatsoever seems very, very loose.

I've already discussed my experiences with this matchup so far. This reply is already long enough, so please refer to my post above.


If you are playing B/U anyway would Diregraf Captain not help? I also like the idea of using Smallpox although it may not really work well with your own mana dorks.

I love the deck name even if I do not see any connection between it and no blocks? It may be a bad deck, but as you say you wont know until you give it a try and any Zombie deck is worth trying out.

Diregraf Captain has nice synergy with Gravecrawler and Carrion Feeder, so that's an interesting option. I'm going to keep that one in mind. I remember seeing a thread about that combo with Ashnod's Altar, but I was trying to keep away from assembling combo pieces and focusing straight on beatdown. I'll tinker with some ideas regarding that, though.

As far as the name, like I told Mr. Safety, when I was thinking of deck names, that song came on in my music player. The AKA Can't Block! is just a reference to the 16 creatures I'm running with the "can't block" clause. There is no correlation between the two names.

[Freggle]

As far as gravehate is concerned, aside from being able to dodge it by either bringing in Null Rod, Nature's Claim, or Cabal Therapy (depending on the matchup), the deck can still play through graveyard hate.

Null Rod should really be Surgical Extraction if not Extirpate.

You can get all the remaining extractions if someone gets a good creature out of the yard with theirs. ...plus it's just randomly good. It also lets you see their hand (as well as their entire deck) adding more value to Cabal Therapy and game 3 SB strategies.

[Hanni]

The Null Rod is there as an answer to artifact-based graveyard hate like Crypt, Nihil Spellbomb, Relic, etc. The fact that it hoses Affinity, hits combos artifact mana, and can randomly shut down other stuff makes it useful.

Running my own Extractions is definitely an interesting idea, though. Discard + Extraction isn't a bad answer to graveyard hate. I might tweak my sideboard numbers a bit to fit in a few. Thanks for the suggestion.

EDIT: I'll address the other suggestions later. I'm going to step away from my computer for right now. Anusien and Aggro Zombies have me all typed out.

[Anusien]

The problem with your hypothetical situation against an Extraction deck is that you basically drew perfect and they only got to cast a single spell.

You don't have the luxury of sitting around and waiting to tear their hand apart with Thoughtseize and Therapy. Not only is your deck positioned to be the beatdown (fewer relevant disruption and removal, less benefit from the game going late the way they have planeswalkers and such), but if you are all-in on this plan of "Get rid of Extraction and Snapcaster Mage before I do anything" it you up to just getting turn 1 Delvered out of the game. Or they go turn 2 Stoneforge Mystic fetching Batterskull. If you Thoughtseize away the Batterskull, you can't take the Extraction/Snapcaster combo.

You don't actually understand how Dredge fights graveyard hate. In part, a single Surgical Extraction is fairly poor because Dredge has an incredible diversity of ways to win: Ichorid, Bridge from Below, Dread Return. So do you, but the problem is that you have to set them up, and you can't diversify in the same way. You can't fill the board as quickly as Dredge can in recovering from a Crypt. And your graveyard cards work best by doubling or tripling up; it's much harder for you to present three differently named threats.

But I've always believed that I should just ignore any deck where the deck's creator discusses what to call the deck publicly.

[Hanni]

Good, then go away.

[Mr. Safety]

I think it is quite important to have a premium amount of fetchlands in the deck, maybe even creeping into 11-12 rather than the 8 you have in the OP (I think.) Reason being: you want to be able to 'sandbag' a fetchland to prevent your Bloodghasts from getting caught up in the Tormod's Crypt activation. I love Null Rod in your sideboard, it's a really classy way to fight the hate. There's still a chance that they will get a hate down before you get Null Rod down...that's where a fetchland sitting on the battlefield uncracked can save your Ghasts. Just an interaction that I was thinking about, nothing more. I fall into the trap of just always cracking fetchlands, when sometimes it's beneficial to let them wait for the right time to save your Bloodghasts.

EDIT: Is Boneyard Wurm this deck's Tarmogoyf?

[Hanni]

I'm running 12 fetchlands in the OP...

Boneyard Wurm is interesting. I'm thinking Ghoultree would be even better. The only problem is that my creatures don't stay in the graveyard for very long, so neither of those would work well in here I don't think.

[Freggle]

I'm running 12 fetchlands in the OP...

Boneyard Wurm is interesting. I'm thinking Ghoultree would be even better. The only problem is that my creatures don't stay in the graveyard for very long, so neither of those would work well in here I don't think.

You really want Splinterfright

[GGoober]

+1 Freggle. This is the big beater for the deck, and fits very nice with the manadorks for faster acceleration. He's probably better than KotR if your plan to attack with GY dudes fail.

[Michael Keller]

Just a thought. (http://ark42.com/mtg/cards/Planar%20Chaos/Big%20Game%20Hunter.full.jpg)

Seems good against Goyfs, Knight, and Ooze if it grows.

[Aggro_zombies]

Shriekmaw seems better. It's cheaper if you evoke it (useful if you are trying to get VVines back), has a relevant body if you hardcast it, and kills annoying utility creatures too. I'm not sure what black creatures are (a) common and (b) problematic for this deck, and he already has Nature's Claims and Null Rods in the sideboard for artifacts.

[Hanni]

My problem with creatures like Boneyard Wurm, Splinterfright, and Ghoultree is that I won't actually have many creatures in the graveyard. Either I'm bringing them back from the dead, or they are getting exiled (whether that be from StP or graveyard hate). The only time I can see creatures stacking up in my graveyard is against Grafdigger's Cage.

I was running Shriekmaw in a previous build of Vengevine Madness, post-Survival. I cannot believe I forgot about that card. Big Game Hunter is meh, but Shriekmaw was the tits in my old list. It answers Scavenging Ooze like a champ, can be used to recur Vengevines, and can be hardcast later for as an additional creature.

I think my old build also ran Genesis, as a way to recur Shriekmaw. That seems a bit too slow for this build, though.

At any rate, thanks for the suggestion AZ. I'm most definitely fitting those into my 75.

Maybe I should restructure the deck a little. Don't get me wrong, I've been pleased with the current configuration, but it doesn't hurt to try new things.

I'm thinking I should run a 4/3 or vice versa split of Shriekmaw and Cabal Therapy.

Shriekmaw answers Ooze, which is huge, without sacrificing too much from the deck (still triggers Vines, can be hardcast later). It can also help me push extra damage through when I don't have a Wonder in the yard.

It just seems wrong to not run Cabal Therapy in a deck with 4 Gravecrawler and 4 Bloodghast, and to a lesser extent, Vengevines.

I do not want to cut Bloodghast. They are what make turn 1 Careful Study a strong play. 12 pitchable creatures insrease the consistency of it being card advantage and a tempo boost. They also have tons of synergy with Cabal Therapy.

I'm thinking maybe it's time to cut 4 Elves of Deep Shadow and 3 Intuition. I liked the redundancy with the mana dorks and tutor 3's, but those seem like the softest spots to cut. In postboard games, I was frequently siding those out anyway.

I guess the question now would be... is blue even worth the splash anymore? Wonder is absolutely fantastic, but Faithless Looting is superior to Careful Study. I'm not even running any blue sideboard cards. Anger seems like a dumb replacement when Vengevines already have Haste, and Bloodghast's get Haste once the opponent is at 10 or less life. Brawn could be cool with a massive Carrion Feeder, but it still doesn't compare to Wonder.
Then there is always the option of running Entomb, too. I used to run this in my old list. It's clearly not as powerful as Intuition or Buried Alive, but it's alot faster at one mana, and can turn hands with a discard out + 2 creatures + Vine into a double Vine beatdown. It can also tutor midgame for a Gravecrawler if I have Vines in the yard and 1 creature in hand, so that's a cool interaction.

I could see a combination of Faithless Looting, Entomb, and Buried Alive ripping through my deck and literally swarming my opponent very quickly.

I'm going to have to think about this and playtest some things. Hmm...

[Qweerios]

Cool deck idea!

Don't argue with people that think in absolutes, they will sap your creativity.

I will test the deck out because I really want to break Bloodghast and Vengevine.

I don't think you really need a 3rd color. I think you should get more interactions instead in the form of removal and discard.

With that being said, Liliana of the Veil looks quite broken for your deck. I am surprised nobody suggested her earlier.

[Hanni]

Wow. I was doing some goldfishing with Entomb, and just... wow.

I used to run it before in the old lists, and it was a little lacking, but Gravecrawler changes that completely. Entomb basically turns into a 2cc 2/1 in worst case scenarios. What used to happen with Entomb was I only had 1 creature in hand, and a midgame Entomb could only grab a Wonder, if it wasn't already in my graveyard. Now it can grab Gravecrawler, which can either combo with Carrion Feeder if I have one in play, or be used to trigger a midgame Vengevine if I have another zombie in hand.

It also increases the explosiveness of the deck too, increasing my number of valuable turn 1 plays, which thus increases the explosiveness of my turn 2 plays. Entomb also has the ability to tutor up Wonder. A Jackal Pup army may not be threatening in the face of a few blockers, but pop Entomb for Wonder, and suddenly those four 2/1's become serious business. Entomb needs to be in the deck.

Here's the list I've cooked up:

B/g/u Living Dead Girl

// Lands
4 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
3 [R] Bayou
3 [R] Underground Sea
2 [UNH] Swamp

// Creatures
4 [7E] Birds of Paradise
4 [TO] Putrid Imp
4 [SC] Carrion Feeder
4 [DKA] Gravecrawler
4 [ZEN] Bloodghast
4 [ROE] Vengevine
1 [JU] Wonder

// Spells
4 [OD] Careful Study
3 [OD] Entomb
4 [OD] Buried Alive
4 [JU] Cabal Therapy

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [WL] Null Rod
SB: 4 [WWK] Nature's Claim
SB: 4 [US] Duress
SB: 3 [LRW] Shriekmaw

With Wonder, Shriekmaw doesn't need to be maindecked. The main reason for Shriekmaw is to handle Scavenging Ooze, which is better off being a sideboard card, IMO.

The decks been goldfishing alot faster and alot more consistently now. Carrion Feeder + Gravecrawler added alot to my Vengevine deck of old. It's so much stronger now than it was post-Survival :)

Also, while not the optimal play, Cabal Therapy can be used as a discard outlet for Vengevines in an opening hand, especially if it has multiples. That interaction has happened several times in goldfishing so far, and adds yet another increase in consistency to the overall smoothness and synergy of the deck.

I have a feeling a strong deck can be made here.


Cool deck idea!

Don't argue with people that think in absolutes, they will sap your creativity.

I will test the deck out because I really want to break Bloodghast and Vengevine.

I don't think you really need a 3rd color. I think you should get more interactions instead in the form of removal and discard.

With that being said, Liliana of the Veil looks quite broken for your deck. I am surprised nobody suggested her earlier.
The third color is really good, though. Careful Study has been very strong in testing, and Wonder is a powerhouse when you swarm with 2/1's.

The problem with Liliana in here is that 12-16 of the creatures can't block (depending if you have Threshold). She's also incredibly slow at 1BB, and this deck is pretty fast. Not sure that she fits this particular build, although restructuring the deck to run spells like Smallpox could make her very valuable (in those builds).

[Qweerios]

With an Entomb package, what do you think of ditching the 3rd color and pack wastelands with a singleton Life from the Loam?

Dark Confidant also looks fitting with such a low curve.

[Hanni]

With an Entomb package, what do you think of ditching the 3rd color and pack wastelands with a singleton Life from the Loam?

Dark Confidant also looks fitting with such a low curve.

Why do I need Life from the Loam? I only need two lands in play to do most of the unfair stuff this deck can do.

Dark Confidant, on the other hand, could be good in here. My curve is low, most of my creatures are high value targets for Plow already, and he's a creature to trigger Vengevines. I'm not sure what to cut though.

[Qweerios]

A singleton LftL would allow you to Wastelock your opponent and the Dredge ability is quite fitting, especially when you dredge back LftL to dig a land and bring back Bloodghasts. Bringing back a single fetch with 4 ghasts in your GY makes a fine +8 on Carrion Feeder. Just a lategame tech for cases where your early plan goes to shit. Its only 1 slot.

[Qweerios]

So far I've got a monoblack version because the previous version I played splashed green just for BoP and hardcast VV. So I simply replaced BoP with Dark Ritual... it's even more explosive that way.


Creatures (24)
4 Putrid Imp
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
4 Dark Confidant
4 Bloodghast
4 Vengevine

Instant/Sorcery (12)
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Buried Alive

Other (4)
4 Liliana of the Veil

Lands (20)
4 Marsh Flats
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Bloodstained Mire
8 Swamp

Sideboard (15)
4 Phyrexian Revoker
4 Darkblast
4 Surgical Extraction
3 Extirpate

[Freggle]

Here is an untested version that can recur Lead the Stampede and Smallpox for your engine via Eternal Witness. There is also Splinterfright to dump goodies in the yard, and Tombstalker to chew them up if plan A gets shot down.

Creatures
4 Vengevine
4 Bloodghast
3 Eternal Witness
4 Gravecrawler
1 Dryad Arbor
3 Splinterfright
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Putrid Imp
3 Tombstalker

Spells
4 Lead the Stampede
4 Smallpox

Lands
8 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Marsh Flats
4 Bayou
2 Forest

[Mr. Safety]

I suggested Shriekmaw on the first page. You cut me deep man...:frown:

Entomb is pretty hot here. I forgot it was an instant. You're looking at a mini-Intuition for cheap.

I was really grinding this list in my head last night. I wanted to get an idea of what the core of the deck was in order to find just exactly what your flex spots would be. This is what I came up with:

Non-negotiable dudes:
4x Vengevine
4x Bloodghast
4x Gravecrawler
4x Other Zombie for Gravecrawler (most likely Carrion Feeder)
4x Birds of Paradise
4x Putrid Imp (discard outlet + zombie, definately a must)
3x Other Mana Dork (most likely Elves of Deep Shadow)
1x Wonder

Non-negotiable spells:
4x Buried Alive
3x Intuition (could now become Entomb)

You're looking at 35 cards there, which doesn't give you whole lot of flex room with only 5 slots left. With Entomb, you could potentially lose Careful Study (or the alternative Faithless Looting) but you mentioned it made for fantastic turn 1 plays. I'd say 4 of those slots need to be Study. It's important for this deck, because it's an aggro deck, to have gas on turn 1. Careful Study is one more option, and a great one at that. That leaves you with a whopping ONE SLOT LEFT to tool around with. I think one move could be to doe a 2-3 split with Intuition and Entomb, and drop to 19 lands. You would still have 6 3-mana bombs that would enable broken turn 2 plays (t1 Mana dork, t2 BA/Intuition) and also have great potential for a big turn 1 (Careful Study, Entomb, Putrid Imp, Carrion Feeder).

Entomb brings a lot of open-ended questions. How do you balance a consistent & effective aggro strategy with the temptation to toolbox the hell out of it?

1) Do you include Dread Return and reanimator bombs because it's just so damn easy with Entomb/Buried Alive/Intuition? Would it be a 'bad' reanimator deck because Vengevine doesn't seal the game like Jin or Iona? Can Entomb enable a sideboard reanimation plan with silver bullets, having a transformative-type of sideboard?

2) Do you fight to keep blue simply for Careful Study and Intuition? Can Entomb make up for those being absent, and consequently are there any black substitutes for those that you aren't already including?

3) Having so much black, does Ichorid become one more 'free' black beatstick? Does Ichorid get you so damn close to dredge that you risk a half-ass concoction that isn't as good as going full-on Vengevine aggro or full-in dredge?

Those are tough questions to answer, at least they are daunting to me anyways. The biggest challenge you have right now is whether or not blue is worth the splash, and therefore the higher susceptability to Wasteland.

[Hanni]

Sorry that I missed your suggestion Safety. I was preoccupied with defending myself against the onslaught of attacks yesterday. I should probably reread through the thread.

For example, Freggle suggested Smallpox, which could be good. The self discard can actually be a good thing, sac'ing Ghast or Crawler is asymetrical, and with Entomb and a single Loam, I could easily recover from the land loss.

Speaking of Loam, that was also suggested, and could also be a decent tutor target for hitting land drops for Ghasts midgame.

You say the deck doesn't have many flex spots, but it actually does. There are a lot of strong options for this deck and many directions it can be taken in. I want to find the strongest and most competitive combination of those, without becoming Dredge.

This is the core:

4 Putrid Imp
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
4 Bloodghast
4 Vengevine

None of the other spells are mandatory. They are simply a means of getting the most out of this core. The mana dorks are only necessary for Buried Alive, which in itself may not be necessary. I'm not saying I want to cut my 3cc tutor 3 spell either, I'm just saying it's not a core card.

I tried the red splash last night and it wasn't worth it, at least in the shell I had it in. At the point where I can pay 2R for the flashback, I could probably hardcast Vine. Draw 2 discard 2 is mediocre when I'm not digging for something specific or I don't have valuable targets to discard.

Wonder is all that and a bag of chips. I can't tell you how many times my army of Jackal Pups can get in there after I Entomb for Wonder. Having Vines fly over 4/5 Goyfs is also nice.

Dread Return is an interesting idea, but it would require multiple tutors. Entomb for DR still requires I get a Reanimation target in the yard.

With Buried Alive... Sutured Ghoul or Necrotic Ooze would make the most sense. But now the deck is moving in a different direction. This is not a bad thing, but I'm trying to develop an aggro deck right now, and would like to try and optimize that plan first before exploring alternate gameplans.

I like how the deck can do a play as simple as turn 1 Feeder turn 2 Crawler, and still be able to end up with a big Carrion Feeder without even exposing the rest of the deck or casting any other spells. While at the same time, could instead go turn 1 Birds turn 2 Buried for triple Vines. That's the sort of gameplan I'm trying to focus on for now.

Ichorid doesn't stick around and eats through Ghasts and Crawlers from my yard. His place is in Dredge, not this deck.

[Mr. Safety]

Fair enough...I think you're on the right track for what you want to do. If that is indeed the core of your deck...try leaving blue out. I'm sure you will be trying that, but it bears repeating. Entomb can functionally replace Intuition.

If your plan is to explode into multiple Vengevines, I'm fairly certain you'll want Wild Mongrel. Leaving blue out of the picture makes room for Mongrel as a redundant Putrid Imp.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

This seems pretty sweet, I've been wanting to find some way to abuse all the recurring creatures they've been printing lately, too. Haven't even goldfished the deck yet so I don't have all that many suggestions, though you might want to try out a single Ashen Ghoul. Not really sure if it's good enough but it would allow you to Buried Alive for Ghoul, double Crawler before saccing a BoP to Therapy.
The reason I bring this up is because you might find yourself without Zombies once your opponent knows to kill Feeder and Ghoul is a zombie that will allow for a Crawler chain to come out off of only Buried Alive and a random guy dieing if you don't have the creatures left to trigger Vines.

With Entomb the singleton Loam seems solid, if only to make sure you can actually bring back Ghasts every turn lategame if necessary. It also allows you to turn Careful Study into an actual way to refuel once in a while.

[Tombstalker]

Hanni cool deck idea man, ive actually been messing with something very similar for Modern format although more dredge oriented. Still the main threat package is the same.

I may not have a complete understanding of the deck since I havent played it but may I suggest a singleton of fatestitcher? Hes a zombie that recurrs for free since he can untap the land used to cast him thereby activating your gravecrawlers when you dont have a zombie on board. Might not be a bad idea to entomb this guy as a back up plan to wrath effects.

Also this idea is a little gimmicky but if theres room for white in here you could build a small combo in tireless tribe plus twisted image that could win out of nowhere although subject to disruption. Tribe could replace pimp. I built an entire deck around this interaction + VVs and such. It was hit or miss but some games it could win t2 with wonder in the yard. IDK just a thought.

[Hanni]

Not sure on Ashel Ghoul at the moment. That seems like something I would need to playtest to determine how often that situation pops up and how useful he would be. He's another self-reanimating Zombie, so its worth keeping on my radar. Fatestitcher also seems useful for that purpose.

The more I think about the single Loam, the better it sounds. Triggering Ghasts over and over can be good, especially with a Feeder on the board; Loam would make the Feeder + Ghast combo a lot stronger. I could cut down to 19 lands to fit the Loam, I think.

Loam + Study being a midgame draw engine of sorts doesn't seem bad, either. My only worry with Loam is the amount of design space it opens up. If I'm already in blue, do I go with Intuition instead of Buried Alive (worse at putting dudes in the yard)? Do I run a small Loam toolbox? I really don't want to become some sort of midrange Aggro Loam strategy, but Worm Harvest seems so compelling, and Cabal Pit can deal with a small Scavenging Ooze. Does Vengeful Pharow become another option at that point?

There are so many options for deck construction with this strategy, but I'm certain there are only a few correct ways to build optimally around the core creatures. Ugh, the choices =/

[Freggle]

Here is another list to to show the potential of Life from the Loam

Spells 11
3 Life From the Loam
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Lead the Stampede

Creatures 27
3 Vampire Hexmage
4 Bloodghast
2 Tombstalker
4 Gravecrawler
4 Putrid Imp
4 Carrion Feeder
2 Eternal Witness
1 Wonder

Lands 25
3 Wasteland
4 Bayou
10 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Forest
3 Dark Depths

Bloodghast is not good enough just to rely on Bloodghast loam. 3 Wasteland gives you a good chance at a waste lock.

...and running Dark Depths & Vampire Hexmage give you a legit way to win outside the yard. It should also be easy to assemble with Lead the Stampede and Life From the Loam filtering the deck. Eternal Witness can also bounce a dredged hexmage.

Edit:Eternal Witness can also be an Animate Dead

[rufus]

Here is another list to to show the potential of Life from the Loam
....
Edit:Eternal Witness can also be an Animate Dead

Hmm... I'd be more inclined to try Mulch with something like Haunted Fengraf or Volrath's Stronghold than Lead the Stampede.

[Mr. Safety]

Ugh, the choices =/

This is why I ended up trading away my Vengevines...I couldn't decide how I wanted to make them work. Good luck!

[Freggle]

Hmm... I'd be more inclined to try Mulch with something like Haunted Fengraf or Volrath's Stronghold than Lead the Stampede.

Sure there are a plethora of things to try. Mulch has been really good for me in standard along side Splinterfright, but standard does not have the yard hate, or people planning for it like in Legacy.

Lead the Stampede gives the deck a viable way to filter cards when a static yard hate card is present ( i.e. cage, relic, crypt, void) to bring the heat topside.

I would say to try Uktabi Orangutan main, but it doesn't handle the scariest of them all Leyline of the Void. Your dead in your tracks with most of these builds until you can find your Nature's Claim The rest of them you can play around.

Lead also works well with one drops and Vengevine (which I happened to wrongfully omit.)

It's not a perfect list, but one showing where loam and hexmange / depths looks scary, and consistent.

Cabal Therapy to nab the exiles STP / PTE, Wasteland to get opposing wastes, and a fair amount of relevant filter to make it consistent. (Loam / witness works through cage & Bloodghast / fetch works through crypt and relic)

[Qweerios]

I tested the deck quite intensively yesterday and have settled for monoblack for now.

As far as the core goes, I think Buried Alive is definitely in there. I have been decimating Maverick and Storm all night with Dark Ritual. The latter is to this deck what LED is to Dredge. Going turn 1 Liliana is so powerful and often too much for your opponent to recover from (she made me win through Cage and Ooze several times). Our curve supports Dark Ritual so well too. Going for a turn 1 Buried Alive is also extremely effective (3 ghast vs RUG tempo, crawler + 2 vines, or 3 vines for T2 explosions). It is also great on T2 when you open with an Imp and are holding any combination of creatures and vines.

Dark Confidant is also one of those cards that I would include as part of the core because we tend to run out of steam pretty fast once a couple of StP hit the table. He also makes for very broken ritual plays as well.

I found Entomb to be very underwhelming in too many situations. Without a dedicated toolbox, I would rather draw into a Zombie, a Bob, or a Liliana than an Entomb.

Phyrexian Revoker is the most synergistic answer to Ooze, Crypt, Deed, and Jitte that I have found.

Darkblast is absolutely sick with Liliana. I moved them mainboard in place of Cabal Therapy for a few reasons:

-Cabal Therapy is only really powerful against Combo decks
-Aggro/Tempo decks will race us quite proficiently (Goblins, Elves, Maverick, Thresh)
-Every decks with creatures in Legacy right now pack x/1 creatures
-Control decks are already vastly in our favor in game 1
-Darkblast is often card advantage because dredge 3 is often as good as drawing

[ZeinVoncy]

It's entirely off subject, and for that I apologize, but figured I'd at least voice it . . . when you say Living Dead Girl, I couldn't help but imagine that I'd be seeing at least 3-4x Braids, Cabal Minion . . .

[Hanni]

Another SWEET interaction. Carrion Feeder protects my threats from Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile.

[Mr. Safety]

Another SWEET interaction. Carrion Feeder protects my threats from Swords to Plowshares and Path to Exile.

Nice...I'm guessing they will eventually figure out to deal with the Feeder before it can grow, but if they Stp/path the Feeder they reduce their ability to deal with a Vengevine/Bloodghast/Gravecrawler blitz. The tenacity of your threats are their biggest strength...Vengevine is not as big as an active Knight/Goyf, but it just won't go away. If someone plays 4 Stp main and 4 Paths side, that's still only 8 answers to your 12 recurring threats.

Feeder reminds me of Ravager in Affinity. If you try to deal with the other threats, sac to Ravager. With this one, sac to Feeder.

[Hanni]

After seeing Fauna Shaman + Loyal Retainers do well in Maverick during the Grand Prix coverage, it almost makes me wonder if it couldn't be used in here, as well. Fauna Shaman does seem really slow, at least when it comes to grabbing a playset of Vengevines, but I think the idea has some potential.

I mean, I run a ton of creatures that I actually want Fauna Shaman to discard in the first place. Gravecrawler makes the whole chain stronger, being able to bin a Cravecrawler before grabbing a Carrion Feeder to trigger back the Vengevines. Or, you know, run a singleton Basking Rootwalla and singleton Memnite for even faster chains.

Fauna Shaman also opens up the ability to tutor for Shriekmaw or Big Game Hunter, or other useful creatures.

The deck already has a ton of must-answer creatures, particularly with exile effects, so Fauna Shaman being another must-answer creature seems legit to me.

It would be so nice if they unbanned Survival...

EDIT: OMG... Quirion Ranger has synergy with Bloodghast too. I'm definitely trying out the Fauna Shaman package now.

EDIT 2: Being able to tutor up enchantment removal against Leyline of the Void, or Phyrexian Revoker against Crypt/Relic also seems spicey in postboard games...

I'm almost wondering if white becomes a good color to splash for Gaddock Teeg and Qasali Pridemage...

And does something like Chrome Mox deserve testing?

EDIT: At the point where I'm at nearly 30 creatures, does AEther Vial become worth testing, too?

[Mr. Safety]

See what I mean? Too many options bro, so I gave up on my Fauna Shaman/Vengevine deck.

Scryb Ranger also has potential for untap effects, and the flash, pro-blue, flying body is relivant I think.

If you do Fauna Shaman, I suggest these for silver bullest/enablers:

1x Basking Rootwalla
1x Scryb Ranger
1x Quirion Ranger
1x Shriekmaw


I still think that Buried Alive and Intuition need to be there, it essentially gives you up to 12 must-answer engines along with Shaman. If they counter BA, use Intuition. If they counter either of those, slow roll with Fauna Shaman. Seems legit.

[Hanni]

Meh. Shaman is just way too slow. 1G for a body, and an additional GGGG for a similar effect to Buried Alive. With Quirion Ranger, that's basically 3 turns from the turn its cast.

I still appreciate Quirion Ranger's synergy with Bloodghast, although I'm not sure if that alone is worth it. Besides Vengevines, I don't have any creatures worth untapping (can't block clause)...

Also, Entomb's have been amazing. They increase my early game explosiveness and consistency, and have increased my number of turn 3 goldfishes by a large margin.

4 Careful Study
4 Entomb
4 Buried Alive

That package has been working exceptionally well for me, and I don't think I'll be deviating from it again for a while.

[Sloshthedark]

I like it, just seriously needs at least 3x Cabal Therapy main

[Hanni]

I'm running 4 Cabal Therapy main, actually...

// Lands
4 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [ON] Bloodstained Mire
3 [R] Bayou
3 [R] Underground Sea
1 [UNH] Swamp

// Creatures
4 [7E] Birds of Paradise
4 [TO] Putrid Imp
4 [SC] Carrion Feeder
4 [DKA] Gravecrawler
4 [ZEN] Bloodghast
4 [ROE] Vengevine
1 [JU] Wonder

// Spells
4 [OD] Careful Study
4 [OD] Entomb
4 [OD] Buried Alive
4 [JU] Cabal Therapy

// Sideboard
SB: 4 [MBS] Phyrexian Revoker
SB: 4 [WWK] Nature's Claim
SB: 3 [US] Duress
SB: 3 [NPH] Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 [RAV] Life from the Loam

[Qweerios]

A single Vengeful Pharaoh is pretty nice with 4 Entomb.

A single Shambling Shell allows you to have access to a Zombie for some Gravecrawler reanimation.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

I've actually run a few games with this (Entomb version) and one thing I did quite early after really wanting it when I was holding an Entomb was to add a singleton Bridge from Below to the deck. Makes for some insane turns if you get Feeder or Therapies going and gives you something to actually chump with if the opponent has creatures to attack with or block your assault (Bloodghasts and Crawlers don't trade for all that many things but are great at running into a wall of defenders to push through two points. Bridge becomes insane there, especially if the opponent isn't expecting it to suddenly pop up).

[Tombstalker]

At this point between therapy and feeder is there any reason why you wouldnt want to run veteran explorer over BoP?

[Mr. Safety]

I've actually run a few games with this (Entomb version) and one thing I did quite early after really wanting it when I was holding an Entomb was to add a singleton Bridge from Below to the deck. Makes for some insane turns if you get Feeder or Therapies going and gives you something to actually chump with if the opponent has creatures to attack with or block your assault (Bloodghasts and Crawlers don't trade for all that many things but are great at running into a wall of defenders to push through two points. Bridge becomes insane there, especially if the opponent isn't expecting it to suddenly pop up).

Free 2/2's from dying Bloodghasts/Gravecrawlers sounds good to me...you can run your dorks into bigger dudes and profit all day long with it. Block my Gravecrawler with your Goyf? Ok, I get a 2/2 zombie, B, replay Gravecrawler. How do you like me now? Entomb makes it happen for cheap, too...and it makes me wonder if Intuition for 3 Bridge from Below is a good play considering a fistful of Gravecrawlers/Bloodghasts.

[Hanni]

The problem with Bridge from Below, aside from opponent's blocking my dudes and my surprising them with resp, Entomb for Bridge... I only run 4 Feeder and 4 Therapy as sac outlets, without a dredge mechanic to reliably get Therapy in the yard. I'm not running Dread Return, Recurring Nightmare, Diabolic Intent, etc.

The way I see it, Bridge from Below is simply a combo piece that adds onto an already strong combo of Feeder/Crawler (or Feeder/Ghast if I have a few fetches). Obviously, even 3 activations per turn could get out of hand with a Bridge tossed in. I see the value in Entomb'ing for a Bridge if I have a Feeder/Crawler combo on the board, for sure. I'm just wondering if its win-more or not. I mean, that same Entomb could go grab a Wonder so I can swing in with a huge Feeder in the air, while at the same time being overall useful without the Feeder/Crawler engine on the board.

Don't get me wrong, the concept sounds enticing as hell... but it just doesn't sound as efficient as regular Dredge. I'm trying to keep this deck playable without going down that road, i.e ultimately becoming a Dredge deck.

If you guys have suggestions on how to better take advantage of Bridge from Below without becoming a Dredge deck, I'd still be interested in the idea.

Also, if I were to try out Bridge from Below, I'd switch over to Intuition instead of Buried Alive and run 4 of them. I have essentially 12 discard outlets for the one that gets stuck in hand, and triple Bridges will get way more out of hand than just one.

EDIT: Nantuko Husk is way too inefficient as a sac outlet... are there any other cheap reasonable sac outlets like Carrion Feeder that would work? The deck really needs more than just 4 Feeder 4 Therapy to make a Bridge build work.

Attrition wouldn't be bad per se, if this deck went into a more controllish direction rather than the hyper aggressive beatdown direction that it's in right now. I'd still rather have something like another Feeder, though...

Bloodthrone Vampire I guess?

EDIT 2: On second thought, Attrition is awful. Lose my Bridges? Cool.

EDIT 3: Oh, and I just wanted to say this regarding the list I posted above. The deck is not as resilient as Survival Vengevine was, but it's faster, and just as consistent. I'm really diggin the deck, although playing against waves of graveyard hate does get annoying at times.

[zabuza]

You have viscera seer but I don´t like it because it´s not a zombie.

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Thing is, just because you can focus totally on Bridge doesn't mean you always have to use it that way. If you go for an all-out Bridge plan, you're opening yourself up much more to gy-hate, blurring the line between this and Dredge further. Not positive that would be wrong as I haven't tested it but I think you should try the singleton Bridge either way.
Bridge in the list as is has been a great one-of utility tool for me in testing with the Entombs. Sure, you're much less likely than Dredge to produce a complete Zombie explosion but it's been playing like a cross between my very own Caller of the Claw for B and this:

B
Zombie Squad
Instant
Put three 2/2 Zombies into play.

and that seems like a pretty strong card right there. A single Bridge just gives your Entombs a significant amount of extra power.
Even if they get rid of it after the first time you get your zombies it's very good and if they can't you generally just do really sick things. Making a huge Feeder is quite nice but ultimately easy to answer if they have removal in their deck. If you also get a small Zombie army, it's much harder for them to come back than against one big flyer. Two Bloodghasts don't race favorably against something as simple as a Goyf and Nacatle or a Delver and Goblin Guide. Feeder + Ghasts also producing between two and four Zombies the turn Feeder comes out are much harder to race if removal on Feeder gets involved.

[Mr. Safety]

Bridge makes top-decked mid-game Entombs a lot better, too. If you already have Vengevines/Bloodghasts/Gravecrawlers going with Buried Alive/Putrid Imp then Entomb becomes a way to overwhelm with that single Bridge. If it quickens you up a full turn then I would say it has a lot of value.

Other cheap sacrifice outlets, but they all kinda suck. You really need another functional Carrion Feeder.

Bone Splinters
Altar's Reap
Plunge into Darkness
Burnt Offering
Kjeldoran Dead
Plagued Rusalka
Tendrils of Despair

[zabuza]

I told you before. viscera serr is the only card that seems like feeder but the problem is that is not a zombie and doesn´t grow

[gabbalost]

Zombie Infestation is a must in this deck. Discard oulet and zombie source, 2 in 1. With buried alive and intuition around it seems interesting to explore the interaction with squee, goblin nabob.

This deck idea remembers me a extended deck at the early days of odyssey where you could find together wild mongrel, ashen ghoul, nether shadow, zombie infestation, squee goblin nabob, firestorm... and the banned hermit druid.

[Mr. Safety]

Oracle really needs to fix Kjeldoran Dead and make it a zombie...know anyone that can strongarm those folks?

[Qweerios]

So why isn't Bob part of the core already? I have had so many blowouts with Bob, Lily, and Dark Ritual. I can't say as much for Birds though, and hardcasting a Vengevine has never been an issue.

I tested a Red splash for 4 Squee and 4 Zombie Infestation instead of 4 Bob and 4 Liliana but it doesnt come anywhere close.

[ntropy]

Culling the Weak and Fleshbag Marauder come to mind. Sadly our functionally identical Carrion Feeder has not yet been printed

[Hanni]

So why isn't Bob part of the core already? I have had so many blowouts with Bob, Lily, and Dark Ritual. I can't say as much for Birds though, and hardcasting a Vengevine has never been an issue.

I tested a Red splash for 4 Squee and 4 Zombie Infestation instead of 4 Bob and 4 Liliana but it doesnt come anywhere close.

Bob isn't a part of the core, because the core is Imp, Feeder, Crawler, Ghast, and Vengevine.

If Bob were to have a place in the deck, it would be in replacement for one of the other enablers, like Study, Entomb, or Buried Alive.

I'm not sure why this deck would want Bob. The goal of this deck is all about tempo; cheating guys into play and swarming the opponent. Bob is a 2cc 2/1 that draws me an additional card once a turn. Dark Confidant is an amazing card in a deck like Esperblade; a deck designed around such an effect.

The same goes for Liliana. A turn 1 Liliana off of a Dark Ritual would be awesome. Hardcast, she's pretty bad for the intentions of this deck. Her discard ability, while asymmetrical in this deck, is slow. 3cc for a single discard isn't enough. The Edict effect is nice, but unecessary, and doesn't deal with a Scavenging Ooze directly. I don't have many creatures that block to protect her, so using her ultimate seems unlikely.

Basically, this deck is like Affinity or Dredge, in the sense that it wants to spit its hand (and graveyard) onto the board as fast as possible to swarm the opponent.

I already have +2 CA from Buried Alive, +3 CA from Careful Study (when it pitches any two of Crawler/Ghast/Vine/Wonder), and the fact that my guys recurring turn after turn against non-exile removal is card advantage in and of itself.

Now, onto the topic of Dark Ritual vs Birds of Paradise...

Well, I was running Birds of Paradise for a few reasons. Originally, I was trying to keep my 1cc creature count high so that I could trigger Vengevines more consistently. However, Gravecrawler really changes the dynamics here, since having one in the yard basically means I only need to cast 1 Zombie from hand to trigger Vines. Entomb and Buried Alive can tutor for Crawler, and Birds of Paradise isn't a Zombie. So basically, I haven't really needed the Birds to trigger Vengevines very often.

Another reason for Birds of Paradise was the ramp into Intuition. I'm not running Intuition anymore.

The final reason for Birds was that it produces any color of mana, helping smooth out my color sources. Without Birds, it would be extremely difficult to hardcast Vengevines. Hardcasting Vines may not be relevant in preboard games, but if an opponent opens with a turn 0 Leyline, it can be relevant in postboard games.

However, turn 1 Ritual into Buried Alive, turn 2 swing with 3-4 Vengevines seems rediculous. Or turn 1 Ritual into Entomb, Putrid Imp (discard Vengevine), another 1 drop, swing with 2 Vengevines (on turn 1!) seems rediculous. I'm going to cut Birds of Paradise for Dark Ritual and test it out a bit.

[Mr. Safety]

Just a few q's:

Now that Intuition isn't part of the gameplan, would you consider swapping out Careful Study for Faithless Looting, or is Wonder too important to your aggro matchup by providing evasion?

With blue, would you attempt to use Phantasmal Image to get your functional count of Vengevines higher (I'm pretty sure you can play one creature, play Image as your second creature, Vengvine triggers, then you can have Image copy the vengevine that comes back from the yard as Image resolves. I think the wording allows this kind of interaction.)

[Hanni]

I tried Faithless Looting, and it wasn't any better than Study in most cases. This deck uses Study to dump creatures on turn 1. By midgame, where this deck would hit the 2R to flash back Looting, the deck doesn't want or need that effect anymore, in most cases.

On the other hand, Wonder wins games. Three 2/1's get chumped by just about everything, but three 2/1 fliers is some serious pressure, especially if the opponent is already low on life from the earlier rush.

On an unrelated note, I only got to goldfish a few games with Ritual so far, but it was insane in a few hands already. I'll try it against some live opponents after work and see how it goes. I'm hopeful that the loss of Birds doesn't hurt my postboard games too much... because I really want to run Ritual instead. Ritual speeds up the decks overall goldfish by a full turn.

[Qweerios]

I think that going for all an all out tempo strategy is the wrong approach. If you go down that path and focus entirely on it, you need to:

a) be able to win games as fast and as reliably as Dredge and Storm decks because those are the standards when you play a deck that mostly ignore its opponents.
b) be able to fight through hate persistently.

I don't think this deck can accomplish those. It is more akin to a black weenie deck with build in resilience to removal and sweepers.

What I liked about this deck was to have the possibility for explosive plays while packing interactive cards like Cabal Therapy, Darkblast, and Liliana of the Veil. These are most synergistic because their drawbacks are usually advantages. Not being to block for Liliana is a non-issue. You only need to activate her once to have an even exchange, she often comes down too fast for your opponent to deal with her in a fair manner, and having our opponent attack often leaves them vulnerable. She is also exponentialy better with Dark Ritual.

So far the most crippling cards I have faced have been Leyline of the Void, Grafdigger's Cage, Scavenging Ooze, and Batterskull. For these very cards, I will probably revert back to splashing green for SB Krosan Grip and the ability to hardcast Vengevines through GY hate.

My list:


Creatures (24)
4 Putrid Imp
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
4 Bloodghast
4 Dark Confidant
4 Vengevine

Others (16)
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Buried Alive
4 Liliana of the Veil

Lands (20)
4 Bayou
4 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Marsh Flats
4 Bloodstained Mire

Sideboard (15)
3 Krosan Grip
4 Darkblast
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Phyrexian Revoker

[Greenpoe]

Qweerios, I like the approach. Liliana and Dark Confidant are both must-answer cards vs. most decks, which is great. Those cards both win games on their own, and lower the GY dependency. Stinkweed Imp might be useful as a target, since he's plays a role like Nighthawk does for The Gate. Plus recurrable deathtouch is pretty good, especially when it dredges stuff for you.

[ESG]

Great deck name. Hanni, I like the list and the concept. I built and tested a deck similar to this right after Survival got banned, although there are more impressive interactions going on here due to Gravecrawler.

In my old build, I ran the Rituals and Entomb, Wonder, Careful Study. I tested Intuition, tested Shriekmaw, tested other stuff. I found Wild Mongrel to be better than expected. Ultimately, one drawback of the deck was that in order to ensure I could trigger Vengevines, I had to run a ton of 1-drop creatures, and if my graveyard got hated out, the creatures didn't usually amount to an impressive force. Your dudes are a bit thicker, though, with Gravecrawler at 2 power and Carrion Feeder being able to grow large. I feel like Wonder is the best part of this deck. Evasion is just so important to winning the damage race, considering you can't block.

Ultimately, I see some of the same challenges here that I faced with my post-Survival list, except the environment is a bit more unfriendly, because now Surgical Extraction and Snapcaster Mage exist and are widely played and Swords to Plowshares is the go-to removal spell if you aren't in red, whereas a year or so ago at least black removal was seeing a little play (mainly Dismember). The fact you have a live sac outlet in Carrion Feeder is strong, allowing your guys to dodge STP or Path if it's on the field (and obviously you have Cabal Therapy for proactive measures), but ultimately if you can't abuse the graveyard, all your creatures are probably worse than their creatures. In such an instance, Attrition seems strong, allowing you to one-for-one them until you can defeat their hate cards and reclaim access to the yard, and you run more creatures than most other decks, so that situation should favor you as long as you can get it down early. (And maybe that would be another situation where Dark Confidant would shine.)

Have you had any problems with the Zombie count?

@ Qweerios: The main drawback I see to running Liliana is that your guys can't block to protect her. So she's great if you drop her into play Turn 1 or if you can keep their board empty, but this deck doesn't otherwise have removal.

[Mr. Safety]

Lili seems like a distraction and geared more towards providing mid-late game grind potential. With the explosive mana from Dark Ritual, a turn 1 Lili is a lot less impressive than Buried Alive or just playing multiple black one drops + disruption. Gravecrawler/Bloodghast/Vengevine can break the symmetry of Lili great...but you're already playing unfair by hustling those dudes a lot faster than your opponent can handle. I can see her as a 1-2 of in the maindeck, but I don't see her as a 4-shot. This is just an opinion mind you, and only based on speculation not play time. Bob and Lili are must-answer threats...but they are also easily answered. I think focusing on the Vines/Ghasts/Gravecrawlers that just won't go away is what makes the deck good and playable. Entomb, Buried Alive, Putrid Imp, and Carrion Feeder all support this abusable characteristic, all of them enablers that provide break-neck speed. Lili seems like just another enabler in a deck that already has more explosive enablers. Bob I can see as being good at providing extra cards...but I think the mana-dork/Intuition plan is better than Bob (and harder to disrupt.) It's also predictable in it's ability to play out. Intution is a tutor that WILL give you the gas you need. Bob COULD give you the gas you need. I'm really not sold...but then again, I'm retarded...

Those of you that have tested Lili with the Ritual plan, is she really worth 4 slots?

[Hanni]

The whole reason to play this deck over another aggro deck is its speed. Think of this deck like Affinity on crack, except its Achilles Heel is graveyard hate instead of artifact hate and Pernicious Deed.

Dark Ritual is the nuts for this deck, and I'm glad it was suggested. The speed increase that the Rituals add is nutty sometimes.

Liliana and Dark Confidant do not follow the gameplan of swarming the opponent as fast and as much as possible. Both of those cards are too slow. This is not a grindy midrange Rock-ish deck, it's an all in deck like Affinity.

Also, the difference that this deck has compared to Dredge is that its not all in on its graveyard. Graveyard hate is a nuisance, but not a game-ender. This deck wants to abuse its graveyard, but can keep dropping threats even after the yard gets nuked. If the opponent cracks their Crypt to hit the 1-2 Vengevines I'm bringing back on turn 2, they might get blown out by the Buried Alive on turn 3. This deck is redundant in that way.

This deck also doesn't splooge its stuff into the graveyard to let it sit there; in most games, stuff is only in the graveyard for at most 1 turn before it gets put back into play. In some games, the stuff is only in the graveyard for a second, and comes back into play on the same turn.

[Mr. Safety]

Its comforting to know that my head is screwed on straight, because that's how I pictured the deck Hanni. Bob and Lili are good cards, sure, but you can't just say 'I'm going to play Good Stuff AND fast aggro.'

[Qweerios]

I'll stop preaching Bob and Lily for now because I get the feeling that everyone arguing against their use is doing so with the premise that this deck consistently kills within the first three turns. Also, are the Dark Rituals working?

I will post a tournament report this week and see how it goes.

[wert]

Just some wild punts. Demon of Death's Gate, Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder possible?

[Mr. Safety]

If you want to make the build disruptive, I'd try to combine it with pox. Both Darkblast and Life from the Loam make your pox top-decks a lot better, because you can dredge into business. Discarding a Basking Rootwalla to Pox is actually pretty savage, because the 3/3 clock of Rootwalla becomes significant when your opponent only has 13 life left. Hasty Vengevines are also pretty much GG if you can trigger them consistenly. It would have to be a combination of these cards (this is too many cards, but you get the idea).

You could do:
Turn 1 - any card
Turn 2 - Smallpox discarding Vengevine
Turn 3 - Recur Vengevine with Rootwalla/Gravecrawler/something else

If you play Pox to get Rootwalla into play and recur Vengevine, you have 7 power on the table, of which 4 with haste. 20-7-4=9, so you can put him on 2 life the next turn.

4 Vengevine
4 Gravecrawler
4 Basking Rootwalla
Shambling Shell?/Something Else that triggers Vengevine
4 Pox
4 Smallpox
4 Life from the Loam
2 Darkblast
3 Innocent Blood
3 Hymn to Tourach
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize



If the disruption route isn't what you're trying to achieve, I think I'd go for Hanni's fast approach.


The issue with your list is that you don't have any other zombies to trigger Gravecrawler's recursion. Having 4 Gravecrawlers and nothing else means you need at least 2 copies of him (and one that stays on the battlefield) to make it happen. Putrid Imp is a great outlet and is a zombie...ditto on Carrion Feeder. Having 12 1-drop zombies to enable Gravecrawler is quite important. It means you have fewer slots to play the disruption plan, so going all-in on Dark Ritual and Buried Alive married to Wonder and Bloodghast becomes a better approach (IMHO.) Your list is basically Pox with Vengevine/Rootwalla and a no-drawback/potential upside Vampire Lacerator (a dumb 2/1 for B.)

Maybe you meant Shambling Shell to be the added zombie count for Gravecrawler (and I misread it as a Vengevine trick?)

[bruizar]

Meh Ignore my post. Deleted for irrelevance.

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

This deck seems like a lot of fun. Although it uses hardly any of the same cards, it can't help but remind me of the old UG Madness decks. Some random thoughts:

-I think Dark Confidant fits in line with the general gameplan well enough, even in the hyper-aggressive versions, that the crazy power level should dictate his inclusion. Liliana does not fit in with the rest of the deck-- she controls the game, and that's basically not our strategy. Bob, on the other hand, is ineffective as a threat. But he still is a threat, and if left unanswered, he gives you more threats. This seems right on the money as far as something this list would want. Hanni, you compare this deck to Affinity... So explain to me why Affinity wouldn't play Dark Confidant if he was an artifact. I don't feel like that's an unfair analogy. In the absence of some other card that is better in his slot, I think you can pretty safely cram a couple of Bobs in whatever flex slots you find you have, and rest assured in the safety of good stuff being good.

-Cabal Therapy seems like it may not be adding as much as it initially appears-- it plays well with the recursive creatures, but it doesn't do what you actually want in a sac outlet (preventing removal), and in the fast builds, it doesn't seem like there's enough other disruption in the deck to make Therapy super relevant. What do you find to be your most frequently named cards off of a blind Therapy with this deck? Would a card that deals damage be more effective in this slot?

-Straight-up Black/Green seems stronger to me than the lists using blue, at first glance.

-This is a bit of a long shot, but Spawning Pit might actually be good in this deck as a random one-of. It provides another permanent-based sac outlet to prevent your guys from getting sent farming, and it adds to the steady stream of attackers. Plus it gives you blockers :tongue:

-I'm sure someone's already tested and dismissed him as not adding enough, but just to be sure (especially if 12 Zombies is a little light), Diregraf Ghoul? Probably not good enough.

[Qweerios]

I really like the Demon at Death's Gate suggestion. It looks like it would give Bloodghasts some power.

[Hanni]

Skaab Ruinator is also interesting.

[Greenpoe]

Liliana and Dark Confidant do not follow the gameplan of swarming the opponent as fast and as much as possible. Both of those cards are too slow. This is not a grindy midrange Rock-ish deck, it's an all in deck like Affinity.

Remember, before the UB Tezz came out, many people ran Confidant (sucessfully) in Affinity and there were articles preaching about how good Confidant was in Affinity- not to play on turn 2, but generally to play out the nutty hand, then let Confidant refill it if they killed your creatures or whatever else.

[Mr. Safety]

Remember, before the UB Tezz came out, many people ran Confidant (sucessfully) in Affinity and there were articles preaching about how good Confidant was in Affinity- not to play on turn 2, but generally to play out the nutty hand, then let Confidant refill it if they killed your creatures or whatever else.

Affinity's creatures don't auto-return to the battlefield like Gravecrawler, Vengevine, and Bloodghast. It's like comparing nectarines to peaches; this deck has the fuzz and affinity doesn't.

Game 2 should be about countering the grave hate that comes in. I'm not sure what the solution is, but I saw Carston Kotter was advocating for Noxious Revival in dredge recently. I think this approach is similar to dredge, the difference being a somewhat weaker combo plan but with a stronger aggro plan. Considering that the most frequent grave hate that is brought in is Surgical Extraction (expecially from those pesky Snapcaster Mage decks to double up on it) I think Revival is a helluva plan for combating it. It is also free, instant speed, and can be hardcasted given one of the primary colors of the deck is green.

I'm really curious about 1-2 Fecundity in here...it would be to this deck what Sylvan Library is to zoo...a way to draw extra cards without having to worry about that draw outlet being shot down with a Bolt (like Bob.) It doesn't address the known weakness to grave hate, which is probably why it's a bad idea. Leyline of Sanctity can work so your graveyard can't be targeted, but I wouldn't want to mulligan into it. I like Null Rod for shutting off Tormod's Crypt/Relic of Progenitus (and has value against Affinity and the odd Metalworker deck) but it does nothing for Leyline of the Void, Grafdigger's Cage, or Surgical Extraction. Considering Dark Ritual is part of the game plan now, I am wondering about a janky response like Footbottom Feast. It puts them on top of your library, needing only an outlet (maybe the top card becomes a Putrid Imp that got killed?) to get the plan moving again. It supports the hard-cast aggro plan nicely by setting you up with multiple threats in a row to grind away each turn (which is one of the appeals of the deck against grave hate.)

[Qweerios]

4th place at a local event with the following list:


Creatures (24)
4 Putrid Imp
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
4 Bloodghast
4 Dark Confidant
4 Vengevine

Others (16)
4 Dark Ritual
4 Darkblast
4 Buried Alive
4 Liliana of the Veil

Lands (20)
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Marsh Flats
6 Swamp
2 Bayou

Sideboard (15)
3 Krosan Grip
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Surgical Extraction
4 Phyrexian Revoker


Round 1: 2-0 oldschool MBA

Not much to say there, it was an outdated deck.

Round 2: 2-1 Pox

G1: Ritual Entomb on 3 Bloodghasts when I saw the T1 urborg, my opponent couldn't deal with them.

SB: -4 Darkblast, +3 Kgrip, +1 Revoker

G2: I lose to Leyline of the Void on T0

G3: I go Imp + Feeder on T2 and discard 3 Ghasts and 1 VV. My opponent Extirpates the Ghasts but I keep a VV and draw into a Crawler ftw.

Round 3: 1-2 GWu Maverick

G1: T1 Ritual + Buried alive for 3 VV. T2 double Crawlers ftw.

G2: I don't remember exactly but I get my opponent down to 5 life through Jitte but a GSZ on Ooze locks me out.

G3: T1 Liliana + Darkblast goodness makes my opponent cringe. I get rid of a KotR, a Geist, and Blast a Mother and a Dryad before Liliana bites the dust (All the while beating with Crawler and Imp). My opponent is holding a Batterskull and is forced to block my 2/1s with his SFM. He hardcasts Bskull which I know I can win through but topdecks his only Bojuka Bog and locks me out.

Round 4: 2-0 Death n Taxes

G1: T1 Ritual + Imp + Bob + VV. VV and Bob both eat a StP but I ride it from there with an entomb on Crawler + 2 VV and a hardcasted Ghast.

G2: My opponent opens up with a Mom, a Canonist, and a Thalia while I open up with a Crawler, a Bob, and a Liliana that quickly fall. A couple of SFM and Flickerwisps later, my opponent is missing 1 mana to drop an equip and swing and I eventually find a Darkblast and start killing 1 creature per turn (Dredge nets me 2 Ghasts in the process). The game is very close but I finally win by taping Mom with a Darkblast and casting a hasted Ghast for a lethal swing.

The GWu Maverick deck I lost to in R3 finished first.

I didn't get to use my sideboard very much but I think Kgrip and Revoker don't belong in there. Nature's Claim is probably the way to go against Leyline and Batterskull because you can cast it on T1. I also feel like Gatekeeper of Malakir is a better SB option than Revoker, even against Ooze. Another card I am contemplating at the moment is Tidehollow Sculler.

[caiomarcos]

So, I think the cat is out of the box now. A 11th place and quite some buzz during the last SCG Legacy Open by the "Walking Dead" deck.

Pretty much the same strategy, sans Vengevine.


Creatures
4 Bloodghast
4 Carrion Feeder
3 Geralf's Messenger
4 Gravecrawler
2 Rotting Rats
2 Tombstalker

Enchantments
2 Goblin Bombardment

Instants
1 Tragic Slip

Sorceries
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Faithless Looting
1 Gitaxian Probe
4 Hymn to Tourach
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Lingering Souls
1 Thoughtseize

Basic Lands
3 Swamp

Lands
2 Badlands
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Marsh Flats
1 Polluted Delta
2 Scrubland
1 Undiscovered Paradise
2 Verdant Catacombs

Sideboard:
3 Dark Confidant
1 Goblin Bombardment
1 Grave Pact
1 Darkblast
1 Disenchant
1 Geth's Verdict
1 Tragic Slip
3 Deathmark
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Thoughtseize
1 Vindicate


It takes the red direction, adding Bombardment for sac outlet and damage source. a weird list but it performed really well. How does this build stacks against those in this thread?

[Hanni]

That deck looks alot more resilient to graveyard hate, but alot slower and alot less explosive. Still an interesting build. Goblin Bombardment looks like a great secondary sac outlet in addition to Carrion Feeder, but the build looks like it's missing some "oomph." That build doesn't really do anything unfair. I'd probably look into fitting a couple of Umezawa's Jitte's into the maindeck. Also, Tragic Slip looks awful.

[Dzra]

I don't know if there's a seperate thread for the BWR version or not... (I couldn't find one at least), but here's my take on the recent 11th place list. I tried to go for more of a concrete plan as the other list seemed rather thrown together at times.

Hellspark/Lingering Souls are just good high damage cards with great CA by themselves and when paired with Faithless Looting, are pretty dirty. Buried Alive is there to fetch Bloodghasts/Ichorids/Wonder/Gravecrawler. Messenger is good, but cuttable. Gravecrawler is a great sac outlet. PtE is there to clear the way for your smaller dudes. Thoughtseize is to prevent a Batterskull and as an addtional Wonder discard outlet. Darkblast is amazing.

The SB is slightly pulled out of my ass, but it's basically just good cards in these colors. Deathmark over Perish is maybe a mistake, but Deathmark does a lot of work. Maybe some split.

Creatures 21
4 Bloodghast
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
3 Hellspark Elemental
3 Ichorid
2 Geralf's Messenger
1 Wonder

Spells 20
4 Faithless Looting
4 Lingering Souls
4 Path to Exile
4 Thoughtseize
3 Buried Alive
1 Darkblast

Lands 19
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Marsh Flats
3 Badlands
3 Swamp
2 Scrubland
1 Plains
1 Mountain
1 Underground Sea

Sideboard 15
4 Pyroblast
4 Surgical Extraction
3 Deathmark
2 Vindicate
1 Geth's Verdict
1 Darkblast

[Hanni]

I don't think a single Undeground Sea is enough to support Wonder consistently.

I do agree that the RWB version should be running Buried Alive.

[caiomarcos]

Does Ichorid deserve a place? The only dudes you want to remove are the 4 Carrion Feeders and 2 Geralf's Messengers, and unlike in dredge decks, they are much harder to get in the grave, you have to either discard them (not really a good play) or have them die. How often will you have 2 or 3 out of 6 in your grave? Is returning Ichorid only once or twice enough? Removing Ichorid for Ichorid seems not very constructive and again not really a good play.

That's how I feel. Could you please elaborate more on this topic?

[MoT_Pestilence]

t seems to me that Ichorid is NOT where this deck wants to be. I mean, look at his food, they are all creatures that would rather be recurring, not removing from the game. Also, I really don't think Hellspark is strong enough to include. I like the idea of vengivine. I think the explosive potential, yet inevitability that it provides is just way too powerful to pass up. Wonder also seems a little too "cute."

I feel like the optimal list would be one that is a culmination of Qweerios's list (congrats on the finish by the way, I really like your take on the deck) and the deck that placed at the recent SCG.

[Hanni]

I still like my BUG list. It's explosive and consistent, which is exactly what I want out of a Vengevine deck. It's not as resilient to hate as these other lists, but at least it wins games 1's more frequently. I don't mind battling through hate in games 2 and 3, and it's not like I fold completely to hate.

[Mirrislegend]

I play a version of this deck in Modern. You're gonna want some Zombie Infestation in there. It fills your graveyard, allows you to profit off of late game bad draws, and makes Zombies for Gravecrawlers.

EDIT:
@Dzra: If you're playing red, Goblin Bombardment seems like an auto-include

[Qweerios]

Goblin Bombardment deserves some serious attention here.

[DukeDemonKn1ght]

Here's a black/green/red build I would like some input on:

4 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
4 Putrid Imp
4 Bloodghast
4 Dark Confidant
4 Vengevine
1 Anger

4 Dark Ritual
4 Faithless Looting
4 Buried Alive
2 Darkblast
2 Liliana of the Veil

2 Badlands
2 Bayou
1 Taiga
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
6 Swamp

Sideboard:

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Phyrexian Revoker
2 Liliana of the Veil
2 Krosan Grip
1 Ancient Grudge


I feel like Looting + Dark Confidant + Buried Alive gives the deck some serious card advantage while maintaining a significant clock, in theory at least. I might like to fit in 1-2 Goblin Bombardments somewhere in the 75 (not sure on that though, is it "aggro enough"?), and 2 Krosan Grip is probably not enough for enchantment hate in the sideboard... Anger may be a little redundant, since Vengevine and Bloodghast (sometimes) already have haste, but he can enable some fun shenanigans with Feeder + Crawler recursion, and giving Dark Confidant haste is not quite as janky as it might seem, imo. It's quite possible he should be something else though. He's no Wonder, but I feel like Looting is better than the available blue draw spells for us...

Anyways, I'd welcome some feedback, I'm trying to get a handle on this archetype.

EDIT: Also, does anyone think it might be sensible to drop a couple Putrid Imps for something that beats harder, since Looting provides an additional discard outlet? Or maybe some Smallpox? I feel like that was a good suggestion from a while ago, but it may work better as a sideboard card (anti Maverick, also works against Reanimator, Show and Tell, and kind of against Stoneblade/ random blue combat decks.)

[Oiolosse]

Smallpox works against damn near everything. Notable exception would be elves and burn in the mid/late game.

You only have 4 cards MD that kills things. Maybe goblin bombardment is a good idea.

[TsumiBand]

I posted in the Zombie-Bombardment thread first, about how a deck like that might be better off just playing Loam, Vengevine and Buried Alive... and then oh shit, turns out it's already a deck, heh. :/

I could be off me rocker, but it seems to me that the evasion factor is minimal at best with a deck that's playing Liliana and a ton of guys that just recur over and over. The reason to play it over Dredge is obvious in this regard; its inability to explode is replaced by a major resiliency factor, it just punches the fase over and over and comes back from removal not named Grafdigger's Cage every turn. Which is sexy; still, if there's a need for evasion, I do sort of wonder if going three-color isn't quite as good as just maybe playing Urborg and Filth. The only real loss is Intuition, and Intuition doesn't seem to be getting played much in later builds, maybe you lose Careful Study too, but honestly the Careful Study effect could be supplanted by Life from the Loam, and LftL would play nicely with Bloodghast and keep your mana resilient from teh hate as well. Would even let you mess around with Wasteland recursion if you felt it was necessary.

[Greenpoe]

I still think Stinkweed Imp deserves a slot. If a Vampire Nighthawk is playable, why not Stinkweed here? A recurrable deathtouch guy that can be searched out via Buried Alive that also dredges for 5 sounds pretty useful. That dredge 5 could easily help you out, plus he can potentially be a creature to cast that you can get whenever for Vengevine purposes.

[morgan_coke]

Hey, didn't realize other people were working on this same deck. I'm still at brewing decklist stage, but this is what I've been looking at:

4x Vengevine
4x Bloodghast
4x Gravecrawler
3x Haakon, Stromgald Scourge

4x Faithless Looting
4x Careful Study
3x Life from the Loam

4x Smallpox
4x Nameless Inversion
3x Liliana of the Veil

4x Mutavault
4x Undiscovered Paradise
2x Rix Maadi, Dungeon Palace
2x Verdant Catacombs
2x Bloodstained Mire
2x Badlands
2x Bayou
1x Tropical Island
1x Volcanic Island
1x Forest
1x Swamp

Sideboard
3x Gnaw to the Bone
3x Krosan Grip
4x Leyline of Sanctity
3x Cabal Therapy
2x Pernicious Deed

The manabase is obviously a mess, and I'm pretty sure it needs some Wastelands, but I like the ability to just overwhelm any kind of creature based assault with the mix of liliana, smallpox, and recurring inversions. Mutavaults and Haakon both play excellently with Gravecrawler. The board is designed to hit combo, burn, and to play anti- anti-gy hate. Excess leylines can always be pitched to any number of discard effects, so the drawbacks of their inclusion are minimalized.

Gamble is a card I've been meaning to look at for this deck, but haven't gotten around to yet. I really like undiscovered paradise both as a five color land and as a way to always keep bloodghasts going strong.

I like several of the other ideas I've seen in this thread, great brainstorming and creativity everyone.

[Aggro_zombies]

Running Wasteland seems exceptionally greedy in a four-color deck that already runs Mutavault. Why do you need them?

[morgan_coke]

Was looking at Wasteland mostly through the prism of Smallpox/Loam combo, but yeah, I agree, it's totally greedy. Also, the deck isn't THAT 4color. We're pretty much talking about Looting/Study as the only red and blue cards, so if you get a single Volcanic or Paradise down, you're pretty much good. Although I do agree that the rough draft manabase I've got listed is in need of an overhaul.

[puckb]

Hi dudes,

Tinkering from a Burning Vengeance list, I have come to something pretty similar to your lists.

First I must warn you. My english isn't really good, as I french.

Then, here's my list, I call it Creepy Crawlers, in reference to a 90's toy !


4 Birds of Paradise
4 Gravecrawler
2 Bloodghast
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Putrid Imp
4 Vengevine
2 Llanowar Augur
1 Wonder

3 Raven's Crime
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize

3 Buried Alive
2 Life from the Loam
1 Darkblast

2 Mutavault
2 Forest
4 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Bayou
2 Underground Sea
SB: 4 Oxidize
SB: 3 Phyrexian Revoker
SB: 4 Surgical Extraction
SB: 3 Darkblast


I like this list very much. It's really fast, yet

Explanations of unexpected choices :
- Darkblast / Loam : Can't solve the problem, both are pretty useful. I use Loam maindeck because if the first goes too long loam/raven's crime is pretty efficient mid-game. I think I cast Darkblast more often yet Loam is the only one that can steal me games.
And loam fits better the name 'Creepy Crawlers' !

- 10 Discards : Actually they never stick to hand, it's the only defense I have ( as most of creatures can't block ) and also an enabler for the vengies/loam/darkblast/bloodghast. It also act as a decoy against counters.

- Augur : As you expected, she's not that good. I needed a *cheap* creature that can hold the fort while her pals attack that can also act aggressive. It's not good but I haven't found better. If you have any better suggestions. Could wild mongrel be 1 mana cheaper !
In this slot, I also would like to try : Sylvan safekeeper, Uktabi drake, Spore Frog

- Smallpox : I've used it for long and finally cut it. I love the card, but it does not fit in the deck. The mana is too precious, it makes us lose a turn, it only really works with 6 creatures, it don't really create CA.

- Anger / Wonder : I'll go Wonder, but both are good.

- Intuition / Buried Alive : If I go up to 3 manas, the game need to be ended fast (ie next turn ) so I need 3 vengies or something close. That's why even though i do appreciate the versatility of Intuition, it's not pertinent right here and I won't take the risk of not being able to cast it as it needs blue mana.

- Faithless looting. Didn't try, it looks interesting.

I won't check the grammar, I'm tired now. Yet I hope it's readable and I'll check tommorow.

The list is really pleasant to play, and it can steal games out of nowhere.

Maybe tomorrow I'll add a little about matchups

[Tainted]

Some months ago a deck similar to this make top8, but don't remember who use it, and i found interesting that in the SB as a plan B he used 4 Natural Order and a Progenitus taking out the Vengevine.
But it uses more green as Basking Rootwalla, Fauna Shaman and Birds of Paradise for it, I don't know if it can work now with all that black

[Qweerios]

Anybody else thinks that Lotleth Troll and Grisly Salvage would make a fine base for a Deed/Vengevine zombie deck? I am thinking about something like that:


Creature (24)
4 Putrid Imp
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
4 Bloodghast
4 Lotleth Troll
4 Vengevine

Spells (16)
2 Raven's Crime
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Grisly Salvage
4 Pernicious Deed
2 Liliana of the Veil

Lands (20)
4 Wasteland
4 Bayou
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Marsh Flats
3 Swamp
1 Forest

[kwis]

Why not run loam and 1-2 dryad arbor to feed troll?

Since you've already got waste and raven it seems like a natural fit. It's also worth mentioning that Gristly Salvage will often be tossing you excellent treats in the graveyard as well as what you take for your hand.

You can probably cut back on PImp to make space for the loam's and possibly go to 2 swamp 1 arbor and more forest based fetch.



Carrion Feeder and Gravecrawler pretty much give you infinite Vengevines so I don't think cutting the PImp will be a huge problem. Perhaps I'm slightly underestimating how valuable the Imps discard for creatures is, but I think the deck would do fine cutting back to 2 PImp.

You also gain the new BG vindicate that can't be countered in your sideboard. =)

[Aggro_zombies]

This deck might be interested in Slitherhead:

B/G
Creature - Plant Zombie
Scavenge 0
1/1

You can cast it easily to get back VVines or pitch it and then use it to pump a creature.

[kwis]

I was thinking that Slitherhead was a bit too filler when I was looking at the above list.

[mini1337s]

After posting a pretty embarrassing drunken list in the aggro loam thread, I tuned this a bit today. Pretty fun, but still has a tendency to durdle.

4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Bayou
2 Forest
2 Swamp
3 Dryad Arbor
4 Putrid Imp
4 Gravecrawler
4 Loleth Troll
4 Vengevine
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Bloodghast
3 Life from the Loam
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Wasteland
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Woodland Cemetery
4 Strangleroot Geist
2 Green Sun's Zenith

[uncletiggy]

strangleroot geist and green sun's zenith seem out of place they might be better as slitherhead and buried alive.

[ReAnimator]

A couple of years ago i top 4'd 3 ~30 man tournaments right before Survival got banned, running GB madness, It was somewhat similar to the normal survival decks of the time but way faster and more aggro and had discard instead of counters. Even got a couple of turn 2 kills, which is always fun.

This was the list:
4 Putrid Imp
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Vengevine

4 Birds of paradise
1 Fauna shaman
1 Memnite
1 Viridian Zealot
1 Big Game Hunter
1 Shriekmaw

4 Survival of the fittest
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize

2 Gaea's Cradle
4 Bayou
4 GB fetch
4 UG fetch
1 RG fetch
4 forest
1 Swamp

Now obviously with survival gone a lot of the things in this aren't' necessary, like Cradle, the tutor targets, Mana birds, you don't have survival gobbling up your mana so that aspect doesn't' really apply.

After the banning i tried Quirion dryads and faunas but it wasn't quite the same obviously. However there are a bunch of new tools to make this more aggressive.

A lot of the builds posted in here seem to be going after slow grindy cards for the mid game, but i think you'd just rather be more aggressive, VVines, Trolls and Carrion Feeders are just fine going long i don't think you want to be playing with loam or deed (at least not main deck). I also think Buried Alive is a little too slow without mana accelerants, and will have to be boarded out in pretty much every game 2 and 3. It's just miserable vs anything with spell pierce or on the draw. I would think entomb would do a much better job even though it's less powerful.

Also in testing Bloodghast back then i always found it worse than just having something like goyf, it just didn't hit very hard and was only good with your other synergy cards, i think something like Zombardment puts it to work much better. Also once the grave hate comes in and you need to go to a manual beat down plan, Ghast doesn't really do much.

Maybe this deck needs to go into Bombardment or Wonder, but i think it's worth exploring just straight GB first.


I'm going to start testing this first, and if it needs to get more grindy or mid range so be it, but i like the draws where you can kill on turn 2 or just beat people to death with a bunch of dudes and goyf backed up by disruption.

4 Putrid Imp
4 Gravecrawler
3 Carrion Feeder
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 LOL Troll
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Vengevine

4 Thought Seize
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Abrupt Decay

2 Empty Slots

4 Bayou
4 GB Fetch
7 Assorted other fetch lands
2 Swamp
2 Forest
1 Pendelhaven

There are a lot of options for the empty slots; things that haven't been spoiled yet, Scavenging Ooze, fauna shamans, birds, more removal like shriekmaw or tragic slip, Dark Confidant, even just the fourth therapy and carrion.
I think testing will give a better direction.
It's totally possible that Carrion needs to be a 4 of, just for all the terminus and swords flying around, not sure though.

The mana base obviously has a lot of wiggle room in it, and can easily support a splash if necessary. I'm not convinced that wastelands need to be in here, it doesn't help you cast any of your spells, at all, and while that's fine in RUG, this deck really isn't trying to do the same thing. 19 or 18 could be the right number but it's not like you can't use your mana up in this deck so i don't think having 20 is much of a liability, those rootwallas aren't going to pump themselves.

The one biggest weakness in here main deck is your lack of interacting with Omniscience. I don't know if edicts or Big game hunter are really the right way to go as they are really narrow vs a lot of other match ups. It might be better to just try to rely on your speed and disruption game one and board into more solid hate.

[Tainted]

I was thinking a similar deck (with some proxi) with some card from the new set spoiler, something like:

4 Lotleth Troll (new)
4 Putrid Imp better than the Wild Mongrel because is a zombie
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Dark Confidant
4 Gravecrawler
4 Vengevine
4 Abrupt Decay (new)
4 Smallpox
3 Liliana of the Veil
4 Thoughtseize
4 Mutavault
4 Verdant Catacomb
4 Bayou
5 Swamp
4 Forest

and for evasion I was thinking about splashing blue for Careful Study, Wonder and maybe Intuition, or just 4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth + Filth, I should also make some space probably for Buried Alive if I use Filth, probably in the place of confidant, the black solution may help me produce colored mana with 4 mutavault

[RBS]

Deathrite Shaman anyone?


b/g
Creature - Elf Shaman

T: Exile target land card from a graveyard. Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.
B, T: Exile target instant or sorcery card from a graveyard. Each opponent loses 2 life.
G, T: Exile target creature card from a graveyard. You gain 2 life.
1/2
Golgari gets many very good cards, I'd love to see a new BG archetype (this one or 'Zombardment' one) to be created.

[Hanni]

Wow did this deck ever get the hookup or what. Abrupt Decay could be really strong in the 75, and LOL Troll is just pure pwnage for this deck... I mean it is literally tailor fit for it.

I may have to pick this deck back up again. Of course, I'd still work on the super fast and combo-ie blue version, like the one in the OP.

Too bad Deathrite Shaman isn't a Zombie. Still seems better than Noble Hierarch or Elves of Deep Shadow in this deck for all intents and purposes, though.

[B4nnar]

I'm looking forward for either this or Zombardment to become truly competitive archtype in Legacy.

My thoughts: resignate from U (since splash is made just for Intuition and Wonder).
Empty space from those fill with mini Vindicate and LOL troll. Dark confidant isn't best choice since we don't own SDTop and even if we do I'd rather root for Fauna Shaman. Both Bob and elf require at least 1 turn to do something, but shaman synergises better with VV and we can speed her up by using either Ranger.
Concentrate on Zombie/VV/Madness engine to make deck consistent.

Sample:
Creatures (25):
2 Deathrite Shaman
1 Quirion Ranger / Scryb Ranger
3 Lotleth Troll
4 Fauna Shaman
4 Vengevine
3 Basking Rootwalla
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Shriekmaw
2 Eternal Witness
1 Genesis
3 Gravecrawler

Spells (15):
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Hymn to Tourach
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Diabolic Intent

Lands (20):
1 Volrath's Stronghold
2 Dryad Arbor
4 Bayou
4 Verdant Catacomb
2 Additional fetches
2 Cavern of Souls
2 Swamp
2 Forest
1 Phyrexian Tower

Deathrise Shaman replaces Bird of Paradise but since he isn't consistent mana dork, doesn't hit opponent's board and requires mana I would pick him as 2-3 of.
More rangers and Putrid Imp and viable options too.

What are your thoughts on future or possible development for this deck?

[Strono31]

Ok for starters this is awesome, glad I found this thread 'cuz Im just getting back into MTG and specifically Legacy and wanted to play LOL Troll, VV, Ghast and GC. I'll post my deck that I've been running and my take on it then comment B4nnar.

Im going the dredge approach with the deck to load up the GY, figured since the deck plays out of it, might as well take that route, plus the deck is synergistic with the dredge guys to pitch back to LOL Troll or trigger VV or return lands to get back Dryad Arbor for LOL Troll or to do Ghast shenanigans.


Discard Outlets
4 Putrid Imp
4 Lotleth Troll
4 Faithless Looting

Beats and Goodies
4 Vengevine
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Sylvan Library

Dredgers
3 Golgari Thug
3 Stinkweed Imp
1 Darkblast
1 Life from the Loam

Combo
4 Bloodghast
4 Gravecrawler
3 Goblin Bombardment

Lands
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Bayou
4 Badlands
2 Dryad Arbor
2 Dakmor Salvage

I've had VV out as quickly as turn 2 with pitching him to either Looting or Imp and typically I have a slue of dudes by turn 4 after pitching and dredging a bit.

Easily the best addition I found for this deck is Sylvan Library, that, with Dredge stuff, is just nutty. You can dredge stuff with the draw replacement and not have to put them back on top, so you can still draw and return 2 dredgers to pitch to LOL Troll, have Thug trigger VV's, and bury another 8-15 cards, and considering you want access to everything in the GY, it works great.

I put the 3 copies of Bombardment in as well 'cuz you do have access to GC and Ghasts as well as VV's to pitch to it to get that last bit of reach, and acts as another win condition if your other routes are taken away. Arbor and Salvage are the utility-style lands where Arbor can be pitched to either LOL Troll or Bombardment, and if necessary, Salvage can come back and grab Ghasts.

My favorite thing about this particular deck is that it's sooo incredibly synergistic in ever aspect and have multiple ways to win. You've got your guys who recur via the GY, and if they take care of one of them, they've still got the others to deal with. LOL Troll is a fuckin' house with the Regenerate ability in and of itself, esp with the dredgers coming back turn after turn to make him bigger and bigger, and like I mentioned before, Bombardment is just good with this deck and the recursion, plus saves your guys from effects.

Like I stated before, I've found dredging to be the most effective way into getting the guys into the GY and going from there, I could be wrong, as I am aware the Buried Alive/Fauna Shaman/Intuition route is another avenue to venture on, but I feel considering the main dredgers are creatures, and LOL Troll is available as a pump every turn 'cuz of them, as well as having guys to trill VV again, it just made sense. What're ppls thoughts on that the best way to go about that?

B4nnar - I feel you and I have different approaches to the deck here, one thing being that you're not running Ghasts for the sake of comboing and recursion, and have more of a toolbox approach as well with the singletons. My only Q for you would be is how has it panned out thus far? I like the build, but I don't feel I/we can compare/relate our build whatsoever cuz mine functions in a different manner.

My personal experience is that Fauna Shaman has been relatively slow, but I wasn't running a toolbox approach with silver bullet style creatures, plus I wanted immediate interaction, not having to wait a turn and him being vulnerable to spot removal before you get to use him. Once he's online, he's a beast, just not entirely sold on him personally.

I think you could benefit from either Entomb or Buried Alive instead of Diabolic Intent as a tutor, BA can grab Genesis and some other dudes you need and you can start working from there. I like Deathrite Shaman too, he seems to function really way in the current Legacy meta and work ilke Lavamancer but better. I like Stronghold as well, seems like an auto include with the nature of the deck.

One problem I see is that the deck seems to a bit mana hungry with Genesis, Fauna Shaman, LOL Troll, Deathrite Shaman, and casting stuff like Decay and stuff you bring back with Genesis as well, and considering you're only running 20 lands, I see that as a potential problem, but I haven't playtested the deck, so I could be wrong.

[B4nnar]

I see you have completely differend approach for the deck. Splashing red converts this deck more towards Zombardment (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23463-Deck-Zombardment) then classic VV machine. Life from the Loam & Dredge & Sylvan Library all in one deck? Don't get me wrong but I preffer mixing VV engine with Rock style rather than dregde one. Your decklist owns no hatebears and I'm afraid what tools you gonna use against problematic cards. 1 Darkblast and Cabal Therapy in my opinion is not enough.
Bloodghast does not trigger VV and it's nothing special in this type of deck. Gravecrawler replaces him nicely and his ability actually triggers VV. However, I understand that you put him (BG) because of his syrnergy with dredge. I like Golgari Thug though.


One problem I see is that the deck seems to a bit mana hungry with Genesis, Fauna Shaman, LOL Troll, Deathrite Shaman, and casting stuff like Decay and stuff you bring back with Genesis as well, and considering you're only running 20 lands, I see that as a potential problem, but I haven't playtested the deck, so I could be wrong. Genesis is late game tool. For now, I'm running it, but if I feel witness is enough he will probably go out. After 3-5 turns when amount of cards in your hand drops down he enables to get back critters you need.
Fauna Shaman/Deathrite Shaman - 2nd one is more of a mana dork here (1st ability) and it isn't hard to pull 1 mana for fauna dude to trigger survival style. 20 lands is more than enough, I was even thinking about cutting 2 lands.

Hymn + Cabal therapy in bigger numbers are here for protection, so opponent has less tools to fight with you. Deed ability is sweet in any Rock style B/G - and here esspecially, since GC & VV can come back any turn. Thats why Diabolic Intent is here too. I'm still wondering which tutor gonna fit deck the most. Mini Vindicate is a must in any B/G, no questions about that. It's rising star of B/G legacy and any deck that can afford such colors should run it.

[B4nnar]

Sorry for double post, but editing older one after a day isn't best idea (what I did anyways ;-)).

I have been wondering (since the deck is concentrated on zombies anyway) if Ghoulcaller's Chant or Oversold Cemetery (second one especially) wouldn't be a nice option to bring back critters for cheap cost. To be honest, I don't like the LftL approach since our deck got more creatures than lands anyways, plus Burried Alive/Fauna Shaman and even Intuition in such deck tutor mostly for summons. Cementary has an egde here since our deck is low on Enchantments anyways and not many ppl bring enchhate just for few pieces of not-OP card. In my list it fight for a spot against Genesis and Witness.

Of course it synergises with dredge stuff..

[RBS]

I believe that with some work, this deck can become a major player in Legacy Scene.
After all, Zombardment started as a nice interaction with some cards.
Golgari stuff is pretty synergic with existing cards, we just must find the shell to integrate them.

My working list atm:

4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Grisly Salvage
3 Abrupt Decay

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Gravecrawler
2 Carrion Feeder
3 LOL Troll
3 Vengevine
3 Bloodghast
4 Dark Confidant

3 Mox Diamond
1 Undiscovered Paradise
3 Bayou
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Dakmor Salvage
4 Wasteland

As usual, an early turn Gitaxian Probe + Cabal Therapy = Win. Win more if you can sac a recurring critter.
Mox Diamond to start faster. Not sure if it must stay. Early drafts of this build had 1-2 Life from the Loam, now they are gone to make place for Grisly Salvage.

I think it's a bit short on critters, only 22.
Deathrite Shaman if very useful early, mid and lategame, even in multiples.
LOL Troll, you don't want that guy in multiple. He's good at discarding stuff, but you don't recur critters in and out your hand.

Grisly Salvage. Seems great on paper. This could be the BG Brainstorm fixer card for this deck.
It replaces it self, and get you answers.

[Strono31]

B4nnar - I have Oversold Cemetery on my list of cards to try out and ones that would go well with this type of deck, it does interact well with dredgers cuz you can just mill for weeks and get guys back you need.

I think you and I specifically are @ a point where we need to playtest the others deck and see the pros/cons of it, I like your approach in that it's midrange and and has answers and late-game lasting effects, VV comes out slower, as to where mine, I can get them ripping out muuch quicker and overwhelm them. Both plausible routes, just not sure which is more effective. Im gonna put your list together and test it on MTGdeckbuilder here soon.

LftL interacts well with Ghast and if you start getting hit with Wasteland, or if you want to dredge earlier on, you don't have to worry about lands going away, plus the interaction of Dryad Arbor and LOL Troll, and the more I think of that one, the more "cute" I find it rather than being overly beneficial. I may take it out and see how it runs, but I do like it as a 1-of in the deck if need be.

RBS: Your only reall way of getting the guys who cheat into play are 3 Salvage and 3 LOL Troll. The cheat guys are essentially useless if you're not making discard outlets more readily available.

EDIT -

Would Smallpox be a good thing for this deck? I assume with some of the variants it could be strong

[Kanti]

Some cards that should be considered for the sideboard; Ground Seal and Natural Order.

Order seems like a very craft way of dodging gy hate.

[Strono31]

Noted, thank you, I really like Ground Seal, fits the gist of the deck and definitely hates out lots of stuff. What else can I run for Anti-GY Hate? I think 8 in the SB would be bueno.

[B4nnar]

Ground seal is nothing special since crypt, RIP, relic do not "target", they exile all cards from yard. I prefer therapy/hymn/thoughtseize/IoK to cover my back. I hope Cockatrice gonna update thier program soon so deck can be tested online.

[Kanti]

Most decks run Extraction, though.

But yeah, this is pretty damn true, and it sucks landing a Ground Seal only to see them lay down a Relic. The more I think about it the more I can see this deck siding into NO+Prog, as it gets around gy hate completely.

this is the sb im using;


4 Leyline of the Void
4 Natural Order
1 Progenitus
3 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Krosan Grip


Leyline is to stop annoying combo decks. NO+Prog and Jitte comes in for our gy package making the deck a not so clunky aggro deck with a decent finish. Grips are there for Miracles and Blades.

I'm using the list from the opening btw, only I slapped in Study over Bstorm and Lotleth Troll over Putrid Imp. I feel that the manabase is atrocious and would love if someone to fix it for me ;D (I suck at making mana-bases).

[B4nnar]

I was testing mine verison a bit and it turned out that Fauna Shaman is not the card to relay on in such deck. She will probably end up as 1-of as most pros do in aggro decks.

Life from the Loam is excellent, even if LGD doesn't run KoR/whatever land tutor it still ends up being usefull, especially because you can even use it for 1 land and dredge out to speed things up. Putrid Imp + LOL troll == too much of discrard and PI won't get thresh quickly because of LofL/GC/BG/VV and so on.
LOL troll and Deathrite Shaman - it's baaaad to run 4-of each. None gives profit in multiple numbers on board, although even 2/1 troll can block 5/6 goyf all day long.

It sucks that Grisly Salvage is 2cc >.< If you could reduce it to let's say 2life and 1mana it would skyrock this deck. It's still going to be usefull though.

List I'm gonna be trying now =)
Creatures (26):
2 Deathrite Shaman
3 Lotleth Troll
1 Fauna Shaman
4 Vengevine
2 Squee, Goblin Nabob
4 Gravecrawler
3 Bloodghast
4 Dark Confidant
3 Golgari Thug

Spells (14):
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Hymn to Tourach
2 Life from the Loam
2 Sensei's Divining Top

Lands (20):
1 Volrath's Stronghold
2 Dryad Arbor
4 Bayou
4 Verdant Catacomb
3 Additional fetches
2 Cavern of Souls
2 Swamp
2 Forest

[JanoschEausH]

If you wanna test the cards on Cockatrice i suggest you just edit your cards.xml file. You need to add an entry for Return to Ravnica in the beginning and then you can simply add any cards you want by copying the common formula. If you want pictures you should download them seperately and copy/paste them in you pics -> downloadedPics -> RTR folder. I have been testing with the new cards since the spoiler season began.

Also: be careful to create a backup if you edit the cards.xml!

[B4nnar]

Helpful link here (http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=9082738&postcount=65).

Two days ago Bennie Smith posted article (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/24905-Lot-Less-Troll.html) about LOL troll and his possible usage in legacy, might be interesting for some to read. His deck (https://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=49525) idea is similar to mine few posts ahead, although mr. Ooze can be great in combination with Griselbrand. As we can see, there are ton of versions for this kinda of style (Zombies/VV).

GSZ & Nightmare replace dredge stuff in his deck. I'm gonna test this version too. It's a little more comboish because of Ooze.

[Hanni]

So after much deliberation, I'm starting to heavily lean towards Goblin Bombardment as being the way to go.

I've had more than enough time away from the deck to be able to anaylyze it with an open mind, and evaluate the direction I think it should go in.

For starters, I've completed ruled out Life from the Loam as an option. The only synergy it provides is lands for triggering Bloodghasts and Dryad Arbors for triggering Lotleth Troll, but the deck is not built to take advantage of Loam enough at all, and it eats up way too many slots. Simply put, this deck runs too many creatures, and the dredge mechanic is mediocre.

I think moving away from the all in blue approach is also the right call. Careful Study, Entomb, and Dark Ritual increase the explosiveness of the deck, but they also take up alot of deck space to do so. The reanimation effect is not only good because it can cheat mana costs... it can also be good in a midrange strategy. The fact that it can be explosive should be a bonus, as opposed to the focus.

I think focusing on the aggro element is still the right approach, enough so that I think Shriekmaw is the best creature removal option. Being able to trigger Vengevines is good, being able to be discarded to Lotleth Troll when its unecessary is good, being able to come down in the midgame as a 3/2 evasive body is good, and being able to be sac'd to Carrion Feeder or Goblin Bombardment after being Evoked is also good. There's just an absurd amount of synergy with Shriekmaw that I believe it should be ran before considering other options.

What I like most about Goblin Bombardment is its ability to negate Exile effects. 4 Carrion Feeder alone is simply not enough instant speed sacrifice effects, and being able to play around Swords to Plowshares and company is absolutely critical for this deck to be viable in the metagame. The fact that it can suppliment Shriekmaw as creature removal and act as reach at the same time is nothing short of phenomenal. The obvious synergy between Crawler/Ghast/Vine (when able to recur them) puts this thing over the top, IMO. It's also the only way to cut Wonder and still be able to finish off an opponent in the midgame... because let's face it, 2/1's without evasion will rarely be able push damage through against most decks, and even 4/3's get outclassed by alot of the threats that see play these days.

Although, between Shriekmaw and Bombardment, it's possible that the 2/1's and 4/3's actually will be able to push damage through on the ground against most decks.

Abrupt Decay is good, but I'm not quite sure that it is maindeck material for this deck. It lacks the synergy of both Shriekmaw and Bombardment, and I'm not sure it needs an uncounterable mini-Vindicate in the maindeck. What artifacts/enchantments (that see significant maindeck play) is this deck worried about? Jitte and Batterskull? Those seem answerable with Shriekmaw and Bombardment.

My old list already runs 4 Cabal Therapy, but that list also cut the mana dorks for Dark Ritual. Cabal Therapy definitely lose alot of luster without the mana dorks, when Therapy is the only maindeck discard in that list. I'm thinking Cabal Therapy should be complimented with some additional discard. The discard helps resolve Buried Alive, clear out Exile effects, hit maindecked graveyard removal, etc. It also gives knowledge about the opponent's hand, which is never a bad thing. I'm thinking 6-8 discard spells would be a good amount. 2 Thoughtseize and 4 Cabal Therapy is where I'm going to start.

Here's a rough draft:

B/g/r Living Dead Girl

Lands (20)
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Bayou
2 Badlands
2 Swamp

Creatures (28)
2 Deathrite Shaman
2 Lotleth Troll
4 Putrid Imp
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Gravecrawler
4 Bloodghast
4 Vengevine
4 Shriekmaw

Spells (12)
4 Buried Alive
4 Cabal Therapy
2 Thoughtseize
2 Goblin Bombardment

Sideboard (15)
3 Duress
3 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Dryad Militant
2 Nature's Claim
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Umezawa's Jitte

Maybe this belongs in the Zombardment thread?

EDIT: To justify some of the card choices...

I think 20 lands and 2 Deathrite Shamans is a good mix. The deck can avoid needing alot of mana by playing cheap 1cc creatures and cheating guys into play, but then again the deck can be mana hungry when it assembles Feeder/Crawler or Bombardment/Crawler, Buried Alive, or hardcast Vengevine/Shriekmaw. Deathrite Shaman isn't great in multiples, so 2 seems right. He's also the best mana dork for the deck, because he not only provides on color mana, he has tons of valuable utility. The deck doesn't need the mana accel every turn and runs more than enough fetchlands to support him.

I started off with 4 LOL Trolls and then dropped to 3 then 2. Lotleth is in a weird position here. He's too slow to enable the explosive starts, and there are only 12 creatures that he actually wants to discard. Without any sort of engine to keep putting guys in my hand, he's unreliable to pump. Like Shaman, Trolls are not great in multiples. It's still a strong card to warrant running 2. The discard is still nice to have, the pump ability can grow him nicely, the trample works well if he's large enough, and the built in regeneration clause is an awesome bonus tossed on top.

The rest of the package is standard. I like the 4/2 split on the Shriekmaw/Bombardment removal package. Bombardment is yet another card that is bad in multiples, and not actually a necessary effect. 6 sac outlets to dodge exile removal seems sufficient with 6 discard spells, and the 2/2 Shaman/Bombardment split should give the deck enough reach if the ground gets clogged.

Buried Alive is a given, as is Cabal Therapy. The 2 extra Thoughtseize may seem minimal, but 6 discard effects is more consistent than 4.

The sideboard is just thrown together for the moment.

I already explained why I cut Study and Entomb, which doubles over for why I'm not running Looting. Although, Looting + Squee would be a really nice draw engine that would make LOL Troll alot stronger, so I may move in that direction at a later time.

[Deckerator]

I read in a post survival thread that some of them tried a madness version with LED. Do you think it has potential because LED could speed it up a lot.


I try to build a Vengevine + Loyal Retainers Version.

[Esper3k]

No one is playing Abrupt Decay main? It would seem that having an answer to yard hate (especially now that RIP is coming) would be pretty critical given how heavily the deck depends on the graveyard?

[Hanni]

No one is playing Abrupt Decay main? It would seem that having an answer to yard hate (especially now that RIP is coming) would be pretty critical given how heavily the deck depends on the graveyard?

How many people are playing yard hate main to warrant Abrupt Decay main? 1 or 2 copies of Scavenging Ooze is about all I can think of, and you don't need Abrupt Decay to deal with Ooze. What else sees play? RIP might see a tiny bit of play in maindecks as people experiment with the card, but I don't expect decks with RIP maindeck to be very popular for any extended period of time.

[Esper3k]

How many people are playing yard hate main to warrant Abrupt Decay main? 1 or 2 copies of Scavenging Ooze is about all I can think of, and you don't need Abrupt Decay to deal with Ooze. What else sees play? RIP might see a tiny bit of play in maindecks as people experiment with the card, but I don't expect decks with RIP maindeck to be very popular for any extended period of time.

Don't most of the Uw Miracle decks play Trinket Mage + Relics main these days?

I just think Abrupt Decay is too versatile of a card for a BG deck to not play.

[Hanni]

Don't most of the Uw Miracle decks play Trinket Mage + Relics main these days?


Not that I'm aware of.


I just think Abrupt Decay is too versatile of a card for a BG deck to not play.

Abrupt Decay is an absolutely, rediculously, powerful card. There are tons of decks that are going to get a huge power boost from it. Tons of BGx Rock decks, decks like Team America, and probably a ton of decks already in green or black that will splash the other color just to play Abrupt Decay.

This deck isn't a typical deck though. I don't really feel like Abrupt Decay is a card that this deck wants to run in the main. I could be wrong, but I'm just not sure what 3cc (and less) permanents this deck needs to worry about that Shriekmaw and Goblin Bombardment cannot already deal with.

The construction of this deck is akward. The deck needs to run enough creatures to consistently trigger Vengevines, enough discard outlets for Bloodghasts and Vengevines (moreso Vengevines), enough sacrifice outlets to dodge exile-based removal and/or get extra value from its recursion engine, and some amount of enablers to get the engine started. After all that is said and done, there is very little space for anything else. 6 removal and 6 discard spells is about as far as this deck can stretch without weakening the core of its gameplan somewhere. The discard can help act as additional discard outlets in certain situations, so it can still help enable the core. The same goes for the removal, since Shriekmaw is a creature to either trigger Vines (when evoked) or discardable to Lotleth (if the removal is unnecessary), and Bombardment adds to the sac outlets.

This deck is full of mini-synergies all over the place, which is part of the reason why it's fun to play and it's effective at what it does. Stuff like being able to sac Shriekmaw to Bombardment, after it's evoked, is one of many synergies like that. Abrupt Decay doesn't bring much synergy to the deck, aside from hitting one of your own creatures to dodge an exile effect.

[Greenpoe]

Running red for literally a 2-of? Might as well just run Blasting Station. Sure, it's not as good, but it's almost as good and you can play Wonder or just have a rock-solid manabase.

[Hanni]

I'd rather run a light splash for the better spell. The difference between 2 mana and 3 mana is huge, and the fact that you have to recur something to use Station more than once a turn is another drawback.

If my opponent casts Terminus, I'd like to be able to sac my board, where Station cannot do that. With Bombardment instead of Station, not only do I get more value out of creatures that don't recur (by doing more damage to the opponent), it makes sure I'm getting all of my Vines/Ghasts/Crawlers into the graveyard instead of just one. I realize Buried Alive can bring back the guys that were sent to the bottom of the library, but I'd rather splash red and not have to do that as often.

The list I posted is also a rough list, and I may find myself cutting some other spells to fit in another 1-2 copies of Bombardment, depending on how frequently I want one vs how frequenlty I draw one vs how frequently it gets countered/destroyed/etc.

EDIT: I missed the point you made about splashing blue instead. That's a good suggestion, and I may consider that. Wonder does have some issues though, which is why I ultimately cut it. The fact that it requires an Island in play to give the flying requires the deck to commit to blue more heavily than just a light splash, and the fact that it needs to remain in the graveyard makes it extremely prone to graveyard hate. I realize that graveyard hate is already an issue, but Vines/Ghasts/Crawlers can sometimes avoid graveyard hate by returning to the battlefield before the opponent draws/resolves there hate, i.e they don't sit in the graveyard for very long.

The red splash for Bombardment is exactly that; a splash. 12 fetchlands + 2 red duals + 2 Shaman's give the deck access to 16 red sources to cast a spell with a single red in its cost, so getting the red mana when necessary is not an issue. The 12 fetchland manabase also makes it easier to get the basic Swamps into play, so splashing a 3rd color doesn't really impact the strength of the manabase all that much. I'd much rather splash a 3rd color than go straight black/green; there is a large amount of powerful cards available to this deck in the other colors.