Jund Depths

[Manroe]

Hey All,

I am making a new legacy deck, and I like to be unique, so this is my take on Punishing Pox!
I admit I am not a pro deckbuilder, but I would appreciate input on card choices and land base building. Without further ado:

2 Chandra, Pyromaster
2 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Smallpox
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Liliana of the Veil
2 Life from the Loam
3 Wasteland
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Badlands
3 Bayou
1 Marsh Flats
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Graven Cairns
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Mishra's Factory
3 Swamp
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Nether Spirit
3 Punishing Fire
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Raven's Crime
1 Nether Void
2 Innocent Blood

//Sideboard
SB: 2 Leyline of the Void
SB: 2 Pyroblast
SB: 2 Extirpate
SB: 2 Dystopia
SB: 2 Ratchet Bomb
SB: 3 Spinning Darkness
SB: 2 Toxic Deluge


EDIT: Fixed the Links!

[Erdvermampfa]

http://cronkitehhh.personal.asu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/obama-not-bad.jpeg

[MD.Ghost]

Maybe 1-2 Entomb for a Toolbox and cut Chandra (she is bad...). With green for Life from the Loam, Decay and Deed you can also add 1 Garruk Relentless.

Sideboard:
Toxic fights (mostly) small creature hordes, so why you need ratched bomb in a 3 color build? Krosan Grip or Maelstrom Pulse are solid options with green.
I also don't like Spinning Darkness, you have Pox (traditional filled with removal), additional Punishing Fire and Abrupt Decays (and Sideboard Toxic).

EDIT: Something like this ;) ? Doesn't include a playset Liliana etc. so enough room for some flexible slots

2 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Smallpox
3 Hymn to Tourach
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Life from the Loam
4 Wasteland
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Badlands
2 Bayou
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Mishra's Factory
3 Swamp
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Nether Spirit
4 Punishing Fire
1 Nether Void
2 Innocent Blood
1 Garruk Relentless
2 Cabal Therapy
2 Mox Diamond
1 Entomb
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Taiga

SB: 2 Trinisphere
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 3 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
SB: 2 Golgari Charm
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 2 Bitterblossom

[Manroe]

Maybe 1-2 Entomb for a Toolbox and cut Chandra (she is bad...). With green for Life from the Loam, Decay and Deed you can also add 1 Garruk Relentless.

Sideboard:
Toxic fights (mostly) small creature hordes, so why you need ratched bomb in a 3 color build? Krosan Grip or Maelstrom Pulse are solid options with green.
I also don't like Spinning Darkness, you have Pox (traditional filled with removal), additional Punishing Fire and Abrupt Decays (and Sideboard Toxic).

EDIT: Something like this ;) ? Doesn't include a playset Liliana etc. so enough room for some flexible slots

2 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Smallpox
3 Hymn to Tourach
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Life from the Loam
4 Wasteland
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Badlands
2 Bayou
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Mishra's Factory
3 Swamp
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Nether Spirit
4 Punishing Fire
1 Nether Void
2 Innocent Blood
1 Garruk Relentless
2 Cabal Therapy
2 Mox Diamond
1 Entomb
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Taiga

SB: 2 Trinisphere
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 3 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
SB: 2 Golgari Charm
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 2 Bitterblossom

I agree, and I believe all of your points are valid for the most part. The ratchet bombs were just an idea to deal with Jace mostly, but Pulse is probably just better. Also, I really like bitterblossom here, good call. Is it good enough to be in the main or does punishing fire serve essentially the same purpose? Garruk does also seem really good here. One idea I was thinking about was Noetic Scales, This card seems fantastic in this deck. What do ya think?

[KazinMtg]

This is actually a pretty sweet idea. I don't have a whole lot of input other than this deck should be running the full set of lili. Liliana is already insane in pox. Being able to discard your pfire to her +1 every turn is just bonkers, and needs to happen as often as possible imo.

Cute idea though, let us know how it does in testing!

[klaus]

I worked from MD Ghost's list.
Here is what I did:

2 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Smallpox
3 Hymn to Tourach
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Liliana of the Veil
2 Life from the Loam
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Nether Spirit
4 Punishing Fire
3 Innocent Blood
2 Gamble
34

2 Mox Diamond
1 Bloodstained Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland
3 Badlands
2 Bayou
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Mishra's Factory
3 Swamp
26

Changes:
-1 Garruk (simply too expensive)
-1 Wasteland (27 mana sources, counting Mox, alongside 2 LftL are overkill even in a deck like Pox. I might be wrong about cutting 1 Wasteland, but in a 3 color deck without cantrips, colorless mana sources can be greedy.)
-2 Therapy (there aren't enough dudes in this deck to make it a 2 for 1)
-1 Entomb (--> Gamble)
-1 Nether Void (CMC 4 is too much for a deck rocking Small Pox imo)
-1 Taiga (--> Badlands // 13 remaining green sources are more than enough for 6 green spells total in the MD)

+1 Inquisition (more turn 1 plays are needed and Therapy is a crappy T1 play)
+1 Liliana (yep, she's that good)
+1 LftL (this engine makes the deck tick)
+2 Gamble (might be a danger of cool things, but does look sexy on paper. Other than Entomb, it gives you more outs to more scenarios)
+1 Innocent Blood
+1 Badlands

[Manroe]

I worked from MD Ghost's list.
Here is what I did:

2 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Smallpox
3 Hymn to Tourach
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Liliana of the Veil
2 Life from the Loam
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Nether Spirit
4 Punishing Fire
3 Innocent Blood
2 Gamble
34

2 Mox Diamond
1 Bloodstained Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland
3 Badlands
2 Bayou
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Mishra's Factory
3 Swamp
26

Changes:
-1 Garruk (simply too expensive)
-1 Wasteland (27 mana sources, counting Mox, alongside 2 LftL are overkill even in a deck like Pox. I might be wrong about cutting 1 Wasteland, but in a 3 color deck without cantrips, colorless mana sources can be greedy.)
-2 Therapy (there aren't enough dudes in this deck to make it a 2 for 1)
-1 Entomb (--> Gamble)
-1 Nether Void (CMC 4 is too much for a deck rocking Small Pox imo)
-1 Taiga (--> Badlands // 13 remaining green sources are more than enough for 6 green spells total in the MD)

+1 Inquisition (more turn 1 plays are needed and Therapy is a crappy T1 play)
+1 Liliana (yep, she's that good)
+1 LftL (this engine makes the deck tick)
+2 Gamble (might be a danger of cool things, but does look sexy on paper. Other than Entomb, it gives you more outs to more scenarios)
+1 Innocent Blood
+1 Badlands

I think Gamble is a great idea. I have been testing, though not exactly thoroughly, but the mana has yet to be an issue. EDIT: What about a 1 of Hero's Downfall for walkers?

[longshot0086]

I fiddled around with a similar list when young pyromancer came out. I liked how it played but it struggled to close out games. A couple things I considered if you want to test.

Firstly, since you have red, young pyromancer is significantly stronger than nether spirit and allows you to use a playset. It works great with both small pox and punishing fire, but will not build an army as fast as the u/r versions.

Also, consider a burning wish package.

Another consideration, try the dark depths combo, especially if you have gamble/entomb and loams allow you to dredge it out with at least some consistency.

With regards to hero's downfall, 3 mana is too much, and dreadbore is probably better for that role. The instant speed is not really giving you value. The best option would probably just be pithing needle, serves multiple purposes and stops jace just fine.

With noetic scales, any reason to use that over ensnaring bridge if that's what your looking for? The scales don't seem like a good answer to sneak attack.

I like the deck, and would like to follow the thread.

[Umbranex]

I love the idea behind this deck. I used to play my own brew of pox and had a lot of success with it. Unfortunately that was mostly testing as there are almost no legacy tournaments around me and that was back before I started going to any big events such as GPs and Opens.

One suggestion that I have is to take out the nether spirit and find room for 4 (card)bloodghast(/card)s. That card was an absolute house in the pox deck I ran. It was always great to discard to smallpox and short of eating a swords it is extremely difficult for a deck to deal with as it will just keep coming back. With the inclusion of bloodghast you can also change the inquisitions to a set of (card)Cabal Therapy(/card) as they are easy to flash back and arguably the best discard spell (even though most consider the best to by hymn I tend to give the nod to Therapy as it is a true scalpel to take apart an opponents hand where hymn is more of a hammer).

I also suggest upping liliana to 4. She is an absolute house against so many decks and between ghast, fires, and even therapy (due to FB) you are all but guaranteed to gain value over your opponent.

I would also think that testing the LFtL spots as Crucible would be worthwhile. LFtL is undoubtedly powerful but so is crucible. This of course is probably more personal preference than anything as my list ran crucible due to not having the green for LFtL and Life has even more value with the addition of the ghasts and the therapies.

(card)The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale(/card) can be good to keep opposing creatures in check since we will be attacking their land base and will help us since Ghasts cant block if they replace the spirit. It is also easy in this build to simply get rid of it off the board when we want to flood the field with ghasts.

Finally one card that may be a tad too high on the CMC scale for this particular build is (card)Braids, Cabal Minion(/card). I really like her in conjunction with the bloodghast/LftL engine and she will basically form a smokestack that adds a clock (with the benefit of taking out an opponents card on the turn she comes down as opposed to giving them a full turn to deal with it)

These are just a few initial ideas and thoughts. I would really love to see this deck flourish and will continue to watch/contribute to its growth.

edit: I have to respectfully disagree with Klaus... I feel t1 Therapy to still be a very strong play as long as you 1) know the decks and probable builds and 2) know what cards are most threatening to you given a certain hand. This is especially true if going second because even if all you see is a fetch you still have an idea on what deck(s) it could be narrowing down your choices greatly. However it is still decent in the blind. there are a few cards that are played more often than not and even more fringe cards can be blind called if your current hand is weak to them. Granted the t1 play of therapy becomes MUCH stronger when the ghasts are in the deck as they allow the therapy to be reliably flashbacked so even if you whiff you dont lose any real CA and at the same time gain knowledge of the opponents hand and their lines of play to better choose how you play the following turns.

[klaus]

edit: I have to respectfully disagree with Klaus... I feel t1 Therapy to still be a very strong play as long as you 1) know the decks and probable builds and 2) know what cards are most threatening to you given a certain hand. This is especially true if going second because even if all you see is a fetch you still have an idea on what deck(s) it could be narrowing down your choices greatly. However it is still decent in the blind. there are a few cards that are played more often than not and even more fringe cards can be blind called if your current hand is weak to them. Granted the t1 play of therapy becomes MUCH stronger when the ghasts are in the deck as they allow the therapy to be reliably flashbacked so even if you whiff you dont lose any real CA and at the same time gain knowledge of the opponents hand and their lines of play to better choose how you play the following turns.

Don't get me wrong, I believe Therapy is a cool spell, but it requires way more creatures to flash it back than just 4 (Ghasts) and without a timely flashback option I'd favor I. of Kozilek any day.
Tokens are always a nice flashback resource, which is why YP looks nice in conjunction, though I think adding YP+Bloodghasts significantly moves away from the OP's approach - soon enough you'd find yourself boasting Faithless Lootings and whoops: different deck.
The only close-to-creatureless archetype Therapies may be OK in is Combo. However they serve a completely different role here, as they are supposed to clear the way for the kill. Any incarnation of Pox goes a much grindier route (in fact there are few grindier decks out there).

[Umbranex]

Don't get me wrong, I believe Therapy is a cool spell, but it requires way more creatures to flash it back than just 4 (Ghasts) and without a timely flashback option I'd favor I. of Kozilek any day.
Tokens are always a nice flashback resource, which is why YP looks nice in conjunction, though I think adding YP+Bloodghasts significantly moves away from the OP's approach - soon enough you'd find yourself boasting Faithless Lootings and whoops: different deck.
The only close-to-creatureless archetype Therapies may be OK in is Combo. However they serve a completely different role here, as they are supposed to clear the way for the kill. Any incarnation of Pox goes a much grindier route (in fact there are few grindier decks out there).

I agree with the point that Therapy gets much weaker with less creatures and this deck, even with four ghasts, would be very light on creatures. I still think it warrants testing though as LftL serves as a way to dig for ghasts and hitting therapies with the dredge is very powerful with the ghasts. There are also two Factories which while suboptimal are still an option to FB the Therapies in a pinch. Of course I could be thinking from the experiences of having played with ghasts and Lingering Souls to help power the FB of therapies so there is always that. It is possible that Inquisition would better suite the needs of the deck but the interactions of LftL, ghast, and Therapy are so potentially powerful that I think they are worth testing at least.

-------------------------------------------
two additional suggestions would be
1)to cut one factory for a phyrexian tower to use with the bloodghasts. This would allow some ramping with the reusable ghasts as well as giving a way for the ghasts to dodge swords as well as the occasional terminus from miracles.
2)cutting the three hymns (even though I absolutely LOVE hymn) for three funeral charms. These are much weaker discard spells but have the advantage of being instant (to use during draw step if opponent is hellbent) as well as doubling as removal against problem creatures (especially bob since you want to win through attrition). I love hymn but I feel Therapy is easier to control and utilize to fullest potential in any situation and Liliana and smallpox both are great at clearing hands as well. The problem I see this deck having is an over abundance of discard which can become absolutely horrid mid to late game if all you draw is more discard. Charm helps alleviate that by serving multiple purposes as well as being an instant speed discard if needed.

[Manroe]

I love the idea behind this deck. I used to play my own brew of pox and had a lot of success with it. Unfortunately that was mostly testing as there are almost no legacy tournaments around me and that was back before I started going to any big events such as GPs and Opens.

One suggestion that I have is to take out the nether spirit and find room for 4 (card)bloodghast(/card)s. That card was an absolute house in the pox deck I ran. It was always great to discard to smallpox and short of eating a swords it is extremely difficult for a deck to deal with as it will just keep coming back. With the inclusion of bloodghast you can also change the inquisitions to a set of (card)Cabal Therapy(/card) as they are easy to flash back and arguably the best discard spell (even though most consider the best to by hymn I tend to give the nod to Therapy as it is a true scalpel to take apart an opponents hand where hymn is more of a hammer).

I also suggest upping liliana to 4. She is an absolute house against so many decks and between ghast, fires, and even therapy (due to FB) you are all but guaranteed to gain value over your opponent.

I would also think that testing the LFtL spots as Crucible would be worthwhile. LFtL is undoubtedly powerful but so is crucible. This of course is probably more personal preference than anything as my list ran crucible due to not having the green for LFtL and Life has even more value with the addition of the ghasts and the therapies.

(card)The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale(/card) can be good to keep opposing creatures in check since we will be attacking their land base and will help us since Ghasts cant block if they replace the spirit. It is also easy in this build to simply get rid of it off the board when we want to flood the field with ghasts.

Finally one card that may be a tad too high on the CMC scale for this particular build is (card)Braids, Cabal Minion(/card). I really like her in conjunction with the bloodghast/LftL engine and she will basically form a smokestack that adds a clock (with the benefit of taking out an opponents card on the turn she comes down as opposed to giving them a full turn to deal with it)

These are just a few initial ideas and thoughts. I would really love to see this deck flourish and will continue to watch/contribute to its growth.

edit: I have to respectfully disagree with Klaus... I feel t1 Therapy to still be a very strong play as long as you 1) know the decks and probable builds and 2) know what cards are most threatening to you given a certain hand. This is especially true if going second because even if all you see is a fetch you still have an idea on what deck(s) it could be narrowing down your choices greatly. However it is still decent in the blind. there are a few cards that are played more often than not and even more fringe cards can be blind called if your current hand is weak to them. Granted the t1 play of therapy becomes MUCH stronger when the ghasts are in the deck as they allow the therapy to be reliably flashbacked so even if you whiff you dont lose any real CA and at the same time gain knowledge of the opponents hand and their lines of play to better choose how you play the following turns.

In thjis particular build, using LftL to get Punishing Fires in the GY is awesome, and I wouldn't replace the loams. I like the bloodghasts and Braids ideas, but I'm unsure what to drop for ghast? (Maybe Sinkhole?)

[Umbranex]

In thjis particular build, using LftL to get Punishing Fires in the GY is awesome, and I wouldn't replace the loams. I like the bloodghasts and Braids ideas, but I'm unsure what to drop for ghast? (Maybe Sinkhole?)

Maybe its because Im tired but I dont see sinkhole in your list but that would definitely be a candidate to cut (although I do love the card). I would take out the nether spirit since the ghasts serve the same role but more efficiently in this deck. From your original list I would also cut the chandras. I have to agree that I feel like they are just a little too weak for this deck (although I may very well be wrong on this... how have they tested for you?)

From the list posted by ghost I would test it cutting the spirit and the tops. SDT is a very strong card but I believe it is much weaker in this deck than others. since you are on the plan to dredge with LftL quite a bit checking the top three doesnt help very much. If you want to keep them I would try cutting one P Fire and one innocent blood. You have quite a bit of removal already between Pfires, bloods, LotV, and pox so losing these two wont hurt too much. Also even though P Fire is an engine of control you can basically search it out using the dredging so going to three wont hurt your odds of drawing them by any significant amount.

I would still advocate trying to use therapies in the place of IoKs since the synergy with loam and ghasts are too good to ignore IMO.

[klaus]

So I moved a bit further away from the OP.
Here's what I ended up with for the time being:

4 Smallpox
3 Hymn to Tourach
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Liliana of the Veil
3 Life from the Loam (was always happy to see it - core of the deck)
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Punishing Fire
2 Innocent Blood
4 YP (something Aggro was needed to close games)
4 Bloodghast (flows with IB., LftL, Smallpox, Liliana, nough said)
2 F. Looting (flows with BG, P. Fire, LftL engine)
(36)

3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland
4 Badlands
1 Bayou
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Mishra's Factory
3 Swamp
2 Barren Moor (C/A)

SB:
3 P. Deed (removed from MD, relevant against anything swarm Aggro / permanent-heavy)
3 REB (allrounder in our ever-blue meta)
3 Tormod's Crypt
2 Innocent Blood (crucial against fast Aggro - Delver/Lackey etc. require cheap removal)
4 Dark Confidant (golden against anything non-Aggro)

Whatch'all think?

[Umbranex]

So I moved a bit further away from the OP.
Here's what I ended up with for the time being:

4 Smallpox
3 Hymn to Tourach
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Liliana of the Veil
3 Life from the Loam (was always happy to see it - core of the deck)
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Punishing Fire
2 Innocent Blood
4 YP (something Aggro was needed to close games)
4 Bloodghast (flows with IB., LftL, Smallpox, Liliana, nough said)
2 F. Looting (flows with BG, P. Fire, LftL engine)
(36)

3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland
4 Badlands
1 Bayou
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Mishra's Factory
3 Swamp
2 Barren Moor (C/A)

SB:
3 P. Deed (removed from MD, relevant against anything swarm Aggro / permanent-heavy)
3 REB (allrounder in our ever-blue meta)
3 Tormod's Crypt
2 Innocent Blood (crucial against fast Aggro - Delver/Lackey etc. require cheap removal)
4 Dark Confidant (golden against anything non-Aggro)

Whatch'all think?

I really like this build, especially the addition of the lootings. Those I completely forgot about and are extremely synergistic with this deck. I can see YP getting pretty nutty with this deck as well and does a good job holding off aggro decks by himself. This also gives the ghasts better game agains the 4 StP decks as they have another creature they really HAVE to deal with.

One suggestion I would have to make (again lol) is Therapy over IoK. In this build even more than the OPs version Therapy is a stronger card. you now have the YP engine to increase the odds of FB as well as the increased amount of dredge so Therapies are more likely to be dredged where the IoKs would be dead in their spot. If you dont mind me asking Klaus what is your reasoning behind sticking to IoK in your build?

Also I would change at least one crypt in side for Bojuka Bog. That card takes care of graveyard decks as well and while it is not instant speed as the crypt is it gets better when dredged since you can loam it and in dire straights you can waste it yourself in order to loam it and reuse if need be. In fact I like bog enough that I would consider trying to cut a slot for it MD as it helps against g1 dredge, Mongoose, goyfs, KotR, and opposing Pfire or aggro loam variants.

[klaus]

One suggestion I would have to make (again lol) is Therapy over IoK. In this build even more than the OPs version Therapy is a stronger card. you now have the YP engine to increase the odds of FB as well as the increased amount of dredge so Therapies are more likely to be dredged where the IoKs would be dead in their spot. If you dont mind me asking Klaus what is your reasoning behind sticking to IoK in your build?
Between Smallpoxing and Innocent Blooding your own creatures it's not very likely that you have a creature to flash back with Therapy. This gets more likely as the game progresses, however it's vital to use discard during the first 1-3 turns, which is why I'd rather
Also IoK is much better against Combo (probably our most common weak MU), since you can pick something for sure.


Also I would change at least one crypt in side for Bojuka Bog. That card takes care of graveyard decks as well and while it is not instant speed as the crypt is it gets better when dredged since you can loam it and in dire straights you can waste it yourself in order to loam it and reuse if need be. In fact I like bog enough that I would consider trying to cut a slot for it MD as it helps against g1 dredge, Mongoose, goyfs, KotR, and opposing Pfire or aggro loam variants.
Looking at all the creature hate in the MD I don't see the need to add Bog to improve my game against KotR, Mongoose, Goyf and the likes. Also gy strategies are still on the decline in the wake of all the Shamans and RiPs running around.

[MD.Ghost]

@all: really like the idea and discussion!
(maybe why i also play Nic Fit with Punishing Fire, The Walking Dead and Mono Black Pox, so i knew most spells very well)

@klaus: Faithless Looting is much better than gamble, especially with all the recuring stuff. Good Call!

I rebuild your deck with my own ideas:

// Deck: Punishing Pox (60)

// Lands
3 Badlands
2 Bayou
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Swamp
1 Undiscovered Paradise
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland

Not sure - lots of opportunities here. As a Walking Dead Player: if you will abuse Bloodghast Undiscovered Paradise is a nice land drop.

// Creatures
4 Bloodghast
4 Young Pyromancer

Interesting Team, only one will suffer from graveyard hate.

// Spells
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Faithless Looting
3 Hymn to Tourach
2 Innocent Blood
2 Life from the Loam
3 Liliana of the Veil
4 Punishing Fire
4 Smallpox
3 Thoughtseize

@Liliana, sure you want them all. Without any Mox, Deathrite or Ritual Ramp, you will disrupt your opponent the first turns (and will also suffer from opposing and own wastelands) In this common situations, Liliana in Hand does nothing etc. But sure, the full Playset is also strong enough.
@Cabal Therapy: I play it in most of my deck (also in elves) and can shoot good enough blindly. With Smallpox, Liliana, Life from the Loam and Looting you will always get one in the yard: Every other Discardspell is dead in these situations. Bloodghast and Pyromancer works extremly well with Cabal Therapy. I think 2-3 or even 4 is a good call if you run the Creaturesuite. I added Thoughtseize because i will also catch Sneak Attack (or the Big Bad Boys), Omnitell-Stuff, Batterskull, Moat, Jace etc. Against Aggro Decks you can also switch them out with other hate pieces.
@Life from the Loam, i feel that 3 are too clunky. Maybe we need some more test games.

// Sideboard
SB: 1 Ancient Grudge
SB: 1 Garruk Relentless
SB: 2 Innocent Blood
SB: 2 Pernicious Deed
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Rakdos Charm
SB: 3 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge

@Sideboard: Lots off stuff with 3 colors. We can adapt to every meta. Moved Garruk from main to side but find him very good in control matchups. Switch Tormods Crypt with Surgical Extraction (better vs Combo, if you catch the good stuff) and a single Rakdos Charm. As i said, Sideboard has to many opportunities. So we should focus the creation of the maindeck.

[klaus]

@all
Nice discussion!
I'm pretty sold on Bayou being singleton in a deck boasting merely 5 green spells and 11+ green mana sources in the MD (counting fetch lands).
Garruk is a tough call requiring GG and I don't really view him as a SB card since his applications are quite general. And want to emphasize that CMC4 is likely too high of a casting cost in a deck that makes you sac your own land and a meta full of mana denial and Spell Pierces.
I like Needle and will likely add it as sweet catch-all hate.
Toxic Deluge seems lackluster actually. Golgari Charm will often have the same effect I think. Keep in mind that we already have tons of removal, meaning that the only relevant applications of mass removal will be against decks like DnT, Elves, Goblins etc. which feature a huge amount of x/1 dudes.

[MD.Ghost]

Nice discussion!
I'm pretty sold on Bayou being singleton in a deck boasting merely 5 green spells and 11+ green mana sources in the MD (counting fetch lands).
Garruk is a tough call requiring GG and I don't really view him as a SB card since his applications are quite general. And want to emphasize that CMC4 is likely too high of a casting cost in a deck that makes you sac your own land and a meta full of mana denial and Spell Pierces.
I like Needle and will likely add it as sweet catch-all hate.
Toxic Deluge seems lackluster actually. Golgari Charm will often have the same effect I think. Keep in mind that we already have tons of removal, meaning that the only relevant applications of mass removal will be against decks like DnT, Elves, Goblins etc. which feature a huge amount of x/1 dudes.

@Bayou: Thought about it. Maybe you are right here. As i said, tuning the lands configuration isn't so easy.
@Garruk Relentless: Only 1 Green so easy splashable. Why we can't cast a single 4 drop in games, were we won't max out Smallpox and Wasteland effects against Controlbuilds with a solid mana base. Against Miracles spam the field with dudes between Terminus, Verdict and RIP isn't so bad, especially against Mr. Jace and with some helpfull Punishing Fire Action. Against BUG Variants, Liliana can't defend herself against a Decay. If decks like Walking Dead with only 20 lands can bring a single Koth of the Hammer against Control Decks, we can also bring Garruk. If you need more aggro, Koth maybe is also an option along with 4 Badlands.
@Toxic and Sideboard Slots: Yeah more than enough room for each direction. I also like the Golgari Charm (good against UWR, because you can kill TNN or RIP) or maybe a Maelstrom Pulse, Engineered Explosives etc.

My first test results are solid enough - we have a base to improve the deck idea. But it needs a lot more discussion and gaming.

[Umbranex]

Between Smallpoxing and Innocent Blooding your own creatures it's not very likely that you have a creature to flash back with Therapy. This gets more likely as the game progresses, however it's vital to use discard during the first 1-3 turns, which is why I'd rather
Also IoK is much better against Combo (probably our most common weak MU), since you can pick something for sure.


Looking at all the creature hate in the MD I don't see the need to add Bog to improve my game against KotR, Mongoose, Goyf and the likes. Also gy strategies are still on the decline in the wake of all the Shamans and RiPs running around.

Lol yea I just love Therapy so much I may have blinders on about it (I play it in every deck I can realistically support it in :tongue: )
I agree about the bog I hadnt taken into account the decline of dredge from RiP but i can def see that. and The deck def has enough creature hate I was mentioning them only because they would also be relevant (even if not a huge deal)


@all: really like the idea and discussion!
(maybe why i also play Nic Fit with Punishing Fire, The Walking Dead and Mono Black Pox, so i knew most spells very well)

@klaus: Faithless Looting is much better than gamble, especially with all the recuring stuff. Good Call!

I rebuild your deck with my own ideas:

// Deck: Punishing Pox (60)

// Lands
3 Badlands
2 Bayou
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Swamp
1 Undiscovered Paradise
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland

Not sure - lots of opportunities here. As a Walking Dead Player: if you will abuse Bloodghast Undiscovered Paradise is a nice land drop.

// Creatures
4 Bloodghast
4 Young Pyromancer

Interesting Team, only one will suffer from graveyard hate.

// Spells
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Cabal Therapy
2 Faithless Looting
3 Hymn to Tourach
2 Innocent Blood
2 Life from the Loam
3 Liliana of the Veil
4 Punishing Fire
4 Smallpox
3 Thoughtseize

@Liliana, sure you want them all. Without any Mox, Deathrite or Ritual Ramp, you will disrupt your opponent the first turns (and will also suffer from opposing and own wastelands) In this common situations, Liliana in Hand does nothing etc. But sure, the full Playset is also strong enough.
@Cabal Therapy: I play it in most of my deck (also in elves) and can shoot good enough blindly. With Smallpox, Liliana, Life from the Loam and Looting you will always get one in the yard: Every other Discardspell is dead in these situations. Bloodghast and Pyromancer works extremly well with Cabal Therapy. I think 2-3 or even 4 is a good call if you run the Creaturesuite. I added Thoughtseize because i will also catch Sneak Attack (or the Big Bad Boys), Omnitell-Stuff, Batterskull, Moat, Jace etc. Against Aggro Decks you can also switch them out with other hate pieces.
@Life from the Loam, i feel that 3 are too clunky. Maybe we need some more test games.

// Sideboard
SB: 1 Ancient Grudge
SB: 1 Garruk Relentless
SB: 2 Innocent Blood
SB: 2 Pernicious Deed
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Rakdos Charm
SB: 3 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge

@Sideboard: Lots off stuff with 3 colors. We can adapt to every meta. Moved Garruk from main to side but find him very good in control matchups. Switch Tormods Crypt with Surgical Extraction (better vs Combo, if you catch the good stuff) and a single Rakdos Charm. As i said, Sideboard has to many opportunities. So we should focus the creation of the maindeck.

I thing that the Paradise isnt needed as you have LftL to recur lands so hitting ghast recursion isnt a problem. Also I would really suggest cutting one PFire and going to 3 LftL and testing that. Loam can basically dredge for pFires and I agree they are a core engine in this deck... Maybe add an entomb or two if you dont want to go to three? then you can tutor for a large portion of your deck since it has a lot of GY base.




@Bayou: Thought about it. Maybe you are right here. As i said, tuning the lands configuration isn't so easy.
@Garruk Relentless: Only 1 Green so easy splashable. Why we can't cast a single 4 drop in games, were we won't max out Smallpox and Wasteland effects against Controlbuilds with a solid mana base. Against Miracles spam the field with dudes between Terminus, Verdict and RIP isn't so bad, especially against Mr. Jace and with some helpfull Punishing Fire Action. Against BUG Variants, Liliana can't defend herself against a Decay. If decks like Walking Dead with only 20 lands can bring a single Koth of the Hammer against Control Decks, we can also bring Garruk. If you need more aggro, Koth maybe is also an option along with 4 Badlands.
@Toxic and Sideboard Slots: Yeah more than enough room for each direction. I also like the Golgari Charm (good against UWR, because you can kill TNN or RIP) or maybe a Maelstrom Pulse, Engineered Explosives etc.

My first test results are solid enough - we have a base to improve the deck idea. But it needs a lot more discussion and gaming.

I think that Garruk can be ok... but if you want to flood the field with creatures maybe we should test Xenegos? He allows haster creation which would be invaluablew in the matchups you mentioned and against decks that boast a lot of creature hate. While he cant fight creatures I think it may be worth it for the haste.

[Manroe]

@Bayou: Thought about it. Maybe you are right here. As i said, tuning the lands configuration isn't so easy.
@Garruk Relentless: Only 1 Green so easy splashable. Why we can't cast a single 4 drop in games, were we won't max out Smallpox and Wasteland effects against Controlbuilds with a solid mana base. Against Miracles spam the field with dudes between Terminus, Verdict and RIP isn't so bad, especially against Mr. Jace and with some helpfull Punishing Fire Action. Against BUG Variants, Liliana can't defend herself against a Decay. If decks like Walking Dead with only 20 lands can bring a single Koth of the Hammer against Control Decks, we can also bring Garruk. If you need more aggro, Koth maybe is also an option along with 4 Badlands.
@Toxic and Sideboard Slots: Yeah more than enough room for each direction. I also like the Golgari Charm (good against UWR, because you can kill TNN or RIP) or maybe a Maelstrom Pulse, Engineered Explosives etc.

My first test results are solid enough - we have a base to improve the deck idea. But it needs a lot more discussion and gaming.

Right, unfortunately, I haven't been able to to commit as much time to this as I would have liked given that it is finals time.. Over break, I will get more play-testing in.

[Umbranex]

Yea I dont get much of a chance to playtest but I am about to get a MtGO account and this will be one of the first decks I work on putting together. If I can build it reasonably fast Ill post Tournament reports from the dailies and 2man queues and my thoughts about each variation in the build I use.

[klaus]

Hey peeps,

I've been doing further testing and tweaking. Here's what I ended up with for the time being:

4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Smallpox
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Hymn to Tourach

3 Life from the Loam

3 Abrupt Decay
4 Punishing Fire
2 Innocent Blood

4 YP

1 F. Looting
1 Sensei's Divining Top
(33)

4 Mox Diamond (after adding the third LftL and cutting Deed from the main, going with the full playset made a lot of sense. Also turn 1 Hymn/YP/Decay and turn 2 Lili is nothing to sneeze at, while it's a beautiful mana fixer especially in the wake of Blood Moon and opposing Wastelands)
4 Polluted Delta (allows us to bluff counter magic turn 1)
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland
3 Badlands
1 Bayou
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Swamp
3 Barren Moor (added one for more C/A)

SB:
2 P. Deed
3 REB
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Extirpate
2 Pyroclasm
4 Chalice (currently my go to Combo hate, which can come down @1 turn 1 via Mox. CMC1 is OK, as it really only interferes with IoK and to a certain degree with REB Gs2/3

What other Combo hate would you consider? I feel discard just doesn't suffice with such a slow clock..
Also, after brief testing I cut Bloodghast for two reasons: 1) he cannot block, while we're on the defense for most of the game, 2) I did not want to be even more dependant on the gy.

Edit: nevertheless, I'd love to squeeze 4 more kill cons in there - ideally a non-creature-thingy that isn't gy dependant and not only deals dmg but also disrupts the opponent. Obviously Planeswalkers come to mind, but I fail to see any PW being affordable - as I mentioned: CMC 4 is really tough to achieve at times..

[Manroe]

Hey peeps,

I've been doing further testing and tweaking. Here's what I ended up with for the time being:

4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Smallpox
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Hymn to Tourach

3 Life from the Loam

3 Abrupt Decay
4 Punishing Fire
2 Innocent Blood

4 YP

1 F. Looting
1 Sensei's Divining Top
(33)

4 Mox Diamond (after adding the third LftL and cutting Deed from the main, going with the full playset made a lot of sense. Also turn 1 Hymn/YP/Decay and turn 2 Lili is nothing to sneeze at, while it's a beautiful mana fixer especially in the wake of Blood Moon and opposing Wastelands)
4 Polluted Delta (allows us to bluff counter magic turn 1)
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland
3 Badlands
1 Bayou
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Swamp
3 Barren Moor (added one for more C/A)

SB:
2 P. Deed
3 REB
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Extirpate
2 Pyroclasm
4 Chalice (currently my go to Combo hate, which can come down @1 turn 1 via Mox. CMC1 is OK, as it really only interferes with IoK and to a certain degree with REB Gs2/3

What other Combo hate would you consider? I feel discard just doesn't suffice with such a slow clock..
Also, after brief testing I cut Bloodghast for two reasons: 1) he cannot block, while we're on the defense for most of the game, 2) I did not want to be even more dependant on the gy.

Edit: nevertheless, I'd love to squeeze 4 more kill cons in there - ideally a non-creature-thingy that isn't gy dependant and not only deals dmg but also disrupts the opponent. Obviously Planeswalkers come to mind, but I fail to see any PW being affordable - as I mentioned: CMC 4 is really tough to achieve at times..

This is probably a terrible idea, but what about Tibalt? or Tymaret the Murder King alongside Ghast? idk just bad ideas but something to tinker with. Also, I have found that a 1 of Sylvan Library may not be a bad idea. EDIT: Or Hypnotic Spectre?

[Umbranex]

Hey peeps,

I've been doing further testing and tweaking. Here's what I ended up with for the time being:

4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Smallpox
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Hymn to Tourach

3 Life from the Loam

3 Abrupt Decay
4 Punishing Fire
2 Innocent Blood

4 YP

1 F. Looting
1 Sensei's Divining Top
(33)

4 Mox Diamond (after adding the third LftL and cutting Deed from the main, going with the full playset made a lot of sense. Also turn 1 Hymn/YP/Decay and turn 2 Lili is nothing to sneeze at, while it's a beautiful mana fixer especially in the wake of Blood Moon and opposing Wastelands)
4 Polluted Delta (allows us to bluff counter magic turn 1)
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland
3 Badlands
1 Bayou
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Swamp
3 Barren Moor (added one for more C/A)

SB:
2 P. Deed
3 REB
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Extirpate
2 Pyroclasm
4 Chalice (currently my go to Combo hate, which can come down @1 turn 1 via Mox. CMC1 is OK, as it really only interferes with IoK and to a certain degree with REB Gs2/3

What other Combo hate would you consider? I feel discard just doesn't suffice with such a slow clock..
Also, after brief testing I cut Bloodghast for two reasons: 1) he cannot block, while we're on the defense for most of the game, 2) I did not want to be even more dependant on the gy.

Edit: nevertheless, I'd love to squeeze 4 more kill cons in there - ideally a non-creature-thingy that isn't gy dependant and not only deals dmg but also disrupts the opponent. Obviously Planeswalkers come to mind, but I fail to see any PW being affordable - as I mentioned: CMC 4 is really tough to achieve at times..

I can see why you would want to go away from being too heavily invested in the gy especially with RiP running around right now... have you thought of trying underworld dreams perhaps? its a slow clock at worst and against blue it makes all of their cantrips and draw absolutely terrible. being an enchantment its more resilient especially game one and with mox you can drop it turn 2. between dreams and all the discard available it will put a lot of decks in a rough spot of wanting to filter/draw and getting burned if they do. Not sure how viable this is but since Pox is inherently grindy and tends to favor long games of attrition anyway I would think it could be a decent kill condition

[Manroe]

What about running Pyrostatic Pillar as a combo breaker in the board? I think that would be a pretty decent thing to have against many of the combo decks.

[klaus]

What about running Pyrostatic Pillar as a combo breaker in the board? I think that would be a pretty decent thing to have against many of the combo decks.
Problem is Pillar hurts us almost as bad plus Chalice is applicable to more MUs (basically anything running a high CMC 1 count)

[KazinMtg]

How about something like this?


4 Smallpox
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Liliana of the Veil
2 Life from the Loam
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Punishing Fire
2 Innocent Blood
4 Entomb
1 Crop Rotation
1 Darkblast
1 Ravens Crime
1 Nether Spirit
33

3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland
3 Badlands
1 Bayou
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Mishra's Factory
2 Swamp
1 Barren Moor
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Thespian Stage
1 Dark Depths
26



The Entomb is basically a 1 mana demonic tutor in this deck. You can fetch loam, pfire, nether spirit, or your grove after you get a loam. It literally tutors your whole deck. Ravens crime is an insane target since you have the loam engine to abuse. Darkblast is optional, but could be a cute entomb target as well. Also once you have a loam, all the lands in your deck are entomb targets. Need to get rid of their GY? Entomb a Bojuka bog and loam it back. Want to end the game? Entomb your dark depths/thespian stage and win on the spot. Thespian stage can also be a wasteland one turn, then be loamed back to turn into a 20/20 producing land. Then again and again if they can actually deal with a 20/20 flying indestructible.

You could also tinker around with other fancy lands in this deck like a single tabernacle, cabal pit, possibly port. There are all sorts of fancy ways this deck can go with 4 entomb.

Also, I think the 1 crop rotation could be really good to fuel your loam and get the land you need.

Anyways, awesome idea. I think I'm going to sleeve this up and mess around with it.

[klaus]

How about something like this?


4 Smallpox
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Liliana of the Veil
2 Life from the Loam
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Punishing Fire
2 Innocent Blood
4 Entomb
1 Crop Rotation
1 Darkblast
1 Ravens Crime
1 Nether Spirit
33

3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland
3 Badlands
1 Bayou
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Mishra's Factory
2 Swamp
1 Barren Moor
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Thespian Stage
1 Dark Depths
26



The Entomb is basically a 1 mana demonic tutor in this deck. You can fetch loam, pfire, nether spirit, or your grove after you get a loam. It literally tutors your whole Ravens crime is an insane target in this deck since you have the loam engine to abuse. Darkblast is optional, but could be a cute entomb target as well. Also once you have a loam, all the lands in your deck are entomb targets. Need to get rid of their GY? Entomb a Bojuka bog and loam it back. Want to end the game? Entomb your dark depths/thespian stage and win on the spot. Thespian stage can also be a wasteland one turn, then be loamed back to turn into a 20/20 producing land. Then again and again if they can actually deal with a 20/20 flying indestructible.

You could also tinker around with other fancy lands in this deck like a single tabernacle, cabal pit, possibly port. There are all sorts of fancy ways this deck can go with 4 entomb.

Also, I think the 1 crop rotation could be really good to fuel your loam and get the land you need.

Anyways, awesome idea. I think I'm going to sleeve this up and mess around with it.

List looks cool on paper, but going all in on the gy approach will cost you many post-board games.
Darkblast is neat, as it's on-color and recurable, but I'd probably rather max out on P. Fires. Remember that you splash R just for this spell. Entomb is also cute, though if I went the tutor route I'd also consider Burning Wish, since it gives you outs to most situations. Dark Stage, I really like might test it.
Greetings
klaus

[MD.Ghost]

I also like the idea to get the 20/20 Endgame-Land-Combo. A little bit harder compared to Mishra but if you control the Game and get Loam/Punishing working it is a much faster way to win.

You can mix it up with Crop Rotation or (as we speak about Wishes) build the deck with 2 Living Wish (5 Slots for Sideboard like: Bojuka Bog, Stage+Depths, Grove, Karakas) so less vulnerable to graveyard hate.

I also like Entomb, but no one needs a playset (besides Tin Fins and Reanimator), you can use 1-2 compared to an enlightened tutor toolbox. A flexible tool but a little bit less "all in".

Manabase isn't stable enough. You want Red, Green and double Black and will also suffer from wastelands and smallpox. So i don't like 4 Hymn (sure it is a very good spell but you can't get it all). So 2-4 Mox Diamond is a good card (like klaus mentioned) for this deck again.

Sideboard needs some "non graveyard" cards. Creatures like Confi or Permanents like Bitterblossom.

[klaus]

I also like the idea to get the 20/20 Endgame-Land-Combo.

In fact this idea could be sufficiently sexy to test MD Chalice to stop Marit's most common cause of death: STP.
Here's what I'll take for a walk tonight:

4 Smallpox
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Punishing Fire
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Life from the Loam
3 Living Wish
2 Vampire Hexmage
(32)

4 Mox Diamond
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland
3 Badlands
2 Bayou
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Swamp
2 Barren Moor
1 Thespian Stage
1 Dark Depths
(28)

SB:
1 Hexmage (?)
1 Bog
1 Stage
1 Depths
1 Karakas
1 Wasteland (?)
1 Thrun
1 Phyrexian Walker
1 Shriekmaw (?)
2 Deed
2 Grafdiggers Cage
2 Needle

Edit: I really like how this deck gains complete board control and then goes oops I win or slowly kills via P. Fire :) Also am happy I could get rid of Young Pyromancer, as he just doesn't have the impact it as in URx cantrip decks. Now that the G count has actually increased I had the 2nd Bayou return, even thought about adding basic Forest - still undecided.
Now that a 2 card combo has become part of the skelleton, I'm inclined to add back 1-2 Tops, not sure what to cut though...

[KazinMtg]

The reason I went with the 4 entomb was a nod to ali antrazis pox list that I threw together a while back. Let me see if I can pull up the list...

http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/deck_tech_loam_pox_with_ali_ai.html

The entombs really smoothed out the whole deck, and with the pfire engine, it will smooth it out even more. That being said, it might be the correct play to cut to 2-3 entomb, but I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it as a 4 of until you try it out. It's very very powerful in this deck since it can get literally all your key pieces. I also really like ravens crime with loam.

Solid idea on mox diamond in here. Seems like a natural fit. I'll tinker around with my list tonight and see what I can come up with.

[Manroe]

The more I play this deck and test all of the different variations, the more I love it. I'll be playing at a legacy local event tomorrow, and I'll post a list and a recap as soon as I can!

[Manroe]

Hey everyone, I am playing tomorrow, and I know that there is a good chance I'll be up against Burn at some point. Any sideboard ideas for this match-up besides relying on a misers Zuran Orb?? I am fairly sure this is our worst matchup.

[klaus]

Hey everyone, I am playing tomorrow, and I know that there is a good chance I'll be up against Burn at some point. Any sideboard ideas for this match-up besides relying on a misers Zuran Orb?? I am fairly sure this is our worst matchup.

Cha-to-da-lice ;)
As you saw, I'm rocking it MD atm and loving it.

[Manroe]

Cha-to-da-lice ;)
As you saw, I'm rocking it MD atm and loving it.

Surprisingly, this isnt that much of an answer. On top Of all of the one drops, he has flame rifts, hellsparks, rift bolt, PoP, and fireblast. I've lost to it with chalice out before when I played UB Tezzy

[klaus]

Surprisingly, this isnt that much of an answer. On top Of all of the one drops, he has flame rifts, hellsparks, rift bolt, PoP, and fireblast. I've lost to it with chalice out before when I played UB Tezzy

Typically between 16 & 20 spells you'll find in regular Burn lists are CMC1, which marks more than a third of their spells - not too bad imo. Being able to set another at two kills another 16/20 spells, though being able to find 2 Chalices is rare w/o library manipulation.

The answer which should make this MU about 50% is Marit Lage :)

My current list boasts a strong focus on Dark Stage as the only wincon next to P. Fire. In fact I have moved far away from the OP suggestions and will likely start a new N/D thread based on it.
For reference, here's my weapon of choice:

4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Hymn
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Punishing Fire
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Life from the Loam
3 EE
(30)

4 Mox Diamond
2 Bloodstained Mire
3 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland
2 Badlands
2 Bayou
1 Scrubland
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Swamp
2 Urborg
1 Barren Moor
3 Thespian Stage
3 Dark Depths
(30)

SB:
3 Choke
3 Deed
3 Crypt
1 Extirpate
3 Canonist
2 Duress

[Manroe]

Okay All, I have some event results. I ran a slightly offbeat list based on what I had available to me. Also, it is important to note that I play at a small store, which usually only averages about 8 people per legacy event. We are working on getting people there, but the meta is pretty predictable. Every Tuesday there is usually 1-2 Burn, 1 Reanimator, 1 Bant, 1 Dredge, 1 Mono White Stax, 1-2 Elves.
Nonetheless, here is my list for tonight:


4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Smallpox
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Hymn to Tourach

3 Life from the Loam
3 Entomb

3 Punishing Fire
2 Innocent Blood
2 Pernicious Deed
1 Darkblast
1 Raven's Crime

3 Bloodghast

1 Sylvan Library
1 Crop Rotation
(35)

2 Marsh Flats
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland
3 Badlands
2 Bayou
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Swamp
1 Barren Moor
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Mishra's Factory
(25)

SB:
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Engineered Plague
2 Garruk Wildspeaker (wanted some win-con that wasn't GY reliant)
2 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Thoughtseize
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Zuran Orb
(15)


Round 1: U/B Reanimator (2-1)
G1 - He wins die roll. He ponders on t1. I cabal therapy for exhume and brick, he goes t2 petal, show and tell, Griselbrand. Goes down to 5, beats my face in. Never saw a sac outlet and I missed a BG trigger somewhere in there. I noted to myself to be more careful about those. Oh well, to the board. (L)

G2: Board in Crypt, Extraction, Bridge, Thoughtseize (only on the play), pulse. Board out cabal therapy, hymn. I open with thoughtseize and yank a careful study. T2 I waste his land, t3 loam. Got a nice engine going and beat him down while he flooded out. I won with Mishras Factory and Punishing Fire. (W)

G3: He plays a fetch, passes. I do the same. T2 he ponders, puts cards in order, draws. Then plays another fetch and passes. I EOT entomb a Cabal Therapy. T2 I play Ghast and therapy him naming F.o.W and yank 1 out of his hand. His hand at this point is full of land and durdle-y stuff. I land a t3 Ensnaring Bridge and get the P Fire engine going to cruise to the win. (W)
[1-0]

Round 2: Dredge (1-2)
G1: I win the roll, I mull to 5, he keeps a very questionable hand which I see on a t1 therapy for careful study. t2 I play Ghast and flashback hitting his breakthrough. He really didn't dredge well and I was able to win via BG. NOTE: I did remove his Bridges twice with Punishing Fire targeting my own ghasts. (W)

G2: He combos off t2, I had nothing to disrupt t1, but my hand was too good to mull. Sided in Crypt, Extraction, didn't see either. (L)

G3: A really good game, I just happened to be on the wrong end of things. I extracted ichorid after he looted t1. a few dredges later and I crop rotated into bojuka bog, leaving his board at 1 City of Brass and 3 Cephalid Coliseum. He drew a couple cards and I whittled him down to 3, then he topdecks breakthrough and combos on the spot. Really tough loss, but he had the better combination of skill and luck. (L)
[1-1]

Round 3: Bant (0-2)
I was looking forward to playing this player, as he is really a good player and I thought I had a favorable matchup.

G1: I kept a greedy hand and paid for it. He wasted my urborg and kept me off of a hymn and 2 smallpox. This one is totally on me. He just got batterskull and bashed. (L)

G2: I side in Garruk and Decays, out 1 entomb, 1 ghast, 1 crop rotation, and 1 darkblast. A Really really long, drawn out hard fought game. I had to keep a Jace in check that landed with punishing fires, and he hovered around 30 life most of the game. I hit no discard and untimely smallpoxes, but I had the loam engine going and got him down to 3 lands. I also kept his hand in check with Raven's Crime. Sadly, his Jace got up to about 9 loyalty before I could do much with it. This kept me occupied for about 5-6 turns, and he rips a well timed Stoneforge and then True-Name to close it up. I know I made at least 1 misplay that allowed jace to remain in play one turn longer. This game was incredibly long and I saw not a single bloodghast all game and didn't get Mishra's into the GY. (L)
[1-2]

So, as you can see, not the best first outing for me. However, I was really impressed with the deck and look forward to playing it more. I think that I really need the Dark Depths combo somewhere in the list and also know that crop rotation is probably much weaker without the combo in the deck.

Just a couple ideas, maybe go ahead and get a Dreadbore or two in the 75, and I think a Worm's Harvest in the board would be a good call. This is my first event recap ever, so play nice! Any ideas?
EDIT: Another card that could actually be a viable addition to the deck is lightning storm. With the Loam engine, it could be a really powerful card.

[Manroe]

Okay all, legacy cancelled tonight, so no reports will be posted tonight. Happy Holidays to all!

[KazinMtg]

I just want to point out that you can totally play a combo of bloodghast and nether spirit successfully. I notice people typically do one or the other, but I've found 1 spirit and 2-4 bloodghast is very solid, since the spirit can block in a pinch, and bloodghast is good at getting out of the yard so spirit can go to work.

[Manroe]

I just want to point out that you can totally play a combo of bloodghast and nether spirit successfully. I notice people typically do one or the other, but I've found 1 spirit and 2-4 bloodghast is very solid, since the spirit can block in a pinch, and bloodghast is good at getting out of the yard so spirit can go to work.

Yeah, this is something I have debated myself. I'm wanting to get back to a more typical pox style list. I'm pretty sold on a copy or two of dreadbore in the 75. Seems too good to not include.

[Manroe]

Looking for help coming up with a sideboarding and match-up primer, anyone willing to help?

[lithiux]

This deck just played one of the sweetest matches of Magic that I have ever seen on the SCG stream.

[Megadeus]

Twas an awesome game. But like, build a deck around loam, entomb, and punishing fire and not have a single out to a resolved rest in peace? Seriously?

[lithiux]

He had one Ray of Revelation the announcers had said. I agree that no Abrupt Decays (seems to me to be the best RiP defense) in the 75 is weird.

[Megadeus]

Didn't catch that. But yeah I'd totally be playing decay

[twndomn]

we have a winner

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=62390
Jund Depths by Kennen Haas, SCG Indianapolis

1 Nether Spirit
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob

4 Liliana of the Veil

1 Badlands
2 Bayou
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Bojuka Bog
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Maze of Ith
1 Taiga
3 Thespian's Stage
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Karakas
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Dark Depths

4 Mox Diamond
2 Crop Rotation
4 Entomb
1 Punishing Fire
4 Faithless Looting
4 Life from the Loam
1 Raven's Crime
4 Smallpox

Sideboard
3 Pithing Needle
1 Sphere of Resistance
1 Phyrexian Ingester
1 Exploration
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Coffin Purge
1 Crop Rotation
1 Punishing Fire
1 Ray of Revelation
2 Innocent Blood
1 Maze of Ith
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

[jonnnny]

Is Phyrexian Ingester just to bring in versus show and tell? Or is there some interaction I'm missing?

[Barook]

Is Phyrexian Ingester just to bring in versus show and tell? Or is there some interaction I'm missing?
It's Anti-S&T tech.

I'm more suprised that he beat ANT in the Seminfinals. :confused:

[Megadeus]

Oh yes. My new favorite deck ever. Wathcing this deck operate is amazing

[Manroe]

Wonder if Kennen had seen this thread ;). Regardless, is kind of cool to see a deck so similar to my brew doing so well. Props to Mr. Haas!

[KazinMtg]

We're in the finals guys! Hope he wins, this is awesome.

[lithiux]

This deck is so beautiful. Wasteland locks. Pitching Squee, Goblin Nabob to Smallpox. Thespian Stage copying Karakas bouncing his own Squee to blank a Mother of Runes going after his Liliana. Dunking all over this trash UWR Delver field.

It's... it's wonderful.

[Manroe]

Seems crazy to me because in my honest opinion... his sideboard sucks. But man this is impressive.

[Megadeus]

Announcers talking about how the Jund Lands deck is pretty affordable because it doesnt have blue duals or fetches. You know. Except for the 2 Tabernacles in the deck

[Barook]

Announcers talking about how the Jund Lands deck is pretty affordable because it doesnt have blue duals or fetches. You know. Except for the 2 Tabernacles in the deck
Good thing 2x Tabernable only costs like 7 bucks on MODO. I'm so tempted to build this.

[Manroe]

We need to get Kennen in here. Congrats Kennen!!

[Megadeus]

That dredge into tabernacle was epic. Is this where tabernacle shoots up to a billion dollars?

[lithiux]

It's already up over $400 on TCGplayer. I don't think this deck is for everyone, so I wouldn't worry about the price moving too much.

I really, really cannot overstate how wonderful it was to watch him dumpster that UWR Delver deck. God I love Legacy.

[HammafistRoob]

Thanks for making me look like an idiot whichever mod moved this.

1st place, SCG Indy 1/5/14 by Kennen Haas

//CREATURES-2
1 Nether Spirit
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob

//LANDS-30
1 Badlands
2 Bayou
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Bojuka Bog
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Maze of Ith
1 Taiga
3 Thespian's Stage
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Karakas
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Dark Depths

//SPELLS-28
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Mox Diamond
2 Crop Rotation
4 Entomb
1 Punishing Fire
4 Faithless Looting
4 Life from the Loam
1 Raven's Crime
4 Smallpox

//SIDEBOARD-15
3 Pithing Needle
1 Sphere of Resistance
1 Phyrexian Ingester
1 Exploration
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Coffin Purge
1 Crop Rotation
1 Punishing Fire
1 Ray of Revelation
2 Innocent Blood
1 Maze of Ith
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale


This deck looks very solid in the current meta if not a little soft to fast combo, although he did take down AnT in the top 4 somehow. I'm not sold on some of the numbers and would likely do a little tweaking if I were to play the deck but I believe Mr. Haas is on to something with this.

Rest in Peace can definitely be an issue but it's far from game ending. What do you think?

[Quasim0ff]

How do you plan to play around RiP?

It seems virtually impossible, unless you draw your stage+depths/a liliana gets to go ultimate.

[Philipp2293]

Even an ultimated Liliana doesn't help all the time, they mentioned on the stream that he ultimated Lili twice vs Death and Taxes, and he split like Lands/Rip, D+T chose to keep RIP both times and then somehow won with Mother of Runes beats.

I'm sure you want some numbers of Decays in your 75. His SB plan of entombing into all kind of flashback solutions feels way too gimmicky for me. Other than that, very very sweet deck, definitely something I would play. Looking forward to his article on SCG.

[HammafistRoob]

I'm also looking forward to the article on Thursday and will be adding it to the OP.

Rest in Peace is definitely pretty brutal. I also thought of Abrupt Decay as a very odd exclusion, it seems to be the perfect answer to the most problematic card. I'm not really huge on Urborg either, this deck is a little mana hungry but I don't like the idea of making my opponent's fetch lands tap for mana. I also think Crop Rotation should be bumped up to 3 and Punishing Fire should probably also be at least a 2 of. I'm also questioning how useful Raven's Crime actually is, it just seems a tad bit on the win-more side. This deck is so sick though.

[Megadeus]

Urborg is great here. You run a pile of lands that don't tap for anything and a bunch of non black lands. Urborg let's you play smallpox, Lily, and ravens crime much easier

[HammafistRoob]

Well there's really only 4 lands that don't have mana abilities. Granted there's 17 lands that don't tap for black, but there is 13 that do and 4 Mox Diamonds. Obviously fetchlands would replace them if anything does, and 17 black sources counting the Diamonds should be enough no? Maybe I'm overstating how much it helps our opponents by making their fetches tap for black.

[Kayradis]

I REALLY like that list.
I might sleeve it up and give it a whirl.

[Rome]

Since months i tried to form a nice loam pox list with red and dark depths.
now kennen haas gives me the list, that i hoped to find!

i will put this deck into sleeves tomorrow and will test it at a littele weekly tournament!

[HammafistRoob]

Good to hear! I encourage you and anyone else to post their testing results, tournament reports, or just general advice. This was no fluke performance, this deck is the real deal. I would definitely try to pack some Abrupt Decay in the sideboard.

[Barook]

I'm also looking forward to the article on Thursday and will be adding it to the OP.

Rest in Peace is definitely pretty brutal. I also thought of Abrupt Decay as a very odd exclusion, it seems to be the perfect answer to the most problematic card. I'm not really huge on Urborg either, this deck is a little mana hungry but I don't like the idea of making my opponent's fetch lands tap for mana. I also think Crop Rotation should be bumped up to 3 and Punishing Fire should probably also be at least a 2 of. I'm also questioning how useful Raven's Crime actually is, it just seems a tad bit on the win-more side. This deck is so sick though.
Lack of AD seems weird, especially considering the deck's weakness to RiP. That would probably the first addition that needs to be made.

I wouldn't be too hasty with changes to the deck, though. E.g. Raven's Crime was pretty much the sole reason he beat ANT in the semifinals.

[Loxmatii]

i want to tty rifstone portal here

and i think it is very difficult to play without tickets here

[Cybey]

I'm not entirely sure if Squee is pulling its weight. The only thing I can think of is to generate card-advantage with Faithless Looting, but in that case it seems more of a cute gimmick than actually worth the slot. If Squee is used for chump blocking, it seems like an mana-intensive task to keep casting him again and again. You could also consider Bloodghast, eventhough he is unable to block.

[Barook]

I'm not entirely sure if Squee is pulling its weight. The only thing I can think of is to generate card-advantage with Faithless Looting, but in that case it seems more of a cute gimmick than actually worth the slot. If Squee is used for chump blocking, it seems like an mana-intensive task to keep casting him again and again. You could also consider Bloodghast, eventhough he is unable to block.
Why are people so keen about making changes to the deck without playtesting and understanding it first? Yes, Squee is mana-intensive as a chump-blocker, but it saved his ass several times - but that's not his main purpose.

Bloodghast would only be a dumb beater who can't even block or be abused otherwise. It seems terrible in this deck.

[Cybey]

Why are people so keen about making changes to the deck without playtesting and understanding it first? Yes, Squee is mana-intensive as a chump-blocker, but it saved his ass several times - but that's not his main purpose.
I'm not suggesting any changes to the deck, I'm just wondering whether the card could pull its weight. Trying to figure out the train of thought of the builder of this particular deck.
But it did dawn on me that Squee also can be abused as Liliana fodder.

[Kayradis]

The lack of abrupt decay is what shocks me the most.
It's almost MD material.

[Barook]

The lack of abrupt decay is what shocks me the most.
It's almost MD material.
Well, almost. While flexible, I can't see what it brings to the table to support the MD strategy.

Fighting off RiP (and Leyline of the Void, for the matter) with a single Ray seems pretty miserable, though. Throwing in some ADs/Krosan Grips probably wouldn't hurt.

I'm interested how it performs against decks packing DRS, though. The little elf makes the Entomb tutor plan alot worse.

[KazinMtg]

We've been playtesting almost the same deck in the punishing pox thread a few down. Does this need its own thread?

[Worldslayer]

Just watching the games, rip didn't seem Insurmountable. He beat it at least twice on camera without ever actually removing it, and the one tone he didn't was drawing mostly blanks. I feel like the hype around rip is mostly overstated in this match up.

[Looooooooo]

Just watched the RUG MU, can't think a way to beat RIP without AD or something else to beat it, especially vs D&T.
Anyway sweet sweet brew, i'll sleeve it for sure.

- L

[twndomn]

You CANNOT, I repeat, you CANNOT change anything in the MD, Not until you have test it for at least one solid month; he knows how to streamline and configure his deck game 1 as a generic catch-all solution.

SB definitely can be tweaked, I'm sure Haas will write a report for that "star website" and mention possible improvement on his SB choices.

[Barook]

I wonder how the deck performs against Elves. Golgari Charm might have some merit here, too. It can get rid of pesky X/1s (including TNN) and destroys the problematic enchantments.

[Holly]

For those who don't know, it does have some merits to read the first page of a thread.. specially when it started this very day and only contains 2 pages.

Edit: My post made more sense (even if it wasnt benefical) before the 2 threads were emerged.

[nodahero]

I really wish I could "like" Holly's a post on here. This list does seem really sweet, but I am also on the same boat with the value of Squee in the deck.

I get that he has a million applications and perhaps that is enough to merit his inclusion, but it feels like swapping it for an additional Punishing Fire or something similar would be decent.

Punishing Fire can also provide food for Lilly and can also remove attackers as opposed to just chumping every turn. Also, the inclusion of the second Punishing Fire can allow the deck to kill x/4s as opposed to x/3s with the Squee/Punishing Fire configuration.

[twndomn]

I really wish I could "like" Holly's a post on here. This list does seem really sweet, but I am also on the same boat with the value of Squee in the deck.

I get that he has a million applications and perhaps that is enough to merit his inclusion, but it feels like swapping it for an additional Punishing Fire or something similar would be decent.

Punishing Fire can also provide food for Lilly and can also remove attackers as opposed to just chumping every turn. Also, the inclusion of the second Punishing Fire can allow the deck to kill x/4s as opposed to x/3s with the Squee/Punishing Fire configuration.

I really wish people would test for a while and listen to post-trophy interview before making comments like above. He's using Entomb as tutor, PFire, Squee, Nether Spirit are all tutoring packages. There're No merits, other than the fear of DRS in game 1, to have duplicate Entomb targets. If you bother to watch the coverage, the deck doesn't care about the power/toughness of opponent's creature. Doesn't matter if it's True-Name or Goyf, Small Pox and Liliana are meant to take care of it.

I've mentioned it before and I'll mention it again. Do some tests for a while, before suggesting MD changes.

[Manroe]

I wonder how the deck performs against Elves. Golgari Charm might have some merit here, too. It can get rid of pesky X/1s (including TNN) and destroys the problematic enchantments.

Two of my buddies have elf decks, and I have experience playing my list vs. them. I can tell you honestly, it kind of comes down to a couple of things.
1) Who wins the die roll.
2) Do we have mox diamond?

I had been running a MB darkblast since there are 2 elf decks in my meta and the golgari charms in the board are helpful for leyline of sanctity, TNN, and elves too!

[nodahero]

My point is anything that Squee does that I can see, I'm at work so I can't watch any videos ATM, Punishing Fire also does.

The only pro I see in Squee over a Fire is that it requires the shaman to have access to green to RFG him. I am not concerend with Surgical Extraction.

Would you be kind enough to explain to us why Squee is so important? Even if I played him I would bet I would go for Fire over Squee because I can't think of a pro over Fire. Especially because I just realised that StP is a real thing and that would also make Fire better.

[Megadeus]

I wonder how the deck performs against Elves. Golgari Charm might have some merit here, too. It can get rid of pesky X/1s (including TNN) and destroys the problematic enchantments.

ALternatively there is Devastating Dreams. Slides right into a loam deck nice and easy. I agree that the Main deck looks really solid. I wouldn't tough it at all. You dont care about DRS too much because you run PFires, Small Poxes, Innocent Bloods. Just infinite removal.

I understand that he was able to beat RIP twice on cam without actually removing it, but it definitely powered down the deck, and he did have to get a bit lucky. I think Decay in the board seems fine.

[Megadeus]

My point is anything that Squee does that I can see, I'm at work so I can't watch any videos ATM, Punishing Fire also does.

The only pro I see in Squee over a Fire is that it requires the shaman to have access to green to RFG him. I am not concerend with Surgical Extraction.

Would you be kind enough to explain to us why Squee is so important? Even if I played him I would bet I would go for Fire over Squee because I can't think of a pro over Fire. Especially because I just realised that StP is a real thing and that would also make Fire better.

Squee is like a second Nether Spirit in that it returns itself for free every upkeep, can chump block like a champ, pitches to Faithless/Liliana, Can even bring the pain once in awhile. Basically it is the 2nd Nether SPirit, except you run Squee because 2 Nether SPirits, if they ever both got into the yard would turn each other off. Squee allows you to run the additional effect without actually hurting your Spirit.

[twndomn]

Squee is like a second Nether Spirit in that it returns itself for free every upkeep, can chump block like a champ, pitches to Faithless/Liliana, Can even bring the pain once in awhile. Basically it is the 2nd Nether SPirit, except you run Squee because 2 Nether SPirits, if they ever both got into the yard would turn each other off. Squee allows you to run the additional effect without actually hurting your Spirit.

Better than Nether Spirit, because you can pitch it to Small Pox also, while Nether most likely is not in your hand.



Would you be kind enough to explain to us why Squee is so important? Even if I played him I would bet I would go for Fire over Squee because I can't think of a pro over Fire. Especially because I just realised that StP is a real thing and that would also make Fire better.

If you would go for Fire over Squee/Spirit, that shows how ignorant and how little experience you have, to actually test this deck. Not even test, you don't seemed to have watched the recordings at all. The deck runs 4 Faithless and 4 Small Pox. As seen in the recordings, there were lots of Faithless play and Small Pox play. As matter of fact, you don't see much PFire actions at all, not until Haas has gradually assembled his Mana base and eventually get to Grove. Why would you waste your first Entomb on PFire when you don't have Grove yet, and most likely holding Faithless and/or Small Pox in hand?

[davelin]

Better than Nether Spirit, because you can pitch it to Small Pox also, while Nether most likely is not in your hand.



If you would go for Fire over Squee/Spirit, that shows how ignorant and how little experience you have, to actually test this deck. Not even test, you don't seemed to have watched the recordings at all. The deck runs 4 Faithless and 4 Small Pox. As seen in the recordings, there were lots of Faithless play and Small Pox play. As matter of fact, you don't see much PFire actions at all, not until Haas has gradually assembled his Mana base and eventually get to Grove. Why would you waste your first Entomb on PFire when you don't have Grove yet, and most likely holding Faithless and/or Small Pox in hand?

Not to mention good with Liliana as well.

[Megadeus]

With Small Pok Bloods, and Liliana, PFire isn't as needed as in normal lands deck, hence why it is a tutor target rather than a 3-4 of.

[H]

I can't wait to read the article, I am curious why the SB has Phyrexian Ingester over Duplicant (it's easier to cast, should you have to) and Innocent Blood over Chainer's Edict (flashback, has synergies with Entomb and Loam).

I am getting my hands on a Nether Spirit, then going to try this out. I'm only short the second Tabernacle, so I think it should still work alright.

[dreinal13]

I never got to watch the stream and cannot aotm since its NSFW can someone kindly tell me how does the deck win? I am interested in sleeving this up when I get home since I have most of the cards available.

[Valtrix]

The deck typically wins with setting up Thespian's stage + dark depths. Sometimes this can happen quickly if you get the right draw, but usually this is slowly put together after grinding the opponent out.

[dreinal13]

The deck is finally making some sense to me, just had coffee and now I can understand atleast half of the stuff that is going on with the deck. In all honesty, I've never been this excited to try a deck out for quite some time now. Congrats to Kenne Haas btw for the success in using this deck.

[KazinMtg]

I've mentioned it before and I'll mention it again. Do some tests for a while, before suggesting MD changes.

I've been testing this deck for about a month. If you dont believe me you can check the dates on the earlier posts in the thread. Do I have your permission to suggest changes to the deck?

Just because this particular list won doesnt mean it's the perfect list. I've been playing with a lot of the flex spots and have had success with a singleton worm harvest, and darkblast. I also really like a deed in the maindeck. Devastating dreams has also been solid in testing. The most glaring thing I've noticed is the lack of the singleton barren moor which has been an allstar for us in testing.

I've also tested a version with burning wish and it was fairly successful. Having 7 copies of loam and smallpox as well as a bunch of other sweet hate was pretty appealing. We've found however the games got a bit too grindy and long. It's still something I'd like to further explore though.

This deck is in its infancy, and if people want to tweak the list to see what works best, more power to them.

If everyone netdecked, great new ideas like this would never exist in the first place. Stop trying to dissuade people from innovating.

[somethingdotdotdot]

I think sdt deserves some love in this deck. It saves loam from both surgical and drs.

[kingtk3]

I can't wait to read the article, I am curious why the SB has Phyrexian Ingester over Duplicant (it's easier to cast, should you have to) and Innocent Blood over Chainer's Edict (flashback, has synergies with Entomb and Loam).


Maybe the ingester is better against artifact removals, although is weak to reb: it's difficult to guess.

Innocent blood is easier to cast than chainer's edict: one mana less is often what is needed to cast a spell against a taxing counter. Besides, the flashback cost of CE maybe too high for the matchups where you should side it in.

[Barook]

Maybe the ingester is better against artifact removals, although is weak to reb: it's difficult to guess.
The deck doesn't run other blue cards, so REB can't be an issue.

It really depends on how much artifacts like Pithing Needle you bring in to warrant artifact hate.

[CabalTherapy]

Off-topic:
Where can I find videos of this SCG Open?

[TraxDaMax]

My point is anything that Squee does that I can see, I'm at work so I can't watch any videos ATM, Punishing Fire also does.

The only pro I see in Squee over a Fire is that it requires the shaman to have access to green to RFG him. I am not concerend with Surgical Extraction.

Would you be kind enough to explain to us why Squee is so important? Even if I played him I would bet I would go for Fire over Squee because I can't think of a pro over Fire. Especially because I just realised that StP is a real thing and that would also make Fire better.

Squee Blocks a Tarmogoyf/Geist/Batterskull. That is for now all I can think of.
Perhaps you could also say it's 1 damage a turn like Pfire is on an empty board, but without the 3 mana cost each turn. I dunno how important that is though, probably not important.


However I like Squee for it's flexibility. Maze of Ith does the same thing Squee does against Goyf and Batterskull, but can't be Wastelanded and can actually kill opposing small creatures.

[twndomn]

Off-topic:
Where can I find videos of this SCG Open?

if you're referring to the SCG that Jund Depths won, http://www.twitch.tv/scglive/b/492936471


I've been testing this deck for about a month. If you dont believe me you can check the dates on the earlier posts in the thread. Do I have your permission to suggest changes to the deck?

Just because this particular list won doesnt mean it's the perfect list. I've been playing with a lot of the flex spots and have had success with a singleton worm harvest, and darkblast. I also really like a deed in the maindeck. Devastating dreams has also been solid in testing. The most glaring thing I've noticed is the lack of the singleton barren moor which has been an allstar for us in testing.

I've also tested a version with burning wish and it was fairly successful. Having 7 copies of loam and smallpox as well as a bunch of other sweet hate was pretty appealing. We've found however the games got a bit too grindy and long. It's still something I'd like to further explore though.

This deck is in its infancy, and if people want to tweak the list to see what works best, more power to them.

If everyone netdecked, great new ideas like this would never exist in the first place. Stop trying to dissuade people from innovating.

You're absolutely correct, I agree with you. My earlier comment is not targeting you, it's a generic comment toward everyone. You are free to innovate, but you can tell how much knowledge the person has, by looking at the quality of the suggestion.

[Manroe]

I'll be playing my list tonight at a small legacy event. Will take notes and try to do a recap.

[Blakroc]

However I like Squee for it's flexibility. Maze of Ith does the same thing Squee does against Goyf and Batterskull, but can't be Wastelanded and can actually kill opposing small creatures.

Also, opposing players will want to save a StP for Marit Lage if they know the deck, so in most cases Squee will be safe from that as well.

[FTW]

Dear ignorant ppl from previous page. I encourage people to RTFC, since this is what Squee basically says

"If your deck has few creatures, take less combat damage.
If your deck forces you to discard cards, instead don't."

EDIT: Also, 1st place at SCG? What a newb. Must be a flawed MD.

[CaptainTwiddle]

I'm definitely excited to read Kennen's tourny report later this week.

I too find it odd that there wasn't more hate for RIP in the list and am curious to hear what Kennen has to say about it. A lot of people have mentioned that Abrupt Decay should be somewhere in the 75, and that's likely correct, but I wouldn't go overboard. I think one Decay and one Golgari Charm would be helpful against RIP while having additional uses against different subsets of other cards.

I'm also a bit perplexed by the use of Phyrexian Ingester over Duplicant. The deck doesn't run that many notable artifacts (only Mox Diamond in the MD), so it seems unlikely that trying to dodge post-board artifact hate was a concern.

[FTW]

I'm also a bit perplexed by the use of Phyrexian Ingester over Duplicant. The deck doesn't run that many notable artifacts (only Mox Diamond in the MD), so it seems unlikely that trying to dodge post-board artifact hate was a concern.

I;m interested to hear that one. I find such random SB choices are usually the result of "that's what my buddy had on hand in his binder; Duplicants were tied up in EDH decks".

[TraxDaMax]

Dear ignorant ppl from previous page. I encourage people to RTFC, since this is what Squee basically says

"If your deck has few creatures, take less combat damage.
If your deck forces you to discard cards, instead don't."

EDIT: Also, 1st place at SCG? What a newb. Must be a flawed MD.

Not sure this was at me, but we were trying to figure out what Squee does better than PunFire.

And it's a good question that deserves some answers.
Thinking about it longer, I realized I've died to Sneaky Show and Painterstone players playing a turn one Bloodmoon or Magus of the Bloodmoon. In the second case, PunFire deals with the Magus, unless they have the counter. Then you need to topdeck already, while Squee will provide a longer stall as long as they aren't doing anything else.

[FTW]

Not sure this was at me, but we were trying to figure out what Squee does better than PunFire.

And it's a good question that deserves some answers. .

It wasn't directed at a specific person. I just saw a number of posts suggesting Squee was not useful and would be better as PFire. It's one thing to try to figure out its purpose, but another to start by assuming the card is useless when the pilot was able to exploit it to great success in that tournament. Anyway, yeah, I guess its purpose has already been answered by now.

Note that it's hard to tutor for Punishing Groves. You need 3 Entombs (PFire, Loam, Grove) or 2 Entombs + Loam or Entomb + Crop Rotation. For a turn 2 Smallpox or turn 3 Liliana activation or early game Faithless Looting, that's probably not happening.

2nd PFire is a possible idea (could be 2 Pfire and 1 Squee), but how many X/4s are in the format? I guess that's the bigger question. The singleton seems to answer enough, leaving the rest to edict effects.

Anyway, the other innovations (like Worm Harvest) sound potentially good, especially Barren Moor. But what slots are they eating?

[Manroe]

Hey all, played in a small legacy tournament last night, and I will provide a brief run-down. This is the second time I have played this deck competitively. My build went something like this. I know I need more mox diamonds, but one was all I had. Also was unable to get my hands on a nether spirit.


2 Bloodghast
4 Liliana of the Veil
3 Faithless looting
3 Life from the Loam
3 Entomb
1 Raven's Crime
1 Punishing Fire
4 Hymn to Tourach
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Smallpox
1 Mox Diamond
1 Darkblast
2 Innocent Blood


4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Dark Depths
1 Thespian's Stage
4 Wasteland
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Bayou
3 Badlands
1 Barren Moor
1 Mishra's Factory
1 Swamp
1 Bojuka Bog

SIDEBOARD:

2 Pernicious Deed
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Zuran Orb
3 Golgari Charm
2 Thoughtseize
2 Pyroblast
2 Ensnaring Bridge


ROUND 1: MERFOLK
G1 - He drops a t1 vial, gets it up to 2, and brings in a lord and casts an image. I decay the vial before he can do more, darkblast the image, smallpox him and keep him in topdeck mode. I get there with mishra's factory and ghast. 1-0.
G2 - We both mull to 6, I end up with a t1 inquisition to see his poor hand and rip his spell pierce. I topdeck another inquisition and entomb. Liliana gets there and I hit Dark Depths about 2 turns later, GG. 2-0.
(1-0)

ROUND 2: U/B REANIMATOR
G1: I knew what I was facing here and figured it would be a close matchup, I was right. I hit him with an inquistion and rip his ponder. His hand is now a reanimate spell, a daze, a thoughtseize, 2 lands and a lotus petal. He thoughtseizes back and takes a hymn. I land a liliana soon, but choose not to do anything with her. I then discard loam engine and get that going while he durdles. I also have a smallpox in hand. I get ghast and factory and beat him down to 9. He topdecks a griselbrand, discards it with careful study, dark ritual exhume. Then he d7's and hits god cards. Ritual, buried alive, exhume on Tidespout Tyrant, bounce liliana. I untap, cast smallpox and he forces it. best D7 ever. I scoop it up. 0-1.

G2: Sideboarding for this match is kinda interesting. I took out the abrupt decays, a wasteland, raven's crime and darkblast, brought in surgicals, pyroblasts, thoughtseizes. T1 I inquisition and see a hand of lotus petal, polluted delta, daze, dark ritual, ancient tomb, tidespout tyrant, and entomb. I rip the entomb and surgical extraction it away for good. This game gets kind of durdle-y. I finally got loam engine going late, after I got Dark Depths down to 5 the hard way and I had been making him discard and sac when possible with liliana. He draws another ritual and hardcasts Tidespout and bounces liliana leaving him tapped out with 1 card in hand. I dredge loam, cast innocent blood, then cast Liliana and make him pitch his last card -- then bojuka bog away his yard. Got Dark Depths and win. 1-1.

G3: He mulled down to 6, I keep a decent hand. T1 Thoughtseize, hit a force and see his hand full of land and an entomb. T2 I hymn him, and he floods out. Kind of an anticlimactic game after games 1 and 2. I win easily through factory and 2x ghast beats. 2-1.
(2-0)

ROUND 3: BANT
G1: I knew I had a good matchup and smallpox shined bright here. I was facing a good player but my deck was just built for this match. I win the roll and play. Mox Diamond pitching Urborg, Bayou, T1 Hymn to tourach resolves. He pitches brainstorm and swords to plowshares. Turns out he needed the brainstorm. He drops a t2 Stoneforge, I drop Liliana and make him sac it, he never recovers, bloodghast beats. His hand was Elspeth, Jace, Swords and I decimated it and his lands. GG. I did make a note that I wasted his blue source instead of his white source with Ghast out, a mistake that could have been a huge problem if he hit a swords. 1-0.

G2: I board in pyroblasts and pernicious deeds, board out bojuka bog, darkblast, and 2 innocent bloods (maybe a mistake?)This game was brutal. He goes first and plays a land and passes. I have a hand of 2 deeds, liliana, loam, and 3 lands. I keep reluctantly. I just get to 3 mana and drop a deed while he has out a noble heirarch and a stoneforge that found a jitte, and a flashed in B-Skull. It resolves. he attacks me down to 12, I untap, blow deed at 2. Wasteland his Tundra and cast loam, returning a wasteland and 2 fetches. He plays another stoneforge, failing to find anything. I untap, wasteland his other dual, then cast 2 smallpox. He pretty much ragequits and leaves the shop. 2-0.
(3-0)

ROUND 4: ELVES
G1: I lost the die roll, which I know is not great. I mull to 6 and keep a hand with darkblast and do as much as I can. T1 blast his dryad arbor. I only have a grove, urborg, and dark depths here. Draw a punishing fire and kill what I can, but he casts glimpse and gets really good draws with 1 card in hand. He ends up with like 20 elves and is still going, I scoop it up, g2. 0-1.

G2: I go first, and see a hand with no SB stuff but Darkblast again. This game goes much smoother, I hit barren moor and loam, use the moor to keep recurring darkblast and I kill almost everything he has. At one point he played 2 dudes and I only could kill one for one reason or another. He has no hand at this point due to Raven's crime, and I literally say out loud "You're going to draw natural order" and he draws and slams it on the table. He gets a worldspine wurm and passes. I am at 16. I use barren moor and loam shenanigans and get a thespians stage in the yard with Depths in play. Cool, I can take the swing down to one, loam and play stage next turn and make a Lage token to block and swing back for lethal. Nope, he topdecks crop rotation and gets a bojuka bog. I guess when it is your day, it is your day. 0-2.
(3-1)

In summary, I was very happy with the deck. I like my list, but I may want to move Innocent Bloods to the board. I also would like a maze of ith, an additional mox diamond or 2, and a Worm's Harvest in the list but I'm not sure where I would fit them. I need access to a tabernacle of pendrell vale it would seem sometimes as well but I don't have it. A good night overall with good games. I would appreciate any feedback and be nice -- this is my second event write-up ever. Also, I made a lot of misplays with bloodghast triggers and all kinds of stuff. I'm still learning :wink:

EDIT: Barren Moor was an all-star and I would never run this deck without it.

[twndomn]

In summary, I was very happy with the deck. I like my list, but I may want to move Innocent Bloods to the board. I also would like a maze of ith, an additional mox diamond or 2, and a Worm's Harvest in the list but I'm not sure where I would fit them. I need access to a tabernacle of pendrell vale it would seem sometimes as well but I don't have it. A good night overall with good games. I would appreciate any feedback and be nice -- this is my second event write-up ever. Also, I made a lot of misplays with bloodghast triggers and all kinds of stuff. I'm still learning :wink:

EDIT: Barren Moor was an all-star and I would never run this deck without it.

You need Tabernacle badly. I would stick to 4 Entomb + 2 Crop Rotation. Since you run Faithless, why not give Squee a try? There's almost no downside of running Karakas singleton. Those Hymns really should be Diamond.

[Manroe]

You need Tabernacle badly. I would stick to 4 Entomb + 2 Crop Rotation. Since you run Faithless, why not give Squee a try? There's almost no downside of running Karakas singleton. Those Hymns really should be Diamond.

Well I just bought a lot of the stuff but Tabernacle is honestly out of my budget and I don't know anyone who has any for SCG St. Louis. The thing with tabernacle to me is it makes my good match-ups better, where I'd like to help my bad matchups. I can get rid of hymns, but I like having the discard for decks like storm and what not that I am bad against. The next time I run the deck I will have Squee and Nether Spirit, I was just unable to get a nether spirit for the event last night. I also do not have a karakas. I think running more than 2 mox diamonds with the lands I have access is not a good idea. I am more comfortable having the more pox-esque build than the lands-heavy build of Kennen.

[twndomn]

straight from the guy himself: http://www.starcitygames.com/article/27680_Leaving-A-Legacy-Jund-Depths.html

[Manroe]

That was a great and insightful write-up. Just wanted to throw this by everybody, what about some kind of buried ruin package? Could run this in place of Deed. Could have engineered explosives, brittle effigy, all kinds of different things.

[CaptainTwiddle]

I'm definitely excited to read Kennen's tourny report later this week.

I too find it odd that there wasn't more hate for RIP in the list and am curious to hear what Kennen has to say about it. A lot of people have mentioned that Abrupt Decay should be somewhere in the 75, and that's likely correct, but I wouldn't go overboard. I think one Decay and one Golgari Charm would be helpful against RIP while having additional uses against different subsets of other cards.

I'm also a bit perplexed by the use of Phyrexian Ingester over Duplicant. The deck doesn't run that many notable artifacts (only Mox Diamond in the MD), so it seems unlikely that trying to dodge post-board artifact hate was a concern.

I;m interested to hear that one. I find such random SB choices are usually the result of "that's what my buddy had on hand in his binder; Duplicants were tied up in EDH decks".

It turns out Kennen's choice of Ingester was deliberate, and I'm coming around to it. You're not realistically going to cast either card. If you do, the game has likely gone long and grindy anyway, at which point the extra mana via a Mox Diamond (to produce U) should likely be a non-issue. In terms of practical application, against SnS, if you put an Ingester in off of a SnT and are able to exile a Griselbrand, per Kennen's thoughts, having a 10/10 may well dissuade them from activating the "draw 7," as the swing back may be lethal, whereas Duplicant in the same scenario is only a 7/7, which is enough of a difference that drawing the cards is likely worth it. Also, if you happen to "ingest" an Emrakul, swinging with an 18/18 is likely game over, as SnS doesn't really have much to block with and it's almost assured that they've dealt at least 2 damage to themselves with fetches/Ancient Tomb.

I definitely think Jund Depths is a metagame deck, but it's a toolbox deck as well, so with a few tweaks to the MD or SB, I think the archetype can be a contender in nearly any meta.

[Claymore]

what about some kind of buried ruin package? Could run this in place of Deed. Could have engineered explosives, brittle effigy, all kinds of different things.

Brittle Effigy exiles itself. You'd want to use Executioner's Capsule or Pyrite Spellbomb.

In that case, other than Engineered Explosives I don't see them being used very well. Capsule and Spellbomb can't kill Batterskull, which is a large problem in the long game, but the deck currently can deal with creatures and permanents quite well (other than Enchantress?).

Innovation for this deck needs to be more along the lines of fighting combo. Something like Nihil Spellbomb (graveyard), Null Brooch?, Jester's Cap, Necrogen Spellbomb...not a lot of options to chain with Buried Ruin unless you want to Entomb/Recover Thorn of Amethyst or another hate piece.

[Looooooooo]

It turns out Kennen's choice of Ingester was deliberate, and I'm coming around to it. You're not realistically going to cast either card. If you do, the game has likely gone long and grindy anyway, at which point the extra mana via a Mox Diamond (to produce U) should likely be a non-issue. In terms of practical application, against SnS, if you put an Ingester in off of a SnT and are able to exile a Griselbrand, per Kennen's thoughts, having a 10/10 may well dissuade them from activating the "draw 7," as the swing back may be lethal, whereas Duplicant in the same scenario is only a 7/7, which is enough of a difference that drawing the cards is likely worth it. Also, if you happen to "ingest" an Emrakul, swinging with an 18/18 is likely game over, as SnS doesn't really have much to block with and it's almost assured that they've dealt at least 2 damage to themselves with fetches/Ancient Tomb.

I definitely think Jund Depths is a metagame deck, but it's a toolbox deck as well, so with a few tweaks to the MD or SB, I think the archetype can be a contender in nearly any meta.

Gilded Drake is out of the spotlight because of Griz "draw 7" activation in response to its ability?

- L

[CaptainTwiddle]

Gilded Drake is out of the spotlight because of Griz "draw 7" activation in response to its ability?

- L

Kennen mentions in his writeup that Gilded Drake may be an option to consider. Drake is definitely a castable card, but I think the fact that swapping Drake for Griselbrand means that they now have a blocker for the swing back, so there's really no reason for them not to draw 7-14 cards in response.

[laststepdown]

Kennen mentions in his writeup that Gilded Drake may be an option to consider. Drake is definitely a castable card, but I think the fact that swapping Drake for Griselbrand means that they now have a blocker for the swing back, so there's really no reason for them not to draw 7-14 cards in response.


You mentioned this and Golgari Charm/Decay vs RIP. I believe we're forced into Abrupt Decay mostly because Charm can be countered, and a good Sneak opponent won't play it and pass if they're given the option. We'll still get annihilated or draw 7'd the turn they play it. The issue with Drake (and Ingester as well, really) to me is that it doesn't handle Omniscience or Sneak Attack. Ingester handles Reanimater much the same as Drake, but is much less vulnerable to Echoing Truth. My solution is boarding a few Thoughtseize to attack all combo opponents a bit more straightforward.

[TraxDaMax]

So, I did some testing with Kennen's list, only replacing a couple sideboard cards. The second tabernacle for instance is kind of harsh on my budget :)

Anyway, played against Belcher twice.
Lost one match 0-2, and won the next 2-0.
Played UWR delver and went 2-0, and beat elves 2-0.
If you're wondering how we win against Belcher, well it is mostly luck. But we have 3 Pithing Needle to shut down charbelcher, and Tabernacle(with crop rotation) pretty much ignores Empty the Warrens.

The other match-ups felt like we couldn't lose. Even Elves run a huge number of non-basics these days making Wasteland/Punishing Fire/ Tabernacle devastating for them.

Uwr runs all non basics, and obviously they get punished hard for it.

[uncletiggy]

Glacial clasm is a poor man's tabernacle and should be included in lists on a budget its inferior but can serve a similar role vs swarm tactics.

[TraxDaMax]

Glacial clasm is a poor man's tabernacle and should be included in lists on a budget its inferior but can serve a similar role vs swarm tactics.

As a lands player, I don't believe this deck can properly support Chasm
. It lacks Exploration for that in my opinion.
I may stick one in my side to tryout if I encounter problems with those type of decks, but I actually think that isn't the case for the moment.

[KntrellCL]

Mac Ansbro just entreat'ed Haas in response a decay targeting his top... why did he miracle if it wasnt his first draw? He just stole the game to haas

[Megadeus]

This is what i've been working on. Seen some online success but nothing Solid yet.

Anyone have suggestions?

Spells - 28

3 Entomb
4 Crop Rotation
3 Life from the Loam
1 flame jab
1 ravens crime
4 Exploration
4 Vampire Hexmage
4 Mox Diamond
4 Gamble

Lands - 32
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
4 Dark Depths
4 Thespian's Stage
3 Maze of Ith
1 Karakas
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 City of Brass
3 Gemstone Mine
1 Bojuka Bog


SB: 4 Sphere of Resistance
SB: 4 Chalice of the Void
SB: 4 Seal of Primordium
SB: 3 Open slots

This seems a lot closer to the Turbo Lage RG Lands deck than this deck.

[twndomn]

This is what i've been working on. Seen some online success but nothing Solid yet.

Anyone have suggestions?

Spells - 28

3 Entomb
4 Crop Rotation
3 Life from the Loam
1 flame jab
1 ravens crime
4 Exploration
4 Vampire Hexmage
4 Mox Diamond
4 Gamble

Lands - 32
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
4 Dark Depths
4 Thespian's Stage
3 Maze of Ith
1 Karakas
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 City of Brass
3 Gemstone Mine
1 Bojuka Bog


SB: 4 Sphere of Resistance
SB: 4 Chalice of the Void
SB: 4 Seal of Primordium
SB: 3 Open slots

There's nothing "Jund" about your list, your list is just a turbo Depth combo. That many tutors but no Tabernacle, that's pretty lame. Those Brass and Mine suggest that you're just playing a budget version instead of a competitive version. Why don't you just play Haas's version or Todd Anderson's version?

[Megadeus]

I think if you are going to be on City of Brass and Gemstoen mine you may as well use those colors to your advantage.

[apple713]

This seems a lot closer to the Turbo Lage RG Lands deck than this deck.

It is, I was directed here (or so I felt like i was) from the lands.deck forum. My list was completely misplaced. I thought Jund was just referring to the colors instead of a specific archetype. I failed to read the OP.



There's nothing "Jund" about your list, your list is just a turbo Depth combo. That many tutors but no Tabernacle, that's pretty lame. Those Brass and Mine suggest that you're just playing a budget version instead of a competitive version. Why don't you just play Haas's version or Todd Anderson's version?

Jund is a shard (BRG). Tabernacle blows... for a all in combo version. Any kind of lands deck is far from budget..... Brass and Mine are required because with all those tutors if you can't cast them on t1 its rather pointless.... Until they make duals that tap for 3 colors those are the only options.

averaging t3 token generation doesn't seem very lame.


I think if you are going to be on City of Brass and Gemstoen mine you may as well use those colors to your advantage.

how would you suggest they are better used.

[Ingo]

Todd Anderson's version is mentioned above, here (http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/deck_tech_jund_depths_with_tod.html)'s a deck tech.

[delcameron]

Does anyone have a decklist of Haas's build as he was playing it this weekend in Columbus? I think the 3rd Crop Rotation went MD, and the SB made room for 4 Thoughtseize and 2 Abrupt Decay...

[Megadeus]

how would you suggest they are better used.

I figure if you have the rainbow lands, you may as well play more rainbow cards!

[apple713]

I figure if you have the rainbow lands, you may as well play more rainbow cards!

The bottle neck in the deck was that if i play with fetchlands and duals i may end up with the wrong dual in my hand when i need to cast a spell. That situation happened a lot more than i would have liked. The spells are gamble, entomb, and crop rotation. Being held up a turn or two because you cant cast 1 of those spells will cost you the game. Additionally there really are no better options in blue or white.

[twndomn]

Does anyone have a decklist of Haas's build as he was playing it this weekend in Columbus? I think the 3rd Crop Rotation went MD, and the SB made room for 4 Thoughtseize and 2 Abrupt Decay...

After some testing ever since Haas broke into the scene, I am leaning toward Anderson's list. I would urge you to try Anderson's version, if you haven't yet.

[delcameron]

After some testing ever since Haas broke into the scene, I am leaning toward Anderson's list. I would urge you to try Anderson's version, if you haven't yet.

I'll give it a shot for sure. But on first glance, it seems counterintuitive and less than optimal to run a Reanimate package in the sideboard when you just know that all the graveyard hate will be coming in against you for game 2.

[DragoFireheart]

Wait, why red? For Faithless, Gamble, and PFire?

[snorlaxcom]

I'll give it a shot for sure. But on first glance, it seems counterintuitive and less than optimal to run a Reanimate package in the sideboard when you just know that all the graveyard hate will be coming in against you for game 2.

They are meant to race combo. You don't bring them in vs decks with RiP and grindy decks because they usually pack yard hate g2/3. Combo ignores your yard and has enough practice to play around conventional hate. Chalice for 1 or 0 is great vs fast combo, but obviously greatly hampers how this deck wins. AD is still in the sb for the RiP and counterbalance decks. I like how the brewed sb resembled less of a pile.

[Claymore]

Wait, why red? For Faithless, Gamble, and PFire?

As an observer and currently building this deck (go-go Tabernacle!), red largely seems to be for the Punishing Fire package. What color could replace it, white? Blue? BUG Lands is basically 43 lands.dec with Intuition, Tolaria West and all.

White would be interesting, however. You can get a tutor package to fetch Nether Void, Chains, Moat, Trinisphere if you're into that. Replenish to recover from poor Loams. Gift of Immortality to...hmm, scratch that. Ghostly Prison as an additional tax. Academy Rector to dare attacks and play with Innocent Blood and Smallpox, although she's become spayed by the presence of Deathrite Shaman...speaking of which, Suppression Field. Hate bears out of the side like Canonist to help the combo matchup. Helm of Obedience out of the side to giggle at Rest in Peace. Rock Enchantress/Stax Pox.

I can't figure out how white abuses Loam, however.

Red's large benefit seems to be more able to abuse graveyard recursion and allow you to take advantage of Loam dredges and Liliana's +1 (although not in the case of Todd) in order to have a sound, very synergistic deck overall with strong removal engines.

[junitor]

hi, i have a few cards i would love to add in, if it is possible:

Tower of the Magistrare x 2 -
Grave Pact x 2 - (with nether spirit??)
Diabolic Intent x 4 - (demonic tutor with sac.--with nether spirit in play..this becomes a very good card.

any better suggestion?

my deck: http://deckstats.net/decks/6749/58798-dark-depths-my-version

[Claymore]

Diabolic Intent will be useless 90% of the time you draw it, unless the deck includes Dryad Arbor to fetch off of Catacombs or Foothills, same with Grave Pact since the deck has very few creatures.

Tower of the Magistrate is interesting because it can 'permanently' deal with Batterskull, but its a sideboard card.

[Arsenal]

Discussion in the B/R thread has piqued my interest in this deck, and I was expecting to find something completely innovative and new, although after looking at Todd Anderson's list, it just looks like Lands: 2014 Edition. It's still running the tried-and-true Mox Diamond/Life from the Loam/Exploration/Crop Rotation base, lots of utility lands, and some disruptive elements in Smallpox, Innocent Blood (a clear concession to TNN). I don't understand what the big fuss is about, Lands has always smashed creature-based strategies and this deck being able to get there versus SFM-TNN decks shouldn't be surprising anyone.

Although, if this deck takes off and start making a major dent in the current TNN meta that Legacy is, thank you Jesus.

[twndomn]

Discussion in the B/R thread has piqued my interest in this deck, and I was expecting to find something completely innovative and new, although after looking at Todd Anderson's list, it just looks like Lands: 2014 Edition. It's still running the tried-and-true Mox Diamond/Life from the Loam/Exploration/Crop Rotation base, lots of utility lands, and some disruptive elements in Smallpox, Innocent Blood (a clear concession to TNN). I don't understand what the big fuss is about, Lands has always smashed creature-based strategies and this deck being able to get there versus SFM-TNN decks shouldn't be surprising anyone.

Although, if this deck takes off and start making a major dent in the current TNN meta that Legacy is, thank you Jesus.

1. Jeff Hoogland has been running Lands with Punishing Fire for most of 2013, never won a SCG that year. Haas did it in one shot.

2. Entomb changes everything, you did not even mention the card.

3. Evidence in point 2 suggests that you did not watch video footage of Haas crushing players on SCG leader board. Your so-called "disruptive" element (understatement) is actually Locking the game out, turning into flawless victory (permanent less). Most people are fascinated by that.

[Arsenal]

1. Jeff Hoogland has been running Lands with Punishing Fire for most of 2013, never won a SCG that year. Haas did it in one shot.

2. Entomb changes everything, you did not even mention the card.

3. Evidence in point 2 suggests that you did not watch video footage of Haas crushing players on SCG leader board. Your so-called "disruptive" element (understatement) is actually Locking the game out, turning into flawless victory (permanent less). Most people are fascinated by that.

I clearly was referring to Todd Anderson's list... because I said "after looking at Todd Anderson's list" as someone had provided his deck tech the post just above mine.

Also, Entomb isn't really a "game-changer" as you claim as Lands has been on Intuition (SCG Las Vegas http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=12428&iddeck=91087), which fulfill the same role, albeit at a trade-off of 1 mana-1 card or 3 mana-3 cards (not like a deck playing 30+ lands + Exploration + Mox Diamond has trouble hitting three mana early). It isn't like "Instant speed tutor that bins specific cards" is something that Lands has never employed before.

[twndomn]

I clearly was referring to Todd Anderson's list... because I said "after looking at Todd Anderson's list" as someone had provided his deck tech the post just above mine.

Also, Entomb isn't really a "game-changer" as you claim as Lands has been on Intuition (SCG Las Vegas http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=12428&iddeck=91087), which fulfill the same role, albeit at a trade-off of 1 mana-1 card or 3 mana-3 cards (not like a deck playing 30+ lands + Exploration + Mox Diamond has trouble hitting three mana early). It isn't like "Instant speed tutor that bins specific cards" is something that Lands has never employed before.

The interaction you create using Entomb is much much more powerful than the mediocre Intuition, not even close. If you use Intuition with the intent to dump Nether Spirit against RUG Delver, it's not going to happen. Entomb in response to opponent's Exhume, another example why it's a superior card by miles.

If you want to waste time on the degree of creativity, for whatever motivation you like to discredit, you can waste it on someone else's time. If you intend to actually test and play the deck, you can discuss some more.

[Arsenal]

The interaction you create using Entomb is much much more powerful than the mediocre Intuition, not even close. If you use Intuition with the intent to dump Nether Spirit against RUG Delver, it's not going to happen. Entomb in response to opponent's Exhume, another example why it's a superior card by miles.

If you want to waste time on the degree of creativity, for whatever motivation you like to discredit, you can waste it on someone else's time. If you intend to actually test and play the deck, you can discuss some more.

First, you don't Intuition -> Nether Spirit versus RUG Delver as that does literally nothing against them. You go straight for the Wastelock strategy and/or Punishing Fire their Delver and just grind them out.

Second, Liliana isn't that big of an innovation. Lands was doing it last year (http://www.tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=11869&iddeck=86885), which is my point; this deck is essentially Lands: 2014 Edition. Not sure why people are acting like Entomb > Intuition makes this a brand new thing.

Lastly, this deck is incredibly soft to Rest in Peace (which is seeing a ton of SB play right now, particularly in Patriot, the #1 deck for January 2014). Aside from hoping they don't have it (unlikely with 4 Brainstorm, 4 Ponder), and a single Ray of Revelation from the sideboard (that you only get 1 use out of if Entombed), what does this deck do?

I caught that Haas vs. Shrout game where Shrout was mana screwed for virtually the entire game (natural manascrew, not Wastelock screw), was able to land Rest in Peace, and nearly stabilized despite Haas ultimating Liliana twice (?). Had Shrout literally had 1 more mana or 1 more creature out in play at any time during that game, Haas loses. Rest in Peace... hope you just Dark Depths + Thespian Stage naturally?

[TraxDaMax]

The interaction you create using Entomb is much much more powerful than the mediocre Intuition, not even close. If you use Intuition with the intent to dump Nether Spirit against RUG Delver, it's not going to happen. Entomb in response to opponent's Exhume, another example why it's a superior card by miles.

If you want to waste time on the degree of creativity, for whatever motivation you like to discredit, you can waste it on someone else's time. If you intend to actually test and play the deck, you can discuss some more. I understand what he means. Liliana, entomb, small pox and punishing fire have all been tried in Lands. Infact, the Lands players were more or less all on the same thoughts that Punishing Fire was needed to battle Deathrite.
However Squee and Nether Spirit seem new to me. And the reanimate package Andersson brought seems pretty smart.
But that all aside, I heard recently that Haas went 4-0 2 weeks after he took down that tourny. And another player top8'ed with the exact 75 Haas played at a TCG event.
So I'm pretty sure there has been put a lot of thought into it all. Not just : " Hey Squee is cool,let's play him and other shady looking cards".

A question though, what color do we name with Iona? What foes it depend on? My guess is blue since thats what stops cantrips+chain of vapor, though on the other hand they might just Infernal Tutor chain you then..

[Claymore]

Haas's list is definitely extremely soft to Rest in Peace, and his magic christmas land scenario of entombing Ray of Revelation just is improbable. Thus, the 4 AD is an improvement.

However, while I do like Anderson's Iona package, bringing in 5 cards of pure graveyard seems a little suspicious to me when you're so reliant on the graveyard.

[twndomn]

Haas's list is definitely extremely soft to Rest in Peace, and his magic christmas land scenario of entombing Ray of Revelation just is improbable. Thus, the 4 AD is an improvement.

However, while I do like Anderson's Iona package, bringing in 5 cards of pure graveyard seems a little suspicious to me when you're so reliant on the graveyard.

Helm is definitely worth a try. Other Delver decks might just SB out all the counters in favor of more threats, since countering Loam is somewhat pointless. 3 AD might be good enough. Someone on the other forum suggested the idea of accelerating using Exploration and Mox into Slaughter games into naming Show and Tell (Anderson's list). You can save yourself from non-turn 1 combo, the combo decks that Ponder turn 1. You could use it for slower decks like Miracle and/or Esperblade is a great bonus.

4 Abrupt Decay
4 Slaughter Games
3 Pithing Needle
2 Coffin Purge
1 Innocent Blood
1 Helm of Obedience

How does the above sound?

[Arsenal]

How do find your 1-of Helm for their anticipated Rest in Peace? That plan makes sense in a deck like Tezzerator because they have multiple tutors, but in this deck, you just hope to draw into your singleton for a card they maybe boarded in... there must be a better way. 3-4 Abrupt Decay is definitely where you want to be, I don't think the Helm is necessary at that point, right?

[Claymore]

Splash for a single Scrubland and board in ETutors, rely on your Moxes and Scrubs to cast it. This lets you start building a ETutor board (my favorite thing) for stuff like Chains, Thorn, or Sphere of Resistance to really help the combo matchup. These help out with your primary angle of attack being delaying combo from going off until you can get a Ravens Crime lock and/or Liliana going.

I'm just tossing ideas out while I build the deck, so once I have the pieces assembled and some experience with the stock list I should be able to contribute in a more constructive manner, haha.

[Maëlig]

However, while I do like Anderson's Iona package, bringing in 5 cards of pure graveyard seems a little suspicious to me when you're so reliant on the graveyard.
The reanimation package is not meant to come in when you expect GY-hate though, but rather is a way to provide fast disruption + kill vs the fast combo decks. I think it's a decent strategy to give us some chance in otherwise unwinnable MU. I *think* I like Slaughter Games vs RiP. Your opponent will usually try to sandbag RiP especially if he expects abrupt decays and/or wants to put pressure on the board first, so you can really punish him for it. It's also good as additional help vs combo decks.

[spike7777]

I like Sire of Insanity + Reanimate against fast combo. Iona is no longer the threat she used to be and does not stop storm effectively. Slow combo (Show and Tell and friends) is answered to a degree by slaughter games, whereas fast combo isn't. Sire of Insanity forces the (fast, non-reanimate non-counter-based) combo deck to have an instant speed bounce spell in hand and the mana open to prevent a discarded hand. Plus, Sire provides much needed pressure with a 3-4 turn threat. While Past in Flames in an option to come back from, they need 4-5 land since they can't keep 2 cards in hand at once with Sire. My current tentative SB is:

4 abrupt decay
4 slaughter games
4 reanimate
2 sire of insanity
1 animate dead

Possibly 1 sire should be replaced by something that helps in another weak match, along with the animate dead if needed. Animate dead + 2nd sire might also be replaced by something to shore up post-board aggro matches, but I'm not sure if the deck needs it if the main is tuned properly.

Main board for me is similar to Anderson's:

4 Mox Diamond
3 Exploration
3 Liliana of the Veil
4 Smallpox
2 Crop Rotation
4 Entomb
1 Nether Spirit
1 Punishing Fire
3 Faithless Looting
4 Life from the Loam
1 Raven's Crime

1 Swamp
1 Forest
2 bayou
1 Badlands
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Wooded Foothills
4 Wasteland
1 Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Dark Depths
3 Thespian's Stage
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Maze of Ith
1 Ghost Quarter

Edit: another more unusual reanimation target is master of cruelties. A turn 2 shallow graved master shuts off fetchlands, as nauseum, thoughtseize, force of will, and Griselbrand. This is probably too cute but thought I'd throw it out there anyways.

[Claymore]

The Sire of Insanity reanimation plan is definitely cool. A turn 1 forced mull to zero has got to be an automatic game winner, no matter what you're playing against.

I think I'm going to start stocking up parts to put a little bit of Enlightened Tutor stuff into this sideboard. Of note:

Equipoise


1. 702.23j Phased-out tokens cease to exist as a state-based action. So the token's gone forever.

2. 702.23f When a permanent phases out, any Auras, Equipment, or Fortifications attached to that permanent phase out at the same time. This alternate way of phasing out is known as phasing out “indirectly.” An Aura, Equipment, or Fortification that phased out indirectly won’t phase in by itself, but instead phases in along with the permanent it’s attached to.

The token has ceased to exist, and indirectly phased out permanents (The Batterskull) won't phase back in unless the token does. And since the token never will, neither will the Batterskull. So the Batterskull never comes back.


It temporarily deals with Wastelands to get off Thespian Depths (if you're low on lands somehow) or to get some Punishing Fire action, isolates creatures to kill with sacrifice effects, turns off Deathrite Shaman for your turn, and helps clear the path for a late Marit Lage.

[TraxDaMax]

Played Jund Depths at GPT Paris last sunday. Got crushed twice by Sneaky Show and once by a BUG delver that came too fast with beats and disruption.
What to do about Sneaky Show? Ignore and hope to dodge?

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[Valtrix]

The reason that this deck will lose to sneak and show is that it basically has no clock. So even with a decent amount of disruption you are unlikely to win this matchup. I'm not really sure there's any way around this, besides boarding into a stronger combo deck.

[Serbitar]

I don't think the Sneak and Show matchup is that horrible. Basically you need Karakas asap to force them to find Sneak Attack and multiple red mana. Karakas, Liliana and Smallpox makes Show and Tell sketchy. That can give you enough time to assemble Marit Lage or Raven's Crime. Post board there is Needle or you can mise wins with the reanimate plan. Sure, some stuff needs to go right but its not as hopeless as you make it sound.

[venice]

I agree the MU looks pretty even to me. Postboard you should have 3+ Needle, 4 Crop Rotation to find Karakas plus up to 10 Edict effects if needed (4 Lilli, 4 Smallpox, 2 IB). I am actually even thinking about going up to 4 Needle since it´s also such a house against Miracles (naming Top) which is one of our toughest MUs.

[TraxDaMax]

I don't think the Sneak and Show matchup is that horrible. Basically you need Karakas asap to force them to find Sneak Attack and multiple red mana. Karakas, Liliana and Smallpox makes Show and Tell sketchy. That can give you enough time to assemble Marit Lage or Raven's Crime. Post board there is Needle or you can mise wins with the reanimate plan. Sure, some stuff needs to go right but its not as hopeless as you make it sound.

Well, as stated above here, our clock is only fast if we can assemble DD combo in time.
Unfortunately for me, in three out of 5 games against them, I had a Karakas in hand while they just played basic lands and Sneak Attack with that exact scenario.
I feel Ensnarring Bridge wouldn't be bad in this match-up. Could still bash with Worm Harvest/Nether Spirit.

[Dzra]

Pithing Needle + Karakas is pretty close to a hard lock against Sneak and Show. If you can a Pyroblast or something to back it up then it should be near impossible for them to win. I'm pretty sure that the right direction for this deck is maxing on Loams, Gambles, Entombs, and Crop Rotations and being fully prepared to deploy a quick Marit Lage.

[TraxDaMax]

Fair enough. This was also how I felt about it until I got wiped out of contention 1-2 and 0-2, never drawing Needle, and only being able to combo twice. One time that did it, the other time opponent layed a Jace the turn before I can activate Thespian.
The one game I stole was off of Raven's Crime making him hellbent needing to topdeck a creature for his Sneack Attack.

Verstuurd vanaf mijn GT-I9195 met Tapatalk

[spike7777]

I've been trying out the sire of insanity reanimation package and it works really well with gamble main deck. Is there a reason reanimator or tin fins doesn't run gamble? It works very similarly to mystical tutor in giving them 8 entombs. I've been messing around with a version using 4 entomb/3 gamble/3 looting/1 raven's crime main deck, with 4 reanimate/1 animate dead/2 sire of insanity in the board. Gamble gives us a virtual 8 reanimate effects and virtual 7-9 entomb effects. Along with 4 exploration and 4 mox diamond, they give us a fairly consistent turn 2 sire in games against storm and other fast, non-counterspell combo decks.

[Claymore]

Here's a list I've drafted, using an Enlightened Tutor sideboard. I'm not sure if Nether Void should be Chains of Mephistopheles or just Sphere of Resistance to combat fast combo. I also can't decide how badly I want Sire of Insanity or Elesh Norn in the board.

How do you shove in Gamble? Reduce the number of Faithless Lootings?

4 Smallpox
4 Mox Diamond
1 Nether Spirit
2 Punishing Fire
1 Raven's Crime
2 Crop Rotation
2 Exploration
3 Faithless Looting
4 Life from the Loam
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Entomb

1 Badlands
1 Bayou
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Dark Depths
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith
1 Scrubland
1 Swamp
1 Taiga
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
3 Thespian's Stage
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
2 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard:
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Ashen Rider
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Helm of Obedience
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Nether Void
2 Pithing Needle
4 Reanimate

[Claymore]

What do you people think about Desolation? It certainly does work against Miracles if you can land it to exterminate their basics, and in combination with Tabernacle it quickly becomes a solid lock on the game in any creature matchup along with Wastelands.

We can mitigate its effect by playing at instant speed in response to the EOT trigger and by using Moxes for mana. With heavy Exploration builds, you can Loam and still get ahead on mana.

[EtwasSteIne]

Hi guys, after reading on thesource for a few years I decided to share some experience with you.

Because of Kennan Hass success with this deck I started testing his list. After playing (Hard-)Control namely Mono Black Pox and Death and Taxes for a few month I was looking for something new. Playing a deck that combines the raw power of traditional Pox-decks (landhate, Liliana of the Veil, Smallpox) with flexible draw- und tutor-engines like Faithless Looting, Entomb and Crop Rotation seems powerful and enjoyable to play at the same time.

Today I played a local tournament in Hamburg (Germany). I brought the following list:

Punishing Pox

Creatures:
1 Nether Spirit
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob

Engine:
4 Faithless Looting
4 Entomb
4 Life from the Loam
2 Crop Rotation

Disruption:
2 Punishing Fire
4 Smallpox
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Wasteland
1 Raven's Crime
1 Karakas
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Maze of Ith
1 Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

Mana:
4 Mox Diamond
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Bayou
1 Badlands
1 Taiga
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Grove of the Burnwillows

Combokill:
2 Dark Depths
2 Thespian's Stage


Sideboard:

4 Pithing Needle
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Golgari Charm
1 Maze of Ith
2 Innocent Blood
2 Thoughtseize
1 Crop Rotation




Round 1: VS RUG Delver

Game 1: T1 Delver of Secrets, T2 blind flip with Daze and or Force of Will backup. Lost in the end to a second Delver of Secrets.


SB
In: 4 Abrupt Decay, 2 Innocent Blood, 1 Maze of Ith
Out: 1 Faithless Looting, 1 Life from the Loam, 1 Dark Depths, 1 Thespian's Stage, 1 Karakas, 1 Raven's Crime, 1 card I don't remember



Game 2: T1 Delver of Secrets, T2 blind flip. An early Surgical Extraction hits my Life from the Loam, though I was able to handle two Delver of Secrets and one Nimble Mongoose. Lost the game vs two more 3/3-Shroud with two Abrupt Decay, Punishing Fire + Grove of the Burnwillows and Maze of Ith ready for action :mad:

These Delver-counterbackup-draws are too powerful for me, though Game 2 seemed winable.

0:1


Round 2: VS RU Burn

Game 1: T1 Delver of Secrets, T2 blind flip, Lightning Bolt and Price of Progress killed me.


SB
In: 2 Thoughtseize, 2 Innocent Blood, 1 Crop Rotation
Out: 2 Life from the Loam, 1 Karakas, 1 Bojuka Bog, 1 Squee, Goblin Nabob



Game 2: As you should already know... T1 Delver of Secrets, T2 blind flip.. still managed to get an early 20/20 Marit Lage token to attack - his answer: Submerge

This is the horror-matchup: Price of Progress, Blood Moon and Submerge combined with fast clock is not winable. Maybe a basic Swamp and Forest would shine here.

0:2

Round 3: VS Death and Taxes

Game 1: My hand was Entomb, Smallpox, Grove of the Burnwillows plus enough lands. Looks quite well, he starts with AEther Vial and continues to play lands, I entombed for Punishing Fire. The small creatures were no problem for me, but an end of turn Brimaz, King of Oreskos protected by Karakas owned me because even with dredging about half of my deck i was not able to find any Wasteland :(


SB
In: 4 Abrupt Decay, 2 Innocent Blood, 1 Maze of Ith, 1 Golgari Charm
Out: 1 Faithless Looting, 2 Life from the Loam, 1 Entomb, 1 Bojuka Bog, 1 Karakas, 1 Raven's Crime



Game 2: He took a one-land-hand which was a mistake

Game 3: He starts with AEther Vial into Phyrexian Revoker and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben. I used Golgari Charm to get rid of that. It was a long game with multiple Rest in Peaces etc., Marit Lage was ready to bring this game home but again I was not able to find enough Wastelands to kill his Rishadan Ports and Karakas. He cuts me of red mana-sources and killed me with an Aven Mindcensor.

Loosing this match was a bit disappointing because in tests this matchup was definitely positive.

0:3

Round 4: VS UWR Delver

Game 1: I took a hand with Entomb and Smallpox and got to see Liliana of the Veil after a few draws. After answering his True-Name Nemesis and Stoneforge Mystic his Delver of Secrets armed with Umezawa's Jitte hits me to 7 Life. My Marit Lage was answered by Swords to Plowshares which gave me 20 life and thereby enough time to control the game.


SB
In: 4 Abrupt Decay, 2 Innocent Blood, 1 Maze of Ith, 1 Golgari Charm
Out: 1 Faithless Looting, 2 Life from the Loam, 1 Entomb, 1 Bojuka Bog, 1 Karakas, 1 Raven's Crime



Game 2: This final game took a long time but I was able to control the game for most of the time. Each of his Rest in Peaces got crushed by Abrupt Decays. I won with Merit Lage after getting my opponent into top-deck-mode while having Island and fetchland on his board fighting an uneaven fight vs. enough lands, Liliana of the Veil and Abrupt Decay in my hand.

Finally my deck does what I want it to do and celebrates me two invulnerably hard-locks.

1:3



Pros:
Playing MTG offline with real cards
Nice location (Olli's Spielecenter) and a relaxed atmosphere
Not playing against combo
Buddy finished 3:1 with my Death and Taxes deck :)
Last but not least playing a competitive deck with numerous options to beat fair decks


Cons:
1:3
Auto lose match 2


I hope you enjoyed reading my short report and apologize my bad English. Furthermore I hope to start a discussion about this deck in order to improve the lists.
Starting with a few questions: Is white worth the splash? Are basiclands playable? How to beat combo? Sphere of Resistance?

[Claymore]

I think a basic Swamp is definitely ideal so that you can cast Abrupt Decay with the use of a Mox Diamond.

I'm testing a white splash to help with a tutor board. The deck is powerful but turns into a pile of shit with Rest in Peace or Leyline in play, has zero game against Miracles, and is very soft to fast combo, and largely I don't see any help from the current Jund colors to help in that area aside from having to dig to enchantment removal or get a fast Lage.

Some of the tools I'm looking at are Helm to fight RiP and then trying to find something that works against both Miracles and combo. I'd like Nether Void to work but it seems a touch slow even with Exploration and Moxes without any other disruption, and seems hard to force through against countermagic. There's stuff like Null Brooch and Sphere of Resistance as well, but one is slow against combo and the other is inefficient against Miracles.

Right now I'm built to bring in a 6 card fast Reanimate package against combo and maybe some aggro matchups (Iona) and bring in the tutor package against Miracles...just need to find a good set up.

[Dice_Box]

Think I might necro this thread.

I played Jund Depths this week at Legacy, went 2-1-1 with it. Loss was to RDW, Tie was to Junk (Wasteland on call...) and I won against Miracles and the Mirror. (Not joking. I never saw that coming and no one knew I was bringing this in.) I went in with about an hours play testing to decide what I wanted to put in the deck, decided that I liked the full lands concept over the version with Lili. I put a Reanimation package in the side and added to it Elesh Norn. Turns out that -2/-2 to everything on Delvers side of the table is not a weak play at all. Also when you force them to discard everything to Raven's, you more or less can tell the coast is clear to play out anything you want to.

I found the strength of this deck was the speed that you can dismantle someone's opening plan. Having a person play out a fetch, think they are Wasteland proof only to eat a Smallpox was fun the few times I did it. The two big MVP's though where by far Faithless Looting and Exploration. I wanted to put a cycle land in the deck, I am glad I chose not to. Paying 4 mana to dredge 12 cards won me no small amount of games. (Yea yea, shut up Grave troll)

List:
Creature(s):
1 Nether Spirit

Artifacts and Enchantments:
3 Exploration
4 Mox Diamond

Spells:
3 Crop Rotation
4 Entomb
4 Faithless looting
1 Raven's Crime
4 Life from the loam
2 Punishing Fire
4 Smallpox

Lands (Mana):
1 Swamp
2 Bayou
1 Taiga
1 Badlands
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Lands (Utility):
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Maze of Ith
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale (Yea, it did nothing all night...)
4 Wasteland
2 Dark Depths
3 Thespian's Stage

Sideboard:
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Coffin Purge
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Pithing Needle
4 Reanimate
1 Iona
1 Elesh Norn
1 Ashen Rider


Final thoughts:
*Reanimate is a good card, but by the time you can fire it off, you may already be on low life. I want to try out Exhume in its place. Its not like Mana is hard to come by.
*At first I though there where too many fetches and not enough targets, after playing it out I found fetches make great fodder for Raven's and Faithless. If RIP is down on the table though, they just feel worthless to draw. I want to see what I can do about that.
*Faithless rocked harder than I could ever dream.
*I cut the Innocent Blood for more Punishing. When this deck was strongest last, TNN was a problem, now Young Pyro is a much more common thing. Sac a token does not seam worth a mana and a card to me. I think this was the right call.
*I put in Glacial as my own "Oh Shit" effect. I think with the extra mana drops a turn, it can really do a lot of the deck. Saying that, it would also be the first thing I dropped if I wanted to add anything into the deck.
*Beating Miracles when you have more than 3 times your starting life and only 5 cards left in your deck feels great.

This was fun, I like it and I am going to work on tweaking it while i wait for my Gambles to arrive. If you have any idea's do shoot them at me.

[Rivfader]

Think I might necro this thread.

I played Jund Depths this week at Legacy, went 2-1-1 with it. Loss was to RDW, Tie was to Junk (Wasteland on call...) and I won against Miracles and the Mirror. (Not joking. I never saw that coming and no one knew I was bringing this in.) I went in with about an hours play testing to decide what I wanted to put in the deck, decided that I liked the full lands concept over the version with Lili. I put a Reanimation package in the side and added to it Elesh Norn. Turns out that -2/-2 to everything on Delvers side of the table is not a weak play at all. Also when you force them to discard everything to Raven's, you more or less can tell the coast is clear to play out anything you want to.

I found the strength of this deck was the speed that you can dismantle someone's opening plan. Having a person play out a fetch, think they are Wasteland proof only to eat a Smallpox was fun the few times I did it. The two big MVP's though where by far Faithless Looting and Exploration. I wanted to put a cycle land in the deck, I am glad I chose not to. Paying 4 mana to dredge 12 cards won me no small amount of games. (Yea yea, shut up Grave troll)

List:
Creature(s):
1 Nether Spirit

Artifacts and Enchantments:
3 Exploration
4 Mox Diamond

Spells:
3 Crop Rotation
4 Entomb
4 Faithless looting
1 Raven's Crime
4 Life from the loam
2 Punishing Fire
4 Smallpox

Lands (Mana):
1 Swamp
2 Bayou
1 Taiga
1 Badlands
2 Bloodstained Mire
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Lands (Utility):
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Maze of Ith
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale (Yea, it did nothing all night...)
4 Wasteland
2 Dark Depths
3 Thespian's Stage

Sideboard:
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Coffin Purge
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Pithing Needle
4 Reanimate
1 Iona
1 Elesh Norn
1 Ashen Rider


Final thoughts:
*Reanimate is a good card, but by the time you can fire it off, you may already be on low life. I want to try out Exhume in its place. Its not like Mana is hard to come by.
*At first I though there where too many fetches and not enough targets, after playing it out I found fetches make great fodder for Raven's and Faithless. If RIP is down on the table though, they just feel worthless to draw. I want to see what I can do about that.
*Faithless rocked harder than I could ever dream.
*I cut the Innocent Blood for more Punishing. When this deck was strongest last, TNN was a problem, now Young Pyro is a much more common thing. Sac a token does not seam worth a mana and a card to me. I think this was the right call.
*I put in Glacial as my own "Oh Shit" effect. I think with the extra mana drops a turn, it can really do a lot of the deck. Saying that, it would also be the first thing I dropped if I wanted to add anything into the deck.
*Beating Miracles when you have more than 3 times your starting life and only 5 cards left in your deck feels great.

This was fun, I like it and I am going to work on tweaking it while i wait for my Gambles to arrive. If you have any idea's do shoot them at me.

I'm glad this thread is getting posts again! I am saving for some entombs to play it myself.
One thing I did notice in your build was: no Liliana's. Why is that? It seems a great boardcontrol when RIP does hit the table, and you already have a manabase for double B.
When you'll add the gamble's, do you already know what to cut for them?

EDIT: just reread, you opted for exploration instead of Lili. I would definitely include her, and trim some utility lands? (as she's also creaturekill, perhaps maze, chasm or even Tabernacle?)

[Dice_Box]

Oh, sorry, the gambles are for Combo Lands, not this deck. I would not be cutting anything for them as I just happened to have either everything for this build or know someone that had what I was missing. So putting it together was not hard. I made a few calls, put it together.

The reason for no Lili is that I am just taking a gamble on not having to deal with RIP. DnT and Miracles are really only the two decks that run it and both are not fun anyway. Delver (RWU) use to run it, but TC put a stop to that, so I feel like I am ok cutting my loses there right now. Explore in my pov is far more effective all round than Lili is. Lili can remove a creature yes, with your Young Pyro taking the meta by storm I feel like she is underwhelming. Her discard ability is great and in fact the reason I would run her in this deck if I was to put her in, but I feel like Crime offers a stronger effect and I think I would put in a second copy of that card before I would add Lili.

Glacial can be cut, the card is helpful, I had a game where someone put my on 60 life and I just used all that time to set up the combo (Again) and kill him. But I do think that's the exception and I put it in more as my own little crutch than I did a real game plan with it in the deck. That said, if you have a few Explore is play, I think it can save you. It was though just a crutch.

I would not cut the Maze, I Staged it twice in one game, never dropping it and won on it alone. When you go up against decks like Sneak and Show or anything that thinks that bigger is better (Low threat, high impact decks) it can save you. Against a creature deck that one land can save you something on the margin of 10 to 20 life a game. Not bad for a land drop.

[Rivfader]

Oh, sorry, the gambles are for Combo Lands, not this deck. I would not be cutting anything for them as I just happened to have either everything for this build or know someone that had what I was missing. So putting it together was not hard. I made a few calls, put it together.

The reason for no Lili is that I am just taking a gamble on not having to deal with RIP. DnT and Miracles are really only the two decks that run it and both are not fun anyway. Delver (RWU) use to run it, but TC put a stop to that, so I feel like I am ok cutting my loses there right now. Explore in my pov is far more effective all round than Lili is. Lili can remove a creature yes, with your Young Pyro taking the meta by storm I feel like she is underwhelming. Her discard ability is great and in fact the reason I would run her in this deck if I was to put her in, but I feel like Crime offers a stronger effect and I think I would put in a second copy of that card before I would add Lili.

Glacial can be cut, the card is helpful, I had a game where someone put my on 60 life and I just used all that time to set up the combo (Again) and kill him. But I do think that's the exception and I put it in more as my own little crutch than I did a real game plan with it in the deck. That said, if you have a few Explore is play, I think it can save you. It was though just a crutch.

I would not cut the Maze, I Staged it twice in one game, never dropping it and won on it alone. When you go up against decks like Sneak and Show or anything that thinks that bigger is better (Low threat, high impact decks) it can save you. Against a creature deck that one land can save you something on the margin of 10 to 20 life a game. Not bad for a land drop.

Ok that makes sense. On a sidenote, I wonder how sinkhole would be like in such a deck. This deck has the same wastelock posibilities as RG lands, but with sinkhole and smallpox it would be really crazy. And make Tabernacle a very good card. Don't know if it would be good, but definitely very fun.

[Dice_Box]

Sinkhole is just not needed, with Wasteland, Loam and Pox, you just do not need to clog up the deck with another 4 cards that do the same thing. Also you do not really have that much to cut to add in 4 more cards that you really do not need. I would put Lili in before Sinkhole if I was not playing with her and I would put in Exploration if I was.

[Madmankevinx]

I ran this list last night at a local and had a blast:

4 Life from the Loam
4 Exploration
4 Smallpox
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Faithless Looting
4 Mox Diamond
4 Entomb
1 Raven's Crime
1 Nether Spirit
2 Dark Depths
1 Maze of Ith
1 Punishing Fire
2 Crop Rotation

4 Wasteland
2 Thespian's Stage
2 Badlands
2 Taiga
1 Bayou
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Karakas
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

SB:
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Pithing Needle
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Ray of Revelation
4 Thoughtseize
1 Coffin Purge
1 Punishing Fire
1 Ratchet Bomb

The deck felt great and I started off fast 2-0'ing Reanimator (thanks to bojuka + wasteland + life from the loam + exploration) and then found myself facing off against Adam VanFleet (guy won a SCG Open not too long ago) on Grixis Delver. Wasteland did work game 1 and Marit Lage + Stage got hit by dredging the first cycle so it was over quickly. Game 2 I kept a terrible hand because I thought that double Wasteland and a Loam would do it... I was wrong. Game 3 I had a smallpox, Liliana and Punishing fire online and by turn 5 or 6 Marit Lage came out and it was over.
Round 3 I'm facing off against our nightmare. Storm. Piloted by whom? The guy who invented it, Mr Bryant Cook himself. (yeah he won an open too) Let's just say game 1 was over before I did a thing. Game two I was able to play an exploration, an extra land, a mox diamond, entomb a raven's crime, entomb on loam, and I got a couple Raven's crimes off T2, but he double dark rituals into Ad Nauseum with 20 life. Oh well, I've been on a roll against him the last 5 or 6 times we've faced off so he got his revenge!
Round 4 I get to play against Mr. Doug McKay who is a heck of a player too (the Syracuse scene can be quite competitive at times!) and he is on a Dragon Stompy type deck but not at all a stock list. Guy knows how to brew! Game 1 and 3 were horrible as multiple chalices and blood moon effects were out and I couldn't find any Diamonds. Game two was super fun and a testiment to why not to cut Liliana. He had a blood moon and a chalice on 1 out, and I had Lilana and a whole bunch of "mountains". Kept ticking up Liliana, keeping his hand empty and eventually ultimate getting rid of the chalice. Entomb finds Nether Spirit and Liliana keeps ticking up while I hit for 2 every turn and win after another ultimate which saw him keep Moon and nothing else. I went home after that since I couldnt top 4 with a 2-2 record.

Thoughts-- Deck needs a basic forest. Exploration is awesome game 1 but a lot of times I side it out game 2 and 3 when the element of surprise is gone. Other than that, this deck is ridiculously fun to play and requires a lot of thought on what to entomb and when and what to leave mana up to respond to things with your flashback sideboard cards etc. Pay attention! Sorry for the poorly written short boring report!

[Shakara]

Runechanter's Pike seems like an awesome way to have nether spirit end games quickly, but I don't think going nearly creatureless is the strongest way for the deck to go. Having plays that attract swords to plowshares are really nice for merit lage tokens.

I feel like a Deathrite Shaman/Green Sun's Zenith+Dryad Arbor package would be a stronger acceleration plan that the explores.

Young Pyromancer is another card that seems sweet in this type of deck with all of the recurring cheap spells. I've been obsessing over Young Pyromancer+Crop Rotation recently because I love the idea of it finding an untapped gaea's cradle after dropping a pyro.

Anyways, really cool list and I loved the write up.

[supremePINEAPPLE]

I don't like going out of your way to make your own smallpoxes worse. They are one of the driving reasons to play the deck outside of the entomb package and the Lilianas. If I was looking for room I would be running 2 exploration instead of the full set since this deck just can't abuse it as easily as lands can with all of the extra non-land cards.

Pyromancer is always interesting in these sorts of decks but I've never hit on a list I like. It always feels so slow and vulnerable, especially compared to UR delver pyromancers.

[nodahero]

Below is the result of about a month of solid testing with this deck and a fair amount of research comparing various takes on the variations of Lands. Overall, I like this version of the deck a ton. I was never overly impressed with Squee particularly because the only time he is "better" than punishing fire is blocking and he seldom does that very well; P-Fire is capable of killing said attacker and also attacking various walkers and killing opponents over time---given the prevalence of Counter-Top in my meta the change seemed very obvious.

Creatures (1)
1 Nether Spirit

Planeswalkers (4)
4 Liliana of the Veil

Lands (30)
1 Badlands
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith
1 Taiga
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Bayou
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Dark Depths
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Thespian's Stage
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland

Spells (25)
2 Punishing Fire
1 Raven's Crime
2 Crop Rotation
4 Entomb
4 Faithless Looting
4 Life from the Loam
4 Mox Diamond
4 Smallpox


Sideboard
3 Pithing Needle
1 Coffin Purge
2 Innocent Blood
1 Maze of Ith
1 Exploration
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Ray of Revelation
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Crop Rotation
1 Moment's Peace
1 Sphere of Resistance

The sideboard is the thing I am least set on although this is the best configuration I have found for my grindier meta. It is possible that the Reanimate package Todd Anderson tested is better overall however, I prefer to outplay my opponents and be less in on the graveyard. The other point is that, yes, I do only own 1 Tabernacle however I have actually found Moment's Peace to be as good or better in a lot of games; example, elves can normally just combo you out in one turn if they have a Cradle so a Tabernacle does essentially nothing in that situation however, the Moment's Peace can essentially time walk them once and possibly twice providing ample time to find a Tabernacle and also, they have lost the value of their trampling behemoth.

[Rivfader]

The other point is that, yes, I do only own 1 Tabernacle however I have actually found Moment's Peace to be as good or better in a lot of games; example, elves can normally just combo you out in one turn if they have a Cradle so a Tabernacle does essentially nothing in that situation however, the Moment's Peace can essentially time walk them once and possibly twice providing ample time to find a Tabernacle and also, they have lost the value of their trampling behemoth.

That makes sense, you have 4 entombs for moment's peace versus 2 crop rotation's for Tabernacle, spreads your odds and variates possibilities. It's like Glacial Chasm in Lands, and this is perhaps an option as well for builds with exploration. I don't really get the idea of a second Tabernacle, and I would definitely prefer an additional crop rotation over it.

EDIT: I don't like the reanimator sideplan. It feels like you end up with 2 different unoptimized gameplans in one deck, while Reanimator runs about 4 more creatures and 4 more reanimation spells + cantrips, so I doubt the reanimationplan will work sufficiently enough. And it makes game2 more gravedependant, whereas the opponent will probably board in gravehate. Meanwhile there already is a graveyard-independant combowin packed in this deck, in Depths/Stage. So I think it looks great on paper, but I doubt if it improves the deck versus the real issues it has (while it does take up 7 sideboardslots).

[Madmankevinx]

I've made room for 2 Abrupt Decay maindeck (with 2 more in the sideboard) recently by cutting a couple of land due to an increase in Chalice and Moon strategies in my area. Counting Tabernacle, Maze and the 2x Dark Depths as spells, I run 24 mana producing land maindeck. I added a basic forest as this would have won me a few games previously if I would have had access to it.

My mana set for reference:

1 Forest
4 Wasteland
2 Thespian's Stage
2 Badlands
2 Taiga
1 Bayou
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Karakas
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth


I have never felt that I needed more than this. I see most people run 30 land total, but I am liking 28.

[FoolofaTook]

@madmankevinx

The Bloodstained Mire should be a 2nd Verdant Catacombs to help get your Forest when you need it. Both fetches get all your duals anyway. There's no reason to have one that can't fetch the Forest.

[Madmankevinx]

@madmankevinx

The Bloodstained Mire should be a 2nd Verdant Catacombs to help get your Forest when you need it. Both fetches get all your duals anyway. There's no reason to have one that can't fetch the Forest.

Agreed. I only own one at the moment but it should definitely be another Catacombs!

[FoolofaTook]

Agreed. I only own one at the moment but it should definitely be another Catacombs!

Yeah, that's what I figured. I don't own Misty Rainforests so I have a few Ugx builds with Flooded Strands filling in. I usually don't have the basic Forest though.

[nodahero]

I tried the reanimate sideboard plan and it gave me mixed results. It shined against the fast combo decks which are normally auto losses for us however, it severely impacted the other matchups. I guess the deciding factor on the reanimate plan is due you want to take a bunch of 60/40 games and a few 20/80 games and move them all about 55/45 and then 40/60 respectively.

I dislike the raw data of the aforementioned situation however the idea of simply having a match I know I auto lose to is so unappealing I may suck it up and hedge a lot less against my other matches.

[mgrinshpon]

This is the most recent Jund Depths build by Kennan Haas: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=78519


3 Thespian's Stage
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Dark Depths
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wasteland
1 Maze of Ith
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Karakas
2 Badlands
2 Bayou
3 Liliana of the Veil
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Punishing Fire
1 Raven's Crime
4 Smallpox
4 Life from the Loam
4 Entomb
1 Nether Spirit
3 Crop Rotation
4 Mox Diamond
1 Mirri's Guile
2 Chains of Mephistopheles

//Sideboard
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Phyrexian Ingester
4 Thoughtseize
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Last Rites
2 Innocent Blood
1 Coffin Purge
1 Crop Rotation
1 Maze of Ith
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale


Also, I've noticed that UR Delver can be difficult if they just keep drawing burn. Regular old Burn is painful, as well. I've been thinking about running a singleton Zuran Orb in the board for the match up. As a bonus, it can screw up Storm math.

[nodahero]

Not to start a flame war, but clearly Keenan has came to the same conclusion that Squee wasn't that good... evidently some of us were right almost a year ago to question it.

I really do like the direction he has moved compared to the original version he utilized. I am curious about the inclusion of MAIN DECK abrupt decay.

I have still been testing this list and have recently swapped Top into the Looting slot and I have been very happy with the results; it is possible that I appreciate the training wheel feel of knowing when to dredge chafe away though. Food for thought to those still testing this in the face of burn and Delver.

[Madmankevinx]

I have been running 2 MD Abrupt Decay for a few weeks now as a concession to the fact that maindeck chalice and/or Blood Moon is a problem in a larger more diverse tournament. I think the Mirri's Guile could be a SDT instead as I don't think the 1 mana should be a problem for this deck and just seems better with the interaction with a LftL in our GY. I don't like cutting the 4th Liliana. She is just so good in our "iffy" matchups I always want the full 4. The burn/storm matchup is so bad that I have been considering Leyline of Sanctity in the side. U/R Delver matches are where having 2 Punishing Fire and 2+ Groves online becomes absolutely critical if we want to stay in it.

[nodahero]

I suppose that is true; I do need to think outside of my pond no matter how strong the competition is in my pond--- no one wants to bring an inbred meta deck to a large open field.

[owerbart]

maybe with TC not around anymore this deck can float again?

[Madmankevinx]

One of the cards that made this deck so powerful was Liliana of the Veil. With TC gone, I would say its safe to assume that this deck can be played with good results again. I'm excited!

[nodahero]

This is the 75 I am looking at registering for the Madison Super IQ...

Creatures (1)
1 Nether Spirit

Planeswalkers (4)
4 Liliana of the Veil

Lands (29)
2 Badlands
3 Bloodstained Mire
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Karakas
1 Maze of Ith
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Bayou
2 Dark Depths
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Thespian's Stage
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland

Spells (26)
1 Punishing Fire
1 Raven's Crime
2 Crop Rotation
4 Entomb
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Life from the Loam
4 Mox Diamond
4 Smallpox
2 Abrupt Decay

Sideboard
3 Pithing Needle
1 Coffin Purge
2 Innocent Blood
1 Maze of Ith
1 Exploration
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Punishing Fire
1 Crop Rotation
1 Moment's Peace
1 Trinisphere
1 Phyrexian Ingester


And here is my sideboard plan...


RUG Delver
Out:
2x Dark Depths
2x Crop Rotation
1x Raven's Crime

In:
1x Punishing Fire
1x Manabond
2x Innocent Blood
1x Maze of Ith

U/W/R Delver
Out:
4x Entomb
1x Raven's Crime
1x Abrupt Decay
1x Bojuka Bog

In:
1x Punishing Fire
2x Innocent Blood
1x Maze of Ith
1x Ancient Grudge
1x Ray of Revelation
1x Crop Rotation

BUG Delver & Shardless BUG
Out:
2x Dark Depths
2x Crop Rotation
1x Raven's Crime

In:
2x Innocent Blood
1x Punishing Fire
1x Manabond
1x Maze of Ith



High Tide
Out:
1x Nether Spirit
1x Maze of Ith
1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2x Abrupt Decay
1x Liliana of the Veil

In:
3x Pithing Needle
1x Trinisphere
1x Manabond
1x Ancient Grudge

Belcher
Out:
2x Abrupt Decay
4x Liliana of the Veil
4x Smallpox

In:
3x Pithing Needle
1x Crop Rotation
1x Ancient Grudge
1x Trinisphere
1x Manabond
1 Moment's Peace

Oops, All Spells
Out:
2x Abrupt Decay
4x Liliana of the Veil
4x Smallpox

In:
3x Pithing Needle
1x Crop Rotation
1x Coffin Purge
1x Trinisphere
1x Manabond
1 Moment's Peace



Dredge
Out:
4x Liliana of the Veil
1x Raven's Crime

In:
1x Trinisphere
1x Coffin Purge
1x Crop Rotation
1x Moment's Peace
1x Exploration

Reanimator
Out:
1x Nether Spirit
1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2x Abrupt Decay
1x Punishing Fire
4x Liliana of the Veil
In:
3x Pithing Needle
1x Trinisphere on the play
1x Phyrexian Ingester
1x Coffin Purge
1x Crop Rotation
2x Innocent Blood
1x Maze of Ith


Show and Tell
Out:
1x Nether Spirit
1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2x Abrupt Decay
1x Punishing Fire
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Maze of Ith
In:
3x Pithing Needle
1x Phyrexian Ingester
1x Crop Rotation
1x Ray of Revelation
1x Manabond



Death and Taxes
Out:
1x Dark Depths
1x Raven's Crime
4x Faithless Looting
1x Bojuka Bog

In:
1x Punishing Fire
1x Ray of Revelation
1x Maze of Ith
1x Ancient Grudge
1x Crop Rotation
2x Innocent Blood

Maverick/Junk/Jund/Goblins/Affinity
Out:
1x Raven's Crime
2x Dark Depths
1x Thespian's Stage
1x Bojuka Bog

In:
1x Punishing Fire
1x Maze of Ith
2x Innocent Blood
1x Moment’s Peace

Elves
Out:
1x Karakas
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Dark Depths
1x Raven's Crime

In:
1x Moment's Peace
1x Trinisphere
1x Manabond
1x Crop Rotation



U/W Control
Out:
1x Nether Spirit
1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Maze of Ith

In:
1x Ray of Revelation
1x Ancient Grudge
1x Manabond
1x Punishing Fire






EDIT: It occurs to me upon review that their are some card issues listed in my board vs sideboard guide... once I get sleep, I will adjust these.

[nodahero]

So today did not go REMOTELY as planned...

The deck itself was very powerful however, it is EXTREMELY unforgiving. Each game I thought about after having played it I saw at least 2 mistakes I made that could have easily turned the matches around. I'm not sure if the idea of running a deck that is this tight is a smart move for a 8+ round event even though though I am proud of the build I have. The mana base and the spell suite were all outstanding for me, but the games you win are never very easy unless it is RUG Delver... I don't think I can loose that match.


I will leave you with the most interesting situation of the day. Round 3 I am playing against a standard WRU Miracles deck. We are in game 3 and the boar is as follows:
3 Island, Mountain, Plains and Tundra for land with a a Jace at 5 loyalty, a CB, a RIP and a top in play and no cards in his hand
I have Wasteland, 2 Grove the Burnwillows, 2 Bayou, Badlands Thespian stage and a fetch as lands plus a Liliana at 8 loyalty, a top and a Pithing Needle on Top (I am also hellbent).

How do you split the Liliana pile in this scenario? Neither of us has lost anything of relevance from the RIP beyond 2 of my Wastelands. Also, in game 2 I saw that he has at least one Blood Moon and a Wear Tear.

[mgrinshpon]

Pretty small tournament but here's another list: http://www.mtgdecks.net/decks/view/175199

[Rivfader]

I will leave you with the most interesting situation of the day. Round 3 I am playing against a standard WRU Miracles deck. We are in game 3 and the boar is as follows:
3 Island, Mountain, Plains and Tundra for land with a a Jace at 5 loyalty, a CB, a RIP and a top in play and no cards in his hand
I have Wasteland, 2 Grove the Burnwillows, 2 Bayou, Badlands Thespian stage and a fetch as lands plus a Liliana at 8 loyalty, a top and a Pithing Needle on Top (I am also hellbent).

How do you split the Liliana pile in this scenario? Neither of us has lost anything of relevance from the RIP beyond 2 of my Wastelands. Also, in game 2 I saw that he has at least one Blood Moon and a Wear Tear.

He's in good shape. Your cardadvantage is cut off by RIP, he has his Jace fatesealing you and ticking up. I'd probably split piles Jace versus all the rest, but even then he's probably going to keep Jace. Your chance is assembling depths/stage or a needle (through counterbalance) before he can ultimate you, which seems unlikely considering the fatesealing.

[Claymore]

Any new developments? I'm looking at Mana Vortex to supplement PFires/Replace Smallpox and trying out Magmatic Insight.

[The Big Ragu]

I'm curious as to why people stopped running Squee. I always saw Squee as one of the key players in the deck.

[Rivfader]

I'm curious as to why people stopped running Squee. I always saw Squee as one of the key players in the deck.

Squee didn't really do that much in my opinion. It was cardadvantage with Liliana/Looting (and possibly a chumpblocker with Karakas), but essentially Loam and Punishing Fire do the same thing and are great cards on their own (where Squee isn't).

[Crimhead]

Any new developments? I'm looking at Mana Vortex to supplement PFires/Replace Smallpox and trying out Magmatic Insight.
Disclaimer - I've only ever played RUGx and R/G Lands; still gathering the last couple pieces I need for Jund.

I'd be disinclined to cut Smallpox. On top of ruining tempo decks, Smallpox should be good against Omnitell, which is a tough match for the other configurations. Solid against Burn too, if you have that in your meta.

[Bobmans]

It has been a while since i heard something from this deck. The last appearance (http://www.mtgdecks.net/decks/view/425011) of the deck was in November 2015. Has anyone been playing this deck? I haven been thinking to get into lands, but i am wondering if i want to invest in this or in RG lands.

[Rivfader]

It has been a while since i heard something from this deck. The last appearance (http://www.mtgdecks.net/decks/view/425011) of the deck was in November 2015. Has anyone been playing this deck? I haven been thinking to get into lands, but i am wondering if i want to invest in this or in RG lands.

I still need 2 entombs to play this, and somewhere in the future I'll collect them to build the deck, I love this as it nostalgically reminds me of playing Pox.
But I'm quite sure it's not as strong as RG Lands though (which I'm usually playing now).
Because Lands is similar in manadenial, creaturecontrol and combowin, but does all these things more focussed.

[Manroe]

Hi everyone, pleasantly surprised to see this thread fire up again. So I just got my first Tabernacle and I'm ready to give this another shot in my meta. It should do great work. I still want to play a smallpox version as I do believe the smallpox openings can just be brutal. That being said, the are a lot of abrupt decays floating around out in my area, so I think I've been leaving away from mox diamonds. What do you guys think?

[Chatto]

It has been a while since i heard something from this deck. The last appearance (http://www.mtgdecks.net/decks/view/425011) of the deck was in November 2015. Has anyone been playing this deck? I haven been thinking to get into lands, but i am wondering if i want to invest in this or in RG lands.

Go for RGCL, it's more competative. You could of course build this as a side project.

[Manroe]

This is my most recent list:

4 Smallpox
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Hymn to Tourach
2 Punishing Fire
2 Life from the Loam
2 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Bayou
2 Badlands
1 Taiga
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wasteland
2 Crop Rotation
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Dark Depths
2 Thespian's Stage
3 Thoughtseize
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Innocent Blood
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Entomb
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Nether Spirit
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Raven's Crime

SB: 1 Glacial Chasm
SB: 1 Karakas
SB: 2 Sphere of Resistance
SB: 1 Extirpate
SB: 1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Coffin Purge
SB: 2 Disfigure
SB: 2 Null Rod
SB: 1 Forest
SB: 1 Swamp

[Crimhead]

David Long is seventh seed after day one of SCG Open Philadelphia. We haven't seen his list, but it's running an interesting :b: splash:
I was talking to (him) at an event earlier this month about his build. From what he told me he completely got rid of punishing fire and is instead playing Molten Vortex and decays main and he was playing the bobs in the board. Seems like his list is probably a lot better against something like miracles than your traditional r/g combo lands lists.
We haven't seen his full list - and I'm sure it's more of a RCGL build with a splash. But It's closer to Jund Depths than most lists which splash (MD black cards and PFs cut), so I think it could provide insight when brewing up a more :b: heavy list like Jund Depths. Looking forward to seeing his 75 (hopefully he places and SCG posts the list).

I might run something in between. Go with Vortexes but replace MD Decays with Smallpox and also squeeze in an entomb or two plus possibly Lilis.

[Manroe]

Got some games in recently with the list above. Decided I had too much discard and I stuck with a mox diamond list. I added in explore and a single ghost quarter, went to three crop rotations, and put in three explorations. This is a lot like playing lands but with smallpox which mostly the intent and I like it.

[Crimhead]

I've been playing with this list (although testing time is hard to come by):

1 Forest
6 Fetches
2 Bayou
2 Taiga
3 Grove
2 Urborg
1 Bog
1 Barbarian Ring
1 Karakas
1 GQ
4 Wasteland
3 Port
2 Maze
1Tabernacle
1 Chasm
3 Depths
3 Stage

4 Mox
4 Exploration
4 Loam
2 Decay
3 PFire
2 Smallpox
4 Gamble
2 CR
1 Entomb
1 Worm Harvest

I want to lose the Entomb for another Crop Rotation, and the Barbarian Ring for another Maze. Beyond that I need to make room for a couple Sylvan Libraries.

[Seraphix]

I've been playing with this list (although testing time is hard to come by):

1 Forest
6 Fetches
2 Bayou
2 Taiga
3 Grove
2 Urborg
1 Bog
1 Barbarian Ring
1 Karakas
1 GQ
4 Wasteland
3 Port
2 Maze
1Tabernacle
1 Chasm
3 Depths
3 Stage

4 Mox
4 Exploration
4 Loam
2 Decay
3 PFire
2 Smallpox
4 Gamble
2 CR
1 Entomb
1 Worm Harvest

I want to lose the Entomb for another Crop Rotation, and the Barbarian Ring for another Maze. Beyond that I need to make room for a couple Sylvan Libraries.

I have no practical experience with this deck, but the Entomb package always stood out to me as one of its biggest advantages over RG or RUG Lands. Why do you want to drop it?

[Crimhead]

I have no practical experience with this deck, but the Entomb package always stood out to me as one of its biggest advantages over RG or RUG Lands. Why do you want to drop it?
The downside of Entomb (and Faithless Looting) is the graveyard dependence. I'm trying to be more resilient against that - hence the Sylvan Libraries and the additional Crop Rotation.

Also I think of this deck as a cross between Pox and Lands. What I'm trying to build leans more heavily on the Lands side, so I'm resigned to give up some of the advantages of a classic Jund Depths.

[Whitefaces]

That is also 64 cards, intentional? Looks sweet though, gotta give it a try some time!

[Crimhead]

That is also 64 cards, intentional? Looks sweet though, gotta give it a try some time!
Not intentional at all. I'm pretty sure I had exactly 60 sleeved up, but I can't confirm beaus I reset the deck to RUG yesterday for a local event (went 6-1, my first not loss was a concession in the final boss cause I had to leave early). I don't think I had two Urborgs, but I'm not sure what the other three extra cards were.

Either way, this makes it harder to refine the lists and make room for Libraries. :(

Edit - a 60 list:

1 Forest
5 Fetches
2 Bayou
2 Taiga
3 Grove
1 Urborg
1 Bog
1 GQ
4 Wasteland
4 Port
3 Maze
1Tabernacle
1 Chasm
2 Depths
3 Stage

4 Mox
4 Exploration
3 Loam
2 Library
2 Decay
3 PFire
2 Smallpox
3 Gamble
3 CR

SB
4 Grip
4 Sphere
1 3Sphere
1 Nether Void
1 Chains Of Mephistopheles
1 Bosieju
1 Seismic Assault
2 Molten Vortex

[Rivfader]

Hi Crim, I've paste-quoted here as it's probably more in place in the JundDepths thread.


I really get the infatuation with Abrupt Decay.
Grip is:

Easier to cast through Moon.
Able to kill SDT.
Almost as effective at killing C-B.
Able to killLeyline and other higher cc permanents
Able to catch Tormod's Crypt or Relic off guard.

I tend to think Long chose these (in part) becuase Vortex is less reliable the Punishing Grove and he needed more creature control. In decks running P.Fire, I don't think Decay is as good as Grip.



Apart from the colour requirements, the only (major) advantage of MD Decays over Smallpox is that they free up SB space.

You are right about Grip being better at all things Grip is ment to deal with.
The big 'but' is that Decay is maindeckable because it's so flexible, giving a maindeck answer to problems we couldn't deal with before.
Like counterbalance, Kotr, ensnaring bridge, chalice, even bloodmoon (the last three probably on the rise due to Eldrazi), but also DRS, which is probably the most problematic card game1.
Increasing odd's of winning game 1 is a huge bonus over Kgrip, although Kgrip is better in what it does.



Long had six feches, one Bayou, four Mox, and a Bog. Adding just one more Bayou makes 13 sources. Would that be enough?

I actually don't know, but I suspect that it's not.
I was a bit hasty in comparing LOng's and Haas list, actually Long had 8 lands with access to black instead of 7 (in comparison to Haas 13).
But both run 4 mox diamonds, so the total amount of black sources is 12 vs 17.
Haas has so many black sources as he really needs double black while saccing his own lands to smallpox.
Ofcourse if you go down on the number of smallpoxes, you could afford less, somewhere between 12 and 17.
But it would suck hardtime to hold a gamedefining smallpox, while lacking the double black to cast it, so it's probably closer to 17 than 12.



I think if I skip the Lilis and Pox 3&4 I shouldn't have to cut those utility lands.
As I said, I think MD Decays are largely motivated by the need for more creature control in decks without PF.
Smallpox does that just as well, so it makes perfect sense to consider them in the Decay slots (I'm advocating a split).
With the 2-2 split I'll need more SB slots for Grips or extra Decays.
I think a way to solve the double-black issue is to run 4 crop rotations, and croprotate for Urborg when necessary.
Urborg is also nice to combo out with only three lands (Depths-Stage-Urborg), so perhaps its a good idea to build around multiple Depths, Stages, and crops.
Although it's probably not the best construction of the deck, I've always wanted to play it with 4 Sinkholes.
Actually making it an extreme manadenial deck, with wasteland, smallpox and sinkhole, and having access to Tabernacle through croprotation.

I'd like to give something like this a spin (although sinkhole might be a bad idea in these times of mana-efficiency :smile: )
3 depths
4 Stage
4 waste
3 Bayou
1 swamp
1 Urborg
1 Cabal Pit
4 verdant catacombs
2 Barren Moor
1 Taiga
3 Groves
1 Maze
1 Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

2 Loam
2 Library
1 Pfire
2 ABrupt Decay
4 entomb
4 Crop rotation
4 smallpox
4 Sinkhole
1 Nether Spirit
4 Mox
3 exploration

[Crimhead]

Thanks for the reply! I don't check this thread very often - sorry I'm late.

The reason I've been posting in the other thread is that Im a Lands player through and through. I want 34+ lands (with Ports and Mazes) and 4 Explorations. I'm happy to discuss here though! My desire for Smallpox is pretty nonstandard for RGCL, and this might be a better thread for brewing anyway.

You're spot on regarding Decay vs Grip. Decay is far better MD where it's virtually never a dead card. It's not Grip, but it goes where Grip cannot. Don't know why I didn't see that, thanks.

Crop Rotation into Smallpox is a rough play because now I'm giving up four cards (CR, SP, discarded card, plus the two we lose to SP) for their three. Maybe that's okay, considering our strong recursion. Either way you are right that I need more black.

What if I take the list I have bellow and replace the Punishing Fires with Molten Vortices? That gives me three new land slots (maybe an Urborg, a Cabal Pit, and another fetch or Badlands) for a total of eleven black mana producing lands. It would give me more side board space too, which is huge.

My other issue is that if I make my list looks a bit like Long's but +2 Smallpox and -2 Decay, and with more black lands at the cost of fewer combo lands (Depths and Stages). Does my build have enough control to survive the slower game plan?

[Rivfader]

Thanks for the reply! I don't check this thread very often - sorry I'm late.

The reason I've been posting in the other thread is that Im a Lands player through and through. I want 34+ lands (with Ports and Mazes) and 4 Explorations. I'm happy to discuss here though! My desire for Smallpox is pretty nonstandard for RGCL, and this might be a better thread for brewing anyway.

You're spot on regarding Decay vs Grip. Decay is far better MD where it's virtually never a dead card. It's not Grip, but it goes where Grip cannot. Don't know why I didn't see that, thanks.

Crop Rotation into Smallpox is a rough play because now I'm giving up four cards (CR, SP, discarded card, plus the two we lose to SP) for their three. Maybe that's okay, considering our strong recursion. Either way you are right that I need more black.


It will be more peaceful here to brew, and you're right about the crop into Urborg, if it's meant for having double black for smallpox, the 3-for-1 effect is kinda lost :rolleyes:




What if I take the list I have bellow and replace the Punishing Fires with Molten Vortices? That gives me three new land slots (maybe an Urborg, a Cabal Pit, and another fetch or Badlands) for a total of eleven black mana producing lands. It would give me more side board space too, which is huge.

My other issue is that if I make my list looks a bit like Long's but +2 Smallpox and -2 Decay, and with more black lands at the cost of fewer combo lands (Depths and Stages). Does my build have enough control to survive the slower game plan?

I don't think the 3 Molten Vortices (nice plural) saves you place. Because you probably do need three taiga to really abuse them, and four loams. That's a package of 10cards. Punishing fire can be tutored with gamble/entomb, so I think you only need one along with the smallpoxes and Decays. With all the nonrecurring spells I think 3 loams suffice, especially if you plan on including 2 Libraries. And 1 taiga should be enough. So that gives a package of 8 cards (1 Pfire, 3 grove, 3 loams, 1 taiga), saving place for some black mana.

I do think you need about 15 black sources, and I also feel like you have to play 4 smallpoxes if you splash that amount of black. What do you think about this 61cards list (11 black lands, 13 green, 10 red / when counting moxen its 15 black - 17 green - 14 red):

34 lands:
2 Dark Depths
3 Thespian's Stage
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
5 fetchables (1 Forest / 1 Badlands / 1 Taiga / 2 Bayou)
5 fetches (4 Wooded Foothills / 1 Verdant Catacombs)
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 cyclers (1 Tranquil Thicket / 1 Barren Moor)
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Maze of Ith
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

27 spells:
3 Life from the Loam
2 Sylvan Library
1 Punishing Fire
2 Abrupt Decay
4 Smallpox
4 Gamble
3 Croprotation
4 Exploration
4 Mox Diamond

It doesn't have Glacial Chasm, but with all the additional removal in smallpoxes, I think it's less obligatory. I'll playtest it too later this month, curious of how it will feel like. Although I was really looking forward to play with some sinkholes again!

[Crimhead]

Your list looks interesting, and I might try it.

I've been goldfishing this and it seems like it might fly. I'm about to test it, I'll let you know in a dsyvor two:

34 lands:
2 Dark Depths
3 Thespian's Stage
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
5 fetchables (1 Forest / 2 Taiga / 2 Bayou)
6 fetches
2 Barren Moor
1 Chasm
1 Cabal Pit
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Maze of Ith
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

26spells:
3 Life from the Loam
2 Sylvan Library
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Smallpox
3 Gamble
3 Crop Rotation
3 Molten Vortex
4 Exploration
4 Mox Diamond

[somethingdotdotdot]

@crimhead I've been brewing with a similar list. Mostly just did a couple games here and there as well as some goldfishing vs combo/delver /midrange matchups. I haven't tried smallpox much, but it definitely feels like decay md is doing a lot of work making some bad matchups a bit better (killing cb/more ways to kill drs/goyf/etc).

I've opted to not run any cycle lands atm, instead replacing them with libraries. Cutting loam down to 3 is interesting, since that's what I typically do vs combo matchups anyways, but seems like it may be a bit loose if we go down the long game.

Lands (31)
4x Rishadan Port
4x Wasteland
4x Thespian's Stage
2x Dark Depths
4x Windswept Heath
1x Wooded Foothills
2x Bayou
1x Taiga
1x Forest
3x Grove of the Burnwillows
2x Maze of Ith
1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell vale
1x Glacial Chasm
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Spells (29)
4x Abrupt Decay
4x Crop Rotation
3x Punishing Fire
3x Entomb
1x Gamble
4x Exploration
4x Mox Diamond
2x Sylvan Library
1x Gamble
4x Life from the Loam

SB (11 fixed, 4 flex)
4x Sphere of Resistance
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Dark Depths
4x Thoughtseize
1x Duress

flex:
2x Thorn of Amethyst
1x Worm Harvest
1x Krosan Grip

I think that it's safe to cut maze down to 2 given the additional removal in the md. I'm not completely convinced on the smallpox route tbh--even though that is the main draw to this particular version. I feel like BB is extremely hard to achieve and often leads to dead cards stranded in hand. I currently prefer entomb over gamble because there are so many non-recursive reactive pieces of the deck with the addition of decays that gamble becomes less attractive. I also become less focused on red and prioritize bayou over taiga with my early fetches.

Library has been amazing in the deck since I've removed the cycle lands (never been the biggest fan since it really increases your dependence on loam). I'm trying to fit in the 3rd depths main--maybe for a port or the 4th loam.

Let me know how your testing goes though. Cabal pit seems interesting, but too slow to turn on vs most decks to be relevant.

[Rivfader]

Your list looks interesting, and I might try it.

I've been goldfishingvthiscand it seems like it might fly. I'm about to test it, I'll let you know in a dsyvor two:


Interesting, curious about your testing results!

I do wonder why only two smallpoxes. Because we're really cutting down on other aspects of the deck to reliably have double black, it feels a pity to only use that for just two cards. By the way, you have 13 (17 with moxes) black sources, that should really be enough. But keep an eye on your green sources as well! I'm sure we need just as much green lands as regular RG, which is 13 (17 counting moxen).

[Chatto]

What is the best ratio Fetchables/ Fetch? More fetch or equal to Fetchables?

[Crimhead]

We got a late start last weekend - and were interrupted by non-gamer company. I did manage to get several games in, but other than the not-so-profound discovery that High Tide is still effectively unbeatable (even with three Smallpox main and thirteen cards brought in), I only got to play against Elves.

Those Elves games were less than impressive, but mostly due to bad draws. This was not limited to being mana-scewed two out of eight or nine games I played. One game I put out a turn one Mox, Exploration, Vortex, Taiga, and Port. I couldn't play my library because I kept needing to Port down his Cradle. I drew two more Mox, another Vortex, and another Library - no fuel for Vortex and no mana. :(

I did have some successfully game. Vortex was good, but it sucked to Dredge. Smallpox was a bomb, but I think I only drew it twice. I didn't really fix my sideboard before hand. No Thoughtseizes, which would have complimented Smallpox I think. I did alright post board besides - I didn't take very much out because everything seemed so good in that match (or else desperately needed, like my engine). I think I took out the Mazes and a Bog for a Chalice, two Spheres and a Nethervoid.



I do wonder why only two smallpoxes. Because we're really cutting down on other aspects of the deck to reliably have double black, it feels a pity to only use that for just two cards. By the way, you have 13 (17 with moxes) black sources, that should really be enough. But keep an eye on your green sources as well! I'm sure we need just as much green lands as regular RG, which is 13 (17 counting moxen).I added a third Smallpox, and am now at 61 cards. I'm okay with this because probably 10-15% of the time I run 61 cards in Lands builds anyway, plus I'm testing things and can always make cuts later.

I'm running two more black sources than green, and considering switching one up to make sixteen each. Colour hasn't been an issue very much though (but myvtestingbofvcourse has been limited). One gamecibkept a hand with Smallpox andconlybone black source. Luckily I drew a Bayou on time to for turn three. And once while goldfishing I had to toss an otherwise beautiful hand that had no green source but did have a Barren Moor.

While on the one hand I'm not really worried about colour, I am aware of the high opportunity cost to achieve this consistency. That's why I like Pit vs Urborg number two. It gives me something extra besides just :b:.



I've opted to not run any cycle lands atm, instead replacing them with libraries. Cutting loam down to 3 is interesting, since that's what I typically do vs combo matchups anyways, but seems like it may be a bit loose if we go down the long game...

...Cabal pit seems interesting, but too slow to turn on vs most decks to be relevant.
I need the Cycle lands and/or Pits to top-off my black mana. I guess I could run another Urborg. I think I can afford the slower set-up for Cabal Pit because I have plenty of defended to get there.

Regarding Libraries and Loans, my idea (actually Rivfader's idea I stole) was to put two Libraries in as replacements for the Fourth Loam and Gamble. This is a less powerful engine, but perhaps more resilient to graveyard hate. I particularly like it with Vortex. Vortex likes to be drawn - not dredged away or lost to Gamble. Also part of Vortex's appeal is that (unlike PF) it plays through yard hate - but without Loam it could still use a boost!

That said, I do feel the loss of raw power, and might put these in the board as a more Smallpox compatible replacement for Bob. They're also not very good with Chains Of Mephistophelese, it turns out.



*********************************************



I tend to compare my build to David Long's (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=99299), only mine is significantly blacker. Ignoring the Libraries vs Loam/Gamble #4, I'm:

+3 Smallpox
+2 Barren Moor
+1 Bayou
+1 Urborg
+ 1 Cabal Pit

-2 Thicket
-1Taiga
-1 Decay
-1 Crop Rotation
-1 Depths
-1 Stage

Also I'm 61 cards.

Basically in order to accommodate Smallpox, I'm giving up a little colour consistence (not so bad), and overall consitency from the extra card (also not so bad). The real loss seems to be speed. Losing a Stage, Depths, and Rotation maybe isn't worth the benefits of Smallpox - two of which come at the additional cost of running one fewer Decay, and an extra card (which could also have been a Decay, or anything, or nothing).

I'm not all doom and despair though! This build is considerably more control driven than Long's, and as a (primarily) RUG player I feel okay giving up some combo speed for some extra control. I'll continue to test. NProbably I'm just gonna chicken out and RUG it up at tomorrow's tournament. I know that deck better and probably play it better, plus I want to test my build just a little more first.

Thanks for the interest and input. :smile:

[CptHaddock]

I think for most of you running the more lands oriented version of this deck might just be better off running RGb combo lands, a pox shell is probably not where you want to be. I don't think that the lands approach really works well with this deck at least if we are talking about the version that OP came up with and Ken Haas is known for doing well with. This deck is geared more towards resource denial (duh it is built with the pox shell) as opposed to constantly making 20/20s like what RG lands does. I also disagree with a lot of you dropping entombs, entomb is actually insane in this deck. It's pretty much the equivalent of gamble in RG lands and has a little more synergy with the deck than gamble. It feels like even in games where people are boarding in RIP you can do so much without even utilizing the graveyard.

I'm still learning the deck so do take my comments with a grain of salt. It looks like Ken Haas has also done well with the deck recently (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=20027&iddeck=152525). I have been playing a slightly modified version of one of his old lists since I am a 1 tabernacle pleb and a baby afraid of blood moon.

1 Nether Spirit

2 Abrupt Decay
2 Punishing Fire
3 Crop Rotation
4 Entomb
1 Raven's Crime
4 Life from the Loam
4 Smallpox
3 Mirri's Guile
3 Liliana of the Veil
4 Mox Diamond

1 Bojuka Bog
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Badlands
2 Bayou
2 Dark Depths
2 Maze of Ith
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Verdant Catacombs
3 Thespian's Stage
3 Bloodstained Mire
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Wasteland
1 Swamp

1 Ancient Grudge
1 Coffin Purge
1 Crop Rotation
1 Krosan Grip
2 Ray of Revelation
1 Flame Jab
2 Innocent Blood
3 Thoughtseize
1 Phyrexian Ingester
2 Abrupt Decay

[Crimhead]

I think for most of you running the more lands oriented version of this deck might just be better off running RGb combo lands, a pox shell is probably not where you want to be. I don't think that the lands approach really works well with this deck at least if we are talking about the version that OP came up with and Ken Haas is known for doing well with. This deck is geared more towards resource denial (duh it is built with the pox shell) as opposed to constantly making 20/20s like what RG lands does.
I play RGCL occasionally to mix it up or to meta-game. But mostly I play RUGb Lands. So for me Lands is primarily a resource denial control deck - I usually only need to make the token once.

The list I've been playing with looks like RGBCL but runs less combo and more control (Smallpox + Cabal Pit). I don't run Lilis or Raven's Crime, but I have Ports plus the extra Maze (and Explorations to get them going), so I think I have as much control as Haas' list does.

Not to say anything against Haas or his deck, but I don't see that trying to run Explorations and a more land heavy build is a bad idea. I haven't had much testing yet, but at the very least it runs pretty smooth.


I also disagree with a lot of you dropping entombs, entomb is actually insane in this deck. It's pretty much the equivalent of gamble in RG lands and has a little more synergy with the deck than gamble. It feels like even in games where people are boarding in RIP you can do so much without even utilizing the graveyard. You can certainly do a lot. But what you can't do is cast Entomb! Entomb is of less value if I'm running Vortexes instead of PFs and Flame Jab (and no Raven's Crime).

[Claymore]

Took Jund Depths with and without the Reanimator sideboard to GP Charlotte for side events.

For the straight list, went 6-2 combined over two events (or maybe 5-3, did two 2-1-1 ID's), for Reanimator went 7-1 over 2 events, for 16-4 in games.

This list felt way more explosive and controlling than the Lands matchups I've watched; way less durdly especially when in Reanimator mode. My matches were over in 20-30 minutes, but I did play a lot of fast or lopsided matchups anyway. Extra tutor effects with Entomb in addition to Crops and Gambles got me out of a ton of situations when I didn't have Loam targets or Reanimate effects. Having a ton of options game 1 for stuff like Raven's Crime against combo or Bojuka Bog against Dredge/Lands was very good, and Smallpox of course acting as both creature control and discard against Combo was great. I did side it out most games though.

I would of course drop The Abyss for something more effective, but I had just gotten it that weekend. I wasn't too pleased with Sire of Insanity but I don't think my matchups were that great for it. I think one Animate Dead should definitely be Unburial Rites just to have an Entombable or dredged reanimate spell.

I can't remember all of the matchups for Day 1.

Straight:

Dnt 2-0 (Smallpox is king)
Belcher 2-1
4c Delver 1-2
Punishing Maverick 2-0

?
?
?
?

Reanimator:
MUD 2-1 (sideboard Port helped keep his sol lands in check while Wasteland could do work)
Elves 2-0 (reanimate Iona, not sure necessary)
Belcher 2-0
DnT 2-0 (Smallpox King)

12 Post 2-0 (show and tell Griselbrand, drawing 7 got me Exploration for followup Marit Lage)
Dredge 2-0 (Crop Rot Bojuka Bog won games, in an extra game, reanimate Griselbrand could've stabilized if I found Crop or Tabernacle against 8 zombies and a Grave Troll)
Belcher 2-0 (didn't have Crop, reanimate Griselbrand against 12 Goblins turn 1 won the race)
RG Lands 0-2 (sloppy play w/ ID beforehand, still hard match. His mainboard Ghost Quarter was a winner game 1 and made me take an awkward losing route with Liliana. Reanimate Iona nearly got there on Green game 2 except for a Gamble for a 50/50 shot on Crucible, maybe should have gotten Griselbrand).

1 Badlands
2 Bayou
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Cabal Pit
2 Dark Depths
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Maze of Ith
1 Riftstone Portal
1 Swamp
1 Taiga
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
3 Thespian's Stage
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
1 Ghost Quarter

2 Abrupt Decay
3 Crop Rotation
4 Entomb
3 Exploration (1 was mana bond originally for the first 2 events, bought and swapped for Reanimate day)
2 Gamble
3 Life from the Loam
4 Liliana of the Veil
4 Mox Diamond
1 Nether Spirit
2 Punishing Fire
1 Raven's Crime
3 Smallpox

Sideboard:

2 Tireless Tracker (never saw)
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Karakas
2 Krosan Grip
2 Pithing Needle
3 Sphere of Resistance
3 Thoughtseize
1 Worm Harvest (didn't use)

Reanimator:

-1 Ghost Quarter from main to go to 60 cards

Sideboard:
4 Reanimate
2 Animate Dead (1 should've been Unburial Rites but I forgot it)
1 Griselbrand
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Sire of Insanity

1 Karakas
2 Krosan Grip
1 Ancient Grudge
1 The Abyss (because yolo)
1 Rishadan Port

[Claymore]

Glanced at the first few pages and thought that Cabal Therapy could actually be interesting here. Raven's Crime is definitely better overall, but in a build that runs Worm Harvest and Nether Spirit, you can profitably run 3-4 Cabal Therapies to not only have early discard pressure, but also flash them back mid/late game after you've dredged them over.

Or you can Gamble/Entomb a Therapy as necessary and flashback with an active Nether Spirit in a pinch.

Also considering a different sideboard technique of boarding in 4 Tireless Trackers, 2 Smokestacks, Worm Harvest, and go into an abominable Stax Lands deck, with Buried Ruin to recollect artifacts, Tracker to gain you a bunch of Clues to sac to Stax, and effects like Exploration and Harvest to further flood the board with Stax permanents. The intent would be to go even further down the Pox attrition plan in the slower matchups like Miracles and perhaps Lands.

[Claymore]

I took a modified version of my list to a local 11 person GPT, ended up going 2-2 (plus the Bye). Weird meta of 3 lands decks (including myself)

0-2 Burn: Deck decided to not cooperate and I drew 2 of my 28 lands in each game. Smallpox didn't help either but it did slow Burn down a little.
0-2 BUG Lands Control: Deck could not stabilize. Was able to almost fight through Surgicals on Loam, Bojuka Bog on my everything, and a Liliana Ultimate through timely Bogs of my own, Nether Spirit, and Pithing Needles, but couldn't get my feet set in either game.
1-0-1 Cloudpost: Got a quick game 1 off of entombing for Loam and then Gambling and Crop Rotating for both combo pieces to swing Marit Lage turn 5. Game 2 was just bizarre, featuring surgicals on Loam and Wasteland, Rishadan Port tying down colored and then cloudpost mana, the Abyss taking down Prime Time, Liliana Ultimate to remove colored lands, then Ugin wiping out a Liliana, Abyss, and Exploration. Ended up whiffing on an end of turn Crop Rotation -> Marit Lage by forgetting that Ugin can exile Lage and not taking him out, but luckily won the match by drawing out.
2-1 BR Griselbrand Reanimator: Lucked into a win here with a slow game 1 that let me get a natural swinging turn 5 Lage, chumped by an animated Griselbrand. Was able to turn 1 gamble into Bojuka Bog but it wasn't super necessary. Lost game 2 in spectacular turn 1 fashion. Game 3 lucked into having Karakas, Loam, and Nether Spirit in hand. Played Karakas to discourage a legendary reanimation so he went for Sire of Insanity. Spirit was able to chump block the rest of the game and was able to dredge into the combo in short fashion.

Not a ton of info to be gained but entertaining nonetheless.

[non-inflammable]

I try and play every flavor of Lands and was intrigued by living wish since I hate having useless lands in my opening hand.
The wish board is rather interesting in that it offers real protection from surgical extraction effects.
and since my SB is very important, i'll list it first.


The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
Ghost Quarter
Karakas
Riftstone Portal
Academy Ruins
Boseiju, Who Shelters All
Wasteland
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Thespian's Stage
Dark Depths
Maze of Ith
Bojuka Bog
Tireless Tracker
Vampire Hexmage
Glacial Chasm



Main Deck

4 Living Wish

4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
3 Grove of the Burnwilllows
1 Forest
1 Taiga
4 Fetches
2 Bayou
3 Wasteland
3 Thespian's Stage
2 Dark Depths
1 Maze of Ith
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

4 Mox Diamond

4 Chalice of the Void
3 Trinisphere
1 Smokestack

3 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Zuran Orb

3 Abrupt Decay
3 Punishing Fire

3 Life from the Loam
1 Crucible of Worlds

1 Nether Spirit
1 Worm Harvest



This is the list I ran last night for a 2-1-1, third place finish.
I spent some of my accrued credit and got a Leovold, emissary of trest for my Shardless Bug deck.

The ensnaring bridges and the zuran orb were the flex spots.
If you don't run zuran Orb, then maybe take out glacial chasm from the SB since you can't really enjoy a chasm lock.

The flex spots could come out and be replaced by smallpox or Liliana of the veil but then I would see a need for more Urborg, tomb of yawgmoth.
Most of the games turned into a grind with wins by spirit or worms under a bridge.
One opponent said something about watching "paint dry" until I hit the worm harvest and I replied something like, "yeah, red, green and black paint".
However, Omniscience can still blow you out on turn two, even with a chalice of the void on "1".

I still run one Academy Ruins in the SB without a dedicated Island since it can win a long stall with a Mox Diamond or a Thespian's Stage that has copied a blue source.

I can see a need for engineered explosives for blowing up your own bridge to attack with marit lage.
At least once, I used my own abrupt decay to blow up my bridge and attack with marit lage.
Engineered Explosives also has a benefit in that there are no 1 or 2 cmc permanents in this list.
It would take some effort but without cards like tolaria west there is no way to reliably get engineered explosives and set up something recursive with Academy ruins.

[kinda]

@non-inflammable: List looks great but I would add more anti combo wish targets. Hexmage and stage add flexibility but it's redundant. Faerie macabre is a good option, better then bog I'd say. Revoker is good vs sneak attack and heritage Druid and vial. Vs ant and show and tell I'm not sure but I'd want something.

[non-inflammable]

Vs ant and show and tell I'm not sure but I'd want something.

The ant match-up should be good with 4 chalice and 3 trinisphere main deck.
Show and Tell could maybe use an Ashen Rider?

excellent suggestion for revoker, totally forgot about him and faerie macabre is a very good inclusion, as well.
There is at least one player on B/R reanimator.

I'd drop from my SB the Riftstone Portal and maybe the Tireless Tracker and Boseiju?
Tracker was there just for drawing cards once a board stall happened.

At a table next to me last night, an omni-show player never let Ashen Rider's exile happen with firemind's foresight into release the ants.

[kinda]

The ant match-up should be good with 4 chalice and 3 trinisphere main deck.
Show and Tell could maybe use an Ashen Rider?

excellent suggestion for revoker, totally forgot about him and faerie macabre is a very good inclusion, as well.
There is at least one player on B/R reanimator.

I'd drop from my SB the Riftstone Portal and maybe the Tireless Tracker and Boseiju?
Tracker was there just for drawing cards once a board stall happened.

At a table next to me last night, an omni-show player never let Ashen Rider's exile happen with firemind's foresight into release the ants.

Yeah that can happen but I'm guessing there is maybe 1 person on that deck in your meta. If there's multiple omni-tell-wish lists Iona might be worth considering. I miss omni-tell :cool:.

[Claymore]

Smallpox is looking real good right now.

[hovercraft]

Interesting list! You can still Chasm lock with Life from the Loam without Zuran Orb. You just dont pay upkeep costs, and get it back with Loam (dredging Loam if you don't have it in hand).

I have been on BG Depths with Mox, Wish and Chalice for awhile but I finally got Groves recently and have been wondering how to incorporate them into the deck, for a more controlling version. I'll have to brew up a list and start some testing. I think I would go more towards the Smallpox/Liliana direction you mentioned with extra Urbog. I am still missing Bridges, Tabernacle and Crucible.

Do you really need 7 Sol lands and 4 Mox?

[Emrakul503]

Does anyone have a post Top ban version of this list they are working on? I have R/G Combo lands, but like the idea of playing Smallpox in it somehow.

[CptHaddock]

Does anyone have a post Top ban version of this list they are working on? I have R/G Combo lands, but like the idea of playing Smallpox in it somehow.

I have a feeling that Ken's version (http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=20027&iddeck=152525) of the deck is still pretty good. Just from generally playing 2 of your worst matchups are "solved" miracles is gone and d&t is in a weird state. The combo matchups are pretty hit or miss.

I would approach this more as a pox deck than a lands deck but that is just 1 man's opinion.

[CptHaddock]

Looks like K Haas has done it again (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=113746).

[Manroe]

Looks like K Haas has done it again (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=113746).
I was wrapped up in my match and thought I was sitting next to him, how funny!

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk

[CptHaddock]

I was wrapped up in my match and thought I was sitting next to him, how funny!

Sent from my ONEPLUS A3000 using Tapatalk

Sick, he did say that D&T and Miracles were the deck's worst matchups. With Miracles gone and D&T kind of sketch now it seems pretty good positioned but then again he's the only one who has actually shown some success with it. :tongue: Where you also on a variant of this deck?

[Manroe]

Sick, he did say that D&T and Miracles were the deck's worst matchups. With Miracles gone and D&T kind of sketch now it seems pretty good positioned but then again he's the only one who has actually shown some success with it. :tongue: Where you also on a variant of this deck?

No, I tried my hand at storm and promptly scrubbed. I really would love to work back towards this though.

[juzamjimjams]

Is Sylvan library not just, totally better in this deck? Seems like draw power is what you want to supplement all the tutoring, plus extra dredges isn't something that Mirri's Guile offers.

[Claymore]

Mirri's Guile comes down turn 1 and helps set up a Smallpox turn 2, and lets you check out the top 3 to see if you want to dredge or not. In my experience this isn't a super heavy dredging deck since you have Entombs, Decays, Liliana, and Smallpox plays, plus the sideboard...although it does have 4 Entombs and 4 Loams, so maybe his play style has shifted.

[juzamjimjams]

Heavy dredging or not, sylvan library allows you to dredge where you would want to in the later stages of the game, IE when you start wanting to recur wastelands/your opponent has disrupted your depths combo somehow/you need to rebuild after multiple smallpoxes, all the while allowing you to continue to dig through your deck for more action/set up your next dredge or draw.

Being able to play guile t1 without a diamond, and wanting to set up your smallpoxes early is certainly a valid point however, so thank you for your insight. This list does look like it wants to grind a little more with mazes, nether spirit, and raven's crime though, so it's definitely worth consideration.

[Claymore]

Went 1-2 with the list last night, losing 1-2 to each DnT and SnT, then beating Elves 2-1.

Used mostly Haas's recent deck, except 2x Mirri, 1x Sylvan (only had 2 Guiles), Karakas main over Bojuka, and then my own sideboard. The sideboard I used probably wasn't the best.

I did like Mirri's Guile overall, being able to have it as a 1 drop or saving poor hands turn 1 was nice. Sylvan may be better overall for being able to draw actual cards later, but it seemed very critical to be able to drop interaction turn 2. Turn 1 Entomb or Guile, turn 2 business spells.

Kolaghan's Command (has been good in the past)
3 Thoughtseize
Ray Revelation
Krosan Grip
Bojuka Bog
Toxic Deluge
Massacre
Worm Harvest (not used but should've brought in)
Crucible of Worlds (not used)
Vengeful Pharaoh (neat concept, but never felt appropriate)
Molten Vortex (great)
2 Surgical Extraction


DnT I was able to win fairly quickly after some initial Smallpox disruption off of Tabernacle and Mazes, and being able to entomb Riftstone Portal to make a faster Lage. Game 2 was grindy until 2 Prelates hit the board (2 & 3) and I made the misplay of dredging over Molten Vortex instead of waiting to draw more lands (my Loams were stopped). I think I also needed to hold Massacre for longer than just getting a Mom and SFM. I was able to partially stabilize, but then my Depths got extracted and then I was eventually overrun. Game 3 I had to take a shitty hand and got prisoned out via several ports and Thalia.

-Moxes, Lilianas
+Kolaghans Command, Krosan Grip, Ray Revelation, Deluge, Massacre, Vengeful Pharoah

SnT I used the first few turns to Entomb a Raven's Crime and shred his hand, although I got very lucky by having Karakas in hand for turn 2 Show into Emrakul. Game 2 I made some misplays (not being hyper aggressive and crop-Wasteland his top decked dual, keeping up my Karakas and Maze in defense for too long). I did get to entomb a Ray Revelation to kill Blood Moon, but lost to sneak attach annihilator. Game 3 I again played too passively and had to maze my Lage away from Griselbrands that were snuck in to block him. Had a situation of opponent able to sneak attack a few times and played too cautious of wanting to keep up both Maze and Karakas, letting him cantrip into business and Blood moons.

-Punishing Fires (could've kept to burn him out a few times), Decays I think
+Thoughtseizes, Krosan Grip, Ray Revel (should've brought in Surgicals)

Elves I got lucky with either drawing early Tabernacle or Crop Rotation each game, and was able to wipe out his elves with Fires and Vortex. Game 1 he managed to break through with Cradle to be able to Hoof me through a Marit Lage.

Still learning the deck, it feels fine but I think the pilot needs to be aggressive with the control elements.

The Entomb toolbox is definitely powerful, and I think there's a lot of utility in there. Haas uses:

Ancient Grudge
Coffin Purge
Ray Revelation
Flame Jab

There may be better options, or others worth considering (Vengeful Pharoah, Heaven//Earth, Moment's Peace).

[TTX]

Hey I've been playing around with a modified version of Kennen's list, incorporating some of the suggestions from this thread. I thought I'd share my list.
I really dig the deck overall, super fun, very different every game. The deck has so much synergy sometimes it's difficult to make the optimal decision.

I've been having issues against D&T (grind and protection), BR Reanimator (speed), Sneak and Show (speed/non-interactive), Burn (speed).
Vengeful Pharaoh is amazing against Eldrazi, Reanimator, and Eldrazi.
Ashen Rider is a either a lucky Show and Tell or Entomb/Exhume spike.
I would not go below 3 Mirri's Guile. I could see using 1 Sylvan Library, but turn 1 is so much better and I'd rather be able to screen my Life from the Loam dredges.
Card advantage is gained elsewhere.


// 60 Maindeck
1 Nether Spirit

3 Liliana of the Veil
4 Life from the Loam
4 Smallpox
1 Raven's Crime
4 Mox Diamond
3 Mirri's Guile
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Punishing Fire
4 Crop Rotation
4 Entomb

// 29 Land
2 Dark Depths
3 Thespian's Stage
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Swamp
2 Badlands
2 Bayou
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Maze of Ith
1 Riftstone Portal
4 Wasteland
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Karakas
1 Taiga

// 15 Sideboard
SB: 1 Vengeful Pharaoh
SB: 1 Ashen Rider
SB: 1 Molten Vortex
SB: 1 Dread of Night
SB: 1 Ancient Grudge
SB: 1 Coffin Purge
SB: 1 Nature's Claim
SB: 1 Ray of Revelation
SB: 1 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Flame Jab
SB: 1 Massacre
SB: 1 Raven's Crime
SB: 3 Thoughtseize

Any suggestions?

[Albarkhane]

Some kind of necromancy on the topic but i am wondering if that deck could be interesting in the current meta (and if other players are still playing it).

As it is my first post here, i guess i shall say a few words on how i came to that deck. A few years ago, i got tired of playing blue decks so i worked some on POX decks. At first, it was just out of nostalgia from old school black decks and only for fun games. But soon i came to the conclusion that mono black POX could never be really competitive until they get a way to filter/draw and a reliable kill (i mean a kill that one can get when it is needed). So i explored BG POX decks for some time when a friend of mine gave me the link toward Kennen Haas first Jund Depths list. Wow, it was exactly what i was looking for ... only it was much better than what i could have brew ! Since then, i played no other deck (in Legacy i mean) !

The first lesson i learned was : it is not a Land deck ! When i first played it, i kept loosing with it (quite a lot actually) until i understood that point. So i played it like a POX, and i kept winning with it ! For me, the best view about it is to consider it is a BG POX that happens to use punishing fire instead of cabal pit, and that happens to use Dark Depths as a kill. OK, now and then, one should run into the combo but it should be only particular cases, not the rule.

I won several small (less than 20 people) tournaments and Top8-ed in more big and competitive ones (best results so far 2nd out of 50 people). The deck has the potential for doing great stuff, as Kennen Haas has proven several times, but it is very difficult to play with and one must know very well the meta and the various matchup. So i am here to share some experience with other people interested by the deck so we can improve.

Basically my MD list is the same as Kennen Haas (last iteration of it) but my sideboard is a bit different. Actually not that much but there are some slots that are still floating.

Let's talk about some matchup then :

- Elves
Tabernacle is our best friend (it is the only matchup where the one in the sideboard is really necessary) since it negates their craddles. We must deal with their opening hand, if they have too many creatures we must target the ones that are synergy. The plan is that they don't draw any additional card, then our CA will do the job.

- Reanimator (BR)
We need an opening hand able to deal with their first reanimate target (but we have plenty of solution for that) because most of the time they will be quicker than us there. IMHO, victories will be close but it is not a difficult matchup.

- Red stompy
This matchup can be a nightmare but we have some tools. Moxen and Riftstone portal are critical. Nether spirit can shine too (i won some games where i could not cast a single spell but put online a spirit that did the job ...). Do not forget the 'new' rule about blood moon (with Dark Depths). Abrupt decay can help you breath some but basically the matchup is very difficult and i am not sure to have any good plan for it.

- 4C Control
They have two sideboard cards that can be devastating : diabolic edict and surgical extraction. We need to play around them. Edict can be dealt with using discard. As for surgical, we must play very tight so to limit the hurt from the card. It is not so difficult a matchup and game 1 is usually ours, but we must play very tight.

I could go on but i am not sure some-one will read the post so let's stop for now ....

[pettdan]

I'm reading, go on.. :)

[Mr. Safety]

I've considered this as well. Right now I'm grinding a Bg depths deck that tries to hybride between mid-range confidant/Drs deck and depths combo.

I'm reading too...

[Albarkhane]

It is nice to see there is some interest for this deck. :)

Let's go on about some more matchup ...

Storm
We can put online raven's crime engine quite easily and we have additional discard post-board. Holding a crop rotation in hand for Bujuka bog or Tabernacle (if they go for the empty the warren plan) is great too. If they get too greedy with ad nauseam, punishing fire can be a nice punishment. Post-board, an entombed coffin purge is a silver bullet to catch past in flame and make them fizzle. We can try to go all-in for the combo but we should know that they are usually quicker than us. To sum it up, it is a difficult matchup but we are not defenseless.

Grixis Delver
Basically the same problem as 4C control. We can deal with their creature but the hate they will board in can be a nightmare.

Land
I tested that matchup and i have a plan (secret tech, lol) but i did not get paired against land in a tournament so far so i can't tell yet if it is worth it or not.

Burn
Entomb into Nether spirit is a must. Do not overextend because of price of progress (if possible try to get 2 moxen online). Post-board we need anti-enchantment to deal with the cards they will board in. You need to try this matchup but with enough testing it is not so difficult to win.

I guess this covers most of the important matchups.

Let's try some open questions :
- What do you think about these strategies ?
- Why play this deck over classic land deck (or other decks) ? (my own answer is i get bored when i play land and i have lot of fun with this one ... not the most objective answer)
- Any hints or advice on how i can improve with it ?

[Albarkhane]

Not that much interest obviously ;)

[Ingo]

- Why play this deck over classic land deck (or other decks) ? (my own answer is i get bored when i play land and i have lot of fun with this one ... not the most objective answer)


The problem with Jund Depths is that there's almost no reason to play this over Lands. The decks play very similar and while it has a leverage in dealing with TNN through sacrificial effects in a poxlike way, it looses a lot of advantage in having a much slower Wincon and a weaker loamplan. So why wouldn't you run RG or RUG Lands instead (objective answers required)?

[SanderM]

Good day everyone! ^_^

After playing RUG Lands, R/G Lands and B/G pox im going to give this deck for a spin. Lets try to get this Thread on its feet again.

@Albarkhane. First of all thanks for the revival of this thread. This is really a fun and rewarding deck to play. Plus the look on an opponents face when you succesfully resolve smallpox is priceless 9 out of 10 times.

Please allow me to give my 2 cents on the things spoken of earlier.



- Reanimator (BR)
Our best plan is to combo into Bojuka Bog + Thespian's Stage which is a hard lock in this matchup.



How does this provide a hard lock? Bojuka Bog has an "Enters the battlefield" trigger. Thespian's Stage won't be able to trigger it with its copy ability. Since it is already on the battlefield.


The problem with Jund Depths is that there's almost no reason to play this over Lands. The decks play very similar and while it has a leverage in dealing with TNN through sacrificial effects in a poxlike way, it looses a lot of advantage in having a much slower Wincon and a weaker loamplan. So why wouldn't you run RG or RUG Lands instead (objective answers required)?

The deck doesn't play like lands. Like Albarkhane mentioned, it leans more on the pox side. Meaning getting an opponent hellbent is more important then keeping him off lands. You gotta think of it as a pox deck but with Punishing Fire in addition.

Currently im almost running the exact list as Kennen does/did. However, i have removed 1 Maze of Ith and replaced it with Collective Brutality. I placed the second Maze of Ith in the sideboard cause i don't own a second copy of the The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

Mainboard.

Lands

2 Badlands
2 Bayou
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Dark Depths
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Maze of Ith
1 Riftstone Portal
1 Swamp
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
3 Thespian's Stage
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland

Spells

1 Nether Spirit
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Crop Rotation
4 Entomb
4 Life from the Loam
2 Punishing Fire
1 Raven's Crime
1 Collective Brutality
4 Smallpox
2 Liliana of the Veil
3 Mirri's Guile
4 Mox Diamond

Sideboard.

1 Ancient Grudge
1 Coffin Purge
1 Crop Rotation
1 Flame Jab
1 Innocent Blood
1 Karakas
1 Massacre
1 Molten Vortex
1 Nature's Claim
1 Raven's Crime
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Maze of Ith
3 Thoughtseize


I'm considering to replace the Thoughtseize with Duress and the Innocent Blood with Diabolic Edict. Reason is because i only run Thoughtseize against combo anyway. Reason for replacing the Innocent Blood with Diabolic Edict is because of other Marit Lage based decks.

Any thoughts/suggestions/comments on this?

[Ingo]

The deck doesn't play like lands. Like Albarkhane mentioned, it leans more on the pox side. Meaning getting an opponent hellbent is more important then keeping him off lands. You gotta think of it as a pox deck but with Punishing Fire in addition.


I agree with you on the poxpoint of view, but this is still a deck with 4 loams and 4 entombs. When I played this deck, it felt like being centered around the 4 smallpox and 2 Liliana, with loams and Pfires to break the symmetry. But without those 6 (counterable) cards, what's left is a loamengine with only mox as acceleration and a lot of cards lost while dredging.
This deck always made me feel like it combined too many gameplans hindering eachother: Punishing Fire and Depths/Stage wanting you to make as much landdrops as possible, while smallpox sets you back (making the tripled-color landbase requiring double black hard to maintain). Or loam needing acceleration to translate handadvantage into boardadvantage, while lacking exploration.

For those reasons, aren't 4 loams excessive, and isn't one enough (since the deck isn't dependant on a loamengine and there's still 4x entomb)? Cards like the new Squee break the symmetry from smallpox/Liliana too, although double red is probably an issue (Haas ran the old Squee in his first lists). Maybe Heaven//Earth is worth testing?

[East3]

I think the main problem people have with understanding this deck is the name. Jund Depths? Fuck the SCG trash naming system. People see the word "Depths" and immediately compare this to Lands or Turbo Depths and that just isn't the case.

I could go on an elaborate rant as to why this deck, or any Legacy deck, shouldn't be called "Jund" (or Jeskai, Sultai, etc.) but that would be a little off topic. So let's focus on the "Depths" part: Why would I name my deck after a 2 of that gets boarded out against the most popular decks in the meta? The only reason Dark Depths is in this deck is because Thespian's Stage was printed and gave us a better way to end a game quickly if necessary. Before Thespian's Stage we ran Batterskull and Buried Ruin as a finisher. We were already playing Loam so it fit nicely. You need to think of this deck more as a BGr Loam Pox than some Dark Depths deck.

@Albarkhane. There is definitely still interest in this deck so keep it up.

@Ingo. Check out Kennen Haas' deck tech, specifically the part beginning, "Life from the Loam is an obvious four-of" and it will help you out. http://www.starcitygames.com/article/27680_Leaving-A-Legacy-Jund-Depths.html

@SanderM. Glad to see others are still running the Kennen Haas version. This thread had a lot of people devolving the deck into half Pox and half Reanimator which I never saw necessary. Also, if you're considering running Duress because it's only against combo anyway, try Hymn to Tourach. That's been working well for me, especially against Storm since you can grab 2 cards putting them further from a high enough storm count. I've never tried Collective Brutality so let me know what that's like in this deck.

Mainboard

Lands

3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Bloodstaind Mire
2 Bayou
1 Badlands
1 Taiga
1 Swamp
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Thespian's Stage
2 Dark Depths
2 Maze of Ith
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Riftstone Portal
4 Wasteland

Spells

1 Nether Spirit
2 Lilliana of the Veil
4 Smallpox
4 Life from the Loam
4 Entomb
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Punishing Fire
3 Crop Rotation
3 Mirri's Guile
1 Raven's Crime
4 Mox Diamond

Sideboard

1 Ancient Grudge
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Coffin Purge
1 Nature's Claim
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Innocent Blood
1 Flame Jab
1 Terminate
1 Massacre
1 Karakas
1 Crop Rotation
1 Raven's Crime
3 Hymn to Tourach

Taiga is nice to have when you just want another green source or when Urborg is out. Can't afford the 2nd Tabernacle or Drop of Honey. Considered Porphyry Nodes with access to white via Portal and Diamond, but I haven't tried it at all. Terminate is because I wanted a non-edict answer to Grave Titan. It's sometimes a 3rd PFire. Loam makes everything better, especially Mirri's Guile. 2 Liliana feels so weird but decks are going wider these days so she isn't always the best. Smallpox is my favorite answer to my opponent going "Land, Delver, Go" just watch out for Daze. Smallpox and Entomb are also great counter bait when you want to resolve a Crop Rotation or Liliana. People really fear Smallpox.

[Ingo]

@Ingo. Check out Kennen Haas' deck tech, specifically the part beginning, "Life from the Loam is an obvious four-of" and it will help you out. http://www.starcitygames.com/article/27680_Leaving-A-Legacy-Jund-Depths.html


Why is loam an obvious 4-off? After reading Haas article again (read it 4 years ago too), I still don’t see the answer.
Because there’s a dedication towards lands? BG pox has that too, 4c loam as well. Neither play 4 loams, or 4 virtual copies through 4 entombs on top of that.

I can understand versions of Jund Depths splashing some explorations along the loampackage, making it a better landslike-deck.
I can understand cutting down on some loams/entombs, enforcing the poxpart.
However, I don’t understand an “obvious” 4loam/4entomb-package, while meaning to play the deck in a poxstyle way. If you don’t intend to really abuse this dedication to a loamstrategy in 8! cards, wouldn’t you better play some other cards instead?

[SanderM]

@SanderM. Glad to see others are still running the Kennen Haas version. This thread had a lot of people devolving the deck into half Pox and half Reanimator which I never saw necessary. Also, if you're considering running Duress because it's only against combo anyway, try Hymn to Tourach. That's been working well for me, especially against Storm since you can grab 2 cards putting them further from a high enough storm count. I've never tried Collective Brutality so let me know what that's like in this deck.


I've also tried Hymn to Tourach. It is effective against storm. However i found it lacking against Show and Sneak decks. Since they are not trying to achieve a high as possible storm counter but just need some mana to drop in a gigantic creature. I'd rather just rip the Show and Tell or Sneak Attack from their hand.


Why is loam an obvious 4-off? After reading Haas article again (read it 4 years ago too), I still don’t see the answer.
Because there’s a dedication towards lands? BG pox has that too, 4c loam as well. Neither play 4 loams, or 4 virtual copies through 4 entombs on top of that.

I can understand versions of Jund Depths splashing some explorations along the loampackage, making it a better landslike-deck.
I can understand cutting down on some loams/entombs, enforcing the poxpart.
However, I don’t understand an “obvious” 4loam/4entomb-package, while meaning to play the deck in a poxstyle way. If you don’t intend to really abuse this dedication to a loamstrategy in 8! cards, wouldn’t you better play some other cards instead?

It's not about having as much lands as possible on the field. You can use the lands to discard them to Liliana of the Veil , Smallpox, Raven's Crime, Mox Diamond ,etc..
I'd rather discard my Swamp over and over again to any of the above instead of needing to discard an Abrupt Decay or anything similar.

Heaven // Earth could be worth a shot. I'll give it a try and get back to you.

[streetMage]

I've been playing a B/G Loam Pox deck with some success at small locals.
The Punishing Fire engine is extremely attractive, but I keep going back and forth on whether I want to add a third color and virtually give up on my Hymns, Bloodghast and Cabal Therapy. I think adding the third color is probably the bigger issue; yes plently of sucessful Legacy decks do it, but they arent running 3-4x Smallpox. Either way, Punishing Loam has proven itself in real tournaments, so theres merit to it.

My thoughts so far..

Pros to PFire:
-Repeatable/Tutorable
-Hits Planeswalkers
-Wincon

Cons to PFire:
-Two part Engine
-Mana intensive
-Adds third color

Here is my current B/G list:

Lands (28)
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Bayou
3 Wasteland
3 Mishra's Factory
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Swamp
1 Buried Ruin
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Polluted Delta
1 Windswept Heath
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Forest
1 Barren Moor
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Dark Depths
1 Cabal Pit

Creatures (3)
2 Bloodghast
1 Nether Spirit

Spells (22)
3 Smallpox
3 Life from the Loam
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Collective Brutality
2 Hymn to Tourach
2 Entomb
2 Fatal Push
2 Cabal Therapy
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Crop Rotation
1 Raven's Crime
1 Thoughtseize

Planeswalkers (2)
2 Liliana of the Veil

Artifacts (4)
3 Mox Diamond
1 Cursed Scroll

Enchantments (1)
1 Mirri's Guile

Sideboard (15)
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Pithing Needle
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Coffin Purge
1 Garruk Relentless
1 Lost Legacy
1 Duress
1 Karakas
1 Crop Rotation
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Chains of Mephistopheles
1 Bontu's Last Reckoning
1 Ensnaring Bridge

Also you guys planning to run the new Squee?
I can't think of any removal it cares about...

http://mythicspoiler.com/dom/cards/squeetheimmortal1.jpg

[Mr. Safety]

Looking at your BG list, it already looks pretty solid. Collective Brutality does a lot of work here, basically doing what you would want Punishing Fire to do. You could always go old school and play singles of Eternal Witness/Unearth, which is another way to recur your disruption.

I think the real issue isn't the 3rd color...it's the colorless lands like Factory and Depths (I look at Wasteland as a spell, not a land.) So you're basically already playing a 3 color deck while only in BG, R makes it play more like a 4 color deck. Without Deathrite Shaman or leaning heavily on Urborgs it gets hard to even be functional.

Casting the new Squee is blah. The old squee was a discard engine that worked with Smallpox and Liliana, and a threat only as a last resort really (and an easier casting cost at 2R.)

[streetMage]

Looking at your BG list, it already looks pretty solid. Collective Brutality does a lot of work here, basically doing what you would want Punishing Fire to do...Thanks for the input.
Collective Brutality can't hit planeswalkers doe; my PFire equivalent is really Bloodghast.

Collective Brutality is virtually a soft Smallpox. It drains, can make the opponent discard and kills most nuisance creatures in the format. I of course leverage the escalate ability with cards like Bloodghast, Loam, Cabal Therapy, etc..

[Ingo]

Casting the new Squee is blah. The old squee was a discard engine that worked with Smallpox and Liliana, and a threat only as a last resort really (and an easier casting cost at 2R.)

You only need 1 loam or Pfire (with grove) to break the discard symmetry of smallpox/Liliana, so I don't think you should rate all cards solely on this type of cardadvantage. Squee can be discarded once though, can be loamed into, can be entombed. Thats pretty sweet for 1 card, and trading with creatures on board is cardadvantage too.
Double red is a big deal though. But I think he's worth a shot.

EDIT: and it plays through gravehate. How hilarious is it to play this through Rest in Peace of Leyline of the void :tongue:

[Mr. Safety]

The double red is really what ends it, honestly. I think pw's like garruk relentless or chandra, pyromaster are better win conditions if you want to get around grave hate.

[Alexeezay]

Different question: Faithless Looting or Mirri's Guile? What's better? Have you guys been testing both?