Crabs Against Humanity AKA How Stupid Is This?

[alohazendo]

Crabs Against Humidity is looking to capitalize on the synergies among Cabal Therapy, Veteran Explorer, Archive Trap, Mind Funeral, and Hedron Crab. I'm guessing everyone's familiar with Nic Fit by now. With Hedron Crab in play, the Veteran Explorer trigger can set off a mill cascade. If your opponent searches for basics, it sets up Archive Trap and thins the deck of lands to maximize the effectiveness of Mind Funeral. Therapy, Force of Will, and Abrupt Decay hopefully keep your opponent on their heels long enough mill them out. Crop Rotation can trigger the Crab and get you access to a tool box of land answers. Of course, it can also get you a quick, end of opponent's turn, Marit Lage for those annoying Emrakul, the Aeons Torn decks.

Main Deck:


4 Veteran Explorer
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Hedron Crab
4 Archive Trap
4 Mind Funeral
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Crop Rotation
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Life from the Loam

4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
3 Forest
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Bayou
1 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Dark Depths
1 Glacial Chasm


Sideboard:

4 Grafdigger's Cage
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Mindbreak Trap
4 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Pithing Needle


So, that's the idea. Please, help me answer the eternal question: How stupid is this?

[gngpostalsrvc]

A little background for everyone: alohazendo played a version of this deck splashing white for Knight of the Reliquary at a Legacy brewers tournament I hosted yesterday and the deck performed really well. I think this deck has a lot of potential.

Have you considered Glimpse the Unthinkable or Trapmaker's Snare over Mind Grind? I'm not sure how efficient Mind Grind is on average given its manacost. Trapmaker's Snare is nice because it acts as extra copies of your best mill spell and can tutor for SB hate like Mindbreak Trap and Ravenous Trap. Trapmaker's Snare also has the advantage of being $.20 rather than $30 unlike Glimpse the Unthinkable.

An Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth might be helpful since you're running two lands that don't tap for mana and two colorless lands. I'd also recommend one or Two copies of Visions of Beyond as a way to refuel.

[alohazendo]

A little background for everyone: alohazendo played a version of this deck splashing white for Knight of the Reliquary at a Legacy brewers tournament I hosted yesterday and the deck performed really well. I think this deck has a lot of potential.

Have you considered Glimpse the Unthinkable or Trapmaker's Snare over Mind Grind? I'm not sure how efficient Mind Grind is on average given its manacost. Trapmaker's Snare is nice because it acts as extra copies of your best mill spell and can tutor for SB hate like Mindbreak Trap and Ravenous Trap. Trapmaker's Snare also has the advantage of being $.20 rather than $30 unlike Glimpse the Unthinkable.

An Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth might be helpful since you're running two lands that don't tap for mana and two colorless lands. I'd also recommend one or Two copies of Visions of Beyond as a way to refuel.

Thanks. What would you pull? What would your finished list look like?

[evanmartyr]

A little background for everyone: alohazendo played a version of this deck splashing white for Knight of the Reliquary at a Legacy brewers tournament I hosted yesterday and the deck performed really well. I think this deck has a lot of potential.

Have you considered Glimpse the Unthinkable or Trapmaker's Snare over Mind Grind? I'm not sure how efficient Mind Grind is on average given its manacost. Trapmaker's Snare is nice because it acts as extra copies of your best mill spell and can tutor for SB hate like Mindbreak Trap and Ravenous Trap. Trapmaker's Snare also has the advantage of being $.20 rather than $30 unlike Glimpse the Unthinkable.

An Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth might be helpful since you're running two lands that don't tap for mana and two colorless lands. I'd also recommend one or Two copies of Visions of Beyond as a way to refuel.

Visions is quite meh without having already milling a lot. Cabal Therapy and Gitaxian Probe are best buds...maybe probe instead?

I'm on board with trap makers snare, except if your opponent just doesn't fetch the deck would do basically nothing. Glimpse is costly, but you're playing the colors anyway, so I'd stick with that.

[ESG]

Amusing idea, but I would want more ways to ensure I could get the Crab into play, since that's the key engine. How about some number of Worldly Tutor? Either that or additional mill cards. I also like Tarmogoyf in this strategy. You're milling a lot of cards, so Goyf would be very large on average. Worse than Tarmogoyf but still probably worth testing would be Jace's Phantasm. U for a five-power flier is pretty strong, although it would be weak if you drew it before your mill cards, so maybe test just two copies to start with.

[apple713]

I've played and brewed decks almost identical to this. The issue is that you lose to threats. The entire game just becomes a race. The problem with that is the deck is slower than everything else, except maybe miracles. You arnt running removal for threats, and combo decks like ant and show and tell are flat out faster.

What I ended up doing with the deck is turning it into a remove from game deck. I looked at how many threats people actually ran in their decks and you would be surprised to know its fairly low. Some decks like ANT, can be dismantled with a single sadistic sacrament that's not kicked. Others are stopped with ensnaring bridge, and sadistic sacrament targeting their removal. Then they are just left drawing lands and spells that don't do anything.

I had fun playing the deck but I couldnt find any help with it and eventually i abandon it. If I can dig up the list I'll post it. It worked better than any version of stright up mill decks i ever played.

I've written a lot about the deck here (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?30131-Deck-Sadistic-Sacrament&highlight=sadistic+sacrament). I posted the list below, its the one in first post.

Exile spells - 4
4 Sadistic Sacrament

Discard - 7
4 Thoughtseize
3 Inquisition of Kozilek

Removal - 13
2 Maestrom Pulse
2 Toxic Deluge
3 Liliana of the Veil
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Snapcaster Mage

Draw - 3
3 Sylvan Library
1 Bottled Cloister

Lock Pieces - 9
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Jace, The Mind Sculptor

Lands - 24
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Bayou
1 Swamp
1 Forest
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
4 Wasteland
1 Island


SB: 2 Cranial Extraction
SB: 2 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
SB: 4 Hymn to Tourach
SB: 2 Pernicious Deed
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 3 Krosan Grip

[alohazendo]

Amusing idea, but I would want more ways to ensure I could get the Crab into play, since that's the key engine. How about some number of Worldly Tutor? Either that or additional mill cards. I also like Tarmogoyf in this strategy. You're milling a lot of cards, so Goyf would be very large on average. Worse than Tarmogoyf but still probably worth testing would be Jace's Phantasm. U for a five-power flier is pretty strong, although it would be weak if you drew it before your mill cards, so maybe test just two copies to start with.

Worldly Tutor seems very interesting. It might let me reduce creature numbers and search the Tarmogoyf, Hedron Crab, Veteran Explorer..., or whatever I need. Thanks for the idea.

[alohazendo]

I've played and brewed decks almost identical to this. The issue is that you lose to threats. The entire game just becomes a race. The problem with that is the deck is slower than everything else, except maybe miracles. You arnt running removal for threats, and combo decks like ant and show and tell are flat out faster.

What I ended up doing with the deck is turning it into a remove from game deck. I looked at how many threats people actually ran in their decks and you would be surprised to know its fairly low. Some decks like ANT, can be dismantled with a single sadistic sacrament that's not kicked. Others are stopped with ensnaring bridge, and sadistic sacrament targeting their removal. Then they are just left drawing lands and spells that don't do anything.

I had fun playing the deck but I couldnt find any help with it and eventually i abandon it. If I can dig up the list I'll post it. It worked better than any version of stright up mill decks i ever played.

I've written a lot about the deck here (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?30131-Deck-Sadistic-Sacrament&highlight=sadistic+sacrament). I posted the list below, its the one in first post.

Exile spells - 4
4 Sadistic Sacrament

Discard - 7
4 Thoughtseize
3 Inquisition of Kozilek

Removal - 13
2 Maestrom Pulse
2 Toxic Deluge
3 Liliana of the Veil
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Snapcaster Mage

Draw - 3
3 Sylvan Library
1 Bottled Cloister

Lock Pieces - 9
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Jace, The Mind Sculptor

Lands - 24
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Bayou
1 Swamp
1 Forest
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
4 Wasteland
1 Island


SB: 2 Cranial Extraction
SB: 2 Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver
SB: 4 Hymn to Tourach
SB: 2 Pernicious Deed
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 3 Krosan Grip

Yeah, the threat density versus removal/disruption issue is real. I upped the removal for my last tournament and ended up wishing for one more Mind Funeral to finish the game on more than one occasion. I think the four of Ensnaring Bridge is an absolute must in my 75 in a deck like this.

[alohazendo]

Amusing idea, but I would want more ways to ensure I could get the Crab into play, since that's the key engine. How about some number of Worldly Tutor? Either that or additional mill cards. I also like Tarmogoyf in this strategy. You're milling a lot of cards, so Goyf would be very large on average. Worse than Tarmogoyf but still probably worth testing would be Jace's Phantasm. U for a five-power flier is pretty strong, although it would be weak if you drew it before your mill cards, so maybe test just two copies to start with.

On a side note, the idea of working in Green Sun's Zenith, Painter's Servant, and Grindstone has been tumbling around in my head, but that might be an impossible dream.

[Finn]

Heya, I have attempted this deck a number of times. I never had the coolness of Veteran Explorer though. I used Noble Benefactor to activate Archive Trap in much the same way.

Noble Benefactor works kinda well with Cranial Extraction-type spells. Those are expensive, so I had Gitaxian Probe, a few discard spells and included both Extirpate and Surgical Extraction to mimic the effect. This was a key advancement, as these spells doubled as discard in addition to basically blunting their deck. Just a sprinkling of cheap defense and Snapcaster Mage made the whole thing come together. If things were going well, I would extract fetchlands most often.

Unfortunately, the deck simply did not work out well. I wrecked combo, as you can imagine. I was aces against Miracles. But against most else I could not get enough oomph out of my efforts and the opponent was able to ride a threat or two to victory.

I suspect that you have not gotten past that issue yet, though I love your approach. Also, if you are going with Crop Rotation and white, use Flagstones of Trokair.


Good luck!

[Claymore]

I like the Ghost Quarter.

Might be a little too Christmas Landy of a card, but Eldritch Evolution can get you some things in here. Evolution a Veteran Explorer to get the Hedron Crab. Unfortunately, the Explorer triggers resolve before Evolution.

If you have GSZ, you could turn 1 GSZ for Dryad Arbor and evolve that into a crab.

If you have a crab and Explorer on board, you can Evolve the Explorer into an Explorer, and then kill that explorer somehow for 4 landfall triggers in a turn.

Use Smokestack to put all those nice lands to good use at the expense of your opponent.

I feel like the deck may just crumple against decks that use little to no basics (Delver) and be sensitive to decks that use a lot of basics (Miracles).

[alohazendo]

Heya, I have attempted this deck a number of times. I never had the coolness of Veteran Explorer though. I used Noble Benefactor to activate Archive Trap in much the same way.

Noble Benefactor works kinda well with Cranial Extraction-type spells. Those are expensive, so I had Gitaxian Probe, a few discard spells and included both Extirpate and Surgical Extraction to mimic the effect. This was a key advancement, as these spells doubled as discard in addition to basically blunting their deck. Just a sprinkling of cheap defense and Snapcaster Mage made the whole thing come together. If things were going well, I would extract fetchlands most often.

Unfortunately, the deck simply did not work out well. I wrecked combo, as you can imagine. I was aces against Miracles. But against most else I could not get enough oomph out of my efforts and the opponent was able to ride a threat or two to victory.

I suspect that you have not gotten past that issue yet, though I love your approach. Also, if you are going with Crop Rotation and white, use Flagstones of Trokair.


Good luck!

I love that synergy. Surgical Extraction is the most tempting of those cards to main deck, mostly because I want all that extra mana from Explorer to fire off Mind Funeral early. Following that up with a Surgical on one of those four lands could be brutal. I might drop a loam for it. I doubt that I will try the white splash again, BUG is pretty greedy as it is. That would be great Hedron fuel, though.

[alohazendo]

I like the Ghost Quarter.

Might be a little too Christmas Landy of a card, but Eldritch Evolution can get you some things in here. Evolution a Veteran Explorer to get the Hedron Crab. Unfortunately, the Explorer triggers resolve before Evolution.

If you have GSZ, you could turn 1 GSZ for Dryad Arbor and evolve that into a crab.

If you have a crab and Explorer on board, you can Evolve the Explorer into an Explorer, and then kill that explorer somehow for 4 landfall triggers in a turn.

Use Smokestack to put all those nice lands to good use at the expense of your opponent.

I feel like the deck may just crumple against decks that use little to no basics (Delver) and be sensitive to decks that use a lot of basics (Miracles).

These are some fun ideas. I especially like the idea of working Smokestack into it. Smokestack is the devil, and I mean that in a good way. Miracles is often so threat-light that a good one off mill can leave them toothless, or relying on Snapcaster beats. I don't have enough play testing experience, but so far, creature heavy decks that can beat you down quickly have given me the most trouble.

[gngpostalsrvc]

Thanks. What would you pull? What would your finished list look like?

I'd suggest -4 Mind Funeral +3 Trapmaker's Snare +1 Mindbreak Trap / Ravenous Trap / Surgical Extraction / Extirpate to start with. Some number of Snapcaster Mage might also be nice to recur removal or use Crop Rotation to make Marit Lage in one turn. Not sure what I'd cut though. Submerge could be a good SB card with all of the searching and milling.

A Sultai Painter's Servant list could be sweet too. How about something like this for a skeleton?


4 Veteran Explorer
4 Painter's Servant
4 Baleful Strix
3 Trinket Mage
1 Glissa the Traitor
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth

4 Brainstorm

4 Abrupt Decay

4 Green Sun's Zenith
4 Cabal Therapy

1 Grindstone
1? Pithing Needle
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1? Nihil Spellbomb
1 Engineered Explosives

You could run stupid stuff Deathmark, Death Grip, and Traverse the Ulvenwald.

[Finn]

One more thing, Alohazendo, Visions of Beyond is an essential card if you are going to be milling them piecemeal. With Painter-style it is useless.

[alohazendo]

Crabs Against Humidity is looking to capitalize on the synergies among Cabal Therapy, Veteran Explorer, Archive Trap, Mind Funeral, and Hedron Crab. I'm guessing everyone's familiar with Nic Fit by now. With Hedron Crab in play, the Veteran Explorer trigger can set off a mill cascade. If your opponent searches for basics, it sets up Archive Trap and thins the deck of lands to maximize the effectiveness of Mind Funeral. Therapy, Force of Will, and Abrupt Decay hopefully keep your opponent on their heels long enough mill them out. Crop Rotation can trigger the Crab and get you access to a tool box of land answers. Of course, it can also get you a quick, end of opponent's turn, Marit Lage for those annoying Emrakul, the Aeons Torn decks.

Main Deck:


4 Veteran Explorer
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Hedron Crab
4 Archive Trap
4 Mind Funeral
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Crop Rotation
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Life from the Loam

4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
3 Forest
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Bayou
1 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Dark Depths
1 Glacial Chasm


Sideboard:

4 Grafdigger's Cage
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Mindbreak Trap
4 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Pithing Needle


So, that's the idea. Please, help me answer the eternal question: How stupid is this?

Wow, this deck's terrible. What the heck was that guy thinking?

[Finn]

So that's it?

No luck with the first attempt and you are done? Lemme shake my pom-poms for you. Make some changes and try again!