SakuraTribeAlderman
09-10-2016, 02:56 AM
What happens when you squish two fringe decks together? Blowouts. Blowouts happen.
Try this brew if you like big dumb idiots that generate value while being massive headaches to deal with. Try this brew if you like to tutor up silver bullets and skew matchups you have no business winning. Try this brew if you like the look on your opponent's face when for your first turn you shock in Steam Vents and discard Sharuum the Hegemon and Sundering Titan with your Faithless Looting.
Without further ado, this is our list:
//Jank Enabler:
4 Trash for Treasure
//Trinkets & Bullets:
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Expedition Map
4 Mox Opal
4 Engineered Explosives
//Dig & Discard
4 Faithless Looting
4 Izzet Charm
4 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Artificer's Intuition
2 Trinket Mage
2 Treasure Mage
//Payoff:
2 Sundering Titan
2 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Sharuum the Hegemon
//Super Fun Mana Base:
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Steam Vents
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Flooded Strand
2 Mountain
1 Island
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Academy Ruins
//Sideboard:
3 Vandalblast
3 Dispel
3 Pyroclasm
2 Counterflux
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Platinum Angel
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
If playing a deck with 4(!) Engineered Explosives and the ability to sacrifice a Sundering Titan to reanimate(/reassemble?) another Sundering Titan isn't for you, then I just don't know what to tell you. I guess you have no soul.
As you can probably guess, our plan A is to cast Trash for Treasure[/cars] to cheat out a game-winning threat. Luckily, some of the best big mana threats in the game happen to be artifact creatures, so we're not left wanting for targets. However, these targets also need resliency. A single [cards]Terminate shouldn't be able to undo everything, otherwise we just spent multiple resources finding, setting up, and resolving a Trash for Treasure. This leads us to threats that either resist or punish spot removal. Killing a Sundering Titan is basically incurring an Armageddon on yourself. Wurmcoil Engine leaves its components behind to clog up the board and stall until we can find another threat. Inkwell Leviathan has good old-fashioned shroud the way Garfield intended it, and Sharuum the Hegemon is great value – it fixes the 2-for-1 of casting a Trash for Treasure and resists removal by bringing a more resilient friend to the party. Of course, if the game goes long enough, it's not unreasonable to just cast these threats.
The dig package is mostly self-explanatory: find a Trash for Treasure while discarding targets along the way. Thirst for Knowledge gets a shoutout for being one of the few honest forms of card advantage in the deck, which is refreshing after a second or third Faithless Looting. Izzet Charm can also stand in as a removal spell in fast matchups and a Spell Pierce when we need to resolve our win in a pinch. Treasure Mage and Trinket Mage find the appropriate pieces while providing warm bodies for blocks.
Artificer's Intuition is a great addition to the shell, as it exactly sets up a Trash for Treasure. Discard your Sundering Titan, find a Mox Opal, and that's a wrap. Alternatively, we can tutor for value. Grafdigger's Cage is very well positioned in the current metagame. It stops Dredge, Nahiri, the Harbinger, Snapcaster Mage, Collected Company, and Chord of Calling. Worried about it cramping your game plan? Cage not doing enough? Just Trash it. Pithing Needle deals with several problem permanents, most notably Liliana of the Veil and the multiple manlands in tier 1 decks. Additionally, Expedition Map is a toolbox in and of itself: grab Urborg to jack up Engineered Explosives and Sundering Titan; grab Boseiju to force your win condition to resolve; grab Academy Ruins to loop map into every land in the deck, recover a threat or an answer, or create a soft lock with an Engineered Explosives. Speaking of the Explosives, they're a pretty important part of the deck. They stop aggro and answer other problematic permanents while turning on Mox Opal's Metalcraft at 0. This is big, as simply having a free artifact can make all the difference when trying to go off on time. This concession is why I've included 4 in my list.
Finally, the sideboard is a work in progress. The 3 Vandalblast are there because most of the relevant graveyard interaction in modern comes in the form of cheap artifacts (Relic of Progenitus, Grafdigger's Cage, and Tormod's Crypt). Nabbing them before they can do too much damage is crucial. Having as many as 3 is simply because I want one in my opening hand post-board. 3 Dispel and 2 Counterflux help to force through a Trash for Treasure while disrupting my opponent. 3 Pyroclasms come together with Engineered Explosives to stop aggro. Sphinx of the Steel Wind comes in against decks that struggle to remove it, like Jund and Grixis. (Liliana and Path to Exile would be why Sharuum is in the main over Sphinx.) Ad Nauseam, Infect, and other combo decks simply struggle to deal with a Platinum Angel. Finally, Chalice of the Void seriously harms several decks on 0 and 1. On 0, It counters Ancestral Vision, Pact of Negation, Summoner's Pact, Lotus Bloom, and plenty of Affinity's opening hands. Putting it on 1 makes it significantly harder for Infect and a slew of other aggressive & combo decks to win. This will usually hurt them more than it will us, because this list doesn't strictly need its 1 drops to win.
There's the deck and my reasoning behind it. Have fun putting an Inkwell Leviathan on board as early as turn 2, and thanks for any feedback.
Try this brew if you like big dumb idiots that generate value while being massive headaches to deal with. Try this brew if you like to tutor up silver bullets and skew matchups you have no business winning. Try this brew if you like the look on your opponent's face when for your first turn you shock in Steam Vents and discard Sharuum the Hegemon and Sundering Titan with your Faithless Looting.
Without further ado, this is our list:
//Jank Enabler:
4 Trash for Treasure
//Trinkets & Bullets:
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Expedition Map
4 Mox Opal
4 Engineered Explosives
//Dig & Discard
4 Faithless Looting
4 Izzet Charm
4 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Artificer's Intuition
2 Trinket Mage
2 Treasure Mage
//Payoff:
2 Sundering Titan
2 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Sharuum the Hegemon
//Super Fun Mana Base:
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Steam Vents
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Flooded Strand
2 Mountain
1 Island
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Academy Ruins
//Sideboard:
3 Vandalblast
3 Dispel
3 Pyroclasm
2 Counterflux
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Platinum Angel
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
If playing a deck with 4(!) Engineered Explosives and the ability to sacrifice a Sundering Titan to reanimate(/reassemble?) another Sundering Titan isn't for you, then I just don't know what to tell you. I guess you have no soul.
As you can probably guess, our plan A is to cast Trash for Treasure[/cars] to cheat out a game-winning threat. Luckily, some of the best big mana threats in the game happen to be artifact creatures, so we're not left wanting for targets. However, these targets also need resliency. A single [cards]Terminate shouldn't be able to undo everything, otherwise we just spent multiple resources finding, setting up, and resolving a Trash for Treasure. This leads us to threats that either resist or punish spot removal. Killing a Sundering Titan is basically incurring an Armageddon on yourself. Wurmcoil Engine leaves its components behind to clog up the board and stall until we can find another threat. Inkwell Leviathan has good old-fashioned shroud the way Garfield intended it, and Sharuum the Hegemon is great value – it fixes the 2-for-1 of casting a Trash for Treasure and resists removal by bringing a more resilient friend to the party. Of course, if the game goes long enough, it's not unreasonable to just cast these threats.
The dig package is mostly self-explanatory: find a Trash for Treasure while discarding targets along the way. Thirst for Knowledge gets a shoutout for being one of the few honest forms of card advantage in the deck, which is refreshing after a second or third Faithless Looting. Izzet Charm can also stand in as a removal spell in fast matchups and a Spell Pierce when we need to resolve our win in a pinch. Treasure Mage and Trinket Mage find the appropriate pieces while providing warm bodies for blocks.
Artificer's Intuition is a great addition to the shell, as it exactly sets up a Trash for Treasure. Discard your Sundering Titan, find a Mox Opal, and that's a wrap. Alternatively, we can tutor for value. Grafdigger's Cage is very well positioned in the current metagame. It stops Dredge, Nahiri, the Harbinger, Snapcaster Mage, Collected Company, and Chord of Calling. Worried about it cramping your game plan? Cage not doing enough? Just Trash it. Pithing Needle deals with several problem permanents, most notably Liliana of the Veil and the multiple manlands in tier 1 decks. Additionally, Expedition Map is a toolbox in and of itself: grab Urborg to jack up Engineered Explosives and Sundering Titan; grab Boseiju to force your win condition to resolve; grab Academy Ruins to loop map into every land in the deck, recover a threat or an answer, or create a soft lock with an Engineered Explosives. Speaking of the Explosives, they're a pretty important part of the deck. They stop aggro and answer other problematic permanents while turning on Mox Opal's Metalcraft at 0. This is big, as simply having a free artifact can make all the difference when trying to go off on time. This concession is why I've included 4 in my list.
Finally, the sideboard is a work in progress. The 3 Vandalblast are there because most of the relevant graveyard interaction in modern comes in the form of cheap artifacts (Relic of Progenitus, Grafdigger's Cage, and Tormod's Crypt). Nabbing them before they can do too much damage is crucial. Having as many as 3 is simply because I want one in my opening hand post-board. 3 Dispel and 2 Counterflux help to force through a Trash for Treasure while disrupting my opponent. 3 Pyroclasms come together with Engineered Explosives to stop aggro. Sphinx of the Steel Wind comes in against decks that struggle to remove it, like Jund and Grixis. (Liliana and Path to Exile would be why Sharuum is in the main over Sphinx.) Ad Nauseam, Infect, and other combo decks simply struggle to deal with a Platinum Angel. Finally, Chalice of the Void seriously harms several decks on 0 and 1. On 0, It counters Ancestral Vision, Pact of Negation, Summoner's Pact, Lotus Bloom, and plenty of Affinity's opening hands. Putting it on 1 makes it significantly harder for Infect and a slew of other aggressive & combo decks to win. This will usually hurt them more than it will us, because this list doesn't strictly need its 1 drops to win.
There's the deck and my reasoning behind it. Have fun putting an Inkwell Leviathan on board as early as turn 2, and thanks for any feedback.