Legacy Hollow-Vine

[Mr. Safety]

This thread is to discuss the possibility of putting together a legitimate Vengevine + Hollow One deck for legacy. The old thread for GB Vengevine has been relegated to being the Hogaak place holder so I thought it might be best to just start fresh with the idea. The main reason for re-visiting this is the printing of a few new cards that could potentially give critical mass to a strategy that focuses on a fast swarm of 4 powered creatures.

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Grief gives 'free' interaction that can coincide with Cabal Therapy. Blazing Rootwalla gives us up to 8 free creatures that can be put into play with Putrid Imp/Faithless Looting/Tireless Tribe. Bone Shards gives us efficient removal that is also an enabler for Bloodghast/Vengevine/Prized Amalgam/Hollow One.

Here is just a rough pass at a potential list:

4x Putrid Imp
4x Tireless Tribe
4x Basking Rootwalla
3x Blazing Rootwalla
4x Vengevine
4x Hollow One
4x Prized Amalgam
4x Bloodghast
4x Grief
4x Street Wraith
3x Once Upon a Time

4x Lotus Petal
4x City of Brass
4x Cavern of Souls
2x Gemstone Mine
4x Undiscovered Paradise

Sideboard
Bone Shards

[Reeplcheep]

I guess initial thoughts:

Is amalgam and tireless tribe really worth the rainbow manabase?

Bloodghast really would like fetchlands.

You have multiple options for discard enablers:
Tribe/Imp are the best at triggering vengevine
Looting and inquiry give you more gas
LED plus hell’s mongrel/anges ravager.
Not sure which is best?

You are on the lower end of black count for grief (20 is close to the min of 18).

Looks interesting though.

[Mr. Safety]

Yeah, there is at least a couple pages of discussion in the old GB Vengevine thread, so I'll summarize:

1) Undiscovered Paradise is the Bloodghast tech
2) Faithless Looting is ok, it's been in/out of versions. Once Upon a Time actually performed slightly better, simply for getting a creature-based enabler t1, which is always more explosive. If there wasn't a need for Street Wraith (to enable both Hollow One and Grief) then those slots would be Faithless Looting
3) Amalgam is actually feasible as a hard-cast at 3 mana, most of the other creatures are not. The real tech is getting stuff for free and there is a critical mass of creatures that need to be discarded. Also, newly important, it's black for Grief.
4) Tireless Tribe is as good as Putrid Imp as far as being a 1-mana enabler for both Vengevine and Hollow One. Being a creature is pretty important for Vengevine interactions.
5) Burning Inquiry is too random, it was considered and dropped early on in development.
6) Hell Mongrel is way too expensive at 3 mana, and it being an enabler is counterproductive because we need an enabler to get it for 2B.
7) LED is a non-bo because we actually want creatures in hand to cast to trigger Vengevines, like Hollow One, Rootwallas, Imp/Tribe, and Grief. Our best discard outlet is a creature that lets us pick and choose what we want to discard.
8) Anje's Ravager is interesting, and it's a creature, but it has the same problem as LED. It's not great unless you do it early, and doing it early might cost Hollow Ones/other threats.
9) The rainbow mana base does a lot for the deck, not the least of which is it allows for the best sideboard cards without being pigeon-holed into the worst ones.

The real question is this: is Grief enough to power up the deck or do we need Blazing Rootwalla? I could see going almost straight BG, with maybe a Scrubland to hard cast Tribe alongside the Lotus Petals. However, having another 3-4 free madness creatures to allow for explosive t1's seems very good. This is a critical mass deck, just like old affinity decks. Individually the cards are pretty bad, but put together in enough density they should allow for some spicy aggro action.

Thanks for posting! It was a good exercise to go back and justify why I put those particular cards together. Hell, I could be totally wrong about it but I'm not the only one that worked on development. Hanni did a ton of work, and he's the one that originally proposed Paradise/Rainbow lands to feed Bloodghast and enable 4-5 colors.

[Reeplcheep]

For 7, the idea of leds is that any of the 3 cmc madness dudes plus any rootwalla will trigger vengevine on t1, since vengevine will be in the gy before the madness triggers resolve. Hollow one is really the only creature that you don’t want to discard to led, since street wraith can be cycled before activation.

But tribe & imp may indeed be more reliable.

Grief seems great at enabling vengevine but it does seem like it would really want bridge from below too.

Otherwise you have thought it through more than me, seems good.

The deck seems very good at one with nothing itself for a t1 4 power threat. I am just unsure if that is good enough or you will need the additional gas from the looting effects.

[Hanni]

Cavern of Souls is critical for resolving a turn 1 enabler vs most of the format. Once resolved, the opponent cannot stop you from dumping your hand and reanimating all of the creatures from your graveyard outside of split second removal or instant speed graveyard hate.

[Mr. Safety]

The goal would be to get at least 8 power on t1, otherwise it kind of loses to a single STP. The power level comes from getting not just a Vengevine + Pimp/Tribe but a Vengevine/Pimp/Tribe + Hollow One/Prized Amalgam, one of the better starts, which happens maybe 60% of the time (that's just a wild ass guess, I don't have data to back that up, just some play experience.) Sometimes you get the nuts and it's just play Pimp into Vengevine + Hollow One + Prized amalgam for 11 power t1. If this didn't happen often enough then I think the deck still doesn't have legs. Hogaak is just an absurd deck at putting together graveyard synergies, even if it is a turn slower to get rolling. Hogaak is another way to get black counts up for Grief as well, maybe 2 copies can be supported. If that's the direction then I think Blazing Lizard has to go for Hogaak/more Once Upon a Time (which also enables sideboard Force of Vigor.)

Hollow One isn't the only card we want in hand that is a 'free' cast for Vengevines; Rootwalla's are also pretty important to have in hand to trigger VV's.

Good thoughts, but I don't think any of the madness = 3 creatures are good enough to make LED the go-to power play that it is in other decks.

EDIT: I forgot about Cavern of Souls, thanks for the reminder Hanni!

[FTW]

New tools: 4 more Rootwallas, 4 more aggressive beaters for Madness 1, and Grief.

By leaning more into the madness side than the graveyard recursion it can dodge more grave hate and maindeck Endurance. It's possible to do this now with 16 Madness creatures! Previous builds had very few.


//Creatures: 34
4 Putrid Imp
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Blazing Rootwalla
4 Kitchen Imp
4 Anje's Ravager
4 Vengevine
4 Hollow One
4 Street Wraith
2 Ox of Agonas

//Spells: 12
4 Faithless Looting
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

//Lands: 14
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Wooded Foothills
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Badlands
1 Taiga
1 Bayou
1 Mountain
1 Swamp

//Sideboard: 15
3 Firestorm
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Grief
2 Big Game Hunter
2 Faerie Macabre
2 Pyroblast


This won't goldfish T1 Hollow Ones as explosively as our build from the other thread, but I think it has the advantage of fighting through disruption better.
1) Less dependent on the graveyard, using more Madness instead
2) Smoother manabase
3) No Bloodghast (worst creature in the deck but necessary for Amalgam) or Undiscovered Paradise (necessary evil for Ghast)
4) More ways to draw cards if initial plan failed
5) SB tools like Decay and Firestorm are easier to cast with these lands (0 Caverns, 0 Paradise returning to hand)

I see your points earlier about LED and Looting. Before we were on more of a graveyard-based build and very few creatures had madness, so we needed a controlled discard outlet like PImp/Tribe to make sure the right cards were going to the bin while others stayed in hand to cast and/or trigger Vengevine. The above is more of a madness strategy instead. The only card that really gets punished by LED is Hollow One. Otherwise there are 16 madness creatures, Vengevines, Ox, and 8 flashback spells. Discarding the whole hand is fine. Most of the hand is still playable while pitching to LED. The LED mana then lets you do things like Madness Anje's Ravager and Kitchen Imp or cast Looting/Ox from the graveyard, so you are still getting cast triggers for Vengevine and putting bodies out.

Anje's Ravager and Ox draw 3s make up for going hellbent, digging into more gas. The PImp/Tribe version was consistent at deploying exactly the right cards from the opening hand, but it struggled to find more gas if the opening hand didn't have enough power. This version can draw cards more easily, seeing more of the deck.

Arguably you could play Tireless Tribe over LED to have the same explosive madness potential but also enable Hollow One and be another creature for Vengevine. But that hurts the mana more. Both by having to play rainbow lands and by not getting the LED mana boost to cast Imps, Ravager, Looting and Ox. Being able to actually use the LED mana here is relevant. Postboard Firestorm functions as Tireless Tribe, letting you discard at least 3 cards for Hollow One as long as opponent has even 1 creature in play.

Edit: Maybe the cut is Looting for Tireless Tribe. Hmmm.. Increases the creature count. More discard control for Hollow One. No loss of LED mana. The mana gets worse, and you lose some ability to dig for gas, but everything else looks good.
Or maybe Street Wraith for Tribe. With Tribe you don't need SW cycling to enable Hollow One. Cutting SW means no Grief, otherwise no change really.

[rufus]

I always wonder about Hazoret's Monument for something like this, but it's probably too expensive and too cute. The same is even more true of Song of Creation.

It does make me wonder: Is it worth looking at blue for stuff like Echo of Eons,Breakthrough or Careful Study?

[FTW]

I always wonder about Hazoret's Monument for something like this, but it's probably too expensive and too cute. The same is even more true of Song of Creation.

It does make me wonder: Is it worth looking at blue for stuff like Echo of Eons,Breakthrough or Careful Study?

It's a good question. A while back someone else posted a deck with blue-fueled madness, including Echo of Eons + LED. It does work. The question is more that if you can resolve Echo + LED, is making a bunch of Rootwallas and Hollow Ones really what you want do with it?

The alternatives:
-discard their hand, create 7 Treasures, cast Karn or Urza
-storm into lethal Tendrils or 16 goblin tokens

Echo refills the opponent's hand with answers, so imho you need to be doing something really degenerate with it to take that risk.

Ox of Agonas and Anje's Ravager are asymmetric ways to refill the hand after going hellbent, without giving the opponent gas. Seems less risky for a "fair" deck, which is why I went for red. Is there anything in blue that could do the same?

[HdH_Cthulhu]

I saw some good modern builds with Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar. The cookbook is just an ok discard outlet but gets you food fast (2 food = 6 dmg). Looked really solid.

[Mr. Safety]

I really appreciate the Ox + ARavager synergy, but I really think Grief is what makes the deck playable. It is a creature that triggers Vengevine and disrupts, so the cut is Cabal therapy in some number. I really think Grief is what offsets the 'bad' part of Bloodghast, you really don't mind exiling a Bloodghast for its evoke cost. Bloodghast also supports the aggressive plan, which is what makes Lotus Petal so good (imp off petal, discard stuff, play land, get back Bloodghast.)

Hey, I'm willing to try just about anything. I think there is a deck to be found with these new tools.

[FTW]

Yeah, maybe Grief is better than Therapy. Deserves testing.

My black count was too low even with Street Wraiths so I had Therapy main and Grief SB. Something nonblack would have to be cut. PImp doesn't really count towards the black count either, because pitching that negates your game plan. Your build has more black and can support Grief better.

With Grief there is a risk of having too many creature casts. If you curve T1 Grief into PImp/Tribe, that's already your 2nd creature before you discard anything and Vengevine can't trigger. So you would have to play Grief into a noncreature enabler like LED or Faithless Looting. Or you would have to play Grief after discarding everything to PImp, which would trigger Vengevine but is too late to use as protection. There's some anti-synergy there.

With 16 madness creatures now instead of 4, it shouldn't be hard to trigger Vengevine off discards without needing pitch creatures. The average LED activation will cast 2 creatures. That was not possible before due to lower Madness count, so the deck had to do other things to ensure 2 "casts". 8Rootwalla makes Vengevine easy.

I don't find turn 1 Bloodghast actually aggressive. Playing Vengevine variations for years, I've always felt like Bloodghast was the worst creature (Gravecrawler was close, though at least it counted as a "cast" and I could combo it with Carrion Feeder). Ghast doesn't have haste when it counts, it's the least aggressive body (Rootwalla can threaten to pump), it dies to any blocker, it can't block, it doesn't count as a "cast" for Vengevine, and it makes the deck weaker to grave hate. Being able to recur it 3-4 times is cool, the best thing it can do, but that's more of a grindy strategy at odds with the explosive turn 1s this deck wants. Ghast also loses hard to StP, Terminus, or any SB grave hate. In practice it kept doing less than I wanted it to. But it was necessary because the deck needed a critical mass of "free" bodies to discard for profit, and recurring from the graveyard was necessary to trigger Prized Amalgam. Before Amalgam was printed, Bloodghast was the card I boarded out most often.

I still like Amalgam. But now the issue is that we're a weaker Amalgam deck than Hogaak and Dredge but vulnerable to the same hate. The best thing we can do that they can't is creature pressure without the graveyard via Hollow One and madness. So that's what I was trying to optimize with the RB build, cutting the graveyard recursion guys for more madness. Madness happens to trigger Vengevine even more easily than the graveyard guys too.

[Fox]

You forgot the SB plan of Apocalypse -> exile everything -> then discard Rootwalla army to board :laugh:

[Whoshim]

Wheel of Misfortune is slower, but would work nicely with this idea.

Call to the Netherworld can work with Grief, and can do fun stuff like allowing Putrid Imp to pitch Grief, then pitch Call, getting Grief back for a total of 2 discarded cards (for things like Hollow One).

[rufus]

...

Ox of Agonas and Anje's Ravager are asymmetric ways to refill the hand after going hellbent, without giving the opponent gas. Seems less risky for a "fair" deck, which is why I went for red. Is there anything in blue that could do the same?

Deep Analysis could do something like that. Breakthrough is probably pretty good off the top when hellbent too.

[Vacrix]

Green Belt Rampager can be cast twice to enable Vengevine. Its also a 3/4 once it sticks. Perhaps more effective in a list with Buried Alive. The plan you have works much better tho.

[123jjs321]

I’ve been putsing around with a RG version of (what was) a Hollow Vine deck (albeit I’ve recently dropped Hollow One from the list because of the printing of Blazing Rootwalla) - https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/3979383#paper. It previously felt pretty good and had a reasonable match up against UR, RUG Delver, DnT and Uro Piles but I’m not sure where it sits now with how aggressive/tall/airborne the URx Delver shells are getting.

There’s also a Brazilian player who had been playing a 4 color version of a Hollow Vine list; seems to have been streamlined into just the Jund colors because of the most recent printings from MH2 — https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/legacy-ubrg-c35462c1-2b13-4563-8b18-8c28f0fc6784#paper. I think this version needs an additional Ox because it stalls out pretty badly when your enablers die if the initial salvo is actually dealt with.

[Mr. Safety]

Green Belt Rampager can be cast twice to enable Vengevine. Its also a 3/4 once it sticks. Perhaps more effective in a list with Buried Alive. The plan you have works much better tho.

I would argue that with 2 mana available something like Burning-Tree Emissary would be better. You need a 2nd creature, but if we're planning on double casting Rampager as a late game Vengevine activation I think we've already lost. I do like that it's a 3/4, but we have more explosive options I think.

I am going to be honest, I totally missed Kitchen Imp. I remember seeing Hell Mongrel and being rather unimpressed, but Kitchen Imp seems very, very good. Flying and haste and 1 black mana as a madness cost seems perfect. I really need to buy up some cards to make this all work.

[FTW]

Yeah, 4x Kitchen Imp + 8x Rootwalla is what makes the Vengevine Madness plan really have potential, since Madness counts as a "cast". That's 12 threats we can cast for 0-1 mana. We only had 4 before!

T1 flying Goblin Guide is an aggressive clock next to 4/xs.

[Mr. Safety]

I think more than anything it replaces Bloodghast, and once Bloodghast is out of the picture I think Prized Amalgam becomes a lot more suspect. With 8 self-returning creatures (VV/BGhast) Amalgam was worthwhile. Now I think Ox of Agonas is the better direction. KImps block Delver/Marit Lage and aggressively attack with haste. Having up to 8 1-mana flyers (Pimp, Kimp) also makes for an impressively aggressive creature package.

[FTW]

I think more than anything it replaces Bloodghast, and once Bloodghast is out of the picture I think Prized Amalgam becomes a lot more suspect. With 8 self-returning creatures (VV/BGhast) Amalgam was worthwhile. Now I think Ox of Agonas is the better direction. KImps block Delver/Marit Lage and aggressively attack with haste. Having up to 8 1-mana flyers (Pimp, Kimp) also makes for an impressively aggressive creature package.

Yeah, what you said is basically what motivated my switch to Ox + Ravager over Bloodghast + Amalgam. We can now create more pressure without as much graveyard vulnerability and while triggering Vengevine. Before MH2 I would not have considered that direction.

Firestorm also makes an amazing Tireless Tribe effect once we are a Badlands deck. If opponent has even 1 creature, it is Searing Blaze + 0-mana Hollow One. With 2 creatures we are firing 4 damage at both and 4 at opponent's dome.

[rufus]

...
Firestorm also makes an amazing Tireless Tribe effect once we are a Badlands deck. If opponent has even 1 creature, it is Searing Blaze + 0-mana Hollow One. With 2 creatures we are firing 4 damage at both and 4 at opponent's dome.

Don't you need X different targets for Firestorm?

[123jjs321]

Don't you need X different targets for Firestorm?

Yeah, in the 3 damage scenario you're hitting yourself, too; 4 damage 2 creatures the opponent and yourself, etc… Basically if you don’t get the max value out of the spell (killing 3 creatures or 2 creatures and Bolting the opponent) Firestorm is a burn spell, removal spell and like a self targeted Fiery Temper if you’re trying to enable a free Hollow One.

[123jjs321]

In case anyone is interested, this is a recent list I saw (ellaone - MTGO player) and reverse built after they decked themselves playing against Tony Murata (into_play) in a league. They also played this list against AnziD in the challenge today (https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1053851031?t=9262s — 2:34:30 is the start of the match). No clue what the sideboard is.

2 Ox of Agonas
3 Anger
4 Hollow One
4 Vengevine
4 Anje's Ravager
4 Faithless Looting
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Blazing Rootwalla
4 Putrid Imp

4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Burning Inquiry
4 Faithless Looting
4 Once Upon a Time

3 Wooded Foothills
2 Taiga
2 Mountain
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Badlands
2 Arid Mesa

[FTW]

Re above list: Not playing Kitchen Imp seems like a mistake. That card is pretty good for 1 mana. Anger seems good with T1 Hollow One but with just Rootwallas it seems worse than just making a 2/2 flying haste.

OUAT seems good. Not a fan of Burning Inquiry, even if it can mess up opponent's hand. Street Wraith is pretty bad too. Maybe that slot should be Tireless Tribe.




Don't you need X different targets for Firestorm?

Fail case X=2: Target opponent and yourself

X=3: Target opponent, 1 creature, yourself

X=4: Target opponent, 2 creatures, yourself

Unless you're facing Burn or TES or opponent has many creatures out, you usually target yourself with Firestorm to get a free +1. This is an aggressive deck that also wants to discard most of the hand on turn 1. 1-mana Searing Blaze + discard outlet is worth taking 3 damage for. Even if you deal yourself 4 damage, it's a 1 mana Flame Rift + double Flame Slash + Tireless Tribe effect for 1 mana. That's insane value for a 1-mana on color instant. The only reason it isn't maindeck is it's awkward if your opponent doesn't have an early creature. But against any deck that usually plays a turn 1 creature, it's a beating.

[Mr. Safety]

I would straight up cut Burning Inquiry for Kitchen Imp in that list
It's a good thing they are splashing black because their combo matchups would be atrocious otherwise. Being explosive isn't enough against unopposed combo decks, they're going to wreck your face. Depths, Sneak/show, Storm, and elves are all faster with even mediocre draws. I think explosive aggro is decent against delver and the midrange blue decks, but still weak to ideal starts from opponents. I think it may be worth playing blue duals for Daze, or at least finding a way to include Cabal Therapy/Thoughtseize maindeck.

[rufus]

Seeing Anger makes me wonder if there's an Entomb package that makes sense. The deck already runs several cards that work well with it. Phantasmagorian would turn Entomb into a discard outlet, and Coffin Purge would be nice sideboard tech.

[Mr. Safety]

If playing Hogaak, yes I could see an Entomb package. Otherwise this isn't Reanimator where you're all-in on one threat (Griselbrand), you need a critical mass of threats to be aggressive enough. One Vengevine won't do it. Honestly, I think the better card from the Anger cycle is Wonder. Flying is a lot more important than haste in most games.

[FTW]

Tireless Tribe could still be good here and I think Kitchen Imp is too good not to play.

Street Wraith and Burning Inquiry are the most questionable slots.


//Creatures: 34
4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Blazing Rootwalla
4 Kitchen Imp
4 Anje's Ravager
4 Vengevine
4 Hollow One
2 Ox of Agonas

//Spells: 12
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Faithless Looting
4 Once Upon A Time

//Lands: 14
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Mana Confluence
3 City of Brass
3 Cavern of Souls

//Sideboard: 15
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Firestorm
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Faerie Macabre
2 Big Game Hunter


Or -4 Tribe, - 1 OUAT, +2 Anger + 3 Therapy main and then stick to Jund mana

[Mr. Safety]

I agree, Street Wraith is really only good if you have some way to use it in another capacity than a redraw, like Reanimate with Death's Shadow or some sort of Life from the Loam synergy. As the other thread has discussed, the best enablers are 1-mana creatures. Lotleth Troll is so close to good, but ultimately is worse than tweaking the mana-base and adding Tribe. However, with 8 Rootwallas it might be time to reevaluate it as a possible 2-of. I'm looking in that direction for my SHIV deck. OUAT is probably the most polarized card of the deck: it's busted free but embarrassing after t1. I didn't mind discarding it with Imp if I drew it, just to feed mid-game Hollow Ones.

Lion's Eye Diamond puts you all-in, basically on Anje's Ravager and maybe a free Rootwalla or 2. The re-draw is cool with Ravager if you untap with it, but I need to see it in action to see what I'm missing. It just doesn't look that great. I was thinking this sort of deck really wants to be somewhat of a blitz deck: just blast a bunch of free/cheap dudes and hope it gets there. If there are 3-4 threats available then you can probably grind through, but if not and you're all in on a Ravager you are waiting for draw steps to make something happen. It's just not my style to give up that much agency in a game.

What the deck really needs is a powerful engine, like Affinity now has with 8 Thoughtcast effects. I love that style of deck where you just play free 1/1's, 2/2's, and 4/4's and then draw more of them for U. I'm definitely going to build something with that synergy. Maybe something with convoke would be good here. EDIT: Hogaak is the best convoke card, hands down, because there aren't any convoke cards that say 'draw 2 cards'. Bummer.

[FTW]

People are swearing by Burning Inquiry and getting results with it. Since most of the deck is happy to be discarded, it seems potentially explosive by digging 3 deep, but I really prefer lines where you have control of your hand. At least postboard it seems like the easiest cut for Firestorm.

If we cut Tireless Tribe then Anger is playable off the Jund manabase. Decks with that and Burning Inquiry have gotten results and look like this.

12th place Legacy Challenge: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-challenge-2021-06-21#cvxw_th_place

//Creatures: 29
4 Putrid Imp
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Blazing Rootwalla
4 Anje's Ravager
4 Vengevine
4 Hollow One
3 Anger
2 Ox of Agonas

//Spells: 16
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Faithless Looting
4 Burning Inquiry
4 Once Upon A Time

//Lands: 15
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Wooded Foothills
2 Arid Mesa
2 Badlands
2 Taiga
2 Mountain

//Sideboard: 15
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Firestorm
3 Bone Shards
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Meltdown



Asylum Visitor is also tech I've seen from other decks. It lets you dig out of being hellbent like Ravager and gives more payoff for LED. The all-in version might have to cut Hollow One due to lack of control

MTGO 5-0: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-league-2021-06-19#reanimatorfiend_-

//Creatures: 32
4 Putrid Imp
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Blazing Rootwalla
4 Kitchen Imp
4 Asylum Visitor
4 Anje's Ravager
4 Vengevine
2 Ox of Agonas
2 Hogaak, Risen Necropolis

//Spells: 12
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Burning Inquiry
4 Faithless Looting

//Lands: 16
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Wooded Foothills
4 Badlands
3 Taiga
1 Mountain
1 Swamp

//Sideboard: 15
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Bone Shards
2 Sudden Edict
2 Mindbreak Trap
2 Run Afoul
2 Ancient Grudge



Leyline over Faerie Macabre makes sense if they are discarding random cards from hand.

If we stick with the Tireless Tribe tech, we lose Anger but get more control of discarded cards

//Creatures: 35
4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Blazing Rootwalla
4 Kitchen Imp
3 Asylum Visitor
4 Anje's Ravager
4 Vengevine
4 Hollow One

//Spells: 10
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
2 Faithless Looting
4 Once Upon A Time

//Lands: 15
3 Cavern of Souls
4 Mana Confluence
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass

//Sideboard: 15
3 Firestorm
3 Bone Shards
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Meltdown
2 Leyline of the Void
2 Faerie Macabre
1 Mindbreak Trap

[Mr. Safety]

I've been watching some streams of Burning Inquiry in the deck and sometimes it's the nuts, sometimes it fucks the game sideways. The chaotic nature of it can sometimes mess with opponents, but it can mess with your plan, too. I'm not convinced Burning Inquiry is the best option, but it certainly adds flair to the strategy. If the deck stays RGx then it can do a lot of work, but I don't know how reliable it is. The card that has impressed me more than anything is Ox of Agonas, which single-handedly makes Burning Inquiry playable. Otherwise the risk of discarding your Hollow Ones while you have uncastable Vengevines in hand gets pretty awkward. The other part of the deck that impresses me is that it has a really good amount of inevitability. Sometimes you have 13 power on turn 1, sometimes you set up and get 13 power on turn 3-4. Against most legacy decks, that's likely good enough. Against others it's a little embarrassing. I also think the initial success comes from people mis-prioritizing their disruption (Forces, Thoughtseize, Daze.) Once the deck becomes a little more well known that will change and there will be windows of opportunity to shut the deck down. Still, the deck seems to be fairly resilient.

[eatbasics]

I am not an expert with the deck, just recently picked it up for some games and I was more than impressed.
For reference, I am currently playing this main deck:

4 Lion's Eye Diamond
4 Blazing Rootwalla
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Vengevine
4 Putrid Imp
3 Anje's Ravager
4 Hollow One
2 Ox of Agonas
4 Street Wraith
4 Once Upon a Time
4 Faithless Looting
4 Burning Inquiry

2 Taiga
2 Badlands
2 Mountain
3 Bloodstained Mire
3 Scalding Tarn
3 Wooded Foothills

Regarding Burning Inquiry, for me it was always one way to run out T1 Hollow Ones.
Also Street Wraith + Faithless Looting make up a good combo for Hollow One.

I tested Kitchen Imp a bit, but was not impressed.
He does not smoothly fit into the explosive lines and if he does, it is kinda awkward idk.
And the payoff is not super great.

I have not yet played much against ombo decks, but I assume it will be hard as suggested in this thread.

These are just my two cents, I fell in love with the deck and want to see it improve.
Unfortunaltey, I can just give some impressions that are not backed up by any statistics or sound reasoning :(
However, maybe it will help the collective hive mind in some way :)

Keep going mad with madness

[Purple Blood]

I've been watching some streams of Burning Inquiry in the deck and sometimes it's the nuts, sometimes it fucks the game sideways. The chaotic nature of it can sometimes mess with opponents, but it can mess with your plan, too. I'm not convinced Burning Inquiry is the best option, but it certainly adds flair to the strategy. If the deck stays RGx then it can do a lot of work, but I don't know how reliable it is. The card that has impressed me more than anything is Ox of Agonas, which single-handedly makes Burning Inquiry playable. Otherwise the risk of discarding your Hollow Ones while you have uncastable Vengevines in hand gets pretty awkward. The other part of the deck that impresses me is that it has a really good amount of inevitability. Sometimes you have 13 power on turn 1, sometimes you set up and get 13 power on turn 3-4. Against most legacy decks, that's likely good enough. Against others it's a little embarrassing. I also think the initial success comes from people mis-prioritizing their disruption (Forces, Thoughtseize, Daze.) Once the deck becomes a little more well known that will change and there will be windows of opportunity to shut the deck down. Still, the deck seems to be fairly resilient.

From the videos I've watched that inevitability comes from its ability to reload so easily and continuously. With discard it really all depends on the hand you have to read their lines and try to disrupt it. LED is the card that gives them the absolutely most busted plays though. Nut draw is probably LED, Ravager, Anger, Rootwalla, x3 Vengevine.

There's a good chance this deck deck is better as URB. Something like 4 Inquiry -> 4 Careful Study; 4 Once Upon a Time -> 2 Breakthrough; 2 Kitchen Imp.

[madnessguy]

Glad to see people have picked up this list. A little advice from someone who spent a lot of time tuning the list pre-mh2:

-Asylum Visitor is too slow. Madness more than 0 is hard to justify, the only exception is Ravager because it draws so many cards

-Street Wraith is important imo, otherwise you end up with uncastable hollow ones. It also feeds Oxes and marginally thins your deck. Just suck it up and accept the weird mulligans

-Burning Inquiry sucks. Maybe this changed with the new rootwalla but I have yet to be convinced

-Firestorm is maindeckable and mandatory. Right now people don't know about the list but it's only a matter of time before they realize they have to counter your discard outlets (LED, Faithless), having one that sidesteps countermagic is huge. It also lets you finish opponents in the late game, and of course is often your only piece of removal. Don't be afraid to deal damage to yourself

-Don't bother siding in hate against combo, you can race it. The only concession is pyroblast because it's so versatile

-Anger is very important for those explosive starts and t2 wins. If you aren't doing broken things you're doing it wrong

-Hogaak is winmore and just worse than Ox

[Purple Blood]

Here's a RUG version from ThrabenU playing Breakthroughs, Careful Studies, and Cephalid Coliseum.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3tvjb3_mM4

[eatbasics]

Glad to see people have picked up this list. A little advice from someone who spent a lot of time tuning the list pre-mh2:

-Asylum Visitor is too slow. Madness more than 0 is hard to justify, the only exception is Ravager because it draws so many cards

-Street Wraith is important imo, otherwise you end up with uncastable hollow ones. It also feeds Oxes and marginally thins your deck. Just suck it up and accept the weird mulligans

-Burning Inquiry sucks. Maybe this changed with the new rootwalla but I have yet to be convinced

-Firestorm is maindeckable and mandatory. Right now people don't know about the list but it's only a matter of time before they realize they have to counter your discard outlets (LED, Faithless), having one that sidesteps countermagic is huge. It also lets you finish opponents in the late game, and of course is often your only piece of removal. Don't be afraid to deal damage to yourself

-Don't bother siding in hate against combo, you can race it. The only concession is pyroblast because it's so versatile

-Anger is very important for those explosive starts and t2 wins. If you aren't doing broken things you're doing it wrong

-Hogaak is winmore and just worse than Ox


I like the idea of main-decking Firestorm, the card is really great in the deck!

Regarding Burning Inquiry, I think people do not like it because of bad beat stories they experienced with it. Because of that, the times it was really great are tend to be forgotten. Plus we should not underestimate the fact that it also sucks for our opponents, screwing their well-sculpted hands by chance, especially when you hold back the inquiry for later turns.
But I also think that it is not a good T1 enabler because of randomness. 8 Putrid Imps would be better :)

[FTW]

Glad to see people have picked up this list. A little advice from someone who spent a lot of time tuning the list pre-mh2:

-Asylum Visitor is too slow. Madness more than 0 is hard to justify, the only exception is Ravager because it draws so many cards

-Street Wraith is important imo, otherwise you end up with uncastable hollow ones. It also feeds Oxes and marginally thins your deck. Just suck it up and accept the weird mulligans

-Burning Inquiry sucks. Maybe this changed with the new rootwalla but I have yet to be convinced

-Firestorm is maindeckable and mandatory. Right now people don't know about the list but it's only a matter of time before they realize they have to counter your discard outlets (LED, Faithless), having one that sidesteps countermagic is huge. It also lets you finish opponents in the late game, and of course is often your only piece of removal. Don't be afraid to deal damage to yourself

-Don't bother siding in hate against combo, you can race it. The only concession is pyroblast because it's so versatile

-Anger is very important for those explosive starts and t2 wins. If you aren't doing broken things you're doing it wrong

-Hogaak is winmore and just worse than Ox

Thanks for your comments! Good to have your experience with your RUG brew added.

Street Wraith is unnecessary filler if you run more discard Xs (Putrid Imp, Lion's Eye Diamond). If you rely on discard 2s like Faithless Looting and Careful Study then SW helps Hollow One, but it's an inconsistent 2-card combo.

Careful Study fails to enable Hollow One or even Vengevine (only discards 1 Rootwalla + Vengevine), so it leads to less explosive turn 1s.

As Mr Safety said in the first post, we had been working on a different version of it (BGx instead of RUG) a long time back:
BGx Vengevine Hollow One Madness: https://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?32159-GB-Vengevine-Hogaak-Placeholder-Thread

That deck originally started as GB Vengevine Madness with a zombie tribal subtheme. Due to the lack of madness creatures back then, early builds also had to run graveyard creatures like Bloodghast and Gravecrawler. It featured the Carrion Feeder+Gravecrawler combo ("casts" from the graveyard for Vengevine) and sometimes Buried Alive to find 3xVengevine for more explosiveness. Buried Alive was a decent enabler back when the deck had Deathrite Shaman for acceleration but is too slow and vulnerable to hate otherwise.

ReAnimator started that thread in 2017, though I had been developing and playing something similar way back in 2010-2012 after the Survival ban and then when Lotleth Troll was spoiled (replacing Wild Mongrel as a better on-tribe madness outlet). Early discussion on TheSource for Vengevine Madness after the Survival ban:
Hanni's thread: https://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?19554-G-B-r-BAVV-(Aggro-Vengevine)
Gui's thread: https://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?19550-Gb-Vengevine-Aggro
With Lotleth Troll: https://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?24781-BG-trollvine
Most of my development at the time was done on another site, though my version is somewhere in that TrollVine thread. The deck was fun but always Tier 2-3.
In 2012, Sam Black's Zombardment (https://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23463-Deck-Zombardment) ended up being a better version of the zombie CarrionCrawler engine while having 8x discard to disrupt opponents.

In 2017-2019 ReAnimator's Vengevine thread got renewed interest after Hollow One. The deck shifted to have more focus on Madness and explosive turn 1s. We compared a lot of different engines to make the most T1 Hollow Ones and Vengevines. We tried Burning Inquiry. We tried Faithless Looting + Careful Study + Breakthrough (the Dredge engine) with Street Wraith to help make Hollow One free. In testing it came out too inconsistent.

Pre-MH2 we found the shell of 4 Putrid Imp + 4 Tireless Tribe + 2-4 other discard outlets led to the most consistent Hollow Ones and Vengevines. PImp/Tribe represents a 1-card engine that could enable T1 Hollow One (instead of 2-card combo Looting+SW). They counted as a creature cast so you only needed to discard 1 Rootwalla to make T1 Vengevine. You can also make them uncounterable with Cavern of Souls (which is big once the deck's surprise factor wears off and opponent learns they need to counter your discard outlet). 4 Once Upon A Time helped put a PImp/Tribe into your opening hand, find Cavern, or get more Hollow Ones and Vengevines. It smoothed everything the engine wanted. In pre-MH2 testing, that came out to be the most consistent shell we had for explosive turn 1 boards.

We kept Firestorm in the SB, not main. If the opponent plays 0 early creatures then you can only cast for X=2 and it fails as an enabler (needs X different targets). However if the opponent has a turn 1 creature then it's amazing, so it got boarded in a lot as a 3-of or 4-of. Its value depends on the matchup.

Big Game Hunter was SB tech to kill X/5 blockers like Goyf and Gurmag, creatures that would otherwise stop Vengevine and Hollow One and kill your momentum. It's also hilarious vs SneakShow (which had a bigger presence then), because you can either play it off Show and Tell or flash it in for B with Putrid Imp. Now Bone Shards has taken that SB spot, though instant-speed madness Hunter still has utility.

Due to the lack of madness creatures pre-MH2, the deck had to rely on graveyard recursion (Bloodghast and Prized Amalgam), leaving it open to graveyard hate. Once Hogaak was printed, the deck added Hogaak and then the discussion just turned into Hogaak.dec because Hogaak was putting up better results. The thread turned into a placeholder thread for Hogaak and other Hollow-Vine discussions stopped.

Later Mr Safety started a separate thread for Hollow One + Vengevine adding Death's Shadow as another angle of attack:
https://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?33414-SHiV-(Shadow-Hollow-Vine)

Mr Safety started this new thread once MH2 revitalized the strategy. 8 Rootwallas really improves the engine's consistency so it can focus on explosive Madness and cut the grindier graveyard recursion pieces (weak to hate). I don't like Hogaak in this version of the deck but just mentioned it above when posting the Legacy Challenge/5-0 lists.

The Jund version has put up the most tournament results so far.
12th place Legacy Challenge June 20th: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-challenge-2021-06-21#cvxw_th_place
MTGO 5-0: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-league-2021-06-26#jcknox_-
29th place Legacy Challenge June 27th: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/legacy-challenge-2021-06-28#ekieling_th_place

They're all on Burning Inquiry, but like you I'm not fully convinced. The draw 3 helps dig deeper into gas, but the variance will hit you eventually if you have cards like Hollow One and Mindbreak Trap that don't want to get discarded or if you draw opponent into an answer. It depends on the build and how many cards you don't want discarded. I do think Burning Inquiry has gotten a lot better though since MH2 added more madness creatures. You're happy to discard most of the deck and the discard 3 enables Hollow One if it stayed in hand (>60% chance).

2 Ox seems really good. I used it in my janky Madness Stompy version of the deck, and found 2 Ox was the right number. With more copies you can end up just eating one Ox with another while having less gas in the opening hand.

Anger is great explosive potential with Hollow Ones and should be in any deck with Mountain-typed lands. When we built the 8 Putrid Imp build (Tireless Tribe), we had to go with a rainbow manabase to have consistent mana. Anger doesn't work with City of Brass. If there was another Putrid Imp in Jund colors then it would be a no-brainer to run that over Tribe and get Anger. Currently, we have to choose between having 8 PImps and having Anger. Not sure which is better yet.

Without 8 PImps, Burning Inquiry is probably necessary. I'm not sold on Careful Study+Street Wraith to get discard 3. In our past testing that was too inconsistent and we cut blue. Similarly maindeck Firestorm can slow you down (only discard 2) if opponent doesn't play an early creature. The discard 2s all fall short of making enough threats on turn 1. They can't enable Hollow One or Vengevine (if it's a noncreature discard outlet, you can only discard 1 Rootwalla + Vengevine) so it just makes small things or sets up for turn 2. Out of all the discard 2s, Faithless Looting is much better because you can flash it back with LED mana.

[FTW]

This is Hanni's 5c build from a few years ago (so you don't have to dig through all those threads):

//Lands: 14
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Mana Confluence
4 Undiscovered Paradise
2 City of Brass

//Enablers: 10
4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
2 Lotleth Troll

//Other creatures: 24
2 Gravecrawler
2 Carrion Feeder
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Bloodghast
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Vengevine
4 Hollow One

//Spells: 12
4 Lotus Petal
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Gamble

//Sideboard: 15
3 Firestorm
2 Stain the Mind
0-3 Faerie Macabre
1-2 Big Game Hunter
0-4 Fragmentize
0-3 Force of Vigor
x Silent Gravestone
x Leyline of Sanctity
x Vengeful Pharaoh
x Collector Ouphe


Once Upon A Time replaced Gamble once printed, though Gamble is still good at finding enablers or answers.

Ox of Agonas and Hogaak made some appearances after their printings.

Mr Safety experimented with more Jund builds. Faithless Looting was in some of these builds, though discard 2 is not explosive enough on its own. In other threads we also looked at RUG builds with Careful Study and Faithless Looting + Street Wraith, and then Anje's Ravager and even the janky Bazaar Trademage (because it count as a creature cast and had the critical "discard 3" instead of "discard 2"). Being able to draw more cards to refuel was amazing, but discard 2 was always a bit underwhelming.

Pre-MH2 we had the best results with the 5c build because 8-10x Putrid Imp was the best enabler. It lets you control exactly what cards to discard, discard exactly enough to enable T1 Vine and T1 Hollow One, or slow roll around hate. PImp also sacrifices to Cabal Therapy so you can strip the opponent's outs without losing an important attacker.

The engine worked but the payoffs weren't as good then. Carrion Feeder + Gravecrawler used to be good ages ago, but became the worst part of the deck. Bloodghast + Amalgam became too durdly too and made the deck weak to grave hate. That version of the deck added Stitcher's Supplier and then morphed into Legacy Hogaak. Since MH2, MadVine can differentiate by running the new madness creatures and less graveyard dependence. This is what the new Jund builds are doing. Then the SB doesn't need Nature's Claim/Force of Vigor and Silent Gravestone to beat grave hate, which frees up a lot of space, and the win% goes up.

An MH2 version of Hanni's 5c build would probably look like this

//Lands: 14
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Mana Confluence
4 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass

//Core Creatures: 28
4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Blazing Rootwalla
4 Kitchen Imp
4 Vengevine
4 Hollow One

//Flex Creatures: 6
2 Lotleth Troll
2 Anje's Ravager
2 Ox of Agonas

//Spells: 12
4 Once Upon A Time
4 Lotus Petal
4 Cabal Therapy

//Sideboard: 15
3 Faerie Macabre
3 Firestorm
2 Stain the Mind
2 Bone Shards
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Mindbreak Trap


Without fetchlands and with fewer draw+discard spells, Ox gets worse, so maybe -2 Ox +2 Ravager.

The 8PImp build is better able to use SB cards like Mindbreak Trap because it has more control over what cards are discarded and what cards are kept. With LED + Burning Inquiry those cards are worse. Disruption can be useful. Game 2 OTD MadVine can't race BR Reanimator, TES, Hogaak, and random things like Echo storm. They will get 2 turns first. Even Turbo Depths can sometimes race going first (blocking with T2 Marit Lage, then attacking).

Slower refueling cards like Anje's Ravager and Asylum Visitor are more viable with the 8 PImp build, because you can deploy it on turn 2 to refuel if your turn 1 was disrupted. This is only possible with free instant-speed control over discards. Those creatures are much worse with Faithless Looting and Burning Inquiry (costs mana to discard). 8 PImp is better at explosive Vengevines and Hollow Ones and at saving cards in hand to disrupt opponents. 8 PImp is uncounterable with Cavern, while the other discard engines get stopped by FoW. The downside to 8 PImp is it doesn't draw cards so it runs out of gas more easily. That's where Ravager and Asylum Visitor could make up for a deficit. 8PImp needs more card draw to recover, but also does a better job of enabling the 2-mana madness guys.

I would probably modify that above shell to run 4 LEDs (instead of Lotleth) and then the full set of Ravagers. Hanni was opposed to playing LED + Hollow One together, though LED is so explosive.
LED also works well with Asylum Visitor.
LED casts Asylum Visitor + Kitchen Imp (or multiple Imps)
LED + land casts 2x Asylum Visitor, 2x Anje's Ravager, 1 Visitor + 1 Ravager, or 1 Ravager + 2 Kitchen Imps.

I think Visitor at least deserves testing as Ravager #5. But it could be worse than just going faster.

It could also be worth playing 8PImp with Mardu lands (RBW), which would allow Anger. There would be a minor cost of not being able to pump Basking Rootwalla or hardcast Vengevine, but that's rarely relevant.

[madnessguy]

For the record I've never paid much attention to the blue version which I dropped for the reasons you provided. Pure Rg is more explosive and has fewer mana issues. I developed this deck more or less independently by drawing from the Survival vintage deck.

I maintain that Firestorm is mandatory and maindeckable. Everyone plays creatures nowadays and if you're playing against a deck that doesn't you have other problems in mind and whatever card you want to replace firestorm with won't help. You really want a discard outlet that ignores countermagic. Having to run Caverns for imps/tribes means your mana sucks and you can't run mountains for Anger, and Anger is necessary for t2 wins.

Idk why people don't like Street Wraith. The opportunity cost of having this card in your deck is so low.

Seasoned Pyromancer (and maybe Rix Maadi) deserves a second look as grindy cards. No one expects them, anyway.

Asylum Visitor sucks. Believe me when I say I tried everything (like Falkenrath Gorger, or Manabond, or Squee, or Chain of Smog) and the Visitor just doesn't do anything. It'll get stuck in your hand because of its stupid madness cost. Oftentimes it's just a 3/1 for 2, and it dies to literally anything. Every once in a while it'll get you killed in a race.

[FTW]

For the record I've never paid much attention to the blue version which I dropped for the reasons you provided. Pure Rg is more explosive and has fewer mana issues.

Yeah, ok, we agree the blue stuff is slower.


Idk why people don't like Street Wraith. The opportunity cost of having this card in your deck is so low.

The payoff is so low. Most of the time it does nothing. It doesn't help Vengevines, Ravager, Hollow Ones (with good discard outlet), or anything else. You're starting the game at 18 life and making mulligans worse, just for +1 card for Ox.

The "best care scenario" is a 3-card combo hand: Hollow One + Street Wraith + bad discard 2 enabler. In that exact scenario SW allows T1 Hollow One when your enabler would otherwise fail. But that's very high variance to rely on. More often you'll have the discard 2 without Street Wraith than with it, or you'll have Street Wraith without Hollow One to care. You could avoid the "problem" by not depending as much on discard 2s. We tested and ultimately dropped that tech a while back.



I maintain that Firestorm is mandatory and maindeckable. Everyone plays creatures nowadays

Combo decks are least likely to have a creature. As a maindeck enabler it fails at explosiveness when you need to race the most.

Against creature decks it's about whether they have a creature on your T1 main phase. Otherwise you slow down waiting for them to play a creature, losing explosiveness.

If they don't have a creature yet, T1 Firestorm can only discard 2 (worse version of Careful Study). With X=2 it can't enable Hollow One, Vengevine or Ravager. At best you made 2 summoning sick Rootwallas. Who cares if that's uncounterable?

If you go first, they'll never have a creature yet.

If you wait for them to play a T1 creature, you could End Step Firestorm X=3 but don't get to attack until turn 2. On the play that's the best case scenario. Attacking turn 2 is no faster than the rainbow build without Anger or playing a T2 enabler with Anger.

What if they don't play T1 creature? Delver might play Ponder. Tribal/D&T could play Aether Vial. Then you're waiting until T2 End Step or later to cast Firestorm, not attacking until turn 3. Again, you lose explosiveness.

If you passed with a land up for EOT Firestorm, you could just walk into Wasteland and get Wasted out of the game.

On the draw Firestorm gets significantly better, but it still runs into slowdowns if you have to wait for them to play a creature.

Firestorm is amazing if you're going 2nd and they played T1 Ragavan/Delver/Mother/Hierarch/Lackey/Hexdrinker/Esper Sentinel/Elf. But games don't always happen that way. Firestorm makes your speed depend on the opponent's hand and sequencing, so the opponent gets to dictate how fast you go off. That's variance I don't like. That's why I think it's a SB card. You want it 100% of the time postboard OTD against creature decks, but you don't want it as much OTP, especially against spell-heavy decks. LED Dredge used the same logic to keep Firestorm as a SB card, out of the maindeck.



You really want a discard outlet that ignores countermagic. Having to run Caverns for imps/tribes means your mana sucks

Agreed on dodging countermagic.

But Firestorm is normally strongest vs nonblue aggro (most likely to play T1 creature or hatebears to kill). If you play Firestorm vs blue decks, they may just cantrip or hold up disruption instead of playing a turn 1 creature. It's uncounterable but they can also slow you down a lot.

Sickening Dreams was other uncounterable SB tech we explored. It costs more than Firestorm but doesn't care if the opponent played creatures. Arguably Firestorm is no faster than Sickening Dreams except in the Xmasland scenario you're on the draw and they played a T1 creature (otherwise Firestorm can't enable good turn 1 attacks either). Devastating Dreams is another option. If it resolves, killing their lands can be devastating.

Phantasmagorian is an uncounterable outlet (discard to hand size) used by Manaless Dredge. It's very slow, but in the matchups you need it most speed may not matter as much. Could use testing as SB tech.

The rainbow build has strong mana even if it looks bad on paper. LED Dredge used a similar manabase for years, and this has Petal + OUAT to boost mana. Caverns @ Zombie or Caverns @ Nomad are fine because the main thing you need to cast is the enabler, and then every other land does anything else you need.

Edit: Also creatures (Putrid Imp) already dodge more counters than noncreature enablers do (Force of Negation, Spell Pierce, Flusterstorm, blasts).



and you can't run mountains for Anger, and Anger is necessary for t2 wins.

T2 wins are also not happening with discard 2s or slow Firestorms (waiting for opponent to play a creature). That's the compromise we're facing. Most other enablers (Careful Study, Faithless Looting, Firestorm) can't consistently make a T1 explosive board to kill t2 with or without Anger. To race explosively, the deck also needs its enablers to work consistently and early.

The winning Jund MadVine decks avoid these problems by playing more explosive enablers (LED, PImp, Burning Inquiry) and not maindecking Firestorm.

Mardu colors could allow both Anger and Tireless Tribe, getting the best of both. There's unexplored potential there.

[eatbasics]

Regarding Street Wraith, I want to point out that it has more application than you might think.

First, as already mentioned before in this thread, it makes your deck effectively 56 cards increasing the chance to hit Vengevine/hollow One + Enabler T1.

Second, also mentioned, it enables hollow Ones in combination with Faithless Looting.

Third, Ox fuel.

Forth, when you have LED in play + Faithless Looting in the graveyard and top deck Street Wraith, you can cycle and crack LED in response which opens Faithless Looting Flashback with 1 card in hand even with 0 lands in play. This play helps to make further progress in form of land drops, keeping a creature in hand for future Vengevine triggers or even cast a hollow One. Otherwise, the Faithless Looting would have been rather dead in the Graveyard until you hit 3 non LED mana or draw a better benefit for LED like Anje's Ravager.

On the other hand, I kinda want more "actual" card slots free, but I am not ready to give up Street Wraith yet because it feels like it is, in conjunction with Once upon a Tim, increasing consistency pretty well.

[Mr. Safety]

I think Street Wraith looks a lot better if you're playing the Underworld Cookbook/Asmor package, but I don't think that is necessarily Legacy playable. It's all over the place in Modern, but that's a totally different context. I think the risk you take with Street Wraith is when deciding on mulligans. Do you keep a no land, 2 Wraith opener? This deck operates on very low resources so the temptation to is there to take risky opening hands. I think the good part is I've seen this deck come from out of nowhere, going from no board presence to lethal in one turn. That kind of resilience is pretty impressive for an aggro deck.

[FTW]

Street Wraith's "thinning" is marginal. It does improve your draws, but not by much. Meanwhile, it costs 2 life (affects races) and makes mulligan decisions harder in a deck that needs to see specific pieces. That's a real cost. If your hand doesn't have those pieces for T1, choose a London Mulligan over cycling Street Wraith.

If Street Wraith's thinning was good enough for the cost, every aggro and combo deck would run 4x Street Wraith (and 4x Gitaxian Probe when legal) to improve draws and improve Delve & Escape cards. They don't. It's like old monored Burn decks running fetchlands and Baubles to thin the deck and draw better burn spells ("52 card deck"). Players crunched the math on this. The benefit is so small it's not worth the cost. Now you don't see competitive builds doing it anymore. Many decks run OUAT, but that's miles better by not costing life and giving card selection.

You have mentioned some good uses. I missed the 4th one completely! But these are still narrow situations that don't come up often.

Street Wraith + LED + Faithless Looting (3-card combo)
Street Wraith + Hollow One + discard 2 (3-card combo)

You're building to help small corner case scenarios. It won't come together much more often than it works. Based on the Hypergeometric Distribution
>85% of the time you have Street Wraith it doesn't enable any of your creatures (you won't have both Looting + Hollow One, and it doesn't enable anything else)
>60% chance you won't have Street Wraith when you have a Hollow One + Faithless Looting hand (i.e. Looting will fail at Hollow One more often than Street Wraith fixes it)
etc.

We don't need SW to enable Hollow One if we rely on enablers that discard more than 2 cards (Putrid Imp, LED, Burning Inquiry, Tireless Tribe, Breakthrough, etc.). Deck construction choices can fix this rather than running Street Wraith, which fails to help the underlying problem more often than it helps.

While I disagree with the Jund camp on some choices and strategy, I respect that they have smart deck construction running explosive enablers (most discard more than 2 on turn 1), not running filler Street Wraiths, etc. These things came up in our pre-MH2 testing too. The players who designed that build clearly get what makes the engine run smoothly, even if they take a different approach to it, and they have the results to back it up.

[madnessguy]

At this point I guess arguing back and forth is futile and you have to let your game experience speak. I never had a problem where I was like 'oh no, I'm going to lose with a firestorm in hand because my opp's board is empty'. If your opponent isn't actually playing creatures that's kind of a good problem to have. The only exception is Storm, in which case I guess you board it *out*, just like people maindeck removal and board it out in every deck ever.

Like idk, if my opponent is purposely not playing any creature *at all* just to make my firestorm bad it means I can just beat down with whatever. I'd say a card that gives me a board advantage just by existing is pretty good.

[FTW]

Many decks make proactive game progress without playing early creatures (Bant Miracles, Lands, Chalice decks, Storm, Doomsday, Depths, Vial+Port decks, Show and Tell, Thoughtseize/Hymn decks, Standstill, etc). They don't have to go out of their way to give you no early targets, while their game plan is advancing and you're waiting for a creature.

What have you been playing against?

Yeah, maybe there's no point in arguing further. If it's worked for you, keep playing it. I just wanted to state my reasons and test experience for others reading the thread. The successful Jund MadVine lists and Dredge decks run Firestorm SB or not at all, and that worked for them.

[gngpostalsrvc]

Last night I won a 15 person tournament with an FTW-inspired 5c list:

4 Anje's Ravager
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Blazing Rootwalla
4 Hollow One
4 Kitchen Imp
4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Vengevine

4 Once Upon a Time

4 Faithless Looting

4 Lion's Eye Diamond

4 Cavern of Souls
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Mana Confluence

SB://

4 Faerie Macabre
4 Mindbreak Trap
3 Firestorm
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Bone Shards

The deck felt incredibly busted. I beat Elves (2-0), Lands (2-0), UR Delver (2-0), and Bant Miracles (2-0) and scored several turn two wins along the way. The only really questionable card was Faithless Looting; I'm planning to replace it with either Burning Inquiry or Breakthrough in the next build.

[Mr. Safety]

How important was Lion's Eye Diamond? I have a suspicion it was what created the most busted starts. I don't have them though, and if there is a way to build it without them I would love to put together the deck.

[Reeplcheep]

People can correct me if I am wrong, but in general LED is the agreed upon must-fow card in the deck. Anje’s ravager is definitely not playable without it. I feel bug gaak will be a way better non-LED vengevine deck than a budget version of this deck.

[gngpostalsrvc]

How important was Lion's Eye Diamond? I have a suspicion it was what created the most busted starts. I don't have them though, and if there is a way to build it without them I would love to put together the deck.

It's definitely possible to have explosive starts without LED. In game two against Bant Miracles, for example, my turn one was: Tireless Tribe into Vengevine, Vengevine, Basking Rootwalla, Blazing Rootwalla, 2 Hollow Ones. That said, I think Reeplcheep is right that Anje's Ravager is unplayable without LED and Ravager provides a helpful secondary axis for grinding out long games. You also need a critical mass of 0-1 mana discard outlets in order to reliably go off, but Mind Bomb or Burning Inquiry could fill that role in a budget list.

[FTW]

Last night I won a 15 person tournament with an FTW-inspired 5c list:

4 Anje's Ravager
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Blazing Rootwalla
4 Hollow One
4 Kitchen Imp
4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Vengevine

4 Once Upon a Time

4 Faithless Looting

4 Lion's Eye Diamond

4 Cavern of Souls
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Mana Confluence

SB://

4 Faerie Macabre
4 Mindbreak Trap
3 Firestorm
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Bone Shards

The deck felt incredibly busted. I beat Elves (2-0), Lands (2-0), UR Delver (2-0), and Bant Miracles (2-0) and scored several turn two wins along the way. The only really questionable card was Faithless Looting; I'm planning to replace it with either Burning Inquiry or Breakthrough in the next build.

Congrats! Great results!

Agree, Looting is the weakest card. It does a little of everything, but it doesn't do anything very well, not enabling the explosive turn 1s that power out most wins. There was some discussion about that either in this thread or the other: the discard 2s fall short on both Vengevine and Hollow One. Inquiry or Breakthrough could be strong.

How did you find the SB slots? How did you board for those matches?

[gngpostalsrvc]

Many thanks! According to my notes, I sideboarded as follows:

Elves: -4 Faithless Looting, +3 Firestorm, +1 Bone Shards
Lands: -4 Faithless Looting, +4 Faerie Macabre
UR Delver: -4 Faithless Looting, -1 LED, +3 Firestorm, +2 Bone Shards
Bant Miracles: -4 Faithless Looting, +3 Firestorm, +1 Bone Shards

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to gather much data about the SB. I used a Bone Shards to kill a Dryad Arbor against Elves and limit my opponent's mana development, but that was about it.


Congrats! Great results!

Agree, Looting is the weakest card. It does a little of everything, but it doesn't do anything very well, not enabling the explosive turn 1s that power out most wins. There was some discussion about that either in this thread or the other: the discard 2s fall short on both Vengevine and Hollow One. Inquiry or Breakthrough could be strong.

How did you find the SB slots? How did you board for those matches?

[FTW]

I wonder if the 4th Firestorm is better than Bone Shards #2. Especially vs Elves, you would both kill their mana dork/board and also discard 3 to make an explosive board. Sounds like Bone Shards hurt them but didn't do much for your development. Bone Shards seems better against must-kill midrange threats and cheaty fatties that don't die to Firestorm, but if you are explosive enough maybe those aren't a big issue. Firestorm is just so good against decks like Elves and UR Delver.

Leyline of the Void might be better than Faerie Macabre in an LED deck, since you won't have to worry about holding it in hand if they hold back their cards. You don't really need the "discard" off Faerie unless you're running it with Faithless Looting (needs free 3rd discard for Hollow One).

Instead of Mindbreak Trap I'm thinking about 4 Cabal Therapy. It attacks more combos than Trap does (storm isn't popular). It's still live from the graveyard if you discard your hand to LED or Ravager. You can use it on yourself if desperate. Postboard you know what deck they are and what cards you worry about, so you should be able to pick good names for the 1st cast. And it flashes back off Putrid Imp/Tireless Tribe once you're done with them.

[gngpostalsrvc]

Great points. Going forward I'm going to test:

4 Anje’s Ravager
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Blazing Rootwalla
4 Hollow One
4 Kitchen Imp
4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Vengevine

4 Once Upon a Time

4 Mind Bomb

4 Lion’s Eye Diamond

4 Cavern of Souls
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Mana Confluence

SB://

4 Cabal Therapy
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Firestorm
3 Ancient Grudge


Mind Bomb seems like it might be better than Burning Inquiry or Breakthrough since you can choose what to discard, which plays better with Hollow Ones.



I wonder if the 4th Firestorm is better than Bone Shards #2. Especially vs Elves, you would both kill their mana dork/board and also discard 3 to make an explosive board. Sounds like Bone Shards hurt them but didn't do much for your development. Bone Shards seems better against must-kill midrange threats and cheaty fatties that don't die to Firestorm, but if you are explosive enough maybe those aren't a big issue. Firestorm is just so good against decks like Elves and UR Delver.

Leyline of the Void might be better than Faerie Macabre in an LED deck, since you won't have to worry about holding it in hand if they hold back their cards. You don't really need the "discard" off Faerie unless you're running it with Faithless Looting (needs free 3rd discard for Hollow One).

Instead of Mindbreak Trap I'm thinking about 4 Cabal Therapy. It attacks more combos than Trap does (storm isn't popular). It's still live from the graveyard if you discard your hand to LED or Ravager. You can use it on yourself if desperate. Postboard you know what deck they are and what cards you worry about, so you should be able to pick good names for the 1st cast. And it flashes back off Putrid Imp/Tireless Tribe once you're done with them.

[Whoshim]

I like your list, and I like Mind Bomb, but I think it is not the best use of the slots. Here are some cards that should be considered:

Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar (I think 2x would be good. It is like Hollow Ones 5-6.)
Faithless Looting and Careful Study (These give us control over discards, but they also help us see more cards.)

Also, Once Upon a Time is really nice, but I think 4x Faithless Looting or Careful Study in that slot would be better.

I think Badlands is probably better than Cavern, as there are a lot of different creature types in this list. Also, the firebreathing abilities on the Rootwallas should be considered when building a manabase. I think the redundancy in the list is our protection against counterspells instead of a land that lets us use colored mana for a max of 8 cards (Imp or Rootwalla). If you drop Mind Bomb for Faithless, and you put in some copies of Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar, then Badlands helps cast those cards, plus Imps, Blazing Rootwalla, and Anje's Ravager.

EDIT: Sorry, I hadn't read some of the recent stuff. I see you dropped Faithless, but you subbed in Firestorm most of the time. What about running that maindeck instead of Mind Bomb. That also helps the mana situation.

[Purple Blood]

Last night I won a 15 person tournament with an FTW-inspired 5c list:

4 Anje's Ravager
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Blazing Rootwalla
4 Hollow One
4 Kitchen Imp
4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Vengevine

4 Once Upon a Time

4 Faithless Looting

4 Lion's Eye Diamond

4 Cavern of Souls
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Mana Confluence

SB://

4 Faerie Macabre
4 Mindbreak Trap
3 Firestorm
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Bone Shards

The deck felt incredibly busted. I beat Elves (2-0), Lands (2-0), UR Delver (2-0), and Bant Miracles (2-0) and scored several turn two wins along the way. The only really questionable card was Faithless Looting; I'm planning to replace it with either Burning Inquiry or Breakthrough in the next build.

Nice. Have you considered cutting OUAP for Lotus Petal?

[Purple Blood]

How important was Lion's Eye Diamond? I have a suspicion it was what created the most busted starts. I don't have them though, and if there is a way to build it without them I would love to put together the deck.

Unfortunately, I don't believe this deck is worth building without LED. As mentioned previously, not only is it the best card but other cards become unplayable without it (particularly Ravager) and by then you are just a bad version of existing strategies.

[gngpostalsrvc]

Thanks so much for the suggestions! As FTW point out in post #38, the various three color madness decks have a different fundamental turn than rainbow madness. The three color builds are looking to go off on Turn 2-3 and can afford to play slower, grindier cards like Careful Study, Faithless Looting, and Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar. The rainbow version, on the other hand, tries to dump most of its hand Turn 1 and therefore requires a critical mass of 1 mana enablers that allow us to unconditionally discard at least three cards. Hence, the preference for cards like Pimp, Tireless Tribe, Mindbomb and cards that enable them (e.g., OuaT and Cavern).


I like your list, and I like Mind Bomb, but I think it is not the best use of the slots. Here are some cards that should be considered:

Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar (I think 2x would be good. It is like Hollow Ones 5-6.)
Faithless Looting and Careful Study (These give us control over discards, but they also help us see more cards.)

Also, Once Upon a Time is really nice, but I think 4x Faithless Looting or Careful Study in that slot would be better.

I think Badlands is probably better than Cavern, as there are a lot of different creature types in this list. Also, the firebreathing abilities on the Rootwallas should be considered when building a manabase. I think the redundancy in the list is our protection against counterspells instead of a land that lets us use colored mana for a max of 8 cards (Imp or Rootwalla). If you drop Mind Bomb for Faithless, and you put in some copies of Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar, then Badlands helps cast those cards, plus Imps, Blazing Rootwalla, and Anje's Ravager.

EDIT: Sorry, I hadn't read some of the recent stuff. I see you dropped Faithless, but you subbed in Firestorm most of the time. What about running that maindeck instead of Mind Bomb. That also helps the mana situation.

[FTW]

Also, Once Upon a Time is really nice, but I think 4x Faithless Looting or Careful Study in that slot would be better.

I think Badlands is probably better than Cavern, as there are a lot of different creature types in this list. Also, the firebreathing abilities on the Rootwallas should be considered when building a manabase. I think the redundancy in the list is our protection against counterspells instead of a land that lets us use colored mana for a max of 8 cards (Imp or Rootwalla). If you drop Mind Bomb for Faithless, and you put in some copies of Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar, then Badlands helps cast those cards, plus Imps, Blazing Rootwalla, and Anje's Ravager.

EDIT: Sorry, I hadn't read some of the recent stuff. I see you dropped Faithless, but you subbed in Firestorm most of the time. What about running that maindeck instead of Mind Bomb. That also helps the mana situation.

Thanks for the comments.

I think both you and Purple Blood are underrating how good Once Upon A Time is in the 5c build. Hanni extensively tested pre-MH2 versions of this deck and can back that up. Mr Safety and I tested it too.

As gngpostalsrvc said, the 5c build is designed to make Turn 1 4/xs as often as possible, playing under other strategies. To go off that quickly it wants to play a turn 1 enabler that lets you discard at least 3 cards, which is enough to make Vengevines or Hollow Ones. PImp/Tireless Tribe fill that role very well. They also count as a creature cast, so you only need 1 Rootwalla to make T1 attacking Vengevine.

OUAT fills multiple roles to improve consistency of explosive turn 1s:
Finds Putrid Imp/Tireless Tribe discard outlet
Finds Cavern of Souls to make uncounterable discard outlet
Finds more Vengevines/Hollow Ones
Finds Rootwalla to enable Vengevines in hand

For 0 mana, OUAT digs 5 deep to get whatever your hand is missing, which is just amazing at reducing variance for those turn 1 explosive boards. Other draw+discard spells can't do that (costing mana and digging less deep). They play towards turn 2-3.

Cavern of Souls is surprisingly good. Tribal decks like Goblins use Caverns to make multiple plays uncounterable throughout the game, so they need to have a high tribe count. 5c HollowVine doesn't really care about that. It's trying to go off early. T1 Cavern @ Imp (Putrid Imp) or Cavern @ Nomad (Tireless Tribe) is good enough. Blue players attack this deck by Forcing the discard outlets, while Ancient Tomb players do that with Chalice @ 1. If they pressure the discard outlets, the deck slows down a lot. You can still play a fair game hardcasting creatures, but they are mediocre at face value. Instead 5c fights back by making the turn 1 enabler uncounterable to avoid tempo loss from disruption. We can still use redundancy if necessary, but it's better to ignore them and go off turn 1. Badlands lets them counter your discard outlet and can't cast T1 Tireless Tribe. Badlands is good in the Jund build but not what the 5c deck is trying to do.

Note that with creature-based discard outlets (PImp/Tribe) we dodge Force of Negation, Spell Pierce, Flusterstorm, Mystical Dispute, REB, BEB, Mindbreak Trap... The only relevant counters are Force of Will and Daze (going 2nd). With 4 OUAT + 4 Caverns, we can have T1 Caverns more often than they have T1 FoW/Chalice @ 1. We can also play around Daze with Caverns or just a 2nd mana source. Postboard, vs the decks with both FoW+Daze we can bring in Firestorm (good vs Delver) for uncounterable discard. Vs Chalice decks we can bring in Grudge. With the SB tools plus the maindeck Caverns we can fight back.

Faithless Looting and Careful Study are fine for the slower builds but they don't help explosive turn 1s. You draw cards, but by discarding 2 you can't make turn 1 Hollow One. They just set up for next turn or you need to combo with another card like Street Wraith (2-card combo = higher variance). Looting/Study also can't make turn 1 Vengevine. You can only discard 1 Rootwalla + 1 Vengevine, not enough cards. Burning Inquiry is better than these. Although the randomness can bite you, at least you discard 3 cards which is enough to make turn 1 Vengevines and Hollow Ones. Odds are in your favor to keep Hollow One in hand, though it will backfire sometimes by discarding Hollow One or not discarding Vengevines.

With maindeck Firestorm, as discussed above, the only issue is if opponent doesn't have a turn 1 creature then you can only Firestorm X=2 (opponent and you). As a discard 2 without killing creatures or drawing cards, it's even worse than Faithless Looting. Do not maindeck over Looting. Firestorm really shines at X=3 or X=4. So you want Firestorm when opponent is likely to play turn 1 creatures (Elves, UR Delver, Affinity, Goblins, Merfolk), and especially postboard on the draw.

I agree Mind Bomb is underwhelming. That last slot doesn't have great options though. Burning Inquiry draws cards but can backfire. Breakthrough X=1 is the best (goes 4 deep and keeps Hollow One in hand), but it costs 2 mana. One option could be to run 2-3 Breakthrough and then 4 Lotus Petals (cutting some lands). That was suggested in another thread.

[Purple Blood]

I don't think anyone can credibly debate that on turn 1 OUAT is a great zero mana play. It's just that after that its a crappy card. But you're right, maybe I underrate the benefits of more consistent first turn plays. On the other hand, when I test petal it can speed me up a turn and is always a good play since you're so frequently just dumping your hand with this deck it can be better than lands which, a lot of the times, will just get discarded.

[FTW]

Yeah Petal is great here. I just doubt that OUAT is the correct cut. As bad as they are past turn 1, you also need 4 copies to maximize seeing it on turn 1 and this deck is all about the turn 1s. Hanni's build had 4 OUAT + 4 Petal.

I would cut 2 lands + 2 other slots to make room for 4 Petal. 16 lands seems like too many. Petal also makes it easier to make T1 Kitchen Imps and play through Daze.

[eatbasics]

Since I gathered much helpful information from this thread (thanks to everyone contributing) I want to share my current list and ask for some opinions.

The list:

4 Hollow One
4 Vengevine

4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Blazing Rootwalla

4 Anje's Ravager
2 Ox of Agonas

4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Breakthrough
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

4 Once Upon a Time
4 Lotus Petal

4 Gemstone Mine
2 City of Brass
4 Mana Confluence
4 Cavern of Souls

Sideboard:

2 Firestorm
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Bone Shards
4 Faerie Macabre

5 ???

The list feels great but I have doubts on Ox of Agonas in this fast 5c setup, oftentimes it is too slow to have an impact and thus could be replaced with a more aggressive option.
I thought about replacing it with the following cards:
Echo of Eons could be a more aggressive LED payoff that cycles into more Hallow Ones and Wallas.
First-Sphere Gargantua as another LED payoff that draws a card and deals a one-time 5 damage.
The obvious addition as a discard payoff would be Kitchen Imp, even more so since I do play petal, but I am not really fond of him ... maybe you guys can convince me?
A wild one would be Bomat Courier but it does not contribute anything towards T1, but could be a similar refuel card like Ravager and Ox while also being a discard outlet.

I was also thinking of replacing Once Upon A Time with Serum Powder for more consistent T1 hands. Often I do not keep hands that miss 1 piece of the "combo" but had OUAT because there could be better 6 cards and the chance to brick and do nothing for x turns is not insignificant. In these scenarios, the Powder would be a new grip of 7 instead of 6. The powder is dead for the rest of the game on the other hand, whereas OUAT still has some functionality. OUAT however is usually used by me to make good and functional hands better, which has its merits.

The sideboard is a mess, I like Faerie Macabre with OUAT, and found 3 Firestorm as being too clunky when drawing multiples, but besides that, I have 5 open slots ... any suggestions?
I tried Thalia, Guardian of Thraben as a way to battle combo decks (petal, OUAT, ...) or Deafening Silence but was not convinced.
I also struggled a bit against lands and thought about Alpine Moon to fight against The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, Maze of Ith, and Glacial Chasm.

Please do not be hesitant on hard feedback, these are just some (wild) thoughts and I would love to get some input.
For now, I won nearly every match I played on X, but would like to tweak the list more for future tournament play.
It was also nice to see other people pick up the deck, I had to play some mirrors. Breakthrough was a great tie-breaker in these games.

[FTW]

Glad to hear Breakthrough has been strong, especially with Petal mana added.

Yeah, Ox is less good without Burning Inquiry and Faithless Looting to dig and fill the graveyard. Ox could be the cut for this type of build.

I like Kitchen Imp, but not everyone is a fan. Perhaps you already have enough small creatures through Rootwallas and 8PImp. If you want to replace Ox with a card-drawing body you can cast more reliably, Asylum Visitor is an option. Or maybe you want that slot to be Burning Inquiry or Cabal Therapy.

If you have open slots in the SB and main, I would try out Therapy. It can fill multiple roles between disruption and madness outlet, and it's easy to flashback.

I would still play 3 Firestorm. The chance of drawing doubles is small, bad luck. If that 2nd Firestorm was a Bone Shards instead, would your hand be any better? You would still probably cast Firestorm first. On the other hand, if you drew an opening hand with only Bone Shards (instead of Firestorm) vs Elves, D&T or UR Ragavan, wouldn't that be much worse? You could kill their first creature but wouldn't be able to deploy threats. Firestorm is an uncounterable discard X. Against a deck like UR Delver, if you Firestorm their Ragavan/DRC, you are discarding cards no matter what (can't be stopped by Force or Daze). They could counter the Firestorm, letting you play your creatures, or they could counter Hollow One and let their creature die. Either way you're making some progress here. For matchups where Firestorm is good, you always want it on turn 1, and that's hard with 2 copies.

Alpine Moon seems good. It also beats Urza's Saga (which can tutor up hate) and Bojuka Bog (from Crop Rotation decks like Depths and Lands).

[meuns]

Hello there !

I enjoy playing this deck a lot and I play a stock jund version at this point (already listed in a previous post).

In my metagame, it struggles against early big blockers like Murktide Regent, Marit Lage or even Tarmogoyf with good draws (not the best ones).

Last tournament was :
2 Unknown decks
1 Karn Echos
1 Reanimator
1 Esper control
1 Bant control
1 ANT
1 Maverick
1 UR Delver
1 RUG Delver
1 Goblins
1 Sneak and Show
1 Black Suicide
1 Artifact Prison

I see no obvious sideboard card instead of Chain of Vapor and replacing a Mountain by a Volcanic Island right now. Plan would be to fetch Badlands then Volcanic Island instead of Taiga. Bone shards or Run Afoul can't answer everything in my metagame. Not sure we can afford any 2 CMC cards.

Do you have any other card in mind ?

[FTW]

The 5c manabase has a much easier time playing SB cards. That's another reason in its favor.

In 5c you can run anything in that slot: Chain of Vapor, Path to Exile, Innocent Blood, Sudden Edict (may be too hard to cast depending on your mana).
Jund probably depends on Run Afoul getting there.

[meuns]

I still need to ponder the 5c version. Being able to play with 1 Mountain is great against a lot of decks, splashing a fourth color is already a step in the wrong direction. A lot of decks play some Wasteland package with big blockers.

I turned the problem around my head and it seemed clear no creature deck can race Hollow-Vine and we probably just need to tempo the opponent one or two turns.

Then I remembered Apostle's Blessing in some Infect decks. This card could save an Anje's Ravager from an removal spell (not on turn 1) or make unblockable Hollow One against later blockers.

Random thought, Kitchen Imp can chump block as a combat trick too against Marit Lage.

I'm still looking for good and cheap combat tricks.

[eatbasics]

Hello there !

I enjoy playing this deck a lot and I play a stock jund version at this point (already listed in a previous post).

In my metagame, it struggles against early big blockers like Murktide Regent, Marit Lage or even Tarmogoyf with good draws (not the best ones).

Last tournament was :
2 Unknown decks
1 Karn Echos
1 Reanimator
1 Esper control
1 Bant control
1 ANT
1 Maverick
1 UR Delver
1 RUG Delver
1 Goblins
1 Sneak and Show
1 Black Suicide
1 Artifact Prison

I see no obvious sideboard card instead of Chain of Vapor and replacing a Mountain by a Volcanic Island right now. Plan would be to fetch Badlands then Volcanic Island instead of Taiga. Bone shards or Run Afoul can't answer everything in my metagame. Not sure we can afford any 2 CMC cards.

Do you have any other card in mind ?

Do you remember what your T1s were in these scenarios?
I am playing the 5c version with Break Through and Nomand to have more explosive T1s, whereas the Jund version tends to have a more consistent "mid" game, while not always having a strong T1. I even included Echo of Eons for know, which can create some amazing T1s with LED and redraw into Hollow Ones or as a make-shift mulligan (still testing).
It would give some insight if the times you struggled with blockers were because of "slow" T1 hands.

But if they go T2 Marit Lage or a timely big Murktide it is rough for any version of the deck tbh.
FTW gave some good sideboard options that do not necessarily require a fourth or fifth color. Bone Shards also gets Murktide and Goyf, but of coruse not Marit Lage :)

[meuns]

I took no precise notes about my starts just some memories.

I did mulligan to 6 a lot, to 5 a few and no T1 was bad.

Best T1 used Burning Inquiry and Hollow One both on the play and on the draw.

Anje's Ravager got killed a lot after discarding my whole hand... and Ox of Agonas was useless in this case.

All lost games were against big early blockers I couldn't remove or ignore. I destroyed several Golos, Tireless Pilgrim with Ancient Grudge against Artifact Prison and I was able to win in the late game (T5 or 6 maybe).

[FTW]

But if they go T2 Marit Lage or a timely big Murktide it is rough for any version of the deck tbh.

Yeah, this is hard for any version preboard. SB needs answers.

Path to Exile kills Marit Lage, Murktide, Goyf, BR Reanimator guys (Griselbrand, Chancellor, etc), Hogaak, Gurmag, Shadow... most early big threats. +1 land is not a big deal if you got the explosive T1. Giving them life would be worse.

Chain of Vapor hits all the same things as long as you think they can't deploy it again or won't also bounce your Hollow One (Vapor Snag might be better)

Run Afoul hits Marit Lage, Murktide and Reanimator flyers... that's pretty good. But it misses Goyf and Hogaak. Maybe grave hate could manage those.

Bone Shards hits Goyf too but misses Marit Lage. Not sure that is worth it. Depends on meta. Path and bounce hit more things, if you can make the colored mana.

[meuns]

Next list I will play :

4 Putrid Imp
4 Blazing Rootwalla
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Anje's Ravager
3 Kitchen Imp
2 Anger
4 Vengevine
4 Hollow One

4 Once Upon a Time
4 Burning Inquiry
4 Faithless Looting
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
2 Lotus Petal

2 Arid Mesa
2 Badlands
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Mountain
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Taiga
2 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard :

2 Firestorm
2 Run Afoul
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Bone Shards
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Leyline of the Void

I swapped :
Faerie Macabre for Leyline of the Void because playing T1 on the draw against combo/reanimator against discard is better this way;
Mindbreak Trap for Cabal Therapy for all reasons listed in previous posts;
Ox of Agonas for Lotus Petal for fixing my early game (T1 Daze, T1 Hollow One, T1 Kitchen Imp...);
Gamble for Kitchen Imp because it was too slow (no available mana) or just win more, I only rely on Once Upon a Time.

I hope to increase my winrate !

2 Ox of Agonas could come back with 2 Goblin Lore if more control decks pop in my tournaments.

[meuns]

Hello !

I finally changed my list after testing Kitchen Imp. It seems this card shines only with Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis in the deck and I don't want to rely on my graveyard.

Main :

4 Putrid Imp
4 Blazing Rootwalla
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Anje's Ravager
1 Anger
4 Vengevine
4 Hollow One
3 Street Wraith
1 Ox of Agonas

3 Once Upon a Time
4 Burning Inquiry
4 Faithless Looting
4 Lion's Eye Diamond

4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Badlands
2 Taiga
1 Bayou
1 Mountain

Sideboard :

2 Firestorm
2 Run Afoul
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Bone Shards
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Mindbreak Trap

Small tournament :
2 Reanimator
1 Show and Tell
1 12-Posts
1 Madness
1 MUD
1 Doomsday
1 Bant Control

I went 0-4 !

1-2 vs Reanimator (on draw)
Lost first game against Serra's Emissary after a close race.
Won second game using Leyline of the Void and a fast clock (he plays Show and Tell).
Lost third game after mulliganing to 3 for finding one piece of hate (2 Run Afoul, 2 Bone Shards, 4 Leyline of the Void). This was maybe a mistake and maybe relying on Faithless Looting or a lucky Burning Inquiery would have been better.

0-2 vs Show and Tell (on play)
Lost two very close races and made a mistake not playing around Dazebut he was also holding Force of Will anyways.

0-2 vs MUD (on play)
The game failed its start randomly the two games and he was able to lock me.

1-2 vs Doomsday (on play)
First game, I put 10 power turn 1 on the board and he scooped.
Second game, I can't put any pressure, he bounced my Anje's Ravager before the trigger and was unable to play anything anymore.
Last game, he created a Doomsday stack with no counter but I misplayed my Mindbreak Trap...

Random thoughts :
Street Wraith fixed a lot of hands;
Using sideboard cards is very hard with all discard we play and it seems we need better luck on average for using them;
Adding blue and bounces seem strong for tempo.

[Whoshim]

A friend is going to join me for the local legacy event, and he wants to play something aggressive. I have the cards for a list like this, but without LED (though we can do up to 15 proxies). I haven't really liked LED in my testing and in the online videos I have watched, but it seems to be popular. I may set up the LED list for him to run, but I was wondering if I could get some comments concerning this version:

One Mana Madness

Creatures
4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Blazing Rootwalla
4 Vengevine
4 Poxwalkers
4 Hollow One
4 Kitchen Imp
4 Street Wraith

Instants and Sorceries
4 Faithless Looting
4 Careful Study
4 Once Upon a Time

Lands
4 City of Brass
4 Mana Confluence
4 Gemstone Mine

So, the deck folds to Chalice on 1 and has trouble with Daze decks, but it can otherwise get going pretty quickly. Imp/Tribe and Rootwalla allow for easy Poxwalker, Vengevine, and Hollow One starts.

Other Cards to Consider (most of which would slow the deck down and move it more in the LED direction, which is okay too)
Anje’s Ravager
Asylum Visitor and Breakthrough
Burning Inquiry (I really don't like the randomness of this card, but it works nicely with Orcish Bowmasters, so they could both be included in some fashion)
Firestorm
Chain of Smog (with sideboard transition combo Witherbloom Apprentice)
Wheel of Misfortune (with sideboard transition combo Orcish Bowmasters and Hallow)

Concerning the last two, I think Chain of Smog is an underrated great card for Madness, even without the Witherbloom Apprentice. I have similar feelings about Wheel of Misfortune. If those two cards are in the main deck, the Vengevines and Poxwalkers could be sided out to avoid graveyard hate, with combo pieces boarded in in their place.

[FTW]

I'm a big fan of the explosive Tireless Tribe rainbow builds (5c 8Pimp, instead of Jund Madvine).

12 lands is light, especially without LED. With too few mana sources you scoop to Daze/FoW+Wasteland, which happens to be played by the most popular deck in the format. We usually ran 14-15 lands. Cavern of Souls is the other rainbow land to play. Cavern does not look good on paper but try it out. It fixes many weaknesses. T1 uncounterable Imp or Tribe makes a big difference in that Daze/FoW matchup. Cavern also helps play through Chalice @ 1 in game 1. If you don't want Cavern, at least consider some other rainbow land or Lotus Petal.

You need SB answers for Chalice @ 1. Ingot Chewer and Ancient Grudge are cards. You don't really have the green count for Force of Vigor, unfortunately.

You may also want SB answers for Leyline of the Void. Unfortunately the answers for Leyline don't overlap with the answers for Chalice. Nature's Claim, Fragmentize, Chain of Vapor, Wispmare are all turn 1 answers, but they don't answer Chalice. Another option is to board in other green cards so you can support Force of Vigor to answer both Leyline and Chalice.

Firestorm's a strong SB card. You could consider it main, but it maxes out at X=2 unless opponent plays an early creature. It's usually better sideboard unless your meta is full of creature decks. It's best against Elves, Delver, D&T, Cephalid Breakfast, Maverick...

Chain of Smog is a neat idea, but you're going to have a hard time supporting a 2cmc + 2cmc combo in a deck with this few mana sources. Any mana denial strategy will destroy you. The deck just isn't designed to support midrangey combos like that. It's meant to explode on 1 land. If you want a 2-mana madness enabler, Oona's Prowler, Lotleth Troll, and Noose Constrictor already exist. They're all better than maindecking Chain of Smog without the combo. Lotleth was in earlier builds. It got cut for being too slow. But if you do want a 2-mana enabler, start with one of those creatures.

Bowmasters is cute but there isn't room or mana for it. It doesn't support what the deck's trying to do.

Wheel of Misfortune is also just too expensive and slow. It encourages playing a completely different style of deck. This deck needs to aggro fast, otherwise you lose to other fast decks and need a 30-card SB to have answers for things like Murktide, Marit Lage, Show and Tell... With the fast build you can at least threaten to aggro race, allowing you to give SB slots to answer hate cards.

Careful Study & friends
Now onto a more controversial point. Careful Study is one of the weaker cards. It doesn't actually enable any turn 1 plays:
-discard 2 cards is not enough for Hollow One
-discard Rootwalla + Vengevine is not enough to cast Vengevine
-can't be cast by Cavern

Sometimes you can combo it with Street Wraith for turn 1 Hollow One, but that's the exception, not the rule. Most of the time all it does is set up for a turn 2 play, while telling the opponent what you're up to and giving them time to disrupt.

Compare that to Tireless Tribe:
-discard 3 cards & cast T1 Hollow One
-discard Rootwalla + Vengevine IS enough to cast T1 Vengevine (Tribe counted as creature #1, Rootwalla is creature #2)
-can sometimes activate EOT to play around opponent's deck
-uncounterable with Cavern

Even Faithless Looting is a bit weak, but at least it has flashback (better in LED builds). Careful Study is the worst enabler and the easiest cut.

If you're on 4 Careful Study + 4 Faithless Looting + 0 LED, then you're already conceding playing a slower build that doesn't seek explosive turn 1 plays but deploying threats slower on turn 2-3. At that point consider tech like Anje's Ravager or Ox of Agonas.

If you want the explosive turn 1 plays of the rainbow build, consider Breakthrough+Lotus Petal or Burning Inquiry over Careful Study or Faithless Looting.


Edit: For example you could run something like this as an LED-less build

//Mana Sources: 18
4 City of Brass
4 Mana Confluence
2 Gemstone Mine
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Lotus Petal

//Creatures: 32
4 Putrid Imp
4 Tireless Tribe
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Blazing Rootwalla
2 Lotleth Troll
2 Kitchen Imp
4 Poxwalkers
4 Vengevine
4 Hollow One

//Spells: 10
4 Once Upon A Time
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Breakthrough

//Sideboard: 15
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Firestorm
3 Force of Vigor
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Cabal Therapy
1 Big Game Hunter
2 Path to Exile

The extra mana sources make it easier to support cards like Breakthrough and Lotleth Troll/Noose Constrictor. The extra green slots support Force of Vigor. Room is made for maindeck Therapy, which can be cast from graveyard (triggers Poxwalkers) and helps fight disruption or combo.

[Whoshim]

Thanks! Your suggestions make a lot of sense, and I will talk with my friend about what he feels good running.

Concerning Chain of Smog and Wheel of Misfortune, I will have to try to brew a slower build that takes advantage of them. I think it is pretty strong to play Chain of Smog and target myself once, then target the opponent (and there are other possible plays).

[FTW]

Concerning Chain of Smog and Wheel of Misfortune, I will have to try to brew a slower build that takes advantage of them. I think it is pretty strong to play Chain of Smog and target myself once, then target the opponent (and there are other possible plays).

True, Chain of Smog can have advantages. A couple points:

1) Hollow-Vine/MadVine is not a "fair" 1-for-1 deck. It's explosive aggro, sort of aggro-combo, instead of a grindy aggro deck like Delver or Shadow. That means trading with the opponent's 2 worst cards doesn't necessarily help you win. They might discard 2 irrelevant cards and still have the resources to stop you. Targeted discard like Cabal Therapy or Grief is much more valuable in decks like this, even if Chain discards more total cards. Chain of Smog's discard shines in the grindy fair BGx midrange decks.

2) Relying on 2cmc and 3cmc enablers (Chain and Wheel) slows down the fundamental clock. When you get slower, you have to worry about getting raced by faster decks. Suddenly you need a better plan than "hope to kill them first". That means maindecking defensive cards. A turn 1 deck doesn't need to make space for those.

3) You need more lands to not get screwed by mana denial before even casting those spells (Daze, Wasteland, Port, Blood Moon, Thalia).

All of those pull the deck towards a more midrangey fair Madness build. Maybe there's a good deck there? It's worth exploring. But you would have to approach the whole deck construction philosophy differently than the current builds. It might be easier to start from scratch than trying to tweak MadVine by adding Chain and Wheel. For example maybe a midrangey version wants Fauna Shaman, fewer colors, more lands, and some basics? Many possibilities.