[Deck] 43 Lands

[Valtrix]

Yeah. More specifically you use the ports to activate both factories first. Then attack with both factories and use the three mazes on one to get one +1/+1 activation, and then the other two to get mana to activate explosives before blockers.

EDIT: Too slow, oh well.

[partyx2000]

Hey guys,

A friend of mine is giving up magic (for good this time) and has given me a Tabernacle so I'm going to attempt to make and play a lands deck.

So this is the projected deck list I have in mind, please advise me of any changes that would benefit the deck.

42 Lands

Land - 42

1 Bojuka Bog
2 Barbarian Ring
1 Glacial Chasm
4 Maze of Ith
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Nantuko Monastery
1 Nomad Stadium
4 Rishadan Port
1 Savannah
3 Taiga
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
4 Tranquil Thicket
1 Treetop Village
3 Tropical Island
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Academy Ruins
1 Forest

Artifact - 5

2 Crucible of Worlds
3 Mox Diamond

Enchantment - 9

1 Mana Breach
4 Exploration
4 Manabond

Sorcery - 4

4 Life from the Loam


So this is my projected deck... Does anyone see any major drama's within the deck? Should I make any changes?


Cheers

[Shawon]

Here are some quick changes:

-1 Nomad Stadium (Zuran Orb is better)
-1 Mana Breach (Interesting idea, but it doesn't win the game and it can't come back from the grave)
-1 Crucible of Worlds (one is good enough as a backup to Loam)
-1 Barbarian Ring (if you can win with Ring recursions, then having two is win-more)
-2 Taiga

+1 Zuran Orb (MD Orb helps you win those g1s against Zoo or even Burn)
+1 Mox Diamond (run 4)
+4 Intuition (you need ways to find Loam and win the game when you already have Loam)

[Tao]

I would say that you should try to explain why you do not play the successful standard list with Tolaria West, Intuition and Mindslaver. For example explain why you think you don't need Intuitions. Are you planning to Mulligan every hand without Loam? Why the White Splash for just a singleton Monastery? How will you win without Mindslaver if the opponent puts up some defense and doesn't scoop right away?

For the start I would just advice you to try the standard list and test with it a ton.

[iostream]

Hi. I'm just starting to get familiar with this deck, and I've been reading some of the old posts in this thread. I have a pretty novice question, though, that doesn't seem like it's answered:

In the recent SCG Open in Dallas, the runner-up played a lands deck that had 4 Leyline of the Void in the sideboard. Why doesn't this just automatically cause you to lose (since it takes the Loam engine totally offline?)

[lordofthepit]

In the recent SCG Open in Dallas, the runner-up played a lands deck that had 4 Leyline of the Void in the sideboard. Why doesn't this just automatically cause you to lose (since it takes the Loam engine totally offline?)

Read Leyline again carefully and you'll have your answer. =)

[iostream]

awesome

i am totally literate, guys

i swear

[iostream]

a few observations, suggesting a possible idea:

1) tolaria west is really good despite the fact that it's naively a crappy island because it has transmute. 0 cmc cards = most of the deck.

2) lots of other spells we might like to play are 2 cmc cards. life from the loam is an obvious one, but some older builds used burning wish to get more loams, and living wish has been tossed around by a few people for obvious reasons. some other 2 cmc cards, like devastating dreams, ethersworn canonist, or sphere of resistance could save our asses if we can't set up the lockdown quickly enough.

3) ANT and reanimator, two of lands' worst matchups, rely on instants and sorceries to deal the killing blow. The most potent hate cards against lands - price of progress and extirpate - are also instants.

so, the suggested idea is running muddle the mixture.

sorry if this seems stupid; just throwing an idea out there.

[Joon]

I don't think adding Muddle the Mixture would help, as one lousy Counterspell won't stop Storm or Reanimator from going off/reanimating a fat bitch with Shroud. If you want extra tutors for Life from the Loam I suggest you try Gamble. I like it as a small Intuition, as it can search for the one-off Artifacts too if you have Academy Ruins on the field. I'm liking it so far.

Do you guys run Graveyard in the main? Especially with Bojuka Bog it seems nice to have access to it G1 as Bog can provide mana or help to ramp EE higher (which is difficult when you have no Mox).

[That nice guy]

Hey guys,

I run scapeshift lands and need your opinions badly.

Which is a better 3 cards

Originally I had 3 crop rotation 1 bog due to my huge fear of reanimator, but now reanimator took a hit and I have another tabernacle at my disposal so I only run 2 rotates. So the question is whether rotate is still worth it as a tutor/grave-hate in a deck with manabond?

The alternatives are;

1. 3 Mox diamond (to speed things up and put ray of revelation in the SB) (also makes B2B and moon less harmful

2. 1 Stomping ground 1 burgeoning/manabond 1 Karakas/thicket (for less muligans and more turn 1 G/R mana)(this choice is about consistency)

3. +4 burning wish +1 gamble(maken 4), -1 Scapeshift, loam, bog

4. Or should I stick with 1 bog 2 crop rotation

Please cast your votes everyone!

[proraptor]

I was thinking of maybe replacing tranquil thicket for jace, the mindsculptor. I know that it's a little bit out there, but if you think about it tutoring Jace issen't a real problem if you got 3 in main deck with 4 intuitions and a cephalid coliseum.
The pros and cons of jace:
You have a better dredge engine and card advantage, Jace can totally lock down an enemy with his first ability for instants removing the opponents mana draw. You have a good spot removal and you can use Jace as an alternative or even your main kill.
The cons are of course it's a non-land card and you can't use it as an instant, also it can be countered and cost 2UU!
Did anybody playtest this already or something like this?

[Tao]

You guys won't stop until every deck has 4 Goyf and 3 Jace right ;)

On a serious note, the idea is not bad but I think that the deck cannot afford any more nonland spells. 4 Exploration, 4 Manabond, 4 Mox Diamond, 4 Loam, 4 Intuition + Artifact Intuition targets are already lowering the land number quite a lot and I don't see a possibility to cut any of these without losing the needed speed and consistency. Also Jace is not protected by Glacial Chasm, which makes it impossible to play him.

[neon_havoc]

I was thinking of maybe replacing tranquil thicket for jace, the mindsculptor. I know that it's a little bit out there, but if you think about it tutoring Jace issen't a real problem if you got 3 in main deck with 4 intuitions and a cephalid coliseum.
The pros and cons of jace:
You have a better dredge engine and card advantage, Jace can totally lock down an enemy with his first ability for instants removing the opponents mana draw. You have a good spot removal and you can use Jace as an alternative or even your main kill.
The cons are of course it's a non-land card and you can't use it as an instant, also it can be countered and cost 2UU!
Did anybody playtest this already or something like this?

umm..excuse me?

[zuzy]

Hallo all,

I really like this deck, but after the banning the Mystical Tutor and weakening our worst matchups I am thinkink how to build the deck.

The mainboard is from the biggest part known, but I am not sure with the toolbox bof artefacts. Here are my current dilemas:

Mindslaver VS Smokestack VS 2nd EE

In about 30 games I didnt play the Slaver. What deck is the Slaver good against? I had just one possibility to play Slaver, but 2nd EE would do the same job, but muchfaster, than stealing turns.

Nantuko Monastery

In MD I have 1 Savannah for SB Cannonist against combo. That is why I added the Nantuko to speed up things. But I think to take it out, because of the banning. What colour should I add? Red or Black?

Smokestack

If I can lock the oponent fast enought, than I am able to kill him with the smokestack. It is also killing the Maguses, Back to Basics or Blood Moons.

2nd Engineered Explosives

In the upcoming metagame I think, that 2nd EE are good idea.

Zuran Orb

Thinking about it.

Ensnaring Bridge

In the current meta without Reanimator is not needed.

Do you have any other ideas and thoughts for that? Is the Black splash for Confidants and Meloku/Stronghold worth for?

Regards
ZUZY

[iostream]

1) Regarding slaver vs. EE vs. stack: What good does having a second EE do if you can always recur the singleton through Academy Ruins? Mindslaver is a good card against Fish and slower control decks. You can often - but not always - bust through with 2/2's.

2) Nantuko Monastery: I think this card is superfluous. Once the lock is set, speed is no issue. Before then, Tarmogoyf, Knight of the Reliquary, Terravore, and many other efficient creatures do not care about Monastery.

3) I am similarly conflicted about smokestack. It feels like a "win more" card - it is slow, since we don't run any of the acceleration that regular Stax decks pack; if we can really wait long enough for stack to go online and get enough counters to be effective, we are probably in control anyway. However, it is one our our precious few solutions against blood moons, etc. I think Riftstone Portal might be a better response to that, though.

4) Zuran Orb saves your ass against Zoo. It is definitely a maindeck necessity in the post-ANT/Reanimator meta.

5) Ensnaring Bridge is awesome against new horizons, as all their creatures quickly become huge after a few turns.

However, I agree with the general concern about the maindeck artifact toolbox. Post-sideboard, when grave hate gets thrown in our faces, we need to consider playing some of these artifacts as more than one-ofs. Here are some candidates:

1) Chalice of the Void is a pretty good candidate for a 4-of in the SB, as a turn 1 Chalice for 0 shuts down Tormod's Crypt (as well as the engines in really annoying decks like Spanish Inquisition). Chalice for 1 deals with extirpate.

2) Damping Matrix straight up takes care of Knights of the Reliquary, Sensei's Divining Top, Tormod's Crypt, and many other annoyances. It also is better than Null Rod in our deck because it doesn't shut down our Moxen.

3) Crucible of Worlds may be a good response to disruption of the Loam engine.

Any further ideas?

[mchainmail]

Mindslaver is a concession to tournament play. It's basically the fastest win condition you can put in the deck that fits the plan.

Nantuko Monestary needs threshold (yes, this is often an issue early) and we rarely win by beating down. I beat down once all tournament.

Smokestack is a great card post-board, as we run more permanents than every deck besides Stax, and our Loam engine is better than their CA engine. (We can be card-neutral with stax at 3)

2nd EE: Explain why you want it.

Zuran Orb: The only way to beat Price of Progress from Zoo, generally.

Ensnaring Bridge is a really hard permanent for a lot of decks to answer, which is why I like it MD. If they don't have EE/Pridemage, it basically locks them out. If they do have EE, you can sometimes mana denial them from hitting 3 lands.



-----------------------------------


I went 3-0 and ended up 3-3-1 yesterday at a 70 person tournament (feeling sick the whole day)

My sideboard:

2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Smokestack
1 Academy Ruins
2 Ray of Revelation
1 Pithing Needle
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Krosan Grips
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Karakas

Basically, it makes Intuition dirty post-board. There is already tabernacle and academy maindecked, but the redundancy is necessary against hate.

I've had Loam Extirpated once, but I don't even care; I can win with Crucible and Smokestack in any sort of control matchup.

[OneBigSquirrelGod]

Chalice is good, I have 4 of them right now, but I'm beginning to think that it may not be the answer anymore. There is a lot of scenarios where multiple cards will work in the same scenario. 4 chalices opposed to 1 Chalice may have he same effect in the long run, since Tolaria West can find you the chalice for 0. Chalice for 0 also doesn't Autowin the Combo matchup. Needle can save you against relics and such, and Crucible is your audible to when they extirpate your Loam.

Orb belongs in the Mainboard, as well as the SB, for the Zoo Matchup.After testing for months, the Sideboard I have concluded up til now for GP Columbus is

4 Chalice of the Void
3 Krosan Grip
3 Firespout
1 Mindslaver
1 Smokestacks
1 Tormods Crypt
1 Zuran Orb
1 Ensnaring Bridge

@ iostream
Smokestacks is a very good card against a lot of decks. I Believe that it is not win more, its simply win - scenarios:

Goblins
Mirror Match
Bant/NO Bant/Horizons
Enchantress
Stax
Reanimator

Damping Matrix shuts down Mindslaver, EE, Orb, Crypt, and Factory tricks with the Mazes. I dont think that is a good card to think about SB'ing in the deck.

I think Crucible Belongs in the MD.

@ zuzy

Monastery revolves around having Threshold, which can be difficult game 1 and game 2. If you're considering a card like this, I think That new land from WWK (Stirring Wild-wood?) would be a good Replacement (even though I Don't run it).

Don't Count out Reanimator - It's still there.

2 EE's vs 1 is going to yield the same results - Play 1

[mchainmail]

Chalice is good, I have 4 of them right now, but I'm beginning to think that it may not be the answer anymore. There is a lot of scenarios where multiple cards will work in the same scenario. 4 chalices opposed to 1 Chalice may have he same effect in the long run, since Tolaria West can find you the chalice for 0. Chalice for 0 also doesn't Autowin the Combo matchup. Needle can save you against relics and such, and Crucible is your audible to when they extirpate your Loam.

Orb belongs in the Mainboard, as well as the SB, for the Zoo Matchup.After testing for months, the Sideboard I have concluded up til now for GP Columbus is

4 Chalice of the Void
3 Krosan Grip
3 Firespout
1 Mindslaver
1 Smokestacks
1 Tormods Crypt
1 Zuran Orb
1 Ensnaring Bridge

@ iostream
Smokestacks is a very good card against a lot of decks. I Believe that it is not win more, its simply win - scenarios:

Goblins
Mirror Match
Bant/NO Bant/Horizons
Enchantress
Stax
Reanimator

Damping Matrix shuts down Mindslaver, EE, Orb, Crypt, and Factory tricks with the Mazes. I dont think that is a good card to think about SB'ing in the deck.

I think Crucible Belongs in the MD.

@ zuzy

Monastery revolves around having Threshold, which can be difficult game 1 and game 2. If you're considering a card like this, I think That new land from WWK (Stirring Wild-wood?) would be a good Replacement (even though I Don't run it).

Don't Count out Reanimator - It's still there.

2 EE's vs 1 is going to yield the same results - Play 1


Have you played the combo matchup???????????????????????????

You go 50-50 game 2, after boarding in 2 sphere of resistance and 4 chalice of the void. Let alone what happens game 3 when they're on the play.

You simply don't have the clock or lock pieces to make the game close, and devoting chalices to the combo matchup feels like a horrid waste of sideboard space.

Why is Mindslaver in the sideboard? Firespout?

Crucible absolutely does NOT belong maindeck. It beats the hate, yes. And beating hate game 1 is wasted space.

Post your maindeck too; sideboarded singletons depend on the maindeck a lot.

[iostream]

Have you played the combo matchup???????????????????????????

You go 50-50 game 2, after boarding in 2 sphere of resistance and 4 chalice of the void. Let alone what happens game 3 when they're on the play.

You simply don't have the clock or lock pieces to make the game close, and devoting chalices to the combo matchup feels like a horrid waste of sideboard space.

Is the implication that we should just accept 0-2 match losses against combo?

But more importantly, Chalice does things besides disrupt combo. It denies countertop their tops, shuts down crypts, and denies fish and goblins their vials, among other things. It may very well be a bad sideboard card, but not because it's only relevant against combo...

[Valtrix]

It seems to me that the new leyline of sanctity is a much better sideboard card than chalice (well, maybe you want 1 chalice still, but different story). It stops the reach that zoo has, until they get removal for the leyline. Additionally it prevents combo from going anything but the empty the warrens route or finding hate. Tabernacle slows them down a lot, and with the mana denial lands has you can make it hard for them to actually play their hate. Additionally, it shuts down their duresses. Likewise, it's also useful against walkers like Jace, since he won't be able to target you until the leyline is removed. It also shuts down crypt, wheel, bojuka bog, relic's tap ability, and ravenous trap as GY hate. Pretty much everything but relic. There's a little trouble reaching WW if you want to hardcast it, so if that was a concern it might want to be addressed, but the leyline seems to do a lot more than chalice in my opinion. The main downside is you can't tolaria west for it, but if that was very relevant it'd still be very easy to run 1.

[OneBigSquirrelGod]

Have you played the combo matchup???????????????????????????

You go 50-50 game 2, after boarding in 2 sphere of resistance and 4 chalice of the void. Let alone what happens game 3 when they're on the play.

You simply don't have the clock or lock pieces to make the game close, and devoting chalices to the combo matchup feels like a horrid waste of sideboard space.

Why is Mindslaver in the sideboard? Firespout?

Crucible absolutely does NOT belong maindeck. It beats the hate, yes. And beating hate game 1 is wasted space.

Post your maindeck too; sideboarded singletons depend on the maindeck a lot.

I saw this coming, as I was typing my post when you were as well. This is My Philosophy:

You go 80/20 against zoo, 70/30 against Goblins, 90/20 against merfolk, 20/80 against combo, actually these statistics were just made up. ANT is not a giant deck now (still around). Philosophy lesson is I'd rather have the "Guaranteed win" against the 95 % of decks, and lose the combo matchup. Kinda sounds like I give up, but I have faith that after my 3 byes at the GP, it will be all tier 1 decks at that point.. lol

SI is a terrible deck, for reasons I don't even know, and with belcher, I'm gambling that 4/60 cards I die, and 7/60 cards Tabernacle/firespout can deal with, and If they dont have it in time, Chasm takes care of that, but that'll probably never happen...

Mind slaver is good against 50% of decks and Mind slaver is Bad against 50% of decks.. Id rather not see it against goblins, zoo, Combo, Even Merfolk and Reanimator. It is good against such decks as Bant Variants, and Tier 2 decks (stacks, Lands, Stompy, etc.)

Firespout Seals the Deal against Z/G/M, as it helps against Mage, Bant Survival, warrens tokens, and any pesky mass creatures that race you, even Magus. Id rather have spout to be honest, because when the deck emerged, it had 4 clasms originally, and they were there for a reason :smile:

Crucible is good, as it acts as a totally different strategy, and If you don't see loam its really good, and if you do, its really amazing as well.. Im sold it belongs in the main deck, it hasn't failed me yet. I play in Ohio, which is one of the most competitive legacy regions of the US, and Nobody plays bad decks, they're all tier 1/2, and we test like crazy, and Crucible puts out results. I never side it out, because it just belongs there :tongue:.

[OneBigSquirrelGod]

It seems to me that the new leyline of sanctity is a much better sideboard card than chalice (well, maybe you want 1 chalice still, but different story). It stops the reach that zoo has, until they get removal for the leyline. Additionally it prevents combo from going anything but the empty the warrens route or finding hate. Tabernacle slows them down a lot, and with the mana denial lands has you can make it hard for them to actually play their hate. Additionally, it shuts down their duresses. Likewise, it's also useful against walkers like Jace, since he won't be able to target you until the leyline is removed. It also shuts down crypt, wheel, bojuka bog, relic's tap ability, and ravenous trap as GY hate. Pretty much everything but relic. There's a little trouble reaching WW if you want to hardcast it, so if that was a concern it might want to be addressed, but the leyline seems to do a lot more than chalice in my opinion. The main downside is you can't tolaria west for it, but if that was very relevant it'd still be very easy to run 1.

There are like 3-4 different variants of lands... Maybe in the White version this may work (though I doubt it), you have to have it in your opening hand, or its dead (Double white is rough).

[iostream]

The main problem with Leyline is that this deck has no way of finding it when it's not in your opening hand except for Intuition targeting triple Leyline, which seems extremely slow.

[mchainmail]

I saw this coming, as I was typing my post when you were as well. This is My Philosophy:

You go 80/20 against zoo, 70/30 against Goblins, 90/20 against merfolk, 20/80 against combo, actually these statistics were just made up. ANT is not a giant deck now (still around). Philosophy lesson is I'd rather have the "Guaranteed win" against the 95 % of decks, and lose the combo matchup. Kinda sounds like I give up, but I have faith that after my 3 byes at the GP, it will be all tier 1 decks at that point.. lol

SI is a terrible deck, for reasons I don't even know, and with belcher, I'm gambling that 4/60 cards I die, and 7/60 cards Tabernacle/firespout can deal with, and If they dont have it in time, Chasm takes care of that, but that'll probably never happen...

Mind slaver is good against 50% of decks and Mind slaver is Bad against 50% of decks.. Id rather not see it against goblins, zoo, Combo, Even Merfolk and Reanimator. It is good against such decks as Bant Variants, and Tier 2 decks (stacks, Lands, Stompy, etc.)

Firespout Seals the Deal against Z/G/M, as it helps against Mage, Bant Survival, warrens tokens, and any pesky mass creatures that race you, even Magus. Id rather have spout to be honest, because when the deck emerged, it had 4 clasms originally, and they were there for a reason :smile:

Crucible is good, as it acts as a totally different strategy, and If you don't see loam its really good, and if you do, its really amazing as well.. Im sold it belongs in the main deck, it hasn't failed me yet. I play in Ohio, which is one of the most competitive legacy regions of the US, and Nobody plays bad decks, they're all tier 1/2, and we test like crazy, and Crucible puts out results. I never side it out, because it just belongs there :tongue:.
How do you beat Goblins without slaver? Eventually you chasm-lock, but they're going to have a better card advantage engine than you.

I wasn't saying Firespout is bad, just that it is unique. I'd love to see board plans when you're bringing in Spout, because finding stuff to take out looks like an issue.

Eastern PA is just about as competitive as Ohio, with multiple major tournaments each month.


Valtrix: Leyline of Sanctity does seem good against combo, yes. I don't think you want it against Zoo though; taking out 4 business lands for 4 otherwise dead cards is poor, and you win or lose the match on Zuran Orb.

[Valtrix]

There are like 3-4 different variants of lands... Maybe in the White version this may work (though I doubt it), you have to have it in your opening hand, or its dead (Double white is rough).

I agree that :w::w: is rough. That was one of the concerns that I mentioned about the card, but it seems to help out in so many place to probably make up for it. This could be fixed by adding a riftsone portal to the deck, which may not be desirable. Adding a single savannah or something is likewise not that great, since you'd need to have the mox diamond to get the second :w:. Two white sources might not be desirable, but I think a white source + vesuva would work well enough to get your :w::w:, in combination with the mox diamonds.


The main problem with Leyline is that this deck has no way of finding it when it's not in your opening hand except for Intuition targeting triple Leyline, which seems extremely slow.

That's true. But I feel like anything else you could find at 0cc could still be run as a 1-of to find with tolaria west. In that case you get the advantage of being able to tutor for the card that helps, but additionally have a much better card if it's in your opening.

That said, I'm not entirely sure how it would be fit in, but it definitely seems like a very strong card, and doesn't seem that it would actually be all that difficult to fit into the deck.

EDIT: Indeed you need to take out business lands, but on the other hand you also protect yourself from all of their reach and likely all the GY hate they bring in against you until they can deal with the leyline, so losing some business lands doesn't seem too much of a detriment. You're already well equipped to deal with all of their creatures, and if they have to use a pridemage on your leyline, that deals with a creature and still buys you a lot of tempo I think. Getting multiples makes it even harder for them to win.

[Julian23]

Chalice@1 simply destroys any tempo deck. While we still have enjoy a great matchup against those decks it gets even better after sideboarding. It also works great against Dreadstill which is by far the most played deck in southern Germany. Yeah, there might be slightly better sb cards than Chalice when it comes to combo but its versatility definitly justifies a playset in the sb.

Also, Smokestack is really way better than Mindslaver in 80% of the matchups. I recently played Mindslaver in 3 tournaments but randomly actually activated it. After all the main point of running Mindslaver is not powerlevel but time constraints. With that in mind I still favor Smokestack by a lot.


How do you beat Goblins without slaver? Eventually you chasm-lock, but they're going to have a better card advantage engine than you.


WTF?! Are you trying to troll us?! Mindslaver might be the first card I would side out against Goblins as it's way to slow and once it actually makes an impact you're going to win anyway. Smokestack is much better, although not great as they might have some stuff to sac to it as well. Still, Mindslaver, really? Na, too slow. And dude, Goblins definitly doesn't have a better card advantage engine than lands. Goblins is definitly harder to beat than Merfolk because they're faster but still a favorable matchup.

[OneBigSquirrelGod]

How do you beat Goblins without slaver? Eventually you chasm-lock, but they're going to have a better card advantage engine than you.

I wasn't saying Firespout is bad, just that it is unique. I'd love to see board plans when you're bringing in Spout, because finding stuff to take out looks like an issue.

Eastern PA is just about as competitive as Ohio, with multiple major tournaments each month.


Valtrix: Leyline of Sanctity does seem good against combo, yes. I don't think you want it against Zoo though; taking out 4 business lands for 4 otherwise dead cards is poor, and you win or lose the match on Zuran Orb.

Honestly, the Game breaker against the goblin player is Ghost Quarter in the long run... You just runnem outta basics.

I know Firespout isnt bad, its actually really good. Issues Arise when you put anything in the deck... zoo is the tough call, because there are a few variants around, so it slightly changes. Some stopped running Lavamancer, so Barb ring is kind of a waste as a spot in some cases, thatll come out, along with karakas, Crucible, and Usually a fetch... but if Ring is needed, It changes up a little... its all circumstantial...

[Julian23]

You can still snipe Pridemage, Kird Ape and Nacatl even without an Exploration. I'd definitly keep it in the maindeck against Zoo. As well as Gaddock Teeg, if they bring it which would otherwise shutdown EE, Smokestack and/or Mindslaver. Agreed on the Crucible and Karakas (which starts out in the board anyways).

[OneBigSquirrelGod]

Chalice@1 simply destroys any tempo deck. While we still have enjoy a great matchup against those decks it gets even better after sideboarding. It also works great against Dreadstill which is by far the most played deck in southern Germany. Yeah, there might be slightly better sb cards than Chalice when it comes to combo but its versatility definitly justifies a playset in the sb.

Also, Smokestack is really way better than Mindslaver in 80% of the matchups. I recently played Mindslaver in 3 tournaments but randomly actually activated it. After all the main point of running Mindslaver is not powerlevel but time constraints. With that in mind I still favor Smokestack by a lot.



WTF?! Are you trying to troll us?! Mindslaver might be the first card I would side out against Goblins as it's way to slow and once it actually makes an impact you're going to win anyway. Smokestack is much better, although not great as they might have some stuff to sac to it as well. Still, Mindslaver, really? Na, too slow. And dude, Goblins definitly doesn't have a better card advantage engine than lands. Goblins is definitly harder to beat than Merfolk because they're faster but still a favorable matchup.

Dreadstill? What year is it over there, 2008? You shouldnt lose to Dreadstill with lands.... ever.... Maze, Wastes, Ports, Mazes', EE, more manlands. That is actually one of the Blue Control decks I would not side Slaver in against. And with testing, Merfolk is a little harder to beat tha goblins, considering Kira, Islandwalk, B2B, and countermagic (I'm not trolling you either...)

[mchainmail]

Honestly, the Game breaker against the goblin player is Ghost Quarter in the long run... You just runnem outta basics.

I know Firespout isnt bad, its actually really good. Issues Arise when you put anything in the deck... zoo is the tough call, because there are a few variants around, so it slightly changes. Some stopped running Lavamancer, so Barb ring is kind of a waste as a spot in some cases, thatll come out, along with karakas, Crucible, and Usually a fetch... but if Ring is needed, It changes up a little... its all circumstantial...


I haven't played against a good goblins player yet, so my lack of experience may be at fault.

I'm really reluctant to take slaver out of the maindeck, mostly because it prompts concessions. A player will see Smokestack at 3 while you have Manabond out, and think "I can still win this" Against slaver-lock, most opponents just scoop. (Game 1)

Firespout is certainly interesting, but is it better than wasteland and ghost quarter recursion, chasm-lock and tabernacle? I don't know how much board help you need with Zoo. (Although Kira is really bad for us from Merfolk.

[Julian23]

You will usually set Smokestack to just 1 (sometimes 2). if your opponent doesn't surrender you just attack with 2-3 Factories and the game should be over inbetween 3-4 minutes. If you're opponent doesn't scoop to Smokestack@2 chances are he also won't scoop to Mindslaver as he is trying to stall for some reason (either being 1-0 in the lead or opting for a draw anyways).

[zuzy]

Thank to all of you who has made some comments to the questions I had.

[iostream]

To mchainmail and others who run the stack/crucible suite in the board: what do you think of Enlightened Tutor as an additional means of tutoring post-board? Introducing stack and crucible significantly increases the number of artifacts you can't find with Tolaria West - ET solves this problem. It also softens the impact of an Extirpate targeting Loam as well as helping you find a manabond or exploration if needed.

[mchainmail]

To mchainmail and others who run the stack/crucible suite in the board: what do you think of Enlightened Tutor as an additional means of tutoring post-board? Introducing stack and crucible significantly increases the number of artifacts you can't find with Tolaria West - ET solves this problem. It also softens the impact of an Extirpate targeting Loam as well as helping you find a manabond or exploration if needed.

E-Tutor seems alright, but the biggest reason to run the artifacts isn't what they do together; it's that either one is downright gamebreaking. We are the singular best deck in the format under smokestack (except stax when they have crucible as well)

If you have loam-manabond, you can keep stax at 3.

E-Tutor does seem to help consistency though, especially as I oftentimes board out Manabond. It also works well with singleton SB cards like needle.

I'm going to test it out a little... I need to find foils before I run them in an event though.

[betterthenandrew]

Alright, Ive been playing Lands as much as possible lately, unfortunately I don't have much for real legacy in my area. What I really want to know is how much combo hate are people going to bring with their Lands! to Columbus. I'm pretty sure I'm going to simply write off combo, possibly playing 1 Chalice as an answer to Extirpate, though Crucible might be just as good or better. I love the white leyline, but with the damage done to storm combo I don't expect it in large numbers. That being said its hard to fill a board with out combo hate because there are a couple cards that answer almost every problem: Namely K Grip. My board at the moment, for a pretty standard Blue Lands list is going to start with:
3 Krosan Grip
1 Flame jab
2 Zuran Orb
1 Smoke Stack
3 Tormod's Crypt
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Karakas

That leaves me with 4 slots. I Could easily see 4 more combo hate slots (3 chalice, 1 white leyline?) or a mix of more general answers, or am i missing something all together?

[betterthenandrew]

Alright, Ive been playing Lands as much as possible lately, unfortunately I don't have much for real legacy in my area. What I really want to know is how much combo hate are people going to bring with their Lands! to Columbus. I'm pretty sure I'm going to simply write off combo, possibly playing 1 Chalice as an answer to Extirpate, though Crucible might be just as good or better. I love the white leyline, but with the damage done to storm combo I don't expect it in large numbers. That being said its hard to fill a board with out combo hate because there are a couple cards that answer almost every problem: Namely K Grip. My board at the moment, for a pretty standard Blue Lands list is going to start with:
3 Krosan Grip
1 Flame jab
2 Zuran Orb
1 Smoke Stack
3 Tormod's Crypt
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Karakas

That leaves me with 3 slots. I Could easily see 4 more combo hate slots (3 chalice) or a mix of more general answers, or am i missing something all together?

[mchainmail]

My current board:
3 Krosan Grip
2 Smokestack
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Ray of Revelation
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Pithing Needle
1 Karakas
1 The Tabernacle of the Pendrell Vale
1 Academy Ruins


I really like my odds in control matchups, especially those that run counterbalance. If you resolve Intuition, you win. Easy as that. This is with a standard maindeck with Zuran Orb and Academy Ruins maindecked already.

[iostream]

That leaves me with 3 slots. I Could easily see 4 more combo hate slots (3 chalice) or a mix of more general answers, or am i missing something all together?

Why is it that people keep insisting that chalice is only good against combo decks? I contend that Chalice is a general answer to many decks. For example:

- Chalice at 0, besides addressing cheese like SI, takes care of Tormod's Crypt
- Chalice at 1 addresses Extirpate and Pithing Needle, wrecks New Horizons by shutting down Brainstorm + Stifle + STP + Ponder, pre-empts Top, slows down nearly every elves variant out there to a manageable speed, among other things
- Chalice at 2 prevents Fish from playing most of their creatures, and takes care of many other irritating random cards like Goyf

These are just a few examples. The point is merely that every competitive Legacy deck has a peak in their mana curve somewhere between 0 and 2, so we set Chalice accordingly.

Yes, some of our spells get nerfed under Chalice as well. Yes, most decks will be packing enchantment/artifact hate in the SB. But it is better for us that they crack a Chalice than a Mox or an Exploration (which you're supposed to play before dropping Chalice...). And even if Chalice is active only for a turn or two, we gain precious time against decks that might otherwise outrace our lock post-SB.

Why it's not generally accepted to run this as a 4-of in the board is honestly a bit mysterious to me.

[Serbitar]

Sure, Chalice has more uses than just (Storm-)Combo (e.g. Burn), but some of the above seems just wrong.
You will never want to set Chalice at 2 (Loam) and you probably never bring in Chalices to fight Crypt/Relic (at least I never do). There are way too many things that have to go right for that to work (say you play Chalice 0 and they have Relics, not Crypts). Krosan Grip is a better answer here.

[dahcmai]

I used to set Chalice at 2 if I knew Price of Progress was running around. Though I used Crucibles to complement my Loams. It was just easier to run without the loams and not have to worry about price. Sure I could use Z orb, but when in a hurry to find it and you realize you can die to a single price soon, I'd drop it. I beat a heavy Anhk burn deck because I did that. After a Chalice at 1 and 2, I dropped one at 6 for Fireblast out of spite. lol

I didn't mind setting Chalices for Relic/Crypts. Just Tolaria West up two and set them on both numbers.

[mchainmail]

In the standard lists, Chalices are entirely proactive cards. While this is good, we run the risk of splash damage when we proactively set them at the wrong numbers.

iostream: The real challenge becomes effective sideboarding. Pick a matchup where you think you will want chalices... and then figure out what to board in and out. It's incredibly difficult to justify taking cards out for chalice of the void in most matchups.

In the Reanimator matchup, Lands was the control, and Reanimator was heavily centered around 1 mana, and board plans did often include boarding one or more chalice. The issue here is that chalice of the void simply isn't as strong of a play as many of our other cards.

Often, sideboarding plans include answers to resolved hate cards or cards that blank hate entirely. In my example board, you care little about hate cards, as your artifacts allow you to play through everything (Crucible is poor against Planar Void and Leyline.) Alternatively, cards like Krosan Grip are boarded in as direct answers.

dahcmai: Although you said you had Chalice, Blue Lands decks now run Tolaria West to tutor up Zuran Orb. A second Zuran Orb may be prudent in some metagames, but I do not believe chalice is the answer you are looking for.

[iostream]

In the standard lists, Chalices are entirely proactive cards. While this is good, we run the risk of splash damage when we proactively set them at the wrong numbers.
This is certainly true; that's why they're a sideboard card. We should generally know what the key numbers are after game 1, I would think. Relic/Crypt is a bad ambiguity, admittedly, but that is the exception rather than the rule. e.g. we always know tempo always hates chalice at 1.


iostream: The real challenge becomes effective sideboarding. Pick a matchup where you think you will want chalices... and then figure out what to board in and out. It's incredibly difficult to justify taking cards out for chalice of the void in most matchups.
I personally haven't encountered this difficulty. Specifically, it's usually not the case that every single land we run is always useful. For example, Maze of Ith is bad against Countertop/Progenitus builds because they have no legal targets. Wasteland usually blows against Goblins and Fish since most of their lands are basics. You get the idea. Perhaps this is a serious strategic error, but I can often find four lands I don't like as much as 4 chalice post-board. I'm not claiming this is is universal, but it happens pretty often (for example, 4 chalice against tempo decks seems pretty bad given how brutally effective our disruption is against them game 1, but maybe 1 or 2 chalice can be justified). The tradeoff, of course, is that we have to Loam a bit more conservatively, but this seems like an acceptable compromise for the disruption Chalice provides.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding your sideboarding strategies, though.


In the Reanimator matchup, Lands was the control, and Reanimator was heavily centered around 1 mana, and board plans did often include boarding one or more chalice. The issue here is that chalice of the void simply isn't as strong of a play as many of our other cards.
Very true, but in reanimator's case, all their crucial spells are sorcery speed, so Crypt/Ruins was brutally powerful. This certainly does not generalize to other decks.


Often, sideboarding plans include answers to resolved hate cards or cards that blank hate entirely. In my example board, you care little about hate cards, as your artifacts allow you to play through everything (Crucible is poor against Planar Void and Leyline.) Alternatively, cards like Krosan Grip are boarded in as direct answers.Grip and Ray are very good, but are they always enough? Hate can be piled on pretty hard on us. Yixlid Jailer, Leyline, Planar Void, Relic, Tormod's Crypt, among other things are all realities we have to deal with. GY hate is public enemy #1 for us, and it's no surprise that almost all our cards are geared against it. Do you think your extra copies of Ruins and Tabernacle are a more effective response to that than Chalice?


dahcmai: Although you said you had Chalice, Blue Lands decks now run Tolaria West to tutor up Zuran Orb. A second Zuran Orb may be prudent in some metagames, but I do not believe chalice is the answer you are looking for.I wholeheartedly agree - Chalice is just not at all a replacement for Orb. With multiple Explorations in play, Orb allows you to gain life at an obscene rate.

[mchainmail]

This is certainly true; that's why they're a sideboard card. We should generally know what the key numbers are after game 1, I would think. Relic/Crypt is a bad ambiguity, admittedly, but that is the exception rather than the rule. e.g. we always know tempo always hates chalice at 1.


Some decks may be highly centered around specific mana costs. However, we dilute our loams, delay the start of loaming, and hinder our own progress while setting up for a chalice.



I personally haven't encountered this difficulty. Specifically, it's usually not the case that every single land we run is always useful. For example, Maze of Ith is bad against Countertop/Progenitus builds because they have no legal targets. Wasteland usually blows against Goblins and Fish since most of their lands are basics. You get the idea. Perhaps this is a serious strategic error, but I can often find four lands I don't like as much as 4 chalice post-board. I'm not claiming this is is universal, but it happens pretty often (for example, 4 chalice against tempo decks seems pretty bad given how brutally effective our disruption is against them game 1, but maybe 1 or 2 chalice can be justified). The tradeoff, of course, is that we have to Loam a bit more conservatively, but this seems like an acceptable compromise for the disruption Chalice provides.


Maze of Ith is not bad against Countertop decks, because it allows you to maintain a larger life total by stopping goyfs. Is it great, no. But it's not a card I'd take out.

Wasteland is really, really strong against Merfolk, as they occasionally tap their own wastelands, and restricting them to 2 lands with Tabernacle is fantastic. Also, chalice isn't good against fish's curve.

Boarding in one or two chalices may be alright, but then we're not setting up chalice until we tutor for it, oftentimes on turn 3 and casting on turn 4. This is usually far too slow to impact the game, as an early goyf can get in for a lot of damage.




Perhaps I'm misunderstanding your sideboarding strategies, though.


The sideboard is dedicated to the control style decks; you resolve an Intuition, and you basically win. This includes Landstill and Enlightened Tutor variants. The sheer power of any of the artifacts is what sets it apart. Additionally, the sideboard almost entirely blanks graveyard ate; the artifacts care little about what is in your graveyard (besides Leyline / Void)



Very true, but in reanimator's case, all their crucial spells are sorcery speed, so Crypt/Ruins was brutally powerful. This certainly does not generalize to other decks.

Crypt reanimation is easily broken by Reanimator, especially the weeks before Mystical's banning where they would play It That Betrays. They simply find Exhume, cast it and then Entomb after Exhume resolves.



Grip and Ray are very good, but are they always enough? Hate can be piled on pretty hard on us. Yixlid Jailer, Leyline, Planar Void, Relic, Tormod's Crypt, among other things are all realities we have to deal with. GY hate is public enemy #1 for us, and it's no surprise that almost all our cards are geared against it. Do you think your extra copies of Ruins and Tabernacle are a more effective response to that than Chalice?


The extra copy of Ruins is there to have resiliency. The best way to play around hate is simply to slog through it; loaming while holding Ruins up sets up difficult decisions for any opponent.

[Julian23]

@mchainmail: So how does your sideboard look like?

Answering your question, I usually exchange Manabonds for Chalice which has been working quite well for me so far.

[proraptor]

What about the following:
If you play Dark confidant and Volrath's stronghold in MB, maybe switching an intuition and tolaria west for entomb!
You can maybe even play a Urborg, tomb of yawmoth by replacing it with your taiga and replacing maybe barbarian ring for cabal pit.
By doing this you get a fast way to play confidant and you go from 4 colors to 3 so your manascrew will be optimist a bit.

[Julian23]

...and open up yourself to Swords to Plowshares. While Entomb still serves the main-purpose of Intuition (read: finding Loam) it's much worse at that as Intuition not only finds Loam but the answers you are looking for as well. And Tolaria West is just so fuckin damn important to the blue version of lands its not even funny, really. I dont see why I would almost break my neck trying to get Dark Confidant online only to lose it to a 1-mana white instant. Besides that I don't run black at all (used to for Extirpate but cut it from the board after trying it in 3 tournaments) and even if, finding black/red in time has never been a problem because I run 4 Mox, 4 Fetchlands, 3 Tolaria West as you should.

[iostream]

Well, the verdict's out from GP Columbus. Lands had a strong Day 2 showing, Show and Tell is apparently good, Storm is still alive, and U/G Madness?!

What do you all think are the implications for how Lands is positioned in the post-GP meta? What kinds of tweaks do you think are necessary?

I for one am beginning to like enlightened tutor more and more after seeing the top 8. Humility and Solitary Confinement look like good targets against some of these decks.

The persistence of combo, however, scares me. If that keeps up, Lands may yet still be relegated to the Tier 2 bin just as before the banning of Tutor.

[Julian23]

For my part, I will be testing/running 2-3 Pithing Needles in my sideboard (replacing Tormod's Crypts as graveyard hate seems to to be kinda irrelevant in my meta) as the increasing presence e of planeswalkers, especially Jaces is scary.

[iostream]

A piece of tech I noticed from the t8 was Wheel of Sun and Moon. Seems like an interesting way to get the Leyline effect without having to commit to black...

I'm like Guw Lands more and more.

[damnthedoodle]

Stephen Menendian ran Oblivion stones in his lands deck. This card is nuts, and you all should try it. It kills planeswalkers, destroys countertop, gets rid of thopter tokens and the entire engine, and you can even save your exploration/manabond if you have a spare turn. Also gives us a wrath effect vs reanimator and aggro decks.

[mchainmail]

Stephen Menendian ran Oblivion stones in his lands deck. This card is nuts, and you all should try it. It kills planeswalkers, destroys countertop, gets rid of thopter tokens and the entire engine, and you can even save your exploration/manabond if you have a spare turn. Also gives us a wrath effect vs reanimator and aggro decks.

I heard about Oblivion Stone late, but it seems fantastic. You didn't even mention "answers permanent-based hate cards" which is the biggest need, in my book!


@mchainmail: So how does your sideboard look like?

Answering your question, I usually exchange Manabonds for Chalice which has been working quite well for me so far.


My current board:
3 Krosan Grip
2 Smokestack
2 Crucible of Worlds
2 Ray of Revelation
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Pithing Needle
1 Karakas
1 The Tabernacle of the Pendrell Vale
1 Academy Ruins


I really like my odds in control matchups, especially those that run counterbalance. If you resolve Intuition, you win. Easy as that. This is with a standard maindeck with Zuran Orb and Academy Ruins maindecked already.

[iostream]

Oblivion Stone is an excellent new addition. I think this is pretty clear. It was so good that he didn't run Mindslaver MD.

Other tech Menendian ran, with gut reactions:

- More Ghost Quarters. I am not sure how this is actually a good idea because usually I have more urgent things to do versus Goblins, Fish, and other decks that run a lot of basics than try to wipe out all their basics. Also, he took out a Tolaria West for this?!

- 2 Choke in the sideboard. Again, seems questionable. How are you going to find this? It also seems like shooting ourselves in the foot.

- 4 Sphere of Resistance in the SB. This is intriguing. Besides playing an obvious part against combo decks, it makes it considerably harder for FoW and Extirpate to ruin our day, and slows down aggro considerably.

I think that the emergence of Sphere and Oblivion Stone as yet more non-zero cc artifacts we want suggests even further that white splashing for Enlightened Tutor is a good idea. I've been pushing for it hard in these parts, and I think it's been working out quite well in playtesting. You all should try it.

[damnthedoodle]

I think that the emergence of Sphere and Oblivion Stone as yet more non-zero cc artifacts we want suggests even further that white splashing for Enlightened Tutor is a good idea. I've been pushing for it hard in these parts, and I think it's been working out quite well in playtesting. You all should try it.

Can you give me your list? The deck is extremely tight as is, I can't imagine making room; unless you're talking about axing blue or something, which I wouldn't consider...

[mchainmail]

Oblivion Stone is an excellent new addition. I think this is pretty clear. It was so good that he didn't run Mindslaver MD.

Other tech Menendian ran, with gut reactions:

- More Ghost Quarters. I am not sure how this is actually a good idea because usually I have more urgent things to do versus Goblins, Fish, and other decks that run a lot of basics than try to wipe out all their basics. Also, he took out a Tolaria West for this?!

- 2 Choke in the sideboard. Again, seems questionable. How are you going to find this? It also seems like shooting ourselves in the foot.

- 4 Sphere of Resistance in the SB. This is intriguing. Besides playing an obvious part against combo decks, it makes it considerably harder for FoW and Extirpate to ruin our day, and slows down aggro considerably.

I think that the emergence of Sphere and Oblivion Stone as yet more non-zero cc artifacts we want suggests even further that white splashing for Enlightened Tutor is a good idea. I've been pushing for it hard in these parts, and I think it's been working out quite well in playtesting. You all should try it.

Can you post your latest E-Tutor list?

Sphere of Resistance isn't that unusual of a sb card; Menendian ran 1 next to 4 Chalice and 1 Canonist back in mid-May. This is far more reflective of a format shift: Aluren and Show and Tell decks are more prevalent than Ad Nauseam and Reanimator (where Chalice for 1 was nuts) It also makes ports far better.

Choke seems to improve already good matchups, although I may be wrong. Having them against Thopter-Top and landstill-esq variants seems incredible, as your Rishadan Ports basically read "1, Tap: Make target land useless" You're not that reliant on Blue past Tolaria West.

Ghost Quarters are bad in four matchups: Goblins, Mono U fish, Elves, UW Thopter-Top (running 10+ basics) Every other deck in the format has 4 basics tops, so the mana denial is incredibly relevant. Still, I'm holding the Quarter to a tutor target and nothing else.

Tolaria West is as much an Intuition target as anything, but I've Intuitioned for triple Tolaria West only a handful of times (to get EE to kill a permanent) Triple West is almost always too slow, and a ETB-Tapped land can really mess with some hands, so I think it's an alright cut to make.

[iostream]

Sure.

4 Maze of Ith
3 Mishra's Factory
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
2 Tolaria West
3 Tranquil Thicket
3 Tropical Island
1 Forest
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Glacial Chasm
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Academy Ruins
1 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Riftstone Portal
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Savannah

4 Exploration
3 Manabond
4 Life from the Loam
4 Intuition
4 Mox Diamond
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Zuran Orb
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Oblivion Stone
3 Enlightened Tutor

SB
3 Krosan Grip
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Smokestack
1 Damping Matrix
4 Sphere of Resistance
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Solitary Confinement
1 Humility
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon

The board is still a complete mess because I'm still messing around with tutor. The cuts to accommodate tutor were 1 Manabond (since you never want to see more than one of it, and guess what you have to tutor for it if you really need it?), 1 Tolaria West (we're adding more tutors, so it seems ok to taketh one away), and 1 Mishra's Factory (since ostensibly, the greater control tutor gives you reduces the need for a fourth one of these). Other notable swaps include Bayou for Savannah and fetchland for Riftstone Portal.

[mchainmail]

I think one of the Sphere of Resistance should be an Arcane Lab / Rule of Law / Ethersworn Canonist; decks are likely to pack bounce, so having tutorable alternatives seems necessary.

All in all, the idea is certainly intriguing. I'll try and test it out when I can. I'd probably add the 4th factory back in somewhere though.

[damnthedoodle]

Seems interesting - I'll put it through a gauntlet when my buddies have some free time and post some results.

[Davetradint]

I don't want to sound stupid, but...
Isn't O.Stone too expensive in mana terms? Moreover it cannot be tutored with Tolaria, etc...
You have to dredge and "oh!" find it, then recover it with Ruins. Although you can Intuition for Loam, Ruins and Stone.

IMHO it's a little expensive in mana terms, but I will not deny the wonderful effect it has in the game.

Thoughts?

[mchainmail]

I don't want to sound stupid, but...
Isn't O.Stone too expensive in mana terms? Moreover it cannot be tutored with Tolaria, etc...
You have to dredge and "oh!" find it, then recover it with Ruins. Although you can Intuition for Loam, Ruins and Stone.

IMHO it's a little expensive in mana terms, but I will not deny the wonderful effect it has in the game.

Thoughts?

Intuition set-up piles happen in a lot of games as it is; setting up to recur a wrath effect is about the same effort. More importantly, O-Stone can be done over two turns, and 5 or 6 mana is relatively common in this deck (if you prioritize stone over everything else)

[El Gringo]

I'm a n00b of 43 Lands deck. Can i make same question ? (Sorry for my horrible english...)

Which hands we need to mulligan ? Hands whit no Manabond or Exploration or Mox ?

How we can hold an Extirpate on Life in G2 ?

Whan we have to side in Smokestak and Crucuble ?

Which is the correct way to use Glacial Chasm ?

As is the match up whit Merfolks and ProBant ?

Thanks

[Tao]

Which hands we need to mulligan ? Hands whit no Manabond or Exploration or Mox ?

Mulligan this deck aggressively.
The deck is similar to a combo deck with 2 Combo pieces (Loam, Acceleration). So you should mulligan nearly every 7 card hand without both pieces or one piece and Intuition. A hand without acceleration, but with good lands, Loam and Intuition is not optimal, but on the play I would keep it.
If you have information about your opponent, that changes things of course (for example having Zuran Orb vs. Burn or Tabernacle vs. Elves is almost always a keep).


How we can hold an Extirpate on Life in G2 ?

Playing around Extirpate is nearly impossible. If your opponent plays other spells with Mana Cost 1 and you KNOW he has Extirpate you can try to go for Chalice at 1, but usually it is nearly impossible to play around. Extirpate is just a very good card against this deck. If you have Crucible in your sideboard, side it in of course.


Whan we have to side in Smokestak and Crucuble ?

Both are pretty much for what the cards say ;)
Crucible is sided in against decks that get rid of your loam, against the mirror and against control decks. Smokestack is good against slow decks with few permanents like Bant.


Which is the correct way to use Glacial Chasm ?

If you suspect that your opponent has no Wastelands (like Zoo), you should recur it with Loam every turn so that you can go for the win aggressively and take no creature damage (or Chain Lightning damage). Against aggressive decks with Wastelands (Merfolk, Goblins) or ways to counter your recursion (Bant) use it to buy you a couple of turns, but don't ignore board control or they will keep a Wasteland in their hand and kill you in one attack. Against these decks you have to figure out every turn what is the best play based on the board, there is no easy way. Sometimes you just have to gamble that they dont have Wasteland, sometimes you can play around Wasteland.

[El Gringo]

Thank You !

Where i can find a list of the match up whit most played deck ?

Can you give me some instructions to how i have to play against graveyard hate ?

Thanks

[Julian23]

Use Tranquil Thicket to play around Tormod's Crypt or Relic of Progenitus. They activate it and you respond by cycling Thicket dredging Loam back to your hand.

[mchainmail]

I'm a n00b of 43 Lands deck. Can i make same question ? (Sorry for my horrible english...)




Which hands we need to mulligan ? Hands whit no Manabond or Exploration or Mox ?

Generally, yes. You want to see Manabond / Exploration and Loam. However, depending on the matchup, there are some "sloppy keeps" I've made; hands with multiple ports and wastelands with Loam are usually a go for me. I rarely keep a hand with just Manabond.



How we can hold an Extirpate on Life in G2 ?


Extirpate can be beaten in two ways: 1. Port their black mana on your turn, and keep Extirpate in your hand by using cycling lands to recover it from your graveyard immediately.

2. Board in Crucible / other cards.



Whan we have to side in Smokestak and Crucuble ?


Smokestack comes in against any slow matchup. Landstill, CB-Top, etc. Any matchup where they don't have a fast clock and don't run stupid numbers of permanents.



Which is the correct way to use Glacial Chasm ?


Glacial Chasm is a skill-testing card. Typically, I'll play it, leave it for a turn and then sacrifice it the following turn (costing 2 life total) Against some decks like dredge, I'll leave it out until I'm almost dead.

[Davetradint]

I have some questions regarding playstyle of the deck.

If your opening hand contains Mox Diamond, land for it, Exploration, Manabond and 3 any other cards (no more copies of Exploration or Bond),
what would you play first, your bond or exploration ?
Assuming you're on the play/draw and against an opponent who can counter your spells...?

If you're playing against opp able to counter your spells, what is the most crucial thing to resolve? Acceleration or Intuition?

Let's imagine we don't have a Loam in hand, neither in GY. Opponent plays Zoo and it's our 3rd turn, we had an Intuition in our opening hand and we can cast it right now. Would you had mulliganed this hand if it included Intu, Exploration and mana enough to cast both? Would you cast Intuition and pick which 3 cards?

Which are the most common intuition piles you usually make?

[Oddus]

Let's imagine we don't have a Loam in hand, neither in GY. Opponent plays Zoo and it's our 3rd turn, we had an Intuition in our opening hand and we can cast it right now. Would you had mulliganed this hand if it included Intu, Exploration and mana enough to cast both? Would you cast Intuition and pick which 3 cards?

Which are the most common intuition piles you usually make?

That's a tough question in vacuum)) You are playing vs zoo, turn 3 means that probably you are at around 10 life and you might as well be dead next turn, worst case scenario. So intuition doesn't really help on your turn (might as well cast it eot), cause you want (probably) loam, glacial chasm and tolaria west to find zuran orb later (you do run zuran x 1 main, right?). This is the pile I would make, but still in vacuum withut board position it's hard to tell. What I mean is - if you don't have explore on the table by this time - you can go pack, but why would you keep a hand without explore/loam anyway? MORE INFO IS NEEDED TO ANSWER COMPETENTLY. chasm, loam TW is my best guess...
Sorry, didn't see that we had explore, intu and mana - how can you mulligan this??? vs zoo it's almost goldfish, but it cannot be your 3rd turn, cause u play explore 1st turn, and than cast intuition eot 2nd turn anyhow. You grab loam, west chasm and proceed to do all the unfair things with zoo this deck is so capable of - which start with finding orb and then proceed to killing zoo at your leisure.

[AegeanC]

Well If you are playing against zoo, and you can end of turn the intuition, grab the loam, E.E.(hoping there's no teeg on the board) and a tolaria west unless you already had one then grab a tranquil thicket. Odds are 2-3 of their creatures have cmc = 1 so the e.e. on your main phase saves you. Then it should be a win from that point because you have the west into a tabernacle, and or zuran orb. If there is a goyf on the board I'd do a Intuition for say... loam+maze of ith+ e.e. that way you can deal with any cmc=1 creatures and play maze to deal with that goyf.

[Oddus]

you can end of turn the intuition, grab the loam, E.E.(hoping there's no teeg on the board) and a tolaria west unless you already had one then grab a tranquil thicket.
Seriously??? So zoo player hands you loam and drops ee and tw to graveyard - then what? I mean - EE?? vs zoo? without at least academy to rcur it? I'd say it's a hard gamble and what zoo player would actually hand you EE off intuition?? He must be some zoo player than..)))

[mchainmail]

I have some questions regarding playstyle of the deck.

If your opening hand contains Mox Diamond, land for it, Exploration, Manabond and 3 any other cards (no more copies of Exploration or Bond),
what would you play first, your bond or exploration ?
Assuming you're on the play/draw and against an opponent who can counter your spells...?

If you're playing against opp able to counter your spells, what is the most crucial thing to resolve? Acceleration or Intuition?


Intuition, almost every day of the week. Getting Loam, Wasteland online game 1 is a virtual win against any form of Landstill-esq control deck. Getting Loam, Academy Ruins, Engineered Explosives against a Counterbalance-based control deck is equally absurd.




Let's imagine we don't have a Loam in hand, neither in GY. Opponent plays Zoo and it's our 3rd turn, we had an Intuition in our opening hand and we can cast it right now. Would you had mulliganed this hand if it included Intu, Exploration and mana enough to cast both? Would you cast Intuition and pick which 3 cards?


Assuming this is on my opponent's end step on turn 2, my board was 3 lands, and I was at 10 life or less (or so), I would get:

Loam, Tolaria West, Glacial Chasm

I would keep chasm for a turn, tutoring up Zuran Orb. On the second turn with Chasm, sac it to Zuran Orb in response to the trigger, hope he doesn't have enough burn to blow you out and win. Depending on your mana situation, fetching up Tabernacle (against an inexperienced player) or Wasteland / Port can also be prudent. This is incredibly situationally dependent, as his lands and your life total decide your course of action.




Which are the most common intuition piles you usually make?

Preboard:
3x Manabond
3x Exploration
Loam, Academy Ruins, Engineered Explosives
Loam, Academy Ruins, Ensnaring Bridge
Loam, 2x Wasteland
Loam, 2x Port
Loam, 2x Maze of Ith
Loam, Tabernacle, Wasteland
Loam, Fetchland, Tolaria West
Loam, 2x Mishra's Factory

This is probably 90% of situations pre-board. Post-board gets more interesting.

[Julian23]

If your opening hand contains Mox Diamond, land for it, Exploration, Manabond and 3 any other cards (no more copies of Exploration or Bond),
what would you play first, your bond or exploration ?
Assuming you're on the play/draw and against an opponent who can counter your spells...?

Totally depends on whether those other 3 cards are lands or not. I'd 99% lead with Exploration. Why would I want Manabond? There are some corner-case scenarios in which you want to drop 2 Maze turn 1 but I guess we can rule that out approaching your question from a general direction. On the draw I might be more tempted to go for Manabond IF I have 2 Port+Mana to activate both right away. If I only have 1 Port I can play Exploration and still activate it with Mox. If my opponent can counter my spells I'd happily sacrifice Exploration to Force and play Manabond second turn. /edit: even on the play usually 1 port is enough so I'd still lead with Exploration, Mox + Port. Unless of course my opponent somehow played 2 lands turn 1 and I want to port them asap (like in the mirror).


If you're playing against opp able to counter your spells, what is the most crucial thing to resolve? Acceleration or Intuition?

Depends on the circumstances. Against slow, real controldecks Intuition is obviously much more important. Againsst aggro-control you should usually try to resolve your acceleration on turn 1&2 anyway as Intuition would otherwise just run into Daze. I see no reason to not lead with my acceleration in general.
You question is a bit twisted as I see no opposition between Acceleration and Intuition as the first makes sure the second has a higher chance of resolving.


Let's imagine we don't have a Loam in hand, neither in GY. Opponent plays Zoo and it's our 3rd turn, we had an Intuition in our opening hand and we can cast it right now. Would you had mulliganed this hand if it included Intu, Exploration and mana enough to cast both? Would you cast Intuition and pick which 3 cards?

Really, what's wrong with that hand? It includes acceleration AND Intuition (=Loam) AND enough mana.. which is like super-43-wonderLand. Obviously sincee you didn't cast Intuition at end of turn 2 you ALSO have a combination of 2 Wasteland/Maze of Ith which seems EVEN greater against Zoo. Never ever mulligana that hand!


Which are the most common intuition piles you usually make?

Preboard:
3x Manabond
3x Exploration
Loam, Academy Ruins, Engineered Explosives
Loam, Academy Ruins, Ensnaring Bridge
Loam, 2x Wasteland
Loam, 2x Port
Loam, 2x Maze of Ith
Loam, Tabernacle, Wasteland
Loam, Fetchland, Tolaria W
plus Loam, 2x Ghost Quarter if I have Manabond. Also works with Exploration but with Manabond it's even greater.
If you already have Manabond AND Loam you can go straight away for what you really need 3x like Maze, Wasteland, Port, Ghost Quarter. If you wanna play it save go for Academy Ruins, EE / Oblivion Stone + Cycling Land/Tolaria West.

People would be suprised how often 3x Manabond is in fact the corect play.

[mchainmail]

plus Loam, 2x Ghost Quarter if I have Manabond. Also works with Exploration but with Manabond it's even greater.
If you already have Manabond AND Loam you can go straight away for what you really need 3x like Maze, Wasteland, Port, Ghost Quarter. If you wanna play it save go for Academy Ruins, EE / Oblivion Stone + Cycling Land/Tolaria West.

People would be suprised how often 3x Manabond is in fact the corect play.

I forgot about Ghost Quarter and Oblivion Stone entirely. (I don't have a foil Oblivion Stone yet either)

It's really the sort of thing the more you play the more ingrained it gets, so just keep playing. If you come to a board situation where you don't know what to do, post the full situation on here and I'm sure we'll be able to help you out.

[Davetradint]

Thank you guys for the help!

I am still to make some changes to de deck, but I'd like to hear experienced opinions.
Ghostquarter: is the second copy needed?
Mindslaver: Should we cut it in O.Stone favour?

More detailed situations:

Our opening 7: Exploration, Manabond, Intuition, Maze, Fetch, Factory, Factory.

We are on the draw, opp plays island, cursecatcher (we know he's playing merfolk)

- Situation A.1: We draw Mox Diamond, then we'd play ...

my guess is that we'd play fetch, get basic forest, try to resolve Mox D., then try to resolve bond or exploration, then try to play around daze/catcher. Thoughts?

- Situation A.2: We draw a second copy of Exploration, then.....

we know that our first piece of acceleration will be countered, so would we make them spend one of their counters? or take a turn to play around daze?

- Situation B.1: Our hand is T. Island, Fetch, Port, Wasteland, Exploration, EE, Intuition.

Opponent goes first dropping fetch for any dual, then Nacatl.

Our draw is another Fetchland. Would you drop mana for exploration, then waste his land? or would you look for a long-term strategy?

- Situation B.2: We get a Maze of Ith....then?

- B.3: Opponent cracked his fetch for a basic land and dropped a critter. He may look for a dual next turn... so we have to choose between mazing the critter or..?

I'l post more complex situations later. Thank you guys!!!

[Oddus]

A1. You are perfectly right - pitch maze to mox, after you fetch a forest, then play exploration, then manabond - if he wants to counter bond - that's just perfectly fine, cause the more chances we'll resolve intuition next turn.. But here we are betting heavily on intuition and it can get wery ugly if he somehow stops it.
A2. We're pretty screwed, I'd lead with explore for the same reasons - if he wants to counter, we care even less now. Between maze and mishra's we should be able to hold the ground until we get mana to play around daze/catcher, and it's REALLY lucky you didn't get 1st turn vial from merfolk - that's where troubles usually begin :))
B1. T island, explore, waste his dual - if he goes another land-one drop next turn - explosive at 1 will buy you A LOT of time, you can even take some damage for a turn, trading it for ability to lock his land with a port if you draw some more lands. - or you can EE, then intuition right away on 3rd turn - probly more correct thing to do.
B2. We definitely EE 2nd turn, after that intuition safely from behind a maze.
B3 looks kinda similair to B1 :)) I suppose it's another zoo, so follow the same pattern)) (oh, there is basic land involved.. then maze is definitely the right land to play after explore - we have time to waste a land and port on the next turn. or go intuition for loam, tabernacle, maze). This deck is highly interactive, so what opp plays and how makes all the difference in the world))

[mchainmail]

NEWS FLASH. Re-read Cursecatcher.

ASSUMING ALL ARE GAME 1.

A1: Fetch -> Forest, Mox Diamond pitch Maze, Exploration.

If Exploration resolves, play Factory, pass. Play Factory, drawn card (if it's a land) End step Intuition for Loam, Tabernacle, Port.

A2: Force him to Daze, as it's a tempo-loss for him without Vial. Play out Explorations first, then drop Manabond last.


B1: Trop, Exploration, Wasteland. Untap, play 2 lands, cast Intuition on his end step for Loam, Tolaria West, Tabernacle / Glacial Chasm. At this stage of the game, all you want to do is stop him from casting a Lethal Price of Progress, so keep that number in your head all game.

B2: Same plan.

B3: Exploration, Maze of Ith.

The difference between B1 and B3 is the value you get from Wasteland. Zoo doesn't run all that many lands, and setting them back on mana a turn is huge. The games you lose are the games they get triple Nacatl or burn heavy draws, and cutting off mana is huge. However, when he leads with a basic, being able to resolve T2 Intuition is so huge in this matchup, as turn 3 loam setting up the win is incredible. Playing Maze of Ith effectively saves you 3 life, giving you more time to set up. Also, Chasm lock is really what you want to do in this matchup, because they have price of progress. Simply controlling creatures isn't enough.

[Antonius]

When was the last time people tinkered with Valakut builds? I've been playing Valakut and have so far found it to be very effective.

[Julian23]

I don't see why I would want to run Scapeshift in that deck. You have absolutly no way to make sure it resolves. Another big downside are the design constraints Valakut causes.
/edit: Are you running Boseiju? Still, why would such a deck do better?

[Antonius]

I said "Valakut," not "Scapeshift." Despite the historical association, the two cards are not innately bound together.

[Oddus]

When was the last time people tinkered with Valakut builds? I've been playing Valakut and have so far found it to be very effective.

Can you post your valakut list? What match-ups are easier/harder for you comparing to traditional list?

[Julian23]

Still, why would such a deck do better?

[Oddus]

Hey everyone! I'd really like to see this thread alive and kicking, especially sine I finally started to buy all those oh-so-expensive cards for this deck. And the general question to all people who are hanging here for a while - can you post your sideboards and give a quick heads-up on how do you sideboard and how you play around hate cards? (I noticed leyline as been the most prevalent, relic and ravenous trap coming after and occasional extirpate in sideboards)

[Antonius]

The build I most recently played:

4 Mox Diamond

4 Taiga
3 Volcanic Island
1 Mountain
1 Forest
4 Wooded Foothills

4 Maze
4 Waste
4 Port

2 Forgotten Cave
1 Tranquil Thicket
3 Tolaria West

1 Academy Ruins
1 Tabernacle
1 Vesuva
1 Valakut
1 Glacial Chasm

1 Zuran Orb
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Manabond
4 Exploration
3 Intuition
3 Life from the Loam
4 Burning Wish

--SB
3 Grip
1 Karakas
3 Chalice
2 Tormod's
2 Seismic Assault
1 Hull Breach
1 Call the Skybreaker
1 Devastating Dreams
1 Loam

The benefits of Valakut is simply this: you win a lot faster, you can win without controlling the board, and you can win without ever leaving the safety of your chasm. Put simply, once you have Loam and a Manabond, it takes, on average, 3 turns to win. You can sit under a chasm, paying an irrelevant sum of life every upkeep, while setting up the win. The first target with Tolaria West is either Zuran Orb (for recurring mountains) or Vesuva (to start crossing over multiple chasms) After that, its simply a matter of getting 3 mountains in hand and discarding them into play for 18 damage.

I experimented with Burning Wish in this build and found it to be so-so. Assault out of the board was not as good as I had hoped; today, I'm going to play a different build that eschews burning wish for a fourth color (black) and replace the Assaults with Meloku/Volrath's Stronghold. I think im going to run a set of bobs in place of the wishboard. All other hate/anti-hate cards remain the same.

[iostream]

The benefits of Valakut is simply this: you win a lot faster, you can win without controlling the board, and you can win without ever leaving the safety of your chasm. Put simply, once you have Loam and a Manabond, it takes, on average, 3 turns to win. You can sit under a chasm, paying an irrelevant sum of life every upkeep, while setting up the win. The first target with Tolaria West is either Zuran Orb (for recurring mountains) or Vesuva (to start crossing over multiple chasms) After that, its simply a matter of getting 3 mountains in hand and discarding them into play for 18 damage.
The winning faster point is taken, but I think you'd still need to maintain a pretty stiff lock or else you spend your valakut drops killing random creatures. If such an outcome happens, do you have to waste or orb your own duals just to loam them back? That seems really slow. Also, the blue lands deck usually doesn't care about breaking chasm and recurring it - i'm not sure why this is an advantage. Also, how are you getting 3 mountains --> 18 damage from one valakut?

I think it bears noting that with an undisrupted loam+manabond, almost every lands build kicks ass... the improvements that are most crucial concern the resiliency of the deck against disruption.

Finally, out of curiosity, how does this build compare with the Scapeshift lands builds? Have you tested/compared the two?

[mchainmail]

The benefits of Valakut is simply this: you win a lot faster, you can win without controlling the board, and you can win without ever leaving the safety of your chasm. Put simply, once you have Loam and a Manabond, it takes, on average, 3 turns to win. You can sit under a chasm, paying an irrelevant sum of life every upkeep, while setting up the win. The first target with Tolaria West is either Zuran Orb (for recurring mountains) or Vesuva (to start crossing over multiple chasms) After that, its simply a matter of getting 3 mountains in hand and discarding them into play for 18 damage.

I experimented with Burning Wish in this build and found it to be so-so. Assault out of the board was not as good as I had hoped; today, I'm going to play a different build that eschews burning wish for a fourth color (black) and replace the Assaults with Meloku/Volrath's Stronghold. I think im going to run a set of bobs in place of the wishboard. All other hate/anti-hate cards remain the same.

So you cut Factories for more mana-producing lands.

While many people argue factories do nothing, I find them valuable to clock your opponents in some of the matchups, especially in post-board games.

I think you could play any win condition imaginable and win if you have Chasm + Loam + Manabond. The burden of proof is on you for why your kill is better than the others. Mindslaver can win just as effectively in a Loam - Manabond situation.

The things to focus on when discussing a kill condition are two things:

1. Utility when not being used for the kill.
-your build adds 5 mana-producing lands that do little else to the deck. There are marginal benefits to casting spells and not being mana-screwed, but all in all, the cards changed make the deck worse (without Valakut)
-Mindslaver is entirely dead, but it is only one slot. Additionally, you can slaver-lock over two turns to some effect, including a wrath of god every other turn with Tabernacle.

2. Space in deck
-Mindslaver requires one slot. This requires 5 slots.

I think iostream has it right; resiliency is the most important factor in Lands! decks, and yours seems extremely poor against graveyard hate.

What is your typical boarding strategy against say, Natural Order Counterbalance - Top or Enlightened Tutor Thopter-Top?

[Antonius]

The winning faster point is taken, but I think you'd still need to maintain a pretty stiff lock or else you spend your valakut drops killing random creatures.

The stiff lock is double chasm. I'll say it again because I wasn't so clear the first time, but Vesuva--the primary facilitator of double chasm--is so flexible in this build because it also serves as a second valakut. Likewise, using Zuran orb to recur your duals also fits handily into the way the deck plays because orb is already so damn good at stalling the game--whether its directly, but regaining life lost to opposing creatures, or indirectly, by recouping life paid to maintain a chasm. It also bears noting that with a manabond or explorations, Zorb + Loam is a mana generating engine.

Also, you say that sacking duals to Zorb is slow, but i'm guessing you have yet to play a game where the only thing you have to do to win that same turn is find a way to get three of your lands in play into your hand. This kill engine is also streamlined because every piece it needs to operate is either efficient in some other manner or has other applications (Orb, Vesuva) or is fetchable with Tolaria West. Note that Mindslaver, the only other instant-win we have yet to discover for this deck, is not.


Also, how are you getting 3 mountains --> 18 damage from one valakut?

Read what I said about getting Vesuva first; thats how you get 6 damage off each mountain. Lands played through Manabond enter the battlefield at the same time, thus causing all their triggers to stack and resolve at the same time. So if you have three mountains in play, you only need three more in hand + Valakut + Vesuva to deliver a (usually) fatal 18 damage. It is not hard to get to that count at all.

Also, when I say "sit under chasm" i literally mean, sit under chasm. Pay the cumulative upkeep, because usually you'll kill them before it gets to 3+ age counters anyways.


I think it bears noting that with an undisrupted loam+manabond, almost every lands build kicks ass...

Of course, but the question is, at what point do you just instantly win? With more traditional builds, that happens when you have crossed the 13-mana threshold, tutored up your Academy Ruins and somehow found your singleton Mindslaver. How easy is it to find that singleton? In theory it shouldn't be so hard, but in practice it isn't run into often enough to end games with extreme precision. As I said before, you can't snatch it with Tolaria and the Intution that you saw in your first 8-15 cards (after that, you rarely pass up an opportunity to loam, amiright?) was probably used to get Loam/Tolaria/(business)--not Mindslaver. Your best shot at getting that Mindslaver when you need it is using Cephalid Coliseum to "draw" nine--but that requires you have 3 loams in your graveyard.

@ mcchainmail--

I think you could play any win condition imaginable and win if you have Chasm + Loam + Manabond. The burden of proof is on you for why your kill is better than the others. Mindslaver can win just as effectively in a Loam - Manabond situation.

Yes, but using the Valakut kill engine often allows you to get the same efficiency out of Exploration that you would usually get out of Manabond. Manabond adds a base of 3 land drops to each turn, barring any cycling lands that allow you to further gas up loam. Recurring chasm essentially eats two of those additional land drops, thus reducing manabond's efficiency to Exploration's levels.

The Valakut clock is faster than the clock that is Chasm's cumulative upkeep. As such, you can usually afford to just pay life into Chasm instead of sacking and recurring chasm. Thus your exploration becomes as effective as manabond would otherwise be, under a chasm-lock.


your build adds 5 mana-producing lands that do little else to the deck. There are marginal benefits to casting spells and not being mana-screwed, but all in all, the cards changed make the deck worse (without Valakut)

I don't think you can just dismiss those benefits as marginal. Dual lands can be used to cycle and thus gas up your loam or just see that one extra card on turn 1 or turn 2. Factories cannot.


the improvements that are most crucial concern the resiliency of the deck against disruption.

I think dealing with that is more in the realm of how you construct your sideboard and brings me to the next evolution of the build. Having 4x Bob in your board just turns game 2 completely on its head.

I played this build today, and I was extremely happy with it, despite being short 2 duals from my "ideal" list.

4 Mox Diamond

4 Wooded Foothills
3 Taiga
1 Barbarian Ring (supposed to be a 4th Taiga)
1 Bayou
3 Volcanic Island
1 Mountain (supposed to be a Badland)
1 Forest

4 Wasteland
4 Port
4 Maze

2 Tranquil Thicket
2 Forgotten Cave
3 Tolaria West

1 Valakut
1 Vesuva
1 Academy Ruins
1 Tabernacle
1 Glacial Chasm

4 Exploration
4 Manabond
4 Loam
4 Intuition
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Zuran Orb

--SB
1 Meloku
4 Dark Confidant
1 Volrath's
3 Krosan Grip
3 Chalice
2 Tormod's
1 Karakas

Going from zero creature (not even manlands) to Meloku/Bob after board seems like a cheap rope-a-dope but it does work and it is brutal. Bob, in particular, is sick because it goes right around all of the graveyard hate and is absolutely stellar, especially in matches where certain utility lands (wasteland vs mono-color, maze vs creature-less control) are marginal-to-useless. Despite how awesome bob is, I did lose a game and draw a match due to misplays made with bob. Heres some tidbits I can remember for the short, 5-round tournament

Round 1 vs Ur Dreadstill

Game 1 I keep a slower hand with loam but no acceleration I get Mana producing lands, a couple of cyclers a couple of wastelands and double maze. He stuns me with Dreadnought backed by wasteland and a couple of extra stifles. Life sucks sometimes, but keeping that hand was probably a mistake. And That is one of my flaws as a player--I'm always more inclined to keep, even if there are some doubts.

Game 2 - I see two Bobs: first gets Dazed the second gets countered by a blind-flip to counterbalance. He untaps and gets Countertop going so I'm forced to tutor up ee, which he counters using force, pitching force. I get academy ruins in play to protect my ee from Relic, but he then overpowers me by playing a second blood moon. I lose ee. At this point, he has 3 basic islands, a volc, moon and countertop. I have zuran orb and five or six mountains. He makes a trinket mage, gets another relic and starts the beatdown. A turn after the second moon, I draw Meloku but have no islands. Some turns later, I draw Vesuva and use it to copy his island--judge confirms thats legal-- and Play meloku next turn with daze mana up. He had a third force, though, so no luck with stealing the game.

Round 2 vs ub Merfolk

Game 1 - don't remember much, it was a steam roll. I had wastelands for his duals and drew more ports than he could get lands. He scoops before I blow him up.

Game 2 - Again, I'm able to dominate his mana and largely slow him down. I made two bobs out that provided ridiculous card advantage. But I also played like an idiot and used the one tolaria west I saw to fetch a second maze (he later exiled it with Relic, thus preventing me from recurring it) instead of Zorb. I end up dredging into Zorb, then use a loam to get Ruins. I finally put Zorb back on top with 2 life left. First bob flips Zorb...second Bob flips Loam. Leyline of Anticipation, why are you never there when I need you? >_<

Game 3 - I make some good drops of a T1 exploration and he gets a T1 vial, followed by a turn 2 Silvergill. I grip his Vial before he can get it past 1 counter then waste him down to stick him at 1 island for much of the game. Later, I get Zorb online and he gets a curscatcher and a Lord to accompany his Silvergill. I dredge into Meloku then get Volrath's to recur him (and lose 5 life in the process--ooh, how I must learn to play with bob correctly). He attacks; I use meloku to rob him of islandwalk and slaughter his forces. The game is pretty much over from there.

Round 3 vs NO Elves

Game 1 - I get a fast start with exploration/mox diamond, and make a turn 2 tabernacle, which pretty much hammers him before he can get any kind of mana engine shenanigans started. I blow him up on the seventh or eighth turn.

Game 2 - I had assumed he was playing elfball, so i boarded out wastelands for Chalices and made a little more room for grip. He stuns me with a turn 3 NO >> Prog followed by Turn 4 NO >> Terrastadon. Pretty good.

Game 3 - Chalices come out for Bob. I get Double Bob + Manabond out on the field and he can do nothing to disrupt me once Chasm comes down. Time gets called and I once again make a key error. On my last turn, I use volrath's and Academy Ruins to pay for bobs. After cycling and westing and stuff I end up being 1 colorless mana short of casting a third loam to get the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th mountain I needed to do terrible, terrible damage. Mistakes, mistakes.

Round 4 vs MBC ---

Not much to say on this matchup; it wasn't much of one. My opponent's MB was focused entirely on creature kill. I handily took game 1. After boarding he brought in leylines and took out most creature kill. I ran off with double bob and crushed him with Meloku + Manabond.

Round 5 -- I get matched up against a friend playing Eva Green (very favorable matchup). Due to the very top-heavy prize payout of the tournament (only top 3 got prize after 5 rounds of swiss...) he was still in the runnings with 3-1. I had no chance with 2-1-1. So I intentionally scooped and we play tested his deck against my UW Counterthop. He ended up getting 2nd. he told me he would give me a favorable trade in exchange for my kindness, but time will only tell

[Oddus]

All this valakut discussion is sure interesting and I like how this deck is not so GY dependent as traditional lands build, however I d still like to hear more about sideboarding and playing around GY hate - with Blue Lands that is. Like - why no one runs ancient grudge SB when relic and crypt are both artifacts - and a vial, which is super-annoying. Are chalices better than trinispheres? (I mean - trinis just completely lock people down under the LD pressure this deck puts up) Why some people don't run crucibles sb? What do you do if you get a decent hand and opp opens with leyline? Or do you just mulligan until you get a grip?

[iostream]

All this valakut discussion is sure interesting and I like how this deck is not so GY dependent as traditional lands build, however I d still like to hear more about sideboarding and playing around GY hate - with Blue Lands that is. Like - why no one runs ancient grudge SB when relic and crypt are both artifacts - and a vial, which is super-annoying. Are chalices better than trinispheres? (I mean - trinis just completely lock people down under the LD pressure this deck puts up) Why some people don't run crucibles sb? What do you do if you get a decent hand and opp opens with leyline? Or do you just mulligan until you get a grip?

The main problem with Ancient Grudge is that opponents can pop Crypt/Relic in response to it, and the activation cost of those artifacts are extremely cheap, so this happens basically all the time you play grudge. Krosan Grip skirts around this issue. This problem is not so much the case with problematic enchantments like Leyline or CB, which is why some people play Ray of Revelation over Ancient Grudge. In addition, cycling lands allow you to at least protect your loam against Crypt/Relic, so we're not just relying on Grip.

Extirpate is the biggest problem for this deck, and the reason why many people really do play Crucible in the board, myself included. I'm not sure why you claim that no one plays crucible.

As for Trinisphere, it's an interesting idea. I haven't tested it. My gut feeling is that it's too slow against combo, and the disadvantage that it slows down Loam is a significat one. That could be an acceptable price to pay in the right metagame, perhaps one heavy in elves or goblins?

[Oddus]

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Never said no one plays crucible, but some lists don't run it. Grudge makes crypt/relic pop, which is fine if you are drawing cards, which is what you usually do when you see one, unless you bait it with thicket in hand (grudge is still better in this situation I think). I don't have overly big playtesting experience - some merfok, countertop bant, aggroloam is what I mostly play. I am actually thinking about running bojuka bog SB as a gy hate,cause it's tutorable, uncounterable and unstoppable.

Trinis used to be a sb part for this deck I think some time ago, and I agree it's VERY slow and un-tutorable (save intuition), but I'm more worried about locking down opponent post-board, not just using it as anti-combo. What I mean is - you are much less likely to get a crypt for 3 mana, esp with all wasteland/port/quarter action going. And extirpate. Leyline stays a problem, but that is always a bet I suppose.

On the combo topic - I think the most prevalent is show and tell one, and this one neither chalice nor trini stops - am I right here? So basically what exactly is chalice for? TES? They have ways to fight both, and trini is even harder in a way, since they don't go anywhere until they get rid of it, which is hard to do because of it. I'm mostly thinking in vacuum here though, so I would love to hear what you think!

And what about dragon stompy? We just hope no one plays it? :)

[Antonius]

Dragon Stompy is an acceptable loss. When you play a deck whose strategy is as linear and powerful as this one, there are certain bad matchups that one must simply expect and accept.

As to trinisphere--I've played versions of lands that ran Trinispheres and 3-5 2-lands maindeck. It was definitely fun and extremely brutal but not always consistent. Chalice is simply better than trinisphere because it can be tutored up. If you get to game 3, you've likely seen their graveyard hate, and that's enough information to use Chalice to shut it off. Chalice is especially effective against decks like New Horizons or Survival, whose reliance upon their own graveyard forces them to run Crypts and thus makes chalice @ 0 very powerful. Of course, you can't stop them from using bog--but they're only running 1 or 2 of those max, so just play around it. Or crush their mana before they can get to GW for Knight.

As to extirpate--Burning Wish is also fairly effective at going around it; but I have yet to get hit with extirpate in my year of running lands, so I just haven't thought to much about that contingency. I probably will find space for Crucible soon.

[Julian23]

Burning Wish is no longer an out to Extirpate as it can't grab exiled cards. Also, just for the sake of making a clear point for future arguments: Crucible of Worlds is a staple in Lands-sideboards by now that sees increasingly maindeck play as recent lists of Stephen Menendian have shown.

[mchainmail]

All this valakut discussion is sure interesting and I like how this deck is not so GY dependent as traditional lands build, however I d still like to hear more about sideboarding and playing around GY hate - with Blue Lands that is. Like - why no one runs ancient grudge SB when relic and crypt are both artifacts - and a vial, which is super-annoying. Are chalices better than trinispheres? (I mean - trinis just completely lock people down under the LD pressure this deck puts up) Why some people don't run crucibles sb? What do you do if you get a decent hand and opp opens with leyline? Or do you just mulligan until you get a grip?

So if 4 mountains get crypted out of the game, you lose? or if you lose your valakut, how can you still win? This is why I asked for sideboarding plans; do you have an out at that point in the game?



The main problem with Ancient Grudge is that opponents can pop Crypt/Relic in response to it, and the activation cost of those artifacts are extremely cheap, so this happens basically all the time you play grudge. Krosan Grip skirts around this issue. This problem is not so much the case with problematic enchantments like Leyline or CB, which is why some people play Ray of Revelation over Ancient Grudge. In addition, cycling lands allow you to at least protect your loam against Crypt/Relic, so we're not just relying on Grip.

Crypt / Relic isn't what you're really afraid of any more; most opponents don't know when to pop it, or will only be able to catch one Loam with it (not the end of the world)

Ray of Revelation answers the actual "hoser" cards; Blood Moon and Back to Basics, which it is next to impossible to win through. You really can't answer Counterbalance with Ray, as any good opponent just leaves CB on 2 to counter Loam.

[Antonius]

Burning Wish is no longer an out to Extirpate as it can't grab exiled cards. Also, just for the sake of making a clear point for future arguments: Crucible of Worlds is a staple in Lands-sideboards by now that sees increasingly maindeck play as recent lists of Stephen Menendian have shown.

I know this, but Burning wish still gets the Loam out of your Board; you know, the one that extirpate can't exile.

@mcchainmail - The sideboard plan is to transform yourself into an entirely different monster with Confidants and Meloku. I think Crusher out of the board might also be worth testing, given how much red Valakut! allows.

[Davetradint]

For those who already play Oblivion Stone MD or plan to play it,
have you removed Mindslaver from the deck??

How do you usually kill?
Deck the opponent, mishras beatdown, slaver the opponent, etc...?

[mchainmail]

I know this, but Burning wish still gets the Loam out of your Board; you know, the one that extirpate can't exile.

@mcchainmail - The sideboard plan is to transform yourself into an entirely different monster with Confidants and Meloku. I think Crusher out of the board might also be worth testing, given how much red Valakut! allows.

That's why I asked for sideboard plans a couple posts ago; to see how you stack up against hate.



For those who already play Oblivion Stone MD or plan to play it,
have you removed Mindslaver from the deck??

How do you usually kill?
Deck the opponent, mishras beatdown, slaver the opponent, etc...?

I'm incorporating it into my sideboard as soon as I find a foil copy. I think the strength is answering It That Betrays, Blood Moon, Magus of the Moon and Chalice at 2.

[PanderAlexander]

I saw Antonius play at that tournament and his strategy seemed to work pretty well for him. He was playing Lands before it got so popular and he's had a article written on SCG about his prior Lands build, if I was playing Lands I definitly wouldn't blow away his suggestions.

[Oddus]

Though I am not sold yet on the valakut plan, the bob+meloku plan seems like it would really work out well, cause people usually side out removal and bring gravehate in on autopilot, so we basically get loam-on-legs bob and killer-meloku)) that's probly really is a best answer to gravehate - just switch to another route.

I am also going to try gargoyle castle as a win-condition MB. I've seen it blink occasionally on the thread, but no one seemed to write how it performed in testing. Seems like a fair deal for 5 mana and fits the theme..

[Antonius]

I've played gargoyle castle many times in the past. It is OK.

[Oddus]

WHat do you guys think of this idea - after sideboard morph this deck into scapeshift combo? We need to incorporate valacut MD to accomplish this, but it can totally throw opp off in g2 where we can side in scapeshift, confidant and just go for the throat. I bring this up because g2 is ALWAYS MUCH harder cause loam is still our soft spot and gravehate is never going to go, but maybe instead of playing around it we can just play straight through it..

[OneBigSquirrelGod]

Lands Results for GP Columbus and GenCon Indianapolis:

I had 3 byes going into the Grand Prix, so the results arent that impressive:

Round 4 - Damon Whitby - Dredge

Game 1 - I struggle to gain the advantage, and draw into Chasm, and with no explo/manabond, the chasm begins to deal 2 damage every other turn, in order to draw 1 card for every 2 life. Upon goin to 5, I draw into Intuition, and have exactly 3 mana left, and I fetch up 3 manabonds, and begin to drop lands, and lock him out.

Game 2 - I start with the only crypt I have in SB in my hand. He begins with city of brass, LED, breakthrough, with a thug in yard. he does not dredge any more dredgers. I crypt him, and just wreck his face the whole game. He was sad. Great Success.

Round 5 - Kai Ruan - Zoo

Game 1 - I fetch up Zuran Orb G1,and chasm lock him, and beat him with factories.

Game 2 - I Fetch up Orb yet again, and get chasm, and survive 2 Price of Progress'. Great Success

Round 6 - Donald Kastner - Thopter Foundry Control

Game 1 - THis game stalls out for 39 minutes,and I didnt see what was going on, and thought I had a chance. I didnt... so I scoop with 11 minutes to go

Game 2 - I start off strong with 2 factories, and a treetop, swingin at his face fast. not fast enough, because he swords the treetop and a factory, and when the 5th turn of time is called, I was 1 turn off of killing him... He didnt say much, kinda seemed like a D-bag, but w/e (just cuz he beat me?)..... Epic Fail...

Round 7 - Vincent Lanceford - Zoo

Game 1 - Chasm Lock

Game 2 - Drops turn 3 Pyrostatic Pillar, and I have ZOrb, but Im stuck at 4, because I cast loam, I goto 2, then I get chasm out, and sac to orb at EOT, gooto 4... eventually, I find Ghost Quarter, and nuke every land he has. Great Success!

Round 8 - Steve Sadin

Game 1 - He mulls to 4, and I win

Game 2 - I mull to 4, and He wins

Game 3 - I mull to 5, and he just has the better cards... Epic Fail

Round 9 - Paulo Vitor D. da Rosa

Game 1 - I Lock him out with ports and wastes, and 30 minutes in he scoops'em up.

Game 2 - He needles Maze of Ith, and beats my ass with Goyf and Vendilion Clique

Game 3 - There are about 100 people watching, and I get him really low with creatures, and he drops needle, naming Factory, and being at 5 I was really close to beating the Pro Tour winner, but Unfortunately, He Gets Jace on the board, and before time is called in rounds, he Ultimate's my ass, and that would be the end of the game.

3-3 overall, And I do believe that the deck performed very well, as did I, but It just didnt get there. I will give Sadin and Rossa some credit, they were really nice people, and normally the pro's I play against are total assholes. Overall It was a fun learning Experience.

Legacy Championships Prelim - Thursday

Round 1 - The Gate

I dont know why this is a good deck.. I seemed to steamroll it after barely touching its manabase 2 games maybe luck was on my side, I have no Idea.

Round 2 - Dredge

I Lose game 1 to not knowhing what I was playing against, and Game 2, I make an error of not dredging loam when I potentially had lock.... My Bad.... Epic Fail

Round 3 - Scapeshift.dec

I just had more lands to kill lands... plain and simple

Round 4 - Team America

Game 1 I just annihilate him by killin his lands, and with no idea what he's playin, I dont side anything dramatic,
Game 2 He lands tombstalker, and kills my green source, so I cant get back Maze of Ith's... Fail
Game 3 I use the land strategy, because it seems to be working very well! and I get there with Ghost Quarters.

Round 5 - Bant

Same thing as stated above. Manabase+wasteland+ghost quarter+port=2-0

Split Round 6 to guarantee top 8

Top 8 - UWB Landstill

I dont now how landstill beats this deck, but It did for a change, and the guy had a really bad deck list, with really bad sideboard cards (envelop, etc)... but It got there, So I give credit where creditis due.. good Job Buddy (Tormods cryptr Reoccuring...)

Legacy Championship

Round 1 - Jace Control

Game 1 - He lands Jace, and then Elspeth, and he has 2 tarmogoyfs, and I just beat him, with EE for 4, and plenty of acceperation to get around his guys.. we start Game 2, and Time is called

Round 2 - Zoo

Game 1 - I get there with Chasm Lock and creatures.
Game 2 - I lose to 2 Tormods Crypts and creatures...
Game 3 - I lose to Price of Progress with 4 Ports, Maze of Ith, and Factory on the board, Manabond, Life from the loam, and Tolaria West in Hand

Round 3 - Enchantress

Game 1 - Ghost Quarter and 2 ports in opening Hand... Hell yeah Ill keep it. He sprawls a forest, I kill it, he plays another one, I tap it next turn with the port n diamond, and I continue to Quarter his lands until he stops drawing thim. He never cast another spell the rest of the game, because tolaria west tutors for port 3 and 4.

Game 2 - Same exact opening hand, same scenario, Lock him out, except this time he runs out of basic lands, so Ghost Quarters turns into Strip Mine. Great Success

Round 4 - Survival Madness

Game 1 - I do What lands is intended on doing, Port, Waste, Maze, Factory, tabernacle, barb ring, long epic battle, but I win:laugh:

Game 2 - A little more rough. He drop Wheel of sun and Moon, and then Relic, I Grip Wheel, and force him to blow relic, He lands survival, I play Loam #2, and he fetches up Macab, and removes it, so I draw an intuition, and Intuition for loam thicket thicket, and whatever he does, he's screwed, so He macabs my thickets, and then He drops Wheel #2. I get explosives online, and just start pissin him off. So surviving through 2 WoS&M, 2 Fairy Macabre, and 1 Relic of Progenitus, The Lands Player Taes it home.

Round 5 - Red Dragon Stax Stompy

Game 1 - You would think I lose this one, but I do indeed win this one. I wastelock him, after he chalices for 0 and 1. including port and trinisphere on the board... gg

Game 2 - I Drop Smokestacks myself, then Crucible, I grip his Crucible, and its just downhill for him from there.

Round 6 - GW Survival

Game 1 - I Win after 8 minutes of stomping his teeth in

Game 2 - He has like 18 Fairy Macab's in his deck, adn he just removes my Graveyard every time a card goes in it, and kills me ith Knight of the Reliquary

Game 3, He casts Loyal Retainers, and discards Emrakul, with the trigger on, sacs retainers, and I got shit-stomped by an emrakul... gg (nice deck btw, it worked very well together.

Round 7 - Merfolk

Game 1 - Chasm Lock with crucible

Game 2 - Lose to Island Walk

Game 3 - On the Verge of Dying.. need a taiga to cast Firespout, dredge loam, Maze, Port, Fetchland.... Great Success.

Round 8 - Merfolk

Game 1 - We actually stood up, and I bent him over the table and just straight up pounded him (Joking, but thats what it felt like)

Game 2 - Coralhelm commander. 4/4 flier... How do you deal with that with Maze of Ith's and factories. simple, you just know how combat tricks work and you will be just fine, swing in 2 factories, and he blocks one, maze the one blocked by the mutavault, pump the other one, and since you're still in combat, maze the same one again, and repeat the process... and if that isnt enough to make him cry, then I wasted his mutavault. Go Go Gadget Lands.

So Overall I went 3-3 at GP Columbus, 4-2-1 in the Prelim, and 6-2 at the championship. Overall the Deck Performed Well... Here's a list by the way

4 Manabond
4 Exploration
4 Life From the Loam
3 Intuition
3 Mox Diamond
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Zuran Orb
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Oblivion Stone *(TECH)*

4 Rishadan Port
4 Maze of Ith
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
3 Treetop Village
3 Tropical Island
1 Taiga
1 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Riftstone Portal
1 Academy Ruins
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Glacial Chasm
3 Tranquil Thicket
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Barbarian Ring
1 Karakas
2 Tolaria West

61 Cards

Sideboard

4 Krosan Grips
3 Firespout
2 Oblivion Stone
1 Smokestacks
1 Mindslaver
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Zuran Orb
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Crucible of Worlds

The sideboard changed slightly, like I ran -1 Grip, -1 Slaver, and -1 Crucible at the GP, and +3 Trinispheres. And You know Oblivion Stone is good when Menendian Takes your Idea, and then quotes you in his article (that's a joke)! Overall the matches were great, and that's my story!

[TOGITwill]

That landstill deck you lost to in top 8 isn't terrible like you think it is. Your opponent was rooming with me and he's actually one of the strongest players I know. He admits though that beating lands in any capacity is a miracle. Too bad you're the one that happened to get "miracled".

[mchainmail]

Game 2 - Drops turn 3 Pyrostatic Pillar, and I have ZOrb, but Im stuck at 4, because I cast loam, I goto 2, then I get chasm out, and sac to orb at EOT, gooto 4... eventually, I find Ghost Quarter, and nuke every land he has. Great Success!

Not that it matters, but isn't it better to sac the chasm in your upkeep in response to the trigger? I don't know what interactions in Legacy care about it, but just in general it's better.

[OneBigSquirrelGod]

That landstill deck you lost to in top 8 isn't terrible like you think it is. Your opponent was rooming with me and he's actually one of the strongest players I know. He admits though that beating lands in any capacity is a miracle. Too bad you're the one that happened to get "miracled".

Never said he was a terrible player. He got there. I got Rick Rolled by him... But just the sideboard cards were a little funky. He was a nice guy, And I think his level of player skill is what got there, not the deck (if that makes any sense).


Not that it matters, but isn't it better to sac the chasm in your upkeep in response to the trigger? I don't know what interactions in Legacy care about it, but just in general it's better.

Either Or, It wouldnt have made a difference. I still gave him a 55 gallon drum of ass-whoopin.

[Mark Sun]

Top 8 - UWB Landstill

I dont now how landstill beats this deck, but It did for a change, and the guy had a really bad deck list, with really bad sideboard cards (envelop, etc)... but It got there, So I give credit where creditis due.. good Job Buddy (Tormods cryptr Reoccuring...)

I had considered Envelop all the way back in February. The card is much stronger than you might believe it to be.

[Antonius]

WHat do you guys think of this idea - after sideboard morph this deck into scapeshift combo? We need to incorporate valacut MD to accomplish this, but it can totally throw opp off in g2 where we can side in scapeshift, confidant and just go for the throat. I bring this up because g2 is ALWAYS MUCH harder cause loam is still our soft spot and gravehate is never going to go, but maybe instead of playing around it we can just play straight through it..

You would need to have a LOT of cards in the board to be able to facilitate such an transformation and get any kind of consistency--between valakuts/vesuvas, mountains and scapeshifts, that would probably be ~8 cards. And relying upon scapeshift means that your game will be very weak vs any kind of blue.

I think going with a scary creature like Meloku or Countryside Crusher has a better chance of achieving the surprise! buttsecks results you seek.

@OneBigSqurrelGod - did you ever miss Chalice out of the board? I"ve been toying with the idea of dumping it out for other stuff myself, but haven't had the balls to try it yet.

That win over enchantress must've been epic as shit. I've found that matchup to be hard-to-nightmarish, depending on their draws. I suppose MD ghost quarter leaves you better equipped to deal with their basic lands bullshit, but it still seems tough. Good Job 2-0ing it.

[mchainmail]

You would need to have a LOT of cards in the board to be able to facilitate such an transformation and get any kind of consistency--between valakuts/vesuvas, mountains and scapeshifts, that would probably be ~8 cards. And relying upon scapeshift means that your game will be very weak vs any kind of blue.

I think going with a scary creature like Meloku or Countryside Crusher has a better chance of achieving the surprise! buttsecks results you seek.


I don't think the issue is *resolving* Scapeshift; you have Boseiju for that. Instead, I think the issue is finding a way to fit the package into the MD/SB succinctly and finding Scapeshift. Playing 3 Scapeshifts might be alright, but it's a lot of slots, plus you need to have enough mountains in your deck.



@OneBigSqurrelGod - did you ever miss Chalice out of the board? I"ve been toying with the idea of dumping it out for other stuff myself, but haven't had the balls to try it yet.


I dropped chalice on July 1st and haven't looked back. Your Storm matchup relies on them punting more than anything, and chalice doesn't help there. My advice is to honestly look at where else you're bringing it in, and how many and just play that many.



That win over enchantress must've been epic as shit. I've found that matchup to be hard-to-nightmarish, depending on their draws. I suppose MD ghost quarter leaves you better equipped to deal with their basic lands bullshit, but it still seems tough. Good Job 2-0ing it.

Enchantress is as hard as they want it to be. If they play MD Blood Moon, good luck. One of the people I know is playing a Ground Seal in his maindeck as well.

[TOGITwill]

Are we talking about Rob, Caffrey?

[mchainmail]

Are we talking about Rob, Caffrey?

he's the only enchantress player I know that plays Ground Seal.

Also, the only enchantress player I know in general.

[Oddus]

I don't think the issue is *resolving* Scapeshift; you have Boseiju for that. Instead, I think the issue is finding a way to fit the package into the MD/SB succinctly and finding Scapeshift. Playing 3 Scapeshifts might be alright, but it's a lot of slots, plus you need to have enough mountains in your deck.


Well, you take Antonius's valakut list and shove 4 scapeshifts and boseiju in board - roughly. Valakut is already incorporated in main, burning wish creates 7 copies of shift. But while I was thinking it over I came down to the idea that all these "cute tricks" dilute land count and push the deck into garden/new age lands category, turning deck into something else. Guess I'll just keep searching..)

[Antonius]

Well, you take Antonius's valakut list and shove 4 scapeshifts and boseiju in board - roughly. Valakut is already incorporated in main, burning wish creates 7 copies of shift. But while I was thinking it over I came down to the idea that all these "cute tricks" dilute land count and push the deck into garden/new age lands category, turning deck into something else. Guess I'll just keep searching..)

to get more consistency out of scapeshift, you'd have to run way more than just 7 mountains. If you only had seven mountains, there would be plenty of scenarios where you won't have enough mountains in your deck to scapeshift into play for lethal damage.

[Oddus]

Your list runs eight, it's not too hard to fit 2 more in, and 10 mountains were reasonable in ext. Besides, if you get double valakut you are fine unless you topdeck 8 mountains, which is not so likely and even then you can just manabond-kill. But, as I said, thinking better of it I don't consider it such a good idea.

[mchainmail]

Your list runs eight, it's not too hard to fit 2 more in, and 10 mountains were reasonable in ext. Besides, if you get double valakut you are fine unless you topdeck 8 mountains, which is not so likely and even then you can just manabond-kill. But, as I said, thinking better of it I don't consider it such a good idea.

The other issue is your mana requirements, and you're loaming. So you're putting 3 cards a turn into the graveyard, plus you had to fetch out up to 3 lands early on to fuel Loam + Tolaria West; more if you're cycling lands as well.

[neon_havoc]

I feel like the "new age lands" thread is a better place to talk about scapeshift and things of that nature.

[Oddus]

The thread looks quite dead.. :(
soooooooooooo I tested Antonius's valakut list and like it better so far - we lose nothing except for factories and slaver, we speed our kill, we get uncounterable direct damage - and we keep intuitions. All around good stuff. I added 1 gargoyle castle, and still don't know if it's a good idea or not - it creates roadblock once in a while and can recur, but it also activates opposing removal, which is kinda anti-sideboard tech, though I still feel most removal will get axed after SB in favor of gravehate.

Another thing - do you feel we should run any basics? I know they are insanely hard to fit in, but sometimes this mountain off quarter can speed the kill for a turn, or basic forest can be untouched by wasteland - green mana is quite fragile in valakut build.

But nonetheless I feel valakut gives this deck more consistency and opps tend to be not-so-relaxed, when the can't really control the deck via swords flying to mishrass and stuff..

And by the way - what do you think about 1 Boseiju in SB vs counterbalance - once they set-up the lock on loam we are pretty screwed - I would pay 2 life any day to play through balance...

[johanessen]

Do we really need red? An option to kill those hatebears is to play "Arena".

I have another question, don't we need worm harvest as a finisher??

And i,m not sure about oblivion stone, why is better than mindslaver?

For reference, my list and sideboard;

4 life from the loam

3 tropical island
1 wooded foothills
1 verdant catacombs
1 misty rainforest
1 windswept heath
1 taiga
4 wasteland
4 mishra'scfactory
4 rishadan port
4 maze of ith
3 tolaria west
1 the tabernacle at pendrell vale
1 barbarian ring
1 academy ruins
1 rifstone portal
3 tranquil thicket
1 forest
1 glacial chasm
1 ghost quarter

4 manabond
4 exploration
4 mox diamond
4 intuition

1 zuran orb
1 mindslaver
1 engineered explosives


4 sphere of resistance
4 krosan grip
2 tormod's crypt
2 crucible of worlds
2 crop rotation
1 karakas
1 bojuka bog

[Antonius]

cabal pit is a good alternative to barbarian ring if you seek to drop red but retain the ability to shoot hate bears.

[johanessen]

Yes but i mean, it's the third color also. And barbariang has other advantadges: hits planeswalkers and works as a finisher in some way

[Antonius]

unless you're playing valakut, black gives you a lot more stuff than red: You get Urborg, you get Bobby and extirpate out of the board and you get worm harvest.

[Davetradint]

How many of you choose Crucible and who plays Confidant in their sideboards? Any of you play both of them?
Has anyone tried Boseiju to help against Counterbalance?

[Antonius]

west for EE should be a good answer against CB. After the board, grip can work though you'd usually want to reserve that for GY hate

[Julian23]

I don't play Bob but if you do you really want to exchange 4 Manabond for 4 Chalice after boarding to stop StP. No, people don't always auto-side-out StP.

[johanessen]

unless you're playing valakut, black gives you a lot more stuff than red: You get Urborg, you get Bobby and extirpate out of the board and you get worm harvest.

why i get worm harvest?

At least barbarian ring can be a win condition where cabal pit doesnt, and i prefer not to play confidants, i go for reusable creatures and c.a. black could give eternal witness plus stronghold, but i'm not a big fan since witness can be plowed. only addition is extirpate for the mirror, but one already can play crop rotation+bojuka bogs.

As for Urborg, is that better than riftstone portal? okay west for urborg is far better, but portal can save you from moon effects and ee away em while urborg not (or yes? i'm not sure 'bout that one.) Then we dont need oblivion stone.

[Davetradint]

My team and I have been testing Menendian's list for a couple of days and Oblivion Stone really shines.

We are still deciding to include B.Ring, but we added Extirpates in the sideas well as maindeck bayou.
The maindecked Crucible is very good. We play no Smokestacks, but additional 2x Stone (1 maindeck + 2 side).


As for Urborg, is that better than riftstone portal? okay west for urborg is far better, but portal can save you from moon effects and ee away em while urborg not (or yes? i'm not sure 'bout that one.) Then we dont need oblivion stone.

We finally added Portal and removed a basic forest (now we only play 1) and it's worked okay. Under a Moon effect, if you have Portal in the yard, your Mountains produce R, G or W... that's awesome and makes Rau of Revelation flashback easier to cast.

Aggro needs to be very fast to defeat this deck, counterbalance is easier thanks to crucible, EE, Stone... and combo... well... you cannot beat everything i guess....

[mchainmail]

We finally added Portal and removed a basic forest (now we only play 1) and it's worked okay. Under a Moon effect, if you have Portal in the yard, your Mountains produce R, G or W... that's awesome and makes Rau of Revelation flashback easier to cast.

Aggro needs to be very fast to defeat this deck, counterbalance is easier thanks to crucible, EE, Stone... and combo... well... you cannot beat everything i guess....

If you're getting Portal in the yard, then you've either resolved a mox diamond or dredged into it; at that point, you should have a forest against any deck it matters with.

Also, Blood Moon + Urborg makes all non-basics a Non-Basic Mountain.

[heroicraptor]

Urborg does nothing relevant when a Moon effect is in place.

[johanessen]

My team and I have been testing Menendian's list for a couple of days and Oblivion Stone really shines.

We are still deciding to include B.Ring, but we added Extirpates in the sideas well as maindeck bayou.
The maindecked Crucible is very good. We play no Smokestacks, but additional 2x Stone (1 maindeck + 2 side).



We finally added Portal and removed a basic forest (now we only play 1) and it's worked okay. Under a Moon effect, if you have Portal in the yard, your Mountains produce R, G or W... that's awesome and makes Rau of Revelation flashback easier to cast.

Aggro needs to be very fast to defeat this deck, counterbalance is easier thanks to crucible, EE, Stone... and combo... well... you cannot beat everything i guess....

So what's your list? Could you post it entirely? Thanks!

[Davetradint]

Please, note that we have not released the beast yet and we're still testing. Some of our choices may seem suboptimal. And the most important: our meta is surely different from yours!! Feel free to ask about a certain choice or card.

4x Mox Diamond
4x Loam
3x Intuition
1x Gifts Ungiven (we're trying this, but maybe we go back to the full intuition plan)
4x Bond
4x Exploration

1x Oblivion Stone (this is great!!)
1x Zuran Orb
1x Explosives
1x Crucible of worlds (this card shines for real)

1x Forest
1x Academy Ruins
1x Tabernacle (we started with 2)
1x Bayou
3x Tropical island
4x Green Fetches
3x Tranquil thicket
3x Tolaria West
4x Factory
4x Wasteland
4x Maze
4x Port
1x Riftstone Portal (this s**t helps)
1x Glacial Chasm
1x Cephalid

The sideboard is changing, but we pack 3 Extirpates, a single karakas, 3 k.grips, some ray of revelation, another copy of O.Stone....

[Serbitar]

What is Extirpate in everybody's sideboard for? Do you see the mirror that often? Dredge should be fine without, Reanimator is more or less gone and there are no longer Mystical Tutors to mess up in the Storm matchup.

[dahcmai]

Life From the Loam mainly. Great for mirror or Aggro loam matches. It can be psuedo hate for dredge to a point if you really need it, though I never use it for that. Only if I see the exhume versions.

It's also handy for anything you severely fear like hate cards that you just don't want to deal with twice. I typically will board them in against Zoo just to wait for Price of Progress. I'll wait for them to cast one, sac my lands to Z orb to survive and then remove the rest of the POP's so I don't have to geddon myself again. Half the time, they are sitting on them hoping to catch you and play a couple in response to something like letting a Chasm go and loaming it back. Then you get to catch more than one usually. Even against Zoo it's usually a 3 for 1. They almost always try and sandbag them.

I also tend to keep them around for anyone who brings in extirpates of their own or brings in Crypts. Hitting a used crypt is nice since you typically don't have to worry about them again from then on out.

Iona out of reanimator still deserves a good answer you can push past Daze and Force also. Getting hit for green stops any loam shenanegans to get rid of her.

I still board them in for Storm despite it being kind of crappy. Storm sucks to play against so every little thing helps. It's nice to hit LED's since that stops IGG loops and a lot of people who play storm like to take that route if they are inexperienced. It's easier and it's not like Lands is going to stop it, usually... I will also gladly hit Dark Ritual if they cast it for an Ad Nauseum. I play Storm and Lands both so I know how bad it is to get hit for your Rituals by an Extirpate and try and go off with no mana floating. It makes for getting that Tendrils mana a lot harder, though half the time it doesn't work, it's worth a shot. You're dead to them mostly anyway. 50/50 is better than "Damn, i'm dead".

[Julian23]

Even against Zoo it's almost never 3 for 1.

Really, how lucky are your opponents? Drawing all four price of Progress while they even have mana to cast at least 4? Sorry, you're playing in a world very different from mine.

[Davetradint]

What is Extirpate in everybody's sideboard for? Do you see the mirror that often? Dredge should be fine without, Reanimator is more or less gone and there are no longer Mystical Tutors to mess up in the Storm matchup.

Well, as I said before My meta can be very different from yours.
Reanimator still works, and pretty well I'd say:
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=36905
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=37226
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=37429

Anyway, our combo matchup will not improve a lot, but dude, at least you have a tiny chance/card to deal...
50/50 is better than "Damn, i'm dead".

[Serbitar]

Yeah, that passage left me curious as well. ^^ I figured that Extirpate rules the Loam mirror (which I have yet to run into). I would not board Extripate vs Zoo at all. You cannot really hold onto it (unless shutting yourself off of Manabond) and I cannot see which 3 cards in the main could be worse against Zoo than Extirpate.
I have not faced Reanimator often, but I imagine you have enough tools for it sans Extirpate (Bridge, Oblivion Stone, Chasm/Maze/Karakas, Crypt post board). As I have MD Karakas, I don't really fear Iona on green - I fear Leviathan or stuff like It that Betrays. Iona, you can usually just maze it till you find Tolaria West.

My sideboard, which I'm quite happy with, is right now:
4 Sphere of Resistance
1 Chalice of the Void
2 Oblivion Stone (one MD)
2 Crucible of Worlds (none MD)
3 Krosan Grip
1 Smokestack
1 Phyrexian Processor (if I manage to loose G1 or for those G3s with 10 minutes on the clock)
1 Tormod's Crypt
(Karakas MD)

[dahcmai]

Really, how lucky are your opponents? Drawing all four price of Progress while they even have mana to cast at least 4? Sorry, you're playing in a world very different from mine.


I tend to drag the games out really long every time. Once Chasm lock is out, they sit and build every single time. They will have time to draw way over 2/3rds of their deck. Usually, just about every burn spell they have is going to be in hand. I've seen people with the other 3 POP's quite often. I saw it in GP Columbus twice no less. You must just be playing it out differently than me. I always go the long game.

[mchainmail]

I tend to drag the games out really long every time. Once Chasm lock is out, they sit and build every single time. They will have time to draw way over 2/3rds of their deck. Usually, just about every burn spell they have is going to be in hand. I've seen people with the other 3 POP's quite often. I saw it in GP Columbus twice no less. You must just be playing it out differently than me. I always go the long game.

Do you run the maindeck ghost quarter? Typically, I can just quarter out their basics and win the game by not letting them have 2 lands, ever. Alternatively, you can just port their basics so they don't have mana when you come out of chasm-lock.


Well, as I said before My meta can be very different from yours.
Reanimator still works, and pretty well I'd say:
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=36905
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=37226
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=37429

Anyway, our combo matchup will not improve a lot, but dude, at least you have a tiny chance/card to deal...

Slower Reanimator that needs sorcery speed blue and black spells to win the game? Sounds like a plan.

I don't think the Reanimator matchup is really that difficult; they need to get Iona + Inkwell (or Magus of the Moon, or It that Betrays) and we still have a lot of mana disruption.




My sideboard, which I'm quite happy with, is right now:
4 Sphere of Resistance
1 Chalice of the Void
2 Oblivion Stone (one MD)
2 Crucible of Worlds (none MD)
3 Krosan Grip
1 Smokestack
1 Phyrexian Processor (if I manage to loose G1 or for those G3s with 10 minutes on the clock)
1 Tormod's Crypt
(Karakas MD)

When do spheres come in? Can you post your sideboard plans in/out for those matchups?

[Serbitar]

Spheres are mainly for combo. Just for Storm, I would prefer Chalice, but there seems to be more and more combo of the likes of Aluren or Show and Tell. Sphere can also come in against decks like Dredge and Burn. Actually, I am not 100% sure yet, when to bring in Spheres. They might also be strong against other manalight decks like Reanimator, but I have not enough evidence.
What matchups are 'those'?

[mchainmail]

Spheres are mainly for combo. Just for Storm, I would prefer Chalice, but there seems to be more and more combo of the likes of Aluren or Show and Tell. Sphere can also come in against decks like Dredge and Burn. Actually, I am not 100% sure yet, when to bring in Spheres. They might also be strong against other manalight decks like Reanimator, but I have not enough evidence.
What matchups are 'those'?

That was mostly why I was asking; Do you feel like Spheres help your storm combo matchup to the point that they are worth having in the board?

[Serbitar]

My feeling is, that the storm combo matchup is hopeless anyway, even if you board in like eight cards for it. Sure, you might steal a game here and there, but who are we kidding? So even though I think Chalices are superior in that particular matchup, Spheres give you something to board in, all the while being much better against those combo decks, where you do have a fighting chance (Aluren, Show and Tell, Dream Halls, and - I guess - Painter).

[eirirlar]

Everyone loves to give another fellas decklist a spanking, so here's mine:

LANDS (43)
4 Wasteland
4 Maze of Ith
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Rishadan Port
4 Tranquil Thicket
2 Forgotten Cave
3 Halimar Depths
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Taiga
1 Academy Ruins
2 Tropical Island
1 Tolaria West
1 Windswept Heath
1 Tabernacle of Pendrell Vale
1 Riftstone Portal
1 Barbarian Ring
1 Nantuko Monastery
1 Treetop Village
1 Glacial Chasm

SPELLS (17)
1 Zuran Orb
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Intuition
2 Life From The Loam
2 Manabond
4 Gamble
4 Exploration

Haven't thought of the sideboard yet.

Explanation:
- 2 Life from the Loam. The reasoning behind this is:
- You need only one to start the card advantage engine.
- You need it early, but not necessarily before turn 3-4.
- You can fetch it with 6 other cards (4 gamble, 2 intuition)
- 2 Manabond. This has lower priority than life from the loam, thus it can only be fetched with the gambles and to some extent with halimar depths while loaming.
- 4 Exploration. These help a lot when trying to dominate the board. They have the potential to end up in the graveyard during loaming. Halimar depths helps against this
- 4 Gamble. Gets loam and important lands. Is there a better search card for this deck?
- 5 fetches instead of 4. These make halimar depths better
- No mox diamonds. Okay I can't loam round one, but this deck has only 2 loam so it's not very likely anyway.
- Few manlands. It's all about controlling the board and staying alive. You don't need so many critters for that.
- Zuran Orb. Staying alive can be hard vs aggro, this helps. It also works well with halimar depths + loam/crucible.
- No Coliseum. Using it to put 9 cards from the library in the graveyard reveals a lot of cards, but it also has a rather big probability of putting limited resources (exploration and manabond) in the graveyard. It is also a card that I feel I can manage without while loaming. Before loaming you usually cannot activate it because of the threshold requirement.
- One tolaria west. The cost for search can be stiff, and it can only search for explosives and lands, which are also searchable with gamble and intuition.
- Halimar depths. Very nice during loaming, as it reveals cards that you can pick and choose with cyclelands.

Comments appreciated.

[Davetradint]

Explanation:
- 2 Life from the Loam. The reasoning behind this is:
- You need only one to start the card advantage engine.
- You need it early, but not necessarily before turn 3-4.
- You can fetch it with 6 other cards (4 gamble, 2 intuition)
- 2 Manabond. This has lower priority than life from the loam, thus it can only be fetched with the gambles and to some extent with halimar depths while loaming.
- 4 Exploration. These help a lot when trying to dominate the board. They have the potential to end up in the graveyard during loaming. Halimar depths helps against this
- 4 Gamble. Gets loam and important lands. Is there a better search card for this deck?
- 5 fetches instead of 4. These make halimar depths better
- No mox diamonds. Okay I can't loam round one, but this deck has only 2 loam so it's not very likely anyway.
- Few manlands. It's all about controlling the board and staying alive. You don't need so many critters for that.
- Zuran Orb. Staying alive can be hard vs aggro, this helps. It also works well with halimar depths + loam/crucible.
- No Coliseum. Using it to put 9 cards from the library in the graveyard reveals a lot of cards, but it also has a rather big probability of putting limited resources (exploration and manabond) in the graveyard. It is also a card that I feel I can manage without while loaming. Before loaming you usually cannot activate it because of the threshold requirement.
- One tolaria west. The cost for search can be stiff, and it can only search for explosives and lands, which are also searchable with gamble and intuition.
- Halimar depths. Very nice during loaming, as it reveals cards that you can pick and choose with cyclelands.

Comments appreciated.

Man, where have you been the last months??
You need all 4 Loams to get full advantage. You need them soon and it's better if they are in your hand. Nowadays I'm working in a list which also adds 1 or 2 Crucible of worlds. The engine of this deck is getting so many lands each turn from your graveyard into play or from hand into play.

Gamble sucks. Intuition has proven to be a better tutor. Gamble can make you a drity trick if the card you get doesn't end in the grave or in your hand depending on what you expected...
I recommend you to have a try at the lists which are having great success right now and test against real decks. You'll notice of your build can work ok, but the "blue lands" style just abuses of every card it has and takes more advantage.

Try those Tolaria West (3x), they're an uncounterable tutor!!! They find you whatever you need. And if you cannot find something with Tolaria (Bonds, Explorations, Moxen) just play your intuitions, they're a MUST (4x).

Mchainmail gave some addresses on how to mulligan or keep hands depending on what you see. Take a look at them, because it really helps.
Just have a try and compare what works best for you.

[eirirlar]

You need all 4 Loams to get full advantage.
If you have the equivalent of 4 loams (2 loams and 4 gambles), shouldn't you be ok?


Gamble can make you a drity trick if the card you get doesn't end in the grave or in your hand depending on what you expected...
Is this really a big issue? It happens once in a while but hey, it's a tutor for 1 red mana.


You'll notice of your build can work ok, but the "blue lands" style just abuses of every card it has and takes more advantage.
Have you tested Halimar Depths with life of the loam, if so what do you think?
Have you tested Cephalid Coliseum? I think it's a win-more card and it puts important cards in the yard.


Try those Tolaria West (3x), they're an uncounterable tutor!!! They find you whatever you need. And if you cannot find something with Tolaria (Bonds, Explorations, Moxen) just play your intuitions, they're a MUST (4x).
I'll try a couple more tolaria west.

[Davetradint]

Sorry,
I cannot see the point in wasting one precious land drop in a land that arranges 3 cards that are going to be dredged...
It's useful if you expect to draw something like manabond or intuition.... and therefore not dredging this turn. IMHO a land drop should be spent with untapped green mana, utility things like Maze, Port, or special powerhouses like Tabernacle....
What would you play if your opponent goes first with Mountain, Lackey? Depths or Maze?

If you use Gamble to put Loam in the grave, then why not Entomb?
As far as I know, versions with gamble failed until the blue ones proved their consistency and power... maybe i'm wrong...

[mchainmail]

Sorry,
I cannot see the point in wasting one precious land drop in a land that arranges 3 cards that are going to be dredged...
It's useful if you expect to draw something like manabond or intuition.... and therefore not dredging this turn. IMHO a land drop should be spent with untapped green mana, utility things like Maze, Port, or special powerhouses like Tabernacle....
What would you play if your opponent goes first with Mountain, Lackey? Depths or Maze?

If you use Gamble to put Loam in the grave, then why not Entomb?
As far as I know, versions with gamble failed until the blue ones proved their consistency and power... maybe i'm wrong...

As far as I know, the blue versions were primarily developed after Chris Woltereck list in the finals of an SCG 5k to Alix Hatfield after he gambled for Manabond and had to discard it.


Eli Kassis (top 64ed the gp with lands) was testing Sensei's top in his lists.

[Davetradint]

If you had to choose, which deck would you play? the "old" list with gambles? or the 4 loam + 4 intuition one?
What i wanted to say, is that Gamble decks are now obsolete and Intuition has proven to be a great engine. Or not?

[Serbitar]

While I would never go below 4 Loam - you often loose 1-2 to graveyard hate - Intuition is clunky at times and I can see people supplementing it (not replacing it) with Gamble, as in the t8 list of the last SCG 5k (which had some odd choices anyway), which runs 4 Intution, 2 Gamble. If you have neither Mox nor Exploration, Intuition is really clunky, especially on the draw (say you keep Manabond, Intuition, 5 Lands). I also sucks to get it dazed, and it sucks even more to wait until T4 to play around Daze, just to have it forced. Don't get me wrong, I really like Intuition, I just wouldn't totally dismiss Gamble.

Also, the old lists already had 4 Loam (+ Gamble and Intuition, here (http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=30565)) and before even "7" Loam (3 Loam + Burning Wish).

[Antonius]

gamble is nothing new--but even more interesting than gamble in that list is Celestial Colonnade. I've always thought that shit would be awesome but never bothered to test it. Seeing someone garner some success with it tempts me to go out and trade for one.

[eirirlar]

Don't you think the activation cost is a little too stiff? If you have 2 mishra's out and a couple of Mazes to boost one of them you can reach that power and toughness for less mana. Mishra's are more versatile and better earlier in the game.

[Antonius]

I just played colonnade at a tournament and its pretty awesome. Put it this way--attacking for 4 with factories costs 4. This costs 1 more, but you get flying. Granted, mazes can pump factories on an open board, but I'd rather keep my mazes for opposing creatures and start flying over without even bothering to clear the board.
I beat landstill after getting loam extirpated on turn 5 purely because Colonnade flies over factories. There were some other games tonight where the evasion really mattered, mainly vs aggro decks. Just think of any occasion where you wish you could start winning but the board is being clogged by creatures. Unlike Gargoyle Castle, which can be timewalked by a swords then cut off with GY removal, Colonnade is only exposed to swords on your turn, so you just have to port like a pro.

Granted, Colonnade is terrible for defense, but I've been playing without factories on defense for months now and done fine. In my experience, playing defense with your factories is generally how they get sent farming.

Also--if anyone is still going with the big creature sideboard plan, I think I've found the single best creature for that strategy. It's Ob Nixilis, big scary black dude. If you're in black, (which I think you should be...bob in the board is sick) then you should run Ob, not Meloku.

Edit -- Also, dude, in response to one of your previous questions, Cephalid Coliseum is not a win-more card. There are going to be situations where you have loam but no accelerator and an active coliseum will really help. It's draw 3 will help you find Manabond/exploration/etc and the discard 3 will be negated by using loam to put 3 random lands in hand. And if you do have a manabond up, nothing feels better than going dredging up 3 loams with coliseum, casting all three and discarding 9+ lands into play. It is absolutely nuts.

@Serbitar -- how often have you used Phyrexian Processor and won with it? Putting some exorbitant number like 10 or 15 into it doesn't seem at all unreasonable, given how easy it is to defend yourself with Zorb and chasm. I'm really turned on to the idea because I've never even considered it before.

[Serbitar]

Phyrexian Processor has been in my sideboard just the last tournament, where I boarded it in once and promptly won with it. I had lost G1 to 3 MD Relics (against Monoblack), plopped down Processor for 10 on turn 3 of G2 and just won. That being said, Processor is in my board solely for time constraints and even then it is kind of hard to find. But it does not require you to be black and run Stronghold (for Meloku/Ob Nixilis). Another option in that slot, as suggested on starcitygames.com, might be Keening Stone.

On the other issue, I cannot say I like Colonnade/Urza's Factory replacing Mishra's Factory. MFactory is such a good defensive card and is solely responsible for all the tricks this deck has (in conjunction with Maze, that is: attacking for 4 with Factories costs 2-4, depending how many Mazes you have). Finding white mana to activate Colonnade seems like a pain, plus the situations where you can afford to pay 4 and swing over a clogged board (that is, not having to spend ressources to make the board more favorable or prevent it from becoming more unfavorable) seem sparse. A fortiori, I cannot imaging having 8 open mana to activate UFactory unless the game is won anyway.

[Davetradint]

Id you play EE, O.Stone or similar things, you can wipe the field and then proceed to attack with whatever you can imagine, i.e: Factories. So we should not worry about flying or evasive abilities. Just follow the steps... resist the rush, clog the table, wipe it, and crush the opponent.

[questionmuppet]

I was the pilot of the top 8 list in the 5K. A few notes on card choices:

Gamble: One third the mana cost of Intuition and less reliant on the graveyard. You just have to be careful when you gamble, i.e. when you have 5-6 cards in hand. And yes, sometimes it screws you but I think overall it increases consistency.

Urza's Factory: This has been mediocre but I still like it better than Mishra's Factory. Mishra's Factory is dodgy on defense, because in addition to Wasteland, your opponent can swords, bolt or stingscourge it, or just islandwalk right past. This frees up three more slots for lock pieces and answers. I could certainly see cutting it for something else though.

Colonnade: This thing has been amazing. With maindeck Savannah and Riftstone Portal I rarely have trouble activating it (although I wouldn't play it in the black version). Like Mindslaver/Meloku/Dark Depths it provides a timely wincon to prevent draws, but you never have to expose yourself to gy hate to tutor for it. Too many times I've tried to Intuition for my end-game plan to see it extirpated, faerie macrabred, or whatever. Colonnade just stays in your library until you're ready to transmute for it.

It preforms one other fundamental task: killing Jace. He is one of Counterbalance's best cards against us and there were multiple games in the 5K that I would have lost had I not had an active Colonnade to take him out. Since it's uncounterable and (ideally) never hits the graveyard, the CB player has much more difficulty in stopping it than O Stone.

@Antonius: Agreed on your analysis of Coliseum. I love how it finds me Explorations.

[Antonius]

@questionmuppet - grats on your Top 8 placement!

And yeah, i agree with you on Colonnade. In that game I won against Landstill one of the things it did for me was kill elspeth before she could get out of hand with tokens. The only other thing I have to say on the matter is that Colonnade conserves one essential resource: time. Setting up the bomb lock costs turns and a clogged board isn't necessarily unfavorable. If you have your opponent stuck behind a couple of mazes with a tabernacle chewing his mana, or have ports pinching off the colors he needs to cast more threats, then you're absolutely in control of the game. Why not start winning now? esp. versus blue aggro decks, which can set your bomb lock back a turn or two with whatever counters they've been sandbagging over the course of the game?

I'm currently playing a UGbw, with white to support Colonnade and Ray of Revelation out of the board. Like you, i have a MD savannah and a Karakas I haven't had many issues getting white by the time I need it, with the exception of that game vs landstill when I had no loam. I run urborg instead of portal, though.

[iostream]

questionmuppet: I was pretty interested in your sideboard choices: mainly the 4 leylines. How did those work out for you? Also, how useful did you find all the burn cards in your board (aeolipile, flame jab, barbarian ring)?

[johanessen]

Now I'm back to the Gamble. Here is the configuration

4 Life from the Loam
4 Exploration
4 Intuition
4 Mox Diamond
3 Gamble
1 Crucible of Worlds

1 Engineered Explosives
1 Zuran Orb

5 Green fetch
1 Forest
2 Tropical Island
1 Volcanic Island
1 Taiga
3 Tolaria West
2 Tranquil Thicket
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Academy Ruins
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
1 Ghost Quarter
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Barbarian Ring
4 Maze of Ith
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Riftstone Portal

Sideboard
4 Krosan Grip
4 Pithing Needless
2 Crucible of Worlds
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Karakas
1 Bokuja Bog
1 Horizon Canopy

Manabond last days is working me as win more... it really helps to kill faster in some games but after a couple of tournaments Gamble has worked perfect to me. Also helps to find sideboard in g2!

If we can't take the route of Life from the Loam we have a great engine of 3 Crucibles + 2 Horizon Canopys post side which is great, we can use that vs decks with extirpate, support to normal loam against decks with black that use a combination of extirpate and artifact hate, and in mirror since we can name Tranquil Thicket with Pithing.


Gamble also helps with moon effect since we can use any mana to cast Gamble for Oblivion Stone/EE or even Mox diamond if we have i.e. portal in hand.


To the experts of this deck , is really Manabond needed? I've found is not, what's your opinion?
Are the two copies of Tranquil Thickett enough? Or I'm gonna miss the third?
Thanks!

[Antonius]

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=110290&stc=1&d=1283887412

new win con? Fits all the billings...tutorable, cheap, recur-able capable of becoming retardedly big...

so, si o no?

[questionmuppet]

@iostream: I love Leyline of Sanctity in this deck. It fills many holes in Lands' strategy and has played better than I anticipated. Against combo it buys you time to find Chalice and/or Canonist, at which point they usually can't win. It is also stupid against burn, turning their entire deck off for long enough to find Zuran Orb/Glacial Chasm. These are the obvious applications.

It also turns off Crypt, Bojuka Bog, Relic activations, Intuition and Thoughtseize. I usually bring in 2-3 against Zoo to disrupt their burn and make my gy safer. In the mirror it is seriously ridiculous because Crypt and Bog are some of the most important cards in the match-up, and it's hilarious when four of their tutors are dead. I'll board in 2-3 here as well.

The burn spells are there as a concession to Meddling Mage and Magus of the Moon. Unfortunately I haven't faced the intended match-ups frequently enough to have a feel for how good/terrible these cards are. They might be better as some number of O Stones.

[johanessen]

http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=110290&stc=1&d=1283887412

new win con? Fits all the billings...tutorable, cheap, recur-able capable of becoming retardedly big...

so, si o no?

A swords/path can ruin our day

[Antonius]

dude a swords/path ruins factories too. just port like a pro.

[Dark Ritual]

Swords doesn't work against it that well when we destroy every single land they have with ghost quarter and wasteland...and we have port as Antonius stated. The card seems really solid as a 1 of as a tutor target but it needs to get tested to be completely sure.

[Antonius]

@iostream: I love Leyline of Sanctity in this deck. It fills many holes in Lands' strategy and has played better than I anticipated. Against combo it buys you time to find Chalice and/or Canonist, at which point they usually can't win. It is also stupid against burn, turning their entire deck off for long enough to find Zuran Orb/Glacial Chasm. These are the obvious applications.

It also turns off Crypt, Bojuka Bog, Relic activations, Intuition and Thoughtseize. I usually bring in 2-3 against Zoo to disrupt their burn and make my gy safer. In the mirror it is seriously ridiculous because Crypt and Bog are some of the most important cards in the match-up, and it's hilarious when four of their tutors are dead. I'll board in 2-3 here as well.

The burn spells are there as a concession to Meddling Mage and Magus of the Moon. Unfortunately I haven't faced the intended match-ups frequently enough to have a feel for how good/terrible these cards are. They might be better as some number of O Stones.

I'm going to have to try Leyline once i get 2 more to fill out my playset. It's really unfortunate that it doesn't shut off the most relevant burn card against us: Price of Progress.

[mchainmail]

dude a swords/path ruins factories too. just port like a pro.

You can hold up a wasteland here though, to not get completely boned.

[Antonius]

You can hold up a wasteland here though, to not get completely boned.

nahnah, you just ZOrb it. Dat whey u git tuh laff at teh dood 'cos yo still gained 2 lives.

[Dramma]

Eli Kassis (top 64ed the gp with lands) was testing Sensei's top in his lists.


Do you know anything else about this? in what slots was he testing it, what cards went out for them, did the tops fit well in the deck? something else?

I was thinking of trying them and I read your post, it would be helpfull if you know something else about his testing with tops.

[mchainmail]

Do you know anything else about this? in what slots was he testing it, what cards went out for them, did the tops fit well in the deck? something else?

I was thinking of trying them and I read your post, it would be helpfull if you know something else about his testing with tops.

I saw it at a tournament. It felt like a win-more, but I might be wrong. He scrubbed out of a 40 person event with it... with 3x cycling lands and multiple LftL, he was able to pay 1 to see what he was dredging, then choose to dredge it and look at a fresh 3.

[GoldenCid]

Hi! I'm new to the deck! It took me a long time to get te basics cards to make this build, so i post it to get some help from you. I use black splash but i'm not sure if it's the best choice.

/ Lands
3 [EVG] Tranquil Thicket
4 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (4)
1 [LG] The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
4 [DK] Maze of Ith
1 [JU] Riftstone Portal
1 [IA] Glacial Chasm
3 [MM] Rishadan Port
1 [RAV] Forest (3)
3 [U] Tropical Island
3 [FUT] Tolaria West
2 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
2 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
2 [ON] Polluted Delta
2 [U] Underground Sea
1 [OD] Cephalid Coliseum
1 [M10] Gargoyle Castle
4 [TE] Wasteland
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
1 [WWK] Bojuka Bog

// Spells
4 [RAV] Life from the Loam
4 [EX] Manabond
4 [US] Exploration
3 [WWK] Treasure Hunt
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
1 [IA] Zuran Orb
1 [MR] Mindslaver
2 [TE] Intuition

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [IA] Glacial Chasm
SB: 1 [IA] Zuran Orb
SB: 2 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 1 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
SB: 3 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 1 [SH] Ensnaring Bridge
SB: 2 [10E] Crucible of Worlds

Also i have thought on introduce a pack of natural order + progenitus post side. But i haven't tested as well as run it yet.

Any thought?

[mchainmail]

Hi! I'm new to the deck! It took me a long time to get te basics cards to make this build, so i post it to get some help from you. I use black splash but i'm not sure if it's the best choice.

/ Lands
3 [EVG] Tranquil Thicket
4 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (4)
1 [LG] The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
4 [DK] Maze of Ith
1 [JU] Riftstone Portal
1 [IA] Glacial Chasm
3 [MM] Rishadan Port
1 [RAV] Forest (3)
3 [U] Tropical Island
3 [FUT] Tolaria West
2 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
2 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
2 [ON] Polluted Delta
2 [U] Underground Sea
1 [OD] Cephalid Coliseum
1 [M10] Gargoyle Castle
4 [TE] Wasteland
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
1 [WWK] Bojuka Bog

// Spells
4 [RAV] Life from the Loam
4 [EX] Manabond
4 [US] Exploration
3 [WWK] Treasure Hunt
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
1 [IA] Zuran Orb
1 [MR] Mindslaver
2 [TE] Intuition

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [IA] Glacial Chasm
SB: 1 [IA] Zuran Orb
SB: 2 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 1 [TSB] Tormod's Crypt
SB: 4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
SB: 3 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 1 [SH] Ensnaring Bridge
SB: 2 [10E] Crucible of Worlds

Also i have thought on introduce a pack of natural order + progenitus post side. But i haven't tested as well as run it yet.

Any thought?

You're not running Mox Diamond; is there a reason why?

How is maindeck Bojuka Bog working out for you?

Why are you running Thoughtseize? Is it better than Raven's Crime?

[GoldenCid]

Well, i preferred a more than 3x lands deck. I run 40. That's why the absence of mox.
Bojuka is cool. But just that, cool.
I'm not sure of running black splash...maybe a red for gamble would be better...(?)

[mchainmail]

Well, i preferred a more than 3x lands deck. I run 40. That's why the absence of mox.
Bojuka is cool. But just that, cool.
I'm not sure of running black splash...maybe a red for gamble would be better...(?)

Do you have issues with Daze or Spell Pierce? Do you have issues with not enough green / blue mana?

I think all of the splash colors are alright, it's a meta-call beyond that.

[GoldenCid]

Do you have issues with Daze or Spell Pierce? Do you have issues with not enough green / blue mana?

I think all of the splash colors are alright, it's a meta-call beyond that.

Well, yeah. Pierce / Daze could be a problem to solve, but i think that it's matter play time. We don't strictly need to drop exploration / Mbond in the first turn. But yes...i was thinking on mox as a 4 off, more considering to run chalice in the side. What would you cut??

[Heresy]

Any new tech for UG/r Intuition lists?

[Antonius]

man, I wish there was an exploration for 1G. that would Make chalice sooooo much more synergistic with our whole deck. And our archetype as a whole so ridiculous...

[mchainmail]

Any new tech for UG/r Intuition lists?


Most of the tech falls under three classes:

Sideboarding against hate
Sideboarding for faster wins
Scapeshift / Valakut

Of these, only faster win-cons has shown any form of development: Phyrexian Processor and Keening Stone have shown up.

There are several hate-beating plans, none of which have worked extremely well. Ken Adams played Bob and Oracle of Mul Daya in his board, while I play 3x Crucible, 3x Smokestack and several other people just play krosan grips or chalices.

[mchainmail]

Any new tech for UG/r Intuition lists?


Most of the tech falls under three classes:

Sideboarding against hate
Sideboarding for faster wins
Scapeshift / Valakut

Of these, only faster win-cons has shown any form of development: Phyrexian Processor and Keening Stone have shown up.

There are several hate-beating plans, none of which have worked extremely well. Ken Adams played Bob and Oracle of Mul Daya in his board, while I play 3x Crucible, 3x Smokestack and several other people just play krosan grips or chalices.

[Antonius]

hooooly shit, Oracle? must add that to my mandatory test list.


IMO, the best tech you can run is bobby out of the board. It hits them on G2 like a brick to the side of the head because most players were not expecting a creature that makes your yard and their yard hate essentially irrelevant.

Also, I highly recommend evasive man-lands like Creeping Tar Pit, Celestial Colonnade or Faerie Conclave (though of these three, I've only played Pit and Colonnade). Their evasion is extremely handy when it comes to either winning games faster or dealing with Walkers like Jace or Elspeth.

[Antonius]

hooooly shit, Oracle? must add that to my mandatory test list.


IMO, the best tech you can run is bobby out of the board. It hits them on G2 like a brick to the side of the head because most players were not expecting a creature that makes your yard and their yard hate essentially irrelevant.

Also, I highly recommend evasive man-lands like Creeping Tar Pit, Celestial Colonnade or Faerie Conclave (though of these three, I've only played Pit and Colonnade). Their evasion is extremely handy when it comes to either winning games faster or dealing with Walkers like Jace or Elspeth.

[GoldenCid]

man, I wish there was an exploration for 1G. that would Make chalice sooooo much more synergistic with our whole deck. And our archetype as a whole so ridiculous...

And why lots of versions run chalice in the side???

[mchainmail]

And why lots of versions run chalice in the side???

Because the deck is that dreadful against storm combo?

(Although I'm 2-2 against it lifetime, losing to Jim Higgenbottom (without mystical) and Mark Tocco (with it) and beating two local players)

I'm still not playing any hate for it though.

[GoldenCid]

yeah but why did he say this?


man, I wish there was an exploration for 1G. that would Make chalice sooooo much more synergistic with our whole deck. And our archetype as a whole so ridiculous...

[Antonius]

you guys seen this build that just came out of Bmore?


Artifacts
4 Mox Diamond
1 Zuran Orb

Enchantments
4 Exploration
4 Manabond

Instants
2 Entomb

Sorceries
4 Gamble
4 Life from the Loam

Basic Lands
1 Forest

Lands
1 Barbarian Ring
3 Bayou
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Glacial Chasm
4 Maze of Ith
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Raging Ravine
1 Riftstone Portal
4 Rishadan Port
3 Taiga
4 Tranquil Thicket
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills

Legendary Lands
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

Sideboard:
2 Chalice of the Void
1 Faerie Macabre
2 Engineered Plague
3 Leyline of the Void
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Extirpate
3 Krosan Grip
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Firespout


Is there something about this blast from the past that could work more effectively than our Blue versions, or Sam Black just have a good day?

[keys]

Intuition is just better all around than Gamble/Entomb, right?

[GoldenCid]

What about leyline of sancticity???

[Shawon]

Intuition is just better all around than Gamble/Entomb, right?

Obviously not. Intuition is handier and more likely to resolve through Chalice or Counterbalance, and it actually gives you a Krosan Grip you can use. On the other hand, it's three mana. Entomb/Gamble costs one mana, which makes it more possible to go Entomb, Loam, Tabernacle in the same turn, against Zoo decks.

It's a metacall, just like many of the cards in the 75.

[mchainmail]

Intuition is just better all around than Gamble/Entomb, right?

It's an incredibly versatile tutor. If it resolves, you will win the game. (more or less)

I haven't messed around with entomb / gamble much (outside of the old days) but it seems narrower and more luck-based.

[Antonius]

It's a metacall, just like many of the cards in the 75.

Yup, Lands is not a deck, it's a puzzlebox. This catch-all statement applies both to building and playing the deck.

Running gamble over Intuition, I can sort of understand and see. It unlocks an old, old jank tech that I always thought was fun...however, I cannot recommend not running Tolaria West. Its way too good to not have.

[Raystar]

Hello everybody. I have been working on the archetype for a while and pretty much tried all the evolutions of the deck during the last couple of years.

The list below is my actual baby, it won me a couple of small tournaments (small ones held in a very friendly environments with less than 15 players) and I'd like to bring it to a bigger event.

I'm pretty happy with the way the list works but given the fact that I tend to doubt myself a lot (it shows in the way I play too :) ), I'd like to hear from you guys if you think it is a good package or just a pile of crap.

Here we go with the list, explanations of choices are below it.

4 Exploration
2 Burgeoning
1 Life from the Loam
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Mox Diamond

4 Entomb
3 Crop Rotation

1 Engineered Explosives
1 Zuran Orb

1 Worm Harvest

1 Academy Ruins
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
4 Maze of Ith
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Cabal Pit
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Karakas

1 Forest
1 Swamp
3 Bayou
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Tropical Island


As you can see the list is an hybryd between XXLands and Eternal Garden. The way it plays is to start as a XXLands with the help of entomb looking for LftL. It then switches to the EG plan landing a CotW. This means that manabond does not fit in the strategy as well as burgeoning.
The good thing about the build is that it can use instant speed tutoring for lands and it goes to closure pretty quickly thanks to entombed Worm Harvest.

The build has less explosives turn 1s but it is pretty consistent in developing its game plan.

The reason I ended up with the above list is mainly in the sideboard:

4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Dark Confidant
1 Crop Rotation
3 Chalice of the Void
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Engineered Explosives

I can pretty much avoid GY hate game 2 while still mantain a good grip on the game. Dark Confidant has won me a significant number of G2 when my opponents generally side out their creature hate.
The SB gives a reasonable game plan against Burn and slightly raises the chances in the storm combo matchup. The 4th Crop Rotation enters against Burn (to tutor for Glacial Charm as an answer to PoP) and against any GY based deck to raise the visibility of Bojuka Bog.

[GoldenCid]

I'm not an expert, but i'll never run 4 crucibles over loam. 3 loam 1 crucible looks good to me. Why not manabound main deck??

[Izor]

I'm not an expert, but i'll never run 4 crucibles over loam. 3 loam 1 crucible looks good to me. Why not manabound main deck??

I'd also strongly advise Loam over Crucible. Entomb vs Intuition is a personal chioce I guess, as is Manabond vs Burgeoning.

In the sideboard I don't quite understand Leyline of Sactity. What does it do for you? Against Grave hate it doesn't really help much, as Relic and other stuff still hit you. And against Burn it doesn't help that much either, as PoP doesn't target (and 1 PoP will usually be enough to kill you).
I would probably go -4 Leyline +3 Ancient Grudge +1 Anything

[Mictlantecuhtli]

About Burgeoning, why would you want to depend on your opponent doing something in order to advance your own game plan? What's wrong with Manabond? It might well be that Burgeoning fits better in a particular version of the deck, but i'd be uncomfortable leaving it up to my opponent to decide if i can play another one of my lands or not whilst knowing there is another card which allows me to control that.

[GoldenCid]

In the sideboard I don't quite understand Leyline of Sactity. What does it do for you?

I think that it 's for the combo match up. Brain freeze or tendrils can't touch you!

[Antonius]

Leyline is also awesome vs Zoo and any kind of Thresh deck, because it shuts off their yard hate (thresh run crypte...they would never, never want to relic their own GY)

And yes, I know that Leyline doesn't stop the most relevant, most important burn spell (pop) but shutting down 8-12 other cards in their deck, plus lavamancer, is still very, very impressive. Besides, with no other burn spells putting pressure on your dome, you have lots and lots of time to get Zuran orb/chasm up. You also turn all their relics into Tormod's crypts and playing around Tormod's crypt is very easy. Playing through relic activations sucks balls.

Ah, and i forgot to add:

I tested a build that ran Gamble, Tolaria West and a singleton Ad Nauseam. And I have to say, gamble can get there but its just not as good. And as fun as Ad Nauseam, draw the deck, is, its hardly ever necessary and very difficult to cast.

This is what I play now, what I would recommend as a baseline for anyone picking up the deck and starting to tune it for their own style/meta:

4 Mox Diamond
4 Green Fetchland
1 Forest
3 Tropic Isle
1 Taiga
1 Bayou

4 Maze of Ith
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland

3 Tolaria West
2 Tranquil Thicket

1 Glacial Chasm
1 Barbarian Ring
1 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Urborg
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Academy Ruins
1 Creeping Tar Pit

1 Vesuva
1 Ghost Quarter
3 Mishra's Factory

1 Zuran Orb
1 Engineered Explosives

4 Intuition

4 Life from the Loam

4 Exploration
3 Manabond

Factories, Quarter and Vesuva are the most flexible spots in the Main Deck. More often than not, quartering someone out is really just a mega dick move and not really necessary for victory. But there are decks like Bant, Thresh and Zoo that just scoop to two or three Quarter activations. Vesuva is mainly for goblins, where you really need that second chasm to prove to them that they're not going to win Game 1 off of wasteland. Its also handy in control matchups where you really want a fifth port. But its not necessary. And Factories are overall just the weakest land in the deck. They're the first cards I board out in almost every matchup, as Creeper's unblockability makes it a thousand times better on O and Maze is simply superior on D. These are all good choices to fill those five spots, depending on your meta:

Karakas and/or Volrath's - Frees up space in your board.
Boseiju - Haha, CB. Also stops any blue deck from using Force to tempo your Loam, thus allowing you to play a little looser with the Chasm lock.
The Crypt - this + Tabernacle is usually enough to stop vengevine shenanigans, provided you can survive the initial beat for sixteen or so.
The Stone - Catch-all, not particularly strong in any matchup but dominates games if you play it early
The Bridge - Goblins and that gaping asshole Emrakul
Second Explosives - Really strong against Merfolk and CB

Close to Mandatory SB cards--
4 Bobby
3 Krosan Grip
1 Crucible

These are simply too powerful to discount. If you're playing black, you play bobby in the board. He's just that good. Crucible > Extirpate.

Other choices:

1-5 Yard Hate (Crypt/theVoid/Bojuka)

I've been playing with a singleton crypt in my board for several months now and have never felt the need for more. Zombies has been on the decline in my meta, though--i've only faced off with them once in recent history. If there are lots of Zombies in your meta I'd recommend Leyline, but you could probably get there with 2-3 crypts, as long as you mull into a hand that can protect itself until turn 3 or so. Leyline also makes the Loam mirror (aggro or 43!) pretty trivial. You shouldn't need more than 1 piece of tutorable yard hate for the Vengevine matchup.

0-3 Chalice
4 Leyline of Sanctity

You need both if you want to actually win (and not just luck sack) games against combo. But scout ahead, measure the meta game. Chances are, you're better off saving 7 spots in your board for other Shit. I have yet to run Leyline and in the past four months, I've only played Chalice once---and I was able to dodge combo that day. I only brought chalice in vs Zoo.

X Miser Artifacts-- Smokestack, Ensnaring Bridge, Oblivion Stone, Explosives

The bridge is probably the strongest of these, as its unkillable chasm vs Wasteland aggro. Tbh, I have yet to play singleton Smokestack out of the board, so I can't say too much about it. I'd recommend extra EE against needles. Those are extremely annoying.

X Miser Lands -- Volrath's, Karakas, Boseiju

SEE: your meta.

1 Miser Power creature -- Ob Nix, KotR, Terravore, Meloku,

I prefer Ob Nix, because he doesn't need anything other than lands to crush the game in your favor. All the others' powerlevel is proportionate to the game state.

X Ray of Revelation/Ancient Grudge

Requires Red and/or White, which is a problem in of itself. I think most should be fine without this. Just play around the hate and bring in Grips for Moon or B2B. Magus will always be an asshole, but you can't really hope to win that matchup anyways.

Untested Hype:

Oracle of Mul Daya, Primeval Titan -- really want to test these out of the board. Thought I would get the chance on Wednesday, but I forgot to pick up Oracles and make titan proxies!

Chimeric Mass - it's not even been released yet! but it seems very, very powerful and synergistic with this deck. This could be a replacement or a supplement to the Creeper. Definitely better than Factory, imo.

[Fuzzy]

I don't know how hard is get GGG, but wwhat you guys think about Genesis Wave?

[lorddotm]

I don't know how hard is get GGG, but wwhat you guys think about Genesis Wave?

Worse than Ad Nauseum, and that isn't even played.

[Antonius]

same problem as ad nauseum: its only good against decks that will let you resolve it...and you should be beating all of those decks already, anyways.

[GoldenCid]

Intuition is just better all around than Gamble/Entomb, right?

Why not run a split beetwen gamble and intuition??

[Patrunkenphat7]

So I'm sure this gets annoying... but I am completely new to this deck. Here is my UNTESTED list, please give suggestions:

4 Manabond
4 Exploration
4 Intuition
4 Life From the Loam
4 Mox Diamond
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Chimeric Mass

3 Tropical Island
1 Taiga
1 Bayou
1 Forest
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Windswept Heath
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Tolaria West
3 Tranquil Thicket
1 Academy Ruins
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
1 Ghost Quarters
4 Maze of Ith
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Tabernacle
3 Mishra's Factory
1 Faerie Conclave
1 Barbarian Ring

SB
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Krosan Grip
3 Extirpate
1 Zuran Orb
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Karakas
2 Tormod's Crypt

I really wanted the 1 Tormod's Crypt maindeck since you can't always expect to finish game 3 when you lose game 1 to a graveyard deck. I added Faerie Conclave to diversify threats and give some evasion. It's nice that it gets over moat and adds an extra blue for Tolaria West transmute.

A few questions:
-Why do so many people run a 1-of Cephalid Colleseum?
-Is 3 the right number of cycling lands?
-What is the strategy for SBing against a black deck? Should you assume they're boarding in Leyline or Extirpate?
-What is the Madness matchup like and how do you board?
-What are some of the first cards to take out when SBing in general?

I really appreciate the help.

[Antonius]

On your list: You don't have Zuran Orb main. That's a mistake. IF there's enough moats in your meta to justify Conclave, then go ahead...otherwise, I still think Tar Pit is better. I tested Chimeric Mass and wasn't that impressed with it, because you pretty much need to tap out to make it big enough to chew through goyfs and other creatures that a tar pit can just swing around--while leaving you the mana necessary to port or loam or both. It's been a long time since i"ve played 4/4 Exploration/Manabond...4/3 has been good enough. But I should go back and test it again, to see if there's a noticeable difference. Your list looks pretty good so far, though.

* Cephalid Coliseum is broken with Triple Loam and Manabond. it also finds whatever you might need (loams, explorations, manabonds, etc) very fast. It's very good and I highly recommend it.

* 2-3 Cycling lands is the right number. I've been running two for a while but sometimes feel like I should have 3. I doubt you'd ever need more than 3.

* Against black decks, you bring in Crucible and grips, just to cover both of your bases. Although the best answer would be to have an alternative, non-gy engine like Bobby or Oracle of Mul Daya...both cards just make all their yard hate irrelevant.

* The rule of thumb with these Blue Aggro-Control deck is that if you can get Manabond/exploration up with loam in hand or yard, you win. That's generally true here, but the game is complicated by two things: Noble Hierarch and really fast Vengevine.
If they don't get an early Hierarch, then there's nothing to stop you from just dominating their mana base--provided your draw isn't terrible--for the whole game. If they do, then it's inevitable that they will get a survival up, after which point your ports are irrelevant. Slow them as much as possible while developing your board. If you got multiple mazes up before they have active survival, then just keep loading up on mazes--get 4 or 5 if you can--and get the tabernacle up. otherwise, you have to play for an Explosives Lock or get a Bridge up.
Most survival lists have no main deck answer to bridge, so that's probably the strongest plan. Chasm only works if you're doubling it up because of their wasteland, and even that isn't absolute because they have Force for a tempo play. Main Deck crypt is very, very strong, provided you can port them off of stifle mana.
As for boarding, just bring in the cards I've already mentioned if you don't have them main. Leylines of the Void and Extirpate work and Bobby is amazing because their deck runs no removal.

* If I'm running Mishra's Factory, it's almost always the first card I board out, except in the combo/goblins match. In Combo, you need the clock and Goblins is the only matchup where Factory usually blocks favorably (as opposed to trading with Cats, chumping Goyfs or walked around by merfolk). Factory is one of the most flexible lands in the deck but its also one of the weakest. I also tend to board out some manabonds if I have to bring in lots of spells. Ie: if I was running your list and ran into a matchup where I needed extirpate and Grip, I would probably board out two or three manabonds.

[Tammit67]

You generally board out factory? I find it to be your most consistant wincon, right after concession. Are you assuming you won the first game?

I would consider trading with cats or chumping goyf to be worth it, supposing I have loam/cruicible and maybe an enchantment. Nothing like stalling out for your engine to work. How has your sideboard plan been working for you?

[Antonius]

You generally board out factory? I find it to be your most consistant wincon, right after concession. Are you assuming you won the first game?

I would consider trading with cats or chumping goyf to be worth it, supposing I have loam/cruicible and maybe an enchantment. Nothing like stalling out for your engine to work. How has your sideboard plan been working for you?

Have you played with any evasive manlands yet? They're so much better at winning games than factories. Game 1 is usually gotten with concession. Game 2/3 is where evasive manlands or bobby beatdown takes the cake.

Also, i forgot to mention this: Pithing Needle is pretty damn good in the vengevine matchup too. Its more flexible than general yard hate, having great uses in a number of other matchups: Vial Aggro, all CBtop decks and Knight of the Reliquary.

[lorddotm]

Have you played with any evasive manlands yet? They're so much better at winning games than factories. Game 1 is usually gotten with concession. Game 2/3 is where evasive manlands or bobby beatdown takes the cake.

Also, i forgot to mention this: Pithing Needle is pretty damn good in the vengevine matchup too. Its more flexible than general yard hate, having great uses in a number of other matchups: Vial Aggro, all CBtop decks and Knight of the Reliquary.

Needle also kills Jace.

Jace kills this deck if he lands (no pun intended)

[GoldenCid]

I'm sorry for my ignorance but what is Bobby??

[Antonius]

Dark Confidant.

[GoldenCid]

Dark Confidant.

Thx!
Well i've been testing the deck, without gamble. Although i missed it, i tried to follow an intuition configuration for discussion:

/ Lands
2 [EVG] Tranquil Thicket
4 [AQ] Mishra's Factory (4)
1 [LG] The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
4 [DK] Maze of Ith
1 [JU] Riftstone Portal
1 [IA] Glacial Chasm
3 [MM] Rishadan Port
1 [RAV] Forest (3)
3 [U] Tropical Island
2 [FUT] Tolaria West
2 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
2 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
1 [OD] Cephalid Coliseum
1 [M10] Gargoyle Castle
4 [TE] Wasteland
1 [TSP] Academy Ruins
1 [WWK] Bojuka Bog
1 [OD] Barbarian Ring
1 [LG] Karakas
1 [A] Taiga
1 [DIS] Breeding Pool
1 [UL] Treetop Village
1 [U] Underground Sea
1 [B] Badlands

// Spells
4 [RAV] Life from the Loam
4 [EX] Manabond
4 [US] Exploration
1 [FD] Engineered Explosives
1 [IA] Zuran Orb
4 [TE] Intuition
1 [MR] Mindslaver

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [WWK] Bojuka Bog
SB: 1 [IA] Zuran Orb
SB: 1 [10E] Crucible of Worlds
SB: 3 [TSP] Krosan Grip
SB: 4 [M11] Leyline of Sanctity
SB: 4 [RAV] Dark Confidant
SB: 1 [JU] Genesis

Is it so terrible?? Would you run oracle of mul daya in any slot?

[cuthbertthecat]

This is the list I've been trying, it's similar to the minneapolis 5k list except for it's 5 colors. Thoughts/suggestions?

Spells:

4 Exploration
3 Manabond
4 Intuition
2 Gamble
4 Mox Diamond
4 Life from the Loam
1 Zuran Orb
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Engineered Explosives

Lands:

3 Tropical Island
1 Taiga
1 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Forest
1 Verdant Catacomb
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Windswept Heath
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Maze of Ith
2 Tranquil Thickett
3 Tolaria West
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Karakas
1 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Academy Ruins
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Riftstone Portal
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Celestial Colonnade/Creeping Tar Pit

Sideboard:

4 Dark Confidant
3 Krosan Grip
3 Tormod's Crypt
1 Flame Jab
1 Ethersworn Cannonist
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Trinisphere/Crucible of Worlds

I'm a bit concerned about playing only one win condition. I was thinking about cutting the third tolaria west for a creeping tar pit or maybe an urza's factory.

[Julian23]

Haven't been visiting this thread as much as I should lately, but one thing I have to state:
The current metagame forces you to cope with Jace. If you can't you will lose game 1 unless you manage to keep them off four/double blue mana. Therefor: first, play a singleton Celestial Colonade maindeck. I don't care which card you cut for it. Second, run 2-4 Pithing Needle in the sideboard. YES! They are THAT good! Shutting down Jace and Sensei's Divining Top is huge as well as hitting Survival of the Fittest preemptivly is a big deal. Not to mention all the corner case scenarios like being able to stop Tormod's Crypt and Relic of Progenitus and a lot of other shenanigans like rendering Goblin's Wasteland useless against your Glacial Chasm.

Do or die.

[mchainmail]

Haven't been visiting this thread as much as I should lately, but one thing I have to state:
The current metagame forces you to cope with Jace. If you can't you will lose game 1 unless you manage to keep them off four/double blue mana. Therefor: first, play a singleton Celestial Colonade maindeck. I don't care which card you cut for it. Second, run 2-4 Pithing Needle in the sideboard. YES! They are THAT good! Shutting down Jace and Sensei's Divining Top is huge as well as hitting Survival of the Fittest preemptivly is a big deal. Not to mention all the corner case scenarios like being able to stop Tormod's Crypt and Relic of Progenitus and a lot of other shenanigans like rendering Goblin's Wasteland useless against your Glacial Chasm.

Do or die.

Why not just run Leyline of Sanctity?

[Patrunkenphat7]

After looking into Oblivion Stone quite a bit, it seems really good, but I wouldn't run both Oblvion Stone and EE maindeck. Anybody have any insight on which seems better in the current meta? You can tutor for EE and be more specific about your targets, but O-Stone is a beast.

Also, does anyone know of any good articles about Lands? Is anyone planning on updating the first page? It seems like this deck is infinitely different than anything in the opening post. I'm just trying to learn more about this deck. Thanks!

[fdiv_bug]

I've been learning to play this deck using Jason Schousboe's list that took 7th in Minneapolis (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=34735), and so far I'm having a lot of fun. Thanks for all the advice and information people have already written in this thread!

I was wondering if there are any suggestions that the more experienced pilots had regarding specific matchups, especially with what to grab with Intuition. Like, with Merfolk do I want to get Loam/Tabernacle/Maze as quickly as possible, or would Loam/Academy Ruins/Ensnaring Bridge be better? I understand there's going to be a lot of variance in what I need to get based on the state of the board and what's gone before, but any pointers anyone had for someone who's just learning to pilot this would be much appreciated. That also includes any older posts here or elsewhere that I may have overlooked; while I've read through most of the entire thread, I did kinda skim the older stuff, paying closer attention to more recent posts, especially those after the banning of Mystical Tutor.

Thanks in advance!

[Julian23]

As you said, it totally depends on the game state. However, IF you know they are not playing bounce and you got the time to recurr Bridge and maybe even draw a Force or two in the process without dying, Ensnraing Bridge spells game over (unless they trigger their own Standstill yada yada).

[mchainmail]

I've been learning to play this deck using Jason Schousboe's list that took 7th in Minneapolis (http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=34735), and so far I'm having a lot of fun. Thanks for all the advice and information people have already written in this thread!

I was wondering if there are any suggestions that the more experienced pilots had regarding specific matchups, especially with what to grab with Intuition. Like, with Merfolk do I want to get Loam/Tabernacle/Maze as quickly as possible, or would Loam/Academy Ruins/Ensnaring Bridge be better? I understand there's going to be a lot of variance in what I need to get based on the state of the board and what's gone before, but any pointers anyone had for someone who's just learning to pilot this would be much appreciated. That also includes any older posts here or elsewhere that I may have overlooked; while I've read through most of the entire thread, I did kinda skim the older stuff, paying closer attention to more recent posts, especially those after the banning of Mystical Tutor.

Thanks in advance!

Grabbing Tolaria West is usually pretty good too.

[Eldar]

Just got back from the Jupiter Games lotus tourney and took 7th with a hybrid variant of lands. Went 5-0-2 in the swiss only losing to madness survival board into NO prog game 2 after losing game 1 to too many warnings. I am sure if anyone is interested in the list they can find it, but don't really feel like posting it because I don't want to see it get flamed.

[Serbitar]

Congrats. Hybrid between Lands and what (in Germany there are some lists with Knight of the Reliquary)? How did it improve the deck?

[Antonius]

Do show and tell; none of us here are malicious people... at least to my knowledge we aren't.

[mchainmail]

Just got back from the Jupiter Games lotus tourney and took 7th with a hybrid variant of lands. Went 5-0-2 in the swiss only losing to madness survival board into NO prog game 2 after losing game 1 to too many warnings. I am sure if anyone is interested in the list they can find it, but don't really feel like posting it because I don't want to see it get flamed.

I'd like to see it too. Congrats on the top 8... the one vestal event I'm not there for...

[Eldar]

It was a hybrid lands build with painter grindstone in the main.

[Julian23]

1 Painter, 1 Grindstone to grab via Intuition alongside Academy Ruins?

[Antonius]

It was a hybrid lands build with painter grindstone in the main.

Not a bad innovation--This deck has all the time in the world to recur the pieces should they die and we still have port/waste to protect Painter from Swords on the combo turn. I'd love to see your list.

[Eldar]

Main Deck: 60

Creatures: 3
3-Trinket Mage

Artifact Creatures: 3
3-Painter's Servant

Artifacts: 9
3-Mox Diamond
1-Engineered Explosives
1-Ensnaring Bridge
1-Grindstone
1-Tormod's Crypt
1-Zuran Orb
1-Sensei's Divining Top

Legendary Artifacts: 1
1-Mindslaver

Sorceries: 6
3-Life from the Loam
3-Living Wish

Instants: 3
3-Intuition

Enchantments: 4
4-Exploration

Lands: 31
4-Wasteland
4-Rishadan Port
3-Maze of Ith
3-Tropical Island
3-Tolaria West
2-Tranquil Thicket
1-Volrath's Stronghold
1-Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1-Glacial Chasm
1-Bayou
1-Misty Rainforest
1-Verdant Catacombs
1-Wooded Foothills
1-Windswept Heath
1-Forest
1-The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1-Ghost Quarter
1-Academy Ruins

Sideboard: 15
3-Krosan Grip
2-Ray of Revelation
1-Painter's Servant
1-Trinket Mage
1-The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1-Llawan, Cephalid Empress
1-Oracle of Mul Daya
1-Indrik Stomphowler
1-Karakas
1-Bojuka Bog
1-Glacial Chasm
1-Crucible of Worlds

I started out running a list of lands running living wish like Ken Adams did in the one SCG 5k and with wish in the deck and both painter and grindstone being artifacts it provides inevitability that you will draw the combo unless they exile with swords or grave hate. I started thinking about this at GP Columbus where some lands players were running random cards like keening stone for the lands mirror and I figured grindstone with the potential to painter was just better so I added a painter and a trinket mage in the side and a grindstone main, since at worst you can just mill yourself, and tested that at the small legacy event in Rochester going X-1-1 and not dropping a game unfortunately I showed up late and got a round loss and I ended up having to leave before t8 started anyway. I was just going to play the same list of the deck in Vestal, but I was really disappointed with mishra's factory so far in games that I have played and cut it for more of the painter combo main deck with the only clunky cards being the painter's themselves, since trinket does so much for you anyway and it worked out great. A few matches of the tournament I was able to win game 1 in traditional lands fashion without even showing my opponent living wish, painter's servant, or grindstone and that allowed me to win game 2 with the combo easily while completely ignoring any hate for lands both grave hate and moon effects. It should also be stated that I went to time I believe twice in the tournament including in the last round in game 3 and was able to win fast enough with the painter combo on turn 3 of extras to win both of those matches rather than eliminate myself with a draw.

This is probably the list I would try currently. Changes from the tournament include -2 manabond for a top and cutting to 60 cards. Was running 61 at the tourney without really noticing any difference. Not sure if I still want the meloku without manabond in the deck or not. I was also running the 4th loam in the side in place of the glacial chasm, but to be honest with painter stone in the main it was hardly noticeable only running 3. I think you can easily get away with only 3 so I cut it for a 2nd chasm in case hate hits your first one (i.e. extirpate) still allows you to be able to wish as an out. Sadly the only real way you can win against TES or ANT is hope they get a horrible draw and that you get a very good one. The matchup is just so hard to win anyway maybe adding a canonist to the side to wish for would help, but I am not sure if it would even matter, so I was just taking that m/u as a loss in case anyone was wondering. It could be good with the addition of top to at least run one dark confidant to wish for and I could easily see myself cutting meloku for it.

[fdiv_bug]

This weekend at our small, local, weekly Legacy tournament, I was looking for a singleton artifact to take the place of the Oblivion Stone that hadn't yet arrived in the mail. I was pawing through my binder seeing what interesting and untested artifacts I had that might be worth a try, and I came across an Obelisk of Alara. I tossed it in, and was immensely impressed. I'm running a four-color list (no black), but with four Mox Diamond in my deck, I can get all five abilities online pretty easily. It directly won me two games, one through repeatedly dealing 3 damage to the opponent and the other by gaining more life than he could cope with while I won with Celestial Colonnade, and contributed to a concession in a third game. I also used the blue looting ability to dredge back a Loam in response to him Knight of the Reliquarying in a Bojuka Bog. All in all, pretty solid.

I dunno that I can make room for it once the Oblivion Stones get here, but maybe I'll just put the stones in the side; my other miser artifacts in the main are one each of Engineered Explosives, Zuran Orb, and Ensnaring Bridge.

Thoughts?

[mchainmail]

I started out running a list of lands running living wish like Ken Adams did in the one SCG 5k and with wish in the deck and both painter and grindstone being artifacts it provides inevitability that you will draw the combo unless they exile with swords or grave hate. I started thinking about this at GP Columbus where some lands players were running random cards like keening stone for the lands mirror and I figured grindstone with the potential to painter was just better so I added a painter and a trinket mage in the side and a grindstone main, since at worst you can just mill yourself, and tested that at the small legacy event in Rochester going X-1-1 and not dropping a game unfortunately I showed up late and got a round loss and I ended up having to leave before t8 started anyway. I was just going to play the same list of the deck in Vestal, but I was really disappointed with mishra's factory so far in games that I have played and cut it for more of the painter combo main deck with the only clunky cards being the painter's themselves, since trinket does so much for you anyway and it worked out great. A few matches of the tournament I was able to win game 1 in traditional lands fashion without even showing my opponent living wish, painter's servant, or grindstone and that allowed me to win game 2 with the combo easily while completely ignoring any hate for lands both grave hate and moon effects. It should also be stated that I went to time I believe twice in the tournament including in the last round in game 3 and was able to win fast enough with the painter combo on turn 3 of extras to win both of those matches rather than eliminate myself with a draw.


How do you feel you do against opposing Krosan Grips? I find people board them in a lot against me, mostly to hit exploration or bridge.

[GoldenCid]

I came across an Obelisk of Alara. Thoughts?

Is a nice choice...could you give some details of your experience with it??

[Eldar]

Normally playing around grip is fine. Sure not having exploration in play sucks but having an alternative win con makes grip way worse when there are a lot more things they just have to kill.

[fdiv_bug]

Is a nice choice...could you give some details of your experience with it??

Well, aside from the fact that everyone I played against had to read the card first (:tongue:) it gave me a damage win condition that got around Ensnaring Bridge, which was handy in the game against a Rock deck that had me staring down the barrel of two Tarmogoyfs and a 12/12 Knight of the Reliquary. He hit me with Bojuka Bog in game one, so I lost a couple Loams, but I was able to keep pressure on him, cowering on the other side of my Bridge. Game two of that same match, he hit me with Bog once more, and I dredged back a Loam in response using the Obelisk. This prompted him to re-read Obelisk to make damn sure he knew what all it did.

Later on, I was facing off against Dragon Stompy, once again on the far side of a Bridge. I had a Riftstone Portal in my yard, and he landed an Arc-Slogger. He checked my life total, counted his library, and then activated it enough to kill me. In response, I gained five life. He didn't have enough cards left in his library to kill me with the Slogger, had no removal for either the Bridge or the Obelisk, and conceded. He then proceeded to moon the hell out of me in games two and three, which Oblivion Stone would've prevented.

The biggest problem with the Obelisk is that it's a six-drop, and can get me out of relatively few dire situations the way that Oblivion Stone can -- dealing damage and redirecting to Jace is one way to get rid of the Planeswalker, but the Stone is more effective, requires less effort, and can be dropped sooner. It was a fun experiment, and I was very pleased with how it turned out, but I'd need to find room for both it and O-Stone, since the latter is, in my opinion, more important overall.

[GoldenCid]

The biggest problem with the Obelisk is that it's a six-drop, and can get me out of relatively few dire situations the way that Oblivion Stone can -- dealing damage and redirecting to Jace is one way to get rid of the Planeswalker, but the Stone is more effective, requires less effort, and can be dropped sooner. It was a fun experiment, and I was very pleased with how it turned out, but I'd need to find room for both it and O-Stone, since the latter is, in my opinion, more important overall.

You'd run stone + EE??

[Antonius]

You'd run stone + EE??

The stone-lock seals the game about as tightly as Slaver-lock does, protecting you against more random stuff than explosives lock ever will.

also, if you ever get Stone out on turn 2 vs random.dec, you will usually dominate the entire course of the game with it.

[lorddotm]

The stone-lock seals the game about as tightly as Slaver-lock does, protecting you against more random stuff than explosives lock ever will.

also, if you ever get Stone out on turn 2 vs random.dec, you will usually dominate the entire course of the game with it.


You run Stone?

I thought your lastest list didn't run it...

[Antonius]

You run Stone?

I thought your lastest list didn't run it...

I don't run it now but I was speaking from my experiences with it. My point is simply that stone works well and is not excessive with EE. The redundancy is actually quite nice. And, once again, early stone dominates the course of the game.

[GoldenCid]

On stone...it's still needleable and cost 3 (cool) but it requires an "expensive" activation and protection (for fate counters)... maybe smokestack could be a good choice on this point...

[Serbitar]

The activation costs are steep, but the dire situations Lands encounters aren't usually of the do-or-die variety, but encountering certain permanents, you need to deal with (BtB, Moons, Walkers, Progenitus). You often have alot of time fatecountering your relevant permanents while your opponent is reluctant to commit anything more to the board.
Plus, Stone lets you win matches against Dragon Stompy, which is hilarious.

[Antonius]

The activation costs are steep, but the dire situations Lands encounters aren't usually of the do-or-die variety, but encountering certain permanents, you need to deal with (BtB, Moons, Walkers, Progenitus). You often have alot of time fatecountering your relevant permanents while your opponent is reluctant to commit anything more to the board.
Plus, Stone lets you win matches against Dragon Stompy, which is hilarious.

Seismic Assault is equally hilarious in that matchup.

[Serbitar]

Seismic Assault might be hilarious vs Dragon Stompy, but requires them to have Moon and sucks in every other matchup, plus it cannot kill Blood Moon (although that should not matter, since it kills every guy they play and eventually them).

To add serious content: I would second the suggestion to sideboard Pithing Needles, which also help against Survival. I still haven't had the chance to test Oracle of Mul-Daya in my sideboard. Has anyone experience with this? Is it better than Crucible (since it is completely graveyard independent) or worse (since it cannot actually recur Wastelands or Chasm)?

[neon_havoc]

I have tested Seismic Assault VS decks that play moons and i find that its not really worth the sb space. smoke stack riftstone portal and recurring engineered explosives at 3 is how id go about wining that MU. Pithing needles might be good VS survival , but I think for the most part those decks are very mana hungry and we are very good at mana denial. Also Crucible is WAYYY better then Oracle of Mul Daya it can be dredged away and then played the folowing turn with academy ruins also helps us not lose to extirpate..

[mchainmail]

I have tested Seismic Assault VS decks that play moons and i find that its not really worth the sb space. smoke stack riftstone portal and recurring engineered explosives at 3 is how id go about wining that MU. Pithing needles might be good VS survival , but I think for the most part those decks are very mana hungry and we are very good at mana denial. Also Crucible is WAYYY better then Oracle of Mul Daya it can be dredged away and then played the folowing turn with academy ruins also helps us not lose to extirpate..

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=5263&type=card

[neon_havoc]

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=5263&type=card
Yeah i guess that does it lol. Im just not really a big fan of the creature based versions of this deck , not to say they are bad i have seen others do well with them . What are your thoughts/ current deck list?

[mchainmail]

Yeah i guess that does it lol. Im just not really a big fan of the creature based versions of this deck , not to say they are bad i have seen others do well with them . What are your thoughts/ current deck list?

I haven't been playing it very much recently; at an 18 man local event, there were about 5 decks running Extirpate, and 5 decks running duals. The local meta just isn't developed enough.

My decklist is posted a couple pages ago. I board into 3 Smokestack 3 Crucible for sheer power in G2/3; Smokestack is so incredible against blue decks.

[Khell]

Just thinking out of the box ... Is it possible to incorporate Koth since his emblem is transforming mountains to pingers? Although you'd have to put in Taiga, Stomping Ground, Rootbound Crag. Hoping to hear your opinions on getting Koth in.

[Antonius]

Just thinking out of the box ... Is it possible to incorporate Koth since his emblem is transforming mountains to pingers? Although you'd have to put in Taiga, Stomping Ground, Rootbound Crag. Hoping to hear your opinions on getting Koth in.

Koth man, what?

Shoot, I'd rather have Nicol Bolas. We ramp to 8 mana easily, sometimes we run red black and blue. He kills Jace, their basics AND he dodges counterbalance! Holy balls, dude.

I mean, cruel ultimatum...chchchyeaaaa. It's also scientifically proven that resolving Nicol Bolas during a competitive legacy event causes the caster's penis to grow a good two or three inches.

[Julian23]

Rules to take into account when considering new cards for this deck:

a) Is it a land?
b) Is it an aritfact?
c) Do you want to run 3 or 4 copies of it?

If your answer is "no" to each of these questions, chances are you shouldn't play the card.

[Eldar]

Yeah people need to get off the bandwagon on Koth, he isn't nearly good enough to be played in legacy seeing as the easiest way to abuse him is counterproductive because mountains can't get him out very fast without card disadvantage. That is why when I added painterstone to lands during my last tournament it worked out fine because it didn't change the overall core of the deck it just changed some of the weaker cards for ones that are more universal and can help improve certain matchups and help play around certain hate cards. I suppose if you want to abuse koth in lands you could play some version that uses blood moon to make all your lands mountains but that like I said is counterproductive because it shuts off your other cards. The only real deck that could abuse koth is something like dragon stompy but by dropping him that quickly you won't have a lot of mountains for any of his abilities thus making him underwhelming and strictly worse than some other 3-4 mana red card.

[GoldenCid]

Could anybody give some sideboarding guidelines for oracle of mul daya? Does it really worth?

[Serbitar]

Siding Oracle should be about the same as sideboarding Crucible (as it probably takes those slots, anyway): if you want to dodge graveyard hate, especially Extirpate. So this should be a card that comes in almost always (at least I almost always side Crucible, but I also face Extirpate almost every round).
That being said, Oracle is way clunkier than Crucible and you are screwed, if they didn't board out their removal.

[GoldenCid]

Siding Oracle should be about the same as sideboarding Crucible (as it probably takes those slots, anyway): if you want to dodge graveyard hate, especially Extirpate. So this should be a card that comes in almost always (at least I almost always side Crucible, but I also face Extirpate almost every round).
That being said, Oracle is way clunkier than Crucible and you are screwed, if they didn't board out their removal.

If you always side it in...why don't run it main deck?

[Julian23]

The maindeck is so tight but the sideboard is evern tighter so I'm currently trying Crucible of Worlds in the main replacing 1 Intuition and 1 Manabond freeing up 1 maindeck slot.

[Serbitar]

I do not start with MD Crucible because obviously no one has graveyard hate G1. I guess you can make the argument, that you should win your G1s anyway... and I guess that's kind of valid. Then I would follow Julian23's suggestion - which I might also try out, actually.

@Julian: What has replaced your Crucibles in the now freed sideboard slots?

[Julian23]

I consider 4x Krosaan Grip, 4x Chalice of the Void, 3x Pithing Needle and 1x Tormod's Crypt/Bojuka Bog as fixed sb slots. This leaves me with 3 meta-slots which will usually be either 2x Oblivion Stone, 1x Smokestack or 2-3x Null Rod and 0-1x Smokestack/Oblivion Stone. Only 2 meta slots seems to narrow especially considering that at least 1 of my sb cards (Crucible) would be sided in almost by default therefor not actually beind dedicated to certain matchups.

By the way, Null Rod is really strong; hurting Countertop, Fast-artifact mana for combo, Crypt and Relic as well als destroying Affinity. Played against Affinity three times in my last tournaments and it wasn't even funny...for them ;-)

[Patrunkenphat7]

So I have been playtesting this deck a lot recently. I really have game 1 down pretty well, but post-SB is a different story. I find myself in situations where I have dredged a good portion of my deck, and Wasteland on my Academy Ruins + GY hate could force me to eventually mill myself even if I have the game controlled (especially if something like EE, Tabernacle, or Ghost Quarter are removed as well). How do I deal with this? Do I just need to beat in faster with Mishra's Factories? Barbarian Ring requires 30 cards to be dredged into the yard if I don't have Crucible out (I bring one in from SB) in order to deal 20 damage, and a lot of time I don't get it online until later in the game anyways. It is also troublesome that I board all my Manabonds out against decks like Madness Survival, simply because I have so much to bring in. I feel like it is the right call, since Extirpate + Grips makes Manabond a lot weaker, but that doesn't change the fact that I find myself praying for an uncountered Intuition or Exploration.

I guess my question is... How do people usually end up winnning post-SB games? Will opponents actually scoop game 2 or 3 if you are dominating the board (at a competitive event like a 5k) or do they usually make you play it out?

[mchainmail]

So I have been playtesting this deck a lot recently. I really have game 1 down pretty well, but post-SB is a different story. I find myself in situations where I have dredged a good portion of my deck, and Wasteland on my Academy Ruins + GY hate could force me to eventually mill myself even if I have the game controlled (especially if something like EE, Tabernacle, or Ghost Quarter are removed as well). How do I deal with this? Do I just need to beat in faster with Mishra's Factories? Barbarian Ring requires 30 cards to be dredged into the yard if I don't have Crucible out (I bring one in from SB) in order to deal 20 damage, and a lot of time I don't get it online until later in the game anyways. It is also troublesome that I board all my Manabonds out against decks like Madness Survival, simply because I have so much to bring in. I feel like it is the right call, since Extirpate + Grips makes Manabond a lot weaker, but that doesn't change the fact that I find myself praying for an uncountered Intuition or Exploration.

I guess my question is... How do people usually end up winnning post-SB games? Will opponents actually scoop game 2 or 3 if you are dominating the board (at a competitive event like a 5k) or do they usually make you play it out?

1. What sort of list are you playing? Flex slots and sideboard options really vary what can be done.

2. You don't have to win (typically), just not lose. If you won game 1, there's no need to press your luck by actively loaming and trying to win. Sitting behind Tabernacle and a couple Mazes is usually good enough.

3. Try bringing in Smokestack against some decks, it's pretty strong. Also, 2x Factory gets there pretty fast when you've cleared their board.

[Dark Ritual]

This decks greatest weakness is going to time and you are almost required to win game 1 in able to win the match because very often people will not concede to you especially if they won game 1 but make sure they aren't playing slowly on purpose and call a judge over to monitor the match otherwise your opponent could sit there for 5 minutes straight just looking at 3 cards in his or her hand and just not pass the turn. At big events like SCG 5ks some people will do this and you have to watch for this because quite often people won't concede even if you have a lock on them with smokestack or even mindslaver.

Post board games your goal is to not lose if you won g1 because quite often you go to time with this deck. Although if you can win without risking the game I suggest you win otherwise there will be a ring of people around your game looking on and everyone in the room will know that you're playing lands.dec

[Patrunkenphat7]

This is the list that I am taking to the 5k in a week:

4 Manabond
4 Exploration
4 Intuition
4 Life From the Loam
4 Mox Diamond
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Zuran Orb

3 Tropical Island
1 Taiga
1 Bayou
1 Forest
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Windswept Heath
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Misty Rainforest
3 Tolaria West
2 Tranquil Thicket
1 Academy Ruins
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
2 Ghost Quarter
4 Maze of Ith
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Tabernacle
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Barbarian Ring

SB
1 Smokestack
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Chalice of the Void
3 Krosan Grip
3 Extirpate
1 Boseiju
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Karakas
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Tormod’s Crypt

I keep going back and forth between Ensnaring Bridge and Oblivion Stone and the numbers of each that I should play. Boseiju is nice for resolving a couple Loams and the Smokestack against Countertop and heavy control.

[Eldar]

So I have been playtesting this deck a lot recently. I really have game 1 down pretty well, but post-SB is a different story. I find myself in situations where I have dredged a good portion of my deck, and Wasteland on my Academy Ruins + GY hate could force me to eventually mill myself even if I have the game controlled (especially if something like EE, Tabernacle, or Ghost Quarter are removed as well). How do I deal with this? Do I just need to beat in faster with Mishra's Factories? Barbarian Ring requires 30 cards to be dredged into the yard if I don't have Crucible out (I bring one in from SB) in order to deal 20 damage, and a lot of time I don't get it online until later in the game anyways. It is also troublesome that I board all my Manabonds out against decks like Madness Survival, simply because I have so much to bring in. I feel like it is the right call, since Extirpate + Grips makes Manabond a lot weaker, but that doesn't change the fact that I find myself praying for an uncountered Intuition or Exploration.

I guess my question is... How do people usually end up winnning post-SB games? Will opponents actually scoop game 2 or 3 if you are dominating the board (at a competitive event like a 5k) or do they usually make you play it out?

If you are really having problems winning matches without going to time I suggest you do one of two things.

1) Playtest the crap out of the deck to realize what situations you can put yourself in to win game 1 and go to time in game 2.
2) You can try the list of landstone that I am running (see page 36) because it allows you to win games out of no where and gives you more ways to win around hate cards rather than relying on weaker interactions like loam + barb ring.

[Patrunkenphat7]

If you are really having problems winning matches without going to time I suggest you do one of two things.

1) Playtest the crap out of the deck to realize what situations you can put yourself in to win game 1 and go to time in game 2.
2) You can try the list of landstone that I am running (see page 36) because it allows you to win games out of no where and gives you more ways to win around hate cards rather than relying on weaker interactions like loam + barb ring.

Your deck definitely has a faster win-con, but I don't know about straying away from the lands theme, as I feel like dredges are going to be significantly worse. Your deck has some major positives going for it, but it also seems weaker against quite a few strategies. I do like it though.

[Serbitar]

I think considerations about stalling game one in order to not finish game two are flawed. What will happen, if you loose g1? Or if your opponent wins g2, not giving you time to play and win g3? I think the best way to play this deck is to play as quickly as possible. You really have to be quick and force your opponents not to stall.

[Patrunkenphat7]

I think considerations about stalling game one in order to not finish game two are flawed. What will happen, if you loose g1? Or if your opponent wins g2, not giving you time to play and win g3? I think the best way to play this deck is to play as quickly as possible. You really have to be quick and force your opponents not to stall.

I think it is really situational... sometimes you are forced to stall for a while, and by stall I mean slowly ghost quarter all their lands so you can wipe their board or EE for a bunch of turns or maze and mana denial until you can begin to gain a position to be aggressive. It's not really 'stalling', like intentionally doing nothing in the direction of winning, it's just that a lot of times the deck puts you in a situation where it takes a while to kill them. Sometimes game 1 will legitimately take 40 minutes to win, but other times you can easily crush their manabase, get rid of some creatures, and beat in with factories quickly; it depends.

[Antonius]

This past sunday tournament was like an episode of the twilight zone.

4 Misty Rainforest
3 Trop
1 Bayou
1 Forest

4 Wasteland
4 Port
4 Maze

3 Tolaria West
3 Tranquil Thicket

1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Karakas
1 Academy Ruins
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Ghost Quarter

4 Mox Diamond
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Zuran Orb
1 Tormod's Crypt

4 Exploration
4 Manabond

4 Loam
4 Intution

SB--
4 Dark Confidant
2 Oracle of Mul Daya
3 Pithing Needle
3 Krosan Grip
1 Smokestack
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Chalice of the Void

First round was an 0-2 loss to Solidarity. Dude that came in cold after not playing legacy for about five years. the randomness of the format can be so damn frustrating at times.

Second round Dragon Stompy. Seriously, a parade of terrible, terrible matchups for me. Game 1, I had the strongest possible start (mana bond, mox diamond, zuran orb, loam, rishadan port amongst the lands) and was confidant until his turn 2 play of Moon made his deck obvious. I had my basic forest out and mox diamond, so i had 3 sources of color but I was short a second blue to transmute to EE. Dredges had killed 2 other mox diamonds so my chances of drawing the fourth were pretty slim. Still, drawing off the top was the best I could do, as even gaining 6 life a turn through loam/zuran isn't enough vs sloggers and double striking dragons. However, instead of getting the fourth mox diamond I needed, I draw ensnaring bridge off the top and lock the board down. We draw-go for a while, he accumulates 8 stompy creatures on his side and I get up to 25-30 lands, including academy ruins, chasm, multiple mazes and tabernacle. All the while, he keeps asking me If I have an out. I just smile and nod until i draw ee. I put it on 3, bomb his moon at his eot then put the ee back on top. Put bridge back on top of ee on my upkeep and re play it. Turn after that I get ee back and start beating him with Creeper. He scoops it up.
Game 2: I get a seven with mox, grip and smokestack-- the best seven you could ever hope to ask for in this matchup! His turn 1 play is Mountain. I make a port and a mox on my turn and port him. He makes a chrome mox, ancient tomb, magus. My turn, I drop a land and grip his chrome mox. He plays a land, and is 1 mana short of casting dragons and such, so his only play is to swing with magus. My turn, i drop smokestack. His turn, he still can't draw and land and that's pretty much the game. I mean, it goes on for a while--he beats me to 10 with the magus but I basically stack him out of the game, use tolarias to get more mox diamonds out and stay ahead of the curve then get loam online and transmute for Creeper to beat him dead.
So, 2-0 win over dragon stompy. You'd think that it's your day, right?

Hardly. After pulling it out against an abysmal 10-15% matchup like Dragon Stompy, I lose 0-2 to the very favorable Merfolk match. I guess that was acceptable as it was largely my fault. Game 1 I did not know my opponent's deck and kept one of the worst possible hands against vial aggro (triple port, exploration, no tutor for loam). I think (don't remember entirely) that I could have played around his first spell pierce with port, but I didn't, and it slowed me down a lot. I didn't get loam and Port/Tabernacle up until his board was crowded.

Game 2 I kept a extremely greedy seven with confidant, needle, two intutions, and only one land that didn't come into play tapped--should have thrown it back, especially since I was on the play. I kept like a dumbass in both of these games. My first turn was fetch bayou, needle on vial--his turn 1 was waste bayou, something I did not expect because aggro players generally reserve their wastelands for pushing through damage. Either way, it pushed me behind to where I was at 5 life and had choice but to fall back on chasm against his board of 3 merfolk, 3 mutavault.
I put a second needle on mutavault. It's had to say if this was a play error or not--I thought that putting needle on wasteland would have been a suboptimal play because it would push my strategy through Chasm--and maintaining chasm long term is not profitable because of Force. The long term is to dig out with multiple mazes and needle on mutavault supported that line of play. But of course, the out he drew wasn't force or pierce, it was wasteland. This loss was pretty frustrating.

Round 3 vs TES. Dude mulls to five or six on Game 1. I have some ports online. he goes for Empty the Warrens on turn 4 or so. I take 8 then intuition for tabernacle, loam, tar pit. GG.
Game 2: My opening hand had exploration, mox diamond, chalice, wasteland, loam, some other lands. That's a solid hand, the only thing TES can do to beat that is T1 duress on chalice or T1 drop a couple LED's/lotus petals. He didn't have that--he had to mull to 4. His deck simply did not like him. My eighth card is confidant. i crush his mana base and beat with bob.
So, 2-0 Dragon Stompy, now 2-0 TES. How did I luck out against these abysmal matchups but lose to Merfolk? How could it not be my day?

My round five loss/draw to 4 color CB pretty much summed it up. Game 1 was incredibly frustrating. I keep a hand with manabond, some fetches, a tolaria west and a tranquil thicket. I get manabond up then transmute for Boseiju, my ace in the hole. He gets CB lock up and uses it to counter some extra explorations I get down the line. As the game proceeds, he makes two goyfs, I draw 3 mazes. He cracks like six consecutive fetches looking for jace and I wait the whole game for loam. By the time Jace is at 13 loyalty, I've looked at 30 cards in my deck and not seen a single intution or loam. He didn't fateseal a single loam or intuition, either. Stuff I did see: miser Crypt, miser Karakas, miser Urborg, two mox diamonds, miser Zuran Orb... SERIOUSLY< SO FUCKING FRUSTRATING.
Game 2. I keep a strong hand with port, mox, confidant, Oracle of Mul Daya, exploration, lands. He forces turn 1 Confidant then forces exploration. I get a needle on his top. Turn 4 Oracle lands, gets some decent to relevant lands out. I try to cast smokestack, he has counterspell. I get the bomb lock up and blow goyf, get a second needle on jace and start beating him with oracle. By the time he gets swords on oracle and tar-pit, he's at 4 life. I try to recur smokestack, he sends smokestack away with clique. I get a third needle out on relic then start loaming aggressively and quartering his white sources. Theres about 5 minutes left in the round when i'm in the position to recur confidants and beat for game. I scoop it up and give him the win because if we draw then neither of us had a chance of making prize.

I pass on round 6 to play EDH.