[Deck] Shenanigans at Pendrell Vale

[C-Aleric]

Phya and I were one day sitting in my room thinking again, of something that still has potential to make it somewhere in Legacy. Land destruction has been a long forgotten concept in this format, more or less. To me, this is a little astounding since the only thing that almost all of the decks in the format rely on is their mana sources. Whether it be basics or non-basics, every deck runs them but no deck is really based around strictly hating their opponents mana supply.

A couple more interesting ideas that we came across that day, was the undeniable power that The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale combined with Armageddon presented. This was 'the' board wipe. There is also Pernicious Deed which can effectively cripple an opponent’s board position. Win conditions in the form of mana which stays post 'Geddon. Mox Diamonds for early acceleration. Perhaps run Crucible for recursion of Wasteland? Get the Tabernacle you pitched to Diamond on Turn 1?

I'm pleased to present the most synergistic, and complex pile of expensive cards I've ever seen. With the most under-rated card in Legacy: Crop Rotation

// Name: Shenanigans at Pendrell Vale
// Creators: Aleric and Phya

// Lands
2x City of Traitors
3x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
3x Mishra's Factory
2x Bayou
2x Scrubland
1x Forest
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Plains
3x Wasteland
2x Windswept Heath
2x Polluted Delta
1x Ghost Quarter
1x Boseiju, Who Shelters All

// Creatures
4x Dark Confidant

// Spells
4x Crop Rotation
3x Pernicious Deed
3x Armageddon
3x Crucible of Worlds
4x Phyrexian Totem
4x Vindicate
4x Mox Diamond
4x Sinkhole
3x Extirpate

// Sideboard
1x Pernicious Deed
1x Extirpate
1x Mishra’s Factory
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Orim's Chant
4x Duress

Card Choices and Explanations:


Lands:


2x City of Traitors: Early acceleration in the occasional hand. Also, perhaps you have a Diamond, and this is worth Rotating to grab that first turn Crucible, or Totem.

3x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale: The crippling factor to all that is aggro. This combined with a heavy land denial strategy will keep any and all creatures at bay. The only creatures that are a pain to deal with, are those pesky Werebears. Which can still pay for themselves.

3x Mishra's Factory: Part of the win condition, and a chump blocker per turn, with Crucible in play. Sometimes stalling is to your benefit.

2x Bayou: Fits the color wheel. The colored land count may seem low, but with Mox Diamonds, and Crucible, and Fetchlands, there is a fair amount.

2x Scrubland: See above.

1x Forest
1x Plains: Sometimes, Wasteland is a problem for us as well, or Back to Basics (Hate you MUC).

3x Wasteland: Soft lock completely dominated 3 color decks. As well as the occasional two color decks.

2x Windswept Heath
2x Polluted Delta: The different fetches are for the basic lands. And to avoid needle, if anyone is silly enough to name either of these with it.

1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth: The one big drawback to running TTAPV is that is doesn’t tap for mana. *pause* Yeah.

1x Ghost Quarter: This is the tech. When a deck like goblins might only run 6-10 mountains, and you've got absolute board control. Sometimes it's good to just remove every land from their deck. And this becomes a strip mine very fast against 3 color decks. As well, it can serve as an anti-Tutor effect against decks like Iggy Pop. Mystical Tutor, meet Crop Rotation -> Ghost Quarter. Ooo.

1x Boseiju, Who Shelters All: Pretty self explanatory. The best thing you can do with this land is Crop Rotate for it and then drop an uncounterable Geddon. Then laugh.


Creatures:


4x Dark Confidant: The life loss isn't so bad when we run 28 cards that give 0 life loss. 6 cards that give 1. I'm already pleased with my odds. When it gets down to the wire, just don't pay his upkeep and he dies. Simple as that.


Spells:


4x Crop Rotation: This card, breaks this deck in half. Things it's incredible with: Crucible, Mishra's Factory, TTAPV, City Of Traitors, Wasteland, Ghost Quarter, Boseiju, Post-Geddon' domination, ANTI-WASTELAND, ANTI-STIFLE.

3x Pernicious Deed: This says goodbye to the early game creatures, gets rid of Aether Vial, scares opponents while present on the board… probably the most effective board control card around.

3x Armageddon: Just incase your opponent thinks he's going to be swinging in for the win while you're low on life, Armegeddon -> Crop Rotate for TTAPV. Now you have all your artifact acceleration, and the average aggro deck will have no permanents. GG.

3x Crucible of Worlds: Makes the deck go round and round. Provides the soft lock which can easily turn into the hard lock via Ghost Quarter. Makes Mox Diamond 100% incredible. Makes Crop Rotation 100% incredible. Just a fantastic card.

4x Phyrexian Totem: The win condition. This is black mana after Armageddon, and this is a 5/5 trampling creature when they have no resources to deal with him. A fantastic addition to this deck.

4x Vindicate: Possible the strongest removal ever. Destroy target Permanant. That means, this card saves us from any threat that finds its way to the board. It also kills land.
4x Mox Diamond: Acceleration that is flawless in this pile. The land comes back, and the Diamonds live through 'Geddon. You can save the second one in your hand, since the only bit of anti-synergy in the deck comes between Diamond/Deed.

4x Sinkhole: Two mana that fits in our curve. BB can be a pain on turn 1 sometimes, but in all honestly, it really isn't that bad.

3x Extirpate: A controversial decision. But in this deck, this card is broken. Goblins splashing white for Disenchant? Not any more. Because their Plateau's are no longer part of their deck. Against Threshold, you can get their early fetchland. Or, more brutally: Wasteland Tropical Islands, and then proceed to remove them from the game. Uncounterable. This happens on TURN 1/2. You know what counter magic they now have in their hand, and you've crippled their mana base beyond all reason.



Sideboard:

1x Pernicious Deed: Just incase you play Affinity or elves. Now they really don't have a chance.

1x Extirpate: This is a house against a lot of decks. Worth having 4 in a lot games two and three.

1x: Mishra’s Factory: The only reason this card is in the board is to make room for Boseiju main. Everyone plays blue.

4x Chalice of the Void: Really messes with a lot of decks: Burn, Threshold, Fish, etc...

4x Orim's Chant: Mainly for the TES/Iggy Pop matchups. Basically just becomes a counterspell, and that's all that's important.

4x Duress: Again, Blue decks aren't our friend, so this combined with some Extirpate can really end a lot of countermagic strategies.



Match-ups:

Goblins: This is a favorable matchup for this deck. Extirpate generally goes after Wasteland and then Duals, if you ever get the chance. Normally the first goblin you take is the ever broken Goblin Warchief. Backed with your land destruction you can generally keep them from playing spells, and this is the matchup where the infamous Armegeddon -> TTAPV shines. Most of the games you play will end with them playing "Draw go" since they just won't have lands left. Your Favor.

Threshold: This matchup is much more interesting. They have counter magic and this was a problem before Extirpate became legal. Fortunately for us, once this card came out and the addition of the singleton Boseiju and Ghost Quarter (which is basically a Strip mine after 3-4 uses), this matchup became a lot easier. Post board we have the 4th Extirpate and we have Chalice. These both help out in this matchup. Sure Chalice goes on one. So we don't get Crop Rotation/Extirpate, but they will be trying to kill the Chalice. A lot of the time, we're waiting with a hand full of cards they don't want us to play either. *Duress/Extirpate/Crop Rotation*

Affinity: Greatly depends on the build. Pernicious Deed completely wipes their board and they don't run many lands as it is. They can't deal with TTAPV. There is really nothing this deck can do against Shens… unless it runs Force of Will.

Fish: Favorable. Our deck loves to see 3 color decks. Fish is a deck that runs few lands. And limited ways to prevent us from killing them. They run a standard thresh-esque counter base. And with the addition of Boseiju, the pretty much have to counter all crop rotations. If the Shens player can resolve Crucible-Geddon' or simply keep them off certain colors of land, this matchup goes pretty smoothly in your favor. Also, you may notice Chalice in the board, which hurts Fish a lot (So wil the 4th Deed, so watch out for Stifle). Ghost Quarter is your friend.

Belcher: This matchup is stressful. First of all, you generally need a turn to play your spells, which can be a problem sometimes. Bringing in Chants and Duress is about the best you can do against such a fast deck. Extirpate their win conditions. And beat down as fast as possible.

Iggy Pop: Favorable. This matchup was dreadful before Extirpate became legal, and we updated our sideboard. With the wondrous Extirpate at our side, it's pretty tough to get an IGG loop going. Duress -> Extirpate can end a lot of games quickly. Dark Confidant provides a good Engine in this deck, although most Iggy players seem to know when they're going to lose when you Extirpated during their combo, they fizzle, and you're beating down for 4-7 per turn. Game one depends on whether you're capable of finding an Extirpate. Games 2 and 3 should just be a cakewalk. Chalice goes on 0, and let the beating begin.

Landstill: Favorable. The addition of Boseiju makes this a much easier matchup. They also run a slow clock. So we have time to establish a decent board position. If they run more than 2 colors (which most seem to do now), Extirpating Splashes is the way to start. Boseiju + Vindicate/Geddon' should bring most games to a halt, if you've got totem/factories readily available. Having an early peek at their hand in game one with Extirpate is a good way to set up resolving your important spells as well.

Survival: Hasn't been tested. We both come from Ontario, CA, and Survival doesn't exist anywhere around Waterloo. I find it hard to believe that this is part of the established meta right now. I haven't seen a strong survival deck since Pithing Needle was printed. However, Survival loves stocking up on Mana sources, and I don't see what they're going to do against Crucible-Geddon-TTAPV. If they have an answer, I'd be impressed. Survival and their early acceleration get Deeded, and their lands get destroyed. Seems like it should be a pretty straight forward matchup from our perspective.

***Played a game against Survival on MWS. Turn 2 Wasteland/Extirpate. Turn 3 Vindicate ended game 1 on turn 3 (he had 3 non-basics in hand, and I had Crucible/Confidant in hand). Game 2 was more of the same. Survival loves its lands, Shens hates them.***

Black-Based Aggro: Unfavorable. This is the nail in our coffin. It's not unwinnable, but it's a long, hard, and complicated matchup. They have cheap threats which are massive. This means that Tabernacle has limited use, when they only need to tap for 1 Negator to kill you in 4 turns. Wastelands should be Extirpated first. Then Splash Colors. You really need to keep them off mana as best you can. Deed can be relied upon to save you from the first wave of threats. But the second comes hard. You need to be resolving game altering spells pretty consistently to beat them.

Enchantress: (Non-Panderburst) Favorable. Armageddon and Pernicious Deed are the champions in this matchup. Karmic Justice is a bit of a pain when you're wiping their whole board, and them just casting Replenish is not good either. However. Since they take a long time to kill you, you just need to set up an Armageddon, followed by killing all their enchantments over the next 2-3 turns with Deed. Save a couple lands in your hand incase they kill Crucible (which they will do) and kill from there. (The Panderburst Variants haven't been tested yet, but they will be with the new Replenish lists evolving)

Stax Variants: (the few games I've played) Favorable. Smokestack needs to be ramped up against us. So it hurts them as well. Unless we're in bad board position when it is played, it shouldn't swing the game in their favor. Just keep killing lands, and beating them. Keep Vindicate pointed at their crucible, and make them kill themselves while you plan to quickly rebuild after they ramp their stack.

*Detailed Sideboarding options will be added as they are recorded. However, we mostly take out obviously dead cards for the Singletons in our board for decks that aren't combo. And against combo, we take out the creature hate, and replace it with Duress/Chant/Extirpate/Chalice. With Extirpate, sideboarding isn't very generic, since after game one, you know their 60 card list. Specific things splash/tech dependent are generally done.*


Matchup Pros/Cons

Pros:

3 color decks get eaten up by Extirpate + Resource Denial
Aggro gets dominated by Geddon' TTAPV
Sideboard deals with Combo pretty handily
Other decks aiming for the long haul don't like seeing Armageddon in game 1.
Empty the Warrens tokens aren't fond of TTAPV. Making TES/Belcher go for Tendrils/Belcher is good for us.


Cons:

Discard. God discard sucks so bad for this deck. Seeing Dark Rit-> Duress + more discard is basically game over. Confidant helps, but not enough. Hope for a good game 2, and a sketchy game 3.
50 minute rounds. As CP said, sometimes this deck can take a long time to finish a player off. Having someone horribly crippled, and not dead just isn't good enough for some stubborn people.
Sacred Ground. Obviously this card is rarely played, therefore not really a problem. We can get it with Deed/Vindicate, but combined with lots of tempo, it's a bit of an issue.



Tournament Reports
Player: Phya

Tournament 1 (3-2-1) *Pre-Extirpate*

Round 1: 2-0 vs Bw Suicide: Games 1 and 2 went pretty much the same way, I would absorb hand disruption for a few turns and then wipe out all their lands. Some unlucky landless draws on my opponent’s behalf turned what should’ve been a close game into a blow out.

Round 2: 2-1 vs Affinity: In game 2 I got overrun on turn 4 before I could stabilize. In games 1 and 3 my opponent (who opted to run Glimmervoid over Citadel) finished with 0 permanents in play... thank you Deed.

Round 3: 1-2 vs Iggy Pop: This match up is by far the deck’s worst and so I went into it expecting trouble. Game 1: I lost on turn 2. In game 2 I started with Leyline in play and beat my opponent down by around turn 6 with Confidant and double Factory. Game 3 I mull to 5 and keep Diamond, Land, Land, Confidant, Leyline. I start the game by dropping turn one Confidant and Leyline and at the end of my turn 2 my opponent bounces Leyline and kills me next turn. Clearly the sideboard I had brought with me needed a little work.

Round 4: 2-0 vs UR Fish: I don’t remember much about this match except that in both games my opponent was out of land by turn 4.

Round 5: 1-2 vs UGb Threshold: This was a really close match against a teammate of mine. I won game 2 by getting a quick Crucible + Wasteland, and beat down with Totem. Games 1 and 3 went almost exactly the same way, we traded blows for a while until we were both fairly low and then I clean him off land and drop Tabernacle. Unfortunately what Tabernacle doesn’t kill is Werebear, and he just stalled until he could untap his bear and killed me.

Round 6: 1-1 vs UGW Salvagers: I was tired and playing slowly which caused this match to go to time. The addition of blue instead of black was just bad news for me, since I could never get my opponent under 3 land.

Tournament 2 (3-1)

Round 1: 2-0 vs Bosh Affinity Combo: Strange janky deck and I made it feel that way.

Round 2: 2-1 vs Counterslivers: Lost game 1 after Extirpating both Tundras and Tropical Islands from his deck, because that didn’t stop the Sinew and Muscle Slivers hitting me for 6 a turn. Games 2 and 3 went similarly, except instead of getting killed by slivers I removed all the mana sources from his deck and then dropped Deed.

Round 3: 2-1 vs Bw Suicide: I don’t really remember games 1 and 2 because they were pretty big blowouts for both decks. Game 3 however was close, like epic close. He kept drawing threats and I kept drawing answers to his threats until I had Crucible in play and 4 mana on the table. The only card in my hand was crop rotation, he had two Nantuko Shades in play and I was at two life. I say “the only card that can save me at this point is Deed” and I flip over… Deed. I Crop Rotate for City of Traitors and cast/sac Deed for 2. My opponent explodes.

Round 4: 0-2 vs aFOWinity: Steam rolled, the whole match took 7 turns. Also C-Aleric happened to design the deck I was playing.... *cough*.

[Bane of the Living]

Off topic content deleted. - Zilla

I like where your going with this deck but it seems lacking in a few departments..

1) Why black? Ask yourselves what this color is really doing for you. In every land based deck I play I ask why Im adding each colors..

Green- Land loving cards, Life from the Loam
Red- Devestating Dreams, Burning Wish, Siesmic Assault
Black- Duress, Cabal Therapy, Deed, Confidant
White- Confinement, Geddon, Humility/Moat

Sinkhole is just bad in a deck that doesnt plan to win by turns 4-5. Your playing board control not tempo.

Confidant being one of the few creatures in the deck paints a fat target on his head. You have a high range of 3cc spells for him to smash you with. He's gonna have an upkeep of 1.

Totem is a terrible win condition, I can tell you this with an extensive amount of playtesting with him in Pox style decks. I dont see him being any better in this deck when you run less disruption to get his back.

Just go red. Its so much better for this archetype. Devestating Dreams already does what Deed wishes it could do. It makes Sinkhole laughable.

2) I dont want to get into a huge Crucible vs Life from the Loam debate but you have a draw engine with cycling lands and you dont get stuffed by your own Deeds nuking 3cc cards. Not too mention Crucible is much worse against aggro control than loam since its uncounterable.

3) Do something about your combo matchup. So far you have Extirpate which is pretty much the same as nothing. This deck looks like it has an ok chance against aggro but not nearly good enough in regards to what its sacrificing its combo matchup.

This is one of those cases where I dont wanna be a dick and say "just play my deck" but this deck reflects what Columbus Confinement does to the teeth; except it seems to be doing it worse. My deck has a wish board, uncounterable engine, card draw, and actual win conditions. Maybe you should shuffle it up and give it a go. Custimize it as you see fit since theres room for innovation.

[Phya]

I assure you, Aleric and myself have played around with your deck quite a bit and while I admit that it is strong, Shenanigans does something completely different. The fact that you say Sinkhole is a bad card proves that you aren't thinking about this deck from the right perspective. This is not a board control deck, it's a resource denial deck.

Confidant is indeed a big target for removal but if your opponent is spending burn on Confidant they aren't spending it on say... Phyrexian Totem. Also, I'm going to go out on a limb here but I'm noticing that a lot of current archetypes don't run a lot of targeted removal.

Speaking of Totem, I think you're overlooking the fact that after Armageddon, Totem is still on the board. If you're forced to cast it without Crucible, the Totem can be the difference between a win and a really painful loss.

Devastating Dreams does not accomplish the same thing as Deed. Deed stops basically anything that could be thrown at you, it was put in because its a one card solution to almost anything.

2) We have considered Life more times than I can count and what it always comes down to is that the 2 mana per turn isn't worth it in a deck as mana intensive as this. Also if we put in cycling lands we would have to remove other more useful lands, effectively making Crop Rotation useless... and you do not want to do that to your star player.

3) Combo has to deal with 4x Duress, 4x Extirpate, 4x Chalice, 4x Orim's Chant. I would argue this is a little stronger than just Extirpate. Oh, and have you ever Duress => Extirpate Ill Gotten Gains on turn 1?

Anyways, I think you'll like the deck if you try it.

[Raider Bob]

Two words for you....Horizon Canopy.

[C-Aleric]

We've been considering Horizon Canopy for a long time. The reason we haven't settled on it, is because we no longer know what to remove from the decks mana base. Removing the basic swamp for Urborg took some serious thought. We can't remove anymore colored lands for it. And we can't remove anymore Factories. I believe that taking another wasteland is taking too much away from what this deck is trying to accomplish.

So, this leaves basically nothing. The only possibility, would be to remove 1x City of Traitors. And I'm not sure if it'll turn out to be worth it. I'll test it out some though. I really like Horizon Canopy, but I'm not sure if it's what this deck needs.

[sammiel]

why 3x tabernacle? you have crucible to protect it once it's in play, and 4x crop rotation to find it, and it's legendary. Dropping it to a singleton would make room for two more lands, such as a canopy and another factory, or a canopy and maze of ith/kor haven

[C.P.]

how does this deck have any less development than the fictional piece of shit called Vaka Pox, yet that deck gets to stay in open.

Let's just stay on the deck for now. Pox(not the vaka version) at least T8ed in some tourneys. I don't like how the creator of the deck masturbates with his decks(or sometimes with horribly tweaked version of others), but that is not the topic.

About the Shenanigans, as a person who watched the development of the deck and played against it a lot, there are some pros and cons of the deck that I think.

Pros

- Extirpate and LD gives edge against dedicated Blue based control.

- Favorable goblins matchup, although I have a feeling that this matchup is getting worse with more tweaks to beat other decks.

- Ability to whack the dual land reliant mana base, especially things like Survival, Fish and Thresh.

- Edge against Board Control decks, due to Maindeck Geddon.


Cons

- Like Landstill or 43Lands, you sometimes lose to time.

- Even with 28 mana source, your mana base is fragile, and colorscrew occurs more than I'd like to see.

- Lack of Pinpoint removal. I still think that Cabal pit deserves a testing, at least.

- Lack of CA engine. Confidant is just not enough.

- Bad matchup, even with the SB tweak against Belcher and TES.

I still think Black belongs here, and the deck is different from Columbus confinement. This is more of an classic LD deck.

[C.P.]

Off topic content deleted. - Zilla

It plays more like Eternal Garden. However, I think your observation is mostly correct though i have never saw the deck that way. It does play like the Rock sometimes.

EDIT: Now I think about it a bit more, It is probably the other way around. The rock with eternal garden element, although it is not an accurate description for the deck.

[Zilla]

If the deck's developers feel that the deck is fully optimized after thourough testing against a wide array of decks, then the deck does in fact belong in the Open Forum.

However, your matchups section is rather weak. If you'll be so kind as to edit the opening post to include matchup results for more than just two decks, that would be fantastic. How's Belcher? Iggy Pop? TES? Fish? Landstill? Survival? Black-based Aggro? What are the strengths and weaknesses against matchups like these? What is your sideboard strategy? This is the most important aspects of a "finished" deck - how does it do against the established field?

Once you've edited the opening post with more data in this area, feel free to PM myself or another moderator and the thread will be moved to Open.

Further discussion on requirements for Open vs. N&D in this thread will be deleted.

[C-Aleric]

Alright, Zilla'.

The opening post has been updated discussing more matchups that this deck has been posed against.

Please, help yourself to playing the deck now. It's been under wraps for a long time, and we'd like to hear how it plays for everyone. It's been dominating the best decks around here for a long time, and has a good matchup against the supposed best deck in the format (being Goblins again). Sideboards into a combo-hate machine. Overall, very powerful.

Keep the comments/suggestions coming. Thanks to those who've already replied (with deck related responses)

[honz]

A couple people have kinda mentioned this but i will go ahead and say it outright:

This deck has striking similarities to Pox. Have you tested with Small Pox, or even Pox itself; they both seem like they could have a place here. I suggest cutting out green (deed), and putting pox in the "sweeper" spot. Throw in some targeted removal (chainer's edict, ghastly demise, innocent blood...etc), and i think consistancy will go up. Just a suggestion...

Also, this is a small point, but make sure you run an even split of Ravages of War & Armageddon. If you only want 3 geddons, i suggset 2 ravages and 1 armageddon (to avoid any meddling mages, extirpates...etc).

I think bonseju is out of place. With running 3 colors, i think it might screw you more than it ever helps you. How has it been working out for you?

MD extirpates seem unneeded. They are nice in most MU, but i think something like duress would be better MD. Duress deals with cards they actually have, extirpates deals with things they "might" draw...

just a few suggestions...

[C-Aleric]

@ Honz

Thanks for the input.

We've thought of Pox, and Smallpox. The reason that we don't run these compared to say Deed, is because Deed actually answers just about anything. Any permanent they can cast, Deed can answer. Pithing Needle on wasteland is a blow to our strategy. At least with Deed, they need to have two needles to completely stop us from functioning. The reason we don't run targeted removal, is because the main aggro deck in the format (goblins) can't really deal with Tabernacle. The only matchup that targeted removal would greatly improve, is the Black based Rit-Aggro decks. Just gives them another duress target though. Since this deck isn't very widely played, we don't run it. Remember, our strategy is resource denial. We kill lands, trying our best to survive until we have board dominance.

If I had Ravages of War, I'd run then at tourneys. On MWS, there is an even split. It's easy when I don't need to buy the cards. If Meddling Mage becomes an issue that can't be answered by Tabernacle + Other methods of resource denial, then Cabal Pit (as CP mentioned) is our best out.

Boseiju isn't really out of place. It's a Crop Rotation target. It saves a lot of game ones that would otherwise be complete blowouts. It also pitched to Mox Diamond early game.

And the comment about Extirpate has been made by everyone who's seen this deck for the first time. Remember it hits Non-Basic Lands. AKA duals. A common game ending turn 1/2 is Wasteland + Extirpate. This can remove a splash from a deck completely in some cases. I can see why Duress is good. And that's why it's full force in the Sideboard. The main plan of this deck: Resource denial. And Extirpate helps land screw more than Duress does.

[Bane of the Living]

OK I expected some serious matchup analysis but I need to call you on a few of them big time..

GOBLINS
You have NO answer to goblin Lackey.
You have NO answer to Aether Vial.

Please address this issue first. You cant just say niether are a big deal or Ill just Mox Diamond -> Mishras Factory or cast turn 2 Vindicate. These arent real answers, these are dream solutions. Deed is also slow as balls.

Tin-Street Hooligan > Crucible. This is one of the other major reasons I play LftL in Columbus Confinement. This is a serious issue. You might have Deed and Vindicate for removal but he still kills it CIP.

Port/Wasteland
I dont care if your playing Crucible if you dont get it these will eat you alive. You dont have a reliable way to get the crucible, tin street stuffs it, and port/wasteland will keep you off your feet since you play minimal basics.
Wastelands also take care of Tabernacle.

THESHOLD
Their clock is fast now that they have Tarmagoyf and he loves your decks card types. I doubt you'll resolve Crucible which is the only card that really matters to them. Even if you get the elusive Sinkhole/Waste -> Exi(trop) they still only need to drop one Tarmagoyf and counter your one or two slow removal spells.

Needle takes out your Deeds and Tabernacle is terrible against them. Geddon is also shitty even with your little Boseju. Go ahead and get it, lose 2 life and resolve it. They need to hold a land, maybe 2 and restart. Their curve is 1-2..

Confidant might save you.

AFFINITY
They're usually faster than goblins and your not playing swords. Tabernacle is again terrible since they can keep one thopter with a plating and fly over your factories or simply pay 2 to keep their 4/4 enforcer and 5/5 ravager..

The only card you have of relevance to the matchup is Deed. Just Deed. Obviously if your playing AfFOWnity you get stuffed since they have FoW and Chalice altho Vial affinity is probably just as bad for you since they have Vial and sometimes Confidants of their own. Armageddon sucks here again. So does Sinkhole. They play needle and it rocks against you.

FISH
I see this matchup being one of the close ones for you since they're worse than thresh and just play Jitte to care about. Still geddon sucks against decks that curve at 1-2. Confidant might save you.

LANDSTILL
I believe your matchup is probably strong here. Crop Rotation + Manlands + Crucible of your own = good. Boseju -> Geddon is finally worth it for this matchup. Still your clock is slow and all they need to counter is your own Crucible to bury you under their own wastelock. Worry about that issue and your all set.

BELCHER
Has a bye against you. I dont believe anything you say. Holding a 7 mana into Belcher hand will trounce you.

TES/IGGY
You have a timely Extirpate on IGG and Tabernacle on EtW. I still see a Tendrils death for you. Your clock is slow-as-balls so I dont see you beating combo really ever at all until you fix that. Add all the hate you want you still need to win the game.

BLACK AGGRO
Play LftL your matchup will change bigtime.

I hope you understand Im being so hard on this deck because Ive been playing it for months. Ive simply tuned it more.

[Phantom]

I'd have to agree with the above poster that the Goblins and combo matchups look rough. I could be wrong. Anyway, here are my thoughts:

1) I have to echo that Confidant is woefully out of place here. He will NEVER live against Goblins. He will never live against aggro. He will never live against control or aggro control. He will live against combo, assuming you live. The decks that are able to abuse Confidant in legacy do 2 things. They provide numerous other creature threats (you provide 4 that die to artifact removal and can't be hit by sorcery's) and they protect their creatures with hand disruption of some kind (Counters or discard or both). You disrupt their manabase, which is all well and good, but it will not keep your Confidant alive considering the first rule of legacy deck building is that every deck can kill a one toughness creature with one land!

2) The one-of Boseiju seems way too cute. I mean, the card has sideboard written all over it. It's dead vs every deck that doesn't play counters (that's like 50% of decks right there). If that's not enough, it's dead if you aren't holding a sorcery or instant. It's dead if they aren't holding a counter. It's dead if you want them to counter your spell. Also, it's slow and it hurts you. I know you think you really aren't hurting your deck since it's just a one-of, but I've always believed in trimming down toolboxes as much as possible in order to make a deck as consistent as possible, and Boseiju is just not useful often enough.

3) I completely understand your point about deed hitting everything, but the downside is it hits EVERYTHING. Your crucibles, Confidants, totems, and diamonds as well. How often is this an issue vs. how often would your rather have just a creature sweeper? (or DDreams?)

4) I really don't like the sideboard. Decks with such dedicated sideboard hate to one archetype rarely if ever make it to an upper tier for two reasons, in my oh so humble opinion.

One, if you virtually auto lose to good combo decks like TES (and CRET belcher maybe?) game 1, you need to up your matchup to a staggering 75/25 postboard to even have a 50/50 shot at winning the match. Postboard you up yourself to 16 pieces of combo hate, but I still think you're in some trouble. Even drawing 2 pieces of hate doesn't seem to guarantee you anything with your slow clock.

Two, non combo deck has an advantage over you post board because they get to bring in hate for your deck, while you often bring in nothing. Take Goblins for example. They board in all their Holligans and Grips while you board in another Deed? You're running black! Wouldn't Plague be a nice addition?

Anyway, I think a good place to start would be putting Orim's Chant in the mainboard (for Confidant maybe?) to free up some board room. I really think Chant is underrated and underplayed. I think it got a bad reputation when Solidarity reigned, but anti combo cards that are virtually never dead in non combo games are nothing to sneeze at says me. The only I'd be worried about is how often you get W and WW. Hmmm. Maybe Chalice mainboard?

5) I really like how the deck abuses Vale and Crop Rotation. Both underplayed cards, so nice work. It sucks that you are forced to run 3 Vales though.

[outsideangel]

I can see this deck getting along better game 1 against TES or CRET because of Tabernacle. Since both of those decks like to go turn 1-2 EtW a lot of the time, you can probably catch them off guard and steal a game by Crop Rotation -> Tabernacle or some such after they go off, and then sealing the deal before they can rebuild a Tendrils/Belcher hand.

Otherwise, though, you're probably going to lose. I know you think Extirpate is all that and a bag of chips, but really it's not particularly useful against either TES or CRET (unless you get a Belcher with Duress). TES is made to play around a card getting removed via Meddling Mage, and has Xantid Swarm and Orim's Chant to protect its IGG loops while it goes off, and CRET isn't going to be reliant on any one card besides Belcher against you.

Duress, Chant, and Chalice are all considerably stronger in those matchups, although Chant so really become Abeyance so you can drop Chalice @ 1 and still play it. Of course, none of those things are really worthwhile unless you can apply relevant pressure.

[Phya]

@Bane

You are correct, we have no answer to Goblin Lackey. What we have is a turn 2 Siege Gang Commander meets turn 2 Tabernacle. If Goblins can't get more than 2 land out and we drop Tabernacle it's almost impossible for them to win. I can't speak on the Tin Street Hooligan issue since there's not a single person in a 200+ km radius who plays RG Goblins here. That being said, the deck really doesn't need Crucible to win.

Threshold isn't as bad a match up as you think. Typically Threshold runs out of lands quickly since they only want to have 3 or so anyway, so it makes LD that much more powerful.

Affinity does sometimes go the way you described, but sometimes it's a complete blowout in our favor. From my experience it is more usually the later.

Yes, a first turn Belcher hand would be a game loss. It would be a game loss for any deck not running Force of Will. Fortunately a not-turn-one win is more likely than a turn one win.

I still suggest you try these match ups out yourself.

@Phantom

You're right, Confidant won't live long against aggro. However I'm going to question the rest of the archtypes. Threshold for example has just 4 StP. Fish, 4 StP. Much of the time control (Stax, Enchantress, MUC) has no way of dealing with Confidant once its on the board.

Deed is definitely a card that needs to be used with discretion. Usually it doesn't need to be used for more than 2, which is very convenient for the curve. 3+ with Crucible on the board is a "break glass in case of emergency" play... but it still works if you really need it. Killing Diamonds is unfortunate, but usually the deck can get by on it's abundance of land.

I don't think removing Confidant, especially for Chant, is a good idea. The deck needs more card advantage, and Chant just contributes to the problem. Confidant wins the game around half the time he sticks, it's really just too good to remove.

Also because most Goblins in my area is RW, I prefer to run Massacre over Chalice in the sideboard. The addition of a free board sweeper really helps against Pikula/RW Goblins/Fish/Life/WW.

I'm glad the deck at least amuses you if you aren't that impressed. Beating Elves! still makes me laugh. :tongue:

[outsideangel]

@Bane

Yes, a first turn Belcher hand would be a game loss. It would be a game loss for any deck not running Force of Will. Fortunately a not-turn-one win is more likely than a turn one win.



It's not so much that you just lose to a first turn Belcher. It's that you have no way to stop a Belcher on any turn and your clock is very poor.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Why is Tomb of Yawgmoth necessary? You have one spell with double black.

You have two spells that can actually use Boseiju. Is this necessary? Horizon Canopy would fit here for more utility and fix your mana.

Dark Confidant seems slammed into this deck without thought, as he has essentially no synergy with the deck. Life From the Loam is a more relevant card drawer. LftL eats up mana, but it also produces it. I would recommend fitting Exploration in on top of Mox Diamond and switching to LftL.

How is it that Crop Rotation stops a Stifle on a Fetchland that's already in the yard, incidentally?

How do you beat Goblins? I see you have a WoG combo in Tabernacle and Armageddon, but no actual WoG. You have no answers to early Lackey or Vial- Tabernacle's not very good by itself if they can just play their spells for free and use their mana to pay upkeep on dudes who are beating you to death. And your draw engine dies to Mogg Fanatic.

[Melman]

Ive been playing with a deck somewhat like this for a while. It has a very similar strategy, with slightly different card choices, so I figured Id post it here instead of making a new thread or whatever. First, the list;
// Lands
4 Tranquil Thicket
1 Forgotten Cave
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Taiga
4 Wasteland
2 Savannah
2 Nantuko Monastery
2 Mishra's Factory
3 Windswept Heath
2 Bayou

// Creatures
4 Eternal Witness
2 Genesis

// Spells
3 Life from the Loam
3 Crucible of Worlds
4 Devastating Dreams
3 Armageddon
4 Exploration
4 Burning Wish
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Enlightened Tutor

// Sideboard
SB: 1 Life from the Loam
SB: 1 Armageddon
SB: 4 Defense Grid
SB: 2 Pyroclasm
SB: 4 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Hull Breach
SB: 1 Regrowth
SB: 1 Wrath of God

I dont run tabernacle because I feel I already run enough board sweepers (dreams, wish --> clasm, deed) and so it is often unneccesary. Also, after playing this deck for a while I found that the only outs that opposing decks have is to win early. So I elected to play exploration to attempt and power out earlier sweepers and disruption.
LftL is completely broken in this kind of deck, it offers an entire engine in a deck that already has so much synergy with it.
Witness is amazing with lftl, and genesis is amazing with lftl and witness. This engine completely breaks the late game as well. Its a little slow, but that's where this deck wants to be (Late Game) and its very good at getting there, so having these kinds of engines is good. Also, just hardcasting genesis is always and option.
Manlands just make sense as a kill in a deck with lftl and crucible.
I play Crucible and lftl because this deck doesnt need either to run, but you really do want at least one, and having both is useful so there's no reason not to run both.
Wish is super good. Its LtfL 4-7, board sweepers, artifact/enchantment kill, whatever you want. And this deck generates the mana to support it and more.
The matchups and playstyle and card choices are otherwise pretty similar to the list above... any thoughts on this vs. C-Aleric's list, or a way to fuse them, or if one is better, etc?

[Phya]

@IBA

Tomb isn't in the deck to produce more black mana, it's in because with it in Tabernacle doesn't slow you down, Boseiju doesn't have to deal you damage, you can even leave your fetches on the table if you're worried about Stifle. The card that Urborg replaced was a basic Swamp and I haven't feel a desire to go back yet. Currently we're testing out a list with -1 CoT +1 Canopy, and it's giving mixed results. The fact that it produces GW is proving much more important than it drawing a card.

I knew Boseiju would create a lot of criticism and in truth, no it isn't necessary. Until recently the deck ran a 4th Factory instead of Boseiju and it worked fine. However aggro-control is quickly becoming the dominant archetype in our meta and making two of your most important spells uncounterable is often worth the drawback.

LftL does produce massive card advantage but at the cost of being incredibly slow and mana intensive. This deck usually relies on squeezing as much out of the mana it has, and adding LftL would require making a completely different deck. Confidant also has some synergy with the rest of the deck because of how low the curve is. For example, BW Confidant's average mana cost is 1.20... Shens is 1.28.

As for how we beat Goblins... well if you destroy a land by turn 2 (which you should) and drop/rotate Tabernacle they now have over extended into a mini-wrath. Put a Factory into play after that and Goblins is perpetually tapped out with two minor threats in play, and it isn't as though the land destruction is going to stop.

@Melman

I've been toying around with something similar but never with Burning Wish. On the surface it seems as though your deck is going to be slower but more consistent but I'll test it out for myself.

[Puzzle]

I tinkered with LD in Legacy some time ago but didn't reach a satisfying result.
However, I'd underline that Stifle is very good there. On top of thwarting fetchlands, it improves the combo matchup, which is your main problem, a lot.

When I stopped, the core I was using was :
4 Stifle
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
4 Smallpox
4 Sinkhole
4 Wasteland
20 other lands

The problem was that I never managed to fit a decent win condition in there and that the deck would sometimes "just lose" by not being relevant early enough due to LD coming too late or a Lackey hitting ground on turn 1 for instance.

[Cavius The Great]

Why is Tomb of Yawgmoth necessary? You have one spell with double black.

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is in the deck to produce mana from Tabernacles and other lands that do not produce mana initially.