[Deck] Giant's Locket

[Benie Bederios]

Hello,

I've tried to build a deck with a new look on a deck using graveyard recursion. The idea came, when I looked at two decks: Turbo Land and Counter Post. Both decks that used to put cards from your graveyard into your library so you can draw them again.

Any way here is the list.

Lands
2 Island
1 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
3 Tundra

Creatures
4 Jotun Grunt

Other
3 Counterspell
3 Daze
3 Duress
4 Force of Will
4 Swords to Plowshare

2 Pithing Needle
1 Engineered Explosives

4 Brainstorm
4 Accumulated Knowledge

3 Intution
4 Merchant Scroll

4 Locket of Yesterday

Sideboard
1 Pithing Needle
4 Engineered Plague
3 Extirpate
3 Disenchant
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Brain Freeze

This decks tries to keep control in the first turns with all the cheap control cards. After that it can gain massive card advantage with Accumulated Knowledge, Merchant Scoll and Jotun Grunt. It works by putting Accumulated Knowledge and Merchant Scoll on bottom of your library and then use another Merchant Scroll or other shuffle effects to find and play Accumulated Knowledge every turn. After that you can keep returning your silver bullets to your library too, making sure all your draws are relevant.

The problem with the deck is that is still to slow. Now I play Locket of Yesterday to counter this. The card is insane when the deck starts going. But still I find myself loosing the game the turn before I can stabilize.

I don't have much testing results yet.
In the few games I play i found that Goblins is very hard. Game 2 gets better with Engineered Plague, if I can drop a single one I most of the time win. because I can tutor for other ones and I can keep putting them in my library. With a Locket in play it is fun to play Intuition for triple Plague and then play the third one for a single mana

Thresh is a die roll, if I can stabilize and keep the Tarmagoyf of the board. Especially when I start drawing more cards than him. But other times I just can't stabilize in time.

TES is a better matchup. I normally can lock them out of the game. Recurring Duress is bad news for them.

Well tell me what you think.

Benie Bederios

[Maveric78f]

I don't get, how do you plan to kill ? With the giants ?

[HdH_Cthulhu]

Sorry but i realy dont like your deck!

I think i am somthing missing!? Or you have forgot somthing in the decklist. Maby Isocron Scepter?

Your only wincon has a cumulative upkeep!? lol

And what is with Locket of Yesterday? Most of your spells have only :1: in the cost an some have only colored mana! And you play 4!

What do you do if your Grunt gets sworded!

And you say that you gain massive card advantage? With cantrips and tutors!?
Is this a joke!?

Sorry to be so hard but i belive there is a bug...

[Benie Bederios]

The way to play is...

For example you have a Grunt in play with 0 counters and a Locket, 3 AK's in you Graveyard due to Intution. Next to that you have a Merchant Scroll in the Graveyard. Now you play another Scroll or Brainstorm finding the fourth AK and play it to draw 4 cards for U. Next turn the Grunt gets a counter. you put Scrolland AK in your graveyard. You use the cantrips and tutors to find AK again and play it. When this deck starts going you can keep doing this for some turns getting a perfect hand. When Grunt gets to much counters( normally 4) he could have done 12 damage. Then you sac it during your upkeep and play the next one fur W. If the game goes very long you can also deck your opponent.

Benie Bederios

[ClearSkies]

The way to play is...

For example you have a Grunt in play with 0 counters and a Locket, 3 AK's in you Graveyard due to Intution. Next to that you have a Merchant Scroll in the Graveyard. Now you play another Scroll or Brainstorm finding the fourth AK and play it to draw 4 cards for U. Next turn the Grunt gets a counter. you put Scrolland AK in your graveyard. You use the cantrips and tutors to find AK again and play it. When this deck starts going you can keep doing this for some turns getting a perfect hand. When Grunt gets to much counters( normally 4) he could have done 12 damage. Then you sac it during your upkeep and play the next one fur W. If the game goes very long you can also deck your opponent.

Benie Bederios

Done 12 damage? You act like that all opponents don't have any defense against creatures.

The game doesn't look like it can go very long if you have almost zero defense and offense besides the Joten Grunt.

It doesn't look like the deck have any acceleration at all.

Wouldn't Psychatog be a better choice here?

[HdH_Cthulhu]

The way to play is...

For example you have a Grunt in play with 0 counters and a Locket, 3 AK's in you Graveyard due to Intution. Next to that you have a Merchant Scroll in the Graveyard. Now you play another Scroll or Brainstorm finding the fourth AK and play it to draw 4 cards for U. Next turn the Grunt gets a counter. you put Scrolland AK in your graveyard. You use the cantrips and tutors to find AK again and play it. When this deck starts going you can keep doing this for some turns getting a perfect hand. When Grunt gets to much counters( normally 4) he could have done 12 damage. Then you sac it during your upkeep and play the next one fur W. If the game goes very long you can also deck your opponent.

Benie Bederios

But sometimes in Magic a creature gets destroyd... Or removed from the game.
And sometimes people play things like Tormonds Crypt or expirate...
And sometimes people play chalcid of the void...

But that are realy rare sitiuations...

[Benie Bederios]

If it won every game, I would have post it at Decks to Beat. The name of this part is NEW AND DEVELOPMENTAL. As I said in the first post when the deck starts going it is great, you will have enough counters and such to stop almost all relevant treats. The problem is getting there.

I play 11 counters and 10 other disruption spells to protect the spells. It's just wrong to say that a single action will ruin the gameplan, a single UNANSWERED action could slow it down.

If you haven't got any critism wich could be helpfull, just post in other threads please.

[Bovinious]

Seems like it wants Mystical Tutor to keep the AK/Intuition loop going.

[Benie Bederios]

Hello,

To make it all clear for everyon I wrote a micro primer for the deck. Next to that I made some Changes.

First of All the List

Giant Locket 1.1

Lands
3 Island
4 Tundra
4 Polluted Delta
2 Plains
4 Flooded Strand
1 Seat of the Syno

Creatures
4 Jotun Grunt
3 Trinket Mage

Other
4 Counterspell
4 Merchant Scroll
3 Intuition
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Brainstorm
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Swords to Plowshare
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Pithing Needle

Sideboard
1 Pithing Needle
1 Tormod's Crypt
3 Disenchant
3 Tividiar's Crusade
4 Meddling Mage
3 Chill

Deck analysis

The deck consists out of mana, control, kill and carddraw and tutor.

Mana
The manabase is quite low. This is possible with the very low manacurve. The maximum amount of fetches are for three reasons. They make sure I have the right coloured mana, they feed the Grund and they maximize the Shuffle effects( I come back on that later). The Seat of the Synod is fetchable with Trinket Mage.

Control
In order to get throught the first few turn I play 12 counters to stop the most important spells. Next to that Swords to Plowshare is an autoinclude in this deck. It stops all relevant creatures. The final cards are fetchable with Trinket Mage and are versatile in use.

Kill
The main creature of the deck is a 4/4 for only 2 mana. The problem is that it feeds on the graveyard. Most other deck just use it to feed of both graveyard and put anything back. In this deck it can survive of only your own graveyard and put the relevant cards back, so that you can draw them later on. Trinket Mage is a tutor on legs. It's not a fast clock but it will get the job done.

Draw and Tutor
Brainstorm is an autoinclude, it makes sure you have enough lands and with the Shuffle effects it's very powerfull. Accumulated Knowledge can draw you alot of cards, with Intuition and Merchant Scroll your are sure you find all four of them. Coupled with Jotun Grunt, you can find the last 2 over and over again. Intuition is Instant speed tutoring what finds everything except the Needle, EE and Crypt. Merchant Scroll can find Counterspell, Accumulated Knowledge and Intuition.

The Sideboard
The sideboard has most things to shore off the worst matchups. Chill slows down burn. This could be warmth too. Another Pithing Needle and Tormod's Crypt for matchups you really needs them. Disenchant to stop nasty Enchantments or Artifacts. Tividar's Crusade against Goblins and Meddling Mage against decks that heavily relay on one card.

Way to play

This is a Uw control deck and need to be played that way. Every Blue based control deck has got a draw engine, wether it is BBS with Ophidian or Landstill with Standstill. The drawengine of this deck is as followed. You try to get some Accumulated Knowledges in your graveyard with playing them or Intuition. The last Accumulated Knowledges are very powerfull. After you used three or four of them you use Jotun Grunt to put some on bottom of your graveyard. That turn you can start searching them with Merchant Scroll, Intuition, Brainstorm in combination with Fetchlands. When you reach the midgame you can do this every turn filling your hand up with counters and refreshing your Grunt every 3 or four turns. Most opponent's can't deal with recurring 4/4 backed up with counters.

Matchups

None relevant yet.

[honz]

For starters, what is your answer to goblins? The fetal possition?


MD pithing needle > MD tormod's crypt. Also, crucade is useless, to say the least. By the time you can cast it, you will be dead. Goblins runs a full set of both ports and wastes that will slow you down enough to bash your face in, not to mention you only run 18 lands (8 of which are fetches).

Intuition --> AK is an old, overdone, and overrated combo. I would much rather run FoF, which is a 1-card combo that works better 90% of the time. Merchant scroll is also useless here. Scroll should be used to tutor for a win-con, but you dont really have any of those. Your deck autolooses to moat, extirpate, probly humility, creatures with shroud, any combo-control...etc.

Test this deck in a competative format, and you will realize its shortcomings...

[Isamaru]

Okay, these people are right about the goblins matchup, but they are focusing on it too much.

Let me first say that this idea is quite creative, and its consistency could probably only be tested by shuffling it up, rather than staring at a deck list. I applaud you for what you've worked on so far.

Now, though, you should include something to hurt goblins. Instead of Tividar's Crusade, use either Tividar himself from TimeSpiral, or Silver Knight.

You can replace counterspell with Meddling Mage mainboard in order to find room for the Silver Knights / Tividar. 4xCounterspell is not stellar MB in the current Legacy format, as you will lose very quickly to goblins.

Looks good so far, see what you can come up with.

[Benie Bederios]

Ok thanks for the replies.

@ Honz
Pithing Needle: Sorry forgot, the MD list is only 58 cards missing to Needles. I changed it.

I agree Intuition for AK for draw 3 cards is just as good as Brain Geyser( 3UU to draw three.) The difference is it isn't used for a one time shot, it is used to get an engine going. If you look at Loam decks, they use Intuition for 2x Cycle lands and Life from the Loam. Then they can pay every turn 1GXXX to draw 2 cards. This deck goes for 2UU to draw 3 or 4 every turn, or normally 1U to draw 3 cards every other turn.

Merchant Scroll finds the AK you put on bottom of your graveyard. It's part of the engine.

@ Isamaru

Tividar can replace the Crusade probably, but I don't know if it's better, I shall try though. And Silver Knight just looks better. As for the Goblin I totally forgot to put the Blasts in the Sideboard. I shall try to make all those changes and post the new list.

Benie Bederios

[thefreakaccident]

in order to have a positive goblin MU, you must have pleanty of targeted removal + at least 2-3 board clearers... you can never count countermagic as removal (because lackey and vial come on line turn 1/2 in which case you would only have 4-8 answers)... swords is good by itself (but not great)... that's why the white thresh splash still doesn't have a positive goblins MU; sure the creatures are out classed, but they have many more than you + LD for your little compliment of land.