Iranon
08-19-2007, 06:42 PM
I was surprised that I found similar thread here. All other Sligh/Zoo variants in these colours were a lot more control-oriented. I hope I didn't overlook an existing one where this could have fit.
***
For some time, I have been trying to throw together a Sligh variant that does not make me want to burn my own creatures for sucking royally. Most of the usual suspects didn't work out: Quirion Dryad and Vinelasher Kudzu rock when played early on, but they are very vulnerable and topdecking one later in the game sucks. Wee Dragonauts, while cool, are simply too expensive to rely on in a pure aggro deck and restrict you in the use of burn.
Threshold-based Aggro with Baubles, Petals and Street Wraith was slow, unreliable and just plain bad.
Enter Tarmogoyf. While this little beastie has been used to good effect, I had something less control-ish than most attempts in mind. In testing, Dark Confidant helped a lot to keep the deck going into the midgame, but it still seemed to lack some punch past the first few turns. That was where Grim Lavamancer entered the picture: As a cheap and reusable damage source, he clears the way for our little army or deals the last few points when the ground is clogged.
The apprent antisynergy with Tarmogoyf turned out to be rather trivial. Often, there are multiple cards of one type in the graveyard, or the opponent's yard covers what we need. Sometimes, the opponent has 'Goyfs on their own and we don't care about them either way. At still others, we let the 'Goyf do the work and then shoot stuff.
It's not the most elegant configuration, but it seems to work.
THE MAINDECK:
//Lands
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Badlands
4 Bayou
1 Mountain
//Creatures
4 Kird Ape
4 Mogg fanatic
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
//Artifacts
4 Mishra's Bauble
3 Lotus Petal
//Burn
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Seal of Fire
4 Fireblast
The lands ('fuck Wasteland'): The colour requirements are reasonably light, and the curve is low. I'd rather reliably get what I need in the first place. On the other hand, the sacrifices needed for making the mana base more stable would be far from unresasonable.
Kird Ape: One of the 2 most efficient 1-mana beatsticks, and Mongoose doesn't fit. I'll take 4.
Mogg Fanatic: Rarely exciting, usually good. Hits the graveyard on demand to pump Tarmogoyf. The ping can also decide Tarmogoyf duels.
Grim Lavamancer: Often MVP. Casting him turn 1, activating him every further turn in the game happens.
Tarmogoyf: Hitting for 4 on turn 2, then for 6 on turn 3 is awesome. It's also easier to reconcile with Grim Lavamancer than one might assume - if my graveyard is empty enough that I don't want to use 'Mancer, I'm probably winning the creature war already.
Dark Confidant: Running out of gas sucks. Bob ensures that we won't, and the cards in this deck are cheap and efficient enough that we will more than recover any lost tempo in short order. We have enough removal to clear the way, so his lacklustre combat stats hardly matter.
Mishra's Bauble: An Opt effect with fetch lands, and another card in the yard for Lavamancer and Tarmogoyf.
Lotus Petal: 2-mana openings are a great way of putting pressure on the opponent. Only 3 because multiples are rarely welcome. Played over Chrome Mox/Spirit Guide because this deck wants cards in the yard and can't afford to imprint threats. The land count is too low to support Mox Diamonds.
Lightning Bolt: Bestest direct damage spell there is.
Chain Lightning: The next best thing, and fills the vacant slot for sorceries.
Seal of Fire: The token enchantment for Tarmogoyf also offers several soft benefits. Having some burn available without leaving mana open is always nice, be it for frying something in response to equipment effects, complicating an opponent's combat math, or to give several types of combo a headache.
Fireblast: This card's role might be a little counter-intuitive. First, it's not a dedicated finisher - casting it turn 2 has won me the game before. The curve of the deck is so low that the lands are often more useful in the yard than on the table, thanks to Grim Lavamancer.
Second, flipping it over with Dark Confidant is usually not a problem (in most situations where this would be bad, Bob would be dead in the first place). Since the deck can spare a few lands, I can cast it defensively if needed. Otherwise, it puts my opponent further in the red zone and forces them to hold back for fear of an alpha strike.
Despite looking horrible at first glance, it is probably the best burn spell in the deck.
NOTABLE EXCLUSIONS:
Street Wraith: We already have 1 spell with a high nominal cost to cause problems with Dark Confidant, and Fireblast does a lot more for the deck.
Rancor: The deck runs a fair number of must-kill creatures as it is, not all of which are beatsticks first. Creature enchantments would be needlessly putting too many eggs in one basket in a deck that's quite good for winning small.
Umezawa's Jitte: Out of the mana range. 4 Mana before this does anything, 6 if the opponent kills the bearer in response. It's strong, but by the time Jitte becomes worth it this deck hopes to have drawn enough Burn to finish the job. For the same reason, the deck lacks any 3-drops.
Magma Jet: Inefficient. The deck is redundant and consistent enough to not need the scrying. It also relies on gaining a tempo advantage in the first few turns, and playing a second threat while removing a blocker is sweeter than killing the blocker and playing with yourself.
Wasteland: The splashes are light enough to support this, but with so many 1-mana spells colourless mana is not very useful
POSSIBLE WEAK SPOTS:
Lotus Petal: Good for getting a head start on the opponent, but not particularly useful when topdecked.
Grim Lavamancer No 4: The first one is sexy. The second is good only if there's no Tarmogoyf on my side of the table. Drawing a third is bad.
THE SIDEBOARD:
Hard to be definite about this, because playing straight aggro in the first place isn't viable in all metas.
I'd probably include:
3 Engineered Explosives
3 Pithing Needle
3 Pyrostatic Pillar
2 Shattering Spree
2 Naturalize
2 Tormod's Crypt
Explosives deal with CotV and blow up tokens without touching my own men; also useful agaisnt artifact mana.
Pyrostatic Pillar is ridiculously masochistic, but a necessary evil against Storm Combo and I think they serve me better than Discard spells would.
The others are efficient and flexible answers that work against established decks as well as randomness. This particular sideboard is light on enchantment removal though.
COMMON MATCH-UPS
Goblins: favourable.
We have 24 ways of stopping a Lackey on the draw, enough burn to deny them key goblins and a fast enough clock to outclass them if they play fair... and Vial isn't enough to change that. Their mana denial is usually too symetrical to benefit them. Lavamancer, Seals and Fireblast can put a stop to their 'oops, I win' plays. Goyfs tend to stay relatively small, but his deck forces Goblins to play defensively, which they aren't very good at.
I don't run Engineered Plague, because it's outside our curve in the face of mana denial (I know, I just said it isn't a big deal. I want to keep it that way).
Match-ups
Threshold: usually favourable
Against blue-based Aggro/Control, the low curve is a true blessing. Our spells are cheap and redundant, so having them Forced is getting a bargain Hymn. Daze is horrible against someone trying to resolve multiple one-drops rather than casting threats of increasing size (2 threats, 2 lands vs. an empty board? Fine with me.)
They are more likely to resolve a Tarmogoyf, but we have better tools of winning head-on duels and generally too many must-answers cheap enough to overwhelm a normal counter wall. An early Counterbalance, unfortunately, is a different matter entirely and makes us cry.
Combo: unfavourable to impossible.
We have a very hard time killing before turn 4, and fast combo will go off all over our face by then. While the deck has the tools to hold back a usual ETW opening, the combo player can often go off again by the time we did that. Our large Burn suite, especially combined with Pillars from the board, can win games against decks that squander their life points by design (through cards such as Infernal Contract or Spoils of the Vault), but we really don't have anywhere near enough aces up our sleeve to match their sheer speed. Especially against Belcher, we have a lot of relevant tools... the problem is drawing the right ones in the short time frame they give us.
Quite a few non-storm combo decks don't like large amounts of instant-speed Burn, but that's about all we have on them.
***
For some time, I have been trying to throw together a Sligh variant that does not make me want to burn my own creatures for sucking royally. Most of the usual suspects didn't work out: Quirion Dryad and Vinelasher Kudzu rock when played early on, but they are very vulnerable and topdecking one later in the game sucks. Wee Dragonauts, while cool, are simply too expensive to rely on in a pure aggro deck and restrict you in the use of burn.
Threshold-based Aggro with Baubles, Petals and Street Wraith was slow, unreliable and just plain bad.
Enter Tarmogoyf. While this little beastie has been used to good effect, I had something less control-ish than most attempts in mind. In testing, Dark Confidant helped a lot to keep the deck going into the midgame, but it still seemed to lack some punch past the first few turns. That was where Grim Lavamancer entered the picture: As a cheap and reusable damage source, he clears the way for our little army or deals the last few points when the ground is clogged.
The apprent antisynergy with Tarmogoyf turned out to be rather trivial. Often, there are multiple cards of one type in the graveyard, or the opponent's yard covers what we need. Sometimes, the opponent has 'Goyfs on their own and we don't care about them either way. At still others, we let the 'Goyf do the work and then shoot stuff.
It's not the most elegant configuration, but it seems to work.
THE MAINDECK:
//Lands
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Badlands
4 Bayou
1 Mountain
//Creatures
4 Kird Ape
4 Mogg fanatic
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Dark Confidant
//Artifacts
4 Mishra's Bauble
3 Lotus Petal
//Burn
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Chain Lightning
4 Seal of Fire
4 Fireblast
The lands ('fuck Wasteland'): The colour requirements are reasonably light, and the curve is low. I'd rather reliably get what I need in the first place. On the other hand, the sacrifices needed for making the mana base more stable would be far from unresasonable.
Kird Ape: One of the 2 most efficient 1-mana beatsticks, and Mongoose doesn't fit. I'll take 4.
Mogg Fanatic: Rarely exciting, usually good. Hits the graveyard on demand to pump Tarmogoyf. The ping can also decide Tarmogoyf duels.
Grim Lavamancer: Often MVP. Casting him turn 1, activating him every further turn in the game happens.
Tarmogoyf: Hitting for 4 on turn 2, then for 6 on turn 3 is awesome. It's also easier to reconcile with Grim Lavamancer than one might assume - if my graveyard is empty enough that I don't want to use 'Mancer, I'm probably winning the creature war already.
Dark Confidant: Running out of gas sucks. Bob ensures that we won't, and the cards in this deck are cheap and efficient enough that we will more than recover any lost tempo in short order. We have enough removal to clear the way, so his lacklustre combat stats hardly matter.
Mishra's Bauble: An Opt effect with fetch lands, and another card in the yard for Lavamancer and Tarmogoyf.
Lotus Petal: 2-mana openings are a great way of putting pressure on the opponent. Only 3 because multiples are rarely welcome. Played over Chrome Mox/Spirit Guide because this deck wants cards in the yard and can't afford to imprint threats. The land count is too low to support Mox Diamonds.
Lightning Bolt: Bestest direct damage spell there is.
Chain Lightning: The next best thing, and fills the vacant slot for sorceries.
Seal of Fire: The token enchantment for Tarmogoyf also offers several soft benefits. Having some burn available without leaving mana open is always nice, be it for frying something in response to equipment effects, complicating an opponent's combat math, or to give several types of combo a headache.
Fireblast: This card's role might be a little counter-intuitive. First, it's not a dedicated finisher - casting it turn 2 has won me the game before. The curve of the deck is so low that the lands are often more useful in the yard than on the table, thanks to Grim Lavamancer.
Second, flipping it over with Dark Confidant is usually not a problem (in most situations where this would be bad, Bob would be dead in the first place). Since the deck can spare a few lands, I can cast it defensively if needed. Otherwise, it puts my opponent further in the red zone and forces them to hold back for fear of an alpha strike.
Despite looking horrible at first glance, it is probably the best burn spell in the deck.
NOTABLE EXCLUSIONS:
Street Wraith: We already have 1 spell with a high nominal cost to cause problems with Dark Confidant, and Fireblast does a lot more for the deck.
Rancor: The deck runs a fair number of must-kill creatures as it is, not all of which are beatsticks first. Creature enchantments would be needlessly putting too many eggs in one basket in a deck that's quite good for winning small.
Umezawa's Jitte: Out of the mana range. 4 Mana before this does anything, 6 if the opponent kills the bearer in response. It's strong, but by the time Jitte becomes worth it this deck hopes to have drawn enough Burn to finish the job. For the same reason, the deck lacks any 3-drops.
Magma Jet: Inefficient. The deck is redundant and consistent enough to not need the scrying. It also relies on gaining a tempo advantage in the first few turns, and playing a second threat while removing a blocker is sweeter than killing the blocker and playing with yourself.
Wasteland: The splashes are light enough to support this, but with so many 1-mana spells colourless mana is not very useful
POSSIBLE WEAK SPOTS:
Lotus Petal: Good for getting a head start on the opponent, but not particularly useful when topdecked.
Grim Lavamancer No 4: The first one is sexy. The second is good only if there's no Tarmogoyf on my side of the table. Drawing a third is bad.
THE SIDEBOARD:
Hard to be definite about this, because playing straight aggro in the first place isn't viable in all metas.
I'd probably include:
3 Engineered Explosives
3 Pithing Needle
3 Pyrostatic Pillar
2 Shattering Spree
2 Naturalize
2 Tormod's Crypt
Explosives deal with CotV and blow up tokens without touching my own men; also useful agaisnt artifact mana.
Pyrostatic Pillar is ridiculously masochistic, but a necessary evil against Storm Combo and I think they serve me better than Discard spells would.
The others are efficient and flexible answers that work against established decks as well as randomness. This particular sideboard is light on enchantment removal though.
COMMON MATCH-UPS
Goblins: favourable.
We have 24 ways of stopping a Lackey on the draw, enough burn to deny them key goblins and a fast enough clock to outclass them if they play fair... and Vial isn't enough to change that. Their mana denial is usually too symetrical to benefit them. Lavamancer, Seals and Fireblast can put a stop to their 'oops, I win' plays. Goyfs tend to stay relatively small, but his deck forces Goblins to play defensively, which they aren't very good at.
I don't run Engineered Plague, because it's outside our curve in the face of mana denial (I know, I just said it isn't a big deal. I want to keep it that way).
Match-ups
Threshold: usually favourable
Against blue-based Aggro/Control, the low curve is a true blessing. Our spells are cheap and redundant, so having them Forced is getting a bargain Hymn. Daze is horrible against someone trying to resolve multiple one-drops rather than casting threats of increasing size (2 threats, 2 lands vs. an empty board? Fine with me.)
They are more likely to resolve a Tarmogoyf, but we have better tools of winning head-on duels and generally too many must-answers cheap enough to overwhelm a normal counter wall. An early Counterbalance, unfortunately, is a different matter entirely and makes us cry.
Combo: unfavourable to impossible.
We have a very hard time killing before turn 4, and fast combo will go off all over our face by then. While the deck has the tools to hold back a usual ETW opening, the combo player can often go off again by the time we did that. Our large Burn suite, especially combined with Pillars from the board, can win games against decks that squander their life points by design (through cards such as Infernal Contract or Spoils of the Vault), but we really don't have anywhere near enough aces up our sleeve to match their sheer speed. Especially against Belcher, we have a lot of relevant tools... the problem is drawing the right ones in the short time frame they give us.
Quite a few non-storm combo decks don't like large amounts of instant-speed Burn, but that's about all we have on them.