GRW Land-Use Change (Orcish Lumberjack, Land Tax, Titania)

GRW Land-Use Change

Maindeck (Dec. 23, 2019)

Creatures
1 Birds of Paradise
3 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Lotus Cobra
4 Orcish Lumberjack
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Sylvan Safekeeper
3 Tireless Tracker
3 Titania, Protector of Argoth

Other Spells
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Karn, the Great Creator
4 Land Tax
4 Mox Diamond
2 Scroll Rack
4 Swords to Plowshares

Lands
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Karakas
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Savannah
4 Snow-Covered Forest
1 Snow-Covered Plains
2 Taiga
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wasteland
4 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard
1 Bane of Progress
1 Damping Sphere
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Firestorm
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Granger Guildmage
1 Liquimetal Coating
1 Mycosynth Lattice
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Pithing Needle
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Zuran Orb

DESCRIPTION
This deck is designed around two cards that are cheap to cast and have a high intrinsic power level: Orcish Lumberjack and Land Tax. The former accelerates your mana quickly while enabling the latter to trigger, and the latter provides the former with fuel. The best way to spend mana from Orcish Lumberjack is on Titania, Protector of Argoth, which is the primary win condition. Green Sun's Zenith provides a way to tutor for Titania and can also get other green creatures.

The deck's name was suggested by an environmental scientist I know. In that field, land-use change refers to things like forest land becoming cropland, which kind of fits in with Orcish Lumberjack (direct land-use change) and Land Tax (a policy instrument).

STRENGTHS
(*) This deck is good at making 4--6 mana in early turns (T2--T3). You can go Titania, Karn the Great Creator -> silver bullet -> Lattice, or GSZ -> Titania pretty quickly. If you're against a deck that fears Scooze, then that's also a win condition with all the extra G mana.

(*) Toolboxes: Like Maverick, this deck can fit a toolbox of green creatures (with Green Sun's Zenith) and a toolbox of lands (with Knight of the Reliquary). You can customize the deck to suit your needs by including the right tools. Some of the usual go-to silver bullets are included in the list above (such as Scavenging Ooze and Karakas).

(*) Tax/Rack: You don't need this to win, and most games it doesn't happen. But when it does happen it's great.

WEAKNESSES
(*) Force of Will on Titania :-(

(*) Fast combo. It's not hopeless, especially if you can ramp out Karn on T2 and get a relevant 0-mana or 1-mana artifact in play. I'd like to fit a third Karn in the main. You can bring in a lot from the sideboard.

I've been playing the list above online with the following results. The sideboard is in flux and sometimes I play
without a sideboard to feel out the weakest points.

2-1 Mono-G Natural Order
2-0 Mono-G 12-Post Eldrazi
1-2 Pox
2-0 UB Stiflenaught
2-0 BUG Aluren
0-2 UR Omnitell
0-2 Grixis Control

***

1-0 Steel Stompy
1-0 Bant Delverick (???)
1-0 Maverick
0-1 ANT

Questions for the community:

(*) How could I improve the maindeck or construct a sideboard to improve my matchup against Grixis Control?
It's a miserable matchup from what I've experienced so far. Is Carpet of Flowers good against blue control
(Grixis or UW)?

(*) I've been toying with the idea of running a few wishes and a wishboard. The logic is that this deck often finds
itself with a lot of mana, but we don't want to just load up on expensive bombs because then the mulligans get
awful and the matchups against disruptive decks get worse than they already are. Wishes give you a bit of flexibility
in how you spend your mana. So, what wish is best and what would go in the wishboard?

Living Wish:
Titania, Protector of Argoth --- copy number 4 in the sideboard means that with 3 Living Wishes, we have 10 maindeck
Titania.
Loyal Retainers --- once one Titania has been countered or killed, Living Wish can get you another one for 5 mana
rather than 7.
Faerie Macabre
Magus of the Moon --- seems interesting to have access to this via wishing without cluttering the maindeck. This could
be wished for and cast on T2 with Orcish Lumberjack.
Bane of Progress --- Enchantress, Steel Stompy, Moon Stompy, weird situations
Ethersworn Canonist
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
Containment Priest
Any land suggestions?

Burning Wish:
Tsunami
Fiery Confluence
Natural Order --- maybe fit a 6-drop like Ruric Thar, the Unbowed or Carnage Tyrant into main as an option besides Titania

Glittering Wish:
Fracturing Gust
Gaddock Teeg
Goblin Trenches --- I was thinking this could do work against Grixis Control?

I'm leaning towards Living Wish.

You said you don't have a 4cmc GSZ target and also lack removal/card advantage, necessitating Thornscape. Master of the Wild Hunt? Huntmaster of the Fells?

If most of the time you need to kill artifacts, run more Knight of Autumns.

Also, if you're lacking card advantage with green tutor targets... Eternal Witness?

Is there a reason you're not running a Ramunap Excavator? Maybe a Crystal Vein instead of City of Traitors? It lets you consistently add mana but also sac it at your leisure...

Thank you both for the suggestions. Eternal Witness, Ramunap Excavator, and more copies of Knight of Autumn are good ideas, but the 3cc slot is tight. A fourth Knight of the Reliquary or some number of Tireless Trackers also have merit. It will take testing to find the right balance.

Huntmaster of the Fells is interesting because, although it doesn’t synergize with the land theme, it provides several small advantages and doesn’t rely on the graveyard like KotR and Titania. I will test it when I’m done with the Living Wish experiment. I’ve also briefly tested Oracle of Mul Daya there. It wasn’t a very flexible card. Huntmaster sounds more flexible at least.

Crystal Vein is a nice thought. The only thing it cannot do that City of Traitors could do is generate two mana on each of two consecutive turns. I’m not sure which will be better.

I’m working on a Living Wish build. Relative to the OP, it’s minus three Thornscape, the Jitte, and one Ooze, plus four Wishes and a Scroll Rack. The targets are Titania, Loyal Retainers, Magus of the Moon, Knight of Autumn, Thalia, E Canonist, Bane of Progress, Faerie Macabre, and Elesh Norn. I will update when I have more matches under my belt. If you can think of any ball-busting Wish targets in Naya, let me know.

Bump after nearly a year.

I very rarely get to test, but I got some games in (4 wins, 3 losses). The main difference from a year ago is the addition of Karn, the Great Creator. List in OP is updated.

0-1 UB Shadow Delver
\\ Too much Thoughtseize, too much pressure

0-1 BUG Hogaak Crab
\\ After their Cabal Therapy whiffs, I go Karn -> Tormod's Crypt and rashly exile the Cabal Therapy, not knowing their deck. Opponent goes off, kills undefended Karn with a Vengevine, overwhelms me. The Crypt could have helped a lot if I'd been patient.

1-0 4C Loam
\\ Long, grindy game.

1-0 BR Reanimator (Tin Fins?)
\\ Opponent's hand is awkward. They have plenty of discard to slow me down, but no monster to put in their GY, so on T2 they Reanimate my Tireless Tracker and start cracking fetches. I get out a KotR. On T4 (?) they've drawn a card or two from Clues and they manage to get Griselbrand in play, but they're at 6 life, so they can't draw 7. EoT I grab Karakas. They lose soon after.

1-0 D&T
\\ They fetch and play Jitte and SoFI using Stoneforge Mystics, but my board is too big with Titania in play for them to attack. They use Karakas on Titania, but I still have 5/3s and I replay her. They use StP on Titania, but I use my own Karakas on her. They get overwhelmed. Gaea's Cradle was great this game.

1-0 RG Lands
\\ I have a great start with Lumberjack into T2 Titania + Land Tax. Soon after, I miss lethal by 1 point by casting something unnecessary instead of cracking a Clue to boost Tireless Tracker. Opponent dredges Loam into: Grove, Dark Depths, and Glacial Chasm (and they have Exploration and Stage in play, and PFire in the GY). Now opponent can grind for value and recur Marit Lage while hiding behind Chasms. But I have a lot of stuff too. I hold off Marit Lage first with StP and then with BoP. (BoP only helps for 1 turn ofc, but that was enough, since opponent was constrained by land drops, even at 2 per turn, as Glacial Chasm needed to keep coming back.) Sylvan Safekeeper protects stuff from PFire. Tireless Tracker digs me 10 cards deep this game. I find Scooze and start cutting off Loam/PFire stuff. I find KotR, which ends things in a turn or two with his activations and threat of activations. This game was very long. I had 9 Elemental tokens at the end, despite forgetting triggers often after it stopped mattering.

1-0 BG Depths
\\ Opponent has IoK, then Sylvan Safekeeper, then slowly tries to get Depths combo by Sylvan Scrying for both halves over two turns. It's too slow. I have two StP (he lets me exile Safekeeper with the first, I hold the second) and then KotR to disrupt his lands. Titania recurs Wasteland and he concedes.

0-2 Mono-U Stiflenought (maybe Delver?)
\\ Opponent has T2 Stiflenought both games. Opponent counters anything that would save me (StP, Titania -> lots of blockers) both games.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by BirdsOfParadise

Bump after nearly a year.

I very rarely get to test, but I got some games in (4 wins, 3 losses). The main difference from a year ago is the addition of Karn, the Great Creator. List in OP is updated.

---

If I read that correctly, were you 0-3 vs Island and 5-0 vs non-Island?

Maybe the deck needs some protection against Force of Will/Daze on Titania/GSZ. Is there room in the SB for counter protection? e.g. 3 Veil of Summer, maybe 1-of Gaea's Herald/Vexing Shusher-type creature?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FTW

If I read that correctly, were you 0-3 vs Island and 5-0 vs non-Island?

Maybe the deck needs some protection against Force of Will/Daze on Titania/GSZ. Is there room in the SB for counter protection? e.g. 3 Veil of Summer, maybe 1-of Gaea's Herald/Vexing Shusher-type creature?

---

Yes, I think Veils are a good idea.

Splashed black and took out StP for Assassin’s Trophy.

1-0 vs BG homebrew w/ Hymn & Phy Obliterators
0-1 UWG Miracles
1-0 vs a different BG homebrew w/ Land hate
2-1 RUG Delver
*** the match win vs Delver felt like dumb luck so I fit 4 Carpet of Flowers in the SB
2-1 4C Control (Oko Teferi Astrolabe SCM Terminus splash B)
*** Carpet of Flowers was awesome here

Veil and/or Carpet at 4+ SB slots is probably right.

Carpet seems great too, solving the problem a different way. Either.

You just don't want to be caught in a position where a hard counter on your 5-drop or Lumberjack sets you way behind and now you can't cast anything else.