Sylvan Plug (or whatever splashed Green stompy)

@Alaska - That was me. I enjoyed our games and I learned a lot about TES from you. I hope to get a chance to come back soon.


Played this for the first time last monday in a weekly event:

Went 3-0-1 (ID in last round vs Lands)

3x Ancient Tomb
1x Savannah
1x Swamp
3x Bayou
2x Dryad Arbor
3x Forest
4x Verdant Catacombs
3x Wasteland
4x Wooded Foothills
4x Abrupt Decay
1x Cartographer // could be eternal witness but the single G proved useful (we are usually getting a fetch or a wasteland anyway).
4x Chalice of the Void
4x Choke
2x Courser of Kruphix
1x Deathrite Shaman
4x Green Sun's Zenith
1x Knight of the Reliquary
2x Mox Diamond
3x Obstinate Baloth
1x Reclamation Sage
2x Rolling Spoil
3x Sylvan Library
1x Titania, Protector of Argoth
3x Trinisphere

Sideboard:
1x bojuka bog
1x Faerie Macabre
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Gaddock Teeg
1x Kalonian Hydra
1x Karakas
1x Maelstrom Pulse
2x Massacre
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Spike Weaver
2x Thoughtseize // a last minute addition that proved useful
1x Tower of the Magistrate
1x Toxic Deluge


Round 1 vs TES: Chalice @ 1 , then trinisphere and choke took game one with baloth rushing in to close. Game 2 - he combo'd off quickly and I conceded (my kind opponent told me later that I conceded too early and should have stuck it out. He was correct of course, lesson learned). Game 3 - more lock pieces and thoughtseize plus wasteland keep my opponent just far enough behind that I can close with some beater.

1-0

Round2 vs Dredge: Chalice @ 1 doesn't do too much and this is not the landless variety. Game one ends with him having something like 22 zombies to attach next turn and an 11 gravetroll. Game 2 - I keep a hand that has (sol land, mox diamond, GSZ, ooze, etc. ) I hope that mox plus GSZ for dryad arbor and a turn two ooze is enough to get the job done. He has a slow hand ooze manages to eat a bridge before it makes a zombie and I draw a wasteland to play courser and get back on track for lands. I draw lots of hate cards and trinisphere still makes life difficult. I get to 5 and cast Kalonian Hydra to close the door quickly. Game 3 - He mulligans to 4 (dude is stone cold and a dredge aficionado). I come out of the gates fast and get a big night and courser going. Wasteland untapped with a dryad arbor in play as "Bridge Insurance". I wasteland my own lands and a 9/9 knight charges in after getting a bojuka bog.

2-0

Round 3 vs Omni-Tell: Game 1 starts with chalice @1 and then a trinisphere. Courser and library get me all the cards and the beats. Baloths hit the table and swing for the fences. Game 2 - Not much sideboarding as this is a matchup we love. took out decays and brought in thoughtseize and deluge (just incase and emrakul gets loose) and the karakas. You could also bring in Maelstrom Pulse here too to deal with a naked Omni. This game goes much like the first except my opponent gets to play a S&T with trinisphere in play. Puts Omni into play and then realizes how bad trinisphere is for them. I put Titania into play and make a bunch of 5/3's (a fetch and waste my own bayou)

3-0

Round 4 vs Lands: Intentional Draw .... made the split better and that seems to be a really hard matchup to win. Maybe with chalice @ 1 & 2 but even then I am not sure.

All in all the deck was amazing and the lock pieces seemed so unfair to my opponents. I liked the sideboard options and you can see I changed them up a little but for the most part it is the same. I do have to say the thoughtseizes were great out of the board against combo decks. I also loved the two Mox Diamonds, I hated drawing the second one without a backup land but that only happened twice and the times I had it early it was powerful. I like cartographer too tho it was suggested that he could be eternal witness ... I am not sure how the G vs GG costs balance out with the fact we usually are just getting back fetches and wastelands. (also cartographer survives rolling spoil). I did like only having access to 3 Sylvans, the card is super powerful but I found myself only wanting to play it in the later turns (unless my early turns were empty and I probably should have mulligan'd) drawing the second one seemed poor.

Very sad tournament today:

UG Post 0-2 (both games lost with Dust Bowl on my side, just to understand how the deck has worked... incredible. g1 by manascrew under library (can't find the fourth land when i need it), g2 by 3 Green Titan at a stretch (killed them all), then topdeck of Emrakul at the last usefull turn...

Omnitell 2-0 easy

Elves 0-2 same player that has kicked me out of last tournament. g1 mull to 4 for me (no lands, only lands, no lands, 2 lands a library... keep, he has closed at his 2° turn otd ^^ g2 crop rotation for Tabernacle, he obv had Gaea, but i have Kotr in hand an trini! Never found 3° lands in 6 turns...

UR 2-0

Elves Again 0-2
g1 and g2 i play my hate, he fin early Natural Order and gg. Two time manascrew here too.

Can't understand how we can beat elves...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Memories of the Time

Very sad tournament today:

UG Post 0-2 (both games lost with Dust Bowl on my side, just to understand how the deck has worked... incredible. g1 by manascrew under library (can't find the fourth land when i need it), g2 by 3 Green Titan at a stretch (killed them all), then topdeck of Emrakul at the last usefull turn...

Omnitell 2-0 easy

Elves 0-2 same player that has kicked me out of last tournament. g1 mull to 4 for me (no lands, only lands, no lands, 2 lands a library... keep, he has closed at his 2° turn otd ^^ g2 crop rotation for Tabernacle, he obv had Gaea, but i have Kotr in hand an trini! Never found 3° lands in 6 turns...

UR 2-0

Elves Again 0-2
g1 and g2 i play my hate, he fin early Natural Order and gg. Two time manascrew here too.

Can't understand how we can beat elves...

---

i can't understand how you are losing to elves... you run chalice and trinisphere main deck and have board sweepers.

At Nebraska war, Elves could get rid of Trinisphere+Chalice at 1 in one turn ^^
Board sweepers ecc don't do much if we haven't a good lock like Delver, and Natural Order evades all our hatebears. Plus, post side they have decay-grip-reclamation and so on.

I think that the only reliable way to deal with them is Plague, Tabernacle (now i'm playing 4x crop rotation+Bojuka+Tabernacole sideboard) or something like this.

How are we going to handle YP's big brother, considering it and its tokens can outgrow our sweepers?

http://media-dominaria.cursecdn.com/...7507898693.jpg

Abrupt decay is still the primary removal in this deck. My latest list (before someone asks, still the same as I haven't played in three weeks) had 1 deluge 1 rolling spoil main deck. We run trinisphere to prevent the boost that would escape massacre. If UR goes away for a similar deck with plains and a bit slower I wouldn't be sad about it.
In short no worries atm.

I still play 2 Toxic Deluge Main over Rolling Spoil - last time i faced Show&Tell/Eureka and one game he Eureka 1 Emrakul and 2 Blightsteel Colossus, Toxic Deluge for 15 was awesome.

As Lejay mentioned, more W-Decks are also better for our Massacre :wink:

Did anyone tryied Night Of soul's betrayal in the maindeck in the rolling spoil slot ?
I think it is way better. Der Einherjer suggested a Bug list with it maindeck and I think the card is like choke very well positioned right now.
Looking at what it kills : it wrecks UR YP+token+delver unflipped ; elves ; Death and taxes ; UWR TNN...
I know it doesn't do anything against combo and control but destroying a land is not so much better ?
The BB cost might be an issue maybe playing one or two urborg tomb might changes that it also allows to tap tomb without losing life for B.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Michael Keller

I will be there. I'm going with a full-on "fuck it" mentality. Star City Opens have never been good to me, aside from a few Top 16s.

---

I was really looking forward to seeing you at this thing and finally meeting you and watching you play Sylvan Plug. Alas, I guess you had last minute complications with travelling to the venue? Did you give up on this deck?

I'll wait for B&R announcement before starting working on the deck again at the end of the month when my job gets less stressful, but since there's already another discussion thread on it:

Anti-synergy with CotV aside, I wonder how good Carpet of Flowers would be here.

Sorry for the double post, but the B&R definitely changed some things. I wonder if the deck is going to be still viable in the new meta, which is probably going to look similiar to the Pre-TC meta.

Is MD Choke still going to be a thing? Or should we shift it to the board and run other stuff like more removal/utility instead? Does Baloth gain relevance again in face of Lilianas?

I think we can't know if this deck will be ok in the next meta: the main point will be how many jund/other non blue midrange we will meet. Without Cruise we lost our only not-so-good MU against Blue based, UR: anyway, in a deck with so few creatures Liliana could be a big problem, imho.

For liliana having 4 decays and 2 fetchable dryads should do it in addition to baloth's ability.
General metagame goes from overwhelmingly blue to a large majority of blue decks again. We keep our best blue match-ups and lose our worst blue match-ups. So I still like the deck but without treasure cruise to warp the meta it becomes even more important to ponder the choice of playing it according to your local metagame. In a static metagame, full of pet decks and with not much blue, it will be a poor investment. In metagames full of dedicated blue players that like to netdeck what scg pros do it is THE choice unless they all play sneak show.

It's going to take a while until MODO updates of the ban list (thanks, Worth! :rolleyes: ), but I'm currently toying around with various Punishing Fire builds.

Sample list:

3 Wasteland
3 Ancient Tomb
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Taiga
1 Savannah
2 Bayou
2 Forest
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Dryad Arbor
3 Mox Diamond

1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Courser of Kruphix
2 Obstinate Baloth
1 Titania, Protector of Argoth

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Trinisphere
4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Life from the Loam
4 Sylvan Library
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Punishing Fire

SB:
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Karakas
2 Toxic Deluge
1 Spike Weaver
1 Kalonian Hydra
1 Tower of the Magistrate
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Pyroclasm
3 Choke

One thing I found out in my limiting testing is that if you want to run PF, you definitely want to run 4 Groves, not just 3. I've also added a third Mox to support this multicolor madness to see how it goes.

One thing I might consider in this kind of build is -1 Tomb +1 Wasteland. The single Loam is just kinda random and might go for something else if it fails to impress. Maybe a second KotR, plus replacing a Tomb with a MD Karakas (both act as colorless mana sources most of the time, while the third Mox fulfills the accel slot). The more KotR and Karakas we have in our 75, the more game we get against S&T (sadly, not so much against Sneak Attack). MD Karakas would also make Titania shenanigans easier.

Depending on how blue the post-ban meta is going to be, I'll might add Chokes back to the MD (highly likely, this is just a test bed for new ideas). I wonder how much Pyroclasm would be needed against Elves with a full PF set in addition to AD. I'd certainly like to run more -x/-x effects to deal with stuff TNN and friends.

Someone playing the deck got 12th place at the IQ today:

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deck...p?DeckID=79214

If he hadn't lost in the last round, he would have reached Top 8.

80+% blue decks in the Top 32 despite TC being banned, so there's that.

Hey I am the one who finished 12th at Washington DC. I only lost to dredge on the day... twice including my win and in. I had not put effort into the deck since the grand prix and really should of run ravenous trap over the fairie. I would run the list tomorrow -1 courser, +1 ooze main and - 2 fairie side, + 2 ravenous trap, -1 massacre + 1 bojuka bog. The list was amazing compared to what I ran in the grand prix. Thank you Lejay for putting so much work into it. If anyone has questions just ask on the thread. I faced the following decks: 2 dredge, 2 miracles, 1 rw painter, 1 rug delver, 1 omnishow and 1 storm.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Barook

Maybe a second KotR, plus replacing a Tomb with a MD Karakas (both act as colorless mana sources most of the time, while the third Mox fulfills the accel slot). The more KotR and Karakas we have in our 75, the more game we get against S&T (sadly, not so much against Sneak Attack). MD Karakas would also make Titania shenanigans easier.

Depending on how blue the post-ban meta is going to be, I'll might add Chokes back to the MD (highly likely, this is just a test bed for new ideas). I wonder how much Pyroclasm would be needed against Elves with a full PF set in addition to AD. I'd certainly like to run more -x/-x effects to deal with stuff TNN and friends.

---

As i already mentioned earlier; i recommend a 2nd Knight (it reads: 1 more Karakas against Show&Tell) and 1 Karakas Main (Show&Tell and it also supports Titania or get rid of other legends if needed) - if you dig deeper in white, 1 Siege Rhino should also be a real slot, because i expected TNN will be back soon. With this in mind (and you will also see more Elves after TC-Ban) i still prefer my 2x Toxic Deluge Main over any cute Rolling Spoil Tech.

The only adjustments i would made to my last build (TC-Meta); Side -1 Krosan Grip; -1 Maze (was usefull against UR) +2 Containment Priest; and i already filled the Flexslot with 1 Tower of the Magistrate against Stoneblade and D&T.

My current testbuild also contains 1 Crucible of Worlds over the 4th Trinisphere; Wastelands are back and you can fight them back or even win with your own Wastelands if you catch some opponent offguard

@Tibalt Congratulation!

As you can see i already use 1 Ooze at Main (and also a 2nd Courser!); i recommend the Bojuka Bog at Side (i have a 2nd Knight Main) against Dredge, Lands etc. but i feel that ravenous trap over Faerie Macabre is a "trap" (:wink:); Faerie is free (even under Sphere) and let you fight reanimator.decks better than ravenous trap. Sure - trap is better against Dredge and maybe loam-engines, but Bojuka Bog, Ooze (and maybe Containment Priest) can also do a lot of work agains Grave-Combos with Creatures.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MD.Ghost

As i already mentioned earlier; i recommend a 2nd Knight (it reads: 1 more Karakas against Show&Tell) and 1 Karakas Main (Show&Tell and it also supports Titania or get rid of other legends if needed) - if you dig deeper in white, 1 Siege Rhino should also be a real slot, because i expected TNN will be back soon. With this in mind (and you will also see more Elves after TC-Ban) i still prefer my 2x Toxic Deluge Main over any cute Rolling Spoil Tech.

The only adjustments i would made to my last build (TC-Meta); Side -1 Krosan Grip; -1 Maze (was usefull against UR) +2 Containment Priest; and i already filled the Flexslot with 1 Tower of the Magistrate against Stoneblade and D&T.

My current testbuild also contains 1 Crucible of Worlds over the 4th Trinisphere; Wastelands are back and you can fight them back or even win with your own Wastelands if you catch some opponent offguard

@Tibalt Congratulation!

As you can see i already use 1 Ooze at Main (and also a 2nd Courser!); i recommend the Bojuka Bog at Side (i have a 2nd Knight Main) against Dredge, Lands etc. but i feel that ravenous trap over Faerie Macabre is a "trap" (:wink:); Faerie is free (even under Sphere) and let you fight reanimator.decks better than ravenous trap. Sure - trap is better against Dredge and maybe loam-engines, but Bojuka Bog, Ooze (and maybe Containment Priest) can also do a lot of work agains Grave-Combos with Creatures.

---

Second KotR + MD Karakas certainly sounds good. Similiar to Courser, you do want a second copy as back-up. I still dig the idea of running Punishing Fire more over going deeper into white for stuff like Rhino, though. I hope I can start testing at the ending of next week. At that point, we should also have more data how blue the meta is going to stay.

CoW does sound better than Loam for this deck, simply because you don't have to invest further mana into using it afterwards and it can't dredge keycards away.

Do people start to prefer Toxic Deluge over Spoil now? As a sweeper, it sure is kinda clunky to use in certain match-ups due to its :1::b::g::g: casting cost when in sweeper mode.

Isn't Containment Priest counter-productive with Arbor and GSZ?

Went 3-0 in my local weekly (very small tournaments, meta is sometimes silly, sometimes really hard). Split for first but played for fun anyway R3 and won that for funsies match. I'm playing a GBW list mostly identical to Qweerios' list from a few months ago. I love this color combination.

Report:

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

R1 - Burn

G1 - Chalice on 1, Trinisphere, and Siege Rhino FTW. Courser of Kruphix helped me keep my life nicely managed and hit some necessary land-drops.

G2 - Lather, rinse, repeat. He sided in Smash to Smithereens which hit my Chalice on 1, but I landed a Trinisphere and then Siege Rhino FTW, plus Thragtusk sided in just in case, which I didn't end up needing or casting.

1-0

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

R2 - Patriot Stoneblade Midrange

G1 - An early unanswered Chalice on 1 followed my Trinisphere allowed me to develop my board, plus the Abrupt Decays for resolved Stoneforge Mystics, Vindicate for Jace, and Rolling Spoil for Clique and TNN. The first match was quite grindy, but with my active Sylvan Library I was able to draw the stuff I needed every turn, such as the maindeck Choke.

G2 - Chalice on 1, and then Vindicate and Rolling Spoil on lands prevented him from developing his board. At one point he killed my Chalice with a Wear//Tear, but it didn't set me back too much. I knew he was going to bring in Blood Moons, and he was cracking his fetches for basics, so I played it safe and kept GB up just in case. Choke got Forced and I was able to drop a Trinisphere, and he was locked on 2 lands for the rest of the game.

2-0

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

R3 - Patriot Stoneblade Delver

G1 - Early Delver got me down to 10, but I was able to land a Trinisphere, then Decay the Delver. Then a Choke. With some well-timed Dazes he was able to get some blue mana back after the resolved Choke in order to get a TNN online. The Trinisphere allowed me to get a Titania online (which is awesome on paper, no pun intended). His TNN knocked me down to 3, but I was holding up a Rolling Spoil and he was effectively tapped out to prevent countering it, so I was able to kill his TNN and Titania plus 4 5/3 tokens would get me there in a turn or two.

G2 - Even though this was the last game of the night, I don't remember much of it other than that it started similarly with an early Delver which got me down to around 10 life, but my lockdown pieces (Chalice on 1 and Trinisphere) helped me get there on the back of some Siege Rhinos.

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

All in all, it's tough to say what is an "all-star," because I feel the entire deck is full of them. I just about always want to play everything in the deck. If I had to choose, I'd say it's mos-def our favorite enabler Sylvan Library. I also feel it's better in this archetype because of Courser of Kruphix.

A quick note on Titania: it is possibly the coolest tech, but I think it warrants more testing as it may be win-more.

Lastly, I never needed the RIPs, but in a wide-open meta, I think it's necessary.

Here's my (Qweerios') list for anyone interested:

CREATURES:
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Scryb Ranger
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Siege Rhino
1 Titania, Protector of Argoth

INSTANTS/SORCERIES
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Vindicate
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Rolling Spoil

ENCHANTMENTS:
3 Sylvan Library
1 Choke

ARTIFACTS:
4 Trinisphere
4 Chalice of the Void

LANDS:
4 Wasteland
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
4 Bayou
3 Savannah
1 Forest

SIDEBOARD:
2 Rolling Spoil
2 Rest in Peace
2 Null Rod
1 Karakas
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Thragtusk
2 Choke
1 Krosan Grip
1 Zealous Persecution