[Deck] 43 Lands

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Originally Posted by Serbitar

I'm confused. I said: Add Loam, Port, Bayou, Ghost Quarter and cut 2xUSea, Bojuka Bog, Stronghold (providing explanations why I would make these cuts). About the sideboard I only said you might free another MD slot by moving Crucible there. But to make a comment about your board: What are the advantages of Bojuka Bog over Tormod's Crypt? That it can be recurred more easily? But is this better than the instant speed of crypt - say vs. Vengevines or Reanimator or even Dredge?

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The difference is slight. I don't know it's true that yo can drop crypt at T1 an activate it at instant speed. Bojuka is not countereable, no gripeable and tolaria tutoreable (like crypt too). Maybe an split 1/1 is the right thing?

On the other hand if i cut confidant from the side the only reason i want black is for tar pit. So instead of bayou fisrt i will try Urborg, tomb of yawmoth with trasnsforms Iths and Tnacle mana source what is pretty good. I know its not fetcheable but i'll run a fetcheable U. sea.

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Originally Posted by Serbitar

Concerning Sphere of Resistance vs Chalice of the Void, I am a proponent of Sphere. Chalice might be better against Storm and have marginal uses against Zoo, Thresh etc. but are you honestly going to bring in Chalice against Zoo etc.? At least I wouldn't. The matchup is perfectly fine without and I cannot fathom what to cut for Chalice there. Sphere on the other hand helps tremendously in those Combo-Matchups, that you actually have a chance to win, i.e., Aluren, Dream Halls, Show and Tell and the like - matchups that Chalice does nothing in. While you may not have the clock to back it up, you have Ports and Wastelands, which is about the same, functionally.
It can also be quite good vs. Storm, as it forces them to either play their artifacts (loosing storm) or try to accumulate Lands for Bounce/Grip, and this deck is really good at killing lands. I also makes cantripping into answers harder (which Chalice at 1 does, but not Chalice at 0). But that said, I am willing to concede that Chalice is better vs Storm, but you cannot possibly win that (consistently) anyway.
The best card vs Storm seems to be Zuran Orb by the way. At least it's the only card that won (or came close to win) me matches against Storm. Manabond + Loam + Orb let you get out of reach quite quickly (but obviously a lot has to go right for that to happen).

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Here i agree all.
Yesterday, i overranged a tendryl forcing him to make a really very high storm almost losing the game..

When it comes to making more use of Mazes/Tabernacles I'm clearly in favor of Riftstone Portal. It provides green mana which is needed to extend Loam,Cycle,Dredge-Loam,Cycle,Dredge-etc. chains, makes Blood Moon less painful, doesn't have the be in play in the first place, provides two different kinds of colored mana for EE and allows for easier Celestial Colonade activations which I consider one of the best additions to the deck for quite somee time.

if your plan is to win with mindslaver, it is a good idea to run both urborg and portal to ramp up to 13 mana

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Originally Posted by Dino

if your plan is to win with mindslaver, it is a good idea to run both urborg and portal to ramp up to 13 mana

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That's what i wanted to say!! THX Dino!

Sorry if this was discussed earlier, but would Proteus Staff work in this deck? I can imagine using it to hit an activated Factory and bring out a Progenitus.

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Originally Posted by Dino

if your plan is to win with mindslaver, it is a good idea to run both urborg and portal to ramp up to 13 mana

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There's so much blowout potential if you start tapping Mazes though.

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Originally Posted by Dino

if your plan is to win with mindslaver, it is a good idea to run both urborg and portal to ramp up to 13 mana

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The last thing this deck needs is redundancy. Just run one. Where's the point in running both?

The point is in thatRiftone portal needs to be in yard. Off course you can dredge it an that's it, but it's 1 cards in 60. If you draw it in your opening hand will you mull just because riftone is not in yard. If you hit a glacial chasm you can sac it but you're needing an addional card that not always you will look for. Running 2 different cards with similar efects one makes it in play and the other in yard warranties the aim. What is bad with it??

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Originally Posted by Serbitar

Concerning Sphere of Resistance vs Chalice of the Void, I am a proponent of Sphere. Chalice might be better against Storm and have marginal uses against Zoo, Thresh etc. but are you honestly going to bring in Chalice against Zoo etc.? At least I wouldn't. The matchup is perfectly fine without and I cannot fathom what to cut for Chalice there. Sphere on the other hand helps tremendously in those Combo-Matchups, that you actually have a chance to win, i.e., Aluren, Dream Halls, Show and Tell and the like - matchups that Chalice does nothing in. While you may not have the clock to back it up, you have Ports and Wastelands, which is about the same, functionally.
It can also be quite good vs. Storm, as it forces them to either play their artifacts (loosing storm) or try to accumulate Lands for Bounce/Grip, and this deck is really good at killing lands. I also makes cantripping into answers harder (which Chalice at 1 does, but not Chalice at 0). But that said, I am willing to concede that Chalice is better vs Storm, but you cannot possibly win that (consistently) anyway.
The best card vs Storm seems to be Zuran Orb by the way. At least it's the only card that won (or came close to win) me matches against Storm. Manabond + Loam + Orb let you get out of reach quite quickly (but obviously a lot has to go right for that to happen).

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I don't really see how Sphere of Resistance would really help all that much against combo decks. I've played Lands against combo and Combo against lands, and in a majority of the games, it's pratically a bye round for the combo deck. They play threw the mana hate, holding back fetches and fast mana, until they either draw their answer (usually a bounce spell, most of the combo decks you mentioned would use a bounce spell vs your sphere and go off immediately) and/or get enough lands in play so that they can combo off and win. By running sphere over chalice, that allows them to use all of their spells, they just have to pay 1 extra mana, against a deck that has a very slow clock. Against chalice, that prevents them from using a complete set of cards (0 or 1 or whatever) until they find an answer. Granted the slow clock is still there. but at least with chalice you arn't slowing your self down as well. As for mentioning Aluren, my experience is Lands has a horrible matchup against Aluren. In this case sphere would be better, but Aluren is quite capable of eliminating it and going off. Cnhain of Vapor being the most effecient.

And chalice shuts down a significant number of cards against zoo:
Grim Lavamancer
Lightning Bolt
Chain Lightning
Wild Natacl
Kird Ape
Steppe Lynx


The first three being annoying methods of getting rid of man-lands and doing damage durring upkeep when glacial chasm is in the yard and/or getting around maze of ith that shuts down attacking.

I would typically side in 1 chalice of the void against zoo so that I can tutor it up.

I don't think we need a clock to make Sphere useful. They draw more lands over time, but in that time we find more Wastelands and Ports, so that it stays relevant. Sure, it makes us dredge a little slower, but at least in my (limited) experience with Sphere, this has not been too much of an issue.

But I guess we agree that:
- Storm is horrible, no matter what
- Chalice is better against Storm
- Aluren and the like are not good either
- Sphere is better against Aluren etc.

which makes me want to have Sphere (as Aluren is not so utterly lost as Storm and Sphere being still something to bring in there) and you Chalice, where there are marginal uses against Zoo as well. I guess that's preference. I guess if you want one Chalice to bring in vs Zoo and the like, one could run 3 Sphere, 1 Chalice? But against Zoo I would rather tutor for ZOrb and Tabernacle than for Chalice.

I agree that Zorb and Tabernacle are highly important against zoo. It's just that following those up with a chalice helps a lot during your upkeep as to prevent them from unloading a bunch of burn spells after you failed to pay for glacial chasm.

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Originally Posted by Serbitar

But against Zoo I would rather tutor for ZOrb and Tabernacle than for Chalice.

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Agree. Don't frget that chalice @1 to stop the mentioned cards not only slow us dowm but else it's eaten easy by pridemage. Against zoo i'll go for zuran / chasm / tabernacle / maze.

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Originally Posted by mchainmail

There's so much blowout potential if you start tapping Mazes though.

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if you are worried about getting killed by an attack, you wouldn't be tapping your mazes

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Originally Posted by GoldenCid

The point is in thatRiftone portal needs to be in yard. Off course you can dredge it an that's it, but it's 1 cards in 60. If you draw it in your opening hand will you mull just because riftone is not in yard. If you hit a glacial chasm you can sac it but you're needing an addional card that not always you will look for. Running 2 different cards with similar efects one makes it in play and the other in yard warranties the aim. What is bad with it??

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It's called redundancy. Slots in this deck are to tight to warrant running those two cards if you clearly just want one of them. Getting Portal into the yard is quite easy considering that you can 1) Dredge it 2) Pitch it to Mox 3) Sac it to Orb 4) Sac it to Chasm 5) Ghost Quarter/Waste it. While the last option comes in handy from time to time, 1-5 are just enough to gurantee it hitting the yard. In a normal midgame you should be dredging 6-9 cards a turn which is enough. Option 4-5 can be found went for by Tolaria West, the decks clear MVP.

Another point: Riftstone Portal provides G and W mana which is superior to the all-black. I don't wanna state that the beneffit of B mana granted to your opponent is a huge downside but one might not forget about that as well.

To sum it up: Riftstone Portal is more useful. Getting it into the yard is easy. GREEN MANA IS SO MUCH MORE USEFUL THAN BLACK. Having Portal AND Urborg is bad - the only redundancy you want is for your most key cards: Loam+Intuition, Exploration+Manabond.

Everyone may think I'm just a bad player for mentioning this, but I want some opinions.
What are thoughts on playing Avenger of Zendikar and Volrath's Stronghold?
A lot of people run Mindslaver lock and thats 10 mana and a slow kill where as Avenger can be a quick kill seeing we can landfall multiple times in a turn

Nevermind, always feel free to suggest new things.

In this case, I don't see the point behind adding something as bad as creatures. Especially if it doesn't have shroud. You mention the Mindslaver-kill being slow. While I don't use it anymore, it's only slow to set up (and so is Avenger). Once you got it down you should close the game inbetween 2-3 minutes. If you don't you will have to work on your skills/mechanics.

@mchainmail :

Congratulations! i've read of your victory here

I'm pretty new with this deck and I started testing int on mws, using your list (below for reference)

Maindeck (60)

Enchantment:
4 Exploration
3 Manabond

Sorcery:
4 Life from the Loam

Instant:
3 Intuition

Artifact:
4 Mox Diamond
1 Mindslaver
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Pithing Needle
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Zuran Orb

Land:
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan Port
4 Maze of Ith
3 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Windswept Heath
3 Tranquil Thicket
3 Tolaria West
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Academy Ruins
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Karakas

Sideboard:
4 Dark Confidant
3 Krosan Grip
3 Extirpate
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Null Rod
1 Engineered Explosives

My tests say the following:
-This deck is a mess to pilot it correctly :( you risk misplays almost every turn !

-Sideboarding this deck is absolutely no obvious! Please, could you post here some guidelines for the most common match ups? It would be super.

-I would love to have Leyline of Sanctity in my sideboard, apparently it could correct some bad matchups like monored and Tendrils, i saw some posts here talking about this, but how to find space in sb? Are you sold with this solution?
Maybe we can cut Ethersworn Canonist/Null Rod... but what else more?

-Is Volrath's Stronghold so necessary, i know it's useful in g2... this is just a pure question :)

Thanks for your attention,

Luigi.

Has anybody tested Mindbreak trap against storm combo?? Does it really worth??

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Originally Posted by GoldenCid

Has anybody tested Mindbreak trap against storm combo?? Does it really worth??

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I don't think it's a good deal: they simply duress you or silence you and then they go off :|

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Originally Posted by Giggioz

I don't think it's a good deal: they simply duress you or silence you and then they go off :|

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Really is that simple?? I they have silence or duress will loose anyway...with this you're saying taht the only way to deal (a little) against combo is with an opening Leyline of Sancticity.