[Deck] 43 Lands

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Originally Posted by TraxDaMax

I haven't been able to try out Oblivion Stone yet, but it looks like a solid answer to Blood Moon/Magus of the Moon.

I played Lands yesterday at a 73 man tourny, and lost a game to a turn 3 resolved Magus of the Moon, that kicked me 10 times. I had sensei on the field, and a couple of answers to Magus if I could only hit a mox, but after ten turns "topping" I still didn't find one. :(

(Curious as I am I checked to see when my Mox was coming, and it still took 12 cards... so pretty bad luck there.)

I went 3wins, 3 draw, 1 loss. Was first time I put the deck together and took it to a tourny.
A card that remains an all-star after all these years is Chalice of the Void. It's ridiculous how good this card is when you time it right, and almost nobody is prepared for it. I locked out Burn and High Tide with it, and slowed down Sneaky Show (although that was the game magus did 20 dmg)
The fact that Tolaria West gets it for you is just awesome.

After getting soft-locked by Leyline of the Void and pretty much hard-locked by Magus of the Moon I'm thinking 3 Oblivion Stone should be in the sideboard now though. Trinisphere was good, but not outstanding in most match-ups. Usually I just wanted to bring in CotV.
Karmic Justice worked like a charm against Pox.
I don't think 4 Dark Confidant should ever leave sideboard in this deck. It acts like your loam 5-8 basicly. And he won me several games yesterday while my graveyard was shutdown.

Most of these things probably make sense and are logic to most, but just trying to throw out my conclusions of the deck and see if people think they are right.

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You're pretty much coming to all of the right conclusions about the deck after playing it, which is good. I'm not sure that justice is right in the board with show and tell becoming so good, I think the sideboard slot could be dedicated to another piece of hate to fight them.

On the note of show and tell, I'm considering adding another ensnaring bridge to the maindeck over the cursed totem, which would go in the sideboard. Maverick has been a bit less popular lately, and it isn't impossible to win game 1 without the totem. As far as the sideboard goes, I'm not sure if there are any good dedicated hate pieces to bring in against show and tell. Pithing needle effects are only good against sneak show, which we already have a pretty decent chance to beat. I was thinking about adding some raven's crimes to the sideboard to help combat all combo decks, but especially for against things like dream halls and hive mind. Thoughts?

My list isn't optimal yet lacking tabernacle still, and oblivion stone side. But I already play 1 raven's crime and 1 urborg main, and moved cursed totem to side adwell. Raven's crime gives control a harder time while being an easy card to side out vs a lot of decks.
Missed top 8 this weekend loosing to UW miracles with a back to nasic maindeck, followed up by jace and entreat the angels.

Against Sneak and Show we already run the best hate in Ensnaring Bridge (and Karakas) – though all permanent based hate runs the risk of being bounced after some time (earlier if Griselbrand is involved).

I'm not sure if its worth boarding against the 'slower' combo decks. Your matchup will not get good miraculously and if combo is prevalent enough for the sideboard slots to be necessary you should just play a different deck.

I currently run this board (3 Enlightened Tutor, 1 O.Stone MD) – the debatable slots imho are the Chalices and the Replica:

4 Dark Confidant
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Sylvok Replica
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Oblivion Stone
1 Smokestack
1 Cursed Totem
1 Tormod's Crypt

I have not seen this mentioned. But I am intrigued by the idea of playing terminus and entreat the angels in land. I think it goes without say that Sensei Divining Top would be an auto include. But seems like a good idea. Terminus deals with pretty much all major creature based threats that are effective against land. You can cycle and get it to go off pretty easily. Entreat would probably be like a 1 or 2 of just so you can actually kill players in time.

Hi, I thought about this too, but it did't take me long to realize this works against our main engine, being loam. If we would use this tactic, I think we would be wanting 4 top, 4 EtA, 4 terminu, because we will be dredging away alot of those goodies. One of the powers of this deck is that more then 90% of the deck is recurrable. Suddenly giving blue players more counter options doesn't sound that interesting to me yet, but it should be tested none the less.

Hey all, just so you know a 36 land build is in the top 4 of SSG legacy Detroit.

Bobby Kovacs takes down Elves in the finals of an unusual Open. Excellent performance! Everybody in this thread should watch replays of his games. And try to ignore goofball Patrick Chapin.

I don't get why Chapin is so stubborn about Lands. It's been a deck (albeit, not a staple, but a deck that is very much real, and adaptable) for over five years now. He makes it seem like Bobby is the "bad guy" for not wanting his opponents strategies to go unmolested (via things like Engineered Explosives, Maze of Ith, Chalice of the Void, Glacial Chasm to sway the matchup in his favor). It was a pretty decent meta call, seeing how Sneak Attack (unless they have Emrakul), or Reanimator have a tough time beating Maze of Iths, and other decks can't deal with it's versatility. Look at the finals for example. Caleb either had to go off immediately, within the first three turns, or his opponent will either resolve a Manabond + Ensnaring Bridge, one of two Engineered Explosives, Glacial Chasm, Tabernacle, Chalice of the Void, or Trinisphere. To be honest, the only deck that he wouldn't be able to beat in the top8 was Dredge.

Good job Bobby!

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Originally Posted by CookedChestnuts

I don't get why Chapin is so stubborn about Lands. It's been a deck (albeit, not a staple, but a deck that is very much real, and adaptable) for over five years now. He makes it seem like Bobby is the "bad guy" for not wanting his opponents strategies to go unmolested (via things like Engineered Explosives, Maze of Ith, Chalice of the Void, Glacial Chasm to sway the matchup in his favor). It was a pretty decent meta call, seeing how Sneak Attack (unless they have Emrakul), or Reanimator have a tough time beating Maze of Iths, and other decks can't deal with it's versatility. Look at the finals for example. Caleb either had to go off immediately, within the first three turns, or his opponent will either resolve a Manabond + Ensnaring Bridge, one of two Engineered Explosives, Glacial Chasm, Tabernacle, Chalice of the Void, or Trinisphere. To be honest, the only deck that he wouldn't be able to beat in the top8 was Dredge.

Good job Bobby!

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Even the dredge matchup is insane; they have a hard time when you get chasm or bridge going, and postboard you get crypt+ruins, a fun and interactive combination.

As far as his list goes, I can't say I agree with the lack of e-tutor, but the raven's crimes do go a long way in helping the combo matchup.

Anyway, congrats Bobby, it's great to see lands do well.

I saw that Lands -vs- Affinity matchup earlier, that was just nuts, I really thought "o man, affinity dropping its whole hand in the first 2 turns, how will lands answer that" but it did and it did just fine! Grats to Lands getting a first, Awesome to see the deck is still a force out there not to be ignored!

Nice to see Lands win.

(Although the keep g2 of the finals and the Exploration-into-Daze-Tabernacle-Mongoose-play vs. Delver made me cringe – the latter because he had Wasteland in hand and could have played Mox, Wasteland, Exploration, Tabernacle, waste.)

The real question though for me is: Do Raven's Crimes make the matchups against High Tide and Storm any more winnable? (Do you reliably find one and enough B to make it matter in time?)

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Originally Posted by Serbitar

Nice to see Lands win.

(Although the keep g2 of the finals and the Exploration-into-Daze-Tabernacle-Mongoose-play vs. Delver made me cringe – the latter because he had Wasteland in hand and could have played Mox, Wasteland, Exploration, Tabernacle, waste.)

The real question though for me is: Do Raven's Crimes make the matchups against High Tide and Storm any more winnable? (Do you reliably find one and enough B to make it matter in time?)

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Belcher: only on the play
ANT: Yes
High tide: Kinda
TES: yes

When people see Manabond or exploration, they assume they have all the time in the world to kill you. This becomes another circumstantial Intuition Pile (Life from the Loam/Raven's Crime/Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth). Raven's Crime was MVP Against Maverick, Team America, and RUG.. I like having more than one copy, because it just wins games when it begins to go crazy. It gets sided out almost every match, but not because it is weak, but because you completely destroy your opponent with it, and casting Intuitions, They will go as low as siding in Leyline of Sanctity's. After GP Indy, I switched to E-Tutor, with totem - copied cuthbertthecat's list, because it looked good for the amount of maverick that had been around (and bant). Truth be told, the format has turned into a very Esper Blade/RUG Delver/UW Miracle/Sneak and Show format recently, and although Bridge is good against Sneak and Show, I find E. Tutor to be strictly worse. I top 2 Split an event in Erie 3 weeks ago, beating Hypergenesis in the Top 8, and Beating Sneak and Show in the Top 4. Raven's Crime is so good against those decks. You Mox, waste, crime, they pretty much just mulled to 5... enough about my Raven's Crime Rant though... lol

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Originally Posted by OneBigSquirrelGod

Belcher: only on the play
ANT: Yes
High tide: Kinda
TES: yes

When people see Manabond or exploration, they assume they have all the time in the world to kill you. This becomes another circumstantial Intuition Pile (Life from the Loam/Raven's Crime/Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth). Raven's Crime was MVP Against Maverick, Team America, and RUG.. I like having more than one copy, because it just wins games when it begins to go crazy. It gets sided out almost every match, but not because it is weak, but because you completely destroy your opponent with it, and casting Intuitions, They will go as low as siding in Leyline of Sanctity's. After GP Indy, I switched to E-Tutor, with totem - copied cuthbertthecat's list, because it looked good for the amount of maverick that had been around (and bant). Truth be told, the format has turned into a very Esper Blade/RUG Delver/UW Miracle/Sneak and Show format recently, and although Bridge is good against Sneak and Show, I find E. Tutor to be strictly worse. I top 2 Split an event in Erie 3 weeks ago, beating Hypergenesis in the Top 8, and Beating Sneak and Show in the Top 4. Raven's Crime is so good against those decks. You Mox, waste, crime, they pretty much just mulled to 5... enough about my Raven's Crime Rant though... lol

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I mostly agree; for larger tournaments crime is probably right. I'm gonna start testing a build similar to the winning list with crimes and the like, I might still try to get e-tutor in there somewhere though. On a sidenote, are you Bobby?

haha.. fortunately, I am. I was going to post a report later this week, but I guess for now, The matchups were like:
R1 - Goblins - 2-1
R2 - Maverick - 2-1
R3 Maverick - 1-2
R4 - RUG Delver - 2-0
R5 - Team America - 2-0
R6 - Maverick - 2-0
R7 - BW Stoneblade - 2-0
R8 - Affinity - 2-0
R9 - Affinity - 2-0
R10 - RUG Delver - 2-1
R11 - Elves - 2-1

Ravens Crime did not do a whole lot, since the lack of control decks I played against... But what I will say: everyone has those slow hands, with Ensnaring Bridge, but You have a lack of acceleration, and you keep drawing non land cards, and You need to get to 0 cards in hand. I Raven's Crimed lands out of my own hand, and won 2 games just on that. I did miss E-Tutor against Maverick, but Cursed Totem is such a dead card against A LOT of matchups, and Intuition is so powerful. I had very good Matchups, I played very good, I only made 2 mistakes the whole day, and My draws were not bad either. I would not make any changes after playing that on Sunday. not even the Sideboard. Raven's Crime solves the Mind Sculptor problem, and was put in before Rhode Island, to Stop Mental Mistep, and It has done so well since then, I cannot take it out. MUC with B2B, Enchantress, MUD, Hive Mind, Tendrils, Belcher, Sneak, UW Blade, RUG Delver, Junk Decks, Elves (if early enough), Maverick, Bant, all of these decks Ravens Crime helps more than people think. You start with 1 land in hand, they draw. they play or pass, you dredge loam, makem' discard, then not have to worry about them countering, playin tricks, etc, and just repeat. Gets StP out of the Hand when you're pressed to kill them, and When you have O. Stone or EE on Board, and they are holding cards back waiting on you, You get ravens crime out of no where, and make them discard their hand. There is so much going on with your deck, and too many things they worry about, Once you dredge it, It will slip their mind 2-3 turns later. Plus people just concede when they cant do anything.. I am not saying E-Tutor is bad. Its just not right ATM. I ravens Crimed an opponent T1 last year in Indy, and he discarded Jin Gitaxis (I still won the game & match)... so you do have to play moderately unaggressive at first... :frown:

Hi, may I ask why you don't play entomb? Personally I love it as a way to fetch raven's crime or loam or any recurrable card.

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Originally Posted by OneBigSquirrelGod

haha.. fortunately, I am. I was going to post a report later this week, but I guess for now, The matchups were like:
R1 - Goblins - 2-1
R2 - Maverick - 2-1
R3 Maverick - 1-2
R4 - RUG Delver - 2-0
R5 - Team America - 2-0
R6 - Maverick - 2-0
R7 - BW Stoneblade - 2-0
R8 - Affinity - 2-0
R9 - Affinity - 2-0
R10 - RUG Delver - 2-1
R11 - Elves - 2-1

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No combo all day long except elves? Thats a sweet run :)

@ Bobby - What did you keep G2 of the Finals?

@ Everyone - What decks do Dark Confidants come in against? I was a bit surprised to see them against the Elves match, because it seems like we could kill ourselves from decking/damage. I understand we could rebuy EE with Academy Ruins to constantly place a 0 on top. Thanks for your help :)

I would say Confidant comes in every time your opponent isn't super aggressive (damage wise) and you expect him to have hate for Loam.
I board Confidants against Control and Combo, but also against Aggrodecks without burn like Merfolk (esp. when I expect Surgical Extraction) and Maverick. I would not board them vs. Zoo, Dredge (because they generally do not hate on Loam and Confidant is too slow), Burn, RUG.

Edit: Nowadays, people tend to know you have them (especially at regional tournaments). So there is this subgame of sometimes not boarding them, if you feel they are going to keep their Swords to Plowshares.

Okay, thanks. Makes perfect sense. As a LftL alternative (figuring you'll draw mostly 0's and that you've got Zuran Orb to get you out in a pinch). Thanks!

what looking for these games at ggslive website, but its down. any1 have link to the lands.dec top8 matches?