[Deck] Turbo Depths

[Ribo]

I also think the deck is not fully optimised yet. The fun of this deck is you can tweak it whatever you want. I play the Bob/DRS version and i defentily don't want to go back to the all-in combo version. it's also a matter of taste. I like to have interactions with DRS and card draw with Bob. Having the Mox Diamond in the main makes a turn 1 discard and drs possible, (or 2 discards, or bob) I think these are strong t1 plays and the (not goldfish) opponent will react, so the less cards they have left to react with our combo.

More succes with the deck:
I played 6 side events at GP Amsterdam and only lost agains a very good 4c Leovold player, a Sneak and Show (god hand) player and a tie vs Lands. So i call this again a succes.

I,m currently on this list:
4 Crop Rotation
4 Thoughtseize
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Fatal Push
4 Vampire Hexmage
3 Duress
4 Dark Confidant
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Mox Diamond
2 Sylvan Safekeeper

1 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Sejiri Steppe
3 Wasteland
4 Dark Depths
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Bayou
4 Thespian's Stage
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 verdant Catacombs
1 Polluted Delta

sb:
2 Dread of Night
1 Krosan Grip
1 Karakas
1 Steely Resolve
2 Sorcerous Spyglass
3 Surgical Extraction
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Chains of Mephistopheles

Chains is a tryout. i think its good.

I,m still dreaming of the right BUG version, with Leovold, and cantrips. But this looks more like a 4c midrange deck what i have in mind.

[jdmdave]

Why not go all in on the creature plan? Take out of the fast mana and bring in knight, excavator, scryb ranger, tracker, and titania. Much better than discard spells + pithing needle.

[solnox]

The grind plan could go even deeper and play some number of loam and liliana of the veil. That way it'll be like the rock with a combo finsh!

[jdmdave]

The grind plan could go even deeper and play some number of loam and liliana of the veil. That way it'll be like the rock with a combo finsh!

Someone really doesn't want to lose to delver

[Jax-]

Honestly, I vote for thread splitting.

Doesn't make any sense to me talking about two versions with 10+ cards difference.
Its so confusing.

Its like ANT and TES basically.

We should have a B/G Depths thread and a Turbo Depths thread.

[surface33]

The grind plan could go even deeper and play some number of loam and liliana of the veil. That way it'll be like the rock with a combo finsh!

Loam is something i though about the other day. Have you tried it? In paper it looks like a great 1-2of. Even better if you change petals for diamonds.

[Dice_Box]

Name changed to help with confusion from midrange Depths players.

[Mr. Safety]

Is anyone interested in spear-heading a mid-range Depths thread? I made one in New/Developmental but it doesn't necessarily reflect current lists, and it is quirky in how the deck was built. I would be very interested in seeing where that discussion would go.

[solnox]

For all you midrange people

https://imgur.com/a/K5mdq


I 5-0d with this list vs Grixis Delver/BUG Delver/BR Reanimator/DNT/5c humans and have a few thoughts. Deathrite Shaman was mostly irrelevant and could have been any fast mana source and functioned the same. If it did live, I only used it for mana. Even vs BR it felt too slow as they just went faster than it turned online. Bob was good vs BUG Delver specifically and drew me out of 3x hymn.

[Miscanthus]

For all you midrange people

https://imgur.com/a/K5mdq


I 5-0d with this list vs Grixis Delver/BUG Delver/BR Reanimator/DNT/5c humans and have a few thoughts. Deathrite Shaman was mostly irrelevant and could have been any fast mana source and functioned the same. If it did live, I only used it for mana. Even vs BR it felt too slow as they just went faster than it turned online. Bob was good vs BUG Delver specifically and drew me out of 3x hymn.

With those experiences in mind, do you have any thoughts on possible alternatives for Deathrite Shaman for this sort of build?

[jubeininja69]

With those experiences in mind, do you have any thoughts on possible alternatives for Deathrite Shaman for this sort of build?

he said they could have been any fast mana source and functioned the same so esg or lotus petals.

i do feel bobs are good in the deck. too often for me when the opponent disrupts my hand or the combo i find myself in top deck mode so i like bobs.

[Mr. Safety]

With those experiences in mind, do you have any thoughts on possible alternatives for Deathrite Shaman for this sort of build?

If I gave up on DRS I would likely just jam 4x Lotus Petal. It has zero impact with Dark Confidant and it's not usually countered anyways, so the uncounterable ability from ESG isn't a reason to use it over Petal. The fact it makes black mana as well is quite relevant. T1 Confidants are pretty hot, too.

Regarding DRS in this deck: I started playing it over Petal/Guide because it works better with Probe/Therapy, which I love in this deck. If I'm flooded, or I just need to flashback a Therapy so I don't lose, DRS is fantastic alongside the 4 Confidants. Extra copies of those creatures end up doing double duty with Therapy.

[surface33]

If I gave up on DRS I would likely just jam 4x Lotus Petal. It has zero impact with Dark Confidant and it's not usually countered anyways, so the uncounterable ability from ESG isn't a reason to use it over Petal. The fact it makes black mana as well is quite relevant. T1 Confidants are pretty hot, too.

Regarding DRS in this deck: I started playing it over Petal/Guide because it works better with Probe/Therapy, which I love in this deck. If I'm flooded, or I just need to flashback a Therapy so I don't lose, DRS is fantastic alongside the 4 Confidants. Extra copies of those creatures end up doing double duty with Therapy.

I think this is a very important point. DRS is good if you play cabal therapy( even in this case it isnt that good), however, if you dont play therapy I would go with fast mana or try mox diamond with a couple of loams. I think people underestimate DRS tho, it is a ver good card against combo, it accelerates mana, it can take them bellow 20 if they gain life and works with therapy.

I am looking forward to trying loam, it looks good against wasteland decks.

[Mr. Safety]

I think this is a very important point. DRS is good if you play cabal therapy( even in this case it isnt that good), however, if you dont play therapy I would go with fast mana or try mox diamond with a couple of loams. I think people underestimate DRS tho, it is a ver good card against combo, it accelerates mana, it can take them bellow 20 if they gain life and works with therapy.

I am looking forward to trying loam, it looks good against wasteland decks.

I think at this point, even though I'm against a DRS ban, it's just too good of a card in these colors to *not* play. It's not as fast as ESG/Petal but it's reusable, versatile, and still accelerates a t2 Marit Lage.

I'll admit, sacrificing a Deathrite Shaman for a Therapy doesn't feel great, but ESG/Lotus Petal would only give me a mana. I think the synergy is strong enough, considering the higher threat count with Dark Confidant in there. You really don't need another threat once Marit Lage shows up, or you have a higher likelihood of drawing into another threat. I approach this like old Splinter Twin decks in modern: threaten the combo, when they play around it, beat them with your other good cards.

[solnox]

Duress is miles better than cabal therapy. With duress. You're guaranteed a hit whilewith therapy requires you to have probe or thoughtseized earlier. Sure you might have those 2 for 1s but inthe long run, you want consistency. Filling the deck with air like probe further fills up slots

[surface33]

Duress is miles better than cabal therapy. With duress. You're guaranteed a hit whilewith therapy requires you to have probe or thoughtseized earlier. Sure you might have those 2 for 1s but inthe long run, you want consistency. Filling the deck with air like probe further fills up slots

You dont need probe to tun therapy. It depends in how you know the metagame, after all most decks have very limited answers against us and you will know what to name. You also get second chances if you have another creature. Although I do think that duress is better in most versions, saying its clearly better is simply not true. For some reason people in this thread think everything is black or white.

[jdmdave]

You dont need probe to tun therapy. It depends in how you know the metagame, after all most decks have very limited answers against us and you will know what to name. You also get second chances if you have another creature. Although I do think that duress is better in most versions, saying its clearly better is simply not true. For some reason people in this thread think everything is black or white.

Duress is far more consistent and answers the key cards that DO answer the combo.

[ashent]

Hi all-

(GREAT NAME CHANGE ON THE THREAD BTW JUST NOTICED, NICE)

Sorry to distract from recent DRS/Dark Confidant related conversations on the decklist. I have a late tourney report from GP Kyoto where I played Legacy for my team and was pleased with how the deck ran. I am writing my personal record and then whether the team won the round or not. Note that I don't think the team records are recorded as 2-1 or 2-0 or anything, they are simply 1 if you win the round. I don't think I understand fully, whatever, I'm just trying to play legacy.

I chose this deck because of an expected Czech/Delver meta and wanted to crush them. I'm by no means a very strong legacy player but this deck is good and when it runs hot it's pretty disgusting. Personally, my favorite legacy decks are more like BUG Control or Aluren and I've been getting into Miracles lately, but I didn't want to let my team down so I played what I felt was really well positioned and had a good chance of running strong. I won't post the decklist. It's the established one from the Discord and the most tried and true one. You can visit us in the Discord and ask about the decklist and the sideboarding guide, graciously worked on constantly by people like solnox and jdm.

GP Kyoto day 1

Round 1 D&T
I sit down and lose the die roll and my opponent goes Karakas, Aether Vial, go. I tell my teammates I am going to lose. My notes indicate that I stuck it out at least for 4 turns to see if I could get any hints about his play and his maindeck. He had t1 Karakas, t2 Thalia, then I Thoughtseized him to reveal a pair of Flickerwisps and a Sword and I conceded. Game 1 they can sometimes just have everything in this matchup. Game 2 on the play I keep a hand with enough lands and a Sylvan Library and after finding a Rite of Consumption I basically just check to see the coast is clear from a Sword and throw a 20/20 at him. He reads the card incredulously and confers with his teammates and then shrugs, shuffling. Game 3 on the draw again my opponent mulls to 6 while I keep 7 and he has a Sword, a Mom, a Thalia, an SFM, and 2 Flickerwisps. The first Sword eats Marit Lage bringing me back up to 30, which I use to Library aggressively. My board is lands and Hexmage and multiple combo lands which I continue to just use and force him to answer. He comes up with a total of 3 Flickerwisps, 2 Swords, and a Path to Exile, which Strip Mines me because I fetched up basics at the beginning of the game. He's attacking me but not for very much and the Library puts in a ton of work. I have some lands and a Hexmage that's unusable due to a random Phyrexian Revoker, I find Rite of Consumption and he's at 20 with an unknown couple of cards, I make a Marit Lage and throw it at him and he Swords his own Phyrexian Revoker to get to 22, takes 20, then I pass the turn at 30+ something again and he thinks we'll just continue staring at each other. I shuffle away a couple of garbage cards to check the new top of library and find the Steppe. I look around for a second, trying to figure out how long it will take me to reassemble the combo, and then my friend on Standard just leans in and is like, 'he's at 2, dude.' So I kill him with a Pro-White Vampire Hexmage.

W 2-1 (team wins)

Round 2 Goblins
We sit without opponents for 7 minutes. We're 7 minutes into the round and expecting a game win but the judge tells us there was a real concern that wasn't their fault and when they sit down they just tell us to play and that we have a 7 minute extension. Fine. Game 1 on the draw I keep a reasonably fast hand but nothing too explosive and see Mountain into Aether Vial. Alright. I Thoughtseize him and see nothing super threatening, just a bunch of very slow Goblins and work on assembling a Marit Lage quickly. My notes say he Wasted me twice and had one unknown naturally drawn card. I announced to my friends that if I make a Marit Lage and attack he could have a maindeck Stingscourger and I'll lose, but if I don't make it I could get Wasted out of the game and or he'd have more time to get a Stingscourger. I decide to do it and he shows me Stingscourger. Game 2 I have a turn 2 Marit Lage hand and even though he has Aether Vial and I'm sure has an extra additional Stingscourger in the deck, he's on the draw so his Vial is on 1 when I can present the attack and he quickly scoops. Game 3 he keeps a hand quickly but doesn't have a Vial, so he has no turn 1 play. I turn 1 Thoughtseize him to reveal Stingscourger, Chieftain, Ringleader, Matron etc and take the Stingscourger, we make some land drops but he has no Wastelands, he Matrons for Stingscourger but he doesn't have an Aether Vial so provided I don't just make Marit Lage in his main phase he can't do anything with it. I wait one more turn while I solidify my mana, and then he attacks me with a Matron trying to get me to make Marit Lage and when I say no blocks he concedes. At this time I've won and my Modern player has lost and then the Standard match goes to a draw. This team was 7 minutes late and with 3~ minutes left in the round (plus our 7 minute extension) there is a judge watching our Standard players and advising them to hurry up. Our Standard opponent is saying my Standard player needs to hurry up, and the judge is actually wasting time in the round distracting the players by saying to speed up when they are about to make moves. Eventually we're in turns at the end of the extension and the opponents are grumbling and I'm grumbling and then we get a round 2 draw.

W 2-1 (team draws)

Round 3 Grixis Delver
Now this is what I'm talking about. I lose the die roll and my opponent Probes me and plays a Delver. I had kept a reasonable hand but the Sylvan Library in it is questionable against Delver, just happened to keep that hand. The Delver gets in a few times, the guy Wastes me once and then the rest of his hand proves to just be 2 more Delvers. The game ends when the Library gets me an extra card that allows me to find everything I need just in time and he has to leave at least one Delver back to block my threatened EOT Marit Lage. Unfortunately for him, he didn't know that the Library had found my natural Sejiri Steppe the turn before and I swing through with 3 life left. Sylvan Library A+ but still taking it out post-board. Game 2 he has absolutely everything he could need but manages to lose the game. I'll explain. He had Wastelands, some pressure, some Bolts, and some Forces, everything he could need. We're at a bit of a standoff where I have a Hexmage and he has a Wasteland. I break up the standoff by playing a Thespian's Stage. I wait for him to tap low to avoid some extra stuff and then initiate the fight. He has 1 unseen card that I'm not very concerned about and the rest is face up. I intend to initiate the fight with Thespian's Stage, inciting Wasteland, and then use Hexmage. He responds to the Thespian's Stage with a Lightning Bolt on Hexmage, and I'm in shock about the bad beats. I let the Hexmage die. I wait for him to Waste me. I wait and wait and he grabs his Modern teammate. They talk and point and gesture and talk some more and I stay quiet and don't do anything. Eventually I just say "please make a choice" and he says ok 'Waste Thespian's Stage.' With both of us very low on resources but him not destroying both my lands, I untap and draw Sylvan Scrying to search for Thespian's Stage and kill him.

W 2-0 (team loses)

Round 4 OmniShow

I'm not feeling very good here after picking up a draw and a loss, because I'm pretty sure now we have to win out for the rest of the day and it's still like.. mid morning. This guy wins the die roll and then turn 2 casts Show and Tell into Omniscience into Burning Wish into Mastermind's Acquisition and I'm like ok and continue watching what spells he'll show me until he tries to look at my hand and I scoop. It's worth noting here that with my Duress and or Thoughtseize I could have won this game on the play but had no chance on the draw, and his Show and Tell got me dangerously close to a turn 2 Marit, but not fast enough. Game 2 I keep hand disruption and a Surgical and Duress his Show and Tell. His hand is lands, a single Force, and a Lim Dul's Vault. I play my second land and when I pass to him he casts Lim Dul's Vault and I get ready to wait while he goes over the options. He actually keeps the very first one and then shuffles, presents, puts the 5 on top and then asks if he can untap. Knowing his hand has only one blue card, being Force of Will, I stop him before draw and Surgical his Show and Tell. He tanks for a second and then almost lets it resolve before realizing I'm just trying to shuffle his deck and look at it and then he immediately scoops without letting me see anything. Game 3 I kept Petal Petal Urbog Dark Depths Hexmage Hexmage. I played Petal Petal Depths and Hexmage, which he Forces. I untap and then play Urborg and cast Hexmage and he scoops.

W 2-1 (team loses)

Round 5 Lands
We discuss whether we want to drop and I say I'm ok either way. We keep playing because we're already here. Game 1 lose the die roll and then sigh against an Exploration Mox Diamond opener, but he doesn't have Life From the Loam all game and he's on a mull to 6. I stay pretty patient and beat his Karakas/Maze of Ith with a Sylvan Safekeeper. Game 2 he brings in so much sideboard hate against me that his deck barely functions anymore and at one point his hand is literally 3 Krosan Grips and 3 Crop Rotations and nothing is going on on the field. We have multiple Needles out and a Hexmage gets him to 4 before he assembles a Punishing Fire lock. I Surgical all his Wastelands on turn 2, then all his Life from the Loams on turn 4. We stare at each other for like 20 turns and then I finally stick a last Needle (after fighting thru 3 Grips) on Karakas again, untap with a Marit Lage facing down a Maze of Ith and slam Safekeeper on the table to kill him. Actually now that I think about it I think I Rited him during this also. Oh well, whatever happened I beat a shit matchup and was happy.

W 2-0 (team wins)

Round 6 UW Stoneblade
I win the die roll for once and keep a hand of general good stuff and take things out of his hand for a little bit. I'm stuck in a weird position where I know his entire hand is just cantrips and Jace, and his only plan is to get to 4 mana and cast Jace for some good stuff off the top and/or threaten Unsummons. Usually this doesn't matter, but with a combination of a Stoneforge Mystic into Batterskull he had forced me into a position where I had to make a Marit Lage to block and then come up with a way to beat Jace unsummon + whatever he found off the top. At this point I have to block a Batterskull, and then he's at 26 or something. He's seen 1 more card since I checked his hand and I have to block and untap. I attack him to 6~ and pass the turn. All I have to work with is a Crop Rotation, and he Forces it. Game 2 he has a turn 2 SFM into Batterskull, then Swords, Snap Swords, Path to Exile and I scoop.

L 0-2 (team wins)

Round 7 Food Chain
I lose the die roll and my opponent mulls to 6 and plays like Misty -> Go. I play lands and Thoughtseize him a bit and his hand is Ballista, Abrupt Decay, Fatal Push, Baleful Strix etc. With nothing in it that I care about except the blocker I take the Baleful Strix and just keep making land drops. Against a hand like that there's no reason to rush really and his clock sucks. After some land drops I find Hexmage which he can't use removal on as I played the Depths previously and he scoops. Game 2 on the draw I keep a super loose turn 1 Sylvan Library hand and my notes just say "turn 1 library hexmage depths urborg crop steppe ez."

W 2-0 (team wins)

Round 8 Grixis Delver
My opponent is on the play because always and he attacks me with Delvers and then leaves one back to block. I flash him a Sejiri Stepp out of my hand and he goes to his sideboard. Game 2 on the draw he mulls to 6 and then I Thoughtseize his Edict and he dies on turn 4.

W 2-0 (team loses)

All in all the deck carried me despite not even finding as many good matchups as I expected, and while I didn't actually get very many turn 2 insane hands all day, it still handily beat a lot of the slow shit people are trying to do in the format and also has some ability to disrupt other combo decks from winning, though I did not bring in my Sphere of Resistance out of the board a single time all day. Too bad for me, could have used those slots on something else. Record for me was 7-1, or 14-5 in games, and my team went 4-3-1, is that right? I think so. The draw on round 2 really frustrated me all day, I won't lie, but I was happy with my performance and it was a fun time.

[Mr. Safety]

Duress is miles better than cabal therapy. With duress. You're guaranteed a hit whilewith therapy requires you to have probe or thoughtseized earlier. Sure you might have those 2 for 1s but inthe long run, you want consistency. Filling the deck with air like probe further fills up slots

I am, quite frankly, surprised by this post. I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you know that Therapy is a key component in storm variants, whether they draw Duress/Probe or not. Naming the card you lose to is a perfectly reasonable blind call. This is another combo deck that loses to specific cards, I think the comparison is appropriate.

Now with that out of the way, Probe provides a few things I think that can help the deck even outside of Therapy synergy, which is still the primary reason I advocate it:

1) Velocity - Depths is a deck based on redundancy through tutors, but doesn't have a lot of ways to just dig for more cards. That's why Dark Confidant is seeing an uptick in play, it provides that. Probe does essentially the same thing while giving information.

2) Flexible slots for the sideboard - like many all-in combo decks, it can be very challenging to sideboard when all of your cards are already dedicated to a specific purpose. What you call 'air' is 3 immediate slots in from the sideboard g2-3. Once the matchup is known I feel comfortable using Therapy blindly, or knowing when to sacrifice utility creatures (Confidant/DRS) to make it more effective. I see the deck as a fluid 75 cards, not 60 + 15.

3) Free information - I'm not a fantastic player, and Legacy is still wide open (especially at my lgs.) I value free information highly, going from 'do they have what they need to beat me?' to 'they have it' or 'they don't have it'. Yes targeted discard does that as well, but I know the feeling of being one mana short of combo-ing out.

I also completely understand what I think your counter-argument will be: these things aren't new, and the way the deck is built currently is because of the adjustments that were made to compensate for it. The fast mana means you can spend the B on targeted discard and still combo, the matchups are already known so the cards in/out of the sideboard are established. I don't disagree, but I do believe there is room for different playstyles and alternative approaches. Dark Depths is a fairly compact combo, getting splashed in several different decks. There's TONS of ways to approach it.

[filln]

We're at a bit of a standoff where I have a Hexmage and he has a Wasteland. I break up the standoff by playing a Thespian's Stage. I wait for him to tap low to avoid some extra stuff and then initiate the fight. He has 1 unseen card that I'm not very concerned about and the rest is face up. I intend to initiate the fight with Thespian's Stage, inciting Wasteland, and then use Hexmage. He responds to the Thespian's Stage with a Lightning Bolt on Hexmage, and I'm in shock about the bad beats.

First off, congrats on the performance! Bummer it was a team event though.

Regarding this particular sequence against Grixis Delver, I think I would have led off with Hexmage over Stage. Besides the Bolt scenario you mention, if your opponent had wanted to, they could have let the Stage copy ability resolve, you lose your Depths, and then they would Waste your Stage/Depths with the state trigger on the stack. At this point, activating your Hexmage to remove counters from the zero counter Stage/Depths would not cause it to trigger again since there already is a state trigger on the stack. Conversely, if you had done the Hexmage first, you could still use the Stage to copy the zero counter Depths in response to a Wasteland.