[Deck] Turbo Depths

[hovercraft]

Is this card worth considering for a sideboard slot?

[PeterSouth]

I use three or four DRS in my build right now, it makes sense to max out fetchlands right? i been upping in my wacky build to 6-8 count.

Maybe those who are trying mox diamond can include some ancient stirrings. my biggest reason for not using mox was the bad hands with one or two land and mox

[surface33]

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.

I think you make some good points on why to run probe, I might try it next week. I am also wondering if someone has done the math and calculated the negative aspect of running 64 cards and 4 probes. I might do it tonight if I find the time but intuitively it seems like it wont decrease the probability of drawing the key pieces conditioned to casting it right away. If anyone knows of a quick study of this I would enjoy the read.

[surface33]

Is this card worth considering for a sideboard slot?

The card is interesting, not sire if the land advantage is worth over 3 abrupt benefits:

- it kills any permanent like anoying creatures
- instant speed
- cant be countered

However it looks worth trying imo

[PeterSouth]

every time i think about running probe i sweat at the thought of having to evaluate a marginal hand for possible mulligan with one less card of information.

[Mr. Safety]

every time i think about running probe i sweat at the thought of having to evaluate a marginal hand for possible mulligan with one less card of information.

Not sure I understand this...are you saying probe makes mulligans easier or harder?

[Claymore]

Probe makes a questionable hand harder to evaluate. Especially since this isn't a blue deck with all the cantrips to smooth the rest of the draws out.

[solnox]

Points against Gitaxian Probe:

1)Its not free to run. it eats up 3-4 slots that could be used for more redundant pieces.

2) The life loss is not negligible. you don't see every day playing 4 street wraith and 4 probe for a reason.

3) Mulliganing decisions are a lot harder to make for loose 7s /6s.

4) No synergy outside of Therapy. Delver can abuse it with Young Pyromancer, Storm has therapy/Threshold (Cabal Rit)/Storm Count/ PIF free spell. (Fringe LED Probe hold priotiy)

4)Deck Thinning is negligible

5) Dead card vs Leovold.

6)Shit Topdeck.

Points for Probe:

1) Its good with Therapy.

2)checks what deck you're playing vs and if they have removal/interaction

[Di]

In my own albeit limited testing with Gitaxian Probe, I found it ended up being only worthwhile in the matchups that you need to dodge actual removal and see if they had it or you were clear, such as those with Swords to Plowshares. Beyond instances where you’re worried about Marit Lage not connecting, the information was a bit redundant on top of 8 md discard.

Not that the peek isn’t stellar, but the cost of life loss especially on top of Thoughtseize added up. I noticed it led to a sharp decline in Delver win percentages because the two combined easily shaved a couple turns off the game for them, which isn’t a matchup I’d like to give up any ground on. In cases like that you pretty much have to resort to boarding it out, which somewhat defeats the purpose of having it at all since it cuts into slots that actually do something and your post-board deck without them is already going to be less consistent than a list running redundant pieces.

[PeterSouth]

Here's excerpt from EWLandon's BR Reanimator sideboard guide posted on reddit week ago:
--------------------------------------
"Turbo depths

Play/draw

+1 ancient grudge
+2 magus of the moon
+1 archetype


-1 elesh norn
-3 therapy

Notes:
Don’t worry about discarding them much. This matchup is prob our best match up. They will spend the first few turns discarding you. You just need to land a griselbrand before they attack for 20 and you can’t lose. The main thing they will try to do to stop you from comboing is crop rotation, once they have done it once not many lists can do it a second time. Either force them to do it when you have 2 combos (entomb in after bog trigger with exhume still on the stack) or wait till you can discard it or till you are dead to crop rotation anyway (rotation for 2nd combo piece).

Ancient grudge is for needle on gris, you can entomb for it. Don’t get tidespout till you draw cards with gris if possible. Always draw max with griselbrand. Archetype is to protect you from karakas
--------------------------------------------------------------

-I found some interesting tidbits in there including "The main thing they will try to do to stop you from comboing is crop rotation, once they have done it once not many lists can do it a second time". In light of that I've started running some extra bojuka bog in my sideboard in place of other graveyard hate. I like how bog dodges the discard and is also another mana source - have any of you tried upping the sideboard bog count before?

[Di]

The most curious tidbit I’ve found from that is the fact he believes it to be their best matchup, when on the other hand I personally find it to be a very easy matchup and have yet to lose to it in tournament play. We are nearly as fast as they are, and they have very little means of interacting with us while we can blow them out easily with Rotation -> Bog, Surgical Extraction, and Karakas on top of our hand disruption. Hell on the play you can even board in Spheres if you want; given their low land count a turn 1 Sphere buys at least 2-3 turns by itself.

Granted both decks are consistent and redundant, but has perspective seems a bit ambitious to suggest that deck will combo twice a game through us while we don’t just combo on t2-3 and kill them too.

[DNSolver]

I've played the Depths-BR Reanimator matchup extensively on both sides. I believe that Depths is favored, though you need to mulligan pretty aggressively on the draw - can't keep a turn 1 discard turn 2 hexmage on the draw. I really like having at least 2 Surgicals in the board and haven't gone under that. Ever. The matchup is not trivial - Needle on Griselbrand is great because the only threats they can typically make are Chancellor, Sire, and Tidespout. Chancellor is not going to stop you at all most of the time, Sire is very sketchy chances against us, legendary creatures get bounced by Karakas that we can tutor up. So that leaves Tidespout. Getting a hand with a Needle for Griz and a Crop Rot -> Bog in case of Tidespout is excellent.

[solnox]

I've played vs ewlandon a ton of times with depths. Magus of the moon has changed everything. I used to view the matchup as favorable but with the addition of magus, I believe it's closer to 50/50. Previously you could just discard and hold up rot/surgical but magus lines puts a rl wrench into this. I've lost a few matches to him due to top decked moon man or just t1 moon man

[DNSolver]

To be honest, I forgot that he's been playing a bunch of those, because they're not intended for this matchup. Those do seem quite annoying, though, because making room for Decays would be awful.

[surface33]

hello guys, My last 3 weeks have been quite impressive with this deck( for me). I won a 20 man tournament 3 weeks ago, split first place( with another depthsdeck) in a 40 man tournament last week and won again this week a 32 man tournament. I will try to make a quick report of the 40 man tournament since it had 6 rounds + top 8. After trying shaman a lot I decided to drop it down to 1. This is my current list:

4 dark depths
4 thespian stage
2 bayou
1 forest
1 maze of ith
4 verdant catacombs
1 windswept heath
1 bojuka bog
1 sejiri steppe
4 urborg

4 mox diamond
2 sylvan library
2 pithing needle

3 dark confidant
1 deathrite shaman
1 ramunap scavator
1 sylvan safekeeper
3 vampire hexmage
1 dryad arbor

2 abrupt decay
4 crop rotation

4 cabal therapy
4 thoughtseize
2 green suns zenith
2 sylvan scrying

Side
2 abrupt decay
2 rite of consumption
1 boseiju
1 karakas
2 surgical extraction
1 gaddock teeg
1 krosan grip
1 pithing needle
2 toxic deludge
2 marsh casualties

The most disapointing card is rite of consumption. The best card, with out comparison has been cabal therapy, in a deck as explosive as this one being able to do free discards awesome. I know that not many people here supoort this version but I really really encourage anyone to try it out at least once, it is very powerful and doesnt really have bad pairings.

[solnox]

I've seen 4 magus out of black red even
It's not a cakewalk anymore, that's for sure.

@above you're playing 23 lands and 4 Mox diamonds with no recursion. 8 true green and 12 black sources wirh moxen being half a source imo. I'm surprised you haven't run into mana issues

[surface33]

I've seen 4 magus out of black red even
It's not a cakewalk anymore, that's for sure.

@above you're playing 23 lands and 4 Mox diamonds with no recursion. 8 true green and 12 black sources wirh moxen being half a source imo. I'm surprised you haven't run into mana issues

Dryad arbor counts as a land in most situations, specially regarding mox, so I run 24 lands which is 1 bellow the optimal point for mox. A part from that I run 1 drs(with potential tutoring) and 1 ramunap scavator. However, you are right, the mana base might make me loose some games in the future, at the moment I havent noticed the difference.

[warfordium]

In my own albeit limited testing with Gitaxian Probe, I found it ended up being only worthwhile in the matchups that you need to dodge actual removal and see if they had it or you were clear, such as those with Swords to Plowshares. Beyond instances where you’re worried about Marit Lage not connecting, the information was a bit redundant on top of 8 md discard.

Not that the peek isn’t stellar, but the cost of life loss especially on top of Thoughtseize added up. I noticed it led to a sharp decline in Delver win percentages because the two combined easily shaved a couple turns off the game for them, which isn’t a matchup I’d like to give up any ground on. In cases like that you pretty much have to resort to boarding it out, which somewhat defeats the purpose of having it at all since it cuts into slots that actually do something and your post-board deck without them is already going to be less consistent than a list running redundant pieces.

I found exactly this when playing the Probe-Therapy/Living Wish version. +1.

[Jirik]

hello guys, My last 3 weeks have been quite impressive with this deck( for me). I won a 20 man tournament 3 weeks ago, split first place( with another depthsdeck) in a 40 man tournament last week and won again this week a 32 man tournament. I will try to make a quick report of the 40 man tournament since it had 6 rounds + top 8. After trying shaman a lot I decided to drop it down to 1. This is my current list:

4 dark depths
4 thespian stage
2 bayou
1 forest
1 maze of ith
4 verdant catacombs
1 windswept heath
1 bojuka bog
1 sejiri steppe
4 urborg

4 mox diamond
2 sylvan library
2 pithing needle

3 dark confidant
1 deathrite shaman
1 ramunap scavator
1 sylvan safekeeper
3 vampire hexmage
1 dryad arbor

2 abrupt decay
4 crop rotation

4 cabal therapy
4 thoughtseize
2 green suns zenith
2 sylvan scrying

Side
2 abrupt decay
2 rite of consumption
1 boseiju
1 karakas
2 surgical extraction
1 gaddock teeg
1 krosan grip
1 pithing needle
2 toxic deludge
2 marsh casualties

The most disapointing card is rite of consumption. The best card, with out comparison has been cabal therapy, in a deck as explosive as this one being able to do free discards awesome. I know that not many people here supoort this version but I really really encourage anyone to try it out at least once, it is very powerful and doesnt really have bad pairings.

Mate, if this was your decklist, then you were running the deck with 59 cards only.

[surface33]

Mate, if this was your decklist, then you were running the deck with 59 cards only.

Missing one ghost quarter. Which goes also in favor of mox diamond @solnox.