[Deck] Turbo Depths

[Slacker1348]

I 3-0d, and 4-0d my LGS this week on BUG depths. Here's my list, and my match ups

The 3-0 day I played

R1 2-0 Bant Retreat
I took bad notes, don't recall this game. Bojuka bog was relevant one game. So was Safekeeper.

R2 2-0 fish
He has no real board, his best option is phantasmal image copying Marit lage. Which I play around

R3 2-1 new miracles
I got lucky game 1, he had lethal via mentor tokens if he casts a spell. He top decks 3 lands in a row which is enough time for me.

G2 I get stp'd and can't rebuild.

G3 I'm pretty sure that Safekeeper won the game for me. Hazy cuz I didn't take very good notes.

The 4-0 event I played
R1 2-0 r/b reanimate
My opening hand both games had Bojuka bog which was good enough to get there.

R2 2-0 mono red sneak
Game 1 I made a turn 2 token, he didn't know what I was on, and had the choice between t1 blood moon or t2 win.

Game 2 I duress, take his gas, he plays a blood moon, and we draw go for like 6 turns, I find a mox diamond and blue elemental blast, and destroy his blood moon EOT and make token via stage. Phew.

R3 2-1 BUG Stifle nought brew
Weird home brew a friend was playing. Had dreadnought, deaths shadow, and some dude that let him scavenge cards in his graveyard. Pretty sweet honestly.

R4 2-1 Belcher
Belcher did his thing game 1. Game two my token beats his goblins that he had to make in the face of needle on belcher. Game 3 he makes 14 tokens on t1, and I play mox diamond, and a tabernacle and he scoops.

4 Dark Depths
2 Bayou
4 Thespian's Stage
1 Ghost Quarter
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
1 Sejiri Steppe
2 Gemstone Mine
1 Forest
1 Swamp
1 Bojuka Bog

2 Sylvan Safekeeper
4 Vampire Hexmage

2 Pithing Needle
4 Mox Diamond
2 Expedition Map

4 Brainstorm
2 Abrupt Decay
4 Crop Rotation

2 Thoughtseize
3 Sylvan Scrying
4 Duress

SB: 1 Karakas
SB: 1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Mindbreak Trap
SB: 1 Abrupt Decay
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Maelstrom Pulse
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
SB: 1 Grafdigger's Cage

Overall, I like where the list is at, and I'm mostly just making tweaks to the sideboard.

[Ultrab77]

That's pretty much how I board for this. Although I lost last week to a turn 1 duress on the play which saw a magus, SSG and sol land. :-( He got turn 1 magus both games 1 and 2. Not much can be done there.

New rule will help!

Read on Reddit

The Iconic Masters release notes highlight an important upcoming change to how Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon work with "as enters the battlefield" effects.

If a nonbasic land has an ability that applies "as [this land] enters the battlefield" or that causes it to enter the battlefield tapped or with counters, the land will lose that ability before it applies. This is a change from previous rules.

This means that shock lands will always enter untapped without paying life now, and cards such as Tendo Ice Bridge will no longer enter with a counter on them.

Iconic Masters release notes link for reference, it's under the section for Magus of the Moon.

[ashent]

Yeah, in this situation going forward we can at least play towards Fatal Push / Abrupt Decay (fetching for basics and or off Petals/ESGs) and kill the Blood Moon or Magus and previous Dark Depths in play will sacrifice immediately.

[ComplexPants]

Hey guys! I took a bit of a break from Magic due to moving, new job, and I got an HTC vive which kind of took over my life for a bit lol. I am getting back into playing and prepping for Eternal weekend. Anyway, has any one else been having trouble with BUG delver? I feel like it is a bad match up for us. I don't see it all that often, but I feel like they are 70/30 against us.

Any tricks or good sideboard cards for them?

[DNSolver]

BUG Delver, if it exists, is still a good matchup IMO.

ComplexPants, get yourself some Sylvan Safekeepers.

[solnox]

It looks like Depths took down Eternal Extravaganza with Living Wishes O.O

[apple713]

It looks like Depths took down Eternal Extravaganza with Living Wishes O.O

Link?

[filln]

Link?

Decklists not up yet but Eli Kassis replaced Sylvan Scrying with Living Wishes. I think he had both Bojuka Bog and Karakas in the side for it. He also played Hymn in the main, I believe 2x Engineered Explosives in the sideboard (and 1x Abrupt Decay), Ramunap Excavator in the sideboard.

[RobNC]

In his post board interview he said he didn't like some cards as a Crop Rotation package because your maindeck ended up with dead cards in some matchups, so with Living Wish you never have to worry about dead cards. It can tutor for both lands you may need and Sylvan Safekeeper.

[DNSolver]

Link to content:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/175282348

[Claymore]

That's a spicy one. Hymns, Wish, Into the North, Library, and Gitaxian Probe of all things. Looks like fun.

[DNSolver]

That's a spicy one. Hymns, Wish, Into the North, Library, and Gitaxian Probe of all things. Looks like fun.

Wait, this played Into the North and Probe? I didn't see those. Do you have the actual list or just watching coverage?

[McMasterJ]

Wait, this played Into the North and Probe? I didn't see those. Do you have the actual list or just watching coverage?

I saw probes (3) and 1 into the north. I believe Probes are for the 1 (or 2?) Cabal Therapy.

[MGB]

Wow. This list is definitely something unique and interesting:

http://www.eemagic.com/findDeck.php?...17-09-10825467

The idea of playing Into the North to actually get the land AND put it into play on top of playing other lands sounds really good.

And Living Wish is probably strictly superior to Sylvan Scrying in this deck.

[DNSolver]

I have been trying out Living Wish a bit today. Some thoughts:

1) Having to move 1 Stage, 1 Depths, 1 Hexmage to the board decreases your number of turn 2 combo's immensely and your turn 3 combo's a little bit, and one of the things I like about the deck to begin with is that you could have none of your spells resolve and still win.
2) I didn't move Bog to the sideboard. It makes no sense to do that because Bog is only good with Crop Rotation most of the time.
3) Getting Sylvan Safekeeper is good. Getting other creatures (Tireless Tracker, Scavenging Ooze) has been not good because most of the time I'm getting Safekeeper or a combo land / Hexmage.
4) I put a Faerie Macabre in the board, and that's spicy but let's be honest - most of the time 2 mana to get grave hate is going to be too slow. Maybe against Lands it buys some time by exiling Loam.
5) If there was a *really* good haymaker card, maybe this would be worth and our plan would be to sideboard 4 of those and sideboard 3 in for post-board games.
6) Once you get a card with Wish, you can't get it again.
7) You can beat Surgical on Depths by Wishing for it later. However, most of the time you were losing these games anyway (went for it too early or were too slow, losing to Jitte/Bskull or something)
8) Did beat Death and Taxes and casting Living Wish happened. I believe I grabbed Safekeeper. Kind of medium - didn't grab a big creature because I knew about a removal spell and didn't have protection yet.

However, #3,#4, #5, and #7 are really not good enough to make up for #1 currently. This is a combo deck and there are really not many reasons to do anything other than try to assemble our combo as fast / resiliently as possible, especially when the meta is as soft to Depths as it is right now.

Ramunap Excavator is a sweet card to wish for, but it fits in to the category where if we have 1 combo land, we're probably grabbing the other piece, and if we have both combo lands, we're probably looking for protection (Safekeeper). With Surgical Extraction super prevalent in the format due to BR Reanimator (thank yours truly), I don't think Excavator is good enough for a slot. If you want to play a recursive stage/depths, you are better off with the slower RG lands build.

For reference, here's the board I played:

4 Mindbreak Trap
1 Karakas
1 Stage, Depths, Hexmage
1 Pithing Needle (can't be found with Wish but Revoker is terrible)
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Ramunap Excavator
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Sylvan Safekeeper

I added an additional Bayou, Expedition Map, and Urborg over the 3 combo cards I "boarded out."

Edit: Just saw the list posted above and I will modify my list to better resemble that. However, I'm not going to play the typical 4 Thoughtseize 4 Duress discard package maindeck and no way I'm playing Into the North - I've been playing without it for over a year now.

[filln]

Wow. This list is definitely something unique and interesting:

http://www.eemagic.com/findDeck.php?...17-09-10825467

The idea of playing Into the North to actually get the land AND put it into play on top of playing other lands sounds really good.

And Living Wish is probably strictly superior to Sylvan Scrying in this deck.

Into the North is not a novel idea and has been used in many past (and some current) lists. The main problem with it is that it typically exposes your Dark Depths to Wasteland unless you're able to combo off that turn. The other disadvantage is that you're likely going to run Snow-Covered basics to maximize its use, which will give your opponent extra information on what deck you're playing.

As for Living Wish, I'm not totally convinced yet. It's been tossed around in Lands and to a lesser extent Turbo Depths before. Lands is way more grindy than Turbo Depths is and doesn't like it. There are upsides to it, but to say it's strictly superior is pretty ambitious. For one, as DNSolver noted, it forces you to run some of the combo in the sideboard, making for less explosive starts. Second, it also warps your sideboard to accommodate it, leaving less room for potentially more effective, but un-wishable cards. Moving the Bojuka Bog to the side seems like a mistake to me. You really need to have access to it early and at instant-speed for it to be effective. That said, it's definitely an interesting list and clearly performed well! I think my favorite is the usage of every playable discard spell with Thoughtseize, Duress, Hymn, Cabal Therapy, AND Inquisition.

[DNSolver]

Another thing I'm not liking about decreasing the relative size of the sideboard is that I can't board out 8 fast mana against slow decks like I'm used to, leaving me with some dead cards in my deck just to get more flexibility out of the Wishes. I'll definitely be decreasing the size of my wishboard significantly if I keep it at all.

[ComplexPants]

BUG Delver, if it exists, is still a good matchup IMO.

ComplexPants, get yourself some Sylvan Safekeepers.

Running 3.

[filln]

Another thing I'm not liking about decreasing the relative size of the sideboard is that I can't board out 8 fast mana against slow decks like I'm used to, leaving me with some dead cards in my deck just to get more flexibility out of the Wishes. I'll definitely be decreasing the size of my wishboard significantly if I keep it at all.

In his semi-final matchup against Miracles I saw he played at least one Lotus Petal and thought that was odd he would keep it in. Your reasoning likely explains that!

[ComplexPants]

Link to content:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/175282348

I just want to point out, that Turbo Depths beat miracles, played by Daniel Miller, in the semis. This is the same Daniel Miller I played at EW 2016 to win. He must be salty about playing this deck in the top 8's by now lol.