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Thread: Legacy Hollow-Vine

  1. #41
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    Re: Legacy Hollow-Vine

    Quote Originally Posted by madnessguy View Post
    For the record I've never paid much attention to the blue version which I dropped for the reasons you provided. Pure Rg is more explosive and has fewer mana issues.
    Yeah, ok, we agree the blue stuff is slower.

    Quote Originally Posted by madnessguy View Post
    Idk why people don't like Street Wraith. The opportunity cost of having this card in your deck is so low.
    The payoff is so low. Most of the time it does nothing. It doesn't help Vengevines, Ravager, Hollow Ones (with good discard outlet), or anything else. You're starting the game at 18 life and making mulligans worse, just for +1 card for Ox.

    The "best care scenario" is a 3-card combo hand: Hollow One + Street Wraith + bad discard 2 enabler. In that exact scenario SW allows T1 Hollow One when your enabler would otherwise fail. But that's very high variance to rely on. More often you'll have the discard 2 without Street Wraith than with it, or you'll have Street Wraith without Hollow One to care. You could avoid the "problem" by not depending as much on discard 2s. We tested and ultimately dropped that tech a while back.


    Quote Originally Posted by madnessguy View Post
    I maintain that Firestorm is mandatory and maindeckable. Everyone plays creatures nowadays
    Combo decks are least likely to have a creature. As a maindeck enabler it fails at explosiveness when you need to race the most.

    Against creature decks it's about whether they have a creature on your T1 main phase. Otherwise you slow down waiting for them to play a creature, losing explosiveness.

    If they don't have a creature yet, T1 Firestorm can only discard 2 (worse version of Careful Study). With X=2 it can't enable Hollow One, Vengevine or Ravager. At best you made 2 summoning sick Rootwallas. Who cares if that's uncounterable?

    If you go first, they'll never have a creature yet.

    If you wait for them to play a T1 creature, you could End Step Firestorm X=3 but don't get to attack until turn 2. On the play that's the best case scenario. Attacking turn 2 is no faster than the rainbow build without Anger or playing a T2 enabler with Anger.

    What if they don't play T1 creature? Delver might play Ponder. Tribal/D&T could play Aether Vial. Then you're waiting until T2 End Step or later to cast Firestorm, not attacking until turn 3. Again, you lose explosiveness.

    If you passed with a land up for EOT Firestorm, you could just walk into Wasteland and get Wasted out of the game.

    On the draw Firestorm gets significantly better, but it still runs into slowdowns if you have to wait for them to play a creature.

    Firestorm is amazing if you're going 2nd and they played T1 Ragavan/Delver/Mother/Hierarch/Lackey/Hexdrinker/Esper Sentinel/Elf. But games don't always happen that way. Firestorm makes your speed depend on the opponent's hand and sequencing, so the opponent gets to dictate how fast you go off. That's variance I don't like. That's why I think it's a SB card. You want it 100% of the time postboard OTD against creature decks, but you don't want it as much OTP, especially against spell-heavy decks. LED Dredge used the same logic to keep Firestorm as a SB card, out of the maindeck.


    Quote Originally Posted by madnessguy View Post
    You really want a discard outlet that ignores countermagic. Having to run Caverns for imps/tribes means your mana sucks
    Agreed on dodging countermagic.

    But Firestorm is normally strongest vs nonblue aggro (most likely to play T1 creature or hatebears to kill). If you play Firestorm vs blue decks, they may just cantrip or hold up disruption instead of playing a turn 1 creature. It's uncounterable but they can also slow you down a lot.

    Sickening Dreams was other uncounterable SB tech we explored. It costs more than Firestorm but doesn't care if the opponent played creatures. Arguably Firestorm is no faster than Sickening Dreams except in the Xmasland scenario you're on the draw and they played a T1 creature (otherwise Firestorm can't enable good turn 1 attacks either). Devastating Dreams is another option. If it resolves, killing their lands can be devastating.

    Phantasmagorian is an uncounterable outlet (discard to hand size) used by Manaless Dredge. It's very slow, but in the matchups you need it most speed may not matter as much. Could use testing as SB tech.

    The rainbow build has strong mana even if it looks bad on paper. LED Dredge used a similar manabase for years, and this has Petal + OUAT to boost mana. Caverns @ Zombie or Caverns @ Nomad are fine because the main thing you need to cast is the enabler, and then every other land does anything else you need.

    Edit: Also creatures (Putrid Imp) already dodge more counters than noncreature enablers do (Force of Negation, Spell Pierce, Flusterstorm, blasts).


    Quote Originally Posted by madnessguy View Post
    and you can't run mountains for Anger, and Anger is necessary for t2 wins.
    T2 wins are also not happening with discard 2s or slow Firestorms (waiting for opponent to play a creature). That's the compromise we're facing. Most other enablers (Careful Study, Faithless Looting, Firestorm) can't consistently make a T1 explosive board to kill t2 with or without Anger. To race explosively, the deck also needs its enablers to work consistently and early.

    The winning Jund MadVine decks avoid these problems by playing more explosive enablers (LED, PImp, Burning Inquiry) and not maindecking Firestorm.

    Mardu colors could allow both Anger and Tireless Tribe, getting the best of both. There's unexplored potential there.

  2. #42
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    Re: Legacy Hollow-Vine

    Regarding Street Wraith, I want to point out that it has more application than you might think.

    First, as already mentioned before in this thread, it makes your deck effectively 56 cards increasing the chance to hit Vengevine/hollow One + Enabler T1.

    Second, also mentioned, it enables hollow Ones in combination with Faithless Looting.

    Third, Ox fuel.

    Forth, when you have LED in play + Faithless Looting in the graveyard and top deck Street Wraith, you can cycle and crack LED in response which opens Faithless Looting Flashback with 1 card in hand even with 0 lands in play. This play helps to make further progress in form of land drops, keeping a creature in hand for future Vengevine triggers or even cast a hollow One. Otherwise, the Faithless Looting would have been rather dead in the Graveyard until you hit 3 non LED mana or draw a better benefit for LED like Anje's Ravager.

    On the other hand, I kinda want more "actual" card slots free, but I am not ready to give up Street Wraith yet because it feels like it is, in conjunction with Once upon a Tim, increasing consistency pretty well.

  3. #43
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    Re: Legacy Hollow-Vine

    I think Street Wraith looks a lot better if you're playing the Underworld Cookbook/Asmor package, but I don't think that is necessarily Legacy playable. It's all over the place in Modern, but that's a totally different context. I think the risk you take with Street Wraith is when deciding on mulligans. Do you keep a no land, 2 Wraith opener? This deck operates on very low resources so the temptation to is there to take risky opening hands. I think the good part is I've seen this deck come from out of nowhere, going from no board presence to lethal in one turn. That kind of resilience is pretty impressive for an aggro deck.
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  4. #44
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    Re: Legacy Hollow-Vine

    Street Wraith's "thinning" is marginal. It does improve your draws, but not by much. Meanwhile, it costs 2 life (affects races) and makes mulligan decisions harder in a deck that needs to see specific pieces. That's a real cost. If your hand doesn't have those pieces for T1, choose a London Mulligan over cycling Street Wraith.

    If Street Wraith's thinning was good enough for the cost, every aggro and combo deck would run 4x Street Wraith (and 4x Gitaxian Probe when legal) to improve draws and improve Delve & Escape cards. They don't. It's like old monored Burn decks running fetchlands and Baubles to thin the deck and draw better burn spells ("52 card deck"). Players crunched the math on this. The benefit is so small it's not worth the cost. Now you don't see competitive builds doing it anymore. Many decks run OUAT, but that's miles better by not costing life and giving card selection.

    You have mentioned some good uses. I missed the 4th one completely! But these are still narrow situations that don't come up often.

    Street Wraith + LED + Faithless Looting (3-card combo)
    Street Wraith + Hollow One + discard 2 (3-card combo)

    You're building to help small corner case scenarios. It won't come together much more often than it works. Based on the Hypergeometric Distribution
    >85% of the time you have Street Wraith it doesn't enable any of your creatures (you won't have both Looting + Hollow One, and it doesn't enable anything else)
    >60% chance you won't have Street Wraith when you have a Hollow One + Faithless Looting hand (i.e. Looting will fail at Hollow One more often than Street Wraith fixes it)
    etc.

    We don't need SW to enable Hollow One if we rely on enablers that discard more than 2 cards (Putrid Imp, LED, Burning Inquiry, Tireless Tribe, Breakthrough, etc.). Deck construction choices can fix this rather than running Street Wraith, which fails to help the underlying problem more often than it helps.

    While I disagree with the Jund camp on some choices and strategy, I respect that they have smart deck construction running explosive enablers (most discard more than 2 on turn 1), not running filler Street Wraiths, etc. These things came up in our pre-MH2 testing too. The players who designed that build clearly get what makes the engine run smoothly, even if they take a different approach to it, and they have the results to back it up.

  5. #45

    Re: Legacy Hollow-Vine

    At this point I guess arguing back and forth is futile and you have to let your game experience speak. I never had a problem where I was like 'oh no, I'm going to lose with a firestorm in hand because my opp's board is empty'. If your opponent isn't actually playing creatures that's kind of a good problem to have. The only exception is Storm, in which case I guess you board it *out*, just like people maindeck removal and board it out in every deck ever.

    Like idk, if my opponent is purposely not playing any creature *at all* just to make my firestorm bad it means I can just beat down with whatever. I'd say a card that gives me a board advantage just by existing is pretty good.

  6. #46
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    Re: Legacy Hollow-Vine

    Many decks make proactive game progress without playing early creatures (Bant Miracles, Lands, Chalice decks, Storm, Doomsday, Depths, Vial+Port decks, Show and Tell, Thoughtseize/Hymn decks, Standstill, etc). They don't have to go out of their way to give you no early targets, while their game plan is advancing and you're waiting for a creature.

    What have you been playing against?

    Yeah, maybe there's no point in arguing further. If it's worked for you, keep playing it. I just wanted to state my reasons and test experience for others reading the thread. The successful Jund MadVine lists and Dredge decks run Firestorm SB or not at all, and that worked for them.

  7. #47
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    Re: Legacy Hollow-Vine

    Last night I won a 15 person tournament with an FTW-inspired 5c list:

    4 Anje's Ravager
    4 Basking Rootwalla
    4 Blazing Rootwalla
    4 Hollow One
    4 Kitchen Imp
    4 Putrid Imp
    4 Tireless Tribe
    4 Vengevine

    4 Once Upon a Time

    4 Faithless Looting

    4 Lion's Eye Diamond

    4 Cavern of Souls
    4 City of Brass
    4 Gemstone Mine
    4 Mana Confluence

    SB://

    4 Faerie Macabre
    4 Mindbreak Trap
    3 Firestorm
    2 Ancient Grudge
    2 Bone Shards

    The deck felt incredibly busted. I beat Elves (2-0), Lands (2-0), UR Delver (2-0), and Bant Miracles (2-0) and scored several turn two wins along the way. The only really questionable card was Faithless Looting; I'm planning to replace it with either Burning Inquiry or Breakthrough in the next build.

  8. #48
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    Re: Legacy Hollow-Vine

    How important was Lion's Eye Diamond? I have a suspicion it was what created the most busted starts. I don't have them though, and if there is a way to build it without them I would love to put together the deck.
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  9. #49

    Re: Legacy Hollow-Vine

    People can correct me if I am wrong, but in general LED is the agreed upon must-fow card in the deck. Anje’s ravager is definitely not playable without it. I feel bug gaak will be a way better non-LED vengevine deck than a budget version of this deck.

  10. #50
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    Re: Legacy Hollow-Vine

    Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Safety View Post
    How important was Lion's Eye Diamond? I have a suspicion it was what created the most busted starts. I don't have them though, and if there is a way to build it without them I would love to put together the deck.
    It's definitely possible to have explosive starts without LED. In game two against Bant Miracles, for example, my turn one was: Tireless Tribe into Vengevine, Vengevine, Basking Rootwalla, Blazing Rootwalla, 2 Hollow Ones. That said, I think Reeplcheep is right that Anje's Ravager is unplayable without LED and Ravager provides a helpful secondary axis for grinding out long games. You also need a critical mass of 0-1 mana discard outlets in order to reliably go off, but Mind Bomb or Burning Inquiry could fill that role in a budget list.

  11. #51
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    Re: Legacy Hollow-Vine

    Quote Originally Posted by gngpostalsrvc View Post
    Last night I won a 15 person tournament with an FTW-inspired 5c list:

    4 Anje's Ravager
    4 Basking Rootwalla
    4 Blazing Rootwalla
    4 Hollow One
    4 Kitchen Imp
    4 Putrid Imp
    4 Tireless Tribe
    4 Vengevine

    4 Once Upon a Time

    4 Faithless Looting

    4 Lion's Eye Diamond

    4 Cavern of Souls
    4 City of Brass
    4 Gemstone Mine
    4 Mana Confluence

    SB://

    4 Faerie Macabre
    4 Mindbreak Trap
    3 Firestorm
    2 Ancient Grudge
    2 Bone Shards

    The deck felt incredibly busted. I beat Elves (2-0), Lands (2-0), UR Delver (2-0), and Bant Miracles (2-0) and scored several turn two wins along the way. The only really questionable card was Faithless Looting; I'm planning to replace it with either Burning Inquiry or Breakthrough in the next build.
    Congrats! Great results!

    Agree, Looting is the weakest card. It does a little of everything, but it doesn't do anything very well, not enabling the explosive turn 1s that power out most wins. There was some discussion about that either in this thread or the other: the discard 2s fall short on both Vengevine and Hollow One. Inquiry or Breakthrough could be strong.

    How did you find the SB slots? How did you board for those matches?

  12. #52
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    Re: Legacy Hollow-Vine

    Many thanks! According to my notes, I sideboarded as follows:

    Elves: -4 Faithless Looting, +3 Firestorm, +1 Bone Shards
    Lands: -4 Faithless Looting, +4 Faerie Macabre
    UR Delver: -4 Faithless Looting, -1 LED, +3 Firestorm, +2 Bone Shards
    Bant Miracles: -4 Faithless Looting, +3 Firestorm, +1 Bone Shards

    Unfortunately, I wasn't able to gather much data about the SB. I used a Bone Shards to kill a Dryad Arbor against Elves and limit my opponent's mana development, but that was about it.

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    Congrats! Great results!

    Agree, Looting is the weakest card. It does a little of everything, but it doesn't do anything very well, not enabling the explosive turn 1s that power out most wins. There was some discussion about that either in this thread or the other: the discard 2s fall short on both Vengevine and Hollow One. Inquiry or Breakthrough could be strong.

    How did you find the SB slots? How did you board for those matches?

  13. #53
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    Re: Legacy Hollow-Vine

    I wonder if the 4th Firestorm is better than Bone Shards #2. Especially vs Elves, you would both kill their mana dork/board and also discard 3 to make an explosive board. Sounds like Bone Shards hurt them but didn't do much for your development. Bone Shards seems better against must-kill midrange threats and cheaty fatties that don't die to Firestorm, but if you are explosive enough maybe those aren't a big issue. Firestorm is just so good against decks like Elves and UR Delver.

    Leyline of the Void might be better than Faerie Macabre in an LED deck, since you won't have to worry about holding it in hand if they hold back their cards. You don't really need the "discard" off Faerie unless you're running it with Faithless Looting (needs free 3rd discard for Hollow One).

    Instead of Mindbreak Trap I'm thinking about 4 Cabal Therapy. It attacks more combos than Trap does (storm isn't popular). It's still live from the graveyard if you discard your hand to LED or Ravager. You can use it on yourself if desperate. Postboard you know what deck they are and what cards you worry about, so you should be able to pick good names for the 1st cast. And it flashes back off Putrid Imp/Tireless Tribe once you're done with them.

  14. #54
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    Re: Legacy Hollow-Vine

    Great points. Going forward I'm going to test:

    4 Anje’s Ravager
    4 Basking Rootwalla
    4 Blazing Rootwalla
    4 Hollow One
    4 Kitchen Imp
    4 Putrid Imp
    4 Tireless Tribe
    4 Vengevine

    4 Once Upon a Time

    4 Mind Bomb

    4 Lion’s Eye Diamond

    4 Cavern of Souls
    4 City of Brass
    4 Gemstone Mine
    4 Mana Confluence

    SB://

    4 Cabal Therapy
    4 Leyline of the Void
    4 Firestorm
    3 Ancient Grudge


    Mind Bomb seems like it might be better than Burning Inquiry or Breakthrough since you can choose what to discard, which plays better with Hollow Ones.


    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    I wonder if the 4th Firestorm is better than Bone Shards #2. Especially vs Elves, you would both kill their mana dork/board and also discard 3 to make an explosive board. Sounds like Bone Shards hurt them but didn't do much for your development. Bone Shards seems better against must-kill midrange threats and cheaty fatties that don't die to Firestorm, but if you are explosive enough maybe those aren't a big issue. Firestorm is just so good against decks like Elves and UR Delver.

    Leyline of the Void might be better than Faerie Macabre in an LED deck, since you won't have to worry about holding it in hand if they hold back their cards. You don't really need the "discard" off Faerie unless you're running it with Faithless Looting (needs free 3rd discard for Hollow One).

    Instead of Mindbreak Trap I'm thinking about 4 Cabal Therapy. It attacks more combos than Trap does (storm isn't popular). It's still live from the graveyard if you discard your hand to LED or Ravager. You can use it on yourself if desperate. Postboard you know what deck they are and what cards you worry about, so you should be able to pick good names for the 1st cast. And it flashes back off Putrid Imp/Tireless Tribe once you're done with them.

  15. #55

    Re: Legacy Hollow-Vine

    I like your list, and I like Mind Bomb, but I think it is not the best use of the slots. Here are some cards that should be considered:

    Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar (I think 2x would be good. It is like Hollow Ones 5-6.)
    Faithless Looting and Careful Study (These give us control over discards, but they also help us see more cards.)

    Also, Once Upon a Time is really nice, but I think 4x Faithless Looting or Careful Study in that slot would be better.

    I think Badlands is probably better than Cavern, as there are a lot of different creature types in this list. Also, the firebreathing abilities on the Rootwallas should be considered when building a manabase. I think the redundancy in the list is our protection against counterspells instead of a land that lets us use colored mana for a max of 8 cards (Imp or Rootwalla). If you drop Mind Bomb for Faithless, and you put in some copies of Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar, then Badlands helps cast those cards, plus Imps, Blazing Rootwalla, and Anje's Ravager.

    EDIT: Sorry, I hadn't read some of the recent stuff. I see you dropped Faithless, but you subbed in Firestorm most of the time. What about running that maindeck instead of Mind Bomb. That also helps the mana situation.

  16. #56

    Re: Legacy Hollow-Vine

    Quote Originally Posted by gngpostalsrvc View Post
    Last night I won a 15 person tournament with an FTW-inspired 5c list:

    4 Anje's Ravager
    4 Basking Rootwalla
    4 Blazing Rootwalla
    4 Hollow One
    4 Kitchen Imp
    4 Putrid Imp
    4 Tireless Tribe
    4 Vengevine

    4 Once Upon a Time

    4 Faithless Looting

    4 Lion's Eye Diamond

    4 Cavern of Souls
    4 City of Brass
    4 Gemstone Mine
    4 Mana Confluence

    SB://

    4 Faerie Macabre
    4 Mindbreak Trap
    3 Firestorm
    2 Ancient Grudge
    2 Bone Shards

    The deck felt incredibly busted. I beat Elves (2-0), Lands (2-0), UR Delver (2-0), and Bant Miracles (2-0) and scored several turn two wins along the way. The only really questionable card was Faithless Looting; I'm planning to replace it with either Burning Inquiry or Breakthrough in the next build.
    Nice. Have you considered cutting OUAP for Lotus Petal?

  17. #57

    Re: Legacy Hollow-Vine

    Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Safety View Post
    How important was Lion's Eye Diamond? I have a suspicion it was what created the most busted starts. I don't have them though, and if there is a way to build it without them I would love to put together the deck.
    Unfortunately, I don't believe this deck is worth building without LED. As mentioned previously, not only is it the best card but other cards become unplayable without it (particularly Ravager) and by then you are just a bad version of existing strategies.

  18. #58
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    Re: Legacy Hollow-Vine

    Thanks so much for the suggestions! As FTW point out in post #38, the various three color madness decks have a different fundamental turn than rainbow madness. The three color builds are looking to go off on Turn 2-3 and can afford to play slower, grindier cards like Careful Study, Faithless Looting, and Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar. The rainbow version, on the other hand, tries to dump most of its hand Turn 1 and therefore requires a critical mass of 1 mana enablers that allow us to unconditionally discard at least three cards. Hence, the preference for cards like Pimp, Tireless Tribe, Mindbomb and cards that enable them (e.g., OuaT and Cavern).

    Quote Originally Posted by Whoshim View Post
    I like your list, and I like Mind Bomb, but I think it is not the best use of the slots. Here are some cards that should be considered:

    Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar (I think 2x would be good. It is like Hollow Ones 5-6.)
    Faithless Looting and Careful Study (These give us control over discards, but they also help us see more cards.)

    Also, Once Upon a Time is really nice, but I think 4x Faithless Looting or Careful Study in that slot would be better.

    I think Badlands is probably better than Cavern, as there are a lot of different creature types in this list. Also, the firebreathing abilities on the Rootwallas should be considered when building a manabase. I think the redundancy in the list is our protection against counterspells instead of a land that lets us use colored mana for a max of 8 cards (Imp or Rootwalla). If you drop Mind Bomb for Faithless, and you put in some copies of Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar, then Badlands helps cast those cards, plus Imps, Blazing Rootwalla, and Anje's Ravager.

    EDIT: Sorry, I hadn't read some of the recent stuff. I see you dropped Faithless, but you subbed in Firestorm most of the time. What about running that maindeck instead of Mind Bomb. That also helps the mana situation.

  19. #59
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    Re: Legacy Hollow-Vine

    Quote Originally Posted by Whoshim View Post
    Also, Once Upon a Time is really nice, but I think 4x Faithless Looting or Careful Study in that slot would be better.

    I think Badlands is probably better than Cavern, as there are a lot of different creature types in this list. Also, the firebreathing abilities on the Rootwallas should be considered when building a manabase. I think the redundancy in the list is our protection against counterspells instead of a land that lets us use colored mana for a max of 8 cards (Imp or Rootwalla). If you drop Mind Bomb for Faithless, and you put in some copies of Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar, then Badlands helps cast those cards, plus Imps, Blazing Rootwalla, and Anje's Ravager.

    EDIT: Sorry, I hadn't read some of the recent stuff. I see you dropped Faithless, but you subbed in Firestorm most of the time. What about running that maindeck instead of Mind Bomb. That also helps the mana situation.
    Thanks for the comments.

    I think both you and Purple Blood are underrating how good Once Upon A Time is in the 5c build. Hanni extensively tested pre-MH2 versions of this deck and can back that up. Mr Safety and I tested it too.

    As gngpostalsrvc said, the 5c build is designed to make Turn 1 4/xs as often as possible, playing under other strategies. To go off that quickly it wants to play a turn 1 enabler that lets you discard at least 3 cards, which is enough to make Vengevines or Hollow Ones. PImp/Tireless Tribe fill that role very well. They also count as a creature cast, so you only need 1 Rootwalla to make T1 attacking Vengevine.

    OUAT fills multiple roles to improve consistency of explosive turn 1s:
    1. Finds Putrid Imp/Tireless Tribe discard outlet
    2. Finds Cavern of Souls to make uncounterable discard outlet
    3. Finds more Vengevines/Hollow Ones
    4. Finds Rootwalla to enable Vengevines in hand

    For 0 mana, OUAT digs 5 deep to get whatever your hand is missing, which is just amazing at reducing variance for those turn 1 explosive boards. Other draw+discard spells can't do that (costing mana and digging less deep). They play towards turn 2-3.

    Cavern of Souls is surprisingly good. Tribal decks like Goblins use Caverns to make multiple plays uncounterable throughout the game, so they need to have a high tribe count. 5c HollowVine doesn't really care about that. It's trying to go off early. T1 Cavern @ Imp (Putrid Imp) or Cavern @ Nomad (Tireless Tribe) is good enough. Blue players attack this deck by Forcing the discard outlets, while Ancient Tomb players do that with Chalice @ 1. If they pressure the discard outlets, the deck slows down a lot. You can still play a fair game hardcasting creatures, but they are mediocre at face value. Instead 5c fights back by making the turn 1 enabler uncounterable to avoid tempo loss from disruption. We can still use redundancy if necessary, but it's better to ignore them and go off turn 1. Badlands lets them counter your discard outlet and can't cast T1 Tireless Tribe. Badlands is good in the Jund build but not what the 5c deck is trying to do.

    Note that with creature-based discard outlets (PImp/Tribe) we dodge Force of Negation, Spell Pierce, Flusterstorm, Mystical Dispute, REB, BEB, Mindbreak Trap... The only relevant counters are Force of Will and Daze (going 2nd). With 4 OUAT + 4 Caverns, we can have T1 Caverns more often than they have T1 FoW/Chalice @ 1. We can also play around Daze with Caverns or just a 2nd mana source. Postboard, vs the decks with both FoW+Daze we can bring in Firestorm (good vs Delver) for uncounterable discard. Vs Chalice decks we can bring in Grudge. With the SB tools plus the maindeck Caverns we can fight back.

    Faithless Looting and Careful Study are fine for the slower builds but they don't help explosive turn 1s. You draw cards, but by discarding 2 you can't make turn 1 Hollow One. They just set up for next turn or you need to combo with another card like Street Wraith (2-card combo = higher variance). Looting/Study also can't make turn 1 Vengevine. You can only discard 1 Rootwalla + 1 Vengevine, not enough cards. Burning Inquiry is better than these. Although the randomness can bite you, at least you discard 3 cards which is enough to make turn 1 Vengevines and Hollow Ones. Odds are in your favor to keep Hollow One in hand, though it will backfire sometimes by discarding Hollow One or not discarding Vengevines.

    With maindeck Firestorm, as discussed above, the only issue is if opponent doesn't have a turn 1 creature then you can only Firestorm X=2 (opponent and you). As a discard 2 without killing creatures or drawing cards, it's even worse than Faithless Looting. Do not maindeck over Looting. Firestorm really shines at X=3 or X=4. So you want Firestorm when opponent is likely to play turn 1 creatures (Elves, UR Delver, Affinity, Goblins, Merfolk), and especially postboard on the draw.

    I agree Mind Bomb is underwhelming. That last slot doesn't have great options though. Burning Inquiry draws cards but can backfire. Breakthrough X=1 is the best (goes 4 deep and keeps Hollow One in hand), but it costs 2 mana. One option could be to run 2-3 Breakthrough and then 4 Lotus Petals (cutting some lands). That was suggested in another thread.

  20. #60

    Re: Legacy Hollow-Vine

    I don't think anyone can credibly debate that on turn 1 OUAT is a great zero mana play. It's just that after that its a crappy card. But you're right, maybe I underrate the benefits of more consistent first turn plays. On the other hand, when I test petal it can speed me up a turn and is always a good play since you're so frequently just dumping your hand with this deck it can be better than lands which, a lot of the times, will just get discarded.

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