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Thread: Legacy Hollow-Vine

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  1. #1
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    Legacy Hollow-Vine

    This thread is to discuss the possibility of putting together a legitimate Vengevine + Hollow One deck for legacy. The old thread for GB Vengevine has been relegated to being the Hogaak place holder so I thought it might be best to just start fresh with the idea. The main reason for re-visiting this is the printing of a few new cards that could potentially give critical mass to a strategy that focuses on a fast swarm of 4 powered creatures.

    afr-87-grief.jpg mh2-115-blazing-rootwalla.jpg mh2-76-bone-shards.jpg

    Grief gives 'free' interaction that can coincide with Cabal Therapy. Blazing Rootwalla gives us up to 8 free creatures that can be put into play with Putrid Imp/Faithless Looting/Tireless Tribe. Bone Shards gives us efficient removal that is also an enabler for Bloodghast/Vengevine/Prized Amalgam/Hollow One.

    Here is just a rough pass at a potential list:

    4x Putrid Imp
    4x Tireless Tribe
    4x Basking Rootwalla
    3x Blazing Rootwalla
    4x Vengevine
    4x Hollow One
    4x Prized Amalgam
    4x Bloodghast
    4x Grief
    4x Street Wraith
    3x Once Upon a Time

    4x Lotus Petal
    4x City of Brass
    4x Cavern of Souls
    2x Gemstone Mine
    4x Undiscovered Paradise

    Sideboard
    Bone Shards
    Last edited by Mr. Safety; 06-03-2021 at 03:14 PM.
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  2. #2

    Re: Legacy Hollow-Vine

    I guess initial thoughts:

    Is amalgam and tireless tribe really worth the rainbow manabase?

    Bloodghast really would like fetchlands.

    You have multiple options for discard enablers:
    Tribe/Imp are the best at triggering vengevine
    Looting and inquiry give you more gas
    LED plus hell’s mongrel/anges ravager.
    Not sure which is best?

    You are on the lower end of black count for grief (20 is close to the min of 18).

    Looks interesting though.

  3. #3
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    Re: Legacy Hollow-Vine

    Yeah, there is at least a couple pages of discussion in the old GB Vengevine thread, so I'll summarize:

    1) Undiscovered Paradise is the Bloodghast tech
    2) Faithless Looting is ok, it's been in/out of versions. Once Upon a Time actually performed slightly better, simply for getting a creature-based enabler t1, which is always more explosive. If there wasn't a need for Street Wraith (to enable both Hollow One and Grief) then those slots would be Faithless Looting
    3) Amalgam is actually feasible as a hard-cast at 3 mana, most of the other creatures are not. The real tech is getting stuff for free and there is a critical mass of creatures that need to be discarded. Also, newly important, it's black for Grief.
    4) Tireless Tribe is as good as Putrid Imp as far as being a 1-mana enabler for both Vengevine and Hollow One. Being a creature is pretty important for Vengevine interactions.
    5) Burning Inquiry is too random, it was considered and dropped early on in development.
    6) Hell Mongrel is way too expensive at 3 mana, and it being an enabler is counterproductive because we need an enabler to get it for 2B.
    7) LED is a non-bo because we actually want creatures in hand to cast to trigger Vengevines, like Hollow One, Rootwallas, Imp/Tribe, and Grief. Our best discard outlet is a creature that lets us pick and choose what we want to discard.
    8) Anje's Ravager is interesting, and it's a creature, but it has the same problem as LED. It's not great unless you do it early, and doing it early might cost Hollow Ones/other threats.
    9) The rainbow mana base does a lot for the deck, not the least of which is it allows for the best sideboard cards without being pigeon-holed into the worst ones.

    The real question is this: is Grief enough to power up the deck or do we need Blazing Rootwalla? I could see going almost straight BG, with maybe a Scrubland to hard cast Tribe alongside the Lotus Petals. However, having another 3-4 free madness creatures to allow for explosive t1's seems very good. This is a critical mass deck, just like old affinity decks. Individually the cards are pretty bad, but put together in enough density they should allow for some spicy aggro action.

    Thanks for posting! It was a good exercise to go back and justify why I put those particular cards together. Hell, I could be totally wrong about it but I'm not the only one that worked on development. Hanni did a ton of work, and he's the one that originally proposed Paradise/Rainbow lands to feed Bloodghast and enable 4-5 colors.
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    I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner

  4. #4

    Re: Legacy Hollow-Vine

    For 7, the idea of leds is that any of the 3 cmc madness dudes plus any rootwalla will trigger vengevine on t1, since vengevine will be in the gy before the madness triggers resolve. Hollow one is really the only creature that you don’t want to discard to led, since street wraith can be cycled before activation.

    But tribe & imp may indeed be more reliable.

    Grief seems great at enabling vengevine but it does seem like it would really want bridge from below too.

    Otherwise you have thought it through more than me, seems good.

    The deck seems very good at one with nothing itself for a t1 4 power threat. I am just unsure if that is good enough or you will need the additional gas from the looting effects.

  5. #5
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    Re: Legacy Hollow-Vine

    Cavern of Souls is critical for resolving a turn 1 enabler vs most of the format. Once resolved, the opponent cannot stop you from dumping your hand and reanimating all of the creatures from your graveyard outside of split second removal or instant speed graveyard hate.
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  6. #6
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    Re: Legacy Hollow-Vine

    The goal would be to get at least 8 power on t1, otherwise it kind of loses to a single STP. The power level comes from getting not just a Vengevine + Pimp/Tribe but a Vengevine/Pimp/Tribe + Hollow One/Prized Amalgam, one of the better starts, which happens maybe 60% of the time (that's just a wild ass guess, I don't have data to back that up, just some play experience.) Sometimes you get the nuts and it's just play Pimp into Vengevine + Hollow One + Prized amalgam for 11 power t1. If this didn't happen often enough then I think the deck still doesn't have legs. Hogaak is just an absurd deck at putting together graveyard synergies, even if it is a turn slower to get rolling. Hogaak is another way to get black counts up for Grief as well, maybe 2 copies can be supported. If that's the direction then I think Blazing Lizard has to go for Hogaak/more Once Upon a Time (which also enables sideboard Force of Vigor.)

    Hollow One isn't the only card we want in hand that is a 'free' cast for Vengevines; Rootwalla's are also pretty important to have in hand to trigger VV's.

    Good thoughts, but I don't think any of the madness = 3 creatures are good enough to make LED the go-to power play that it is in other decks.

    EDIT: I forgot about Cavern of Souls, thanks for the reminder Hanni!
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  7. #7
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    Re: Legacy Hollow-Vine

    New tools: 4 more Rootwallas, 4 more aggressive beaters for Madness 1, and Grief.

    By leaning more into the madness side than the graveyard recursion it can dodge more grave hate and maindeck Endurance. It's possible to do this now with 16 Madness creatures! Previous builds had very few.


    //Creatures: 34
    4 Putrid Imp
    4 Basking Rootwalla
    4 Blazing Rootwalla
    4 Kitchen Imp
    4 Anje's Ravager
    4 Vengevine
    4 Hollow One
    4 Street Wraith
    2 Ox of Agonas

    //Spells: 12
    4 Faithless Looting
    4 Cabal Therapy
    4 Lion's Eye Diamond

    //Lands: 14
    4 Bloodstained Mire
    2 Wooded Foothills
    2 Verdant Catacombs
    2 Badlands
    1 Taiga
    1 Bayou
    1 Mountain
    1 Swamp

    //Sideboard: 15
    3 Firestorm
    3 Abrupt Decay
    3 Grief
    2 Big Game Hunter
    2 Faerie Macabre
    2 Pyroblast


    This won't goldfish T1 Hollow Ones as explosively as our build from the other thread, but I think it has the advantage of fighting through disruption better.
    1) Less dependent on the graveyard, using more Madness instead
    2) Smoother manabase
    3) No Bloodghast (worst creature in the deck but necessary for Amalgam) or Undiscovered Paradise (necessary evil for Ghast)
    4) More ways to draw cards if initial plan failed
    5) SB tools like Decay and Firestorm are easier to cast with these lands (0 Caverns, 0 Paradise returning to hand)

    I see your points earlier about LED and Looting. Before we were on more of a graveyard-based build and very few creatures had madness, so we needed a controlled discard outlet like PImp/Tribe to make sure the right cards were going to the bin while others stayed in hand to cast and/or trigger Vengevine. The above is more of a madness strategy instead. The only card that really gets punished by LED is Hollow One. Otherwise there are 16 madness creatures, Vengevines, Ox, and 8 flashback spells. Discarding the whole hand is fine. Most of the hand is still playable while pitching to LED. The LED mana then lets you do things like Madness Anje's Ravager and Kitchen Imp or cast Looting/Ox from the graveyard, so you are still getting cast triggers for Vengevine and putting bodies out.

    Anje's Ravager and Ox draw 3s make up for going hellbent, digging into more gas. The PImp/Tribe version was consistent at deploying exactly the right cards from the opening hand, but it struggled to find more gas if the opening hand didn't have enough power. This version can draw cards more easily, seeing more of the deck.

    Arguably you could play Tireless Tribe over LED to have the same explosive madness potential but also enable Hollow One and be another creature for Vengevine. But that hurts the mana more. Both by having to play rainbow lands and by not getting the LED mana boost to cast Imps, Ravager, Looting and Ox. Being able to actually use the LED mana here is relevant. Postboard Firestorm functions as Tireless Tribe, letting you discard at least 3 cards for Hollow One as long as opponent has even 1 creature in play.

    Edit: Maybe the cut is Looting for Tireless Tribe. Hmmm.. Increases the creature count. More discard control for Hollow One. No loss of LED mana. The mana gets worse, and you lose some ability to dig for gas, but everything else looks good.
    Or maybe Street Wraith for Tribe. With Tribe you don't need SW cycling to enable Hollow One. Cutting SW means no Grief, otherwise no change really.
    Last edited by FTW; 06-07-2021 at 08:28 PM.

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