[Primer] R/G Lands

[supremePINEAPPLE]

You could try some more removal since Jody's maindeck is a little light. Otherwise I'm jamming the combo at them as quickly as possible and being very aggressive regarding their manabase. Sparkii's academy ruins list has also been very nice against the 3-drop decks.

What particular counters are you having trouble with? Czech around me is running FoW with maybe a few Daze or Counterspell so it hasn't felt too bad to play through. Leovold's triggers and the crapton of sideboard cards are where I've had trouble personally.

[kravkenov]

Guys, I am very glad to announce that after many many month of trading I am finally in and got all the cards assambled to join you Lands players. Since I am all new to the deck I would like to ask you for a good starting point with the deck. [...] Can you tell me about your opinions how it is best to start, which list to try first, the best primer, ....

Hey, welcome and congrats to join the Lands-family. First, the deck looks not very flexible in cards choice, but it is. You have to think about function instead of cards. Let me explain : Lands is a deck build around synergies with Life from the Loam. Like every deck, in order to make it work (I mean, competitively), the deck should ideally do three thing. Pressure opponent strategy, protect its own strategy and have a kill condition. We pressure opponent strategy with mana-denial and protect our strategy by the kind of card we play. As our main "spells" are made of lands, it's hard to interact with or stop it from being resolved. Our main kill condition is also a land, which is pretty resilient against opponent's denial.

Enough of speech, let's take a look on the deck itself. The deck is build around land and recursion. So basically, Life from the Loam is the backbone of the deck. Lands provide multi-usage in form of mana-producer and mana-denial (wasteland) / utility (Academy Ruins) / Acceleration (pitch to Mox), etc. This is a huge advantage. While other deck play land for they only first purpose (mana producing), we play lands for mana of course, but also as soft removal, mana-denial, utility, acceleration and kill-condition. This is why we can afford playing only 8-10 "only mana" lands.

So, here is basically the Lands deck in therm of function.

4 Recursion spell (Life from the Loam)
8 Acceleration spell (Mox Diamond, Exploration, Manabond)
8 Library manipulation (Tutor like Crop Rotation, Gamble, Entomb, etc.)
12 Removals (Punishing Fire, Molten Vortex, Engineered Explosives, Barbarian Ring, Maze of Ith, Glacial Chasm, Karakas)
8 Mana denial (Rishadan Port, Wasteland, Ghost Quarter)
8 Kill condition (Therspian Stage and Dark Depths)
3 Utility (Academy Ruins, Bojuka Bog, Tranquil Thicket)
9 Mana

//SIDEBOARD
8 Removals (Krosan Grip, Phyrexian Revoker, Drop of Honey)
4 Alternative engine/kill condition (Tireless Tracker)
3 Mana denial (Sphere of Resistance, Trinisphere, etc.)


Hope it will help you to build you very own list too. It's also very useful to think in "function" when you sideboard.


And translated in therme of cards, here is my own list :

4 Mox Diamond
4 Exploration
4 Life from the Loam
4 Crop Rotation
4 Gamble
4 Molten Vortex
2 FLEX SLOT
- Mirage Mirror
- Engineered Explosives
- Crucible of Worlds
— — 26 — —
4 Thespian's Stage
3 Dark Depths
2 Maze of Ith
1 Academy Ruins
2 Barbarian Ring
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Karakas
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Forest
1 Tropical Island (U/G Sheltered Ticket ?!)
3 Taiga
4 Rishadan Port
4 Wasteland
— — 34 — —

//SIDEBOARD
4 Tireless Tracker
3 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Naturalize // Krosan Grip
3 Sphere of Resistance
2 Drop of Honey

[Domri Rade]

I have been struggling against the TNN / Leovold decks at my LGS. I am running Jody Keith's list (got my Drops before the spike) and looking for some tips on strategy and sideboarding.

I am finding they are quite aggressive with their counters and hate for any kind of mana acceleration I run out there.

Against TNN I need to draw into the combo kill but a counter is always lurking to blow me out if I play anything to help with that (Loam, Gamble, Crop Rotation)

Against Leovold I can't attack their mana or any of their creatures without them drawing into more hate and then the helplessness sets in.


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The best way to deal with these decks is to either get a quick combo kill and hope they don't have a way to remove it. Reach a board state that you can recur glacial chasm so they can't kill you and then grind them out by either wasting/ghost quartering all their lands, punishing fire them to death, or find the combo and hopefully loam. Drop of Honey is obviously a good way to slow the game down to try and put one of these plans into action. You can also wasteland them out and put down a tabernacle to wipe their board.

[grmpytopdecker]

You could try some more removal since Jody's maindeck is a little light. Otherwise I'm jamming the combo at them as quickly as possible and being very aggressive regarding their manabase. Sparkii's academy ruins list has also been very nice against the 3-drop decks.

What particular counters are you having trouble with? Czech around me is running FoW with maybe a few Daze or Counterspell so it hasn't felt too bad to play through. Leovold's triggers and the crapton of sideboard cards are where I've had trouble personally.

I'd say 75% Spell Pierce, 24% Forces and 1% random counter spells.


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[supremePINEAPPLE]

Damn, that's a lot of spell pierces! Not too much you can do to play around that other than the normal patience or casting critical bait spells. If you know the Czech Pile players then I would personally mull slightly more aggressively to exploration (and combo in general) and try and get that on board by either rushing it out or using something else as bait depending on the rest of my hand and/or their opening play. In games 2 and 3 quick combo is a lot less likely to win with all of the edicts floating around so I prioritize grindy-ness and not being cold to surgical. It's a bit of a grind in my experience but I've always felt like they are more afraid of our mana-denial and combo than we are of whatever they are doing.

[Wiktul]

In my local meta I'm practically unable to play without Boseju. I have 2x Predict Miracles, 2x UR delver, 2x Grixis and 2x BUG delver, 1 Show&Tell, 1 Esper Deathblade, not to mention things like Standstill or Tezzerator, that like to show up ocasionally.

5 counters in a row to my Loam aimed at combo pieces (because if my oponent can have Swords in his opening hand - he will 100% times ) can really hurt game plan based on "fast combo kill".

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

I would definitely not be playing boseiiju against Delver variants or Show and tell.

[thefreakaccident]

The best way to deal with these decks is to either get a quick combo kill and hope they don't have a way to remove it. Reach a board state that you can recur glacial chasm so they can't kill you and then grind them out by either wasting/ghost quartering all their lands, punishing fire them to death, or find the combo and hopefully loam. Drop of Honey is obviously a good way to slow the game down to try and put one of these plans into action. You can also wasteland them out and put down a tabernacle to wipe their board.

Drop of honey is terribe in Legacy. I tried to make it work, it just doesn't. Having to wait until your next upeep is a killer most of the time. Letting delver/goyf/some big fatty hit you one more time is NOT what you want out of a card meant to control the board.

It's especially terrible against agro to be honest.

[Chatto]

I would definitely not be playing boseiiju against Delver variants or Show and tell.

I can see you don't want to play Boseiju vs both decks (Wasteland and The Moon, I presume), but could you elaborate your reasons?

Drop of honey is terribe in Legacy. I tried to make it work, it just doesn't. Having to wait until your next upeep is a killer most of the time. Letting delver/goyf/some big fatty hit you one more time is NOT what you want out of a card meant to control the board.

It's especially terrible against agro to be honest.

Well, that's interesting. A lot of people seem to disagree. I myself have not played with DoH, so I really can't say anything on the subject.

[supremePINEAPPLE]

Drop of honey is terribe in Legacy. I tried to make it work, it just doesn't. Having to wait until your next upeep is a killer most of the time. Letting delver/goyf/some big fatty hit you one more time is NOT what you want out of a card meant to control the board.

It's especially terrible against agro to be honest.

That's great and all but it's not there for "agro", it's there for True-name and Leovold.

[Ingo]

About Boseiju, we have 2 kinds of cards, those that recur and those who don't.
Boseiju saves only the two cards that recur (loam and Pfire), so there's not really need of making them uncounterable as they're back the next draw/grovetap.
It would be different if Boseiju saved crops, gambles and explorations, but alas...

[GoblinZ]

I can see you don't want to play Boseiju vs both decks (Wasteland and The Moon, I presume), but could you elaborate your reasons?

Against sneakshow, boseiju is only good for protecting your rotation or gamble under spheres, but since the match-up is so bad that I don't see wasting room for boseiju could help it.

In addition to what Ingo have said, Delver could be very fast, 2 damages mean a lot, not to speak the tempo loss brought by boseiju. Imo, boseiju is really bad against delver decks.

[Chatto]

Against sneakshow, boseiju is only good for protecting your rotation or gamble under spheres, but since the match-up is so bad that I don't see wasting room for boseiju could help it.

In addition to what Ingo have said, Delver could be very fast, 2 damages mean a lot, not to speak the tempo loss brought by boseiju. Imo, boseiju is really bad against delver decks.

I must be tired, very solid reasons I should have known as well. I'll be off to bed then

[Lormador]

Jody actually did a really long and excellent deck tech right after the GP performance, and he explains all of his choices at fairly great depth: especially Drop of Honey. I'll be happy to summarize what he said, but check out the original, it's great. Keep in mind that I personally do not own this card, and will not be paying its post-spike price (I run blue, so I would argue that I don't need it). I've tested with it on Cockatrice, but that's it.

Drop of Honey is useful for a couple of reasons. Basically, first of all, whatever it kills is killed very cleanly (without cards from Leovold or encumbered by TNN/Nimble Mongoose/whatever). Certain creatures are good against Lands because they exploit the limitations of our most common removal spells, which generally deal 2 damage via target. Drop gets around all of that, adding diversity to the removal suite.

More than that, though, Drop works well with what the deck is trying to do long-term. Aspects of this take awhile to kick in, Wasteland and GQ have to be cycled a couple of times before the opponent is out of lands, we have to find and drop Tabernacle, Maze of Ith might be necessary, we need to build up a mana base for Grove recursion, etc. Drop slows them down so that more of this stuff can happen. Let's say they play 2 creatures. The choice is then to keep playing creatures to the board, feeding the Drop, or not play a creature for 2 turns and let those already on the field die to get rid of it. Both of those options sound really bad for them, right? Even with 1 creature on their board this is a nasty choice, with Drop requiring them to not play a creature for two whole turns. How many lands will you have left after those turns have passed? Not enough, I'm guessing.

I'll pick up a pair once they fall to $100, but I guess I might be waiting awhile.

In the meantime, apart from the Engineered Explosives that I love so much, I've had some good testing results with Dice_Box's Heaven/Earth idea. Sure, it can get Mom'ed, but it generally does so much damage to their board that whatever's left can be handled by the rest of the deck.

I do want to let go of my EE addiction, but I just love that old golden explosion so much, and I'm a fairly bad player who tends to be sitting across from stuff that a finer player wouldn't be sitting across from. EE blows that stuff up! And it's got elephants on it!

[Dice_Box]

I have seen questions popping up, I am thinking it might be time to try and give a more personal face to the deck. As far as I know there is no Discord channel for Lands, something that a lot of other decks have set up, so I did that tonight. The link is https://discord.gg/jthKsC5

If there is an already existing server, let me know.

[Chatto]

@ Lomardor: personally I don't think DoH will ho down again.

@ Dice: never heard of the app, will try it asap. What does it offer what the thread has not?

[Dice_Box]

@ Lomardor: personally I don't think DoH will ho down again.

@ Dice: never heard of the app, will try it asap. What does it offer what the thread has not?

Instant communication, a VoIP server, direct personal contact and the ability to draw in people who have the program but for whatever reason do not have an account here.

Also I have seen questions popping up like candy on Reddit. It gives those of us who know the deck a place to answer questions from those who are just picking it up but are more often than not on other platforms. As the size of the server grows, it becomes another tool for new players to network and seek out information.

[TLK]

Won my small local weekly Legacy event again last night. It was only my second time ever piloting the deck, but I've won the tourney both times.

Round 1 vs Grixis Delver:

I lose game 1 to due to Pyromancer and friends. He had double FoW to stifle my Crop Rotation -> Tabernacle plans.

I wasn't too sure what to side in, but I went with 2x Tireless Tracker (wasn't sure here), a Thorn of Amethyst and a Trinisphere. Sided out Karakas and the 3x Maze of Ith I believe. Game 2 I got a fast token and attacked for 20. Game 3 I'm able to land Thorn and Gamble for a Tabernacle and use Wastelands to keep him off mana. Tabernacle clears his Deathrite and Gurmag, and I land a Tireless Tracker for the win.

1-0, 2-1

Round 2 vs Aggro Loam:

Game 1 the deck does its thing. Maze of Ith keeps his Goyfs/Knights at bay while I Loam about 50 times until I finally find my combo pieces. His Chalice on 1 shut off the 2 Crop Rotations and Gamble in my hand.

Sided in the Ancient Grudge and 2x Krosan Grip and Drop of Honey (and something else; can't remember). Side out Karakas, Glacial Chasm and 3x Punishing Fire since they don't really kill anything in his deck (he was running Goyf over Bob). I won game 2 by dredging a Grudge into my graveyard, flashing it back to destroy his Chalice on 1, land an Exploration, play a Tabernacle and then a Drop of Honey to clear the board of his Goyf and Knight. Combo shortly thereafter.

2-0, 2-0

Round 3 vs Burn:

Scary matchup. He wins game 1 fairly easily. Side out 3x Maze of Ith, Karakas, Tabernacle, Manabond and something else. Side in Zuran Orb, Trinisphere, 4x Sphere of Resistance, 1 Thorn of Amethyst. Game 2 I land a turn 1 Exploration, turn 2 Trinisphere then quick token kill. Game 3 was super close. He gets me down to 4, I Crop Rotate into Glacial Chasm to avoid lethal, take the 2 on my upkeep, then Loam into a Stage (already had Exploration in play). I fetch down to 1 and then assemble the Chasm/Stage lock and ping him to death with Molten Vortex. Since this was only my second time piloting the deck and first time attempting the Chasm lock, I think I did a solid job (opponent was fairly new to Legacy and wasn't really sure what was going on, nor did he know there was a slight window of opportunity to kill me in my upkeep should I mess up the chain - luckily his hand was all Sorcery speed, but alas...), but I'd really appreciate it if someone could explain how to properly keep the chain going without giving the opponent that small window to kill me. Once I got two Stages in play it was easy since I just had one copy the other and sac the copied one without ever having to bring Chasm back (and then have to sac a land).

3-0, 2-1

Round 4 vs ???:

Intentional Draw to split prize

Anyway, if someone doesn't want to read all of this, can you please at least address the bolded part above? I also pasted it below. Thanks!

Since this was only my second time piloting the deck and first time attempting the Chasm lock, I think I did a solid job (opponent was fairly new to Legacy and wasn't really sure what was going on, nor did he know there was a slight window of opportunity to kill me in my upkeep should I mess up the chain - luckily his hand was all Sorcery speed, but alas...), but I'd really appreciate it if someone could explain how to properly keep the chain going without giving the opponent that small window to kill me. Once I got two Stages in play it was easy since I just had one copy the other and sac the copied one without ever having to bring Chasm back (and then have to sac a land).

[Ingo]

For a chasm lock, I want an Exploration, Loam, Stage and Chasm (or a gamble/crop to get these). With these four, you can keep Chasm in play (also during upkeep) and pay two life each two turns, while dropping lands and dredging for your second Stage. As you mentioned, once you have the second Stage, you can keep chasm in play forever without paying life (well, until your library runs out or unless your opponent somehow interacts). Burn can interact game2 and 3 with gravehate.

[kravkenov]

I would add a thing about Chasm lock. If it ever happens, be careful with Stage being a copy of Chasm. Age counter on Stage will stay even if it is no longer copying Chasm. Age counter will not be erased by copying something else. It might be useful to know before declaring "I pay" for cumulative upkeep.