[Deck] 43 Lands

[Michael Keller]

Meanwhile, you can wish up some sort of random answer like Apocalypse.

That would be pretty random, and a pretty poor choice to Wish for. You'd remove your hand and all permanents from the game. Not good.

As far as conjuring up a Seismic Assault under Moon effects, it's certainly a fantastic choice. It allows you to knock off Magus to restore your mana while turning each land in your hand into a shock. Pretty solid with Life from the Loam and (preferably) artifact mana.

[Shawon]

If Keldon Megaliths makes the cut in 43land.dec, isn't Flame Jab superior in this deck? It's cheaper, faster, and less situational than Megaliths, and Flame Jab can stack itself in the same turn to kill creatures with >1 toughness. Need I say more?

EDIT:

Oh, for reference:

Flame Jab R (Eventide common)
Sorcery
Flame Jab deals 1 damage to target creature or player.
Retrace (You may play this card from your graveyard by discarding a land card in addition to paying its other costs.)

[Valtrix]

Well, this is what I can think of off the top of my head:

Cons
--You can't get it with mulch
--You can't put it into play with manabond
--You don't always want to discard land for 1 damage
--A bit more susceptible to graveyard hate
--The deck would no longer be "43" lands =P

Pros:
--Functions through moon effects
--Don't need hellbent (small factor)
--Can do more damage in a turn

I never really thought megaliths was good enough anyway...

[hi-val]

Retrace seems made for this deck. I think the way you combat Moon effects is through Riftstone Portal. You Gamble one of them away if possible and then Burning Wish for something to remove it like Hull Breach. ALTERNATELY, you can get Worm Harvest off the board and laugh at their moon effects when you make nine tokens every turn. Maybe Worm Harvest is playable in the maindeck, since it seems absolutely backbreaking. I'd go so far as to say that it's worth considering to the point where one might want to retool the deck and perhaps trim manlands with the consideration that The Worms will be getting there faster. It's also a good out to Extirpate if they nail your Loams, as it'll be making a decent amount of tokens.

[Illissius]

Everyone loves decklists, so how's this one look, as a proof of concept?

4 Exploration
4 Manabond
4 Burning Wish
4 Life from the Loam
3 Worm Harvest
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Maze of Ith
4 Wasteland
3 Rishadan Port
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Glacial Chasm
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Riftstone Portal
4 Tranquil Thicket
4 Forgotten Cave
2 Barbarian Ring
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Taiga
4 Forest
SB: 4 Krosan Grip
SB: 4 Chalice of the Void
SB: 1 Gaea's Blessing
SB: 1 Gamble
SB: 1 Scapeshift
SB: 1 Devastating Dreams
SB: 1 Shattering Spree
SB: 1 Reverent Silence
SB: 1 Toil to Renown

I went with Wish because Extirpate is a bitch, and Wishing for Scapeshift is multiple kinds of awesome. There's 14 sources of red, so you should be able to pull off Wish and Gamble on the same turn and not expose yourself more than you would by Wishing for Loam directly -- and you can also fetch, like, other cards from your deck. It's not so great if your opponent plays a Chalice at 1 rather than 2 like a genius, but I'd rather take that chance and get to play 33% more copies of Loam maindeck.

I am unsure if 16 sources of green mana is enough, especially with Worm Harvest. Would swapping Factories for Treetops be a very crazy idea?

[Zinch]

I have thought the same when I saw the "Wormmaker" but...

The Tabernacle with worm harvest??
If the deck goes on the direction of worm harvest, i think you have to cut the tabernacle


P.S.: My first post

[Nihil Credo]

The Tabernacle with worm harvest??
If the deck goes on the direction of worm harvest, i think you have to cut the tabernacle

If the deck only runs 1-2 Worm Harvests, then the best choice is probably to still run the monster that is Tabernacle and if necessary get rid of it with Wasteland and/or Ghost Quarter and/or Glacial Chasm and/or Crop Rotation and/or Legend rule and/or BWish->DDreams for 1.

[hi-val]

If the deck only runs 1-2 Worm Harvests, then the best choice is probably to still run the monster that is Tabernacle and if necessary get rid of it with Wasteland and/or Ghost Quarter and/or Glacial Chasm and/or Crop Rotation and/or Legend rule and/or BWish->DDreams for 1.

Exactly what I was thinking.

Against combo, there might be a worthwhile plan in making sure you have Savannahs and boarding in Gaddok Teeg.

[Illissius]

Right. If you have a ton of Worm tokens, you probably don't need Tabernacle and will win anyways; if you've locked your opponent down with Wastes, Quarters, and Tabernacle, then you'll just have to finish them off with Factories and Rings and eschew the Worms. But there are situations where Tabernacle will save your ass, and I'm guessing there are more of those than ones where the dissynergy between Tabernacle and Worm tokens costs you the game.

As for combo, I'm not sure. Do you stand a chance in hell even if you do board against them? I suspect this might be one of those cases where you're better off conceding the matchup and focusing your limited resources on games you can actually win.

[hi-val]

Some *really* preliminary testing shows me that Worms are really good against Threshold when you get those games where things are just grinding down. It seems that a lot of decks have problems with 4-5 worms every single turn. I'm not sure if 2 is the right number or even 1, but it's the kind of broken play you Mulch or dredge into and the other player has no response to. Aside from a quick EE, there's not a lot that Thresh can do against 9 worms hitting the board.

All that said, I'm still unsure of if this is win-more. It does allow a lot of room around things like Blood Moon when you have Rifty in the graveyard.

[Zinch]

In fact, the worm harvest and 2 riftstone portal are a good answer to a blood moon or a magus.
Now there's only the graveyard hate issue... what do you play in the SB against graveyard hate??

[hi-val]

In fact, the worm harvest and 2 riftstone portal are a good answer to a blood moon or a magus.
Now there's only the graveyard hate issue... what do you play in the SB against graveyard hate??

I'm wondering if you just sideboard in Burning Wishes against Crypts and things like that. I'm also wondering if you bring in Ray of Rev or Grudge to answer stuff. This deck reminds me of Dragon, in that you've got a good shot g1 but the match makes things a lot harder since graveyard hate comes in.

There's a possibility of some sort of sideboard transformation, or the previously-mentioned Seismic Assault (land's edge).

[Zinch]

Crypt is not a problem if you keep a cycling land in your hand and extirpate can be answered with a CotV of 1 or a wish...
The card that scares me is LotV... If they begin the game with one in play, you must draw a ray of revelation or a wish (drawing one card per turn is a lousy task...and it can be countered...).
Each other card can be answered well enough but LotV (I'm beggining to hate this card):

- CotV on 2: Worm harvest him to the face(remember you can dredge the lftl to "draw" 3 cards per turn) and boseiju from the board
- blood moon or magus: Worm harvest with a riftstone in the yard or wishing for an answer
- Crypt: simply keeping a cycling land in your hand
- extirpate: CotV on 1 or a wish
- meddling mage yixlid jailer: "barbarian ringing" it
- counterbalance: worms to the head!!! (and boseiju from the board if you want)

So this deck is more resilient than people believes (much more now with the inclusion of the worms!)

[i-never-smile]

Does Raven's Crime have any potential with the uphill combo match? I don't know how much black mana the deck can accumulate in the first couple of turns, but it seems like something worth considering. For those who are too lazy too look it up on gatherer:

Raven's Crime-B
Sorcery
Target player discards a card.
Retrace

It just seems to me like you could go nuts with this card. For example:

Turn 1 land-exploration-land-raven's crime. Turn 2 land-triple raven's crime. Combo just got owned by lands--4 discarded on turn 2.

Alternatively:
Turn 1 land-gamble for raven's crime. Turn 2 land-double raven's crime.

Or:
Turn 1 land-mox diamond-manabond-burning wish out a raven's crime. Turn 2 land-start discarding. This is a game 1 play, and the turn 2 discard should be able to slow down combo at least a little bit.

It's possible I have it all wrong and this card is terrible, and the combo matchup should just be scooped. But it seems worth testing, for sure, and I don't think it would be likely that combo would use Chalice @1 to stop it either--so it's going to do some damage, most likely.

[Shawon]

Does Raven's Crime have any potential with the uphill combo match? I don't know how much black mana the deck can accumulate in the first couple of turns, but it seems like something worth considering. For those who are too lazy too look it up on gatherer:

Raven's Crime-B
Sorcery
Target player discards a card.
Retrace

It just seems to me like you could go nuts with this card. For example:

Turn 1 land-exploration-land-raven's crime. Turn 2 land-triple raven's crime. Combo just got owned by lands--4 discarded on turn 2.

Alternatively:
Turn 1 land-gamble for raven's crime. Turn 2 land-double raven's crime.

Or:
Turn 1 land-mox diamond-manabond-burning wish out a raven's crime. Turn 2 land-start discarding. This is a game 1 play, and the turn 2 discard should be able to slow down combo at least a little bit.

It's possible I have it all wrong and this card is terrible, and the combo matchup should just be scooped. But it seems worth testing, for sure, and I don't think it would be likely that combo would use Chalice @1 to stop it either--so it's going to do some damage, most likely.

Last I checked, 43land.dec didn't splash for black, but I could be wrong there.

Anyhow, your scenario against combo decks seems impossible, not just unlikely. For a turn2 3xRaven's Crime, you would need BBB, and I doubt that even if 43land.dec were to splash black, it would probably include at most 2 lands with access to black, assuming it already splashes white for better cards such as Nantuko Monastery.

Also, for triple Raven's Crime, you would need 3 lands in your hand. So, 3 lands for retrace + 3 lands to add "BBB" + 1 Exploration + 1 Raven's Crime = 8 cards. By turn 2, that's all the cards you have, and since you don't have Life from the Loam in that hand, by turn 2, essentially you make them discard 4 cards, while you discard 4 cards yourself (Raven's Crime/3 lands).

Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather just go for a hand that has Manabond in it, and some lands such as Wasteland/Rishadan Port to screw up combo.

Your other scenario seems impossible, too, since 43land.dec surely doesn't run Mox Diamond, I mean Exploration/Manabond are way better for the deck.

If Raven's Crime were green, it would be worth testing, but it's black, and I highly doubt it's worth testing. I mean, if Worm Harvest was just 2BBB, it probably wouldn't be mentioned in this thread.

[Brehn]

Your other scenario seems impossible, too, since 43land.dec surely doesn't run Mox Diamond, I mean Exploration/Manabond are way better for the deck.

I wouldn't be too sure about that. Don't forget that Mox Diamond plays around every kind of nonbasic hate, which the deck is extremely vulnerable to. Obviously you don't cut Exploration or Manabond for it - you cut mana sources for it.

[Shawon]

That's true, didn't think about that.

[Zinch]

I personaly don't play moxes 'cause every card you put that is not a land diludes the deck's strategy.
At least are necesary 40 lands and with 4 manabonds, 4 explrations, 3-4 Lftl, 3-4 gamble, 0-4 b. wishes and 1-2 worm harvest there aren't that many free slots

Edit: Even less if you consider that I run one EE and one Academy ruins

[i-never-smile]

I agree that it dilutes the deck, but I'm talking about a matchup where you either dilute the deck or just scoop. How do you beat TES with 43 land? The consensus seems to be that the best way to beat TES is to run another deck. Obviously, this deck cannot beat any storm combo deck run by a competent pilot, so the deck must change in one way or another to adapt to the matchup. In this case, my idea is to have Raven's Crime X4 in the board to handle storm combo. With a land deck, you can mulligan aggressively into the discard spell itself, or into a Gamble for it, or into a Burning Wish for the 4th copy. That's a potential of 3+4+4=11 cards to mulligan into, in a deck full of mana sources (3 RC+4 Gamble+4 Wish). Alternatively, you have an option to run a full set of Raven's Crime and Burning Wish, which finds the gamble for the crime. That's 8 cards to mull to. Not that bad, either. Also, even if you're just using it to hit 2 cards a turn, it still sucks on the other hand where they're sculpting a strong hand and you just keep slamming them with discard.

As far as splashing is concerned, I find it amusing that a roughly 2/3 land deck has trouble splashing into a color. I definitely think that Mox Diamond dilutes the deck, but it's probably worth it to simultaneously splash into another color and play around nonbasic hate. I know you can work around Blood Moon effects and Back to Basics if you really try, but having Mox Diamond just seems to be such a pain reliever for those situations.

Moving on to practicality: Let's assume that you spend turn 1 building up with a G-costing enchantment. Turn 2, you should realistically have acess to 1-2 black mana, maybe more. If the colorbase is reworked, it's totally possible. If on turn 2 you start forcing discard, that's pressure on the combo deck. It's not going to directly just stop their combo, but it's proactive and they will see that there are 2 choices: continue getting hit by discard feuled by a loam engine, or combo off prematurely and potentially (or rather, probably) whiff. So even if you don't have BBB on turn 2 with a Raven's Crime and a Loam, just having a black mana or 2 and lands to pitch means enough discard over a couple of turns to just shut out the combo deck and win with manlands quickly.

I could be wrong; it's only my two cents. I just think that it's stupid not to test a potential monkey wrench like this, when it can't hurt to try it outside of tournaments. If anyone can give it a shot in testing and fire back feedback, I'd be interested to know how it goes.

[Zinch]

This deck won a tournament last weekend

http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=18493

Maybe I was wrong with the moxes...

It seems a solid deck, but I like to have at least one answer to stupid enchantments (like solitary confinement o blood moon) in the maindeck... with the intuitions and the moxes I'd include one ray of revelation MD

Do you agree?