The new card is VERY strong to me.
The biggest problem of this deck is that, while being in good shape against several decks in game one, it dies from ichorid-dedicated graveyard hate, or whatever stops the life from the loam engine.
What this deck needed is a not graveyard-dependant alternative engine, and the new card could do it.
Just to be more complete:
It assumes that you're drawing into a fresh deck of 60 cards (which is about average... although if you open with like 4 non-land, you should expect to draw more cards.
I did a bit of testing with the effectiveness of Treasure Hunt by going through a normal playthrough with 44 lands and watching my average dredges with life from the loam. The results are generally not better than just using Loam on its own. Doesnt seem worth it to splash blue just for it. If anything intuition is a superior choice as it is more consistent.
The valakut build is interesting. The second version seems to have a lot of potential to it and is worth testing a little further against some of the common archetypes
true, the fact is that in the post-side games more often than not they will hate your graveyard/extirpate/meddling mage Life from the loam, leaving you with a... deck full of lands.Originally Posted by mada7
the keyword for Treasure hunt is: alternative, hate proof, engine.
Its not particularly hate proof here. We are talking about a splash color so unless we devote a lot more to blue than what any build has so far there is no guarantee that we will be able to establish blue well enough and fast enough without exposing life from the loam to graveyard hate. Graveyard hate is extremely fast and to get to blue safely without loam would be difficult to say the least.
We also have no reliable way to get to Treasure Hunt multiple times other than Gamble but that is not reliable enough to use in place of loam.
Easier way to deal with graveyard hate are early chalices set to 1 and/or 0 or Krosan Grip. Medling Mage will just eat a barbarian ring. AS long as you can anticipate what hate will get boarded in you can play around it fairly easily
A good solution could be to play only blue and green, and maybe white as a secundary splash... obviously that would mean playing exploration, manabond, life from the loam, and treasure hunt as only nonland cards.
Treasure hunt has good chance to bring you another copy of himself, played in a 16spells deck, four of which being Treasure hunt...We also have no reliable way to get to Treasure Hunt multiple times other than Gamble but that is not reliable enough to use in place of loam.
Ok but...Easier way to deal with graveyard hate are early chalices set to 1 and/or 0 or Krosan Grip. Medling Mage will just eat a barbarian ring. AS long as you can anticipate what hate will get boarded in you can play around it fairly easily
As you know,
Leyline and ravenous trap are unstoppable by chalice, and chalice itself is useless on the draw vs crypt and relic, while if you start it could get a Fow however. Just to say that chalice is not a perfect solution to all our troubles.
If it was, 43 land would have been the best deck in the format: a deck that would lose only from combo.
A better resiliance to graveyard hate is the only thing that makes this deck a better option - for someone - than ichorid. Otherwise play ichorid! It kills everyone on turn three...
In a 44 land deck I was checking how often I came across non-land cards and on average I dug no more than loam does and there is no guarantee of what that non-land card will be so it is not any more likely to get a treasure hunt than it is any of the other nonland cards.A good solution could be to play only blue and green, and maybe white as a secundary splash... obviously that would mean playing exploration, manabond, life from the loam, and treasure hunt as only nonland cards.
Treasure hunt has good chance to bring you another copy of himself, played in a 16spells deck, four of which being Treasure hunt...
Ok but...
As you know,
Leyline and ravenous trap are unstoppable by chalice, and chalice itself is useless on the draw vs crypt and relic, while if you start it could get a Fow however. Just to say that chalice is not a perfect solution to all our troubles.
If it was, 43 land would have been the best deck in the format: a deck that would lose only from combo.
A better resiliance to graveyard hate is the only thing that makes this deck a better option - for someone - than ichorid. Otherwise play ichorid! It kills everyone on turn three...
Chalice is not a be all end all solution but it stops a fair bit of the problems this deck encounters. Ravenous trap is a problem but leyline can be dealt with by Ray of Revelation or Krosan Grip. Ravenous Trap isnt even that great a play against this deck really as it will only ever take out loam or the cards that you would grab with it but never both.
Cutting red and not adding in intuition gives you no guarantee of ever seeing a Treasure Hunt without aggressive mulganing. You might have a bit more resiliency against graveyard hate but you will struggle much more with consistency
statistical nit: If you're calculating Treasure Hunt EV, bear in mind that when you cast it, you know that you have drawn two lands and Hunt.
When in doubt, mumble.
When in trouble, delegate.
Good point, I should have done the table from n-2/59. That's one of those things that seems so obvious once someone points it out. I hope... I might just be retarded.
Anyway, the point is you're drawing between 2-4 cards from TH, which is better than Mulch, but not a ton better. As IBA pointed out, Mulch is far out of playable, so it'd need a huge improvement to be worth playing.
What is the worst card you want to see from your opponents Games 2/3? This deck seems so strong because not many decks can hate it out.
Does Winter Orb do much to ruin your day? I'm just asking because I seem to run into a lot of this deck online and need something out of my SB to compete.
Playing: Merfolk, Dredge
Working on: G/W Aggro, MBC
Learning: Pact SI
In storage: Enchantress
Back to Basics, Blood Moon and Leyline of the Void seem to be the most painful cards against lands. I pack large amount of Ray of Revelation and Ancient Grudge to survive through those. People also use Flame Jab to get rid of Magus of the Moon.
Has anyone tested Treasure Hunt enough to give some sort of breakdown about it? I'm thinking of a side plan where I side out loams and replace them with Treasure Hunt to fight the graveyard hate everybody brings in. That is if TH seems to have some actual value in game.
What would people think of such a SB in an unknown meta:
4 Leyline of the Void
4 Zuran Orb
3 Krosan Grip
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Ray of Revelation
No dedicated Combo hate here, I rather put the Orb in here, with each Land you sacrifice you up the storm count by one, I guess an early manabond with orb could pose some troubles for storm combo, no? Grudges + Rays to have 5 options against both Artifact/Enchantment hate against aus.
anyone ever consider running black for Entomb and Raven's crime? Wurm Harvest also seems good.
You can play gamble instead of Entomb and play Worm Harvest for 2GGG. I don't think that playing Raven's crime would improve the deck if you need to add black only for them.
raven's crime seems good vs combo, no?
Has anybody tried the Mindslaver build? It made top 8 in three recent German GPTs:
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=32078
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=31838
http://www.deckcheck.net/deck.php?id=31827
Basically, it uses Tolaria West as tutor instead of Gamble, and going up to 4 Intuitions. It also incorporates Gargoyle Castle and maindeck Engineered Explosives to recurr with Academy Ruins. I don't actually play this deck or follow this thread much, but i came across those lists and it seemed to me a nice innovation so wanted to mention it.
UK Legacy community: www.magicplayers.co.uk
It's a bit on the slow side. So I call no. It works in It's the Fear -kind of decks, since they have enough permission to stall the opponent and start discarding them to death. It also requires heavy commitment to black, which isn't even played except in marginal builds. Of course you can try it, but it requires a lot more modifications than just adding the card itself.
anyone considered Upheaval as an anti-enchantress/slow deck card? Upheaval >> Manabond, discard the world back into play seems like a strong play, esp. since you get to dominate their mana with ports all over again.
Doesn't that sound a bit narrow? Enchantress? What is wrong with Reverent Silence/Anarchy/Firespout/other actually castable spells?
I think the blue splash is neither standardized nor mandatory. Eternal gardens is a different story then, as is the possibility of using Treasure Hunt. Gamble is hideously good for tutoring anything, and I'm against playing Mox Diamonds just in order to maximize the land count. 4 Manabond, 4 Exploration, 4 Burning Wish, 3 Life from the Loam is a ridiculously good package on it's own.
I've been using a single copy of Recoup to retrieve dredged Wishes/Gambles back. So far so good. It's also marginally helpful against discard. Not like that usually is a problem.
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I've been experimenting with Mystical Tutor recently and I find it to be...nice. it gives the same -1 CA that gamble does, for the same cost, but allows you to fetch certain silver bullets that don't tolerate the graveyard much, like the reverent silence you mentioned.
Also the problem with reverent silence and anarchy is that Karmic Justice blows up your whole board or next turn they play replenish and you're back to square one. Also, how is upheaval not castable? You're saying you cant get to 7 mana in a 43 land deck? In a matchup where your opponent has zero mana denial and wins on turn 10 or later and has zero countermagic?
Upheaval goes around KJ and puts you in a position to dominate their mana all over again. I've been playing a heavy blue splash with Mystical and Tolaria West as tutors and I think that package is really strong. While mystical isn't as versatile as gamble, Tolaria West is a recurring tutor that can get most every answer you'd need, in any matchup.
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