pink hammer control

[Broham]

I guess this is my home for awhile. If anybody is curious about looking up old lists for ideas, this deck started out long ago as Ivory Gargoyle + Jokulhaups. You could google that or Jokugoyle, whatever. When Invasion was on the scene it was called the Trenches deck, as Goblin Trenches was a popular win condition for the deck. Control the aggro matchup and blow up the board over and over while recurring your win cons or just have invincible win cons. Lol @ Pink Hammer.

Currently, I'm running this with Desolation Giant and Chimeric Idol to win the aggro matchup, which is not only prevalent in my local meta, but it seems to be all there is, lol. I wish I could ramp up faster but I have to keep reminding myself that I am playing defense most of the time. Right now I'm trying to decide if I like Thawing Glaciers or Scrying Sheets more. Also, I think that Ajani Vengeant is the best planeswalker for this kind of deck. He offers creature control with the first 2 abilities and basically ends the game with the 3rd ability. That ultimate is incredibly underrated.

[AlterEgo]

Ajani's ultimate is not incredibly underrated, it's just incredibly hard to ramp up to it. You need four turns, five to keep him alive afterwards.
Don't know, if I play him the wrong way, but most of the time he's just an overcosted Lightning Helix for me.

[dsck]

Currently, I'm running this with Desolation Giant and Chimeric Idol to win the aggro matchup, which is not only prevalent in my local meta, but it seems to be all there is, lol.

Doesnt Desolation Giant suck under humility as triggered abilites dont work?

[Broham]

Doesnt Desolation Giant suck under humility as triggered abilites dont work?

That's true, but I don't run Humility. I run a ton of removal to deal with their threats and my WOG with legs.

[Greenpoe]

I tried out the deck today, and I gotta say I love it. My first impression was that it looked like a pile, but after I gave it a shot and I can't believe how well it does against aggro and control. Your opponent goes T3 Show and Tell into Emrakul? You drop Humility. He cries. I think Oblivion Ring is necessary, as 3 mana for a removal spell is worth it when it can take out anything, and I definitely like Magma Jet over Lightning Helix. Plus, it's just awesome to see Chandra playable in any deck, let alone a Legacy deck.

[Nelis]

I've put together my own version of the deck and this is what I ended up with:

2 Elspeth, Knight Errant.
2 Koth of the Hammer
2 Ajani Vengeant

4 Humility
4 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Crucible of Worlds
1 Pithing Needle
1 Engineered Explosives

4 Firespout
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Lightning Helix
2 Enlightened Tutor

4 Mox Diamond
1 Plateau
2 Flooded Strand
3 Horizon Canopy
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Arid Mesa
6 Mountain
5 Plains

The Mox Diamonds help speeding up the deck and also come in handy once in a while for Explosives on three.

I've added 2 Enlightened Tutor for some flexibility. They also help to avoid multiple Crucibles and will also be part of my sideboard solution towards combo. I'm thinking of putting another Enlightened Tutor in the sideboard and complement that with stuff like Chalice of the Void, graveyard removal, Thorn of Amethyst and such.

I am undecided on the Helixes because when on the draw they're no help against a turn one Lackey. I might replace them with Lightning Bolt.

I've tested somewhat vs Goblins and Zoo which are fairly simple match-ups because of Humility. Goblins are a bit tougher matchup than Zoo especially when multiple Rishadan Ports are involved combined with Aether Vial and/or Goblin Lackey. I also tested against a Pox deck and that's very winnable too. Haven't tested the deck against Merfolk yet so maybe its necessary to add 2 Volcanic Fallout in the sideboard. They'll also be an extra help vs Goblins.

My version does lean very much on Humility and I guess that's also the decks weakness.

[kiblast]

Just stumbled upon this thread, and I have to say that this deck seems very interesting and reliable.
I'd really toss in the Scrying sheets draw engine instead or in addition of Horizon Canopy, and at the same time play more basics. We already play Top in here so Scrying sheets is helpful. Playing more basics helps us being Waste proof (of course) and at the same time improves the Scrying Sheets engine. I mean, we are even playing the full set of Diamonds to fix our mana and to have bigger EE's.Wich leads us to my next question: is the full set of Mox Diamond mandatory? are they really useful? I understand that we are slow as fuck and want to drop our 4cc bombs as soon as we can, but aren't they a bit fragile? considering the amount of Deeds and EE in the current Meta?

By the way, I'll test this for sure, considering that I absolutely love Koth, aka the Red Power Ranger.

[Nelis]

Just stumbled upon this thread, and I have to say that this deck seems very interesting and reliable.
I'd really toss in the Scrying sheets draw engine instead or in addition of Horizon Canopy, and at the same time play more basics. We already play Top in here so Scrying sheets is helpful. Playing more basics helps us being Waste proof (of course) and at the same time improves the Scrying Sheets engine. I mean, we are even playing the full set of Diamonds to fix our mana and to have bigger EE's.Wich leads us to my next question: is the full set of Mox Diamond mandatory? are they really useful? I understand that we are slow as fuck and want to drop our 4cc bombs as soon as we can, but aren't they a bit fragile? considering the amount of Deeds and EE in the current Meta?

I have no previous experience at all (in any deck) with the Scrying Sheets engine but if you run more basics (which means less fetchlands) will Top still be as effective?

And if you put in the SS engine will you still play Crucible of Worlds? I haven't experienced real problems from Wasteland even without help of Crucible. I use the fetch lands and top to dig for answers and Crucible really helps with that. It happened quite often that I was able to dig for a hard needed Humility or Firespout.

I guess you could take out one Mox Diamond because its a bad top deck but later on I usually just shuffle it away with a fetch land. Does the metagame feature so many Deeds? I mostly read that people are playing less copies because its so slow.

[kiblast]

I have no previous experience at all (in any deck) with the Scrying Sheets engine but if you run more basics (which means less fetchlands) will Top still be as effective?

And if you put in the SS engine will you still play Crucible of Worlds? I haven't experienced real problems from Wasteland even without help of Crucible. I use the fetch lands and top to dig for answers and Crucible really helps with that. It happened quite often that I was able to dig for a hard needed Humility or Firespout.

I guess you could take out one Mox Diamond because its a bad top deck but later on I usually just shuffle it away with a fetch land. Does the metagame feature so many Deeds? I mostly read that people are playing less copies because its so slow.

Firstly, more basics does not demand less fetchlands. For example you could always use a configuration like this:

4x Arid Mesa
1x W fetch
1x R fetch
7th fetch R or W depending on what you need more.

6 Snow Covered Mountains
6 Snow Covered Plains
1-2x Plateau
1-2x Scrying Sheets
2x Horizon Canopy (I realize this is very strong in deckthinning in conjunction with Crucible)

24-25 Lands I think is reasonable if you want to properly support Scrying Sheets and Moxes. I wonder if we could even play a singleton Academy Ruins (U mana provided by moxen of course ) to have more reliability in late game and more redundancy.

Top is effective, but as you say you need to pack a nice number of fetches to have it run properly, mostly because we can't run Ponder. As a shuffle effect we only have Enlightened Tutors (I'd play em as a 3x for sure, now I'm playing UWx Landstill and that card is too good to be out of our 60). I'd play only a singleton Crucible too.

[AlterEgo]

4x Arid Mesa
1x W fetch
1x R fetch
7th fetch R or W depending on what you need more.

6 Snow Covered Mountains
6 Snow Covered Plains
1-2x Plateau
1-2x Scrying Sheets
2x Horizon Canopy

I think Scrying Sheets with only 12 scry-able lands is not enough. That's roughly 1/5 of the deck and with only 1-2 Plateaus we'd also end up fetching for basics most of the time. Even with a Top the Sheets will be dead far too often.
Quinn plays a full FOUR Sheets with something around 16-18 snow plains - one third of the deck being snow means a high chance to see a snow card everytime they spin the Top. One fifth... well, you can calculate the odds yourselves.

Also: you forgot Mishra's Factory, which imho is a must-play whenever Humility is involved.

I'd suggest something like this:
8-10 fetch (4 Mesa, 2-4 Heath, 1-3 Foothills)
2-4 Plateau
4 Mishra
3 Horizon Canopy (maybe swap one for a Savannah)
3 Mountain
3 Plains
With a total of 24-25 lands, as you suggested

On Diamonds - imho a Mox is useful in three cases:
1) speedup
2) mana fixing
3) dump excess lands
Neither of those is really needed in this deck. There's no 2-drop worth the card disadvantage caused by Mox Diamond.

Enlightened Tutor:
Good option, definitely worth trying.

[kiblast]

I think Scrying Sheets with only 12 scry-able lands is not enough. That's roughly 1/5 of the deck and with only 1-2 Plateaus we'd also end up fetching for basics most of the time. Even with a Top the Sheets will be dead far too often.
Quinn plays a full FOUR Sheets with something around 16-18 snow plains - one third of the deck being snow means a high chance to see a snow card everytime they spin the Top. One fifth... well, you can calculate the odds yourselves.

Also: you forgot Mishra's Factory, which imho is a must-play whenever Humility is involved.

I'd suggest something like this:
8-10 fetch (4 Mesa, 2-4 Heath, 1-3 Foothills)
2-4 Plateau
4 Mishra
3 Horizon Canopy (maybe swap one for a Savannah)
3 Mountain
3 Plains
With a total of 24-25 lands, as you suggested

On Diamonds - imho a Mox is useful in three cases:
1) speedup
2) mana fixing
3) dump excess lands
Neither of those is really needed in this deck. There's no 2-drop worth the card disadvantage caused by Mox Diamond.

Enlightened Tutor:
Good option, definitely worth trying.

Umh. I see your point and i think you are right. I would not play 8-10 fetches though. I think we should really stick to 7. I don't like the fact that fetches n. = Basics + Duals n., to me it would be better a proportion of 1(fetch) to 1.5 (basics+ duals). Basically you think that Horizon+8 fetches digging > Scrying Sheets digging ?
Also it is true that i forgot Mishra, the full set is nedeed for sure, it works too goodl under Humility. I still think that 4 Plateaus are too many, maybe 2 is the correct number as we should'nt want to see them in multiples early game to minimize the impact of Wasteland, wich in early game is a pain in the ass for this deck who wants to dump his 4cc bombs as early as it can.

[Nelis]

On Diamonds - imho a Mox is useful in three cases:
1) speedup
2) mana fixing
3) dump excess lands
Neither of those is really needed in this deck. There's no 2-drop worth the card disadvantage caused by Mox Diamond.

Im not sure if I agree.

With so many important cards that have a cc of 4 a speedup of any kind is very most welcome. In my opinion the sooner I can put down a Humility the better, a play like that gives us a lot of breathing room. Its not that mox diamonds are only useful for 2 drops (Id like to know your reasoning why they're only useful for 2 drops).

Also since the deck runs Helixes and not Bolts the lack of a turn one burn spell especially vs Goblins can be devastating. But I guess we can run Bolt instead of Helixes if a turn 1 burn spell is really necessary. And being able to use Sensei's Divining Top on turn 1 can also be a huge benefit.

If mana fixing isn't an issue why do you feel the need to use Plateaus? I don't feel the need of running them at all. But then again I suppose that's probably because I run Mox Diamond. I guess it comes down to which card we believe is more fragile. I think having a land wasted happens more often than an artifact destroyed.

The card disadvantage is compensated by Crucible of World.

But I'll give the deck a try without Mox Diamond as well.

[AlterEgo]

I do believe Scrying Sheets is a better draw engine than Horizon Canopy - only not in a base two colored deck, that also wants Mishra's Factory and fetches. And I said 8-10 fetches because of Sensei's Divining Top, although one could play less with Crucible and E-Tutors on board. Maybe even 6 would be enough.

I'll just throw a list into the ring:
//25 lands
4 Arid Mesa
2 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Horizon Canopy
1 Savannah
2 Plateau
4 Mountain
4 Plains

//5 Planeswalkers
1 Chandra Nalaar
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Koth of the Hammer

//15 Instants
3 Enlightened Tutor
4 Path to Exile
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Lightning Helix

//6 Sorceries
2 Banefire
4 Firespout

//3 Enchantments
3 Humility

//7 Artifacts
1 Pithing Needle
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Sensei's Divining Top


Maybe Ajani instead of Chandra, Magma Jet instead of Helix and one more Top and/or EE for (???)

Edit@Nelis:
Things to power out turn one, helped by a Mox Diamond: Trinisphere (in Stax, of course), Chalice of the Void, Dark Confidant (e.g. Aggro Loam), Tarmogoyf (although only a 1/2).
Is it good to cast Humility one turn earlier? Sure, it is - but you always have to cut other important spells for the Moxen... either control elements or win conditions - cutting either doesn't seem very appealing to me

Also, why turn one burn if you have 8 Swords available...? Seriously, would you keep a hand without a StoP or Path on the draw?
Mana fixing isn't needed exactly BECAUSE of Plateaus and fetches - imho a two color mana base doesn't need more than that. Especially if you think of the synergy between fetches and Sensei's Top.
Of course, if you don't possess any Duals, but have Diamonds, then go ahead and play them...

[Nelis]

I think Ajani Vengeant is so much better than Chandra if only because it can come down a turn earlier..

- The 1 damage to a player is basically irrelevant. Three damage and gaining 3 life is much better in itself. And that it can be used on creatures and players is such a big benefit.
- There might be some situations where being able to do 4+ damage to a creature is better than 3 damage but they're much less common and there's always STP for bigger creatures.
- And there's always Ajani's tap ability when an opponent has a big creature in play you cant get rid of. I also think that Ajani's tap ability is much more useful vs control and combo machups than being able to deal x damage to a creature they don't play anyway.
- Chandra's ultimate might be better. But I don't know which ultimate is easier to reach. But since you'll be using the first 2 abilities much more often I think the third ability isnt that important

I also think you should run a 2nd Elspeth because as soon as you have gained control of the game you want to finish your opponent as quickly as possible. Attacking with 5/5 flying Mishra's factories and/or 7/7 flying Mountains does just that. And the ability to make 1/1 creatures shouldn't be underestimated especially with Humility in play.

EDIT: I thought I saw 1 Elspeth in your list. Never mind, then.

On Mox Diamond, there's some added benefits to playing Mox Diamond:
- 4 more 'green' mana sources for Firespout and even the possibility of a 4th color for EE.
- Depending on how we want to construct the sideboard but the speed up might be very relevant for the combo matchup.

I tried Magma Jet but I don't feel they are nececary when we make use of Top. And also the 2 damage just doesn't cut it when it comes to killing off zoo's creatures.

[Moczoc]

I won most of the games with Goblin Trenches, you should really try it.

4 Horizon Canopy was a mistake, I'll go down to 3

And Magma Jet is really better than Helix in this deck.

[yougo]

Wow i see there as been a lot of action without me noticing it, first i would like to thank you all and happy new year to everyone!

Ok i was pretty busy lately and was ''off '' magic for a while but still i loved the deck more than ever, especialy since the banned of survival, i had a reall hard time againts this deck but now that this ''thing'' is from the past i think that pink hammer could be a very strong pick.


First of all ive playing this and only this deck since a long time, why? Cause to me it has been the funniest most interactive and probebly one of the most complex deck ive ever played, and of course over the month my list have changed so here the new fresh update,

The list im actualy playing

creature 1

1 eternal dragon

planeswalker 7

2 ajani vangeant
1 chandra nalaar
2 elspeth knight errant
2 koth of the hammer

disrupt 22

4 sword
4 path to exiled
3 oblivion ring
3 rolling earthquake
4 lightning helix
2 humilitty
2 cursed scroll

spell 6

2 decree of justice
4 top

land 25

3 plain
3 mountain
3 arid mesa
3 flooded strand
1 wooded foothill
2 scalding tarn
4 plateau
4 mishra's factory
2 mutavault

sideboard

1 banefire
4 mind break trap
3 pyrostatic pillar
3 red elemantal blast
2 pyroblast
2 ray of distortion

The o ring are new addon and i believe they are amazing, they deal with planeswalker and lame permanant you dont wannna see, well overall great

cursed scroll: probebly a lot of you realize the with this deck you dont draw, however you get to create you own card advantage by having permenant on the boar or bid spell spell that clear a lot of thing in other word, fast youl run out of card, thats why a ard like cursed scroll is an obvious choice it seals lategame matches (and as we know the goal of the deck is to goin lategame) and it's booth good agaits aggro and control. The right card for the right deck

eternal dragon : well this card is good for a lot of reason shuffle your deck act as a plain and is a late game win condition... why not ?

the mutavault: it's always good to have man land agaits aggro it will give you more blocker and more blocker means time and time mean late game and late game means win and agaits control it simply mean creature wich is incountrable, but where mutavault really shine is agaits merfolk LULZ just the look on you opponant face when your vault is now a 4/4 island walk wich get pump by a factory is priceless, mutavault alone make the merfolk matchup just stupid.

As for the side board its the usual stuff i was playing its very anti combo oriented, the trap are just amazing and the pillar back with a blast is almost game win agaits any type of storm deck, the ray of distortion are for countertop matchup and the banefire is the alternate kill for slow control deck.

Well thanks folk for reading the whole thing and i will test your suggetion ill try to be back soon

Yougo

[Nelis]

Edit@Nelis:
Things to power out turn one, helped by a Mox Diamond: Trinisphere (in Stax, of course), Chalice of the Void, Dark Confidant (e.g. Aggro Loam), Tarmogoyf (although only a 1/2).
Is it good to cast Humility one turn earlier? Sure, it is - but you always have to cut other important spells for the Moxen... either control elements or win conditions - cutting either doesn't seem very appealing to me

Also, why turn one burn if you have 8 Swords available...? Seriously, would you keep a hand without a StoP or Path on the draw?
Mana fixing isn't needed exactly BECAUSE of Plateaus and fetches - imho a two color mana base doesn't need more than that. Especially if you think of the synergy between fetches and Sensei's Top.
Of course, if you don't possess any Duals, but have Diamonds, then go ahead and play them...

I think a very good question would the amount of win conditions we need. I run 6 Planeswalkers en 4 Mishra's factories. ATM I feel that's enough.

I own all duals exept for B/U so that's not why I don't run duals. The Mox Diamonds function in the first place as speed-up and as mana fixing only in the second place (with the added bonus of having a 3rd or even 4th color for EE). To me the strongest control element is Humility, the sooner it hits the better and this is the main reason why I like the Diamonds. But I am running 3 Diamonds now instead of 4. I also have to test more vs control (most up to now testing has been vs aggro) so maybe I'll change my mind in the future.

I actually like the fact that my version of the deck isn't really Wasteland sensitive. And there's been little occasions that I needed mana-fixing. I actually think its possible to run only basics (and fetch) in this deck.

I run 4 Swords to Plowshares, no Paths. So basically I would be substituting the Paths for Lightning Bolts. I don't feel like running Path to Exile because I don't want to speed op my opponent by giving him more mana. Especially against Merfolk (which I find a very hard match up) and to lesser extent goblins. Besides Lightning Bolt can be used as a finisher and Path cannot. But whichever way, I think we do agree that the deck needs 8 1 drop removal.

It really depends on the matchup whether I keep a hand without STP or Path when I'm on the draw. But like I said my Lightning Bolts would be your Paths so against aggro I would need to mulligan into at least one spot removal (whether it be bolt or STP). Theres basically one problem creature which can come down the first few turns and needs an Path that is Phyrexian Dreadnought. In all other cases Lightning Bolt is sufficient. Lightning Bolt is also better vs combo.

[AlterEgo]

Nelis, can you give a decklist?
I'm beginning to get more and more interested in the Moxen+basics variant, I just have serious problems finding enough space.
Especially as this might enable us to play Blood Moons.

[Nelis]

Yes, at the moment it is:

//25 lands
4 Arid Mesa
2 Flooded Strand
4 Mishra's Factory
3 Horizon Canopy
1 Plateau
6 Mountain
5 Plains

//6 Planeswalkers
2 Ajani Vengeant
2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Koth of the Hammer

//10 Instants
2 Enlightened Tutor
4 Swords to Plowshares
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Lightning Helix

//11 artifacts
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Pithing Needle
2 Crucible of Worlds
3 Mox Diamond
4 Sensei's Divining Top

//4 Sorceries
4 Firespout

//4 Enchantments
4 Humility

EDIT:
It's very tricky to play Blood Moon because you need your fetchlands in combination with Top to dig through your library to find answers. This is something you need to take into account when you intend to run Blood Moon. You would probably need to put a bit more emphasis on Plains in your land count if you want to include Blood Moon.

EDIT2, Some remarks on my list:
Maybe I'm running a land too little, it hasn't bothered me yet but it might in the future.
I'm still thinking about the burn package. I'm inclined to change the Lightning Helixes for Lightning Bolts.
I probably have to tweak a few things, maybe go to 3 Humility and/or take out the EE and Pithing Needle package or a Top maybe.

My next goal is to test the deck vs control to see how it fares before I make any the changes mentioned above.

[somethingdotdotdot]

Since this deck is looking for a way to draw cards...has anyone tried using the old suntower engine? Uba mask+Sylvan library. Replacing the tops with sylvan libraries and the crucibles with uba mask. It seems like the deck has a lot of ways to ramp up mana fast, so the 4 cc shouldn't be too much of a problem. Sylvan library is also not very color intensive at 1G. Once it comes online it effectively gives you 2 extra cards per turn. It also allows the horizon canopy slots to become taiga's in order to up the mountain count for koth's ability.