A Viable Mana Denial Deck (let's make one)

[perm]

I believe wizards has essentially admitted that land destruction is not supposed to be a competitive way to play- at least in the form of bare Stone Rain type cards. I was just reading the tournament performance of the read death, and it seems his mana denial directly bought him victory in the matchups. It got me thinking: can the best LD cards in legacy be used together to make this the bulk of the gameplan? What are the best LD cards?

Wasteland
Stifle
Sinkhole

Other Considerations
Bind, Squelch or Inderdict. Act as cantripping stifles that can't target triggered abilities, but have CMC 2, they can act as stifle 5-8. I don't think trickbind is even worth considering as a non-cantripping inderdict.

Wasteland is nice because it fits into any colors, and stifle and sinkhole mean we get Blue and Black. To build a real LD strategy around wasteland, we need LftL or Crucible. Green is worth considering, it gives us life from the loam, and a creature that would go nicely here, eternal witness.

Non LD cards that would work nicely with it
Dark Confidant Best creature in the game, beater for 2 CMC, doubles our card draw in a deck with a low curve that desperately needs refilling.
Eternal Witness One of my favorite creatures, has a similar CA function as confidant, and beats well too.
Dark Ritual Lets us power out LD while they can still
Hymn to Tourach Best discard spell, and it can also hit lands whereas most cannot

[arwall]

Nettlevine Blight. It's more a mid-game play than anything, but it's such an expensive card.

Also, it's [cards].

[Koby]

Wasteland
Sinkhole
Dark Confidant
Dark Ritual
Hymn to Tourach

Looks very similar to Eva Green to me. Why are we trying to reinvent the wheel I wonder?

The problem with LD isn't so much critical mass, but tempo. Once you destroy all their lands, how do you intend to win before they play all their relevant spells? Tarmgoyf and Tombstalker solve this problem very well, but if we're doing that we're heading into Team America territory, which has proven to be a meta-game deck.

Not trying to bash your idea, but it seems that most of these have been tried and we've gotten two Tier 2 decks out of it. Eva Green with BG and Team America with BUg.

[Meekrab]

Instead of playing "mana denial" why not play "spell denial"? Sol Ring lands, Chalice, Waste, Moon effects- oh dear you're halfway to running red mud.

[kicks_422]

You know the best way to deny your opponent mana?

Tendrils them out before they get to play a land.

[Uncoordinated]

Just look up Trisomy 21. I think it's buried somewhere in Established.

[Mystical_Jackass]

Many major decks like Stax and Vial Goblins incorporate mana denial into their strategy. The question is what kind of route do you want to go? Obviously Blood Moon and Contamination are powerful mana denials by limiting your opponents ability to play spells, but the most direct is gonna simply be land destruction. Sinkhole's gonna' slow them down (unless they're using fetchlands and keep them open), but since Legacy's played on such a low curve you'll either have to use Sphere of Resistances or 3spheres in some control shell or go mass land destruction with Geddon or Wildfire. That's the only way to really hinder them, and still, you'll still have to deal with Heirarch's and Vials. I think the reinventing the wheel reference was pretty much right on, who hasn't gone this route and ended up past Tier 3, Tier 2.

[Qweerios]

I see you read my Red Gate mini report :D. To tell you the truth, I have always played mana denial in every single one of my competitive legacy decks. LD is good ONLY if you can take advantage of the tempo, therefore, your deck must be very aggressive to begin with. For this very reason my best experiences with LD have been with B/R, B/W, and B/U. I see what you are trying to do with Squelch, Bind, and Interdict but that would be overcommiting to LD. I find black to be the best shell for LD strategies not only because of Sinkhole but also because of all the early disruption, removal, acceleration, and undercosted threats the color offers. Red offers burn and Moon effects, Blue offers control and card quality, and white offers versatility and great sideboard options. My best experiences have been with red and white as both colours are proactive with LD strategies as opposed to blue which is more reactive generally slower. I am currently testing a B/W land disruption deck with alot of aggressivity, resillience, and versatility. You can find the unsuccessful thread in New and Developmental Decks under B/W Land Denial where I first posted the idea. Here is the decklist anyways:


Creatures (16)
4 Leonin Arbiter
4 Dark Confidant
4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 Abyssal Persecutor

Spells (20)
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Sinkhole
4 Vindicate

Artifacts (2)
2 Umezawa's Jitte

Lands (22)
4 Wasteland
4 Scrubland
4 Godless Shrine
4 Tainted Field
6 Swamp

Sideboard (15)
3 Perish
3 Engineered Plague
3 Runed Halo
3 Pithing Needle
3 Tormod's Crypt


A few things I love about this deck:

-The mana base is stifle proof. Careful of wastelocks.
-The deck fully utilizes the versatility of Vindicate in the form of LD, Artifact Removal (Vials), creature removal (Percy), and of course MD answer to enchantments and Plainswalkers.
-Every creatures MUST be answered aside from Gatekeeper which I don't really consider a creature in the first place.
-Swords are never dead cards with Percy.
-I can effectively use Runed Halo (WW) against NO Prog, ANT, and Goyfs to name a few.
-I feel Arbiter has a lot of potential not only for fetchlands, Matrons, Tutors but also with the rise of Stoneforge Mystics and the advent of Green Sun's Zenith.

I did try a Bob-less version of B/W disruption with Rituals and Tombstalkers to good avail, I simply prefer Red than White in a pure tempo-generating aggressive deck.

[Jabari]

Junk Denial?

Lands
4 Wasteland
3 Ghostquarter
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Savannah
1 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Forest
2 Bayou


Acceleration
4 Mox Diamond
4 Lotus Petal

Hate bears
4 Eternal Witness
4 Aven Mindcensor
4 Leonin Arbiter

Lock pieces
4 Trinisphere
2 Engineered Explosives
/ Executioner's Capsule
2 Glissa, The Traitor
3 Crucible of Worlds

Removal-ish
4 Vindicate
4 Hymn to Tourach
1 Cursed Scroll


There are several flex slots with this list but it seems pretty crazy to go turn 1 Arbiter/play Strip Mine in legacy. Any thoughts?

[Galroth]

Smallpox? Pox?

I could really see Smallpox working out with Abyssal Persecutor. Either generate tempo early game with the extra land destruction (even if it hits both players, keeping them to a land count where they can't play the majority of their hand is still crippling) or you can use it late game to get rid of Persecutor. Adds in extra discard if your facing fast combo. I know I make it sound universally good, but it's really conditional also. Just a thought, probably worth testing.

[Uncoordinated]

Trisomy 21. Mentioning it again 'cos I think this is a good place to start from. Could use some tailoring to make it more suitable to your metagame. In summary: it's a dedicated board control deck using a Loam engine and yard-based wincons.

Smallpox is amazing LD. Especially since it doubles as creature kill when played correctly. It should go 2:1 just like Hymn, or at times even going 3:1 in a Loam-based deck. Pox is.. not so much. Triple black is much more restrictive than double, and it's much more likely to have you binning cards you want to keep. Smallpox is faster ( important for LD ) and often binning a single land ( or Loam! ) is great. As far as I know, most variants of Pox have already removed Pox from their lists.

Arbiter + Waste/Quarter + Crucible looks interesting. It definitely removes some of the reliance on the graveyard that Loam-based lists would have, but it just seems more inconsistent.

Are you guys looking for a more midrange deck, or is Trisomy 21 appropriate? Perhaps one with a better combo matchup?

[Oiolosse]

Just look up Trisomy 21. I think it's buried somewhere in Established.

Ditto. I tested this deck when posted back when and it is freaking awesome. Small pox is sick. LftL with cycling lands and Wasteland is awesome.

[Moosedog]

As long as Aether Vial is really popular land disruption will be really hard to make competitive.

[death]

Aether Vial will always be popular and land disruption will never be competitive.

Fixed.