That's actually quite neat, anyone want to give it a whirl? I'm willing to playtest some of these things on Cockatrice (Wooger) if there's interest.Originally Posted by Fatal
Played in a small LGS legacy tourny today.
round 1) WBR midrange 2-0
Don't remember much but wastes did work
Round 2) Affinity 2-0
Jitte did its thing both games
Round 3) All Spells 0-2
Game 1: Goes off first turn
Game 2: I enlighten up a rest in peace, I get to play it on my turn two, but he bounces with chain of vapor then goes off. Pretty bad matchup.
Got 2nd overall, with a little store credit to boot.
Nice idea from the Dark Depths thread: Scapeshift, one card combo! With Thespian’s Stage and Dark Depths it’s a sort of Natural Order not even requiring the green critter.
It could be a strong B plan against Miracle, a very fast restart after a Terminus sweep.
So Scapeshift gets the land into play tapped, and next turn you can make a 20/20 token - with summoning sickness?
Seems too slow, and Scapeshift has bad synergy with Thalia and Teeg.
True, but it has potential as a sideboard card. Miracle has a slow game anyway, Jund/TA/BUG have no answer to the token outside a providential Wasteland draw when your Stage is tapped. I think it's worth testing.
GSZ has bad synergy with Thalia and Teeg too but this never stopped Maverick from playing it.
The little Dark Depths combo is cute, but why is everyone using Thespian Stage when Vesuva is available? It does the same thing, except it does it instantaneously when it comes into play. I don't think you are going to want more than one copy land in your deck though. Seems to dilute the mana base too much with three as some of these lists are showing.
Scapeshift into Stage & Depths is kill in three turns. That's just as fast (or slow) as Natural Order into Progenitus, but you save yourself having to sac a green guy.
But... it's vulnerable to Wasteland and Swords to Plowshares, which Progenitus isn't.
I am definitely willing to sac a green dude if that gains my three turn kill protection from everything (except counterspells, obviously). And do we play NORPO in Maverick? Well, I've seen it, but I beat it with a Maverick list without it. It can help, but it also gives you awkward hands with Proggie in it. It's not bad, but definitely not great, and probably not optimal. So Scapeshift into Stage & Depths is probably even less optimal.
By the way, the argument that GSZ works just as badly with Teeg and Thalia as Scapeshift/Natural Order is wrong. Zenith can always be played before Thalia or Teeg hits the board. Firstly because you can use it as a sort of Llanowar Elf, and secondly because you can Zenith into that one Teeg or into a Ranger/Ooze/whatever, and the turn afterwards play Thalia. But note that Thalia and Teeg, if they are needed, must enter play as soon as may be. You cannot wait until after you have cast a four mana Sorcery that should win you the game in three turns. If you do, the opponent will just use the time you just gave him to set up something even more sick than a 10/10 or 20/20 dude. Thalia and Teeg prevent the opponent from doing unfair stuff, granting you the time to kill him before he has time to recover. Four mana Sorceries just don't fit in that plan, whereas a Zenith complements the Teeg (fetches it), is still castable under Thalia (though slow), and will usually be used before either hits the table, simply because you can. Zenith is a completely different beast.
Dark Depths enters the battlefield with ten ice counters on it. Vesuva copies a land as it enters the battlefield, so if you chose to copy Dark Depths, your Vesuva will get ten ice counters. Thespian's Stage, on the other hand, copies Dark Depths with its ability after it enters the battlefield, so it gets no ice counters. That's why Stage works and Vesuva does not.
I see more than others do because I know where to look.
@Asthereal: I said “GSZ has bad synergy with Thalia and Teeg too”, I didn’t say that it works as badly as Scapeshift/Natural Order with Teeg and Thalia. You can’t play GSZ with Teeg in play as you can’t play Scapeshift, while Thalia just slows it down. That’s what I meant. Anyway, I didn’t suggest Scapeshift as a mainstream plan but just as sideboard card for matchups where you likely (could) need to recover a compromised situation, i.e. after a Terminus or under a Punishing Fire Lock - situations where the standard build of the deck is quite weak.
Regarding the lack of protections of Marit Lage, this deck is well suited with maindeck MoR and Sylvan Safekeeper against StP (not considering that StP is a +20 life for your race), and the token is indestructible to black removals. Add land tutoring for the combo and Wastelands for opposing Karakas, Maze of Ith (and Wastelands on your combo pieces) and you have one of the best environments for the new combo.
The list I’m testing, for reference:
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Dark Depths
4 Windswept Heath
4 Savannah
4 Wasteland
1 Forest
1 Plains
1 Maze of Ith
1 Karakas
2 Horizon Canopy
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Gaea's Cradle
3 Weathered Wayfarer
3 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Mother of Runes
2 Sylvan Safekeeper
4 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Birds of Paradise
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Gaddock Teeg
2 Scryb Ranger
2 Phyrexian Revoker
4 AEther Vial
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte
Because when Vesuva enters the battelfield copying dark depths, it will come into play with the ice counters on it. Thespian's stage is already in play, so when you copy the depths it won't get the counters.
Cannot agree that GSZ has bad synergy with Teeg.
GSZ actually allows us to play main deck Teeg.
Without GSZ, we need like 2-3 Teeg main deck to consistently have it when needed.
Thalia does have bad synergy with GSZ, but just nowhere near as bad as 4CMC sorceries.
More importantly:
1. I argued that Natural Order is usually better than Scapeshift. I still think that's true, though perhaps not in a Weathered Wayfarer list (which I think is not the strongest right now, but that's just my two cents).
2. If you fear the Terminus so much, why bother messing up your deck? There is always Elspeth. Elspeth is MUCH better as a card on itself. Hard to remove, still good after your big dude gets killed, doesn't need weird cards like Dark Depths to work. I could go on.
I played lightning greaves when fauna shaman + loyal retainers+ elesh norn package was popular. Indeed it had synergy with most of the deck, but it requires stoneforge mystic and a good reason to play (such as a faster combo out + protecting your combo activator). I even wrote about some of my good finishes with that build here.
I think it's better in the zenith build, as virtually it has more creatures than in the vial build. On the other hand the greaves are worse now than it was a year ago, when there were no terminus and maverick didn't play thalia. But the final answer is in testing.
Nothing is true, everything is permitted...
GSZ is useful to find Teeg when needed, of course, but Teeg HAS bad synergy with GSZ: once you have Teeg in play your following GSZ are totally dead, unless you can bounce him with Karakas... AND the pros of GSZ+Teeg are more than the cons, so it's well worth playing. It’s a Captain Obvious debate.
Scapeshift was just a suggestion about the topic of the moment, the Depths+Stage combo.
The combo itself is very interesting and deserves testing. We are working on it in different environments, Maverick, Junk, 43 Lands just to mention the main existing decks, plus many other new dedicated builds. In this thread, I’m talking about the best application of the combo in Maverick and hence its pros and cons.
Only time and field data will give the final answer; at the moment I can say that the combo is strong and seems to actually improve some of the intrinsic weaknesses of this deck.
Probably I wasn’t clear enough. To answer your point I don’t “fear” Terminus, I just noticed that it is handled better with the combo. Moreover, I’m not looking for a specific answer to a specific treat at all; my goal is wide-testing the application of the Depths+Stage combo in the meta.
Took Maverick to a Legacy weekly and sacked my way to 5-0 through some bad matchups.
R1 I play against Aluren combo, he gets me game 1 with Therapy naming Swords -> Rector to find Aluren and win. Game 2 he walks into Bojuka Bog to fizzle his Rector trigger. Game 3 I play turn 2 Teeg, he bounces and Therapys it, I rip my boarded copy (was definitely dead without it) and win by continuing the run goods with Ooze and Jitte.
R2 I play against GW Enchantress and he finds one Enchantress in two games so I win. We play a third game because I'm curious about how the matchup plays when his deck actually does something. I end up winning in a pretty epic fashion ... He locks me out easily but I have Teeg out so he can't play Sigil of the Empty Throne. He ends up drawing so many cards before casting Emrakul that he can't play any more spells after I set up Maze + Sigarda to blank his win con (I had Library and Knight going for a few turns so it was easy to set up) and he dies to inevitably decking while being completely unable to do anything relevant.
R3 I play against RUG Delver and both decks to more or less what they're supposed to, but I find Ooze, Safekeeper, and Scryb Ranger and he can't beat those cards when they're all on the field. In game 2 my beatdowns are bigger than his and he makes a decision to go on the man plan and fetch a Trop and then dies with 3 Bolts on hand and me at 7 life.
R4 I offer the draw into top 8 but we're both locked anyway so he decides to play it out. He's on Dragon Stompy and turn 1 Blood Moons me but I rip a Forest on my second draw step, Zenith for Hierarch, and am able to activate a Jitte before he gets an Arc-Slogger down and ruins everything I have except the Knight with the Jitte on it, which ends up killing him. Game 2 he mulls to basically nothing.
Top 8 I get paired against MUD and his City -> City -> Lodestone draw dies to my Noble -> Thalia -> Knight -> Swords draw. Game 2 he mulls to nothing.
We split top 4 (R3 and R4 guy both 4-1'd with me as their only loss) and I count myself lucky.
I have serious doubts as to whether or not Dark Depths improves Maverick, but it does sound fun to test anyway. Looking at your list, I think that you definitely need to run four Mom and KotR. These are core cards in nearly any Maverick build, but especially in a Dark Depths version. Mom is needed to help protect your combo, while Knight finds the lands that you need.
I don't think there's enough room for a Stoneforge package and Dark Depths in the same deck. My advice would be to cut the four SFMs and the Swords of X and Y. Just run two Jitte's maindeck as your equipment. This opens up five slots and allows you to run a full set of Mom and Knight, while playing more spells that help you find and protect your combo.
The biggest problem with Depths/Stage in this deck is the opponent's Wasteland. You only have one copy of each and don't have a way to get anything out of the graveyard once you've lost it. Too bad that Phyrexian Revoker doesn't work more like Pithing Needle and be able to turn off the non-mana abilities of lands such as Wasteland and Karakas.
I see more than others do because I know where to look.
Tournament Report: Knightware Inc
Took the ol' Mav to the Knightware tournament today, and didn't do so well but I'll make a tourney report anyways.
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Maze Of Ith
1 Karakas
2 Cavern Of Souls
2 Wooded Foothills
4 Savannah
4 Windswept Heath
2 Forest
1 Plains
4 Wasteland
1 Dryad Arbor
4 Mother Of Runes
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Thalia, Guardian Of Thraben
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Qasali Pridemage
1 Scryb Ranger
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Knight Of The Reliquary
2 Aven Mindcensor
1 Thrun, The Last Troll
1 Sigarda Host of Herons
4 Swords To Plowshares
4 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Sylvan Library
SB:
2 Choke
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Pithing Needle
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Dueling Grounds
1 Elspeth, Knight Errant
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Sword Of Light And Shadow
1 Rest In Peace
1 Krosan Grip
Round 1: Vs Death & Taxes
Game 1: I keep a hand that seems fine, but he plays a revoker naming hierarch and grinds me out with stoneforges into good equips and me not having answers.
In: Krosan Grip, Revoker, Sword Of Light And Shadow, 2 O Rings
Out: 3 Thalia, 1 Teeg, 1 Sylvan Library
Game 2: Mull to 6, get out early hierarch start again, only to be revoker'ed again, eventually he is able to connect with a jitte on a serra avenger and eat two of my 3 moms, don't find an answer to mirran crusaders, a flickerwisp and serra avenger and he gets me.
0-1
Round 2: Miracle Stoneblade
Game 1: Get an early mom + Teeg, he can't find an answer and is overwhelmed by Thrun, KotR, and scryb ranger
In: Kgrip, Revoker, 2 Choke, 2 Oblivion Ring, Elspeth
Out: 4 Swords To Plowshares, 2 Umezawa's Jitte, 1 Stoneforge
Game 2: He counters a turn two KotR, I go for the turn 3 Choke which resolves and he has no outs. I even ask him if he has Oring or Detention Sphere but he says nope and I take over quickly with a thrun
1-1
Round 3: Hoogland Style Loam
Game 1: He gets an early bob, I don't get an answer, he devastating dreams to kill my board. Not much happens and he gets a knight and wins
In: 2 Enlightened Tutor, 1 Rest In Peace, 2 Oblivion Ring, 1 Elspeth
Out: 2 Aven Mindcensor, 1 Stoneforge Mystic, 1 Gaddock Teeg, 2 Ooze
Game 2: I am able to wasteland his lands with a thalia on board that keeps him down long enough for me to get there before he gets control
Game 3: He gets a sylvan library out early, I have no answers, get him to 3 life, he DDs for my board and 2 basic lands, i never recover while he uses sylvan library to stack his Bob draws to never lose life.
1-2
Round 4: Unexpected Results Omniscience
Game 1: He shows and tells into omniscience which makes my knight look pretty stupid and casts Emrakul. GG
Side In: 2 Oblivion Ring, 1 Krosan Grip, 1 Canonist
Out: 1 Stoneforge, 2 Jitte, 1 STP
Game 2: I oblivion ring his first show and telled emrakul, get him to 3 and he gets a topdecked show and tell into omni emrakul.
1-3
Round 5: Miracles
Game 1: I get the nut cavern into Mom into teeg, get a knight out and wasteland his non basics, he can't close it out.
In: Kgrip, Revoker, 2 Choke, 2 Oblivion Ring, Elspeth
Out: 4 Swords To Plowshares, 2 Umezawa's Jitte, 1 Stoneforge
Game 2: Turn 4 Elspeth does work in this match. He plays an engineered plague on human but thankfully elspeths homies are only soldiers (had to ask head judge about that one). He never gets an out to elspeth
2-3
Round 6 (final round): Hive Mind
Game 1: Me: I durdle with mom and scooze while he plays grim monolith and turn 3 casts hive mind and pact of the titan
In: 2 Oring, 1 Canonist, 1 revoker, 1 pithing needle (shouldn't have done this but probably made no difference), 1 Kgrip
Out: 4 Swords To Plowshares, 2 Umezawa's Jitte
Game 2: I manage to hold down the fort for a little while, get him to 3 but he casts hive mind after clearing the way of thalias and teegs into pact for the win
End record: 2-4
Feelings: I think I will change the sideboard to make it easier. The tutor board is cool but sometimes very awkward, and I found myself having more situational cards than cards to take out. I am not sure if I need sigarda, she sat in my hand most of the time. Thrun was nice but I am thinking of going to more low CC creatures like qasali, maybe another stoneforge and take a jitte out for Batterskull. I am not sure about cradle either. It generates awesome amounts of mana but it sucks when you only have 1 creature or get wrathed, and the fixing from horizon canopy may be worth it instead. Probably should go up to 4 thalias but I don't know. Hive mind is basically unbeatable with this deck if the pilot knows what they are doing.
Constructive criticism on list or sideboarding welcome.
Last edited by ironclad8690; 06-03-2013 at 11:35 AM.
I get your point. Let’s say there are three main approaches to Dark Depths+Thespian’s Stage:
- Dedicated deck – see Dark Depths thread in N&D;
- Existing deck strongly tweaked to abuse the combo as a main plan – see 43 Lands (very good) and maybe Junk/Maverick (probably not so good) with stuff like Crop Rotation, Scapeshift and so on;
- Existing deck with minimum amount of slots to use the combo as a B plan.
I’m testing an experiment of type 3. I looked for a deck with intrinsic support to the combo:
- Tutoring: Knight of the Reliquary and Weathered Wayfarer;
- Token defense, with Mother of Runes, Sylvan Safekeeper (gives protection from Karakas and Maze of Ith too, unlike MoR, and is fed by Weathered Wayfarer), Wasteland itself against opposing Wastelands.
The original build won the Catalan Legue and T8ed the BoM short time ago. It’s quite different from usual GSZ builds but extremely powerful. It has a lot of non trivial synergies, somewhat like D&T, and the card choice has been carefully studied. The Stoneforge Mystic package is one of the main plan of this build – this is the reason why it runs so many evasive creatures (3 Birds of Paradise and 2 Scryb Ranger). The 7 main deck hate bears also work wonderfully with Vials and the rest of the deck. Ask Luis Viciano aka M@verick for more details; I didn’t dare to touch anything of the spell list in the end, I just switched two lands for the combo – the manabase was rock-solid anyway and in my testing I had no problem so far.
The key point is that the combo is just a B plan. You don’t consider it until you have active tutors and protection, and again you keep it as an option but go for it only if it is needed, otherwise you go with the main plan. I was able to profit the combo to win matchups I’d have lost much more than the times Depths was just a dead draw up to now. From this point of view, the comparison with Time Vault+Voltaic Key is pertinent.
Among the lines of play, I suggest to always play Dark Depths first and Thespian’s Stage after you cleared the board from opposing Wastelands.
With this build you can sometimes surprise the opponent by comboing unexpectedly instant speed at EoT: with an active Knight of the Reliquary flash or Vial in a Scryb Ranger, activate twice the Knight, run the combo and win in your turn
Last edited by Morte; 06-03-2013 at 06:18 PM.
Do you think it would be good to put a Loam somewhere in the 75 just in case the game goes long and you lose the combo? I am not sure if it quite makes the cut but may be worth it.I get your point. Let’s say there are three main approaches to Dark Depths+Thespian’s Stage:
- Dedicated deck – see Dark Depths thread in N&D;
- Existing deck strongly tweaked to abuse the combo as a main plan – see 43 Lands (very good) and maybe Junk/Maverick (probably not so good) with stuff like Crop Rotation, Scapeshift and so on;
- Existing deck with minimum amount of slots to use the combo as a B plan.
I’m testing an experiment of type 3. I looked for a deck with intrinsic support to the combo:
- Tutoring: Knight of the Reliquary and Weathered Wayfarer;
- Token defense, with Mother of Runes, Sylvan Safekeeper (gives protection fromKarakas and Maze of Ith too, unlike MoR, and is fed by Weathered Wayfarer), Wasteland itself against opposing Wastelands.
The original build won the Catalan Legue and T8ed the BoM short time ago. It’s quite different from usual GSZ builds but extremely powerful. It has a lot of non trivial synergies, somewhat like D&T, and the card choice has been carefully studied. The Stoneforge Mystic package is one of the main plan of this build – this is the reason why it runs so many evasive creatures (3 Birds of Paradise and 2 Scryb Ranger). The 7 main deck hate bears are also works wonderfully with Vials and the rest of the deck. Ask Luis Viciano aka M@verick for more details; I didn’t dare to touch anything of the spell list in the end, I just switched two lands for the combo – the manabase was rock-solid anyway and in my testing I had no problem so far.
The key point is that the combo is just a B plan. You don’t consider it until you have active tutors and protection, and again you keep it as an option but go for it only if it is needed, otherwise you go with the main plan. I was able to profit the combo to win matchups I’d have lost much more than the times Depths was just a dead draw up to now. From this point of view, the comparison with Time Vault+Voltaic Key is pertinent.
Among the lines of play, I suggest to always play Dark Depths first and Thespian’s Stage after you cleared the board from opposing Wastelands.
With this build you can sometimes surprise the opponent by comboing unexpectedly instant speed at EoT: with an active Knight of the Reliquary flash or Vial in a Scryb Ranger, activate twice the Knight, run the combo and win in your turn
Won a LGS 3 round vs jund, tezzerator control, and elves. What with how many omniscience decks I played in LA yesterday, I think I might even go up to 3 canonists in the board. Very helpful in many matchups, would've loved it vs hive mind yesterday. I have been playing this deck for 6 months and I feel I am just starting to "get it" finally.
I wouldn't play Life from the Loam maindeck in this build since it plays Weathered Wayfarer that has a similar effect, outside recovering the combo from Wastelands, Stifle or removal of the token, but is less mana intensive and is generally more in line with the Vial plan of the deck. I'd consider it if I wanted to push the combo above a B plan.
On the other hand, it is definitely a good sideboard option especially against matchups where a board sweep is likely. Life from the Loam is very synergic in Maverick and especially in a list with Wasteland, Horizon Canopy and the Dark Depths+Thespian's Stage combo. I will test it.
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