Tutor package: I think that the only real drawback of running Entomb instead of Gamble is having to splash back. Entomb is superior to Gamble in many ways and I have always had problems in the past with the variance induced by Gamble. With Entomb you are in control and you can play the stack in your favor.
Win condition: Punishing Fires counts. A lot. Very often you are denied the combo for some reason and you switch completely to the control plan: your denial is amazing and if you manage to keep up you can very quickly put yourself in a situation where you are firing 2 or 3 PF each turn. Entomb is very good at finding PF and all the aggro-control meta is so fragile in terms of mana bases that this scenario is a lot more feasible than you think :) The old Lands lists played BW and they did well at the time, unfortunately the pace of an actual Legacy game is such that you can't afford to loose one of your early turns of the game to BW. The actual Lands lists are doing goo because they are fast as hell, they play cheap tutors and accelerates quickly into the combo.
I actually tried a "full green" list with crop rotations and living whishes...very cute, but also very slow. It had the problems of Gamble (sorcery, clunky) but it was slower...
I also strongly believe that we don't need Dark Confidant in the SB: TNN and friends are fast and unstoppable, we either play the EE route or we decide that we don't care and go for the combo as quickly as possible. I'm convinced that the second route is the right one, it also opens up 3 (THREE!!!!!) slots in the SB to possibly improve our combo match-ups.
I would love to have a second manabond but the list is very tight and it has been very difficult for me to fit another. My feeling is that between 4 entombs and 3 crop rotations there is enough tutoring to make the deck work very efficiently and you can't afford to hinder your denial strategy by removing any number of ports.
As I said, I prefer to have to splash for B than to have to play gamble, I hate variance and gamble is too much of a variance card.
Gamble is less reliable but more versatile. I've used it plenty of times to get a card into my hand when it would've been useless in my graveyard (e.g. Manabond, Krosan Grip, Sphere of Resistance). Also, sometimes it's preferable for Loam to land in your hand rather than your graveyard. Finally, you're adding a bit of variance by adding a color to your deck. There are going to be some games where you want to cast Entomb but you only have a Taiga or a Grove.
To add, I also Gamble for combo pieces without having Loam every now and then. But the biggest downsides of Entomb are color issues and not being able to tutor Exploration/Manabond.
@Gamble vs. Entomb: all very true guys. I still prefer the consistency that Entomb brings, G1 you need Loam or PF and Entomb is the master at that, especially against DRS or in response to items on the stack. I have been burned too many times by Gamble's variance especially when the game is advanced and you don't have a ton of cards in your hand anymore.
I also think that there is a very significant difference in the type of variance induced by using Gamble or splashing B for Entomb: while Gamble induces a totally random effect (only mitigated by the fact that you may not be concerned in discarding Loam or PF, but in that case Entomb is more efficient), you have ways to manage the inclusion of B in many fashions (fetch lands, Moxes, mulliganing). I may be mistaken but I prefer to try and guide the deck towards producing the B I need than to discard what I just tutored getting an auto-generated 2 for 0.
I'm also not very keen in tutoring for exploration/manabond, the risk of fizzling that play is so high (unless you are playing against a deck that is not giving you any pressure but that is probably a win anyway) that I would never make it.
All of this said we are probably looking at a very close match between the two cards and it may just boil down to playing preference and feeling. I personally prefer to be in control of the outcome of my line of play and sacrifice a bit of versatility against the risk of just losing to variance.
Last edited by Raystar; 02-11-2014 at 04:46 AM. Reason: bad spelling :)
i rule the earth with this deck list:
slayer's stronghold , ancient tomb and shizo, death house FTW!!
http://deckstats.net/decks/6749/6199...saved=1&lng=en
Lands (34)
1 Barren Moor Land
1 Bayou Land - Swamp Forest
1 Cabal Pit
3 Dark Depths
1 Forest
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
1 Karakas Legendary Land
3 Rishadan Port Land
2 Wooded Foothills Land
1 Glacial Chasm Land
1 Maze of Ith Land
1 Ancient Tomb Land
1 Swamp Basic Land - Swamp
2 Taiga Land - Mountain Forest
3 Thespian's Stage Land
1 Slayers' Stronghold Land
1 Tranquil Thicket Land
2 Verdant Catacombs Land
4 Wasteland Land
Spells (26)
3 Crop Rotation Instant
3 Entomb Instant
4 Exploration Enchantment
4 Gamble Sorcery
3 Life from the Loam Sorcery
3 Manabond Enchantment
4 Mox Diamond Artifact
2 Punishing Fire Instant
Creatures (1)
1 Nether Spirit Creature - Spirit
61 Cards
Sideboard (15)
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Chains of Mephistopheles
1 Maze of Ith
1 Duplicant
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Crop Rotation
1 Coffin Purge
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Tower of the Magistrate
2 Pithing Needle
15 Cards
still wondering if i should take out nether spirit.
thanks for the advise, now, i shall rule the universe with the new deck list.
Lands (35)
1 Barren Moor Land
1 Bayou Land - Swamp Forest
1 Cabal Pit
3 Dark Depths
1 Forest
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
1 Karakas Legendary Land
4 Rishadan Port Land
1 Glacial Chasm Land
1 Maze of Ith Land
1 Ancient Tomb Land
1 Swamp Basic Land - Swamp
2 Taiga Land - Mountain Forest
3 Thespian's Stage Land
1 Slayers' Stronghold Land
1 Tranquil Thicket Land
4 Verdant Catacombs Land
4 Wasteland Land
Spells (26)
3 Crop Rotation Instant
3 Entomb Instant
4 Exploration Enchantment
4 Gamble Sorcery
3 Life from the Loam Sorcery
3 Manabond Enchantment
4 Mox Diamond Artifact
2 Punishing Fire Instant
61 Cards
Sideboard (15)
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Chains of Mephistopheles
2 Maze of Ith
1 Duplicant
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Crop Rotation
1 Coffin Purge
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Pernicious Deed
2 Pithing Needle
15 Cards
Haha, yes. Forget spaghetti monster. Marit rules all!
http://mtgpulse.com/event/15923#223204
Sooo we get another Hero making top with a classic lands build, interesting after seeing some varations in the past months (gamble and poxlands).
Instant [6]
3 Intuition
3 Punishing Fire
Sorcery [4]
4 Life from the Loam
Artifact [10]
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Mox Diamond
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Zuran Orb
Enchantment [5]
4 Exploration
1 Manabond
Land [36]
1 Forest
1 Bayou
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Glacial Chasm
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Maze of Ith
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Rishadan Port
1 Taiga
1 Thespian's Stage
3 Tolaria West
3 Tranquil Thicket
3 Tropical Island
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Academy Ruins
1 Karakas
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Dark Depths
61 cards
Sideboard:
2 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Dark Confidant
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Krosan Grip
2 Swan Song
1 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Sphere of Resistance
note the absence of white, and the combo hate in the board that comes with it.
and the addition of swan song in the board - a card i have never tested for this deck.
also bojuka bog is maindecked.
what do you guys think of this list?
Despite having become more of a Gamble-Lands proponent, I really like that list (other than 61 cards; maybe cut MD Crucible or MD Bog?). I think it is wise to somewhat focus the combo hate towards to most likely matchup (here: Sneak and Show).
i dont face sneak show much at all here in nothern europe (or at BoM) for some odd reason, but ANT and Omni quite prevalent, the spheres are good against them, but unimpressive vs sneakshow.
if i wanted to fight sneakshow, id play the third bridge in the sb, and maybe even pithing needle/second karakas/gilded drake ala GP Ghent list.
Ghent sideboard:
4 Dark Confidant
2 Gilded Drake
1 Raven's Crime
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Cursed Totem
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Tormod's Crypt
The deck is nothing new. Very similar to what I ran in the gp last year, also 61 cards. Swan song is fine vs s&t because chalice for 1 is swingy and using rebs or bebs is a hit or miss. Songs solve the moons post board in addition the the AD/grips and revokers that are brought in. Seems correct in s&t heavy env but not as strong vs tendrils. They really hate chalice for zero.
Hey guys, it was me that t8'ed in Nashville. They actually transcribed the list wrong; there are only 60 cards and 2 Tranquil Thickets. My record that day was:
2-1 Affinity
2-0 RUG Delver
2-1 Merfolk
2-0 RUG Delver
1-2 BUG Delver
2-1 UR Omnitell
2-0 RG Combo Lands
1-1-1 Deathblade (unintentional draw)
1-0-1 Junk (went to time but I won game 1)
0-2 Sneak and Show
I designed the SB around the Sneak and Show because I absolutely despise the MU and bring in like 14 cards. It still wasn't enough in quarters though =/. I was thinking of maybe 1 Chalice in the board we could Westtolaria for and put on 0, but couldn't find space I didn't want to cut any more Bobs. Luckily for me I played against good match ups most of the day and only had to play 1 combo match in the Swiss (UR Omnitell - squeeked by with Spheres).
Would we ever bring in Gilded Drake/Duplicant et. all in against other decks? I tend to shy away from such targeted SB cards but maybe that's what we have to do to beat the SnS menace.
Nice mu indeed. The only time I lose to Sneak is when the moon me. I try to preemptively set ee for 3 but sometimes don't have time to do it if I have to play around pierce. I'm going to try a seal or two instead of a cursed totem. Seal also comes in off their s&t too. I like chalice too much to drop it.
Hey man, nice work. It's good to see the (in my opinion) much more interesting lands variant do well. In my experience, the best way to beat Sneak and Show has been with a needle effect and a Karakas, or with Thalia and mana denial, but you're right in that the conditional targeted sideboard cards aren't the greatest because they do nothing against the Sneak Attack part of the deck which is the part we can't really beat. Unfortunately, there is really no realistic way to sideboard enough stuff to beat Sneak and Show, it mostly just involves getting lucky.
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