Since the first time I posted the deck, A LOT of stuff has changed. Basically black is now out (so it's more RG than Jund) and Land destruction, although fun, proved too clunky to work as the control shell for the deck.
The original post can be found in the spoiler:
The following is a control deck. It makes games drag a long time and some people will call you ugly names when you play it. Be warned.
It was initially based on the RW Wellspring, but seeing that it didn't work very well as aggro, I started tinkering towards BR, making it a deck more focused on removing creatures so tiny tokens from Beckon Apparition, Vile Rebirth and Kuldotha Rebirth could hit through with ease.
The wellsprings (Ichor Wellspring and Mycosynth Wellspring) provided a good source of card advantage and good targets for both Kuldotha Rebirth and Crack the Earth. However, I quickly noticed that since the deck had no problem getting rid of creatures, crack the earth often worked against lands, so I added Tremble and Raze. And it worked, however, the deck lacked punch, specially if my tiny little tokens found any kind of opposition.
So entered G. First, I switched the Beckon Apparition with a playset of Harvest Wurms: 3/2 for 2 that also draws me a land to fuel raze or retrace a raven's crime was simply perfect. It worked so well that I just wanted to sac more lands to get it into play earlier. So a couple of Scythe Tigers replaced the Vile Rebirth. Even without a Wurm, the Tiger is scary and since teh mana curve of the deck is SO LOW, we actually don't care about getting rid of a land at all. In fact, the reason both raze and crack the earth can be run both a 4 of is precisely that as long as we get some value of it, losing a land is a good trade off.
The deck itself is divided in 3 parts:
1.- The Control
2.- The Fodder
3.- The Threats
First, the removal. The deck get rid of creature with a combination of:
- Diabolic Edict: Simple, instant speed, hits everything and the art is fantastic. I play 4 of.
- Lightning Bolt: You can¡t spell red without Lightning Bolt. It hit most creatures, it's an instant and can burn your opponent too. 4 of.
- Ghastly Demise: A card that doesn't see as much play as one would think. Since the idea of this deck is to kill your own stuff to hut your opponent, your graveyard grows very big very quickly, so Ghastly Demise can hit most creatures that are out of LB's reach for just B. At instant speed. Sadly, it won't hit black, and with MBC being everywhere, it can't be played as a 4 of. 2 or 3 is enough.
But this deck plays even more destruction. And this is where it actually gets interesting:
- Crack the Earth: Ideally, Crack will trade a Wellspring for a permanent of your opponent's choice. But most of the time, it will trade lands for lands. The sweet thing is that you actually don't care about getting rid of some of your lands.
- Raze: Crack the Earth 5-6. Raze is just too good to be true. A stone rain for 1? I'm surprised it doesn't see more play. Since Cloudpost's ban, pauper's manabases have been getting greedier and greedier, not only because of the now slower timeclock, but also because land destruction is gone. So bounce lands are even seeing play. Razing a bounce land is setting your opponent 2 or 3 turns below and is enough advantage to make some players just concede.
- Raven's Crime: once you get to sac a mycosynth wellspring you have all the lands you need (the decks mana curve tops at BRG, everything after that isn't very useful), so you start getting tons of lands stuck in your hand, but since you have denied you opponent a good manabase, he or she is also stuck with cards in his hand, so you hit their hand with raven's crime. Since you only need 1 in your graveyard, just 2 or 3 suffice.
- Flame Jab: Another useful retracer. Not as good as Raven's crime, but its pretty versatile and can be very useful to avoid wasting LB. Elves love it.
- Ichor Wellspring: WR Wellspring players call Ichors "Pistons". And they are right. Ichor WS get's you a card just by playing it and another one for sac'ing it. It's usually the best target for both Kuldotha and Crack.
- Mycosynth Wellspring: This deck runs 3 colors, so the land grabbing is fantastic for us and so is getting another land when it leaves. Mycosynth is usually outshadowed by it's big brother, Ichor, but in this deck it does everything: it fixes your mana, it thins the deck, it fuels retrace, and most of all: it let's you play Raze without worrying about compromising your own future.
- Lands: The deck needs mana. But it needs very little mana. Trading iddle lands for value is a concept that most Burn players are familiar with. It might seem counter-intuitive, but trading a land is a solid option when the alternative is letting your opponent play. The only reason the deck runs artifact lands is for Kuldotha, but rarely they get in the way of Harvest Wurm, so the amount of them could be tinkered.
These are the cards that win you the game. Notice how they are ridiculously cheap? That's because we will be so busy killing our lands and keeping mana open to kill other creatures that we can't really pay for something bigger.
- Kuldotha Rebirth: The card that made me make the deck. It hit's like a LB that stick on time and it is almost immune to most spot removal (seriously, no one ever wastes a Doom Blade or a Journey to Nowhere in a 1/1 token unless they are too desperate or they are already winning). It fuels the wellsprings and gives you goblins. I love it.
- Scythe Tiger: Costs a land, but it's woth it. It's rarely a first turn drop. Instead, it's better to play it when the field is clear so it can just start swinging. Also immune to most forms of removal short of Edicts, as long as you keep the way clear, it will win you many games.
- Harvest Wurm: With so many land sac and discard effects, the wurm never has trouble getting out early.
What we (or at least I) have learnt since I first posted this deck is:
1. Black was only useful in order to have killspells. Red has enough fire power to do that, so swamps can go. Raven's Crime will be missed, though.
2. The deck can get threshold consistently enough to make werebear a 4/4.
3. Mycosynth wellspring is a beast that fills you hand with more lands that you will ever need. Flame Jab and Faithless Looting are more than happy to get those lands.
4. Land Destruction is iffy at best. Certainly not worth the slots it takes. Instead, Flame Slash and Electrickery provide a much better control shell.
5. There's still much more to do. There's definitely synergy between the cards, so with some luck (and tons of testing), the deck could even become good, but it's still too early.
So, without further ado, here is the latest RG Wellspring:
A nice deck, and quite similar to some dekcs I tried, but never quite got to work.
A few things, though:
I don't see the Raven's Crime. Since you are going against your opponents mana-base, having them discard a card is no advantage for us at all - they will be discarding in their end steps for having >7 cards, anyways. I'd rather play more land-hate or removal.
Because the deck loves getting lands into its graveyard, why not up the artifact land count to 4-4-4? 9 Basics are still enough to search for using the wellspring. There isn't really much of a disadvantage.
Lastly, Pauper has not banned or restricted list, unless you are playing MtGO, so Cloudposts are still up and running.
My playgroup has adopted the MTGO banlist, since it's pretty good, so no cloudposts for us. And in Cockatrice it seems like everyone has agreed to use the banlist as well.
About raven's crime, it works well as an early drop, and later as a way to control their hand. Mana denial isn't complete, so you never really get to the point where they get to more than 7 cards. More often, they are stuck with 3-5 cards.
And the reason I don't play more artifact lands is that Harvest Wurm demands a basic land. If it were any land I'd be more than happy to play only artifact lands (but if it were nonbasics, harvest wurm would probably be a legacy staple that could bring back wastelands and fetches, so it's better that it's just basic lands.)
I indeed forgot the basic part about Harvest Wurm. In that case, you really only want a Great Furnace for a Kuldotha Rebirth T1, true enough.
Well, what else could the deck need?
It's a shame there's not similar card to Crack the Earth...I really like it and it fits red nicely. Misguided Rage does the same for your opponent, but it is most likely too expensive mana-wise.
Orcish Lumberjack could turn Forests into massive amounts of mana, if you need that...
I always tried to make it work in the way of sacrifice or return the land for mana or another good effect, the cast tremble while controlling no lands. I also tried the Borderposts there.
I'd love to try a version with U just to play with Perilous Research, but even with the wellsprings, 4 colors is just too greedy manawise, and each color is doing something that can't be replaced.
Currently I'm testing running two werebears, as getting to threshold has proved quite easy so far, and a couple of mainboard electrickeries (instead of Ghastly Demise), since pretty much all T1 pauper decks run at least some 1/1s, so it quite often kills more targets than the alternative.
Mainboard Electrickery. Board sweepers are LD's best friend. As you're often trading 1-1 or even 2-for-1ing yourself, having some way to gain some card advantage while disrupting their plan is a really good way to stay on top.
Springleaf Drum. This card is excellent at fixing your colours, especially since you're using tokens.
I'll dig up some of my earlier attempts at this strategy, and I might have some more to say about it.
Update: Since my last post I started playing with a werebear main, and it was SO good I decided to try a RG version instead. Werebear provide ramp early game (so you can raze your forests without worrying about G) and is a very significant beater later.
However, removing black from the deck forced some major changes: for one, I don't have untargeted removal more than crack the earth (which is very unlikely to hit what you need it to hit)... So I added 2 mainboard Electrickery and an extra copy of Flame Jab. Also, since I had extra space I can now run the full playset of raze, because people weren't hating it as much as they should.
As you can see, the SB has also seen significant changes. There are 2 extra copies of electrickery against faeries, elves and goblins as well a 4 flame slashs in case I have to kill some fatties. But I thing the most interesting change comes in the form of Nature's Claim. Nature's claim could work against affinity but the real reason it is here is for the life gain against burn, which is otherwise an automatic loss for the jund version.
I'd like to get matchups and info on the RG version. I might want to take it for a spin after I get a better understanding of the deck, so I'm subscribing to this thread.
That list looks really tight and streamlined already.
But seriously, what do you think of Springleaf Drum? You could splash any colours you wanted with it. Maybe Even Chromatic Star.
How are your games going? Is the deck holding its own, or losing often?
Springleaf drum could have a place in the jund version, but even there, the deck is just too light in creatures to make it do something. In the RG version (which has more creatures) the most mana you need is RG, so it doesn't need ramp... and I wouldn't know what to cut either.
About how the deck is working, so far it has been pretty solid. Very rarely I have to mulligan more than once. When it comes to actual games, the land control effectively shutdowns triple color decks and very often mana-screws double color decks. The one time I faced a domain deck, the nacatls never got bigger than 2/2. I haven't faced Tron yet, but I'd think it's a very easy game.
Affinity pre-board is rough, since they get their board completely online by turn 2 or 3, but it's not unbeatable. Post board, they don't stand a chance. Flame slash often is much more important than smelt, as it kills ALL their threats and forces them to sac 2 artifacts to keep atog alive.
So far the hardest matchups pre sideboard are mono U Delver and MBC. Delver gets at bay with 4 electrickerys and pyroblasts. Flame jab also works wonders here.
MBC, on the other hand is probably the hardest matchup: being a single color, you can't screw his mana (but if you can get it to stay under 3 mana, they can't play most of their deck); edicts don't care about your scythe tiger's shroud; and it has enough kill spells to get rid of all your creatures twice. The worst is: I don't really know what to side against it.
Today I have some free time, so I'll post more detailed matchups.
I took your deck for a test drive yesterday and went up against Delver. I lost 1-2.
My first impressions on the deck is that I get land flooded. In every game, I was always just drawing lands when I already had like 5-8 in play. Another problem I noticed is that I didn't seem to have enough land saccing abilities to get Harvest wurm into play consistently. I was always waiting after a Rebirth or LD spell, and when they got countered it was bad, but getting Snapped was infuriating! There also isn't quite enough LD in here to actually rely on it consistently as a way to slow them down. I think my opponent got lucky first game and had a lot of lands, and the two following games he kept land-heavy hands, because LD seemed to barely affect his tempo.
I definitely want more Flame Jab in here. It will take care of the flooding problem and is also excellent versus Delver. 3 (and maybe even 4) will definitely help. Maybe Terramorphic Expanse could be a good way to get those wurms out earlier?
Mixed feelings over all. I really want this deck to work, but there's just something missing.
I have noticed the land flood you talk about. Maybe 21 lands is too much? Specially considering the deck already has 4 mycosynth wellspring and 4 werebear.
I just lost in cockatrice to a very nice guy who played a UB control deck (don't know if it has any name, but very similar to the first one here: http://mtgostrat.com/2013/02/pauper-ub-trinket-control-vs-burn/). Basically, I had a very slow game because I didn't have enough ways to get rid of my own value artifacts and the harvest wurm came into play too late because I couldn't get basic lands in the graveyard.
What I'm going to test now is to play with 19 lands and 2 faithless looting. I'm not sure about the numbers, but it should work. And as an added bonus, faithless looting helps get threshold earlier!
I like the looting here, too.
It turns the lands fetched and drawn with the wellsprings into something (hopefully) more useful.
Since you were talking about the sac-effects, Misguided Rage is another red option. Might come a bit late at 2R, but better than nothing.
Since we are in RG now, Orcish Lumberjack could accelerate us.
After lots of testing, raze definitely isn't working. It's a very cool effect, but only when it works. The most relevant decks in the meta are monocolor, and screwing their mana is just impossible. Most of the time, a targeted removal would be much better. So I've been trying a much more removal heavy deck lately:
Basically replaced the razes for Flame Slashes, pushed the elctrickeries to the sideboard and in upped the flame jabs and faithless lootings to 3. The extra control allows more survivability early game and let's the creatures do their thing more effectively.
@BladewingX:Orcish lumberjack seems promising. It can pump to absurd amounts of mana on turn 2. I'm not sure what to take to make place for them, though, but they could very well provide the acceleration to play a wellspring+kuldotha/crack AND a 2 drop on turn 2. I will have to test it during the week. However, I think that if the orcs come into the deck, there can't be any tree of tales, only forests (and anyways, I've found out that only very rarely I've had to actually cast Kuldotha's Rebirth against an artifact land, so it isn't such a relevant change).
Could it be the cards being used to sacrifice the wellsprings just aren't powerful enough? Crack the Earth is lackluster, to be honest. Kuldotha Rebirth is good, but it's not an incredibly powerful card, just a token generator on steroids.
I'm having déjà vu. This is exactly what happened when I was develloping a BR version of the deck with Lord Saturn almost two years ago. You go into a more control route, and then you start to think the sac outlet thing is not strong enough. And then you've completely change the idea of the deck.
I've been trying really hard not to barge into this thread and say, "Obermeir and I did this exhaustively like a year ago and it just didn't work," but that is technically the case here.
The problem with the Raze/Tremble/Crack the Earth plan is that you're going to be 2-for-1-ing yourself all day for what are, at their basic level, Stone Rain effects. You just go back to dying on an empty hand as soon as they draw another land. Cartographer/Tilling Treefolk/Harvest Wurm will try to buy you the card advantage back, but the first two are at a CMC you'll be straining to hit, and the latter one requires you to clog your two/three-color deck with basic land.
We have a thread going in the Other Pauper Subforum about Ichor Wellspring decks. I've played a few of them and have some strong opinions on what they need. I've been having some practice-room success with a sort of Grixis Sacriffinity list; I'll go stick it up over there as best I can from memory.
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Oh, you think the losers' bracket is your ally, but you merely adopted the scrub tier. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t 4-0 an FNM until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but an extra pack to sell for store credit!
Every post and deck list is worth looking at. So many ideas and different directions to go in. I think we've pushed this very far already, and it never yielded strong results. Here's yet another take. It's a bit depressing, really. I want this deck to work so bad.
Lord Saturn is right. 2-for-1ing yourself is just bad. That is the lesson here. You can't build a competitive deck around an idea like this.
We can build a good deck, capable of taking down certain strategies. Will it be tier 1? Probably not.
Haha, yeah, I still think about KD from time to time. Maybe in a nice Suicide Black shell with Flayer Husk and Bonesplitter - he's SO hard to block effectively with just 1 more point of power.
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Oh, you think the losers' bracket is your ally, but you merely adopted the scrub tier. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn’t 4-0 an FNM until I was already a man; by then, it was nothing to me but an extra pack to sell for store credit!
I completely agree with Lord Saturn: as fun as it is when it works, land destruction doesn't work in this deck at all. However, I think we had already reached that conclusion before.
I have now edited the OP to reflect the current state of the deck, which has changed a lot from the original idea posted.
Another card I'd like to bring to the discussion table is Sandstone Needle (and for RG possibly Hickory Woodlot).
Since we plan on sacrificing our lands anyways, why not use lands that are only dual-use, but grant us a push in mana level?
T1 Sandstone Needle on the go easily turns into T2 Stone Rain/Molten Rain or Raze + Crack the Earth + Land drop.
This also brings me to another version of the land destruction deck:
Using proper destruction (usually around cmc 3) in combination with mana acceleration (such as Lotus Petal, Simian Spirit Guide, etc) to force it in the early turns until you are at 3 lands and can afford a destruction spell every turn.
Along these lines, Turf Wound and Solfatara come to mind, too.
If you can reliably force these in the early turns, you might be able to completly lock your opponent out of the game.
If played against a player with 0 lands, they are in essence discard spells - that also draw you a card.
I can tell you right now that an LD deck using Lotus Petal and SSG are not going to work. I tried it myself. Any temporary mana accel used to cast Land Destruction comes back to the same problem: you're 2-for-1ing yourself. I tried playing Mono-Red LD with stuff like Desperate Ritual, and it was terrible. Same goes for Mono-Black and Dark Ritual.
However I have plenty of Experience playing Sandstone Needle in my Mono-Red LD and Sapprazzan Skerry in my Mono-Blue LD deck (I have one of every colour). For colours that don't have access to a solid 3 mana on turn two, these lands are great. They make you jump from 0-3-4-3-4-5-.... Assuming you hit all your land drops, that curve is perfect for a Land Destuction deck.
I had often contemplated Turf Wound, but mostly because of Pardic Miner, who actually helped you get your turn 3 LD on time. I'm not convinced these are playable. The cantrip is cool, though.
Since the first time I posted the deck, A LOT of stuff has changed. Basically black is now out (so it's more RG than Jund) and Land destruction, although fun, proved too clunky to work as the control shell for the deck.
The original post can be found in the spoiler:
It was initially based on the RW Wellspring, but seeing that it didn't work very well as aggro, I started tinkering towards BR, making it a deck more focused on removing creatures so tiny tokens from Beckon Apparition, Vile Rebirth and Kuldotha Rebirth could hit through with ease.
The wellsprings (Ichor Wellspring and Mycosynth Wellspring) provided a good source of card advantage and good targets for both Kuldotha Rebirth and Crack the Earth. However, I quickly noticed that since the deck had no problem getting rid of creatures, crack the earth often worked against lands, so I added Tremble and Raze. And it worked, however, the deck lacked punch, specially if my tiny little tokens found any kind of opposition.
So entered G. First, I switched the Beckon Apparition with a playset of Harvest Wurms: 3/2 for 2 that also draws me a land to fuel raze or retrace a raven's crime was simply perfect. It worked so well that I just wanted to sac more lands to get it into play earlier. So a couple of Scythe Tigers replaced the Vile Rebirth. Even without a Wurm, the Tiger is scary and since teh mana curve of the deck is SO LOW, we actually don't care about getting rid of a land at all. In fact, the reason both raze and crack the earth can be run both a 4 of is precisely that as long as we get some value of it, losing a land is a good trade off.
The deck itself is divided in 3 parts:
1.- The Control
2.- The Fodder
3.- The Threats
- Diabolic Edict: Simple, instant speed, hits everything and the art is fantastic. I play 4 of.
- Lightning Bolt: You can¡t spell red without Lightning Bolt. It hit most creatures, it's an instant and can burn your opponent too. 4 of.
- Ghastly Demise: A card that doesn't see as much play as one would think. Since the idea of this deck is to kill your own stuff to hut your opponent, your graveyard grows very big very quickly, so Ghastly Demise can hit most creatures that are out of LB's reach for just B. At instant speed. Sadly, it won't hit black, and with MBC being everywhere, it can't be played as a 4 of. 2 or 3 is enough.
But this deck plays even more destruction. And this is where it actually gets interesting:
- Crack the Earth: Ideally, Crack will trade a Wellspring for a permanent of your opponent's choice. But most of the time, it will trade lands for lands. The sweet thing is that you actually don't care about getting rid of some of your lands.
- Raze: Crack the Earth 5-6. Raze is just too good to be true. A stone rain for 1? I'm surprised it doesn't see more play. Since Cloudpost's ban, pauper's manabases have been getting greedier and greedier, not only because of the now slower timeclock, but also because land destruction is gone. So bounce lands are even seeing play. Razing a bounce land is setting your opponent 2 or 3 turns below and is enough advantage to make some players just concede.
- Raven's Crime: once you get to sac a mycosynth wellspring you have all the lands you need (the decks mana curve tops at BRG, everything after that isn't very useful), so you start getting tons of lands stuck in your hand, but since you have denied you opponent a good manabase, he or she is also stuck with cards in his hand, so you hit their hand with raven's crime. Since you only need 1 in your graveyard, just 2 or 3 suffice.
- Flame Jab: Another useful retracer. Not as good as Raven's crime, but its pretty versatile and can be very useful to avoid wasting LB. Elves love it.
These are cards that you will get rid of with Kuldotha Rebirth, Crack the Earth and raze:
- Ichor Wellspring: WR Wellspring players call Ichors "Pistons". And they are right. Ichor WS get's you a card just by playing it and another one for sac'ing it. It's usually the best target for both Kuldotha and Crack.
- Mycosynth Wellspring: This deck runs 3 colors, so the land grabbing is fantastic for us and so is getting another land when it leaves. Mycosynth is usually outshadowed by it's big brother, Ichor, but in this deck it does everything: it fixes your mana, it thins the deck, it fuels retrace, and most of all: it let's you play Raze without worrying about compromising your own future.
- Lands: The deck needs mana. But it needs very little mana. Trading iddle lands for value is a concept that most Burn players are familiar with. It might seem counter-intuitive, but trading a land is a solid option when the alternative is letting your opponent play. The only reason the deck runs artifact lands is for Kuldotha, but rarely they get in the way of Harvest Wurm, so the amount of them could be tinkered.
- Kuldotha Rebirth: The card that made me make the deck. It hit's like a LB that stick on time and it is almost immune to most spot removal (seriously, no one ever wastes a Doom Blade or a Journey to Nowhere in a 1/1 token unless they are too desperate or they are already winning). It fuels the wellsprings and gives you goblins. I love it.
- Scythe Tiger: Costs a land, but it's woth it. It's rarely a first turn drop. Instead, it's better to play it when the field is clear so it can just start swinging. Also immune to most forms of removal short of Edicts, as long as you keep the way clear, it will win you many games.
- Harvest Wurm: With so many land sac and discard effects, the wurm never has trouble getting out early.
My Decklist:
4 Ichor Wellspring
4 Mycosynth Wellspring
4 Crack the Earth
2 Raze
2 Raven's Crime
1 Flame Jab
4 Diabolic Edict
3 Ghastly Demise
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Great Furnace
3 Swamp
6 Mountain
5 Forest
3 Scythe Tiger
4 Harvest Wurm
4 Kuldotha Rebirth
4 Pyroblast
3 Electrickery
4 Smelt
4 Faerie Macabre
What we (or at least I) have learnt since I first posted this deck is:
1. Black was only useful in order to have killspells. Red has enough fire power to do that, so swamps can go. Raven's Crime will be missed, though.
2. The deck can get threshold consistently enough to make werebear a 4/4.
3. Mycosynth wellspring is a beast that fills you hand with more lands that you will ever need. Flame Jab and Faithless Looting are more than happy to get those lands.
4. Land Destruction is iffy at best. Certainly not worth the slots it takes. Instead, Flame Slash and Electrickery provide a much better control shell.
5. There's still much more to do. There's definitely synergy between the cards, so with some luck (and tons of testing), the deck could even become good, but it's still too early.
So, without further ado, here is the latest RG Wellspring:
9 Forest
6 Mountain
4 Great Furnace
Wellsprings+Sac effects:
4 Ichor Wellspring
4 Mycosynth Wellspring
4 Kuldotha Rebirth
4 Crack the Earth
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Flame Slash
3 Flame Jab
2 Electrickery
Creatures:
3 Scythe Tiger
4 Harvest Wurm
4 Werebear
3 Faithless Looting
4 Pyroblast
2 Flame Slash
2 Electrickery
4 Smelt
3 Nature's Claim
A few things, though:
I don't see the Raven's Crime. Since you are going against your opponents mana-base, having them discard a card is no advantage for us at all - they will be discarding in their end steps for having >7 cards, anyways. I'd rather play more land-hate or removal.
Because the deck loves getting lands into its graveyard, why not up the artifact land count to 4-4-4? 9 Basics are still enough to search for using the wellspring. There isn't really much of a disadvantage.
Lastly, Pauper has not banned or restricted list, unless you are playing MtGO, so Cloudposts are still up and running.
Cockatrice is still going strong over at http://www.woogerworks.com[/B]
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The Winner is Judge [2]
Chasay, Caller of Fire
Skaab Corpse Looter
[B]This Winner is also Judge [0]
About raven's crime, it works well as an early drop, and later as a way to control their hand. Mana denial isn't complete, so you never really get to the point where they get to more than 7 cards. More often, they are stuck with 3-5 cards.
And the reason I don't play more artifact lands is that Harvest Wurm demands a basic land. If it were any land I'd be more than happy to play only artifact lands (but if it were nonbasics, harvest wurm would probably be a legacy staple that could bring back wastelands and fetches, so it's better that it's just basic lands.)
Well, what else could the deck need?
It's a shame there's not similar card to Crack the Earth...I really like it and it fits red nicely.
Misguided Rage does the same for your opponent, but it is most likely too expensive mana-wise.
Orcish Lumberjack could turn Forests into massive amounts of mana, if you need that...
I always tried to make it work in the way of sacrifice or return the land for mana or another good effect, the cast tremble while controlling no lands. I also tried the Borderposts there.
I also thought about a version with blue, running Reality Acid and Perilous Research.
Mostly, a great size of test matches would determine what could be changed about the deck.
Cockatrice is still going strong over at http://www.woogerworks.com[/B]
Ghostly Battlefield
The Winner is Judge [2]
Chasay, Caller of Fire
Skaab Corpse Looter
[B]This Winner is also Judge [0]
Currently I'm testing running two werebears, as getting to threshold has proved quite easy so far, and a couple of mainboard electrickeries (instead of Ghastly Demise), since pretty much all T1 pauper decks run at least some 1/1s, so it quite often kills more targets than the alternative.
Mainboard Electrickery. Board sweepers are LD's best friend. As you're often trading 1-1 or even 2-for-1ing yourself, having some way to gain some card advantage while disrupting their plan is a really good way to stay on top.
Springleaf Drum. This card is excellent at fixing your colours, especially since you're using tokens.
I'll dig up some of my earlier attempts at this strategy, and I might have some more to say about it.
UGTurboFogGU
BRSacrificial AggroBR
16The Paper Pauper Battle Bag16
EDH
BRRakdos, Lord of PingersBR
GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
UB Ramses OverdarkUB
Sig by Ace5301 of Ace of Spades Studio
However, removing black from the deck forced some major changes: for one, I don't have untargeted removal more than crack the earth (which is very unlikely to hit what you need it to hit)... So I added 2 mainboard Electrickery and an extra copy of Flame Jab. Also, since I had extra space I can now run the full playset of raze, because people weren't hating it as much as they should.
The deck now looks like this:
4 Great Furnace
7 Mountain
7 Forest
3 Tree of Tales
4 Ichor Wellspring
4 Mycosynth Wellspring
4 Kuldotha Rebirth
4 Crack the Earth
4 Raze
2 Electrickery
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Scythe Tiger
4 Harvest Wurm
4 Werebear
4 Pyroblast
2 Electrickery
3 Smelt
3 Nature's Claim
3 Flame Slash
As you can see, the SB has also seen significant changes. There are 2 extra copies of electrickery against faeries, elves and goblins as well a 4 flame slashs in case I have to kill some fatties. But I thing the most interesting change comes in the form of Nature's Claim. Nature's claim could work against affinity but the real reason it is here is for the life gain against burn, which is otherwise an automatic loss for the jund version.
But seriously, what do you think of Springleaf Drum? You could splash any colours you wanted with it. Maybe Even Chromatic Star.
How are your games going? Is the deck holding its own, or losing often?
UGTurboFogGU
BRSacrificial AggroBR
16The Paper Pauper Battle Bag16
EDH
BRRakdos, Lord of PingersBR
GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
UB Ramses OverdarkUB
Sig by Ace5301 of Ace of Spades Studio
Springleaf drum could have a place in the jund version, but even there, the deck is just too light in creatures to make it do something. In the RG version (which has more creatures) the most mana you need is RG, so it doesn't need ramp... and I wouldn't know what to cut either.
About how the deck is working, so far it has been pretty solid. Very rarely I have to mulligan more than once. When it comes to actual games, the land control effectively shutdowns triple color decks and very often mana-screws double color decks. The one time I faced a domain deck, the nacatls never got bigger than 2/2. I haven't faced Tron yet, but I'd think it's a very easy game.
Affinity pre-board is rough, since they get their board completely online by turn 2 or 3, but it's not unbeatable. Post board, they don't stand a chance. Flame slash often is much more important than smelt, as it kills ALL their threats and forces them to sac 2 artifacts to keep atog alive.
So far the hardest matchups pre sideboard are mono U Delver and MBC. Delver gets at bay with 4 electrickerys and pyroblasts. Flame jab also works wonders here.
MBC, on the other hand is probably the hardest matchup: being a single color, you can't screw his mana (but if you can get it to stay under 3 mana, they can't play most of their deck); edicts don't care about your scythe tiger's shroud; and it has enough kill spells to get rid of all your creatures twice. The worst is: I don't really know what to side against it.
Today I have some free time, so I'll post more detailed matchups.
PD: The best part about Raze is how many free wins (ie. rage quitters) it gets you!: http://i.imgur.com/G67lHpQ.png
My first impressions on the deck is that I get land flooded. In every game, I was always just drawing lands when I already had like 5-8 in play. Another problem I noticed is that I didn't seem to have enough land saccing abilities to get Harvest wurm into play consistently. I was always waiting after a Rebirth or LD spell, and when they got countered it was bad, but getting Snapped was infuriating! There also isn't quite enough LD in here to actually rely on it consistently as a way to slow them down. I think my opponent got lucky first game and had a lot of lands, and the two following games he kept land-heavy hands, because LD seemed to barely affect his tempo.
I definitely want more Flame Jab in here. It will take care of the flooding problem and is also excellent versus Delver. 3 (and maybe even 4) will definitely help. Maybe Terramorphic Expanse could be a good way to get those wurms out earlier?
Mixed feelings over all. I really want this deck to work, but there's just something missing.
UGTurboFogGU
BRSacrificial AggroBR
16The Paper Pauper Battle Bag16
EDH
BRRakdos, Lord of PingersBR
GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
UB Ramses OverdarkUB
Sig by Ace5301 of Ace of Spades Studio
"When Harvest Wurm enters the battlefield, sacrifice it unless you return a basic land card from your graveyard to your hand."
One of the reasons why rebirthing your artifact lands won't get him on board either
I just lost in cockatrice to a very nice guy who played a UB control deck (don't know if it has any name, but very similar to the first one here: http://mtgostrat.com/2013/02/pauper-ub-trinket-control-vs-burn/). Basically, I had a very slow game because I didn't have enough ways to get rid of my own value artifacts and the harvest wurm came into play too late because I couldn't get basic lands in the graveyard.
What I'm going to test now is to play with 19 lands and 2 faithless looting. I'm not sure about the numbers, but it should work. And as an added bonus, faithless looting helps get threshold earlier!
Yeah, that's Trinket Control, a fairly common tier 2 deck.
I think the lootings will help a ton in this deck, as is in fact probably what it needs most. Good thinking!
UGTurboFogGU
BRSacrificial AggroBR
16The Paper Pauper Battle Bag16
EDH
BRRakdos, Lord of PingersBR
GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
UB Ramses OverdarkUB
Sig by Ace5301 of Ace of Spades Studio
It turns the lands fetched and drawn with the wellsprings into something (hopefully) more useful.
Since you were talking about the sac-effects, Misguided Rage is another red option. Might come a bit late at 2R, but better than nothing.
Since we are in RG now, Orcish Lumberjack could accelerate us.
Cockatrice is still going strong over at http://www.woogerworks.com[/B]
Ghostly Battlefield
The Winner is Judge [2]
Chasay, Caller of Fire
Skaab Corpse Looter
[B]This Winner is also Judge [0]
6 Mountain
4 Great Furnace
4 Ichor Wellspring
4 Mycosynth Wellspring
4 Kuldotha Rebirth
4 Crack the Earth
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Flame Slash
3 Flame Jab
3 Faithless Looting
3 Scythe Tiger
4 Harvest Wurm
4 Werebear
Basically replaced the razes for Flame Slashes, pushed the elctrickeries to the sideboard and in upped the flame jabs and faithless lootings to 3. The extra control allows more survivability early game and let's the creatures do their thing more effectively.
@BladewingX:Orcish lumberjack seems promising. It can pump to absurd amounts of mana on turn 2. I'm not sure what to take to make place for them, though, but they could very well provide the acceleration to play a wellspring+kuldotha/crack AND a 2 drop on turn 2. I will have to test it during the week. However, I think that if the orcs come into the deck, there can't be any tree of tales, only forests (and anyways, I've found out that only very rarely I've had to actually cast Kuldotha's Rebirth against an artifact land, so it isn't such a relevant change).
I'm having déjà vu. This is exactly what happened when I was develloping a BR version of the deck with Lord Saturn almost two years ago. You go into a more control route, and then you start to think the sac outlet thing is not strong enough. And then you've completely change the idea of the deck.
UGTurboFogGU
BRSacrificial AggroBR
16The Paper Pauper Battle Bag16
EDH
BRRakdos, Lord of PingersBR
GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
UB Ramses OverdarkUB
Sig by Ace5301 of Ace of Spades Studio
The problem with the Raze/Tremble/Crack the Earth plan is that you're going to be 2-for-1-ing yourself all day for what are, at their basic level, Stone Rain effects. You just go back to dying on an empty hand as soon as they draw another land. Cartographer/Tilling Treefolk/Harvest Wurm will try to buy you the card advantage back, but the first two are at a CMC you'll be straining to hit, and the latter one requires you to clog your two/three-color deck with basic land.
We have a thread going in the Other Pauper Subforum about Ichor Wellspring decks. I've played a few of them and have some strong opinions on what they need. I've been having some practice-room success with a sort of Grixis Sacriffinity list; I'll go stick it up over there as best I can from memory.
Every post and deck list is worth looking at. So many ideas and different directions to go in. I think we've pushed this very far already, and it never yielded strong results. Here's yet another take. It's a bit depressing, really. I want this deck to work so bad.
Lord Saturn is right. 2-for-1ing yourself is just bad. That is the lesson here. You can't build a competitive deck around an idea like this.
We can build a good deck, capable of taking down certain strategies. Will it be tier 1? Probably not.
UGTurboFogGU
BRSacrificial AggroBR
16The Paper Pauper Battle Bag16
EDH
BRRakdos, Lord of PingersBR
GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
UB Ramses OverdarkUB
Sig by Ace5301 of Ace of Spades Studio
Haha, yeah, I still think about KD from time to time. Maybe in a nice Suicide Black shell with Flayer Husk and Bonesplitter - he's SO hard to block effectively with just 1 more point of power.
I have now edited the OP to reflect the current state of the deck, which has changed a lot from the original idea posted.
Since we plan on sacrificing our lands anyways, why not use lands that are only dual-use, but grant us a push in mana level?
T1 Sandstone Needle on the go easily turns into T2 Stone Rain/Molten Rain or Raze + Crack the Earth + Land drop.
This also brings me to another version of the land destruction deck:
Using proper destruction (usually around cmc 3) in combination with mana acceleration (such as Lotus Petal, Simian Spirit Guide, etc) to force it in the early turns until you are at 3 lands and can afford a destruction spell every turn.
Along these lines, Turf Wound and Solfatara come to mind, too.
If you can reliably force these in the early turns, you might be able to completly lock your opponent out of the game.
If played against a player with 0 lands, they are in essence discard spells - that also draw you a card.
Cockatrice is still going strong over at http://www.woogerworks.com[/B]
Ghostly Battlefield
The Winner is Judge [2]
Chasay, Caller of Fire
Skaab Corpse Looter
[B]This Winner is also Judge [0]
However I have plenty of Experience playing Sandstone Needle in my Mono-Red LD and Sapprazzan Skerry in my Mono-Blue LD deck (I have one of every colour). For colours that don't have access to a solid 3 mana on turn two, these lands are great. They make you jump from 0-3-4-3-4-5-.... Assuming you hit all your land drops, that curve is perfect for a Land Destuction deck.
I had often contemplated Turf Wound, but mostly because of Pardic Miner, who actually helped you get your turn 3 LD on time. I'm not convinced these are playable. The cantrip is cool, though.
UGTurboFogGU
BRSacrificial AggroBR
16The Paper Pauper Battle Bag16
EDH
BRRakdos, Lord of PingersBR
GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
UB Ramses OverdarkUB
Sig by Ace5301 of Ace of Spades Studio