I think what you meant to say is "I'm bad at deckbuilding".
Do some people have to be so condescending?
Anyway, Uril is definitely the best for mass LD. Donald is right when he says that Wildfire and of course Burning of Xinye are the best options for Uril. They're double purpose and allow you to take the game quite handily. Impending Disaster is another one of my favourites (and is somewhat tutorable).
Emmara is like the worst parts of Legends and Homelands got pregnant, aborted the fetus, tossed it in the trashcan, set it on fire and wrapped the corpse in a Dragon's Maze pack wrapper.
Oh I think I remember, isn't this the guy with his expensive dual-lands riku deck that just folds to LD? Yea w/e
I think the basic idea behind land destruction can be incorporated in any deck that wants to come out of the gates fast. You don't need to limit yourself to any commander, and white by itself isn't even that great at mass LD. It basically has 3 good land wipes: Armageddon, Ravages of War and Catastrophe. I think red can offer a lot more than that. I think the best thing though would still be a combination which includes both of them.
From my experience, you don't want more than one or two land wipes. Imo those are something you should tutor into for the win. Too many land wipes and you are missing out on other good cards. Same thing for other mass wipes. I guess black spoils me in this way because I CAN tutor for the answer when needed though, and not every deck can do that.
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EDH Decks:
Kaalia's Army of AnnhilationRWB
Obzedat, Ghost Council - Life Gain MattersWB
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord - Fatty Reanimator ToolboxBG
Nekusar, the Mindrazer - Draw to DieRBU
Marath, Will of the Wild - Token Pump and TapGWR
Roon of the Hidden Realm - Blink to BleedWBG
If you can be sure that you can tutor for them, then that might be true. You don't need to reset lands every few turns.
But I actually have to disagree with you on other sweepers. I find that you can need them a lot more often, especially later in the game when people can drops more than one big threat in one turn. That might just be a habit of mine though. That goes hand in hand with land sweeping though, because if you can keep the lands down, the game will probably never reach that state.
I can see a need for that I suppose. From my perspective I've never had to use more than one board wipe in a game that I can remember (4 players, 3 with infinite combos and such). This could be the fact that tutors let me tutor for some kind of win card after doing such a wipe, or let me tutor for the wipe after I've drawn a winning card. My deck also is filled with a large amount of spot removal. I'm talking about a kaalia deck here with limited recursion, so my options for wiping the board must be preplanned quite a bit.
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EDH Decks:
Kaalia's Army of AnnhilationRWB
Obzedat, Ghost Council - Life Gain MattersWB
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord - Fatty Reanimator ToolboxBG
Nekusar, the Mindrazer - Draw to DieRBU
Marath, Will of the Wild - Token Pump and TapGWR
Roon of the Hidden Realm - Blink to BleedWBG
I've been having a lot of fun with my Rosheen deck lately, which features three land wipes. I've been less-than enthused with Wildfires, but the deck runs a little different than Uril, where I could see it shining.
In Rosheen, three wipes is a little light -- I'm looking to make room for four, but haven't decided what to cut for Boom // Bust yet -- but when I had 5, that was definitely too much. Also, I have to echo what was said earlier re: limited land wipes: They don't really punish ramp players that much. (If you're running a ton of land destruction, Wildfires gets better, obviously, but it was always a bad topdeck for me late-game.)
My favorite wipe so far has been Natural Balance, though. It punishes the greedy / ramp players well enough while not making enemies (and sometimes gaining you a few allies). Part of that is my terrible* manabase, though -- Havenwood Battleground and Sandstone Needle, etc., into a Natural Balance with a Rosheen out can be really swingy.
*I eat my own lands, a lot, but I can't help but chortle every time I'm crushing heads with a 14/14 hydra on turn 4 or after a Tectonic Break.
I've actually been having the same problem lately - my playgroup is heavily against mass LD (or LD of any type, for that matter), but I'm starting to realize that it can be a viable strategy, mainly due to my Kaalia deck. It's always played Catastrophe for the creature sweep, but when I realized that I can use it to get the advantage with Kaalia's ability, I started thinking that I might make it a more serious strategy. I know if I try it, though, my friends will get mad at me and complain that "I'm not letting them play their decks".
Gotta love it when the spike inside of you kills your playgroup. ><
So I build a Uril deck with heavy land wiping. And played it against the aforementioned asuza player. They rage quit after the 2nd sweep on turn 6 and the rest of the table conceded. Which was silly because Uril died once to a fleshbag and once to a Wrath of God cast with the help of a sol ring. So it is very likely in a 5 player game they would kill me before I did much more damage as I had only hit one player for 10 damage so far.
I got to say I underestimated the amount of butthurt I would cause with a few land wipes. Only 1 other person felt it was a fair answer to a azusa land ramping deck that commonly goes off around turn 7-8 to kill multiple players. I was a bit frustrated with the lack of understanding. Then the next two games got ground to a halt via Child.dec sweeping everything every other turn. A deck that was soundly beat down by my Uril the game before. Yet somehow this was much more acceptable.
Ahh well, time to figure out another counter land ramp strat, that will cause less butthurt. Either that or make a mono green deck myself and force people to see that land ramp needs some kinda nature predator for over extending.
So I build a Uril deck with heavy land wiping. And played it against the aforementioned asuza player. They rage quit after the 2nd sweep on turn 6 and the rest of the table conceded. Which was silly because Uril died once to a fleshbag and once to a Wrath of God cast with the help of a sol ring. So it is very likely in a 5 player game they would kill me before I did much more damage as I had only hit one player for 10 damage so far.
I got to say I underestimated the amount of butthurt I would cause with a few land wipes. Only 1 other person felt it was a fair answer to a azusa land ramping deck that commonly goes off around turn 7-8 to kill multiple players. I was a bit frustrated with the lack of understanding. Then the next two games got ground to a halt via Child.dec sweeping everything every other turn. A deck that was soundly beat down by my Uril the game before. Yet somehow this was much more acceptable.
Ahh well, time to figure out another counter land ramp strat, that will cause less butthurt. Either that or make a mono green deck myself and force people to see that land ramp needs some kinda nature predator for over extending.
Ward of Bones is another potential way to shut down ramp, but as you seem to notice Azusa ramp is quite fast and it won't come out fast enough to stop her from shooting ahead... and Azusa normally runs lots of removal... I have an Azusa deck built on Cockatrice that I think is quite good... if you ever want to test against Azusa feel free to message me there.
Ward of Bones is another potential way to shut down ramp, but as you seem to notice Azusa ramp is quite fast and it won't come out fast enough to stop her from shooting ahead... and Azusa normally runs lots of removal... I have an Azusa deck built on Cockatrice that I think is quite good... if you ever want to test against Azusa feel free to message me there.
Yeah any sort of artifact or enchantment is not hard for them to deal with. And as you pointed out it goes off fast. I am really thinking I will just make a Patron of the Orochi mana doubling deck and just show everyone how annoying it is. Until they concede mass land ramping needs some kinda natural predator.
yeah I was thinking about the "friendly" land wipes. The ones you listed plus Global Ruin. Though judging from the reactions I am pretty sure people would still *****. Also I would have to totally change how Uril works as without sweeping land he is much easier to take out.
That said I think I am adding in 1 land sweeper/reducer to every deck that can fit it. Just to force people to recognize they need to not over extend so much.
yeah I was thinking about the "friendly" land wipes. The ones you listed plus Global Ruin. Though judging from the reactions I am pretty sure people would still *****. Also I would have to totally change how Uril works as without sweeping land he is much easier to take out.
That said I think I am adding in 1 land sweeper/reducer to every deck that can fit it. Just to force people to recognize they need to not over extend so much.
Perhaps you could tell your playgroup to stop being whiny and suck less at the game? Maybe if they built decks with the ability to recover or otherwise be less effected by land wipes they would be able to see that letting green decks land ramp to absurdity is actually really bad.
Perhaps you could tell your playgroup to stop being whiny and suck less at the game? Maybe if they built decks with the ability to recover or otherwise be less effected by land wipes they would be able to see that letting green decks land ramp to absurdity is actually really bad.
I am not a super Spiky player, but I have to agree with this. I play mono-green ramp and when I play against a massLando.dec I know that I have one of two options. I play conservatively and make sure that I keep lands and cheap stuff in hand or I go balls to the wall and aim every resource I have at that player. Monogreen should be able to tutor for and play the biggest threat on the board before Armegeddon.dude plays his land killer.
...and if not, shuffle up and play again. My butt only gets hurt from chilidogs.
Perhaps you could tell your playgroup to stop being whiny and suck less at the game? Maybe if they built decks with the ability to recover or otherwise be less effected by land wipes they would be able to see that letting green decks land ramp to absurdity is actually really bad.
Yeah sadly it is the LGS. So I really can't make demands unless I want to find myself out of a play group. And honestly I have 8 decks and don't really care if I about playing land wiping so much as to make a point I am tired of mono green ownage. Perhaps a Patron of the Orochi mana flare deck like Tedv has to really push the point is a better idea.
I guess you could toss in Myr Landshaper and Splinter into a BG / BUG deck, targeting Forest for Azusa. Yeah, it's terrible, but it'll make that person play fair -- I'm sure he or she will still have 8ish lands in play by the time you can resolve the pair.
This is my personal opinion, people who ramp like crazy and then cry when their lands go kaboom are just as guilty of playing a spikey strategy as the guy blowing the land up. The "I can't play my deck when you blow up my land" argument is imo, moot. How is it any different from the guy taking infinite turns, or someone abusing a woodfall primus? Here is what I would do, take a tally of the amount of times that Azuza is going nuts and winning, if she is winning more than 50% of the time in a 4 person playgroup, then what are you supposed to do? Especially if they are playing that deck majority of the time. I understand that it is a casual format, but you want to have a fair chance at winning as well and LD is part of the game. You could try some destruction that does not blow everything up like Cataclysm, Wildfire, Devastating Dreams, or Destructive Force, or use cards that help you play a land every turn like Land Tax. Encourage your playgroup to use more mana rocks since you are going to introduce this as a way to control the out of control player. I play in a competitive group, and we realize that for certain strategies mass LD is needed, or at least some non-basic hate. In conclusion, tell them to stop HATIN"!
Current EDH decks: RAshling the Fire Starting Pyro Pilgrim GWRhys "There were just too many" the Redeemed UBOona, Queen of the Fae, Hater of Decks UBRLord Tresserhorn and The Walking Dead
"I think that they should ban all mana producers, including land, since mana lets you do all of the most broken things in the format..."
I guess you could toss in Myr Landshaper and Splinter into a BG / BUG deck, targeting Forest for Azusa. Yeah, it's terrible, but it'll make that person play fair -- I'm sure he or she will still have 8ish lands in play by the time you can resolve the pair.
Someone give this man a medal for the cruelest, yet jankiest solution yet.
I'd run MLD, and present it like this: Azusa's primary strategy is to ramp as much as humanly possible, and cast game-ending spells before anyone else has a chance to. It generates advantage in the form of being able to drop lands faster than anyone at the table. What is this strategy's weakness? MLD. I'm sure there are other ways to deal with it, but limiting MLD as a counter to Azusa's ramp makes as much sense as saying, "If I play Exsanguinate for 40, you can't counter it," or "You're not allowed to blow up the pieces of my game-winning combo." If you intend to focus on limiting the Azusa player, Wake of Destruction fills that role well.
If they're butthurt about having their lands wiped, encourage them to take steps to stop that from happening; playing mana rocks, Crucible, Life from the Loam, whatever it takes. LftL seems like it would fit perfectly in Azusa anyway.
I've actually recently cut MLD from all my decks, at least for my local group, but I am a huge fan of Sunder and Devastation (and the occasional cycled Decree of Annihilation) in my mana-rock-heavy, nearly-creatureless Crosis build. Were someone to bring in a ludicrous ramp deck, I'd put them right back in.
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EDH FTW
Currently running:
BRG Xira Arien BRG UR Melek, Izzet Paragon UR WUG Jenara, Asura of War WUG WRG Mayael the Anima WRG WB Triad of Fates WB BG Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG BR Rakdos, Lord of Riots BR WR Aurelia the Warleader WR WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores WBG WUBRG Horde of Notions WUBRG
Whenever one strategy gets out of control there has to be a balancing. If the Azusa player powered down or played different decks then I'd pull back ok the ld.
I run a Captain Sisay deck, and my ramp is obscene - I ramp into an infinite mindslaver combo w/ Dosan, the falling leaf on the field, and lots of untap affects to be able to respond to any threats/wrenches thrown in my wheel. I know - i'm a bastard. Only takes 2-3 lands to get going too. due to land enchantments
With this much ramp, I seem to be a required target, anyone poo-pooing land destruction should look at how silly their combo actually is. and run counterspells.
Mine is non-interactive and attempts to be unstoppable and is quite often. It is fun, but no one else likes it, and having people path to exile your dorks and any form of ramp cuz of your combos feels bad.
Since I've played such a 'sort of' gold-fishy EDH deck I've wanted to switch and do the exact opposite and run taxes, counterspells, removal, mana rocks and land destruction, which I thought would be preety fun.
The balanced deck is so much fun and I can interact with nearly any plan, i'm BU but just cuz I like grand arbiter, having interaction is a lot more fun than my absurd combo.
If you hate LD you should try it out just to see why someone would do it, and figure out the flaws it has, especially pay attention to the colors the deck is. no-green/black means they probobly won't be able to tutor for Bojuga, so keep your counterspells ready for mass LD.
and if you really like your combo but you arn't in the colors for interaction, build a second deck. it's fun being able to play with the mechanics of the game, not just the cards in your deck.
but don't get me wrong. if no one draws removal/counter-spells to stop your combo. it'll be a 15 minute game, it puts a smile on your face. but its nice to let other people play their decks and see how things play out.
I also made a deck w/ around 30 counter spells.. 3-4 hour games minimum. not so fun.
Do some people have to be so condescending?
Anyway, Uril is definitely the best for mass LD. Donald is right when he says that Wildfire and of course Burning of Xinye are the best options for Uril. They're double purpose and allow you to take the game quite handily. Impending Disaster is another one of my favourites (and is somewhat tutorable).
Kaalia is also amazing for this kind of strategy.
From my experience, you don't want more than one or two land wipes. Imo those are something you should tutor into for the win. Too many land wipes and you are missing out on other good cards. Same thing for other mass wipes. I guess black spoils me in this way because I CAN tutor for the answer when needed though, and not every deck can do that.
Kaalia's Army of Annhilation RWB
Obzedat, Ghost Council - Life Gain Matters WB
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord - Fatty Reanimator Toolbox BG
Nekusar, the Mindrazer - Draw to Die RBU
Marath, Will of the Wild - Token Pump and Tap GWR
Roon of the Hidden Realm - Blink to Bleed WBG
I can see a need for that I suppose. From my perspective I've never had to use more than one board wipe in a game that I can remember (4 players, 3 with infinite combos and such). This could be the fact that tutors let me tutor for some kind of win card after doing such a wipe, or let me tutor for the wipe after I've drawn a winning card. My deck also is filled with a large amount of spot removal. I'm talking about a kaalia deck here with limited recursion, so my options for wiping the board must be preplanned quite a bit.
Kaalia's Army of Annhilation RWB
Obzedat, Ghost Council - Life Gain Matters WB
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord - Fatty Reanimator Toolbox BG
Nekusar, the Mindrazer - Draw to Die RBU
Marath, Will of the Wild - Token Pump and Tap GWR
Roon of the Hidden Realm - Blink to Bleed WBG
In Rosheen, three wipes is a little light -- I'm looking to make room for four, but haven't decided what to cut for Boom // Bust yet -- but when I had 5, that was definitely too much. Also, I have to echo what was said earlier re: limited land wipes: They don't really punish ramp players that much. (If you're running a ton of land destruction, Wildfires gets better, obviously, but it was always a bad topdeck for me late-game.)
My favorite wipe so far has been Natural Balance, though. It punishes the greedy / ramp players well enough while not making enemies (and sometimes gaining you a few allies). Part of that is my terrible* manabase, though -- Havenwood Battleground and Sandstone Needle, etc., into a Natural Balance with a Rosheen out can be really swingy.
*I eat my own lands, a lot, but I can't help but chortle every time I'm crushing heads with a 14/14 hydra on turn 4 or after a Tectonic Break.
Gotta love it when the spike inside of you kills your playgroup. ><
I got to say I underestimated the amount of butthurt I would cause with a few land wipes. Only 1 other person felt it was a fair answer to a azusa land ramping deck that commonly goes off around turn 7-8 to kill multiple players. I was a bit frustrated with the lack of understanding. Then the next two games got ground to a halt via Child.dec sweeping everything every other turn. A deck that was soundly beat down by my Uril the game before. Yet somehow this was much more acceptable.
Ahh well, time to figure out another counter land ramp strat, that will cause less butthurt. Either that or make a mono green deck myself and force people to see that land ramp needs some kinda nature predator for over extending.
Ward of Bones is another potential way to shut down ramp, but as you seem to notice Azusa ramp is quite fast and it won't come out fast enough to stop her from shooting ahead... and Azusa normally runs lots of removal... I have an Azusa deck built on Cockatrice that I think is quite good... if you ever want to test against Azusa feel free to message me there.
Yeah any sort of artifact or enchantment is not hard for them to deal with. And as you pointed out it goes off fast. I am really thinking I will just make a Patron of the Orochi mana doubling deck and just show everyone how annoying it is. Until they concede mass land ramping needs some kinda natural predator.
That said I think I am adding in 1 land sweeper/reducer to every deck that can fit it. Just to force people to recognize they need to not over extend so much.
Perhaps you could tell your playgroup to stop being whiny and suck less at the game? Maybe if they built decks with the ability to recover or otherwise be less effected by land wipes they would be able to see that letting green decks land ramp to absurdity is actually really bad.
I am not a super Spiky player, but I have to agree with this. I play mono-green ramp and when I play against a massLando.dec I know that I have one of two options. I play conservatively and make sure that I keep lands and cheap stuff in hand or I go balls to the wall and aim every resource I have at that player. Monogreen should be able to tutor for and play the biggest threat on the board before Armegeddon.dude plays his land killer.
...and if not, shuffle up and play again. My butt only gets hurt from chilidogs.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
Yeah sadly it is the LGS. So I really can't make demands unless I want to find myself out of a play group. And honestly I have 8 decks and don't really care if I about playing land wiping so much as to make a point I am tired of mono green ownage. Perhaps a Patron of the Orochi mana flare deck like Tedv has to really push the point is a better idea.
Though as a side note I am going to include some kinda land reset in all my decks, just 1, stuff like a Catastrophe, Keldon Fire bombers, Natural Balance. So the threat is there.
Sig compliments of my boy, bccarlso
Current EDH decks:
R Ashling the Fire Starting Pyro Pilgrim
GW Rhys "There were just too many" the Redeemed
UB Oona, Queen of the Fae, Hater of Decks
UBR Lord Tresserhorn and The Walking Dead
"I think that they should ban all mana producers, including land, since mana lets you do all of the most broken things in the format..."
Someone give this man a medal for the cruelest, yet jankiest solution yet.
I'd run MLD, and present it like this: Azusa's primary strategy is to ramp as much as humanly possible, and cast game-ending spells before anyone else has a chance to. It generates advantage in the form of being able to drop lands faster than anyone at the table. What is this strategy's weakness? MLD. I'm sure there are other ways to deal with it, but limiting MLD as a counter to Azusa's ramp makes as much sense as saying, "If I play Exsanguinate for 40, you can't counter it," or "You're not allowed to blow up the pieces of my game-winning combo." If you intend to focus on limiting the Azusa player, Wake of Destruction fills that role well.
If they're butthurt about having their lands wiped, encourage them to take steps to stop that from happening; playing mana rocks, Crucible, Life from the Loam, whatever it takes. LftL seems like it would fit perfectly in Azusa anyway.
I've actually recently cut MLD from all my decks, at least for my local group, but I am a huge fan of Sunder and Devastation (and the occasional cycled Decree of Annihilation) in my mana-rock-heavy, nearly-creatureless Crosis build. Were someone to bring in a ludicrous ramp deck, I'd put them right back in.
Currently running:
BRG Xira Arien BRG
UR Melek, Izzet Paragon UR
WUG Jenara, Asura of War WUG
WRG Mayael the Anima WRG
WB Triad of Fates WB
BG Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG
BR Rakdos, Lord of Riots BR
WR Aurelia the Warleader WR
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores WBG
WUBRG Horde of Notions WUBRG
It's all part of my plan to make as many "that has never happened in the history of Magic before" moments. The conversation I want to overhear:
"Why are half of your Forests regular, and the other half Snow-Covered?"
"It's my anti-Splinter tech."
WUBRG Some of these decks can actually win games...WUBRG
How I know I should build a deck:
With this much ramp, I seem to be a required target, anyone poo-pooing land destruction should look at how silly their combo actually is. and run counterspells.
Mine is non-interactive and attempts to be unstoppable and is quite often. It is fun, but no one else likes it, and having people path to exile your dorks and any form of ramp cuz of your combos feels bad.
Since I've played such a 'sort of' gold-fishy EDH deck I've wanted to switch and do the exact opposite and run taxes, counterspells, removal, mana rocks and land destruction, which I thought would be preety fun.
The balanced deck is so much fun and I can interact with nearly any plan, i'm BU but just cuz I like grand arbiter, having interaction is a lot more fun than my absurd combo.
If you hate LD you should try it out just to see why someone would do it, and figure out the flaws it has, especially pay attention to the colors the deck is. no-green/black means they probobly won't be able to tutor for Bojuga, so keep your counterspells ready for mass LD.
and if you really like your combo but you arn't in the colors for interaction, build a second deck. it's fun being able to play with the mechanics of the game, not just the cards in your deck.
but don't get me wrong. if no one draws removal/counter-spells to stop your combo. it'll be a 15 minute game, it puts a smile on your face. but its nice to let other people play their decks and see how things play out.
I also made a deck w/ around 30 counter spells.. 3-4 hour games minimum. not so fun.
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek