I feel like if you did a BG stompy list (Chalice of the Void) and then Gravecrawler you can have him be countered meaning that a 2 card combo becomes "BB for gravecrawler, vengvine comes out."
Which gives a reasonable starting shell (with Cavern allowing your "zombie" build to be cast when needed.) Possibly going full-retard into zombies where Vengevine is a supporting combo-role.
That feels like you lose a lot of deck space just to enable loam. 26 lands? I was playing 18 so that is an issue of commitment to justify loam. Also at that point bloodghast becomes more attractive in spite of not working with vengevine.
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You could do that with a lot less lands I feel, I only have more lands to justify the Diamond/Chalice build. You could go the Chrome Mox stompy direction instead; but my point was the "chalice gravecrawler" combo.
That said; I've personally been quite satisfied with 21-22 land Diamond builds of my own; and have only recently gone to 24 lands in them to suit more tutor targets/shore up bad MUs. The main reason for 26 lands was because I listed 11 colorless sources.. (mutas for recurrable Gravecrawler enablers, wastelands because of free loam locks, cavern because you can play through chalice)
Having simply looked at the list, the inclusion of only rootwalla does not make that madness.
If someone's working on this concept and his posts on this forum is less than 50, I would actually focus the discussion on the list and his tournament experience, not the naming.
Bravo for that reply twdomn. The deck has a long history which evolved from the original UG madness to the list that I showed above. I was just giving my input for a vengevine deck, and the discussion should focus on the list but not just naming itself.
I'm currently working on a RUg madnessish brew. Faithless Looting, Breakthrough, Dack Fayden combined with Basking Rootwalla, Vengvine, Bridge from Below, Reckless Abandon and Hellspark Elemental with a couple Fiery Tempers. If you Breakthrough and have 2 rootwallas and a vengevine, they all come into play. Still in development.
Madness was one of my initial ideas, but I also liked the fact that with the route I went casting vengevines is a fine option. I didn't want to rely on rootwallas as my only means to play a vengevine.
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I can't remember if I ran Putrid Imp instead of Deathrite Shamans or Oona's Prowlers but the above configuration seems correct. Oona's Prowler seems much better than say Wild Mongrel in a meta of TNN.
Zombies enable some good times with Gravecrawler, in particular the Crawler-Feeder combo.
Discard outlets enable Rootwalla and Vengevine.
Crawler-Feeder obviously enables Vengevine.
Buried Alive can find Vengevines, Bloodghasts or Crawlers to add more fuel.
The high number of 1cc and 2cc creatures make it easy to enable Vengevine at any stage of the game.
In game 2 you can transformational sideboard (in anticipation of graveyard hate). Usually I board out the Buried Alives and Bloodghasts for Dark Confidants and then whatever is useful in the match (i.e. more discard, more removal, more disruption, combo hate, more bodies). This reduces your vulnerability to their graveyard hate while letting you play an Eva Green-type game only with more beatdown.
I was trying to avoid the cutesy plays that make the deck graveyard based by using a trinity green approach. I enable vengevine simply by playing it. It is actually just a good card in my build without needing to focus on it. Intuition alone seems a superior option to buried alive here as well since it leaves me with a creature to help trigger vengevone alpha strikes. This also makes the tangle wire plan extra devastating. Also the fact I can use intuition as a demonic tutor is an added bonus.
For what it's worth in the face of graveyard hate I did nothing since it's such a minimal part of the deck. If my opponent chooses to side in that kind of hate I have made their deck worse.
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I think if you want a deck focused on Vengevine you should focus on non-specific enablers, of which Confidant (cards = dudes = vengevines) and Whitemane Lion come to mind.
Whitemane effects not only give instant-speed card-advantage counters to Plow and such, but they are 1-card enablers for vengevine to get out of the grave. Fleetfoot panther is the only other one I noticed with flash + universal bounce (and much harder to abuse.)
here's my finding:
1. you get Rootwalla out
2. your opponent gets SFM out, finding Jitte
3. you make a sad face
That's why, Dack Fayden is such a key card. It totally owns Jitte and most likely any stupid Swords of whatever. To fully support Red, I would also include Punishing Fire, just chuck it to Dack/Wild Mongrel/Careful Study.
I don't play rootwalla so does this apply to someone else? I am considering splicing this with stax right now. I've noticed I love value.
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@twodomn
I'd take your argument to Jund about BBE and see what they have to say about it. It's safe to say it's rare enough that it's a fine risk. People also have run Confidant to offset Force's CDA with success. IMO it's doable. It does suck to flip 3-4 costs on Confidant, but you have to remember that people also do that with Sylvan Library (when they have a choice.)
For the lion, I figure the biggest argument against it isn't running white; but that it's mediocre. But in a aggro-Thalia shell I think there could be merit to the approach. I do agree that Ninjitsu seems like an OK way to cast multi-creatures; though then Vengevine effectively loses haste.
It is in the sense that any 3 mana card tends to be better than it's 2 mana equivalent. I honestly didn't see Stonecloaker; but I'd say that 6 mana is much harder to reach than 4 mana and 3 mana is much harder to leave open (to save a dude) than 2, but it was more the idea of running a dude or three that can repeat-cast themselves to get vines out (it just happens to be nice that they also protect your guys.) I could say Shrieking Drake, but it's uselessness far outweighs it's UU manacost.
It's still minimally repeatable graveyard removal with benefits of saving a guy if needed, triggering vengevine on its own, having 2 toughness, and also evasion. That isn't even considering an easily splashed mana cost
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I'm not trying to argue about it lol; I just wanted to point out that Whiteman effects are a neat interaction. Stonecloaker seems pretty neat, especially at $0.25. I may try to work him into an unrelated brew
-----The Legacy Flowchart-----
Tiny Leaders Overlord
Maybe it'd look like this:
4 Mutavault
3 Cavern of Souls
15 Other Lands
4 Mox Diamond
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Gravecrawler
Which gives a reasonable starting shell (with Cavern allowing your "zombie" build to be cast when needed.) Possibly going full-retard into zombies where Vengevine is a supporting combo-role.
Look, Fetch, Draw, Look
Draw
Fetch
Look
-----The Legacy Flowchart-----
Tiny Leaders Overlord
That said; I've personally been quite satisfied with 21-22 land Diamond builds of my own; and have only recently gone to 24 lands in them to suit more tutor targets/shore up bad MUs. The main reason for 26 lands was because I listed 11 colorless sources.. (mutas for recurrable Gravecrawler enablers, wastelands because of free loam locks, cavern because you can play through chalice)
Look, Fetch, Draw, Look
Draw
Fetch
Look
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?28073-UGb-Madness-32nd-out-of-365-players-Big-Magic-Open-sponsored-by-SCG&p=812645#post812645
-----The Legacy Flowchart-----
Tiny Leaders Overlord
Madness is not a requirement for me either. I'm sorry you somehow gathered that it was from my comment about his deck.
-----The Legacy Flowchart-----
Tiny Leaders Overlord
Bravo for that reply twdomn. The deck has a long history which evolved from the original UG madness to the list that I showed above. I was just giving my input for a vengevine deck, and the discussion should focus on the list but not just naming itself.
-----The Legacy Flowchart-----
Tiny Leaders Overlord
4 Gravecrawler
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Lotleth Troll
4 Oona's Prowler
4 Bloodghast
4 Vengevine
//Spells: 9
4 Thoughtseize
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Buried Alive
4 Bayou
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Forest
3 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Dark Confidant
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Abrupt Decay
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Phyrexian Revoker
I can't remember if I ran Putrid Imp instead of Deathrite Shamans or Oona's Prowlers but the above configuration seems correct. Oona's Prowler seems much better than say Wild Mongrel in a meta of TNN.
Zombies enable some good times with Gravecrawler, in particular the Crawler-Feeder combo.
Discard outlets enable Rootwalla and Vengevine.
Crawler-Feeder obviously enables Vengevine.
Buried Alive can find Vengevines, Bloodghasts or Crawlers to add more fuel.
The high number of 1cc and 2cc creatures make it easy to enable Vengevine at any stage of the game.
In game 2 you can transformational sideboard (in anticipation of graveyard hate). Usually I board out the Buried Alives and Bloodghasts for Dark Confidants and then whatever is useful in the match (i.e. more discard, more removal, more disruption, combo hate, more bodies). This reduces your vulnerability to their graveyard hate while letting you play an Eva Green-type game only with more beatdown.
For what it's worth in the face of graveyard hate I did nothing since it's such a minimal part of the deck. If my opponent chooses to side in that kind of hate I have made their deck worse.
-----The Legacy Flowchart-----
Tiny Leaders Overlord
Whitemane effects not only give instant-speed card-advantage counters to Plow and such, but they are 1-card enablers for vengevine to get out of the grave. Fleetfoot panther is the only other one I noticed with flash + universal bounce (and much harder to abuse.)
Look, Fetch, Draw, Look
Draw
Fetch
Look
I don't play rootwalla so does this apply to someone else? I am considering splicing this with stax right now. I've noticed I love value.
-----The Legacy Flowchart-----
Tiny Leaders Overlord
I'd take your argument to Jund about BBE and see what they have to say about it. It's safe to say it's rare enough that it's a fine risk. People also have run Confidant to offset Force's CDA with success. IMO it's doable. It does suck to flip 3-4 costs on Confidant, but you have to remember that people also do that with Sylvan Library (when they have a choice.)
For the lion, I figure the biggest argument against it isn't running white; but that it's mediocre. But in a aggro-Thalia shell I think there could be merit to the approach. I do agree that Ninjitsu seems like an OK way to cast multi-creatures; though then Vengevine effectively loses haste.
Look, Fetch, Draw, Look
Draw
Fetch
Look
-----The Legacy Flowchart-----
Tiny Leaders Overlord
Look, Fetch, Draw, Look
Draw
Fetch
Look
-----The Legacy Flowchart-----
Tiny Leaders Overlord
Look, Fetch, Draw, Look
Draw
Fetch
Look