The Crucible is a prison brew that I recently came up with (as of writing this). I was looking to build a deck that had many of the strengths of Lantern Control, but not as many weaknesses. With a quick look at the meta, cards that stood out as stellar started to seem to work together very well. These cards were:
A core for a new deckstarted to become evident, and it became a challenge of figuring out the rest of the deck. More on that in the Card Choices section...
Why Play The Crucible?
If you don’t quite like Lantern, or some of it’s weaker matchups, then this deck may be for you. There is likely still some progress that can be made to make it better, but it’s started to flesh out exactly as I was hoping: a deck with Lantern’s strengths (of a prison deck) and few, if any, of it’s weaknesses. Beware, however, that The Crucible costs quite a bit of money, and probably cannot be made on a budget.
The Deck
The Crucible, as mentioned above, uses a core group of cards that essentially act as maindeck hate against a large swathe of the meta. Chalice of the Void (set to 1) shuts off nine of the ten top played cards in the meta. Thanks to the Mishra’s Baubles, Mox Opals, and Darksteel Citadels, this can be done as early as turn 1. Ensnaring Bridge shuts off nearly every creature played in Modern. Smallpox makes life incredibly hard for decks like Burn, Tron, Bant Eldrazi, Suicide Bloo, Jund, Infect, Merfolk. Collective Brutality is equally effective against Burn, Suicide Bloo, Infect, and Merfolk. The combination of Crucible of Worlds and Ghost Quarter is devestating to the typical Modern manabase, with any given deck running barely a handful of basics, and often times using nonbasics to supplement their gameplans.
To support these cards, we have Liliana of the Veil, Ratchet Bomb, and Infernal Tutor. Liliana assists in putting pressure on an opponent while we’re locking them out of the game, and helping us survive while we look for an Ensnaring Bridge. Ratchet Bomb assists in taking out the 1-2 converted mana cost cards that slip through an early Chalice or that otherwise make it to the battlefield. Due to the speed at which this deck goes into topdeck mode, Infernal Tutor often just acts as a Demonic Tutor, searching for more peices to cripple the opponent.
Probably the most difficult part of developing this deck has been finding a good win condition. The current one that I’m using is a single Inkmoth Nexus. If it is destroyed, we can bring it back with Crucible of Worlds. It can’t be chumpblocked forever (by most creatures played in the meta), and gives us a decent clock once we start attacking with it. It would be nice if Wizards were to print another card that might make for a better and faster win condition that works so well with this deck, but this seems to be the best we have right now.
There is an alternative win condition, in that we can Ghost Quarter our opponents into oblivion, and then use Academy Ruins to constantly bring back a Mox Opal, play it, sacrifice one, etc.
Chalice of the Voide - A key piece for the deck. As I stated above, a single Chalice set to 1 shuts off a vast portion of the Modern metagame, while doing nothing to slow us down. We can set a Chalice to 1 as early as our first turn. Recommend 4.
Ensnaring Bridge - Turns off nearly every creature played. The few creatures that can slip under are often easily taken care of by one of our support spells, Collective Brutality. Recommend 4.
Crucible of Worlds + Ghost Quarter - This combination of cards cripples an average Modern manabase. Ghost Quarter can also be used in a pinch to fetch a basic Swamp or Forest if we have a Darksteel Citadel out. Recommend 4.
Support Cards
Collective Brutality - Takes out early creatures while we look for a Bridge, removes spells, gains us life, and makes us hellbent to turn on our Infernal Tutors. This card is currently great in the meta for ensuring that we live through this format filled with fast and furious threats.
Smallpox - Is excellent at removing early creatures and destabilizing manabases, while forcing our opponents to make tough decisions about what card to discard, and helps make us hellbent. Losing the land isn’t nearly as harmful to us, as we can just get it back with Crucible of Worlds. We can also safely discard land if we need to and get the land back with Crucible.
Liliana of the Veil - Acts as creature removal, puts pressure on the opponents’ hand, and helps us secure the game with her ultimate. In addition, her discard ability helps us turn on Infernal Tutor.
Ratchet Bomb - Removes the few threats that might make it to the battlefield before we land our Chalice. Gives us an answer to nearly every threat we might face that can’t be dealt with by our other cards.
Infernal Tutor - Essentially acts as a Demonic Tutor in this deck thanks to how fast we go hellbent. This is one of the few decks that can safely run more than a singleton. Great on the mana curve, and in our primary color.
Manabase Options
Ghost Quarter - I already mentioned this as a key peice with Crucible of worlds, but does actually produce mana for us. Recommend 4.
Mox Opal - The card that allows us to drop our hand quick and allows for a turn one Chalice set to 1. Recommend 4.
Academy Ruins - Outstanding utility land, recurs our Ratchet Bombs as necessary, along with any other artifact lock pieces that might have somehow been destroyed, discarded, etc.
Darksteel Citadel - Another card that allows us to hit the turn one Chalice set to 1. Can also be used with Ghost Quarter to help stabilize our manabase when we draw all colorless lands and have colored spells.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth - Turns all of our colorless lands into additional black mana producing lands. The Legendary clause is rarely relevant.
Blooming Marsh - Allows us to get the black mana we need early, while setting us up to run Seal of Primordium in the sideboard in the event that we face off against cards like Rest in Peace and Leyline of the Void.
Win Conditions
Inkmoth Nexus - As it stands, it appears that this is the best win condition available. It’s a relatively fast clock, serves a purpose while we’re setting up, can’t be chumpblocked forever (in most circumstances), and can be brought back thanks to Crucible in the case that it is killed.
Card Choices: Sideboard
Welding Jar - Great option to defend our Ensnaring Bridges, Chalice of the Voids, and Crucible of Worlds. Also allows us to get early metalcraft for the turn one Chalice.
Sun Droplet - A "set it and remember it during every upkeep" artifact. It essentially sets our life total, and if the opponent cannot consistently deal damage, then we are likely to gain life right back. Once the lock is set, this allows us to gain life all the way back up to our total when it entered the battlefield. Is also great as a mini-Ensnaring Bridge against 2/x creatures.
Seal of Primordium - An excellent sideboard card that gets around our own Chalice of the Void and doesn't require us to hold it until we have a good target.
Tormod's Crypt - Another sideboard card that can be recurred with Academy Ruins and turns on early metalcraft.
Videos
Gameplay videos can be found here . I will be uploading more videos as progress continues.
Is the plan to ghost quarter lock them out and then use caress to win?
With so many artifacts at least 1 Inventors' Fairs seems solid. It goes with crucible and can bring out the bridge.
Were you planning to include ancient stirrings? There are no cards with green mana currently. You might consider including a 1 of engineered explosives. You can cast it for 0 to empty your hand or turn on mox opal or use it as an answer.
Glissa the traitor, as well as ratchet bomb or executioner's capsule seems like a good include.
The mana would get a bit worse, but it could be managable.
Executioner's Capsule costs 1, so nonbos with Chalice on 1. Glissa seems neat, but might not be good with Smallpox (and increases the average cmc of the deck). I thought of maybe Ratchet Bomb or Engineered Explosives in the side, but not sure yet.
I'm going to be straight with you, it feels a little like this isn't as strong as The Rack. it's neat to toy with breaking the symmetry of discard effects like collective brutality and LotV, but I just think that decks like loam pox and the rack do it with more synergy
You mean 8-Rack? I could see why you might think that. The difference, I think, is that this isn't weak to cards like Leyline and is able to use Chalice to completely shut off large portions of decks in the metagame.
Having played Vintage back in the day, I'm quite familiar with the "fun" of being under a Cruicible + Strip Mine/Wasteland/Ghost Quarter out of Stax decks. A problem those early decks had that strikes me as a possibility here is the speed of Caress as a win con. How has it tested for you so far? Have you found yourself struggling any to close out games once you get the lock pieces in place? It's a very interesting list that appeals to my nostalgia so I'll be watching to see how development on this goes, looks fun for those of us who enjoy watching others squirm.
I see a lot of the things we previously discussed are showing up. I also like 1-2 Inventors' fair in the main; they pad your life total so much and tutor well. I mentioned splashing blue for tezzeret the seeker to tutor out bridge/crucible/trinisphere like the old extended decks of yore. I don't like caress. It seems so clunky and do nothing. Inkmoth could be a 2 of maybe. I also like 1 vraska. She blows things up, pseudo protects herself, and builds to a win. For redundancy, I think a 1 of loam would be very effective. I'll be looking for some more cards that fit 0,2,(3,4,5) mana that do something in this deck that is effective. Glad you're bringing some spice to modern Thnkr!
I'm not happy with the effectiveness of Caress, but I'm having trouble finding anything better. Totally open to suggestions on that side.
I don't think they are necessarily the answer due to how it potentially impacts your mana base and your game plan, but have you looked into token producers like Bitterblossom or Lingering Souls? I can't imagine you didn't test them, but I'm still curious as to the results.
Going up more on the Nexus (since you can already recycle them via Cruicible) is also a possibility, although may not be all that faster than Caress since the incidental damage from fetches and the like won't help you out.
I'd considered Bitterblossom, yeah, but was hesitant with it. I was worried that our opponents could deal enough early damage to us that Bitterblossom might finish us off. Although, mikemaz did point out that an Inventors' Fair could neutralize that life loss while contributing to the deck. It could definitely be worth testing. mikemaz suggested Lingering Souls, and I see it's value, but I'm worried about the limited use of the tokens. If we can't finish our opponent off with four tokens per Souls included, then we've essentially run out of win conditions with no way to get them back.
This looks very interesting no doubt. What do you think about adding one or two more Inkmoths. As it stands now, having an Inkmoth get hit by a Path is basically GG, isn't it? Just a thought.
I agree with the thoughts on Fair, and added one. As for Blood Moon, it's not so bad. We run plenty of basics, and can Quarter our Citadels to fetch basics if we expect Moon. We can eventually get Liliana up and force them to make a choice between it and the rest of their permanents. Once that's complete, we Ratchet Bomb their Moon(s), Ruins our lock pieces back, and continue. It'll take a while, bit as long as we have the ability to cast Liliana, Bridge, etc, we're okay. It all just takes patience. We are better in the top deck war thanks to our Tutors.
In addition, we (should) run Seal of Primordium in the side. We run a basic Forest we can fetch, plus Opals. We should hypothetically be okay with dealing with Moon.
Man... I don't think I can have fun with this deck online haha. In paper I could handwave my whole turn away, but online it just takes forever to play through the loops. It is a sweet deck though, I like it with just the one Inkmoth. Played two matches, didn't drop games in either first time on the deck. Good stuff man. I'll try to proxy it up and play paper with it so I can get more reps in and come up with some real feedback on the list.
If it was on Cockatrice, I'd love to get the replays if you don't mind I could record them and upload them to the Youtube page.
EDIT: Uploaded 3 videos from last night. I think I should have won vs. Infect, but didn't play it out correctly game 1. Got an absolutely busted hand vs. Dredge...I suggest checking it out, game 3 (game 2 was pretty busted, too, but game 3 took the cake). YouTube.com/phlsphr42.
A card that has a great synergy with the whole deck is Bloodghast.
It is a card that you can discard, sacrifice and has a great synergy with the Crucible of Worlds + Ghost Quarter combo. Since it is a 2/2 It would not be that difficult to attack even if you have a Ensnaring Bridge.
Reason is because most of the time we only need to have 3 mana sources to keep playing this deck. If we want to keep every turn the lock of Crucible of Worlds + Ghost Quarter combo we will need to sac our land for the turn. Something that costs more than 3 would be too much risk to not keep the combo going turn after turn.
So we can play our Ghost Quarter from the grave and the remaining 2 mana sources we could spent to use with Rings Of Brighthearth. We could double Quarter every turn or even double Liliana of the Veil every turn.
Those are interesting ideas, although I'm not sure that's the direction I'd want to take my build in. I'm guessing you haven't tested those cards yet in your build?
There's always Cockatrice! I can't afford this deck, either, so that's all I've been testing on. You can see the videos using the link from the primer OP. If you're interested in setting it up and trying it, let me know and I'll help out I can usually be found in the MTGSalvation IRC chat channel.
EDIT: Just went through a gauntlet of Infect, Burn, Dredge, Shamans, and Ad Nauseum. Won all of them. The server is restarting, so no recording and uploading tonight, but should have them uploaded tomorrow. Going to proxy it up and introduce it to my lgs tomorrow
Just introduced the deck to my LGS. Played 4 games against Bant Eldrazi. Won all of them. Infernal Tutor is so good in this deck, I was always able to tutor for exactly what I needed to win once I got into topdeck mode Being able to Smallpox with a Crucible out, then tutor the next turn for a Bridge and play the Bridge after playing a land from my graveyard feels super awesome. In game 1 I got a turn 1 Chalice followed by a turn 2 Bridge.
Did some testing last night in between rounds. Inkmoth nexus is a perfect win con. Thought about replacing a blooming marsh with a verdant catacombs for recursion/deck thinning when you don't have GQ. I ended up drawing a lot of land, might consider cutting another marsh altogether. Drew poorly against burn, fine vs infect, and won more against a reanimator griselbrand fury of the hoard turn 2ish deck. All in all, it's pretty good. Definitely some nuances to it.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
The Crucible is a prison brew that I recently came up with (as of writing this). I was looking to build a deck that had many of the strengths of Lantern Control, but not as many weaknesses. With a quick look at the meta, cards that stood out as stellar started to seem to work together very well. These cards were:
Chalice of the Void
Ensnaring Bridge
Smallpox
Collective Brutality
Crucible of Worlds + Ghost Quarter
A core for a new deckstarted to become evident, and it became a challenge of figuring out the rest of the deck. More on that in the Card Choices section...
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
With so many artifacts at least 1 Inventors' Fairs seems solid. It goes with crucible and can bring out the bridge.
Were you planning to include ancient stirrings? There are no cards with green mana currently. You might consider including a 1 of engineered explosives. You can cast it for 0 to empty your hand or turn on mox opal or use it as an answer.
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
The mana would get a bit worse, but it could be managable.
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
Because he can't handle more than one languish.
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
I don't think they are necessarily the answer due to how it potentially impacts your mana base and your game plan, but have you looked into token producers like Bitterblossom or Lingering Souls? I can't imagine you didn't test them, but I'm still curious as to the results.
Going up more on the Nexus (since you can already recycle them via Cruicible) is also a possibility, although may not be all that faster than Caress since the incidental damage from fetches and the like won't help you out.
Also, updated the OP.
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
EDIT: Blood moon. Ugh.
In addition, we (should) run Seal of Primordium in the side. We run a basic Forest we can fetch, plus Opals. We should hypothetically be okay with dealing with Moon.
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
Death and Taxes Videos
Traproot Graphics
Modern:
Fateseal Control | Current Version on TappedOut
Modern Death and Taxes | Current Version on TappedOut
Bant Tempo | Current Version on TappedOut
EDIT: Uploaded 3 videos from last night. I think I should have won vs. Infect, but didn't play it out correctly game 1. Got an absolutely busted hand vs. Dredge...I suggest checking it out, game 3 (game 2 was pretty busted, too, but game 3 took the cake). YouTube.com/phlsphr42.
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
It is a card that you can discard, sacrifice and has a great synergy with the Crucible of Worlds + Ghost Quarter combo. Since it is a 2/2 It would not be that difficult to attack even if you have a Ensnaring Bridge.
It suffers the same grave hate problem the same way our Crucible of Worlds + Ghost Quarter combo but we have Seal of Primordium to deal with it.
Other card that could be interesting or maybe just cute is Rings Of Brighthearth.
Reason is because most of the time we only need to have 3 mana sources to keep playing this deck. If we want to keep every turn the lock of Crucible of Worlds + Ghost Quarter combo we will need to sac our land for the turn. Something that costs more than 3 would be too much risk to not keep the combo going turn after turn.
So we can play our Ghost Quarter from the grave and the remaining 2 mana sources we could spent to use with Rings Of Brighthearth. We could double Quarter every turn or even double Liliana of the Veil every turn.
Would be interesting to Rings Of Brighthearth Liliana's ultimate.
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
EDIT: Just went through a gauntlet of Infect, Burn, Dredge, Shamans, and Ad Nauseum. Won all of them. The server is restarting, so no recording and uploading tonight, but should have them uploaded tomorrow. Going to proxy it up and introduce it to my lgs tomorrow
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan