I would like to start by bringing us back to Wednesday, April 26th. Like every other (sane)person in the world, as soon as the news broke that evening that wizards had decided to make an addendum to their B&R announcement and emergency ban Felidar Guardian from standard, I was ecstatic. New ideas started to form and cards that were previously not able to be cast were now potential all-stars. I was reading a couple articles that night, and came across one written by Michael Majors for StarCityGames. In the article, he talks about the format moving forward(still with the knowledge that no bans had taken place, since the article was posted Wednesday morning), and what the metagame might look like. There was of course a Mardu list, a Saheeli list, and some other staples you'd expect to see.
However, at the end of the article he posted what I believe is the true gem, which happens to be a UG deck based around the interaction between Pieces of the Puzzle and Splendid Reclamation. Now, if you look at the deck the way it is constructed, you would think it would never be able to beat Saheeli in a million years, and you'd be correct. He mentioned how he only thought this deck would be a "legitimate PT option" if Guardian had been banned. Well now we live in a world where that is a reality, and if someone like Majors gives the deck that much praise, I am willing to give it a shot.
In the brief comments section in the article, he mentioned how the list was designed with Saheeli in mind, and that certain card choices were good and bad based on that fact. Given that information, I made some slight tweaks and am currently at the following list:
The deck is at it's core a traditional ramp deck with ways to accelerate mana and a bunch of top end. The only difference is the way we go about ramping. Obviously Spring is par for the course when it comes to ramp spells, but Splendid Reclamation? What the hell is going on here? The thing is, when your deck is composed entirely of spells that are good only in certain situations(you need Fogs and Censor early and Part/Crush later), Pieces of the Puzzle is actually quite good. When you've decided to go down the path of playing Pieces, Reclamation looks a little more enticing functioning essentially as an Explosive Vegetation. The thing that really takes it over the edge for me and makes it go from "maybe double rampant growth" to potentially broken are the cycling lands. They just make your Splendid Rec's much more consistent, and have the potential to generate upwards of 10 mana on turn 5!
The defensive portion of the deck consists of Haze of Pollen/Commencement of Festivities, Censor, and Crush of Tentacles. These are the best ways to ensure that you don't die before you start casting Parts and turn the corner. In particular Censor and Haze having cycling ensures that you find the right spells on time and don't die with dead cards in your hand. Crush is sort of a split card. It is a fine turn 5 play after a Spring to somewhat "Time Walk" the opponent, while also being pretty good once you get to the critical mass of lands in play and start casting your haymakers. It's not uncommon to be able to awaken Part and surge a Crush on turn 7, and that is usually good enough to end the game on the spot. Another "late game" card that is essentially free to have in your deck is Mind. Once you've established some land in play, holding up Fog plus Mind is another way to really start to turn the corner. And you would want a 3 mana Rampant Growth most of the time anyways, so having it in your deck essentially costs you nothing. Part the Waterveil is your main win condition here, and should be pretty self explanatory in regards to why this is chosen over your more traditional top end like Ulamog(Pieces of the Puzzle). And the last expensive card, Nissa's Renewal looks a lot like a ramp spell, but it functions more like a win condition. Untapping after casting Renewal usually leads to games ending in your favor.
As of right now, I'm not really sure where I should take the sideboard past Negate/Dispel, Dissentor's Deliverance, and another Fog or two. Torrential Gearhulk seems like a fine way to go about attacking the more controlling decks in the post-board games, as they are likely not expecting a card like that out of your Pieces of the Puzzle deck, and the games tend to be more about counterspells than anything else so having access to an expensive Snapcaster Mage is pretty good. Commit/Memory sort of falls into that same package of cards that are good against control decks, and perfect when you've decided you want Gearhulk anyways. Commit also has a bit of added utility against more midrangey decks that have cards like Liliana, Death's Majesty and Ishkanah, Grafwidow.
As always, any and all comments are much appreciated.
I am working on this exact concept for FNM. I play BG Delirium competitively but I'd like the chance to do some broken fun ***** involving a lot of mana.
My question: why did you cut Approach of the Second Sun? I have found that the main engine for winning the game can be pretty slow if you don't have a very good Pieces of the Puzzle on turn 3 (talking mill 3 lands, discard a land to hand size) and Splendid Reclamation on 4 to follow up - I think Approach is a very good, low-effort win condition for this deck, since you're already in for ramping and stalling. In particular, Approach synergizes very well with Pieces; resolving the first Approach means that casting Pieces on your next turn will dig you straight to Approach on your next draw step. You're already in for eight cycling lands to fuel Reclamation anyway, and it just so happens that both blue and green have an "off-color" cycling dual in white, which means that you only need one Plains after that and you have plenty of sources to cast Approach, so it's not the mana.
I have been tinkering around with this style of deck for a bit and have found out that the deck has a hard time against aggro decks. From testing, mana dorks help speed up the deck as well as chump block early until we can durdle to get lands our and go off.
Deck beats up on aggro and midrange, gameplan vs control is to shift gears toward counterspells and your SB threats. You still have as many win conditions as you can muster in the deck, but you want to take advantage of the likelihood of removal being boarded out by bringing in Tireless Tracker and playing protect-the-king. Ramp/combo is unwinnable don't even try.
I started with Approach of the Second Sun since that was in the original list, but I found it to be unnecessary. How has it been for you? I do kind of like the idea of playing Cast Out and can definitely get behind that. I also saw a couple of photos posted on Majors' Twitter account showing he had a newer build with Disallow and Engulf the Shore. Not sure if Engulf is better than Crush but certainly worth a try.
I ran something like this at Kaladesh Game Day except I was using Season's Past. Glad to see it coming back. I'm still working on a sideboard. Curator of Mysteries has been great but may go to the sideboard and come out for the second or third game.
I'll toss my hat into the ring. I wanted to come up with a UG ramp list with the release of Bounty of the Luxa, Nissa, Steward of Elements, and Sandwurm Convergence even going as far as trading for them without having an actual deck in mind. Then I saw this thread and it really got the wheels turning. I started out with Splendid Reclamation, but soon replaced it with Bounty. Having Bounty just feels so much better than trying to control the board while cramming in land cycling when you can spare the mana, which is a losing battle in a lot of match-ups. It's also value city when played off an Expertise, which is another great card for stalling out the game. Nissa playing the role of ramp, library manipulation, and win-con. She's also brutal if you can get her ult on deck before you Part. Convergence is just cute, I'll admit, you don't really need it. Walking Ballista is just and all around good card and can do everything this deck needs it to do. Block, kill, finsih, it does it all.
The SB is up in the air at the moment. I'm going to play this tomorrow (assuming my LGS has the cards) so we'll see how it does.
Well my list was awesome vs midrange decks, but aggro was a different story. I played vs BG Counters and a Jund Delirium list (very good deck, tuned well) with little to no issue. Though, the Jund deck was a much more difficult match-up due to Gonti Lord of Luxury, Glorybringer, and Ishkana, Grafwidow. Basically, just stuff I didn't really want to be bouncing. My next matches were vs Mardu and WB Zombies, which I managed a game off off each of them but ended up losing the matches. Mardu I feel could have gone either way, I won game one then next game he had the typical Mardu god hand and the last game I keep a 3 land hand and proceeded to draw 5 lands in a row. WB Zombies was the tough one though, the draining they do just completely negates everything this deck is trying to do, it was soul crushing.
As far as cards go, they all performed very well but my list did change a bit before I played it so here's my updated list.
-Channeler Initiate was fantastic, won me one game after drawing all four of them. I just killed him with 4 3/4 and a bunch of time walks.
-Walking Ballist more often than not came down as a 4/4 or a 5/5. Perfect card for the deck, will be adding the fourth when I get it.
-Bounty of the Luxa best card in the deck by far. I cannot get over how good this card is.
-Sandwurm Convergence solid enough as a one of, won me a game. Probably better in the board as an alt wincon.
-Pull from Tomorrow was another all-star. Perfect for digging for Part the Waterveil to seal up the game. Might be ok as a one of but I feel like two is the better number.
-Nissa, Steward of Elements was a great distraction card, almost like fog effect five and six. Also, another alt wincon. Used for scrying and soaking damage 90% of the time.
-Spring\\Mind was just ok. The ramp was needed but I almost never used the Mind portion with Pull in the list. Considering swapping for Gift of Paradise, especially since it can be cast of Baral's Expertise unlike Spring and the 3 life isn't nothing.
-Baral's Expertise was almost always awesome, except when they went wide. I think a 2/2 or a 3/1 split with Crush of Tentacles might be the way to go.
So all in all, while only taking the deck to 2-2 record I feel like there's something here. I had only goldfished the deck for a day and changed the list the day of FNM. My first real game with the deck was literally round one game one. So with a bit of tuning and practice this is going to be a great deck. Having said that I am thinking of adding a third color, either black for Fatal Push and Flaying Tendrils or going red and leaning a bit more on NRG and adding Magma Spray, Harnessed Lightning, and Radiant Flames. I'm going to keep the deck just UG for now though as I think the deck might be better when it just focuses on what it's trying to do. We'll see after next week.
This is my weird crush deck that I just started testing. The interaction with vessel and the aftermath cards is amazing. The main things I'm worried about are Heart of Kiran and Scarab Feast.
I've been playing U/G Splendid Reclamation Crush ever since Kaladesh, and here's my list. In my experience, trying to play a value game with Sylvan Advocate, Ishkanah, Grafwidow, or pretty much any creature is a trap in Splendid Reclamation based crush. Since we want to make all of our land drops anyway, cycling lands are much too slow for Splendid Reclamation.
Here are the cards that I think are necessary to all-in crush:
-Crush of Tentacles Baraal's expertise doesn't bounce planeswalkers or enchantments. The octopus actually doesn't matter for our game plan, and it's sometimes worth it to not surge crush if you think your opponent can Unlicensed Disintegration next turn. The mass bounce on crush is really the only line of text that you should care about. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that this is a card that should be cast maybe one or two times for value, once Splendid Reclamation has resolved, expected to cast this once per turn, or once every other turn with Baraal' Expertise in between.
-Pieces of the Puzzle This should be an automatic four of. It finds fogs, splendid reclamation, and dumps lands into the graveyard. I've found that any hand that can cast this is probably keepable.
-Contingency Plan I've tried really hard to not include this, but ultimately, it's the best option in standard. Cards like Grapple with the Past and Vessel of Nascency are too slow, and easily set us up for brick draws. Contingency plan digs deeper than any other card in standard for its mana cost, and chains fantastically with Pieces of the Puzzle and other contingency plans. Generally, i mulligan until I have either this or a pieces of the puzzle in my hand. Any hand that can cast contingency plan is also keepable. I cannot stress how important chaining these together is for the deck's functionality; learning how to properly use this card has probably been the biggest struggle in properly playing this deck.
-Jaddi Offshoot You probably haven't seen this before, but some number of these are absolutely needed for crush to function. It blocks in the early game, gains us life naturally if we play it early, and most importantly, gives us rock solid late game survivability. Before I included offshoot, a Walking Ballista or Chandra, Torch of Defiance on the opponent's field usually represented a loss. There a number of more nuanced interactions with this card that I'll get into later. It's also important to build up a massive life buffer in the late game, by loop-sacing evolving wilds and using Splendid Reclamation.
-Seasons Past This is probably the most important piece of this deck. Yes, even more important than Crush of Tentacles. I probably need to write a separate post just to explain how necessary this card is, but here are a few key points.
This may not seem important at first, but it prevents us from decking out. If I'm winning, then it's almost guaranteed that my deck is going to become 3 of these and nothing else
On that same line, it also serves as our late game win condition. Once we've put all of our lands into play with Splendid Reclamation (this is also almost guaranteed to happen if we're winning), Seasons Past completely locks the opponent out of the game, returning all of our countermagic, hand disruption, and mass bounce to hand every single turn.
Ultimately, Seasons Past makes this deck what it truly is, a prison deck.
-Haze of Pollen Replacing Commence Festivities, Haze of Pollen is absolutely needed to give us early game room. While it may feel right to not fog until we absolutely have to, the best time to cast this card can sometimes be on turns 3 or 4. If fogging can give us room to resolve a Splendid Reclamation, then there's no need to wait for more value. We have so much recursion and bounce that fogs are a just a mana efficient way of staying alive and giving us breathing room in the early game. We also don't want to get in burn range, given that cards like Walking Ballista, Chandra, Torch of Defiance and Cut//Ribbons are currently popular. This also lowers our ideal mana available from 11 (Seasons Past + crush) to 8 (Fog + Seasons Past). In aggro matchups, it's usually worth it to board in more fogs Commence Festivities. It can also be used to resolve a turn 6 Splendid reclamation, if we want to wait.
-Baraal's Expertise I originally wasn't too keen on this card, but it's absolutely esssential in many midrangey matchups. While casting Splendid Reclamation off of it is absolutely fantastic, it's also perfectly acceptable to bounce the opponents stuff and play a Pieces of the Puzzle. In many matchups, it's just a crush that we can cast on turn 5. It also lets us cast Pick the Brain without a swamp, which is more important than you may think.
Here are the cards that I think are important, but may not be necessary to all-in crush:
Greenwarden of Murasa I've cut this down to a one of, because Seasons Past is usually just better. We can still use it to loop crush, but I don't want our main form of recursion to be vulnerable to removal. It also allows for complicated recursion chains that I won't get into here. Grapple with the past can get it, which is an advantage over Seasons Past.
Negate Negate's 2 cmc makes it better in the late game over something like Disallow or Void Shatter, because we can return both it and Pick the Brain with Seasons Past at the same time. It's also nice to have 2 for game 1 in the control or marvel matchups, but putting any more in the main usually dilutes our engine's speed too much.
Pick the Brain This choice may same weird, but it actually cements our position as a prison deck. It's only a one of because we'll never need multiples, but it's actually quite important. Once we start casting Seasons Past and Crush of tentacles every turn, we need some way to deal with our opponents pesky Ballistas and Chandras, and Pick the Brain is absolutely perfect. With delirium, it lets us see the opponents deck and hand, allowing us to play around any possible outs that our opponent could achieve. Combined with Negate and Seasons Past, it locks the opponent out of the game.
This is a bit complicated, but basically, there are no creatures that beat us when resolved, and since we can strip our opponent's hand of one or more non-creature cards per turn, our opponent will reach a state where we can always counter the first non-creature spell they cast each turn, and can always strip any non-creature spells that they don't cast from their hand. Since we won't let them draw more than one card per turn, and since we can fog any flash creatures/bounce everything back to their hand, they become locked out of the game. It also deals with stuff like Prowling Serpopard and Sphinx of the Final Word. The information it gives about our opponent's deck is quite important in shaping our late game play patterns too.
-Evolving Wilds This land has a few awesome synergies with the deck
Gains us more life in the early game with Jaddi Offshoot
Can be sacrificed in the late game to gain us up to 12 life per turn with Splendid Reclamation and Jaddi Offshoot (Remember, all our stuff can be recurred)
Shuffles Seasons Past from the bottom of our library
Can be used to shuffle away stuff that we've put on top with Contingency Plan
Feeds an extra land to Splendid Reclamation without any mana investment
As multiple Splendid Reclamations resolve, Evolving Wilds heavily thins the deck throughout a game,
This is my first post to mtgsalvation, so I apologize for any formatting weirdness.
I've been playing U/G Splendid Reclamation Crush ever since Kaladesh, and here's my list. In my experience, trying to play a value game with Sylvan Advocate, Ishkanah, Grafwidow, or pretty much any creature is a trap in Splendid Reclamation based crush. Since we want to make all of our land drops anyway, cycling lands are much too slow for Splendid Reclamation.
Here are the cards that I think are necessary to all-in crush:
-Crush of Tentacles Baraal's expertise doesn't bounce planeswalkers or enchantments. The octopus actually doesn't matter for our game plan, and it's sometimes worth it to not surge crush if you think your opponent can Unlicensed Disintegration you next turn. The mass bounce on crush is really the only line of text that you should care about. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that this is a card that should be cast maybe one or two times for value, once Splendid Reclamation has resolved, expected to cast this once per turn, or once every other turn with Baraal' Expertise in between.
-Pieces of the Puzzle This should be an automatic four of. It finds fogs, splendid reclamation, and dumps lands into the graveyard. I've found that any hand that can cast this is probably keepable.
-Contingency Plan I've tried really hard to not include this, but ultimately, it's the best option in standard. Cards like Grapple with the Past and Vessel of Nascency are too slow, and easily set us up for brick draws. Contingency plan digs deeper than any other card in standard for its mana cost, and chains fantastically with Pieces of the Puzzle and other contingency plans. Generally, i mulligan until I have either this or a pieces of the puzzle in my hand. Any hand that can cast contingency plan is also keepable. I cannot stress how important chaining these together is for the deck's functionality; learning how to properly use this card has probably been the biggest struggle in properly playing this deck.
-Jaddi Offshoot You probably haven't seen this before, but some number of these are absolutely needed for crush to function. It blocks in the early game, gains us life naturally if we play it early, and most importantly, gives us rock solid late game survivability. Before I included offshoot, a Walking Ballista or Chandra, Torch of Defiance on the opponent's field usually represented a loss. There a number of more nuanced interactions with this card that I'll get into later. It's also important to build up a massive life buffer in the late game, by loop-sacing evolving wilds and using Splendid Reclamation.
-Seasons Past This is probably the most important piece of this deck. Yes, even more important than Crush of Tentacles. I probably need to write a separate post just to explain how necessary this card is, but here are a few key points.
This may not seem important at first, but it prevents us from decking out. If I'm winning, then it's almost guaranteed that my deck is going to become 3 of these and nothing else
On that same line, it also serves as our late game win condition. Once we've put all of our lands into play with Splendid Reclamation (this is also almost guaranteed to happen if we're winning), Seasons Past completely locks the opponent out of the game, returning all of our countermagic, hand disruption, and mass bounce to hand every single turn.
Ultimately, Seasons Past makes this deck what it truly is, a prison deck.
-Haze of Pollen Replacing Commence Festivities, Haze of Pollen is absolutely needed to give us early game room. While it may feel right to not fog until we absolutely have to, the best time to cast this card can sometimes be on turns 3 or 4. If fogging can give us room to resolve a Splendid Reclamation, then there's no need to wait for more value. We have so much recursion and bounce that fogs are a just a mana efficient way of staying alive and giving us breathing room in the early game. We also don't want to get in burn range, given that cards like Walking Ballista, Chandra, Torch of Defiance and Cut//Ribbons are currently popular. This also lowers our ideal mana available from 11 (Seasons Past + crush) to 8 (Fog + Seasons Past). In aggro matchups, it's usually worth it to board in more fogs Commence Festivities. It can also be used to resolve a turn 6 Splendid reclamation, if we want to wait.
-Baraal's Expertise I originally wasn't too keen on this card, but it's absolutely esssential in many midrangey matchups. While casting Splendid Reclamation off of it is absolutely fantastic, it's also perfectly acceptable to bounce the opponents stuff and play a Pieces of the Puzzle. In many matchups, it's just a crush that we can cast on turn 5. It also lets us cast Pick the Brain without a swamp, which is more important than you may think.
Here are the cards that I think are important, but may not be necessary to all-in crush:
Greenwarden of Murasa I've cut this down to a one of, because Seasons Past is usually just better. We can still use it to loop crush, but I don't want our main form of recursion to be vulnerable to removal. It also allows for complicated recursion chains that I won't get into here. Grapple with the past can get it, which is an advantage over Seasons Past.
Negate Negate's 2 cmc makes it better in the late game over something like Disallow or Void Shatter, because we can return both it and Pick the Brain with Seasons Past at the same time. It's also nice to have 2 for game 1 in the control or marvel matchups, but putting any more in the main usually dilutes our engine's speed too much.
Pick the Brain This choice may same weird, but it actually cements our position as a prison deck. It's only a one of because we'll never need multiples, but it's actually quite important. Once we start casting Seasons Past and Crush of tentacles every turn, we need some way to deal with our opponents pesky Ballistas and Chandras, and Pick the Brain is absolutely perfect. With delirium, it lets us see the opponents deck and hand, allowing us to play around any possible outs that our opponent could achieve. Combined with Negate and Seasons Past, it locks the opponent out of the game.
This is a bit complicated, but basically, there are no creatures that beat us when resolved, and since we can strip our opponent's hand of one or more non-creature cards per turn, our opponent will reach a state where we can always counter the first non-creature spell they cast each turn, and can always strip any non-creature spells that they don't cast from their hand. Since we won't let them draw more than one card per turn, and since we can fog any flash creatures/bounce everything back to their hand, they become locked out of the game. It also deals with stuff like Prowling Serpopard and Sphinx of the Final Word. The information it gives about our opponent's deck is quite important in shaping our late game play patterns too.
-Evolving Wilds This land has a few awesome synergies with the deck
Gains us more life in the early game with Jaddi Offshoot
Can be sacrificed in the late game to gain us up to 12 life per turn with Splendid Reclamation and Jaddi Offshoot (Remember, all our stuff can be recurred)
Shuffles Seasons Past from the bottom of our library
Can be used to shuffle away stuff that we've put on top with Contingency Plan
Feeds an extra land to Splendid Reclamation without any mana investment
As multiple Splendid Reclamations resolve, Evolving Wilds heavily thins the deck throughout a game,
This is my first post to mtgsalvation, so I apologize for any formatting weirdness.
how has your deck performed? It seems the deck could use some tuning but very intriguing. I see how it works, but you may just lose to aggro decks when you only draw a fog or 2 and topdeck random mill spells.
Currently the deck's performance is heavily matchup dependent. The problem against aggro decks isn't a lack of fogs, but rather a lack of room to both fog and resolve a bounce/splendid reclamation. It's also pretty hard to deal with large amounts of burn and hasty creatures. The deckmatches up very well against zombies and mardu, but I honestly don't think crush will ever match up well with monored/BR hyper aggressive strategies. This has been an issue at FNM, but not really on MTGO. Currently people seem to be trying to go over marvel with decks like U/R, so I'm not worried about the aggro matchup as of right now. If humans or B/R start representing large shares of the meta then this deck is 100% garbage though.
when you only draw a fog or 2 and topdeck random mill spells.
Contingency plan and pieces of the puzzle are actually the absolute best topdecks that I can have. I am never sad to draw one, and an important part of playing the deck is properly using them to chain into each other. I'm actually running 2 anticipates over something like grapple with the past simply because anticipate can find more contingency plans or pieces of the puzzles.
The marvel matchup is interesting, because they don't apply nearly enough pressure without ulamog to deal with what I'm doing. Even turn 5 ulamog can be totally fine, as long as I resolve splendid reclamation on turn 4 (I'll often power one out as quick as possible against marvel even if it means only getting 2 or 3 lands]. I've always had enough bounce to prevent ulamog from attacking if he didn't come down on turn 4, but a single attack from him is gg because of how much I need to recur every card in the deck. B/G and apprentice-less mardu have been pretty close to free wins if I'm playing correctly, but I don't expect either to catch any significant share of the metagame. Zombies is a ridiculously good matchup game 1, but can be tougher post-board if they run transgress the mind over dispossess. U/R is a weak matchup game 1, but a fantastic matchup games 2 and 3. The only problem is that game 3 will rarely ever get enough time to finish if I don't alter my play (usually this means going hard with lumbering falls beatdowns).
My gut feeling and initial testing suggest that this deck can go way over the top of Marvel but struggles against beatdown decks that outsize its sweepers (e.g. Greenbelt Rampager/Longtusk Cub/Rhonas/etc). On the other hand I'm sure I could be making some misplays that hurt those matchups as well.
I've been playing U/G Splendid Reclamation Crush ever since Kaladesh, and here's my list. In my experience, trying to play a value game with Sylvan Advocate, Ishkanah, Grafwidow, or pretty much any creature is a trap in Splendid Reclamation based crush. Since we want to make all of our land drops anyway, cycling lands are much too slow for Splendid Reclamation.
Here are the cards that I think are necessary to all-in crush:
-Crush of Tentacles Baraal's expertise doesn't bounce planeswalkers or enchantments. The octopus actually doesn't matter for our game plan, and it's sometimes worth it to not surge crush if you think your opponent can Unlicensed Disintegration you next turn. The mass bounce on crush is really the only line of text that you should care about. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that this is a card that should be cast maybe one or two times for value, once Splendid Reclamation has resolved, expected to cast this once per turn, or once every other turn with Baraal' Expertise in between.
-Pieces of the Puzzle This should be an automatic four of. It finds fogs, splendid reclamation, and dumps lands into the graveyard. I've found that any hand that can cast this is probably keepable.
-Contingency Plan I've tried really hard to not include this, but ultimately, it's the best option in standard. Cards like Grapple with the Past and Vessel of Nascency are too slow, and easily set us up for brick draws. Contingency plan digs deeper than any other card in standard for its mana cost, and chains fantastically with Pieces of the Puzzle and other contingency plans. Generally, i mulligan until I have either this or a pieces of the puzzle in my hand. Any hand that can cast contingency plan is also keepable. I cannot stress how important chaining these together is for the deck's functionality; learning how to properly use this card has probably been the biggest struggle in properly playing this deck.
-Jaddi Offshoot You probably haven't seen this before, but some number of these are absolutely needed for crush to function. It blocks in the early game, gains us life naturally if we play it early, and most importantly, gives us rock solid late game survivability. Before I included offshoot, a Walking Ballista or Chandra, Torch of Defiance on the opponent's field usually represented a loss. There a number of more nuanced interactions with this card that I'll get into later. It's also important to build up a massive life buffer in the late game, by loop-sacing evolving wilds and using Splendid Reclamation.
-Seasons Past This is probably the most important piece of this deck. Yes, even more important than Crush of Tentacles. I probably need to write a separate post just to explain how necessary this card is, but here are a few key points.
This may not seem important at first, but it prevents us from decking out. If I'm winning, then it's almost guaranteed that my deck is going to become 3 of these and nothing else
On that same line, it also serves as our late game win condition. Once we've put all of our lands into play with Splendid Reclamation (this is also almost guaranteed to happen if we're winning), Seasons Past completely locks the opponent out of the game, returning all of our countermagic, hand disruption, and mass bounce to hand every single turn.
Ultimately, Seasons Past makes this deck what it truly is, a prison deck.
-Haze of Pollen Replacing Commence Festivities, Haze of Pollen is absolutely needed to give us early game room. While it may feel right to not fog until we absolutely have to, the best time to cast this card can sometimes be on turns 3 or 4. If fogging can give us room to resolve a Splendid Reclamation, then there's no need to wait for more value. We have so much recursion and bounce that fogs are a just a mana efficient way of staying alive and giving us breathing room in the early game. We also don't want to get in burn range, given that cards like Walking Ballista, Chandra, Torch of Defiance and Cut//Ribbons are currently popular. This also lowers our ideal mana available from 11 (Seasons Past + crush) to 8 (Fog + Seasons Past). In aggro matchups, it's usually worth it to board in more fogs Commence Festivities. It can also be used to resolve a turn 6 Splendid reclamation, if we want to wait.
-Baraal's Expertise I originally wasn't too keen on this card, but it's absolutely esssential in many midrangey matchups. While casting Splendid Reclamation off of it is absolutely fantastic, it's also perfectly acceptable to bounce the opponents stuff and play a Pieces of the Puzzle. In many matchups, it's just a crush that we can cast on turn 5. It also lets us cast Pick the Brain without a swamp, which is more important than you may think.
Here are the cards that I think are important, but may not be necessary to all-in crush:
Greenwarden of Murasa I've cut this down to a one of, because Seasons Past is usually just better. We can still use it to loop crush, but I don't want our main form of recursion to be vulnerable to removal. It also allows for complicated recursion chains that I won't get into here. Grapple with the past can get it, which is an advantage over Seasons Past.
Negate Negate's 2 cmc makes it better in the late game over something like Disallow or Void Shatter, because we can return both it and Pick the Brain with Seasons Past at the same time. It's also nice to have 2 for game 1 in the control or marvel matchups, but putting any more in the main usually dilutes our engine's speed too much.
Pick the Brain This choice may same weird, but it actually cements our position as a prison deck. It's only a one of because we'll never need multiples, but it's actually quite important. Once we start casting Seasons Past and Crush of tentacles every turn, we need some way to deal with our opponents pesky Ballistas and Chandras, and Pick the Brain is absolutely perfect. With delirium, it lets us see the opponents deck and hand, allowing us to play around any possible outs that our opponent could achieve. Combined with Negate and Seasons Past, it locks the opponent out of the game.
This is a bit complicated, but basically, there are no creatures that beat us when resolved, and since we can strip our opponent's hand of one or more non-creature cards per turn, our opponent will reach a state where we can always counter the first non-creature spell they cast each turn, and can always strip any non-creature spells that they don't cast from their hand. Since we won't let them draw more than one card per turn, and since we can fog any flash creatures/bounce everything back to their hand, they become locked out of the game. It also deals with stuff like Prowling Serpopard and Sphinx of the Final Word. The information it gives about our opponent's deck is quite important in shaping our late game play patterns too.
-Evolving Wilds This land has a few awesome synergies with the deck
Gains us more life in the early game with Jaddi Offshoot
Can be sacrificed in the late game to gain us up to 12 life per turn with Splendid Reclamation and Jaddi Offshoot (Remember, all our stuff can be recurred)
Shuffles Seasons Past from the bottom of our library
Can be used to shuffle away stuff that we've put on top with Contingency Plan
Feeds an extra land to Splendid Reclamation without any mana investment
As multiple Splendid Reclamations resolve, Evolving Wilds heavily thins the deck throughout a game,
This is my first post to mtgsalvation, so I apologize for any formatting weirdness.
I Build this on MTGO and I must say I am loving it. Only problem really is that time starts to become an issue at some point. Because of this I have cut Greenwarden of Murasa and removed one Seasons Past and replaced them with 2x Part the Waterveil This can be an instant win if cast alongside a surged crush. It was just taking to long to recur crush and strip everything by countering on the replay or by exiling with Pick the Brain Having a rock solid lock doesn't mean you wont lose on time. I also cut the anticipates for 2x Scatter to the Wind because 3 +1/+1 counters on Lumbering Falls also speeds things up considerably once a dominant position is reached. I'm still testing and playing around with things but I am liking these adjustments. Kudos on the build! Its one of the most fun things I've put together in a while.
Haha that's been very true, I used to include a Kozilek, the Great Distortion along with a single Shrine of the Forsaken Gods just so that I'd be able to close out games (this was how it locked people out before Pick the Brain), but I've gotten very good at going by muscle memory now. A good tip for not losing on time is to have your Seasons Past targets on top of your graveyard so you can quickly grab what you need and nothing else. I haven't tried Part the Waterveil yet, how has it been working out?
It's rocking. I like it a lot. Never have time issues any more. I have also found that Pick the Brain seems to be win-more. I mean.. why keep recurring stuff when you can just win? Also, while I never found the swamp to be a problem, it could potentially be if you get it and another basic land in an otherwise playable hand. I know you were not playing these, but I have also dropped the Scatter to the Winds and the Negates in favor of 4x Censor because countering an early play vs aggro can be a lifesaver, and vs marvel, you can counter on t4, and if they wait till t5 you should be ok already. The Censors are experimental for now, I have not played with them enough yet to know if they work as I think they will. The waterveils are in for good though. Here is the list as currently constituted:
The maindeck dispels have been amazing. Almost all of my losses against midrange and control have came from maindeck negates, and the mana efficiency of dispel is so fantastic that I'm considering running 4. I've stopped running botanical sanctums because I don't need double green until late in the game, and Contingency Plan, Evolving Wilds, and Lumbering Falls have been more than good enough at getting green mana. Having an almost always untapped mana base is amazing, and the extra basics have provided alot more value with Splendid Reclamation and Evolving Wilds. Because fogs are much better draws than Crush of Tentacles and Greenwarden of Murasa, I've cut those down to 1 and 0 respectively. I'm still uncertain on how many Jaddi Offshoots should be in the main deck, but I went down to 2 after cutting the botanical sanctums because untapped green on turn 1 is less likely.
B/R aggro still feels unwinnable, so I'm thinking of creating a transformational sideboard for the matchup. Whether this means bringing in white for more fogs such as Repel the Abominable, or going red for Sweltering Suns and Magma Spray, I think that heavy sideboarding is the only way to deal with the matchup.
We are going in different directions with this deck! I found that Censor did not do all that I wanted. It was nice vs aggro but didnt do much vs Marvel. I also gave up on the Part the Waterveil because too often it felt like I was playing just to set up the Part/Crush combo, and although it did 20 Damage if resolved, the exile clause on Part meant it really sucked if the awakened land got killed. I also found that if I got to the bottom of my deck, I was almost always winning, so it made sense to add a couple more self mill enablers. Vessel of Nascency fits this bill and also adds another card type to enable delirium on Pick the Brain. Here is what I am currently playing on MTGO:
Marvelworks is dead, which means I think a deck like this could potentially be a top-tier deck in the meta. In my testing this list absolutely roflstomps aggro and midrange, is about even with control, and loses to things like new perspectives combo and marvelworks. With marvelworks gone and new perspectives seeing zero play, I think a list like this could end up top tier.
The basic gameplan is pretty simple: spend turns 1-4 stalling, ramping, and filling the gy with lands via Pieces of the Puzzle and Contingency Plan while digging for a splendid reclamation. Once you hit a reclamation, you'll find yourself with suddenly 8+ mana on the board and lots of ways to spend it.
Most games are won on the back Part the Waterveil, which works beautifully with Crush of Tentacles and Engulf the Shore. Lumbering Falls is our beater of choice, who cannot be hit by crush of tentacles, blanks sorcery speed removal like board wipes, and cannot be targeted by instant speed removal otherwise.
The best thing about the deck is it's "inevitability". As you amass card advantage with our plethora of draw spells and fog or bounce them until they want to flip the table, you'll be casually playing land after land after land. The longer a game goes while you play this deck, the more likely you are to win.
Matchups:
Aggro (Zombies, RG energy, Humans, etc)
E-Z mode. Remember that you don't need to have 20 life to win a game, just 1. Life is a resource in this deck as much as anything else. Let them use you as a big giant punching bag until you're approaching "they can kill me this turn" territory. Then start blanking and bouncing their attacks with fogs and engulf the shores and you'll be fine. Do not waste an Engulf the Shore when you have more than 10 life. Always use Engulf on their end step or when they are tapped out, so that they cannot immediately recast the creatures.
Midrange (Mardu, BGx Constrictor, UW Flash etc)
Also E-Z mode. They won't be fast enough to really threaten you unless they get a nut draw. Use censors and stalls to get to the late game and you'll win. UW Flash has lots of counters which is annoying game 1 but game 2 is ez.
Control (Izzet, Grixis, Esper)
Tough matchup but winnable. Game 1 you're at the mercy of their draws, we don't play tons of spells that require an answer and often our whole strategy hinges instead on a single spell resolving. As such, it really depends on whether they have an answer when they need it or not. Game 1 is tough, but game 2 you board in your negates and your dispels and your gearhulks and turn it into a control mirror-match, except we have a much better late game and better inevitability.
Combo (Marvel RIP, New Perspectives, other)
Marvel was an almost always-lose matchup, which is why now that it's gone I think this deck is really well positioned. New Perspectives never sees play but if you're against them just try to save a censor or a negate for their enchantment or you lose. post-board you have more toys to fight with but it's an uphill battle.
However, at the end of the article he posted what I believe is the true gem, which happens to be a UG deck based around the interaction between Pieces of the Puzzle and Splendid Reclamation. Now, if you look at the deck the way it is constructed, you would think it would never be able to beat Saheeli in a million years, and you'd be correct. He mentioned how he only thought this deck would be a "legitimate PT option" if Guardian had been banned. Well now we live in a world where that is a reality, and if someone like Majors gives the deck that much praise, I am willing to give it a shot.
In the brief comments section in the article, he mentioned how the list was designed with Saheeli in mind, and that certain card choices were good and bad based on that fact. Given that information, I made some slight tweaks and am currently at the following list:
4 Fetid Pools
4 Botanical Sanctum
2 Lumbering Falls
8 Island
5 Forest
4 Censor
4 Anticipate
4 Haze of Pollen
1 Commencement of Festivities
4 Spring/Mind
4 Pieces of the Puzzle
3 Splendid Reclamation
4 Part the Waterveil
3 Crush of Tentacles
2 Nissa's Renewal
1 Summary Dismissal
1 Commencement of Festivities
3 Negate
2 Dispel
3 Commit/Memory
2 Dissentor's Deliverance
3 Torrential Gearhulk
The deck is at it's core a traditional ramp deck with ways to accelerate mana and a bunch of top end. The only difference is the way we go about ramping. Obviously Spring is par for the course when it comes to ramp spells, but Splendid Reclamation? What the hell is going on here? The thing is, when your deck is composed entirely of spells that are good only in certain situations(you need Fogs and Censor early and Part/Crush later), Pieces of the Puzzle is actually quite good. When you've decided to go down the path of playing Pieces, Reclamation looks a little more enticing functioning essentially as an Explosive Vegetation. The thing that really takes it over the edge for me and makes it go from "maybe double rampant growth" to potentially broken are the cycling lands. They just make your Splendid Rec's much more consistent, and have the potential to generate upwards of 10 mana on turn 5!
The defensive portion of the deck consists of Haze of Pollen/Commencement of Festivities, Censor, and Crush of Tentacles. These are the best ways to ensure that you don't die before you start casting Parts and turn the corner. In particular Censor and Haze having cycling ensures that you find the right spells on time and don't die with dead cards in your hand. Crush is sort of a split card. It is a fine turn 5 play after a Spring to somewhat "Time Walk" the opponent, while also being pretty good once you get to the critical mass of lands in play and start casting your haymakers. It's not uncommon to be able to awaken Part and surge a Crush on turn 7, and that is usually good enough to end the game on the spot. Another "late game" card that is essentially free to have in your deck is Mind. Once you've established some land in play, holding up Fog plus Mind is another way to really start to turn the corner. And you would want a 3 mana Rampant Growth most of the time anyways, so having it in your deck essentially costs you nothing. Part the Waterveil is your main win condition here, and should be pretty self explanatory in regards to why this is chosen over your more traditional top end like Ulamog(Pieces of the Puzzle). And the last expensive card, Nissa's Renewal looks a lot like a ramp spell, but it functions more like a win condition. Untapping after casting Renewal usually leads to games ending in your favor.
As of right now, I'm not really sure where I should take the sideboard past Negate/Dispel, Dissentor's Deliverance, and another Fog or two. Torrential Gearhulk seems like a fine way to go about attacking the more controlling decks in the post-board games, as they are likely not expecting a card like that out of your Pieces of the Puzzle deck, and the games tend to be more about counterspells than anything else so having access to an expensive Snapcaster Mage is pretty good. Commit/Memory sort of falls into that same package of cards that are good against control decks, and perfect when you've decided you want Gearhulk anyways. Commit also has a bit of added utility against more midrangey decks that have cards like Liliana, Death's Majesty and Ishkanah, Grafwidow.
As always, any and all comments are much appreciated.
My question: why did you cut Approach of the Second Sun? I have found that the main engine for winning the game can be pretty slow if you don't have a very good Pieces of the Puzzle on turn 3 (talking mill 3 lands, discard a land to hand size) and Splendid Reclamation on 4 to follow up - I think Approach is a very good, low-effort win condition for this deck, since you're already in for ramping and stalling. In particular, Approach synergizes very well with Pieces; resolving the first Approach means that casting Pieces on your next turn will dig you straight to Approach on your next draw step. You're already in for eight cycling lands to fuel Reclamation anyway, and it just so happens that both blue and green have an "off-color" cycling dual in white, which means that you only need one Plains after that and you have plenty of sources to cast Approach, so it's not the mana.
GW ~ Angels ~ WG
Modern:
RBW ~ Shadowmancer ~ WBR
Legacy:
BUG ~ Shadow Delver ~ GUB
Youtube Channel
Side notes from testing - Baral's Expertise and Splendid reclamation has been the most satisfying interaction I have played with this archetype.
A couple variations could maybe be an Aetherworks Marvel list, or token harvest season with retreat to emeria?
Let's tune this deck up, fun as hell to pilot.
4 Cast Out
Instants (11)
4 Censor
4 Haze of Pollen
2 Commit // Memory
1 Commencement of Festivities
Lands (27)
4 Irrigated Farmland
4 Scattered Groves
2 Lumbering Falls
4 Botanical Sanctum
7 Island
1 Plains
5 Forest
4 Part the Waterveil
1 Approach of the Second Sun
2 Crush of Tentacles
3 Splendid Reclamation
4 Pieces of the Puzzle
3 Spring // Mind
1 Nissa's Renewal
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
3 Tireless Tracker
3 Commencement of Festivities
3 Dispel
3 Negate
1 Crush of Tentacles
Current build. Cast Out is a welcome addition.
Deck beats up on aggro and midrange, gameplan vs control is to shift gears toward counterspells and your SB threats. You still have as many win conditions as you can muster in the deck, but you want to take advantage of the likelihood of removal being boarded out by bringing in Tireless Tracker and playing protect-the-king. Ramp/combo is unwinnable don't even try.
GW ~ Angels ~ WG
Modern:
RBW ~ Shadowmancer ~ WBR
Legacy:
BUG ~ Shadow Delver ~ GUB
3x Contingency Plan
4x Censor
4x Pieces of the Puzzle
4x Haze of Pollen
3x Splendid Reclamation
3x Engulf the Shore
2x Crush of Tentacles
4x Part the Waterveil
3x Commit // Memory
2x Cast Out
Lands
4x Irrigated Farmland
1x Plains
4x Forest
8x Island
4x Lumbering Falls
4x Botanical Sanctum
The SB is up in the air at the moment. I'm going to play this tomorrow (assuming my LGS has the cards) so we'll see how it does.
3 Walking Ballista
4 Bounty of the Luxa
1 Sandwurm Convergence
2 Nissa, Steward of Elements
4 Haze of Pollen
4 Spring//Mind
2 Commit//Memory
3 Baral's Expertise
4 Part the Waterveil
4 Botanical Sanctum
7 Forest
9 Island
3 Cascading Cataracts
As far as cards go, they all performed very well but my list did change a bit before I played it so here's my updated list.
3 Walking Ballista
2 Servant of the Conduit
4 Bounty of the Luxa
1 Sandwurm Convergence
2 Pull from Tomorrow
2 Nissa, Steward of Elements
2 Attune with Aether
4 Spring
3 Baral's Expertise
4 Part the Waterveil
4 Botanical Sanctum
8 Forest
7 Island
3 Cascading Cataracts
-Channeler Initiate was fantastic, won me one game after drawing all four of them. I just killed him with 4 3/4 and a bunch of time walks.
-Walking Ballist more often than not came down as a 4/4 or a 5/5. Perfect card for the deck, will be adding the fourth when I get it.
-Bounty of the Luxa best card in the deck by far. I cannot get over how good this card is.
-Sandwurm Convergence solid enough as a one of, won me a game. Probably better in the board as an alt wincon.
-Pull from Tomorrow was another all-star. Perfect for digging for Part the Waterveil to seal up the game. Might be ok as a one of but I feel like two is the better number.
-Nissa, Steward of Elements was a great distraction card, almost like fog effect five and six. Also, another alt wincon. Used for scrying and soaking damage 90% of the time.
-Spring\\Mind was just ok. The ramp was needed but I almost never used the Mind portion with Pull in the list. Considering swapping for Gift of Paradise, especially since it can be cast of Baral's Expertise unlike Spring and the 3 life isn't nothing.
-Baral's Expertise was almost always awesome, except when they went wide. I think a 2/2 or a 3/1 split with Crush of Tentacles might be the way to go.
So all in all, while only taking the deck to 2-2 record I feel like there's something here. I had only goldfished the deck for a day and changed the list the day of FNM. My first real game with the deck was literally round one game one. So with a bit of tuning and practice this is going to be a great deck. Having said that I am thinking of adding a third color, either black for Fatal Push and Flaying Tendrils or going red and leaning a bit more on NRG and adding Magma Spray, Harnessed Lightning, and Radiant Flames. I'm going to keep the deck just UG for now though as I think the deck might be better when it just focuses on what it's trying to do. We'll see after next week.
3 traverse the ulvenwald
3 magma spray
2 heaven\\earth
4 spring\\mind
2 gift of paradise
3 commit\\memory
3 oath of jace
2 oath of chandra
3 nissa, steward of elements
1 pull from tomorrow
4 crush of tentacles
2 walking ballista
1 greenwarden of murasa
1 ishkanah, grafwidow
4 botanical sanctum
2 spirebluff canal
2 lumbering falls
2 game trail
4 forest
2 island
3 mountain
1 magma spray
1 oath of chandra
2 sweltering suns
2 manglehorn
2 tireless tracker
2 chandra, torch of defiance
2 glorybringer
2 fall of the titans
1 glyph keeper
Here are the cards that I think are necessary to all-in crush:
-Crush of Tentacles Baraal's expertise doesn't bounce planeswalkers or enchantments. The octopus actually doesn't matter for our game plan, and it's sometimes worth it to not surge crush if you think your opponent can Unlicensed Disintegration next turn. The mass bounce on crush is really the only line of text that you should care about. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that this is a card that should be cast maybe one or two times for value, once Splendid Reclamation has resolved, expected to cast this once per turn, or once every other turn with Baraal' Expertise in between.
-Pieces of the Puzzle This should be an automatic four of. It finds fogs, splendid reclamation, and dumps lands into the graveyard. I've found that any hand that can cast this is probably keepable.
-Contingency Plan I've tried really hard to not include this, but ultimately, it's the best option in standard. Cards like Grapple with the Past and Vessel of Nascency are too slow, and easily set us up for brick draws. Contingency plan digs deeper than any other card in standard for its mana cost, and chains fantastically with Pieces of the Puzzle and other contingency plans. Generally, i mulligan until I have either this or a pieces of the puzzle in my hand. Any hand that can cast contingency plan is also keepable. I cannot stress how important chaining these together is for the deck's functionality; learning how to properly use this card has probably been the biggest struggle in properly playing this deck.
-Jaddi Offshoot You probably haven't seen this before, but some number of these are absolutely needed for crush to function. It blocks in the early game, gains us life naturally if we play it early, and most importantly, gives us rock solid late game survivability. Before I included offshoot, a Walking Ballista or Chandra, Torch of Defiance on the opponent's field usually represented a loss. There a number of more nuanced interactions with this card that I'll get into later. It's also important to build up a massive life buffer in the late game, by loop-sacing evolving wilds and using Splendid Reclamation.
-Splendid Reclamation I see many people attempting to use cards like Channeler Initiate, Hedron Archive, and Bounty of the Luxa in their crush decks. This baffles me; bouncing all of your mana sources with Crush of Tentacles is an absolutely horrible idea. Because we don't have any better land ramp options, Splendid Reclamation is the only way to currently play this deck. Splendid Reclamation also combines with Pieces of the Puzzle, Contingency Plan, and Seasons Past to form what I believe is the real engine of this deck.
Look for opportunities to resolve it with a Jaddi Offshoot on the field, but don't get greedy.
-Seasons Past This is probably the most important piece of this deck. Yes, even more important than Crush of Tentacles. I probably need to write a separate post just to explain how necessary this card is, but here are a few key points.
-Haze of Pollen Replacing Commence Festivities, Haze of Pollen is absolutely needed to give us early game room. While it may feel right to not fog until we absolutely have to, the best time to cast this card can sometimes be on turns 3 or 4. If fogging can give us room to resolve a Splendid Reclamation, then there's no need to wait for more value. We have so much recursion and bounce that fogs are a just a mana efficient way of staying alive and giving us breathing room in the early game. We also don't want to get in burn range, given that cards like Walking Ballista, Chandra, Torch of Defiance and Cut//Ribbons are currently popular. This also lowers our ideal mana available from 11 (Seasons Past + crush) to 8 (Fog + Seasons Past). In aggro matchups, it's usually worth it to board in more fogs Commence Festivities. It can also be used to resolve a turn 6 Splendid reclamation, if we want to wait.
-Baraal's Expertise I originally wasn't too keen on this card, but it's absolutely esssential in many midrangey matchups. While casting Splendid Reclamation off of it is absolutely fantastic, it's also perfectly acceptable to bounce the opponents stuff and play a Pieces of the Puzzle. In many matchups, it's just a crush that we can cast on turn 5. It also lets us cast Pick the Brain without a swamp, which is more important than you may think.
Here are the cards that I think are important, but may not be necessary to all-in crush:
Greenwarden of Murasa I've cut this down to a one of, because Seasons Past is usually just better. We can still use it to loop crush, but I don't want our main form of recursion to be vulnerable to removal. It also allows for complicated recursion chains that I won't get into here. Grapple with the past can get it, which is an advantage over Seasons Past.
Negate Negate's 2 cmc makes it better in the late game over something like Disallow or Void Shatter, because we can return both it and Pick the Brain with Seasons Past at the same time. It's also nice to have 2 for game 1 in the control or marvel matchups, but putting any more in the main usually dilutes our engine's speed too much.
Pick the Brain This choice may same weird, but it actually cements our position as a prison deck. It's only a one of because we'll never need multiples, but it's actually quite important. Once we start casting Seasons Past and Crush of tentacles every turn, we need some way to deal with our opponents pesky Ballistas and Chandras, and Pick the Brain is absolutely perfect. With delirium, it lets us see the opponents deck and hand, allowing us to play around any possible outs that our opponent could achieve. Combined with Negate and Seasons Past, it locks the opponent out of the game.
This is a bit complicated, but basically, there are no creatures that beat us when resolved, and since we can strip our opponent's hand of one or more non-creature cards per turn, our opponent will reach a state where we can always counter the first non-creature spell they cast each turn, and can always strip any non-creature spells that they don't cast from their hand. Since we won't let them draw more than one card per turn, and since we can fog any flash creatures/bounce everything back to their hand, they become locked out of the game. It also deals with stuff like Prowling Serpopard and Sphinx of the Final Word. The information it gives about our opponent's deck is quite important in shaping our late game play patterns too.
-Evolving Wilds This land has a few awesome synergies with the deck
This is my first post to mtgsalvation, so I apologize for any formatting weirdness.
Edit: Spelling and Grammar
how has your deck performed? It seems the deck could use some tuning but very intriguing. I see how it works, but you may just lose to aggro decks when you only draw a fog or 2 and topdeck random mill spells.
Currently the deck's performance is heavily matchup dependent. The problem against aggro decks isn't a lack of fogs, but rather a lack of room to both fog and resolve a bounce/splendid reclamation. It's also pretty hard to deal with large amounts of burn and hasty creatures. The deckmatches up very well against zombies and mardu, but I honestly don't think crush will ever match up well with monored/BR hyper aggressive strategies. This has been an issue at FNM, but not really on MTGO. Currently people seem to be trying to go over marvel with decks like U/R, so I'm not worried about the aggro matchup as of right now. If humans or B/R start representing large shares of the meta then this deck is 100% garbage though.
Contingency plan and pieces of the puzzle are actually the absolute best topdecks that I can have. I am never sad to draw one, and an important part of playing the deck is properly using them to chain into each other. I'm actually running 2 anticipates over something like grapple with the past simply because anticipate can find more contingency plans or pieces of the puzzles.
The marvel matchup is interesting, because they don't apply nearly enough pressure without ulamog to deal with what I'm doing. Even turn 5 ulamog can be totally fine, as long as I resolve splendid reclamation on turn 4 (I'll often power one out as quick as possible against marvel even if it means only getting 2 or 3 lands]. I've always had enough bounce to prevent ulamog from attacking if he didn't come down on turn 4, but a single attack from him is gg because of how much I need to recur every card in the deck. B/G and apprentice-less mardu have been pretty close to free wins if I'm playing correctly, but I don't expect either to catch any significant share of the metagame. Zombies is a ridiculously good matchup game 1, but can be tougher post-board if they run transgress the mind over dispossess. U/R is a weak matchup game 1, but a fantastic matchup games 2 and 3. The only problem is that game 3 will rarely ever get enough time to finish if I don't alter my play (usually this means going hard with lumbering falls beatdowns).
2 Lightning Axe
3 Cathartic Reunion
4 Contingency Plan
2 Dissenter's Deliverance
3 Kozilek's Return
4 Pieces of the Puzzle
4 Splendid Reclamation
2 Crush of Tentacles
2 Nissa's Renewal
4 Part the Waterveil
3 Botanical Sanctum
1 Cinder Glade
1 Forest
1 Geier Reach Sanitarium
4 Island
3 Lumbering Falls
4 Mountain
4 Sheltered Thicket
2 Spirebluff Canal
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Dispel
1 Magma Spray
3 Negate
3 Thing in the Ice
2 Sweltering Suns
2 Rise from the Tides
My gut feeling and initial testing suggest that this deck can go way over the top of Marvel but struggles against beatdown decks that outsize its sweepers (e.g. Greenbelt Rampager/Longtusk Cub/Rhonas/etc). On the other hand I'm sure I could be making some misplays that hurt those matchups as well.
I Build this on MTGO and I must say I am loving it. Only problem really is that time starts to become an issue at some point. Because of this I have cut Greenwarden of Murasa and removed one Seasons Past and replaced them with 2x Part the Waterveil This can be an instant win if cast alongside a surged crush. It was just taking to long to recur crush and strip everything by countering on the replay or by exiling with Pick the Brain Having a rock solid lock doesn't mean you wont lose on time. I also cut the anticipates for 2x Scatter to the Wind because 3 +1/+1 counters on Lumbering Falls also speeds things up considerably once a dominant position is reached. I'm still testing and playing around with things but I am liking these adjustments. Kudos on the build! Its one of the most fun things I've put together in a while.
Haha that's been very true, I used to include a Kozilek, the Great Distortion along with a single Shrine of the Forsaken Gods just so that I'd be able to close out games (this was how it locked people out before Pick the Brain), but I've gotten very good at going by muscle memory now. A good tip for not losing on time is to have your Seasons Past targets on top of your graveyard so you can quickly grab what you need and nothing else. I haven't tried Part the Waterveil yet, how has it been working out?
It's rocking. I like it a lot. Never have time issues any more. I have also found that Pick the Brain seems to be win-more. I mean.. why keep recurring stuff when you can just win? Also, while I never found the swamp to be a problem, it could potentially be if you get it and another basic land in an otherwise playable hand. I know you were not playing these, but I have also dropped the Scatter to the Winds and the Negates in favor of 4x Censor because countering an early play vs aggro can be a lifesaver, and vs marvel, you can counter on t4, and if they wait till t5 you should be ok already. The Censors are experimental for now, I have not played with them enough yet to know if they work as I think they will. The waterveils are in for good though. Here is the list as currently constituted:
3 Jaddi Offshoot
4 Censor
4 Contingency Plan
1 Grapple with the Past
1 Commencement of Festivities
4 Haze Pollen
4 Pieces of the Puzzle
4 Splendid Restoration
3 Crush of Tentacles
2 Part the Waterveil
2 Seasons Past
LANDS
4 Botanical Sanctum
3 Lumbering Falls
4 Evolving Wilds
6 Forest
8 Island
3 Dispel
3 Negate
2 Scatter to the Winds
1 Jaddi Offshot
3 Commencement of Festivities
1 Swamp
1 Pick the Brain
1 Dispossess
2 Jaddi Offshoot
Sorceries
4 Pieces of the Puzzle
4 Contingency Plan
4 Splendid Reclamation
3 Seasons Past
2 Baraal's Expertise
2 Anticipate
1 Crush of Tentacles
1 Pick the Brain
4 Haze of Pollen
4 Commencement of Festivities
3 Dispel
1 Negate
Lands
12 Island
5 Forest
4 Evolving Wilds
3 Lumbering Falls
1 Swamp
3 Crush of Tentacles
2 Greenwarden of Murasa
2 Negate
2 Jaddi Offshoot
2 Spontaneous Mutation
1 Grapple with the Past
1 Summary Dismissal
1 Disallow
1 Baral's Expertise
The maindeck dispels have been amazing. Almost all of my losses against midrange and control have came from maindeck negates, and the mana efficiency of dispel is so fantastic that I'm considering running 4. I've stopped running botanical sanctums because I don't need double green until late in the game, and Contingency Plan, Evolving Wilds, and Lumbering Falls have been more than good enough at getting green mana. Having an almost always untapped mana base is amazing, and the extra basics have provided alot more value with Splendid Reclamation and Evolving Wilds. Because fogs are much better draws than Crush of Tentacles and Greenwarden of Murasa, I've cut those down to 1 and 0 respectively. I'm still uncertain on how many Jaddi Offshoots should be in the main deck, but I went down to 2 after cutting the botanical sanctums because untapped green on turn 1 is less likely.
B/R aggro still feels unwinnable, so I'm thinking of creating a transformational sideboard for the matchup. Whether this means bringing in white for more fogs such as Repel the Abominable, or going red for Sweltering Suns and Magma Spray, I think that heavy sideboarding is the only way to deal with the matchup.
3 Jaddi Offshoot
Enchantments
3 Vessel of Nascency
Instants
4 Haze of Pollen
2 Negate
3 Scatter to the Winds
Sorcery
3 Contingency Plan
4 Pieces of the Puzzle
1 Pick the Brain
4 Splendid Reclamation
3 Baral's Expertiise
3 Crush of Tentacles
2 Seasons Past
4 Botanical Sanctum
3 Lumbering Falls
4 Evolving Wilds
8 Island
5 Forest
1 Swamp
3 Dispel
4 Censor
2 Negate
1 Scatter to the Winds
1 Dispossess
1 Jaddi Offshoot
3 Commencement of Festivities
4 Pieces of the Puzzle
2 Contingency Plan
3 Spring // Mind
3 Splendid reclamation
2 Hieroglyphic Illumination
Answers / Stall
4 Engulf the Shore
4 Censor
2 Nissa's Renewal
4 Haze of Pollen
2 Crush of tentacles
4 Part the Waterveil
Lands
4 Lumbering Falls
3 Irrigated Farmland
4 Evolving Wilds
5 Forest
10 Island
3 Dissenter's deliverance
3 Thing in the Ice
3 Dispel
4 Negate
2 Torrential Gearhulk
The basic gameplan is pretty simple: spend turns 1-4 stalling, ramping, and filling the gy with lands via Pieces of the Puzzle and Contingency Plan while digging for a splendid reclamation. Once you hit a reclamation, you'll find yourself with suddenly 8+ mana on the board and lots of ways to spend it.
Most games are won on the back Part the Waterveil, which works beautifully with Crush of Tentacles and Engulf the Shore. Lumbering Falls is our beater of choice, who cannot be hit by crush of tentacles, blanks sorcery speed removal like board wipes, and cannot be targeted by instant speed removal otherwise.
The best thing about the deck is it's "inevitability". As you amass card advantage with our plethora of draw spells and fog or bounce them until they want to flip the table, you'll be casually playing land after land after land. The longer a game goes while you play this deck, the more likely you are to win.
Matchups:
Aggro (Zombies, RG energy, Humans, etc)
E-Z mode. Remember that you don't need to have 20 life to win a game, just 1. Life is a resource in this deck as much as anything else. Let them use you as a big giant punching bag until you're approaching "they can kill me this turn" territory. Then start blanking and bouncing their attacks with fogs and engulf the shores and you'll be fine. Do not waste an Engulf the Shore when you have more than 10 life. Always use Engulf on their end step or when they are tapped out, so that they cannot immediately recast the creatures.
Midrange (Mardu, BGx Constrictor, UW Flash etc)
Also E-Z mode. They won't be fast enough to really threaten you unless they get a nut draw. Use censors and stalls to get to the late game and you'll win. UW Flash has lots of counters which is annoying game 1 but game 2 is ez.
Control (Izzet, Grixis, Esper)
Tough matchup but winnable. Game 1 you're at the mercy of their draws, we don't play tons of spells that require an answer and often our whole strategy hinges instead on a single spell resolving. As such, it really depends on whether they have an answer when they need it or not. Game 1 is tough, but game 2 you board in your negates and your dispels and your gearhulks and turn it into a control mirror-match, except we have a much better late game and better inevitability.
Combo (Marvel RIP, New Perspectives, other)
Marvel was an almost always-lose matchup, which is why now that it's gone I think this deck is really well positioned. New Perspectives never sees play but if you're against them just try to save a censor or a negate for their enchantment or you lose. post-board you have more toys to fight with but it's an uphill battle.
BG Rock
Modern:
RW Sun & Moon
RBG Dredge
RWG Burn
Legacy:
W Death & Taxes