After giving it some consideration and suggestions so far I have decided to add 3 Trinisphere in place of the 2 Banefire and 1 Rite of Flame. Trinisphere is such a work horse for this deck. Landing it just before or after some LD really adds consistency in the deck. Changes can be seen under the Edit: 01/31/2016 section above the deck list
Seems interesting. What would be the win con in the current list? Would it be the painter's servant/grindstone? Also it seems like you are moving away from the land destruction theme and making it a sub theme
Chalice of the void could also be trinisphere that also makes Force of will to cost 3 etc. So if you'll keep the opponent off 3 land/mana he/she can't cast anything. And those both are great against aggro and combo.
About the manabase: I think 8 tap lands is too many if you reliably want to cast LD on turn 2. That is why I replaced 2 Ghitu Encampments for 1 dust bowl (late game to keep opponent off lands) and 1 mountain.
Hi,
According to your list we have the following changes
Total cost of deck with changes $175. Which in terms of budget isn't as bad as I thought it would be. I am strongly considering adding 3 trinisphere. Making free counters not be free anymore would really give this deck an edge. I also agree with the number of tap lands so i'm considering trading 1 Ghitu Encampment for a Mountain
So I think my deck will look a little something like this
@kcd111 I'm sure the shaman is a house in pauper Most people will pop the LED in response to the shaman destruction unfortunately. I'm not sure if Dack Fayden would be good in this particular deck, but I love the card and I will try to break that card very soon
Thanks for your reply. The reason I went with the subpar fetch lands is that I can activate them at instant speed to avoid graveyard hate at instant speed. I also like the fact I can search out my green mana when I need it and not depend on hitting a non-basic land such as Undiscovered Paradise naturally.
Thanks for your reply. Gorilla Shaman is a nice card. Im not sure its faster or better.... It takes 5+ turns to blow up a artifact of cmc 2 or greater without ramp and it can only hit non creature artifacts... Viashino Heretic doesn't have the non-creature clause... only takes 1R in 4turns to blowup its first artifact and it deals damage to boot. It also blocks 2 power creatures like a boss. If i wanted to hit a batterskull it would take 11 mana with the gorilla shaman and only 2 with the heretic
Firstly, thanks for taking the time to post to my thread. I appreciate the feedback. I did think about Simian spirit guide. There were two reasons why Rite of Flame made the cut.
Rite of Flame is a sorcery and Magnivore needs as many sorcery cards in the grave as possible
As far as Chalice of the Void or Trinisphere they could be good additions. I would worry that the 3sphere would make Boom // Bust and Rite of Flame worse and I don't believe 3sphere prevents the free counters Force of Will and Daze. I believe turns 2 and 3 are my most important turns for LD and want to maximize my chances at hitting both turns if possible. Using either of these would probably push my LD plan back about 1-2 turns
I am curious as to what you would take out of this current deck list to make these changes.
Hey Ryadriz thanks for your interest. I have play tested this a few times on MTGO and here is where I stand:
Control Matchups - The most popular I see is Miracles and this has about a 50% win rate. This all normally depends on your first 3 turns. Normally one or more things need to happen to ensure a good game against control:
If you can manage to pop a land on turn 2 and 3 you are normally going to have a successful game.
If not attempt to keep the control player off there secondary color (in this case white) in hopes of finding more LD.
If 1-3 hasn't happened hope to get through with your win cons because they have wasted their resources else where. Most of the time the main wincons that get through are Ghitu Encampment, Banefire and if we are desparate for a little more damage from Volcanic Fallout Edit: I forgot to mention that Price of Glory does wonders if it sticks
Death and Taxes - This match-up is very favorable because of all the artifacts they run. Just blow up lands and try to mana screw them. If they get through blow up every artifact they play with the Heretic and deal anywhere from 2-5 damage a pop or hit them with the additional artifact hate from the SB. Seriously I had a Heretic deal 12 damage on his own one game. Eventually you will be ready to go over the top with Stormbreath Dragon and all of his pro-white glory
Manaless Dredge - Pre-board not a fun matchup at all. All of your LD is pretty much useless. You just hope to land a threat faster than they can go off. Post board you side in Surgical Extraction or Grafdigger's Cage. Facing this the first time made me realize how much i prefer the cage vs extraction in this deck. As a matter of fact I have a playset of the cage on the way now.
Aggro Decks - Pyroclasm and Volcanic Fallout are your best friends. You land 1 or 2 of these and your match up is favorable. Blowing up a few lands in the early game helps too because they tend to run very few lands.
Everything else is normally a pretty good match up because they are not expecting it and have no answers for it
This deck is kind of a weird hybrid between aggro and lockdown. It hopes to overwhelm the opponent with a huge number of tokens, take advantage of the tokens with Contamination and mana screw the opponent and/or minimize the opponents threats with Grave Pact and recursive sac outlets
There are 4 critical components to this deck. They are Recursive Creatures, Sac Outlets, Token Generators, and Lockdown. The following describe each in detail:
Recursive Creatures
Bloodsoaked Champion - 1 CMC who can recur himself with his raid ability for 1B. Since we plan on attacking every turn this shouldn't be a problem
Reassembling Skeleton - 2 CMC who can recur himself for the grave when you pay 1B. This is the only recurring creature that can block so he and the tokens will be doing most of the chump blocking. He will most likely also be your favorite sac fodder
Bloodghast - 2 CMC whose returns to the battlefield every time you have a land enter the battlefield. He is the reason this deck uses 3 Evolving Wilds and 3 Terramorphic Expanse. He gains hast once the opponent hits 10 life making him even better in the late game
Nether Traitor 2CMC Shadow haste who can recur himself for B when another creature is put into your graveyard from play (And yes tokens do hit the grave before being removed as a State Based Action). Because of his evasion he will probably be carrying the Captain's Claws if he is on the field
Sac Outlets
Vampiric Rites - The card draw will help this deck with the lack of tutors and the life gain is just icing on the cake all for a sac fodder and 1B
Thoughtpicker Witch - Sac a creature pay 1 and you get a fateseal like effect. Best part is you don't have to tap him so you can repeat the affect if you see two bombs back to back
Viscera Seer - Free sac outlet that fixes your draws... sounds like a fair trade to me
Token Generators
Captian's Claws - This card has enabled so many possibilities with this deck. This card gives you an attacking creature when it triggers. That's at least 3 damage if this is on a 1 power creature. This is a triggered ability that happens when you attack, it does not care if you even cause combat damage at all. Great in multiples and gives a small power boost.
Golgari Germination - gives you a 1/1 anytime a nontoken creature you control dies. With all of our recursive guys, this should give us all the fodder we could ever want
Lock Down
Contamination - 1st part of this decks name sake. It basically says no to any land that produces any mana but black and any quantity but 1. Mana screws greedy mana bases and hoses lands that produce more mana than they should (I'm looking at you Gaea's Cradle)
Grave Pact - Here is the 2nd part of the name sake. This basically says when you lose a creature your opponent loses a creature. With all the sac outlets this should happen pretty often
6 Graveyard Hate - 3 Withered Wretch / 3 Surgical Extraction. The Wretch is repeatable targeted graveyard hate that is easy to activate with 1. Surgical is fast (can be cast with no mana) and will help us with really fast re-animator decks
3 Boardwipes - 2 Pernicious Deed / 1 Nevinyrral's Disk. Sometimes things get out of hand and you want to reset the board. these hit everything but planeswalkers and lands
4 Enchantment/Artifact hate - 2 Nullmage Advocate / 2 Natural State Nullmage is easy to activate: only requires a tap and two cards in the opponents grave. I will say this caves to Rest In Peace so this is why Natural State is needed as well
2 Pithing Needle - This is my catch all against unforeseen activated abilities (primarily from planeswalkers).
Plagued Rusalka - sometimes you just need to get that annoying creature with 1 to 2 toughness off the field. This guy certainly fits the bill all for the cost of a creature and B. I had this where Vampiric Rites but i felt the card draw and life gain helped the deck more. This may change over time and this little spirit may find its way back in the deck again
I will start by saying that Land Destruction decks have a bad connotation toward them. Many people will say that this type of deck leads to your opponent not being able to play magic because they don't have the mana to do anything, therefore they spend the entire game/match drawing and going to discard making the game un-fun for your opponent. Therefore if you play one, people may be very upset and I think they shouldn't let a deck type upset them so easily. Strangely enough there are a few deck types that I think fall into the same category as Land Destruction (LD) but they don't receive nearly has much hate
Control Decks - These decks typically prevent you from resolving any spells or if you happen to be lucky enough to resolve one, they remove the threat immediately, leaving the sense of hopelessness to the opponent. This one is more widely accepted because at least you get to tap mana and play spells but in my opinion it's not that much different than LD
Storm Decks - This typically win on turn 2 or 3 and normally take 10-15 minutes to actually complete the win. As an opponent all you can do is sit there and watch them draw cards, make ridiculous amounts of mana then finally cast there winning storm card. As an opponent you really don't interact with the storm player, you just hope that they mess up while casting 10-12 spells around turn 3. This means the opponent got to play at most 3 turns of magic and at worst 2. Doesn't sound much different than LD in the interactivity department.
Combo Decks (i.e. painter's servant deck or goblin charbelcher deck)- These are about as quick as storm decks and if you don't have an immediate answer you lose immediately. These are typically way quicker than LD but no one seems to care about the lack of fun an opponent has when facing one of these
All of the deck types listed above are not unbeatable but they take preparation to stand a chance against them. LD is the exact same. The only difference is most people will not be prepared for dedicated LD and that's a fact that the pilot of a LD deck should take advantage of. I think most people do not like strategies that impede their own or do not stick to the status quo. Oh well, too bad for those folks because here comes Mono Red Land Destruction!
The object of the deck is simple. Keep your opponent off as many land drops as possible until you can land a big threat and win the game. Let's go over this deck in detail.
Mana Ramp
In Legacy speed is king. As such you want to maximize your chances of destroying land on turn 2. As such you need a little ramp and luckily for us we have 8 cards that help us do that.
Sandstone Needle - Land that produces RR. Comes in handy when casting Molten Rain and Pillage on turn 2. You only get two uses but that should be more than enough to get to going
Rite of Flame - Get's better the more copies you use
Land Destruction
There are 16 land destruction spells in the deck. Being able to cast enough of these on time will be the deciding factor in many games. Notice that they all have a CMC less than 3.
Stone Rain - vanilla LD card that's the easiest to cast.
Molten Rain - LD card that acts as burn when it hits a nonbasic land.
Pillage - LD card that acts as artifact removal when needed.
Boom // Bust - Two mana LD card. This card is the reason there are 4 Darksteel Citadel in the deck. Targeting the Citadel turns this symmetrical effect into a one sided one
Win Cons
Magnivore - 4CMC Haste whose power and toughness equals the number of sorceries in all graveyards. With 22 sorceries in our deck he becomes a beatstick easily and must be answered when he hits the table
Stormbreath Dragon - 5CMC dragon with haste and pro-white. Protection from white is probably the most important because everyone is using Swords in legacy as their primary removal tool. The monstrosity ability also allows him to swing for 7 + the number of cards in our opponents hand, which should be significant if we are blowing up lands like we are supposed to
Lock Down
Trinisphere - New edition added 01/31/2016. This works so well with the LD Theme. Kill one or two of their lands and they can't play anything for quite some time. Has made this strategy much more viable and consistent. Really helps against free blue counters like Force of Will and Daze
Solutions to Red Problems
As we all know, Red is absolutely horrible at destroying enchantments...actually its not horrible it just can't do it. But rest assured my red mages I have a solution. Viashino Heretic + Liquimetal Coating = Vindicate + damage equal to the CMC of the destroyed permanent for 1R. Not only does this address our enchantment problem it also gives us a 2 card combo answer to any permanent problem you may face in magic plus some damage to boot. Yes, I realize the heretic doesn't pass the bolt test but repeatable permanent destruction and damage seems like a fair trade off
3 Graveyard Hate: Surgical Extraction (Possible replacement Grafdigger's Cage). I'm not sure which is better here. Surgical gives me the precision to get rid of a card for good in a game, but sometimes you can't afford the 2 life to cast it. I like the cage because you can just cast it on curve with the deck and just wait for the graveyard deck to try and deal with it
2 Price of Glory - Tired of your opponent doing things on your turn? well this little enchantment adds the nasty little effect of blowing up lands tapped on an opponent's turn. Just realize that this effects both players. We worry about this less because we run very few instants. This deters counter magic and EOT shenanigans
1 Banefire - Having one of these against a control deck can win you the game
3 Artifact Hate: In addition to Viashino Heretic in the MD, the following cards come in as extra insurance against the numerous annoying artifacts we will see while playing - Vandalblast,Shattering Spree. Vandalblast has the benefit of destroying all artifacts. Shattering spree can target multiple artifacts and its copies get around a Chalice of the Void for 1
6 Boardwipes: Aggro decks and mana dorks are a pain in this deck's you know what . To help I have added 3 Volcanic Fallout and 3 Pyroclasm. Pyroclasm can hit early with a CMC of 2 and volcanic fallout can't be countered, which may be relevant against any decks that use counters for tempo
There are a few cards that you should be weary of while playing this deck. They all have the ability to erase all you hard work destroying lands so beware. This is by no means a complete listing of the cards to look out for.
Suggestions and opinions are always welcome. All in all, just have fun with the deck and just remind people that their lands are a resource that you have no problem taking away from them. Good Luck Magic Players!!!!!!
I personally love this planeswalker. It takes a dimir finesse to love. It gets rid of threats, takes threats to defend with, starts with 5 loyalty(after 1st activation) and all for 3 mana??? Sign me up!!! The only other three drop PW i know of in Standard is Domri and if you use its -2 then its pretty fragile afterward, only a simple attack or burn spell away. This will add to the dimir arsenal of tricks. I cant wait to get 3-4 for my current U/B build
Seems interesting. What would be the win con in the current list? Would it be the painter's servant/grindstone? Also it seems like you are moving away from the land destruction theme and making it a sub theme
Hi,
According to your list we have the following changes
Total cost of deck with changes $175. Which in terms of budget isn't as bad as I thought it would be. I am strongly considering adding 3 trinisphere. Making free counters not be free anymore would really give this deck an edge. I also agree with the number of tap lands so i'm considering trading 1 Ghitu Encampment for a Mountain
So I think my deck will look a little something like this
4 Darksteel Citadel
3 Ghitu Encampment
4 Sandstone Needle
13 Mountain
Creature
4 Viashino Heretic
3 Magnivore
4 Stormbreath Dragon
3 Liquimetal Coating
3 Trinisphere
Sorceries
3 Rite of Flame
4 Stone Rain
4 Molten Rain
4 Pillage
4 Boom // Bust
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Shattering Spree
1 Vandalblast
3 Pyroclasm
2 Price of Glory
3 Volcanic Fallout
1 Banefire
Total cost of Deck: ~$101
@kcd111 I'm sure the shaman is a house in pauper
Thanks for your reply. The reason I went with the subpar fetch lands is that I can activate them at instant speed to avoid graveyard hate at instant speed. I also like the fact I can search out my green mana when I need it and not depend on hitting a non-basic land such as Undiscovered Paradise naturally.
Thanks for your reply. Gorilla Shaman is a nice card. Im not sure its faster or better.... It takes 5+ turns to blow up a artifact of cmc 2 or greater without ramp and it can only hit non creature artifacts... Viashino Heretic doesn't have the non-creature clause... only takes 1R in 4turns to blowup its first artifact and it deals damage to boot. It also blocks 2 power creatures like a boss. If i wanted to hit a batterskull it would take 11 mana with the gorilla shaman and only 2 with the heretic
Firstly, thanks for taking the time to post to my thread. I appreciate the feedback. I did think about Simian spirit guide. There were two reasons why Rite of Flame made the cut.
- 1st - Nets you 2 mana for 1 mana
- 2nd - Nets you 3 mana for 1 mana
- 3rd - Nets you 4 mana for 1 mana
- 4th - Nets you 5 mana for 1 mana
In the late game Rite of Flame will help me activate Stormbreath Dragon a whole lot easier than Simian spirit guideAs far as Chalice of the Void or Trinisphere they could be good additions. I would worry that the 3sphere would make Boom // Bust and Rite of Flame worse and I don't believe 3sphere prevents the free counters Force of Will and Daze. I believe turns 2 and 3 are my most important turns for LD and want to maximize my chances at hitting both turns if possible. Using either of these would probably push my LD plan back about 1-2 turns
I am curious as to what you would take out of this current deck list to make these changes.
3 Evolving Wilds
3 Forest
3 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
12 Swamp
Creature
4 Bloodsoaked Champion
3 Thoughtpicker Witch
3 Viscera Seer
4 Reassembling Skeleton
4 Bloodghast
4 Nether Traitor
3 Golgari Germination
3 Grave Pact
3 Contamination
3 Vampiric Rites
Artifacts
4 Captain's Claws
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Withered Wretch
2 Nullmage Advocate
2 Natural State
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Pithing Needle
1 Nevinyrral's Disk
Total cost of Deck: ~$160
This deck is kind of a weird hybrid between aggro and lockdown. It hopes to overwhelm the opponent with a huge number of tokens, take advantage of the tokens with Contamination and mana screw the opponent and/or minimize the opponents threats with Grave Pact and recursive sac outlets
There are 4 critical components to this deck. They are Recursive Creatures, Sac Outlets, Token Generators, and Lockdown. The following describe each in detail:
Edit: 01/31/2016
+ 3 Trinisphere
- 1 Rite of Flame
- 2 Banefire
Old cost of Deck: $80
New cost of Deck: $101
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Ghitu Encampment
4 Sandstone Needle
12 Mountain
Creature
4 Viashino Heretic
3 Magnivore
4 Stormbreath Dragon
3 Liquimetal Coating
3 Trinisphere
Sorceries
3 Rite of Flame
4 Stone Rain
4 Molten Rain
4 Pillage
4 Boom // Bust
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Shattering Spree
1 Vandalblast
3 Pyroclasm
2 Price of Glory
3 Volcanic Fallout
1 Banefire
Total cost of Deck: ~$101
Control Decks - These decks typically prevent you from resolving any spells or if you happen to be lucky enough to resolve one, they remove the threat immediately, leaving the sense of hopelessness to the opponent. This one is more widely accepted because at least you get to tap mana and play spells but in my opinion it's not that much different than LD
Storm Decks - This typically win on turn 2 or 3 and normally take 10-15 minutes to actually complete the win. As an opponent all you can do is sit there and watch them draw cards, make ridiculous amounts of mana then finally cast there winning storm card. As an opponent you really don't interact with the storm player, you just hope that they mess up while casting 10-12 spells around turn 3. This means the opponent got to play at most 3 turns of magic and at worst 2. Doesn't sound much different than LD in the interactivity department.
Combo Decks (i.e. painter's servant deck or goblin charbelcher deck)- These are about as quick as storm decks and if you don't have an immediate answer you lose immediately. These are typically way quicker than LD but no one seems to care about the lack of fun an opponent has when facing one of these
All of the deck types listed above are not unbeatable but they take preparation to stand a chance against them. LD is the exact same. The only difference is most people will not be prepared for dedicated LD and that's a fact that the pilot of a LD deck should take advantage of. I think most people do not like strategies that impede their own or do not stick to the status quo. Oh well, too bad for those folks because here comes Mono Red Land Destruction!
The object of the deck is simple. Keep your opponent off as many land drops as possible until you can land a big threat and win the game. Let's go over this deck in detail.
Mana Ramp
In Legacy speed is king. As such you want to maximize your chances of destroying land on turn 2. As such you need a little ramp and luckily for us we have 8 cards that help us do that.
Land Destruction
There are 16 land destruction spells in the deck. Being able to cast enough of these on time will be the deciding factor in many games. Notice that they all have a CMC less than 3.
Win Cons
Lock Down
- Trinisphere - New edition added 01/31/2016. This works so well with the LD Theme. Kill one or two of their lands and they can't play anything for quite some time. Has made this strategy much more viable and consistent. Really helps against free blue counters like Force of Will and Daze
Solutions to Red ProblemsAs we all know, Red is absolutely horrible at destroying enchantments...actually its not horrible it just can't do it. But rest assured my red mages I have a solution. Viashino Heretic + Liquimetal Coating = Vindicate + damage equal to the CMC of the destroyed permanent for 1R. Not only does this address our enchantment problem it also gives us a 2 card combo answer to any permanent problem you may face in magic plus some damage to boot. Yes, I realize the heretic doesn't pass the bolt test but repeatable permanent destruction and damage seems like a fair trade off
There are a few cards that you should be weary of while playing this deck. They all have the ability to erase all you hard work destroying lands so beware. This is by no means a complete listing of the cards to look out for.
Suggestions and opinions are always welcome. All in all, just have fun with the deck and just remind people that their lands are a resource that you have no problem taking away from them. Good Luck Magic Players!!!!!!