The thing about top though is that it doesn't guarantee that you get what you need while intuition is the nuts if it resolves because it grabs you ANYTHING you need.
The important part is *if* it resolves. I fully expect to play against a lot of blue decks at local events. (The Northeast Regional Scene is heavily populated by Force of Will decks)
Enlightened Tutor can come down on t1, or later in the game to play around taxing counters. Additionally, being able to go t2 Tutor, t3 Bridge against a deck like Goblins is insane. Intuition is great situationally; 3x Exploration / Manabond, or a Loam pile. E-Tutor will always find what you need, and you can always cast that card when you untap.
Additionally, E-Tutor helps the Rock matchups, as they run enough hand disruption to make Intuition nothing more than a Thoughtseize target.
----
We have no way whatsoever to protect a maindeck Bob from opposing Swords, and everyone is going to be running 4 of them. It's foolish to think you can get value out of them in a normal game 1.
I haven't attempted a sideboard yet, since I want to fine tune the main.
Hexmage/Dark Depths is amazing when you have Intuition to tutor for it, and Vorath's Stronghold to recur it as many times as you need. If they Swords/Path/Bounce the token, you just repeat it next turn. There's also the possibility of dropping HexDepths turn one and just winning right there.
Dark Confidant is insane. With one Confidant and an active Life from the Loam, you see four cards every turn. No blue deck can match that kind of card advantage. Since you have Stronghold, its easy to grab any Bobs that get countered or dredged, and I regularly see 2 or 3 Bobs hit the field. If it matters, he also swings for 2.
I love Creeping Tar Pit for getting through to deal with things like JTMS (I also have Hexmage to help with him), and when the opponent has recurrable removal for my Marit Laige token.
Urborg >>> Riftstone Portal when you consider you can tutor for it and get all of its benefits by having it in play, where Portal needs to be either pitched to a Diamond, destroyed with your own Wasteland, sacced to Orb, or dredged in order to get its full benefit. It's a small point, but it really is more convenient.
On a side note:
Wizards needs to print a version of Academy Ruins that puts enchantments on top of your library. It'd make Manabond playable as a one-of, and give us access to lots of little silver bullets. *close wishfull thinking*
I'd love to hear what you all think, and suggestions for changes are welcome.
@Koopa:
It's a preliminary build. I've been testing a bit, and I decided on -1 Zuran Orb, -1 Crucible of Worlds, +2 Manabond. I had been testing without it, but I'd run into situations where I had a hand full of lands and could only drop two or three a turn, and adding Manabond back in has fixed that issue. With the Confidants its easy to find one of the two.
@Koopa:
It's a preliminary build. I've been testing a bit, and I decided on -1 Zuran Orb, -1 Crucible of Worlds, +2 Manabond. I had been testing without it, but I'd run into situations where I had a hand full of lands and could only drop two or three a turn, and adding Manabond back in has fixed that issue. With the Confidants its easy to find one of the two.
Edit: I edited the list in the other post.
Do you find Bob lives long enough to actually be relevant?
To be honest, the decks available for me to test with are TES, Dredge, Merfolk, and Draw-GO with JTMS as a wincon; I haven't seen targeted removal from any of them...
I've only been able to spend about 3 1/2 hours testing, so my results are far from conclusive. I'd love to hear some results with my build from a more varied test pool if someone would be willing.
All in all, though, the deck seems very promising. It feels much more aggressive in style without losing too much of our normal game plan.
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To be honest, the decks available for me to test with are TES, Dredge, Merfolk, and Draw-GO with JTMS as a wincon; I haven't seen targeted removal from any of them...
I've only been able to spend about 3 1/2 hours testing, so my results are far from conclusive. I'd love to hear some results with my build from a more varied test pool if someone would be willing.
All in all, though, the deck seems very promising. It feels much more aggressive in style without losing too much of our normal game plan.
One of the big reasons to play Lands in the first place is that your opponents *have* dead creature removal, especially in game 1. And in game 2, they're forced to choose between boarding out removal and getting blown out or boarding out business and being too slow.
That was an issue one of my buddies brought up... Thing is, the instant speed removal they might have is Swords or Path, and that can be used on manlands, etc., and the sorcery speed removal is wasted on Bob or Hexmage, since (like Academy Ruins reduces the relevance of Disenchant effects on EE) Volrath's Stronghold lets us recur them as needed.
I don't know how significant that trade-off will be overall, but if even one Bob stays around for a few turns we can get so far ahead so quickly it won't matter if they find their removal.
Edit: Bear in mind this is pure speculation and more testing is needed before I can be sure of anything...
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I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
That was an issue one of my buddies brought up... Thing is, the instant speed removal they might have is Swords or Path, and that can be used on manlands, etc., and the sorcery speed removal is wasted on Bob or Hexmage, since (like Academy Ruins reduces the relevance of Disenchant effects on EE) Volrath's Stronghold lets us recur them as needed.
I don't know how significant that trade-off will be overall, but if even one Bob stays around for a few turns we can get so far ahead so quickly it won't matter if they find their removal.
Edit: Bear in mind this is pure speculation and more testing is needed before I can be sure of anything...
Seriously, with all due respect get more testing in before you start to discuss things like this. I've played 75 MATCHES in testing over the past week alone, with my current lands list, more or less, and 130 Sanctioned matches in the past 8 months with the deck.
Seriously, with all due respect get more testing in before you start to discuss things like this. I've played 75 MATCHES in testing over the past week alone, with my current lands list, more or less, and 130 Sanctioned matches in the past 8 months with the deck.
Congratulations. For people like me without time to devote to testing or a diverse play group to test with, the only real option is to post a list and hope for decent feedback (and goldfish, but that doesn't tell me much).
Maybe throw the list together, sling it around a bit, and provide constructive criticism instead of throwing it back in my face. Or just ignore it and keep your condescension to yourself.
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I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.
Congratulations. For people like me without time to devote to testing or a diverse play group to test with, the only real option is to post a list and hope for decent feedback (and goldfish, but that doesn't tell me much).
Maybe throw the list together, sling it around a bit, and provide constructive criticism instead of throwing it back in my face. Or just ignore it and keep your condescension to yourself.
Ill bring up your list to a dedicated lands player in our play group. We test quite a bit and run the gambit against a wide variety of decks. Whilst I can agree about the arguments with creature removal, it never hurts to test something new. Heck, our lands player put in a singleton painter's servant and grindstone for fun once and tested it a bit. He found out it was god awful, but still gave it a shot just because he got a wild idea.
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Just wondering, if you are already running the stronghold, why not run depths/hexmage? Seems better than gargoyle castle, anyway.
The problem is hexmage is a dead draw w/out Dark Depth, and if you only play 1 Hexmage you have no way to tutor it so the only way to get it is through lucky dredging/drawing and having both Stronghold and Dark Depths in hand/play/grave. Plus, then why not play Wurm Calling which can give you a bunch of 1/1s if you dredge it into your grave, while with Hexmage you need the combo for it to be worthwhile.Wurm Calling you don't need either Dark Depths or Stronghold.
Well, I think Worm Harvest is better than relying on getting Dark Depths+Hezmage. Personally I wouldn't run Worm Harvest though. I'd rather have Gargoyle Castle and Factory, since they are actually lands and tutorable.
The problem is hexmage is a dead draw w/out Dark Depth, and if you only play 1 Hexmage you have no way to tutor it so the only way to get it is through lucky dredging/drawing and having both Stronghold and Dark Depths in hand/play/grave. Plus, then why not play Wurm Calling which can give you a bunch of 1/1s if you dredge it into your grave, while with Hexmage you need the combo for it to be worthwhile.Wurm Calling you don't need either Dark Depths or Stronghold.
Well, Hexmage is a dead draw unless your opponent has a Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Umezawa's Jitte, Aether Vial, etc., or if you're playing Tolaria West or Intuition. By the way, Intuition grabbing Hexmage, Depths, Stronghold solves the tutoring problem (assuming you already have a loam, which you should since you wouldn't go for the combo until later in the game, at which point you've likely seen one or more pieces anyway).
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The problem with Hexmage/Depths is the same with all of the kill conditions (like Worm Harvest or Mindslaver) is that you don't want to do it until the late game. To get to the late game, you need to have locked your opponent out, which means you can basically kill them with whatever you want. That's why I just play Factory, because all of your kill conditions (like HexDepths) don't help you get there, whereas at least the Factory can tap for mana.
I mean yea, your kill condition is faster and with Stronghold and Loam it is resilient, but that doesn't matter when you can't assemble it because your Zoo opponent has killed you since instead of having the Zuran Orb to save you from the Price of Progress or the Maze of Ith that saves you from their 5/6 Goyf you had a dead Dark Depths or Vampire Hexmage.
The problem with Hexmage/Depths is the same with all of the kill conditions (like Worm Harvest or Mindslaver) is that you don't want to do it until the late game. To get to the late game, you need to have locked your opponent out, which means you can basically kill them with whatever you want. That's why I just play Factory, because all of your kill conditions (like HexDepths) don't help you get there, whereas at least the Factory can tap for mana.
I mean yea, your kill condition is faster and with Stronghold and Loam it is resilient, but that doesn't matter when you can't assemble it because your Zoo opponent has killed you since instead of having the Zuran Orb to save you from the Price of Progress or the Maze of Ith that saves you from their 5/6 Goyf you had a dead Dark Depths or Vampire Hexmage.
So if you're running Factory as a kill condition that taps for mana, why not run Keldon Megaliths?
So if you're running Factory as a kill condition that taps for mana, why not run Keldon Megaliths?
Because Factory does allow me to race. Especially in matchups like ANT where you want to put them under the fasted clock possible. Also, Factory can block, something which has proved very relevant. Not to mention that there are situations against Dredge where they think they can kill you and you animate your Factory and Wasteland it to take out their Bridges.
I did run Barbarian Ring at one point, but again Mishra's Factory's ability to interact with your opponent seemed better.
So if you're running Factory as a kill condition that taps for mana, why not run Keldon Megaliths?
Megaliths is very mediocre.
1) It citp
2) You need to be playing red (there's some good stuff like Gamble / Burning Wish but it's definitely not an automatic color)
3) Costs 2 to activate, only does one damage.
4) Having Hellbent is a big assumption. You can't count of getting Manabond, and Life from the loam usually keeps your hand pretty full if you don't have bond in play.
Only real advantage is the versalitiy of pinging anything.
Would leyline sanctity be a viable option for the board?
Im pretty sure it stops most grave yard hate for the deck.... and the dreaded price of progress....
I think it really compliments the deck in terms of buying time to establish control.
Aggressive Mulligans!
Well it actually doesn't stop Price of Progress, it doesn't target.
It does stop Crypt, but I would rather play around it then run a dead card that I have to mulligan for. A skilled player can bait the Crypt, but they can't play around the Leyline of the Void (something Leyline of Sanctity doesn't stop)
It also is worse than Chalice against ANT and Belcher.
So I would say no, especially after running it in Columbus.
I'm curious how is it worse than Chalice against ANT? If they can't target you...
I haven't actually had to play against ANT. Or Belcher. My local shops legacy night has not happened for the past few weeks because people just aren't showing up sadly. Just as I'm about to finish off lands too. Although I need to tweek the SB.
Maybe time to pick up some Chalices.
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The important part is *if* it resolves. I fully expect to play against a lot of blue decks at local events. (The Northeast Regional Scene is heavily populated by Force of Will decks)
Enlightened Tutor can come down on t1, or later in the game to play around taxing counters. Additionally, being able to go t2 Tutor, t3 Bridge against a deck like Goblins is insane. Intuition is great situationally; 3x Exploration / Manabond, or a Loam pile. E-Tutor will always find what you need, and you can always cast that card when you untap.
Additionally, E-Tutor helps the Rock matchups, as they run enough hand disruption to make Intuition nothing more than a Thoughtseize target.
----
We have no way whatsoever to protect a maindeck Bob from opposing Swords, and everyone is going to be running 4 of them. It's foolish to think you can get value out of them in a normal game 1.
First, here's the decklist I have at the moment:
1x Vampire Hexmage
4x Dark Confidant
1x Engineered Explosives
3x Mox Diamond
4x Exploration
2x Manabond
4x Intuition
4x Life from the Loam
Land:
1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1x Dark Depths
1x Glacial Chasm
3x Maze of Ith
3x Tropical Island
2x Bayou
1x Creeping Tar Pit
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Windswept Heath
1x Wooded Foothills
1x Verdant Catacombs
3x Tolaria West
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Bojuka Bog
3x Tranquil Thicket
1x Forest
1x Karakas
1x Ghost Quarter
4x Wasteland
4x Rishadan Port
1x Academy Ruins
1x Vorath's Stronghold
I haven't attempted a sideboard yet, since I want to fine tune the main.
Hexmage/Dark Depths is amazing when you have Intuition to tutor for it, and Vorath's Stronghold to recur it as many times as you need. If they Swords/Path/Bounce the token, you just repeat it next turn. There's also the possibility of dropping HexDepths turn one and just winning right there.
Dark Confidant is insane. With one Confidant and an active Life from the Loam, you see four cards every turn. No blue deck can match that kind of card advantage. Since you have Stronghold, its easy to grab any Bobs that get countered or dredged, and I regularly see 2 or 3 Bobs hit the field. If it matters, he also swings for 2.
I love Creeping Tar Pit for getting through to deal with things like JTMS (I also have Hexmage to help with him), and when the opponent has recurrable removal for my Marit Laige token.
Urborg >>> Riftstone Portal when you consider you can tutor for it and get all of its benefits by having it in play, where Portal needs to be either pitched to a Diamond, destroyed with your own Wasteland, sacced to Orb, or dredged in order to get its full benefit. It's a small point, but it really is more convenient.
On a side note:
Wizards needs to print a version of Academy Ruins that puts enchantments on top of your library. It'd make Manabond playable as a one-of, and give us access to lots of little silver bullets. *close wishfull thinking*
I'd love to hear what you all think, and suggestions for changes are welcome.
I am John Galt.
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It's a preliminary build. I've been testing a bit, and I decided on -1 Zuran Orb, -1 Crucible of Worlds, +2 Manabond. I had been testing without it, but I'd run into situations where I had a hand full of lands and could only drop two or three a turn, and adding Manabond back in has fixed that issue. With the Confidants its easy to find one of the two.
Edit: I edited the list in the other post.
I am John Galt.
Do you find Bob lives long enough to actually be relevant?
I've only been able to spend about 3 1/2 hours testing, so my results are far from conclusive. I'd love to hear some results with my build from a more varied test pool if someone would be willing.
All in all, though, the deck seems very promising. It feels much more aggressive in style without losing too much of our normal game plan.
I am John Galt.
One of the big reasons to play Lands in the first place is that your opponents *have* dead creature removal, especially in game 1. And in game 2, they're forced to choose between boarding out removal and getting blown out or boarding out business and being too slow.
I don't know how significant that trade-off will be overall, but if even one Bob stays around for a few turns we can get so far ahead so quickly it won't matter if they find their removal.
Edit: Bear in mind this is pure speculation and more testing is needed before I can be sure of anything...
I am John Galt.
Seriously, with all due respect get more testing in before you start to discuss things like this. I've played 75 MATCHES in testing over the past week alone, with my current lands list, more or less, and 130 Sanctioned matches in the past 8 months with the deck.
Congratulations. For people like me without time to devote to testing or a diverse play group to test with, the only real option is to post a list and hope for decent feedback (and goldfish, but that doesn't tell me much).
Maybe throw the list together, sling it around a bit, and provide constructive criticism instead of throwing it back in my face. Or just ignore it and keep your condescension to yourself.
I am John Galt.
I agree.
Ill bring up your list to a dedicated lands player in our play group. We test quite a bit and run the gambit against a wide variety of decks. Whilst I can agree about the arguments with creature removal, it never hurts to test something new. Heck, our lands player put in a singleton painter's servant and grindstone for fun once and tested it a bit. He found out it was god awful, but still gave it a shot just because he got a wild idea.
Avatar and Banner made by R&Doom of the Ye Olde Sig and Avatar Shoppe
On the topic of Moat:
I really appreciate it. Please let me know what he thinks, and feel free to make changes; I'm sure it needs fine tuning, nothing's set in stone.
I am John Galt.
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Tolaria West
4 Rishadan Port
4 Maze of Ith
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Gargoyle Castle
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Academy Ruins
1 The Tabernacle of Pendrell Vale
1 Bojuka Bog
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Verdent Catacombs
4 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
2 Underground Sea
4 Manabond
4 Exploration
4 Life from the Loam
1 Zuran Orb
3 Mox Diamond
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Mutavault
1 Nantuko Monastary
1 Treetop Village
1 Karakas
1 Azusa, Lost but Seeking
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Vesuva
2 Mulch
1 Summer's Bloom
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Dust Bowl
1 Mox Diamond
360 card powered Chicago cube:
https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/e7r
2020 Numerical Power Rankings:
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-card-and-archetype/817969-2020-numerical-cube-power-rankings
2018 CubeTutor Power Rankings:
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-card-and-archetype/803301-cubetutor-power-rankings-2018-by-color-and-cmc
Just wondering, if you are already running the stronghold, why not run depths/hexmage? Seems better than gargoyle castle, anyway.
The problem is hexmage is a dead draw w/out Dark Depth, and if you only play 1 Hexmage you have no way to tutor it so the only way to get it is through lucky dredging/drawing and having both Stronghold and Dark Depths in hand/play/grave. Plus, then why not play Wurm Calling which can give you a bunch of 1/1s if you dredge it into your grave, while with Hexmage you need the combo for it to be worthwhile.Wurm Calling you don't need either Dark Depths or Stronghold.
360 card powered Chicago cube:
https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/e7r
2020 Numerical Power Rankings:
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-card-and-archetype/817969-2020-numerical-cube-power-rankings
2018 CubeTutor Power Rankings:
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-card-and-archetype/803301-cubetutor-power-rankings-2018-by-color-and-cmc
Well, I think Worm Harvest is better than relying on getting Dark Depths+Hezmage. Personally I wouldn't run Worm Harvest though. I'd rather have Gargoyle Castle and Factory, since they are actually lands and tutorable.
360 card powered Chicago cube:
https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/e7r
2020 Numerical Power Rankings:
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-card-and-archetype/817969-2020-numerical-cube-power-rankings
2018 CubeTutor Power Rankings:
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-card-and-archetype/803301-cubetutor-power-rankings-2018-by-color-and-cmc
Well, Hexmage is a dead draw unless your opponent has a Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Umezawa's Jitte, Aether Vial, etc., or if you're playing Tolaria West or Intuition. By the way, Intuition grabbing Hexmage, Depths, Stronghold solves the tutoring problem (assuming you already have a loam, which you should since you wouldn't go for the combo until later in the game, at which point you've likely seen one or more pieces anyway).
I am John Galt.
I mean yea, your kill condition is faster and with Stronghold and Loam it is resilient, but that doesn't matter when you can't assemble it because your Zoo opponent has killed you since instead of having the Zuran Orb to save you from the Price of Progress or the Maze of Ith that saves you from their 5/6 Goyf you had a dead Dark Depths or Vampire Hexmage.
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So if you're running Factory as a kill condition that taps for mana, why not run Keldon Megaliths?
Because Factory does allow me to race. Especially in matchups like ANT where you want to put them under the fasted clock possible. Also, Factory can block, something which has proved very relevant. Not to mention that there are situations against Dredge where they think they can kill you and you animate your Factory and Wasteland it to take out their Bridges.
I did run Barbarian Ring at one point, but again Mishra's Factory's ability to interact with your opponent seemed better.
BGStandard Green AggroGB
UWRGModern Saheeli CobraGRWU
UBRGLegacy StormGRBU
Wizards Certified Rules Advisor
Megaliths is very mediocre.
1) It citp
2) You need to be playing red (there's some good stuff like Gamble / Burning Wish but it's definitely not an automatic color)
3) Costs 2 to activate, only does one damage.
4) Having Hellbent is a big assumption. You can't count of getting Manabond, and Life from the loam usually keeps your hand pretty full if you don't have bond in play.
Only real advantage is the versalitiy of pinging anything.
360 card powered Chicago cube:
https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/e7r
2020 Numerical Power Rankings:
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-card-and-archetype/817969-2020-numerical-cube-power-rankings
2018 CubeTutor Power Rankings:
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/the-cube-forum/cube-card-and-archetype/803301-cubetutor-power-rankings-2018-by-color-and-cmc
Im pretty sure it stops most grave yard hate for the deck.... and the dreaded price of progress....
I think it really compliments the deck in terms of buying time to establish control.
Aggressive Mulligans!
Legacy:
GRB Belcher
UUB Merfolk
RRR Burn
GWU Bant Walker
RB Goblins
Well it actually doesn't stop Price of Progress, it doesn't target.
It does stop Crypt, but I would rather play around it then run a dead card that I have to mulligan for. A skilled player can bait the Crypt, but they can't play around the Leyline of the Void (something Leyline of Sanctity doesn't stop)
It also is worse than Chalice against ANT and Belcher.
So I would say no, especially after running it in Columbus.
BGStandard Green AggroGB
UWRGModern Saheeli CobraGRWU
UBRGLegacy StormGRBU
Wizards Certified Rules Advisor
I haven't actually had to play against ANT. Or Belcher. My local shops legacy night has not happened for the past few weeks because people just aren't showing up sadly. Just as I'm about to finish off lands too. Although I need to tweek the SB.
Maybe time to pick up some Chalices.