Treasure Hunt is a combo deck that uses Treasure Hunt in a deck with a large percentage of the deck consisting of lands to draw a critical number of lands, then use a discard outlet, such as Seismic Assault, to deal 20+ damage to the opponent.
Deck History
Treasure Hunt was originally printed in 2010 with the release of Worldwake, initially it saw play in that standard format as a two-mana cantrip. It also found a place in the Cascade Swans deck of that era, which while similar to current builds but had a different game plan.
Card Selection
Core
To begin, every variant of Treasure Hunt needs these cards:
Reliquary Tower - This card is especially important because it allows you to play Treasure Hunt earlier and not have to worry about discarding all the cards you draw
Gemstone Caverns - This cards enables a turn two kill, on the draw, nuff said.
Win Conditions
Treasure Hunt has several win conditions in the modern card pool:
Seismic Assault - the traditional wincon, advantages: Gets around Spellskite doesn't require a critical number of lands to win Disadvantages: the mana-cost is very red intensive, which could delay the game plan by a turn or two, is veunerable to Pithing Needle
Zombie Infestation - This came about after M12 where it was reprinted into the modern card pool, Advantages: Gets around Spellskite and more relevantly: Leyline of Sanctity, Only costs 1B, doesn't require a critical number of lands to win, allows a player to stall a beat-down deck. Disadvantages: Is discard intensive or in other words requires more discards per point of potential damage. Is not the same color as the other win conditions. The tokens get blown out of the water by mass removal as well as cards like Echoing Truth or Detention Sphere etc...
Conflagrate - This card was first used modern by the older Ad Nauseam decks. Advantages: gets around targeted discard, this is very relevant for the current metagame. Disadvantages: Requires a large amount of cards in order to kill the opponent, however, unlike Zombie Infestation you must have a critical number of cards meaning that you might have to Treasure Hunt several times, which will delay the game plan by a lot. Is hosed by graveyard hate, not to mention Deathrite Shaman is a prominent card in the format
Lightning Storm - Arguably the best of the lot, this card is my win condition of choice for the main board. Advantages: allows for the use of Boseiju, who shelters all, this is extremely relevent in the current metagame as cards like Remand, Mana Leak and Cryptic Command are very good. This card only requires Nine lands in hand to deal 21 damage Disadvantages: Spellskite is very good against this, occasionally this might get turned on you if you only have a limited amount of lands in hand.
Support
Support cards for this deck are all lands, they include:
Boseiju, Who Shelters All - This card enables you to win against control, which is very important. While this card is almost core, it is not very useful against a metagame that is all aggro or non blue mid-range Most variants should run this card.
Halimar Depths - Allows some card selection for the deck, useful in conjunction with fetch lands and shuffle effects.
Mikokoro, Center of the Sea and Desolate Lighthouse - I group these cards because they fulfill a similar role that being extra draws. These are important for when you lose Treasure Hunt be it to targeted discard or it being countered. I would reccomend Mikokoro over Desolate Lighthouse because if you don't hit a treasure hunt, at least you are still increasing the amount of lands in your hand, however this is more relevant when you have a Reliquary Tower reasons for Desolate Lighthouse could be: you have Conflagrate as a win condition, you really don't want your opponent to get more cards.
Manlands - While in general I support the use of manlands I feel that that beatdown plan is not where you want to be with this deck, if you go this route I would reccomend: Creeping Tar Pit, Mutavault and Tomb of Urami
Scrying Sheets - This card can be useful if you run many basics and/or snow duals.
Ardent Plea, Demonic Dread, Violent Outburst - Some choose to run these as pseudo Treasure Hunts, however in my experience using these while increasing your chance of a treasure hunt in opening hand greatly reduce the expected number of lands drawn as well as that they can cause you to totally fizzle if you use Zombie Infestation as a wincon, not to mention that it would require a splash for two of them and a target for the other.
Ad Nauseam - While this card has potential as another way to treasure hunt, it is not particularly effective because we have no way to ramp, therefore I would consider this card to be too slow for this deck.
Mana Fixing
Because the win conditions are fairly mana intensive mana fixing is required:
Cascade Bluffs - Fixes your earlier land drops, very important if you run a red wincon because it fixes the blue support lands.
In general a good opening hand will contain at least one Treasure Hunt, that is the only card you need to begin the combo, another card that is ideal in an opener is either a Reliquary tower, a Gemstone caverns(if you're on the draw) or a Tolaria West, which will let you tutor for any card you need for that specific situation for example Boseiju, who shelters all in a control matchup
Vs. Aggro (G/R or Affinity or Infect or Burn)
Against affinity maby side in Zombie infestation depending on if they have spellskite or not. For the others just race them, you will win if you have a good opener vs burn etc.
Closing Statements
Be on the lookout for more non-basic land cards as well as win conditions that could fit into this deck, as the modern card pool expands more options may become increasingly viable so the deck is subject to change.
Needs Snapcaster Mage as a 2 of. Yes it does increase the odds of hitting a nonland card, but it offers you an out should you get your hunt discarded or counterspelled. Also in a flash it can act as 2 cards in the ZI decks.
while it does act as a roadblock to the hunt it also can be used to recast it.
Edit: why no sheets and snow covered lands in your build? You really need 20 duels? Plus depths plus caverns?
So with this deck do you generally want to choose to go second to potentially get the luck counter?
Is this deck interactive or anything, like is there something I'm missing? Does this deck have to make decisions? Could you maybe talk about these decisions? What turn is this deck supposed to win by? In the Dimir version what would an optimal turn 1, turn 2, etc. look like?
I'll be honest it looks good for a laugh but the following very commonly play cards will blow you out.
Spell Snare
Mana Leak
Thoughtseize
Inquisition of Kozilek
Tidehollow Sculler
Leyline of Sanctity
Any of those coming from the other side of the table means game over. It gets even worse if you have to side in infestation.
The deck can deal with these cards for the most part. If they resolve the deck is in a bad spot but spell snare and mana leak both get put in place by Boseiju, Who Shelters All, the one mana discarders can be mitigated, and are only great if they happen on turn one or 2. Tidehollow is the same thing.
Leyline is the only card this deck cannot deal with preboard.
Also, at this point I see no reason to not running the lightning storm version of this list. The maindeck zombie one is just too slow and too many things beat it.
One card to seriously consider including is Zoetic Cavern, as it allows you to play a creature without missing your land drop.
I'm working on a budget build of this deck right now. Since you rarely want to cast Treasure Hunt on turn 2 (unless you got lucky and drew a Reliquary Tower), ETBT lands have a much smaller drawback than normal, and allow a fairly strong build for under $20.
Experimented briefly with this deck, serum powder is the tech, yes it makes your chance of winning off of a given treasure hunt worse, but it makes your odds of finding that hunt a gigaton better.
Private Mod Note
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I'm a control player, because I like to reserve the right to say no.
I beat this in Round 1 of the Daily today. It was by far the easiest match I played today. Granted I was sporting a discard deck, but I think you guys need something to save you from a turn 1 Thoughtseize. In game 2 I Extirpated Treasure Hunt and that was auto GG.
I beat this in Round 1 of the Daily today. It was by far the easiest match I played today. Granted I was sporting a discard deck, but I think you guys need something to save you from a turn 1 Thoughtseize. In game 2 I Extirpated Treasure Hunt and that was auto GG.
That's why I won't be taking this to a tournament atm, I can't think of any protection, all it can do is try to go off by turn 3 and hope they don't have the hate.
You can dodge leyline etc, but any discard yeah....
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I'm a control player, because I like to reserve the right to say no.
That's why I won't be taking this to a tournament atm, I can't think of any protection, all it can do is try to go off by turn 3 and hope they don't have the hate.
You can dodge leyline etc, but any discard yeah....
What about siding into Chalice of The Void, with X = 1? Yeah, you lose some consistency, but at least you still get to play Magic.
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You can't always win, and just because you lose doesn't mean you played badly.
Even if you lose, it is important to remain confident in your ability to make good plays and decisions. Lose that and you are truly lost.
Testing is great, and the better the testing is, the better off you'll be.
It is impossible to tilt and play well.
It is possible to make no mistakes and still lose.
This deck as well as Affinity are decks I feel to be most like Legacy decks. I have Affinity, so I might make this so I feel at home in the Modern format =)
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Modern: U Merfolk | GR Tron | WUR Jeskai Control | WBG Abzan Company
You could throw in Countryside Crusher to increase consistency and to help you not to die to a single counter/discard spell. It doesn't really make the combo "fizzle" since it helps you find Treasure Hunt/Lightning Storm when in play. So in a way it's a Treasure Hunt 5-8 and a Lightning Storm 3-6 all in one body.
I really like the Countryside Crusher idea, although he is pretty vulnerable to a lot of removal. The good part is you can side him in when you play Lightning Storm main and they might side out removal.
Maybe it would be a good idea to look for additional creature win conditions that have discard outlets, or activated abilities from the graveyard?
I would make suggestions but I'm not too familiar with abilities that let you discard to do damage, mostly just outlets for reanimator...
If we can find more cards to play from the graveyard, the deck might become resilient enough to be a contender since it wouldn't auto-concede to discard.
With all of that drawing, one idea I had was Jace's Erasure. Why not just mill them out? Is mill not viable at all in Modern? Just a thought. It's also entirely Pauper-legal, so there's that.
I figured we could just take that idea and tweak it: run a control deck, cast Selective Memory, then go to town!
This way, we don't have to rely on mulling, we can play actual cards! We just need a way to make sure we have a critical mass of lands when we go off.
I am also knee-deep in a pauper list based on abusing Moldervine Cloak, Dakmor Salvage, Grim Discovery, and various Delve cards. In general I think we could pull some ideas for Land-based Dredge.
I really like it, especially Selective Memory but Jester's Cap totally eats this alive as it is. Laboratory Maniac might make a good monoblue option, but it needs a cantrip or something to force a draw from the empty library to win.
I played a budget version of the deck in a tournament and ended up 4th. I had no manlands except of faerie conclave, 1 tomb of urami, that was all^^ nobody expected something like this^^ But what about a trick sideboard à la 4x Countryside Crusher and 4x Fling? A friend of mine even played a monored deck only playing 4 crusher and 4 fling and ended up 3rd in another tournament =P With Fling you could be able to deal with removal. Also hellion crucible could be an addition to the deck to do more pressure. I love decks like this and I like to see some more of it! =)
This deck is hilarious... god i have the urge to build it!
I like the countryside crusher in this deck as well. I think you definitely need another way to get the extreme mill going on.
To add on to Jace's Erasure, you could mill yourself correct? I mean you might mill the combo piece but its still something else you can do if you know whats coming.
This badly needs a 5-8, like the Legacy Oops-all-spells deck has both Undercity Informer and Balustrade Spy. It could be a very decent deck if that were the case. Very vulnerable to disruption, though. I'm going to keep my eye on this deck for new pieces that could make it a real contender.
Also, has anyone tried Dryad Arbor, and green-friendly fetches, to put up better blocks?
Making this deck again ;). Anytone have any sotires bringing this to fnm lmao. Im tihnking of having a transformative side board of just 15 mono black aggro creatures.
Zombie Hunt, Lightning Hunt etc...
What is Treasure Hunt?
Deck History
Card Selection
Core
To begin, every variant of Treasure Hunt needs these cards:
Treasure Hunt - Engine that powers the deck
Reliquary Tower - This card is especially important because it allows you to play Treasure Hunt earlier and not have to worry about discarding all the cards you draw
Gemstone Caverns - This cards enables a turn two kill, on the draw, nuff said.
Tolaria West - Allows one to tutor for any land in the deck notably Reliquary tower, Boseiju, Who shelters all and other support lands.
Treasure Hunt has several win conditions in the modern card pool:
Seismic Assault - the traditional wincon, advantages: Gets around Spellskite doesn't require a critical number of lands to win Disadvantages: the mana-cost is very red intensive, which could delay the game plan by a turn or two, is veunerable to Pithing Needle
Zombie Infestation - This came about after M12 where it was reprinted into the modern card pool, Advantages: Gets around Spellskite and more relevantly: Leyline of Sanctity, Only costs 1B, doesn't require a critical number of lands to win, allows a player to stall a beat-down deck. Disadvantages: Is discard intensive or in other words requires more discards per point of potential damage. Is not the same color as the other win conditions. The tokens get blown out of the water by mass removal as well as cards like Echoing Truth or Detention Sphere etc...
Conflagrate - This card was first used modern by the older Ad Nauseam decks. Advantages: gets around targeted discard, this is very relevant for the current metagame. Disadvantages: Requires a large amount of cards in order to kill the opponent, however, unlike Zombie Infestation you must have a critical number of cards meaning that you might have to Treasure Hunt several times, which will delay the game plan by a lot. Is hosed by graveyard hate, not to mention Deathrite Shaman is a prominent card in the format
Lightning Storm - Arguably the best of the lot, this card is my win condition of choice for the main board. Advantages: allows for the use of Boseiju, who shelters all, this is extremely relevent in the current metagame as cards like Remand, Mana Leak and Cryptic Command are very good. This card only requires Nine lands in hand to deal 21 damage Disadvantages: Spellskite is very good against this, occasionally this might get turned on you if you only have a limited amount of lands in hand.
Support
Support cards for this deck are all lands, they include:
Boseiju, Who Shelters All - This card enables you to win against control, which is very important. While this card is almost core, it is not very useful against a metagame that is all aggro or non blue mid-range Most variants should run this card.
Halimar Depths - Allows some card selection for the deck, useful in conjunction with fetch lands and shuffle effects.
Mikokoro, Center of the Sea and Desolate Lighthouse - I group these cards because they fulfill a similar role that being extra draws. These are important for when you lose Treasure Hunt be it to targeted discard or it being countered. I would reccomend Mikokoro over Desolate Lighthouse because if you don't hit a treasure hunt, at least you are still increasing the amount of lands in your hand, however this is more relevant when you have a Reliquary Tower reasons for Desolate Lighthouse could be: you have Conflagrate as a win condition, you really don't want your opponent to get more cards.
Manlands - While in general I support the use of manlands I feel that that beatdown plan is not where you want to be with this deck, if you go this route I would reccomend: Creeping Tar Pit, Mutavault and Tomb of Urami
Scrying Sheets - This card can be useful if you run many basics and/or snow duals.
Dakmor Salvage - Good with Seismic Assault
Minamo, School at Water's Edge - Allows you to untap legendary land like Boseiju, Who shelters All, Mikokoro, Center of the Sea and Gemstone Caverns
Non-land Support
Ardent Plea, Demonic Dread, Violent Outburst - Some choose to run these as pseudo Treasure Hunts, however in my experience using these while increasing your chance of a treasure hunt in opening hand greatly reduce the expected number of lands drawn as well as that they can cause you to totally fizzle if you use Zombie Infestation as a wincon, not to mention that it would require a splash for two of them and a target for the other.
Ad Nauseam - While this card has potential as another way to treasure hunt, it is not particularly effective because we have no way to ramp, therefore I would consider this card to be too slow for this deck.
Mana Fixing
Because the win conditions are fairly mana intensive mana fixing is required:
Cascade Bluffs - Fixes your earlier land drops, very important if you run a red wincon because it fixes the blue support lands.
Scalding Tarn - The fetch of choice
Steam Vents/Watery Grave - Shock of choice depending if you run black or not
Shivan Reef/Underground River/City of Brass - Painland of Choice
Sulfur Falls/Drowned Catacomb - Tapland of Choice
Side Board
These are some sideboard options:
Second Wincon - I would reccomend running a second wincon to combat cards like Slaughter Games or Leyline of Sanctity I prefer Zombie Infestation.
Bojuka Bog - Graveyard hate, helps to reset Tarmogoyf etc...
Ghost Quarter - tron hate and emergency mana fixing
Example Decks
Gavin Verhey @Testdeck 8/28/2011
8 Snow-Covered Island
9 Snow-Covered Swamp
4 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Halimar Depths
4 Mutavault
4 Reliquary Tower
4 Tectonic Edge
4 Gemstone Caverns
2 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
2 Tomb of Urami
4 Scrying Sheets
3 Zombie Infestation
4 Treasure Hunt
My Take on Treasure Hunt
4 Gemstone Caverns
4 Halimar Depths
4 Tolaria West
4 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
4 Reliquary Tower
4 Mountain
7 Island
4 Cascade Bluffs
2 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Shivan Reef
4 Steam Vents
4 Sulfur Falls
3x Lightning Storm
4x Treasure Hunt
4 Bojuka Bog
3 Zombie Infestation
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Swamp
Matchups and Mulligans
Mulligans
Vs. Midrange (Junk/Jund Pod)
Hope for a Gemstone Caverns and a Treasure Hunt because if you don't play it quick they're single target discard will take it away. Possibly side in a Zombie infestation in case they have Leyline of Sanctity or Spellskite in the case of pod however watch out for Abrupt Decay if they know your side board.
Vs. Control/Combo (U/W/R, U/W, Splinter Twin, Scapeshift)
If playing Twin Side in Zombie Infestation to deal with Spellskite, if playing U/W/R or U/W you might need to side in Zombie infestation However be wary of Supreme Verdict when playing Scapeshift side in Ghost Quarter to kill valakut however, do not side in Zombie infestation because in general Scapeshift runs some form of Pyroclasm
Vs. Aggro (G/R or Affinity or Infect or Burn)
Against affinity maby side in Zombie infestation depending on if they have spellskite or not. For the others just race them, you will win if you have a good opener vs burn etc.
Closing Statements
Be on the lookout for more non-basic land cards as well as win conditions that could fit into this deck, as the modern card pool expands more options may become increasingly viable so the deck is subject to change.
while it does act as a roadblock to the hunt it also can be used to recast it.
Edit: why no sheets and snow covered lands in your build? You really need 20 duels? Plus depths plus caverns?
Is this deck interactive or anything, like is there something I'm missing? Does this deck have to make decisions? Could you maybe talk about these decisions? What turn is this deck supposed to win by? In the Dimir version what would an optimal turn 1, turn 2, etc. look like?
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
Spell Snare
Mana Leak
Thoughtseize
Inquisition of Kozilek
Tidehollow Sculler
Leyline of Sanctity
Any of those coming from the other side of the table means game over. It gets even worse if you have to side in infestation.
The deck can deal with these cards for the most part. If they resolve the deck is in a bad spot but spell snare and mana leak both get put in place by Boseiju, Who Shelters All, the one mana discarders can be mitigated, and are only great if they happen on turn one or 2. Tidehollow is the same thing.
Leyline is the only card this deck cannot deal with preboard.
Also, at this point I see no reason to not running the lightning storm version of this list. The maindeck zombie one is just too slow and too many things beat it.
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GB [Primer][Competitive][Stax][Combo] Meren of Clan Nel Toth 95% RETIRED
UW [Primer][Competitive][Combo][Stax] Brago, King Eternal RETIRED
BR Rakdos, Lord of Riots (75%)
G Titania - 75%
W SRAM - Welcome to the cheeri0s jam 95%
U Teferi - stax 100%
R Neheb - janky mono red eggs combo 90%
B Gonti - 50% valuetown
I'm working on a budget build of this deck right now. Since you rarely want to cast Treasure Hunt on turn 2 (unless you got lucky and drew a Reliquary Tower), ETBT lands have a much smaller drawback than normal, and allow a fairly strong build for under $20.
Feedback appreciated.
8 Island
8 Mountain
2 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
4 Crumbling Necropolis
4 Desolate Lighthouse
2 Gargoyle Castle
4 Ghitu Encampment
4 Halimar Depths
4 Izzet Guildgate
2 Kher Keep
4 Reliquary Tower
4 Tolaria West
4 Zoetic Cavern
2 Lightning Storm
4 Treasure Hunt
1 Bojuka Bog
4 Jwar Isle Refuge
4 Spawning Pool
4 Swamp
2 Zombie Infestation
You can dodge leyline etc, but any discard yeah....
What about siding into Chalice of The Void, with X = 1? Yeah, you lose some consistency, but at least you still get to play Magic.
~ Brian DeMars
U Merfolk | GR Tron | WUR Jeskai Control | WBG Abzan Company
EDH:
G Ezuri, Renegade Leader, Fighting for Rivendell
WU Brago, King Eternal, Long Live the King
WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon, Worship the Dragon
Maybe it would be a good idea to look for additional creature win conditions that have discard outlets, or activated abilities from the graveyard?
I would make suggestions but I'm not too familiar with abilities that let you discard to do damage, mostly just outlets for reanimator...
If we can find more cards to play from the graveyard, the deck might become resilient enough to be a contender since it wouldn't auto-concede to discard.
We could also try adding green for Life from the Loam and Eternal Witness. I saw a list trying to run Emrakul, the Aeons Torn into Shelldock Isle, triggering the hideaway land by drawing most of his deck with treasure hunt.
With all of that drawing, one idea I had was Jace's Erasure. Why not just mill them out? Is mill not viable at all in Modern? Just a thought. It's also entirely Pauper-legal, so there's that.
I figured we could just take that idea and tweak it: run a control deck, cast Selective Memory, then go to town!
This way, we don't have to rely on mulling, we can play actual cards! We just need a way to make sure we have a critical mass of lands when we go off.
I am also knee-deep in a pauper list based on abusing Moldervine Cloak, Dakmor Salvage, Grim Discovery, and various Delve cards. In general I think we could pull some ideas for Land-based Dredge.
4x Turn Aside
4x Drift of Phantasms
4x Laboratory Maniac
4x Selective Memory
4x Treasure Hunt
Edit: Also Haunted Fengraf was in the Countryside Crusher deck to get crusher back.
What do you guys think about Alchemist's Refuge to cast Treasure Hunt instantly?
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Post by Narah about unbanning Mind Twist in legacy and that this would be evil:
If you want to play on MTGO add me I'm HeskatetAS, playing Modern and Legacy
I like the countryside crusher in this deck as well. I think you definitely need another way to get the extreme mill going on.
To add on to Jace's Erasure, you could mill yourself correct? I mean you might mill the combo piece but its still something else you can do if you know whats coming.
Thanks you very much DarkNightCavalier for the Sig.
Also, has anyone tried Dryad Arbor, and green-friendly fetches, to put up better blocks?
WBG Abzan Midrange
BRG Dredgevine