Today we are going to be talking about a favorite deck of mine, a graveyard engine deck with one of the best (if not the best) lategames in the format. The deck is called Junk Haakon Loam, and the game is resource denial. The goal of the deck is to survive the early game with powerful and versatile control cards and use the Dredge mechanic to create a super powerful engine where you no longer rely on topdecks or cards in hand. As the game progresses, the graveyard engine restricts more and more of your opponent's resources while burying them under card advantage until you reanimate enough Knights from the graveyard to close out the game.
To begin, we are going to talk about the most important piece of the deck, the Dredge mechanic.
What is Dredge?
"As long as you have at least N cards in your library, if you would draw a card, you may instead put N cards from the top of your library into your graveyard and return this card from your graveyard to your hand."
Why is Dredge powerful?
Dredge breaks one of the fundamental rules of Magic, in that it lets you choose what you want to draw for your draw step. Not only that, but each time you dredge, your options increase because it puts cards into your graveyard in addition to putting the chosen card into your hand. This means that if your deck is built correctly, each time you dredge, you are getting access to more and more of your deck in 3-5 card intervals (rather than the 1 that normal drawing allows). Because of this, you get to see significantly more cards than your opponent, meaning that you reach an end game where you have access to your entire library MUCH faster than your opponent, and with terrifying consistency.
How does Dredge affect our play?
Playing with dredge is very different from playing without it. When playing this deck, you want to reach a point where you can replace as many draw steps as possible with dredge while hitting all your land drops. Once you start dredging, it is generally correct to keep dredging unless very specific circumstances arise (More about this later). This is because once you reach the midgame, putting 3-5 cards into your graveyard is generally better than drawing a card, even if the card you are putting in your hand is relatively worthless. If you happen to actually want the card you are dredging as well, it becomes very hard to lose.
When you dredge a card, you know exactly what will be going to your hand. This means two things:
You will not be drawing a land. If you are dredging every turn, you will never be drawing a land. This is why Life from the Loam is the best card in the deck. It gives you access to land cards while you are in dredge mode, and gives you enough that you don't have to cast it every turn to keep hitting land drops, and that you have enough to do other things with them (such as using them for Retrace). Keep in mind that Life from the Loam is vulnerable to countermagic, even though most opponents will not understand this. When you first begin dredging, your goal is to make sure you can set up enough land drops to keep making them despite whatever disruption your opponent might have.
If you are dredging every turn, you will ONLY be getting access to more graveyard-based cards. This means that whatever non-graveyard cards you have in your hand when you start dredging are all you will get for the entire game. They are very precious, and should be treated as such. There are situations that your graveyard engine cannot deal with, and it is incredibly important to understand what those situations are, and in what matchups they appear.
Next, we are going to discuss the cards in the deck. We are going to split them into graveyard-based cards and non-graveyard cards so that you can see the difference and understand how they complement each other.
Life from the Loam: The best card in the deck. It is the engine that makes the whole deck run, and it singlehandedly buries the
opponent in card advantage. It is a key component of two of the three main resource denial engines in the deck by combining with Tectonic Edge to attack your opponent's mana and with Raven's Crime to attack your opponent's hand. It allows you to hit your land
drops while dredging, and gives you access to any utility lands in your graveyard.
Raven's Crime: Combines with Life from the Loam to quickly destroy the opponent's hand. This prevents your control opponent from hoarding resources that might later be used to interrupt your graveyard engine, such as counterspells and exile removal. It also provides inevitability against combo opponents, as most combos in Modern require the player to have more than one spell in their hand. When you empty their hand and can cast Raven's Crime every turn for the rest of the game, your opponent can no longer win with their combo. This also prevents creature-based opponents from playing around sweepers. This is important, as you can force your opponent to overextend, and then let your graveyard engines crush any attempts to rebuild. Also can discard Haakon in a pinch.
Haakon, Stromgald Scourge: This card provides inevitability against creature-based decks. It is one of the pieces of the third resource denial engine, which attacks your opponent's creatures. He combines with both Knight of the Reliquary and Nameless Inversion to provide endless card advantage in the late game, only limited by your mana. This is why hitting your land drops for the entire game is important.
Knight of the Reliquary: Both a solid card in the early game, and a late game finisher that generally goes over the top of anything your opponent is doing when most of your deck is in the graveyard. Can also tutor out specific lands in matchups where they are
especially important, such as Ghost Quarter against Tron or Vault of the Archangel against any deck that tries to burn you out.
Nameless Inversion: Combines with Haakon to destroy any creature-based strategy when active, while still being a "reasonable" piece of removal in the early game. When Haakon is in play, you can cast Nameless Inversion from your graveyard (since it is a Knight), and when it resolves, it is placed back into your graveyard, where you can cast it again. Rinse and repeat.
Stinkweed Imp: Dredge 5 is a LOT. Stinkweed Imp also has the added benefit of being a recurrable flyer with deathtouch, which many midrange decks that rely on a few creatures (Tarmogoyf decks) actually have a lot of trouble beating. When combined with a few spirit tokens, attacking profitably becomes very difficult for your opponent.
Darkblast: While dead in some matchups, this card is INCREDIBLY powerful against a lot of the field. X/1s are very popular in Modern, and there are many decks where drawing a -1/-1 removal every turn will win the game on its own. This card does exactly that, and even advances our gameplan while stopping our Affinity, Infect, Pod, Delver, and Tempo Twin opponents in their tracks.
Lingering Souls: This card does everything. It pressures control and combo opponents while stalling against creature strategies. It gives us a very large amount of time, while costing no cards when you dredge it. Being able to incidentally put a few spirits on the field every couple times we dredge is a huge reason why we don't just get run over by the more aggressive decks in the format.
Smallpox: This card provides us with a way to discard Haakon or dredge cards while severely disrupting our opponent. Life from the Loam lets us easily recover from this, however it can be risky when you do not have a Life from the Loam in your hand.
Abrupt Decay: Lets us deal with graveyard hate, Deceiver Exarch, Blood Moon, and other problematic permanents. This is the perfect example of a hyper efficient card that lets us survive to the point where our graveyard engine can start taking over. In most matchups, this is the most precious card to hold in your hand while you are in dredge mode. Think carefully of what your opponent could have 5-10 turns down the line before using it.
Liliana of the Veil: Another way to enable Haakon/dredge, while providing removal, hand pressure, and just being an overall strong card. Very powerful, and even more powerful in this deck.
Damnation: Against most creature decks, this is the turning point. Casting this is what lets you instantly catch up against Affinity, Pod, Merfolk, Zoo, BGx, etc. Raven's Crime forces your opponent to play into this, while the graveyard engine is very good at stopping any attempt from your opponent to recover.
Courser of Kruphix: Provides a large amount of utility by letting you see the top card of your deck. This makes dredge decisions much easier while giving you access to non-graveyard cards even when you are in full dredge mode. The incidental lifegain and card advantage created by this card is also very relevant, and it is a very reasonable inclusion in the deck.
Tectonic Edge: This is our main gameplan in quite a few matchups. Life from the Loam+Tectonic Edge is a combination that a lot of decks in the format actually just can't beat, such as UWR Control, Esper Control, Mono U Tron, and Scapeshift. Is also very good at permanently shutting down BGx's manlands.
Ghost Quarter: This is our main gameplan in a few other matchups. Life from the Loam+Ghost Quarter is nearly impossible for GR Tron to beat, and is also very good against Affinity. Running your opponent out of basics is a very real thing that comes up in certain matchups, turning this into a straight Strip Mine lock.
Vault of the Archangel: This is how we stabilize against decks with a lot of reach in the form of burn. Against decks like UWR, Delver, and other similar stategies, their only hope in the matchup is to burn us out, so having a land that completely puts that out of reach in one activation is very powerful. Also works very well at stopping Tarmogoyfs and other large threats when combined with a few spirit tokens.
Horizon Canopy: This land provides a lot of utility when combined with Life from the Loam. It combines with dredge cards to be able to dredge multiple times in a turn, as well as being able to get access to dredge cards put into your graveyard on your draw step. Can also dig a little deeper towards a non-graveyard card if it is your only out.
Stirring Wildwood: The best manland we have access to. Plays defense very well against opposing Restoration Angels, Insectile Aberrations, Vault Skirges, etc, but is a little underwhelming on offense. The fact that it costs white to activate forces us to play a few more white sources than we might otherwise like to.
Treetop Village: Another option in the manland slot, is much better at pressuring opposing planeswalkers (especially ones that make tokens) while still leaving you mana to do other things. However, it is very vulnerable to Lightning Bolt so it is not a good option in certain metas.
Verdant Catacombs/Marsh Flats/Windswept Heath: Fetchlands are VERY important to this deck. They consistently provide you with targets for Life from the Loam while giving you access to all of your colors of mana. Having an extra land in the graveyard to get back with Life from the Loam can often change an entire game by letting you make more land drops through counter magic, or by providing more lands to pitch to Raven's Crime.
Leyline of Sanctity: Burn is a very hard matchup, and this gives you a fighting chance. It is also reasonable against Scapeshift, Gifts Ungiven, and any decks that rely on burning you out. Against Jund (with red), Leyline is also good at stopping their Thoughtseizes and player-targeting hate (such as Rakdos Charm, Jund Charm, and Slaughter Games). Leylines are generally very good sideboard choices in this deck because you have a very low chance of drawing them later in the game because of dredge.
Leyline of the Void: Good against Living End, Storm, Assault Loam, Gifts Ungiven, and various other decks which can be tough matchups.
Damping Matrix: While this shuts off your Knight of the Reliquary's activated ability, it is the best piece of hate you have access to against Pod. Most importantly it shuts off their Birthing Pod and Scavenging Ooze, but it also stops any combo they might have in addition to random other utility creatures. Can also act as a (kind of) extra copy of Stony Silence against Affinity and Tron.
Stony Silence: Our game 1 against Affinity is actually pretty favorable, so this is mostly here because it is good against Tron and Ad Nauseum, but it also happens to really lock up postboard games against Affinity as well.
Torpor Orb: This provides extra answers to Twin, while also being reasonable in other matchups like UB Fae and Pod.
Utter End: Games 2 and 3 tend to slow down a lot, so having an answer to any problematic permanent your opponent might have is pretty awesome. You tend to hold onto non-graveyard cards for as long as possible to be able to answer situations your graveyard engine can't, and this card is very good at answering any situation that arises.
Tectonic Edge/Ghost Quarter: One of these tends to be at least marginally better than the other in each matchup, so being able to replace one with the other has been very valuable. This also provides a lot of flexibility with your land count between games, which lets you bring in extra Raven's Crime fodder if you have too many dead cards, or gives you a higher chance of hitting all your land drops against counter-heavy decks.
Abrupt Decay/Damnation/Darkblast: In matchups where these are good, you generally want more copies of them, so being able to board them in is good.
Thoughtseize: You need your non-graveyard cards to be guaranteed to stop a problem. They need to be able to survive you through the early game, but they also need to be able to answer things that you have trouble with later in the game. While Thoughtseize helps you get through the early game, it means you have one less answer later that something like an Abrupt Decay is guaranteed to hit.
Pack Rat/Tarmogoyf/other finishers: Your non-graveyard cards need to fill holes that your graveyard-based cards can't. Finishers are pretty well covered by Haakon, Knight of the Reliquary, and Lingering Souls, and any non-graveyard based finishers generally aren't worth the slot, no matter how much they synergize with Life from the Loam.
Crib Swap: While this card can be very good in specific circumstances, the fact that it gives your opponent a 1/1 is very relevant. The 1/1 gets in the way of our edict-based removal like Liliana of the Veil and Smallpox, and puts a nonzero amount of pressure on us. The incidental damage we take off the 1/1 combined with the fact that this really doesn't hit much that Nameless Inversion does not makes this card just a little below the cut. Could be reasonable in very specific metas though.
Path to Exile: The best removal in white, but not for white decks playing Smallpox. One of your main plans is to deny your opponent of lands, and Path hurts that plan quite a bit.
To give you an idea of what a full decklist would look like, here is an example list:
There are quite a few interactions and plays that aren't immediately obvious to players who have not played with all the cards in the deck before. Below is a list of some of the more common ones to consider when playing the deck.
You can use Darkblast to take out an opposing X/2 by casting it on your upkeep targeting that creature, and then dredging it for your draw step. You can then cast it again on your main phase targeting the same creature to give it a total of -2/-2. This is most commonly used against opposing Scavenging Oozes in early turns when they are tapped out.
You can use Horizon Canopy to save cards with dredge against graveyard hate. In response to an exile effect, if you activate Horizon Canopy, you replace its draw with dredging the card being exiled. This can be done from your library with Knight of the Reliquary. This is most useful against Surgical Extractions because it counters the effect, but it is also useful against things like Relic of Progenitus.
If you hold up 2 mana with a Haakon in play and a Nameless Inversion in the graveyard, you can protect him from exile effects such as Path to Exile by killing him in response. This is most relevant that have a lot of trouble dealing with Haakon, such as UWR or Esper control.
You can use Life from the Loam as a discard outlet for Haakon. This is done by using Loam to return lands over the course of a few turns until you have a large enough hand to discard him to hand size. This is the most relevant in situations where you boarded out Raven's Crimes but have a Haakon stuck in your hand.
Stinkweed Imp's ability is not deathtouch. It is a triggered ability, and uses the stack. This means that if an opposing creature would take lethal damage from the Imp and tries to regenerate, they will have to regenerate twice to save it. This comes up most frequently against Affinity opponents using Welding Jar on an X/1, but it can also come up if you activate Vault of the Archangel against an opposing Thrun, the Last Troll.
Dredge is a replacement effect. This means that in order to exile a card with dredge, your opponent must do it on your upkeep or in response to the effect that is causing you to draw the card. Once you choose to dredge, it is too late for your opponent to respond.
Next, we are going to go over some overall strategy for the deck common to most matchups before getting into specifics.
Generally your early game involves setting up your land drops and your dredge engine. You want about 2-3 lands in play/hand before dredging. Once you have access to these lands, you want to start putting cards with dredge into your graveyard and dredging as many draw steps as possible. Having a Life from the Loam is ideal here, but if you just have a Darkblast or Stinkweed Imp, you will find the Loam much faster by dredging than with regular draws.
Your priority at this point is to find the cards that will restrict your opponent's most important resource. Against creature decks, this means you want to find Haakon/Inversion. Against control/combo decks, you want to determine whether your opponent will be hurt more if you restrict their mana or their hand. Life from the Loam+Tectonic Edge will permanently keep your opponent to no more than 4 mana, while Life from the Loam+Raven's Crime will keep your opponent hellbent. Knowing your opponent's deck is very important, as you need to know what resource to attack. For example, Ad Nauseum needs exactly 6 mana and 2 cards in hand to go off. It can also turn a card in hand into one mana using Simian Spirit Guide. However, they need to also have 3 Simian Spirit Guides left in their deck after drawing it to win if they go off with exactly 6 mana. This knowledge can be integral to attacking the correct resource in each situation.
After your graveyard engine starts rolling, keep thinking of every combination of cards you could lose to, and fight over the resources that will prevent the greatest amount of those from winning. You also need to keep in mind how your actions this turn will affect your next turn. Figure out how many cards they will have left in hand next turn if you cast Life from the Loam this turn and then use those lands to Raven's Crime them next turn. Figure out how many creatures you will be able to kill with Nameless Inversion if you play Haakon this turn, and how likely he is to survive until next turn based on the cards in your opponent's hand. If you can afford to wait a turn, it might be correct to use this turn to empty their hand first. Figure out how many turns you have until you can activate Vault of the Archangel to put yourself out of burn range if you take this attack.
Keep hitting land drops. I know I bring this up a lot, but it is one of the most important things to do when playing the deck. The late game engine is only limited by your mana, so having access to lots of it closes out games significantly faster. Against decks with copious amounts of countermagic, this might mean holding an extra land in your hand rather than pitching it to Raven's Crime so you have a guaranteed land drop for the next turn instead of relying on resolving a Life from the Loam. This obviously can change if you are playing a matchup where attacking their hand is the most important resource to attack, such as Ad Nauseum or Storm. Use your judgment.
Hold onto non-graveyard cards for as long as possible, and use your least valuable resource to take care of a given threat. Your most valuable resource varies between matchups, but generally in creature matchups it is Damnation, while against Twin or Blood Moon decks it becomes Abrupt Decay. Maelstrom Pulse becomes more valuable against decks with planeswalkers, etc. I have lost plenty of games against Pod where I incorrectly valued an Abrupt Decay higher than a Nameless Inversion, and then later lost to an unanswered Restoration Angel when I could have used the Nameless Inversion with a Darkblast to kill it. Because being in dredge mode prevents you from drawing non-graveyard cards, you need to ration out any non-graveyard cards you have access to because you generally will not be getting more.
Know what you are trying to hit when choosing to dredge. There are situations that your graveyard engine can't answer, and knowing what those are in each matchup is key. Figure out what you are trying to accomplish with each dredge before you do it, because there are times where no combination of dredged cards will save you, but a topdecked Damnation might.
Now that we have talked a bit about overall strategy, we will go into specifics for each matchup. The deck is very mulligan-dependant, and the cards you need in your starting hand change drastically between matchups.
For each matchup, I will go over some key things to know. I will break each matchup into the following:
1. How to approach the matchup, general thoughts about it, and important things to keep in mind when playing the matchup.
2. Most important cards to look for in the matchup, listed in order of importance. This is meant to help with mulligan decisions.
3. Most important resource to attack. When given the option, generally focus on limiting your opponent on this resource.
4. Graveyard engine limitations. These are cards and situations that your graveyard engine will have trouble interacting with, so try to hold non-graveyard answers to them whenever possible.
5. Sideboarding advice. I will not give numbers because lists may vary, but this will include cards that I look to first to take out, and cards that I want to bring in.
6. Hate to expect in games 2 and 3. This includes what graveyard hate to expect, and also what other hate to expect such as Blood Moon, Leyline of Sanctity, etc.
If you feel that I'm missing an important matchup or that some of the information for a matchup doesn't match your experiences, let us know in the thread! I have only listed matchups that I have played against enough to feel confident about how to play the matchup, and I have not played against every deck in the format.
Very Good:
1. Infect is our best matchup. We have so many cards that pretty much beat the deck singlehandedly, and all of our resource denial plans are very relevant against them. Just having a Darkblast in our opening hand pretty much puts the game away on its own, and Smallpox is nearly as good. Combine this with the blocking potential of Lingering Souls, and you have a very good matchup.
2. Darkblast, Smallpox, Liliana of the Veil, Lingering Souls
3. Creatures, followed by cards in hand.
4. Nothing. Our graveyard engine deals with everything they have.
5.
-Damnation
-Tectonic Edge
+Darkblast
+Ghost Quarter
6. No graveyard hate, but Wild Defiance and Spellskite can be problematic. Make sure to save Abrupt Decays if possible.
1. The addition of Lingering Souls to BG Rock comes at the cost of some number of removal spells and Courser of Kruphix. Both sides generally play lots of spirit tokens, and they all end up trading or chump blocking threats on the other side of the table. Our Darkblasts mean that we generally come out ahead on these spirit-standoffs, and them cutting removal means that our Stinkweed Imps are more likely to stick to wall opposing Tarmogoyfs. Smallpox is slightly worse here than against straight GB, but it is still very good.
2. Lingering Souls, Stinkweed Imp, Damnation, Life from the Loam
3. Creatures, followed by lands.
4. Early Tarmogoyfs
5.
-Nameless Inversion
-Raven's Crime
+Damnation
+Abrupt Decay
6. Junk lists generally play less Obstinate Baloth in favor of white's sideboard options, most of which are not relevant against us. They still bring in Grafdigger's Cage though.
1. This is a pretty good matchup. They end up tapping out a lot more and play less countermagic, which means you get more opportunities to resolve threats without getting comboed. Most lists recently have been cutting down on Scavenging Oozes as well, which means that our graveyard is much safer. Smallpox is close to at its best here. Keep in mind that they cannot combo with one card in hand (unless they have a piece in play), so emptying their hand is the priority.
2. Smallpox, Abrupt Decay, Life from the Loam, Raven's Crime
3. Cards in hand, followed by creatures.
4. Early Tarmogoyfs, early Deceiver Exarchs, Keranos
5.
-Damnation
-Darkblast
-Haakon
+Abrupt Decay
+Torpor Orb
+Utter End
6. Most lists play Scavenging Ooze with the occasional Grafdigger's Cage. Expect Keranos from the board.
1. If we have a Smallpox or a Liliana of the Veil, this matchup is very good, otherwise it can be tough. Not knowing to mulligan to those in game 1 can lead to some losses, but getting them hellbent then making them sacrifice their big guy is usually game. Smallpox is 100% our best card here, as they don't play many lands, and forcing them to sacrifice their big dude AND discard an Aura from their hand is very strong.
2. Smallpox, Liliana of the Veil, Abrupt Decay, Damnation
3. Cards in hand, then creatures.
4. Our graveyard engine doesn't answer much of anything they are doing, so don't expect to be dredging a lot here.
5.
-Darkblast
-Nameless Inversion
-Tectonic Edge
+Ghost Quarter
+Unravel the AEther
+Abrupt Decay
6. This is one of the very few decks that packs straight up Rest in Peace. Luckily, our graveyard isn't actually that relevant in this matchup. They also always have quite a few Leyline of Sanctity that come in, which shuts off Liliana of the Veil's sacrifice, but not Smallpox.
1. This matchup is really interesting. Our deck is basically a much more focused version of one of their Gifts packages. This means that if the games devolves into a Life from the Loam mirror, we are heavily favored since our manabase is much more stable and we are much more likely to dredge into valuable cards. However, we actually cannot beat an early Gifts combo into Iona on black, so we either need to hope that they don't value that play highly enough, that we have a Liliana of the Veil in play, or that they just don't have it. Some lists nowadays are cutting Iona, which is very good for us. Games 2 and 3, both Leylines stop this play, so we are much more favored there.
2. Life from the Loam, Tectonic Edge, Raven's Crime, Liliana of the Veil
3. Lands, then cards in hand
4. Iona on black.
5.
-Nameless Inversion
-Darkblast
-Damnation
-Ghost Quarter
+Leyline of the Void
+Leyline of Sanctity
+Tectonic Edge
6. Most lists play Surgical Extraction/Extirpate so they can have it as a Gifts package, but I have seen Leyline of the Void before. Usually they don't have much in the way of graveyard hate though.
1. This matchup would be even/favorable, except that they have access to the dreaded Gifts combo for Iona on black. Unlike 4C Gifts, UW Tron has not been cutting Iona recently because they can reasonably hard cast her as well. If your opponent does not have the Gifts combo in game 1, they are very susceptible to Life from the Loam+Tectonic Edge, as you can either cut them off of Tron or cut them off of colored mana, depending on which is more important at the time. Without Iona, they generally don't matchup well at all against Life from the Loam, so finding that puts you in a very good spot. Limiting their mana makes a lot of their cards dead as well because Tron normally lets them play such a high curve. This matchup gets much better postboard, as both Leylines shut down their Gifts combo, and you are very well positioned against the rest of their deck.
2. Life from the Loam, Tectonic Edge, Leyline of X, Raven's Crime
3. Lands, then cards in hand.
4. Iona on black.
5.
-Darkblast
-Nameless Inversion
-Damnation
-Lingering Souls
-Ghost Quarter
+Tectonic Edge
+Leyline of the Void
+Leyline of Sanctity
+Utter End
+Unravel the AEther
6. They generally play 1 Relic of Progenitus, 1 Grafdigger's Cage, or both as graveyard hate, and they have a few Celestial Purges which aren't super relevant.
1. We hardly have any ways to interact with this deck, and our plan of Raven's Crimeing them can sometimes backfire. However, their deck is fairly inconsistent, so a little pressure and some bad draws from their end can result in a win for us. Generally when playing Raven's Crime against them, you can't afford to play around Goryo's Vengeance, especially since the only combination where they actually punish us for it is exactly discarding Griselbrand and then playing Goryo's next turn, which is not super likely. Try to get a lot of spirit tokens into play quickly, as they can either nullify combat steps from a Griselbrand or be sacrifice fodder to keep a board against an Emrakul.
2. Raven's Crime, Lingering Souls, Life from the Loam, Abrupt Decay
3. Cards in hand above all else.
4. Our engine can answer everything they do because it is all straight from the hand
5.
6. Lists vary quite a bit, but they can play anything from Relic of Progenitus to even Leyline of Sanctity. Some 2 color builds play Blood Moon as well.
1. Your most common terrible matchup. You will run into this, and you will lose from time to time. Game 1 is close to unwinnable, although Smallpoxing them off of a greedy keep, having enough removal for their creature-heavy keep, or using Raven's Crime to steal a few burn spells early can buy you enough time to activate a Vault of the Archangel. Once you activate Vault for even 3-4 points of life, the game is generally over. Games 2 and 3, you get to bring in as many Leyline of Sanctity as you decide to board, and your matchup gets much better. It is still possible to lose through a Leyline (especially if your opponent splashes white or green), but you play enough removal that it doesn't happen much. The nice thing about this matchup is that you can control how bad you want it to be by altering the number of Leyline of Sanctitys you put in your sideboard.
2. Leyline of Sanctity, Vault of the Archangel, Raven's Crime, Knight of the Reliquary
3. Creatures, then cards in hand.
4. Getting burned out.
5.
-Stinkweed Imp
-Haakon
+Leyline of Sanctity
+Abrupt Decay
6. Some lists play graveyard hate, but all it does against us is slow them down. When we win, we generally win with a few spirit tokens or something anyway. The main hate to watch out for is anti-Leyline of Sanctity hate.
1. Another very tough matchup. We have a lot of trouble dealing with tokens+anthems, and the fact that a lot of lists play planeswalkers as well just makes it even harder. If you can assemble a very fast Haakon/Inversion, this matchup is winnable, but it's hard for us to do that consistently. Damnation is also very good here, but with anthems they can force you to use it to answer 1-2 token producers. There is usually a combination of Abrupt Decays for their anthems, and then a Damnation followed by a few spirit tokens of our own that can win the game, but it requires our cards to match up perfectly with theirs and isn't super likely. Maelstrom Pulse is especially good in this matchup.
2. Damnation, Haakon, Nameless Inversion, Abrupt Decay
3. Creatures, then cards in hand.
4. Anthems and planeswalkers.
5.
-Nameless Inversion
-Stinkweed Imp
-Smallpox
+Abrupt Decay
+Damnation
+Unravel the AEther
+Utter End
6. Their graveyard hate is usually Rest in Peace, and they also occasionally bring in things like Mirran Crusader or Memoricide that are randomly good against us.
1. Similar to the BW Tokens matchup, only they replace hand hate with more threats. They are also more susceptible to a well-timed Damnation, but they still topdeck fairly well with an Honor of the Pure in play. They win by forcing you to Abrupt Decay something that isn't an Honor of the Pure, then grinding you out with a bunch of 2/2s or 3/3s. You are much more likely to get time to assemble Haakon/Inversion in this matchup, as even a 4/4 Knight of the Reliquary can wall most of their creatures while you dig. Darkblast is very good in this matchup up until the moment your opponent plays an Honor of the Pure, at which point it becomes terrible. A large Knight of the Reliquary with some spirit tokens and a Vault of the Archangel is another common route to victory in this matchup, but more often than not you draw the wrong combination of cards for what your opponent drew and proceed to get run over.
2. Damnation, Abrupt Decay, Darkblast, Haakon
3. Creatures, then cards in hand
4. Honor of the Pure
5.
-Smallpox
-Liliana of the Veil
-Raven's Crime
+Damnation
+Unravel the AEther
+Darkblast
+Abrupt Decay
6. They generally bring in a bunch of Rest in Peace, and it only adds more targets to your "need to Abrupt Decay" list.
Next, we're going to talk about some of the common graveyard hate in the format, and how to play around it. Keep in mind that many opponents will keep very sketchy hands solely because they have graveyard hate in them, especially if they lost game 1 in spectacular fashion.
Most decks generally play 1-3 of the following cards in their sideboard:
One of the most common pieces of hate, Grafdigger's Cage is generally played because it has added utility against Pod in addition to stopping most of the relevant graveyard functions in the format. There are a few important things unique to Grafdigger's Cage:
Grafdigger's Cage does not get rid of your graveyard. This means your Knight of the Reliquarys are still gigantic, and when you kill the Cage, you get to pick up right where you left off. When your opponent plays a Cage on turn 10, you can simply switch to drawing cards until you find an answer, kill it, then keep going.
Grafdigger's Cage does not interact with Life from the Loam at all. You can still dredge Loam (and other cards), and you can still return Tectonic Edge, Stirring Wildwood, etc to continue pressuring your opponent.
It is very difficult to win through a Cage, but you can continue attacking your opponent's lands. You can still get back Stinkweed Imps and Stirring Wildwoods if you think you can win the game by doing that while Tectonic Edgeing your opponent. You cannot retrace Raven's Crime, flashback Lingering Souls, cast Haakon, or cast any Knights from the graveyard with Haakon in play.
The other common colorless graveyard hate. Relic is played because you can indefinitely keep your opponent's graveyard small with its activated ability, and then replace itself later when you need the card or when exiling one card isn't enough. Playing around Relic takes a bit of practice, but it is actually one of the easiest pieces of hate to fight through.
Relic can only exile one card per turn. If your opponent wants to exile more, they have to get rid of the Relic entirely. It is pretty easy to hold fetchlands and other things to put in your graveyard right before placing a high priority target in there as well (such as Life from the Loam). This means that Relic will do one of two things in a game:
Stop the first bit of value you would get out of your graveyard (some lands off of Life from the Loam, some spirits off a Lingering Souls, etc).
Let you continually get value out of your graveyard until your opponent decides your graveyard has gotten out of control.
If you cast a Life from the Loam targeting 2-3 lands in your graveyard (with another random spell or two as well) and your opponent has a Relic, what do they do? It varies between opponents. On the one hand, they can stop you from getting value out of that Loam, and other the other hand, they can get the Loam itself. They can also let you dredge a few times and then take the Loam along with some other cards later.
If your opponent decides to take the lands, you can just dredge Loam next turn, and your opponent no longer has graveyard hate.
If your opponent decides to let the Loam resolve and then exile it, you just returned two lands to your hand, which will let you keep making land drops over the next few turns while you continue playing the game without a Loam in your graveyard. You might even have another Loam or other dredger in your hand, in which case your opponent is again left without graveyard hate and in a very bad position.
If your opponent decides to let you keep the lands in your hand and the Loam in your graveyard, you can just dredge it next turn. At some point, you will find a second card with dredge, and your opponent will no longer be able to shut down the entire engine with his Relic as long as you keep one of those dredge cards in your hand. During all those turns as well, your opponent is down a mana in order to keep the threat of Relic up, while you are still able to use your graveyard freely to generate value.
The point is there is no easy way for your opponent to beat that with just a Relic of Progenitus. If you can keep enough random cards in your graveyard to turn off the Relic's first ability, its usefulness as graveyard hate against you is questionable. If you can dredge just once, you can generally keep the Relic's first ability from ever doing anything useful with those cards and then force the opponent into some very tough decisions with no clear right answer.
Scavenging Ooze is a little harder to deal with. In order to beat an Ooze, you will have to kill it at some point. In matchups where you can expect to see the Ooze (BGx, Pod, Tarmo Twin, Hate Bears), try to hold removal for it if you can afford to, and use Tectonic Edges to attack their green sources. Chances are that one turn of exiling targets is not going to ruin your entire game plan, but a few turns might. A turn 2 Scavenging Ooze is not scary, as it is answerable by a double Darkblast in addition to your other removal spells. The thing that makes Scavenging Ooze scary is when it is played later with a lot of green mana up, and then provides a lot of pressure to not just your graveyard but also your life total. The other pieces of hate slow your opponent down by playing them, while Scavenging Ooze is also a threat.
If you have a Haakon in play, a Nameless Inversion in the graveyard, and some mana open, your opponent cannot exile the Nameless Inversion with their Scavenging Ooze unless they have GGG and three creatures to target for each 2 mana you have. This is because in response to your opponent trying to exile your Inversion, you can cast it targeting your opponent's Ooze. Your opponent cannot respond to it leaving the graveyard because it gets placed on the stack as part of casting it.
There's not much to say about playing around Rest in Peace. Don't overextend into your graveyard, let it resolve, and then kill it with Abrupt Decay or similar. If you suspect your opponent has Rest in Peace and you have the option of flashing back a Lingering Souls or playing one from your hand, it's probably correct to flashback the one in your graveyard.
The deck made day 2 at GP Boston/Worcester, going 7-1-1 in day 1.
The deck has made two 6-2 finishes at 200+ man PTQs.
The deck has won countless local 20-50 man tournaments.
The deck has gone 3-1 or 4-0 in Magic Online Daily Events 7 times.
If you want to watch the deck in action to get an idea for how it plays in a real match, below are some videos of deck gameplay with commentary.
The deck sounds funny. Against what have you tested it? I played something similar lot of time ago and it was so so. Wasteland viper could be in your list cause 1/2 with deathtouch for G is not bad. Anyways what pairings have you tested?
The deck sounds funny. Against what have you tested it? I played something similar lot of time ago and it was so so. Wasteland viper could be in your list cause 1/2 with deathtouch for G is not bad. Anyways what pairings have you tested?
Quite a few of the matchups are changing with the new banlist, however earlier I tested a good amount against UWR control, Jund/Junk, Pod, Tron, and a variety of tier 2/homebrews.
UWR control matchup is pretty good as their counters are usually dead and no amount of 1 for 1 removal can really contain the piles of snakes. You can occasionally get burned out, but you don't really take too much damage from your manabase, so it doesn't happen often.
Jund/Junk matchup plays very differently depending on whether they have a DRS or not, so with him banned I imagine the matchup gets much better. When they don't have DRS, Sosuke's Summons pretty much completely nullifies their Lilianas and chumps their goyfs all day. Jund/Junk also relies pretty heavily on 1 for 1 removal, which again usually just doesn't do the trick.
Pod matchup is not good. That being said, their lack of much removal means that if they get a slow start they can occasionally get blown out by an early Seshiro. However, YOUR lack of much removal means they can sometimes just assemble an early combo and win. A resolved pod is often game over.
Tron matchup also not good. Pyroclasm sucks. When they don't have it, again sometimes an early Seshiro can get there, but don't expect much.
As far as random other decks go, it usually comes down to whether they have a fast clock, sweepers, a better lategame, some kind of combo, or a combination of those. Reliance on 1 for 1 removal, lots of countermagic, Liliana of the veil, or hoping to win on the back of a Tarmogoyf or other non-trample dudes are generally good for us.
Wasteland Viper seems okay, dropping early against Zoo can help keep them under control early. Cheap snakes are also something this deck could definitely use more of. Can also randomly take out larger creatures when they chump a snake token, but I can't think of many scenarios that I have run into when that would be game changing.
I've been thinking about going with 1 or 2 Sword of X and Y in some of the Mystic Snake slots, but I feel like it mostly helps the already good matchups. Haven't been able to mess around with it too much yet. More manadorks are another option in those slots.
I used to have a Snake tribal deck that I played casually that looked a lot like this. Seeing your list made me smile. I still find myself combing new set lists for any new snakes that make the deck worth putting back together.
I´ve found my old magicworkstation list of snakes and remembered the greatest snake i played. It is Chameleon colossus ;). This big guy dodges removal like a champ (can´t be bolted, dismembered, abrupted decay, maelstrom pulse, terminated,.....) It was an all star against jund cause they can´t get rid of it and it was always really big (4/4 per se, but 6/6 with seshiro and paying 4 you have a 12/12 monster that laugths of everybody).It triggers soske summons as well and is a mana sink when you haven´t other thing to do. And with lotus cobra or hierarch or the landmaker or any kind of ramp can be played in turn 3. Definitely i´m going to add it back to the deck.
In that list I played 1 Patron of the Orochi that was pretty brutal when connects but nowdays I don´t know if it would be good or bad here. What do you think?
Beside of that, perhaps could be a Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx playable here? With oran,the colossus and all the little cobras and the so,it can provide lot of mana at midrange to play seshiro, twice summons in the same turn or such things. what do you think?
Mystic Snake is such a huge tempo swing, I don't think I would cut it. With all that ramp, I'm surprised you're finding it difficult to hold up 4 mana even after building a decent board presence. Either way, if you really don't like it or find that it's warping your decisions mid-late game, maybe run Ambush Viper as some additional removal in its place.
Yeah, snake tribal is one of my pet projects. Like an earlier poster mentioned, I'm always checking out new sets for snake cards to see if any improvements exist. To me, Seshiro, Mystic Snake, Coiling Oracle, Lotus Cobra, and Sosuke's Summons are the basis for the deck and the reason to play it. I was actually pretty sad when they printed Thassa, as she is almost as good as Sheshiro, but, you know, for EVERY kind of creature. Bleh. So we need to make sure we're not just a bad merfolk deck now.
We've got more ramp, but short of just puking out our hand (which they can do via Aether Vial), we don't have much use for it. We've got better resiliency via Sosuke's Summons, so that's definitely nice in grindier games. We've got an uncounterable counter via Mystic Snake/Cavern of Souls, which is nice. And we've got style...
I like the idea of Chameleon Colossus. I always felt I needed a mana sink and never considered the changelings. Pretty clever. I think an early counterspell like Mana-Leak, at least in the board but possibly main, can help vs. Pyroclasm effects. I never considered splashing white, but that might open up some doors. I've really been wanting a low-cost blink-snake with flash so I can get more use out of coiling oracle and mystic snake, but perhaps white can help there. Is Restoration Angel worth it? Any other white blink stuff?
I'm not sure I love Noble Hierarch. The fixing is awesome, but surely with modern mana-bases we can get by without it? Although without her we have no one-drops (other than Sakura Tribe Scout, which I also don't love), so maybe it's correct.
I think there's some merit to considering Wasteland Viper and Winged Coatl as psuedo kill spells. I suspect we're still a few snake-centric cards away from being a real modern deck, but it's still fun to brew.
What about a RUG list for shared animosity? It could also run Domri Rade and Kessig Wolf Run. Bant lists, or probably even RUG lists between Cavern of Souls and Lotus Cobra, might be able to make use of Mirror entity, since most of the snakes have low power before Seshiro hits.
I feel like if Shared Animosity was worth it, we'd see it in goblins and other tribal lists. I might like Domri, though. Particularly with deathtouch snakes, since we haven't much by way of creature control.
Other tribal lists tend to not ramp as much as this one and don't usually see the cost being worth the benefit, but that could prove negligible here. Also take into account the fact that most of the other tribes probably aren't dropping as many tokens which power up animosity. Mirror entity might just be better though.
Mystic Snake is such a huge tempo swing, I don't think I would cut it. With all that ramp, I'm surprised you're finding it difficult to hold up 4 mana even after building a decent board presence. Either way, if you really don't like it or find that it's warping your decisions mid-late game, maybe run Ambush Viper as some additional removal in its place.
Also, nice work on this deck. It looks way fun.
Thanks! The deck is tons of fun to play. I really love Mystic Snake when you manage to blow people out with it, as it's pretty insane tempo. Holding up 4 mana would not be as much of a problem if there were more instant speed options when you leave it up. As it is now, the only real other option is activating township. I'm sure there could be another version that more embraces the tempo strategy by running some number of flash snakes, Remand and/or Mana Leak, but I'm not sure what that list would drop to make room for them, or whether the reduced number of snakes just dilutes the deck too much. I definitely will be trying it out soon though.
I'm not sure I love Noble Hierarch. The fixing is awesome, but surely with modern mana-bases we can get by without it? Although without her we have no one-drops (other than Sakura Tribe Scout, which I also don't love), so maybe it's correct.
The manadorks are incredibly necessary for the game plan. Having access to 3 mana on turn 2 is a huge part of what this deck needs to do to be even remotely competitive. Even with the dorks, it is still pretty slow to put any real pressure on the board. Noble Hierarch just happens to be the best mana dork in the format, and is therefore the first choice. Sakura Tribe Scout can usually provide the same 3 mana on turn 2 while being a snake, yet is MUCH worse in multiples, hence the two of.
I was thinking on using Oran-Rief, the Vastwood. It provides G mana which is better than township and all our menaces are green so free conters everywhere. the problem is that you can´t put counters when you want, only to green creatures entered this turn but with midgame and lategame summons and other stuff sounds pretty cool. perhaps 2 gavony and 2 oran?
On the other side I don´t like mystic snake at all here. It´s an overcosted snake and without blinking effects is not as useful as one could desire. of course you can play restoration angel and the such(blink effects) but it dilutes the deck a lot and make it slower in my oppinion. Instead I played the chameleon colossus and I´m very happy with them. Other good thing is that without mystic snake you don´t need all four breeding pool(1 is more than enough because cavern hierarh and 8 fetches) so you don´t loose much life and are more safe against blood moon, boil or such things.
I was thinking on using Oran-Rief, the Vastwood. It provides G mana which is better than township and all our menaces are green so free conters everywhere. the problem is that you can´t put counters when you want, only to green creatures entered this turn but with midgame and lategame summons and other stuff sounds pretty cool. perhaps 2 gavony and 2 oran?
On the other side I don´t like mystic snake at all here. It´s an overcosted snake and without blinking effects is not as useful as one could desire. of course you can play restoration angel and the such(blink effects) but it dilutes the deck a lot and make it slower in my oppinion. Instead I played the chameleon colossus and I´m very happy with them. Other good thing is that without mystic snake you don´t need all four breeding pool(1 is more than enough because cavern hierarh and 8 fetches) so you don´t loose much life and are more safe against blood moon, boil or such things.
My first iteration of the deck was only UG, and ran 3x Oran-Rief, the Vastwood. Since switching to bant with Gavony Township, I have never looked back. The coming in tapped is actually surprisingly relevant, and the fact that it can't pump your random mana dorks and earlier tokens that are lying around is pretty bad. However, I wouldn't be opposed to tossing one in in addition to the 3x township, as it helps make your tokens more relevant much faster.
I will definitely be trying out the Chameleon Colossus soon, as it certainly looks good on paper. It is immune to a lot of removal in the format, and is one of the few snakes who doesn't just get outclassed by pretty much any creature on the other side of the board.
Mirror Entity is another card mentioned in some earlier posts that I hadn't thought about while making the deck. I have played with the card in casual before, but does anyone have experience playing it in competitive formats? I'm a little skeptical about how fragile it looks, but untapping with it seems to be pretty strong.
Mire boa might be a strong enough inclusion on its own: certainly there are a lot of black decks running around. running urborg just to enable that is actually fixing those black decks and is a really bad idea unless you actually can abuse it more than that. By that same token, there is something to be said for river boa, as there will probably be a few more blue decks running around and G : regenerate is pretty good against non path removal spells that see lots of play.
The boas don't seem quite strong enough these days. They were in my original, u/g build, but even way back then they were outclassed by what other decks were dropping. Even casual decks. Creatures have only gotten better since then.
As for turn one ramp being important for the gameplan, I'm having trouble seeing it. Getting to 3 mana on turn 2 isn't important. For what? Ohran Viper? Sosuke's Summons? Does a deck like Melira Pod care about that? Affinity? Burn Heavy Zoo? Plain ol' burn? Splinter Twin? These decks are usually wrapping things up by turn 4 or 5. And even when you do get your turn one dork, your better turn 2 play is usually going to be Lotus Cobra or Coiling Oracle, stranding your mana unless you have the Path to Exile in hand. Sakura-Tribe Elder is probably better for this deck, and he at least synergizes with your Scout a bit. Getting to 6 mana on turn 4 seems like the more crucial threshold, as Seshiro is really the only 'explosive' thing the deck has going for it. I realize that turn one dorks help get to that threshold, but even the 6 mana on turn 4 plan seems underpowered to me. There is big mana in modern, and while this deck ramps a bit, it cannot compete with Tron or other hardcore ramp strategies.
Which means we're a grindy, midrange deck. That's our niche. Do the turn one dorks really help contribute to this?
As for removing Mystic Snake, I think it's an awful idea. Aside from a one for one removal spell that ramps the enemy, what other control elements have we got? We aren't fast enough to just ignore our opponent. With no disruption, we lose to just about every deck, except a few fair ones that get off to a slow start (as noted by the OP). Mystic Snake is our only weapon against combo. I think you need more counters, not less. Could adding Alchemist's Refuge help with the issue of holding mana up? If the opponent had to worry about you flashing in deathtouch snakes and such, maybe it would make the Mystic Snake 4-mana telegraph less obvious? Not sure on that, but could be worth a shot. Because we have so much potential card draw and resiliency, maybe leaning on Supreme Verdict and Sosuke's Summons could be worth it? Seems counter-intuitive in a tribal snake deck, but if we can recover faster and/or bigger with our extra lands and such...? Could that also enable Nemesis of Mortals?
Realistically he should only be unblockable without equipment
Guard 1: There goes a sword floating down the street!
Guard 2: Well, he's unblockable, so ignore it.
Eat your greens kids, omnath does, and it makes him strong....
Blood Funnel seems superbly bad though, since you would need to have a dude out every time you cast a non creature spell, and the deck probably casts more non creatures than creatures.
Realistically he should only be unblockable without equipment
Guard 1: There goes a sword floating down the street!
Guard 2: Well, he's unblockable, so ignore it.
Eat your greens kids, omnath does, and it makes him strong....
I think you have too little board control. 3 Decays will only get you this far against Zoo and its counterparts. You don't need 7 fatties, that's way overkill. I run a Borborygmos Enraged/Loam deck and I run 3x Borby/3x Rites and it's worked just fine (and I don't even run Imp or Salvage). Bloodghast is not worth it. Especially in a deck with so little removal/permission. He can't chump block and getting damage through will be pretty hard, not to mention he's too slow of a clock. Even if you do manage to get 4-6 dmg through do you really care? Your main game plan is to start reanimating fatties, not to attack the opponent's life total. Lingering Souls on the other hand seems like a nice fit. They can chump block any creature and work really well with Elesh.
I know that Pack Rat has only seen play in limited and some standard...but what are your feelings on them as a discard outlet? Or am I just dancing around the problem and should just include Lingering Souls instead? Also without Stinkweed Imp, what are you using to start your dredge? Are you just casting Loam against an empty graveyard?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Today we are going to be talking about a favorite deck of mine, a graveyard engine deck with one of the best (if not the best) lategames in the format. The deck is called Junk Haakon Loam, and the game is resource denial. The goal of the deck is to survive the early game with powerful and versatile control cards and use the Dredge mechanic to create a super powerful engine where you no longer rely on topdecks or cards in hand. As the game progresses, the graveyard engine restricts more and more of your opponent's resources while burying them under card advantage until you reanimate enough Knights from the graveyard to close out the game.
To begin, we are going to talk about the most important piece of the deck, the Dredge mechanic.
What is Dredge?
"As long as you have at least N cards in your library, if you would draw a card, you may instead put N cards from the top of your library into your graveyard and return this card from your graveyard to your hand."
Why is Dredge powerful?
Dredge breaks one of the fundamental rules of Magic, in that it lets you choose what you want to draw for your draw step. Not only that, but each time you dredge, your options increase because it puts cards into your graveyard in addition to putting the chosen card into your hand. This means that if your deck is built correctly, each time you dredge, you are getting access to more and more of your deck in 3-5 card intervals (rather than the 1 that normal drawing allows). Because of this, you get to see significantly more cards than your opponent, meaning that you reach an end game where you have access to your entire library MUCH faster than your opponent, and with terrifying consistency.
How does Dredge affect our play?
Playing with dredge is very different from playing without it. When playing this deck, you want to reach a point where you can replace as many draw steps as possible with dredge while hitting all your land drops. Once you start dredging, it is generally correct to keep dredging unless very specific circumstances arise (More about this later). This is because once you reach the midgame, putting 3-5 cards into your graveyard is generally better than drawing a card, even if the card you are putting in your hand is relatively worthless. If you happen to actually want the card you are dredging as well, it becomes very hard to lose.
When you dredge a card, you know exactly what will be going to your hand. This means two things:
Life from the Loam: The best card in the deck. It is the engine that makes the whole deck run, and it singlehandedly buries the
opponent in card advantage. It is a key component of two of the three main resource denial engines in the deck by combining with Tectonic Edge to attack your opponent's mana and with Raven's Crime to attack your opponent's hand. It allows you to hit your land
drops while dredging, and gives you access to any utility lands in your graveyard.
Raven's Crime: Combines with Life from the Loam to quickly destroy the opponent's hand. This prevents your control opponent from hoarding resources that might later be used to interrupt your graveyard engine, such as counterspells and exile removal. It also provides inevitability against combo opponents, as most combos in Modern require the player to have more than one spell in their hand. When you empty their hand and can cast Raven's Crime every turn for the rest of the game, your opponent can no longer win with their combo. This also prevents creature-based opponents from playing around sweepers. This is important, as you can force your opponent to overextend, and then let your graveyard engines crush any attempts to rebuild. Also can discard Haakon in a pinch.
Haakon, Stromgald Scourge: This card provides inevitability against creature-based decks. It is one of the pieces of the third resource denial engine, which attacks your opponent's creatures. He combines with both Knight of the Reliquary and Nameless Inversion to provide endless card advantage in the late game, only limited by your mana. This is why hitting your land drops for the entire game is important.
Knight of the Reliquary: Both a solid card in the early game, and a late game finisher that generally goes over the top of anything your opponent is doing when most of your deck is in the graveyard. Can also tutor out specific lands in matchups where they are
especially important, such as Ghost Quarter against Tron or Vault of the Archangel against any deck that tries to burn you out.
Nameless Inversion: Combines with Haakon to destroy any creature-based strategy when active, while still being a "reasonable" piece of removal in the early game. When Haakon is in play, you can cast Nameless Inversion from your graveyard (since it is a Knight), and when it resolves, it is placed back into your graveyard, where you can cast it again. Rinse and repeat.
Stinkweed Imp: Dredge 5 is a LOT. Stinkweed Imp also has the added benefit of being a recurrable flyer with deathtouch, which many midrange decks that rely on a few creatures (Tarmogoyf decks) actually have a lot of trouble beating. When combined with a few spirit tokens, attacking profitably becomes very difficult for your opponent.
Darkblast: While dead in some matchups, this card is INCREDIBLY powerful against a lot of the field. X/1s are very popular in Modern, and there are many decks where drawing a -1/-1 removal every turn will win the game on its own. This card does exactly that, and even advances our gameplan while stopping our Affinity, Infect, Pod, Delver, and Tempo Twin opponents in their tracks.
Lingering Souls: This card does everything. It pressures control and combo opponents while stalling against creature strategies. It gives us a very large amount of time, while costing no cards when you dredge it. Being able to incidentally put a few spirits on the field every couple times we dredge is a huge reason why we don't just get run over by the more aggressive decks in the format.
Smallpox: This card provides us with a way to discard Haakon or dredge cards while severely disrupting our opponent. Life from the Loam lets us easily recover from this, however it can be risky when you do not have a Life from the Loam in your hand.
Abrupt Decay: Lets us deal with graveyard hate, Deceiver Exarch, Blood Moon, and other problematic permanents. This is the perfect example of a hyper efficient card that lets us survive to the point where our graveyard engine can start taking over. In most matchups, this is the most precious card to hold in your hand while you are in dredge mode. Think carefully of what your opponent could have 5-10 turns down the line before using it.
Liliana of the Veil: Another way to enable Haakon/dredge, while providing removal, hand pressure, and just being an overall strong card. Very powerful, and even more powerful in this deck.
Damnation: Against most creature decks, this is the turning point. Casting this is what lets you instantly catch up against Affinity, Pod, Merfolk, Zoo, BGx, etc. Raven's Crime forces your opponent to play into this, while the graveyard engine is very good at stopping any attempt from your opponent to recover.
Maelstrom Pulse: More versatile than Abrupt Decay, but also more expensive and much worse at dealing with Deceiver Exarch. However, it has the benefit of being able to deal with larger planeswalkers such as Chandra, Pyromaster and Karn Liberated. In certain metas, it is a reasonable maindeck inclusion over some number of Abrupt Decay.
Courser of Kruphix: Provides a large amount of utility by letting you see the top card of your deck. This makes dredge decisions much easier while giving you access to non-graveyard cards even when you are in full dredge mode. The incidental lifegain and card advantage created by this card is also very relevant, and it is a very reasonable inclusion in the deck.
Tectonic Edge: This is our main gameplan in quite a few matchups. Life from the Loam+Tectonic Edge is a combination that a lot of decks in the format actually just can't beat, such as UWR Control, Esper Control, Mono U Tron, and Scapeshift. Is also very good at permanently shutting down BGx's manlands.
Ghost Quarter: This is our main gameplan in a few other matchups. Life from the Loam+Ghost Quarter is nearly impossible for GR Tron to beat, and is also very good against Affinity. Running your opponent out of basics is a very real thing that comes up in certain matchups, turning this into a straight Strip Mine lock.
Vault of the Archangel: This is how we stabilize against decks with a lot of reach in the form of burn. Against decks like UWR, Delver, and other similar stategies, their only hope in the matchup is to burn us out, so having a land that completely puts that out of reach in one activation is very powerful. Also works very well at stopping Tarmogoyfs and other large threats when combined with a few spirit tokens.
Gavony Township: Another option in the Vault of the Archangel slot, this allows for a few spirit tokens to quickly get out of hand. I feel like Vault of the Archangel is generally better, but Gavony Township is much better at stealing games through opposing graveyard hate.
Horizon Canopy: This land provides a lot of utility when combined with Life from the Loam. It combines with dredge cards to be able to dredge multiple times in a turn, as well as being able to get access to dredge cards put into your graveyard on your draw step. Can also dig a little deeper towards a non-graveyard card if it is your only out.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth: We play a lot of colorless lands, and we consistently want access to lots of black mana for Raven's Crime, Nameless Inversion, Smallpox, and Liliana of the Veil. This provides that mana while allowing us to use Horizon Canopy and Fetchlands without paying life.
Stirring Wildwood: The best manland we have access to. Plays defense very well against opposing Restoration Angels, Insectile Aberrations, Vault Skirges, etc, but is a little underwhelming on offense. The fact that it costs white to activate forces us to play a few more white sources than we might otherwise like to.
Treetop Village: Another option in the manland slot, is much better at pressuring opposing planeswalkers (especially ones that make tokens) while still leaving you mana to do other things. However, it is very vulnerable to Lightning Bolt so it is not a good option in certain metas.
Bojuka Bog: A good utility land to have access to in certain metas, this works very well with Knight of the Reliquary to interrupt Past in Flames, Unburial Rites, Snapcaster Mage, Living End, and Reveillark among others. Not always relevant, but can be very good when it is.
Verdant Catacombs/Marsh Flats/Windswept Heath: Fetchlands are VERY important to this deck. They consistently provide you with targets for Life from the Loam while giving you access to all of your colors of mana. Having an extra land in the graveyard to get back with Life from the Loam can often change an entire game by letting you make more land drops through counter magic, or by providing more lands to pitch to Raven's Crime.
Leyline of Sanctity: Burn is a very hard matchup, and this gives you a fighting chance. It is also reasonable against Scapeshift, Gifts Ungiven, and any decks that rely on burning you out. Against Jund (with red), Leyline is also good at stopping their Thoughtseizes and player-targeting hate (such as Rakdos Charm, Jund Charm, and Slaughter Games). Leylines are generally very good sideboard choices in this deck because you have a very low chance of drawing them later in the game because of dredge.
Leyline of the Void: Good against Living End, Storm, Assault Loam, Gifts Ungiven, and various other decks which can be tough matchups.
Damping Matrix: While this shuts off your Knight of the Reliquary's activated ability, it is the best piece of hate you have access to against Pod. Most importantly it shuts off their Birthing Pod and Scavenging Ooze, but it also stops any combo they might have in addition to random other utility creatures. Can also act as a (kind of) extra copy of Stony Silence against Affinity and Tron.
Stony Silence: Our game 1 against Affinity is actually pretty favorable, so this is mostly here because it is good against Tron and Ad Nauseum, but it also happens to really lock up postboard games against Affinity as well.
Torpor Orb: This provides extra answers to Twin, while also being reasonable in other matchups like UB Fae and Pod.
Unravel the AEther/Deglamer: These provide an out to Keranos, God of Storms and Wurmcoil Engine (cards we can otherwise have trouble with). It also gives us extra ways to deal with opposing Blood Moons and Batterskulls, while still being a good catchall against Affinity.
Utter End: Games 2 and 3 tend to slow down a lot, so having an answer to any problematic permanent your opponent might have is pretty awesome. You tend to hold onto non-graveyard cards for as long as possible to be able to answer situations your graveyard engine can't, and this card is very good at answering any situation that arises.
Tectonic Edge/Ghost Quarter: One of these tends to be at least marginally better than the other in each matchup, so being able to replace one with the other has been very valuable. This also provides a lot of flexibility with your land count between games, which lets you bring in extra Raven's Crime fodder if you have too many dead cards, or gives you a higher chance of hitting all your land drops against counter-heavy decks.
Abrupt Decay/Damnation/Darkblast: In matchups where these are good, you generally want more copies of them, so being able to board them in is good.
Thoughtseize: You need your non-graveyard cards to be guaranteed to stop a problem. They need to be able to survive you through the early game, but they also need to be able to answer things that you have trouble with later in the game. While Thoughtseize helps you get through the early game, it means you have one less answer later that something like an Abrupt Decay is guaranteed to hit.
Pack Rat/Tarmogoyf/other finishers: Your non-graveyard cards need to fill holes that your graveyard-based cards can't. Finishers are pretty well covered by Haakon, Knight of the Reliquary, and Lingering Souls, and any non-graveyard based finishers generally aren't worth the slot, no matter how much they synergize with Life from the Loam.
Crib Swap: While this card can be very good in specific circumstances, the fact that it gives your opponent a 1/1 is very relevant. The 1/1 gets in the way of our edict-based removal like Liliana of the Veil and Smallpox, and puts a nonzero amount of pressure on us. The incidental damage we take off the 1/1 combined with the fact that this really doesn't hit much that Nameless Inversion does not makes this card just a little below the cut. Could be reasonable in very specific metas though.
Path to Exile: The best removal in white, but not for white decks playing Smallpox. One of your main plans is to deny your opponent of lands, and Path hurts that plan quite a bit.
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Marsh Flats
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Godless Shrine
1 Temple Garden
1 Stirring Wildwood
2 Tectonic Edge
1 Ghost Quarter
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Vault of the Archangel
2 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Plains
3 Haakon, Stromgald Scourge
3 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Stinkweed Imp
Planeswalkers (3):
3 Liliana of the Veil
Instants (9):
2 Darkblast
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Nameless Inversion
Sorceries (15):
4 Life from the Loam
3 Raven's Crime
3 Smallpox
4 Lingering Souls
2 Damnation
2 Leyline of the Void
2 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Stony Silence
1 Damping Matrix
1 Darkblast
1 Damnation
1 Torpor Orb
1 Unravel the AEther
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Tectonic Edge
1 Ghost Quarter
There are quite a few interactions and plays that aren't immediately obvious to players who have not played with all the cards in the deck before. Below is a list of some of the more common ones to consider when playing the deck.
You can use Darkblast to take out an opposing X/2 by casting it on your upkeep targeting that creature, and then dredging it for your draw step. You can then cast it again on your main phase targeting the same creature to give it a total of -2/-2. This is most commonly used against opposing Scavenging Oozes in early turns when they are tapped out.
You can use Horizon Canopy to save cards with dredge against graveyard hate. In response to an exile effect, if you activate Horizon Canopy, you replace its draw with dredging the card being exiled. This can be done from your library with Knight of the Reliquary. This is most useful against Surgical Extractions because it counters the effect, but it is also useful against things like Relic of Progenitus.
If you hold up 2 mana with a Haakon in play and a Nameless Inversion in the graveyard, you can protect him from exile effects such as Path to Exile by killing him in response. This is most relevant that have a lot of trouble dealing with Haakon, such as UWR or Esper control.
You can use Life from the Loam as a discard outlet for Haakon. This is done by using Loam to return lands over the course of a few turns until you have a large enough hand to discard him to hand size. This is the most relevant in situations where you boarded out Raven's Crimes but have a Haakon stuck in your hand.
Stinkweed Imp's ability is not deathtouch. It is a triggered ability, and uses the stack. This means that if an opposing creature would take lethal damage from the Imp and tries to regenerate, they will have to regenerate twice to save it. This comes up most frequently against Affinity opponents using Welding Jar on an X/1, but it can also come up if you activate Vault of the Archangel against an opposing Thrun, the Last Troll.
Dredge is a replacement effect. This means that in order to exile a card with dredge, your opponent must do it on your upkeep or in response to the effect that is causing you to draw the card. Once you choose to dredge, it is too late for your opponent to respond.
Generally your early game involves setting up your land drops and your dredge engine. You want about 2-3 lands in play/hand before dredging. Once you have access to these lands, you want to start putting cards with dredge into your graveyard and dredging as many draw steps as possible. Having a Life from the Loam is ideal here, but if you just have a Darkblast or Stinkweed Imp, you will find the Loam much faster by dredging than with regular draws.
Your priority at this point is to find the cards that will restrict your opponent's most important resource. Against creature decks, this means you want to find Haakon/Inversion. Against control/combo decks, you want to determine whether your opponent will be hurt more if you restrict their mana or their hand. Life from the Loam+Tectonic Edge will permanently keep your opponent to no more than 4 mana, while Life from the Loam+Raven's Crime will keep your opponent hellbent. Knowing your opponent's deck is very important, as you need to know what resource to attack. For example, Ad Nauseum needs exactly 6 mana and 2 cards in hand to go off. It can also turn a card in hand into one mana using Simian Spirit Guide. However, they need to also have 3 Simian Spirit Guides left in their deck after drawing it to win if they go off with exactly 6 mana. This knowledge can be integral to attacking the correct resource in each situation.
After your graveyard engine starts rolling, keep thinking of every combination of cards you could lose to, and fight over the resources that will prevent the greatest amount of those from winning. You also need to keep in mind how your actions this turn will affect your next turn. Figure out how many cards they will have left in hand next turn if you cast Life from the Loam this turn and then use those lands to Raven's Crime them next turn. Figure out how many creatures you will be able to kill with Nameless Inversion if you play Haakon this turn, and how likely he is to survive until next turn based on the cards in your opponent's hand. If you can afford to wait a turn, it might be correct to use this turn to empty their hand first. Figure out how many turns you have until you can activate Vault of the Archangel to put yourself out of burn range if you take this attack.
Keep hitting land drops. I know I bring this up a lot, but it is one of the most important things to do when playing the deck. The late game engine is only limited by your mana, so having access to lots of it closes out games significantly faster. Against decks with copious amounts of countermagic, this might mean holding an extra land in your hand rather than pitching it to Raven's Crime so you have a guaranteed land drop for the next turn instead of relying on resolving a Life from the Loam. This obviously can change if you are playing a matchup where attacking their hand is the most important resource to attack, such as Ad Nauseum or Storm. Use your judgment.
Hold onto non-graveyard cards for as long as possible, and use your least valuable resource to take care of a given threat. Your most valuable resource varies between matchups, but generally in creature matchups it is Damnation, while against Twin or Blood Moon decks it becomes Abrupt Decay. Maelstrom Pulse becomes more valuable against decks with planeswalkers, etc. I have lost plenty of games against Pod where I incorrectly valued an Abrupt Decay higher than a Nameless Inversion, and then later lost to an unanswered Restoration Angel when I could have used the Nameless Inversion with a Darkblast to kill it. Because being in dredge mode prevents you from drawing non-graveyard cards, you need to ration out any non-graveyard cards you have access to because you generally will not be getting more.
Know what you are trying to hit when choosing to dredge. There are situations that your graveyard engine can't answer, and knowing what those are in each matchup is key. Figure out what you are trying to accomplish with each dredge before you do it, because there are times where no combination of dredged cards will save you, but a topdecked Damnation might.
For each matchup, I will go over some key things to know. I will break each matchup into the following:
1. How to approach the matchup, general thoughts about it, and important things to keep in mind when playing the matchup.
2. Most important cards to look for in the matchup, listed in order of importance. This is meant to help with mulligan decisions.
3. Most important resource to attack. When given the option, generally focus on limiting your opponent on this resource.
4. Graveyard engine limitations. These are cards and situations that your graveyard engine will have trouble interacting with, so try to hold non-graveyard answers to them whenever possible.
5. Sideboarding advice. I will not give numbers because lists may vary, but this will include cards that I look to first to take out, and cards that I want to bring in.
6. Hate to expect in games 2 and 3. This includes what graveyard hate to expect, and also what other hate to expect such as Blood Moon, Leyline of Sanctity, etc.
If you feel that I'm missing an important matchup or that some of the information for a matchup doesn't match your experiences, let us know in the thread! I have only listed matchups that I have played against enough to feel confident about how to play the matchup, and I have not played against every deck in the format.
Very Good:
1. Infect is our best matchup. We have so many cards that pretty much beat the deck singlehandedly, and all of our resource denial plans are very relevant against them. Just having a Darkblast in our opening hand pretty much puts the game away on its own, and Smallpox is nearly as good. Combine this with the blocking potential of Lingering Souls, and you have a very good matchup.
2. Darkblast, Smallpox, Liliana of the Veil, Lingering Souls
3. Creatures, followed by cards in hand.
4. Nothing. Our graveyard engine deals with everything they have.
5.
-Damnation
-Tectonic Edge
+Darkblast
+Ghost Quarter
6. No graveyard hate, but Wild Defiance and Spellskite can be problematic. Make sure to save Abrupt Decays if possible.
1. Scapeshift is another fantastic matchup. In game one, the matchup is VERY mulligan dependant. Finding Life from the Loam+Tectonic Edge generally ends the game because your opponent will not be able to keep above 4-5 lands. There is no rush, so make sure to play safe until you are confident either your opponent no longer has enough Mountains in their deck or there are no combination of draws to let them win. However, if you keep a hand with lots of removal, game one is very losable.
2. Life from the Loam, Tectonic Edge, Raven's Crime, Liliana of the Veil
3. Lands, followed by cards in hand.
4. Nothing. Our graveyard engine deals with their main plan of attack.
5.
-Darkblast
-Nameless Inversion
-Lingering Souls
-Ghost Quarter
+Tectonic Edge
+Damnation
+Leyline of Sanctity
+Unravel the AEther
+Utter End
6. Watch out for Obstinate Baloths. Do not Raven's Crime your opponent unless you have a way to deal with one. Some lists pack up to 3-4 in the board. Graveyard hate is not super common, but don't be surprised by 1-2 Grafdigger's Cage or Relic of Progenitus.
1. Another very good matchup. Everything in their deck dies to Darkblast, so their only plan quickly becomes burning you out. In certain builds this is very reasonable, but emptying their hand and finding a Vault of the Archangel generally ends the game on the spot. Try to avoid as much incidental damage as possible.
2. Darkblast, Life from the Loam, Abrupt Decay, Raven's Crime
3. Creatures (and manlands), followed by cards in hand.
4. Blood Moon and Keranos.
5.
-Nameless Inversion
-Haakon
-Liliana of the Veil
+Darkblast
+Unravel the AEther
+Abrupt Decay
6. Generally their graveyard hate is 1-2 Relic of Progenitus, but some don't even play that. Make sure to play around Blood Moon in games 2 and 3, and watch out for Keranos/Batterskull.
Good:
1. This matchup can go both ways, but is generally favorable. Darkblast and Lingering Souls are both very potent tools against them, and resolving a Damnation when your opponent is hellbent usually ends the game. Etched Champion with Cranial Plating can certainly be a problem, and they can also just close games quickly or draw burn-heavy hands. If your opponent has a slow hand or a Signal Pest/Steel Overseer hand, you are in good shape.
2. Damnation, Darkblast, Abrupt Decay, Lingering Souls
3. Creatures, followed by manlands.
4. Etched Champion and Cranial Plating
5.
-Raven's Crime
-Smallpox
-Liliana of the Veil
-Haakon
-Tectonic Edge
+Ghost Quarter
+Darkblast
+Damnation
+Stony Silence
+Damping Matrix
+Abrupt Decay
+Unravel the AEther
6. Affinity opponents usually have Grafdigger's Cage as their graveyard hate of choice, but you occasionally see Relic of Progenitus. Watch out for Spellskite in games 2 and 3, and play around Blood Moon if you can afford to.
1. Your opponent's only hope is that you kept a removal-heavy hand or to burn you out. They have a hard time beating Life from the Loam+Tectonic Edge, and they don't play a lot of threats to aggro you out with. Keep your life total high by avoiding shocking yourself with lands, and your priority is on assembling Loam+Tectonic Edge.
2. Life from the Loam, Tectonic Edge, Raven's Crime, Liliana of the Veil
3. Lands first, hand second.
4. Ajani Vengeant and Keranos
5.
-Nameless Inversion
-Damnation
+Utter End
+Tectonic Edge
+Unravel the AEther
+Leyline of Sanctity
6. UWR Control opponents usually have some combination of Leyline of Sanctity, Relic of Progenitus, and Grafdigger's Cage. Keep in mind that Cage does not stop us from attacking their lands.
1. Similar to UWR Control, only without the option of burning us out. In exchange, they generally play more planeswalkers, which we can have trouble dealing with. They generally have a high Spell Snare count, so they have a real chance of being able to counter enough Life from the Loams to take us out of the game. However, resolving a Loam on 2+ lands is often enough in itself to put us in a commanding position.
2. Life from the Loam, Tectonic Edge, Raven's Crime, Lingering Souls
3. Lands first, hand second.
4. Elspeth, Knight Errant and other planeswalkers
5.
-Nameless Inversion
-Damnation
-Darkblast
+Utter End
+Tectonic Edge
+Unravel the AEther
6. Relic of Progenitus or Surgical Extraction/Extirpate, depending on whether or not they are playing Mystical Teachings.
1. This is the easiest of the BGx matchups. They rely on single threats such as Tarmogoyf and Scavenging Ooze, and are very susceptible to spirit tokens chumping them until our engine takes over. Killing Scavenging Oozes is the #1 priority, and always try to keep a way to answer one in your hand. Use Tectonic Edge to keep their green sources low so that that can't hurt your graveyard too much when they play one. They also don't have great ways to deal with a Stinkweed Imp, and it effectively walls all their aggression.
2. Smallpox, Stinkweed Imp, Lingering Souls, Abrupt Decay, Damnation
3. Creatures, followed by lands.
4. Early Tarmogoyfs
5.
-Nameless Inversion
-Darkblast
-Raven's Crime
+Damnation
+Abrupt Decay
6. Most lists don't feel the need for graveyard hate other than Scavenging Ooze, but a few also play Grafdigger's Cage. I wouldn't be surprised by an Obstinate Baloth, but they are not super common.
1. The addition of Lingering Souls to BG Rock comes at the cost of some number of removal spells and Courser of Kruphix. Both sides generally play lots of spirit tokens, and they all end up trading or chump blocking threats on the other side of the table. Our Darkblasts mean that we generally come out ahead on these spirit-standoffs, and them cutting removal means that our Stinkweed Imps are more likely to stick to wall opposing Tarmogoyfs. Smallpox is slightly worse here than against straight GB, but it is still very good.
2. Lingering Souls, Stinkweed Imp, Damnation, Life from the Loam
3. Creatures, followed by lands.
4. Early Tarmogoyfs
5.
-Nameless Inversion
-Raven's Crime
+Damnation
+Abrupt Decay
6. Junk lists generally play less Obstinate Baloth in favor of white's sideboard options, most of which are not relevant against us. They still bring in Grafdigger's Cage though.
1. This is a pretty good matchup. They end up tapping out a lot more and play less countermagic, which means you get more opportunities to resolve threats without getting comboed. Most lists recently have been cutting down on Scavenging Oozes as well, which means that our graveyard is much safer. Smallpox is close to at its best here. Keep in mind that they cannot combo with one card in hand (unless they have a piece in play), so emptying their hand is the priority.
2. Smallpox, Abrupt Decay, Life from the Loam, Raven's Crime
3. Cards in hand, followed by creatures.
4. Early Tarmogoyfs, early Deceiver Exarchs, Keranos
5.
-Damnation
-Darkblast
-Haakon
+Abrupt Decay
+Torpor Orb
+Utter End
6. Most lists play Scavenging Ooze with the occasional Grafdigger's Cage. Expect Keranos from the board.
1. This is another deck that has the potential to lock us out of Life from the Loam with countermagic, so make sure to keep hands with lots of land. If you assemble Life from the Loam+Tectonic Edge, it becomes nearly impossible for you to lose since all their threatening spells cost significantly more than 4. Try to avoid Ghost Quartering their Tron pieces, especially if they don't have blue mana yet. Tectonic Edge is the priority here.
2. Life from the Loam, Tectonic Edge, Raven's Crime
3. Lands, followed by cards in hand.
4. Some of the late game threats are tough to answer, such as Sundering Titan, and to a lesser extent Wurmcoil Engine.
5.
-Nameless Inversion
-Darkblast
+Tectonic Edge
+Stony Silence
+Damping Matrix
+Unravel the AEther
6. Some lists don't play graveyard hate, some play Relic of Progenitus. It's generally not a big factor.
1. Fish generally do poorly against decks with lots of removal and sweepers, both of which we have. The easiest way for you to lose this matchup is to get cut off of colors early with a couple Spreading Seas, or to get out tempoed with an AEther Vial. Always Abrupt Decay the Vial if you can, as it is very easy for us to answer them simply playing a lord every turn. Smallpox also becomes insane here when they don't have an active Vial. Darkblast is surprisingly relevant at killing Cursecatchers, Silvergill Adepts, and Master of Waves, and even kills lords if you play it on your upkeep and dredge.
2. Damnation, Smallpox, Abrupt Decay, Darkblast
3. Creatures, followed by cards in hand.
4. Thassa is the only card we can't answer, but a large board is generally tough as well.
5.
-Raven's Crime
-Lingering Souls
-Knight of the Reliquary
-Tectonic Edge
+Ghost Quarter
+Abrupt Decay
+Damnation
+Darkblast
6. Watch out for Relic of Progenitus, but many lists don't even play that. Spellskite usually comes in as well, and can be tough to answer with certain hands.
1. If you can answer their Seismic Assault and find a Life from the Loam, it becomes very hard to lose. They are a lot less focused and can have trouble with our Lingering Souls and Knight of the Reliquarys. Also, when you answer one of their Assaults, they have to start regular drawing to find another one, which is very slow. Keeping them low on lands cuts off Flame Jab as a reasonable win condition. Always look for openings to cut them off of green if they have Loam active. Keep track of what lands they have in hand when Loaming. Postboard, they generally can't beat either type of Leyline, so mull to either one of those or a Life from the Loam and you will be in good shape.
2. Abrupt Decay, Life from the Loam, Tectonic Edge, Lingering Souls.
3. Lands (especially manlands), followed by cards in hand.
4. Seismic Assault. Make sure you have an answer to this before you go into full dredge mode.
5.
-Nameless Inversion
-Darkblast
-Smallpox
-Ghost Quarter
+Tectonic Edge
+Leyline of the Void
+Leyline of Sanctity
+Abrupt Decay
+Unravel the AEther
+Utter End
6. They generally don't play much graveyard hate, but watch out for Jund Charm/Rakdos Charm. Both of these are conveniently blocked by Leyline of Sanctity. Also be careful not to overextend into Anger of the Gods.
1. Game 1 they actually just can't beat the card Life from the Loam. Their only hope is to play an Ensnaring Bridge and have you not answer it until you mill yourself out. Games 2 and 3 are much more interesting because they bring in a lot of Surgical Extractions. You will probably only be able to cast Life from the Loam 1-2 times, so try to get as many lands out of it as possible before opening it up to hate. If you happen to have a Horizon Canopy, you can use that to protect it. Try to put pressure on them with spirit tokens, and always look for a way to answer Ensnaring Bridge. Liliana of the Veil is another answer to Bridge by forcing them to sacrifice either the Bridge or the rest of their permanents.
2. Life from the Loam, Abrupt Decay, Liliana of the Veil, Lingering Souls
3. None of the engines really apply here, and don't go full dredge mode unless you have an out to Bridge.
4. Ensnaring Bridge. Rack effects can be dealt with by casting Life from the Loam.
5.
-Nameless Inversion
-Damnation
-Darkblast
+Abrupt Decay
+Leyline of Sanctity
+Unravel the AEther
+Utter End
6. They usually bring in 4 Surgical Extractions, so it is safe to assume they have it. Spellskite also comes in to protect their Bridges.
1. If we have a Smallpox or a Liliana of the Veil, this matchup is very good, otherwise it can be tough. Not knowing to mulligan to those in game 1 can lead to some losses, but getting them hellbent then making them sacrifice their big guy is usually game. Smallpox is 100% our best card here, as they don't play many lands, and forcing them to sacrifice their big dude AND discard an Aura from their hand is very strong.
2. Smallpox, Liliana of the Veil, Abrupt Decay, Damnation
3. Cards in hand, then creatures.
4. Our graveyard engine doesn't answer much of anything they are doing, so don't expect to be dredging a lot here.
5.
-Darkblast
-Nameless Inversion
-Tectonic Edge
+Ghost Quarter
+Unravel the AEther
+Abrupt Decay
6. This is one of the very few decks that packs straight up Rest in Peace. Luckily, our graveyard isn't actually that relevant in this matchup. They also always have quite a few Leyline of Sanctity that come in, which shuts off Liliana of the Veil's sacrifice, but not Smallpox.
1. All the Pod variants are pretty similar from our perspective, but Kiki Pod has the most vulnerable manabase of the three. They are slightly worse against Smallpox and Tectonic Edge, and Damnation is more likely to actually clear their board. Darkblast is very good at slowing them down by killing every mana dork they play while digging to Haakon/Inversion, which they actually can't beat. Save removal for Scavenging Ooze when possible, and learn the creature combinations that can kill you with a Pod in play. Keep their green sources low whenever possible, as that means less Ooze activations when they find one. Nameless Inversion is consistently more valuable than Abrupt Decay here, as it can kill Kiki-Jiki, and can occasionally team up with Darkblast to take out Restoration Angels.
2. Darkblast, Damnation, Nameless Inversion, Haakon
3. Creatures, followed by lands.
4. Our graveyard engine can't answer a Pod, but Haakon/Inversion makes a Pod pretty useless. Keep in mind that you can kill a creature with an ETB effect before they get a chance to Pod it.
5.
-Raven's Crime
-Liliana of the Veil
-Smallpox
-Ghost Quarter
+Darkblast
+Damnation
+Damping Matrix
+Stony Silence
+Torpor Orb
6. Pretty much just Scavenging Ooze. They will usually board in extra copies of this, so be prepared to beat multiples. Also Spellskite can drastically reduce the value of your Darkblast. Damping Matrix shuts down both of these and more.
1. Less threats than Melira Pod means it generally comes out of the gates a little slower. Thoughtseize can occasionally pick off a crucial Damnation or Abrupt Decay that would have answered a Scavenging Ooze, but it is overall weaker than just more creatures in this matchup. Darkblast is better against this version than any other flavor of Pod. They are much less susceptible to attacking their mana than Kiki Pod, but we always have to take out their Gavony Townships as soon as possible, as that and an unanswered Scavenging Ooze are the easiest ways for them to run away with a game. Don't overextend with Lingering Souls into an Orzhov Pontiff.
2. Darkblast, Damnation, Nameless Inversion, Haakon
3. Creatures, followed by Gavony Township, followed by cards in hand.
4. Our engine can't answer a Pod, but again Haakon/Inversion makes their Pod pretty much irrelevant.
5.
-Raven's Crime
-Liliana of the Veil
-Smallpox
-Tectonic Edge
+Ghost Quarter
+Damnation
+Darkblast
+Damping Matrix
6. Scavenging Ooze is the only graveyard hate they play, but Spellskite can get in the way of Darkblast. Also try to avoid getting your Life from the Loam or Darkblast taken by a Sin Collector.
Even:
1. The fact that they play more threats makes this matchup slightly worse than against UWR hard control. However, the game plan is generally the same. Keep them low on mana to limit their options and potentially keep them off Cryptic Command mana. Lingering Souls and Darkblast match up well against their Vendilion Cliques and Snapcaster Mages, so Restoration Angel and burn are generally the biggest concerns. Try to avoid incidental damage when you can afford to, and get them hellbent quickly so your Stinkweed Imps can stick.
2. Life from the Loam, Tectonic Edge, Raven's Crime, Lingering Souls
3. Lands, followed by cards in hand.
4. Our engine can't answer a Keranos or Ajani Vengeant (although you can pressure Ajani with spirits).
5.
-Nameless Inversion
-Abrupt Decay
-Ghost Quarter
+Leyline of Sanctity
+Tectonic Edge
+Utter End
6. The most common graveyard hate they play are Relic of Progenitus and Rest in Peace, but many lists don't play any. Make sure to play around Anger of the Gods whenever possible.
1. This matchup is harder than most other UWx control variants because they play more planeswalkers, which we can have trouble pressuring through sweepers. Try to keep their land count low to blank their Sphinx's Revelations, and try to always keep around 2-3 spirit tokens on the table to be able to pressure a planeswalker without getting blown out by a sweeper. They have much more trouble dealing with a Liliana of the Veil than control variants with red, so value her higher than you would normally. This is an example of a matchup where Maelstrom Pulse is much more valuable than usual.
2. Life from the Loam, Tectonic Edge, Lingering Souls, Raven's Crime, Liliana of the Veil
3. Cards in hand, followed by lands.
4. Our engine can't answer an Elspeth, Knight-Errant or Gideon Jura.
5.
-Nameless Inversion
-Darkblast
-Damnation
+Utter End
+Tectonic Edge
+Unravel the AEther
+Abrupt Decay
6. They generally play Rest in Peace and/or Leyline of Sanctity, both of which can cause problems for us.
1. This matchup is a race to get them hellbent before they reach 6 mana. Aggresively use Abrupt Decays on Pentad Prisms, Lotus Blooms, and Phyrexian Unlifes, but keep in mind that they can go off at instant speed, so Decaying a Lotus Bloom on their upkeep doesn't do much if they have 6 mana and the combo in hand. Learn how the deck works and how much mana they can generate at any given time, and how many cards that takes. Liliana of the Veil and Raven's Crime are both the priority. In games 2 and 3, Stony Silence keeps their mana fair, which means that Tectonic Edge can prevent them from going off. Keep in mind that they can cast an Ad Nauseum for value in response to a Raven's Crime when they are hellbent, which can allow them to go off the following turn. This means that keeping their life total low limits their options quite a bit. Using Loam to hold a bunch of lands in hand can prevent them from going off with Lightning Storm, but they usually have Laboratory Maniac games 2 and 3 anyway.
2. Raven's Crime, Liliana of the Veil, Life from the Loam, Abrupt Decay
3. Cards in hand before everything. Lands in games 2 and 3.
4. Our engine can't answer their artifact mana and Phyrexian Unlife.
5.
-Darkblast
-Nameless Inversion
-Ghost Quarter
-Damnation
+Stony Silence
+Abrupt Decay
+Unravel the AEther
+Leyline of Sanctity
+Tectonic Edge
6. They play 3-4 Leyline of Sanctity in the board, but usually dont bother with graveyard hate. Liliana of the Veil gets around the Leyline, and when combined with a Stony Silence can often be enough to win the game.
1. This is a slightly worse matchup than Tarmo-Twin, mostly because of Blood Moon in games 2 and 3. They also play more countermagic and combo pieces, and don't get beat as badly by Smallpox. Tempo Twin variants are much better for us, because Darkblast almost singlehandedly beats their entire tempo plan because all their aggressive creatures are X/1. Lingering Souls is also very good against that. Hands without Abrupt Decay are vulnerable to just losing on turn 4, but they don't always have the Exarch/Twin, and it is much easier for us to answer a Pestermite. It is a race to empty their hand while holding up Abrupt Decay.
2. Abrupt Decay, Darkblast, Life from the Loam, Raven's Crime
3. Cards in hand, then creatures and lands
4. Our engine can't answer a Keranos or a Blood Moon.
5.
-Stinkweed Imp
-Knight of the Reliquary
-Haakon
-Ghost Quarter
+Darkblast
+Abrupt Decay
+Unravel the AEther
+Tectonic Edge
6. Depending on how game 1 went, the opponent may or may not side out the combo. The most important piece of hate that comes in is Blood Moon, so make sure to play around it at all times. Some lists also play Relic of Progenitus, but not all.
1. This matchup is very dependant on how much removal we have. Big Zoo variants are much better for us because they play less burn, and they are much more vulnerable to Darkblast followed by Smallpox. Damnation is very important here, and Haakon/Inversion does a good job of locking up the game. Lingering Souls tokens are good for chumping most of their guys, especially when you have removal for the one they use Ghor-Clan Rampager on.
2. Damnation, Smallpox, Haakon, Nameless Inversion
3. Creatures, then cards in hand
4. Blood Moon
5.
-Raven's Crime
-Lingering Souls
-Darkblast
+Damnation
+Abrupt Decay
+Leyline of Sanctity
6. Most lists nowadays sideboard 2-3 Blood Moons and 0-1 Grafdigger's Cage, so make sure to play around those.
1. This matchup is really interesting. Our deck is basically a much more focused version of one of their Gifts packages. This means that if the games devolves into a Life from the Loam mirror, we are heavily favored since our manabase is much more stable and we are much more likely to dredge into valuable cards. However, we actually cannot beat an early Gifts combo into Iona on black, so we either need to hope that they don't value that play highly enough, that we have a Liliana of the Veil in play, or that they just don't have it. Some lists nowadays are cutting Iona, which is very good for us. Games 2 and 3, both Leylines stop this play, so we are much more favored there.
2. Life from the Loam, Tectonic Edge, Raven's Crime, Liliana of the Veil
3. Lands, then cards in hand
4. Iona on black.
5.
-Nameless Inversion
-Darkblast
-Damnation
-Ghost Quarter
+Leyline of the Void
+Leyline of Sanctity
+Tectonic Edge
6. Most lists play Surgical Extraction/Extirpate so they can have it as a Gifts package, but I have seen Leyline of the Void before. Usually they don't have much in the way of graveyard hate though.
1. Melira Pod is the toughest of the Pod matchups because their creatures are so resilient and they play a lot of them. It's pretty much a race to find Haakon/Inversion, but they give us plenty of good targets for Darkblast to slow them down while digging. Damnation is very good, but it usually leaves behind a few creatures which later have to be cleaned up with Darkblasts. Lingering Souls and Stinkweed Imp are good at slowing down their assault, but Birthing Pod gives them too much value if we can't find Haakon/Inversion. Always save removal for Scavenging Ooze, and make sure to kill Gavony Townships on sight.
2. Darkblast, Damnation, Haakon, Nameless Inversion
3. Creatures, then Gavony Township, then cards in hand.
4. Birthing Pod, but Haakon/Inversion can prevent it from actually accomplishing anything.
5.
-Raven's Crime
-Liliana of the Veil
-Smallpox
-Tectonic Edge
+Ghost Quarter
+Darkblast
+Damnation
+Damping Matrix
+Torpor Orb
+Leyline of the Void
6. The only graveyard hate they bring in is more Scavenging Oozes, so make sure to be prepared for multiples. Also watch out for Sin Collecters, and play around Orzhov Pontiff if at all possible.
1. Never Raven's Crime them unless you can deal with a Loxodon Smiter or Wilt-Leaf Liege, and kill early AEther Vials on sight. They play a lot of fragile creatures that die to Darkblast, and they can be very vulnerable to Damnation. Make sure to establish your mana by using your fetchlands before Aven Mindcensor/Leonin Arbiter come down. Keep in mind that Leonin Arbiter is symmetrical, so your Ghost Quarters get significantly better if your opponent has not played a Vial. I have Strip Mine locked Hatebears opponents before using their own Leonin Arbiter, then killed it after I had the game locked up.
2. Darkblast, Damnation, Abrupt Decay, Lingering Souls
3. Creatures, then cards in hand (but only if you have a sweeper)
4. AEther Vial and Mirran Crusader
5.
-Raven's Crime
-Liliana of the Veil
-Smallpox
-Tectonic Edge
+Abrupt Decay
+Ghost Quarter
+Damnation
+Darkblast
+Unravel the AEther
6. Not every list plays Rest in Peace, but it is the most common graveyard hate. Some lists also play Leyline of Sanctity.
1. Thankfully this deck loses to itself a lot. We have ways to interact at all stages of their engine, but none of them are very reliable. Abrupt Decay is good at taking out Amulet of Vigors, and Ghost Quarter can take out a karoo land with the untap trigger on the stack. We have plenty of removal for their Azusas. Smallpox and Liliana can kill opposing Primeval Titans (but not if they searched out a Khalni Garden). There are a few other ways for us to interact, but not many. Our best angles of attack are definitely killing Amulets and assembling Ghost Quarter+Life from the Loam. These interactions plus our opponent losing to their deck make the matchup about even.
2. Ghost Quarter, Abrupt Decay, Life from the Loam, Knight of the Reliquary
3. Lands, then cards in hand
4. Our graveyard engine can't interact with a lot of what they're doing, so we don't do a lot of dredging in this matchup unless we are Loaming Ghost Quarter.
5.
-Darkblast
-Nameless Inversion
-Lingering Souls
+Torpor Orb
+Abrupt Decay
+Unravel the AEther
+Utter End
+Ghost Quarter
6. They usually pack some number of Leyline of Sanctity, and sometimes a Bojuka Bog as a Primeval Titan/Tolaria West target.
Bad:
1. This matchup seems very good because we have Smallpox and Liliana of the Veil, but we don't always have them in hand. Geist generally only needs to hit once to put us into burn range, and we don't do a very good job of gumming up the board to make Geist look silly. The only problems we generally run into against UWR variants is when they can burn us out and when a threat sticks for too long, and UWR Geist is the best UWR variant at both of those things. However, if we resolve a few early Lingering Souls, we can actually stop Geist and be in a pretty good spot where we can attack their hand/lands because they generally don't play Anger of the Gods.
2. Smallpox, Liliana of the Veil, Life from the Loam, Lingering Souls
3. Cards in hand, then lands
4. Our graveyard engine can't interact with Geist of Saint Traft or Keranos
5.
-Nameless Inversion
+Leyline of Sanctity
+Abrupt Decay
6. They can bring in any combination of Relic of Progenitus, Rest in Peace, or Leyline of Sanctity. Grafdigger's Cage is also possible, but not as common.
1. This is the worst of our BGx matchups. They play a lot more cards that are actually relevant against us, and their hate is more potent. Anger of the Gods is very good, and they actually have the option of burning us out. In addition, Chandra, Pyromaster is very hard to pressure with spirit tokens. In exchange for all this, they play less creature threats than other variants. We can still outgrind them pretty well if we can find a Life from the Loam, it's just a matter of surviving and keeping Scavenging Ooze off the table.
2. Smallpox, Liliana of the Veil, Abrupt Decay, Damnation
3. Creatures, then cards in hand
4. Chandra, Pyromaster
5.
-Lingering Souls
-Nameless Inversion
-Darkblast
-Raven's Crime
-Ghost Quarter
+Damnation
+Leyline of Sanctity
+Tectonic Edge
+Utter End
6. They generally bring in either Jund Charm or Rakdos Charm, and sometimes Slaughter Games as well. Grafdigger's Cage shows up occasionally as well, but not often. Same with Obstinate Baloth.
1. GR Tron is a very swingy matchup. There are some games where it actually feels impossible to lose, and others where it feels impossible to win. Ghost Quarter+Life from the Loam actually just wins the game if they don't have a Relic of Progenitus, but we generally don't play many Ghost Quarters in game 1. Tectonic Edge can't break up Tron fast enough unless they stumble very hard, and often resolving one threat (Wurmcoil or Karn) makes it very difficult for us to both keep them off of Tron and contain the threat simultaneously. Knight of the Reliquary can help find Ghost Quarters in game 1, and games 2 and 3 we get access to more Ghost Quarters as well as Stony Silence/Damping Matrix to shut down their enablers in addition to Relic of Progenitus.
2. Ghost Quarter, Life from the Loam, Knight of the Reliquary, Tectonic Edge
3. Lands, then cards in hand
4. Karn, Oblivion Stone, etc
5.
-Darkblast
-Nameless Inversion
-Damnation
+Tectonic Edge
+Ghost Quarter
+Stony Silence
+Damping Matrix
+Utter End
+Unravel the AEther
6. They bring in extra Relic of Progenitus against us, and some lists play Slaughter Games as well. A Stony Silence on our end actually makes it very difficult to cast Slaughter Games, as well as shutting off their Relics.
1. This is the matchup where our opponent countering every Life from the Loam is a very real possibility. We have a very difficult time beating Bitterblossom, and the fact that they play so many counterspells makes it hard to set up our dredge engine. I've found the best way to approach this matchup is to play reactively, holding up Darkblast and Abrupt Decay whenever possible. Destroy any Bitterblossom, but other than that just make land drops and don't let your opponent get value out of their Spellstutter Sprites by waiting to play spells until you can also hold up a Darkblast or similar. You win the long game here as long as your opponent does not have a clock on the board, so force them to play valueless Spellstutter Sprites or activate manlands to do so while you sneak in for value off of Life from the Loam or Lingering Souls when you get the opportunity. This matchup is incredibly skill-intensive, and is very dependant on how well you know the Faeries deck in addition to your own.
2. Abrupt Decay, Darkblast, Life from the Loam, Lingering Souls
3. Lands, then cards in hand
4. Bitterblossom
5.
-Nameless Inversion
-Knight of the Reliquary
-Haakon
-Ghost Quarter
+Tectonic Edge
+Torpor Orb
+Abrupt Decay
+Unravel the AEther
+Darkblast
6. Their graveyard hate of choice is almost always Grafdigger's Cage, so be expecting that. Luckily this does not interact with Life from the Loam+Tectonic Edge or Darkblast, so your most important graveyard cards are still turned on.
1. This matchup is also pretty swingy. In game 1, your priority is to find Raven's Crime and empty their hand while not letting any of their Ascensions or Electromancers survive. If you are playing Bojuka Bog, Knight of the Reliquary gets significantly better here by being able to counter opposing Past in Flames. This is the main matchup to consider Bojuka Bog in the maindeck for. Even if you keep their hand low, they can still go off with an Ascension or Electromancer in play, especially if they have a Past in Flames in the graveyard. In games 2 and 3, it's a very real possibility for your opponent to simply burn you out through graveyard hate with Lightning Bolts, occasionally backed by an active Ascension.
2. Abrupt Decay, Raven's Crime, Life from the Loam, Bojuka Bog (if you have it)
3. Nonland permanents, then cards in hand.
4. Pyromancer Ascension, Blood Moon
5.
-Darkblast
-Stinkweed Imp
-Lingering Souls
-Haakon
+Leyline of Sanctity
+Leyline of the Void
+Abrupt Decay
+Unravel the AEther
+Utter End
+Damnation
6. They generally don't play graveyard hate, but they do play Blood Moon. Make sure to be especially careful about playing around it in this matchup, because it can come down as early as turn 2 with a ritual. Also watch out for Empty the Warrens in games 2/3.
1. This matchup would be even/favorable, except that they have access to the dreaded Gifts combo for Iona on black. Unlike 4C Gifts, UW Tron has not been cutting Iona recently because they can reasonably hard cast her as well. If your opponent does not have the Gifts combo in game 1, they are very susceptible to Life from the Loam+Tectonic Edge, as you can either cut them off of Tron or cut them off of colored mana, depending on which is more important at the time. Without Iona, they generally don't matchup well at all against Life from the Loam, so finding that puts you in a very good spot. Limiting their mana makes a lot of their cards dead as well because Tron normally lets them play such a high curve. This matchup gets much better postboard, as both Leylines shut down their Gifts combo, and you are very well positioned against the rest of their deck.
2. Life from the Loam, Tectonic Edge, Leyline of X, Raven's Crime
3. Lands, then cards in hand.
4. Iona on black.
5.
-Darkblast
-Nameless Inversion
-Damnation
-Lingering Souls
-Ghost Quarter
+Tectonic Edge
+Leyline of the Void
+Leyline of Sanctity
+Utter End
+Unravel the AEther
6. They generally play 1 Relic of Progenitus, 1 Grafdigger's Cage, or both as graveyard hate, and they have a few Celestial Purges which aren't super relevant.
1. We hardly have any ways to interact with this deck, and our plan of Raven's Crimeing them can sometimes backfire. However, their deck is fairly inconsistent, so a little pressure and some bad draws from their end can result in a win for us. Generally when playing Raven's Crime against them, you can't afford to play around Goryo's Vengeance, especially since the only combination where they actually punish us for it is exactly discarding Griselbrand and then playing Goryo's next turn, which is not super likely. Try to get a lot of spirit tokens into play quickly, as they can either nullify combat steps from a Griselbrand or be sacrifice fodder to keep a board against an Emrakul.
2. Raven's Crime, Lingering Souls, Life from the Loam, Abrupt Decay
3. Cards in hand above all else.
4. Our engine can answer everything they do because it is all straight from the hand
5.
6. Lists vary quite a bit, but they can play anything from Relic of Progenitus to even Leyline of Sanctity. Some 2 color builds play Blood Moon as well.
1. This is where the matchups start getting a little tougher. Life from the Loam with a fetchland or two does pretty well against their Blood Moon, but they are also a deck that plays enough countermagic to consistently counter our Life from the Loams. If we have an Abrupt Decay, can fetch basics, and can find Life from the Loam, we are in a pretty reasonable spot, but otherwise it can be tough. We can certainly win through a Vedalken Shackles by playing some very large Knight of the Reliquarys, but it does make things more difficult, and gives them time to find enough burn to burn us out. This is an example of a matchup where they can just put too much pressure on our Abrupt Decays, where we just don't have enough to answer all the stuff that matters. However, most of their attackers are X/1s, so if we can keep Blood Moon off the table, Darkblast can buy us a lot of time to set up our endgame.
2. Abrupt Decay, Life from the Loam, Raven's Crime, Darkblast
3. Cards in hand, then lands.
4. Blood Moon, Vedalken Shackles, Keranos.
5.
-Nameless Inversion
-Darkblast
-Tectonic Edge
+Ghost Quarter
+Abrupt Decay
+Unravel the AEther
+Utter End
6. Some lists play Relic of Progenitus, and some don't. Make sure to play around Anger of the Gods however, as almost all lists will bring those in.
Very Bad:
1. Your most common terrible matchup. You will run into this, and you will lose from time to time. Game 1 is close to unwinnable, although Smallpoxing them off of a greedy keep, having enough removal for their creature-heavy keep, or using Raven's Crime to steal a few burn spells early can buy you enough time to activate a Vault of the Archangel. Once you activate Vault for even 3-4 points of life, the game is generally over. Games 2 and 3, you get to bring in as many Leyline of Sanctity as you decide to board, and your matchup gets much better. It is still possible to lose through a Leyline (especially if your opponent splashes white or green), but you play enough removal that it doesn't happen much. The nice thing about this matchup is that you can control how bad you want it to be by altering the number of Leyline of Sanctitys you put in your sideboard.
2. Leyline of Sanctity, Vault of the Archangel, Raven's Crime, Knight of the Reliquary
3. Creatures, then cards in hand.
4. Getting burned out.
5.
-Stinkweed Imp
-Haakon
+Leyline of Sanctity
+Abrupt Decay
6. Some lists play graveyard hate, but all it does against us is slow them down. When we win, we generally win with a few spirit tokens or something anyway. The main hate to watch out for is anti-Leyline of Sanctity hate.
1. Another very tough matchup. We have a lot of trouble dealing with tokens+anthems, and the fact that a lot of lists play planeswalkers as well just makes it even harder. If you can assemble a very fast Haakon/Inversion, this matchup is winnable, but it's hard for us to do that consistently. Damnation is also very good here, but with anthems they can force you to use it to answer 1-2 token producers. There is usually a combination of Abrupt Decays for their anthems, and then a Damnation followed by a few spirit tokens of our own that can win the game, but it requires our cards to match up perfectly with theirs and isn't super likely. Maelstrom Pulse is especially good in this matchup.
2. Damnation, Haakon, Nameless Inversion, Abrupt Decay
3. Creatures, then cards in hand.
4. Anthems and planeswalkers.
5.
-Nameless Inversion
-Stinkweed Imp
-Smallpox
+Abrupt Decay
+Damnation
+Unravel the AEther
+Utter End
6. Their graveyard hate is usually Rest in Peace, and they also occasionally bring in things like Mirran Crusader or Memoricide that are randomly good against us.
1. Similar to the BW Tokens matchup, only they replace hand hate with more threats. They are also more susceptible to a well-timed Damnation, but they still topdeck fairly well with an Honor of the Pure in play. They win by forcing you to Abrupt Decay something that isn't an Honor of the Pure, then grinding you out with a bunch of 2/2s or 3/3s. You are much more likely to get time to assemble Haakon/Inversion in this matchup, as even a 4/4 Knight of the Reliquary can wall most of their creatures while you dig. Darkblast is very good in this matchup up until the moment your opponent plays an Honor of the Pure, at which point it becomes terrible. A large Knight of the Reliquary with some spirit tokens and a Vault of the Archangel is another common route to victory in this matchup, but more often than not you draw the wrong combination of cards for what your opponent drew and proceed to get run over.
2. Damnation, Abrupt Decay, Darkblast, Haakon
3. Creatures, then cards in hand
4. Honor of the Pure
5.
-Smallpox
-Liliana of the Veil
-Raven's Crime
+Damnation
+Unravel the AEther
+Darkblast
+Abrupt Decay
6. They generally bring in a bunch of Rest in Peace, and it only adds more targets to your "need to Abrupt Decay" list.
1. Our worst matchup. Our Raven's Crime package does nothing game 1, and we have no way to interact with their graveyard outside of fetching Bojuka Bog with Knight of the Reliquary (if you play it). Even if you do, this comes down on turn 4 at the earliest, and your opponent generally cascades into Living End on turn 3. Damnation is the only way for you to interact with the new pile of creatures, at which point they are only dead until the next cascade. In games 2 and 3, we have Leyline of the Void, so the matchup gets a little better. We can usually beat their "hardcast dudes" plan, especially with Smallpox, and we can actually Raven's Crime them with a Leyline in play to limit the damage when they do finally get rid of the Leyline. Luckily, this deck is badly positioned right now and not particularly popular.
2. Leyline of the Void, Damnation, Raven's Crime, Smallpox
3. If Leyline, then cards in hand
4. We can't answer large swarms efficiently from the graveyard without a lot of mana, and sometimes Blood Moon.
5.
-Nameless Inversion
-Darkblast
-Haakon
-Ghost Quarter
+Tectonic Edge
+Leyline of the Void
+Damnation
+Utter End
6. They usually bring in either Leyline of the Void themselves, or Faerie Macabre. We have very few ways to interact with Leyline of the Void, but Living End is the only deck that really plays it. We don't really care about Faerie Macabre. They also sometimes bring in Blood Moon.
Most decks generally play 1-3 of the following cards in their sideboard:
One of the most common pieces of hate, Grafdigger's Cage is generally played because it has added utility against Pod in addition to stopping most of the relevant graveyard functions in the format. There are a few important things unique to Grafdigger's Cage:
The other common colorless graveyard hate. Relic is played because you can indefinitely keep your opponent's graveyard small with its activated ability, and then replace itself later when you need the card or when exiling one card isn't enough. Playing around Relic takes a bit of practice, but it is actually one of the easiest pieces of hate to fight through.
Relic can only exile one card per turn. If your opponent wants to exile more, they have to get rid of the Relic entirely. It is pretty easy to hold fetchlands and other things to put in your graveyard right before placing a high priority target in there as well (such as Life from the Loam). This means that Relic will do one of two things in a game:
If your opponent decides to take the lands, you can just dredge Loam next turn, and your opponent no longer has graveyard hate.
If your opponent decides to let the Loam resolve and then exile it, you just returned two lands to your hand, which will let you keep making land drops over the next few turns while you continue playing the game without a Loam in your graveyard. You might even have another Loam or other dredger in your hand, in which case your opponent is again left without graveyard hate and in a very bad position.
If your opponent decides to let you keep the lands in your hand and the Loam in your graveyard, you can just dredge it next turn. At some point, you will find a second card with dredge, and your opponent will no longer be able to shut down the entire engine with his Relic as long as you keep one of those dredge cards in your hand. During all those turns as well, your opponent is down a mana in order to keep the threat of Relic up, while you are still able to use your graveyard freely to generate value.
The point is there is no easy way for your opponent to beat that with just a Relic of Progenitus. If you can keep enough random cards in your graveyard to turn off the Relic's first ability, its usefulness as graveyard hate against you is questionable. If you can dredge just once, you can generally keep the Relic's first ability from ever doing anything useful with those cards and then force the opponent into some very tough decisions with no clear right answer.
Scavenging Ooze is a little harder to deal with. In order to beat an Ooze, you will have to kill it at some point. In matchups where you can expect to see the Ooze (BGx, Pod, Tarmo Twin, Hate Bears), try to hold removal for it if you can afford to, and use Tectonic Edges to attack their green sources. Chances are that one turn of exiling targets is not going to ruin your entire game plan, but a few turns might. A turn 2 Scavenging Ooze is not scary, as it is answerable by a double Darkblast in addition to your other removal spells. The thing that makes Scavenging Ooze scary is when it is played later with a lot of green mana up, and then provides a lot of pressure to not just your graveyard but also your life total. The other pieces of hate slow your opponent down by playing them, while Scavenging Ooze is also a threat.
If you have a Haakon in play, a Nameless Inversion in the graveyard, and some mana open, your opponent cannot exile the Nameless Inversion with their Scavenging Ooze unless they have GGG and three creatures to target for each 2 mana you have. This is because in response to your opponent trying to exile your Inversion, you can cast it targeting your opponent's Ooze. Your opponent cannot respond to it leaving the graveyard because it gets placed on the stack as part of casting it.
There's not much to say about playing around Rest in Peace. Don't overextend into your graveyard, let it resolve, and then kill it with Abrupt Decay or similar. If you suspect your opponent has Rest in Peace and you have the option of flashing back a Lingering Souls or playing one from your hand, it's probably correct to flashback the one in your graveyard.
The deck made day 2 at GP Boston/Worcester, going 7-1-1 in day 1.
The deck has made two 6-2 finishes at 200+ man PTQs.
The deck has won countless local 20-50 man tournaments.
The deck has gone 3-1 or 4-0 in Magic Online Daily Events 7 times.
Knobobo:
Quite a few of the matchups are changing with the new banlist, however earlier I tested a good amount against UWR control, Jund/Junk, Pod, Tron, and a variety of tier 2/homebrews.
UWR control matchup is pretty good as their counters are usually dead and no amount of 1 for 1 removal can really contain the piles of snakes. You can occasionally get burned out, but you don't really take too much damage from your manabase, so it doesn't happen often.
Jund/Junk matchup plays very differently depending on whether they have a DRS or not, so with him banned I imagine the matchup gets much better. When they don't have DRS, Sosuke's Summons pretty much completely nullifies their Lilianas and chumps their goyfs all day. Jund/Junk also relies pretty heavily on 1 for 1 removal, which again usually just doesn't do the trick.
Pod matchup is not good. That being said, their lack of much removal means that if they get a slow start they can occasionally get blown out by an early Seshiro. However, YOUR lack of much removal means they can sometimes just assemble an early combo and win. A resolved pod is often game over.
Tron matchup also not good. Pyroclasm sucks. When they don't have it, again sometimes an early Seshiro can get there, but don't expect much.
As far as random other decks go, it usually comes down to whether they have a fast clock, sweepers, a better lategame, some kind of combo, or a combination of those. Reliance on 1 for 1 removal, lots of countermagic, Liliana of the veil, or hoping to win on the back of a Tarmogoyf or other non-trample dudes are generally good for us.
Wasteland Viper seems okay, dropping early against Zoo can help keep them under control early. Cheap snakes are also something this deck could definitely use more of. Can also randomly take out larger creatures when they chump a snake token, but I can't think of many scenarios that I have run into when that would be game changing.
I've been thinking about going with 1 or 2 Sword of X and Y in some of the Mystic Snake slots, but I feel like it mostly helps the already good matchups. Haven't been able to mess around with it too much yet. More manadorks are another option in those slots.
In that list I played 1 Patron of the Orochi that was pretty brutal when connects but nowdays I don´t know if it would be good or bad here. What do you think?
Beside of that, perhaps could be a Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx playable here? With oran,the colossus and all the little cobras and the so,it can provide lot of mana at midrange to play seshiro, twice summons in the same turn or such things. what do you think?
Also, nice work on this deck. It looks way fun.
CG
We've got more ramp, but short of just puking out our hand (which they can do via Aether Vial), we don't have much use for it. We've got better resiliency via Sosuke's Summons, so that's definitely nice in grindier games. We've got an uncounterable counter via Mystic Snake/Cavern of Souls, which is nice. And we've got style...
I like the idea of Chameleon Colossus. I always felt I needed a mana sink and never considered the changelings. Pretty clever. I think an early counterspell like Mana-Leak, at least in the board but possibly main, can help vs. Pyroclasm effects. I never considered splashing white, but that might open up some doors. I've really been wanting a low-cost blink-snake with flash so I can get more use out of coiling oracle and mystic snake, but perhaps white can help there. Is Restoration Angel worth it? Any other white blink stuff?
I'm not sure I love Noble Hierarch. The fixing is awesome, but surely with modern mana-bases we can get by without it? Although without her we have no one-drops (other than Sakura Tribe Scout, which I also don't love), so maybe it's correct.
I think there's some merit to considering Wasteland Viper and Winged Coatl as psuedo kill spells. I suspect we're still a few snake-centric cards away from being a real modern deck, but it's still fun to brew.
Thanks! The deck is tons of fun to play. I really love Mystic Snake when you manage to blow people out with it, as it's pretty insane tempo. Holding up 4 mana would not be as much of a problem if there were more instant speed options when you leave it up. As it is now, the only real other option is activating township. I'm sure there could be another version that more embraces the tempo strategy by running some number of flash snakes, Remand and/or Mana Leak, but I'm not sure what that list would drop to make room for them, or whether the reduced number of snakes just dilutes the deck too much. I definitely will be trying it out soon though.
The manadorks are incredibly necessary for the game plan. Having access to 3 mana on turn 2 is a huge part of what this deck needs to do to be even remotely competitive. Even with the dorks, it is still pretty slow to put any real pressure on the board. Noble Hierarch just happens to be the best mana dork in the format, and is therefore the first choice. Sakura Tribe Scout can usually provide the same 3 mana on turn 2 while being a snake, yet is MUCH worse in multiples, hence the two of.
On the other side I don´t like mystic snake at all here. It´s an overcosted snake and without blinking effects is not as useful as one could desire. of course you can play restoration angel and the such(blink effects) but it dilutes the deck a lot and make it slower in my oppinion. Instead I played the chameleon colossus and I´m very happy with them. Other good thing is that without mystic snake you don´t need all four breeding pool(1 is more than enough because cavern hierarh and 8 fetches) so you don´t loose much life and are more safe against blood moon, boil or such things.
My first iteration of the deck was only UG, and ran 3x Oran-Rief, the Vastwood. Since switching to bant with Gavony Township, I have never looked back. The coming in tapped is actually surprisingly relevant, and the fact that it can't pump your random mana dorks and earlier tokens that are lying around is pretty bad. However, I wouldn't be opposed to tossing one in in addition to the 3x township, as it helps make your tokens more relevant much faster.
I will definitely be trying out the Chameleon Colossus soon, as it certainly looks good on paper. It is immune to a lot of removal in the format, and is one of the few snakes who doesn't just get outclassed by pretty much any creature on the other side of the board.
Mirror Entity is another card mentioned in some earlier posts that I hadn't thought about while making the deck. I have played with the card in casual before, but does anyone have experience playing it in competitive formats? I'm a little skeptical about how fragile it looks, but untapping with it seems to be pretty strong.
Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
As for turn one ramp being important for the gameplan, I'm having trouble seeing it. Getting to 3 mana on turn 2 isn't important. For what? Ohran Viper? Sosuke's Summons? Does a deck like Melira Pod care about that? Affinity? Burn Heavy Zoo? Plain ol' burn? Splinter Twin? These decks are usually wrapping things up by turn 4 or 5. And even when you do get your turn one dork, your better turn 2 play is usually going to be Lotus Cobra or Coiling Oracle, stranding your mana unless you have the Path to Exile in hand. Sakura-Tribe Elder is probably better for this deck, and he at least synergizes with your Scout a bit. Getting to 6 mana on turn 4 seems like the more crucial threshold, as Seshiro is really the only 'explosive' thing the deck has going for it. I realize that turn one dorks help get to that threshold, but even the 6 mana on turn 4 plan seems underpowered to me. There is big mana in modern, and while this deck ramps a bit, it cannot compete with Tron or other hardcore ramp strategies.
Which means we're a grindy, midrange deck. That's our niche. Do the turn one dorks really help contribute to this?
As for removing Mystic Snake, I think it's an awful idea. Aside from a one for one removal spell that ramps the enemy, what other control elements have we got? We aren't fast enough to just ignore our opponent. With no disruption, we lose to just about every deck, except a few fair ones that get off to a slow start (as noted by the OP). Mystic Snake is our only weapon against combo. I think you need more counters, not less. Could adding Alchemist's Refuge help with the issue of holding mana up? If the opponent had to worry about you flashing in deathtouch snakes and such, maybe it would make the Mystic Snake 4-mana telegraph less obvious? Not sure on that, but could be worth a shot. Because we have so much potential card draw and resiliency, maybe leaning on Supreme Verdict and Sosuke's Summons could be worth it? Seems counter-intuitive in a tribal snake deck, but if we can recover faster and/or bigger with our extra lands and such...? Could that also enable Nemesis of Mortals?
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Stinkweed Imp
2 Pack Rat
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Eternal Witness
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Sun Titan
Planeswalkers: 3
3 Liliana of the Veil
Spells: 18
4 Unburial Rites
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Life from the Loam
3 Lingering Souls
3 Smallpox
2 Raven's Crime
2 Forest
2 Godless Shrine
2 Overgrown Tomb
2 Plains
2 Swamp
2 Temple Garden
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Gavony Township
1 Isolated Chapel
1 Sunpetal Grove
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Vault of the Archangel
1 Woodland Cemetery
Come help me make my Pauper cube awsome!
Come help me make my Pauper cube awsome!