So this could be terrible (yeah I know, great inspiring start there), but I really want to make Fall of the Thran work. I'm barely in the idea stage right now, but I've got a shortlist of decent cards that support the idea.
Fall is kinda obvious. Elves, Bounty and Lotus are all non-land-based ramp cards (I'm steering clear of the auras). Grow and Hour are alternatives; yes they get extra lands which die to Fall, but they'll come back anyway and are faster/less hateable than some other options. Deathgorge and Blessing are just a couple of many options to get lands out of my opponent's yard to make Fall II and III one sided (just steer clear of symmetrical yard flushes). Tatyova obviously plays nicely with land-based ramp and the non-Armageddon parts of Fall.
Blue helps protect with cheap counters, and there's no shortage of good removal in white. As far as payoffs go, pretty much any big beater or recurring threat source like Sandwurm Convergence seems good vs an opponent with only a couple of lands.
The other day, I had a similar ideato this. It circled around combining the effects of Fall of the Thran and The Mending of Dominaria to make for a mostly one-sided Armageddon effect, combined into a Bant Aggro/Control shell using The Mirari Conjecture to recur Counters/Card Advantage engines until you dig into a win-con, usually a Planeswalker of some sort, but I also considered Lyra Dawnbringer or Traxos combined with the Urza board wipe.
I'm still toying with the idea, but I definitely see the shell of a deck being somewhere in this idea. The issue was finding the right combination of ramp/card advantage/control to balance themselves out in time to reach the point of being able to take overwith a well placed Mending/Fall/Urza's one-sided reset button.
I hadn't even thought of Mending. That's definitely intriguing. Here's where I'm at for a very rough first cut. I'm trying a creatureless maindeck approach to strand dead cards G1. No sideboard but would likely have dudes in it.
The mana base seems OK at first glance, at least by percentages. A number of things might be incorrect: Teferi, no Hour of Promise (because no deserts), no permission elements, no Lawnmower Elves... we'll see I guess. Anyway it's a start.
The version I ran didn't have any Ramp. and only ran a few sweepers (Urza's and Fumigate) main deck. It ran more "dig" spells and extra ways to ditch stuff into the graveyard to get back with Mending/Conjecture.
I think the deck needs a few creatures main deck, mainly so Mending1 and 2 aren't duds. I used etb guys like Manglehorn, and the gain 5 life guy for utility and stabilizing against aggro decks, as well as Lyra Dawnbringer and/or Traxos as maindeck wincons that will survive Urza's.
Doesn't silent gravestone make this an actual armageddon effect? I'd probably start there.
Not really, since you need the extra 4 to activate the Silent Gravestone. Sentinel Totem on the other hand does the job for free, and helps you along in finding your armageddon.
Doesn't silent gravestone make this an actual armageddon effect? I'd probably start there.
Not really, since you need the extra 4 to activate the Silent Gravestone. Sentinel Totem on the other hand does the job for free, and helps you along in finding your armageddon.
Popping a Totem the turn after a Fall, when a Mending 3 goes off to get all of our own lands back would pretty much be an auto-win against most decks.
So we play The Mending of Dominaria, let it tick up to II.
On the opponent's turn before III, we flash in or trick in Fall of the Thran.
On our turn Mending III happens. We now have plenty of mana to use whatever graveyard flush we want, and doing so is pretty much game over.
That's the fancy way to do it. The blunt way would just be to play Fall when The Mending is at II, then stack the triggers next turn to squeeze a graveyard flush in between them, leaving no targets for Fall II, but allowing Mending III to recover your board. Sentinel Totem is the more reliable in this case, since you don't have to worry about finding extra mana.
This combo doesn't actually require any blue at all.
On the other hand, the general strategy doesn't necessarily require green either. If you forget about trying to make a lopsided Armageddon, you can turn Fall of the Thran into a real Armageddon. General control until you have an advantaged board state, preferably with some artifact mana, then simply play Fall of the Thran and pop a Sentinel Totem. The board gets stuck with you in the lead and you proceed to beat down from there. You could make this monowhite, or white combined with your favorite secondary color. Black offers tutors to find your combo and removal to clear the board. Blue offers draw and counterspells. Green the aforementioned combo with Mending, as well as ramp and fatties to speed things up. Red has just removal, but can eliminate opposing artifact mana to ensure success.
Overall, I like it. We have Armageddon Control possible in Standard.
I like the Fall/Mending trick idea. I'm not keen on symmetrical GY wipes because the idea is to take advantage of Fall II and III myself to rebuild out of their reach. In my list, that's where the Gaea's Blessings come in (also why I need to ramp, so I can Fall+Blessing on the same turn to at least remove 3 of their lands. Perhaps that's getting too cutesy?
I'm still digging onboard acceleration of some sort. Maybe get away from the land ramp and go for permanents like Bounty of the Luxa (which I'm already using), Gilded Lotus or the new Powerstone Shards?
Going more toward the artifact mana route and foregoing green, an Esper artifact build could be smexy.
I don't like the idea of running artifact Mana, with how prominent Abrade is in any deck running red, as well as Manglehorns or the 3/4 Dino version. Bounty might be useable, since there's less enchantment hate in Standard atm, but I think running Mending/Fall as ust turning them into one-sided geddons is the best trick.
Not sold on using Raff or TTG as a way to sneak things in either, nor am I a fan of using Ramp cards for the sake of ramp cards. If anything, perhaps Mana Dorks just so you have early game blocks vs agro, but with the right shell, youre very limited in deck slots to afford stuff like Ramp.
Also, a very hard decision I have noticed is how exactly do we win? Just because we blow a one-sided Fall/Mending combo, or lock down our opponent with Teferi's Emblem doesn't auto-win, we still need to deck our opponent, or run something able to bash in for 20. Whether it's Nissa's manlands, a big stompy Legendary that can survive Urza's Ruinous Blast, or just poking through with little dorks, we need a way to actually win games, which Ive noticed we haven't really talked about much.
Personally, I like Lyra Dawnbringer or Traxos, or running Nissa for a massive swarm of manlands, but I'm not sure if this is the right path, perhaps milling them out, or an "I Win" button would be better options?
EDIT--If going for the TTG strategy as a way to get cute with Sagas, would also maindecking a Nicol-Bolas, God Pharoah or two as a wincon work? Can never cast him unless we run Rainbow lands/Gilded Lotus type stuff, but he is a pretty good way to close out a game after a Fall/Mending trigger.
My initial build basically won with Nissa or decking (as Blessings can cycle our yard back), but that's pretty slow and prolly rage-inducing. We could always go for self-mill with Blessing and Ipnu Rivulet?
I think you're right about relying on artifacts. At this point it's likely just asking for trouble as we get caught by people already bringing hate for other decks. We don't need to be collateral damage there.
Seems like we are heading toward a decision between faster ramp-based and slower control-based strategies, which I think will lead us to very different finisher options. In either case there's the possibility of just splashing white for Fall, and going heavy into 1 or 2 other "main" colours.
I sort of view this as more of a Midrange//Control deck, similar to RTR/INN Standard Bant Control with Resto Angel + Thragtusk, and Sphinx's Rev to keep them in the game. But instead of blink shenanigans, we're utilizing our graveyard as an additional resource via the Saga recursions, and possibly Blessing shuffling the whole thing back in.(This can be a trap, as bad timing on a Blessing into the yard can cripple both sides if the timing is off at all." If the long game becomes a thing however, we will never draw many lands, since most of them will bein play from Mending III.
EDIT--To be specific, I'm thinking that running stuff with etb effects, or just big killy guys that can dominate the board after a Fall. I like the etb gain 5 life guy(names escape me right now), and legends like Lyra and/or Traxos if you have fuel to keep Traxos untapping. Running some amount of creatures also makes Mending I and II useful, while growing to the finale.
While I'm not against the idea of 4 colors, I don't know how well we can support it with the current lands available. I definitely want to say G/W is mandatory, because of Fall/Mending, but I don't know which is better between Black or Blue for support, and that choice makes two entirely different decks.
Are there any "Bird of Paradise" or Rainbow Lands other than the energy based one in Kaladesh that can support a 4 color deck? Short of Painted Bluff style "filter" lands? For a midrange style deck, I think you have something with Muldrotha + Mending, but I don't think that deck can support splashing White for Fall. And if you wanted to go for Control, I don't think we can support a 4th color and also run the Muldrotha package to keep his engine going.
EDIT--I think the Muldrotha version fits better into a 'Dredge 2.0" deck with maybe God-Pharoah's Gift backing him up, while the Fall/Mending combo fits better into a Control/Midrange style deck.
I feel like anything trying to use Fall of the Thran needs to use Sylvan Awakening. Do keep in mind that gives them indestructible, and you can then play Fall into a one sided land wipe. Expensive, for sure, but you are already ramping, so...
Going this route could work as well, but that's 8 mana to pull offthe Awakening/Fall combo. We would have to run either Ramp, or a slower control style deck in order to make it work.
OK yeah, 4 colours seems awful. I had hoped with the extra set of checklands that it might work, but I can't wrangle up anything that I'm happy with after all.
It might work for the couple months before Amonkhet/Hour rotates, since we will have the Cycle duals alongside the checklands, but after that, I don't see it working unless the set after Dominaria has Shocks, or a new cycle to replace them, or a functional City of Brass/Mana Confluence reprint, or 2 Mana Dorks on the level of Birds of Paradise/Sylvan Caryatid
I just saw elsewhere a BW brew combining Fall with Phyrexian Scriptures to eat opposing graveyards while retaining ours. That avenue opens up hand disruption as a control method. Could be a viable alternative direction.
Ive been trying to play a few of the different combinations possible while still maintaining the general idea of the deck/card combinations--
BUG "Dredge" worked well as a Solitaire deck, but against an actual opponent, it didn't interact enough beause it didn't have room for counterspells and only had minimal room for targeted removal like Fatal Push/Vraska's Contempt. It was also slow, and any deck whose purpose was to just throw out dudes and turn them sideways easily stomped them before we got our engine running.
Bant "Midrange/Control--Had a decent recovery if you got to cast Fumigate on curve, then stabilize with Arborback/Lyra Dawnbringer, but because of the manabase available, we often are a turn or two behind because of relying on tapped dual lands.
Next up, I was considering either Naya Midrange/Land Destruction combined with a R/G Monsters theme, or Abzan Rock/Midrange, and Scriptures was definitely a card I was looking at as another value card. It also can run both Mending and Fall alongside it, so its looking very Saga focused. Ill throw a list together sometime and maybe post my list for discussion in awhile.
Fairly quick aggro with the 'geddon plan. The idea is to generate enough threats that they have to deal with those and then be unable to answer our 1-2 punch. Hoarder is required so it can die & treasure us enabling T4 Scriptures into T5 Fall so we can get our graveyard eating done on time.
I'm not saying that the "sort of aggro plan" wont work, but I kind of envisioned the Abzan/GWB combination very differently, focusing more on Early dispuption and removal to keep ourselves ahead, then plopping down the Sagas of relevance before wiping the board while we have the presence to take control of the game. I'll post a list in a few minutes showing my take on it.
Totally get that. I wasn't trying to step on your Abzan Rock toes. The aggro idea popped into my head and I figured I would post it while it was fresh. I'm a midrange player at heart - first really good competitive build was BG Rock list, back in the days of Extended with Spiritmonger, Pernicious Deed and the like - but I haven't had a good chance to sit down and brew that yet. If you've got a starting point in mind, go for it!
Seems like an OK start. I'm not a fan of Gideon or Bontu here, and it definitely needs more black mana sources. That said, I'm definitely going to use this as a jumpig off point tho! Hopefully I'll have the ability to actually test in the near future so I can post results instead of just theorycrafting.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
So this could be terrible (yeah I know, great inspiring start there), but I really want to make Fall of the Thran work. I'm barely in the idea stage right now, but I've got a shortlist of decent cards that support the idea.
Fall of the Thran
Llanowar Elves
Bounty of the Luxa
Gilded Lotus
Grow from the Ashes
Hour of Promise
Deathgorge Scavenger
Gaea's Blessing
Tatyova, Benthic Druid
Fall is kinda obvious. Elves, Bounty and Lotus are all non-land-based ramp cards (I'm steering clear of the auras). Grow and Hour are alternatives; yes they get extra lands which die to Fall, but they'll come back anyway and are faster/less hateable than some other options. Deathgorge and Blessing are just a couple of many options to get lands out of my opponent's yard to make Fall II and III one sided (just steer clear of symmetrical yard flushes). Tatyova obviously plays nicely with land-based ramp and the non-Armageddon parts of Fall.
Blue helps protect with cheap counters, and there's no shortage of good removal in white. As far as payoffs go, pretty much any big beater or recurring threat source like Sandwurm Convergence seems good vs an opponent with only a couple of lands.
Does this have legs, or am I insane?
I'm still toying with the idea, but I definitely see the shell of a deck being somewhere in this idea. The issue was finding the right combination of ramp/card advantage/control to balance themselves out in time to reach the point of being able to take overwith a well placed Mending/Fall/Urza's one-sided reset button.
4 Botanical Sanctum
4 Forest
2 Glacial Fortress
4 Hinterland Harbor
3 Irrigated Farmland
2 Island
1 Plains
3 Scattered Groves
2 Sunpetal Grove
4 Bounty of the Luxa
4 Fall of the Thran
4 Seal Away
Sorceries:
2 Baral's Expertise
4 Beneath the Sands
3 Fumigate
4 Gaea's Blessing
4 Grow from the Ashes
2 River's Rebuke
1 Slaughter the Strong
1 Nissa, Steward of Elements
2 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
I think the deck needs a few creatures main deck, mainly so Mending1 and 2 aren't duds. I used etb guys like Manglehorn, and the gain 5 life guy for utility and stabilizing against aggro decks, as well as Lyra Dawnbringer and/or Traxos as maindeck wincons that will survive Urza's.
Not really, since you need the extra 4 to activate the Silent Gravestone.
Sentinel Totem on the other hand does the job for free, and helps you along in finding your armageddon.
Popping a Totem the turn after a Fall, when a Mending 3 goes off to get all of our own lands back would pretty much be an auto-win against most decks.
On the opponent's turn before III, we flash in or trick in Fall of the Thran.
On our turn Mending III happens. We now have plenty of mana to use whatever graveyard flush we want, and doing so is pretty much game over.
That's the fancy way to do it. The blunt way would just be to play Fall when The Mending is at II, then stack the triggers next turn to squeeze a graveyard flush in between them, leaving no targets for Fall II, but allowing Mending III to recover your board. Sentinel Totem is the more reliable in this case, since you don't have to worry about finding extra mana.
This combo doesn't actually require any blue at all.
On the other hand, the general strategy doesn't necessarily require green either. If you forget about trying to make a lopsided Armageddon, you can turn Fall of the Thran into a real Armageddon. General control until you have an advantaged board state, preferably with some artifact mana, then simply play Fall of the Thran and pop a Sentinel Totem. The board gets stuck with you in the lead and you proceed to beat down from there. You could make this monowhite, or white combined with your favorite secondary color. Black offers tutors to find your combo and removal to clear the board. Blue offers draw and counterspells. Green the aforementioned combo with Mending, as well as ramp and fatties to speed things up. Red has just removal, but can eliminate opposing artifact mana to ensure success.
Overall, I like it. We have Armageddon Control possible in Standard.
I'm still digging onboard acceleration of some sort. Maybe get away from the land ramp and go for permanents like Bounty of the Luxa (which I'm already using), Gilded Lotus or the new Powerstone Shards?
Going more toward the artifact mana route and foregoing green, an Esper artifact build could be smexy.
Not sold on using Raff or TTG as a way to sneak things in either, nor am I a fan of using Ramp cards for the sake of ramp cards. If anything, perhaps Mana Dorks just so you have early game blocks vs agro, but with the right shell, youre very limited in deck slots to afford stuff like Ramp.
Also, a very hard decision I have noticed is how exactly do we win? Just because we blow a one-sided Fall/Mending combo, or lock down our opponent with Teferi's Emblem doesn't auto-win, we still need to deck our opponent, or run something able to bash in for 20. Whether it's Nissa's manlands, a big stompy Legendary that can survive Urza's Ruinous Blast, or just poking through with little dorks, we need a way to actually win games, which Ive noticed we haven't really talked about much.
Personally, I like Lyra Dawnbringer or Traxos, or running Nissa for a massive swarm of manlands, but I'm not sure if this is the right path, perhaps milling them out, or an "I Win" button would be better options?
EDIT--If going for the TTG strategy as a way to get cute with Sagas, would also maindecking a Nicol-Bolas, God Pharoah or two as a wincon work? Can never cast him unless we run Rainbow lands/Gilded Lotus type stuff, but he is a pretty good way to close out a game after a Fall/Mending trigger.
At one point I'd added a couple of Sandwurm Convergence instead of the Teferis. There's always Sylvan Awakening. Or we could go Sultai (splash white for Fall only) and run Muldrotha, the Gravetide as a wincon and extra recursion.
I think you're right about relying on artifacts. At this point it's likely just asking for trouble as we get caught by people already bringing hate for other decks. We don't need to be collateral damage there.
Seems like we are heading toward a decision between faster ramp-based and slower control-based strategies, which I think will lead us to very different finisher options. In either case there's the possibility of just splashing white for Fall, and going heavy into 1 or 2 other "main" colours.
EDIT--To be specific, I'm thinking that running stuff with etb effects, or just big killy guys that can dominate the board after a Fall. I like the etb gain 5 life guy(names escape me right now), and legends like Lyra and/or Traxos if you have fuel to keep Traxos untapping. Running some amount of creatures also makes Mending I and II useful, while growing to the finale.
Creatures:
2 Deathgorge Scavenger
2 Gonti, Lord of Luxury
2 Hostage Taker
1 Muldrotha, the Gravetide
2 Ravenous Chupacabra
2 Thrashing Brontodon
3 Walking Ballista
4 Fall of the Thran
4 The Mending of Dominaria
Instants:
4 Fatal Push
3 Scarab Feast
3 Vraska's Contempt
Planeswalkers
1 Nissa, Steward of Elements
Sorceries:
2 Gaea's Blessing
3 Hadana's Climb
4 Glint-Sleeve Siphoner
2 Shalai, Voice of Plenty
1 The Scarab God
4 Winding Constrictor
1 TBD
While I'm not against the idea of 4 colors, I don't know how well we can support it with the current lands available. I definitely want to say G/W is mandatory, because of Fall/Mending, but I don't know which is better between Black or Blue for support, and that choice makes two entirely different decks.
Are there any "Bird of Paradise" or Rainbow Lands other than the energy based one in Kaladesh that can support a 4 color deck? Short of Painted Bluff style "filter" lands? For a midrange style deck, I think you have something with Muldrotha + Mending, but I don't think that deck can support splashing White for Fall. And if you wanted to go for Control, I don't think we can support a 4th color and also run the Muldrotha package to keep his engine going.
EDIT--I think the Muldrotha version fits better into a 'Dredge 2.0" deck with maybe God-Pharoah's Gift backing him up, while the Fall/Mending combo fits better into a Control/Midrange style deck.
BUG "Dredge" worked well as a Solitaire deck, but against an actual opponent, it didn't interact enough beause it didn't have room for counterspells and only had minimal room for targeted removal like Fatal Push/Vraska's Contempt. It was also slow, and any deck whose purpose was to just throw out dudes and turn them sideways easily stomped them before we got our engine running.
Bant "Midrange/Control--Had a decent recovery if you got to cast Fumigate on curve, then stabilize with Arborback/Lyra Dawnbringer, but because of the manabase available, we often are a turn or two behind because of relying on tapped dual lands.
Next up, I was considering either Naya Midrange/Land Destruction combined with a R/G Monsters theme, or Abzan Rock/Midrange, and Scriptures was definitely a card I was looking at as another value card. It also can run both Mending and Fall alongside it, so its looking very Saga focused. Ill throw a list together sometime and maybe post my list for discussion in awhile.
4 Phyrexian Scriptures
2 Legion's Landing
4 Dire Fleet Hoarder
4 Servo Exhibition
3 Walking Ballista
4 Scrapheap Scrounger
3 Sunscourge Champion
24 Land
1 Cataclysmic Gearhulk
1 Noxious Gearhulk
2 Lyra Dawnbringer
3 Sunscourge Champion
1 Bontu the Glorified
1 Rhonas the Indomitable
2 Ravenous Chupacabra
Enchantments
2 Fall of the Thran
2 The Mending of Dominaria
3 Phyrexian Scriptures
2 Seal Away
Instants
3 Vraska's Contempt
4 Fatal Push
4 Sunpetal Grove
4 Isolated Chapel
4 Woodland Cemetery
3 Field of Ruin
4 Scattered Groves
2 Swamp
2 Plains
2 Forest
Planeswalkers
1 Ajani Unyielding
1 Gideon, Martial Paragon
1 Liliana, Death's Majesty
1 Nissa, Vital Force
Sorceries
4 Duress
3 Deathgorge Scavenger
2 Cast Out
2 Seal Away
3 Moment of Craving
4 Harsh Scrutiny