Bringing my next deck to the Deck Doctor

[Heavy B]

(remember that column in The Duelist...remember the The Duelist for that matter? )

Anyway

Here goes:

Deck Name (again...depressingly...pending)

Theme: Destroy the opponent's Land while building up resources to cast big critters that will cross the field of battle and stomp a mudhole in them.

Interesting notes: I think that Eternal Witness + Stampeding Wildebeests + Jalum Tome is a pretty good combo that fits in this deck. Any thoughts? I really like it as a card advantage engine but it's not super-solid in this deck. Maybe if I add a Genesis and some Green Tutors?

Deck List:

Land Destruction:

4 xThermokarst (love the art)
4x Icequake (Interesting art and not heavily played.

Utility:

3x Befoul
3x Creeping Mold
4x Dark Ritual
2x Jalum Tome
3x Diabolic Edict
1x Demonic Tutor

Critters:

4x Stampeding Wildebeests
4x Hypnotic Specter
3x Eternal Witness
4x Birds of Paradise
2x Quiron Elves

Land:

7x Swamp
6x Forest
4x Llanowar Wastes
4x Strip Mine

62 cards

Comments / Concerns:

1. Mana balance: I think I'm running too lean on mana w/ the Strip Mines basically intended for the graveyard. The mana critters are very fragile and will likely see some chump blocking duty along the way. The Witness will bring them back but w/ summoning sickness.

In addtion there is a great number of spells with a Color+Color requirement which in addition to this being a two color deck could potentially lead to mana hosing. I'm trying to work through this with the pain lands and the birds / elves but I'm not sure it's enough. I don't have any Bayous so it's Pain Lands for me.

2. Weenies: Playtesting this against my Sligh deck I ran into trouble in two areas - one...when I didn't hit any Elves for mana accell and Sligh got Jackal Pup on turn one, Canyon Wildcat on turn two, and Bloodrock Cyclops on turn three. By the time I could start blowing up lands it was really too late. I squeezed out some Wildebeests which were taken out by Fireblasts and was swarmed. Sligh, of course, is a naturally bad matchup for Land D which is exactly why I tested it vs Sligh. This matchup brought to light a pretty big problem: Three Fireslingers pinging me for 3 / round late in the game with the last Fireblast to finish up. In short: not enough capacity to reach out and touch someone.

How to fix this? Sub Drain Life for the Edicts? Drain is slower but targetable and has no prob w/ black or artifact creatures. It can also serve as a stall or alternate wine condition.

3. Card advantage. I currently have 9 cards devoted to card advantage: 4 Wildebeests (I'd probably go with a Sengir in this type of deck), 3 Eternal Guardians, and the two Jalum tomes (I currently have only two).

Is this deck the place for that engine? If so how should I tweak it?

4. Creature mix: Hypno was added because a 2/2 flier for 3 is good even if it's double color and the discard has an additional disruption effect tho I'm very open to chaging this. Also the Wildebeests as noted above...they're a nice 5/4 Trample 4 drop but they're in the deck as utility / finishers. If their utility goes away there are better finishers.

Thanks again, folks.

 

[Lythand]

Land destruction is what it looks like.

Ill throw this at ya. I played a green/white deck. 4 wrath of god and 4 applocalypse. 4 Green diamond and 4 white Diamond. Use something like jade statue or Chamiric Idle (they turn back to artifacts after activated and thus unaffected by the wrath of god). You could also use the thermokarst incase you don't draw a Apocalypse. Another nasty combo I use with this type of deck, and it always makes your opponant look in amazement, cast living land on one of his lands making it a 3/3 creature, then use eradicate on it. Eradicate will remove that land, and all copies of it from his hand and library. Its quite fun to do.

 

[Heavy B]

Land destruction is what it looks like.

Ill throw this at ya. I played a green/white deck. 4 wrath of god and 4 applocalypse. 4 Green diamond and 4 white Diamond. Use something like jade statue or Chamiric Idle (they turn back to artifacts after activated and thus unaffected by the wrath of god). You could also use the thermokarst incase you don't draw a Apocalypse. Another nasty combo I use with this type of deck, and it always makes your opponant look in amazement, cast living land on one of his lands making it a 3/3 creature, then use eradicate on it. Eradicate will remove that land, and all copies of it from his hand and library. Its quite fun to do.

Oh, sorry. I typed "hand" instead of "land". It's definitely LD.

BTW...another filthy combo...Blanket of Night + Spreading Algae...was thinking of including that in this deck but I'm not sure my friends would allow me to live if I pulled that off.

The last time I played Blanket was Blanket + Karma + CoP White. This did not garner me a good reception.

Land destruction is what it looks like.

cast living land on one of his lands making it a 3/3 creature, then use eradicate on it. Eradicate will remove that land, and all copies of it from his hand and library. Its quite fun to do.

That's simply rude.

 

[Oversoul]

B/G land destruction just isn't the same without it...

 

[Lythand]

That's simply rude.

Lol I know

 

[orgg]

If its a LD deck, you need more LD. Since Stripmine is a spell in this deck, you need at least four more LD spells; Try four Creeping Molds. I'd also pull most of the things costing BB and replace them with things that don't cost that, but function in that capacity (Well, Hippy isn't replacable, but you probably get what I'm saying). I'd also play some Llanowar/Fyndhorn elves for mana acceleration instead of Dark Ritual; LD is already playing at a simi-card disadvantageous position, and DR is pure card disadvantage.

 

[Limited]

I don't have a lot of experience playing with Land Destruction, but I figure this deck could use Rolling Spoil and perhaps Rancid Earth.. both can (occasionally) take out weenie hordes..

Furthermore, I don't Hypnotic Specter really belonges in this deck; you'd be better of with some 3/3 that is a lot harder to kill and will force them to chumpblock sooner..

And, If you want to play with the Wildebeests, you need to play more green creatures with a cool come into play ability. So, 4 Eternal Witness and some Viridian Shamans and perhaps some Wood Elves.

2ct, in the pocket

 

[Lythand]

There is also a new red spell from I believe dissension. Cost is 4, distroy target land and puts 2 more red in your mana pool

 

[Heavy B]

So...

I'm stuck like Chuck. So far I have a deck that can't keep mana controlled quickly enough to stop speedy decks and doesn't have enough "oomph" to put away decks that fire out big creatures w/ good regularity and/or speed.

Here's the current decklist:

10 Forest
9 Swamp
4 Llanowar Wastes
_____

23 Lands

Board Control

4x Thermokarst
4x Icequake
4x Strip Mine
3x Creeping Mold
3x Befoul
3x Eradicate

Card advantage (actually more draw advantage but it's all I currently have)

3x Sylvan Library
1x Demonic Tutor

Critters

4x Birds of Paradise
4x Argothian Wurm
4x Sengir Vampire
_______
37 Cards

60 cards total.

Back to being focused...this is a Land Destruction deck. It's mission in life is to keep the little man down until I can finish him off with a head stomp from my hobnail boot .

Translated: Keep my opponent's mana resources low, remove threats as they hit the board, and with my own hopefully unfettered mana supply kill him with good and reasonably efficient trample / evasion creatures.

The Strip Mines were not calculated in the mana as they're not truly there as anything other than LD.

The Sylvan Libraries are in there for obvious reasons but I'm open to better card advantage ideas if anyone has them.

What I like:
- 12 Dedicated LD cards
- 6 Utility destruction cards in Befoul and Creeping Mold
- 3 Eradicate seems to be a good fit for this deck but I'm open to a better mass creature killer. Anything from a spell about which I do not currently know or Disks would be considered.

- 4 Argothian Wurms are a decent LD combo creature - not so good if I have to play from behind, though...basically lets my opponent Timewalk me.

What I don't like:

So far this deck is not fast enough to stop fast decks and not powerful enough to finish slower decks. It feels like it needs more low to mid cost creatures that provide some early utility and late game sacrifice or chump block.

I've tested it against Suicide Black (it gets killed), Sligh (it gets killed) and Stompy (it will beat Stompy if Stompy has a bad draw and LD has a good one). I'm not overly concerned about not being able to beat these decks. I use them as baselines only. My playgroup generally doesn't gravitate to the fast, focused kill deck. LD normally beats fast decks w/ the sideboard in any case but I still would like to see the LD deck be a bit faster.

I've tested it against a deck I call Ring Wurm (R/G Sol Rings, trampling Wurms and Dragons...ergo the name) which starts casting 3/4 on round two, 4/2 on round 3 and 7/7 Trample on round 5 and Shivans and Viashivans after that (presuming no help from elves or Sol Rings).

The Shivans and Viashivans generally never see the board but the horned Kavu and the Flame Tongue Kavu are generally enough to do me in. I have beaten this deck a few times w/ really good draws but the large majority of the time I'm getting stomped by frickin' filthy Kavu.

The Ring Wurm match up is important to me because it emulates about 30% of the decks I play against - fast big creatures w/ a lot of red and / or white support.

In any case...thanks for reading this far...please shower me with ideas...the zen of LD is escaping me.

 

[Lythand]

If its black and green. You could use Nekretaal for big creatures and Thrashing wumpus for smaller creatures.

 

[Lythand]

Also if you splashed white you could have Swords to plowshares or Condenm in the deck which are both one mana creature removal. However you do have the birds which can produce white mana. Some dark rituals will give you some manay exceleration which will also help for those 3 casting cost LD spells and are no longer on banned restricted list. Check Here

 

[Oversoul]

Dark Ritual was never restricted in Vintage. It was banned in Extended until it rotated out of the format anyway. And I don't think Heavy B cares...

 

[Limited]

How about putting in a lot of two drops that fix your mana? For instance:
4x Sakura-Tribe Elder
4x Wall of Roots
4x Vine Trellis

Now, starting turn 4, you'll have four mana (guaranteed! ) so you play a series of nasty landdestruction spells with added abilities:
4x Rolling Spoil
4x Despoil
4x Befoul
4x Creeping Mold

And I'll add the most annoying card ever:
4x Plow Under

And you'll have room for some mass removal
4x Hideous Laughter/Disk

And then the most obvious finisher:
4x Terravore!

10 Forests, 6 Swamps and 4 Llanowar Wastes makes 60!

Hmm.. forgot to put your Stripmines in the deck.. perhaps instead of Despoil?

 

[Lythand]

Dark Ritual was never restricted in Vintage. It was banned in Extended until it rotated out of the format anyway. And I don't think Heavy B cares...

Are you sure, I think it was restricted like 3 years ago just before I quit.

 

[Heavy B]

Dark Ritual was never restricted in Vintage. It was banned in Extended until it rotated out of the format anyway. And I don't think Heavy B cares...

Not that I'm uncaring...but it's OK to have 4 in my playgroup I am very sensitive and touch-feely. I'd hate to hurt someone's feelings while I choke off their access to the mana that is their life's blood and watch them slowly go pale, then limp, then... (Oh...waitaminute...carry on...ignore that last post)

 

[Heavy B]

How about putting in a lot of two drops that fix your mana? For instance:
4x Sakura-Tribe Elder
4x Wall of Roots
4x Vine Trellis

Now, starting turn 4, you'll have four mana (guaranteed! ) so you play a series of nasty landdestruction spells with added abilities:
4x Rolling Spoil
4x Despoil
4x Befoul
4x Creeping Mold

And I'll add the most annoying card ever:
4x Plow Under

And you'll have room for some mass removal
4x Hideous Laughter/Disk

And then the most obvious finisher:
4x Terravore!

10 Forests, 6 Swamps and 4 Llanowar Wastes makes 60!

Hmm.. forgot to put your Stripmines in the deck.. perhaps instead of Despoil?

Wow.

Thanks for the detail. I'm going to have to research some of these cards and see if they work w/ my playstyle and the meta I'll be facing. I'll certainly get back to you and let you know when I decide on a final deck list.

 

[Oversoul]

Are you sure, I think it was restricted like 3 years ago just before I quit.

You're probably thinking of when it was banned in Extended, which started in 2000 and ended when Mercadian Masques (the last set to include Dark Ritual) rotated out of the format.

 

[Heavy B]

Here's where I landed:

3x Thermokarst - I like the art. I like the idea of 3 mana landkill and this deck started life years ago with Thermokarst so karmically speaking Thermokarst must remain.

3x Icequake - See above.

3x Strip Mine - See above. Also...uncounterable sacrifice speed landkill has its uses and the Mine can help with mana if I'm in a good landkill position.

3x Befoul
3x Creeping Mold
3x Rolling Spoil - The rationale on all these is the same. Stay with the landkill theme but for one additional mana get a great bargain in utility over the 3 mana landkill.

3x Eradicate - Still not sold on this yet. I'll have to see how useful it truly is through playtesting. Dead card vs mono black.

4x Terravore - Great suggestion. One of the cards I didn't know that will become a big contributor to this deck.

4x Birds of Paradise - I elected to keep the Birds to smooth the dual color mana requirements.

4x Wall of Roots - Another good suggestion. Stops early weenies and helps early mana.

4x Wall of Mulch - Not sure on this selection. Since I have cut several of the cards down to 3x instead of 4x it is even more important to have some type of card drawing.

2x Sengir - Big, black fliers are good.

1x Demonic Tutor - Spectacular card. Gotta find a place. Typically more combo-deck suited but if I really need an Eradicate I really need an Eradicate.

9x Forest
7x Swamp
4x Llanowar Wastes

 

[Limited]

You know, I'd almost play Wild Growth or Utopia Sprawl over the Birds, just because they are more susceptable to removal and die to your own Rolling Spoil..

(And I can't resist replacing $40 with $0.04 )

 

[Heavy B]

Well...

Belay that.

The compromise version that I noted as "Here's where I landed" has miserably failed.

Onward we go. I'll keep working on it and will advise.