So coming back into the game after years away, this is my first brew for standard since Innistrad days. It started out trying to be a miracle grow deck with Deeproot Champion and Enigma Drake, but they moved out in favour of some other surprisingly strong cards.
So the biggest surprise was just how good Sandwum Convergence is. If you can play Hour of Promise and make your land drop next turn, you can play Sandwurm COnvergence, as early as turn 5 in this deck. It is amazing how much trouble people seem to have dealing with it. The deck as a whole generates incredble amounts of card advantage. Combustible Gearhulk should almost always let you draw 3, and if they take the damage, it usually does 10+ and can potentially be instantly lethal. Spring // Mind provides early ramp and late game draw. Hour of Promise is one of my favourite cards now, being basically the lovechild of Primeval Titan and Grave Titan.
The goal is pretty simple. Lightning Strike and Abrade provide your early removal. You want to ramp on turn 3 with either Spring // Mind or Nissa. With Nissa you play her at 1 then Scry, preferrably being able to put nonland on top of land so on turn 4 you can 0 her for an extra land. Either of those will let you cast either Hour on turn 4, depending on your needs. Turn 5 should either be a Combustible Gearhulk or Sandwurm Convergence, and from there you just keep accumulating value and card advantage until you overwhelm your opponent. Aggro decks run out of steam in the face of a steady stream of 5/5s and flyers can't attack you at all. Nissa can keep smoothing your draws until you're ready to toss lands at your opponent's face. Mind and Gearhulks keep reloading your hand. Shefet Monitor can be backup ramp, providing fuel for the deserts with more deserts, or another perfectly servicable 6/5 body.
Ramunap excavatior is good with deserts. And the desert that makes zombies when its put in gy.
And 1 of the e other nissa for card draw turns hour of promise into 5 mana ramp 2 draw 2 get 2 zombies
Ive had fun with a GB build using hapatra and the black desert
I've been conmsidering Excavator, but I feel like that would be part of a larger overhaul, moving away from ramp into something else. I also had looked at the idea of an Abzan coloured version that could use the deadlands as well as Overwhelming Splendor as an additional top end card.
Love running Combustible, it seems underrated and doubles as a value first-striker that can handle The Scarab God easier than the other Hulks and gets value from ETB since most the time Hulks get an Abrade or Ixalan's Binding or Vraska's Contempt.
I'd consider 4 Sand Strangler and 2 Walking Ballista, cutting/sideboarding 3 Hour of Devastation and 3 Nissa's.
Hard to suggest for this list as it's pretty air tight and well thought out. I can see those choices being wrong MB against a lot of the control meta but Strangler + Ballista is really good at dealing with Whirler Virtuoso, Hostage Taker, The Scarab God, Unblockable creatures and Ballista in a pure ramp deck is 2sick.
It makes it harder on Gifted Aethorborn, Longtusk Cub, Aethersphere Harvester and Heart of Kiran to act aggressive as they won't expect after safely chump blocking or gettting blocked for you to cast Strangler main phase two to finish off a body and have a 3/3 which only comes to mind because you won't draw Abrade every time you need it which seems to be the only artifact hate MD.
MB:
Walking Ballista
Sand Strangler
Vizier of the Menagerie
Ranging Raptors (Works decent as a 5th-8th of Spring to Mind, really good with Walking Ballista)
Vizier of Many Faces (SB card, ramp makes embalming easier too)
Sand Stranglers seem like overkill with the Abrades and Ligthning Strikes already there, but I think you're right about the walking ballistas. Time to break the piggy bank!
Also a lucky Iconic Masters pack gave me a Mana Drain which among other things for EDH decks got me a Chandra, Torch of Defiance which I put in in place of a Shefet Monitor. Played a few games with it and saw her enough to think she needs to be a 2 or 3 of if I can acquire them.
(I made my own thread but we have similar cards so I thought I'd post my idea :D)
So, I am excited to post this idea because it seems like it might have some legs. Please tell me what you guys think!
Gameplan is very straight forward, and the deck is not actually hard to play at all. Typically you want to Treasure map on T2 and try to tick it up as often as you can without stifling your ramping cards. Cultivators caravan comes down on 3 mana, then supplies the extra 1 mana required to tick up your Treasure map right away. That said, its not imperative that you tick up TM every single turn because you will likely survive to late game and have it eventually. Ramp into Sunbird's Invocation and your approach will have combo potential. You can also use Spring/Mind as a 9 CMC card to dig super deep with sunbird's. Narnam renegade as a 1 of in MB and 3 in SB for Bristling Hydra. 4 Fumigate 3 Star of Extinction to shut down derpy creature strats. Star of extinction can fetch approach also once you have sunbird in play (7CMC). Ipnu Rivulet can help you get to approach cast #2 if things arent going well (no sunbird). Not really sold on a SB plan yet. Theres a lot of options because Im essentially 4 color and shouldnt have too many mana issues (hopefully).
I like Fumigate better than hour of devastation right now because it will actually hit a Bristling hydra, where as if you have to jam a HoD and you miss the Hydra you are basically dead. This gives me more reason to be in white than heavy red, although abrade is pretty spicy right now.
You were mentioning:
Walking Ballista
Sand Strangler
I dont think either of these cards is a good enough fit for your list. You have the potential to go over the top because of all the ramp, so these cards seem more midrangey than what you want to be doing. I feel like the combustible gearhulk is working against your mostly creatureless nature. It costs a lot, and they will let you draw 3 and probably just kill it (or blow you out with essence scatter, or sensor, etc.). Is it a good enough creature to warrant not being mostly creatureless (Hour of promise hardly counts). Star of extinction is suuper spicy right now, as is Sunbird's invocation. Especially when you can CMC a spring/mind into something under 9 mana (huge plays). Idk I feel like ramp has the potential to be mostly creatureless and just worry about early removal/ramp/and finishers. We have a lot of tools and options and it honestly seems like a lot of potential is in this archetype with Hour of Promise (just make damn sure you hit your first desert before you play it, and have a follow up like Star of extinction to clean up afterwards.
Combustible Gearhulk is an all-star. Drawing 3 cards is never bad, and when someone actually takes the hit they're taking 10 to 15 damage from it on average. Star of Extinction has potential, but I wouldn't cut the Gearhulks for it.
4x Lightning Strike
4x Abrade
4x Shefet Monitor
3x Nissa, Steward of Elements
4x Hour of Devastation
4x Hour of Promise
4x Combustible Gearhulk
4x Sandwurm Convergence
4x Botanical Sanctum
3x Sheltered Thicket
4x Rootbound Crag
3x Ramunap Ruins
2x Ipnu Rivulet
2x Hashep Oasis
1x Hostile Desert
2x Island
2x Mountain
2x Forest
So the biggest surprise was just how good Sandwum Convergence is. If you can play Hour of Promise and make your land drop next turn, you can play Sandwurm COnvergence, as early as turn 5 in this deck. It is amazing how much trouble people seem to have dealing with it. The deck as a whole generates incredble amounts of card advantage. Combustible Gearhulk should almost always let you draw 3, and if they take the damage, it usually does 10+ and can potentially be instantly lethal. Spring // Mind provides early ramp and late game draw. Hour of Promise is one of my favourite cards now, being basically the lovechild of Primeval Titan and Grave Titan.
The goal is pretty simple. Lightning Strike and Abrade provide your early removal. You want to ramp on turn 3 with either Spring // Mind or Nissa. With Nissa you play her at 1 then Scry, preferrably being able to put nonland on top of land so on turn 4 you can 0 her for an extra land. Either of those will let you cast either Hour on turn 4, depending on your needs. Turn 5 should either be a Combustible Gearhulk or Sandwurm Convergence, and from there you just keep accumulating value and card advantage until you overwhelm your opponent. Aggro decks run out of steam in the face of a steady stream of 5/5s and flyers can't attack you at all. Nissa can keep smoothing your draws until you're ready to toss lands at your opponent's face. Mind and Gearhulks keep reloading your hand. Shefet Monitor can be backup ramp, providing fuel for the deserts with more deserts, or another perfectly servicable 6/5 body.
Sideboard options include things like Negate and Spell Swindle for control decks, Chaos Maw for aggro/tokens, Filigree Familiar for aggro, Scavenger Grounds for The Scarab God, all adjusted for your local meta.
C Long Live Eldrazi C
I'm not? 8 2 mana removal spells, consistent turn 4 either sweeper or pair of tokens to block. Why do you think nothing is happening for 6 turns?
And 1 of the e other nissa for card draw turns hour of promise into 5 mana ramp 2 draw 2 get 2 zombies
Ive had fun with a GB build using hapatra and the black desert
I'd consider 4 Sand Strangler and 2 Walking Ballista, cutting/sideboarding 3 Hour of Devastation and 3 Nissa's.
Hard to suggest for this list as it's pretty air tight and well thought out. I can see those choices being wrong MB against a lot of the control meta but Strangler + Ballista is really good at dealing with Whirler Virtuoso, Hostage Taker, The Scarab God, Unblockable creatures and Ballista in a pure ramp deck is 2sick.
It makes it harder on Gifted Aethorborn, Longtusk Cub, Aethersphere Harvester and Heart of Kiran to act aggressive as they won't expect after safely chump blocking or gettting blocked for you to cast Strangler main phase two to finish off a body and have a 3/3 which only comes to mind because you won't draw Abrade every time you need it which seems to be the only artifact hate MD.
MB:
Walking Ballista
Sand Strangler
Vizier of the Menagerie
Ranging Raptors (Works decent as a 5th-8th of Spring to Mind, really good with Walking Ballista)
Vizier of Many Faces (SB card, ramp makes embalming easier too)
Sick deck!
MODERNW InstaKnightMentSTANDARDUR Desert SpellsSTANDARDBGU Golgari GOALSAlso a lucky Iconic Masters pack gave me a Mana Drain which among other things for EDH decks got me a Chandra, Torch of Defiance which I put in in place of a Shefet Monitor. Played a few games with it and saw her enough to think she needs to be a 2 or 3 of if I can acquire them.
So, I am excited to post this idea because it seems like it might have some legs. Please tell me what you guys think!
Gameplan is very straight forward, and the deck is not actually hard to play at all. Typically you want to Treasure map on T2 and try to tick it up as often as you can without stifling your ramping cards. Cultivators caravan comes down on 3 mana, then supplies the extra 1 mana required to tick up your Treasure map right away. That said, its not imperative that you tick up TM every single turn because you will likely survive to late game and have it eventually. Ramp into Sunbird's Invocation and your approach will have combo potential. You can also use Spring/Mind as a 9 CMC card to dig super deep with sunbird's. Narnam renegade as a 1 of in MB and 3 in SB for Bristling Hydra. 4 Fumigate 3 Star of Extinction to shut down derpy creature strats. Star of extinction can fetch approach also once you have sunbird in play (7CMC). Ipnu Rivulet can help you get to approach cast #2 if things arent going well (no sunbird). Not really sold on a SB plan yet. Theres a lot of options because Im essentially 4 color and shouldnt have too many mana issues (hopefully).
// 7 Artifact
4 Treasure Map
3 Cultivator's Caravan
// 1 Creature
1 Narnam Renegade
// 7 Enchantment
4 Sunbird's Invocation
3 Gift of Paradise
// 3 Instant
3 Abrade
// 25 Land
4 Forest
4 Ipnu Rivulet
1 Mountain
2 Ramunap Ruins
2 Plains
4 Field of Ruin
1 Island
2 Shefet Dunes
4 Inspiring Vantage
1 Hashep Oasis
4 Hour of Promise
3 Approach of the Second Sun
3 Spring // Mind
4 Fumigate
3 Star of Extinction
2 Torrential Gearhulk
3 Narnam Renegade
1 Sandwurm Convergence
4 Slice in Twain
2 Settle the Wreckage
1 Essence Scatter
1 Star of Extinction
1 River's Rebuke
I like Fumigate better than hour of devastation right now because it will actually hit a Bristling hydra, where as if you have to jam a HoD and you miss the Hydra you are basically dead. This gives me more reason to be in white than heavy red, although abrade is pretty spicy right now.
You were mentioning:
Walking Ballista
Sand Strangler
I dont think either of these cards is a good enough fit for your list. You have the potential to go over the top because of all the ramp, so these cards seem more midrangey than what you want to be doing. I feel like the combustible gearhulk is working against your mostly creatureless nature. It costs a lot, and they will let you draw 3 and probably just kill it (or blow you out with essence scatter, or sensor, etc.). Is it a good enough creature to warrant not being mostly creatureless (Hour of promise hardly counts). Star of extinction is suuper spicy right now, as is Sunbird's invocation. Especially when you can CMC a spring/mind into something under 9 mana (huge plays). Idk I feel like ramp has the potential to be mostly creatureless and just worry about early removal/ramp/and finishers. We have a lot of tools and options and it honestly seems like a lot of potential is in this archetype with Hour of Promise (just make damn sure you hit your first desert before you play it, and have a follow up like Star of extinction to clean up afterwards.