LAND DESTRUCTION
If you just have an itch to play a land destruction based deck in legacy, this is a possible list that might give you an idea, or help amplify one setup you already have.
Basis of the deck: To lock your opponent out of the game, how do we do that? prevent them from being able to do anything, and in legacy, if you're going to do that, you need to do it fast, and out of the many directions in magic to come from and attempt to pull off lesser played aspect of the game, one of those ways is a resource denial strategy, more specifically, the land destruction strategy.
So the next goal is to look at what destroys land the fastest, and the most efficiently, meaning that if you turn 2 go "ritual of w/ever, get to 4 mana, cast armageddon" all you're doing is burning too many resources for not enough of theirs, and in between those "armageddon/big land sweep strategies" they get windows where then can slowly start squeezing out bigger and bigger stuff/creatures, cast more and more spells, etc. With this setup however, you are keeping them low on mana constantly, and if things go the way they are suppose to, you'll eventually have them with no or 1 land out when you lay down a trinisphere (dropping it at 2 lands is risky if they get a 3rd into play, they can possibly answer it)
Since you need to be doing stuff from the beginning because legacy is not a slow format, we have to pull from what destroys lands fastest, that being the option of 2 cmc Land destruction sinkholeblight & land destruction type spells smallpox (If you're worried about the anti synergy with smallpox and blight, remember they are likely to use their land and let it go if they think it's important enough, and they will need all the mana they can get to even do anything, and on top of that, we still have rishadan port to force a tap on it & get rid of it "properly"
The other card that is a land that helps here is probably the most obvious, the uncounterable & even taps for a colorless mana wasteland After that, we can play a land and say go, then they play a land and say go, then you get to your turn 2, and start casting stuff like sinkhole, blight, smallpox if they have a creature out and you can afford to lose a land early, or even just rishadan port /tap on their upkeep. But in 50% of our games, we will not be playing first, so we need an option that lets us destroy lands from our turn 1's about 50% of the time, and since you start out with 7 cards in hand, and in these -they play first- scenarios you are drawing an 8th card before you start doing anything, we need 1 of those 8 cards to be something like a chrome mox so you can have 2 mana on your turn 1, 3 mana on your turn 2, etc, and keep up with destroying their lands properly. We won't always get a hand with a chrome mox when we need it, but having them in the deck + mulligan helps, and at the same time, there are other match ups where you won't need to destroy their land so quickly and can afford to wait 1 turn, so that all depends on a combination of factors that come into play, just like anything else in magic. In the end, it means we can run 4chrome mox and be happy with it.
After the 2 cmc LD stuff, we have the 3 cmc LD or higher cards, being that of stone rain (since its 2 colorless 1 red, and we're running a 2 color deck that needs double black & is even splashing a 3rd, it's a good choice to go with) Then there is Pillage, which can hit opposing chrome mox or any other non land - artifact mana producing cards. The other slot will be taken by earth rift, which also has 3 colors / 1 red in its cmc, and even though it costs 4, it also has flashback for later on in the game when you need the option to destroy another land.
Since the deck at this point is red / black, splashing white, and since it already has 12 mana sources set (wasteland/rishadan port/chrome mox) the rest of the mana base should be something like 4 bloodstained mire 4 graven cairns 3 badlands 1 scrubland That is a total of 24 mana sources, 2/5th's -or- 40% of your deck, and since only 8 spells cost 4 and the rest are less, we should be fine, the flashback costs are for late game when you'll more than likely have the mana and them some anyway. (note: with 4 bloodstained mire, you have a way to search out that 1 scrubland, giving you essentially "5 cards" that can give you that 1 white mana when you need it, like when you burning wish for vindicate)
Since we're doing so much land destruction, we should have an edge against slower type decks that need more mana, so the bigger problem at this point would be faster decks, and since the most common way to kill is to turn guys sideways, a deck like zoo is a good example of why we want some answers to creatures. We already have smallpox but a mass removal spell is also important, especially against stuff like goblins where they come out like crazy, so damnation, probably the best mass creature removal spell black has, is a good option, and since you might not have them on lockdown just yet and you and your opponent are both topdecking, you just keep destroying their lands and waiting it out. That means that a creature removal spell that can be used more than once is also a good option, like chainer's edict, you can flash it back at these times, and of course in early game, cast it and slow them down to buy yourself more time. Also a chainer's never hurts against stuff like emerakul, the aeon's torn & company
Since out ultimate plan is to lock them out, keeping them off mana then getting out a trinisphere, and we need a kill condition, we can either run 4 trinisphere & 4 kill condition cards, or we can squeeze them together and utilize them both from 1 card, being 4 burning wish, while this allows us to burning wish for a kill call the skybreaker -or- haunting echoes it does not allow us to wish for the trinisphere from the sideboard, so we just go 1 trinisphere instead, and burning wish for a tutor like diabolic tutor -or- rhystic tutor (with rhystic, they have the option to pay 2 to stop you, but remember, when you want to get out the trinisphere, you don't want them to be able to answer it, meaning that they should have out 0 or 1 land anyway, but not 2 since that means they can play a land on their next turn and start casting stuff again, potentially artifact destruction stuff. All that summed up means, Rhystic tutor is a nice option as a wish target in this deck, and worst case scenario, you can just get diabolic tutor instead)
So there you have it, the remaining stuff to note, some questions you might be thinking of, are probably answered in the sideboard cards listed below the decklist, if you have any more questions feel free to post away in the thread, and as always, have fun.
Every deck has good match ups and bad match ups, for this deck, the worst match ups are Dredge, & fast storm combo decks (belcher/ANT/tes) For those matches, get out the trinisphere ASAP, with a chrome mox and burning wish, you could cast it as early as turn 2, but just in case that's not fast enough, mindbreak trap in the sideboard is an option, and as for dredge, tormod's crypt / surgical extraction / Faerie macabre, which are all free to cast (-2 life w/ surgical) Also dredge is a good reason why haunting echoes is an option as kill condition #2, if you can just last long enough to cast this spell, it's game for you in this match unlike any other! use those edicts & smallpox's to keep them from getting to 3 creatures for a dread return.
Remember, those are the hardest match ups in the tons of decks that are in legacy, most of your other match ups against most of the field, you will have a fair setup provided you don't have to mulligan a bunch or get mana flooded / mana screwed Against aggro, you have a good setup, if they don't have burn to back it up, you have even more of an advantage, and if they cast bigger creatures instead of faster/cheaper ones, you are at even more of an advantage. against control decks, they will be able to do very little if they don't burn their counterspells on your unrelenting onslaught of land destruction spell after land destruction spell after land destruction spell.
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This is technically one of the few legacy deck's that I have had the longest, I just love the land destruction aspect of the game, the idea of nullifying every permanent my opponent has and locking them down is fun for some reason >^,^<
Sideboard Stuff:
1 Shattering spree (cheap anti artifact w/ replicate)
1 Paraselene (need answers to things like sacred ground, and can hit multiple enchants at once to boot)
1 Timely reinforcements (helps when falling behind against mono red strategies)
1 Vindicate (Destroys a land, or an enchantment, or even a planeswalker, anything)
1 rain of tears (a 3 cmc LD spell for when you need to destroy a land and only have 5 mana)
1 Sowing salt (Gets past indestructible Darksteel citadel (but so does smallpox) & nails multiple copies from the deck)
1 Wake of destruction (If you're falling behind, this gets can not only get you right back but potentially win you the game)
1 Chainer's edict (get's past untargetable bombs that are out alone)
1 Pyroclasm (helps a ton against fast weenie decks)
1 Recoup (Recast anything in your graveyard, you're going to have more mana than they are if you're doing what you're suppose to, and it gives you the potential to destroy 2 lands for 1 card if necessary)
1 Beacon of unrest (Never bring out the trinisphere if they have 3+ lands, but if they make you discard it or even mill it from your deck to your graveyard, this is the one way to get it back)
1 Rhystic tutor (It's likely they wont be able to pay 2, so its a cheaper way to get whatever you need, usually going for trinisphere to finish locking them out)
1 Diabolic tutor (just in case they can play 2 and you want anything from your deck or just want to get the trinisphere in hand to "get ready" for that final setup before you lock them out)
1 Haunting echoes (1 of your 2 kill conditions, games go on for so long, if for some reason they answer your main kill condition, which is unlikely since by that time, you should have out a trinisphere and they should have out no lands)
1 Call the skybreaker (your main kill condition)
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In making these notes I actually realized a couple things about the sideboard so I feel I must address them.
Vindicate can take out an enchantment, and with recoup, it can take out a second enchantment, so I could -1 Paraselene to free up a sideboard slot.
If I am going for "the lock down" (burning wish, get a tutor, use it to get the trinisphere) they should not have the mana to pay for rhystic tutor if I'm doing my job, & if they do have the mana to pay for it, I shouldn't be playing the trinisphere yet, and waiting till when I play it, they will not be able to destroy it because they never get to 3 mana. Basically all that means is, if they have mana, I'm probably going to burning wish for more Land Destruction so I can get to the position of casting trinisphere safely, long story short, I could -1 diabolic tutor and free up a sideboard slot.
I almost never burning wish for sowing salt, if I need LD fast and its early, I get rain of tears, because its 1 cheaper and i can do the wish-rain of tears when I have 5 mana, sowing salt costs 6 w/ burning wish, and as far as that 1 land out there that is indestructible darksteel citadel, I have smallpox anyway, and on top of that, vindicate and rain of tears are the same cmc, so since I could recoup the vindicate late for something important, I could -1 Sowing salt and -1 rain of tears, freeing up 2 sideboard slots.
I don't think I've ever casted haunting echoes as my primary kill condition, other than to "have fun" and "deck them out before I deck out" with this ultimate deck thinning spell, and I never cast call the skybreaker unless they're already on lock down, so since they can't cast anything it's, at that point anyway, not going to die (Trinisphere states that you have to meet the requirement of paying a minimum of 3 for anything you cast, so force of will for free still costs 3, etc, and the only cards in magic that "get around that" for free are things that "put" stuff into play, Aether vial, ichorid, etc, in either case, it just means I can take out haunting echoes and be comfortable... or just take out call the skybreaker & have haunting echoes be my primary kill condition, but this deck is already annoying enough, long story short, I could -1 Haunting echoes and free up another sideboard slot.
With these sideboard slots free'd up, I could squeeze in what is necessary against the bad match up's for this deck, aka fast stuff like reanimator / belcher / combo decks, and stuff that can get around having to play lands like dredge, which means adding things like mindbreak traptormod's crypt etc.
IMO if you're playing land destruction, you just gotta play Armageddon. It's simply the most powerful land destruction spell, so finding a way to build around that seems like the most obvious route to take.
If we continue that thought to its natural conclusion, you get Stax. Sweepers for land. Trinisphere on turn 1. Recursion of Wasteland. Abuse of Geddon via Mox, Flagstones, Crucible. Stax makes them pay mana to have creatures, to attack, to use activated abilities. And that's all without mentioning the namesake card, which can hard lock them entirely out of the game with a loop that does not rely on the draw step. Lastly, it needs fewer colored mana to function.
Besides its flavor as a pet deck, why play this over something faster and more cohesive like Stax? If this were in a casual forum, then "because it's fun" would be perfectly acceptable, but not so much here.
On a more constructive note, definitely run Crucible, and try to abuse it. Crucible helps Smallpox (twice), allows you to use Mox Diamond, and recurs Wasteland.
i registered just to say many thanks for this post.
This really helped a lot. I was trying so hard to move away from mono black but it was really tough, and this post gave a lot of insight. thank you!
I think your 3-colour mana base is pretty frail, considering how many colourless lands you're running on top of it all. Chrome Mox is card disadvantage, which is really bad for this deck. I would have done something similar to RUG decks: 12 fetches and 8 coloured lands. Add in 4 Wasteland and you're at 24.Graven Cairns is probably not the best either, because it adds colourless by itself, and you can't use another colourless source like Wasteland to activate its' second ability.
I think 3 colours is really abusive. Your deck could be so much more stable without White. Yes, Armageddon is good, but only if you're stopping them from playing cards in the first place, with Trinipshere or Chalice of the Void. You can't play Armageddon early, because it's disadvantageous to you and it won't have as big an impact on the opponent. Targeted LD seems the way to go for a dedicated land denial deck.
I agree you should take out the Haunting Echoes, it seems subpar compared to Skybreaker. Again, using Burning Wish for land destruction is card disadvantage, which is very bad for you. Sure, it's a flexible card, but I think your targets shouldn't be LD.
Mox Diamond with Crucible would already be a very big improvement, as it fixes your colours and can you get the land back.
Feline, Chalice of the Void and Thalia both go a long way to making a mana denial strategy function as a primary form of disruption. I bet that Chalice could make a big splash in your deck with the accompanying acceleration necessary to make it possible on turn 1. Thalia might be harder to pull off.
He's not running enough lands to use Mox Diamond well enough. He would need a minimum of 25-26 lands. This is in fact a pretty big problem considering that this is a control deck. Hitting your land drops in LD decks is just as important as in a Counterspell deck. He could definitely use 25 lands + 4 diamonds.
so I'm looking at this, and what I'm seeing is you plan to basicly do what dragon stompy already does (lock out early game with artifact control) but keep it going until late game. why not just take that shell, keep it mono red, then run molten rain/pillage/stone rain, with avalanche riders in place of your stompy stuff, you'll just need to find a different kill. but playing cards like earth rift? It's just not that good, yes it kills 2 lands but at the cost of 11 mana which even over 2 turns could be spend on much better things. with blood moon effects you won't need wasteland effects as much, and while it might hurt you could probably fit a few ports into your mana base.
I think 3 color LD is just to frail and slow. You're already running small pox which hit's your lands, then you drop trinisphere, if they start popping your lands with wasteland they could lock you out with your own deck and that's always embarrassing. If you want to go LD I'd say either pox, stax, or try dragon stompy with a heavy LD package.
and last, Haunting echos is a card that will absolutely destroy dredge, but you will never cast it. If the dredge player is bad enough (or hit a bad enough hand) that you can cast a haunting echos on him even with mox out then you could beat them with any form of hate. 5 mana means your on turn 4-5 or 3 if you put everything you've got into it. Dredge should have the game done and over with by then or just wrapping it up. I'd say go with leylines if you run black or either surgical extractions or ravenous trap. the first 2 are the hate I as a dredge player hate the most.
pjack, part of it is what Obermeir said in his first sentence. Feline doesn't run enough lands, feline only has 20 which is very much enough for this deck, trust me Feline has had this deck forever and I have played against it. ANYWHO the reason why it's better is because the deck doesn't have to sacrifice 4 cards to add 4 additional lands which it would need to discard to mox diamond. Also if you playtest this deck you will see that you have at least 1 if not more 3-4 drops in your opening hand which can easily be exiled to chrome mox and play 1 of the 19 two drops that are in the deck or to turn 1 tap down opponents land on their upkeep if there is no 2 drop but Rishadan port in hand.
<--- that last sentence was part of answering your question shoebaka. The mono red way is okay but never good enough in legacy and you also don't have any options as far as sideboard goes or tweaking this deck to your own likes or meta game. Red does only 2 things good, burn and goblins, that's it.
AGAIN lot of times deck seems horrible on paper but plays well and vice versa but trust me I have seen Feline get first place with this deck as well as win against some touch match ups.
The most important thing you gotta remember that its the player has to make smart decisions, no deck plays itself.
AGAIN lot of times deck seems horrible on paper but plays well and vice versa but trust me I have seen Feline get first place with this deck as well as win against some touch match ups.
The most important thing you gotta remember that its the player has to make smart decisions, no deck plays itself.
You're absolutely right on these accounts. I have not tested this deck, and I gotta say it looks like toilet paper. But I'm sure that with a good pilot and a little knowledge, this deck has more than meets the eye. Just your explanation of the first couple turns of the deck gave me a little more insight than Feline's primer. I don't like, however, that the deck seems to rely on this tiny piece of acceleration alone to get good plays.
Also, keep in mind that we're just here to talk about a deck we might not understand enough of :tongue:. This is both good and bad because we think out of the box and offer suggestions that may not have been tested, and we may also not quite understand what the deck is capable of doing. Ahhh! Rogues decks!
No problem ^^ and I will thank him when I see him. Also I am not sure if he has tried Raze but its funny that you mention it because before I seen Feline's deck I used to have R/B land destruction deck that ran Raze ^^. In my opinion it is good but you need to run more lands specially if you run pox too which I did.
Meta as in what type of decks do you face where you play. Are there a lot of combo decks or creature decks or etc. Also I am assuming you are playing Feline's deck list, and if so I a glad it is working out for you.
As far as Magnivore goes... I dunno man, it might be okay if you destroyed your opponents land base and have trinisphere out or something but other then that, it dies wayyyy to easy. Never the less try tweaking it and testing whatever cards you want. That's the fun about legacy, you can make your deck however you want ^^. Also if you have problems with enchantments maybe you can play 1-2 vindicates mainboard and another 1 in your sideboard that way you have access to 2-3-4 vindicates to deal with whatever you need to get rid of.
Nope. Don't think there's much Legacy tournaments in Singapore.
Never get to play in tournaments back in high school, hope to pick up now.
Thanks for the suggestion. 4/60 burning wish is sure taking its own sweet time to appear.
Infernal Tutor. If I desperately need an extra sorcery. Or hellbent it for trinisphere.
Gonna try Enlightenend tutor too. Trinisphere actually is the 'winning' condition. Haha.
Thanks for the suggestions. Will try Vindicate as well!
Great thread!
It is up to you, try out both. I personally would go with damnation. I used to have a mono black pox where I ran BSZ which versus tokens and small creatures it was amazing but any creature that was like 3/3+ gave me problems and I wished I'd have damnation. The difference is obviously that my deck was meant to lose a ton of lands where as yours shouldn't so BSZ might be better for its reuse value.
If you just have an itch to play a land destruction based deck in legacy, this is a possible list that might give you an idea, or help amplify one setup you already have.
Basis of the deck: To lock your opponent out of the game, how do we do that? prevent them from being able to do anything, and in legacy, if you're going to do that, you need to do it fast, and out of the many directions in magic to come from and attempt to pull off lesser played aspect of the game, one of those ways is a resource denial strategy, more specifically, the land destruction strategy.
So the next goal is to look at what destroys land the fastest, and the most efficiently, meaning that if you turn 2 go "ritual of w/ever, get to 4 mana, cast armageddon" all you're doing is burning too many resources for not enough of theirs, and in between those "armageddon/big land sweep strategies" they get windows where then can slowly start squeezing out bigger and bigger stuff/creatures, cast more and more spells, etc. With this setup however, you are keeping them low on mana constantly, and if things go the way they are suppose to, you'll eventually have them with no or 1 land out when you lay down a trinisphere (dropping it at 2 lands is risky if they get a 3rd into play, they can possibly answer it)
Since you need to be doing stuff from the beginning because legacy is not a slow format, we have to pull from what destroys lands fastest, that being the option of 2 cmc Land destruction sinkhole blight & land destruction type spells smallpox (If you're worried about the anti synergy with smallpox and blight, remember they are likely to use their land and let it go if they think it's important enough, and they will need all the mana they can get to even do anything, and on top of that, we still have rishadan port to force a tap on it & get rid of it "properly"
The other card that is a land that helps here is probably the most obvious, the uncounterable & even taps for a colorless mana wasteland After that, we can play a land and say go, then they play a land and say go, then you get to your turn 2, and start casting stuff like sinkhole, blight, smallpox if they have a creature out and you can afford to lose a land early, or even just rishadan port /tap on their upkeep. But in 50% of our games, we will not be playing first, so we need an option that lets us destroy lands from our turn 1's about 50% of the time, and since you start out with 7 cards in hand, and in these -they play first- scenarios you are drawing an 8th card before you start doing anything, we need 1 of those 8 cards to be something like a chrome mox so you can have 2 mana on your turn 1, 3 mana on your turn 2, etc, and keep up with destroying their lands properly. We won't always get a hand with a chrome mox when we need it, but having them in the deck + mulligan helps, and at the same time, there are other match ups where you won't need to destroy their land so quickly and can afford to wait 1 turn, so that all depends on a combination of factors that come into play, just like anything else in magic. In the end, it means we can run 4chrome mox and be happy with it.
After the 2 cmc LD stuff, we have the 3 cmc LD or higher cards, being that of stone rain (since its 2 colorless 1 red, and we're running a 2 color deck that needs double black & is even splashing a 3rd, it's a good choice to go with) Then there is Pillage, which can hit opposing chrome mox or any other non land - artifact mana producing cards. The other slot will be taken by earth rift, which also has 3 colors / 1 red in its cmc, and even though it costs 4, it also has flashback for later on in the game when you need the option to destroy another land.
Since the deck at this point is red / black, splashing white, and since it already has 12 mana sources set (wasteland/rishadan port/chrome mox) the rest of the mana base should be something like 4 bloodstained mire 4 graven cairns 3 badlands 1 scrubland That is a total of 24 mana sources, 2/5th's -or- 40% of your deck, and since only 8 spells cost 4 and the rest are less, we should be fine, the flashback costs are for late game when you'll more than likely have the mana and them some anyway. (note: with 4 bloodstained mire, you have a way to search out that 1 scrubland, giving you essentially "5 cards" that can give you that 1 white mana when you need it, like when you burning wish for vindicate)
Since we're doing so much land destruction, we should have an edge against slower type decks that need more mana, so the bigger problem at this point would be faster decks, and since the most common way to kill is to turn guys sideways, a deck like zoo is a good example of why we want some answers to creatures. We already have smallpox but a mass removal spell is also important, especially against stuff like goblins where they come out like crazy, so damnation, probably the best mass creature removal spell black has, is a good option, and since you might not have them on lockdown just yet and you and your opponent are both topdecking, you just keep destroying their lands and waiting it out. That means that a creature removal spell that can be used more than once is also a good option, like chainer's edict, you can flash it back at these times, and of course in early game, cast it and slow them down to buy yourself more time. Also a chainer's never hurts against stuff like emerakul, the aeon's torn & company
Since out ultimate plan is to lock them out, keeping them off mana then getting out a trinisphere, and we need a kill condition, we can either run 4 trinisphere & 4 kill condition cards, or we can squeeze them together and utilize them both from 1 card, being 4 burning wish, while this allows us to burning wish for a kill call the skybreaker -or- haunting echoes it does not allow us to wish for the trinisphere from the sideboard, so we just go 1 trinisphere instead, and burning wish for a tutor like diabolic tutor -or- rhystic tutor (with rhystic, they have the option to pay 2 to stop you, but remember, when you want to get out the trinisphere, you don't want them to be able to answer it, meaning that they should have out 0 or 1 land anyway, but not 2 since that means they can play a land on their next turn and start casting stuff again, potentially artifact destruction stuff. All that summed up means, Rhystic tutor is a nice option as a wish target in this deck, and worst case scenario, you can just get diabolic tutor instead)
So there you have it, the remaining stuff to note, some questions you might be thinking of, are probably answered in the sideboard cards listed below the decklist, if you have any more questions feel free to post away in the thread, and as always, have fun.
Every deck has good match ups and bad match ups, for this deck, the worst match ups are Dredge, & fast storm combo decks (belcher/ANT/tes) For those matches, get out the trinisphere ASAP, with a chrome mox and burning wish, you could cast it as early as turn 2, but just in case that's not fast enough, mindbreak trap in the sideboard is an option, and as for dredge, tormod's crypt / surgical extraction / Faerie macabre, which are all free to cast (-2 life w/ surgical) Also dredge is a good reason why haunting echoes is an option as kill condition #2, if you can just last long enough to cast this spell, it's game for you in this match unlike any other! use those edicts & smallpox's to keep them from getting to 3 creatures for a dread return.
Remember, those are the hardest match ups in the tons of decks that are in legacy, most of your other match ups against most of the field, you will have a fair setup provided you don't have to mulligan a bunch or get mana flooded / mana screwed Against aggro, you have a good setup, if they don't have burn to back it up, you have even more of an advantage, and if they cast bigger creatures instead of faster/cheaper ones, you are at even more of an advantage. against control decks, they will be able to do very little if they don't burn their counterspells on your unrelenting onslaught of land destruction spell after land destruction spell after land destruction spell.
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This is technically one of the few legacy deck's that I have had the longest, I just love the land destruction aspect of the game, the idea of nullifying every permanent my opponent has and locking them down is fun for some reason >^,^<
Anyhow, the decklist:
3 Badlands
1 Scrubland
4 Bloodstained mire
4 Graven cairns
4 Wasteland
4 Rishadan port
4 Chrome mox
4 Blight
4 Smallpox
4 Pillage
4 Stone rain
4 Earth rift
3 Chainer's edict
4 Damnation
4 Burning wish
1 Trinisphere
Sideboard Stuff:
1 Shattering spree (cheap anti artifact w/ replicate)
1 Paraselene (need answers to things like sacred ground, and can hit multiple enchants at once to boot)
1 Timely reinforcements (helps when falling behind against mono red strategies)
1 Vindicate (Destroys a land, or an enchantment, or even a planeswalker, anything)
1 rain of tears (a 3 cmc LD spell for when you need to destroy a land and only have 5 mana)
1 Sowing salt (Gets past indestructible Darksteel citadel (but so does smallpox) & nails multiple copies from the deck)
1 Wake of destruction (If you're falling behind, this gets can not only get you right back but potentially win you the game)
1 Chainer's edict (get's past untargetable bombs that are out alone)
1 Pyroclasm (helps a ton against fast weenie decks)
1 Recoup (Recast anything in your graveyard, you're going to have more mana than they are if you're doing what you're suppose to, and it gives you the potential to destroy 2 lands for 1 card if necessary)
1 Beacon of unrest (Never bring out the trinisphere if they have 3+ lands, but if they make you discard it or even mill it from your deck to your graveyard, this is the one way to get it back)
1 Rhystic tutor (It's likely they wont be able to pay 2, so its a cheaper way to get whatever you need, usually going for trinisphere to finish locking them out)
1 Diabolic tutor (just in case they can play 2 and you want anything from your deck or just want to get the trinisphere in hand to "get ready" for that final setup before you lock them out)
1 Haunting echoes (1 of your 2 kill conditions, games go on for so long, if for some reason they answer your main kill condition, which is unlikely since by that time, you should have out a trinisphere and they should have out no lands)
1 Call the skybreaker (your main kill condition)
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In making these notes I actually realized a couple things about the sideboard so I feel I must address them.
Vindicate can take out an enchantment, and with recoup, it can take out a second enchantment, so I could -1 Paraselene to free up a sideboard slot.
If I am going for "the lock down" (burning wish, get a tutor, use it to get the trinisphere) they should not have the mana to pay for rhystic tutor if I'm doing my job, & if they do have the mana to pay for it, I shouldn't be playing the trinisphere yet, and waiting till when I play it, they will not be able to destroy it because they never get to 3 mana. Basically all that means is, if they have mana, I'm probably going to burning wish for more Land Destruction so I can get to the position of casting trinisphere safely, long story short, I could -1 diabolic tutor and free up a sideboard slot.
I almost never burning wish for sowing salt, if I need LD fast and its early, I get rain of tears, because its 1 cheaper and i can do the wish-rain of tears when I have 5 mana, sowing salt costs 6 w/ burning wish, and as far as that 1 land out there that is indestructible darksteel citadel, I have smallpox anyway, and on top of that, vindicate and rain of tears are the same cmc, so since I could recoup the vindicate late for something important, I could -1 Sowing salt and -1 rain of tears, freeing up 2 sideboard slots.
I don't think I've ever casted haunting echoes as my primary kill condition, other than to "have fun" and "deck them out before I deck out" with this ultimate deck thinning spell, and I never cast call the skybreaker unless they're already on lock down, so since they can't cast anything it's, at that point anyway, not going to die (Trinisphere states that you have to meet the requirement of paying a minimum of 3 for anything you cast, so force of will for free still costs 3, etc, and the only cards in magic that "get around that" for free are things that "put" stuff into play, Aether vial, ichorid, etc, in either case, it just means I can take out haunting echoes and be comfortable... or just take out call the skybreaker & have haunting echoes be my primary kill condition, but this deck is already annoying enough, long story short, I could -1 Haunting echoes and free up another sideboard slot.
With these sideboard slots free'd up, I could squeeze in what is necessary against the bad match up's for this deck, aka fast stuff like reanimator / belcher / combo decks, and stuff that can get around having to play lands like dredge, which means adding things like mindbreak trap tormod's crypt etc.
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If we continue that thought to its natural conclusion, you get Stax. Sweepers for land. Trinisphere on turn 1. Recursion of Wasteland. Abuse of Geddon via Mox, Flagstones, Crucible. Stax makes them pay mana to have creatures, to attack, to use activated abilities. And that's all without mentioning the namesake card, which can hard lock them entirely out of the game with a loop that does not rely on the draw step. Lastly, it needs fewer colored mana to function.
Besides its flavor as a pet deck, why play this over something faster and more cohesive like Stax? If this were in a casual forum, then "because it's fun" would be perfectly acceptable, but not so much here.
On a more constructive note, definitely run Crucible, and try to abuse it. Crucible helps Smallpox (twice), allows you to use Mox Diamond, and recurs Wasteland.
2) Use the right number of each card.
3) Know your probabilities.
4) Print your deck lists; make yourself and your judges happier.
This really helped a lot. I was trying so hard to move away from mono black but it was really tough, and this post gave a lot of insight. thank you!
If you have the cash, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale is a superior card to something like Pyroclasm in your deck.
I think 3 colours is really abusive. Your deck could be so much more stable without White. Yes, Armageddon is good, but only if you're stopping them from playing cards in the first place, with Trinipshere or Chalice of the Void. You can't play Armageddon early, because it's disadvantageous to you and it won't have as big an impact on the opponent. Targeted LD seems the way to go for a dedicated land denial deck.
I agree you should take out the Haunting Echoes, it seems subpar compared to Skybreaker. Again, using Burning Wish for land destruction is card disadvantage, which is very bad for you. Sure, it's a flexible card, but I think your targets shouldn't be LD.
Mox Diamond with Crucible would already be a very big improvement, as it fixes your colours and can you get the land back.
UGTurboFogGU
BRSacrificial AggroBR
16The Paper Pauper Battle Bag16
EDH
BRRakdos, Lord of PingersBR
GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
UB Ramses OverdarkUB
Sig by Ace5301 of Ace of Spades Studio
Chrome Mox
Ancient Tomb
City of Traitors
ALSO this thread was made 04-13-2012, 04:26 PM >>.
UGTurboFogGU
BRSacrificial AggroBR
16The Paper Pauper Battle Bag16
EDH
BRRakdos, Lord of PingersBR
GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
UB Ramses OverdarkUB
Sig by Ace5301 of Ace of Spades Studio
I think 3 color LD is just to frail and slow. You're already running small pox which hit's your lands, then you drop trinisphere, if they start popping your lands with wasteland they could lock you out with your own deck and that's always embarrassing. If you want to go LD I'd say either pox, stax, or try dragon stompy with a heavy LD package.
and last, Haunting echos is a card that will absolutely destroy dredge, but you will never cast it. If the dredge player is bad enough (or hit a bad enough hand) that you can cast a haunting echos on him even with mox out then you could beat them with any form of hate. 5 mana means your on turn 4-5 or 3 if you put everything you've got into it. Dredge should have the game done and over with by then or just wrapping it up. I'd say go with leylines if you run black or either surgical extractions or ravenous trap. the first 2 are the hate I as a dredge player hate the most.
Legacy:
RGWBUDredgeUBWGR
:symrg:Belcher:symrg:
WD&TW
Affinity
WGriffinsW (pauper)
U/thopter comboU/ (peasant)
:symbg:Moosebite:symbg: (peasant)
RGobo tokensR (peasant)
R slide R (peasant)
:symur:pingers:symur:
<--- that last sentence was part of answering your question shoebaka. The mono red way is okay but never good enough in legacy and you also don't have any options as far as sideboard goes or tweaking this deck to your own likes or meta game. Red does only 2 things good, burn and goblins, that's it.
AGAIN lot of times deck seems horrible on paper but plays well and vice versa but trust me I have seen Feline get first place with this deck as well as win against some touch match ups.
The most important thing you gotta remember that its the player has to make smart decisions, no deck plays itself.
You're absolutely right on these accounts. I have not tested this deck, and I gotta say it looks like toilet paper. But I'm sure that with a good pilot and a little knowledge, this deck has more than meets the eye. Just your explanation of the first couple turns of the deck gave me a little more insight than Feline's primer. I don't like, however, that the deck seems to rely on this tiny piece of acceleration alone to get good plays.
Also, keep in mind that we're just here to talk about a deck we might not understand enough of :tongue:. This is both good and bad because we think out of the box and offer suggestions that may not have been tested, and we may also not quite understand what the deck is capable of doing. Ahhh! Rogues decks!
UGTurboFogGU
BRSacrificial AggroBR
16The Paper Pauper Battle Bag16
EDH
BRRakdos, Lord of PingersBR
GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
UB Ramses OverdarkUB
Sig by Ace5301 of Ace of Spades Studio
Has he tried Raze? If 20 lands seemed to be sufficient. haha. I guess he's playing this because it suits his style huh.
I don't have most of the cards yet, but switching in Blight and Smallpox saved me a couple of times. I am glad Feline wrote this. Do thank him for me.
Obermeir<< thanks for your opinions as well, I am picking up a lot. Appreciate it!
land destruction =
4 Sinkhole
4 Blight
4 Smallpox
4 raze
4 wasteland
4 strip mine <- LOL
creatures =
4 dark confidant
4 death's shadow
3 gatekeeper of malakir
4 bloodghast
lands =
3 urborg, tomb of yawgmoth
4 bloodstained mire
4 badlands
3 blood crypt
2 swamp
1 mountain
4 mishra's factory
I looked at his deck list. And it answered quite a lot of problems I faced while playing mine.
I'm looking at Enlightened Tutor. Magnivore.
And maybe an enchantment for creatures removal.
As far as Magnivore goes... I dunno man, it might be okay if you destroyed your opponents land base and have trinisphere out or something but other then that, it dies wayyyy to easy. Never the less try tweaking it and testing whatever cards you want. That's the fun about legacy, you can make your deck however you want ^^. Also if you have problems with enchantments maybe you can play 1-2 vindicates mainboard and another 1 in your sideboard that way you have access to 2-3-4 vindicates to deal with whatever you need to get rid of.
Never get to play in tournaments back in high school, hope to pick up now.
Thanks for the suggestion. 4/60 burning wish is sure taking its own sweet time to appear.
Infernal Tutor. If I desperately need an extra sorcery. Or hellbent it for trinisphere.
Gonna try Enlightenend tutor too. Trinisphere actually is the 'winning' condition. Haha.
Thanks for the suggestions. Will try Vindicate as well!
Great thread!
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