Breaking Through - Magical Christmas Land
Rome has come and gone… well at least the World Championships have done so, as I am writing this from my hotel room in the heart of Rome, and I unfortunately failed to make Top 8 despite being well positioned to do so going into day 3. I managed to go 5-1 on both the Standard portion (which I will focus on today) and the Limited portion. Because of this, going into day 3, I decided that my best bet was to play it safe as I only needed 3 wins. Playing it safe meant playing the best deck, which was bound to be a Zoo deck. I turned to a quick Zoo list built by Ben Rubin but only managed a pathetic 1-4-1 finish to day 3 (I.D.ing the last round to grant my opponent a qualification for San Diego).
Now, it is easy to point at the build I was running and claim that it was inferior in some way, but in reality, I have to take full responsibility for my record on day 3. I knew the stakes and left my fate in the hands of a deck I had rarely piloted. In addition, I understood that playing it safe was the best strategy, and yet failed to move one level above that and prey on all of the other people playing it safe with equivalent records. If I had played Martyr for example, I would have easily gone 5-1 or better assuming similar matchups. Instead, I ran into 3 decks playing Blood Moon, for which my list had no outs, 2 Zoo decks, that I was happy to face and gave me my win and draw, and a Hypergenesis deck that happened to have the nuts in 2 of 3 games.
Had I been on the top of my game and either played what I knew, or played what I knew could win, I would have a Top 8 and potential win to show for it. That said, I do feel proud of myself that I was able to set aside any ego I may be perceived to have and just play the best deck. I prioritized winning over running my own brew despite having one available and that show me a lot about how far I have come as a Magic player. Two years ago I would have played my own brew every time in that situation, showing off my deckbuilding skills, but now I was able to put winning first and that is a huge stepping stone for any deckbuilder.
Anyway, back to the interesting parts, the stuff that got me to a 10-2 record in the first place. I did do a deck tech on my deck for the Standard portion, but obviously feel like I can go into more detail here. For reference, here is the list I played:
This deck came about after I was inspired by Warp World. I had figured the best way to abuse Warp World in the format was to destroy my opponents lands as they would both set them back on permanents and grant me some sweet ETB effects like Acidic Slime for post-Warp World. I found out that as good as the land death was for me, Warp World was just such an unknown. I would sometimes have my opponent on something like like 5 permanents to my 12 and they would flip up 2 Broodmate Dragons to my board of Baloths and Slimes and I would subsequently die after passing the turn.
I searched out some other big sorcery to spend the decks explosive mana on and ran into Violent Ultimatum. I immediately recalled all of the arguing over the Lotus Cobra when it was first spoiled, with the defenders of it spouting off fairy tales of turn 3 Violent or Cruel Ultimatums and its prosecutors firing back with the argument to be more realistic and quit living in Magic Christmas Land. I was one of those naysayers.
Lotus Cobra is the trickiest piece to the puzzle that goes into making a deck like this. It s not so much that he is essential to the deck’s strategy, as he isn’t, but the trick is rather in finding the perfect balancing point for him. Most decks fall under a polar side for the Cobra, either relying too heavily on it leading to a situation where if he dies and your deck performs miserably; or not taking full advantage of the Cobra, instead playing him as a decoy that helps a little, but is rarely explosive. In a mana ramp/land death strategy like this however, you are able to fully exploit the Cobra without relying on it.
Games tend to play out in one of three ways: 1) You have a Cobra that lives and explode early for a nearly unbeatable start. 2) You have a Khalni Heart Expedition that mimics the Cobra, usually allowing the same start about a turn slower. 3) Your missing both 2-drop accelerants and instead curve out with a land death strategy beginning at Goblin Ruinblaster (or Slime if you have a Harrow) and ending at Violent Ultimatum.
Land death spells that range from 4 to 7 mana hardly seem unfair, unlike previous strategies that abused things like Stone Rain, yet in a format where the mana is so bad and everything enters the battlefield tapped, they definitely get the job done. One key thing to point out is that for the few extra mana you end up spending on your land death spells, you gain versatility. Acidic Slime and Mold Shambler for example do a lot more than blow up a land, which is very important for matchups like Elves and Boros who could care less about the loss of a land or two. Instead, there you get to blow up a ‘Walker, or run out a Hill Giant, both of which are respectively fine. Interestingly enough, one of the matchups where your land death is at its worst, Elves, your Lotus Cobra never dies which counteracts that fact quite nicely.
After playing the format a ton, I realized there were very few strategies that were comparable on power level to Jund, which would lead to a lot of players simply choosing the “Join em” side over the “Beat em” camp. Magical Christmas Land had a very good matchup against Jund, with the only real losses coming to a turn 2 Putrid Leech on the play followed by a threat or Blightning on turn 3; in other words, the nuts. Beyond those starts though, you are able to punish them for their shaky mana base and ultimately cap off the fun with a Baloth or Ultimatum. Rampaging Baloths is definitely better against Jund than Ob Nixilis is, which is why the move from 3-3 to 4-2 happened.
Although Violent Ultimatum was fine against Jund, it doesn’t quite recover from Blightnings in the way that you would like. This led to the big 4x Cruel Ultimatum in the sideboard. I was basically looking for a Mind Shatter effect but then wanted a life gain effect against Red. Unfortunately, the slots weren’t there to support multiple cards and still give me a card to push through Jund. Cruel Ultimatum did accomplish all three tasks, however, and after some basics were added to the board, 4 Cruels fit right in. I was a little worried about running 4, but in the final round of Standard I managed to cast a Cruel on turns 5, 6, and 8 of game three, plus a turn 4 Cruel in game 2 to easily win that match. Due to the high velocity of deck thinning in here, one Cruel will often find you another, allowing you to chain them back to back for 2 or 3 turns.
Boros and Elves were still not the greatest matchups, with Elves being a coin flip or slightly favorable for game 1 and Boros being a pretty big favorite game 1; something like 35-65 in favor of the bad guys. Caldera Hellion and Jund Charm came in to help out those matchups, as well as the 4th Terminate. I originally thought that Jund Charm would be enough to contain Elves as well, but after playing the matchup a bunch, we quickly realized that 3 toughness was the key number and Hellion was added accordingly. Because of this, Elves quickly moved to a pretty favorable matchup. Boros was a bit trickier, as even with the clasm effects, they could still steal a win. Tight play is definitely rewarded in that matchup and minimizing the damage you take is key. Other than Lotus Cobra, every creature you have should be jumping in front of their guys at all times.
Other than Boros, the only matchup I felt was hugely against our favor was the Mono Red decks. Unfortunately, I ran into one in round 3 and found myself mulliganing to 5 in two straight games, and of course seeing a Blightning across the table on turn 3 in both as well. Cruels come in to give you a fighting chance, but unless you manage to get one off by about turn 6, things look grim. If however, you do manage to resolve a Cruel, it is very difficult to lose as they no longer have burn and you have a ton of gas, not to mention life, to set them back.
Although I am fairly fluid in my sideboarding over the course of a tournament, as no two decks are the same, (for example, I ran into an Elves deck with Maelstrom Pulse and Duress) here is a quick sideboarding guide for the deck.
Jund
-1 Mold Shambler
-2 Ob Nixilis, the Fallen
-1 Mountain
-4 Violent Ultimatum
+4 Cruel Ultimatum
+2 Island
+1 Swamp
+1 Terminate
If you see a Thought Hemorrhage from them in game 2, despite it not being that good, they will undoubtedly name Violent Ultimatum. Once they realize that you have boarded them all out, future Thought Hemorrhages will change to Cruel, so you should look into staggering them for game 3, something like a 3-2 Split in favor of Cruel.
Elves
-1 Khalni Heart Expedition
-4 Goblin Ruinblaster
+1 Terminate
+3 Caldera Hellion
+1 Jund Charm
You can also mess with bringing in multiple Jund Charms here, as I know I brought 2 in during one of my Elves matchups.
Mono Red
-1 Ob Nixilis, the Fallen
-1 Forest
-1 Mountain
-4 Violent Ultimatum
-4 Goblin Ruinblaster
+4 Cruel Ultimatum
+1 Terminate
+2 Island
+1 Swamp
+3 Jund Charm
If they are splashing black and you have seen non-basics, consider leaving in the Ruinblasters. What you take out at that point is going to be on a case by case basis.
Boros
-1 Khalni Heart Expedition
-1 Acidic Slime
-2 Ob Nixilis, the Fallen
-4 Goblin Ruinblaster
+4 Jund Charm
+1 Terminate
+3 Caldera Hellion
Acidic Slime is actually fine in this matchup as he trades and takes out of one Boros’ 9 or so mana producing lands, but Hellion is just better, especially as Jund Charms come in. Keep in mind the fact about Boros not running many mana producing lands and blow them up when the opportunity arises as this will prevent Ranger explosions late in the game.
X/X/X Planeswalker Control
-3 Terminate
-1 Mountain
-2 Violent Ultimatum
+3 Cruel Ultimatum
+2 Island
+1 Swamp
This matchup is pretty easy and you shouldn’t need to do much to win it. Cruel Ultimatum comes in as a Mind Shatter effect to rid them of any answers they may have. Remember to try and keep them off of Hindering Light mana with your land death critters as that card can be a beating against your Ultimatums and is otherwise dead against you. Mold Shambler blows up planeswalkers, so keep him back and play out Slimes etc to take out lands first.
5 Color Cascade
…
You literally can’t lose this matchup. Terminate is fine for killing off a potential Elf or whatever. They have no way of killing a turn 2 Cobra, and no way of stopping your land death. Enjoy the bye.
I haven’t really tested the Naya matchup as that deck is somewhat new, but I would anticipate it playing out similar to Jund. They have a Nacatl where Jund has Leech etc. Violent Ultimatum seems insane here, so be sure to keep that in.
I am not sure of the longevity of this deck, as it is a little control and a little combo all in one. Historically, those decks get exploited pretty quickly once they are out of the bag, but assuming the mana stays as bad as it is right now, this deck should continue to have a place in the metagame with appropriate changes of course.
Ob Nixilis is probably the weakest card in the deck but definitely has his place. I won at least two games with him as a 24/24 or something similar. Still, I can see the change of adding the 4th Terminate to the maindeck over him as that card came in often and was usually pretty good.
I have heard people immediately look to cut the Savage Lands but I can assure you they are correct. You have no turn 1 plays otherwise, and they allow for smoother mana when you look to cast Cruel Ultimatum out of the board, providing a green mana without impeding the casting of a 7 mana Cruel. Sure, it coming into play tapped on turn 3 or 4 can sometimes suck, but often enough it will be irrelevant and the mana versatility for your 7 mana spells is crucial.
I would at least give this deck a few runs in your States preparation, as it will just win against those unfamiliar with it and still put up quite a game against those that are. Good luck to everyone preparing for States. I am headed back to the States tomorrow and ready to eat some turkey and mashed potatoes. 11 days of Italian food takes its toll for sure. Thanks for reading!
Conley Woods
Great article. You truly are my hero
Comment by Daryn Kimbtoughh — November 25, 2009 @ 9:22 pm
I was rooting for ya to win! BTW, what was the spicy list for extended that you had??? Wanna hook me up?
Comment by Markus Thibeau — November 25, 2009 @ 9:56 pm
I really enjoy reading your articles. You sure are an inspiration to most and i applaud you for that. I’m certainly looking forward to your future articles.
Comment by V — November 25, 2009 @ 10:09 pm
I enjoyed the insight.
Question: On Twitter, magicprotour said this:
“Conley Woods after filming his deck tech: “See you guys tomorrow for Extended.”
:-)”
Now given your position the audible does make sense, and explains the lack of resolution on that. But would it be correct to assume you have a great Extended invention in the bag?
Comment by Amarsir — November 25, 2009 @ 10:12 pm
I will never know how you didn’t run into the typical problem I had when I built a similar deck. I kept having hands where I’d have ten million mana with nothing to do or hands where I had a pile of cards that required ten million mana and I was mana screwed.
Either way, I think I just have crappy luck. Heck I got mana screwed with 43 lands, twice! Kudos to you for doing as well as you did. I still give you credit for having the bravery to run such an unstable style.
Comment by Dachami — November 25, 2009 @ 10:19 pm
Any consideration to running the board plan of the Cruels in the main instead of the LD package? Seems like most match-ups they come in anyway, I understand for different cards, but they seem pretty good. It just seems that there is only Jund and Naya that have really bad mana. Boros, Elves, Vampires, and Mono Red all have pretty decent mana. Is it a coincidence these are the decks you have a hard time with?
Obviously the top deck is Jund, but Cruel is good there and you bring it in over the Violents too.
I did a bit of testing with 7 Ultimatums and no LD and it helped a bunch vs Vampires and Elves. I have no idea how this effects the Jund match-up or the consistency of the deck though.
Comment by StarOrc — November 25, 2009 @ 10:23 pm
wow!!! I told LSV that his deck was horrible but you sir have taken the cake…and eaten it too. Worst deck in standard. You should retire with LSV!
Comment by yo yo — November 26, 2009 @ 12:47 am
I had the same issue that Dachami had when I tested your deck. Did you just mulligan a lot?
Comment by Adam Nelson — November 26, 2009 @ 12:59 am
Breaking Through - Magical Christmas Land…
Your story has been summoned to the battlefield - Trackback from MTGBattlefield…
Trackback by MTGBattlefield — November 26, 2009 @ 1:35 am
I’ve never heard the term for destroying land referred to as “land death” before, and frankly I don’t care for it.
In the future, could you please call it “land hamburger time” instead? I would appreciate it a lot, thanks.
Comment by Aaron R. — November 26, 2009 @ 1:56 am
Conley, I’ve tested this deck a lot since I saw it come up at Worlds (I had previously been running a GBW version), and I’m wondering, how do you avoid being basic land screwed? I’m constantly getting to the point where Harrows and Fetches are dead because I have no basics left. I finally decided to cut a Baloth for a 4th Forest (though I probably should have cut an Ob Nixilis), what are your thoughts on the land in this deck?
Thanks,
Ryan
Comment by Ryan F — November 26, 2009 @ 5:51 am
I play 4C Cascade, and while I haven’t tested extensively, it surely hasn’t been an auto-bye for Christmasland.
This deck has the spot removal 5C lacks, and can still recover from LD with a bit of ramp and a lot of Cascades.
Comment by Nick Andres — November 26, 2009 @ 6:10 am
My favorite part of this deck is the redundancy in Cobra/Expedition. It’s the first time I’ve seen a Cobra deck that didn’t automatically lose if it didn’t get Cobra. Sadly, I’m not made of money, so I can’t run it IRL… but I want to.
Comment by Rick — November 26, 2009 @ 6:25 am
@Adam + Dachami - I had that issue the first couple times I tested Conley’s list as well. He can surely comment on those more accurately than I can, but once i started looking at my mana generation options from a combo perspective, that stopped happening. This is hard to explain clearly, but if you can chain your land searching options together aggressively, the deck will, indeed, thin, and will serve bomb after bomb off the top.
The worst matchup I’ve found in testing was against Remi Fortier’s Lotus Cobra Jund, which isn’t super surprising.
Also, I did once have two Cobras out simultaneously, which is insane.
Comment by Alex — November 26, 2009 @ 9:34 am
I still don’t like Lotus Cobra and I’m still dumping him to the bots each time I crack it. Wouldn’t be just better to play a fair card like Rampant Growth instead?
Comment by kenseiden — November 26, 2009 @ 10:27 am
conley, you need to cough up that sick extended brew that was getting everyone on twitter excited! didn’t you give it to nassif when you audibled?
Comment by Stan — November 26, 2009 @ 10:50 am
Id like for some people to shuffle this up and let me know what you think:
3x Ajani Vengeant
3x Bituminous Blast
4x Blightning
3x Maelstrom Pulse
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Terminate
4x Kinght of the Reliquary
4x Baneslayer Angel
4x Bloodbraid Elf
4x Lotus Cobra
2x Swamp
2x Mountain
2x Plains
2x Forest
2x Jungle Shrine
2x Savage Lands
1x Exotic Orchard
4x Marsh Flats
4x Arid Mesa
4x Verdant Catacombs
SB:
4x Celestial Purge
4x Great Sable Stag
1x Maelstrom Pulse
4x Goblin Ruinblaster
2x Thornling
————————————————–
Comment by John — November 26, 2009 @ 11:16 am
Jacerator is a terrible matchup. Played this brew at the local weekly box tournament and my only losses came to 2 Jacerator decks. Once in the swiss and once in the top 8. You have 0 ways of interacting with Jace and any Archive traps are almost certainly free since the deck is always fetching lands. Just a thought since the deck is gaining a bit of a following.
Comment by Alex — November 26, 2009 @ 5:18 pm
gotta love the long “here’s my list, isn’t rly relevant to the article, try it.” post.
Comment by Jonathan — November 26, 2009 @ 7:03 pm
The extended list that you are all asking for is in Brian Kibler’s article on StarCityGames.com. it went up today
Comment by Josh — November 26, 2009 @ 9:45 pm
So I’m curious as to why baloths and ob nix are the finishers here. From test piloting this a couple dozen matches or so, I see the deck utilizing a traditional finisher much more efficiently. I understand the value of a baloth into a heart expedition for a board that jund has a very hard time beating, but let’s be honest with ourselves. Maelstrom pulse is the real deal nut high blade in this format and keeping your opponent off of BG1 is doable, but if that’s the case you don’t need a finisher. I was running into lines of play that required me to accelerate into a baloth or ob nix and then just never trigger my threat. Granted, any land or harrow would be ggs but at that point, I’m drawing on a slimmer mana margin than the already sparse 23 and heart expedition and lotus cobra don’t actually trigger a landfall ability.
Ob nix was the first to get the boot. I wanted something flexible to respond defensively to aggro and to just be able to seal the deal against someone just stubbornly drawing more lands than I have violent ultimatums. I settled on a pair of bogardan hellkites because the card is greedy like wall street. the 5 dmg on his CIP (excuse me ETB) ability can be used to just pound a life total down or to wipe a couple of dudes from the enemy board if I’m having trouble nuking enough lands to keep them off their cheap aggressive critters, oh and flash is nice against decks main decking flashfreeze. I am trying a replacement of the 4x baloth w/ 3x broodmate dragon because obviously we can support 6 mana for 8 flying power and I don’t need to say anything about the card stalling out the board or adding an unfair clock to an already bleeding opponent. the 4th slot will probably go towards terminate but I also think this deck could use another land. That might be because I’m rocking the hellkites but just for my opinion, there’s just not enough cards that actually tap for mana in the deck. Uber lotus support is obvious, but harrowing a couple times to thin your draws and then getting a targetless heart expedition feels like a deflating Macy’s day parade float.
Just throwing out what I’ve found with the deck. Mad props to CWoods on shuffling up a creative build in the smallest standard format in almost 4 years.
Comment by T. — November 26, 2009 @ 10:58 pm
I think people ment the other list, that he did not end up playing. Zoo is still Zoo no matter how tricky you try to make it.
Comment by DepecheMode — November 27, 2009 @ 3:31 am
yeah, we are looking for the deck that he was going to show off to BDM in a deck tech before he decided to play it safe cause he only needed a few wins
Comment by Stan — November 27, 2009 @ 5:25 am
[...] That’s the sound of me slamming my head on my desk in frustration after Worlds failed to make a reasonable dent in the MTGO metagame. Oh sure, there were a few new entries this week, but if I would have asked you two weeks ago what the most popular deck spawned by Worlds on MTGO, you would have never in a million years guessed “Turbo Fog.” Because that’s all Jacerator is. It even edged out the deck that won, Naya Lightsaber. It edged out Conley Woods’s newest creation, Magic Christmas Land. Of course, by “edged out” I mean “put up over triple the numbers.” Same story with the influential (buy semi-retired) Gerry Thompson’s Spread ‘Em deck. (Jeff Phillips gives a good rundown of all these decks at Star City Games. Except for Conley Woods’s deck, which the man himself wrote about at ChannelFireball.) [...]
Pingback by The November 27th MTGO Metagame Report « Scrubbin' In Fort Wayne — November 27, 2009 @ 7:24 am
Thanks for the great articles time and time again Conley. They make for some great reading and it is always nice to see someone who is looking for the edge instead of making the vanilla choices.
I really have to disagree on your logic with playing it safe in the extended portion. Most players who demand playing their own brews do it for the glory and attention that comes with a successful run are doing it for completely different reasons than you are. Taking an objective look at formats and creating a deck is much different than being cute for the sake of it. It could be argued that you played it safe for a good reason but not playing it safe with your standard deck choice was a factor in putting you in a great position for day 3. I know hindsight is always 20/20 but it seems like this is one situation where you would have had great reasoning to run a good brew of yours to keep an edge. Then again I’m sure the thought of losing for being bullheaded and doing things your way would sting even worse. Just remember its those great deckbuilding skills that helped get you here, dont turn ur back on them :(!
Comment by LM — November 27, 2009 @ 9:26 am
Conley my man you are awesome. Your deck tech and Rogue strategies never cease to amaze me. It seems like yesterday that I was first listening to you as that smack talking guest host on the School Bus. I’m glad you have stuck on with Monday Night Magic and that you are finally seeing results for your hard work. I hope to see you on the pro-tour sometime soon.
As a side note I wanted to say that “playing it safe” in magic is the equivilant of prevent defense in sports. The intent being to maintain the current state but usually resulting in a loss. Prevent defenses only prevent you from winning. At a time when your opponent will have their backs to the wall I would take trick plays or a Conley Woods Rogue deck any day. Have faith in yourself my friend!
—Tangent was here…
Mana Screwed Podcast
mtgcast.com
Comment by TangentDYN — November 27, 2009 @ 10:26 am
@yo yo - Where can we read about your decks that must be way better than these? Also, how did you do at Worlds?
Comment by lackhand — November 27, 2009 @ 10:34 am
Not really related to the article, but someone mentioned how prevent defenses only prevent you from winning. This is anecdotal and false. It works most of the time, you just don’t hear about it when it works, you hear about it when it fails which causes people to freak out.
Anyways, article was a good read, and I’m glad to see people doing well with unique brews that aren’t necessarily one of the well known decks in a format.
Comment by Mr Weeks — November 27, 2009 @ 11:46 am
Mr. Weeks - you saying that my statement was false is entirely your own opinion, but you are entitled to your own wrong opinion. I have been a sports enthusiast and athlete for much longer than I have been a magic player and the comparison is valid. It isn’t people “freaking out” about losing that brings about that statement, but the fact that more often than not it is what happens. When a team or a person starts playing not to lose they are no longer doing the thing which got them ahead to begin with. They are no longer playing to win. Winners try to win and don’t give up on that regardless of the position of their opponent. Playing not to lose allows comebacks from teams that were otherwise unable to deal with your previous aggressive strategy. The best players or teams are those that don’t change up the things that make them successful simply because they are winning. Conley is brilliant in his deck choices and design and I’m sure he looks back wishing he had stuck to his guns at this point. Maybe the safe route works for some people, but it isn’t the best route for everyone. If you are trying to use your logic based on results I would say look at Conley’s results with his own decks. The results speak for themselves.
—Tangent
Comment by TangentDYN — November 27, 2009 @ 12:13 pm
My statement had nothing to do with his deck choice but rather prevent defense in american football. And my statement actually stems from statistics from Elias or one of the other sabermetric stats type places, I’ll see if I can find it again. But teams actually lose more games when up 2+ scores in the 4th quarter playing standard defense instead of 5+ DBs. I used to feel exactly the same way about it, it’s just something that isn’t statistically true. It is however probably a more demoralizing way to lose, if you give up a bunch of medium gains and then someone breaks a tackle and scores on a big play. It’s easy to blame the prevent for stuff like that when it’s just crappy tackling which can just as easily, if not more easily happen playing your normal coverage.
It’s a lot like closers in baseball. They’re supposed to be the best relief pitcher on your team. But when do you really need them the most, in the 7th inning when you’re up by 1 run with 2 guys on and 1 out, or in the 9th when you’re up by 3 already. The problem is a blown save is psycologically fairly brutal.
Comment by Mr Weeks — November 27, 2009 @ 1:16 pm
I appreciate the clarification, and well thought out comments. To be clear I wasn’t merely referring to prevent defense in football. Nearly every sport has a similar “prevent” defense that is used in the same situations. If you are playing against a weaker opponent it is the logical and respectful thing to do, but if playing against an equal it often leads to comeback victories. The problem isn’t simply that you play preventative defense, but also that it is accompanied by a conservative offensive strategy. A team that has been dominating the game with passing plays and running up the score against a solid opponent suddenly decides running out the clock with conservative running plays and playing preventative defense often finds themselves in very scary situations. If they had never let off the gas initially they would be less likely to be in that position. I would much rather have the ball in my own hands and lose the game on my own terms than I would lose a game on my opponents terms because I put the ball in their hands. Just my opinion of course… I know many players and people in general want to stick with what is safe. I simply don’t roll that way.
Comment by TangentDYN — November 27, 2009 @ 2:53 pm
“Wouldn’t be just better to play a fair card like Rampant Growth instead?”
Yeah, that’s why I play Hill Giant in Legacy, too.
Comment by Mark Conkle — November 27, 2009 @ 4:45 pm
Conley Woods: Metagame Ninja
good job bro!
Comment by Corey — November 27, 2009 @ 6:58 pm
Hey everyone, I will write more about my extended list a little later in full article form. I ultimately switched due to it not only being a rogue brew, but simultaneously being undertested for the environment. I focused on Stnd primarily and thus had little time to work on Extended beyond the actual deck building process.
Thanks for all of the positive feedback, I will go through and answer individual questions when I find myself with a little bit more time. Thanks again!
Comment by Conley — November 27, 2009 @ 7:31 pm
How do you SB against Vampires, pretty hard in some case when a Mind Sludge resolves.
Gratz for your perfomance @ worlds
Comment by Ricardo — November 28, 2009 @ 2:50 am
Hey guys im a first time commenter and i wanted to let you know that i actually ran this deck at a local FNM. The outcomes were sometimes EXPLOSIVE! Other times it was whole bunch of mana and nothing to play. Lol! I love the deck idea and I gotta tell you i fell in love with the deck the first time i watched the video deck tech. I love its uniques blend of combo/aggro/mana ramp. However I found that i ran out of targets for my sacs, harrows and KHEs’. At my local level people like to play random decks that have odd creatures a.k.a Great Sable Stag in the main. I cant fight that with terminate. So, with no insult to your build, i put in some spot removal in the form of lightning bolt in the mold shambler slot and replaced the misty rainforest and a savage lands with 2 islands and moved the shamblers to the board. I can tell you that it feels great to sac late game and have a target for it. lol! Conley I will tell you that I am an avid blue player and have refused to play for 7 years now. i know this contradicts my previous statement of playing green. However that should be taken as a compliment as you have created a deck that MADE! me wanna play it. Thank you Conley and keep the sick brews coming.
Comment by Soulermuzik — November 28, 2009 @ 4:27 am
EDIT: Conley I will tell you that I am an avid blue player and have refused to play {insert green here}for 7 years now.
Comment by Soulermuzik — November 28, 2009 @ 4:29 am
Seems like Cruel should be in the maindeck. Look how often its sb’ed in!!!
Comment by nathones — November 28, 2009 @ 10:22 am
cruels are actually good from the board. i cant see them being main. they do get boarded in alot! however i only pulled one off last night. against Jund it was absolutely sick. I boarded in charms and cruels. i crueled once with them having a sprouting thrinax and elf on board. He sacked the thrinax and then i played a land with a cobra in play. played jund charm and wiped his board while i sat comfortably high life total. I believe somewhere in 13 - 15 range and a wall of beat tokens. The next turn he hemorrhaged calling cruel, taking 2 from my deck, surveying my deck his eyes got big and said VIOLENT ULTIMATUMS TOO! and proceeded to scoop. 1-1 at this point. I didnt get an extremely explosive start, got blightninged twice and bloodbraid into sprouting thrinax. I promptly lost the match. This deck is solid but i still cant see cruels in the main. sorry for the long story. just wanted you to know that in my luck experience the cruels dont always show up. lol!
Comment by Soulermuzik — November 28, 2009 @ 11:12 am
For everyone running out of lands to grab with your fetches etc, you are either allowing the game to go too long and putting yourself in a bad position during those long games, or fetching incorrectly. If you have run out of Basics, you should have about 10 or more lands in play, meaning fetching at this point is only to fuel landfall. Fetchlands still trigger landfall a single time, and you should easily be winning the game at this point.
I ran out of basics a handful of times in playtesting, but it was very rare, and never cost me a game.
Obviously any dekc like this can have issues with drawing too much mana or too many big spells, which is a trade off for the potential explosiveness. To balance this, I only ran 23 lands, despite it being low by normal standards.
You have to be smart with your mulligans. Keeping all mana hands is going to be fine depending on the macthup, where as keeping all big spells is usually going to be wrong.
Comment by Conley — November 28, 2009 @ 12:42 pm
After playing at worlds and seeing the metagame of what ended up in the top 8, would you make any changes to the deck now?
Comment by Joe2942 — November 28, 2009 @ 4:23 pm
Very nice to read the extensive SB-advice. Ty Conley!
Comment by Arjan — November 28, 2009 @ 6:43 pm
Thanks Conley, another well written piece.
Comment by Peter Rodway — November 29, 2009 @ 4:01 am
The sports analogies to “playing it safe” is very much failing. There is no equivalent to leading with 2-0 with 10 minutes left in magic. Playing it safe in this case is simply an unwillingness to go with a fun rogue deck that probably isn’t as good as the “real decks”, when you are in a really good position in the tournament. At the start of the tournament, choosing the rogue deck might reduce your top8 chance from 3% to 2%. Doing it the last day of worlds might reduce your chance from 20% to 10%.
Comment by Greg B — December 1, 2009 @ 2:43 am
Conley, love this deck and am still figuring out how to best start out. What do you consider to be the best initial draw and what are your minimum criteria for not mulliganing? It seems to me that 1 forest, 1 mana ramp, and another land are imperative to not mulligan. Advice?
Comment by Mo — December 1, 2009 @ 1:05 pm
Yea for the most part, any 2 lands, one of which can get green, and any accelerator is keepable. The few exceptions are like if there are more than 2 big spells in hand, Like 1 Baloths, 1 Ultimatum is fine, but 2 Baloths and that hand is a mulligan.
Comment by Conley — December 2, 2009 @ 1:32 pm
hey i recently got word of this deck a little over a week ago and built it immediately thinking it would just be crazy and fun., which it definitely is the ability to have six mana or 7 if ur lucky available turn 3 is so crazy and soi much fun and then pretty much every top deck is like a destruction card but after several play testings against several top decks including jund, pyromancer ascension combo, jacerator, and naya lightsaber. having mixed reviews against all of those matches i decided to tweak it a bit so here is my deck build that i am currently running.
conly i dont know if u will read this but if you do please give me feed back because i would love to get ideas and critique from the deck designer
Mold shambler x4
acidic slime x4
Violent ultimatum x2
Cruel ultimatum x3
Ob nix x2
Lotus cobra x4
Khalni heart expedition x4
Harrow x4
Mind shatter x2
Mind spring x2
terminate x2
maelstrom pulse x3
land base is pretty much same dropped out the savage lands and put in 3 islands and put in one swamp to compensate for the increased blue and black spells
but i have tested this version thoroughly over the last few days and the turn 3 mind shatter for 4 against any deck is just vicious and then u resolve a turn 4 violent ultimatum and their done i have had at least ten matches end in them scooping after turn 4
oh and my board currently sits at
quest of ancient secrets x2
negate x4
caldera hellion x3
jund charm x4
terminate x2
obviously the quest is for anti mill becaue lets face it any mill with an archive trap and its going to be really bad times for any magical christmas land deck pilot ha ha
but i guess let me explain some of the changes to the deck to get some input
MIND SPRING- obviously with the crazy mana ramp that this deck is capable of allows you to draw a full 7 cards turn 5 or 6 if u so desire so this kind of helps against those annoying discard decks and when the deck just gives you only like mana accelerators or just high mana cost spells it helps to stabilise the issues at hand
MIND SHATTER- as earlier the turn 4 mana ramp discard ur opponents hand is awesome but even late game if u draw into one u can make them discard their hand and then drop a threat that they have no answers for. oh and really really helps agains jacerator match up even if they have like ten cards in hand u can make them drop most of them
CRUEL ULTIMATUM- yes there is debate about putting it main but i have not had many issues getting the mana to cast either of the ultimatums when i have one in hand. and of course its more draw and discard and life gain and a threat return ha ha
MAELSTROM PULSE- so so helpful along with terminate removing threats and especially against those that swarm and if u cant seem to draw a destruction card for that one pesky jace or whatever pulse is always wonderful to have in hand to solve these problems
everything else is pretty much self explanatory negates help with control and the like.
well thats it i guess please every one give advice still developing this and all advice and critique is always always welcome
oh and sorry for the very exstensive comment i apologise for the long read
Comment by Michael — December 8, 2009 @ 12:37 pm