Competitive R/G beats in a Vintage environment?

[Tom Gibbs]

After reading a post on this message board about someone's stompy deck, I was struck with an amazing idea that has turned out (after vigorous tweaking) to be quite great.  I will illustrate to you the deck, the idea, and the results.

Part 1: The Deck

Land:
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
7 Forest
2 Karplusan Forest
5 Mountain
4 Taiga

Green:
3 Arrogant Wurm
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
2 Genesis
4 Rancor
4 Roar of the Wurm

Red:
3 Anger
4 Fiery Temper
2 Violent Eruption

Artifact:
1 Black Lotus
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald

Part 2: The Idea

Well, if you actually looked at the deck, you can tell the idea is to discard your hand as quickly as possible.  22 cards out of the deck are discarded with happy effects, and the rest can be spared anyway.  Discarding is done via Bazaar of Baghdad or Lion's Eye Diamond, either provides advantage.

Part 3: The Results

Here's a few test games I went through:

Game 1 - Turn 1: Mountain, Mox Ruby, Lion's Eye Diamond, Lion's Eye Diamond, sacrifice a Diamond discarding Roar of the Wurm, Roar of the Wurm, and Basking Rootwalla, sacrifice the other Diamond and tap the Mox and Mountain, providing me with two 6/6 Wurms and a 1/1 pumper on the first turn... that's game.

Game 2 - Turn 1: Bazaar of Baghdad, Mox Ruby, Lion's Eye Diamond, tap Bazaar of Baghdad discarding Genesis and Anger.
Game 2 - Turn 2: Forest, tap Bazaar of Baghdad discarding Basking Rootwalla, Forest, Karplusan Forest, attack and pump for 3.
Game 2 - Turn 3: Karplusan Forest, tap Bazaar of Baghdad discarding Roar of the Wurm, Roar of the Wurm, Anger, remove Elvish Spirit Guide from the game, sacrifice Lion's Eye Diamond to bring a 6/6 haster to the field on turn 3.  I'd say that's just about game.

Game 3 - Turn 1: Bazaar of Baghdad, Lion's Eye Diamond, Lion's Eye Diamond, tap Bazaar of Baghdad discarding Roar of the Wurm, Anger, and Arrogant Wurm, sacrifice both Lion's Eye Diamonds to put a 6/6 haster into play, remove Elvish Spirit Guide from the game to put a 4/4 trampling haster into play.

Now, you may say to yourself, "he's just picking the fastest draws and telling us about them!"  No, my friend, these were three consecutive games, each of which my playtesting partner scooped after.

In conclusion, I'd like any comments, criticism, suggestions, flames, or whatever regarding this deck, as I think it could be extremely lethal.

Oh, and if it ever gets named, I hope it gets named "Nails."  

[kirdape3]

This is almost certainly going to get moved to the normal Type One mill.

The one problem with this deck is that a Mana Drain on one of the big creatures is almost certainly fatal, and you have no real drawing that will survive.

[Ocifer]

You know, at first I looked at the deck and wanted to say "pile".  But after examining it, I think I'll just stick with Janky.
Don't get me wrong, I love your deck and some of the best, and all of the most FUN, decks I've ever played are the jankiest decks. This deck appears to be no different. It looks like a broken ass fun deck to play, it really does. And I must say that it has the ability to be a very good deck indeed.
Now, it really does need just a little tweaking, but I'm sure the build is not too far from optimal.
The first thing that LEAPS out at me is, why no Land Grant? I think the mana base needs just a little work on top of that, but it'll get you started.
Also, this deck appears to work in a very combo-esque fashion rather than being simply a beatdown deck. So I'm wondering is red is a good choice for your second color, given that having Anger in the deck is a good choice, but that card could remain in the deck and still allow a change in the second color (you just couldn't hard cast it). Blue is the color that jumps out at me if you were to change second colors. This would allow you to have counter back up to aid your "combo". But maybe some other color would offer better madness and/or flashback choices... I'd leave the second color choice up to the builder I suppose. But the madness burn just feels out of place to me.
All in all though, I think you have a great deck idea here. If you'd like I'd love to help you test it and tweak it. Perhaps there's enough here to build a seriously competitive deck out of. I've gotta admit, you've thought of several cards that I myself would have overlooked... LED especially. The deck as it stands is capable of some amazingly broken things.
If you see me in BDChat, say something and I'll help you test, tweak and test some more.
Good luck and happy deckbuilding.

[Fishhead]

> each of which my playtesting partner scooped after.

I assume he wasnt running a deck with counterspells, Balance, Abyss or Keg.  

It looks like an interesting deck, I'd be curious to play around with it a bit.  But I do suspect that it runs out of steam quickly; one well placed StP, counter or even Wasteland (on Bazaar) probably buys enough time for a control deck to stabilize.  How is the control matchup so far?

[AxeMurder]

Anger only gives your creatures haste if you have a mountain out. =(

-AxeMurder |-{

[jpmeyer]

Quote This is almost certainly going to get moved to the normal Type One mill.

Darn tootin'.  This mill is more for theory discussions and essays.

[The Weasler]

it'll be all fine and dandy untill a Roar of the Wurm gets Mana Drained and they get 7 mana

As Ocifer said, its cute, but quite janky.

Thats Ironic, a Mod Double posting  

[Pacman]

this is a great idea, as a matter of fact I think im gonna play test it too.  i had a couple of suggestions about a couple of your picks.

4 Fiery Temper
2 Violent Eruption

Why fiery temper?  Can a standard lightning bolt be used in its place?

Why Violent eruption?

Did you pick these cards so that you could use the LEDs at any time without any drawback / card disatvantage?

[bebe]

Well, the deck you refer to is Toronto Stompy. We tried both Bazaars and Manabond but elected to forgo both in the end. We had planned on adding some red though. Don't like the Land grants oin my testing either. Why Genesis and Anger? They are overkill. BTW, we use Rancors and Sylvan Mights as pumpers.
As for the Bazaars I would rather have Mongers although both are targets for hate.

[pernicious dude]

@BeBe - Mongers? You maybe mean Mongrels?

I'm not too far away from this
with a splash of U & W instead of R in T1.5.
I'm running Manabond and Oath Of Scholars.
Gustha's Scepter is crazy useful for tucking away stuff you don't want to drop.
Seals of Cleansing and Removal provide some general answers.
Arrogants, Roars, Calls and Mishras kill pretty fast.

The deck is hilarious to play, and it's mostly cards from the junkpile.

[bebe]

Sorry. My spelling is at times atrocious. This is a casual deck. Not a serious type 1 deck. Your test results must be warped. We goldfished and played the deck many times and rarely got your hands consistently. First off we often started with five or six cards (you must mulligan if you draw badly). Razor and I were fooling with it just for fun. I might try the Bazaars again but I don't think this belongs in a serious mill.
I love Oath of Scholars... You could then add more Blue in Deep Analysis for draw. Never had thought of adding Blue.

[Tom Gibbs]

Pacman: if you're the Pacman from Kraproom (which I believe you are, since you use that avatar) I will ish my pants.  Kraproom rlz.  Anyway, I played Temper and Eruption for good reasons.  Temper is there because with LED you can discard Temper and use LED's mana to play it, as with Lightning Bolt you cannot.  I'm thinking of taking Genesis out in favor of Land Grant so Anger is useful more often... I put Genesis in just incase there was a late game, I could recycle Wurms in hope of stabalizing.  You're all correct in the idea that it runs out of steam quickly, because of the explosion on turn one or two.  I'm thinking in order to stay competitive with control I will need to figure out a way to make the deck either more consistant, with more ways to explode on turn 1, or by not relying completely on Wurm tokens, which are amazingly easy to get rid of in T1.

Pacman: IM me on "Harness," I've deduced that "Kraproom, CA" and "Paul aka Pacman" proves that you are, in fact, the krappiest Pacman to date.

[Razor]

BeBe: My hunch is that this is too inconsistently-explosive as is to be much more than a really-mean-casual-deck.  My opinion will drastically change should Wizards print another LED, however.

BTW, kudos to you and the boys at Hairy T's for creating the weirdest green deck I've seen since Living Planes many variants.

[Tom Gibbs]

Razor: at the moment, I'm playtesting several varients of this deck against Pacman, and he's playing a variant at a local tournament... I think the key to consistancy could actually be slowing the deck down a little bit so I can establish a base to build from.

[Grollub]

Quote (Tom Gibbs @ July 10 2002,17:56)Razor: at the moment, I'm playtesting several varients of this deck against Pacman, and he's playing a variant at a local tournament... I think the key to consistancy could actually be slowing the deck down a little bit so I can establish a base to build from.

That I belive is correct, IMO the best would be to, I know this will probably raise some angry voices at me, drop LED, I *know* it can, and will, end some games fast, but in my eyes it seems like it makes you just run bad cards (read Fiery Temper) just to dodge it's drawback. I think adding Wild Mongrel, Squees (draw engine with Bazaar and cute combo with Mongrel) and Storm Bind would make the deck more stable, stronger if an Abyss resolve (bind 'im to death! ).

LED doesn't seem to do enough, but if you want to keep it perhaps also play with Nimble Mongooses?

[bebe]

Toronto Stompy

4 Lion's Eye Diamond

4 Roar of the Wurm
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Arrogant Wurm
4 Call of the Herd
4 Nimble Mongoose

4 Sylvan Might
4 Rancor
3 Sylvan Library
3 Rites of Spring
Berserk
Regrowth
Dwell on the past

13 Forest
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
Mana Crypt
Black Lotus
Mox Emerald

Let me be clear... Nimbles are a must.
Rites of spring look strange? It rocks in this deck. It fills your graveyard if you fail to draw an LED and thins the deck so you get the best top decks.
Sylvans are necessary. you need to refill your hand even if it means taking damage.
Regrowth, Beserk and Dwells are being tested.

But after hearing about Oath of Scholars, I just might make these changes:

- 3 Sylvan  + 3 Oath
- regrowth, beserk, dwell  + 3 Deep analysis

- 4 EsG + 4 Land Grant
- 5 forest + 4 duals and an island

The only good reason I can see to add a color in a deck like this is DRAW / CARD ADVANTAGE. This deck needs to win fast and find a way to refill its hand. Adding a color is risky. Consistency is very important in our limited testing. It probably is a better Extended deck than type 1 build.

[Tom Gibbs]

Grollub, I have taken your words into consideration, along with the rest of the replies, and after some testing, I present to you Led Nails v2.0, complete with some stability.

Land:
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
5 Forest
2 Mishra's Factory
5 Mountain
1 Strip Mine
4 Taiga
4 Wasteland

Artifact:
1 Black Lotus
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby

Green:
4 Arrogant Wurm
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Roar of the Wurm

Red:
3 Anger
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Squee, Goblin Nabob
3 Winds of Change
1 Wheel of Fortune

Gold:
2 Meteor Storm

The deck actually runs more land than it needs, and it still runs very little... you've got to remember, 17 spells in the deck don't even have a casting cost that concerns us, so a small mana base is fine.  I chose to leave the land how it is, though, so Meteor Storm has plenty to work with.  Yes, I played it over Stormbind, I find it better.  I'm still not sure if this is a better or worse build of the deck, but it's way more consistant.  Winds of Change are some tech I picked up off Pacman to give you a little bit better draw, and if you're lucky, screw up your opponent's hand.

[bebe]

This makes a lot more sense to me. As I said I would add a color only for draw nad this deck now does that. I do think four Land Grant should be in there for four lands though. The deck needs to get the right mana of the bat.
As a side note we built a similar deck in u/g as control aggro along the lines of quiet speculation decks that also did quite well in testing. We were reliant on first or second turn QS to make it run so Merchant Scrolls were in there and lots of counters and four Kegs. For creatures we used only RotW, CotH and Morphs.
Let us know how you fare with this.

[Zharradan]

Quote (Tom Gibbs @ July 11 2002,11:36)Artifact:
1 Black Lotus
4 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby

Totally off-topic... I'd like to point out that the above is completely impossible to read when using the black skin for these forums. Heh.

[Justin]

ive been messing with this using blue insead for big blue, quiet spec & deep analysis. windfall works here too, and maybe werebear as well. havent tested it yet though