Turboland Fall 2008

[meadbert]

2 Wooded Foothills
3 Windswept Heath
1 Plateau
1 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
1 Savannah
1 Barbarian Ring
1 Cephalid Coliseum
2 Nomad Stadium
2 Mishra's Factory
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
1 Bazaar of Baghdad

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Sol Ring
4 Crucible of Worlds
4 Null Rod

2 Ancient Grudge

1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Vampiric Tutor

1 Time Walk
4 Intuition
1 Ancestral Recall

1 Fastbond
1 Life from the Loam
1 Regrowth
3 Sylvan Scrying

1 Ray of Revelation
3 Argivian Find
1 Enlightened Tutor

sideboard:
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Trinisphere
4 Sphere of Resistance
3 Pithing Needle
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Tinker
1 Balance
2 Ray of Revelation


This is a Turboland list that is not too different from what I was running back in 2005.  The big question has always been whether to gear the deck towards Horn of Greed or instead Intuition.
Back when Leyline of the Void was showing up all over the place Horns and Explorations were needed as a draw engine that dodged graveyard hate, but now that the meta seems to be settling on Tormod's Crypt as the graveyard hate of choice Horn becomes much worse.

The general strategies: Combo, Control,

Combo - There are several infinite combos.  All involve Fastbond and Crucible of Worlds.  With those, a Waste/Strip, a white source and a Nomad Stadium you can gain infinite life.  Add Bazaar or Colliseum and you have infinite mill.  Add Barbarian Ring and you can do infinite damage.  With two Factories you can create an infinite/infinite Factory to beat with.

Control - The main controlliing strategy is mana denial.  Along with Strip and 4 Wastes there are also 10 other Tutors that can find Strip Mine.  Basically you will always have the means to find Strip Mine in your opponent hand.  Null Rod is also huge.  It is so good right now since it shuts off Grindstone, Time Vault, Tormod's Crypt and Moxen.  Along with Mana Denial you also have Ray of Revelation and Ancient Grudge.  Ray is amazing against a few matchups, but Grudge is just good in general right now.  Having it to flash back to target Vault or Painter is huge.  Finally Barbarian Ring is convenient for removing Welders and Bobs.

Lock - There is no hard lock in the maindeck, but it is close.  If you get a Crucible/Strip lock with a Null Rod out then that is pretty good.  Add a second Null Rod and the lock is better but still beatable.  Opponents can wiggle out if they have Painter in play by repeatedly dropping Volcanic Island and Blasting either Crucible or Rod.  They can use Chain of Vapor on Rod if you only have 1.  They can pitch Spirit Guides.  Finally, the most dangerous thing they can do is drop Academy and use it to cast Rebuild and then combo out.  The point here is that there is no hard lock but Crucible + Strip and Null Rod buys a lot of time.  The key is to use that time to win rather than trying to further the lock.

The Mana Base:
The mana base looks horrendous, but it works just fine.  Some say that it is vulnerable to Wasteland because I am actually running a 5 color fetch base that has 0 basics.  Anyone who believes that is falling into a trap.  The worst thing you can ever do against Turboland is waste one of their lands.  Turboland's whole game plan is to get rid of its opponent's land.  Also you run 28 mana sources in a deck that curves out at 3 and 21 one of them are lands.  Consider:
"Did that Awesome bunker buster bomb just destroy that Taliban cave ... or did that worthless Taliban Cave just destroy a multi million dollar bunker buster bomb?"
"Did my Wasteland just destroy his Tropical Island ... or did his Tropical Island just destroy my Wasteland?"
If your opponent is wasting your lands then that is what you want them to do.  You already have way more lands than you need and you have a zillion ways to replay lands.
This is close to a 4 color deck since hardcasting Ancient Grudges is not that important.  For that reason I almost ran a Strand/Delta fetch base with Tropical Island and Scrublands as the duals with a token Volcanic Island.  The trouble is that I really wanted Green on turn 1 more often so I could Scry up Strip Mine.
I eventually reverted to something close to an old mana base I used.  Generally you want to grab Tropical Island first that that controls your engine which is Scrying/Loam/Intuition.  Late in the game when you are ready to win you can worry about finding black and white.

Intuition Piles:
1:  Find, Find, Fastbond:  Tutors up Fastbond and plays it for 5 mana.
2: Find, Crucible, Fastbond with Find in hand.  Tutors up both combo pieces.
3:  Strip, Ring, Stadium with Fastbond/Crucible out.  Wins.
4:  Rod, Rod, Rod:  When you really want a Null Rod.
5:  Strip, Loam, Bazaar:  Gets a Strip lock and draw engine going at once.
6:  Demonic, Imp, Vamp:  Get whatever you want.
7:  Grudge, Grudge, Rod: Hate on Painter.
8:  Barbarian Ring, Loam, Bazaar:  Remove a welder.
9:  Ray + 2 other cards:  Remove an Oath.
10:  Factory, Factory, Loam:  Mess with Fish.

Why certain cards are good:
Bazaar of Baghdad:  Sweet draw engine with Loam that be Intuitioned for or Scryed up.
Off Color Moxen: There are none.  This is a 5 color deck thus every Mox is on color.  Also they power out Rod, Crucible, Intuition and Scrying.
Ancient Grudge:  Hates on Stax, Remove Chalice@1, removes Time Vault or Painter.
Demonic, Imp, Vamp:  All find Strip Mine, Fastbond, Crucible and Rod.  All 4 cards are really good in this deck.
Yawg:  Broken in the late game and is a great distraction.  It is very common to have your opponent Duress Yawg out of your hand when they should have taken Fastbond or Crucible or even Sylvan Scrying.
Sylvan Scrying: Mostly finds Strip, but there are a ton of utility lands like Bazaar, Barbarian Ring and Factory that can be found.  Also can find a fetchland to fix colors.
Argivian Find:  Helps make broken Intuition piles and gets back countered/Duressed Fastbond, Crucible or Rod.  This card is sick.
Enlightened Tutor:  Tutors up Fastbond, Crucible or Null Rod.

Explanation of Sideboard:
First of all your biggest threat will be Ritual based decks.  You have Strip, 4 Wastes and tutors for them to hose Shop and Bazaar decks.  Your ability to consistently find Strip by turn 2 is highly annoying for Mana Drain decks.  The problem is there is no real solution for Rituals.  This is partly addressed in the board with:
1 Trinisphere
4 Sphere of Resistance.

Despite all the tutors for Strip and Wastes the dredge matchup still has issues.  To fix this the board has:
1 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Pithing Needle
1 Balance
Ensnaring Bridge is a house against many decks and Needle is flexible in that it hates out so many other win conditions.  Balance is probably the most versatile and really destroys Fish.

Intuitioning for 3xAncient Grudge or 3xRay of Revelation is insane in a few matchups since that is basically a 4 for 1 trade for  .  For this reason I have:
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Ray of Revelation

Some decks have Leyline or other annoying graveyard or engine hate thus a backup win resilient to hate is nice thus:
1 Tinker
1 Darksteel Colossus

Note that Tinker is so good that I have been close to adding it to the main.  It finds Crucible or Rod which is pretty good and the sacrifice an artifact thing barely matters in either case.


Cards that have been dropped from previous builds:
1)  Exploration:  Why play non broken Exploration when I could play a Tutor for Fastbond.  I finally decided to just run ET, Vamp, Demonic and Imperial Seal instead of Explorations.
2)  Horn:  Worse without explorations and has always been somewhat weak.
3)  Glacial Chasm:  This card is amazing and I am very close to dropping a Nomad Stadium to run Glacial Chasm.  For now I sort of need all the colored sources I can get so Stadium seemed good.  Chasm still randomly hoses Dredge which is nice.
4)  In the Eye of Chaos in the board.  With Grudges, Rays, Intuitions, Finds and top deck tutors there are enough instants  that this hurts me too.
5)  Mox Diamond:  Poor synergy with Null Rod.  Rod is amazing right now so I consider it an auto include.

Cards that this deck has no solution for:  Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon.
If these are common in your meta than do not play this deck unless you add a solution.

This deck is fairly decent right now because Null Rod and Ancient Grudge hate out the meta so effectively and the graveyard hate of choice is Tormod's Crypt which is in turn turned off by Rod as well.  It is by no means tier 1 or tier 2 and does not belong in the main vintage forum, but it could hold its own at a tournament.
I actually consider this to be the strongest Turboland has been in the past 3-4 years other than TurboGush which was more of a Drain deck with a Turboland finish.

[BigBarn]

Did you test Raven's Crime at all?  It's pretty good at knocking the combo decks out of the game after you slow them down.  Mid-game just use Life from the Loam to make them discard 3x a turn.  Same idea vs. control.

[meadbert]

I have not tested Raven's Crime.  That card looks pretty good!  Unfortunately I cannot make them discard 3 cards a turn because I only run 1 black producing land, but even making them discard 1 card a turn is solid.  Perhaps I will drop an Argivian Find to add Raven's Crime.

[IthilanorStPete]

Am I missing some blinding reason as to why Crop Rotation isn't in here?

[Anusien]

Run an Urborg, then make them discard tons of cards per turn with Loam.

Did you ever consider running a cycling land?  Then you can cast Life from the Loam two times a turn.

[meadbert]

Basically Sylvan Scrying is better than Crop Rotation in my opinion.  It is worth paying the extra colorless to not have to sacrifice a land.

Another card not included is Tolarian Academy.  The reason is that it does not help cast any spell.  Basically if you have 1 Mox out then Academy is an Island.  If you have 2 Moxes out then you can already cast any spell in your deck with a fetch land since you curve out at 3.

EDIT:
Regarding a cycle land.  Basically it came down to do I want to run a Cycle land or do I want to run Bazaar.  I am pretty sure that Bazaar is better.  The idea is to dredge Loam and cast it to put three lands including Strip in your hand.  Then activate Bazaar to see the top 2 cards.  Keep whichever one you like better and discard the two non Strip lands.  Then Strip a land.  Then possibly play one of the cards you drew.  It is always possible to dredge Loam back with one of your draws but that would only make sense if you have Fastbond out and if you opponent had a lot of lands that you want to Strip.  Normally you should be keeping your opponent at a low number of lands.

I really like Raven's Crime and I wonder if I need more black sources.  I am considering going back to this mana base:
2 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
1 Volcanic Island
2 Scrubland
2 Tropical Island

The advantage is with Trops and Scrubland you can produce your 4 relevant sources.  The token Volcanic Island may be unneeded since Ancient Grudge can always be discarded to Bazaar.

Also 5 Fetch and 3 Islands get into potential Gush territory.  In general I was not a huge fan of Gush in the past because I thought it was win more in that it was only good if I had Fastbond in play and if I had Fastbond in play then I was already winning.  With Raven's Crime there is a new use for Gush so that makes it more interesting.

RE-EDIT:
Flame Jab is a another interesting card.  It basically acts like a better version of Lava Dart so Perhaps I could drop all three Needles to add Flame Jab and 2 Ensnaring Bridges to the board.
Actually, a maindeck Flame Jab could probably totally replace Barbarian Ring in the main.

[wiley]

The biggest point that I contest is the awesomeness of null rod.  You use this card as a (excellent) way to shut down moxen, furthering the mana denial elements, and as a (less awesome, but still excellent) way to shut down artifacts like grindstone, vault etc.

What would happen if you ran a RGx version (probably blue or white splash) that ran mox monkeys and ancient grudges/artifact mutations for this artifact handling?  The finds are replaced easily enough with other regrowth effects like reclaim and nostalgic dreams.  You could also run living wish to find a glacial chasm/urborg or utility creatures.  The kill would obviously be with factories/ring/super secret tech like the on color words enchantments. 

Considering the colors you could also have an easy answer to magus with side boarded ftk as a wish target (or main deck flame jab) and blood moons are handled by seal of primordium.

Overall the mana base would be fairly solid w/ maindeck taigas, trops and volcs, using foothills and a blue fetch or two.  This also allows you to run mox diamond thanks to ditching null rod.

If I didn't have so much homework due tomorrow I would be tempted to try and build this deck (and I've already told you my thoughts on building another turboland build).

[meadbert]

RGx would miss Tutors for Fastbond.  Gamble is an option, but not a great one.  Black, Blue and White give access to excellent tutors like Demonic Tutor, Imperial Seal, Vampiric Tutor, Intuition and Enlightened Tutor.  Those are all pretty good cards.


I did some testing and Flame Jab is a solid card, but belongs in the board.
Raven's Crime is a house!
That said I think I only need 2 black sources because I usually want to play my Strip Mine so I only have 2 lands to discard.
I tested Gush by drawing opening hands of 6 with Gush in hand and it was not that good.  Neither was Colliseum which is what I was comparing it to, but I think Coliseum is better.

I am leaning towards the new Scrubland fetchbase.  The other option is to run 4 City of Brass and then 2 Fetches and 4 Duals.

[BruiZar]

I cannot see any good reason for not running crop rotation. Putting a card in play, and untapped versus putting one in hand is like running imperial seal over demonic tutor.

BTW you have 16 search cards, 1 mindlock orb and this deck can scoop

[meadbert]

Interesting analogy on Crop Rotation.  I would have used a similar one, but reversed it.  I would say Crop Rotation is like Vampiric Tutor in that it is a 1cc instant that loses card advantage, while Sylvan Scrying is like Demonic Tutor in that it is a 2cc sorcery that preserves card advantage.

That is a good point you make about Mindlock Orb and I have not tested against it.  Screwing up all my fetches would be the scariest effect!  If Mindlock Orb becomes common then a Cities and Gemstone Mines might make much more sense.

[wiley]

I cannot see any good reason for not running crop rotation. Putting a card in play, and untapped versus putting one in hand is like running imperial seal over demonic tutor.

BTW you have 16 search cards, 1 mindlock orb and this deck can scoop

Your reasoning is incorrect here.  With the biggest draw engine being bazaar you don't always make your land drop for the turn (shocking I know), you also want specific lands to be played in a general order.  You also don't want to be getting rid of your own lands willy nilly since you need crucible online before you truly have the upper hand, until then you want to trade lands at a 1:1 ratio at worst.  One of the most common plays with scrying is to get out strip mine for future use with crucible.  Doing the same with crop rotation is a really bad play.

Also, link.  Minlock orb doesn't seem to show up enough to be feared, even with Stephen's new article.  Even then the deck runs 2 ancient grudge and multiple instant speed tutors to find it.  Also, this deck does fairly well against stax in general.

RGx would miss Tutors for Fastbond.  Gamble is an option, but not a great one.  Black, Blue and White give access to excellent tutors like Demonic Tutor, Imperial Seal, Vampiric Tutor, Intuition and Enlightened Tutor.  Those are all pretty good cards.

The overall deck would function more like a zoo deck with the turboland combo in it, and you would still have the intuitions for tutors.  Some time after today I will try to throw together a preliminary list to see how off the idea is.

[BruiZar]

I think Aven Mindcensor would be even more of a problem against this deck to be honest. Because fish / bomberman already play more controllish they can just force your fastbond and be off with you. That is why I think you really need to put an effort into powering out lots of fast Raven's Crimes.

How could you tweak the deck so you can actually take more of a controllish route instead of playing combo with little to no disruption on your side?

[waywreth]

I wanted to point out the Loam deck here, which may give you some ideas - http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=36605.0.  It's a more control oriented version using Strategic Planning and FoW.

I think the 1 Raven's crime, combined with the Urborg(s) is a great idea that can lock down the game.  I also like the idea of one Maze of Ith main deck.  Have you also thought about Standstill?  Null Rod main deck seems so good these days though, so that over Mox Diamond is a good call in my opinion.

While that deck I linked uses Demigod as the win condition, I'm not sure that's the best answer.  I would like to see more win conditions in your deck.  An Extirpate on Factory would mean you would have to win with Barb Ring recursion.

[meadbert]

How could you tweak the deck so you can actually take more of a controllish route instead of playing combo with little to no disruption on your side?

The list does not actually need to be tweaked to play a control.  Actually the list itself can already be quite controlling.  There are a ton of tutors so you have great flexibility in how you use them.  You could use them to grab Fastbond and combo out or you can use them to grab controlling pieces.

There is far more than "little to no disruption."

As far as the maindeck goes it runs:
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
1 Barbarian Ring
4 Null Rod
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Raven's Crime
1 Ray of Revelation

That is 14 disruptive cards which is okay by itself but consider the uses for other cards:

Crucible/Loam:  Mostly used to recur Waste/Strip or in the case of Loam play lots of Raven's Crime.  Everyone considers Crucible to be a lock component in Stax and this deck has far more ways to find Strip than Stax does.
Intuition: Finds 3xRod, Flashback cards or 3 of (Loam/Strip/Bazaar/Crime)
Sylvan Scrying:  Used to find Strip Mine
Regrowth/Argivan Find:  Ideally used to get back Fastbond, but can be used to get Null Rod and Crucible.
Demonic, Vamp, Imp, ET:  Strip, Crucible, Fastbond and Rod are the most common targets.

So which are the "combo" cards?  Fastbond and Yawg are the obvious combo cards.  Fastbond also functions as a distraction.  Admittedly Argivian Find's primary purpose is to get back Fastbond, but as mentioned above it does fine for getting back a Duressed Null Rod or Crucible.

Anyway there are basiclly 14 Controlling cards and 2 Combo cards and then a ton of tutors that you can use to choose how you play.

[andrewpate]

3)  Glacial Chasm:  This card is amazing and I am very close to dropping a Nomad Stadium to run Glacial Chasm.  For now I sort of need all the colored sources I can get so Stadium seemed good.  Chasm still randomly hoses Dredge which is nice.

Chasm also helps against Pithing Needle set to Nomad Stadium, which makes it pretty hard for you to win right now.  With Chasm, they need 2 Needles, one set to Barbarian Ring and the other set to Cephalid Coliseum.

[Harlequin]

While that deck I linked uses Demigod as the win condition, I'm not sure that's the best answer.  I would like to see more win conditions in your deck.  An Extirpate on Factory would mean you would have to win with Barb Ring recursion.

If you have Flame jab over Barb Ring you can -techincally- still win. 

You could convert cards in deck into damage with Flame Jab + life + Bazaar + waste... at a TERRIBLE conversion rate.

If you got to a point where you had life from the loam in your hand you can do damage equal to 3 + Cards in deck / 4.  So if you had 36 cards left in your deck you can do 12 damage this turn with flame jab (and infinte lands for turn and crucible).

Cast loam, returning 3 lands.
Play Bazzar out of the yard, and wasteland out of the yard.
Tap Bazzar, draw a random card and dredge 3 random.  Discard 2 land and the random card.
Jab for 1 land (hand will be only loam).
Repeat.


If you have a 2nd Loam you can actually deal 19 damage with 31 cards in your deck.  IF you have: 1 loam in hand, 1 in the bin, bazaar + waste, infinte lands per turn, and crucible.

Cast Loam, returning 3 lands.

Play bazaar and waste it, dredge 6 for both loams discarding 3 lands.
cast loam, then tripple jab
cast loam2 (3 dmg, 28 cards left)
Play bazaar and waste it, dredge 6 for both loams discarding 3 lands. 
cast loam, then tripple jab
cast loam2 (6 dmg, 22 cards left)
Repeat: 9 dmg 16 cards
Repeat: 12 dmg 10 cards
Repeat: 15 dmg 4 cards left
Play bazaar and waste it, dredge 3 for 1 loam and 1 random card discarding 2 lands and a random card.
cast loam, then jab x4 for 19 dmg


Its probably better to just run Barb Ring or Ceph Col... but I'm just running the numbers on what it would take to win via Jab.

[meadbert]

I considered swapping out Colliseum or Ring for Jab, but decided not to for the reasons that Harlequin mentions.  Also, while Barbarian Ring can be milled into with Bazaar, Flame Jab will not work that way since you need to still have cards in hand.

Flame Jab was really good in the board, but when I tested it in the main it was fairly week.  In many matchups it does nothing where Barbarian Ring would have at least acted as a mana source.
Also Jab can frequently be grabbed with Intuition.  If you grab Loam, Bazaar and Ring then you usually get to threshold really fast anyway.

I definitely want Jab in the board to fight Welder and Bob though.

Win conditions has not been much of a problem pre-board.  Extirpate on Factory was mentioned but that is my backup win.

Plan #1:  Infinite Ring recursion.
If Fastbond is Extirpated Plan #2:  Factory beats.
If Fastbond + Factory are Extirpate Plan #3: Recur one Barbarian Ring a turn while Strip locking opponent.

If Ring and Factories are Extirpated, but you have Fastbond and Crucible you can still go infinite with Collieum, so there is a lot of flexibility in terms of your win condition.

Plan #3 is admittedly not great, but Uba Stax gets away with it all the time.

Also, we are talking pre board so how often am I going to get hit by 2-3 Extirpates or a Jester's Cap pre board?
Post board I have DSC because it is a tough win condition to hate out and Tinker is already good enough to be maindecked.  Tinkering out Rod and Crucible is a strong play so DSC has little harm.

[meadbert]

3)  Glacial Chasm:  This card is amazing and I am very close to dropping a Nomad Stadium to run Glacial Chasm.  For now I sort of need all the colored sources I can get so Stadium seemed good.  Chasm still randomly hoses Dredge which is nice.

Chasm also helps against Pithing Needle set to Nomad Stadium, which makes it pretty hard for you to win right now.  With Chasm, they need 2 Needles, one set to Barbarian Ring and the other set to Cephalid Coliseum.

Ancient Grudges really helps here.  One you have your combo online you can start Recurring Bazaar and dredging loam.  This finds 4 cards for 2 life so you can get half way through your deck.  If you hit an Ancient Grudge then you have your Needle Removal right there.  If not you can always Strip lock your opponent and commence with Factory beats.
If an opponent has two Needles they should name Strip Mine and Wasteland if they know what you are playing although they may worry that you run a token Ghost Quarter which is something that I have been close to doing.
Generally Stadium is bad card to name with Needle.  If I were playing against this deck and I could name one card I would probably go after Strip Mine or Bazaar of Baghdad.

[latrodectus55]

I noticed that everybody was mentioning Urborg, and it seems like a very valid solution to allow you to play Raven's Crime more, yet it has not been addressed.
Any particular reason?

[meadbert]

I briefly addressed Urborg.  I do believe that a second black dual is needed so I can cast Raven's Crime twice a turn.

In general the vast majority of the time I will be getting Strip Mine with Life from the Loam and I will want to use it to destroy a land.  For that reason when I Loam out three lands, one will be Strip which I will use to Strip a land.  The other two I will ideally discard to play Raven's Crime.  For that reason, having access to a second black source is important.

Having access to say 4 Black sources is more than needed.  For this reason I believe Urborg is not needed.  Also, consider that the 4 engine cards I want with Intuition are Bazaar, Loam, Strip and Raven's Crime.  I am fine with having 4 because frequently you will already have 1 and you can Intuition for the other three.  Urborg would add a 5th card to that list.  How often would I have 2 of the 4 cards already and want to Intuition for Urborg?

For those reasons I do not think that Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth makes the cut.  I have not tested Urborg yet so I cannot say this with any sort of confidence, but this is my thinking.

If I were to run a fetch base today I would probably do this:
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand

1 Badlands
1 Scrubland
3 Tropical Island

Strand cannot fetch Badlands, but other than that every fetch can get every dual.
When fetching you generally want Trops first since that gets you your two most important colors.  Next you want Scrubland so you have access to your 4 main colors.  For the third fetch you actually want Badlands since it gives you access to red and a second Black source to play multiple Raven's Crimes with.  The 3 Trops are there because that is what you want to start with.  Hands with Scrubland or Badlands are generally significantly worse than hands with Tropical Island.

[BigBarn]

I know you have Null Rods, but did you consider Academy Ruins + Engineered Explosives/Powder Keg at all?  blowing up moxes every turn is pretty good, not to mention if you have ruins, you could tutor for Tormod's Crypt and lock them out of Yawgmoth's Will.  You'd probably have to retool the deck quite a bit to make this kind of change (obviously remove the Null Rods), however.

[meadbert]

Right now Null Rod is so good that I am hesitant to cut it.  Acadamy Ruins, Engineered Explosives and Tormod's Crypt are all good cards.  Crypt and Explosives can be Finded out and thus Tutored for with Intuition.  Explosives has a ton of good uses including Moxes as you mentioned, Welders, Chalice@1, Oath, Warrens Tokens and Bridge Tokens.

Those are definitely good ideas, but for the current meta I am pretty sure that Null Rod is better than Explosives and Tormod's Cryp so I will stick with Rod.  Academy Ruins is a very interesting Rsince it gets either Crucible or Rod back and either of those is really good.  The addition of Raven's Crime has made Colliseum worse so it is tempting to swap it out for Ruins.  Ruins makes Intuitioning for 3xCrucible a bit safer and I can see Scrying up in the late game to start recurring Crucible.

[Harlequin]

What about Goblin Trenches as an alternate win condition (say over Barb Ring).  The only thing it doesn't really answer is Welder (but Slaver isn't that popular right now).  It can somewhat answer Goyf, Titan, etc (by buying plenty of blocks), and it will poop on aggro decks - which seem like not a great match-up for you.  Also it gives you an infinte goblins alternate win.

[wiley]

What would be the bonus of Goblin Trenches over Words of War or Words of Wilding?  Wouldn't bazaar make the words enchantments better since you wouldn't need crucible?