Possible to break Hunting Grounds?

[brianpk80]

Just out of curiosity, did you ever use Riftstone Portals in conjunction with Bazaar?  I wonder if that helps the land drop loss.  Also if you run Crop Rotation, you can play a singleton or pair of Bazaars.

I have played a list with Portals but didn't see it in action much to be honest.  I'm guessing they would work best in a build with heavy emphasis on Bazaar, since the Portal itself isn't great in hand or in play.  

The main issue i had with Jotun grunt is that it seems to have bad synergy with HG, since it will inevitably eat up your threshold or you have to lose your 4/4 beater.  

That is true.  I probably wouldn't run Jotun either but had him in mind as a disrupt-critter.  I nearly forgot that he existed entirely until recently as he's been so marginalized.  

But I agree that creatures that disrupt are paramount.  Qasali, Teeg, Canonist, Aven seem ok enough.  Actually in a MUD meta Kataki would be better than Canonist.  Also dont forget that Vexing Shusher is GG, pun intended.  That card is beastly against control and often overlooked as a green creature.

Vexing is great!  He's also very good in Workshop games since the Workshop player will prioritize Chalices against Fish.  

I almost hate to type this next part.  I've been thinking quite a bit and I wonder if instead of HG a deck like this should just run the green Tinker, Natural Order.  Me and a buddy worked briefly on that deck a bit and it tested fairly well.  Two mana vs. four mana is offset by running BoP's/Heirarch/Llanowar/Lotus Cobra.  HG requires threshold, Natural Order does not.  HG requires the creature to be in hand, Order does not.  HG requires the opponent to play a spell, which they won't do if they have board control.

On the other hand Order doesn't appear to be as great in multiples, would be a bitch if its countered(Shusher helps), and limits the creature to being green.  That said, seems like Order is a much bigger bomb if it resolves though.  Not trying to derail this, but if I were to answer the thread;  I'm not sure it is possible to break HG.  The more I think about it, I get the idea that it is slower than Survival if it comes down on turn 2.  Drawing multiple HG's doesn't do much if you aren't drawing creatures.

I think this is well stated.  The more I started tweaking the HG list I was playing around with yesterday, the more it started to resemble Noble Fish and the more I realized I wanted to be drawing into hatebears instead of Hunting Grounds itself.  

Also, I should mention that resolving sorceries like Natural Order, Eureka, and Show and Tell makes me think of Boseiju, Who Shelters All.   

[BruiZar]

Okay,

This is what I've got so far.

LANDS
x Savannah /  Tundra / Tropical Island
x Windswept Heath / Flooded Strand / Misty Rainforest
1 Karakas
1 Nantuko Monastary

AND THRESHOLDS
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
3 Riftstone Portal

MANAS?
3 Mox Diamond
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Opal
1 Mana Crypt
2 Life from the Loam

CHEATS
4 Hunting Grounds
3 Show and Tell
1 Tinker
1 Swords to Plowshares

TUTOR
4 Eladamri's Call
3 Crop Rotation
1 Enlightened Tutor

DRAWS, FILTERS, DISCARDS
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Strategic Planning
3 Spell Pierce
2 Spell Snare - Or other cheap counter
4 Force of Will - Replace for cheap countermagic

CREATUREZ
4 Qasali Pridemage
2 Venser, Shaper Savant
2 Gaddock Teeg
2 Ethersworn Canonist

BOMBS
1 Kederekt Leviathan / 1 Emrakul, The Aeons Torn
1 Scars of Mirrodin, new and improved, unannounced Tinkerbot!
1 Terastodon
1 Iona

SIDEBOARD:
1 Bojuka Bog - Dredge, Yawgmoth´s Will
1 Strip Mine - Workshop, Dredge
1 Gaddock Teeg - Jace, Force of Will, Tendrils
1 Ethersworn Canonist - Storm
3 Wheel of Sun and Moon - Dredge
1 Seal of Primordium - Oath
1 Seal of Cleansing - Oath
2 Swords to Plowshares - All-round star. Board in to slow fish builds and lodestone golems.
2 Extract - Sole purpose is sniping Time Vault or Tendrils, Allows you to scout the sideboarded hate. If Tendrils is in hand, grab Yawgmoth´s Will. If Vault is in hand, grab Voltaic Key.
2 Hurkyll´s Recall - Sole purpose is to reset the workshop match
x Groundseal?

• Eladamri's Call helps set up Show and Tell and is instant speed access to your toolbox with Hunting Grounds. It allows you to play a turn 2 EOT E.Call into turn 3 Show and Tell
• Playing Venser with Hunting Grounds brutalizes your opponent's Force of Will (Pitching for nothing), Stalls turns (tapping out for nothing), regrowths cards and bounces resolved cards.
• Venser, Hunting Grounds, Karakas is a game ending combo.
• Terastodon helps you get rid of lands
• Kederekt Leviathan helps you get rid of anything else (Yes you, workshop deck)
• Nantuko Monastary takes out golems, recurr it with life from the loam!
• Crop Rotation gives me cheap toolbox lands, gets rid of a Rifstone Portal, tutors up a Bazaar, gets me a one off Nantuko Monastary and opens up possibilities for extra sideboard options such as a one-off Bojuka Bog to combat dredge.
• Enlightened Tutor grabs Tinkerbot for Show and Tell or Hunting Grounds, or it just sets up a Hunting Grounds

How to get Threshold quickly:
Strategy 1
Turn 1:
Play Bazaar, Tap Bazaar, Discard 3 cards.
Turn 2:
Tap Bazaar, Play fetch land, crack fetch land, tap a Mox, play hunting grounds.

Strategy 2
Turn 1
Fetch, Mox Diamond, Strategic Planning

Turn 2
A 1 Mana Spell and a Fetch, or play a Qasali Pridemage and crack it, you´ll find a way!

Strategy 3
IF we include Crop Rotation, we can go:
Fetch, land, Crop Rotation, Bazaar, Tap Bazaar into Riftstone Portal = 6 cards in grave on turn 1, with Hunting Grounds coming online the next turn.

How to protect Bazaar
Strategy 1
Sideboard Ground Seals. Unlike dredge, this deck runs enough acceleration / mana to be able to cast it turn 1 and slow roll into a win.

Strategy 2
Ignore it! Go for Show and Tell / Tinker!

Strategy 3
Blow it up with Qasali Pridemage

How to get a big guy in play

1) Eladamri's Call + Show and Tell

2) Dig for Big guy with Brainstorm, Ponder, Ancestrall Recall and Strategic Planning

3) Eladamr's Call + Hunting Grounds



NOTES:

Noble Hierarch? Where is it? Well, it´s not in the deck. It doesn´t feed the yard and it has summoning sickness. Perhaps I should run it, but it´s non-essential at the moment.

I feel white and green is a very powerful color combination.

Dredge:
This deck can destroy dredge easily with Wheel of Sun and Moon and Crop Rotation into Bojuka Bog or Strip Mine. Qasali Pridemage blows up to remove bridges if needed. Venser can stop a Dread Return if he is not Therapied away. Karakas can bounce Iona should he run it.

Workshop
If you resolve Hunting Grounds, you are in a good spot of winning the game. Once you hit a Kederekt Leviathan its officially over for Workshop. The problem is that once the Workshop player has a threat online, he will likely not play another spell if you have Hunting Grounds online, if he does, he will eat Qasali's, Venser will bounce his threat, Terastodon will clear his lockpieces and Nantuko Monstary will block his dudes if he doesn't waste them.

Control
I predict its a dangerous matchup. Crop Rotation must not be countered, but you always have atleast 1 mox to help pay for counter magic such as spell pierce on turn 1. If you get Hunting Grounds online, he has some serious complications unless he can go for vault key in the same turn. Gaddock Teeg shuts down Force of Will and Jace the Mindsculptor. Qasali is standby for some time vault action.

Tendrils
You can side in Ethersworn Canonists and use Gaddock Teegs to complicate the matchup. Should the game extend, try to expand from Ethersworn Canonist to Hunting Grounds, Venser, Karakas for a hardlock. (Karakas can be crop rotated, venser can be eladamri's called)


versus

Oath of Druids cannot play Qasali Pridemage, Gaddock Teeg, Venser, Ethersworn Canonist
Hunting Grounds has a huge array of specific hate spells to its disposal. These are all sticks. This means that regardless of cheating a big guy in play, you will be able to kill your opponent.

[RecklessEmbermage]

That's 65 cards, without counting fetches and duals. I'd start cutting:

1 fatty (one of the board sweepers)
2 gaddock teeg (because you can't do everything)
1 venser
2 eladamri's call (I'm not overly impressed with the card, but it might be good enough in this list to warrant 2 slots)
1 enlightened (not enough utility)
2 show and tell (you only need a certain number of cheats and I think this is the worst)
1 stp (if you need creature removal main, make it less random. Venser may be enough in the main)
2 strategic planning (because they don't do enough in this list. You should hit a bazaar in all but a few sircumstances)
1 of the "cheap counterspells" the last 3 could be one more spell pierce and 2 daze.

I would add 1-2 divining tops. They seem awfully synergistic here.

For the manabase, try to make sure that all your duals are islands, to turn on all the 1cc counterspells.

[Sextiger]

Wow, I can't believe someone actually made a decent on paper deck from a random idea I had.  Some thoughts in addition to Reckless Embermage....

NO LIVING WISH? BLASPHEMY! Seriously, your sideboard is lands/creatures as it is, you can remove a few or all of the Eladamri's Call and replace them with Living Wish, then you can probably drop a few creatures to free up more space for uitlity, aka, wastes/strip main for starters or an Eternal Witness for recursion.     Strategic Planning could probably be replaced with Mental Note, a mana cheaper and an instant for less card selection seems good to me.  For fattie arbuckles, a Woodfall Primus might work as well. 


You probably want Leyline of Sanctity in the sideboard for combo/Oath and graveyard protection. 

There is a lot you could do with this deck but major props for at least putting in some good effort. 

[BruiZar]

The list is really raw, it was a basic framework of what I think could work. For example, Mana Crypt should not be in the list, and Mox Sapphire should be in the list. There are also probably still a bunch of restricted cards that need to be considered. The reason I like this deck is because of 3 things:

Bazaar will tap for mana, so dropping a first turn bazaar is not tempo loss with riftstone portal.
Hunting grounds is like standstill on crack. Standstill requires that neither player plays a card, but hunting grounds requires that your opponent doesnt play a card, which means you are free to cast whatever you like.

You have hate bears, so you don't have to rely on your bombs too much

About living wish vs eladamri's call. It seems tempting to use living wish, so you can atleast have game 1 access to Bojuka Bog and Strip mine, but I think Eladamri's Call is better because you don't actually want to remove your creatures from your main. The reason to play this over Oath is because you're playing maindeck creatures, so putting them in the sideboard seems like it would slow the deck down tremendously, the biggest no for living wish is the fact that its a sorcery, while eladamri's call can fetch a creature in reponse to a spell and cheat it into play immediately, or fetch one end of turn to set up a show and tell on your turn.


I agree with RecklessEmbermage that 1 Venser should go alongside the Swords to Plowshares. You are probably also on the money about Strategic Planning, since I'm playing Crop Rotation effectively upping my Bazaar count to 7. I don't agree with removing Gaddock Teeg. Jace, Force of Will, Massacre, Dread Return, Tendrils/Empty the Warrens are important cards to hose. I think atleast one should stay as a Eladamri's Call target.

-1 Show and Tell I can agree on.

about Daze. My first list had Daze, but it has sucky synergy with Crop Rotation and interferes with first turn bazaar. You want to play Daze early, and you want to play Crop Rotation early as well, Sacrificing your land means you can't cast Daze for its alternative cost. This is why I picked Spell Pierce and Spell Snare. Then again, you can't cast spell pierce or spell snare when you sacrifice your land either. You could play an island turn 2 and then daze, but I don't think it will still be relevant by the time moxen hit the table. The counter suite needs a solution.

Enlightened tutor can fetch 3 Wheel of Sun and Moon, 1 Seal of Primordium, 1 Seal of Cleansing in the postboard matches. I think this is significant enough to keep it in there for now. That said, Crop Rotation and Eladamri's Call feel more powerful, but they are limited in what they can dig up.

Divining Top seems like a good way to dig for creatures at instant speed and put them in your hand in response to a spell.