B/G Veteran Therapy tech

[Magimaster]

Hey all, I've done some testing lately, specifically on this card I was told about from kl0wn long time ago on IRC :

Veteran Explorer
Color : Green
Rarity : Uncommon
Card Set : Weatherlight
Casting Cost : G
Spell Type : Summon
Creature Class : Soldier
Power : 1
Toughness : 1
Rules Text : If Veteran Explorer is put into any graveyard from play, each player may search his or her library for up to two basic land cards and put those lands into play. Each player shuffles his or her library afterwards.
Oracle Text : When Veteran Explorer is put into a graveyard from play, each player may search his or her library for up to two basic land cards and put them into play. Each player who searched his or her library then shuffles his or her library. (forgive the formatting, I couldn't find a picture of it on the MTGnews spoiler generator)

Basically, this guy is a mana accelerator. Chump, fuel for Therapy (hint hint), allows for extra permanents for Stax fuel or Negator fuel, and allows you to ramp up mana fairly quickly huge spells or ridiculously large Deeds early on. I like this guy.

kl0wn's decklist he sent to me was R/G/B. He used this guy, Therapies, but he also had the Survival engine, and Blood Moon main. The red was for silver bullet creatures like Flametongue and Mox Monkey, in addition to the B/G staples.

That was atleast 2-3 months ago. I don't know what kl0wn did with it, but I think he may have started working more on his Ninja Mask deck, or maybe that original build morphed into Ninja Mask, I'm not sure maybe he can clarify if he reads this.

So anyways, I took this card, and after a while did some testing. I was thinking of making it B/G/R just like kl0wns, but I thought "what does red actually give me?" :

- Maindeck/SB Moons, which are house, but I feel a little to non-synergistic with the VE.
- Creatures like Mox Monkey, Flametongue etc. other utility creatures. Again, I don't feel that a potentially weaker manabase is worth the utility these creatures can provide, as anything they can do you can reproduce to some extent in B/G.
- Solid SB options in more utility creatures, more moons or whatnot, RackNRuin etc. Again, I could probably find those effects in B/G.

So I decided to work on making it B/G. Since I'm a cheap bastard, I thought I'd make it budget too (no power). Obviously, it wouldn't be that hard to add 2 moxen and a Lotus in if needed...

To be honest, the only "tier 1" deck I've testing this thing against is Stax and a few games against Rector Trix, and this was a few weeks ago. Today, I dug it out again and did some games against more decks (randomness) so I feel confident enough to post about it and hopefully get some feedback. The deck still has lots of problems, but hopefully I can get those worked out soon.

Veteran Madness.dec (the "madness" in the title does not mean I'm using any madness effects in the deck)
4x Veteran Explorer - Why I built this
4x Pernicious Deed - the be-all-end-all card in the deck, also serves as an outlet to kill VE
4x Duress
4x Cabal Therapy - Uses VE for fuel

3x Withered Wretch - Hate for todays metagame
3x Phyrexian Negator - Quick beats, also shares a symbiotic relationship w/VE
3x Ravenous Baloth - More efficient beats, survives Deed, potentially replaceable
2x Spiritmonger - On the chopping block

1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Regrowth
1x Living Wish - for some SB goodness, also it's about time someone started abusing this thing
1x Mind Twist - With the mana you can generate, big Twists early are fairly reasonable
1x Yawgmoth’s Will

3x Sylvan Library - What I would have liked to be my draw engine. Not working out too well, but it is kinda nice with all the shuffling effects from Tutors, VE and fetchies
2x Naturalize - Utility slot, could be Smothers/Edicts, or something else

4x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine
4x Forest
4x Swamp - 8 Basics for VE to ramp up the mana
4x Bayou
2x Windswept Heath
3x Polluted Delta - 5 fetchies for shuffling effects for Sylvan.
(again, adding power I feel shouldn't be an issue for those of you who just have to add power to everything. Perhaps cut a basic, a fetch and waste. I don't think off-color moxen are worth it, especially since they will most likely end up in the GY)

SB:// (under construction. Trying to find ways to help use Living Wish perhaps?)
1x Withered Wretch
1x Genesis
2x Naturalize
Smothers?
X?X?X?X?X




bleah. Be nice, for some reason I felt like playing magic again.


So that's what I came up with. Mongers suck, I don't think I got them out at all once in the 25 or so games I've had, Baloths and Negators seemed to do just fine. VE is great, he's all I could have hoped for. Not many decks nowadays can abuse his ability as much as you can. Wretch main is house. 4 Deeds main are house, though if you know your metagame this number is certainly adjustable. Living Wish, I didn't use this thing enough to make an accurate judgement. The draw engine is okay. Baloths sometimes allow for heavy use of Sylvan, as well as Plows on your Negators  and the shuffling effects were nice, but Sylvan almost always died to Deed, which sucked. Does this deck even NEED a draw engine? Or just more redundance (threats/disruption)? In a few games which had lots of creature kill, I found myself running out of threats. More threats in order perhaps?

The manabase is okay. Sometimes you're light on land early on, but the high number of basics helps against Wasteland and friends, in addition to the mana smoothing abilities of VE. I wouldn't mind 1 or 2 more land.


About the matchups :

- Stax was all about Deeds. Resolving Deed was my main focus, and then just dropping a threat and trying to win. I should probably play more games against a better build than KandyKids slightly sub-optimal Stax build, but I'm guessing that VE would help greatly against Smokestack and Wire, and his land increasing abilities should help against Sphere. kl0wn said that VE was great for him when he played against Stax.

- Rector Trix was all about the disruption. Duress' and Therapies, Wastes. Deeds to blow up some moxen. Wretch for hate. Again, more testing is need, but shows promise. This is one of those matchups where I don't think VE will help you much, other than perhaps providing an outlet for some Therapy Flashback rapeness.

- Against the randomness decks, Deeds were gold, Wretches too against all those stupid Reanimator decks, but I found myself stalling into topdeck mode too often. These games were where I found the Sylvan engine to be lacking, and some inconsistincies(sp?) with the manabase. In a few games, I found myself drawing TOO MUCH land, but I will chalk that up to Apprentice-crappiness.

That's all. I built this mainly because I think VE is such a pimp, so I tried to abuse him to the max (Therapy, Negator, Deed and Sylvan) but I think he should just fall back into the support role. More redundance will be tested in place of the Sylvans, but more threats or disruption, I'll have to see.

thanks for reading my half-asleep drivel.

[Grand Inquisitor]

Quote Maindeck/SB Moons, which are house, but I feel a little to non-synergistic with the VE

I'm confused, VE seems like it would supplement bloodmoon, not work against it.

I think dropping red is a good choice, although i've never seen what a decklist with red would look like.

What do you think of living wish in the utility spots?  That would probably allow you to drop vampiric tutor, which looks like ass in this deck.  I have no idea what you'd use for targets in the board, but it might allow you to bring survival of the fittest back in the deck.

Two words: dark ritual.  Seriously, I know VE accelerates your mana, but nothing says loving like a turn one negator or turn 2 monger.

It would also make running necropotence much easier, which you should definitely add.  Deed works as a reset once you get too low on life, and its value in any control match up are sick.

It looks pretty good to me, let me know how further testing goes.

[Magimaster]

Quote (Grand Inquisitor @ Aug. 27 2003,05:48)

Quote Maindeck/SB Moons, which are house, but I feel a little to non-synergistic with the VE

I'm confused, VE seems like it would supplement bloodmoon, not work against it.

I think dropping red is a good choice, although i've never seen what a decklist with red would look like.

What do you think of living wish in the utility spots?  That would probably allow you to drop vampiric tutor, which looks like ass in this deck.  I have no idea what you'd use for targets in the board, but it might allow you to bring survival of the fittest back in the deck.

Two words: dark ritual.  Seriously, I know VE accelerates your mana, but nothing says loving like a turn one negator or turn 2 monger.

It would also make running necropotence much easier, which you should definitely add.  Deed works as a reset once you get too low on life, and its value in any control match up are sick.

It looks pretty good to me, let me know how further testing goes.

What I mean about non-synergy with Moon, is that VE allows your opponent to get his basics out as well. Even if they have only 3-1 basics, under Moon that's plenty, and sort of dilutes the game-ending ability of Moon. It would be nice if I was running some LD that could target basics, like Sinks, but I decided not to go that route.

From the start, I've decided not to work with Red. It may appear in the SB, as using VE I've pretty much never had a problem casting any of my spells, he's such a good mana smoother.

Vampiric Tutor was used mainly to fetch Mind Twist and Will. I'm guessing it would also be good against opposing Cabal-Rapeness or Duress' too. Targets for Living Wish in the board include Plaguebearer (Checkmate against Fish), Genesis for some Baloth abusing, more Wretches, and then I don't know. Even something janky like Uktabi might find a spot. I also don't know about using Survival, as it suffers the same problem that Sylvan had: it's 2cc and dies to Deed like a mofo, which I pretty much used in almost every game.

I felt that it was too "Green" to run Ritual, but I could find room to try it out.

Thanks, I'll try not to lose so much next time. I was so out of touch with MTG, I forgot Spectral Lynxes had pro-green AND they could regenerate. Silly me.

[Dave Kaplan]

this deck is awful, play Burninator

[Magimaster]

Quote (Dave Kaplan @ Aug. 27 2003,12:05)this deck is awful, play Burninator

I would if it wasn't so shitty

[waSP]

Negator isn't all that great.  It's only better than Call of the Herd when attempting to race combo.  Call will beat control and aggro up for you so that your hand disruption and "wretch"edness can take care of the combo matchup.  Call also has good synergy with Therapy and Deed.  I like how it looks but red would give you Terminate and Artifact Mutation (better sideboard cards than you mentioned).  Looks pretty cool though.

[suicide_slushy]

Call of the Herd and Pernicious Deed are not friends.

[waSP]

Phyrexian Negator and permanents are not friends either.  If you're in a position where you need to deed, a negator won't be much better than an elephant token, will it.  Additionally you don't need to pay the flashback right away, so they are kinda friends, when you're playing against discard.  I've played extensively with the two in combination, and have had no trouble with having tokens and deed in the same deck.  It's one of those things you have to actually play with to understand.

[Windfall]

One of the cards that I have always loved is Phyrexian Arena.  It's a Black Ophidian that doesn't attack or die to creature hate.  So you lose a life each turn - it's marginal.

There's nothing like a double-Arena combination that can keep your hand full and the threats/disruption coming.  I would seriously consider replacing Sylvan Library with the Arena (four is the best number).  When you get too low on life, you can Deed.  I think it's better than Necropotence in this kind of deck, since you won't be drawing 20+ cards with Necro like you would in Trix decks.  Plus the BB is easier to cast than BBB.  Not to mention Necro is restricted and hard to find without a lot of tutor magic.

Dark Ritual is a nice choice if you go the way of the Arena.  1st turn Arena's are very nice.  You could also add an Ivory Tower to save you if you're that worried about losing a couple of life.  They combo together nicely, though Deed destroys the Tower most of the time.  I'd probably stick with the Baloths, as they will give you plenty of life to keep going, and they survive medium Deed sweeps.

Forget about Tokens and permanents and Deed working or not.  They work and they don't work; there's no way to get around Deed like Mishra's Factory.  Perhaps this would add too much colorless mana to the deck, but who knows.

Moxen aren't as useful to you, but a Lotus would be great.

How about this?

4 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Mind Twist (or 4 Therapy and no Mind Twist)
4 Pernicious Deed

4 Phyrexian Arena
1 Demonic Tutor

3 Withered Wretch
4 Phyrexian Negator
4 Veteran Explorer
2 Ravenous Baloth

1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Regrowth

4 Dark Ritual
1 Black Lotus
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
4 Bayou
6 Swamp
4 Forest

The other option that you could use, since you will have plenty of mana through the Explorers, is Skeletal Scrying.  You can run two of those in place of two Sylvan's and have a strong draw engine, since you can remove many cards without a whole lot of penalty and you'll refill your hand without fear of Misdirection and/or mana problems.

Just some thoughts; I like the idea.

     ~Mark\n\n

[MoreFling]

Windfall: I totally agree with you on the greatness of Phyrexian Arena. However, I don't think you need 4, since you don't want to see multiples, and you're not about to drop it before turn 4 I think (turn1 disrupt, turn2 disrupt, turn3 drop creature). I would say 2 is enough, 3 is possible.

[MarkPharaoh]

I really want to see some evasion in the deck, i've won so many games with BG style decks because my 8 evasion creatures (Hyppie and Boa) walked and flew over anything.  I don't think you need both but I would try to find room for one of them.

[Kaervek]

Quote One of the cards that I have always loved is Phyrexian Arena.  It's a Black Ophidian that doesn't attack or die to creature hate.  So you lose a life each turn - it's marginal.

Yeah, but it isn't optional either. You die to Arena, not to a Phid. Not that it isn't a kick-ass (and possibly undercosted) card, but it isn't quite the game breaker that, for example, Necro is.

I'm a bit confused as to why this deck was created in the first place. What does it do better that PTFunk (which isn't all that good at the moment)? More specifically:

Quote Since I'm a cheap bastard, I thought I'd make it budget too (no power). Obviously, it wouldn't be that hard to add 2 moxen and a Lotus in if needed...

If you *have* the power, do you really need the accelleration the Veteran / Therapy combo offers? Ideally, I imagine it'd be something like:
Turn 1: land 1, veteran
Turn 2: land 2, therapy, land 3 and 4 (which results in 3 free mana on turn 2).
Turn 3: land 5 (which you may not draw, since you've already thinned the land count in your deck considerably).

And that's assuming you have 2 lands AND a veteran AND a therapy on hand on T2. Not that it's that unlikely, but what if you don't? What does the deck do then?

Basically, you'll usually have 3 mana available on T2, which can be achieved in a nearly infinite number of other ways, while having played a disruption spell who's target you'll usually have to guess (unless you had a Duress in your 2 land / therapy / explorer hand, too).

Is that truly that fantasic? Remember Therapy is only really good in Rector decks 'coz saccing a Rector to it should end the game. Thinning your deck for land while occasionally smoothening your opponent's mana base and accellerating his gameplan, doesn't. Therapy isn't a good enough stand-alone disruption spell, even combined with Duress. The HAS to be some other decent synergy. The synergy between therapy and explorer is nice, but unneeded IMO.

However, this may well be a real option if you DON'T have access to power. Keep in mind, I'm not flaming your deck, I'd just like to get some insight in what your reasoning was and perhaps find a (budget?) niche for this build.\n\n

[Magimaster]

Sorry for being away for a bit. I'm trying to make the most of my dwindling summer vacation.


Kaervek : I see your reasoning behind the Cabal Therapy/Veteran combo. I know it's not game ending, but I thought it's abusable somehow. Most of the strong decks nowadays, like the combo decks, don't really benefit from the Veteran. What does this deck do better than PTFunk? It can get a buttload of mana faster, allowing for some broken plays, well, when it's better. I played around 10 games a few days ago, against B/G Void and Zherbus' Keeper, and I womped the Void deck, but I lost all the games against KEeper because this deck just doesn't have enough threats.


something is wrong with my computer I'll fininsh thatis later.

[Jacob Orlove]

Quote (MarkPharaoh @ Aug. 28 2003,12:45)I really want to see some evasion in the deck, i've won so many games with BG style decks because my 8 evasion creatures (Hyppie and Boa) walked and flew over anything.  I don't think you need both but I would try to find room for one of them.

Yeah, I second that. Tons of fat is nice, but boa and hyppie are both incredible. Each one will (usually) dodge Rector, and regeneration is great, as is making your opponent discard.

I'd run 4x Wretch, since when it wins you the game, you really want it turn 2, and it's still great in most other matchups. At worst, it's a 2/2 for 2.