Sacred Ground: Sideboard Tech or Junk?

[h9565]

Although I have been lurking on these boards for a little while, this is my first post.  I will attempt to adhere to the rules and to avoid moderator wrath.

I piloted 4c Control to a disappointing 3-2 at the recent Library tournament at Who’s On First.  My two losses came at the hands of Brent (UnstableCornbread) and Ken (sorry, don’t know TMD name) both piloting Crucible Control.  It is possible my losses were a result of mistakes or poor play on my part, but I believe I could have won those matches with a better sideboard plan.

My experience is emblematic of the larger proliferation of the Crucible-Wasteland combo in Type 1.  It has appeared in a diverse collection of decks including The Man Show, Stacks-like Crucible Control, Fish, Turboland, and as a sideboard plan in 4c Control.  Do you believe Sacred Ground is worth including in a 4c Control sideboard to combat this rising metagame presence?

For those of you who may not have played Type 2 recently, or are otherwise unfamiliar with the card, its Oracle wording is:

Sacred Ground
{W}
Enchantment
Whenever a spell or ability an opponent controls causes a land to be put into your graveyard from play, return that land to play.

Those decks using Crucible above generally forgo enchantment removal for more efficient artifact removal.  If 4c Control is able to resolve Sacred Ground, it has defended itself against a major disruption component.  Against the Crucible Control decks I faced, Sacred Ground also effectively shuts down Smokestack.

I have not tested Sacred Ground in these matchups.  Perhaps I should test before I post.  Any thoughts?

[johnstown713]

You have to remember that Sacred Ground only works when your opponents do something to your lands.  Because of this then you can not re-use your own wastelands/stip mine.  That is not a good trade off.  It is better of to run a Crucible of your own instead of Sacred Ground.  This way you get back the lands they destroy if they have a crucible in play or you can get them in an early game lockdown of your own.  Crucible is just plain better than Sacred Ground.

Johnstown713

[Dozer]

Crucible is just plain better than Sacred Ground.

This is true in most cases. A Crucible of your own has many more uses than Sacred Ground has, since it is a disruption element on its own. Sacred Ground is a purely defensive measure, which does - by default - not help you win. So, in a Crucible Control matchup, Crucible is better than Sacred Ground by a huge margin. The necessary counter-measure is artifact destruction vs. their Crucible, which lets you gain a serious advantage once you have your own CoW. But if CoW stands against CoW, the effect is entirely symmetrical. The board position (regarding lands) stalls until one finds artifact removal.

There is one case, though, where I can see Sacred Ground actually being better than Crucible, and that is versus Titan/Crucible-decks. Here, a single Titan can destroy almost your complete mana base, and backed up with Wasteland/Crucible, being able to play one land each turn from your graveyard will not let you get back into the game. Not at all.

Sacred Ground will negate that game plan entirely and reduce the Titan to a vanilla 7/10 creature. If I see this correctly, your opponent must choose a land of each type (even if he chooses one Dual twice), and you wil be able to actually gain mana from his Titan by tapping your lands for mana before they go to the graveyard. They will return untapped from the Sacred Ground trigger.

Of course, if your opponent has a Crucible out, your Wastelands are moot, as Johnstown correctly pointed out. So you will have to decide if A) you are willing to reduce your Strips to early-game tempo tools and B) you are expecting Crucible/Titan-decks to dominate your metagame. A) is fair, but B) is as yet unlikely to happen, and it is the only time I'd personally prefer Sacred Ground over Crucible.

As for Smokestack, Crucible is fine there, too, and there are other ways to combat it (e.g. Soldiers from a Decree, artifact removal). With Crucible/Wasteland on your side, your opponent is likely to be short of permanents himself, so Smokestack deals with itself.

I have not tested Sacred Ground in these matchups. Perhaps I should test before I post.

Definitely you should, as should everybody else. Your post, however, was not a bad attempt at a first one, because it raised a valid question of general interest. That is my opinion, but you will soon notice if a Mod thinks otherwise.

Dozer

[JACO]

h9565: I thought your post was intelligent, grammatically correct, and well thought out and explained. You won't find anything conclusive until you test for yourself, but boucing the idea off others never hurts, if you explain your deck, situation, etc., which you have clearly done.

While Crucible of Worlds is better than Sacred Ground in almost every case, Sacred Ground is amazing against things like Smokestack. When Stax first became very popular I was playing 2 Sacred Grounds in my URW Scepter-Control deck, and they proved very effective. Your idea definitely has merit, but you will have to test out the matchups and basically it will come down to how much sideboard space you feel you can afford to devote in your metagame to helping you against a given problematic matchup.