[deck] mono-green survival/crucible

[jpmeyer]

If Standard has taught me one thing, it's that stuffing elves, Wirewood Symbiote, and Skullclamp in anything makes it better:

"Bulldog Drummond's Third Round" (While I could give it a useful, descriptive name like "Mono-green Survival/Crucible," I felt that this completely random entry from the Wikipedia is at least as descriptive as some of the other names I've seen around... )

13 Forest
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

4 Skullclamp
4 Crucible of Worlds
1 Mox Emerald
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt

4 Survival of the Fittest
4 [card]Root Maze[/card]

4 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 [card]Wild Mongrel[/card]
4 [card]Troll Ascetic[/card]
1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Genesis
1 [card]Wood Elves[/card]
1 [card]Wirewood Symbiote[/card]
1 [card]Eternal Witness[/card]
1 [card]Viridian Shaman[/card]

SB: 4 Ground Seal
SB: 4 Oxidize
SB: 4 Null Rod
SB: 1 Viridian Zealot
SB: 1 Razormane Masticore
SB: 1 [card]Tracker[/card] (I want to fit this maindeck, possibly moving Genesis here)

I really just thought of this last night when futzing with Oshawa Stompy and Crucible of Worlds when I started to notice that Null Rod isn't that great against 4cc and is pointless against Fish.  It's useful as a way to maintain a Crucible lock, though.  At this time, I then noticed that you can use Root Maze in a similar way (making sure they can't do something like land, Mox, Mox, Cunning Wish/Balance or something,) while also making it imposible to defend against Crucible with Fetchlands.

Without needing Null Rod, I thought about running Skullclamp over Bazaar of Baghdad.  I like Bazaar/Squee, but it's awfully slow and I hated how it took up a land drop.  Also, with the Survival engine (as well as Wild Mongrel,) Null Rod is less annoying because you can always just discard dead Skullclamps or pull up your Viridian Shaman--as well as creating post-SB mind games where you can potentially leave your opponent with worthless Null Rods or by leaving you with Skullclamps unopposed by Null Rod.

Wirewood Symbiote provides cute tricks like infinite Wood Elves (I found that one of the most annoying things about Oshawa Stompy was that it couldn't fetch up permanent mana) and infinite Viridian Shaman against artifacts.  It's also a nice way to buy time against attackers by blocking with one of those creatures and then bouncing the creatures after damage is on the stack.  Wood Elves also provide a way to win Crucible wars by playing two lands per turn.

The SB is rough.  It could use two more slots for when you want to side out Skullclamp against opponents that you think will be keeping in their Null Rods.  I also wish that I could fit Tracker main in order to Survival up an answer to Goblin Welder (Razormane could potentially get Welder'ed away, which makes me a more inclined towards Tracker.)

[Alfred]

Tracker seems pretty bad. Would there be any way to splash red for Lavamancer or granger guildmage? Both are substantially cheaper both in CC and for their abilities. Going and 4x taigas and 2-3x karplusan forest may make it more susceptable to non-basic hate, but you do have 4x crucible. Adding red also brings in the heavy hitting SB options such as artifact mutation, REB, etc.

[WildWillieWonderboy]

Tracker has its own merits. While being slower than its unhappy wizAIRD counterpart, the extra toughness and independence from the graveyard is definately worthwhile when the main mode of creature kill is still fire/ice. In fact, that's what makes stompy worth contemplating right now.

Also, maintaining a monochromatic mana base seems integral to winning Crucible wars and beating 7/10. That combined with the elf-engine synergy makes a very tough matchup for Fish and 4CC, and for a lot of the decks that had trouble with the crucible against these decks, and rootmaze is a headache against anything looking to "go off" or play a lot of spells in any single turn, like Tog and Tendrils.

One big weakness is that this deck doesn't seem to have any answer to the increasingly popular tinker/colossus, or big creatures of any kind for that matter. For such matchups, I would like to have dawnstrider or something similar in the board

Removing genesis is  definately possible becaus eternal witness replaces it.

[Zelc]

One note: Eternal Witness is NOT an elf.  It CANNOT be recured using Symbiote.

Is 4x Crucible really needed?  Multiples don't do much, and 3 is probably enough to consistently find it early on, especially since you'll be thinning your deck with Survival.

[TrixR4Kidz]

So much better things can be done with this deck, I agree 4 crucible is WAYYYY overkill, you only need 1 in play to have it affective...also it seems like you lack skullclamp targets, rootwallas aren't that good of clamp targets when you could be beating them down for 3 a turn, I would try some kind of token generator, maybe that wirewood elf, whatever his name is, that creates 1/1 tokens when an elf comes into play, and just add a few more elves to the deck... the deck looks far too random

one thing, by going infinate with woodelves, you don't actually mean infinate right? just you get to cast it every turn, but not keep re-casting? if so then i'm missin it....

[Outlaw]

I also agree, 4 crucibles is overkill, id say 2-3 would be the perfect number to run.  Is clamp going to be the base of your draw?  If so, it seems there are a definite lack of clamp targets, yet tracker clamped seems like a decent way for creature removal and card drawing (if it were in multiples.)    I definitely give you merit to the fact that the deck has a solid mana base, no wasteland is going to eat through it, and with crucible (as you said opposing crucibles wont do very much.)  The deck could have some play value if the card choices were tweaked a bit.


-=Outlaw

[Kowal]

With only skullclamp for draw and only survival for search, you can't NOT run four crucibles.  Did you people forget that Force of Will, Mana Drain, and even Annul exist?

[TrixR4Kidz]

With only skullclamp for draw and only survival for search, you can't NOT run four crucibles.  Did you people forget that Force of Will, Mana Drain, and even Annul exist?

yea but crucible doesn't seem to be the focus of the deck, it appears to be more of a beatdown deck....the wasteland lock only seems optional, personally I wouldn't even run crucibles in this deck, it doesn't run nonbasics aside from wastes, which kind of makes opponents crucibles not so great....

Does rootmaze and crucible have bad synergy?

[Kowal]

Crucible has good synergy with accidentally winning the game when you find a wasteland, in addition to protecting yourself from crucible lock.

It's obviously better when that deck still runs bazaars, but it's still fucking amazing.

Not running Crucible in a deck like this would be a particularly terrible idea.

[Alfred]

@WWWb

Though the lavamancer does rely on the graveyard, Granger does not. Granger may actually be the superior option, because it doesn't rely on having a red source in play to be cast. Point taken on fire/ice, but granger has the potential to be it's own fire ice, given more turns to work with, not to mention it's synergy with skullclamp. Granger against fish is very powerful, especially seeing as you can beat a first turn lavamancer with it most of the time. Let's face it, how suceptable will 4x taiga, 1-2 karplusan forest and a mox ruby make the mana base to hate? If there is too much non-basic hate now to justify a small splash I will concede that tracker is the better option. I would also make the case that artifact mutation would make artifact aggro matches and 7/10 much more favourable post board.


In regards to 7/10, running 4x karplusan forests might be an option, though I would still go with the less pain-oriented taigas. Plus, I tested this deck out and it has a lot of sick synergies i.e. Mongrel, pitch walla, clamp it, pitch walla, clamp it = big mongrel or a lot of cards. That is pretty sick.

EDIT:
Why not just call this deck bulldog? That sounds pretty sweet, and also much better that BDTR.

[jpmeyer]

The main reason that I'm wary of splashing is because Fetchlands are terrible when you run Root Maze.  And furthermore, Tracker is great at killing Goblin Welders, which is the main reason that I have it (although also killing Fish's men is nice too.)

Running less than 4 Crucibles is horrible.  It's hard to find one when you aren't running 4, harder still to resolve one, and even harder than that to start locking down.

Root Maze/Crucible actually has good synergy.

Serving:
You play a tapped Wasteland
Your opponent plays a tapped random land
You untap your Waste, kill their land, and replay the Waste tapped

In that case, it's even better than before

Receiving:
Your opponent plays a tapped land
You play a tapped Wasteland
Your opponent gets a single use out of the land
You untap, kill the untapped land, and replay the Waste tapped.  Now you're in serving mode.

Without Root Maze, your opponent will always get that one chance to use the land before you kill it.  Root Maze also shuts off Fetchlands, allowing you to Waste them before your opponent can either fetch out a basic or to "save up" a land.

Skullclamp is synergetic with any creature it can be put on.  Drawing cards straight up with it is nice, but often times creating a larger, pseudo-unblockable creature is even better, because when it comes time to chump you end up getting like a 3 for 1.

[serialjester]

Spike Weaver would be good to deal with Titan/Colossus/etc, as the fog effect is good on its' own, and there's also established spike combat tricks and Clamp-ability once it gets to 1/1. Recurs nicely with Genesis as well.

Keep it monogreen. Not only is there something incredibly charming about monogreen in T1, but the stability and flow of the deck would be a huge asset.

[Sextiger]

Have you thought of trying out the mana producing elves like LLanowar in place of the Elvish Spirit Guides?  Though the instant speed of the Guides and the fact they help when under trinisphere is very useful, a constant supply of green from a tapper could be quite useful and they work good with a symbiote on the board.

Wirewood Symbiote is a ridiculously powerful card and I feel you could use more elves with come into play effects to abuse him.

[The Grim Reaper]

I would like to know why you only run one Eternal Witness. Is it just there to fetch a countered crucible? This deck seems to pack a lot of neat tricks like Rootmaze and Crucible, but no real substantial threats. If someone plays a large creature against you, there is almost nothing you can do! I realize the huge amount of mana denial is there to prevent your opponent from playing large threats, but you would lose to scrubby aggro with this deck.

However - I like the general idea behind the 4 engines used in this deck:

Survival + Squee
Crucible + Wastes
Symbiote + Elves
Skullclamp + Creatures

Looks like a blast to play, I shall do some testing on MWS!

[cardiffgiant]

WRT Colossus, how about Constant Mists (buyback Fog).

I'm not sure about splashing, but red with recurring Barbarian Ring would be fun.

Good luck.

[jpmeyer]

I would like to know why you only run one Eternal Witness. Is it just there to fetch a countered crucible? This deck seems to pack a lot of neat tricks like Rootmaze and Crucible, but no real substantial threats. If someone plays a large creature against you, there is almost nothing you can do! I realize the huge amount of mana denial is there to prevent your opponent from playing large threats, but you would lose to scrubby aggro with this deck.

I actually started out with more Witnesses, but if you notice this deck is entirely made up of permanents so it's hard to maximize the effect of Witness when you can't bring back cards like say, Oxidize.

Wirewood Symbiote is a ridiculously powerful card and I feel you could use more elves with come into play effects to abuse him.

If you can think of more, I'm all for it.  I had trouble thinking of any other good Elves to use with Symbiote other than Wood Elves and Viridian Shaman.

[Alfred]

In my opinion we should minimize all of the post crucible combinations, because that is dependant on having the crucible in play, which can be difficult in the current metagame. JP, I never advocated the use of fetchlands for the RG strategy, simply 4 taigas, 1-2 karplusan forests and a mox ruby.

[Sextiger]

After looking at every possible elf, the best choice I could see that you can add for use with the Symbiote is WireWood Hivemaster and Elvish Vanguard. The big problem with the Hivemaster and the Vanguard is that they would only be good with Survival and a Wirewood Symbiote or until you added more elves. The Hivemaster could create great skullclamp bait and the Vanguard would become an odd Quirion Dryad.  

For general uses you could add Wirewood Herald or Titania's Chosen.  The Herald would be a pretty decent tutor and its perfect for Skullclamp.  Titania's Chosen is something I can see would be an interesting choice for the deck as it can get big with a Survival or a Symbiote on the board and it happens to trigger whenever your opponent happens to play a green spell as well.

[Kowal]

This isn't meant to be elf clamp, it's meant to be O Stompy with a couple new tricks.  You guys are trying to take it in a direction it doesn't want to go, becoming more combo than aggro.

First and foremost, this deck is about beating down with large men.

It is NOT about cute interactions with elves.

[Bronx]

@JP

I can see your reasons for Scullclamp, and they make sense. On paper, however, Bazaar looks significantly more effective. It doesn't die to null rod (which has been seeing too much play in the current metagame), and isn't very afraid of wasteland (Crucible).  Your Scullclamp targets are minimal and not creatures that you can afford to lose. Your hope is to reoccur the Elves, not send them to the graveyard for two cards.


The major con to Bazaar is that it is a landdrop. However, that has not stopped the previous Oshawa builds and Madness from abusing its power.

Does fastbond have a place here?

I could be completely wrong, for I have not tested this build. I will promptly do so.

[Kowal]

The major con to Bazaar is that it is a landdrop. However, that has not stopped the previous Oshawa builds and Madness from abusing its power.

Actually, it has.  That's one of the larger reasons Oshawa doesn't exist anymore.  Traditional t1 madness runs a full complement of moxen and usually more artifact accelerant than god, so wasting a land drop doesn't hurt too bad.  Riftstone Portal also is a huge plus in that deck, and would be stupid to include here due to the already low number of actual forests.

[garlick]

To jp:

I would suggest to include Crop Rotation, which can transform a forest in a Strip Mine when you have Crucible out.

[MrBeichner]

Running less than 4 Crucibles is horrible. It's hard to find one when you aren't running 4, harder still to resolve one, and even harder than that to start locking down.

You took the words right out of my mouth.   There seems to be a lot of the 2 or 3 tops mentality when it comes to running crucible, mainly i suppose because having more than one in play is redundant.  To me this is just silly, almost assuming that you will have one in hand always, even without the benefit of running 2 or 3 various tutors to actually get one.   Crucible is a card that people are seriously mumbling about wanting to see restricted,  why would  you NOT run 4 copies to maximize your  chances to see this argueably broken card in your opening hand.  That to me is like saying "oh you should only run 2 or 3 force of wills because you really don't need to use it more than once per game before you have mana drain hot".  

I like the idea of crop rotation, especially if you added a Gaea's Cradle to the deck (seems like it would be $$$)

Oh... and Deranged hermit is an elf with lots and lots of synergy to this deck, just a thought.

[Blitzbold]

Spore Frog is a nice card used in 1.5 ATS decks against creature assaults. Maybe this an alternate possibility against Darksteel Colossus.

Nice deck, I'll try a 1.5 version at our weekly trounament tonight.

[Anders Noer]

Nice deck!

I've been toying with mono G Crucible Aggro/Control for the past month or so myself.

4 Crucible, I have to agree, is the right number. You want 1 in play at all times and if you do, and draw another, that means you are already winning, so who cares if you have an extra one in hand?

I can't see why you wouldn't want to play Crop Rotation. It is this decks best tutor, and can get you the upper hand in Crucible wars. (I even run a single copy of Sylvan Scrying, because I think that Strip Mine is SO important - Sylvan Scrying is basically a Stone Rain, that incidentily fetches Stripmine)

My version has Hidden Gibbons and Xantids maindecked , since Crucibles really dislikes counterspells (especially Mana Drain).

I added 4 City Of Traitors and never looked back. They make me able to go turn 1 Null rod, Turn 2 Crucible. Which. is. nice. They Really make the deck a lot more explosive. But as you don't run Null rods or CotH, they probably aren't worth it.

It seems that your deck is a lot more explosive with Mongrels and Clamp. I run River Boas and CotH as my supporting creatures (Troll Ascetic is king). Giving my opponent some hard-to-handle targets. ESG and Boa regeneration surprises a lot of people.

EDIT: You could try out Myr Servitors instead of the elf plan for infinte clamp fun. They seem synergistic with Survival... Just a thought.

PM me if you want a copy of my list.

[The Atog Lord]

Cool looking deck JP.

If you need an answer to the Colossus, how about giving Splinter a shot? It removes it from the game, along with any other copies.

[Anders Noer]

I'm gonna post the list I'm testing. It is still under development, but I think this is pretty close to the list I'll play in a "Workshop for 1st" tournament in a weeks time.

3 Call Of The Herd
4 Troll Ascetic
4 River Boa
4 Xantid Swarm
3 Hidden Gibbons

3 Rancor
2 Oxidize
4 Null Rod
4 Crucible Of Worlds
1 Crop Rotation
1 Sylvan Scrying

4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Mox Emerald
1 Black Lotus
12 Forest
4 City Of Traitors
4 Wasteland
1 Stripmine

sb:
1 Gaea's Blessing
1 Regrowth
2 Oxidize
3 Naturalize
4 Ground Seal
4 Root Maze

This deck wants to play early "disruption" in Hidden Gibbons and Xantid Swarm and then tries to stunt opponents mana while delivering some steady beats. It is quite slow at this, but the threats are hard to handle.

I originally made it in order to autowin vs. Fish and Landstill (which is still huge in my meta for some reason). Later I found out that it would do well as an Aggro/Lock deck, and I've been tweaking this list since. It is almost where I want it to be now. More on this here: http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18583

[jpmeyer]

So now it's neither mono-green nor does it have Crucible:

        7 Forest
        4 Wasteland
        4 Tropical Island
        1 Island
        1 Strip Mine

        4 Skullclamp
        1 Black Lotus
        1 Mox Sapphire
        1 Mox Emerald
        1 Sol Ring

        4 Survival of the Fittest
        4 Root Maze
        1 Time Walk
        1 Ancestral Recall

        4 Elvish Spirit Guide
        4 Basking Rootwalla
        4 Wild Mongrel
        4 Eternal Witness
        3 Troll Ascetic
        1 Waterfront Bouncer
        1 Genesis
        1 Wood Elves
        1 Gilded Drake
        1 Squee, Goblin Nabob
        1 Viridian Shaman

SB:  3 Back to Basics
SB:  3 Ground Seal
SB:  3 Oxidize
SB:  3 Null Rod
SB:  1 Troll Ascetic
SB:  1 Tracker
SB:  1 Wonder

While testing this with Hyperion, we noticed that:

1) You didn't get Crucible lock that often
2) You didn't need to defend against Crucible
3) You're not running fetchlands

meaning that we didn't need Crucible any more and replaced them with Eternal Witness, which can work like Crucible as well as being TEH ÃœBAR CANTRIP.  You can also use Back to Basics like a Crucible lock, except that it takes one turn instead of a few in order to lock.

Also, we replaced the Elf and Nail theme with the MBC Crystal Shard theme.  Now you can bounce your Viridian Shaman and Eternal Witness with Waterfront Bouncer (as well as set up the Gilded Drake/Bouncer combo.)  Bouncer/Witness can also let you go into Time Walk recursion.

Another point of contention right now is Wood Elves vs. Yavimaya Elder.  We're not sure which one is better yet.

[TrixR4Kidz]

I hate to quote myself on anything, but I noticed you said it was horrible to NOT run 4 crucibles, then you took them out.

personally I wouldn't even run crucibles in this deck, it doesn't run nonbasics aside from wastes, which kind of makes opponents crucibles not so great....

I figured they wouldn't be anything special with all the basics you were rockin in this deck, I am not quite sure why you cut symbiote, he can do pretty broken things, and yes I know this isn't an "elf deck that does cool things" but he shouldn't be overlooked.

[jpmeyer]

I said it was horrible run less than 4, since this deck can't tutor for them or anything.

And Bouncer does everything Symbiote does.