AOS is back - the primer

[bebe]

Now that Earthcraft is back let's look at the deck that led to its restriction.
This would be the way I would play out the deck today ...

Army of Squirrels

Mana: 26
3 Forest
6 Island
4 Tropical Island
4 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
1 Strip Mine
3 Wasteland
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring

Counters: 12
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Leak
2 Misdirection
2 Stifle

Search: 13
4 Brainstorm  
4 AK
2 Intuition
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk


Combo: 8
4 Earthcraft
4 Squirrel Nest

SB:
3 BeB
3 Oxidize
3 Back to Basics
3 Ground Seal
3 Null Rod

edited to reflect discussion

Mana:
For mana we need basic lands for the combo. Earthcraft requires a basic land to untap. Nine basic lands and the fetch lands stabilize the manabase.
The artifact mana allows us to 'go off' a turn quicker and the deck has on occasion gone off turn two but turn three to turn five
is common. This makes it a little slower than other combo decks. But we will discuss why this acceptable.  

Counters:
Cunning Wish;
This was a staple of the deck but it is just to slow today.  

FoW and Misdirections and Stifle:  
Free counters allow you tap out to place your combo parts on the table. But really, FoWs are the glue of today's meta.
These are the sole reason that we can wait a turn a two to combo off.
The Stifle should protect ypour land a turn from a Waste or Strip.

Mana Leaks:
Mana leaks replace Mana Drains. Too often we lacked an extra blue source when we needed it and Drains just clogged your hand.  As
well there are not enough sinks for it.

Search:
Brainstrom/Fetch - The best pseudo Ancestral in the game.
Intuition;
Fetches combo parts or counters or just refills your hand with Aks and  which is your other draw engine
Merchant Scroll;
is superior to Mystical Tutor here as all the cards you want are blue instants and putting them directly in your hand is a big plus.

sideboard:
The deck plays against aggro, aggro/control and control well. So we need to shore up for Workshop decks and a few combo decks.


Combo:

Squirrel Nest 1GG enchantment
Enchanted land has; T; put a 1/1 green token into play

Earthcraft 1G enchantment
Tap an untapped creature you control. Untap a basic land you control.

Not a very complicated combo. Only two pieces are required to make an unlimited number of tokens.

Match-ups
4cc and Mono-U:
The main thing here is: Resolve card-drawing spells. Whoever manages to resolve Ancestral, or something like that, usually wins the game.
You have an edge though, because you're combo tends to kill a lot faster than Superman or Exalted. I consider the matchup a 50:50 or better

Workshop
With the sideboard the deck really has a good match up against these decks.
Bring in Oxidize, Ground Seal, BeB.

Belcher
FoW and Null Rod - what more do you need.

Storm combo
You need to counter wisely and this match up is a little tough

Dragon
Bring in the Seals and BeBs. You have Stifle main deck now.

edited to reflect discussion ...

[Wollblad]

I have also worked on this deck, but I don't agree on your build. The deck should focus more on combo and less on control. What lands hinder your combo so that you need Wastelands? Why not four Intuitions since it can be used to get combo parts?

The core of the deck should be:
4 Earthcraft
4 Squirrel Nest

4 AK
4 Brainstorm
4 Intuition
1 Ancestral
1 Time Walk
4 FoW
------------------
26 cards

4 Tropical Island
2 Island
2 Forest
4 Flooded Strand/Polluted Delta
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
----------------
16 mana

26 might be too much for a deck with no card more expensive than 3 mana, 24 feels like a more optimal number. 26 could be accepted if we include ESP, but first I think that the deck needs the rest of the moxen since so much costs .

More disruption is need and your suggestion with Mana Leak might be very good. A possible compliment is Xantid Swarm and/or Misdirection, but 4 Misdirection is way too much in a meta game where almost nothing besides of conters that can be targeted. As you noted, storm combo might be tough, and Xantid will do no good here, thus not 4 of those either.

A problem with this deck is that the combo pieces are not specially fun alone. A thought is to bring in some Skullclamps to make use of Squirrel Nest and your Xantid Swarms.

In total I would add:
+3 moxen
+1 fetch
+1 Island
+1 Forest
+4 ESG

+2 Mana Leak
+2 Xantid Swarm
+2 Misdirection
+2 Skullclamp

I need more testing to confirm those numbers which right now feels a bit random.

EDIT: By the way, Xantid Swarm can be used along with Earthcraft to produce mana which makes them and Earthcraft better in the deck, so perhaps + 3 Mana Leak and + 3 Xantid Swarm is an eaven better choice than +2 Mana Leak, +2 Xantid Swarm and +2 Misdirection as suggested above.

[rhecht]

Do you think that Blasting station has a place in any variation of this deck?

Blasting Station - 3
tap, sacrifice a creature: blasting station deals 1 damage to target creature or player
whenever a creature comes into play untap blasting station

pros:
If you have it in play with the combo, you can win right now.
If you only have Squirrel Nest and the station, you can ping.

Cons:
Extra combo piece
Not useful without the nest

-Reuben

[True Lies Ownz]

Will this deck even be viable now that crucible is around?

[hulk3rules]

Will this deck even be viable now that crucible is around?

 

Keep in mind earthcraft can only untap BASIC lands, so your opponent needs his strip mine.  So I don't think crucible is too bad for the deck

[illuzion]

I think Oliver Daems' Dülmen winning AoS deck from 2002 is worth studying:

// Mana
4 Forest
6 Island
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Strip Mine
4 Tropical Island
2 Wasteland
4 Yavimaya Coast
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
// Business
1 Ancestral Recall
2 Cunning Wish
1 Fact or Fiction
4 Force of Will
4 Impulse
4 Intuition
4 Mana Drain
1 Merchant Scroll
2 Misdirection
1 Time Walk
4 Earthcraft
1 Regrowth
4 Squirrel Nest
1 Sylvan Library

SB: 1 Counterspell
SB: 1 Hoodwink
SB: 1 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 1 Mana Short
SB: 1 Misdirection
SB: 1 Stroke of Genius
SB: 1 Sylvan Library
SB: 1 Tangle
SB: 1 Teferi's Response
SB: 1 Timetwister
SB: 2 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 Wall of Roots

I rather like the Drains with Wishes...

[circus]

The use of basic land makes Wasteland/Crucible less threatening.

What about fitting ESG in the mana base to speed up the combo and get around Trinsiphere?

[bebe]

The original build had four Intuitions. I played the deck with them and often found them too much. MiosDs could be cut to two and other counters added.
I find that whomever resolves the first Ancestral wins games. I like the MisDs for this.
Crucible works with Strips. If your opponent pulls a Crucible/Strip before you pull off the combo or have counters in hand you deserve to lose.
Why EsGs? This deck has enough acceration as is - I doubt they would be useful often enough. Remember you need ten basics for sure and playing without Wastes is a concession to Workshop/Trini.
Yes, this build is more controlling than some others. I believe that today's meta requires some control elements in combo decks if you want any consistency.
BTW, back when Oliver designed the deck, I played it here and wrote a primer on it. Oliver designed the deck to hose TnT. The meta has changed some and some of his cghoices are not optimal today. Brainstrom/Fetch is an obvious example of new tech. I have to say my biggest headaches back then were control - Keeper, Landstill, mono-blue, etc. For that reason I added a different draw engine and MisDs. Burt the deck needs to be adjusted for your meta.
As an aside, I was never a fan of Wish/Drain.

[VGB]

Why EsGs? This deck has enough acceration as is - I doubt they would be useful often enough. Remember you need ten basics for sure and playing without Wastes is a concession to Workshop/Trini.

If you are going to play wastes, then why are you bothering with combo?

ESG provides mana under Trinisphere, has synergy with Xantid, and happens to be a creature to boot (untaps lands with Earthcraft).

You should play creatures, otherwise Earthcraft is a completely dead card without the combo, and that makes it worse than other existing unrestricted 2 card combos.

[TylerEss]

Your decklist is 61 cards, because your search contains one more card than you totaled it to have. Why mention how good Merchant Scroll is and then not run it?

"We welcome the return of our squirrel overlords."

[BreathWeapon]

If your only playing U/g Squirrels.Dec, why wouldn't you incorporate a Mana Denial element in the form of Back To Basics and Oxidize? Considering the deck's rock solid manabase and freedom of form, I see no reason why you should rely solely on the Combo.

Edit: I shot my mouth off before I saw your SB, please excuse my ignorance.

[PossessedAven]

Is the mono green version of this deck just not worth consideration at all due to the fact that it doesnt have counters?  It seems to still be viable with a couple of modifications...

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

Aven: Mono green anything usually isn't a good idea.  It's not just the counters, it's the fact that blue gives you a good draw engine.

Polluted delta looks strictly cooler than flooded strand.

Seriously, however, as your combo is green and includes 1GG of squirrel nest, what about a couple green fetches in the manabase to grab forests?

Edit: Are you sure it can't support mana drain?  The original duleman list had it with a similar mana base (coasts replacing the fetchs) and draining into intuition or deep is some good (you can even use the mana for nest/craft).  I just don't like mana leak outside of mono-U or Urphid, decks that already run drain but need additional counters.

[Kerz]

What about Moobius-Style G/w SquirrelCraft-Enchantress? You can draw enough cards to circumvent counters, thus eliminating the need for blue.

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

That is a possibility but the deck would probably auto-lose to other combo.  It would be pure combo instead of combo control, and unable to go off quickly, so why play it?

Edit: I really like sylvan library and the original list played it?  Why isn't it run in the current build?

[Thug]

It's a given people will try to bring this deck back, but I think you first need to look at the reason it got played in the first place. Running anything close to Olivers version is obselete (with all respect: at that time it was a perfect choice).

Just look at the Wall of Blossoms in the side and see that this is heavily outdated. We don't need to worry about Jackal Pup and random 2/3's anymore.

This combo was chosen at that time because REB's were everywhere, and this was the perfect foil to that. Right now the number of Reb's seems lower than ever during the last years, although a little rise seems realistic with Control Slaver and Mono-U increasing in popularity once again.

Right now you have to admit that a decklist like this isn't going to work against other control decks. The deck has way too little real draw, and the combo pieves are near useless at thier selves.

Against Workshop you're up for a very very tough matchup too, chalice owns the deck, as does trinisphere and, well basicly all their tools. Titan owns squirrel nest.

For this deck too work you will need more gas, intuitioning for a combo piece and seeing it get wasted ruins your game. You don't need to outspeed "stupid" aggro anymore, right now all the aggro you will see will have the tools to beat you (especially since most of it is workshop based)

I actually think that a U/G enchantress based deck would be a much better option. I tried this a little and think it has more potential than a controllish style option does.

You really want some cute enchantments maindeck (B2B, Ground Seal) couple that with the 8 enchantments you already need to run for the combo and add some other cute ones (Sylvan Library, Control Magic). And you should have a pretty solid base to run Enchantresses with and possible a Presence (or two).

My 2 cents,

Koen

EDIT:

You could still easily run FoW so that already decreases your auto-losses against combo, and with good options in the sideboard, and enough conmtrol decks to keep a part of combo in check it shouldn't be a reason not to run the deck.

[Renato]

I don't think that Squirrelcraft will be unplayble. Due to the rarity of Mishra's Workshop, the lack of enchantment hate, and it controlish focus, Squirrel can be a respectful 2nd tier deck.
I am not working in it now, but, maybe a couple of Stifles can replace some Misdirections in counter section, giving the deck more resilience against Strips and serving to mana denial. In the same way, Chrome Mox, as the combo part is redundant, can be placed in the mana section to give more acceleration.

[bebe]

I'm ambivalent about its pssibilities in the current meta - I think it needs testing and tweaking. It was never restricted because of its effect on Type 1 but rather its effect on other formats.
I like the Stifles and yes I would replace a few MisDs with them. I also like the idea of Chrome Mox or an additional fetch ...
Yes, I forgot the Scroll in my list and now it is a question of what to remove for it.
I miss playing the deck but it will require a few tweaks for sure ... cards to consider

EsG
Engineered Explosives
Mana Drains
Cunning wish
Sylvan Library

[Eastman]

Also on the cards to consider list, something that should probably be closer to the top of that list actually: Xantid Swarm

[Wollblad]

ESG - Good since you want {G} but you don't want too many basic Forests, you want blue mana.
Chrome Mox - sure, only reason not to use it is if you play against lots of Stax. Then you need ESG and basic lands more.
Engineered Explosives and Cunning Wish - What are you so afraid of that you need to remove it? I can see Moat and Form of the Dragon as the lone threats and I havn't seen Moat around for years. I can see no reason for either of them.
Mana Drain - You have very little to spend the Mana Drain mana on except for Intuition. Counterspell seems at least as good, but Mana Leak even better.
Sylvan Library - Could be used, but the problem is it takes at least a turn to pay off. At least I will try it, by I put no big trust in it.

I give the mana denial aspect put forth above little credit. Why should a combo deck focus on mana denial instead of just winning? A combo deck can be controlish to it's nature if the combo pieces in themselfe are useful, but for this deck they are not, unless of course my concept above with Xantid Swarm and Skullclamp is utilized, but that still isn't enough to allow a controlish play stile.

[KitzuneNinja]

ESG - Good since you want {G} but you
Engineered Explosives and Cunning Wish - What are you so afraid of that you need to remove it? I can see Moat and Form of the Dragon as the lone threats and I havn't seen Moat around for years. I can see no reason for either of them.

Cunning Wish = flexible to threats. I've tested C wish this afternoon and these where my targets:

- Intuition. To fetch combo pieces more reliably.
- Misdirection.
- Tel-Jilad Justice.

And a few other common wish-targets (FoF, etc). It may be too clunky for the deck though.

[bebe]

Still not fond of EsGs as Wastes are better against Workshops and that is a problem match up. They only belong in the budget version. I would use BoPs first.

I've edited the primer to reflect the discussion. I decided to a bit of testing on my own. I would like to try Sylvan again as Fetches make this much better but a one of is not impressive and I wonder how often it will be useful.

Just a few thoughts of my own. I played this deck before Mud and Workshop were prominent but there was Dragon and combo at the time. Clearly the deck needs early counters to buy a bit of time to go off. I do not see Xantids as an answer to its most difficult match ups.  

As to its viability ... Well, the meta has drastically changed since the deck was designed. I've tried to incorporate answers to these changes. At this point I have better options for Combo/control decks. I presented the list because I know it will be tried and I would like to see what an optimal list might evolve into.

[Whatever Works]

Alot of the builds look like you took B2B Hulk and just shoved in the combo elements, and lost maindeck B2B. The decks dont look very focused on achieving the combo quickly which also is a huge dissadvantage.

The combo costs a bit of mana to cast, and then takes an entire turn to use. It is pretty resistant to crucible, but unfortunetly it is awful vs. Chalice or Trinisphere. If i played the deck i would try to make the deck play out as fast as possible, because at the moment your not going to win a race vs. Belcher... and the deck appears to be inferior to Dragon on so many levels accept its not destroyed by crucible or B2B.

[Fungal Bloom]

You could try running Energy flux against Trinisphere and some other Workshop decks.  I found when playing it many times; Energy Flux hurt them a lot because Workshop useless for paying the upkeep, and with the amount of artifact mana they need, which they now have to pay for and many times can't .

[Nameless]

This is what I would try, if you really wanted to work an AoS deck:

//NAME: AoS
// Black
        1 Demonic Tutor
        3 Duress
        1 Yawgmoth's Will
// Blue
        4 Accumulated Knowledge
        1 Ancestral Recall
        4 Brainstorm
        4 Force of Will
        3 Intuition
        4 Mana Drain
        1 Mystical Tutor
        1 Time Walk
// Green
        3 Earthcraft
        4 Squirrel Nest
// Mana Sources
        3 Bayou
        1 Black Lotus
        6 Island
        1 Mox Emerald
        1 Mox Sapphire
        4 Polluted Delta
        1 Sol Ring
        1 Strip Mine
        4 Tropical Island
        4 Wasteland
SB:  3 Blue Elemental Blast
SB:  3 Diabolic Edict
SB:  3 Naturalize
SB:  3 Null Rod
SB:  3 Tel-Jilad Justice

The version still fits the 5-card rule so it works in 5-proxy tournaments for starters...  But, the deck has a lot more resilence thanks to the Black and Duress more specifically.

Bayou:  You have no way to fetch a basic forest aside from getting it with Intuition, so they are pointless unless you're putting a Nest on one.  Since the Nest works just as well on an Island then that's what you need to be looking at.  Now your Delta's can fetch 7 possible Green sources, not just 4, and you have access to Black mana...

It's quite possible that you 'could' replace an Island or two with an Underground Sea, but it really isn't needed.  Bayou's will let your Delta's fetch any of the 3 colors you'll possibly need for the deck, and with 4 Delta's and 6 basic Islands in the deck you shouldn't have any problem keeping an Island or two on the board for when you are ready to combo them out.

Duress:  The real problem areas for the deck are shored up with Duress, and all the other perks of Duress are blatantly obvious for a Combo deck anyway, so there's no point in getting into that.

Yawgmoth's Will:  Nothing need be said about this, right?

Mana Drain:  There's no reason not to run this over Counterspell or Mana Leak.  You don't have enough Moxxen to merit a Leak over either for one thing.  In addition to that point, Mana Burn won't be an issue, because you'll win before that would be relevant.  The mana from the Drains can be very handy.  But, from a more budget-minded perspective, Counterspell won't slow you down that much compaired to Mana Drain, and it's not something worth wasting proxy slots on.

In a no-proxy environment:  Dropping Time Walk and Ancestral for Vampiric Tutor and Regrowth are solid choices here.  Since the additional tutoring power, along with the ability to Regrowth an Accumulated Knowledge will help retreive a little of the lost card-drawing power.  The Moxxen/Lotus can also be replaced fairly easily by a 4th Bayou and a pair of basic Islands without loosing too much speed.

Basically, what you have left is a 'Budget Friendly' and much more redundant version of AoS.

EDIT:  The reason I even include a 'Budget' aspect at all is because I just don't think an AoS deck is the best choice unless you're specifically looking for a combo deck that won't loose a lot without power or when limiting yourself to proxies.  For example, a cheaper version of this is better then a cheaper version of various Artifact-based decks, or even 'Tog, so it's more likely to be seen.

[Jacob Orlove]

Basically, what you have left is a 'Budget Friendly' and much more redundant version of AoS.

Wouldn't that deck be a whole lot better if you just replaced the AoS kill with Tog?

[Nameless]

Basically, what you have left is a 'Budget Friendly' and much more redundant version of AoS.

Wouldn't that deck be a whole lot better if you just replaced the AoS kill with Tog?

Yea, heh, that's why I added the EDIT, but it seems you were making this post the very same time I was editing the other one.     Nice timing though.

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

I do like the idea of running black as duress and will are simply amazing and demonic useful for searching out combo pieces.  It should still have enough basics to reliably combo out and still have a solid mana base.  It does lose the ability of the U/G build to simply laugh at wastelands, however (basic forests).  When you require 1GG for nest getting a bayou wasted could really hurt.  Also, are you sure wasteland is really necessary (despite workshops).  Tog cut them and this deck combos about as quickly.  Maybe more basics instead?

[Nameless]

I do like the idea of running black as duress and will are simply amazing and demonic useful for searching out combo pieces.  It should still have enough basics to reliably combo out and still have a solid mana base.  It does lose the ability of the U/G build to simply laugh at wastelands, however (basic forests).  When you require 1GG for nest getting a bayou wasted could really hurt.  Also, are you sure wasteland is really necessary (despite workshops).  Tog cut them and this deck combos about as quickly.  Maybe more basics instead?

As far as Wastelands...  You've still got 7 dual lands that produce Green, and 4 fetch-lands with a Mox, that's 12 possible Green sources to resolve a double Green spell that you should only need to cast once.  In other words, it shouldn't be a problem.

As I mentioned, the only was the previous version could get a basic Forest anyway was to either hope they drew one or blow an Intiution for it, and Nest works just as well on one of the Islands, so the sheer number of Green sources makes up for the loss.  You go from having 3 to spare to having access to 7, meaning you could have most of your Tropical Islands killed and still use a Delta to fetch a 2nd Green source you might need.

I generally prefer Wastelands with Duress because I like the added disruption factors.  Being able to not only steal a card but also know which land they needed the most when you kill one is invaluable.

[rozetta]

Juat off the top of my head, but would a B/G version running Skullclamps and  Cabal Therapy in combination with stuff like Xantids, ESG and some other utility or acceleration creatures be an idea? (You could even pop in Eternal Witness)