[Discussion] Building a Better Hate Deck, or RG Tempo

[xrobx]

@willow:  We've established that treetop village is good with rootmaze, that's why it's included in the recent lists of creatures that should be run in  the deck.  This, in no way however, is affected by the inclusion of land grant.  Not only that, but land grant is insufficiant in finding the right mana in this deck and is not available at instant speed.  Let me point out for you specifically the differences and importance aspects of land grants vs. fetch lands.

The Choice
You win the dice roll deciding to go first.  First turn comes, you're given the opening hand of:

Forest
Elvish Spirit Guide
Root Maze
Gorilla Shaman
Grim Lavamancer
Wasteland
Land Grant

vs the opening hand of my build with:

Forest
Elvish Spirit Guide
Root Maze
Gorilla Shaman
Grim Lavamancer
Wasteland
Wooded Foothill

Your build (YB): Wasteland, RFG: ESG, Root Maze (meets FoW), Pass
My build (MB): Wooded Foothills, RFG: ESG, Root Maze (pass priority, meets FoW), Tap; sac foothills for a mountain, Gorilla Shaman (resolves? if not they've just wasted 2 fows, and 2 other cards.  Their hand is now very weak)., Pass

If you didn't notice in this scenario, you're given the choice to play your foothills before, or after priority (depending on the matchup).  This alters whether or not your rootmaze will meet a FoW, and better yet, will your opponent have the second FoW to save for an early shaman?  What about a lavamancer (if you're playing fish)?  Or better yet, a second Root Maze; that they so desperately needed to counter in the first place that it was worth pitching their only possible counter to?  This is the first subtle difference in these cards and their playability, and notice the land grant was not even cast.  Say a second turn arose...

Assuming the rootmaze was countered, second card was not...

**The opponent draws, drops a polluted delta, mox sapphire, says go.**
Turn Two...
Draw: Treetop Village

YB: *Thinking..oh shit, I have 2 lands in my hand again...damn, I wouldn't of expected that from a deck running only 21 lands and 7/8 extra mana source (ESG, Moxen, petal) that my chances of drawing a mana source/land card is approximately 60% would actually happen...damn...!*  Treetop Village, Pass.
MB: "Cool! I can play this now.." Taps red into mana pool, shoots mox sapphire through shaman *other player thinks to himself..."damn, my mana drain mana...!"*, drop Wasteland, Attack for 1, Pass.

*other player draws, sacs delta for volcanic island, plays Goblin Welder, (I say "okay.."), player looks flustered (really he has a mana crypt in his hand, and just needs to wait till the next turn to cast it and lay his island, tinkering me a fat 11/11, but just needs a turn to mystical up that needed tinker) and says pass, eot I waste the volcanic.

EDIT: in case you're wondering why he'd wait the extra turn to tinker the crypt away, hey may be afraid that I hold an ESG in my hand to pitch through the beloved shaman; if that didn't seem so evident at first glance.

Turn 3:  A good draw?
Draw: Root Maze

YB: "Hmm...", drop a forest, cast root maze.  FINALLY you can cast your free land grant by revealing your hand! Neato, so you try to cast it (opponent laughs and drains your ass, setting up 2 mana for his next turn tinker/whatever)...you cry in shame, and don't get your land.  Root maze is in!
MB:  Seeing as how my opponent has no mana, no land, he cannot drain, therefore I will lay a forest, casting root maze, and tapping a mountain to cast lavamancer.  Game and match??

There are huge differences in the playabilty of land grant vs. fetch.

Again, this is ONE small scenario and demonstration how fetch is better and my fingers hurt from typing.  I'll address the importance of ankh in a further message.

[[supa_t(im)]]

@TrixR4Kidz
First off I don't think you should run Wheel.  Combo is already a bad matchup, you don't want to actually play spells to help them.

Control slaver doesn't run MWS, am I right?  It usually needs welder to make slaver work, and with 8 burn spells do you really think welder will be a problem?  This is why I think burn is more useful than people think.

CoW is a little slow for this deck IMHO.  This deck already has quite a bit of mana denial with Mox Monkey, root maze, and wastelands/strip mine.  With root maze main, slaver comes into play tapped, and since you play 5 arti-destruction destoying it before its activated shouldn't be too hard.  I would relocate rod to the SB to side in for slaver though.

PoP doesn't do a whole lot anymore, with the increase of basics being played and your wasteland strategy, it probably wont do more than 6 damage.  However, this is all speculation, so it still would be good to test, I'm just skeptical of its usefullness.

I also don't see much of a point of regrowth.  What kind of bomb are you going to regrow?  Although people have been complaining about that last bit of damage so it might be useful to grab that used bolt.  It doesn't really have great synergy with lavamancer though.

One more thing, is 15 beats really enough?  Especially since you only run 6 burn spells.  Maybe find some room for a couple more beats.

@xrobx
I agree totally with everything you just said!  I have a question for you:  When you tested magma jet, what did you think?  I've had great results with them often fixing the next 1 or 2 cards.

[Razor]

I've been out of the online scene for almost a year.  This is the first thread I've read since returning to TMD after my sabbatical.  I must say that I've enjoyed all ten pages.

I feel that RG Aggro is good, but probably no better and less consistent than plain ol' mono-Red beatdown.  However, RG Aggro:Control is superior to mono-R Aggro in only one regard, both it's disruption/hate and creatures are more versatile even if the manabase is less consistent.

Ok, on with it.  I placed 13th out of 77 at the first TMD east championship in March 2003 with this RG Zoo list.  Aside: Shock Wave discovered that Disk was superior to Keg in his UR LandStill deck at that tourney making it one of the dominant decks for the next year.

//Name: Zoo, R-G v.1.3
//By Ray Mitchell
//ray@webinmotion.net
//2003-March-08
//Cards: 60
//
//Mana: 26
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
4 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Karplusan Forest
2 Mountain
2 Forest
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
//
//Critters: 20
4 Kird Ape
4 Grim Lavamancer
4 Gorilla Shaman
4 Dwarven Miner
4 River Boa
//
//Enchantments: 7
4 Rancor
2 Stormbind
1 Sylvan Library
//
//Sorceries: 1
1 Wheel of Fortune
//
//Instants: 6
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Naturalize
//
//Sideboard: 15
4 Choke
4 Red Elemental Blast
3 Tormod's Crypt
2 Hull Breach
2 Naturalize
//End

I wrote a well-received report which I'll be happy to send any of you who'd like a copy now.

Decklist Post-Mortem:
Zoo, R-G v.1.4 [revised March 11, 2003]

MD Changes:
+1 Regrowth ?[versatility]
-1 Wheel of Fortune [unreliably advantageous]
+1 Stormbind [impossible to Keg, Control & Kill Card]
-2 Karplusan Forest ?
+1 Windswept Heath ?[basic land is fetch-tech ie.more resilience to Back to Basics, & shuffling is Sylvan tech]

SB Changes:
-1 Choke [Blue is doomed anyways]
-3 Tormod's Crypt [good vs. many Combo/Survival decks]
+4 Null Rod [good versus the same decks as Crypt and more]
[hmm, still no SB versus Aggro....]


Posted by: Razor on Mar. 12 2003,16:19

"Feverdog: I had a blast, too.  Do you think Null Rod will help this deck defeat TNT more easily?  Other than that, I am contemplating: Heretic, Rack and Ruin and Kill Switch.  I still think 1 Sylvan Safekeeper is another great maindeck TNT card to fizzle spot-removal (ie.Plows) - TNT's men should never learn to farm.

I'm really impressed with how well this deck did last weekend considering that I hadn't tested it versus anything but Blue-Based decks.

But, I keep wondering if it would benefit from the addition of Blastoderms or Phyrexian WarBeasts (or even Avoid Fate)."

Eventually I tested the following:

//Name: RG Bind Moon v.1.4
//By Ray Mitchell
//ray@webinmotion.net
//2003-September-18
//Cards: 60/15
//
//Mana: 24
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Taiga
4 Forest
2 Mountain
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
//
//Critters: 17
4 Gorilla Shaman
4 Dwarven Miner
4 Masticore
3 Squee, Goblin Nabob
2 Gigapede
//
//Disruption: 19
4 Naturalize
4 Blood Moon
4 Stormbind
4 Pillage [hits the basic land that miner cannot]
2 Creeping Mold
1 Regrowth
//
//Sideboard: 15
4 Red Elemental Blast
4 Lightning Bolt [vs. aggro]
4 Rack and Ruin
3 Tormod's Crypt
//End

In the end, it evolved through an RG Survival Toolbox 1-of-lotsa-utility-critter-deck into mono-G Oshawa Stompy in December of 2003.  This summer I toyed with splashing red into Oshawa Stompy for Stormbind to help stop Welders.  BTW, both Tracker and Razormane are tech.

I have a few thoughts on building better RG hate decks:

Maindeck redundancy (ie. playsets of 4-of's) is key in any aggro deck with no tutoring.  Where possible, I prefer 8 cards that perform the same function

Pump to creature ratio should not exceed 1:4

Blood Moon versus Crucible - both are good.  However, even one activation of opposing lands like: Bazaar, Orchard, Academy, etc. can be fatal.  So I generally prefer Blood Moon which prevents even one-time activation.  Mox Ruby is less important than Emerald if you are running Blood Moon.

Don't run either Sol Ring or Mana Crypt unless you have a lot of colourless demand in the casting cost of your spells.  Coloured mana is better unless you're running lots of 3cc spells like Blood Moon, 'Core, Call of the Herd, Crux, etc.

Versatility. In Aggro:Control pick cards that both hurt them and help you.  eg. Magma Jet may be better than Sylvan Library (even with fetch) because it both hurts them and helps you filter new cards faster [I need to test, sorry].  Oh, consider Hystrodon for card drawing that kills (even as it's morph ability lets you cheat your opponent of possible mana drain mana)

Your Root Maze tech seems excellent in respect that it both nullifies Treetop's drawback and cripples combo deck development

Boblin Bombardment or Shivan Harvest might be some weird anti-Orchard tech

Elvish Spirit Guides are the most broken unrestricted mana acceleration in Type 1 on par with Dark Ritual so use them

Neither red nor green can affect cards in the opponent's hand or on the stack.  RG's best disruption cards immediately affect the board not just the opponent's life total.  I prefer cards like: Null Rod, Cursed Scroll, Rack and Ruin, Monkey, Heretic, Blood Moon, Lavamancer, Crux, Artifact Mutation, Rancor, Giant Growth, Bolt, Winter Orb, Root Maze, Red Blast, Chalice, Naturalize, Stormbind, Tormod's Crypt, Bind or even Miner to cards like: Ankh of Mishra, Vise, Price of Progress or Pyrostatic Pillar.  As important as reducing your opponent's life is, fast disruption is moreso.

As cool as undercosted 2/3's are (eg.Elites or Kird) , I find them too Vanilla for Aggro-Control.  However, in pure beatdown, wow.  For Aggro-Control such as we're discussing I prefer critters with abilities which affect the board or my opponent's life total or both.  Evasion is cool too, but affects games less and less it seems: "Who blocks in Type 1?"

Troll Ascetic is worth playing, he's just so good versus both aggro and control

Wheel makes your already difficult Combo matchup even worse

I plan to do some testing in the coming weeks after which I'll post a list and some results either supporting or disproving my hunches.

[MCS]

My build (MB): Wooded Foothills, RFG: ESG, Root Maze (pass priority, meets FoW), Tap; sac foothills for a mountain, Gorilla Shaman (resolves? if not they've just wasted 2 fows, and 2 other cards. Their hand is now very weak)., Pass

Don't get me wrong, but you just made a mistake in your play. The right play would be foothills, sac foothils for whatever you need, esg root maze. What if root maze resolves? Basicaly you've just shutted down yourself for one round.

I have my point about why you should play land grant. I surely do think that foothills is a far more superior card than land grant: first, it can search for a basic mountain, a thing land grant can't do. Second, you can always keep it as a mechanism to avoid 1 turn of crucible/wasteland nonsense. Third, foothils is uncounterable. The loss of 1 life is so sporadic that it shouldn't even be considered.

On the other hand, your example of choice just showed us why is land grant, sometimes, better than foothills. I must admit that I've lost a game to land granting and having it countered by my opponent with a fow, but most of the time it worked just fine for me. Your play, if not meeted with a fow, would force you into a situation where you wouldn't be able to cast anything more the first round (since fetching under root maze brings a land tapped into play).

It seems to me that most of you talks about theory. I can't have enough bad words for a situation where I go land root maze round 1, and then I draw into my second land wich is a foothils. Which is a thing I've tested.

Here goes a random shufle and draw of 20 different hands. This are my results:

 - no lands hand with land grant : 1
 - 1 land hand with land grant : 1
 - 2 land hand with land grant : 2
 - 3 or more land hand with land grant : 3
 - hand without land grant with lands: 11
 - hand without land and without land grant : 2

So, you have a 5% chance you will hit a situation with land grant you don't want, 5% chance to hit a risky but good situation with land grant (1 land), 10 % situation you realy want with land grant (since tutoring and playing a land in round 2 is good), 15% possibility you will be stuck for it 2 long, 55% situation where you won't have any problems with land grant since you want draw one and 10% mana screw situations. So, by my opinion, the things that matters is that 15% of good situation versus 20% of bad situation, altought it is debatable how much would you prefer to have a fourth land in hand instead of land grant.

The situations where you won't be able to land grant round 2? Very rare, by my statistic it is one of 5 matches granted you have it in your hand. This decks is mana light. It has 14-15 lands without foothills, so most of the times I draw into 1 or 2 land. Drawing 3 lands as mentioned in your example is a very rare situation, and you usualy don't need 3 lands till round 4-5 when you will want to activate your village. Having a land grant countered is usualy a good thing, since most of the times I manage to drop my entire hand with 1 land + esg + random mox around round 3. Wasting a counter for a land grant and letting me slip a treath is always good for me.

Regarding magma jet. I like the idea of browsing trough my deck. I dislike the idea od giving 1 less damage to my opponent. I would like to discuss a little bit about the next possible burn choices:

magma jet
incinerate
chain lightning
fire/ice
seal of fire
shock

Since '97 my burn of choice is incinerate, but I'm not sure I realy need it anymore. The non-regeneration ability isn't needed anymore, no sedge trolls around the last 5-6 years.

I would also like to hear additional sugestions for sb. I board lately reb's very rarely, and I realy like the idea of playing with a pletora of artifact hate in my sb. Against combo, I think root maze, gorila shaman and null rod shoul be enough to fight it. I've also seen a dvarven miner in a deck. I must admit that I like the prospect of nuking opponents workshops, but I would like to hear some more suggestion about the little guy. I'm not quite sure he is fast enough to hold workshop decks.

[xrobx]

First off, I believe the sb options have been covered in great depth and dragging them on and on seems redundant.  I am always open to new suggestions, but haven't we decided (dependant on metagame) what cards should be run?  Ray just pointed out about 30 different tech cards that all work wonders.

Next,

@xrobx
I agree totally with everything you just said! I have a question for you: When you tested magma jet, what did you think? I've had great results with them often fixing the next 1 or 2 cards.

Dude, although they do fix the next two cards, assuming the spell resolves, this accelerant to damage is unfortunatly insuperior to its predecessors bolt and chain lightning, even incinerate.  Yes, the card choice is nice, and at first glance and testing, I loved this card more than any other burn in my deck.  It can take out welders which is huge.  HOWEVER, after playtesting I began realizing that utility burn, such as bolt and grim, comprimising 8 spots in the deck is sufficient to keep the welders off the table.  Why then, would it be better to run utility burn over something that can put pressure on the opponent, such as an artifact?  That is colorless...even better; that has a low casting cost that can be cast first turn quite easily....and better yet, what if this card furthered your mana denial theme of the deck?  Ankh of Mishra is the answer.  It does all of the above, making sure the other player takes damage when trying to stabilize his mana base, which in essence kills the other player faster - this is good; VERY good.  I found the open spot filled in with ankh (3 of em) is working wonders.  When an opponent fetches, he takes 5 damage!  That is massive in a deck where you can resolve a boa and rancor, swinging twice (-8, say one fetch, -5), leaving your opponent crippled in a matter of only 2-3 turns.  The synergy levels here go through the roof with maze, shaman, ankh, wastelands, and heavy damage.  I highly recommend testing this dude, it works incredibly well

@Ray:  I need rootmazes if you can get your hands on any  Ebays are cheap but they're hard to find.

@MCS:

Don't get me wrong, but you just made a mistake in your play. The right play would be foothills, sac foothils for whatever you need, esg root maze. What if root maze resolves? Basicaly you've just shutted down yourself for one round.

Unfortunatly, IMHO, that was the correct play I made.  My grounds for this reasoning are simple.  Given your example, say the rootmaze DID resolve, I am very happy.  I would simply leave my fetchland untapped until the end of the opponents turn.  What would happen if I didn't, and did the play you suggested?  Well, a number of things could happen.  If I fetched taiga, it could be wasted, or a basic could be stripped.  This is not likely to happen if I went first, and for some reason the rootmaze DID resolve, but I'd prefer the eot effect just in the odd case that they did try and do something to my land, which will be very needed the next turn.

However, most likely your opponent will ALWAYS counter rootmaze if they can, and if they let it through the first time (unknowing of its power), they will not let it through a second time.  What I was trying to demonstrate in the discussion is that you have the OPTION of priority here, where land grant kills you on that grounds.  You reveal your hand, THEN the opponent decides if he is going to counter.  In response to FoW to your ESG'd rootmaze, you CAN tap and sac your foothills for whatever you may need, you don't have to, you can though.   In response to FoW to your ESG'd rootmaze, you CANNOT play your land grant.

[the boogie man]

But don't forget about the (very promising) inclusion of ankh of mishra. With fetchlands, this will put you WAYYYY behind.

[xrobx]

But don't forget about the (very promising) inclusion of ankh of mishra. With fetchlands, this will put you WAYYYY behind.

Way behind what?  As a magic player, I believe the life total is a resource like anything else (mana, cards in hand, library, etc.).  If you're winning the game, you're winning.  Life total is often irrelevant to you if piloting this deck, as you will be delivering beats faster than they can do anything.  The hate is there to hold them over while you smash face.  Similar to sui black, you CAN dig into all of your resources, smash face, and do well without a backbone for a draw engine.

[[supa_t(im)]]

I still feel that 8 burn + lavamancer really helps the Oath mathcup, being able to take out SotN, or punch in that extra bit of damage.  However, jet might be better as incinerate to take out Juggernauts since workshop aggro is so prevalent.  They are better against my slightly scrubbish meta, so I think that 6 burn + lavamancer could work better in higher tier.

I think with control slaver being so played right now, MD naturalize is a really good idea.  It splashes over to other decks, and games 2-3 they can be sided out for artifact mutation.

I'm not sure about ankh.  I'm worried that it would actually slow the deck down.  I mean, first turn maze, then without power or ESG you have third (!!) turn ankh.  I just think that you should probably play a threat or more direct mana denial (shaman) over ankh which just makes them take 2.  Once again speculation, sorry I haven't had time to test, I've been working with a G/W Hate deck thats coming along nicely.

Similar to sui black, you CAN dig into all of your resources, smash face, and do well without a backbone for a draw engine.

Yes but this deck is better because its hate is not only proactive, but stays on the table.  

[MCS]

I dislike the ankh idea, especialy with fetchlands. TPS and similiar have to play less spells to kill you with an ankh in play. I have started to think about playing artifact mutation/null rod/naturalize over incinerate lately. Those card are most commonly sb-ed, something around 90% of matches. Having a way to answer big fat artifacts early in the game can't be bad.

I must admit I'm not convinced about running fetchlands over land grant. I'm repeating, I was playing fetchlands at the begining, but afterwards land grant proved to be a superior choice. Perhaps I'm wrong, I'll do some othe testing and then I'll c.

[majestyk1136]

Recently at a proxy Tournament I slapped this deck together for my friend to play.  He's not a sophisticated magic player so I was shooting for simplicity and redundancy.  I expected for him to see a bunch of Workshop and Oath so the MD Hate was rampant.

4 Hull Breach
2 Naturalize
4 Mogg Fanatic
4 River Boa
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Basking Rootwalla
3 Root Maze
3 Blood Moon
4 Rancor
4 Arc Lightning
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Chrome Mox
1 Lotus Petal
4 Land Grant
4 Taiga
5 Mountain
6 Forest

SB: 3 Pyrostatic Pillar
SB: 2 Naturalize
SB: 2 Reckless Charge
SB: 4 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 4 (Something I can't Remember... some anti-combo tech)

So it's a bad deck.  I had like 5 Minutes to build it, so it was devoid of some obvious better choices (Lavamancer >> Mogg Fanatic) But I do stick by the non-obvious choice of Arc Lightning.  The ability to burn out welders and fish-men while still applying the beatz to the dome means you are almost always going to get some Utility and death out of this card.

Unfortunately for John, he ran into combo deck after combo deck.  That is the suck for a deck without countermagic or more active disruption.  He did however take every match he played to the full 3 games and had most of his opponents in death range at the time he lost.  So, If I were to redux this for him I would likely cut the Blood Moons and use a full complement of 4 Root Maze and 5 Strips, Lavamancers over Fanatics and maybe some extra Burn.  Maybe Stormbind, as its synergy with the Mancer is some good.  Price of Progress probably needs a place in the sideboard as well due to its ability to shred workshop and decks like 4cC.

[xrobx]

Hmm, the sideboard is pretty packed but do as you wish with your meta  This deck should be able to easily smash 4cc and workshop decks (especially after sb), so I'm not to worried in that aspect; (inclusion of PoP).

I'm not sure about ankh. I'm worried that it would actually slow the deck down. I mean, first turn maze, then without power or ESG you have third (!!) turn ankh. I just think that you should probably play a threat or more direct mana denial (shaman) over ankh which just makes them take 2. Once again speculation, sorry I haven't had time to test, I've been working with a G/W Hate deck thats coming along nicely.

Okay man, here's the thing.  If you first turn a root maze, you are going to have 1 land untapped second turn (assuming you dropped no moxen/lotus/petal).  In the case that you do not have an ESG, simply lay your 1cc threat.  Shaman is amazing, and I'd lay shaman any day over ankh (with maze on the table), but once you open up your mana curve to 2 mana, which really doesn't take too long, hit them with the ankh  Just playtest it and decide if you like it yourself or not.  I really couldn't care less, I'm just suggesting it and recommending it based on my playing experience with it in my MD  It is also an easy side-out card for null rod/artifact mutation, etc., which allows you to keep consistancy after game 1 (depending on your matchup of course) + all the other arguments I already stated

Happy testing.

[Revvik]

Maze / Shaman / Ankh early is a bitch.  Price of Progress?!  How much 4CC are you expecting?  It shouldn't even be a concern against them, most of the time they're a bye.
As for the decks that Titan-proof their manabase, Price of Progress takes up slots that should be used focusing on disruption.  While it would be nice to resolve one later in the game for 14 points of damage, it will never take that long.  Artifact Mutation will have ended the game by then.

[MCS]

I would like that we keep on testing good cards. I've playtested ankh and, even if occasionaly good (especialy against any control deck), I've come to the next conclusion:

 - if you play creatures, most of your creatures will hit him for 2 points every rund anyway
 - it is incredible what it means that a juggernaut can kill you one round faster

Hands with ankh+root maze+shaman happens never. Price of progress is such a bad card. Altought it can hit your opponent for much, it usualy burn yourself for 6+ damage and it can't kill a welder. On the other hand, I've playtested artifact mutation and I must say that it is just insane. It has always a target: sometimes a mox, sometimes a manavault, sometimes (my favorite) a colossus.

Another thing: it is very interesting how root maze shuts your opponent for entering the "endless welder mindslaver turn". I must admit that I give more and more credit to this card for each day that I playtest with it.

My last version of the deck is this:

//NAME: Critters
// Creatures : 24
        4 Gorilla Shaman
        4 Grim Lavamancer
        4 Kird Ape
        4 Skyshroud Elite
        4 River Boa
        4 Elvish Spirit Guide
// Utility spells: 10
        4 Root Maze
        4 Land Grant
        2 Artifact Mutation
// Additional damage: 8
        4 Rancor
        4 Lightning Bolt
// Mana: 13
        1 Mox Emerald
        1 Mox Ruby
        1 Black Lotus
        1 Mountain
        1 Forest
        4 Taiga
        4 Treetop Village
// LD: 5
        4 Wasteland
        1 Strip Mine
SB:  1 Artifact Mutation
SB:  2 Pyrostatic Pillar
SB:  4 Red Elemental Blast
SB:  4 Null Rod
SB:  4 Naturalize

Since 2 artifacts mutation came from the sb to maindeck, I decided to add 2 pyrostatic pillars in sb to have an additional tool to fight fast combo decks.

[majestyk1136]

One thing:  If your opponent gets the drop on you with Chalice=1 you have very little game against them other than savagely mising one of your 2 MD Artifact Mutations.  Just a thought.

[xrobx]

Chalice @ 1 is annoying as hell for this deck.

The only way you deal with it is naturalze, and artifact mutation.

If you run these maindeck, that's good.  I'd only suggest running naturalize maindeck though, as it is less conditional than AM.

- if you play creatures, most of your creatures will hit him for 2 points every rund anyway
- it is incredible what it means that a juggernaut can kill you one round faster

I can tell you did not test this card at all (ankh), but don't care anyways.  To each his own.  Just so you know, "most" of your creatures won't hit for 2 points EVERY round;  I find skyshroud elite to often be a 1/1 when it's time to swing, grim swings often but is only a 1/1, kird ape is usually a 2/3, gorilla shaman is often a 1/1, and boa is always atleast a 2/1.  NOW, that said, this data is completely irrelevant!  Chances are you're dropping your hand fast and laying on beats hard; rancor accels this.  To say that if you cast an ankh and your opponent only takes 2 damage ever, it implies a few things.  First, you're lying, because no one who knows how to play magic would stop laying lands if they saw an early ankh, and second, if they did stop laying lands, all the better for you!  It is then deemed mana disruption and that is key in this deck

Also, don't worry about juggernauts.  You can easily block and kill them, or just burn them.  Why would you want them to have enough mana to cast one anyways?  This discussion is growing weary, we need new suggestions or finalized thoughts soon.

[Revvik]

Chalice for one only shuts you down if you let it shut you down.  River Boa, A.M., and Call of the Herd are all excellent non-one-casting-cost creatures / threats that can come down to end the game.  All it takes is one creature coming across the end zone.  "It doesn't matter whether you win by an inch or by a mile - winning's winning."

Hands with ankh+root maze+shaman happens never

Bull.  Hands like this are explosive, and against decks like Control Slaver, require them to go extremely broken early, or have three counterspells in three consecutive turns.

Root Maze does not shut down an endless Mindslaver recursion.  It does force the CS player to work their untap step in between recursions.  
And to reiterate: Land Grant = BAD.

A: Play Land Grant, revealing hand.
B: Sees no other land, declares Force of Will
(A has been shut out of the game long enough to have no relevancy to this game)
A: Dammit.

Regarding Ankh of Mishra's weakness to the Juggernaut game-plan: DON'T PLAY THEM, and then side them out in games 2 & 3.  Although even against Workshop decks, they are relevant as threats to Crucible of Worlds.

[MCS]

Hands with ankh+root maze+shaman happens never

Bull.  Hands like this are explosive, and against decks like Control Slaver, require them to go extremely broken early, or have three counterspells in three consecutive turns.

I never stated that hands like this are not explosive, I just said that the chance to have those three cards in your oppening hand is rather small, so small that I would consider that situation irrelevant for any statisticaly relevant analysis. To quote myself, those hands happens never (or almost never).

I've tested ankh, and I have some other info about the card (Btw,thnx for the implication that I'm lying about my judgements, quite constructive). It can be good against non-combo non-aggro deck (read - control) if you manage somehow to slip it under a pletora of counterspells. I usualy don't. Most of the players don't counter my ape's (well, at least kird ape never gets countered), and they are quite surprised to c how fast their life can fall from 20 to 0 by little buggers.

ESG helps a lot since a first turn ankh spells havoc for any atog/keepr/cs deck, usualy hitting them for at least 10 damage for the game. It is an artifact, so most of the decks have some way to get rid of it. It costs 2 mana and that's good and bad. It is bad since most of the times I prefer to drop 2 treaths (for ex. kird ape and grim) round 2 instead of ankh. It is good because of chalice of the void. But, my final tought, except for CS most of the control matchups are in favor for rg, so giving something that fights them instead of something that gives you a chance against a bad matchup = bad idea. I would always play a null rod instead of ankh if I would play a 2 cc artifact.

Somebody stated that chalice is bad for this deck. It is. Under a chalice for 1 you can play only river boa's, am (or naturalize) and elvish spirit guides. I lost most of the games when an early chalice managed to resolve.

Root Maze does not shut down an endless Mindslaver recursion.  It does force the CS player to work their untap step in between recursions.  

And to reiterate: Land Grant = BAD.
The thing I realy like about root maze is that it gives you time to fight the first mindslaver, since it comes into play tapped. I had this game when a guy managed to slave me regardless to the root maze, but he has to sweat alot to do it. His slaver comed into play tapped. That gave me time to shoot slaver (I didn't have no AM in hand, so nothing of it, but I had the opportunity). My chances to win a matchup against CS (wich is, btw, a very hard matchup by my experience to win) has increased, I'm still forced to fight an uphill battle, but I like my chances much more with root maze.

As stated before, I agree that land grant is worse than wooded foothills, but I will still continue to play it. Anybody who thinks diferently, swap the land grants with wooded foothils and you're set.

[JamesPr]

Has anyone tried making a Goblins tempo deck with a lot of hate instead of using FCG?  It seems with synergy like Goblin Lackey, Goblin Piledriver, and Siege Gang Commander it could be a decent deck.

[xrobx]

@JamesPR: you're way off topic dude, try another forum or make a new discussion.

@MCS:  Okay man, I honestly can't stand to read the replies you are posting in this forum as they go over the same thing over and over and over.  Fuck land grant already.  No more discussion.  As for your comments about ankh, how at first you said it was bad, then good, now it's only good against control, and it only does 10 damage usually, seriously man, think about that for a second.

By this quote,

so giving something that fights them instead of something that gives you a chance against a bad matchup = bad idea. I would always play a null rod instead of ankh if I would play a 2 cc artifact.

, you're stating that using hate cards against a specific deck is better than running an ankh, because you don't need to deal damage, you'd rather 'hate' your way into 'something that gives you a chance against a bad matchup'.  Please, suggest a new something, or this is all the same old garble again  As you suggested, null rod (which has been mentioned many times over) is a good card.  It stops them from slaving, sure.  As you also mentioned, why play ankh because they will just get rid of it, well, wouldn't they do the same to another 2cc artifact that cripples their mana?  It's basically the same card; it serves the same function (to stop mana production), and inflicts damage as opposed to letting the opponent use artifact abilities.  Don't complain about the 2cc, it's the same as null rod.

Ankh is good against EVERY deck out there in general.  YES, it is a card you can sideboard out games 2 and 3 if you need something to side in.  YES, it does deal damage and speed up your overall game plan - remember, you have NO draw engine.  You need damage and fast.  A possible suggestion by Ray awhile back was that enchantment that lets you discard a card at random from hand to deal 2 damage; a possibly solution to a late game fix, where cursed scroll (as an artifact) does essentially the same thing, but being an artifact is less volatile as their are MANY decks running artifact solutions at the time being.  Enchantment based damage could see an important role in late game matchups, just a thought again.

[majestyk1136]

The enchantment's name is Stormbind, and it's a house in this deck.  It essentially turns every card drawn into 3 damage (2 from stormbind and 1/2 of a Lavamancer activation).  My initial testing with it shows that the biggest downside to the card is that it can be hit with BeB when it's in play.  It also has the relatively small benefit of serving as a potential madness outlet it you choose to go with the Rootwalla/Mongrel build.  Seal of cleansing can also hit it, but hopefully you've burned their seal up before you drop this card.  The final piece is the decent cost of the spell at RG1, making it a turn 2-3 threat that could prove to be a late game sleeper threat if not countered.

[Revvik]

1GR = Mana Drain.  In testing against control, we in BC have elected to drop any non-game ending (or damn near) 3cc spell.

At first, Call of the Herd was an excellent choice.  Drew out two counters / two utility spells.  But Control Slaver, 'Tog, and Oath will just turn the three mana into Intuition + AK, or fuel a Will, or... well, win.

As for Ankh of Mishra and Null Rod:
Null Rod - Stops slaver activations, until a Rack and Ruin hits.  Still stops Engineered Explosives.  Can be game-ending against control slaver, not nearly so against too many decks.

Ankh of Mishra - Stops Crucible activations (5/3, Stax, and Control Slaver), neuters fetchlands (everything), and advances the opponents life total to zero.

Use what you will here, I'm fairly certain Ankh of Mishra is the better choice, especially if you want some time between matches to get some pizza.

@ JamesPR - try looking into old Extended GobVantage lists and going from there, but this is not the thread to continue discussion on this topic.

And as for posting respectfully: take it easy.  We have a pretty good thread here, with a lot of knowledge to be gleaned.  Don't get it locked.

[[supa_t(im)]]

I think even in the current meta with CS being huge, null rod only deserves a SB slot (but I think that its probably an auto-include).

The more I think about it, the more I think Ankh is a good idea.  The reason I was always pushing more burn was because of the extra few damage it pushes through to win the game.  Well, this is accomplished perfectly with ankh.  It provides uncounterable damage against all decks.

Damn the fact that I don't have any currently.

And I agree that this discussion is really good, and shouldn't be ruined by random flames.  Keep it real dudes!  

[MCS]

As for your comments about ankh, how at first you said it was bad, then good, now it's only good against control, and it only does 10 damage usually, seriously man, think about that for a second.

I'll run ankh in my next real tournament, and I'll switch to fetchlands instead of land grant. Sometimes it seems that testing the deck trough random appr matches doesn't give you the best result. My current results are, as you said, awkvard. I'll make your changes and then I'll c. My next tourney is 5.2., so I'll post some results afterwards with match analysis and the impact of the mentioned cards to my version deck.

Btw, how many ankh of mishra should I play in the deck? My current version runs 4 river boa and 2 ankh of mishra. Would it be better to run 3 ankh's and 3 boa's?

Regarding stormbind: it is a great card, but it is slow. I used to play it with a rg that used squee, rootwalas and survival (place 4 at http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=22 , lossing to Devos and pandemask in the semis's), and it was great at that time.  I took it out after combo started to be strong again (post storm age). It is just 2 slow to work against combo, and I realy don't think it deserves a slot in the sb.

[Revvik]

Personally speaking, I stay as far away from Apprentice as possible, mostly to stay away from the irrelevant matches and bad players.  I also prefer playing with the real cards, a reason I stay clear of MTGO as well  

It seems as if three Ankhs are the magic number, as you tend to draw them early enough to where they matter, i.e. in your opening hand or before the opposing player has enough lands in play to work with.  Also, 3 isn't quite enough to where they'll clog your hand in the midgame (although they can be decent in multiples).

Stormbind was an interesting choice.  I think Grim Lavamancer would have accomplished what you wanted better, but it serves as a Cursed Scroll replacement - less vulnerable to removal, but more easily countered, and doesn't require only one card in hand.

[SgW]

This is my actual version of Taïga :

// Lands
2 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
6 Forest
4 Mountain

// Creatures
3 River Boa
3 Wild Mongrel
3 Basking Rootwalla
4 Kird Ape
3 Gorilla Shaman
2 Grim Lavamancer
3 Elvish Spirit Guide

// Spells
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Naturalize
2 Hull Breach
3 Root Maze
3 Null Rod
4 Rancor

// Sideboard
2 Rack and Ruin
3 Pyrostatic Pillar
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Incinerate
2 Blood Moon
1 Maze of Ith
2 Artifact Mutation

I think it's not perfect, Viridian Zealot missing :/

I also think adding 2 Flametongue Kavu and 3 Ensnaring Bridge in side, but slots are missing

[xrobx]

@MCS: Here's my build dude in case you're wondering what #s I run.

@SgW:  That decklist has many things we discussed either wrong with it, or missing in it. Spells like hull breach, basking rootwalla, wild mongrel, blood moon, maze of ith, etc. are sort of cards we tended to stray away from, as it allows more consistancy in the deck by running 4 ofs.  Also, the mentioned spells above often find little space in the decklist; it's a tight build and maindecked with enough hate to lead a KKK convention (just a joke, don't mean to offend anyone ).

Zoo.dec:

// Lands
    3  Forest
    4  Wooded Foothills
    2  Taiga
    4  Treetop Village
    4  Wasteland
    1  Strip Mine
    3  Mountain

// Creatures
    4  Kird Ape
    4  Gorilla Shaman (2)
    4  Grim Lavamancer
    4  Elvish Spirit Guide
    4  River Boa

// Spells
    4  Lightning Bolt
    4  Rancor
    1  Black Lotus
    1  Mox Ruby
    1  Mox Emerald
    1  Crop Rotation
    3  Ankh of Mishra
    4  Root Maze

// Sideboard
SB: 4  Pyrostatic Pillar
SB: 4  Naturalize
SB: 4  Artifact Mutation
SB: 3  Null Rod


The card I'm testing right now is fastbond.  At first thought, it seems like it obviously wouldn't be good with ankh in play, and doesn't have great synergy with root maze, but it does let you drop the land down quickly.  I don't think this card will prove to be worth a spot now that I think about it, but I'll test it out and if it's good I'll leave feedback.

[SgW]

Ok I also test Fastbond (and without Ankh) and I think it isn't doing its stuff in this deck

what's about Dwarven Miner?

edit : and Barbarian Ring? or Ground Seal (vs Slaver and Dragon)?

[Razor]

I have switched Pyrostatic Pillar SB [vs. Combo] for Sphere of Resistance.

I am having good results once again with maindeck Dwarven Miners.  The synergy between Root Maze, Gorilla Shaman and Miner is sick.  Occasionally, my non-basic opponents scoop to this lock.

Hystrodon is pulling its weight in lieu of Troll Ascetic - morph ability dodges Mana Drain nicely.

I am still undecided how best to kill 4cc's 4/5 Exalted Angels which utterly ruin me most of the time - Shrapnel Blast would work for you aggro Ankh guys.  Sadly, I may have to exchange tried-and-true Stormbinds for Lightning Bolts.

Maindeck Naturalize help me cope with fast Crucibles, etc.

Maindeck Hidden Gibbons is as always a house against the field - I run them over Kird Apes now.

Artifact Mutation, Ground Seal, REB, and Sphere of Resistance are my Sideboard considerations now.  Is anyone else finding Null Rod too often Oxidized, Chain of Vapored, or Welded away?

My GR-Control plan is to disrupt then to beatdown; whereas, you Boa, Kird Ape, Ankh, Rancor boys are following the Sui-B plan of: critter, then disrupt it through to win fast.

I'll post some testing results after the weekend.

[[supa_t(im)]]

I have switched Pyrostatic Pillar SB [vs. Combo] for Sphere of Resistance.

I find pillar not only good against combo but also against drain based control.  They run so many spells that cost under 4 mana that they are basically taking 2 everytime they counter something, draw something, or play a threat.  Its not just good against combo

Hystrodon is pulling its weight in lieu of Troll Ascetic - morph ability dodges Mana Drain nicely.

Doesn't morph still cost three?  How does that dodge drain if troll also costs three?

I am still undecided how best to kill 4cc's 4/5 Exalted Angels which utterly ruin me most of the time - Shrapnel Blast would work for you aggro Ankh guys.  Sadly, I may have to exchange tried-and-true Stormbinds for Lightning Bolts.

This is R/G, you have burn.  If you weren't running bolts before, you should definitely run them now.

Maindeck Naturalize help me cope with fast Crucibles, etc.

And Oath, and juggernaut, and any random artifact.  I couldn't agree more about MD naturalize, its just so versatile, its like hate against any deck in the format.

Artifact Mutation, Ground Seal, REB, and Sphere of Resistance are my Sideboard considerations now.  Is anyone else finding Null Rod too often Oxidized, Chain of Vapored, or Welded away?

Null rod is really anti-combo and should be used in conjunction with other anti-combo hate.  You shouldn't always have an artifact in the yard to have it welded away, and you should have burn up the ass, so I don't think welder should be a problem.  I ask you:  what keeps them from welding sphere away?

My GR-Control plan is to disrupt then to beatdown; whereas, you Boa, Kird Ape, Ankh, Rancor boys are following the Sui-B plan of: critter, then disrupt it through to win fast.

Actually the general idea is to lay the hate down fast, then follow up with fast efficient beats.  Some of the beats, however, happen to be part of the hate.  Also, while still being a control-ish deck, the deck needs to remain very aggressive to fully utilize the hate it brings.

[MCS]

@MCS: Here's my build dude in case you're wondering what #s I run.

Well, I must say I c some big difference in the way we aproach the deck:

 - I play a land lighter version,
 - I play 3 more creatures,
 - I don't play crop rotation (altought it is nice to be able to fetch a strip sometimes, but in most of the cases it just isn't worth the slot - perhaps if I would run maze of ith in my sb)

First a note: I play rg since '96/'97 and I'm tunning the deck since then. The current version is the result of realy lots of testing, but as much as you test, you always miss a great card of wich somebody else thinks about (for ex. root maze). The land count is a result of lot of tweaking. Playing 19 lands, 2 moxes, esg's and lotus is the right choice by my opinion. You always get the fast draw, you mulligan rarely and you have a smaller risk to draw a land late in game (wich is just bad).

My deck is a little bit more aggressive (skyshroud elite is always good). I must also admit that the idea od playing dwarven miner sounds also good (dwarven blastminer even better), but it seems to me (as a better plan) to hit him with something that eats away his life (ankh), nullifies his moxes (null rod), eats his life and cripples combo (pyrostatic pillar), kills his artifact and gives you extra beef (artifact mutation), kill whatsoever (naturalize), etc. The plan behing rg is to kill your opponent as fast as possible, giving you the edge with some hosers (shaman, root maze, LD lands and ankh).