Life from the loam IS the hate. (aggro/control list)

[Kieranwolf]

I see way too few lists running Chains around here. Well, here's one that's positively heart-warming.

Beats:
4 Wild Mongrel
3 Basking Rootwalla

Recur:
4 Life From The Loam
2 Eternal Witness
1 Regrowth

Hate:
3 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Chains Of Mephistopheles
2 Chainer's Edict
3 Null Rod
2 Pernicious Deed

Card Advantage:
4 Dark Confidant

Tutors:
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor

Mana Sources:
3 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Black Lotus
4 Bayou
3 Wooded Foothills/Windswept Heath
3 Bloodstained Mire/Polluted Delta
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Forest
1 Swamp

Sideboard:
4 Tormod's Crypt
3 Oxidize
2 Pernicious Deed
2 Darkblast
1 Cabal Therapy
2 Chainer's Edict
1 Null Rod

The Rundown:
This Aggro/Hate engine is brought to you by Ravnica and Legends sets, and the Dynamic Duo that is Mongrel and Rootwalla. This deck is obviously made to own blue decks, but it makes a good showing against many others, because of the tempo advantage of Confidant and the ridiculous power of Life from the Loam combined with strip effects and Mongrel's ability.

I saw the Wild Zombies thread, which abused the synergy of Mongrel and LFL, and decided that I wanted to run LFL in Vintage. However, I wasn't too enamored of the red cards used in Zombies, nor did I wish to run Bazaar/Squee, instead opting for more HATE.

Card Discussion:
I dealt with Chains while running one of my old blue combo decks a while ago, and decided that to truly hate blue, it was needed. Dark Confidant's ability to go around Chains' to generate cards was icing on the cake, and cards like Null Rod and Duress/Cabal Therapy filled out the rest of the control aspects of the list.

Edict is there to kill Colossus, and possibly Pentavus or an Oath fatty. I'm going with the Chainer's route in case I need to re-use it late game, and am low on cards (which is bound to happen if I don't win early).

Witness and Regrowth are only there because of dredge, and turn into tutors when my graveyard gets nice and fat.

Deed is a bomb to Goblins and any deck that runs Tinker. It kills almost anything that's annoying me, and is very satisfying, even if I tap out to cast it. It dodges most chalices, and blows them up nicely, and in general improves many of my matchups.

Darkblast is in the side because I end up facing less Goblins/Fish/CS and more Oath/Gifts/Tog in my meta. It would be great main against the former lists, and it does dredge up LFL and strips by itself, making it a good inclusion in the list.

Matchup wrap-up:
Gifts is kind of a pain, but then again any deck that runs grave hate is a problem here. Engineered explosives is a nuke, but then again, null rod. However, my MB shuts down its mana accel and many of its cards. Drop Chains and Rod, and a beater, and they have to work hard to pull out a win, if they can at all. I think this is the only blue deck that really gives me trouble. CS, Tog, and many oath builds get hated out and beaten down rather easily, and LFL will only get slowed down by counterspells.

Other aggro decks are also a threat, but Mongrel is all I need to outrace them in general, and LFL turns him into a freakin' four turn clock at least. Life loss is an issue here, but I rip zero cost things with Confidant just as often as twos, and even a few strip mines played is a big issue to many aggro builds.

This deck does fairly well against traditional Stax and Uba stax, though it still gets slowed down and/or stopped by Orb and Trinisphere. I side in Deed to kill moxen and Oxidize to get rid of fatties and Smokestacks. Crypt, too, is of use here, in the case of an active Welder.

Against fast combos like TPS and 2-Land Belcher, I just have to rely on disruption, having no counterspells or protection. Cabal Therapy and Duress make a good combination, and in these cases I have to get Mongrel out fast. Hmm, these may be the scariest matchups, actually.

I've not playtested this against dragon, but I run four wastes, and lots of disruption, so I just may do ok. Bad, bad combo.

Oath has that whole 'drop enchantment, win' deal, which chainer's edict and pernicious deed handle well. Hydra is just annoying, though, because it often can kill Mongrel. This is the only matchup for which I'd add enchantment removal to the SB, but it doesn't show up _that_ often.

Any suggestions to improve my matchups here? Are there any I left out? Get your comments out, before Mongrel eats your face.

Conclusion:

Overall, I like this build. The hate pleases me. It's beat-tastic. Yes, the flavor is rather toothsome, don't you think? 

[PacmanXSA]

My main concern with the deck is its matchup versus various stax builds as well as your mana base.  How do you beat stax?  Have you considered rancor MD or SB?

What do you do about CoW or any deck with strip effects?

Your build is interresting, however I feel that it's a total metagame deck and there are probably better alternatives.

Pac

[bebe]

I would suggest changing one Eternal Witness into a Genesis so you can have recurring Eternal Witnesses and bring back your beat sticks.  It works well with the Cabal Therapies also ( I'm actually not sure why you have them in the current build ). Otherwise it looks a good meta deck.
I might want to try seedtime in the side if playing a lot of Gifts.

[meatpipeline]

Some thoughts off the top of my head:

-Have you thought of using Crop Rotation as a tutor for Stripmine / Wasteland?
-What about the threshold lands Centaur Garden / Cabal Pit?
-If you plan on using/abusing dredge would the threshold creatures make sense to play, more specifically Nimble Mongoose?

I'd like to point out that your deck seems weak to darkblast.  9 of your 13 creatures (omitting ESG) die to it, and it recurs to kill the next one.

I like the deck.

-Phil

[ELD]

I can't see running life from the loam w/o the cylcle lands.  They turn the life from the loam into some serious card quality control.  I'd get Choke in there if possible.  Null Rod+Choke=hard to work around. 

Edict is there to kill Colossus, and possibly Pentavus

Right, and swords to plowshares is in my list to kill Morphling.

[ReAnimator]

I can't see running life from the loam w/o the cylcle lands.  They turn the life from the loam into some serious card quality control.  I'd get Choke in there if possible.  Null Rod+Choke=hard to work around. 

Chains cycle lands = not a combo.

Loam is fine with out cycle lands as long as you have bazaar or cephalid coliseum or something (tho those are not a combo with Chains either.)

[Jacob Orlove]

If you cycle the land during your opponent's draw step, or replace the cycle draw with dredging the Life, you're fine.

[Kieranwolf]

Edict is there to kill Colossus, and possibly Pentavus

Right, and swords to plowshares is in my list to kill Morphling.

I'm tickled pink to be reminded how stupid I am sometimes. Hey, I said it was possible, not possible.

Anyway, what makes this deck a 'metagame' build? Chains alone? I could easily move it to the side if I start facing a meta that's less than 3/4 blue. Hosing card-drawing is simply too satisfying, even if it's just TFK I'm shutting down. Oh, and B-storm and TFK are my favorite cards to see played with chains out. Here, lose two cards to your draw spell. Teehee.

Cycle lands:

Yeah, as much as I'd love to be drawing over four cards a turn, I don't think I want cycle lands. Fetch and strip fill my graveyard already, and I could only fit two basic lands in the first place. Right now, the deck's fastest wins come from dropping Fetch, mox, confidant, then fetch, Mongrel, then strip, LFL. On the next turn, the goldfish dies. That's without playing Rod or Chains, or disruption, two of which almost always come up in the first hand. Cycling takes mana, right? I don't think I can afford that.

Threshold:

Believe it or not, my graveyard isn't always that full. If it is, It means I'm swinging with a huge mongrel, and am likely winning. LFL actually empties it rather well. Late game (by which I mean after fifth turn) can be difficult, but if it's late game, I'm facing a control deck. What threshold cards would be best then, without breaking the mana curve? Oh, and it seems to me that Centaur Garden < Zombie Infestation, even without Bazaar/Squee in the list.

This deck really doesn't drop its hand often, either. Most of the spells are 2 cc, and the accel isn't very extreme. I'm most interested in cards that, if added, make my engine more stable and reliable, or faster.

Moving right along (backwards):

Actually, Choke is worth a spot, though it would have to replace Witness and uhh, something else. I'd want three.

Against a stax-heavy meta, I'd run CS

Seriously though, Oxidize and Deed are pretty good. With four of each in the deck, and Null Rod, the matchup isn't exactly terrible. If I have trouble, I could always add Seeds of Innocence to the list. I'll do more playtesting of this.

Crop rotation sounds good. It puts a land in the grave, costs one, is an instant, and allows immediate strippage. Glad I thought of it. I think it should go in place of Demonic, since I almost always get strip mine anyway. Why waste time and mana?

Genesis sounds ok, and probably deserves a spot, though three mana for that ability is still three mana, not three and a beater, or two. What would I take out for it?

I'm actually considering Reclaim right now, because it's cheap. Am I nuts? Is Sylvan Library a bad, bad card? Only time will tell...

-1 Demonic Tutor
+1 Crop Rotation

EDIT: cleaned up your quoting tags - Dante

[kras2005]

I like the deck, but does it has potention?

Don't remove Demonic Tutor from your list, that card is so good.

Don't you need more strong cards. Ancestral Recall, Time Walk and more moxes are always welcome. I think this deck can support 5 moxes, because you have enough spells that have colorless mana in the casting cost.

[Q]: There are two decks with Life from the Loam. Those who run Bazaar, and those who run Chains?

Greetings Kras

[Zomar]

congrats on this list Adam, it looks like a great start to a new archetype.

btw: crop rotation + life from the loam = love

[Brutha]

Have you considered Unearth? It works realy great with your Witness and your large graveyard.

I would rather take out Vampiric than cutting Demonic Tutor.

[Kieranwolf]

Unearth was in the old list, but it got taken out to make room for Deed. Personally, I think it's great with Witness, and costs one mana, so it will always be a consideration, but right now I feel that the decklist needs more testing before I decide what to mess with.

Demonic < Vampiric because of cost, mostly, but if I need another tutor, Demonic will go back in.

[Kieranwolf]

I did some extensive playtesting today - a full days' worth, actually. Phew -.-

Here are a few of the lessons I learned (some rather obvious):


Gifts Ungiven:

Gifts casts Tinker, beats, and casts Time Walk. With a good draw, this happens almost EVERY game, and often with Force/Drain backup. This decklist cannot combat Tinker as-is, because no matter how many lands are stripped and moxen destroyed, Gifts can just play one more blue source and one more artifact, and win.

I need a simple, cheap way to stop Tinker for this list, and so far the only decent way I've found is Shadow of Doubt. I may mainboard it, since it's so hard to find a deck running blue and not Tinker nowadays, and almost every non-tinker deck uses fetch lands. Double black isn't _that_ hard to get with this list. I'd have to leave mana open, sure, but stopping Tinker is the biggest hurdle to overcome in the Gifts matchup - even more important than dropping a threat, because Gifts can just sit there and take beats, then win with Colossus more than two-thirds of the time.

Other Matchups:

Honestly, I've done little playtesting of other matchups lately. That doesn't mean I've ignored them though. I'm going to take out the Oxidizes and put Seeds of Innocence in the SB for Stax. It's green's Rack and Ruin, castable somewhere around second turn on average.

I need another fast black source, so in goes Lotus Petal. That should help support Shadow of Doubt.

Unfortunately, Chains has proven to be mostly useless. Don't believe me? What I didn't say before is that in the round I played against SUI black I won two games with Chains on the table because I cast Gifts Ungiven and found solutions (in this case, Pernicious Deed, since I was running green). Besides, most good draw spells will be cast in response to Chains being played. Also, if my opponent only needs to cast Tinker to win, Chains hardly even matters. All they need is Tinker, or a tutor that gets it. They will have no problem with discarding cards that get in the way.

I'm aware that this deck will still carry some shock value at most events, but once people get used to playing against it, they'll just search for Tinker. Chains doens't do enough to stop that. I'm taking all four out.

I've decided that getting the card I tutor for _right_now_ is really the point, so Vamp's out too, for Demonic.

Genesis is still too mana intensive, and can't be thrown to the grave reliably all the time, so it's heading out as well.

Unearth is still really good, and I'm trying one to go along with two Witnesses.

Chainer's Edict can't respond to anything, or be played during my opponent's turn, so I'm replacing it with Diabolic. That play is crucial against Gifts, which often has Time Walk on deck after Tinker.

-4 Chains
-2 Chainer's Edict
-1 Vampiric Tutor
-1 Life from the Loam
-1 Forest
+3 Shadow of Doubt
+3 Diabolic Edict
+1 Demonic Tutor
+1 Unearth
+1 Lotus Petal

In the SB:

-3 Oxidize
-2 Chainer's Edict
-1 Null Rod
-1 Cabal Therapy
-1 Tormod's Crypt
+4 Seeds of Innocence
+1 Darkblast (Because Welders need to DIE)
+3 Ground Seal (Because Animate Dead and its buddies are still a threat)

So...after all of that confusing, meandering babble, here's the updated list:

Loam Aggro (the less warm and fuzzy kind)

Beats:
4 Wild Mongrel
3 Basking Rootwalla

Recur:
3 Life From The Loam
2 Eternal Witness
1 Regrowth
1 Unearth

Hate:
3 Duress
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Shadow of Doubt
3 Diabolic Edict
3 Null Rod
2 Pernicious Deed

Card Advantage:
4 Dark Confidant

Tutors:
1 Crop Rotation
1 Demonic Tutor

Mana Sources:
3 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
4 Bayou
3 Wooded Foothills/Windswept Heath
3 Bloodstained Mire/Polluted Delta
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Swamp

Sideboard:
3 Tormod's Crypt
2 Pernicious Deed
3 Darkblast
4 Seeds of Innocence
3 Ground Seal

You won't be as confused when you start using the deck. It often has potentially-deadly first turns, and Confidant is still one of the best early drops in the whole list. That being said, I still need some heavy playtesting before I deem it awesome. Anything I missed?

[Duncan]

Hi

I plaw some version of BG Aggro myself and have the following questions:
- is life from the loam really that good? i found it to be a bit slow and mana intensive for an aggro deck
- why not run chalice as an answer to moxen and keep them from tinkering early?
- i would suggest crop rotation + maze of ith as an answer to colossus. i know it doesn't keep them from attacking when they walk, but they need 2 extraturns to kill you, with al your hate you should be able to keep them from doing that.
I play withered wretch mainboard, it's just so awesome! stops crucible, gifts, welders, squee.. i suggest you test it (if you haven't already done that)

Good luck.. it looks real good

Duncan

[cosineme]

Well, chains only really kills brainstorm...and TFK. everything else is replacement mostly.

[Kieranwolf]

Hi

I plaw some version of BG Aggro myself and have the following questions:
- is life from the loam really that good? i found it to be a bit slow and mana intensive for an aggro deck
- why not run chalice as an answer to moxen and keep them from tinkering early?
- i would suggest crop rotation + maze of ith as an answer to colossus. i know it doesn't keep them from attacking when they walk, but they need 2 extraturns to kill you, with al your hate you should be able to keep them from doing that.
I play withered wretch mainboard, it's just so awesome! stops crucible, gifts, welders, squee.. i suggest you test it (if you haven't already done that)

Good luck.. it looks real good

Duncan

Life from the loam feeds Mongrel and recurs strip mines/wastelands. If it's in the graveyard, it can also be dredged up to put more lands into the yard. Dredge also makes it very resistant to counterspells, so it's highly recommended by me. The way I see it, if you're beating for 4-5 with Mongrel and/or playing strip mine every turn, things are looking up.

Chalice for zero first turn is good and all, but Gifts dodges it with Vault or EE (which can be played for any mana cost, remember). I've found that it's nearly impossible to prevent tinker by trying to keep artifacts off your opponent's board. CS will just play Darksteel Citadel.

Maze of Ith came up during the playtesting, and I agree that it should be tried. I have two ways to get it from the library, and dredge/confidant help rip it from the top. However, Maze won't save me from recurring Time Walk unless I have two or more, and many blue decks have access to Fire/Ice, which can tap Maze before combat.

Which brings me to Wretch. I'm still having problems fitting him in. He's double black cc, which isn't that much of a stretch (meaning he will come out turn 2), but his ability requires mana, and from the games against sui black I've played, I have realized that he rarely stays out long enough to be that useful in most games. Perhaps I will try him out.

[Smmenen]

A couple of questions: why not run 4 Duress and 4 Cabal Therapy?  They are both extremely solid.  Also, do you really need Chainer's Edicts and Deeds? 

How is the Control Slaver match?  Why not run Darkblast instead of Edict?

[Kieranwolf]

The fourth Duress and Therapy may be useful. They were cut to 3 simply because I wanted to make room.

Deed:

It was originally intended for board control, but as I remember, it was played around once during the last round of playtests. I still think that it's good to have as a catch-all (except colossus) problem-solver, but time will tell whether I will want to remove it from the MB.

Darkblast:

It's not especially useful against Oath or most Gifts builds, but awesome against Welder and Fish and aggro. It is a dredge card, so it's more useful than Diabolic Edict when there's no creatures on my opponent's board. All of this makes Darkblast seem more favorable than Edict, especially in my local metagame. However, it's still a metagame choice. I would still run Edict MB if I expected to be facing untargatable/indestructible fatties most games.

I will be exploring the matchups against CS, as well as Stax and Oath further this week. Research is definitely required, because I recently realized that most of my knowledge regarding their current lists is now out of date.

However, my current attitude is that Gifts is still my worst matchup. Additionally, I wholly detest it when I'm running aggro, so I'm now declaring it my new worst enemy. Gunna getchoo, Gifts. You bastard.   

[Smmenen]

Null Rod + Duress/Therapy doesn't really slow down Gifts?

[Kieranwolf]

Null Rod + Duress/Therapy doesn't really slow down Gifts?

Not enough so that Gifts never casts Tinker. Even without Time Walk (which was on deck around 80% of the time after Tinker anyway), Colossus is just deadly. With Recoup in there, even a resolved Edict doesn't always stop the pain for long enough.

I do admit that in testing, Gifts had very, VERY lucky draws, but that's no reason for me to rest easy. Back into the testing dungeon, I go...

[Joblin Velder]

Very lucky? Well, I am the luckiest player in RI...

Regardless, I think Adam is downplaying the effects of duress and null rod. When I was playing the gifts deck against him, null rod usually slowed me down by about a turn. Duress never really came into play, what with me seeming to either always have a brainstorm or having a hand that would allow me to force it with no real drawback.

When piloting gifts, I just went for the throat. I hardly even cast Gifts Ungiven unless I was setting up a tinker. Most games went like this.

Loam turn 1: Fetch, rootwalla or fetch, mox, mongrel.

Gifts turn 1: Play fetchland.

Loam turn 2: Chains. Gifts cracks the fetch and brainstorms in response. Swing for a few.

Gifts turn 2: Play second land. Tutor for tinker.

Laom turn 3: Attempt to duress or therapy met with force. Swing for a little.

Gifts turn 3: Drop a mox, or land and EE. Tinker the fat man.

Loam turn 4: No edict, scoops it up.



Some games went longer, but that generally allowed me to set up solid manabase and just overpower him through yawgmoth's will or just tinker + walk. Null rod would slow this process down a lot, but I still managed to win more than I lost, despite staring down chains and null rod on the board more often than not. Tinker just dominates the match up.

[Dralock]

Since you are focusing on beating down and already have rod in your list (and are running green), I will suggest root maze as an alternative to chains. Played with choke, you lock down all blue mana on the table. Is it possible to play around it? Yes, most definitely. Does it make life for the gifts player ubvelievably annoying? Completely.

Choke would come in from the board, of course, but root maze does more than just interact with that bad boy.

1. Fetches are worthless for a turn.
2. Dragon, unless playing caller and chain of vapor, is effectively shut down.
3. DSC comes in to play tapped.
4. Workshops are slowed by a turn, making ubazaar slightly less powerful, and early uba not so great.
5. Minimal effect on your gameplan as long as you come down on the fetches (you really don't need 6).
6. Gives you time to duress / therapy away their threats.

I am going to have to agree with Steve about the 4/4 duress/therapy count. They wreck in an unbelievably huge way. If you need the space, you can go to 4/2 though, as its still really 4/4 on account of therapy's synergy with the graveyard.

[Joblin Velder]

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of main deck Choke. Restricting mana is awesome, but I always had like, 4+ basics. We should try it out this weekend.

[Kieranwolf]

Dralock:

Indeed, during my most recent round of tests, I was totally not liking six fetches. I would always draw four of them, even in a short game, and with only five targets they just get too redundant. I only need to draw two, so I'll replace at least one with a basic, maybe two.

Shadow of Doubt isn't so hot thus far. This deck wants to drop beaters early game instead of leaving mana open, and SoD runs into countermagic later on. I end up playing it to draw a card once I run out of good spells to cast, usually.

Deed, however, has won some games against CS, blowing up Pentavus and Trike at least once each. It's made a very good impression on me as of now.

I will be trying out 4 Duress/4 Therapy, because both of them totally need to be played consecutively against blue. One played on first turn is an ok hand-softener, but another next turn means I can almost always resolve a threat. Disruption is one of the most important pieces of this deck, after all, along with mana denial and a fast clock. All three are needed if I'm to have a chance against the big boys.

Choke and Root Maze would fit in the MB. The latter I think I like more, actually, and it does (always) come down first turn. The reason I haven't tried Choke quite yet is because Gifts can usually get along with just one blue mana per turn. With Maze, though, Choke gets a LOT better.

Maze looks like a Force-magnet, too, and I need more of those at 1cc. I will test it as soon as I finish my next testing round.

Highlights from the CS round:

Well, some games went rather long. It seems that CS isn't nearly as fast as Gifts, first of all. Second of all, Loam kept blowing up stuff all the time. Edict and Deed were quite useful...

Most of the time, CS had to cast FoF early in order to win. That's...just about it. Gifts was helpful too, but FoF is just way too broken sometimes. I do remember Ian totally wrecking me every time it resolved during the Gifts test, too.

Darkblast wasn't often needed, actually. Deed and Edict were, for the most part, enough to keep those annoying little red guys off the board.

Null Rod came out nice and often.

More to come, later on.

EDIT: Just wanted to thank everyone for the good suggestions. This list is moving along quickly, and I'm expecting to start seeing a good final build soon. The only problem is that I may not make it to a Vintage event anytime soon to see if it will produce any results.

[MoxMonkey]

Hey Adam its Steve.  The new control Slaver list me and Forcefieldyou are working on are as fast or faster than Gifts.  Your deck does look good but Deed is Very slow and if it gets drained it can go down hill really fast.  I would like to see the 4/4 or 4/2 combination since that should make the Gifts and CS matchup a lot better and more in your favor than before.  With the added hand disruption you should be able to drop Null Rod and take control of the game.  If you want Next weekend Id be willing to go down to RI and playtest with you and Ian and we can see how the deck works out.  Nice job so far though. 

[Kieranwolf]

Ok, I'll readily admit that Deed killing a Pentavus or Trike isn't very likely, so I'll move Deed to the side for one more Duress and a Therapy. If I'm afraid of the aggro matchup, Deed will go in the MB again, for 2 Duress. That sounds nice to me.

Moxy:

Having an extra player to test against would be great, dude. I need to face someone who draws like a normal person, instead of a child of Xochipilli.

I also wish to issue a challenge to Burning Slavery. If it's truly that fast, it just may keep up with Gifts. Otherwise, it shall totally be owned. Mongrel fears no little men, not even Pentavus or Trike.

Shadow of Doubt has actually proven effective combined with Therapy and Duress. It's black/blue permission that can be cast with double black. It draws a card. I think it's going to stay, at least for now. Oftentimes, I've dropped heavy disruption early-game, then used Shadow as backup while topdecking threats. Nixing a top-decked Tinker or Gifts Ungiven is very, very satisfying.

[Zomar]

I also wish to issue a challenge to Burning Slavery. If it's truly that fast, it just may keep up with Gifts. Otherwise, it shall totally be owned. Mongrel fears no little men, not even Pentavus or Trike.

Shadow of Doubt has actually proven effective combined with Therapy and Duress. It's black/blue permission that can be cast with double black. It draws a card. I think it's going to stay, at least for now. Oftentimes, I've dropped heavy disruption early-game, then used Shadow as backup while topdecking threats. Nixing a top-decked Tinker or Gifts Ungiven is very, very satisfying.

LIES! Mongrel DOES fear pentavus, unless he has a rancor on him 

Thinking of Shadow of Doubt that way, it does seem good.

[MoxMonkey]

 Shadow of a doubt Is fucking savage it stops so much shit in my deck and its not bad against others since its a 2 mana stifle.  Thats going to be a pain to work around but thats the point of playtesting.

Also a random question I was looking over your list why not run a Basic Forest since Seeds come in Vs Stax but if your getting stripped/wastelanded I Don't see double green getting up real fast.  Just a thought. maybe go down to 5 fetch 1 Forest?

Also, No choke mainboard I toyed around with it in a hate deck and it helps the Gifts/Slaver match but Stax is getting Really big in NE now too and to have a dead draw against them. Game 1 I would assume is terrible since on paper it looks like a bad match up although My deck looks bad on paper but is badass in game or maybe me and Ian are just savage like that.  Cannot wait to see how savage this deck is in person.  I'm ready to be Wild Mongreled are you ready to be Tendrils?

Rancor, Oh man now your just ripping off Red/Green Beats.

[Zomar]

Rancor, Oh man now your just ripping off Red/Green Beats.

Nah I'm ripping off starwars.

I'm just saying this deck has the same problem with pentavus that every aggro deck has.

[Kieranwolf]

Time for a mini-tourney report!

This time it was only three rounds, so there isn't much to reflect on. However, I did discover more about my matchups.

Round 1:

5c Dragon reared it's ugly head. I wasn't impressed, because I'd played against this particular list and player and creamed it many times with Sligh and Combo.

Game one, despite some early disruption from my end, Bazaar of Baghdad and a lucky draw allowed him to combo out within the fits few turns.

Game two I boarded in Crypts, drawing one and dropping a pair of Mongrels for mucho beatage. I also wasted his Bazaar early on, and I think this was the game I duressed out his Intuition on my first turn. His Xantid Swarm didn't really help him, and when he cast Necromancy targeting a Rootwalla in my grave for a last-ditch blocker, I ended up targeting myself with Crypt for the win. Bad draw for him that time...

Game three I went all in with double mongrel, crypt, rootwalla, and a spirit token courtesy of Forbidden Orchard. Duressing out his Balance first turn was key, and my beatsticks made this game very short. Ouch.

Round 2: Sui Black, one of the 'iffy' matchups for me.

Game one was rather close. I dropped Confidant first turn, and Mongrel later on. He had Carnophages and a Wretch, and dropped Negator around fourth turn. We traded beats until we were both at very low life. I drew into Loam for extra power, then ended up blocking the Negator with Mongrel, killing his entire board while I was at only 1 life! Of course, Confidant killed me during my upkeep. We laughed over that one.

Game two was possibly the coolest of the day. I started with Lotus, Mongrel, Eternal Witness in hand, and no lands. Keeping that hand may have been a really bad decision, but Lotus, Witness, Lotus, Mongrel was too cool an opening play. He dropped  a sided-in Planar Void, then Rack, then got beat up some. I continued to draw zero lands for several turns, while he kept dropping blockers for Mongrel to tear apart. Finally, I drew ESG, then wasteland, and dropped a second mongrel. Bam, on to game three.

I started out with Confidant, and he dropped Void, Rack, and Wretch. Deed came down, and blew up everything but the two creatures, then I went on to win with Mongrel and Loam. That was fun.

Round 3: I went to Tier one, with only one other person (it was a 10 person tourney, a small one even for the store). He was playing what appeared to be a Gifts deck with four Ophidians. O.o

Game one saw him dropping three Phids, while I mostly did nothing but drop Confidants. He was running around four Daze, too, and that disrupted my tempo quite a bit. I wasn't able to get a mongrel past his counter wall, and he ended up winning with Yawg Win, Tendrils, and Burning Wish.

Game two saw zero phids, thankfully. I opened up with a Therapy for Daze, and nuked one. I dropped confidant. However, he dropped Charbelcher somewhere around fourth turn, and started nuking my Confidants and Rootwallas. After a few misfires, he dropped me to 10 with the belcher, and countered my null rod. Cabal Therapy showed me his Demonic Tutor, and I had Shadow of Doubt in hand. However, I would have lost eventually whether or not he got Mana Severance, so when I drew into Witness with five mana on the table, I attempted to play null rod again. Forced. He took the match next turn, tutoring for Severance.

Conclusion:

Overall, I think my build does well against the majority of players locally. That gifts deck, though, totally owned me with Phids. It all came down to me not resolving Null Rod the second game, which can happen against any blue deck. However, I only saw around one mongrel the whole match, which may have been part of my problem. Also, I could have sided in some artifact killers.

Confidant only killed me once, agianst Sui, and I drew into moxes and lands more than half the time with his ability. I was still left wanting eight Mongrels, though, and will reconsider having only three Rods in the list. I need a good discard effect other than Mongrel in here, I think. Anyone have any ideas?