Turboland

[meadbert]

So I happen to be a very avid turboland player.  The new card, Ancient Grudge could be a huge addition because it helps take care of opposing moxes and Chalice@1.

Here is my current list:
Mana Base
3 Wooded Foothills
3 Windswept Heath
1 Taiga
1 Bayou
2 Tropical Island
1 Savannah
1 Barbarian Ring
1 Cephalid Colliseum
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Sol Ring
1 Lotus Petal

Combo Pieces:
1 Bazaar of Baghdad
2 Glacial Chasm
1 Fastbond
4 Crucible of Worlds

Synergistic Pieces:
4 Exploration
3 Life From The Loam

Tutors:
4 Intuition
4 Sylvan Scrying
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor

Other:
3 Ancient Grudge
3 Argivian Find
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk

SB: ??? Untested
Chalice of the Void
Null Rod
Combo
Darkblast
Ray of Revelation
Backup Win condition?
REB?
Ghost Quarter?

First some turboland background.

The win condition is to infinitely recur Barbarian Ring.  You do this by getting Fastbond + Crucible and then you need Barbarian Ring, Wasteland and Glacial Chasm and you can creatue infinite red mana and play Barbarian Ring and infinite amount of times.  Although it is a 5 card combo it is really much simpler.  Bazaar can be substituted for Barbarian Ring since you can just infinitely mill with it.  In fact if you have just Bazaar, Waste, Fastbond, Crucible you can usually just repeatedly Bazaar and dredge Loam and find Glacial Chasm before you die.  Really it is a 4 card combo.  One of those cards is Strip Mine/Wasteland which you pretty much get by accident. 

Travis has played a very different version and had some success.  His deck includes draw 7s and Horn of Greeds and plays out more like a combo deck.  The draw 7s have great synergy with Fastbond because they refill your hand and you can drop all of your lands.  Horn is also very good with Fastbond and Life from the Loam.  It was tempting to put Horn in by I found I would rather have disruption.

This deck plays a much more controlling role.  First of all, you should notice that it has Strip Mine, 4 Wastelands and TEN ways to tutor for Strip Mine.  That is more ways to find Strip Mine than any other commonly played deck.  Combine that with 3 Ancient Grudges that can be Intuitioned for and it is not too difficult to keep your opponent mana shafted most of the game.

The first troubling question is how to construct a mana base.  In the past I have tried Guw manabases which worked quite well.  Black was not missed too much.  Ancient Grudge forces the 4th color and from there I decided to start trying a 5 color base.  With a 5 Color base you normally end up going for City of Brass, Gemstone Mine and even Undiscovered Paradise (nice synergy with Bazaar and Horn of Greed).  This makes it tougher to get up to 3 Mana so Shops are usually added.  Moxes are dropped and maybe Null Rod is added to the deck.  Because of Shops Horn makes sense, but you can no longer support Intuition.  I have played these types of decks in the past and they were a bit inconsistent.  In the past I always wanted Null Rod to shut off opposing Moxen.  Ancient Grudge means I no longer need Null Rod so now I can run my own set of Moxen.  My moxen allow Sylvan Scrying and Intuition to be much better cards, but they make Horn of Greed less effective.  Crucible, Loam and Exploration all make Fetchlands amazing.  This is because with just a single Fetchland and a Mox you can repeatedly fetch and get every dual land in your deck.  Because of this synergy I decided to go with a Fetch/Dual mana base but keep the 5 colors.  The only color I might drop is black.

Some card explanations:
Bazaar of Baghdad - Good with Crucible.  Draw engine with Life from the Loam.  Part of the Infinite Mill combo.
Glacial Chasm - Part of the combo.  Good against DSC.  Randomly wins so many games.  In the past I have unfairly dropped Chasm against Food Chain Goblins and Ichorid and simply goldfished for about 4 turns till I was ready to win.  2 Chasms + 10 ways to tutor for it mean there are 12 Solutions to DSC not counting just winning.

4 Crucible of Worlds, 3 Life from the Loam
  These cards are what makes the deck run.  They allow you to replay lands.  Many decks can play around Wasteland these days but they are as vulnerable to a Strip Lock as ever.  Life from the Loam can also combine with Bazaar for a nice draw engine.

4 Exploration, 1 Fastbond -
  Fastbond is totally broken.  It is basically the win.  Explorations are baby fastbonds that allow quick mana development and speed up the strip lock.  Being able to waste a Fetch and then Strip the Island it fetched is nice.

4 Sylvan Scrying -
  Usually finds Strip Mine.  Scrying for Strip Mine on turn 1 and stripping on turn 2 is great for keeping an opponent off drain mana.

4 Intuition -
  One of the best cards in the deck.  Options are:
  1: Get Strip Mine, Loam, Bazaar.  Strip Lock your opponent WHILE you draw 2 cards a turn.
  2: 3x Crucible.  Tutoring for Crucible is nice.
  3: get 2x Argivian Find + Fastbond.  Either way you get Fastbond.
  4: With Argivian Find in hand get: Argivian Find, Fastbond , Crucible.  Find out both Fastbond and Crucible
  5: Get Ray of Revelation against Dragon/Oath.
  6:  Get Ancient Grudges to wipe out opposing moxes/other artifacts.
  7:  If you have fastbond + Crucible just get Strip/Glacial Chasm/Barbarian Ring for the combo

Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor:
  These might go.  I like having 2 extra tutors for Strip Mine.  I found Enlightened Tutor was not good enough to make the cut.  Vamp is on the border.  Plays like:
Turn 1Land, Exploratin, Land, Vamp for Strip. 
Turn 2:Strip, Loam, Strip
are pretty busted.  For now I am keeping Vamp.

Ancestral and Time Walk are just busted.

Argivian Find gets back a countered Crucible or Fastbond and helps Intuition tutor for Fastbond.  Also Argivian Find combos with Black Lotus to be a nice mana accelerant.

Ray of Revleation:  Enchantment removal that can be tutored up by 6 different cards.  Nice versus Oath or Dragon.  It could be dropped from the main deck.

Ancient Grudge:  Takes out moxes or Chalice@1 which used to be very annoying.

Barbarian Ring:  Can take out Welders and is primary win condition.

Cephalid Colliseum:  Back up win condition.  Also does infinite mill like Bazaar and is a nice draw Engine with Loam.

SB cards:
  Chalice and Null Rod stop Tormod's Crypt and Mana shaft at the same time.  Root Maze shuts down my own combo but it is incredibly annoying for opposing combo decks.  Just lock them out.  REB is good for protecting Fastbond and countering Gifts/Thirst.  Ray of Revelation destroys Oath and Dragon.  Anyway I have not set on a board but these are all ideas.

Cards not used:
  Crop Rotation:  I hate when it is countered!!!
  Enlightened Tutor:  Just finding Fastbond is not enough.  Back when I had Words of War as a backup win condition, Seal of Cleansing and Null Rod it was better.
  Brainstorm:  So good.  Maybe it should be in here.  I originally pulled it out back when I realized that Chalice@1 tore me up.  Now that Ancient Grudge solves that it might be time for Brainstorm to reappear.
  Seal of Removal:  Good against DSC but somewhat narrow.
  Yawgmoth's Will:  Very good, but you can't go off the turn it is played and it is usually a win more card.  Sometimes it is a life saver and if nothing else it is good for distracting opponents from the cards they should get.  Usually if I have an opening hand with Will and Fastbond my opponent will duress the Will.
Draw 7s:  I don't want to refill my opponents hand  Combo is already a bad enough matchup
Horns: Don't want to help opponents draw


Matchups:
  Stax: Absurdly unfair in Turboland's favor
  Gifts:  I think Gifts has the edge but not by much.  Random DSC Tinkerage can steal a lot of games.  Going for the Tendrils Kill seems like it should be easy, but it is very difficult to get the mana needed to cast cards like Gifts, Fact or Fiction, and Mana Drain.

  Oath:  Bad matchup pre board.  Usually Oath can oath out an Angel before you find Ray.  This is not always true though.
  Dragon: Bad pre board.  You do have tons of ways to deal with Bazaar.
  Combo:  Terrible matchup.  Basically nothing in the main stops Tendrils.
  Ichorid: Bad.  Leyline of the Void is incredibly annoying.  Ichorid likes it's Bazaar but does not need the mana.  Randomly dropping a turn 2/3 Glacial Chasm can steal a lot of games.


Is anyone else out there playing Turboland and if so what have you found that works?

[chrissss]

what about adding Zuran orb? I personaly havent used Turboland myself, but zuran orb + crucible + fastbond + infinite life.

[meadbert]

I definitely should have mentioned Zuran Orb.  It turns out that it is terrible.  I dropped it a year ago when Vroman got his second P9 win with Uba Stax.  Uba Stax has something like 13 first turn drops that shut down Zuran Orb.  Because it is so much like a Mox it is shut down by everything that hates on Moxes.

Glacial Chasm and Nomad Stadium are both better.  Nomad Stadium also provides infinite life just like Zuran Orb does.  The advantages are that Nomad Stadium also produces mana and is harder to hate out.

Glacial Chasm is pretty much best of all because it does totally steal games you otherwise have no business winning (Food Chain Goblins, Ichorid, Occationally Oath if they can't find Wasteland)

I have tried 1 Chasm and 2 Stadiums but I felt like I could not find Chasm enough.  This was back prior to running so mana Sylvan Scryings.

The one advantage of Zuran Orb is that you can use it to gain just enough life against Tendrils.

[kiriku]

I am develloping a land deck myself.
Im using;
2 Workshops (works well with: Crusible, Horn of Greed, (nullrod chalise defense grid)
4 Undiscovered Paradise (multi colour land, wich works with Horn of greed)
4 City of brass (Multi land without major drawback)
4 Gemstone mine (multi land without major drawback)
1 Barbarian Ring (1 Kill )
1x rift stone portal (Makes all lands more usefull like workshop, Clasial Chasm, Acient Tombs etc)
2-3 Acient tombs
2 Gods eye gate to Reiku (second kill, and works ok for stax)
2 Clasial Chasms (Combo card) I realy love this one



1x Fastbond
4x Exploration
3x Crusible of Worlds
3x Horn of Greed (draw engine)
3x Excavation (draw engine)

Mox Diamond (My unpowered mox)
Zuran Orb (infinete life)

Tutors:Mainly used for fastbond
Enlightend
Vamperic
Imperial Seal
Demonic Tutor
Crop Rotation
//
Still thinking about lim duls vault
Brainstorm


For Crusible/Horn of greed (Because the absence of power)
Mana Crypt
Solring
Manavault

Anti disrupt
2x Argivian Find
Academy ruins (to get my crusible back in play)
I am still not sure about the Horn of greeds, they do help the opponent, although In my opinion it does help you more.
Excavation is: Fastbond, Crusible: win  You will get a Chasm soon enough else you can tutor for it.

Zuran orb doesn;t do much for you except gaining life, allot of it. Makes it imposible for tendrils or goblins or what so ever to win.

I kicked my life from the loam out, it dint do that much good for me, but with your explanation I might throw it back in
Same for Bazaar


My sideboard is also quite difficult:
depends on the meta game, I will change it each time, depends on where you will be playing and on what event.



Other Kills I have tried:
Seismic Asault, works fine, You will need 2 gaeas blessings for infinite deck.
Natural Emergence, works rather funny then well,  its a bit to slow
Brainfreeze, with cloudstone curio, bouncing explorations again and again, it takes too much cards and slots for it to work properly

[meadbert]

Wow!  I am glad I started this thread.  Excavation had never occured to me.  That could be really good in the right build.  One issue is that opponents can sacrifice lands in response to stripping them, but I don't mind my opponent drawing so long as he cannot afford to cast any spells.  I am still a bit worried about letting my opponent draw though.

Horn is good with Exploration and amazing with Fastbond.  Running Horn makes you more reliant on a way to get fastbond in to play.

Your build should DEFINITELY run Life from the Loam.  It turns out that Loam combos with Horn.  If you get Fastbond, Loam and Horn then you can just play a few lands.  Then waste your own tapped land, Loam them back out and do it again.  Basically you can draw through your whole deck until you get Crucible to finish the combo.  Horn + Loam is great!!!

I am pretty sure that Nomad Stadium is better than Zuran Orb.  Zuron Orb is shut down by Chalice, Null Rod, Gorilla Shaman and worst of all your opponent can play welder games with it.  Also if you dredge a Zuron Orb it is bad.  If you dredge a Nomad Stadium then you have to to Gain infinite life when you get Fastbond + Crucible.

Another interesting card is Academy Ruins.  It gets Crucible back, but with 3 Horn and 3 Crucible you should see enough of those.  The trick is keeping Fastbond in play.  For my deck which lacks Horns I am more reliant on Crucible.  Academy ruins might be a better option.  I could intuition for Loam, Academy and Crucible and in that way eventually get my Crucible.  I will have to test this.  Perhaps I should drop the 4th wasteland.

Bazaar is great even without Loam.  Just being able to discard lands with Crucible out is great.  I am upping the count in my deck to 3. I pulled out Lotus Petal and the sixth fetch.  Bazaar also opens up cards like Words of War as an alternate win condition.

Now that I have added more Bazaars I am close to running a token Squee.  He improves the draw engine.  With 3 Loam, 3 Bazaar and 1 Strip I usually start with one in my opening hand so it would be nice to add a Squee to my Intuition stack.

Brainstorm makes more sense in my version with all the fetchlands and tutors.  I mean there are about as many tutors as any deck has.  I am considering looking for room for 4 Brainstorms.  The only issue is it means I need more blue mana sources.  For your deck I think you lack the shuffle effects to utilize it. 



Intuition is amazing.  It is pretty good for the main deck, but being able to get Ancient Grudge, Ray of Revelation and Darkblast make it amazing post sideboard.

Here are a list of possible win conditions.

Barbarian Ring: Inf damage and hits Welder

Cephalid Colliseum: Draw engine and can deck an opponent.

Tinker->DSC:  DSC discards to Bazaar.  Tinker can get a Crucible if need be.

Words of War:  This is actually REALLY good if you run 3-4 Bazaars.  With a Bazaar you can do 6 damage a turn.  It is great against Welders and random aggro.  SS rolls over to it.  It also has an infinite combo just like Ring.

Words of Wilding:  Arguably the best of the Words cards.  Turning every card into shock is okay.  Turning them into a 2/2 creature for 1 is even better.  That being said I would rather be able to take out Welders than run over an opponent with tokens.  This is still pretty good as a backup win condition.

Roar of the Wurm:  Dredges to Loam or discards to Bazaar.  a 6/6 for 4 is pretty good.  Still he is not amazing, but useful against Random aggro.

Trygon Predator:  Great versus SS.  Runs over Confidant and Cutpurse and destroys a flipped erayu.  Takes out moxes and Oath of Druids.  Doesn't die to enchantment hate.  Doesn't use the graveyard.

Vinelasher Kudzu:  A pretty quick clock.  Only costs 2.  Doesn't die to enchantment hate.  Doesn't use the graveyard.


EDIT:  I forgot to mention.  Oboro, Palace in the Clouds is amazing with Horn of Greed.  You might want to find space in it.  God's Eye is also a decent win condition, but if you lose your graveyard he is just as bad as Barbarian Ring and Cephalid Colliseum and he does not win that turn the way those do.  Against Stax I imagine he would be good.

[BruiZar]

It is quiet hard to make this deck consistent.

Excavation is a bomb.
Using both brainstorm and excavation I think it's better to include Mana Drains instead of Workshops. Workshops are okay the first turn, but after that first crucible and maybe a horn of greed, the card becomes useless. Mana Drain gives better matchups against combo and allows you to add tropical islands (For fastbond/explorations) and therefore fetch aswell (For brainstorm). Force of Will and Daze become options aswell (Daze with the enormous amounts of strip effects can be quiet effective).

Barbarian Ring is the best kill condition imo.(red though) It kills truebeliever, meddling mage and such techy fish critters while allowing you to combo out vs an opponent. Nomad Stadium is a good option aswell, but I wouldnt run more than 1. I dont really like Cephalid Colliseum but he is blue and offers a way to combo out. This might be better than using barbarian ring all together keeping the deck more focussed on UG. Also, I can't believe how you both missed Library of Alexandria. Trade Routes combos out with Library of Alexandria without the need of a Horn of Greed. If needed you can board a living wish or research // development to get specific lands out of your board. Pendrell Vale, Maze of Ith, Rishadan Port come to mind.

[meadbert]

Using Living Wish as a toolbox is somewhat useful.  I found Tabernacle at Pendral Vale was not useful when I tried it.  This was back in the spring and there was little to no Fish.  I ran into more Suicide Black than Fish and Sui black runs just Swamps so it was tough to totally mana shaft them.

When I get down to comparing Living Wish versus just putting the lands in my deck I always get back to the fact that if I dredge or discard lands I have them for later use while a Living Wish in the yard is pretty pointless.

Daze and Force of Will can be added to turboland.  I have never been able to get Mana Drain to work.  The problem is Turboland is full of sorcery speed threats so you generally want to tap out during your turn in the early game.  If you run 4-6 Islands (Counting Tropical Island and Underground Sea) Then Daze is much better and so is Gush for that matter!  I have considering dropping Black and White and just going heavy U/G.  I could use Gifts as a tutor to get fastbond, but I would have to run Eternal Witness instead of Argivian FInd to get Fastbond back.

Of all of the counter spells Daze is probably the best because opponents are mana shafted and who cares if we have to bounce an Island.

[BruiZar]

Alright, I thought I'd add a shortlist of what I'd play in land.dec. Its not nearly optimal and its not even 60 cards, I'd like some feedback on the list which is mainly focused on manadrain instead of bazaar and workshop.

4xUndiscovered Paradise
4xTropical Island
4xGemstone Mine
1xStripmine
1xLibrary of Alexandria

1xOboro, Palace in the Clouds
1xAcademy Ruins
1xNomad Stadium
1xMaze of Ith - Crop Rotation vs DSC
2xGlacial Chasm
1xCephalid Colliseum - Kill uuu
xBreeding Pool
xfetch for brainstorm?

1xBlack Lotus
1xMana Crypt
1xSol Ring
1xMox Jet
1xMox Emerald
1xMox Sapphire
1xMox Diamond - LotL and Crucible will get you back, don't worry, ups first turn Mana Drain count
(1x Lotus Petal ?- Mana Drain)

4xMana Drain
4xBrainstorm
4xForce of Will counters for (nearly) free...
4xDaze - Counters for free, wee
1xTime Walk
1xAncestral Recall
1xGush
1xTinker
3xExcavation

1xSundering Titan  / 1xDarksteel Colossus - Not sure which one,
3xCrucible of Worlds
3xHorn of Greed (May need to get cut? Never need more than 1 anyway)

1xFastbond
3xExploration
2xLife from the Loam
1xRegrowth - Gets fastbond/gush out of the grave,

Tutors
1xCrop Rotation - Fetches maze/strip/loa/oboro/ruins and reacts in response to a waste
1xImperial Seal - Gets fastbond/Tinker/Walk/Recall
1xDemonic Tutor
1xVampiric Tutor


Sideboard and other noteworthy cards:

Antifish tech:
Dream Stalker - Bounces exploration for additional land drop, blocks everything in fish.dec, bounces land for additional tap (note: LOA), pitches to FoW
Llawan, Cephalid Empress - Can come down on turn 2, Cuts down Meddling Mage, Dimir Cutpurse, Trinket Mage, etc
Ray of Revelation
Ancient Grudge
Ensnare?


I'm not sure about Intuition, if i'd play intuition I'd also play a 1-off Petrified Field so I can search for Petrified Field, Crucible of Worlds, Academy Ruins, or Petrified field, Wasteland, Strip Mine, Gifts stack could be Petrified Field, Strip Mine Crucible of Worlds Academy Ruins. Still, I'm not sold on either Intuition or gifts because it's cost is pretty heavy. Playing it with Drain mana makes it alot better though.

[netherspirit]

I've played around with Turboland a few times myself. And I've often found I'm sat with a dead card that I just don't want (sometimes a land before I've got Horn of Greed, for instance), Frantic Search has always been pretty useful to me.

[meadbert]

The best anti-fish tech is Sickening Dreams.  It is also an alternate win condition.

[Roat17]

If you are really worried about an opponent drawing with Excavation, perhaps you should consider Trade Routes.

1U
Enchantment
1: Return target land you control to its owner's hand.
1, Discard a land card from your hand: Draw a card.

With horn and fastbond this also allows you to draw your entire deck.