37land.dec in Vintage

[jledsome]

I'm pretty new to the Vintage metagame, there's a 15 proxy tournament coming up in Pittsburgh and I thought I'd take a crack at something rogue. I'm sure that going into an unknown (to me) metagame with a deck virtually made from scratch is grounds for disaster, but hey, nothing wrong with having a little fun.

The first thing I thought of when coming up with the deck is "Fastbond + Crucible of Worlds + Zuran Orb" combo, which, besides gaining a copious amount of life and mana, depending on your lands can deal lots of damage (Barbarian Ring), deck your opponent and draw your deck (Cepahlid Coliseum).

1 Fastbond
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Zuran Orb
1 Enlightened Tutor

2 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Barbarian Ring

I only included 3 copies each of Orb and Crucible, since multiples are redundant and Enlightened Tutor can help find the one I need. Of course I can't always rely on this combo, discard and countermagic can interfere with my plans so we have to have a backup.

3 Mishra's Factory
2 Nantuko Monastary

These will serve as alternate win conditions should the combo not be attainable or interrupted. And of course, what land.dec would be complete without:

4 Manabond
3 Exploration
4 Life from the Loam

I've cut one Exploration since I have Fastbond, the rest seem self explanatory. Unfortunately lands by themselves are very useful at disrupting your opponent, so if I run into a lot of combo I'm screwed. However I can run:

4 Chalice of the Void
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
2 Rishadan Port

For defense against creatures and damage, I can include the following:

3 Maze of Ith
2 Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Glacial Chasm

And one of my favorite cards in Vintage:

4 Bazaar of Baghdad

So powerful, especially in conjuction with Life from the Loam. Finally, the "manabase" to cast our spells. Riftstone Portal included to allow lands like Glacial Chasm or Bazaar to tap for mana, easily dumped in the graveyard with Manabond, Bazaar or dredge Life from the Loam.

2 Riftstone Portal
1 Tropical Island
1 Taiga
2 Forest
3 Wooded Foothills
1 Island
1 Mountain

I've included one of each basic land so I don't get ruined by Blood Moon/Magus of the Moon.

37land.dec

1 Fastbond
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Zuran Orb
1 Enlightened Tutor
4 Manabond
3 Exploration
4 Life from the Loam
4 Chalice of the Void

2 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Barbarian Ring
3 Mishra's Factory
2 Nantuko Monastary
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
2 Rishadan Port
3 Maze of Ith
2 Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2 Glacial Chasm
2 Riftstone Portal
1 Tropical Island
1 Taiga
2 Forest
3 Wooded Foothills
1 Island
1 Mountain

I'll probably throw a sideboard together a couple days before the tournament, but for now any critiques/ideas for the main deck would be great.

[Kowal]

I hate to be the cold harsh voice of reason, but you'll do very poorly with this in a competitive environment.

Oath will completely ignore every card you have.  Considering your clock is extremely slow, and the only thing you have to bring them to your speed is Chalice 2 (with no backup or ways to protect it) you'll get beaten every game that they draw spells and mana.

You'll probably run in to problems against any aggro deck running wastelands, which is pretty much all of them.

You auto-scoop to Magus of the Moon.  I suppose in theory you could gain infinite life getting ass lucky on an early fastbond, but that's highly unlikely, especially since you have only one mediocre tutor effect.

Speaking of mediocre tutor effects, where's Crop Rotation?

You would probably automatically lose to any combo deck also.  Many of them don't even care about any of your hate cards at all.  Even Dragon, with oh so many cards that can interrupt its gameplan, completely ignores every card in your deck and wins at its leisure.


Again, I hate to be the one to say it, but you're building something that simply will not win in this format.

[jledsome]

I appreciate your honesty. I didn't really think that transferring a legacy deck to vintage would work but I was giving it a shot.

[Caladan]

Kowal brings up a great many things that you will have to contend with in order to do well in a competitive.  Transferring the legacy deck to vintage does not seem viable; however, in the Open Forum there is a Turbo Gush thread started by meadbert that looks to be very similar in what you are attempting to accomplish here, but using Intuition and Gush for greater consistency and resilience.  I have not tested the deck, but the thread is very informative on what it is trying to do.  That may be a good place to start if you decide to pursue this general idea of land/crucible recursion.

[Kowal]

I toyed with a lot of builds of crucible-based recursion style decks.  None of them really worked, but here's a list that was at least borderline promising before Gifts was restricted, if you're really hellbent on it.  It might be possible to tweak it to do well in underdeveloped metagames, but I doubt it'll ever be a good choice in a competitive environment.  I'd recommend, at the very least, cutting 3 Gifts Ungiven for 3 Gush.

Crucible Vomit, test deck (May 2, 2007)

4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
4 Brainstorm
4 Gifts Ungiven
2 Misdirection
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Gush

2 Exploration
1 Fastbond
1 Crop Rotation
1 Pernicious Deed

1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony

3 Crucible of Worlds
1 Sundering Titan

1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby

1 Library of Alexandria
1 Strip Mine
1 Wasteland
1 Barbarian Ring
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Glacial Chasm
3 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island
1 Volcanic Island
3 Island


If nothing else, you have countermagic for combo, a real draw engine, a faster win condition, and ways to assemble your infinite combo.

[meadbert]

This deck is interesting.  A few comments.

First of all, as long as you are running Glacial Chasms you probably do not need Zuran Orb.  If you want in infinite life engine use Nomad Stadium instead.  The only advantage of Orb is that you can gain infinite life against Magus of the Moon, but you would still have no way to win.

Oath could be addressed by the sideboard.  Ray of Revelation would be good in this deck.

Ancient Grudge would help against Stax.

Against Ichorid you could easily support Tormod's Crypt.  Also Glacial Chasm is amazing in general against Ichorid.

I don't know if these guys make sense or not, but there is always Argivian Find and Sterling Grove.  To me, this is a deck that loves to draw Fastbond, but does not really need it.  I would recommend running neither, however Argivian Find can act as a tutor for Chalice/Crypt once you are dredging a ton.

I have never been able to get Crucible to work in this deck.  It combos with Fastbond and Exploration, but not with Manabond.  If you want to keep Crucible, either look to run Welders so you can do something like Welder out Factory/Chalice/Crypt for Crucible.
If you pull Crucible from the list then you need to reliably find Loam.  For that, Gamble could work.

Leyline of the Void is a huge problem post board.  Along with Ray of Revelation, you may actually want more Enchantment removal post board.  That could also help with Blood Moon.

I don't know what to do with Magus of the Moon.  From Experience I know that Words of War can work well.  It has synergy with Bazaar of Baghdad and it can remove Magus of the Moon.  Still, it is just not a good card in general.  The other more interesting idea is Lava Dart.  If you got two of those in your yard then you could flash them back to remove Magus.

This deck looks fun.  I have been thinking that if I were to play legacy, this is what I would play.  I would love to see it port to vintage.

Good luck!

[Kowal]

The other more interesting idea is Lava Dart.  If you got two of those in your yard then you could flash them back to remove Magus.

Or one in hand.  It's not like you're at a shortage of red mana.

[Sporkcore]

I've played some Legacy, and all the "large amount of lands.dec" play Engineered Explosives and Academy Ruins. Having multiple color producing lands is always good with sunburst and having Academy Ruins to recur it never hurts. Against any deck with red that you would expect a magus from, you could pre-emptively set an Explosives on 3 and just wait.

[Harlequin]

With Academy Ruins you also have a win with infinite life in that if your opponent can't kill you or answer your Acad then you can never lose to decking yourself.  Eventually your opponent will deck themself while you spend every turn Drawing Lotus -> play lotus, Pop lotus and put lotus on top of deck.

[twault]

Thought about Vinelasher Kudzu?

That would speed up your clock, and would get big fast, as opposed to Factory. I would definitely recommend some tutors and draw.