[Deck] R/G tournament-meta-competitive (pre June 20)?

[Chaosegg]

I realize everyone is probably still slightly stunned about what happens June 20th
and this might be the furthest thing from your minds, but bear with me.

This is what I've come up with for R/G to compete in pre-June 20th tournament meta, and I think it has potential:

4 Ankh of Mishra
4 Black Vise
4 Root Maze
4 Pyrostatic Pillar
1 Genju of the Spires

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Magus of the Moon
4 Tin Street Hooligan
2 Gorilla Shaman
4 Simian Spirit Guide

1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
3 Ghost Quarter

4 Taiga
4 Stomping Ground
3 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal

Sideboard:
4 Seal of Fire (for Flash among other things)
4 Seal of Primordium (Oath; I hate you)
4 Tormod's Crypt
1 Gaea's Blessing (grindstone/painter, brainfreeze, and ichorid begone!)
1 Harmonize (still considering this, but I like it when in topdeck-mode, still another Genju of the Spires might be better.)
1 Null Rod (also still considering this slot)

No answer for Tinker->Darksteel (no Deglamer) but that's not seeing as much play right now afaik,
 and I could swap Seal of Fire for Deglamer and just have a worse Flash matchup.

All questions and comments are welcome (I have a good sense of humor), but I am quite serious about this deck.
It's almost ready to go, I'm just tweaking the last 2/75 slots.

[Ben Kossman]

Have you considered Orcish Lumberjack? He's an overlooked card that I used in a similar deck that was supposed to be a budget stax variant. Here's my take on what (I think) you're going for...

Artifact:19
4 Black Vise
3 Crucible of Worlds
3 Null Rod
4 Thorn of Amtheyst
4 Sphere of Resistance
1 Trinisphere

Green:8
2 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Root Maze

Red:14
2 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Magus of the Moon
4 Orcish Lumberjack
4 Goblin Welder

Land:17
4 Mishra's factory
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
4 Taiga
3 Wooded foothills
1 Forest

You can recur Tangle Wire and such with Welder and forests with Crucible for Stupidness with Waste/Strip or an extra Lotus every turn (even with Root Maze in play). Lumberjack deserves serious consideration in a deck with Thorn and Root Maze...

[Chaosegg]

Interesting 9-sphere R/G there.
How fast can you drop those lock pieces (spheres) though without more moxen and/or spirit guides?

As far as my list, it's going to be obsolete soon but Ankh of Mishra and Vise are really brutal in the pre-June 20 meta.

I'm considering the sideboard right now.
Dropping to 3 Seal of Primordium, tossing out the Null Rod and Harmonize and putting in 3 Deglamer.

[Masta]

Kossman,

I like that list you have there a lot!  And it looks absolutely fun as hell to play with!  I love how you abuse all of those cards in one deck...Vise, Crucible, Sphere effects, Null Rod, Magus, Welder, oh my!  If this list has promise, I'd like to unofficially name it "19-Sphere".  I know you only have the standard 9 sphere effects, but running 19 non-mana producing artifacts in a R/G deck deserves a sweet name!

Has Lumberjack worked out well for you recently?  Or has he been a bit slow?  His synergy with Root Maze does peek my interest.  How's your match-up against brown decks?  I ask because it seems that you're both trying to do the same thing, and I would put my money on a brown deck doing it bigger and faster.  Another problem I see is that there's zero bounce/destruction.  Which, I assume will be a problem once everyone and their mom goes back to Tinker->DS now that the Gushbond engine has been busted.  Do you think there's room in the main by possibly cutting a Vise or something?  Or are we straight 'balls to the wall' game one?

Also, would this list warrant mentioning on TMWA thread at http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=35901.0?  I would think Mr. MyriadGames would be appreciative of this list.

V/R,
Masta

[Ben Kossman]

The lack of power is mostly theoretical at this point but could be further negated by Ancient Tomb. My idea is still a bit rough but what I want to accomplish is a colored hate/lock deck that isn't based around Workshop. Lumberjack serves multiple purposes here including but not limited to his synergy with thorn and Root Maze. It looks like the original post was something more akin to Ankh-Sligh which makes me wonder about whether or not the deck would benefit from Price of Progress and Shrapnel Blast/Atog instead of Ghost Quarter which can be useless against a prepared deckbuilder. If you want to kill them with extreme prejudice then Shrapnel Blast and POP would be better than Wasteland and Strip Mine unless there's a particular land that isn't already shut down by Root Maze that you really need to kill. BTW Masta love your pic (Achoo) hee hee...a lot. It's not gay at all. Well, except for the fact that you're using fucking pickachu as something you use to identify yourself. I think you should spend as much time as you need writing down your life story and then go show it to Jack Kevorkian, he'd probably be real interested in it and could help you do what's right for the rest of humanity.

Toodles,
BAK 

What exactly made you think that posting this was a good idea?  Full Warning for violation of Rule 2, Inflammatory Posting.  -DA

[Chaosegg]

Well, I've adjusted my list now to have basically -1 Vise, +1 Genju
and replaced Harmonize, Null Rod, and one Seal of Primordium with 3 Deglamer.

4 Ankh of Mishra
3 Black Vise
4 Root Maze
4 Pyrostatic Pillar
2 Genju of the Spires

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Magus of the Moon
4 Tin Street Hooligan
2 Gorilla Shaman
4 Simian Spirit Guide

1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
3 Ghost Quarter

4 Taiga
4 Stomping Ground
3 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal

Sideboard:
4 Seal of Fire (for Flash among other things)
3 Seal of Primordium
3 Deglamer
4 Tormod's Crypt
1 Gaea's Blessing

With regards to your comments...
lumberjack.dec or 19-sphere or whatever you call it is as I said, interesting,
but not really along the same as my deck lines at all other than it being R/G.
My deck was created for the specific meta we have currently and basically centers around Ankh of Mishra.
The 8 strip effects are particularly brutal because of Ankh of Mishra and Root Maze. Not to mention most top-tier Vintage decks use very few basic lands.
Not to mention that you take 5 damage from a fetchland with an Ankh in play.

[Ben Kossman]

So you're playing a deck in a meta game with Brainstorm/fetchland? If you can play Brainstorm/Ponder/Gush/Fastbond/Tendrils/ETW then you should play the best deck in the format and stop trying to create a pile that will inevitably sit there while the player with the good deck kills you on turn three... But for what it's worth I think your build is as good of a red based hate deck that I've seen. Good luck...

[meadbert]

I have done some testing with this list.  In general it defeats Gushbond based decks.  TurboGush has no chance since both Ankh and Rootmaze hate out its combo.  GAT has a very rough time.  Empty Gush could wiggle away with wins by either dropping an early Warrens or by getting a quick Tinker->DSC.  Deglamer helps answer DSC so that is nice, but Warrens may still be problematic.  Gush/Painter has trouble keeping Painter out post board due to the 10 artifact removal available post board.  Tinker->DSC still gets a lot of wins though.
Finally Tyrant Oath has a fairly strong game 1 matchup, but then runs into trouble against 6 Oath removal spells post board.  Generally Tyrant Oath is happy to go the Yawg route and Brain Freeze for the win when Oath of Druids is hated out, but Ank of Mishra and Pyrostatic Pillar make that strategy tough to pull off.

Stax is a bit worse than Gush based decks since you have some mostly dead cards.  You still have a lot going for you though.  First you have 12 artifact removal if you count Gorilla Shaman.  Second, having 8 ways to remove Shop is nice.  Chalice@2 is somewhat problematic though.

Here are the problematic matchups:
1)  Ichorid.  This is not terrible.  Certainly having 8 Wastelands is great!  Magus is mostly solid, but he rarely matters since you usually remove Bazaar on turn 1 anyway.  The trouble is that there are too many dead cards such as Black Vice, Ank of Mishra and Pyrostatic Pillar.  Vice is actually helpful at sealing the deal when Waste on Bazaar works out. 

2) Flash.  Seal of Fire in the board is nice and all the Wastes and Root Maze are annoying, but Flash does not play so many spells that the Ank and Pillar catch up to it and while Goyf, Magus and Genju are great beaters, they are just not fast enough to compete with Flash.  Definitely Tormod's Crypt should be used post board.  This is because you have enough creatures to keep blockers availabe and hate out the Slivers Kill in that manner.  Then Tormod's Crypt causes trouble for the Lark combo.

As a note for anyone else who decides to play with this deck:  Be careful how you use Ghost Quarter.  Ghost Quarter wrecks a lot of decks, but do not use Ghost Quarter right before you are about to drop Magus.  That simply gives your opponent a chance to put an on color basic into play.  Other than removing lands like Bazaar and Shop Ghost Quarter is also helpful in that you can use it on your opponent during their upkeep with Root Maze out.  This can cause them to lose that land for the turn.  You can also do it after a top deck tutor so they must either lose their land or lose the card they tutored for.

Genju of the Spires is frequently a bomb in the mid to late game.  Generally your opponent is budgeting how much life they can lose to Vice/Pillar/Ankh and when you suddenly drop a Ball Lightning that comes back each turn it can wreck that budget.  In that manner Genju of the Spires is a poor man's Tarmogoyf #5 and 6.

Engineer Explosives might be interesting in the board.  It can remove an Oath of Druids if set@2, but you would also take collateral damage.  It also removes Chalice@2 which is very convenient against Stax.  It removes Warrens tokens which matters against Empty Gush and finally it takes out Bridge tokens.  I am not sure what to drop from the board since everything seems like it is needed.  Maybe Seal of Primordium?
Actually, Explosives could even wipe out moxen which is nice in a deck with so much mana denial.