Zendikar: Grazing Gladeheart and Hedron Crab*

[madmanmike25]

From MTG Salvation:

Grazing Gladehart  (2G)
Creature - Antelope  
Landfall - Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, you may gain 2 life.
#163/249 2/2

Seems like a reverse Zuran Orb on legs.  Combos for infinite life with Crucible+Fastbond.  Makes you difficult to kill with Loam+Explor.  Hell, every fetch afterwards give you 3 life.  Might this card work in a deck with Lotus Cobra?  Seems like with this card they are really pushing for the land-combo archtype.  Discuss.

Also:

Hedron Crab   (U)
Creature - Crab  
Landfall - Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, put the top three cards of target player's library into his or her graveyard.
 0/2

So we have a 1-drop that can fuel a Mill deck.  If milling isnt a viable option yet, if they keep printing cards of this nature it soon will be.  A B/U deck with Glimpse the Unthinkable, Ravenous Trap, Extirpate, Mesmeric Orb(hint: play with Blessing), etc. etc. and backed with FoW, Duress/Sieze, Confidants, Tutors, Draw, and Will might actually have a shot at being vaguely competitive.  Or not......you decide.

What a great set so far.  Ill probably buy a few boxes of Zendikar.

[BruiZar]

Meecrob is a cool card. Fetch, Forest, Crop Rotation Fetch, Dual=12 cards and you can cast your free GY exiling Trap to remove the win conditions

[The Atog Lord]

While Zendikar has plenty of interesting cards for Vintage, these two are not. They're both fine enough for some draft decks, but are nowhere close to Vintage playable.

[Klep]

Milling almost never works.  Every year or so Wizards prints some awesome new mill card or set of mill cards and people start to talk about milling as a win condition and it NEVER HAPPENS.  Remember how Glimpse the Unthinkable was going to make a standard mill deck possible?  This card is worse.  There aren't anywhere near enough Exploration effects to make this worthwhile.

[Almanomada]

I may consider the Meecrob in Dredge..  possibly

[madmanmike25]

Milling almost never works.  Every year or so Wizards prints some awesome new mill card or set of mill cards and people start to talk about milling as a win condition and it NEVER HAPPENS.  Remember how Glimpse the Unthinkable was going to make a standard mill deck possible?  This card is worse.  There aren't anywhere near enough Exploration effects to make this worthwhile.

Yes, the card is worse.  That is if you are planning on milling the opponent in one fell swoop.  Brain Freeze decks=Fail.  I suggested Exploration for the green card, not this one.  The thing is you would play this card WITH Glimpse and the others.  If you really think about it, 2 Meecrobs alongside the obvious multiple fetches gets ridiculous.  Glimpse, then Extirpate out the threats.  We are talking about a lot of 1 and 2cc cards here.  Again, the deck would probably have to have FoW and Duress to survive the first 2 turns, and Confidant as a draw engine.

Basically I'm saying Mill decks arent quite there yet, but its getting damn close.  You would be surprised at what decks FoW, Duress, Confidant, Recall, Walk, Tutors, Will, etc can support.  But I realize there are better and more powerful decks for those cards.  Patience.

EDIT:  Would the crab work in Mana Ichorid?

[Almanomada]

EDIT:  Would the crab work in Mana Ichorid?

I am willing to test it out.  in my extended deck i am running tome scour and instead of 5 cards its only a mill of 3 but also gives me a dude.  I doubt it would really fit or even be needed in legacy or vintage dredge as there are just too many better cards in that slot IMO.

[jewfro]

The crab will NOT work in mana ichorid. There are MUCH better cards to play, that aren't being played.  Mill will never be good IMO because there is already such a hard to deal with hate card to deal with it in gaea's blessing, which only takes up 1 sb slot, not saying it does now, but if milling ever got good it would be hard to get around it (ok you have extripate but there are always exceptions).

[jaeppel]

But wait, everyone is saying that the mill deck just isnt there yet... What about grindstone, brainfreeze, helm of obedience, oona, and before her laquitus?  All of these cards are or were win conditions run in playable vintage decks.  Perhaps none of these decks are currently top tier, but it wasnt so long ago that tyrant into brainfreeze was something to be feared.  Dragon has fallen by the wayside, but its still a potent and degenerate combo that could rear its head again.  And as for grindstone, painter is still somewhere around tier 1.7.

I keep hearing stuff like "mill strategies just arent there yet."  Games have been won by attrition for a long time.  Its just that in vintage terms the mill has to be all or nothing.  yeah that new crab dood looks nifty in a draft pack, but has no prayer of a one shot library kill.

As for the other guy, no matter how hard they try, wizards just cant seem to bust lifegain.  even if there was a one white instant that said "gain 10 life" it would be barely playable.  This cow will pwn a draft.  please dont waste your time trying to build a gladeheart combo deck.  help us brainstorm the hexmage deck!!!!!!

[Wagner]

But wait, everyone is saying that the mill deck just isnt there yet... What about grindstone, brainfreeze, helm of obedience, oona, and before her laquitus?  All of these cards are or were win conditions run in playable vintage decks.  Perhaps none of these decks are currently top tier, but it wasnt so long ago that tyrant into brainfreeze was something to be feared.  Dragon has fallen by the wayside, but its still a potent and degenerate combo that could rear its head again.  And as for grindstone, painter is still somewhere around tier 1.7.

Fair enough, but all of those are combo decks with a milling finish, it's not really a strategy, Dragon and Tyrant could kill with other ways. We are talking about not milling the opponent in one shot here, or at least not with only 1-2 cards.

[Harlequin]

Again It might just be a problem with wording and meaning.  But I wouldn't call decks with Grindstone, Helm combo, or Oona a "Mill" stratigy.  Tyrant + Brainfreeze isn't really a "Mill" Strategy iether.  For example none of those decks would be helped tremendously if you just stated with 3 mill stones in play. 

The idea of an incremental mill deck, that uses several effects to accomplish the win condition of "Decking" your opponent - that type of Millstone deck, is not there yet in vintage.  This has only a technical relationship to decks that use the 0-card library as a win (but accomplish this goal all at once, rather than incrementally).

There are two things holding back incremental decks: 
#1 - all these other kill conidtions.  Milling is a fairly weak win conidtion, when compared to almost any other win condition in vintage. 
#2 - Vintage decks like big graveyards.  Be it Ichord, or a Yawgmoths Will based deck.  They is always going to be decks out there that can turn you incremental win on its head.  If all of a sudden GrazingCrab.dec started to take hold, you could just pop 1 Recoup into a normal Tezz deck and win via will 9 times outa 10...

[Klep]

Yes, the card is worse.  That is if you are planning on milling the opponent in one fell swoop.  Brain Freeze decks=Fail.

...

Basically I'm saying Mill decks arent quite there yet, but its getting damn close.

My point is that mill decks are perpetually "not quite there yet, but getting damn close" and that they still NEVER ACTUALLY HAPPEN.  The few successful mill decks in Magic history generally are, in fact, the ones that mill all at once (i.e., High Tide in Legacy and Painter in Vintage).  This is just a worse card than previous cards that were destined to push mill over the top and make it a viable strategy.  I hold out no greater hope for this than any of those.

[Beralt]

Few more to add to the decking all at once combo - Helm of Obedience and Leyline of the Void, which makes the cut in some sideboards in addition to maindeck play and Dragon using Oona as one of it's kill conditions.  But nonetheless a very true statement in that incremental decking is not really happening very much - if you look at Standard, there is some incremental decking in the Sanity Grinding Decks, but thats based on Sanity Grinding being Twincast and then finishing with a Shelldock Isle - which is essentially almost three seperate steps.

[Facade100]

I really like Hedron Crab but I’m pretty sure it will have a hard time finding a home in a competitive deck.

I would go as far as to say it has a 0% chance in vintage. As others have stated it can actually win the game for the opponent. This is most true when trying to run an “incremental” build. In a combo shell at 0/2 it’s incredibly fragile, especially in an environment where more and more decks have dedicated creature removal (on MWS anyway). Lastly vintage has at least a dozen or so other cards with similar functions that are more focused or versatile.

I think it may see some play in T2 or maybe even block provided it has the proper support cards available. However if it does see play it won’t be in an “incremental mill” deck. More likely it will be in a deck that can either manipulate its own graveyard or it’s opponents. Turning men sideways will be the desired win condition. The ability to win via mill will just be an alternate win condition should the real plan fail.

Here is why I don’t think the “incremental mill” strategy will work.

1.   Decks with 1cc creatures generally pack a grip of other creatures as well. Obviously there are exceptions. Dreadnaught is technically a 1 drop and the mono white Proclamation of Rebirth deck from a little while back featured just a small amount of one drops. In general though if you are running out critters on turn one you are following up with more beat sticks. Even Goblin Welder (the card I think Hedron Crab has the most in common with) wants to throw trikes and other artifact creatures at the opponents’ life total. Playing lots of creatures means that you more than likely should be attacking life totals and not library size.

2.   One thing that successful “incremental mill” strategies have in common is that they almost completely dodged targeted creature removal. U/W mill strategies have been around forever and are easily the most successful of this genre. When they did run creatures they ran things like Blinking Spirit, Nether Spirit, Morphling, etc. Making 4-8 cards in the opponents deck moot was a hallmark of these decks. A 0/2 critter does not fall into this category. Of course you could argue that U/W mill was a control deck and not really an “incremental mill” deck. It is however the best example available.

Cool card that is likely terrible in vintage and maybe playable in standard.