Hermit Druid with Green Sun's Zenith- viable?

[AmbivalentDuck]

Not to be a spoilsport, but what does Natural Order do that Tinker does not?  It's harder to play on turn 1, both require a Mox to come down turn 2, etc.

Ramping GSZ into NO was not an option before,  due to GSZ not, um, existing.

Something that can contextually be a mana elf makes Natural Order Vintage viable?

[Purple Hat]

Not to be a spoilsport, but what does Natural Order do that Tinker does not?  It's harder to play on turn 1, both require a Mox to come down turn 2, etc.

Ramping GSZ into NO was not an option before,  due to GSZ not, um, existing.

Something that can contextually be a mana elf makes Natural Order Vintage viable?

perhaps, because most mana elves don't present a serious option of also reading "win the game next turn" if that's useful. If you're playing GSZ anyway, and you're looking for an alternate package that gets around graveyard hate Natural Order seems reasonable.

[voltron00x]

You have previously said Lighting Crafter was Vintage viable,  but turn-two Progenitus is beyond the realm of reasonable to you?

[AmbivalentDuck]

You're absolutely right!  I'm a complete failure as a Vintage player due to a long string of questionable claims.  I even left Ancestral out of a blue deck at one point!

I think it's time to delete my account.  Thank you for helping me to see the light.

[voltron00x]

You are purposefully asking logically incorrect questions; I think my question is valid. Why should I consider you a valid source of info regarding a cards theoretical non-viability?

[LordHomerCat]

You're absolutely right!  I'm a complete failure as a Vintage player due to a long string of questionable claims.  I even left Ancestral out of a blue deck at one point!

I think it's time to delete my account.  Thank you for helping me to see the light.

Should we be trying to convince you otherwise?

[TheBrassMan]

Woah there guys.  I think we're all getting a little carried away with the personal attacks and goading people into making personal attacks.

On topic, I gotta side with Ambivalent Duck here.  I'm not getting what Natural Order does *better* than Tinker, and more importantly what Green Sun's Zenith does better than dozens of creature-tutors that have been legal longer than Hermit Druid has. 

I'm doubting that Natural Order or Green Sun's Zenith are actually even improvements - but even if they are, they're tiny, incremental improvements over what the deck has had access to for about a decade.  Are they not only better, but *that much* better that they catapult Hermit Druid from unplayable garbage to Vintage superstar?

I'm willing to concede the idea that maybe Hermit Druid was always awesome, and people are just discovering it now.  I doubt it, but I wouldn't be floored if that was the case.  I'm not willing to concede the idea that Green Sun's Zenith and Natural Order groundbreaking at the moment - until I see some additional utility added to either card (possibly from a new printing, or possibly from something not yet mentioned in the thread).

Has anyone identified the reasons Hermit Druid hasn't been successful in the past?  Is this an anomaly, or was there some legitimate problem that can now be solved with new cards?

[voltron00x]

Will respond when not on a phone.  FWIW I never said play NO over Tinker so this is still a false binary.  The cards aren't mutually exclusive. Nor can you play Four Tinker,  or I would. In fact I never said the deck was viable, just suggested a potential sideboard strategy that plays into the use of GSZ.

[TheBrassMan]

A fair point.  I'm sure all parties in this conversation are on around the same page regarding Tinker's power level.  Rather than framing the discussion as "Tinker vs Natural Order" then, it might make more sense to ask "What problems does Tinker+Natural Order address that Tinker on its own does not?"

[meadbert]

Has anyone identified the reasons Hermit Druid hasn't been successful in the past?  Is this an anomaly, or was there some legitimate problem that can now be solved with new cards?

I have experience with Darien Elderfield's version that ran 4x(Force + MisD + Daze) and then used Oath post board.

I believe that deck has been viable at different times in the past.  It is good against Combo and Control.
Basically 15 counters + 2-3 turn clock = good against Combo.  Then the 15 counters helped against Control.

Its failures have been different in different metagames.  Dredge has frequently been an autoloss.
The transformational board leaves no room for a Dredge board and then your 15 disruption in the main are all fairly weak against Dredge.
Preboard you had a decent shot to race, but then post board you either board to Oath which Dredge does well against thank to Leyline removal or you keep Druid and mostly autolose to Leyline.


Another failure was the autoloss to Chalice@2.  Shop decks did not have to guess whether you boarded to Oath or Druid.  They could just blindly go Chalice@2 and block both.

Jace, the Mindsculptor is a huge pain, much as Darkblast used to be.  There were times when because of Welder and/or Confidant most decks packed at least 1 Darkblast in the board.
This meant they could just kill Druid every time you played him.  The only dodge was to either have 2xcounters or to do something silly like run Lightning Greaves.
Now Jace can bounce Hermit 3 times.  Hermit can race a Jace more easily than Darkblast and Jace only bounces and only gets 3 activations, but that is still usually a pain.

The biggest problem in the current environment is that two of the most powerful (not saying best) decks are Dredge and Oath.  The result is that an inordinate amount of sideboard space is dedicated to those matchups.
Hermit takes significant splash damage from this hate.  Many decks already accidentally hate out Hermit in a mean way.

Regarding Potentially Better Tutors:

The other tutors that should be considered along with GSZ or Worldly are Living Wish, Survival of the Fittest and Lim-Dul's Vault.

Living Wish can find alternate wins or answers for stuff like Leyline.
When I tested Wish I remember getting Trygon Predator a lot and Goyf not so much!
The disadvantages are that you must pay 4 to get Hermit into play and you can only run three Hermits in the main.

Survival is even slower and more expensive than Living Wish and it needs a creature in hand.
The advantage is you can get multiple Hermits over several turns and you can filter out Narcomoebas.
I consider Survival much worse than Living Wish.

The final Tutor is Lim-Dul's Vault.  The advantages are that it is blue and thus pitches to Force/MisD and that it effectively can tutor for anything.  Running 4 Lim Dul's Vaults gives you more tutors for Oath or Orchard post board.
It also allows you to run Vault/Key as an alternate win.
The disadvantage is that it takes 4 mana (and 3 colored mana of different colors) to get a Hermit into play and has card disadvantage associated with it.
I still consider Lim-Dul's Vault better than Living Wish.

GSZ has no card disadvantage and gets Hermit into play for 3.  Furthermore it dodges Chalice@2.  It does improve Hermit it my mind, but plenty of problems remain.

[voltron00x]

A fair point.  I'm sure all parties in this conversation are on around the same page regarding Tinker's power level.  Rather than framing the discussion as "Tinker vs Natural Order" then, it might make more sense to ask "What problems does Tinker+Natural Order address that Tinker on its own does not?"

To answer briefly - was 1 Tinker in Oath enough to beat Claim and Trygon last Aug / Sept? That was probably a bettet tinker shell, to boot.  Why is this any different? If anything GY hate is more prevalent,  pointing to the need for a more viable backup than 1 tinker and a prayer ...of course the whole deck may be a non-starter, to your other points.  You may very well be correct on that point.

[TheBrassMan]

I can't comment on whether 1 Tinker was enough to beat Claim and Trygon last Aug/Sept.  I play Oath very rarely, and my experiences were mostly negative, with or with Tinker, against or not against Trygon predator.  I'd cite though, that there are tons of examples where Tinker has been a successful self-contained backup plan - and these include some of the most successful, dominant decks in vintage history: Control Slaver, Gifts, many Gush decks, early Tezzeret.

[voltron00x]

Those decks are fundamentally different.  This deck is a linear combo deck. A gush or big blue deck, especially a drain control deck, would use Tinker differently and more effectively by nature of its design.  Just my opinion.  I like the idea of a cheating -big-guy plan to Dodge GY hate for post sb. But I don't think Tinker alone is a plan in this specific case. I would likely play it main and SB the support plan.

[2nd_lawl]

Those decks are fundamentally different.  This deck is a linear combo deck. A gush or big blue deck, especially a drain control deck, would use Tinker differently and more effectively by nature of its design.  Just my opinion.  I like the idea of a cheating -big-guy plan to Dodge GY hate for post sb. But I don't think Tinker alone is a plan in this specific case. I would likely play it main and SB the support plan.

Why not just play all 3?  Have your Natural order Target Be Terrastadon, And your Tinker Target Be Sundering Titan: 7(titan) + 9(the don) + 1+1+1+1+1+1(from druids/Narcos) Is more than 20 power from Sutured Ghoul.  That lets you play 4 NO, 1 Tinker, 4 Druid, and 4GSZ, Practically guaranteeing that you do something gross by Turn 2.
 This prevents you from having to play crap like lord of extinction.

[voltron00x]

Ok, so, to delve into this a bit.

 I think GSZ is actually rather vital to our desire to reconsider this archetype.  Provided that you can play it on turn one - in other words, that you have G2 available on your first turn - you have double your previous chance of opening the game on a turn-one Hermit Druid.  That is obviously the name of the game here:  can I get Hermit Druid out and active before my opponent wins the game?  There are a number of things to consider before going further. 

Oath of Druids has a somewhat similar mechanism, especially a one-shot build or Tyrant build, in that they can play Oath, untap, and win the game, much like Druid can - but without the reliance on the graveyard.  Previously, I think you'd be hard-pressed to argue for Hermit Druid.  The tutors that find one, find the other, or have analogues - Enlightened / Worldly, LDV, and so on.  Now, you have an extra tutor in GSZ.  If you're talking about speed, GSZ has a clear advantage over the tutors available to Oath of Druids, or even other tutors for a creature such as something like Eladamari's Call (as it is both cheaper and single-color).  Further, a Hermit Druid deck has an acceleration mechanism - Elvish Spirit Guide - which Oath decks cannot use, for obvious reasons.  Further, we have a new acceleration tool in Mox Opal, which may be out of place here, but nevertheless is worth mentioning when going back to rebuild this deck from scratch. 

Based on the above, GSZ seems like it has potential worth testing; it has a speed advantage over top-deck tutors, and is not locked out by Chalice 1, or Chalice 2.  So, where before, Chalice 2 would bone this deck, now you have a 3-drop option that ignores it.  That isn't irrelevant.  It is perhaps minor, or incremental, but these things do matter.  Further, if we're comparing Oath to Hermit Druid in the cheat-stuff-into-play realm, Druid has the advantage of NOT facing hate in game 1 situations.  Now, the amount of hate in a given field or meta obviously changes rather frequently, but some fields are still quite hostile to Oath decks, populated as they are with Nature's Claims, and/or Gush decks, and/or Bant decks.  Dredge has been in a bit of a lull lately in the US (although it appears to be more popular, if anything, in some areas of Europe as of late, with Fatestitcher builds popping up, perhaps as a reaction to Gush decks?), so its as unlikely as ever that you're going to see yard hate game one.

Thus, some arguments for Hermit:  new redundancy, and less hate in game one.

Now, we still have to get past the fact that, in game 2/3, a Hermit deck is likely to be a "worse Dredge deck", which is the tag that afflicts all GY-based combo that is not Dredge.  Unlike Dredge, though, a deck like this has a reasonable chance of switching to an alternate win condition.  One possibility is a full-on transform into an Oath deck.  I posited another, which is to leave much of the deck intact, but add a Natural Order package to what I presume is a maindeck tinker-bot package.  Why Natural Order?  Green Sun's Zenith provides support for this plan, as does the existing mana base.  For example, consider this package:  Dryad Arbor (which could possibly be MD), 3 Natural Order, Progenitus.  That's only 5 cards, but it gives this deck a legitimate back-up plan that can trump an anti-GY package from an opponent.  Strategically, this gives the deck something that Dredge does not have:  a back-up plan.  The same can even be said of Oath to a large extent.

As an aside:  Clearly, this deck is NOT a blue control deck.  In those decks, Tinker often operates as the primary win condition, as it is perhaps the most efficient win con in Vintage and part of the best combo, Key/Vault.  This is not those decks, and Tinker alone is unlikely to be sufficient to beat GY hate, just as Oath decks played Tinker but still struggled against control decks with Trygon/Claim.   However, Tinker can easily function as a part of a larger secondary strategy, cheating a big dude into play, and one that is space-efficient when compared to Oath of Druids.

That being said, I have done ZERO testing here.  I own 4 Hermits and it'd be sweet if they were even tier 2, because I'd happily sleeve it up and give it a shot.  If the reasons why I suggested Natural Order were not obvious, then I apologize and perhaps this helps explain my mindset. 

---

As far as all that other nonsense, I think that the fact that I'm posting here in the first place should suggest that I am actually 100% open to testing "out there" strategies or new cards, as I always have been.  In fact, I have to wonder why people who are always upset that their non-canon ideas are challenged would be so quick to aggressively challenge me, in this thread; all I was trying to do was posit an idea that I think might be worth testing, one that concedes that "This deck is potentially viable" and "GSZ may make this deck better" as accepted points to further discussion, regardless of whether those points are in fact accurate. 

I didn't realize that my posting here would require an in-depth defense of all things Hermit, but so be it, I gave it a shot.

[Stormanimagus]

@voltron00x — Well stated points. Thanks for taking the higher ground and being mature about your response. In light of your comments I'm interested in your opinion on some deck construction things.

1. Can this deck support Force of Will? Does it even want to bend over backwards to do so?

2. What kill would you recommend for Game 1 before you go to the SB Natural Order Plan?

3. Could Tarmogoyf be a Viable Win Con for this deck? It becomes large to pump Sutured Ghoul and is great vs. Shops. Thoughts there?

-Storm

[voltron00x]

I think the deck can probably support Force, although it would require some # crunching.  It probably wants to do so, but probably doesn't NEED to do so.  There are merits to both approaches, I would think.

I can't really say I have any idea what kill is best, honestly.

I do think Goyf makes some sense here, as it does in Breakfast in Legacy, but I'm not really in a position to give any definitive answers, as I said - this is all just theorizing for me.

[Stormanimagus]

Is there an instant speed combo that would allow you to effectively run Pact of Negation? Because you can activate hermit druid on your upkeep so if there was something you could do at instant speed with a full yard? Lemme know if you find anything.

-Storm

[Purple Hat]

I'm starting to play around with using both spirit guides and moxen to ensure G2 on turn 1.  it's actually pretty decent.  Even if your land gets wasted you can still go off the next turn by pitching a spirit guide, and it makes it easier to play turn 1 druid vs spheres.

[voltron00x]

Here's what I've been testing this morning.  This is an explosive deck!  I'm just not sure what strategy to take in post-board games yet, this is just theoretical. 


4 Hermit Druid
4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Tinker
1 Blightsteel Colossus
1 Misdirection
4 Force of Will
3 Cabal Therapy
3 Thoughtseize
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
3 Preordain
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ponder
1 Time Walk
3 Narcomoeba
1 Dread Return
1 Lord of Extinction
1 Sutured Ghoul
1 Dragon Breath
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Dryad Arbor
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs

SB: 3 Tarmogoyf
SB: 3 Natural Order
SB: 1 Progenitus
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Nature's Claim
SB: 1 Echoing Truth

[StanleyAugust]

A Vintage deck with Sutured Ghoul, Lord of Extinction and Bragon Breath? Not to mention Narcomoeba, Dryad Arbor and Dread Return?

In my opinion, the only Hermit deck that would be viable is a version with Krosan Reclamation into Yawgmoth's Will, and in that direction, I don't know if Green Sun's Zenith is of any use.

[TheWhiteDragon]

Krosan rec into yawgwill into (presumably tendrils) requires mana.  You need GB1 and 2 turns after activation to make that work.  Or, you need 3GGB to do it all in one turn.  That's very slow compared to activating off green mana and winning turn 2 with 0 mana required.  The tradeoff is you need an additional 5 dead cards at least to make it work.  So, -5 slots, or +5 mana.  Only one of those options lets you win turn 2 without black lotus + land + mana crypt and an insane amount of luck.  Also the krosan plan removes tinker/BSC or NO + progenitus as an option since they shuffle in and you have a chance of drawing the critter instead of yawg will.  Cutting out a fast plan B and requiring lots of mana (especially hard vs spheres) makes the krosan route a no-go imho.

Also, GSZ is "hermit into play" #5-8 for 1 extra mana that can be mystical tutored for and has built-in chalice@2 evasion.  It's solid.

[voltron00x]

Well stated.

If anyone tests the version I put up there, or is just analyzing it, if we can cut one card somewhere I'd like to play a 4th Preordain, but I couldn't figure out how to make it fit.

[vassago]

Ponder is usually my victim of cut decisions. Personally, I hate MisD, but I see the need for it. Other than that the only thing you could stand to lose for the 4th preordain is the 3rd cabal Therapy, which ups the blue count. 3 seize, 2 therapy and 5 pitch spells should be good enough, right?

[voltron00x]

Perhaps Cabal is an option. I felt safer with 3 when going off, though.

[Purple Hat]

This is what I've been goldfishing, it seems powerful.

4 druid
4 GSZ
1 dread return
1 dragon's breath
1 sutured ghoul
4 narcomoeba
1 lord of extinction

1 tinker
1 BSC

5 Mox
1 black lotus
1 sol ring
4 ESG

3 misdirection
4 force of will
2 cabal therapy

1 timewalk
1 ponder
1 brainstorm
1 ancestral

1 dryad arbor
8 fetch lands
6 duals

basically the big decisions here are:
No duress/sieze - the blue count was pretty sketchy and there is a tempo issue.  Since your only reliable source of black mana is your land drop you are stuck casting duress off that land.  I found this frequently delayed my casting of druid.  shifting to a heavier pitch counter build gave me a better flow.

ESG AND moxes - getting G2 on turn 1 reliably is difficult.  playing extra fast mana makes it far more reliable.  ESG also allows you to activate druid in the face of wasteland, overcome spheres and beat null rod.

15 lands - when I used to play dragon I found the best play against stax was often to simply play enough land to reliably replace lands that got wasted.  Once druid hits the table you need to generate one green mana once to win the game.  The easiest way to do that is to simply drop a land and tap it for green.

Tinker/BSC main deck - I have no real reason for this, I never cast it in 25 games.  it was always easier to win with the primary combo.  I think I'm probably better off replacing these with bounce, preordains or discard effects.

[vassago]

Perhaps Cabal is an option. I felt safer with 3 when going off, though.

Is it possible to make cuts to the mana base to include some basics? I think it might be best to make the deck better as a whole. Also, include random comment baout wasteland.

[Purple Hat]

Perhaps Cabal is an option. I felt safer with 3 when going off, though.

Is it possible to make cuts to the mana base to include some basics? I think it might be best to make the deck better as a whole. Also, include random comment baout wasteland.

basic lands make the deck not work.  The whole combo is based on the fact that Hermit Druid puts your deck in your graveyard if your deck contains no basic lands.

[vassago]

Perhaps Cabal is an option. I felt safer with 3 when going off, though.

Is it possible to make cuts to the mana base to include some basics? I think it might be best to make the deck better as a whole. Also, include random comment baout wasteland.

basic lands make the deck not work.  The whole combo is based on the fact that Hermit Druid puts your deck in your graveyard if your deck contains no basic lands.

oh yeah.... forgot about that part. :/

[nataz]

if you are worried about the blue count, there is always the possibility of dropping FOW and adding Unmask.