0 land hermit

[Thegreatgonzo]

Hello everyone. First, the decklist :

Elvish spirit guide 4
Chancellor of the tangle 4
Simian spirit guide 4
Narcomoebia 4
Goblin welder 4
Sutured ghoul 1
Hermit druid 4
Goblin charbelcher 4
Chrome mox 4
Black lotus 1
Lion's eye diamond 1
Lotus petal 1
Mox opal 1
Mox pearl 1
Mox sapphire 1
Mox jet 1
Mox emerald 1
Mox ruby 1
Mana crypt 1
Sol ring 1
Mana vault 1
Grim monolith 3
Chromatic star 3
Memory jar 1
Wheel of fortune 1
Regrowth 1
Cabal therapy 4
Bridge from below 1
Dragon breath 1


 


The chancellor really helps to merge these two strategies together. It's fast, non-land green mana, and serious ghoul fodder.
Hermit laughs at null rod, and belcher don't care about graveyard hate.  is quite easy to reach for belcher, but getting  on turn 2 is tricky at times. Chromatic star helps here, but careful mulligan decisions helps more.
Talking about mulligan, the "one's of" combo pieces kinda forbid serum powder, but the deck mulligans less than good old belcher.
The turn 2 kill rate is quite absurd.

Questions :

How much mox opal would you play?
I dream of hardcasting a chancellor, but  is prohibitive. Could it be fixed? (And is a plan C worth it?)
Is there something obvious I missed? (Channel was in, but got cut. Too hard to cast, and too conditional)

I think i'm onto something here, any ideas/criticism appreciated.

Thanks for reading

The great gonzo

[SadDubs]

I also agree that you're on to something here 

I just wish I had experience with belcher...

I'm glad someone is finally making use of elvish spirit guide 5-8, I'm not sure if it's often or not that you'll want to cast him but manamorphose would help get through that 3 green and I'm pretty sure it has seen play in belcher anyways.

on the mox opal issue, a one of is a nice safe option that I would probably stick to if I were bringing this to a tournament, but I'm curious to see how a redundant 4 of would do in this build, it too would also help out with enabling chancellor casting.

And also, coming from someone who has never played against or had any interest in piloting either hermit dec. or belcher before today, is welder really necessary here? I get that he can bring back a dead belcher or take out null rod, but you're already running a plan B and possible plan C, wouldn't if be better to cut him out to make room for slots that'll help your draws run smoother into your plan a or b, or maybe for more mana production to allow for plan C?

These are just some thoughts off the top of my head. I totally dig this idea, good luck.

[TheWhiteDragon]

I think both will have the same problem vs shops.  Chalice or sphere pretty much shuts down both game plans.  If you are facing a ton of null rods, i guess this is okay, but if you face chalice or spheres, it seems like it is in trouble.  Looks fairly explosive.  I'd think FoW will be pretty harsh too since you have 0 disruption to land a belcher/hermit.

[RichardD]

am I wrong or did you forget to add the dread return or reanimate?
manamorphoses seems highly desireable in this deck! They are good to put under Chrome Mox and iit also cantrips!!


i wouldn't play any mox opal's. how often would you have metalcraft without needing the opal to get it?
having multiple also sucks due to legendaryness...

[meadbert]

I recommend Land Grant along with 1 or 2 lands since that permanent land gives you the mana to activate Hermit without messing up your belches too much.

Green Sun's Zenith seems insane in a deck with so much acceleration.  Getting 3 mana should be no problem.

I am not even slightly sold on Manamorphose.  A deck like this needs to mulligan into a good hand.  Cantrips mess up your mulliganing decisions since you do not know what you will draw into.

You have a few options for the sideboard against Shops.  You can sideboard into a more land heavy, Druid centric build.  Alternatively you can go for the win on the play.

[SadDubs]

am I wrong or did you forget to add the dread return or reanimate?
manamorphoses seems highly desireable in this deck! They are good to put under Chrome Mox and iit also cantrips!!


i wouldn't play any mox opal's. how often would you have metalcraft without needing the opal to get it?
having multiple also sucks due to legendaryness...

good call, I completely forgot that the opal is legendary.

And as far as protection goes is it not unreasonable to run autumn's veil?

[RichardD]

I am not even slightly sold on Manamorphose.  A deck like this needs to mulligan into a good hand.  Cantrips mess up your mulliganing decisions since you do not know what you will draw into.

According to this logic Ancestral Recall is a bad card too, just like Brainstorm and Gitaxian Probe...

Green Sun's Zenith seems insane in a deck with so much acceleration.  Getting 3 mana should be no problem.

Isn't this a secondary mulligan too then? When not having a Hermit Druid in your opening hand.

I recommend Land Grant along with 1 or 2 lands since that permanent land gives you the mana to activate Hermit without messing up your belches too much.

I do agree that having permanent mana sources is probably better. This is the reason Belcher was playing lands too.
However, sacrificing 5-6 slots for it seems a bit much if the deck could possibly work without it.
I wouldn't immediately look this way for the answer to having mana on turn 2-4. I suggest trying more card advantage in that case. (Such as Manamorphoses.)

[meadbert]

I am not even slightly sold on Manamorphose.  A deck like this needs to mulligan into a good hand.  Cantrips mess up your mulliganing decisions since you do not know what you will draw into.

According to this logic Ancestral Recall is a bad card too, just like Brainstorm and Gitaxian Probe...

Gitaxian probe would be bad in this deck for the same reason.

Ancestral Recall is totally different because it provides card advantage.

In this deck Brainstorm would function more similarly to Ancestral Recall since after drawing 3 cards you are likely to have dead weight anyway.  You might have Bridge or Dragon Breath or Dread Return or Chancellor of the Tangle to throw back.

The problem with designing the deck around Ancestral and Brainstorm (other than blue mana) is that they are both 1ofs and you are not running tutors for them so most hands will have neither.

SX (AKA Meandeck Tendrils) was a list build around Brainstorm.  That deck certainly mulliganed, but not as much as other turn 1 kill decks.  You had to trust your Brainstorms to make good hands.  The same is true of Pitch Long and Grim Long.  What they really wanted was to use a Brainstorm to sculpt a hand.  SX needed every card it could get to build 10 storm so mulliganing to 5 was terrible.  Long could get away with that so SX is the more extreme example.

On the other hand a deck like Hermit Druid might only need 3 cards to get a turn 2 win.  Hermit Druid certainly loves Brainstorm for throwing back crap like Bridge from Below, but it can afford to mulligan aggressively to a good hand.  Dredge is another example.  While Brainstorm is great as far as providing 3 Dredges for one mana, it is what you play after your discard effect.  It is too risky to trust in Brainstorm to find your discard effect.  You are better off with Crop Rotation or Imperial Seal for that.

There are two directions you can go in with a deck like this.  One is to hope to mulligan into good hands.  The other is to draw into them.
Running the extra Dead Hermit draws makes drawing into them more painful.  Also Chancellor of the Tangle makes drawing into them more painful (and makes the Draw 7s worse)  Furthermore Hermit can afford to mulligan even more aggressively than Belcher since the mana requirements are so low.
For that reason I suggest aiming for mulliganing into powerful hands.  I see running a full set of Hermits, Green Sun's Zeniths and Belchers as a way to do so.

If instead you prefer to try to draw into good hands, then I would start by ditching Chancellor of the Tangle who makes a terrible top deck.
Then, if you want to draw a lot of cards in a combo deck add Sylvan Library since that is either an  Ancestral Recall or a Brainstorm every turn.
Then, since you are drawing a lot of cards and more likely to be able to get reasonably high storm counts, Empty the Warrens starts to look better.

Regarding mana fixing:  Land Grant does this for you.  You are running a 2 color deck so you run 4 Land Grants and 2 Taigas and you are in a much better position to have correctly colored mana than if you ran Chromatic Stars and Manamorphose.

If you are aiming for Storm with Tendrils or Empty the Warrens then the cantrips look better since by chaining them together you can in theory do stuff like Empty the Warrens for 9 or Tendrils for 10 on turn 1, but Belcher and Hermit do not care about Storm and with my deck clogged up with Dread Return, Dragon Breath, Sutured Ghoul, Bridge from Below, 4 Narcomoeba and 4 Chancellor of the Tangle, then last thing I want to be doing is hoping to lucky with a top deck.

Good luck!

[TheWhiteDragon]

To echo somewhat what meadbert said, probe would be awful in the deck.  Manamorphose is infinitely better, but probably not too useful.  If you did use it, you'ld have access to blue, and then no reason not to run ancestral.  Ancestral is good because, other than the CA, it digs you 3 deep instead of 1...tripling your odds of drawing what you want.  GSZ is also not like extra mulligans - it is like running hermit 5-8 that cost 2G.  It effectively ramps your bombs up to 12 instead of 8.  Also, I think a singleton taiga and a pair of land grants would not be terrible.

[Purple Hat]

I think you can run at least one more opal. 

[Thegreatgonzo]

I hate this card, but I'm afraid land grant is indeed the way to go. It sucks if it gets countered, but the deck kinda loose to F.o.W. anyway.
Land grant also makes chalice a lot weaker against you, since you can go land grant / spirit guide for the turn 1 hermit.
Green sun's zenith is hot, but the deck have enough bombs I think. Sweet tech if you run ancient tomb in the side.

Thanks for the feedback anyway, I'll post a more detailled post (with updated list, and maybe some testing results) by the end of next week. Too much work this week.

bye

The greatgonzo

[RichardD]

People clearly didn't understand my comparison of draw spells to Manamorphoses.

I would never add an extra color, but taking out 6 cards for Land Grant + Lands seems very intrusive.
This would be acceptable only if it increases your chances of getting the combo out earlier. Testing would have to prove that.

The real question is; what would you take out?
Meadbert indicates he would cut the Chancellors, but that would disintegrate your Ghoul strategy (losing the fat).
I would definitely loose the Chromatic Sphere's before the Chancellors. Also the Memory Jar seems suboptimal, but which other cards need to go too?

[Charlie]

People clearly didn't understand my comparison of draw spells to Manamorphoses.

I would never add an extra color, but taking out 6 cards for Land Grant + Lands seems very intrusive.
This would be acceptable only if it increases your chances of getting the combo out earlier. Testing would have to prove that.

The real question is; what would you take out?
Meadbert indicates he would cut the Chancellors, but that would disintegrate your Ghoul strategy (losing the fat).
I would definitely loose the Chromatic Sphere's before the Chancellors. Also the Memory Jar seems suboptimal, but which other cards need to go too?

8 Spirit Guides+4 Hermit+4 Nacromeoba+4 Goblin Welder+Dragon Breath is 29 power already. But Chromatic Sphere probably should go first.

[Wagner]

I've really not sure what the Narcomebas are for. Once you activate Druid, you should win with Ghoul anyway. If you don't, you have no deck left to use the Narcomoebas. You can't even use them + Therapy to protect your Ghoul since any removal will hit the already in play ghoul at that point. I'm confused.

Same goes for Bridge From Below.

[RichardD]

I've really not sure what the Narcomebas are for. Once you activate Druid, you should win with Ghoul anyway. If you don't, you have no deck left to use the Narcomoebas. You can't even use them + Therapy to protect your Ghoul since any removal will hit the already in play ghoul at that point. I'm confused.

Same goes for Bridge From Below.

The Narcomoeba's need to be in play, so that you have 3 creatures to sacrifice to Cabal Therapy first and then to the Dread Return, so that you actually get the Ghoul into play.

Perhaps Bridge from Below creates extra creatures for possibly a second Dread Return, if the first one fails?
But I guess the Bridge isn't really needed, no.

[Thegreatgonzo]

Bridge is here so you can sac narcomoebia to cabal therapies, and still have 3 zombie tokens to pay for the dread return.
You don't play blue, so you often need to therapy yourself to put combo pieces in the yard. The only other discard outlets are lion's eye diamond and wheel of fortune.

[meadbert]

Meadbert indicates he would cut the Chancellors, but that would disintegrate your Ghoul strategy (losing the fat).
I would definitely loose the Chromatic Sphere's before the Chancellors. Also the Memory Jar seems suboptimal, but which other cards need to go too?

I might not cut the Chancellors.  I said I were to go the cantrip route (which I think is worse) then I would cut Chancellors since they are dead top decks.

Instead I think it would better to try to mulligan into hands with turn one Druid, GSZ or Belcher.  For that purpose Chancellor is much stronger.

I would probably do this:
-3 Welder (Keep 1 so you can GSZ for it if Belcher or Jar are in the yard)
-3 Chromatic Star (Cantrips are bad and we don't need the color fixing)
-1 Narco (You can probably get away with running 3.  If you get 2 in hand you are screwed.
-1 Chrome Mox (Having 2 in your hand is rarely a good thing and this halves the probability of that.)
-1 Regrowth
-1 Cabal Therapy (Unlikely to hard cast and you rarely need to or even can flashback all 4 to safely go off)

+1 Dread Return (Obviously you need one )
+4 Green Sun's Zenith
+4 Land Grant
+1 Taiga

The reason you run Bridge is because it is better than 2 Narcomoebas.

Consider:  You could run 4 Narcoes allowing you only 2 Therapies to clean up a hand before you fail to have enough creatures in play to Dread Return.
Instead:  You could run 2 Narcoes and 1 Bridge and Therapy 3 times to clean up a hand.  This is a better effect and takes fewer spots.  In reality you can Narco stuck in hand which would be a problem.

My Hermit experience is mostly in a deck that had consistent access to blue and black meaning you could hardcast Narcomoebas and hardcast a Therapy at yourself to go off so it is possible that all 4 Narcomoebas and all 4 Therapies are needed, but my intuition says they are not.

[Daenyth]

You can't GSZ for welder because it's not green.

[meadbert]

You can't GSZ for welder because it's not green.

Thank you.  So considering that, does Welder make sense at all?

[Wagner]

Wow, I completely missed that Ghoul needed to be brought back.

If we are running 4 GSZ and Land Grant (I really approve of land grant) would a single Dryad Arbor be good for the deck? It is slower for sure, but it can be gotten with GSZ for cheap and can be fetched with Land Grant too. I played SX for a while with 2 lands and just 4 land grants and I never had any problem getting them out of the deck. I'm guessing it would mean a missed Belcher once in a while, but since this deck is not all about Belcher, it might be worth trying.

[meadbert]

Should Welder be a 4th Monolith?

[RichardD]

Wow, I completely missed that Ghoul needed to be brought back.

If we are running 4 GSZ and Land Grant (I really approve of land grant) would a single Dryad Arbor be good for the deck? It is slower for sure, but it can be gotten with GSZ for cheap and can be fetched with Land Grant too. I played SX for a while with 2 lands and just 4 land grants and I never had any problem getting them out of the deck. I'm guessing it would mean a missed Belcher once in a while, but since this deck is not all about Belcher, it might be worth trying.

With this deck being a one-shot or nothing I would indeed also suggest removing the Welders.
Against which decks would Welder be needed and why isn't an extra Belcher better then?

I wouldn't add the Dryad Arbor since it will never matter.
The GSZ will be needed to get Hermit Druid and then you only need 1 green mana to activate it.
Spending that one green for GSZ seems poor.

Should Welder be a 4th Monolith?

Or a Bayou?
Or after cutting the welders, should the Taiga be a Bayou?

[metalhead]

How about try xantid swarm over welder, its gszable, gives you the needed reziliance vs counters, and between chancelors, esg, and landgrant>>duels, green is your most consistent initial mana color.

[RichardD]

How about try xantid swarm over welder, its gszable, gives you the needed reziliance vs counters, and between chancelors, esg, and landgrant>>duels, green is your most consistent initial mana color.

Not a bad idea.
I'm really tempted to try and play this list at the next vintage event near me.

What do you think the SB should look like?

4 Nature Claim
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Tinker
1 Robot
3 Pyroblast
2 Ingot Chewer

or other cards?

[meadbert]

So if you add a Bayou you could potentially drop Red altogether and then use Dark Rituals instead of Grim Monolith.
Yawg and Demonic would also be good additions.

[metalhead]

And if u add back, in addition to will and demonic, u can play necro, I was using it in belcher and cast it way more than expected

[RichardD]

So if you add a Bayou you could potentially drop Red altogether and then use Dark Rituals instead of Grim Monolith.
Yawg and Demonic would also be good additions.

LOL, that way we'd be back on track for 1-Land Belcher with FEB, because you'd be adding a Tendrils as well if you have Rituals + Will.

[meadbert]

I have been testing various lists and I think I have one that is fairly solid:
33 Fast Mana
    12 Spirit Guides
    10 Restricted Artifact Mana
    6 (4 Land Grant + 2 Taiga)
    4 Chrome Mox
    1 Tinder Wall

11 Dead Combo Cards
    4 Therapy
    3 Narcomoeba
    1 Bridge From Below
    1 Dread Return
    1 Sutured Ghoul
    1 Dragon Breath

16 Bombs
    4 Goblin Charbelcher
    4 Hermit Druid
    4 Green Sun's Zenith
    1 Wheel Of Fortune
    1 Memory Jar
    2 Empty the Warrens

Adding black mana did not really work out.  It only helped with turn 1 Druid or GSZ if you had Green Source + Black Source already which was rare.  One you had Green + Black you already had an extra spirit guild anyway.
4 Rits + Necro is not enough because you get too many hands with Necro and then no Rit, Lotus.

LED might belong, but I am not sure.  It activates Belcher or Druid which is nice if your Taiga was Wasted.  Occationally you want the discard if you have combo pieces in hand.
Usually you would rather have something else.
16 Bombs is about right.

Chrome Mox was better than expected largely because you could have Bridge or Narco in hand.  Also because of "extra bombs" and also because of great synergy with Chancellor of the Tangle.
I was wrong to suggest cutting it to three earlier.

Mox Opal is very borderline.  If I needed more color fixing it would make more sense, but right now with basically 14 fast artifact Mana it is dead slightly too often.  I could be wrong on this and maybe adding LED would push it over the edge, but for now I mostly need green and with 8 Green Spirit Guids that is not too problematic.

The token Tinderwall is to get an extra mana or filer to red with GSZ if need be.  Basically you pay  to put Tinderwall into play and then sac for  which you might need for Wheel or Warrens.

Second Taiga is wanted in case you have first Taiga in hand or in case of having 2 Land Grants in hand.  Note that having 2 of those in hand is about 80% higher than having 2 of a normal 4of so it is fairly common.

A big question is Belcher #4 vs Warrens and it really depends what you are playing against.  It is possible that a 3/3 split is better.

[Ten-Ten]

33 Fast Mana
    12 Spirit Guides   
   10 Restricted Artifact Mana
    6 (4 Land Grant + 2 Taiga)
    4 Chrome Mox
    1 Tinder Wall

I know of only two spirit guides, am I missing something?

[Random Noob]

33 Fast Mana
    12 Spirit Guides    
   10 Restricted Artifact Mana
    6 (4 Land Grant + 2 Taiga)
    4 Chrome Mox
    1 Tinder Wall

I know of only two spirit guides, am I missing something?

Could be Summoner's Pact?