////////////DISCLAIMER//////////////
This deck is out of date for my new version go here (its sultai with oko)
https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/midnight-lands-sultai-with-oko/
For my new post wrenn pre oko jund list go here
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1773507
And for my super out of date version I played right before wrenn and six go here
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2150494#paper
side note, I'm gonna try not to complain that I don't have enough space a lot. It's gotten so bad that in my play group my friends just tell me to run 61 cards.
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With those out of the way I'll dive in. This is pretty close to a home brew, it's a hybrid between Loam pox and lands.
WHY THIS INSTEAD OF JUST LANDS:
(side note, this is partially due to my love for this play strategy and liking it more than lands play strategy)
We strengthen game 1 against some combo decks be it 2 piece combo decks or critical mass combo decks with our discard spells such as
Raven's Crime
Hymn to Tourach
Thought Seize. Also don't underestimate the power of
Smallpox
in hitting them off the basic land they fetched to play around wasteland, sometimes that one mana can be crucial and we can still kill it. The part that's weaker for us compared to normal lands against combo is the trimming of 2
Exploration
and 1
Crop Rotation
along with some of the combo lands being
Dark Depths
and
Thespian's Stage
. Trimming Dark depths makes us a bit slower to getting to the combo but helps around those "feels bad" lands that don't tap for mana moments. I think the extra grind of the deck and improved game 1 combo matches allows us the extra time to assemble the combo. Stage is at 3 instead of 2 like depths due to its utility and power without depths. The explorations are very powerful and the main constraint of not having more is space (that is the reason there are a lot of 2x/3x of cards and only 2 cards that are 4x). The same is true for crop rotation, but there is actually a valid reason (besides not enough space) to run less than "I really like raven's crime and crime gets worse when you have no lands due to playing them all off exploration". This reason is due to blue decks, it feels really bad to have your crop rotation counterspelled; especially against wasteland decks. This deck rides a very thin line between "being its own deck" and having upsides in ways lands does not, and just being flat out "worse lands". This idea of having your "combo hate" mainboard lets the deck be a bit more well rounded than lands and have more sideboard slots we can play with (sadly I ate up all that sideboard space with living wishes). Speaking of living wish, the reason I chose living wishe is because it allows us to be more resilient game 2/3 against graveyard hate and game 1 lets us fight better against
Blood Moon
decks or other "Stax/prison" decks. Basically between silver bullets and a more resilient game 2/3 I thought it was worth the sideboard slots.
Due to the configuration and reasons I mentioned earlier we are a bit stronger against combo, this comes at a price to the creature match ups. We can be slower with the smaller amount of depths and stages but we have 2 wishes to grab that plan from the sideboard along with
Shriekmaw
to buy time; along with Elvish Reclaimer (which survives bolt when you have 3 lands in grave) which can help get key lands or just combo lands. I am also running what may be less copies of
Punishing Fire
than lands which hurts a bit against delver decks. But I think this is fine because most delver decks seem to be moving into green for
Wrenn and Six
which coincidentally means they get
Tarmogoyf
which is extremely hard to kill with pfire in the match (this makes
Smallpox
and abrupt decay better. We are also running
Wrenn and Six
to help out in the creature match ups along with creating diversity in "surgical targets" to help post board matches.
Against control decks we usually try to just grind better than them while having an extremely powerful finisher through repeatable marit lage tokens. We shred their hand with
Raven's Crime
combined with
Life from the Loam
. We can
Bojuka Bog
them if they are on a
Snapcaster Mage
deck or if their grave holds any other meaning ex:
Accumulated Knowledge
. If they have a greedy mana base our
Wasteland
or
Living Wish
for
Ghost Quarter
plan can put in a lot of work even if they don't have a greedy mana base with
Life from the Loam
. To take care of their walkers we have
Punishing Fire
which here it can be more acceptable if we have less due to the games going longer.
Smallpox
can be great at hitting them hard if they trip up on land drops at all or if they are trying to curve out into something. Non blue control decks can be a little rough through blood moon effects but we have wish for
Reclamation Sage
and 2
Abrupt Decay
main board along with 4
Mox Diamond
a basic forest/swamp, and a
Riftstone Portal
. We also have the nice trick due to the "new ish" rulings change so our
Dark Depths
enters with 0 counters on it if they play
Blood Moon
which allows us to combo off their hate piece; always a blast.
THE DAMN DREADED NUMBERS GAME:
For the love of god do I hate changing cards in this deck due to the tightness of the cards and their uses and I tinker and change them around a lot too; nightmare. So in this part I'm going to attempt to justify the numbers of each of the cards in the list that I haven't mentioned already.
(cards I think the numbers are more flexible on):
Crop Rotation
Living Wish
Exploration
Wasteland
Barren Moor
(cards I think the numbers are less flexible on but still changable)
Thoughtseize
Raven's Crime
Punishing Fire
Smallpox
Wrenn and Six
Life from the Loam
Verdant Catacombs
Rishadan Port
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Dark Depths
(you can also consider
Abrupt Decay
maybe an additional side or moving some side but I didn't like that in my testing, also cutting hymn/thoughseize, I think, is a trap and makes the deck play a bit more like a "bad lands" deck, so don't. The best way to do that would probably to supplement whichever you cut with the other one or more discard.)
"Utility lands"
I'll start off with lands, and in that utility lands. It's decently self explanatory on why to run 1 of each (non mana denial) "utility" land due to
Crop Rotation
and the sideboard
Elvish Reclaimer
. Contrary to this there are 2 utility lands that aren't great with crop rotation, these are
Barren Moor
and
Riftstone Portal
. The cycle land deserves it spot in the deck with
Wrenn and Six
and
Life from the Loam
and is very powerful with either, to the point this is one of those cards I'm extremely tempted to go up to 2 of; besides not having space the reason not to is the "enters tapped" part. With currently how the deck plays i could also very easily see this be replaced with either
Sheltered Thicket
or
Canyon Slough
the latter being the more likely of the two. The three utility lands that are good with crop rotation pretty self explanatory,
Karakas
for legendary creature,
Bojuka Bog
for graveyard hate, and
The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
for go wide strategies and to compliment the
Rishadan Port
Wasteland
Smallpox
mana denial plan. Speaking of mana denial plan, those two lands could be considered "utility" lands and that, as the main focus of the deck is why they are there. For the last two lands that you could consider "utility" they would be
Grove of the Burnwillows
and
Thespian's Stage
, grove is obviously there for
Punishing Fire
and partially to help get red for
Wrenn and Six
. Stage is a bit more than just a make a 20/20 and kill you land, it helps copy important duals or basics to either play around
Wasteland
or fix my colors (deck is very color heavy, never underestimate its desire for colors, side reason on why only 3 stages). Also it helps very heavily with the mana denial plan with either copy
Rishadan Port
or
Wasteland
, and it gets rather obnoxious when double or even triple porting your opponent down. And of course there is
Maze of Ith
, staving off creatures with double or tripple maze can win games and we can ignore the doesn't tap for mana part with
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
and
Riftstone Portal
.
"I need My colors please"
(side note, sometimes you just have to rotate for your red to play
Wrenn and Six
or
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
for black mana/tap depths for mana.)
This deck is greedy, extremely color greedy, this is the reason we run 2
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
(also portal) that and the ability for non mana lands now able to tap for mana. We also run 2
Bayou
and 1
Badlands
to help cast our double color spells, so many of our cards are 1 mana and cost a color that isn't always the same color or cost 2 mana of the same color or different colors. This is also the importance of 4
Verdant Catacombs
Mox Diamond
its nicer with the loam/wrenn plan and they are crucial to the deck running properly between colored sources and diamond helping get to "turn 2" on turn 1 for either turn 1
Rishadan Port
on their upkeep on the draw, or turn 1 2 drop be it
Hymn to Tourach
Smallpox
Punishing Fire
Life from the Loam
Wrenn and Six
. There have been many times I've thought of adding
Taiga
to the deck but I don't thing it's necessary and it takes up a slot which the deck can't afford (the 4th verdant is usually just better).
"
Dark Depths
/Finisher lands"
Yeah this land is different than all the other lands in the deck, it's the main wincon of the deck, the deck rarely wins without it and only really through punishing fire otherwise (maybe jank beats from wish targets). This land doesn't really fit anywhere else and I consider it one of the two "combo lands" of the deck next to
Thespian's Stage
which better fits under utility lands imo. Never forget you can just manually remove the counters on this land, the deck grinds well enough and slow enough where if you can afford to remove the counters naturally with unused mana just do it!
"Lands Matter"
Being the main engines of this deck it may be a bit surprising I'm only running 3 of each life from the loamd
Wrenn and Six
. I have reasons for both of these being 3 not 4, and if you had to choose which to add a 4th to I'd say put in the 4th loam. If you examine the current consensus of the lands players it's basically to play 4 loam 2 wrenn (6 cards), and this makes complete sense for that deck (we also play 6 of these engine cards). The key here is you have to remember, THIS ISN'T LANDS VERBATIM. The 3rd wrenn is better with smallpox (when wrenn is in play imo) and our higher spell count (why we don't always dredge, sometimes we should just draw instead). This is also due to our slightly weaker stance against creature decks where wrenn is better and loam is usually weaker. contrary to this we run less
Life from the Loam
which is explained by the reason we run 3 wrenn instead of 2, but there is also the reason we run slower than lands does in some ways and we grind for longer. The last reason to run 3 loam instead of 4 is I found my self boarding one out post board to help be less susceptible to surgical extraction, which an even loam/wrenn split also helps (along with living wish to protect depths); so to make room in the deck for more other cards I cut 1 loam. Lastly there is also exploration, this is one of the cards I would love to add 1 more to, and you would not be insane to run 4 but I would run 3, mainly for space also for raven's crime and only running 3 loams making it weaker. This card is nuts and I love it, I want to run more but even lands only use to run 1
Manabond
(but they run gamble so this point is a bit lackluster and false).
"Tutors"
My tutors usually find lands, cards that combo with lands, or removal. The two cards that tutor are
Crop Rotation
Living Wish
which both grab crucial lands. The rotate was explained earlier why I have settled on 3 and I'm not willing to go under 3, as for living wish I honestly think there could be a 3rd copy somewhere in the 75, possibly in the sideboard (ik sounds crazy but hear me out). The reason for this is wish is great at tutoring silver bullets but not in all matches so sometimes it doesn't get much of anything useful and on top of that it's mainly there to help fight the issue of grave hate game 2/3 so you wouldn't exactly need it game 1 where you can grind longer, and if you aren't grinding long game 1 wish most likely won't be worth it because you'll get run over anyways before you can even cast it and play/cast the card you get with it.
"Removal Spells"
We have
Punishing Fire
Abrupt Decay
Smallpox
to help remove the opponents useful threats and cards that stuck into play, pfire is pretty obvious and I've already explained a bit about my numbers and choices for it and think 2 is the correct number at this point in time.
Smallpox
can be extremely powerful and sometimes even backbreaking, we split the symmetry of this card in half ;) due to the composition of the deck. We run 0 creatures mainboard and most of the ones side don't care about
Smallpox
, the discard is in our favor due to the loam and wrenn picking up a land which we usually discard to it (or pfire/crime). The Sacrifice land part is offset from the explorations, loam, wrenn, and amount of lands in the deck (31 atm). Lastly the 1 life is usually irrelevant and the part that actually effects us more than it effects the opponent due to us not applying pressure in small increments of damage.
"Discard"
This pairs extrememly well with the other plans of the deck, we operate on stopping the opponent from playing the game, we go from discard into mana denial into removal for whatever slips through the cracks. The discard suit is
Hymn to Tourach
thoughseize
Raven's Crime
. I'm running 2 hymn due to them being great in the early game but imo not powerful enough late game to warrant the 3rd or 4th slot, but there is a debate to squeeze a 3rd in (not reccommended due to this and the lack of power against graveyard decks and wrenn becoming more popular).
Thoughtseize
is beautiful and extremely powerful, if our burn/fast aggro matchups weren't so painful id be tempted to run 3 main (this card can easily be a 4 of if your meta isn't going to run you over with aggro, and if you still want 4 and you have aggro I'd go 2 seize 2
Inquisition of Kozilek
for this cut I'd cut hymn which makes the urborg slot more flexible). Lastly
Raven's Crime
is a hidden gem and I love this card, it can do so much damage to a deck with loam; the card hymn wish it was late game. I would love to run 2 main so badly but have never been able to justify it also due to aggro matches but it is probably my favorite non
Smallpox
card in the entire deck hands down (this is completely an emotional opinion). Another reason to actually run a 2nd copy is the power of
Force of Negation
's exile clause but haven't gone that far off the deep end yet. The main reason I haven't added the 2nd copy to the sideboard is due to graveyard hate hosing it extremely heavily be it mass grave hate or surgical loam which demolishes this card's power.
SIDEBOARD SLOTS:
As a living wish deck you can kind of imagine we are a deck with only 10 sideboard slots which is a bit harsh, but we also get to run our own "
Demonic Tutor
" in the form of living wish and some of those cards are in the sideboard too so its more of a 2 mana
Mastermind's Acquisition
. So in reality our sideboard is a bit smaller but that's usually fine, but still hurts.
"Actual sideboard cards"
This is meta based so I think you can flex these sideboard slots however you deem necessary but I will tell you D&T is a nightmare due to
Sanctum Prelate
on 2 destroying a lot of the deck especially with so many of their outs being able to stop a marit lage token and when you can't get the pieces back you die even with the 20 extra life. Due to that and the amount of bomberman and miracles in my meta I'm willing to run 2 massacre in my board. This along with the
Pithing Needle
I'd consider extremely flexible and feel free to change them.
Carpet of Flowers
is a house and I refuse to run less than 2 in my board atm, tbh you could probably run 1 but this card is so much more powerful than you expect. It demolishes delvers mana denial plan, and against control decks and blue combo decks it rips people apart with ravens crime or extra discard. This is our deck's sol ring, if your meta is blue enough I'd almost be tempted to run it main. Not only does it run as sol ring but it can be even more powerful, it grows with the game and on top of that gives us colored mana which if the "I need My colors please" section doesn't convey the meaning enough to you try the deck a bit, it wants its colored mana so badly; just imagine if sol ring was black lotus but didn't sac its self, that's this card!
Drop of Honey
is extremely powerful and tbh if you're going to increase a card count in this sideboard, add a second drop imo. Speaking of cards I'd be tempted to add a second of,
Chains of Mephistopheles
this card is extremely helpful against blue decks, the main reason I'm more comfortable with only 1 copy is due to 4 color delver and snow patrol being able to run
Abrupt Decay
now and it becomes a bit less powerful, also against miracles
Council's Judgment
along with now new
Teferi, Time Raveler
which can bounce it and ignore its effect even through the bounce. To be brutally honest I don't think its worth the money to play the 2nd one. It's already a card where it's only maybe worth it to run a second ignoring price (but maybe I'm just a cheapskate).
Nether Void
is also a card that isn't completely needed but has a lot of power with
Carpet of Flowers
along with wrenn, port and
Abrupt Decay
but nonbos with
Raven's Crime
and
Punishing Fire
. In some matches it just kills the opponent or at the least buys enough time to kill them. And in some it just tells the opponent they flat out are out of the game. So its flexible but I'd recommend running one.
"Living Wish Sideboard Cards"
Of course you can change these but I just run these 5 and don't think you should cut any, if anything add more and maybe the 3rd wish main.
Shriekmaw
would be the weakest but has a lot of power against many threats and the fear can get in under the radar against walkers, also crucial to wish for this against D&T before prelate.
Reclamation Sage
helps kill
Leyline of the Void
sideboard along with
Blood Moon
and
Ensnaring Bridge
. Otherwise you'd be surprised how much work this card can do.
Elvish Reclaimer
is our 4th/5th crop rotation out of living wish but it's repeatable and can block pretty well when you have its "landhold" ability to get +2/+2 becoming a 3/4.
Vampire Hexmage
is our depths combo piece that gets around already having made a land drop, it also blocks decently well in a pinch.
Dark Depths
is depths, if you got this far you know why its there.
Ghost Quarter
this card is very powerful and can be great to loop with
Life from the Loam
personally I would rather run this over the 4th
Wasteland
, my logic behind this is if you need wasteland that badly, ghost quarter is virtually the same thing, and it can be better to gimp some decks. There is a valid argument on running wasteland over this though tbh.
"Alternate Sideboard Ideas"
You could shift the sideboard for whatever meta you need to play towards, if I'm going into a blind playspace with the current over all meta the changed I'd make are -2
Pithing Needle
-2
Massacre
+1
Crop Rotation
+1
Abrupt Decay
+1
Bojuka Bog
+1
Living Wish
. If you care less about wrenn you could not run the bog side and run something else, also the wish is dependent on how grave hate heavy your meta is along with a few other things.
This deck is a blast to play if you have a chance. I'd recommend proxying it up and trying it out if you have a chance, if you have any questions feel free to ask and I'll attempt to get back to you on it, same if you think I should write more in this description I'd love to explain more. Tyvm for reading all this, the deck is my pet deck I have been messing around with for the past year.
