Introduction:
What started out as a fun value deck has now become an insane land storm deck. Expect to be able to storm off between turns 5-7, meaning you draw your entire deck and play Labman for the win. While the deck operated as a glass cannon at first, added redundancy to the deck has made it more quite formidable. We are trying to assemble one of several different engines to draw through our entire deck and win. The basic game plan is to have card ramp, card draw (Tatyova), and a mana generator to draw through our wntire deck and then win through a Laboratory Maniac. Alternatively we can play and sack a bunch of lands to create an insurmountable number of Titania and Obstinate Baloth tokens. We also want to sack off our lands to put them in grave to allow for massive draws through cards like World Shaper and Splendid Reclamation.
I'm going to explain each of the pieces and why we play them.
Tatyova:
The main star of the deck. While the deck can operate without her, it becomes almost impossible to storm off. We need her on board to be able to chain draw through our deck, there is no effect that replaces her draw for us. I've thought about playing Nissa, Vital Force but she's too slow. She requires an entire turn where no one does any damage to her whatsoever. While we can Time Warp and Ultimate her back to back, the play is unlikely to happen enough that I decided against including it. Tatyova has to stay alive for the deck to function.
Disruption and Protection:
Protecting tatyova is of the utmost importance. without her a lot of our deck falls apart. We run three coutnerspells, Heroic Intervention, and Ascenticism, Sylvan SafeKeeper, and Lightning Greaves to protect her. If we have to can also use Barrin, Master Wizard's ability to bounce her to our hand.
For disruption we play Cylconic Rift and Sunder. Sunder is particularly powerful in this deck, because we have to many ways to sac our lands and replay them again. We can also just use our creatures to drop back most of our lands and continue while our opponents try to piece together their land. Barrin, Master Wizard is also a great peice of disruption in the deck. We have no issue sacking off our lands to bounce troublesome creatures.
Mana Generators:
We have three mana generators in the deck: Lotus Cobra, Amulet of Vigor, and Turnabout. These allow us to generate mana as we play lands to continue through our combo. Without a mana generator the deck struggles to chain off and draw.
Recursion:
Graveyard recursion is a big part of the deck. it allows us to reuse powerful effects and to assemble any combo piece we may be missing. We'll divide graveyard recursion into two camps: utility card recursion and land recursion. Utility card recursion comes in the form of Eternal Witness, Regrowth, Wild Dreams, and Time Spiral. These help us to recur combo pieces and to reuse our land recursion. Land recursion helps us to generate massive amounts of mana and acts as our most powerful form of card draw. We have three pieces of land recursion: World Shaper, Splendid Reclamation, and Titania, Protector of Argoth. While World Shaper can be tricky in our deck sometimes, we can easily sack him off with a pongify, beastwithin, or a Barrin, Master Wizard.
Sacrifice:
Sacrificing helps us to generate massive draw and mana once we are able to get our hands on some recursion. For sacrificing oulets we have Sylvan Safekeeper, Zuran Orb, and Barril, Master Wizard. We have several ways to search out each of these pieces.
Ramp:
Ramp is pretty self explanatory, it helps us to play more land and accelerate our deck. Ideally we want to have a turn three to four tatyova, although some setups allow us to have Tatyova on turn 2. One of the best pieces of ramp in the deck is Patron of the Moon. The ability to drop 2 lands from hand for 1 while drawing two cards is incredibly powerful. Almost every time you drop him and have lands in hand you should win.
Trinket Mage Engine
Trinket Mage serves as a toolbox engine in our deck. He can find one of three pieces: land sacrifice (Zuran Orb), mana generation (amulet of vigor), or ramp for next turn (Sol Ring and Mana Vault).
Token Generators:
We have two cards that produce tokens for us Obsinate Baloth and Titania, Protector of Argoth. While creature combat is not our main wincon, the tokens help to provide fodder for Barril and they can close out the game if the combo finished is denied to us.
Combos:
These are some of the straightforward combos we can do with our deck. Most of them them require Tatyova on board. While these combos may seem tempting most of the time, most of our combos tend to be adhoc. We either recur a ton of lands and draw our entire deck in one fell swoop or we can use a giant Windfall for a win. Don't feel you have to do these combos to win, however they are there if you happen to assemble them.
- Patron of the Moon + Lotus Cobra + Simic Chamber in your hand.
It draws your entire deck and allows a Labman win.
- Patron of the Moon + Amulet of Vigor + Simic Chamber in Hand
Same as above, allows you to draw your entire deck
- Patron of the Moon + Amulet of Vigor + Simic Chamber (No Tatyova)
Generates infinite Mana
*Conclusion
While the deck is still a work in progress, it's very powerful in its current form. I've played it against a Staxish build of Meren and it was able to whether whatever disruption was put forward. The major weakness right now is that if your opponent is privy to your plan they will remove your mana generators before you're able to go off. If you don't have a mana generator you're going to be playing a rough game of token generation, which is not the deck's main plan. While tokens can close a game, it's not where we want to be. The deck is highly redundant and isa blast to play. Tell me any ideas or criticism you may have, I'd love to hear what you have to say.
Flip
