Green Sun's Zenith
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Brian Kelly ( @brianpk80 ) was adamant that Sylvan Caryatid be included in his GSZ Gush deck. His logic was that it was a nigh unkillable way of ramping into Dromokas, Emrakul the Promised End, and Jaces. Your results might vary.
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@ChubbyRain
I was going to say the same thing. What's special about Caryatid is it can only be disrupted by Revoker, which makes it unique to other mana sources in Vintage.
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@desolutionist Even then, it still blocks the Revoker, making it better than most other mana sources in that situation. It really wasn't terrible, but it depends on the build of the deck. Sounds like most people are considering the Fish route.
Titania is also a pretty bombish card for a fair deck and might help closing out a game. It combos well with Wasteland.
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Don't know how I feel about a toolbox approach, but with all of the great 3 drops Mana Drain + GSZ in a Deck with DRS, Managorger Hydra, Goyf, and (most importantly) Leovold seems like a Solid approach to me. DRS helps you keep drain mana up in a deck running wastelands as well, which is one of my favorite things about the card.
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If I were to play Ramunap Excavator, I would play WGB and play it alongside Knight of the Reliquary, Deathrite Shaman and Tireless Tracker. I'm not sure you should be playing Green Sun's Zenith in such a build though.
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Just need a Horn of Greed effect on a green dude then Ramunup + Lotus Cobra + Horn of Greed dude can draw you your deck yay.
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Also a way to play all the lands you draw. FASTBOND!
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Andy, I am so with you on Excavator. Without making any promises about it being good, I can say that I am more excited to play this card, than just about any new card I can remember. With regards to Zenith, I'm theorycrafting myself into a tension that I hope you can offer some insight into...
It seems like Excavator wants to pair with other things that attack mana. Clearly Strip and Waste are ideal... and that leads me to thinking about cards like Thorn and then secondarily things like Ancient Tomb and Null Rod...
Now it almost feels like I'm on the verge of building a green Eldrazi deck? Or something like BGR with Deathrite and Ancient Grudge? Or do we want Thalia and go WGR? I find myself wanting to include TKS in these builds, since we are almost always running enough colorless lands to cast it, and are almost certainly running some ramp, either Noble, Deathrite, or Ancient Tomb... ok, enough Brainstorming (wait, should we splash blue for Brainstorm?... maybe not... Timewalk?) Since we are probably running taxing effects, I'm not sure how good Zenith is? Or can we just power through it with dorks / hitting every land drop via fetchland recursion?
Anyway, I'll let the group chew on that one. Happy brewing to you all.
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Yeah this card seems awesome. The tax idea is interesting. When I first read the card I was called in a direction halfway between legacy lands and the old turbo land decks with the role of horn of greed being played by 8 crucible + excavator and fastbond plus 4 explorations being acceleration. Maybe paired with null rod. And crop rotation for strip mine and chasm.
But you might be right where you need extra taxing to really make the mana denial enough to lock them out.
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@walking.dude Yeah... I can see why a fast, combo style deck would be attractive. I'm really just not good at those types of decks, so this might just be me here, but I see this fitting into a soft locking, mid-range type deck though for the following reasons.
Firstly, the advantages it has over Crucible. (I actually suspect these to be substantial.) 1. A main drawback of Crucible is just that the second one doesn't do much. Excavator just stacks damage, so, even though the second one is just a bear, at that point you are actually hitting for 4 a turn and presumably Wasting 1 land per turn... Add a Null Rod or a taxing effect and that alone feels like game a lot of the time.
Secondly, this card is great with Thorn, and much better with Thorn than Crucible is, for obvious reasons. Considering that Thorn is pretty common right now, and pretty good right now, this card is effectively cheaper than a Crucible. Both say 3 on them, but in an environment with a lot of Thorns, from a statistical standpoint, this thing will be actual 3 much more often then Crucible. And again, in a deck with 4 Thorns and some number of Thalias... again I think you would see Wastelock with a taxing effect in play and hitting for 4 a turn is pretty hard to come back from. I think those kind of setups would produce a lot of cheep wins.
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You all are thinking on the exact opposite spectrum I am in regards to Ramunup. Im thinking fetches and lotus cobras and just throwing threat after threat after threat. Mana issues non existent. I love GSZ dont get me wrong but this wants me to personally try Collected Company soooooo badly in Vintage. Leovold, KoR, Ramunup, Dr. shaman, Bob, Goyf, Eternal Witness, Lotus Cobra, Scab Clan berserker, Kambal, Grand Abolisher, etc etc
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@Serracollector The Kambal plan is interesting. I was tinkering around (not that kind of tinkering) with a Mono-Red deck last winter. It's win percentage wasn't great, but it kept doing this cool thing where it would get ahead and just lock out a deck via life... With Eidolon and a Scab Clan in play, we would start counting and go... well you could tutor for... oh wait well no because that's too many spells and you'd be dead... well you could draw this card and, wait no, still dead. I guess you could topdeck swords and... no wait still dead. I guess you're just dead.
I suppose that's kinda what they mean when they say red prison deck, but I could easily see this card being part of that sort of thing. I wonder what this does with Harsh Mentor for example... and Eidolon. Even just stalling them out for one more turn with those cards in play is just awful. And Ravager shops must have a simply terrible matchup against these cards right?
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Yes exactly. I was running a BUG/white splash for Kambal and STP mainly (stony/priest/RIP in SB) deck that ran Leovold, Dr. Shaman, Kambal, and ManaGorger, and it did quiet well in slowing down the opp enuff to win thru sheer damage. Cast a spell, you mini tendrils yourself and grow my Hydra and fuel mu Dr. Shaman. Im just trying to figure out the numbers on creatures vs soells vs fetches so I can optimally run Collected Company. Turn 1 Cobra into turn 2 CoCo cant be a bad thing.
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Wouldn't this be better in a Survival deck?
