Hello again all, I wanted to create this thread to discuss another recent second place finish I had playing lands. Again, it came at Top Deck Games Monthly 1k event (had to put the deck down for 2 tournaments in between due to too many cards being altered. Deck is extremely heavily altered almost to a full 60/60 in the main!). It was a five round event with a cut to top 4.
My rounds were as follows:
Round 1 - Paradoxical Oath- 2-0
Round 2- Dredge- 2-1
Round 3- White Eldrazi- 2-1
Round 4- Ravager Shops- 0-2 (Dan Barkon)
Round 5- Ravager Shops - Intentional Draw
Top Four Match 1- Ravager Shops- 2-0 (Dan Barkon again)
Match 2- Jeskai Xerox- 0-2 (this is a really bad matchup)
Again, the Shops and Dredge matchup felt awesome. The match I lost to shops was on mulligans below 6 cards and his draws were far above average (i.e. Sphere, Lodestone, Copy Lodestone by turn 2 can be hard to overcome), which in my opinion is the only combination that results in Lands losing the match. The paradoxical oath match was helped a great deal by 4 null rods, which I liked a lot better than the EE package I tried to mix in before.
As usual, the worst matchup is storm and Jeskai Xerox which I lost to in the finals. Being out-tempoed and not being able to land a Fastbond effect hurts the deck a lot as you can imagine. Going back I would have mulliganed more aggressively into a hand with a lot of wasteland effects or natural depths/stage though that can be a real risk (found out after the match opponent had no swords in the 75 but did have strip effects). In the past I have experimented with Chains of Mephistopheles in the sideboard and I think I might get back to that again. It helps bring the tempo back into the decks favor against its worst matchups by making their heavy draw very poor, and it can be harder to remove for a lot of Jeskai and Storm lists outside of a wear/tear. Also, with so much Grisebrand oath running around, the card makes him a lot less scary running Maze and Karakas. The 7/7 body is not hard to deal with, drawing infinite cards is.
Just wanted to share this and again encourage people to try the deck and play it if you are thinking about it! The deck does require a lot of decision making and it is hard to play, but the shops and dredge matchup just feels so strong I think it is certainly worth a try. Also, the deck creates a lot of weird interactions and a lot of opponents will make mistakes in play, and/or mistakes in side boarding which always helps.
I will continue to play the deck and continue to tinker with ways to make the blue match closer. Any questions or comments are again greatly appreciated
The decklist I played on Saturday was as follows:
Main deck (61)
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Dark Depths
4 Ghost Quarter
1 Glacial Chasm
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Karakas
4 Mana Confluence
3 Riftstone Portal
1 Strip Mine
2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
3 Thespian's Stage
4 Wasteland
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Crop Rotation
4 Life from the Loam
2 Mental Misstep
1 Chalice of the Void
3 Exploration
1 Fastbond
3 Manabond
1 Mox Diamond
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
4 Null Rod
Sideboard (15)
4 Abrupt Decay (indespenible for blue matches in my opinion)
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Beast Within
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Krosan Grip
1 Maze of Ith
2 Nature's Claim
2 Punishing Fire
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth