As the winner of round 6, Haven_PT has announced that Sunscorched Desert will be our card dujour for round 7. I approve of this choice. It is janky as heck, common so easier to build around, and a permanent so there are ways to use it repeatedly. BUT... my one qualm is that the Spikes might not be able to resist the temptation to just go aggro and use it as an extra point of damage to close out tight games. That's no good! This is a break the card contest! So I'm throwing a little kink in the aggro-plan. In addition to running a full playset of the Deserts, you are FORBIDDEN from using MORE THAN 4 BASIC LANDS! BWAHAHAHAHAA!!!! Initially I was gonna ban basics altogether but after reflecting on the idea for a while, I decided that giving your opponents a free turn was a surefire way to make this round impossible. 4 basics means you can still use a set of fetch lands and all the checklands to hopefully plan your early turns and hit untapped mana on the turns you need it. Plus it opens up more room for non-basics which might mean that some of the other weirdo lands get a little love. Bonus, right?
See rule revision 1 below.
The rules: 0. The deck must contain a full playset of Sunscorched Deserts. 1. The deck must attempt to break the chosen card in some way, where “breaking” is defined as finding a combination of cards that work with the chosen card in such a way as to provide value beyond its base effects. The base effects in this case are tapping for colorless and doing a single point of damage. At a bare minimum, any landfall mechanism or any mechanism that allows you to play the land more than once (returning it to hand, sacking it and retrieving it from gy, etc.) but ideally a good break the card build should make these mechanisms a core part of the deck rather than a token inclusion. 2. Puppies are evil and don't let you sleep for more than 3 hrs at a time. 3. The building part of the contest will last for a week. After that, I'll still consider submissions, but probably with some sort of late penalty. 4. Submissions must be sent by PM. For this round, submissions will NOT be anonymous. 5.a. Judging is open to anyone who tries each submission. Judges can use any pertinent scoring criteria they choose but must submit their final score in a ranking format as follows: Last place gets 0 points 2nd to last gets 1 point ... First place gets n-1 points where n is the number of submissions. In case of ties, add together the points for the ranks that the tied submissions would occupy if not tied and then split the results as follows: Tie for last place would get (0 + 1)/2 = 0.5 points each. After the judging period is over, I will tally all the points given and announce the winner(s). 5.b. Anyone who chooses to participate in the judging MUST PM me their final results. Additionally, I require that they list the decks in the same order that I post them, rather than ordered by their ranking. This is because trying to tally the scores is much simpler if the lists are all in the same order. When I post the decks to start the judging round, I typically list them in the order that I received them. I also update the OP with the same list in the same order. 6. The winner of each round gets to pick a card or theme for the next round (provided their choice doesn't totally suck).
The deadline for submissions for this round shall be... the 11th of February or anytime before I eventually post the builds on the 12th. Good luck!
I think the new rules must have gimped participation this time - not many entries. Welp, at least testing will be easier.
Here are our submissions for this round: Cucho Lambreta:
Play notes: With 12 creatures, this is more aggressive than typical draw-go, and that may seem at odds with all the sweepers, but it typically plays out better than you'd think. What I see from it is pretty high variance; sometimes you'll get a controlling hand with lots of counters, sometimes you'll be able to go Initiate/Gideon/Wall and beat down, sometimes you'll just ride a Kefnet the whole game. The early plays are generally good at getting opponents to overextend though, and then it's sweeper time. For that reason I'll try to hold back early counters for non-creature spells, and try to keep them off the scent of its true nature as a control deck until it's too late. Definitely the first 2 or 3 turns it's extra important to get a read on what you're up against and make a plan. The Initiates I'll almost always play T2 if I have them, unless I'm on the draw and suspect a T3 Planeswalker/God I can Censor. If I can get in a couple exerted swings and then sweep they've more than done their job. Any removal they draw is fine too; I'd rather have Fatal Push head that way than hit a big land later. The Displacers I'll hold back until I have counter backup if possible; they're so valuable here, wrecking opp's plans, bouncing walls and Gearhulk, even resetting exerted Initiates. The Tradewinds have saved me so many times; there's almost always something on my side I want to bounce, plus it has the benefit of replacing itself in hand to meet Kefnet's requirement. The ability to put an opponent back a turn on land drops is significant too, especially if Endbringer is a big win-con and it gets to those Deserts, so why not? I'd probably have gone Thought-Knot but it doesn't play well with Displacer. All the sweepers ignore land creatures, so make sure you're not selecting those when you Tragic Arrogance. They're all obviously best used when you can leave up and immediately attack with an animated land.
How it breaks desert - basically the damage sources in the deck are so limited and the shell enables you to bounce and replay them / cycle through fast enough such that your deserts end up being a very relevant element to actually closing out the game. Technically you could amass 22 (25 if we ran all the bounce) damage just from deserts and bouncing and then recycling your pickups which is where I started initially...that was the list I abandoned early on. Vortex supplements the plan and makes the game actually end, but keeps it landy along with playing very nice with the other elements (land pickup, emptying the hand, deck churn).
Play Notes:
Sorry for the Wall of Text. The deck is a little unusual to play so there are a lot of little tips I wanted to include to help folks enjoy the experience (not to mislead - at its best, it is full on seven assed jank).
The basic gameplan is to use all our cheap, flexible interaction to slow them down until we can sniff out an orrery or memory and from there eventually ping them to death with vortex and desert - usually with the last 10ish coming between their last end-step and our upkeep (obviously you typically will want to play your deserts and fling your islands/taps once you've got 3-4 of each color). The key characteristic of the cards in the list is they need to have some impact on most any board since we're going to be churning through the deck very rapidly and don't especially want to be holding particular cards. Vortex and Key are to help empty out our hand as needed, and vortex ultimately is the most common finisher after softening them up with deserts and maybe a swing into tapped mana with fumarole. The data suggests they're just itching to push *something*...if you gamble, be prepared to lose.
-Do not hose up your orrery draw with a key activation. Repeat: Do Not Pay until after orrery has triggered. If you end up with extra bounce later (or with tradewinds maybe) you can bounce and replay key to re-order the triggers.
-Memory is actually pretty good here and probably what kept commit in the deck. It's typically fairly lopsided if you're just whiffing on combo pieces / tutor effects or they've managed to put a couple of your pieces in the bin, it's got a decent chance to snag a piece or two. Against ramp it's probably a death sentence, but the other decks it tends to actually work out fairly nicely (since you likely bounced anything dangerous the end of their turn).
-Don't be terribly worried about keeping a mono-blue if everything else looks OK - the red really isn't especially critical early on. Mostly make sure you're going to have some early interaction and hit early land drops with bonus points for having access to an orrery/key. Fetch to hand otherwise. Note with the land pickups you can force an extra colored source by pre-tapping and picking up if needed.
-If you don't have a discard outlet, but do have an orrery, remember to play tradewinds at sorcery speed or you're going to be stuck with a permanent in hand. Otherwise, just take a beat after your upkeep to figure out how you're best going to empty your hand and usually try to do what can be done at instant speed on their turn.
-If you see blue mana across from you, your unsubs are at a premium. This is because you'll probably need them to fight over your win-cons. Often if you can stick them they don't have great answers to them (if you can afford it, bounce your spell and then replay so you don't have to fight through the counter again later). The other nifty thing is often they'll pass back with something like 3 mana and 2 blue, solvent or tradewinds can both hose those up and give you a window to stick your key elements. Of note, if you're still looking for your combo pieces, maybe just leave fevered visions on the board as long as you're able to manage your hand so it's not killing you. It's annoying once you find orrery which is why it didn't end up here, but it's pretty nice before.
-It's absolutely worth missing a draw step with orrery to keep one of your combo pieces - those are about it though.
-Keep in mind that with enough instants/discard pieces you can actually pretty frequently take advantage of both orreries (this tends to end the game pretty quickly) - make sure to give it a quick pause and check during the trigger for the 2nd.
-You'll want to prioritize killing any sources of lifegain, the deck can burst pretty well with the combo assembled, but if you let them hang around it makes it disproportionately harder.
-YMMV, I find around 10-12ish lands in play is where I'll shift to shocking pretty actively with them (enough to use a solvent / memory, + a card or three). Obviously early on if there's an opportunity to solve something permanently with them, take that. It sounds like a lot, but once you've got orrery online it happens pretty quickly. When they get into the mid/low teens keep an eye out for lethal (or near). Land pickups, maps, shock, + orrery triggers can add up for pretty big spikes.
-Generally speaking islands are for shocking, mountains and deserts are for playing, we're just skewed way blue to bring whir online and make sure we can multi-bounce/cycle early.
-Aggro seemed to be pretty straightforward and probably a good matchup for this list on the play, and probably close to 50/50 on the draw.
-Against ramp, I'm really and truly sorry. I fiddled around trying to fix the matchup but ultimately I think everything I tried was too much downside in other matches (I was on the fence with a 1-of aligned hedron network and just to be able to readily empty the hand I think it has to swap with either the 2nd whir or commit and both of those are key in the other matchups). The best option seems to be to do your best to slow down their acceleration with tradewinds and unsub and hope to draw like a champ and race (it won't end well most of the time).
-A lot of plainswalkers are less threatening here than perhaps normal and I'm not actually sure superfriends is much worse than a slight disadvantage for this deck- you don't care about creature removal, and for the most part draw isn't terrible for you (since mostly the game is how much they'll be able to stick). Just something to keep in mind as your prioritizing your answers.
Last Cuts/Close Calls
Aligned Hedron Network - covered above, may still tweak around long term because I actually enjoy this deck a lot, but ultimately commit and whir seemed too important, and keeping the curve low is key.
Fall of the Titans - this one I started messing with late (in place of Shock), and I think it has potential. Ultimately though of the ones I tested with most, I kept coming back to shock since it does a lot of the things I needed from that slot (cheap and flexible mostly).
Displacement Wave - either a one or a two of this guy was probably my last cut. Tokens *can* get a little out of hand, but where we're emptying our hand each turn, it's important that cards have a variety of applications, and I think it was just too narrow for what we're trying to do here (kozilek's return being much better and probably a 2 of if we could, in that its instant and doesn't interact with our cheap permanents).
Renegade Maps - whir enablers, also cheap bounce targets for tradewinds if we're still hitting land drops, and then they become shocks on demand later. Also helpful to keep the land count low, since early on with orrery (before you have a discard outlet online) getting 3 lands is a pretty huge bummer.
Inventor's Fair - it's borderline with the number of artifacts. I did try a one-of and it was nice in the control matchup, but otherwise it was pretty slow coming online. Inserting some implements for things like shock and censor along with the 4th solvent *probably* works, but I think it weakens the early game a bit too much. The other thing is we're a touch light on blue for whir in the first place (ultimately fair became island), but even so whir tended to just be the better (and quicker) tutor effect.
Insult // Injury - this is another one I kept meaning to try, but never got around to. I think it's a little expensive for what the deck wants and kinda "win more" in that it's not all that useful till we've got there with orrery/vortex (which tends to work out pretty well on its own), but it might speed us up.
3xAether Tradewinds & 3xDevour in Flames vs. 4xtradewinds & 2x devour - once I was running whir and return the 7th land-return was a little too much clunk (since you really don't want to use them all that much until you're out of land drops). I went back and forth because I love tradewinds here, but ultimately opted for the more permanent solution since we've got a lot of things approximating what tradewinds can do.
Build Notes: This build "breaks" Sunscorched Desert by using cards like Devour in Flames, Mina and Denn, and Slab Hammer to bounce it to hand so that it can be played repeatedly while also using landfall mechanics like Tireless Tracker, Omnath, and Embodiment to get extra value from playing it each time. Mina and Orrery give you extra land drops to double down on the landfall lunacy.
I included a single Wastes as a fetchable colorless source because the shuffler is a sadist and loves to give you both Smashers with no Deserts. There arn't too many double color spells in the deck - especially at the bottom of the curve so def fetch the Waste if you have a green and red source already (unless you already have a Desert, of course). After than, favor mountains over Forests since Pilgrimage only fetches the green. Also, Earth is pretty much the only double color spell until you get to Nissa, Hydra, and Omnath, so the 2nd red is more meaningful than a 2nd green. Once you are fixed for mana and have enough to cast your spells on curve, consider holding EWs for on demand landfall triggers later on. Likewise, if you pick up a land during combat with Hammer, consider holding it and playing it on the following turn if you have Embodiment out, since its obviously better to make those land creatures precombat. This goes double if you pick up that one Looming Spires.
The game plan is simple. Use spot removal to clear early threats and then start dropping fatties. The threats are pretty fat so you shouldn't need to over commit. Embodiment and Smasher are cool because they can put a lot of hasty damage on an empty board. Oh, and if your opponent should happen to Imprison your jank in the Moon, remember that your imprisoned jank is now bounceable land! Jailbreak!
I'll go ahead and give a full week (or two) for testing, so Monday, Feb 19th. If the judges finish up earlier than that, I'll call it early and we can start the next round!
Well, things got a little behind schedule there, but the results are in. CardboardNomad winds soundly with 13 points. Congrats, Nomad!
Here is the breakdown of final scores: Cucho's Landslide: 3.5 Cucho: 2 Barney: 0 bzzt: 0 Nomad: 1.5 TFM: 0
CardboardNomad's One of by Sand, Two if by Sea: 13 Cucho: 3 Barney: 2 bzzt: 2 Nomad: 3 TFM: 3
Joined: Jun 08, 2016 Posts: 622 Location: noun, a particular place or position
Identity: Protozoan
Preferred Pronoun Set: Soup/Soup's/Soupself
I'm not saying that I want to see Barney lose and suffer, but I am saying that I will take a celebratory drink of fine, aged malt liquor every time he loses. I expect to be pretty drunk this time around.
Joined: Feb 29, 2016 Posts: 2899 Location: Portugal
Oh my flaky, I think you've overdone it...
Looks like mono-colorless Eldrazi/Artifacts is probably the only thing you can build that won't get you mana/color screwed 90% of the time. Now how to break the Desert with Eldrazi-artifacts?
This damn rule might end up pushing the spikes up coz the downside is too big, hell I was even thinking to build a 4C Pws deck... which I hate and has nothing to do with landfall, lands in general or that desert. My other pile is a RDW with all the stupid lands that doesn’t come tapped if you have a mountain.
I liked my golgari ramp pile it was Janky fun and stupid it even had 4 fogging fogs but you cant ramp with 4 basics...
I just wanna say that Flaky the sadistic bastard must be oblied to test all the submissions and play at least 5 games with each... as a punishment for all the ranks that will be lost. Hell I can’t even imagine poor Nomad testing this piles and going 1-6... at least I will delete them fast enough.
But if y’all really don’t like this rule I’ll scratch it - this is supposed to be fun first and foremost. I might put a “must make an honest attempt to actually break the card” rule in its stead tho. And for the record, I got no beef with Spikes. I just want to stay true to the spirit of the Break the Card theme instead of seeing who can make the best rdw (sorry Barney).
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The greatest blessings in life are the hardest ones to lose. Godspeed little girl. We miss you.
You could ban mono color aggro. And maybe each submission should clarify how is it that the deck breaks the card. Say my ramp deck makes it deal 2 damage and gain one life when you convined it with that Janky Black enchantment with landfall -I don’t know the name in English- wich also adds life gain to the ramp strategy and makes Ballista a headshot machinegun! Edit: this makes a clear statement that the deck is more built around that enchantment than the desert... but hey you can tap it for colorless mana too!
@ Nomad's awakened artistry - your blatant attempt to lure me into a jeskai procession/artistry/injury/desert plan with just 4 basics will almost certainly not tempt me into spending any more than a day on it!
Ok, heads up, ppl. Due to a surfluence of weeping, gnashing of teeth, and tearing out of hair of biblical proportions, I’m going to strike the 4 lands rule and implement the following rule instead:
1. The deck must have a strong focus on attempting to utilize the chosen card in a creative way. If the card is too weak to break, the deck should at least incorporate it into a broader strategy that plays to the card’s effects.
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The greatest blessings in life are the hardest ones to lose. Godspeed little girl. We miss you.
Joined: Sep 29, 2015 Posts: 1220 Location: Bend, OR
So far it has tested well. 6-2 with the losses coming vs Mono Red agro on the play and Mardu Vehicles on the play (Beat that deck in the rematch.
The only questionable card is the Obligator, but it did win me one game (Or sped it up by a turn, I was already ahead, but I guess he could have stabilized).
Visitor was the last add, mainly because of 3 power and ability to draw cards. Mostly okay, but there were a few games where the card draw really turned the game.
The least useful care so far has been matter reshaper, which kind of surprised me. Not that it has been bad, but so far I have yet to use the draw on death from it, so it has just been a 3/2 for me most game. Of course, I guess that just means I have been ahead all the games it has shown up.
Anyway, even with the more lenient land, I may keep this as is. It doesn't break Desert like I wanted to, but *in the voice of Frito from Idiocracy* I like winning.
I realize that the new rule is a little nebulous, especially compared to the last one but this is a great litmus test. When in doubt, ask if Barney would love it. If so, prolly not a good idea.
Teasing aside, I don't actually want to hose mono and bi color decks - just keep the emphasis on creatively exploiting bad cards (as per a Break the Card style contest). I liked the land rule because it is specific - no guesswork on whether your deck is compliant or not - but I figured it would probably just tempt ppl to build aggro anyway out of spite and it needlessly limits building options.
I'm tacking on an extra 3 days to the deadline to make up for the time spent fiddling with the 4 basics rule.
Edit: ninja'd me there, Wintervoid. But this deck doesn't break Desert at all! Like, not even a token Slab Hammer or anything...
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The greatest blessings in life are the hardest ones to lose. Godspeed little girl. We miss you.
Retreat can tap opponent's creatures, setting them up for a Skyline lockdown, OR it can ramp with the Weaver (or Druids if I can fit them in). Worst case, its still a scry. Hammer sets up recursion. Swell plays well with Hammer. Might splash for Mina and Devour in Flames. That's probably overextending the deck tho, especially if I try to utilize the ramp with a few big bombs.
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The greatest blessings in life are the hardest ones to lose. Godspeed little girl. We miss you.
Joined: Sep 29, 2015 Posts: 1220 Location: Bend, OR
Ah well. I figured that the deck would fall under " If the card is too weak to break, the deck should at least incorporate it into a broader strategy that plays to the card’s effects." Basically, I figured that the damage component of course plays to agro (Which I generally don't like) and I tried to take advantage of the cards secondary ability of producing Diamond Mana. That is why I went heavy Eldrazi.
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Initially I was gonna ban basics altogether but after reflecting on the idea for a while, I decided that giving your opponents a free turn was a surefire way to make this round impossible. 4 basics means you can still use a set of fetch lands and all the checklands to hopefully plan your early turns and hit untapped mana on the turns you need it. Plus it opens up more room for non-basics which might mean that some of the other weirdo lands get a little love. Bonus, right?
for Mina and