Creature (19)
Land (26)
Instant (8)
Sorcery (7)
Sideboard
Instant (9)
Creature (3)
Sorcery (3)
Maybeboard
Land (6)
Sorcery (3)
Creature (1)
Artifact (1)
A Lands-matter deck for HOU Standard, featuring Ramunap Excavator (aka Magus of the Crucible)
Thanks in advance for your thoughts and suggestions!
WIN-CON: Smash face with fatties. The Gitrog Monster, Rhonas the Indomitable, and Tireless Tracker (after cracking a few Clues) all fit the bill. The Trample effect from Rhonas the Indomitable is particularly good with Deathtouch from The Gitrog Monster.
ALTERNATE WIN-CON: Smash face with little dudes. Smaller Creatures like Krallenhorde Howler , Ramunap Excavator , Sylvan Advocate , and Hissing Quagmire can get the job done too.
PREVENT OPPONENT WIN-CONS: Use Fatal Push, Grasp of Darkness, and Yahenni's Expertise to remove opposing Creatures. Activate Blighted Fen to deal with late-game fatties and Indestructible creatures.
MOVE TOWARDS THE WIN: Ramunap Excavator is great with The Gitrog Monster and absolutely bonkers with Evolving Wilds and Tireless Tracker. She also allows Hissing Quagmire to attack and block with impunity. Sylvan Advocate is good early and even better late (especially with Hissing Quagmire). The Gitrog Monster is a superb card-draw engine.
GENERAL VALUE: Duskwatch Recruiter , to dig for Creatures. He also flips easily against Control and if an opponent stumbles at all. Traverse the Ulvenwald, for color-fixing early and feeding The Gitrog late. Plus, it's a happy accident when the deck gets Delirium and we can tutor a Creature.
SIDEBOARD:
This is just a generic sideboard at this point, and will of course shift depending on the meta ...
- Artifacts and Enchantments: A mix of Appetite for the Unnatural and Natural State, depending on the meta
- Heavy Removal: Blossoming Defense
- Planeswalkers: Never / Return
- Control: Prowling Serpopard
- Glorybringer and other Big Flyers: Plummet , though Ramunap Hydra (with Desert of the Glorified and Desert of the Indomitable in the main) may be better for HOU Standard
MAYBEBOARD:
- Bone Picker: Evasion and Deathtouch? Seems decent ...
- Crook of Condemnation or Scavenger Grounds : If we need Graveyard Hate in the sideboard.
- Grapple with the Past : Superb recursion.
- Hostile Desert : More Creature Lands!
- Nissa, Vital Force: Every ability is great, though I'm not sure the deck wants more 5-drops.
- Ramunap Hydra : Possible sideboard card against Glorybringer and other Big Flyers, if we end up with enough other Deserts (e.g., Desert of the Glorified and Desert of the Indomitable ) in the main.
- Ruinous Path : Probably worse than Never / Return, but I still need to do some formal testing.
- Transgress the Mind : If the existing Removal suite is just not enough.
- I talk about it more in the 'Other approaches' section, but this is not a Delirium deck. If it was, I'd happily include a number of enablers and payoffs: Gnarlwood Dryad, Grim Flayer, Ishkanah, Grafwidow, Liliana, the Last Hope, Mindwrack Demon , Pilgrim's Eye, Renegade Map, To the Slaughter, Vessel of Nascency, and Walking Ballista. Grim Flayer, in particular, is not a good fit for this deck. Flayer is AWESOME in a Delirium build, but in a deck like this he's normally just a 2/2, so he's somewhere between OK and bad IMO (OK on the play, where he can often connect for some card filtering, but extremely meh -- AKA bad, compared to other options -- on the draw).
- Channeler Initiate: This deck prefers Land ramp to mana dorks.
- Nature's Way : I love this card, but Rhonas the Indomitable did much better in testing.
- Noose Constrictor: Superb when The Gitrog Monster is in play, because it can turn Lands into Spells. But pretty meh otherwise.
- Noxious Gearhulk and Verdurous Gearhulk : Superb finishers, but The Gitrog Monster is plenty for this deck.
- Scarab Feast: Good graveyard hate if it's needed in AKH Standard. But it looks like Scavenger Grounds is going to be better.
- Splendid Reclamation: Nice as a backup for Ramunap Excavator , but the deck doesn't seem to need any extras.
I looked hard at BG Delirium as an option, but ...
- Ramunap Excavator does not synergize well with Delirium, and she's the whole reason I built this deck.
- The deck needs a bunch of Lands to work and a bunch of Removal to survive into the mid-game, which doesn't leave enough room for the enablers it needs to reliably get Delirium.
- Some of the key cards for a Delirium build (*cough* Grim Flayer and Liliana, the Last Hope *cough*) are super-expensive and IMO not a great investment since they have only a few months left in Standard.
- Delirium may not even be a functional strategy for HOU Standard, since it looks like there's going to be a TON of Graveyard hate in the format.
- The deck does run Traverse the Ulvenwald, but it's a happy accident when I can cast it with Delirium; I never plan on it.
Bottom line: If you want a Delirium deck, I recommend a more Aggro build, such as Lukas Blohon's BG Delirium (#1 at GP Amsterdam, 4/6/17) or Sam Pardee's BG Delirium (#2 at GP Omaha, 4/6/16).
Adding Red opens up a number of VERY interesting possibilities, including Mina and Denn, Wildborn. I frankly don't have the time to explore them, but please check out the Gruul and Jund brews here for ideas.
I'm also testing a Midrange Sultai version, featuring Blue Nissa, more Creature Lands, counterspells, and some more draw. I'm working on a much more Control-y Sultai version too.
deck-large: magus-of-the-crucible-sultai-hou
Crucible Control (HOU)
Standard*
25 VIEWS
Shout-outs to ...
- My favorite Ramunap Excavator decks (so far) here on T/O.
- Argy and jparker-sartori21, for their helpful comments on the earliest version of this deck.
- michael921, as always, for his superb suggestions and advice.
Please +1 Upvote this deck if you like it ... and especially if you like it enough to put it in a folder :-)
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| Date added | 7 years |
| Last updated | 7 years |
| Legality | This deck is Casual legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 5 - 0 Mythic Rares 26 - 6 Rares 10 - 3 Uncommons 8 - 6 Commons |
| Cards | 60 |
| Avg. CMC | 2.47 |
| Tokens | Clue, Zombie 2/2 B |
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