They said that land destruction would never be viable in Standard again because of the mana cost of LD spells. Well, I’m here to tell you that LD is indeed viable again. In fact, I’ll be taking it out for its grand debut this Friday (4/5/2013) and intend to surprise a lot of people with it. Before I unleash the basic premise of the deck, a little background.
LD used to be quite viable many years ago when the cost of the spells was around 3 cmc. But then WotC decided that this was just not very good for the game and so they essentially killed Stone Rain (the premiere LD spell of its day) and replaced it with a lot of crappy 4 cmc spells. And suddenly LD just wasn’t playable anymore.
What was a Magic nerd to do?
Well, for the most part, Magic nerds pretty much gave up on the idea of destroying lands as a viable strategy and moved on to greener pastures. And I have to admit, I did the same, even though I kept my Unlimited Sinkholes. I still do play Legacy and you never know when those things might come in handy.
Anyway, just recently I got a bug up my behind. I just had to see if there was some way to make land destruction viable in this ridiculously fast Standard environment. I mean can you imagine trying to survive against Boros Aggro with an LD deck? Yeah, the thought does seem a little far fetched. BUT … after a lot of thought and agonizing over this (okay, maybe not so much agonizing) I came up with an idea.
Essentially, this is the construction of the deck.
Mana Dorks – It starts with mana dorks in the form of Arbor Elves and Avacyn’s Pilgrams. That’s 8 ramp spells to begin with. Add to those critters 4 Farseeks and you’ve got a total of 12 ramp spells. That should be sufficient enough to give us a pretty good shot at getting an LD spell launched on turn 3.
Land Destruction – Believe it or not, we have a TON of land destruction in Standard right now at 4 cmc. I picked out the best ones. Craterize, Demolish, Bramblecrush and one 5 cmc spell that doubles as a creature, Acidic Slime. That comes out to 16 LD spells. That’s more than enough to cripple somebody’s mana base.
Removal – But like I said, this is a fast Standard environment. Boros Aggro can get off to a very fast start on very little land. So how do we deal with that efficiently? Spot removal is at a premium in this Standard. But what about board wipes? Well, we’re playing red so why not Bonfire of the Damned? One miracle pull and their field is gone. This can be back breaking. I run a play set of these.
Win Condition – But wait. We still need a way to win this thing. That’s where I came up wit this ingenious idea. With all the ramp we’re running, it’s not hard to get up to 9 mana pretty quickly. So why not sneak in Thragfire as a win condition? So I’m running 1 Worldfire and 1 Thragtusk. Okay, yeah I know … how can we hope to pull it with just one of each card?
Tutors – Not the greatest tutors in the world but with the ramp we have, they’ll do fine. I’m talking about Increasing Ambition and Diabolic Revelation. I run 2 of the former and 3 of the latter. You’re almost certain to get you win con soon enough to end the game.
Mana Base – I run 12 shocks and 12 INN and M13 lands in the Black/Green, Black/Red and Red/Green combinations. They work just fine.
How To Play – Opening hand you want to see at least 2 land, 1 mana dork and 1 LD spell. If not, ship it back. This meta is too fast to be wasting time with sub optimal hands. You won’t survive long.
From there, you want to ramp hard, play LD at every chance and yes, pay the 2 life to put a shock into play untapped turn 1 in order to play your mana dork. This is critical to getting a turn 3 LD spell off.
I’ve tested this deck against Boros Aggro extensively and, if on the play, it gives them a very difficult game unless they draw the nuts. And even then, a miracle Bonfire can really set them back.
You may not think it but this deck has game. I’m going to report the results on my blog. If it blows up in my face, you’ll be the first to know.
Give LD/Thragfire a chance.
It just might surprise you.
To YOUR Magic The Gathering Enjoyment,
Steven “Land Boy” Wagenheim
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