This week, I have a special treat for you. It’s rare that I get to showcase a truly original deck in Legacy, and this one is pretty novel. It is a deck I’ve been working on with my team for awhile that has a lot of on-paper power. I am probably not playing it in the Grand Prix or other large tournaments because I honestly cannot get it to work quite as well as I would like. However, it is based on a very powerful engine with lots of good support. At this point, it is just in need of some extra tweaking from smart people to truly set it apart.
The deck, which I am calling Upheaval, since its ultimate goal is the resolution of that spell, revolves around the interaction of Exploration and Horn of Greed. This is hardly a new combination — Zvi Mowshowitz used it in his famous Turboland decks, which used the combination, along with Gush and Oath of Druids, to take infinite turns. Unfortunately, we don’t have the latter two cards in this format, so we have to use the shell another way.
Exploration is busted-good — the effect is far too powerful for a single Green mana. Though Horn of Greed universally affects people, you can usually get two or three land drops per turn off of it, while an opponent might get one. Sure, it’s a bit risky, but you will routinely draw several cards every turn from the Horn. It’s colorless and reusable. One way we break the parity of the Horn is through Exploration, but the real key to the whole deck is Summer Bloom. This sorcery enables three more Landfall triggers, three more cards from Horn and generates a positive amount of mana for its cost. Summer Bloom pushes the deck into unfair territory. For awhile, I ran three Azusa, Lost but Seeking, but I ended up dropping them because she dies very easily and, though repeatable, doesn’t generate as many “combo turns.” Manabond and Burgeoning don’t actually trigger Horn draws, and Explore is too much mana for too little of an effect. So Summer Bloom is what we’re left with; if I could run eight, I would run ten.
With all of those landfalls, the best two cards I found to utilize them were Vinelasher Kudzu and Hedron Crab. The Kudzu, played early, grows to immense size quickly. Hedron Crab on the first turn can often race even a deck like Zoo if they cannot remove it. The potential to hit every landfall with Fetchlands means that you can get ten triggers by the third turn. Multiple Crabs are obviously very good. I ultimately ran Hedron Crabs, since they are cheap to play and are blue, which means I can support Force of Will and play them easily on the first turn.
The support we built around the Landfall deck focused on Upheaval. The deck routinely untaps with seven or eight mana available and needs something to do with the mana. We ran Beacon of Tomorrows for awhile; running two or three and using Scroll Rack to filter through the library made it pretty good, since you can start going infinite with them. However, on its own, Beacon just meant that you would lose a turn later. Upheaval, on the other hand, totally reset the board in unfair ways. If you untap with nine lands, you can Upheaval and float three mana, which can be used for the post-‘Heave development. Central to all this is Exploration and an understanding of how it works in the rules. Exploration is like a coupon where whenever you play one, you get another land drop. If you play one, it gets destroyed and you play another, you still get an additional land drop. The game does not track total number of lands played per turn, only your usual land per turn. Thus, when you play with Exploration, you should always note which lands are Exploration lands and which is your drop.
This all ties together with Upheaval because you can do that aforementioned global bounce and float some mana. If you have a green mana available and an Exploration, you can replay it and get another land drop! This, alongside waiting to play your land for the turn until after Upheaval, means you can redeploy on more favorable terms. With multiple copies of the enchantment, you can effectively restart the game with two or more lands in play. Upheaval also plays well with Crabs, since it lets you re-drop all of those lands you had previously. One of the main concerns with Crab in testing was that early ones were prone to dying. If you wait until after you have ‘Heaved, you can get several land drops that turn with Crab. If you have two, it is not uncommon to replay fetchlands and regular lands after the Crabs, resulting in milling an opponent for 42 or more cards, ending the game on the spot. I prefer Upheaval to all of the other mana sinks we came up with because it really does solve all the problems that could ever occur on the board. We tried other goodies, like Karakas and Venser, Shaper Savant after Upheaval to lock an opponent, but that was unwieldy, as was Academy Ruins + Mindslaver. However, I am open to new ideas on what to do with 7+ lands and lots of landfall triggers after an Upheaval.
Keeping the deck just Blue and Green meant we could sit on a very stable manabase, and it gave a lot of good protection and search along the way. Force of Will and Brainstorm are obvious; I tried Daze for a minute but it just doesn’t do enough to slow an opponent down, an opponent who will essentially be goldfishing you and trying to beat Upheaval hitting the table. On the other hand, you often have the lands in play for a Thwart, and two in the deck made for great surprises and needed protection in the deck.
I thought the deck would be a perfect home for Treasure Hunt and in the end, the card was… reasonable. You certainly do draw a lot of lands and want to see several of them per turn, but more than anything, you want Exploration effects. The best tool for the cost was Impulse; it sees four cards and gets trash to the bottom of the library. I like it over Ponder because you are actually very selective when you look for cards; Ponder has the possibility of leaving lands on top when you really just want to dig. I’m not completely sold on Impulse, but it has been preferable over Ponder at the time of writing.
Another issue involves that sticky thing called “not dying.” I tried Wall of Blossoms, which was also just okay, and I attempted Into the Roil and Repeal for board control. However, these were often just too ineffective. My teammate Mike Solymossy suggested that Crucible of Worlds and Zuran Orb would make a devastating combination, and he was correct. Zuran Orb is an excellent sacrifice outlet with Crucible and it is useful even if you are not trying to generate life — it creates more lands to replay for landfall triggers. Getting an extra four or six life per turn with Zuran Orb stanches the lifeloss. Crucible also does interesting things with Upheaval, because you don’t have to hold onto lands — you can just discard them and replay them out of the graveyard. It also works well with Wasteland, if you are interested in running them. If I had space in the deck, I would also run four Moment’s Peace, that frustrating Fog from Heartbeat decks of old that can steal two turns from an opponent.
The manabase, as I said before, is very stable because you have Misty Rainforests and basic lands (with a few Tropical Island). We worked extensively with Simic Growth Chamber because it can bounce itself to generate more Landfall triggers. It is also much more useful with Explorations, since you can redeploy those bounced lands in the same turn. One gem we ran across was Oboro, Palace In The Clouds. By itself, Oboro will bounce and replay with no additional mana; with a Summer Bloom and a Horn of Greed, you get three more cards for free! There are also times where, with a Crab or Vinelasher, you want to get more Landfall triggers. Oboro is a one-card machine for guaranteeing more land drops.
Here is the deck I have sleeved up for testing currently:
Creatures (4)
Lands (17)
Spells (39)
My teammates pointed out that milling an opponent might actually help them if they are playing Dredge or Reanimator. This is certainly true, so you should hold back Crabs for that big post-Upheaval explosion or run Vinelashers from the sideboard to have another angle. Additionally, Emrakul, the Aeons Torn laughs at milling strategies, so I suggest another means of beating an opponent if those Eldrazi are common in your area.
Typically, you spend the first few turns looking for Summer Blooms and Explorations. I only play a Horn of Greed when I can immediately follow it with a land drop, and ideally, with an Exploration on the board. An ideal game would go like this: you open with Exploration, playing two lands. On your second turn, you play a Crucible of Worlds, which makes sure you’ll be playing more lands from any fetchland in the graveyard. On the third turn, with four lands already in play, you fire off a Horn of Greed, replay two lands, and since we’re living in Christmas World, we draw a Summer Bloom for three more lands from that fetchland and three more cards. On the fourth turn, we might deign to Upheaval with nine lands in play, dropping a Hedron Crab after the wash and an Exploration for two land drops that turn and a solid handle on the game from there. The next turn, a Crucible of Worlds hits to double-charge that Crab and make short work of the opponent. Waiting another turn means two more draws from Horn of Greed, which may give us a backbreaking Summer Bloom to cast after the Upheaval. It might also provide a second Crab for an insta-kill after Upheaval.
I am, as previously stated, unsure of where to go with this deck. It has a very consistent and powerful engine, but seemingly nowhere to go with it. I had considered Trinisphere for more of a lockdown after Upheaval, perhaps even combined with Smokestack, but that still raises the question of how you actually kill off the opponent if you are avoiding Crabs. High Tide would generate a lot of mana, since you get so many Islands into play, but there is seemingly no great use for all of that mana (save maybe casting an Emrakul). Other variants ran Walk The Aeons, which you can support with Crucible and two Explorations, or Time Warp, Eternal Witness and Crystal Shard for infinite turns and infinite beats. Still other lists ran Meloku the Clouded Mirror for more land drop potential and another way to win. With Scapeshift, you can go find Valakut and enough Mountains to win the game. Parallax Tide can both deprive an opponent and phase out your own lands for beaucoup landfall triggers at the drop of a hat. If you are discarding a lot of lands, then Terravore is a terror, hitting the field after an Upheaval and clocking in at a 10/10 or more.
Needless to say, this deck would be bonkers with Fastbond or even a Portal-renamed Summer Bloom, since both would push the landfall triggers into overdrive. It’s worth picking up the pieces for this deck because it is cheap and someone smarter than me can probably make it even better. Upheaval is one of the strongest cards in Magic, since like Balance, it looks like an equal-opportunity punisher, but is prone to all sorts of unfair deckbuilding and in-play tactics to maximize its misery. Some decks, like Merfolk, simply cannot function after being hit with the Big Splash, and others, like Lands, pray for their Manabond to resolve so they can stay in the game.
At this point, I turn the deck over to you, the reader. Can it reliably generate RRR so you can cast Upheaval and then Seismic Assault, discarding all of those lands for pure pain? Can it hit ten lands in play often enough to make Rude Awakening a force? With Horn of Greed in play, can you make Words of Wind sufficiently annoying? I am interested to see what readers can come up with, so leave some feedback in the response thread, send me an email or find me on Twitter. I’m excited to discuss this with readers!
Until next week…
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