And Emrakul

Hi all,

This is my second deck list post today, It's a one card combo deck. I was going to call it Egan Druid ala Brian Kelly but I'll just keep it to the more elegant name.

Druid is a deck that wins in the 3 minutes of sideboarding between games 1 & 2.

Without further a do here's the list. I'll talk about it a little afterwards.

Spells:

Artifacts

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Saphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet

Enchantments

1 Sylvan Library

Planeswalkers

1 Jace, The Mind Scuptor

Instants

4 Force of Will
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
2 Mental Misstep
1 Vampiric Tutor
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Dig Through Time
1 Gush

Sorceries

1 Time Walk
1 Ponder
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Gitaxian Probe
3 Preordain
3 Thoughtseize
3 Cabal Therapy
1 Demonic Tutor

The Combo
4 Hermit Druid
2 Bridge from Below
1 Dread Return
2 Narcomoeba
1 Deep Analysis
1 Laboratory Maniac

Lands
1 Library of Alexandria
2 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
2 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Scalding Tarn

Sideboard

1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3 Omniscience
4 Show and Tell
3 Griselbrand
4 Hurkyl's Recall

It's a list that in theory has been around for years but haven't seen any body make it.

Here hows it works, Activate Hermit druid,mill your deck, Dread return the Maniac, protecting it with Cabal Therapies and cast a cantrip or flash back deep Analysis and win.

My first build of this list was a crazy turn 1 win with Angers and and a Flame-Kin win but it had about 15 combo cards and was terrible if the opponent had a force. I've managed to get the combo part down to the least number of cards possible to still have a resilient win if you draw some of the pieces, (you can cabal them into the graveyard if needed).

The real fun starts in game 2, your opponent will bring in all their dredge hate and you completely transform out of the Druid plan into Show & Tell which makes their 7/8 hate cards dead, affects their mulligan decisions and lets them waste time playing their graveyard hate that does nothing.

I played against one Stax opponont who game 2 went hellbent playing out all this graveyard hate after a mull to six which did nothing.

I am going to go out on a limb and say I think this is just a better deck than Oath of Druids, very similar in that you both want to resolve a 1G spell, but this is a one card combo that is able to transform away from any hate.

One note in playing the deck, you HAVE to transform game 2 unless you think the Druid strategy is better and you lost game one without them seeing the combo but ideally you transform.

I was playing against a Blood Moon deck where they had a Null Rod and Blood Moon in play game one so I had a zero win percentage, however i played on for a few turns and discarded some of the combo to handsize to make sure the opponent saw it so for game 2 they'd bring in their hate.

So in some ways this is a sideboard deck and you do win a lot of matches in the 3 minutes of sideboarding between games.

I'm again really interested in your feedback good or bad. Somebody said to me yesterday that they don't play Vintage because it's a stale, with all the cards in the history of the game at your disposal, it's never stale.

I'm glad I finally got to post my 2 pet projects up here, would have preferred to play them at a tournament first but unfortunately that's not going to happen.

Any Questions let me know.

All the best

John Egan

2 [EMA:232] Sensei's Divining Top
1 [ATQ:43] Candelabra of Tawnos
2 [JUD:37] Cunning Wish
2 [MM3:50] Snapcaster Mage
1 [C13:259] Sol Ring
1 [FUT:173] Tolaria West
1 [VMA:303] Library of Alexandria
1 [MM2:56] Repeal
1 [NPH:35] Gitaxian Probe
3 [MM2:223] Mox Opal
1 [8ED:91] Merchant Scroll
3 [UST:213] Island
1 [VMA:287] Time Vault
1 [AER:169] Paradox Engine
1 [CHK:279] Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 [VMA:2] Time Walk
1 [VMA:4] Black Lotus
1 [VMA:5] Mox Emerald
2 [M11:219] Voltaic Key
1 [VMA:6] Mox Jet
1 [VMA:7] Mox Pearl
1 [EMA:40] Brainstorm
1 [EMA:225] Mana Crypt
1 [VMA:8] Mox Ruby
1 [CHK:273] Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 [VMA:9] Mox Sapphire
1 [KTK:239] Polluted Delta
4 [SWS:34] Preordain
4 [C16:323] Seat of the Synod
1 [VMA:319] Tolarian Academy
4 [EMA:49] Force of Will
1 [VMA:1] Ancestral Recall
4 [MM2:64] Thoughtcast
3 [KLD:60] Paradoxical Outcome
1 [VMA:274] Mana Vault
1 [M10:68] Ponder
1 [ULG:126] Grim Monolith
1 [SOK:164] Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
SB: 1 [ZEN:57] Mindbreak Trap
SB: 1 [C15:108] Stroke of Genius
SB: 1 [C16:84] Chain of Vapor
SB: 1 [MM2:56] Repeal
SB: 2 [DKA:149] Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 3 [CMD:46] Flusterstorm
SB: 1 [KLD:60] Paradoxical Outcome
SB: 1 [EMA:240] Karakas
SB: 4 [10E:88] Hurkyl's Recall

There's a lot of fun interaction with the lands and Tolaria West is a pretty great non counterable way to get your academy or Boseiju,

(yes I know it's not the optimal tournament build, no tinker blightsteel/ no other colour) but it is a lot of fun and would be interested to see if any thing in it might ever do well at a tournament, mana base/ candleabra, paradox engine etc.

Who needs Tendrils when you have Stroke of Genius !

@brass-man

Fair I didn't really go into a huge amount of detail and just focused on the fun part of seeing your opponent bring in 8 dead cards.

Yes but I did say I was going out on a limb, it's a bold claim and could well not be true

As for the dead cards, the only completely dead ones are the bridges, you can cast Dread Return, it doesn't come up, you can cast the narcos & pitch them to FOW, Lab Man again is castable but not ideal and is deep Analysis.

Definitely easier to transform Oath into OmniTell as you said due to the creatures being in the deck already. The advantage with this transform is that you tend to get your opponent way more in the board with the exception of Containment Priest, however you can play around that.

TBH I think the suggestions from this thread of using Angel of Glory's Rise instead of Deep Analysis are good and I've made that change to the list, didn't fully agree on the Azami, sure it gives you slightly more resilience but Snapcaster probe seems a fraction better and limits the number of dead cards.

You can resolve Oath, untap and not win the game whether it be through not having a Forbiden Orchard or simply that Emrakul wont get it done, tbf Griselbrand does 95+% of the time I would imagine.

Testing has gone really well, it's been quite a long process. The original build had Concordant Crossroads, Cavern of Souls and was just a silly turn 1 win or lose deck.

I think that Thoughtseize is really fantastic in Vintage , so many decks have specific cards in them the deck is trying to find, like Oath, PO etc and being able to take the one card they need leaving the rest is pretty strong.PO especially will keep a hand that either has a PO, Tinker, maybe even a draw 7 and nothing else so the Thoughtseizes are pretty great there.

Aggro Shops is an awful match up game 1, Revoker & Ballista are close to unbeatable, improves a lot game 2 as they tend to weaken their deck a bit bringing in graveyard hate, needles etc and also use Revoker/ Needle to name Hermit Druid.

I like the PO matchup, the hand disruption is very good and they have no way to interact with Druid apart from usually a 1 of bounce card. The problem is they don't have a heavy sideboard for graveyard hate usually just some crypts.

Storm - good matchup, hand disruption is king here.
Oath is usually a good matchup made so by the Abrupt decays, but your show and tell plan can be a little less good if you don't have a discard spell and they draw Grisselbrand. Also unless there's Inferno Titan if you play a druid into an oath, your win percentage is not TERRIBLE, but not great either.

I haven't lost to dredge....yet, but their game 1 Leyline is close to unbeatable. The new Abrupt decay coming out of Ravnica looks like it will slot right into this list.

Big fan of your lists btw Brian, try this one out and see what you think

have a look at my hermit druid list up here, may not be quite tier one but a good lab deck, doomsday seems really hard to play sans gush

2 [EMA:232] Sensei's Divining Top
1 [ATQ:43] Candelabra of Tawnos
2 [JUD:37] Cunning Wish
2 [MM3:50] Snapcaster Mage
1 [C13:259] Sol Ring
1 [FUT:173] Tolaria West
1 [VMA:303] Library of Alexandria
1 [MM2:56] Repeal
1 [NPH:35] Gitaxian Probe
3 [MM2:223] Mox Opal
1 [8ED:91] Merchant Scroll
3 [UST:213] Island
1 [VMA:287] Time Vault
1 [AER:169] Paradox Engine
1 [CHK:279] Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 [VMA:2] Time Walk
1 [VMA:4] Black Lotus
1 [VMA:5] Mox Emerald
2 [M11:219] Voltaic Key
1 [VMA:6] Mox Jet
1 [VMA:7] Mox Pearl
1 [EMA:40] Brainstorm
1 [EMA:225] Mana Crypt
1 [VMA:8] Mox Ruby
1 [CHK:273] Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 [VMA:9] Mox Sapphire
1 [KTK:239] Polluted Delta
4 [SWS:34] Preordain
4 [C16:323] Seat of the Synod
1 [VMA:319] Tolarian Academy
4 [EMA:49] Force of Will
1 [VMA:1] Ancestral Recall
4 [MM2:64] Thoughtcast
3 [KLD:60] Paradoxical Outcome
1 [VMA:274] Mana Vault
1 [M10:68] Ponder
1 [ULG:126] Grim Monolith
1 [SOK:164] Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
SB: 1 [ZEN:57] Mindbreak Trap
SB: 1 [C15:108] Stroke of Genius
SB: 1 [C16:84] Chain of Vapor
SB: 1 [MM2:56] Repeal
SB: 2 [DKA:149] Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 3 [CMD:46] Flusterstorm
SB: 1 [KLD:60] Paradoxical Outcome
SB: 1 [EMA:240] Karakas
SB: 4 [10E:88] Hurkyl's Recall

There's a lot of fun interaction with the lands and Tolaria West is a pretty great non counterable way to get your academy or Boseiju,

(yes I know it's not the optimal tournament build, no tinker blightsteel/ no other colour) but it is a lot of fun and would be interested to see if any thing in it might ever do well at a tournament, mana base/ candleabra, paradox engine etc.

Who needs Tendrils when you have Stroke of Genius !

I'll post my PO list here in a bit

Would never claim it's the best way to build the deck, but the goal was to make the most fun way.

One card I put in that I was surprised not to see in any other lists is Minamo, School at Water's Edge, ok I get it's more "wastelandable" than Island but it has one me games with it's interaction of academy & boseiju.

Have been using this as a one of in PO. Pretty great top deck when the games go stagnant and makes your POs a lot more powerful. Anyone else tested her?

@brass-man

Fair I didn't really go into a huge amount of detail and just focused on the fun part of seeing your opponent bring in 8 dead cards.

Yes but I did say I was going out on a limb, it's a bold claim and could well not be true

As for the dead cards, the only completely dead ones are the bridges, you can cast Dread Return, it doesn't come up, you can cast the narcos & pitch them to FOW, Lab Man again is castable but not ideal and is deep Analysis.

Definitely easier to transform Oath into OmniTell as you said due to the creatures being in the deck already. The advantage with this transform is that you tend to get your opponent way more in the board with the exception of Containment Priest, however you can play around that.

TBH I think the suggestions from this thread of using Angel of Glory's Rise instead of Deep Analysis are good and I've made that change to the list, didn't fully agree on the Azami, sure it gives you slightly more resilience but Snapcaster probe seems a fraction better and limits the number of dead cards.

You can resolve Oath, untap and not win the game whether it be through not having a Forbiden Orchard or simply that Emrakul wont get it done, tbf Griselbrand does 95+% of the time I would imagine.

Testing has gone really well, it's been quite a long process. The original build had Concordant Crossroads, Cavern of Souls and was just a silly turn 1 win or lose deck.

I think that Thoughtseize is really fantastic in Vintage , so many decks have specific cards in them the deck is trying to find, like Oath, PO etc and being able to take the one card they need leaving the rest is pretty strong.PO especially will keep a hand that either has a PO, Tinker, maybe even a draw 7 and nothing else so the Thoughtseizes are pretty great there.

Aggro Shops is an awful match up game 1, Revoker & Ballista are close to unbeatable, improves a lot game 2 as they tend to weaken their deck a bit bringing in graveyard hate, needles etc and also use Revoker/ Needle to name Hermit Druid.

I like the PO matchup, the hand disruption is very good and they have no way to interact with Druid apart from usually a 1 of bounce card. The problem is they don't have a heavy sideboard for graveyard hate usually just some crypts.

Storm - good matchup, hand disruption is king here.
Oath is usually a good matchup made so by the Abrupt decays, but your show and tell plan can be a little less good if you don't have a discard spell and they draw Grisselbrand. Also unless there's Inferno Titan if you play a druid into an oath, your win percentage is not TERRIBLE, but not great either.

I haven't lost to dredge....yet, but their game 1 Leyline is close to unbeatable. The new Abrupt decay coming out of Ravnica looks like it will slot right into this list.

Big fan of your lists btw Brian, try this one out and see what you think

@wfain

I'm new to TMD and just put up 2 lists I was pretty happy with, actually have got good feedback on ways to improve both the lists and have made changes. I won't post another list anyway.

Yeah DRS into a normal BUG Leo could be the way to go what would you suggest?

The combo isn't susceptible to Cage only to Containment Priest but yeah I'll try a control transformation.

@vaughnbros It just never really comes up. much rather have one less dead card.

And Emrakul

@childe_roland Crucible is very bad against Dack Faden, it does seem like there should be a slot for it in vintage lands, even in the board against shops but funnily it's not quite as good as you'd think.

@vaughnbros Yup that would kill you but I don't think you can build a deck for every possible scenario. In that scenario the correct play is to swords the druid before he can activate anyway, unless your opponent knows the exact configuration of your list and has probed to see you have a stranded bridge, it just can't be worth an extra dead card for something that would only happen due to your opponent playing incorrectly and not swordsing the druid before activation.