UGW Super Grow

pmoore311 · Joined: 19 Feb 2007 Posts: 65

OK after fooling around I have come to the conclusion and my senses that blue is definately needed instead of my previous post using red. This is one of my favorite decks back in the day and I am really hoping it will work. I am thinking of taking it to my local FNM soon...Here is my latest improved list. Please comment and critique or flame if that is your thing.

Creatures//
3 Looter il-Kor (or should I roll Merfolk Looter???)
4 Quirion Dryad
4 Sage of Epityr
4 Tarmogoyf

Spells//
4 Chromatic Star
4 Condemn
4 Perilous Research
4 Remand
4 Runesnag
4 Snap Back
4 Street Wraith

Land//
4 Flagstones of Trokair
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Hallowed Fountain
3 Breeding Pool
3 Temple Garden

Sideboard//
4 Sunlace
4 Spell Snare
2 Mystic Enforcer
2 Naturalize
3 Pull From Eternity

Effectively with Street Wraith it plays like a 56 card deck. I only need 2 lands to make this deck work. Three is ideal. I need to hit an Island (11 chances) on T1 to cast Sage of Epityr to dig my lands and ensure I can get to 2-3. So far I have yet to land screw myself. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

footu · Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 31

Looter il-Kor or Merfolf Looter? for what? for your Goyf?
Sage of Epityr does not work at all.
Isnt Chromatic Star better for a Combo strategy?
Condemn? or Wrath of God? what if there's a Troll Ascetic on Board or a Calciderm?
Snap Back for what? do you Know how Venser, Shaper Savant is?
It seems to me that you want heavy control, in that case WoG is better than Condemn as Venser > Snap Back.

A perilous Research... well if you run Perilous try this:

+

The deck seems to me a lot ''unfocused''. Not consistent at all. Btw, who runs 18 lands??? 18 LANDS!!! THIS IS NOT AFFINITY. It's a Heavy deck. FOr Jesus sake.
4 Gemstones Mine arent a good idea, at all. Maybe 1. And that's much. you run TEN Shock lands, I think it is not good idea to run 4 Street Wraith, hurts your Life Total A LOT.

Engrishskill · Joined: 15 Jan 2007 Posts: 454

Footu is a retard: With all the cantrips, eighteen land is fine.

I don't really think the deck is too good, but consider edge of autumn. Maybe even a pact of negation or something.

The idea of winning early or not at all, with this deck is yucky

Footu should kill himself too.

Tenak · Joined: 16 Jul 2007 Posts: 39

Street Wraith has no place outside of a combo deck. It will just cause hell for your mulliganing decisions anyway. Against e.g. rakdos you deal yourself 6 damage through 2 street wraiths and a land & that is game right there...

Sage of Epityr is another bad card. It doesn't allow you to keep 1 land hands. So you play the sage and look at the top 4 and if there is no land there you just scoop? That's lame. Plus I hate the card itself, seems like pure card disadvantage to me. You get a 1/1 that does absolutely nothing. If you want to dig id rather play mystic speculation in that slot.

Personally I'd run more lands and better spells. Building a deck around a creature shouldn't mean that you have to play substandard stuff. E.g. play repeal over snapback.

Personally I can't believe you are getting away with 18 lands either especially considering 4 of them are gemstone mines & you thin your deck with flagstones! Get rid of the wraith, get rid of the sage and play more lands.

I think they you should run the spell snares main because they are AMAZING in the current meta and stop half the stuff which will be aimed at your dryad.

Here's my rather unconventional build of the dryad if you are interested:

4 Yavimaya Coast
4 Forest
10 Island
4 Breeding Pool
3 Tarmogoyf
4 Quirion Dryad
2 Perilous Research
3 Spell Snare
3 Locket of Yesterdays
4 Whispers of the Muse
4 Repeal
4 Rune Snag
4 Remand
4 Think Twice
3 Chromatic Star

NOTE: I wrote this reply a while ago but couldn't get on the site for ages... sry if I cba to change it to incorporate the replies already made.

footu · Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 31

DaanP · Joined: 31 Oct 2004 Posts: 25

footu
i hear that most fish/tresh decks in legacy run 18-19 lands(often including wastelands), and they get away with it by playing a lot of cantrips/brainstorm-esque spells to dig for mana. And that is sortof where pmoore is going for i think.
I'm not saying I like the deck, cause I don't think there are enough 1 mana draw/dig spells in standard to make this principle work.
Just don't say stupid things my friend.

P.S. not to mention almost every combo deck ever runs 18 OR LESS lands, even in type 2, check out perilous storm/aussie storm.

cheers

nasa · Joined: 09 Sep 2004 Posts: 186

why arnt you running griffin guide?

Engrishskill · Joined: 15 Jan 2007 Posts: 454

Not to mention countless other decks from mtg history have run eighteen.
Hatred, suiblk, sligh, ORGINAL rdw, ten land stompy, mind over mana, jar, etc, etc.

With an average cc of under two and being able to fish by turn four, or so, why would you waste your time with over twenty mana sources?

Footu=nubcake

You don't need to pay for the mana from a pact if you just finished winning the game, now do you? Fucking idiot.

Magic hasn't been around the three years that you have been playing it only, it has been around fourteen. Making a generalized statement like "eighteen mana only works for [these] decks"
is absolutely hilarious because it shows how little you know...which in most cases means that you should stop hitting reply and typing retarded shit.

KK THX

LA

footu · Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 31

omg this is not Legacy, this is not RDW, sligh, perilous/storm or fish. I dont see the combo on this deck.

How could you say some one to run 4 Gemstones M and Running 10 Shock Lands and 4 Street Wraiths is suicede.

Just test this deck against a Tier 1 deck and tell us what happens, meanwhile, is worthless to whinne.

MageMasher · Joined: 06 Mar 2005 Posts: 6

Hey all. I'm relatively new to magic-league, but I've been playing for a little while now. I've been playing u/g/w gro since regionals, and this is the deck that I've come to:

Creatures:
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Quirion Dryad
4 Mystic Enforcer
2 Loxodon Heirarch

Spells:
4 Edge of Autumn
4 Remand
4 Peek
3 Spell Snare
3 Perilous Research
3 Condemn
2 Sunlance
2 Repeal

Land:
4 Breeding Pool
2 Temple Garden
2 Hallowed Fountain
4 Flagstones of Trokair
3 Horizon Canopy
3 Island
2 Forest
1 Plains

Sideboard:
3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Plaxmanta
3 Jotun Grunt
2 Loxodon Heirarch
2 Pithing Needle
2 Disenchant

First of all, I think that anything under 20 land is too few. I played 19 at regionals and lost a bunch of games to mana screw. Also, with all of the sac effects in this deck, if you get lots of land, just sacrifice it. The removal is obviously in the form of Condemn and Sunlance. In terms of creatures, I think my build goes with a few more then normal builds. I think that they're all good editions, especially Mystic Enforcer. I really think that it's a dumb move to play gro and not play him. He's almost always a 6/6 and has protection from most of the removal in this format. The heriarch is in there because of the aggro heavy meta right now. And he's still a 4/4 for four that gains life. The only thing that I'm toying around with is replacing Remand with Rune Snag. I feel like countering something straight up is better then drawing a card, but I'm not sure yet. Besides that, feel free to comment.

footu · Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 31

You answered a lot of my doubts Cool

btw, Remand > Runes Snag. Be sure.

Engrishskill · Joined: 15 Jan 2007 Posts: 454

Vedrfolner · Joined: 04 Apr 2006 Posts: 1443

I presume this deck plays 18 lands because it likes to play lots of cheap non-green spells. It wants to play lots of those spells because it wants to feed Tarmogoyf and Quirion Dryad. The point of the deck is therefore to produce big creatures fast.

So, the synergy is that to get a mana-curve, the deck plays way too few lands so that it needs to play "diggers" or draw cards to find them. Presumably it already does have Dryad in play, otherwise this would all be just silly.

The result is that the deck will likely be restricted to one spell a turn, especially of it is to keep mana open at all times. The Dryad is therefore probably staying relatively small. If you want to play many spells, make sure you have lots of mana...

As far as I see it, from the decklist, the Street Wraiths are replacing four lands. The idea is presumably that its cycling ability will help you dig for cards you need, while feeding the Goyf. Most likely this card will be a land, and that begs the question... if you need a land, what would you rather draw or have in hand, a Street Wraith or a land? (Replace "land" with any card in the deck, and you will see that unless there is reanimation in the deck, playing 56 cards and starting at 12 life isn't worth it - Goyf isn't enough).

Now to card power:

Looters 3/10 (Does not net you a card, and so doesnt help feed Dryad. Helps for Goyf.)

Dryad 6/10 (can become big)

Sage 1/10 (feeds Dryad, helps stack deck. Otherwise useless)

Tarmogoyf 10/10 (very powerful)

Chromatic Star 2/10 (fixes mana, digs for a card, feeds Goyf. Does not feed Dryad)

Condemn 4/10 (may help defence, does not clear path for attackers, nets opponent life)

Perilious Research 2/10 (nets a card at the cost of a permanent, at 18 lands this must hurt unless you sac a looter or sage)

Remand 9/10 (the best counter in the format)

Rune Snag 6/10 (the second best counter in the format, along with Delay)

Snap Back 4/10 (bouncing what? Sage? May clear path, and pump Dryad (and Goyf) for free.)

Street Wraith 2/10 (does not fit the deck)

all in all, this deck plays like a combo deck, where the gameplan seems to be A: play Dryad, B: counter the things opponent plays to kill him and coast to victory.

imho GU aggro/control with birds and trolls and ledgewalkers and remands and delays and warhammers and cloaks does that A LOT better and more consistently.

in other words, using Quirion Dryad is fine, but building a deck that does ONLY that is pointless. It only becomes a big creature. No big deal. Build a GOOD deck from GOOD cards WITH Dryad, not a Dryad Deck. The difference is subtle but at the end of the day, it will show at the result chart.

Winz · Joined: 26 Apr 2006 Posts: 5

pmoore311 · Joined: 19 Feb 2007 Posts: 65

Thanks for all of the comments on this deck and sorry I couldn't reply during all of these comments. I was having trouble getting onto the site. Anyways, I am not sure this could ever be a tier 1 deck like it used to naturally losing FoW and Daze and all of the other all-stars can never be duplicated. I just wanted to present something that was a little different, also this was my favorite deck back in the day so I was trying to bring it back. It definately needs alot of tweeking to be more playable. But in all honesty the 18 lands have never been a problem with the low curve this deck has.

Thanks for all of the constructive comments and I will post the list after I analyze some of the content listed below.