Adam Haggerty's U/G Tempo Ramp
 
Type: Deck Idea
Format (legal 👍)
modModern
Approx. Value:
$121.70
Buy

0 Likes 0 Comments
Avg. CMC 5.5
Card Color Breakdown
Card Type Breakdown

Main Deck - 71 cards, 25 distinct
Columns
Name  Edition $ Type Cost
Rarity Color
Creature (16)
1 Aethersquall Ancient
$0.18 Creature - Leviathan
1 Chaos Maw
$0.15 Creature - Hellion
1 Combustible Gearhulk
$0.18 Artifact Creature - Construct
4 Rogue Refiner
$0.22 Creature - Human Rogue
4 Sifter Wurm
$0.13 Creature - Wurm
4 Striped Riverwinder
$0.16 Creature - Serpent
1 Verdurous Gearhulk
$0.29 Artifact Creature - Construct
Instant (11)
4 Censor
$0.17 Instant
3 Commit // Memory
$0.42 Instant // Sorcery //
4 Unsummon
$0.28 Instant
Sorcery (18)
4 Baral's Expertise
$0.28 Sorcery
4 Hazoret's Undying Fury
$0.13 Sorcery
4 Hour of Promise
$0.26 Sorcery
4 Reason // Believe
$0.40 Sorcery // Sorcery //
2 Spring // Mind
$0.11 Sorcery // Instant //
Planeswalker (2)
2 Nissa, Steward of Elements
$0.34 Legendary Planeswalker - Nissa
Land (24)
4 Botanical Sanctum
$1.42 Land
3 Desert of the Mindful
$0.10 Land - Desert
2 Forest
$0.07 Basic Land - Forest
4 Hashep Oasis
$0.13 Land - Desert
2 Hostile Desert
$0.26 Land - Desert
3 Island
$0.05 Basic Land - Island
1 Mountain
$0.06 Basic Land - Mountain
4 Rootbound Crag
$0.72 Land
1 Scavenger Grounds
$0.50 Land - Desert
Sideboard - 73 cards, 45 distinct
Name  Edition $ Type Cost
Rarity Color
Creature (27)
1 Garruk's Horde
$0.20 Creature - Beast
1 Greater Sandwurm
$0.03 Creature - Wurm
1 Herald of Anguish
$0.30 Creature - Demon
1 Kefnet the Mindful
$0.40 Legendary Creature - God
1 Lashweed Lurker
$0.11 Creature - Eldrazi Horror
1 Razaketh, the Foulblooded
$11.06 Legendary Creature - Demon
4 Reality Smasher
$0.81 Creature - Eldrazi
1 River Serpent
$0.03 Creature - Serpent
2 Shefet Monitor
$0.14 Creature - Lizard
1 The Locust God
$4.24 Legendary Creature - God
1 The Scarab God
$10.08 Legendary Creature - God
4 Thought-Knot Seer
$1.97 Creature - Eldrazi
2 Tireless Tracker
$0.47 Creature - Human Scout
3 Torrential Gearhulk
$0.95 Artifact Creature - Construct
1 Ulvenwald Hydra
$0.80 Creature - Hydra
1 Walking Ballista
$10.04 Artifact Creature - Construct
1 World Breaker
$2.87 Creature - Eldrazi
Instant (23)
2 Blossoming Defense
$0.39 Instant
2 Disallow
$0.63 Instant
2 Dissenter's Deliverance
$0.02 Instant
3 Essence Scatter
$0.07 Instant
1 Harnessed Lightning
$0.17 Instant
4 Haze of Pollen
$0.11 Instant
1 Imaginary Threats
$0.07 Instant
1 Kozilek's Return
$5.63 Instant
2 Negate
$0.28 Instant
2 Pull from Tomorrow
$0.39 Instant
1 Refuse // Cooperate
$0.12 Instant // Instant //
1 Void Shatter
$0.12 Instant
1 Warping Wail
$0.29 Instant
Sorcery (5)
1 Confiscation Coup
$0.19 Sorcery
2 Insult // Injury
$1.38 Sorcery // Sorcery //
1 Rishkar's Expertise
$1.28 Sorcery
1 Torment of Hailfire
$21.36 Sorcery
Artifact (1)
1 Key to the City
$0.30 Artifact
Enchantment (4)
4 Unquenchable Thirst
$0.04 Enchantment - Aura
Planeswalker (1)
1 Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh
$3.33 Legendary Planeswalker - Bolas
Land (12)
1 Aether Hub
$0.25 Land
2 Blighted Woodland
$0.24 Land
1 Desert of the Indomitable
$0.11 Land - Desert
4 Ipnu Rivulet
$0.26 Land - Desert
1 Mirrorpool
$1.66 Land
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
$0.21 Land
1 Survivors' Encampment
$0.30 Land - Desert
1 Westvale Abbey // Ormendahl, Profane Prince
$0.62 Land // Legendary Creature - Demon
Scratchpad - 0 cards, 0 distinct
Cards in the scratchpad represent cards that you are considering for this deck, but are not actually in the built deck. They do not count towards the in built decks count shown in your inventory. If you are using the Auto Trade feature, they will be still be marked for trade although cards in your main deck and sideboard will not.
No cards here. :(

Notes
 
The new brews have begun! This list is split between two heroes, mill and crush. Crush synergizes with scribe and minister and provide the level of disruption needed to live until mill. Mill has good game with commit/memory to, plus access to the new desert bojuka bog to eat up graves if needed. Imagine end step torrential into memory, and then with memory on stack blowing the yards. Eat half your deck, draw 7 with kefnet or new perspectives! The question is, is mill good enough? The land is the deciding factor, as tapping 3 to mill 4 or more recursively is very strong, and 6 mana is a double activation. reclamation will be necessary to recoup, and will also give potential for explosive mana. Nonbo with fraying sanity. Will it be good enough compared to a revamped crush list? Built better together?

There are certainly sick combos in here. Slither blade/sixth sense is great with crush, new perspectives, as well as the pump desert. There's also the man land dessert, which plays well here. New perspectives slides in with kefnet, haze of pollen, all the cyclers, and hollow man. Hollow man and noose constrictor are best friends as well. Hope to believe or whatever pairs well with other cantrips, and the believe is busted if I put big mana jerks in, like torrential, ulamog, hydra, greenwarden, other eldrazi. Shelfet monitor and Rogue refiner tie the room together. Almost everything likes the mass bounce with crush. Endless Sun can even be used to "hide" creatures before a crush, and then "recast" them all at once at instant speed at a huge reduction! Disallow is going to punish that play for sure, but it's going to be glorious to crush with a token, and pass the turn with five lands untapped, one the sun with a rogue refiner and a fattie underneath. They have to re-deploy their board, deal with the octopus, and fight through the several creatures I'm redploying, and all before I untap. Perhaps even eternal scourge does some work here!

07/19/2017

The metagame has begun to take shape. A lot of midrange strategies, a lot of out grinding is being done. W/U monument, a slew of midrange, and control are the decks to beat. The pro's are respecting the ramp deck, but an optimized dominant list hasn't emerged, and it may fade from consciousness for a few weeks. If I can find an optimized list, I may be abel to overpower the metagame in two weeks. Mill, I'm just not that into you!

The ramp deck so far has been G/R, or Temur. The consensus is that the new painlands make casting eldrazi easier, and that deserts aren't worth it. I disagree. The power play of the deck is hour of promise into ulamog, and I believe the zombies being a key way to gain incredible advantage and survive a turn. I think a dedicated deserts list getting a 4-1 on a hour is the most optimized. After playing hour of promise last night, I can definitely say that the zombies catch you up immensely, and you need surprisingly few deserts to make it work. What is required is merely 1 desert by turn five, and the ability to find two more. This is is a statistical ratio that can be calculated, and I wouldn't be surprised if I only need 5-7 to be consistent. Also, the other builds are very graveyard dependent, trying to jump through the vessel of Nascency, K return, traverse hoops. That is simply an ineffective engine, much to much setup to get your setup ready to setup, ya know? Instead I think the deck should focus on library manipulation, juicy targets for 7-8 mana that scale or don't require shrine, and a more tempo control orientation of playing the game. If I can keep my opponent off tempo, create huge tempo windows with hour, and then exploit that window, my opponent has to regain their previous tempo, plus match the huge tempo swing that is coming. Instead of a traditional ramp deck then, I want to mostly play tempo control as my "ramp" making landrops and getting through the early game, and then pull way ahead. Crush of T plays well with that strategy, and it only takes casting Ulamog 1-2 times before they can no longer redeploy effectively.

The cards then that I'm incorporating. 4x Oath, 4x Reason, and two U/G Nissa. 10 cards that scry or filter, synergize with crush and scale as ramp targets. A late advocate with nissa is 14 D in the air. Believe  with all the scry can provide serious advantage/blowouts. Building in the eldrazi package is super easy, and gives the deck a solid midrange game plan along with advocate, tracker, and perhaps rogue refiner. Sifter Wurm is an interesting thought. It's a 7-drop to ramp into utilizing deserts, is not easily chump blocked, another source of library manipulation, and a huge way to gain life and that form of tempo advantage. It can lead to a "chain" of sifter wurms, pulling father ahead and having successive top-end drop's. It also plays super well with crush, escalating to large amount's of life and draw fixing.

This deck is vulnerable to fast starts and well played control. The tempo control part of the deck needs to negate this weakness consistently enough to get me to the window I'm identifying. I have a lot of elements to work with, so the key will be identifying which cards to play in what quantities. It has a larger space than a straight ramp deck, but the cards still need to be hard hitting every time, as they will be crucial pieces of the puzzle. I think ideally I want to be able to transition into a role where I side in two torrential gearhulks and can play a solid midrange control game. At the same time, I can not get clogged on noncreature spells, as they are anti synergistic with the crush package in some ways.

What to do with Elder Deep-fiend? It's both everything I want, and a trap. Recasting it repeatedly is nuts, and it ties up permanents like nothing else in standard. Interestingly though, it is very hard to capitalize on crush with fiend. Bounce the board means it difficult to emerge for 2-3 on their following turn. That would be the dream of course. I think it involves 1 drop, crush, 2-5 drop, with 2-5 mana up, a total of 13 mana. A bit of a tall order. With Shrines and a seer it's 11 lands. This may never be reasonably feasible, and cast triggers don't combo with believe. I think at best, it functions as a pseudo alternative crush tempo play that can be oathed into, sanctum searched, or sifted for. Maybe two to round out the list and options.

Another quandary is how much cycling can I get into the deck, and how much card flow does my deck need? Crush says not much, and oath/refiner/tracker could be excellent. There's also exceptional interest in the combination of the scry sources and instant speed cantrips, such as clues and the cycling on censor. I could end up leaving an option on the top of my deck to cantrip into, which is a legacy level of deck manipulation and utilization. This requires the aforementioned, and a nod towards cheap, powerful countermeasures available in the deck.

Also, how much energy does the deck utilize? If rogue refiner is in the list, then it's an abundant resource, and makes a card like confiscation coup available, seriously good post crush. Also allows a splash, likely of red, through aether hub, which unleashes Harnessed lightning, a card the deck may REALLY want. A splash of red also offers insult/injury as one of the other extreme tempo plays that is underutilized.
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