Subject: WORKSHOP : SGD Explained...again. Date: Fri, 24 Jul 1998 10:01:04 -0400 From: "R. Kinyon" To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com Folks - I think it's great that the SGD (Stupid Green Deck) is receiving a lot of play time across the world. It's a testament to Seth and the rest of our team that our brainchild is loved. But, I can't keep silent and watch people butcher it. Here's the deck explained. Before anything else, you have to understand one thing - THIS IS A GREEN CONTROL DECK. If you take nothing else away from this post, remember that. This is Cuneo Green, not Stompy. If you win before turn 10, it's a miracle. Winning on turn 15-18 is normal. Remember, establish your Weaver lock, then kill them with the Wildebeest or Scroll. It's not a race. That said, a decklist : 4 Eladamri's Vineyard 4 Llanowar Elves 4 Wall of Roots 3 Wall of Blossoms 4 Stampeding Wildebeests 4 Spike Weaver 4 Spike Feeder 2 Uktabi Orangutan 3 Desert Twister 4 Creeping Mold 4 Cursed Scroll 1 Survival of the Fittest 15 Forest 4 Wasteland Sideboard : 4 Winter's Grasp 1 Survival of the Fittest 1 Uktabi Orangutan 4 Emerald Charm 3 Scragnoth 2 Null Brooch Now, why each and every card is in that deck : The deck revolves around two synergies - that of Eladamri's Vineyard and Cursed Scroll and that of Stampeding Wildebeests and green creatures that you might want to cast over and over. I'll explain the Vineyard synergy first. Vineyard mana is a problem for almost every deck. You have 12 obvious mana dumps and you actually have 19 mana dumps. (A mana dump is something you can cast or do with Vineyard mana.) The 12 obvious mana dumps are Cursed Scroll and the Spikes. (If you have two counters on a Spike, you can move a counter from it to itself. Do not do this with only one counter as the Spike will die due to Rules Trigger.) The other mana dumps are actually the seven Walls when combined with the Wildebeests, so nicely coincedentally 1G each. The usual non-green mana dumps are Scroll (for which you have Creeping Mold and Desert Twister), buyback spells (for which you have Null Brooch), and Manowar (for which you have no answer except to kill their Islands). The Wildebeest synergy is fairly simple in theory. You use up certain creatures' abilities, bounce them back to your hand, and then recast them using your excess mana and start over. A prime example of this is Spike Weaver. Weaver and Wildebeest equals permafog. This is why we do not have any Quicksands in this deck. If I'm playing SGD and I'm matched up against a speed deck, I'm ecstatic! It's almost a bye for me. Unless you have buyback or Tradewind Rider, I can almost guarantee a win because of Weaver. Other ideas : Spike Feeder = 2 life/turn Wall of Blossoms = personal Howling Mine Wall of Roots = wonderful extra mana Uktabi Orangutan = personal Shattering Pulse Now, why do we play Wildebeest over Erratic Portal? Well, which would you prefer - a 5/4 Trample creature or an artifact? We still have to win somehow and all the little nifty tricks that the Erratic Portal can do just don't match up to a 5/4 Trample creature. We know. We tried it. Now, you can use the same creature to pay for multiple Wildebeests. The sequence goes something like "I target my Spike Weaver to pay for Wildebeest A. In response, I target my Spike Weaver to pay for Wildebeest B." The reason this works is the Wildebeest "upkeep cost" is actually not a Phase Cost, but a Phase Effect. Ask your local Level II judge. It works. This makes it possible to start massive beatdown and why we play 4 Wildebeests instead of 3 as was in the original versions. A little note about Walls of Roots - suck them dry. Obviously use your land mana first, but suck those babies dry. Don't hesitate to put four counters on them. Drop a Wildebeest and all of a sudden, you have a fresh Wall ready to go. Remember - Wall of Roots mana is useable on both turns, so if you have four land, a Wall of Roots, and two Cursed Scrolls out, Scroll on your turn with two land and the Wall, then on their turn with the same. So strong! The Survival of the Fittest simply rocks. But, you really don't have space for more than one. I suppose you could take out a Wall of Blossoms for the one in the sideboard and put in a fourth Scragnoth, and we might actually do that. I'm not sure. The Twisters and Creeping Molds are your land destruction. Now, you're going to say "Then why do you have the Winter's Grasps in sideboard? I'm so confused!" Well, it's cause you want the utility. Look at it this way - for an additional colorless, your Winter's Grasp is now a Disenchant as well. Not so bad now, is it? The Desert Twisters are also your "Uh-oh...that permanent you have sucks for me." insurance. They're also your only way to deal with rival Spike Weavers as well as Tradewind Riders (both of which are doubleplusungood for you). Don't take them out. I'm already leery with Seth's taking out of one Twister, but I understand why. Dropping to two Twisters is suicide. Sideboarding : Most games, you will sideboard in the third Uktabi and maybe the second Survival, and that's it. Sideboard out Desert Twisters. I usually do an Uktabi-for-Twister exchange and leave it at that. This is against Sligh, WW (mono and X-color), Suicide Black, Necro, control-Red, and Stompy (if you see it). You're already as good as you're going to get. If you face Stompy, you might consider swapping your Vineyards out for the Winter's Grasps. Whichever feels right. If you face Tradewind Riders, you all of a sudden do a massive switcheroo. Out come the Walls of Blossoms, Walls of Roots, and Weavers. In come the Winter's Grasps, Broochs, and Scragnoths, as well as the second Survival. You're now a straight LD deck with beatdown. You want to force them to burn and burn hard. The ideal is when they get out the Tradewind lock, but they have to keep bouncing your Vineyard while you destroy their blue sources. Ignore all their other colors, cause they're irrelevant. Your worst nightmare is Tradewind Rider combined with buyback, as it usually is. Instead of the Weavers coming out, the Vineyards come out. You play this one as you get your cards - if you can get an early Wildebeest going, beat them down. Otherwise, take it nice and slow and get their Riders with your Twisters. You will usually lose these matches, is my gut instinct, but they have to play exactingly. Remember, you don't have your normal acceleration as 8 of your 12 non-land manasources are now gone. The reason the Walls come out is Legacy's Allure. You should be able to figure this one out. What NOT to do when modifying this deck : 1) Take out the Vineyards. Unless your environment is very screwy (in which case you might not want to play SGD as it's a metagame deck), they won't help most of the decks. Vineyard burn is very important to your win. It gives your opponent a sense of hopelessness that is wonderful to play against. 2) Try to thin the land. 12/31 manasources are non-land. Thus, they're easy to get rid of at times. Your land is very important to you and it comes to you in measured doses. Don't mess with that dose. 15 forests, 4 wastelands comes to you in the correct proportions. Leave it at that. 3) Take out the Twisters. Yes, 4GG seems like a lot, but 4th turn Twisters aren't that hard to do. You're not racing here. You will be able to cast them. 4) Take out Wildebeests (especially for Portals). Wildebeests are really what make this deck tick. Portals are a really sucky second place to them. (In fact, they're so sucky that the Rath Cycle version of this deck doesn't use them.) 4 Wildebeests is correct. 5 would be nice, but we're not allowed to do that. 5) Take out Spike Weavers. If you don't understand the power of the Weaver, you're nuts. Do the words "Permanent Fog" mean anything to you? This is how you beat weenies. Of all kinds. Attacking creatures will never kill you. I have fogged using the same Weaver for 10+ turns IN A ROW. This is the most important creature in the deck. Wildebeests make the deck, but Weaver is the most important. I hope this has helped. I don't want to stifle tuning efforts, but I felt I had to explain why we did some stuff so people would know what they're tuning. We tried to fit Gaea's Blessing and Sylvan Library and a host of other stuff and we couldn't even fit 4 Walls of Blossoms, 4 Desert Twisters, and 2 Survivals of the Fittest, all of which are supposed to be there before anything else. Have fun with the deck. It's truly a blast to play. Rob Kinyon Member, Team Pooh and Friends.