Tortured existence, the recursive thing

« Tournoi sur la région parisienne le 14/10 - Kobold Clamp »

Tortured existence, the recursive thing

By Frédéric Meurin on Tuesday 3 October 2006, 17:38 - Decks - Permalink

Deck
Discuss

It's already my third post about this deck, and this one is made after testing the deck a few. Changes to come !

For those whou wouldn't have followed our previous episodes, Tortured existence.dec is based on the eponym enchantment, and intends to find creatures solutions through it, using a lot of dredge and graveyard manipulation.

Last build was a classic GB deck, two well known colors for any who plays reanimator things.

Tactics

When I tested it, I observed a few things.
First, something you might already know the deck is slow. Llanowar Elves or Elves of the Deep Shadow can't help this.
Second, as it's slow, you can't afford to misplay. A lot of testing is not necesseray, it's essential. Basically, your first hand needs at least one creature with sacrifice ability (Spore frog or better, Sakura Tribe elder), at least one dredge able one (Golgari brownscale if you play against anything damaging quickly your life total, or Stinkweed imp for a quick graveyard fill), and of course at least one Tortured existence. With 2 lands, you're on the go.
Third, as there are a LOT of interactions, you do need to test (yeah, I know, I tend to repeat myself). It's useless to play four Golgari Brownscale if you forget to spend all your black mana into torturing them in and out of your graveyard by the end of your opponent's turn. In the same way, you may want, as your turn begin, to proceed like this :

You're at your turn 3, you already have 3 lands and a sakura tribe elder in your graveyard (wonder how these 3 lands reached the board...)

Untap step : untap 3 lands
Upkeek : Torture one brownscale to get one sakura tribe elder back
Draw phase : dredge your brownscale, get 2 life and possibly two tools you can torture later
Main phase : Play your sakura tribe elder.

So yes indeed, you don't have mana anymore, since you spend all 3, but you draw what you wanted to (a sakura tribe elder), gained 2 life, have a blocker/mana tutor on board and filled your graveyard with creatures. Not that bad ! If you consider that you may have a Spore frog layed on turn one, it can be very strong against aggro. For some example...

Third, and last, don't make it slower than it is. As soon as you can cast a Blastoderm, go for it. It doesn't mind if it gets countered, you will have your revenge next turn. The same can be said of Dimir House Guard : tutor your kill as soon as you can, it can't get countered ! And, again, you can get it back ! All this doesn't mean you have to rush in : it remains a control deck.

Changes

Ok then, these are tricks, but are the changes you talked about ?

Here's the new build the tests gave birth to.
Lands
8 Forest
12 Swamp

Creatures
1 Faceless Butcher
1 Nantuko Vigilante
2 Blastoderm
4 Eternal Witness
3 Spore Frog
3 Stinkweed Imp
4 Dimir House Guard
4 Golgari Brownscale
4 Mesmeric Fiend
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder

Other spells
1 Æther Vial
4 Tortured Existence
4 Culling the Weak
2 Duress

Sideboard
1 Ravenous rats
3 Crypt Rats
3 Ghastly Demise
3 Nantuko Vigilante
2 Duress
2 Blastoderm
1 Spore Frog

Elves, or Yavimaya elders are out, and replaced by 4 Culling the weak. You wanted mana acceleration, here you are. Talking about mana, mana base last build was all screwed up, with basically 8 swamps when you need 12 of them...
Demonic tutor is a great card to go through your library. Eternal witness is just better when you need to get things from your graveyard. More over when you think it is a creature, and can be brought back to your hand thanks to Tortured existence. You therefore have the new name of the deck : Tortured witness.

Other options

Can it be bettered still ?
I don't know yet, but I'd like to playtest Tortured witness with some cards from Timespiral. 2 of them focused my attention in making the deck run way faster and more secure.
The first one, a security one, would be a replacement for Spore frog : Children of Korlis. It would indeed mean you need a source for white mana. Wild cantor seems the perfect candidate for this. It could fit in by getting out a couple of lands, as a recursive mana fixer/beater. To be tested though.
The other one, less important, would be Pit keeper, a Tortured existence on legs. It could help by saving mana, beating and be another target for Culling the weak. I don't know yet where to squizze it in, but will keep you posted with playtest results as soon as I get 4 of these.

The last option can be tested by now just as Wild Cantor. It would be a nice option to make the deck faster - and by this I mean "more aggressive" : instead of Blastoderm, play Nantuko husk.
Both Blasto' and Husk are vulnerable against MBC, that forces you to sacrifice, and doesn't target.
Just as the big green thing, Husk doesn't fear burn as long as you have creatures on board. Okay, if you don't have any, it's too bad. But Husk is out there one turn earlier. Which brings Husk's main default here : it can't be reached through Dimir House Guard.

The match is pretty even yet, and I will compare these guys very soon through playtests.

To conclude, I just had an awful idea by writing this article up, and will let you know very soon. Just a clue : Ugly Legends art (yes there are a few...).

Comments

1. On Tuesday 3 October 2006, 19:34 by IdfTrotter

Je vais être un peu dur, mais c'est juste mauvais.

Les decks basés sur Tortured Existence ne peuvent pas être compétitif à cause de leur incapacité à gérer combo mais en plus il te manque plein d'éléments qui permettent de gagner contre aggro.

Enfin, ce deck est sensé prendre le contrôle de la partie, il est donc inutile d'avoir une carte de kill (Blastoderm) qui n'a aucune synergie avec le reste.

Il y a eu une discussion sur Yahoo il y a quelques mois, avec des éléments intéressants :

Krosan Tusker : terrain et Dredge, 2 éléments importants du deck

Crypt Rats de base

Sylvan Library : c'est LA carte qui justifie le deck; avec elle tu dredge 3 cartes par tour sans pénalités. Permet de trouver Tortured Existence (et mélange avec Sakura ou Tusker)

Moment's Peace : parce que Spore Frog n'est pas suffisant et peut être géré (Mogg Fanatic ...), et c'est gratuit. Quand tu stabilises contre aggro mais que tu ne fais pas encore de CA (récursif simple sur Spore Frog en sautant ta phase de pioche), Moment's Peace te permet de gagner 1 puis 2 ... tours pendant lesquels tu pourras t'installer.

J'en étais arrivé à cette version :

// Lands 11 Forest 10 Swamp

// Creatures 4 Sakura-Tribe Elder 4 Krosan Tusker 4 Stinkweed Imp 4 Golgari Brownscale 4 Crypt Rats 4 Spore Frog 1 Battlefield Scrounger 1 Eternal Witness 1 Shambling Shell

// Spells 4 Tortured Existence 3 Sylvan Library 1 Demonic Tutor 4 Moment's Peace

Une dernière chose : c'est le deck le plus ennuyeux que je connaisse, tant pour l'adversaire que pour celui qui le joue.

2. On Tuesday 3 October 2006, 23:07 by Frédéric Meurin

Un peu dur... tu as un goût pour l'euphémisme. Le build que je propose gère un peu mieux combo que tu ne le dis, avec quand même 2 duress (+2 en side) et 4 Mesmeric fiend).

Bon pour le reste, il semble évident que ta version tourne mieux. Je m'étais rendu compte que c'était pas folichon à jouer, mais bon, ça avait l'air sympatoche et optimisable, alors je cherchais. Je n'étais pas convaincu par Krosan Tusker, parce qu'il coute quand même 3 à recycler, ce cochon là. En même temps il pioche (ou active un dredge) et va chercher un terrain, donc bon...

Je testerais la version que tu proposes, on va pas cracher sur l'expérience ;)

3. On Wednesday 4 October 2006, 09:17 by IdfTrotter

Contre combo, j'avais essayé 15 défausses en réserve (dont Thrull Surgeon récursif). Cela ne sert à rien, ce deck est tellement lent que l'adversaire a tout le temps de se construire la main idéale pour un Tendrils à 200. Autant renoncer et se concentrer sur les autres decks.

Ma réserve était : SB: 3 Dark Heart of the Wood SB: 1 Nourish SB: 3 Rofellos's Gift SB: 4 Crumble SB: 4 Naturalize

Burn t'éclate sur la 1 sauf si TE+2 Brownscale. Affinité te tue au Cranial équipé en éphémère (gère l'Imp) ou à l'Atog + Disciple si tu peux gérer la phase d'attaque.

Maintenant, il faudrait voir à intégrer les cartes des dernières extensions (dont ton idée de Pit Keeper à tester).

4. On Wednesday 4 October 2006, 09:58 by Frédéric Meurin

J'vais attendre de décanter un peu tout ça. Merci de tes critiques, elles ont au moins le mérite d'être constructives.

Je vais donc me consacrer à travailler un autre deck pour le 14... ;-)

5. On Monday 9 October 2006, 21:56 by CTMorling

I've been messing around with this deck for a while, playing a version very close to IdfTrotter's. It's a ton of fun, and pretty competitive (although Tides is a terrible matchup.) Sylvan Library is fantastic. It's pretty hard to lose drawing 3 cards each turn, and it's amazing once you find Tortured Existence. Krosan Tusker is a close second card-drawing engine with a Tortured Existence.

This deck is really mana intensive. You never, ever have enough mana in play to feel like you can stop. An extra Swamp is two extra life, or something to recurse a Sakura-Tribe Elder, or an extra point of damage, or another chance to cycle Krosan Tusker, or, or, or. Even with the fetching, I don't think 21 lands is enough. In fact, I think this deck wants 4 x Golgari bounceland.

I love Moment's Peace, but I wouldn't put it in the maindeck. In theory, I think Blastoderm might be a good sideboard option, but in practice I don't think it helps. Matchups against decks that want to target your creatures are generally pretty good. The heavily anti-Affinity sideboard seems really smart. The lifegain is pretty good since it gives you a little more time to find 2 x Golgari Brownscale + Tortured Existence, but I'd go with Nourish instead of Dark Heart of the Wood. Those Forests are important!

I've tried a really intense sideboard for combo, and I still lose. I've tried going for recursive Thrull Surgeons, and it's usually just too slow, even with Duress as well. You need to hit 2BBB, plus have Tortured Existence, plus have a Dredge creature, and you basically need a perfect draw to hit that in time. I think you basically have to concede that matchup, but I think you're generally favored against aggro and control.

Cheers,

Chris

6. On Monday 9 October 2006, 22:48 by Frédéric Meurin

Thanks you Chris for your comments.

One fun thing is that IdfTrotter said it was one of the most boring he knew of, and that you find it's one of the more thrilling. Fun to see how two good players feel different about this.

Anyway, I'll try this deck in a few, during the next tournament, as a side shot. Maybe Time spiral will bring some additions to it (we were thinking about Pit keeper as a "mana reducer" somehow). How do you feel about this ?

7. On Tuesday 10 October 2006, 15:41 by CTMorling

It is funny that IdfTrotter and I disagree about whether this deck is fun. I like it because there are lots of choices every turn (what to Dredge, what to get back from Tortured Existence, what creatures to put into play, when to start using Crypt Rats aggressively, and so on). I also like eventually establish something of a lock.

I like Pit Keeper quite a bit in general, but not so much in this deck. It's better in your build, since it's some more incremental card advantage. In IdfTrotter's build (and my own) it's not as good. Pit Keeper is like two cards: a 2/1 for 1B and a Raise Dead if you have 4 creatures in your graveyard. This deck might like a 2/1 for 1B in the early game to block attacking creatures. In the mid-late game, though, that 2/1 isn't very useful. It's not good on defense, and it isn't needed for offense. The Raise Dead effect doesn't even trigger in the early game, and in the late game you usually have other options to recur creatures.

So I think Pit Keeper will end up playing a lot like a split card. In the early game it's a 2/1. In the late game it's a Raise Dead. Neither of those are terrible, but I don't think either of them are worth spending a card on.

I just took another look at the spoiler, and the only card that seems good for this deck is Terramorphic Expanse. I might cut one Swamp and one Forest for two of them. Even that I'm not sure of: as well as delaying your mana development for a turn, I'm not sure that I want to pull mana out of the deck.

Cheers,

Chris

8. On Wednesday 11 October 2006, 17:08 by Frédéric Meurin