[Deck] The Truffle Shuffle

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

This is a list I played at the second Duel for Duals last weekend; tournament report can be found here.

4x Savannah
4x Scrubland
4x Bayou
4x Windswept Heath
1x Bloodstained Mire
2x Swamp
2x Plains
2x Forest

4x Duress
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Swords to Plowshares
4x Pernicious Deed
3x Vindicate
3x Wrath of God

3x Sensei's Divining Top

3x Krosan Tusker (I loveded you piggy! I loveded you!)
3x Eternal Dragon
2x Grave-Shell Scarab
2x Gigapede
2x Haunting Echoes

Edit: -2 Decree of Justice, -1 Vindicate, +3 Sensei's Divining Top, -1 Savannah for +1 Polluted Delta, and replaced Gerrard's Verdict with Hymn To Tourach

SB:
4x Loxodon Hierach
4x Eternal Witness
4x Cabal Therapy
3x Infest


The deck's overall strategy is to be as vulnerable to Wasteland as it wants in favor of simply touching on all the best control cards and kill conditions across the three best control colors in the game. It runs an arsenal of powerful removal, some disruption, and an array of extremely hard to deal with kill conditions, the sixth of which attacks not the life total but the library (Echoes).

Individual card choices:

Bayou/Scrubland/Savannah- Fuck Wasteland.

Windswept Heath- Grabs basics of either color.

2x each Basic- Allows for some more enduring land drops and fuel for Krosan Tusker, and allows you to not cry at Ruination.

1x Mire- The best 23rd land I could think of. Smoothes the mana a bit while allowing another basic swamp that can, if need by, not be.

Pernicious Deed- The most versatile and efficent board sweeper in the game.

Wrath of God- The most efficent creature sweeper.

Vindicate- The most versatile pin-point destruction spell at a reasonable cost.

Swords to Plowshares- The most efficent 1-for-1 creature removal spell in the game.

Duress- The most efficent 1 cc discard spell.

Hymn to Tourach- Slightly harder to cast than Gerrard's Verdict, but very usually doable with 16 black sources and back breaking a large part of the time, helping a lot more against both Goblins and Solidarity.

Eternal Dragon- Colorless mana fixing and a late-game, recurring airborne threat.

Krosan Tusker- a 2-for-1, uncounterable mana accelerant and digger that transforms into an additional beatstick late game; while 7 mana isn't efficent, 6/5 is relevantly huge, able to kill every threat in Goblins or Threshold, including post-board Patrons, and seldom trading.

Gigapede/Grave-Shell Scarab- Swords proof, counter proof beaters. Gigapede is a little better against aggro-control/combo, and Grave-shell is a little better against aggro and decks running tons of removal.

Sensei's Divining Top- Combos with infinite shuffle effects to provide long-term card quality and keep up in the mid-to-late game, as well as stabilizing mana early game.

SB Choices

Loxodon Hierach- Almost maindecked. A remarkably well costed beater and defensive specialist.

Eternal Witness- Recurs your most relevant cards; usually sided in in place of discard against aggro, or in place of control against combo. Combos with Therapy nicely.

Cabal Therapy- Additional discard and a combo with Witness.

Infest- Early board sweeper against Goblins.



Debatable Slots:

Vindicate- This deck has no dedicated LD strategy. While it is the card's role against Solidarity, it still doesn't make game 1 amazing, meaning Vindicate is mostly a fleible Disenchant/Dark Banishing slot. This is acceptable, but it makes me question the 4x. I'd be comfortable going down to 3, I think.

DoJ- The deck suffers from potentially too many kill conditions in an aggro/combo heavy meta like we say at the D4D, making me want to cut one, and DoJ pulls the least weight, not really being useful until turns 6-7 most of the time.

Krosan Tusker- I love the card, but I'm a bit biased. It might be better off as Sakura Tribe Elder, Yavimaya Elder, or Wall of Blossom.

Eternal Dragon- Same as above. The danger is in figuring out how many kill conditions you can actually safely cut.


Other Options:

Condemn- It might improve the goblins matchup, or aggro in general, to add 1 or 2 of these for StP 5-6. The question is if it's close enough to StP to run, and if the deck needs more StPs.

Sensei's Divining Top- Synergy with a ton of shufflers, and a way to spend excess mana and improve the late game a bit more.

Sakura-Tribe Elder/Yavimaya Elder/Wall of Blossoms- Additional chumpage/dig/manastabilizing. The latter two having much greater synergy with Cabal Therapy post board, obviously.


Matchups:

Goblins- Unfavored. It's too easy for them to keep your mana base disrupted. That said, it's far from unwinnable, you just want to keep them off their feet long enough to get fat down or Echoes away their muscle. Sideboard: -4 Duress -2 Gigapede, -1 Krosan Tusker, -1 Eternal Dragon, -2 Grave-Shell Scarab, +3 Infest, +3 Loxodon Hierach, +4 Eternal Witness

Solidarity- Hard matchup. Very hard. You need to draw all the right cards to win this game 1. Try to keep them off cards with discard, Vindicate land when you can, and try to get out a fast threat to take advantage of the lull in their plans. Sideboard: -4 StP, -3 Wrath of God, -4 Deed, -1 Haunting Echoes/Graveshell Scarab (the former on the draw, the latter on the play); +4 Cabal Therapy, +4 Eternal witness, +4 Loxodon Hierarch.

Threshold- Autowin. No, seriously. I know I said Train Wreck was a near autowin, but the difference was that once in a great while Threshold could race Train Wreck out. If you have land and you haven't drawn removal for all their threats, it means you've drawn creatures that kill them in combat instead. SB: +4 Hierarch, +4 Witness. I'd change what I sided out depending on the build and who was on the play, but discard, DoJ/E.Dragon, and Wrath of God are all potentially fair game. Vindicate is tempting to side out, but does kill Needles naming Deed. Speaking of which, I'd always side out 1 Deed so that Needle never completely rapes you, but in general I think I'd cut out 1 card here or 2 there rather than bring out the entire playset of any one card as all of them are pretty good in this matchup.

Rifter- Autowin. Discard + Deed + Haunting Echoes + No Good Swords targets... well, you don't want to activate too many cyclers while Rift is in play and mana is untapped, but otherwise it's a cakewalk. Vindicating land is fun too. Sideboard: -4 StP, -3 Wrath of God, +4 Eternal Witness, +3 Cabal Therapy. Try to Witness back Vindicate as many times as possible and keep them off of one color of mana, probably Red.

Angel Stompy- Heavily favored. Their biggest threat is their Equipment, but that opens them up to Deed. Post-board, Armageddon is threatening, but you can easily have a threat out by the time they can support it, and you run more land to recover quicker than them anyway. -8 Discard spells, +4 Hierarch, +4 Witness.

Suicide- I had little trouble with this matchup, actually, which surprised me. The discard and LD failed to make up for the difference in threat density and creature quality; I could always topdeck creature removal while my opponent ripped gradually weakening LD or hand disruption, and my opponent could never adequately deal with the fact that my creatures crushed his in a fair fight. Barring turn 1 Negator/Hyppie in lack of an StP, this is quite favorable

Deadguy Ale- See above, only more so as Deadguy really must try to play an aggro role it's less suited for in this matchup. In both cases sb would be; -8 Discard, -2 DoJ, -1 Wrath of God; +4 Loxodon Hierarch, +4 Eternal Witness, +3 Infest.

Salvagers Combo- You know, I expected this to be bad as well, but both Legoman and I found this deck ridiculously easy to beat. Every card but Wrath of God is good in some way against them. Non-land permanents are clearly < than this deck. SB: -3 Wrath of God, -2 DoJ, -1 Eternal Dragon, +3 Cabal Therapy, +3 Eternal Witness

Angel Stax- 2 kill conditions, reliance on non-land permanents, vulnerability to hand-disruption. This matchup was also surprisingly favorable. Keep pressure off the board, and the only real threat is Smokestack. SB: -4 StP, -3 Wrath of God, +4 Eternal Witness, +3 Therapy/Hierarch (former on the play, latter on the draw).

Burn- A really difficulty matchup. Your clock is half of theirs. Verdict is a bomb, but it's your only one MD. SB: -4 Pernicious Deed, -3 Wrath of God, -2 DoJ, -1 Eternal Dragon, -1 Krosan Tusker, +4 Loxodon Hierach, +4 Eternal Witness, +3 Cabal Therapy