Challenge 2-7 : Land Ho!

[Salbei]

Land Ho!
Challenge: 2-7
Unlocks: (Gemstone Mine)
Description: your deck can ONLY include lands
NavigationChallenge Index - Archive for Set 2


Please discuss this Challenge here!

[Salbei]

Found at the Archive, might be outdated.

Just completed Land Ho, obviously got insanely lucky. Here's the list, although everyone likely has something pretty darn close, since there's not much you can do with this challenge:

.377 4 Maze of Ith
.508 4 Mishra's Factory
.806 4 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
.1946 4 Treetop Village
.1728 4 Wasteland
.528 1 Strip Mine
.1721 3 Kjeldoran Outpost
.694 1 Karakas
.407 4 Desert
.319 2 Gaea's Cradle
.438 1 Library of Alexandria
.1499 4 Temple Garden
.212 4 Savannah
.1989 3 Secluded Steppe
.1990 4 Tranquil Thicket
.428 2 Island of Wak-Wak
.1844 3 Dark Depths
.740 3 Pendelhaven
.398 3 Bazaar of Baghdad
.833 2 Urborg

The bulk of the strategy for playing this challenge is the 'surprise, I have a creature to block with' plan, since the AI seems unaware that Factories and Treetops can be animated, or that Outpost and Dark Depths can put creatures into play at instant speed. For this reason it is incredibly important to mulligan into a manland, as you need to be able to kill their early attackers to stop them getting ahead of you. Factory is by far preferable to Treetop, since it comes online earlier, and a second Factory can make for a 4/4 blocker. This strategy is most effective against decks that attack with alot of 2/2s (obviously). For this reason the Rats deck is the easiest to beat unless they have an early turn with two Rats, since you can keep them getting any bigger than 2/2. Once they stop dropping creatures, then you can start attacking.

The other major strategy is mana denial, both from the Strip Mine / Wastelands, and the Tabernacles. If your opponent has a turn 1 of land-go, I usually recommend using a Strip / Wasteland asap, as they are far more likely to get manascrewed than you With a Tabernacle in play, sometimes you *want* the AI to keep 2/2s you can deal with, rather than have it suicide them into a manland. In this situation, you just activate the manland at the beginning of the AI's attack step to dissuade them attacking. Pendelhaven is pretty amazing here too, as the AI thinks it can pump any size creature. I held of an army of Hierarchs and Rhow War Monks with a Treetop Village and an open Pendelhaven Maze of Ith really shines in this strategy too. If you are playing this way, generally you are going to be winning in the late game either by Outpost + Cradle, or Marit Lage.

The Urborgs may need some explaining: the toughest match in this challenge is probably the soldier deck. Not only are Crusade effects very bad for you, they have Preeminent Captain, which can get around the mana denial strategy by plopping creatures directly into the red zone.

This is a very tough challenge, as the cardpool for it is incredibly small. There are alot of situations it can't deal with, since it can't effectively deal with artifacts, enchantments, or large creatures, and as an aggro deck it doesn't provide much of a clock (you are only the aggro against Burn, Turbofog and often Faeries).

Finally beat this myself, on my second try (last challenge complete, woohoo!)
Here's my deck:

Code: Select all

.377   4   Maze of Ith
.508   4   Mishra's Factory
.806   4   The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
.1946   4   Treetop Village
.1728   4   Wasteland
.528   1   Strip Mine
.694   1   Karakas
.407   4   Desert
.438   1   Library of Alexandria
.1499   4   Temple Garden
.212   4   Savannah
.1989   3   Secluded Steppe
.1990   4   Tranquil Thicket
.1844   3   Dark Depths
.740   3   Pendelhaven
.398   4   Bazaar of Baghdad
.1709   4   Temple of the False God
.1913   4   Dryad Arbor


My strategy is a little different from yours. I used Dryad Arbor + Pendlehaven extensively. I cut the Outposts after the first try, since I never wanted them in play, and use Temple of the False God instead. Helps to get those Dark Depths going. Overall, I used 1 of 3 game plans depending on the deck:

1) Make Marit Lage ASAP. Works best against decks like Turbofog and ones with large creatures.

2) LD. If I start with 2 Wastelands / Srtip Mines in hand, I'll play Bazaar and try to find the rest to cripple the opponent.

3) Manlands. This is the most common strategy, as explained by somacat. I never found myself needing to abuse the Pendlehaven AI bug, though.

[HornofAmmon]

WOOO! This challenge was really fun. Won with a deck quite similar to some of these. You actually have to be careful to balance the manlands well with your other lands, since you end up with lots of "creatures" you have to fuel every turn.

In my winning run, I came 1 second away from conceding against the Soldiers deck in game 8. I had just two Mazes of Ith, a Stirring Wildwood, and a token Gargoyle against four 4/4 soldiers and a Field Marshal. I said screw it, lets play it to the end, and made my (normally 3/4) Stirring Wildwood to defend - turned out their Crusade actually made it a 4/5, so and I managed to block several times to kill off their soldiers while slowly killing them with my Gargoyle. That was definitely the hardest round. Against the Turbofog deck, game 9, I made two Marit Lages - only to have both killed by Wrath of God. Super lucky that the comp had Land Tax and picked the max lands every turn, and so ended up decking himself!! A final joust against some goblins sealed the deal in game 10. Overall it's actually a fun challenge - and you can imagine if you actually beat someone IRL with a land-only deck like this, how fun that'd be


.1844 2 Dark Depths
.508 4 Mishra's Factory
.377 4 Maze of Ith
.740 2 Pendelhaven
.61 3 Raging Ravine
.57 3 Stirring Wildwood
.1946 4 Treetop Village
.1913 4 Dryad Arbor
.806 2 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
.241 4 Taiga
.212 4 Savannah
.873 4 Gargoyle Castle
.694 1 Karakas
.189 4 Plateau
.1728 4 Wasteland
.528 1 Strip Mine
.1014 2 Vesuva
.596 4 Rishadan Port
.1709 4 Temple of the False God

Notes: 2 Tabernacles felt more than enough, since with the Gargoyles and Dryad Arbor you can actually get slowed down by them a good deal. Also Vesuva is actually really good in this challenge, since it can help you get more Gargoyle Castle or whatever you need at a given time.

[aww1979]

ZOMG, when was Vesuva coded? :p Nice...

Yeah, this challenge used to be by far the hardest one, until Jatill added the Exploration in play for free. It's actually not too bad anymore.

[Asatas]

Are there any other lands restricted/banned in this Challenge than in Vintage?
I built this list and the challenge instantly kicks me out:

Code: Select all

.6860   4   Blinkmoth Nexus
.8916   4   Dryad Arbor
.6637   4   Cloudpost
.11264   4   Glimmerpost
.8720   4   Vesuva
.8356   2   Dark Depths
.11463   4   Inkmoth Nexus
.694   1   Karakas
.11998   4   Kessig Wolf Run
.377   4   Maze of Ith
.508   4   Mishra's Factory
.9393   4   Mutavault
.4578   4   Rishadan Port
.528   1   Strip Mine
.241   4   Taiga
.806   1   The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
.3329   4   Wasteland
.10787   2   Khalni Garden
.10815   1   Raging Ravine

[stassy]

Just tested your deck and it seems to work fine, at least I am not kicked on first round

[mox]

My winning deck for Land Ho!:

.508 4 Mishra's Factory
.377 4 Maze of Ith
.806 3 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
.3329 4 Wasteland
.528 1 Strip Mine
.212 4 Savannah
.740 2 Pendelhaven
.6587 3 Temple of the False God
.8720 3 Vesuva
.3994 3 Forbidding Watchtower
.11463 4 Inkmoth Nexus
.9393 4 Mutavault
.5654 4 Petrified Field
.12549 4 Cathedral of War
.5539 2 Deserted Temple
.10838 2 Stirring Wildwood
.4211 3 Yavimaya Hollow
.4076 3 Treetop Village
.8916 3 Dryad Arbor

[quox]

Either my luck is bad or this is the cruelest challenge yet.

Run 1 my opponent drops winter orb and destroys me

run 2 and 3 i get price of progressed.
Gonna try something else and come back to this.

[pyknite]

.2906 2 Quicksand
.508 4 Mishra's Factory
.9022 4 Mutavault
.11426 4 Gargoyle Castle
.438 1 Library of Alexandria
.377 4 Maze of Ith
.4354 4 Rishadan Port
.528 1 Strip Mine
.806 3 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
.3369 4 Wasteland
.3935 3 Faerie Conclave
.6363 4 Temple of the False God
.6413 4 Cloudpost
.10671 4 Glimmerpost
.254 1 Tundra
.258 1 Underground Sea
.252 1 Tropical Island
.266 1 Volcanic Island
.5976 3 Lonely Sandbar
.8545 4 Dryad Arbor
.2414 4 Dark Depths

Finally finished this challenge, which took forever, mainly because of constantly having to activate Rishadan Ports and manlands every turn. Only a few to go. I tried many times with a similar deck that had another manland instead of Dark Depths, but I went with Marit Lage for the winning run. However, I only used it once during that run, and it wasn't even necessary for the win.

I think Rishadan Port is indispensable in this type of deck. Combined with the Tabernacle it can really shut some of the aggro decks down (especially the 2-Land White deck)! Quicksand is tech against an early Juggernaut (the AI ignores it)... the Pit Scorpion helps for that one. For my money, the 2/2 manlands that animate for 1 mana are absolute powerhouses. Faerie Conclave's flying ability can be clutch, although I don't really like the Urza's Legacy manlands that come into play tapped and are expensive to activate that much.

The two funniest wins I had were:
Against the Black Vise/artifact creature deck, they had Winter Orb out but I held off their lone Triskelion with a Maze of Ith, prevented them from playing any other creatures with a Tabernacle, and let their own Mana Vault slowly kill them.
Against the zombie deck I was facing a huge army of zombies, my 2 Mazes of Ith kept me alive for a couple extra turns but time was running out. The AI dropped a couple more zombies, leaving a pack of 6 7/7's staring me down. However, one of them was a Graveborn Muse and they were at 8 life. I was able to fly in 2 damage with a Faerie Conclave then the Muse killed them the next turn.