Actually, I think it is only 10 lands plus 4 land grants. But still... how do they expect to draw into that land, considering that it is only 1 in 4? I played against a Gro deck and they had to paris often because of the lack of decent land. All of their creatures are 2cc so the rely on the second land just as much as any other deck.
well they do run a LOT of cheap cantrips so even if u get a 1 land hand, a brainstorm or sleight of hand should deliver the second in time.
I personally bump the land count to 14 and 4 landgrants...to make it work smoother..took out the cantrips for tight stuff...
That would be a bad idea becasue you would draw into way too much land. You even sometimes get too much land in its current version. The deck will usually find the second land in the first 2-3 turns.
Jedi Skywalker
What do you guys think about using 4 manta riders instead of the 4 merfolk looters? I never really used them in testing. With the Riders you have a first turn drop and an extra curiosity-critter.
Merfolk are horrible in Miracle Grow, I personally think that green is better with Werebear and Wild Mongrel. That is why Mike Long made t8 at Sendai and Alan Comer didn't at Vegas.
10 lands and 4 land grants is perfectly fine. If you replace Land Grants with lands, you will get flooded late game. Running 14 lands AND Land Grants is just excessive, seeing as how you only need 1 land/Land Grant in your opening hand to go.
comer missed t8 by like .4% on breakers. he went 7-0 day one and got 9th. long only got mana screwed in feature matches. hmmm...
this deck is great against blue but not good against other creature decks. there must be a way to give dryad evasion otherwise it's only a river boa holder. i wonder if rancor can be used in this deck?
i agree with Beowulf, blob. he finished 9th on tie-breakers. did you make t9 at vegas?
umkay
About the evasion...
I read about Shimmering Wings from somewhere and tried them. Better than Rancor, as far as I'm concerned! Bounce it in your hand to make more counters. You can also play it to any creature in the early game and move it to the Dryad once she hits the table. Helps guys with Curiosity.
By the way, my deck has only Dryads and Orbs and Land Grants as non-blue spells. I haven't tried the Werebears and Mongrels yet, so I can't contribute to that question... So far this deck has been amazingly fast and consistent, but I have no tournament experiences yet.
Decklist:
6 Island
4 Tropical Island
4 Land Grant
4 Quirion Dryad
4 Gaea's Skyfolk
3 Merfolk Looter
3 Lord of Atlantis
3 Curiosity
2 Shimmering Wings
4 Daze
4 Force of Will
3 Foil
4 Gush
4 Brainstorm
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Winter Orb
I haven't tried the Opts, because in this deck it is highly irrelevant whether you have mana open in the other plyers turn or not. Sleight should therefore be a better choice. If I would change something, I believe the Lords could be changed. I'm not very impressed of them so far. Maybe the Werebears could come in, since they also help manawise under the Orb.
I am having a hell of a time beating Sligh with this deck. What do people generally side in and out for this matchup?
Thanks
Crazy
chill and misdirection work wonders against sligh
When was the last time you made t8 at a GP? Anyway 9th is still pretty far from 3rd, which is what Long got. I look at real results, not speculation.
The real results are also more dependant on other decks in the field so don't get too skewed.
Comer made 9th in a field that had several dedicated anti-blue decks near the top in it that were poor matchups for him and thus faltered late.
Long's T8 and T16 was loaded with blue decks. In the metagame of that GP, Comer's version could well have made 3rd or better as well.
Having not played the deck much, I cant tell you which version is better, but dont assume that the difference between 9th and 3rd is because of deck design. Identical decks played by different players often get very different results at the same tourney, taking one player to top 8, and leaving another at an even record. The difference comes down to luck,matchups, and disparity in play skill.
As for 9th being pretty far from 3rd, it is about the difference between a win and a draw in the swiss rounds. Not exactly compelling evidence.
....and the Quarter and Semi finals
.... which you cant compare as one deck never played in the quarter and semi finals. If in a top 8 as blue as the one long faced, comer could well have finished 3rd or higher. As it is, he finished with the equivalent of 1 less point than long in the swiss rounds against a field with poorer matchups.
I don't see why you are arguing over this, you're not going to change my mind. I think that Long's version is better. I refuse to look at hypothetical situations because they are.. well... hypothetical. Play Comer's version all you want. I'm not stopping you.
I don't play either version.
If you tested long's version and liked it better, that's all you need to say.
I was merely pointing out that comparing 9th and one GP with 3rd as another as justification for your choice of build is not particularly logical. I don't care which is better but analysing matchups is a much more convincing way to make your point than reading off somewhat misleading statistics.
They title of the thread concerns Miracle Go and land count, not the relative merits of GP places. Please!
Really Nevyn, give it a break.
Look, you're both right in a way. I agree that the long version is better. I like the overall beefier critters and the werebear for extra mana. Nevyn's also right that you shouldn't use such small differences in results to say anything about a deck. Playing a deck a bunch of times is kind of like taking a yes or no poll--a binary test. In a good poll, you have to ask hundreds of people in order to get a good result (90% chance of knowing the answer +/- a few percent). Moreover, you have to ensure that your sample is representative of the population you are trying to guage. So you can see how silly it is to draw any conclusions from two people's GP results--especially when their overall results were nearly identical. That's even more true when one of the decks is being piloted by a known cheater. The deck is prone to manascrew, and simple manaweaving tricks could greatly improve results. It's even easier to inconspicuously ensure a good distribution of 14 land (including grants) than it is to spread several howling wolves. This brings me to the actual point of the thread.
Miracle Gro is prone to manascrew with 10 land/4 grants. Low land is great when it works out, cause you'll draw well mid/late game, but it doesn't always. It has to mulligan a fair bit. Moreover a deck with 4 Force of Wills and 4 Wastelands will cause a few more manascrews. Sometimes you can play around those cards with your own counters and bounce, but often you can't. And if you tip your hand with land grant, they'll know how to best disrupt you, and they won't walk into your tricks. I haven't played gro, but I've played against it a bunch, since everyone seems to want to test it. Control decks that look like they ought to be poor matchups against it turn into soso matchups, thanks to manascrew and assisted manascrew. I've had a few opponents bitch after losing that the apprentice shuffler is causing them to lose matchups that they shouldn't lose. It's not the shuffler, though, it's the deck. I've seen a couple people play an extra basic forest or 2, and I think that's smart. They can't be bounced for daze/gush, but upping the land count helps, and giving yourself a basic, reusable source of green mana that can't be wasted (or dispatched like the bear) helps your cause a lot sometimes.
i've taken to playing 1 forest in my miracle grow because otherwise dustbowl and wasteland can pretty well shut down any hope of you getting out your win condition(dryad). It's working out well, although sometimes it sucks not being able to gush etc. . .
Thats a good thought BrianB, I'm sorry to all those that I was being an ass to before.
4 Land Grant
2 Foil
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Curiosity
4 Wild Mongrel
4 Winter Orb
4 Werebear
4 Gush
4 Gaea's Skyfolk
4 Daze
4 Quirion Dryad
6 Island
4 Tropical Island
This deck won the local (in Oslo) PTQ Osaka. It was navigated by Mattias Jorstedt to a 5-1 (i think) and it went crazy in the top 8.
I like it, it takes the best of both versions. Has anyone seen the new SuperGro™ decks from GP Houston? They look pretty good too.
This deck is a Miracle Gro modification I made to a G/W/U deck I had been running. I would love comments on it:
Creatures:
4x Werebear
4x Mystic Enforcer
4x Quirion Dryad
Spells:
4x StP
4x Daze
4x FoW
2x Foil
4x Land Grant
3x Tithe
3x Winter Orb
4x Sleight of Hand
4x Brainstorm
4x Gush
Land:
4x Tropical Island
4x Tundra
4x Savannah
I had originally been playing a 12 land beatdown deck with Geddons, Mages, etc. However, this version seems to use the best 3 critters, and has the cheap counters to boot. I like the addition of Tithe (maybe only 2 are needed though) since it allows you to quickly thin the deck and draw the goods.
I didn't see the SuperGro decks, so maybe they look something like this, I don't know. Would something like this work (I haven't played Gro myself).
this is the supergrow deck that kibler played at gp houston
4 Flood Plain
4 Tropical Island
4 Tundra
1 Savannah
1 Island
4 Quirion Dryad
4 Werebear
4 Merfolk Looter
3 Mystic Enforcer
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
3 Winter Orb
3 Swords to Plowshares
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Brainstorm
4 Land Grant
2 Foil
SB
4 Legacy's Allure
3 Submerge
1 Swords to Plowshares
2 Wax/Wane
1 Winter Orb
4 Meddling Mage
quite similar. tithe is an interesting addition being that it will also pump the dryad. from the houston results looks like grow is everywhere. 25 in the top 64. 4 in top 8. damn.
Wow, very similar indeed. I like the idea of the Tithe (over the Flood Plain) since it can help pump up the Dryad. I guess personally I would run Waterfront Bouncer over the Looters, but then it's hard to argue with a deck Kibbler would run. Hehe, I see he even has Mages in the sideboard! Interesting, thanks for posting that version (I can't download Wizards site here at work). Do you guys think my version would work (it is somewhat original I guess....ok, not really!)
actually i think with running swords in the deck you really dont need the bouncers, the digging power of those looters is so huge, and it allows you to ditch extra orbs etc etc. im actually not too sure about the tithes or not. i still dont like the idea of tithe being duressed or countered etc. since this deck has a lot of non basics it can actually be hurt by combinations of wastelands/discard. or dustbowls. the b/w control deck i had posted on a different discussion down the list was constantly beating the 3 color version because it could hold down the mana base and keep away the orbs or destroy them.
I'm curious as to why Werebear over Birds?
Seems like you need the mana versatility.
Is the threshold +3/3 that important?
it is when you have it on 3rd turn.
Werebear beatings are important. The deck doesn't have that many creatures, so it's important that they all present threats. The fact that he makes mana under orb is a great bonus, but he's mostly there to be a beatstick. As was mentioned, this deck achieves threshold very quickly. As for tithe, it demands that you run a white mana base that splashes other colors unlike landgrant which can be included with just a few green duals for a green splash. Therefore, tithe won't work without seriously retooling the deck.