Attacking the Metagame: Destructive Domain

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Attacking the Metagame: Destructive Domain

By Sean DeCoursey on February 9th, 2007 · Filed in Extended (Type 1.x) · 39 Comments

This deck started out life as an attempt to create a hybrid madness/destructive flow deck based roughly on the aggro flow archetype. That deck didn't work at all, and eventually veered in two very different directions. Deck #1 kept the Madness and aggressive aspects and was recently presented in the article "Mad, Mad World". Deck #2 kept the Flow, but went in the opposite direction, becoming more and more controllish. It also added more colors. Eventually, it became a lock deck. Kind of a lot like Stax actually. Yeah, I know, 5c Stax, in extended. I get how absurd that sounds on the face of it, and once I show you the decklist it makes even less sense. But honestly, although the deck looks NOTHING like a Legacy or Vintage Stax deck, it plays with the same basic strategy, massive permanent advantage over time coupled with various locks.

The Evolution of Jank

I like money.

So like I said, it started out as basically a Destructive Flow based control deck. I started messing around with Terramorphic Expanse since it played well with multiple colors of basics which played well with Flow, and realized five colors wouldn't be too hard to do. So I dusted off some old extended domain decklists and started to work on combining them. One of the first things I realized was that with only a few of each land of each color, the deck was extremely vulnerable to getting shut out of a color if faced with even moderate levels of LD. While Life from the Loam worked for this problem somewhat, I quickly realized that Crucible of Worlds, with its amazing interaction with the self-destructing fetchlands, was a great protection against LD while being a great card engine on its own as well. This led to the addition of several of the "spell lands" from Odyssey block. The high number of artifacts the deck was starting to use and depend on mandated the inclusion of Academy Ruins. With so many one-ofs, Gifts Ungiven was added to give the deck more stability and predictability in how it played out. After quite a bit of evolving, the deck looks like this on the eve of the debut of Planar Chaos.

Destructive Domain
Creatures 1x Kami of False Hope 1x Genesis 1x Etched Oracle 1x Magus of the Tabernacle 2x Loxodon Hierarch Artifacts 2x Crucible of Worlds 3x Culling Scales 4x Sensei's Divining Top 1x Engineered Explosives 1x Tormod's Crypt 1x Pithing Needle 1x Legacy Weapon Enchantments 3x Destructive Flow 3x Porphyry Nodes Instants 3x Moment's Peace 3x Gifts Ungiven 1x Ancient Grudge Sorceries 1x Global Ruin 1x Recollect 1x Life from the Loam 1x Vindicate	Lands 2x Forest 2x Swamp 2x Island 2x Mountain 2x Plains 1x Wooded Foothills 1x Flooded Strand 1x Bloodstained Mire 1x Windswept Heath 1x Polluted Delta 4x Terramorphic Expanse 1x Ghost Quarter 1x Nomad Stadium 1x Barbarian Ring 1x Cephalid Coliseum 1x Academy Ruins	Sideboard 1x Krosan Grip 1x Dismantling Blow 1x Global Ruin 1x Moment's Peace 1x Scrabbling Claws 1x Extirpate 1x Reito Lantern 1x Magus of the Tabernacle 1x Arcane Laboratory 2x Rule of Law 4x Defence Grid

If, like me, you play online, substitute a Mortify for the Vindicate. $60 isn't worth the very slight increase in utility you get.

Basically, this plays out almost like a Stax deck. You play out permanents that create permanent advantage for you while sitting behind a wall of fog effects. That’s your basic strategy, however, Gifts decks are notoriously hard to play, so I'm actually going to spend the majority of this article going over the various combos and plays that this deck has available to it.

Combinations, Pairings, and Abutments

#1. Genesis/Kami of False Hope. This is simply an updated version of the Splice lock that KoFH used to use back in Kamigawa Block constructed. Yes, Boros and many other aggro decks can burn KoFH during your turn, thus allowing their men to attack unimpeded, however, a lot of the time that happens you'll be able to Moment's Peace during their turn, thus denying them the damage and forcing them to waste a burn spell. Meanwhile, cards like Porphyry Nodes, Destructive Flow, and Culling Scales are completely eliminating their resources every turn they are delayed. This deck has very few ways to kill or discard Genesis. It is therefore recommended that when Gifting for this particular combination, you simply search out only Genesis and the Kami. Yes, that means you just spent four mana for a double Entomb. Entomb is banned for a reason, four mana is a reasonable price to pay for getting double the effect. Finally, many aggro decks are locked by KoFH, or have very few burn spells to hit him with. Ichorid, Affinity, MGA, and Goblinstorm are all members of this club. Also, most control decks find this to be a pain to get around as well as they rely on big finishers such as Eternal Dragon or Exalted Angel to punch through with damage. Damage which is prevented by, you guessed it, KoFH.

#2. Ghost Quarter/Crucible of Worlds. This combo gets special mention because it is so, so versatile. One of the most common uses you'll make of Ghost Quarter is as a fifth universal fetchland for yourself. This gives you any color of mana coming into play untapped, which can often allow you to get that third turn Flow or fourth turn Gifts off. Against other decks however, is where Quarter really shines. Several extended decks don't run any basic lands at all (Affinity, TEPS), and against them, you've basically got a Strip Mine. It is much more common, however, for extended decks to only run 4-6 basic lands, and in the face of Destructive Flow, they will work to get those lands out and into play as quickly as possible. This means that again, Ghost Quarter is essentially Strip Mine. A great example of this is Gifts Rock. A common version of the deck runs two Forests, two Islands, one Plains, and one Swamp. Quartering the Plains or Swamp essentially cuts them off from that color, and two consecutive uses can cut out the Blue or Green as well. If you were confused about it, that’s a good thing. And finally of course, Quarter can significantly disrupt threats such as the UrzaTron.

I'm in a lot of these combos.

#3. Crucible of Worlds/other non-basic lands. The other nonbasic lands in the deck, namely the Fetchlands and the Threshold lands, let Crucible act as a source of card draw. Namely, you can draw a souped up Careful Study, Healing Salve, or Shock every turn for the rest of the game. How is this relevant? Well, against Burn based strategies, since the vast majority of burn spells in ext deal less than four damage, every use of Nomad Stadium effectively counters more than one of your opponents' cards while not costing you a card at all. This means that insurmountable card advantage can be quickly achieved simply by activating the Stadium every turn. The fetchlands act as card draw and a shuffle effect for the Top. Basically, every time you use Crucible to return a fetchland with Top out, you've cast Brainstorm. Cards +1, and cards looked at +3.

#4. Sensei's Divining Top/Culling Scales. This combo will, over time, eliminate every single permanent on the board with CMC three or less. The combo works especially well since the permanents you want to keep around all cost three mana, and since you can choose the Scales' target, you'll never have to worry about them taking out your Flow or Crucible. The only things Scales won't take out are Silhana Ledgewalker and Troll Ascetic, both of which are destroyed by Porphyry Nodes. You can also use the Top to keep the Nodes in play by targeting the Top instead of the Nodes since they're both CMC one. Just in case anyone was wondering, you activate the Top's card draw ability to put it back on top of your library in response to the targeting of the Scales.

#5. Academy Ruins/Tormod's Crypt. This combo is your "no graveyard" strategy. Decks like AggroLoam/CAL and Ichorid can be completely shut down by this combo as it repeatedly removes their entire graveyard from the game.

#6. Academy Ruins/Engineered Explosives. This is a weaker, though workable solution to any number of permanents. The main problem that this combination deals with though, is tokens. Since tokens (and morphs) have a CMC of zero, E.E. dropped for zero will destroy them all, this is an important consideration for a deck that lacks any true mass removal and is thus vulnerable to being overrun by large packs of tokens if a fog effect isn't available. (Goblinstorm, DoJ, Meloku)

#7. Gifts Ungiven/Reito Lantern. This is more of a long term game issue. In a long game, you're going to want to Gifts more than once, Reito Lantern lets you keep grabbing a Recollect and any other useful card that presents a bad choice for your opponent.

#8. Cephalid Coliseum/Life from the Loam. Basically, this gives you most of the advantages of the LftL/Cycle Lands combo except without having to actually run cycling cards.

#9. Gifts Ungiven. If you can resolve one of these AND untap again, you should be set up in a position to win the game. Some common lists of cards to Gift for. Genesis/Kami of False Hope. Kami of False Hope/Moment's Peace/Barbarian Ring/Mortify. Life from the Loam/Culling Scales/Crucible of Worlds/Academy Ruins. Terramorphic Expanse/Life from the Loam/Cephalid Coliseum/Nomad Stadium. Destructive Flow/Legacy Weapon/Recollect/Global Ruin.

Play it Again, Sam

Universal fetch and no life cost matters
if you plan on using one land six times
in a row.

In different matchups you'll want to get different colors of mana early on. Against most aggro decks, you're going to want White and Green early on to get the fogs and nodes going early. Against combo go all out for the early Flow. Against control try to get down card advantage engines like Crucible as early as possible. Always make sure to cast something, this forces them to choose between counters and card draw in the early turns. Dropping a Scales on an empty board isn't even a bad idea since it stops a morphed angel or Signet from coming down for a turn. Of course that’s more of a desperation move unless you have multiples in hand or a Top down already. Scales and Nodes are both worth dropping when your opponent only has one creature down. At this point they're faced with a choice, play a creature every turn just to keep pace with their losses, or skip creatures for a few turns to get rid of the removal. Both of these options are good for you, so it really doesn't matter which one they choose. This is called a win-win situation. Either you get more time to build mana and resources, or they suffer massive card and tempo disadvantage.

Affinity. On average they have about 5 turns to inflict lethal damage on you through the fog screens, which isn't very easy for them to do. Every permanent in their deck is vulnerable to your various locks. Destructive Flow kills all their lands, Scales kills all their non-creature, non-land permanents, and Nodes kill all their critters. Sideboarding. -Tormod's Crypt, -Legacy Weapon, -Global Ruin, -1x Gifts Ungiven. +Krosan Grip, +Dismantling Blow, +Moment's Peace, +Magus of the Tabernacle. A note on Magus is that Nodes will kill him with his power=2 before it kills a Myr Enforcer with its power=4.

Boros. If you can stabilize their creatures at 12 life or more, you've most likely won. Once you do stabilize the board, your focus should be on getting Crucible/Stadium going and pushing your life up over 20. That will, in most cases, seal the game. Sideboarding. -Tormod's Crypt, -Legacy Weapon, -Global Ruin, +Moment's Peace, +Magus of the Tabernacle, +Dismantling Blow.

TEPS. Destructive Flow and Ghost Quarter are your friends here in game one, as is Tormod's Crypt. Not as bad as you'd think, since your mana denial really messes with them, but running Defence Grids in the board over Duress' does hurt some. Sideboarding. -3x Porphyry Nodes, -3x Culling Scales, -3x Moment's Peace, +Extirpate, +Scrabbling Claws, +Arcane Laboratory, +2x Rule of Law, +Global Ruin, +Krosan Grip, +Dismantling Blow, +Magus of the Tabernacle.

Sceptre. The amount that this deck dislikes Destructive Flow cannot be underestimated. The amount that it dislikes Defence Grid is also worth noting, and is one of the main reasons Grid is in the board over Duress. Grid means Sceptres now cost 5, 8, or sometimes even 11 mana to activate. This is a really, really big help for you. Teferi also now costs at least 8 mana, again, a big, big boon. Academy Ruins also has the ability to recover Disenchanted Grids if they happen to go down. Scales are randomly vicious in this match as they pre-emptively force the Sceptre player to destroy them in order to get a Sceptre down on the board. Sideboarding. -3 Moment's Peace, -Tormod's Crypt, -3x Porphyry Nodes, +4x Defence Grid, +Global Ruin, +Dismantling Blow, +Krosan Grip.

Ichorid. My personal feeling is that this deck will be at least temporarily chased out of the meta by Extirpate, whether it should be banished or not. Porphyry Nodes isn't anything special here, but Culling Scales does a very nice job of keeping their discard outlets and tokens under control. Moment's Peace is just devastating for them, and the Kami lock is good game if they don't maindeck Darkblast. Sideboarding. -1x Porphyry Nodes, -Global Ruin, -3x Destructive Flow, +Magus of the Tabernacle, +Scrabbling Claws, +Extirpate, +Reito Lantern, +Moment's Peace.

Rock and Flow. You both use Destructive Flow, so that parts kind of a wash. They use lots of little guys however, which this deck absolutely excels at killing. They also try to win primarily through combat damage, another thing this deck is very good at stopping. So basically, both decks lose their main mana disruption while you keep all the rest of yours, and they gain.. nothing. Pretty solid match for you. Sideboarding. -3x Destructive Flow, +Moment's Peace, +Magus of the Tabernacle, +Dismantling Blow.

Bottom line, this deck is very rogue, ~~very fun~~, and if you use Unhinged/Unglued lands for the five basics very beautiful to see laid out on the table. Actually, scratch the fun part, this is a prison/lock deck that's going to frustrate the heck out of a lot of your opponents, strictly NOT for use in any kind of casual setting.

By Sean DeCoursey on February 9th, 2007 · Filed in Extended (Type 1.x) · 39 Comments