Date: Mon, 23 Sept 2024 05:24:51 -0700
From: Neil <neil@oldschoolsorcery.com>
To: Old School Sorcery <admin@oldschoolsorcery.com>
Fallen Empires Land Equilibrium Spice @ Lobstercon 2024 (4-3)*
By: Neil Troy (@bnrrx7 or neil@oldschoolsorcery.com)
2024 represented my first full year deep dive into OS and this is the story of my first
Lobstercon.
I started playing Magic in 1993 in middle school but stopped playing in paper in 2000. With
those cards long gone I dipped my toe briefly into Magic Online around 2007 and
2017-current. I proclaim to be primarily a limited player that loves collecting the cards. I
purchased back some nostalgia starting around 2017 but didn't actually attend an OS meet-up
until 2023 with my local group the Beasts of the Bay. In as little as a year it felt like I
had found my old group of friends again but they weren't my old friends. They were brand new
ones. Needless to say I was hooked on playing OS especially with how our group does things.
A staple of our meet-ups in 2023 was Nick Santini (@EurekaShivan) who would love to pick
your brain about "how many Shivan Dragons do you think are in Dominaria?" or discuss the
next patch idea he had. Nick was done with his Bay Area tenure in the early part of 2024 and
decided to move back to the east coast. After moving away in early June he sent me a
decklist on Discord about something he was thinking about: using Fallen Empires sac. lands
and Land Equilibrium. The deck featured 4x Ruins of Trokair, 4x Svyelunite Temple, and 4x
Havenwood Battegrounds, I was sold. I knew I was going to make this into my Lobstercon deck.
Starting Idea
4 Land Equilibrium
3 Armageddon
2 Ice Storm
3 Black Vise
2 Sylvan
2 Ivory Tower
4 Swords
4 Disenchant
1 Wrath
1 Moat
1 Balance
1 Chaos Orb
1 Fellwar Stone
1 Sol Ring
1 Regrowth
1 Transmute Artifact
Power 9
4 Havenwood Battleground
4 Ruins of Trokair
4 Svyelunite Temple
3 Tundra
3 Savannah
1 Strip
I sleeved it up and took it out to our bi-weekly meet-up of the Beasts. The deck had two
modes: absolute domination and doing nothing. The Land Equilibrium/Armageddon/don't play a
land lock was obnoxious to any fair deck and some unfair decks; but known top decks wrecked
it. However, there were some easy cuts because this was the deck's first time seeing play.
Fellwar Stone and Ice Storm were never cards I wanted to draw and I had a hard time with
Sylvan. I had no way to manipulate the top of the deck so I was paying life constantly to
dig deeper to answer my opponents threats and rarely could get Ivory Tower to let me safely
come back. I did consider putting a Millstone in for awhile but I'm not John Finkel so I
didn't think I could pilot it correctly. Also a Land Tax was a possibility but then I
wouldn't be playing FE lands so that wasn't happening. The Transmute was my tutor and I had
the idea of a transformational sideboard to TwiddleVault at the time.
I should say now that I had a few self-imposed limitations on the deck I wanted to play at
Lobstercon. I am not a person that likes to sleeve up all the best known strategies. Unless
I'm playing Tax/Edge you won't find me playing Swords and Bolt in the same deck. In this
Land Equilibrium strategy I thought a good set of constraints would be:
-WUG,
-creatureless,
-and no factories.
The WUG restriction is a major one as the deck could clearly use main deck Abyss and Demonic
Tutor. The lack of creatures or factories is signaling to your opponent "you have free rein
to damage me early." My thoughts are we all know how good factory is so lets have a build
that tries to do its thing without factory as an auto-include as a wincon or back-up plan.
The first set of changes were removing the Havenwood Battlegrounds since I never needed a
burst of green; the Ice Storms felt like they need a tempo shell and this isn't that; and
the 4th Land Equilibrium is too many. The adds were trying to help the mana, and help with
getting cards to be above the Ivory Towers so I could out race bolts.
-2 Ice Storm, -1 Land Equilibrium, -4 Havenwood Battleground, -1 Savannah
+1 Wrath, +1 Island Sanctuary, +1 Howling Mine, +1 Sylvan, +3 City of Brass, +1 Tropical
Island
The next outing this deck felt better. Enabling the Towers always felt good but a typical
game would see me -3 off cities and -4/-8 life on Sylvan to try and keep pace let alone pull
ahead. The FE lands rarely felt bad. the deck was a reactive combo deck. I don't need to
play a Lion on turn 1 or anything like that. Nor do I need to hold up Counterspell. I
started showing the deck to other Beasts and the first major conversation was with Adam
Barth (@abarth) which was a classic "what is the deck trying to do?" conversation. If I was
a combo deck maybe I should embrace it. Also the shell of answering threats with having the
right answer at the right time was showing its weakness. When I need a Swords but am holding
a Disenchant what can I do? I decided to swap another 8 cards for the next meet-up two weeks
later.
The Power Sink's felt like the right response to threats since I had a "combo" I wanted to
drop on my turn and might need to protect it. I also had been finding anything fully powered
could start poking holes in the lock of the deck so I added a Titania's Song to nuke moxen.
-3 Sylvan, -Moat, -Island Sanctuary, -Fellwar Stone, -1 Ivory Tower, -1 Black Vise (ONE CARD
MISSING)
+4 Power Sink, +1 Icy, +2 Relic Barrier, +1(4) Armageddon, +1 Titania's Song
The next meet-up the Power Sinks did their thing and Titania's Song was a house in the right
match-ups. Let's talk about the deck gameplay at this point. The dream is turn 1 Land
Equilibrium off artifacts pass the turn. Next is FE land on turn 1 to turn 2 or 3 cast Land
Equilibrium off sac'ing the land. In both situations it's reasonable to expect that your
opponent has a grip of cards and they also plan on playing. In a heavy Moxen environment the
opponent can slip out of your land lock. Leaving your opponent a single land is also
problematic. That's all to say that I think the deck should be played as control combo when
you don't have the nut draw. You'll want your opponent to expend their resources and you
answer them as you see fit. With Wrath and Armageddon you don't have to snipe individual
targets early and instead you want to be picky about your targeted removal. Disenchanting
Pearl and Ruby are my most common target, or if just one Mox if it stands alone.
After the last changes I started chatting with fellow Beast Jeff Liu (@jeffliu) and decided
to just play Jeff's recommendations at the next meet-up. Now cutting Vises all together and
going with a Titania's Song or Jade Statue for the win. Jeff's logic was good, "with the
lock in place you can win with anything" (but can we Jeff? Or can I at least?).
-4 Power Sinks, -Ivory Towers, -2 Black Vises -Transmute, -City
+Jade Statue, +1 Divine Offering, +1(2) Icy, +1(2) Howling Mine, +Mana Drain, +Force Spike,
+2 Counterspell, +1(4) Tundra
At the next meet-up this shell was feeling more refined but had some glaring nonbos. Playing
a Moat when the sole win condition was Titania's Song was problematic, as was a Moat + Jade
Statue strategy. Without Vise I was playing for the absolutely long game with only singleton
copies of Song and Statue in the deck. Which would be fine in maybe The Deck but this has a
lot of extra cards because it's trying to do something cute. I also knew I was planning to
play a game that was a pain-in-the-ass to play against. I didn't also need to go to time
every round. My table talk can do that perfectly well by itself thank you very much.
It was also at this point I went off of a Twiddle Vault sideboard plan. Jeremy (@phobeef)
asked the simple question of "have you ever played Twiddle Vault?" "Nope" "There are a lot
of complicated lines I'd suggest something else." So I dropped that package and went down a
path of transformational creature sideboard. I love a transformational sideboard. It lets
you play two decks in one tournament! Neither of which are optimized to be played! I decided
on a WUG Erhnam sideboard w/ 4x Dibs, 4x Erhnams, 3x Serras and a selection of one-of
solutions for the time being.
After the final meet-up before Lobstercon the main deck took its final changes. The Vise,
Relic Barrier, Icy, Howling package by itself is powerful enough to control the board state
while applying pressure while waiting to sweep the creatures and lands.
The final 75
4 Armageddon
3 Land Equilibrium
3 Black Vise
3 Howling Mine
3 Relic Barrier
2 Icy Manipulator
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Wrath of God
1 Balance
1 Island Sanctuary
3 Disenchant
1 Divine Offering
1 Mana Drain
1 Force Spike
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Timetwister
1 Time Walk
1 Chaos Orb
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus
4 Svyelunite Temple
3 Ruins of Trokair
4 Tundra
3 Savannah
2 Tropical Island
1 Plains
Sideboard
4 Serendib Efreet
4 Erhnam Djinn
2 Drop of Honey
1 Titania's Song
1 Spirit Link
1 Wrath of God
1 Disenchant
1 Divine Offering
I felt Serra was too expensive to be useful when I board in the creatures. I really want to
drop a Dib on turn 1 or 2 and follow-up with a Erhnam on turn 3 and end the game quickly
post board. This is for the surprise factor as well as a clock consideration. The Drops were
for the little creature strategies that go wide. I kept calling Drop of Honey a "worse 5 & 6
Swords" since I have to take the hit first from their creature typically. What Drop can do
is slow the game down for 2-4 turns as most players don't like playing into it. Spirit Link
was just an additional answer for Dib or Juzam coming early.
Fast forward to the tournament for round 1 of the 237 people main event I am paired with New
Yorker Jelani. We table talk before the game and I apologize for playing an annoying deck
that isn't Stasis (I warned all my opponents all day). We talk about his performance at
prior Lobstercons and he mentions he's trying to make a run at it again since he top-8'd a
prior year. He is on his build of what I assume is a Dib/Bolt strategy.
In game 1 I nearly checked all the boxes on my bingo card for the deck and I locked him out
with Land Equilibrium and Armageddon after dealing with his early Dib. Once the vise hit the
table it was over.
Since Jelani was trying to make a run I offered him a concession so that I could get rid of
any of my anxiety and stress for the 8 round + top 8 event. After pondering for a minute, he
accepted my offer and we played the remaining two games.
Game 2 I board out the Land Equilibrium package to see how the Erhnam strategy would play
out in the match-up. I only brought in the Erhnam's since the Dibs just block Dibs and the
pings I think are impactful to me in the match-up. Jelani takes the game in a relatively
straightforward manner.
Game 3 I'm on the play and my hand has some early Relic Barriers and Icy's coming down.
Locking up his resources and finding some Howling Mines which find Howling Mines which find
me casting three Armageddons before I avoid what I assume is counter magic to get an Erhnam
down. For the final swing I cast a Titania's Song and swing for a show-off amount and nearly
all bingo card items are done in round 1!
(0-1)*
Round 2 Joel Bowers from Toronto on Atog Bolt
Atog feels like a bad match-up and this really showed it. Game 1 seemed like a great draw as
I Swords the first Atog but a second one follows and after dropping a bunch of artifacts
early he can swing for 14+ on what felt like turn 4 or 5 and I can't respond.
Game 2 I have Balance and am able to play into that gameplan. On Turn 3 without a land to
drop I sac a Svyelunite Temple to Balance down to one land in play, one card in hand and me
with a mountain of artifacts. I'm able to lock him out from playing the game and Vise takes
it eventually. I feel in this match-up the sideboard creatures are not setup well. A Dib
drops my life and an Erhnam gives forest walk to the Atog, so in both cases it doesn't feel
like I can get out of always having Swords.
Game 3 I had a decent draw but the top of my deck had a string of 4 lands in a row when I
needed any response to a SuChi and Joel took the match.
(0-2)*
For those in attendance you may recall the alternate feature table the Beasts claimed at the
entry of the venue. From roughly 11AM on Jeremy and I setup shop at the entry way and I was
able to wrangle our opponents to come join us at the featured bottom table where we played
for the rest of the day. As a complete aside I don't know why people didn't just go upstairs
where there was more space. Every match that moves out of the main hall helps with the elbow
room for like 3-5 matches. You leave a void for the neighboring 2-4 matches to spread into
and you get the most elbow room at your new location.
Round 3 Nick Mountinho from Cambridge on a RW Aggro Atog plan
Game 1 was an easy win for them after Lions, Bolts, and Atogs do what they do and my Swords
weren't enough to stem the bleeding.
For game 2 I sided in 14 cards leaving only the Titania's Song in the board. I boarded out
Equilibrium, Howling mine, Relic Barrier, Icy, etc.
Game 2 was an amazing opener of Sapphire, 2x Tundra, Sol Ring, 2x Dib, Disenchant. I drop a
surprise Dib on turn 1 another on turn 2 and then draw a Spirit Link and the game is over
since he boarded out Swords. Transformation for the win!
Game 3 I think he stumbled and I can answer everything and stabilize and let Armageddon and
then vise eventually gets the win. Of note, I never sided out Armageddon. In reality the
deck may just be an Armageddon deck. The namesake is Land Equilibrium but its really a deck
designed to operate with zero lands.
(1-2)*
Round 4 was Shane Remelt on a borrowed mono-green deck since he wanted to hang around and
play but is primarily a premodern player and not OS. The borrowed deck was trick with all
misprints or foreign cards but Shane's preferred deck would be The Deck...so maybe he
deserved mono-green? My notes for this match-up are weak. Shane had incredibly tight play
and our games were very grindy. I thought for sure I'd lose game 3 at multiple points. My
major misplay of note was enabling his Hurricane to sweep my two Dibs. At the time my mind
was on the "how do I lose this game?" and felt that leaving him no board presence I was
advantaged but I think that was wrong. I did end up winning the match and again Shane had
such tight play so kudos to him on that.
(2-2) *
Round 5 Tim Winter on Atog (I guess Atog was popular but not enough to be at the top tables
and instead was hunting around in the middle of the pack).
Tim was very nice through our very quick match which is easy as he destroys me. Absolute
destruction, but remember that round 1 concession I gave to Jelani? Well Tim wanted to
take-off and offers the concession, I kindly accept it. Karma, and the asterisk is removed.
(3-2)
Round 6 is Jimmy Johnson of NEOS and Orlando playing Dib, Flying Men, Bolt, Chain, Blast. He
was a very kind opponent but I've seen steamrollers that can't flatten things as well as I
did against him. Early vises and him stumbling on mana as I Relic lock his Moxen and
Armageddon make it a drubbing. After each of the matches ended at our feature table I offer
all the opponents to just hang out in our lounge and Jimmy does and regales us with some of
his life backstory, he's 74. When I ask him to sign my card I won't forget his voice saying
"someone drew a COCK on here." I take Jimmy's sounding off on "how are you not at the top
tables?" kindly while Jeremy goads him with how much of a try hard I am. All in good fun.
(4-2)
Round 7 Christopher Nemeth is on Dib Burn (sensing a theme for the day yet?)
Game 1 I can't make any progress and he runs me down easily. His Dib hit for 9 before I
could find an answer and Dibs and Bolts do what they do to get him the W.
Game 2 I board into the full creature package including Titania's Song since he was so Mox
heavy game 1. This was a great game. After a couple Armageddons and answers for his threats
I find out he was smart enough to anticipate the creatures coming in and he still has
answers. I've successfully removed all of his permanents from play but don't have lock
pieces anymore and we are in top deck mode and find out life totals at 1 for me and he's at
13. I end up having a board state of 3 Moxen, Chaos Orb and two lands and he has Mox Pearl
and three lands with 1 card in hand. I'm holding Spirit Link and draw Titania's Song. He is
like two-thirds through his deck and obviously has no bolt so I say fuck it, tap the Moxen
and play Titania's Song to animate my Chaos Orb and drop a Spirit Link on it. For the next
7 turns I need to hit for 2 and gain 2. He finds a wheel but doesn't find an answer. He
lands a Dib which eats a Swords I've now drawn and a Spirit Linked Chaos Orb marches to
victory with 6 straight attacks before the concession.
After that game I concede the match. My bingo card is full, I've done all the things I
wanted to do, and Chris wants to continue playing the 8th round.
(4-3) - Drop @ >50%
The deck performed well. In a field like this it was unfortunately a lot of the same stuff
and when those Atog, Bolt, Dib strategies go off they can do a lot against creatureless
decks like I wanted to run. The most obvious things to say is something I've heard and read
around the Discord recently that Armageddon is a house of a card and underplayed. Building a
deck with it in mind when opponents aren't is a massive reset. Land Equilibrium as a deck
needs to have the right pilot I feel. It's not a fun match-up for opponents when you are
doing all of your locking. Having a positive and fun attitude seems a pre-requisite. The
Fallen Empires lands are very fun and probably should be in more decks, especially unpowered
strategies. It's obviously a concession to not get mana on the turn they are played. If you
have to have a turn 1 play then its not going to be great without Moxen but at the same time
that extra burst might let you do things a turn or two earlier than you normally would
because we all know the one mana plays but what about four and five mana plays.
This was my first Lobstercon and grabbing a Spice prize with >50% win-rate at the same time
felt amazing. The fact that there are still decks that can be competitive in the field
without doing the normal stuff is encouraging. I have no desire to spike these tournaments
but a deck idea with practice and tuning can still perform well is a great sign.
Top Plays:
-Titania's Song + Chaos Orb + Spirit Link for 6 turns to take the W from a 13-1 life deficit.
-Sac'ing a FE land + Balance + Force Spiking my own Balance and paying for it to have my
opponent discard more cards and sac. more lands.
-Any and all times Land Equilibrium stopped opponents dead in their tracks.
-Force Spiking my opponent's Psionic Blast they tried to sneak in at the end of my turn.
-Shane baiting me into a block so he could successfully hurricane away my two Dibs.
Props:
-Jelani for the sweet REB and for going hard and getting 23 w/ 18 points after 8 rounds. He
came back and we jammed a very fun take on a Dandan-like format called Primal Clay.
-Shane Remelt for the impressive tight play in our match, if he goes into OS he'll be a
wrecking ball.
-DFB, Stephen Hartford, Scott Bradley, and the NEOS crew for a very fun and well run event.
-Nick Santini for a fun deck idea and for running Eureka at the event.
-Local Beasts for putting up with this deck for the past 3 months of playtesting.
-The Jose Magic house for a great AirBnB (Javi top-8'd Friday's Premodern event).
-Steve for the borrowed Lotus to keep things kosher.
-Ken Fritz for top notch poster selection.
See you at SorceryCon in November, Sin City Open in January, and redacted.
Neil @bnrrx7