This week night I was to play three games with the new Bounce Lands deck I’ve been brainstorming on this blog.

I feared I had made an unstoppable monster, when instead I lost all three games.

Let’s go back to the drawing board!

# name Exploring Armageddon # info May 25, 2018 # link https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/exploring-armageddon/ TappedOut # cuts 1x Farseek 1x Spoils of Victory 1x Knowledge Exploitation 1x Devastation Tide 1x Skyshroud Claim 1x Ranger's Path 1x Hunting Wilds 1x Concordant Crossroads 1x Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis 1x Ghirapur Orrery 1x Rites of Flourishing 1x Tempt with Discovery 1x Courser of Kruphix # adds 1x Hour of Promise 1x Final Parting 1x Jarad's Orders 1x Anger 1x Kederekt Leviathan 1x Duneblast 1x Blasphemous Act 1x Pernicious Deed 1x Gaze of Granite 1x Sire of Insanity 1x Magus of the Future 1x Future Sight 1x Finest Hour # deck 1x Progenitus *CMDR* Land (40) 1x Arid Mesa 1x Azorius Chancery 1x Badlands 1x Bayou 1x Bloodstained Mire 1x Bojuka Bog 1x Boros Garrison 1x Breeding Pool 1x Dimir Aqueduct 1x Flooded Strand 1x Golgari Rot Farm 1x Gruul Turf 1x Halimar Depths 1x Izzet Boilerworks 1x Krosan Verge 1x Marsh Flats 1x Misty Rainforest 1x Orzhov Basilica 1x Overgrown Tomb 1x Plateau 1x Polluted Delta 1x Rakdos Carnarium 1x Savannah 1x Scalding Tarn 1x Scattered Groves 1x Scrubland 1x Selesnya Sanctuary 1x Sheltered Thicket 1x Simic Growth Chamber 1x Skyline Cascade 1x Stomping Ground 1x Taiga 1x Temple Garden 1x Tropical Island 1x Tundra 1x Underground Sea 1x Verdant Catacombs 1x Volcanic Island 1x Windswept Heath 1x Wooded Foothills Sorcery (25) 1x Aether Gale 1x Armageddon 1x Blasphemous Act 1x Bring to Light 1x Coastal Breach 1x Crush of Tentacles 1x Decree of Annihilation 1x Diminishing Returns 1x Displacement Wave 1x Duneblast 1x Final Parting 1x Gaze of Granite 1x Hour of Promise 1x Jarad's Orders 1x Life from the Loam 1x Razia's Purification 1x Recurring Insight 1x Reforge the Soul 1x Sylvan Awakening 1x Temporal Cascade 1x Time Reversal 1x Timetwister 1x Wheel of Fortune 1x Whispering Madness 1x Windfall Enchantment (8) 1x Burgeoning 1x Exploration 1x Fall of the Thran 1x Finest Hour 1x Future Sight 1x Pernicious Deed 1x Retreat to Coralhelm 1x Territorial Dispute Creature (18) 1x Anger 1x Azusa, Lost but Seeking 1x Budoka Gardener 1x Kederekt Leviathan 1x Llanowar Scout 1x Magus of the Future 1x Mina and Denn, Wildborn 1x Muldrotha, the Gravetide 1x Notion Thief 1x Oracle of Mul Daya 1x Rampaging Baloths 1x Ramunap Excavator 1x Sakura-Tribe Scout 1x Sire Of Insanity 1x Skyshroud Ranger 1x Tatyova, Benthic Druid 1x Walking Atlas 1x Wayward Swordtooth Instant (5) 1x Commit / Memory 1x Cyclonic Rift 1x Heroic Intervention 1x Realms Uncharted 1x Sunder Artifact (3) 1x Amulet of Vigor 1x Crucible of Worlds 1x Ward of Bones

Breakdown

The first game, I was one turn away from comboing out with Retreat to Coralhelm, then had a miniature stroke and wheeled it away because I was so distracted by mana-math. Discouraging, but that’s on me. Other than that, the combo of Armageddon + Heroic Intervention worked splendidly.

As for the second and third games, I was able to stall enough with bounce to resolve Progenitus, only to lose the next turn. I guess if you just bounce away your problems, they eventually come back to bite you!

We need to add some more interaction. So how can we make room?

Cutting the Group Hug

If my whole gameplan is to reset the board + rebuild faster, why am I sharing the tools? I have enough of these effects duplicated elsewhere, I can afford to cut the ones that actively undermine my advantage.

Cutting the non-Bounce Ramp

The bounce lands + draw is generally good enough, and I felt bad devoting turns (and tempo) to these spells. So far, with 10 fetches and the aforementioned draw, I haven’t really needed the fixing.

I am adding in Hour of Promise because it guarantees me two bounce lands, which can then bounce other lands back to my hand to take full advantage of the deck’s signature Exploration effects.

Upgrading the Courser

The life gain was nice but negligible, so Swapping Courser for Future Sight feels like a strict upgrade (yes, UUU is a non-trivial cost but I’m optimistic).

Swaps and Graveyard Tricks

After straight up losing a game thanks to my own Concordant Crossroads (mass bounce is less good when the opponents have perma-haste), I decided to swap in a Haste enabler that’s one-sided.

Considering half of my wheels discard my hand, it’s not impossible to get him into the graveyard. Still, it gave me an excuse to run these two spicy tutors:

Final Parting is nice because it can setup a wheel for later via Commit / Memory. And while I was adding cute graveyard tech, I decided to swap out the least impressive mass bounce spell, Devastation Tide, for the generally more versatile Kederekt Leviathan.

Lastly, since I was adding two tutors, I decided to cut Knowledge Exploitation. I’m less likely to find the big effects I want (wheels, Armageddon) in an opponent’s deck.

Adding More Answers

As noted above, the main lesson learned was that mass bounce, though versatile, wasn’t a true answer. Cutting the ramp spells opened up a lot of space, so I tried to focus on spells that would sweep the board but leave a resolved Progentius unscathed.

Like Displacement Wave (which is in the deck already), Penicious Deed and Gaze of Granite can answer most of the board while conveniently missing my 10-cost Commander.

Progenitus’s signature “protection from everything” prevents the damage dealt by Blasphemous Act, while still allowing me to “choose” it for Duneblast. If this effect proves to be good, I can also throw in Kindred Dominance later.

Other Fun Stuff

Sire of Insanity feels like a big missed opportunity on my first pass. If the idea is to get ahead then lock out my opponents, Sire does double duty by removing any big hands I gave my opponents from wheels and then keeping them that way.

This is an experiment, to really lean on Progenitus as my win-con. It’s one of the few cards that gets around his protection to turn him into a 1-shot kill (with 23 Commander damage).

In Conclusion

We shall see if the mix of less Group Hug, more answers, and little bit of tutoring will be enough to make this deck competitive.

Until next time, happy brewing!