Modern Witch-Maw Cascade

On Tuesday night I took a new deck to Double Midnight comics in Manchester, NH.  (First time there!)  The deck is WUBG and highly relies on the cascade mechanic.  Here's the list:

2 Plains

2 Swamp

5 Island
11 Forest

2 misty rainforest

1 verdant catacombs

1 windswept heath

4 Captured Sunlight

2 Early Harvest

2 Time warp

4 enlisted wurm

4 deny reality

1 enigma sphinx

4 urban evolution

2 harmonize

2 gaea's blessing

3 unexpected results

4 search for tomorrow

4 sakura-tribe elder

The basic plan is to stall/control with captured sunlight, sakura-tribe elder, deny reality, and time warp, get some enlisted wurm and enigma sphinx out, then keep swinging while taking lots of turns.  Taking lots of turns isn't too hard if the two gaea's blessings keep the deck cycling.  The time warps and other cascade/utility cards will keep coming back and you'll have plenty of land to keep doing things.

Land is one of the exciting things about this deck.  It's very easy on turn 7 to have 15 land on the board.  There's no Explore, but the Search for Tomorrow and Sakura-Tribe Elder will help get lots of stuff out.  And, since all the lands that stick around are basics, cascading into Early Harvest can double the length of an early turn.  Unexpected Results often really nice, and whenever I played it, my opponents were actually pretty excited to see what I'd get.

Here's how it went down.

Round 1: Bye.  Dang it!  Is my rating that low?  Matches: 1-0.

Round 2: I played Green (and Red?) Tron, which gets the Urza's lands going, and then drops big things.   In game 1, I ended it pretty early, using Deny Reality to keep the Urzatron offline.  I won with two Enlisted Wurms on the board and a Time Warp to hit for 20.  Game 2 and 3 didn't go my way, though, with Urzatron sticking around and him getting him the fat beats.  Emrakul killed me in game 3.  Oof.  Matches: 1-1, Games: 1-2

Round 3: Mono-green devotion/Genesis Wave had my number.  Ouch.  Two games quickly lost.  My opponent, Thomas, was really nice and we played a bunch of games afterwards with me running my Pyroclasm-Reckoner deck.  I won them all, but he kept really trying to take me down.  Matches: 1-2, Games: 1-4.

Round 4: I played against Mono-white Hate-bears.  Unfortunately, Leonin Arbiter is really good against all my fetching and Thalia is good against cascade.  I did manage to win game 2 by paying for the searching on an early arbiter, and quickly ramping up.  I couldn't keep up on game three, however.  Matches: 1-3, Games: 2-6.

Round 5 (final): I lost two straight games to UB mill.  I thought I'd be able to win easily due to Gaea's Blessing, but Nick was quick to Surgical Extraction those whenever I cast them.  I did not think that I would ever be missing Whirlpool Warrior.  I sided in two more blessings and 3 Serene Remebrances for game 2, but his sided Leyline of the Void was too much.  Drat!  I really thought I could pull that one off.  Matches: 1-4, Games: 2-8.

The deck didn't fare as well as I'd hoped.  The big problem is a lesson I haven't learned since playing a deck based around Time Stretch and Gurzigost at the Boston Regionals in 2003: taking lots of turns isn't a great win condition.  This deck would probably be a lot better if the Time Warps were replaced with Bribery or something.  Still, this deck is a lot of fun, and it was great to get a bunch of attention when the cascades started to go off.