Winning With Valakut and Primeval Titan
July 12, 2010 | Posted by Dee
Update: Check out my new list.
I think Valakut is viable again in Standard because of M11 cards especially Primeval Titan.
Primeval Titan gives the deck a big creature that also combos perfectly with Valakut. The green titan is similar to Sovereigns of Lost Alara in Mythic Conscription because it can instantly swing the game in your favor.
Also, M11 has Obstinate Baloth to help fight Mono Red Burn, Jund, and Mind Sludge. Cultivate is another great M11 card for the deck.
I’ve been testing the following list and I’ve gotten pretty good results.
| Red/Green Valakut | |||||||||||
Creatures (12) Spells (23) Lands (25) | Sideboard (15) |
| |||||||||
Creatures
4 Goblin Ruinblaster
Goblin Ruinblaster is great right now because of all the Jund decks being played. Also, the hasty goblin is good against control and helps you race aggro decks. In most decks, he will have a target. Manlands are especially good lands to destroy.
4 Bloodbraid Elf
The cascade boogeyman is as good as ever. In this deck, he usually cascades into something good. With haste, he keeps the pressure up so you can kill your opponent quickly. Also, he’s solid against Mana Leak and planeswalkers.
4 Primeval Titan
The turn after you cast Titan is usually the turn your opponent dies. You will fetch Valakut and/or Mountains to make the volcano deadly.
Buy the creatures at low prices on eBay. Click the following links:
Spells
4 Lightning Bolt, 3 Searing Blaze
These burn spells help out with the aggro plan of hasty creatures. In some games, you will just burn out your opponent with Valakut and bolts. Plus, the bolts slow down the decks with cheap mana producers like Mythic, Next Level Bant, and Vengevine Naya.
Lightning Bolt is one of the best spells in Standard. It’s cheap, instant, and can take out planeswalkers.
Searing Blaze is great for racing other creature decks. It even has targets against white control (Wall of Omens).
4 Khalni Heart Expedition, 4 Rampant Growth, 4 Cultivate
These are the standard ramp spells other than Cultivate. Cultivate replaces Harrow for two reasons. First, it helps you reach six mana to play Titan. Harrow only ramps one extra mana while Cultivate does the same and gives you a land in hand. Second, Harrow is awful against counterspells. Mana Leak will probably be popular and Flashfreeze is a common sideboard card.
4 Expedition Map
You usually need Valakut to win so this land tutor is important. Also, it’s flexible. It can fetch a Forest in a pinch or a fetchland if you need landfall triggers.
Check out the latest auctions for the spells on eBay. Click the following links:
- 4 Lightning Bolt
- 4 Expedition Map
- 3 Searing Blaze
- 4 Khalni Heart Expedition
- 4 Rampant Growth
- 4 Cultivate
Lands
11 Mountain
11 Mountains was the minimum I could get away with in previous versions of the deck, so I stuck with it. In some games, you will need all 11 Mountains to win.
3 Terramorphic Expanse, 4 Evolving Wilds, 3 Forest
The fetchlands are necessary because they fix your mana and search up Mountains for Valakut. Also, they trigger your landfall cards (Searing Blaze, Khalni Heart Expedition, Grazing Gladeheart). It’s great that Evolving Wilds was printed because it’s better than the slow Naya Panoramas.
One trick with the fetchlands is to use them as instant speed bolts once you have an active Valakut. For example, you can take out Ball Lightnings and other hasty creatures.
I wanted to go up to eight fetchlands and only two Forests. However, if you only have two Forests, a Spreading Seas on one of them keeps you from casting Titan. Also, 8 fetchlands might be too many since the land that’s fetched enters the battlefield tapped, which slows down the deck.
Don’t mess with Raging Ravine. It has too many drawbacks. It doesn’t count as a Mountain and it doesn’t trigger landfall twice. Also, fetchlands are much better than Ravine against Spreading Seas, Tectonic Edge, and Ruinblaster. And with Primeval Titan, you want to be fetching Mountains and/or Valakuts not manlands. Raging Ravine is way too slow compared to Valakut.
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
Win con.
Buy the lands on eBay. Click the following links:
Sideboard
4 Obstinate Baloth
Red Deck Wins can be tough so Baloth comes in to provide life gain. Also, Baloths are good against Jund’s Blightnings.
3 Grazing Gladeheart
More red hate since it can be a tough matchup.
3 Chain Reaction
Chain Reaction is your red Day of Judgment. It helps against decks with a lot of small creatures like Monument Tokens and Elves.
2 Combust
Combust gets the spot over Chandra Nalaar for anti-Baneslayer tech because it’s cheaper, instant, and can’t be countered. Also, it’s a great answer to an early Knight of the Reliquary.
3 Ricochet Trap
This red trap fights counterspells and Spreading Seas. I initially played Autumn’s Veil but Ricochet Trap is better because you can’t cascade into it. Also, it’s difficult to get triple green mana to protect Titan.
Save money on the sideboard cards by buying them on eBay. Click the following links:
Anyways, try out the deck and let me know what you think.
26 Responses to “Winning With Valakut and Primeval Titan”
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Sorry, but Rampant Growth rotated out with M10 and with it, probably, all the deck I think… :S
@Red Demon: Not sure if you weren’t aware, but M10 doesn’t rotate out until October. M10 and M11 are both presently legal in Standard.
@Red Demon: Once Rampant Growth rotates in October, we still have Sylvan Ranger who could potentially take that slot. Not as efficient as the Rampant Growth for ramping, but usable.
add lotus cobra, it rocks!
Great to see Valakut back in the stable again. Hope to see a v2 of the guide show up soon!
@Mike: Nope, I wasn’t aware xD I was already making changes to my decks… *sigh* Thanks and sorry for the false alarm.
@Blake: To be honest I don’t have much experience with the deck, but I think that the main goal is to ramp into a Valakut critical mass. Sylvan Ranger doesn’t give you that acceleration.
I’m playing valakut for some time now and i must say that… this 1 is crap.
1st of all – harrow let u explode with just 4 mountains on the table, witch cultivate does not do.
2. – Cultivate will replace rampant growth (but in my opinion explore is better, coz in late game, when u are in topdeck mode, its much better to draw explore than rampant)
3 – No Avenger of Zendikar? lol? They are THE killers. There are a lot anti-land tech in all SB’s. On 10 games I’m winning with valakut in like 5, rest are alternative conditions (avenger or bloodbraid + some dmg)
4 – All is Dust – its crazy card in this deck. Takes down creatures, planeswalkers aaaaand…. spreading seas
To sum up – this one is just a crap. Very unstable and got fatal MU with decks like jund and uw control. Not speaking about mythic conspiration or next lvl bant….
I have to agree that Harrow is better then cultivate still. Yea it only gives you 1 land so the say and cultivate gives you 2… But harrow gives you the chance to early activate your valakut. And do 6 dmg to where cultivate would only go off once if you havent already played a mountain that is.. 4 mountains and a valakut 1 forest. Play harrow, thankyou 6 dmg. Same scenario for cultivate youre looking at 0 dmg if you already played a land.
Then again to MIchai, to use harrow he minds well throw the idea of green titan out the window. Because ussually all the time youre sacing Forests. So cultivate you dont have to do that. He is looking at the fact that Cultivate + Green titan is better then Harrow + any other slow card. Which lets face it, Primeevil titan is pretty sick in this deck.
As we’ve discussed, it remains to be seen whether harrow or cultivate is beter. Michai is right in that you can explode with harrow when you have 4 mountains in play (saccing the forest), and it also helps the Enchantment to go off earlier, but I agree that it is rather bad against blue.
When Rampant Growth rotates out, it most likely will be replaced with Explore because of the mana cost. They are already nearly on par (Growth being more consistant in early game) anyway.
Depending on the metagame, Siege-Gang Commander may find the right place in this deck. Early on it’s hard sometimes to withstand an early assault, and Siege-Gang is perfectly fitted. Nearly always a 2 for 1 or better, always a huge tempo swing, sometimes a great win condition, sometimes great removal – i love him.
Avenger’s are rather outdated, I think. Titan is cheaper and gives you 2 threats at the same time, and usually they cannot deal with both.
All Is Dust might be a good idea, but I can really find no room for this card.
@ Flynn
Lotus Cobra doesn’t really fit the deck imo. It ramps your mana but not your land drops. And land drops is what you need to turn on Valakut.
@ lorddax
Not sure about v2 of the guide, but I’ll try to walkthrough some of my matches along with commentary on my plays. I’m testing this method because I think it can help people play the deck more tightly.
@ Red Demon
Yeah, acceleration is what’s needed so I would probably go with Explore over Sylvan Ranger and up the land count to 26 or 27. But yeah, Rampant Growth is pretty crucial especially to hit turn three Ruinblasters. It will be hard to replace it.
@ Michai
So my deck is crap? Well, 70% win percentage doesn’t seem too bad.
If your meta doesn’t have blue, then Harrow may be better than Cultivate. But it’s still close since Cultivate gets you more land drops so you can reach six mana to play Titan.
Rampant Growth is better than Explore because most of the time you want to get a land anyways. Plus, Rampant helps you avoid early mana screw whereas Explore can just keep drawing you non-lands.
Avenger of Zendikar and All Is Dust is fine but if you notice my deck is more aggro. I’m trying to kill my opponent quickly not ramp up to seven mana. Plus, if your opponent has land destruction, it will be hard for you to reach seven mana. If they have Spreading Seas, well you’re losing to Mana Leaks and Flashfreezes to your Harrows.
I think you’re playing a more controlling version of Valakut than me. Why don’t you give us your list including sideboard so we can critique it?
@ hi
Actually, the more I think of it, the more I don’t like Harrow in the deck. I agree with you that Cultivate works better with Titan than Harrow. With Harrow, it can sometimes be hard to reach double green mana while keeping Valakut active. But Cultivate doesn’t have that problem.
And yes, Titan is insane in the deck so I will use cards that work with it rather than cards that can sometimes hinder it.
@ Peter Pegagus
Thanks for bringing up Siege Gang. I cut a Map and a Blaze for 2 Siege Gangs and it has been working out well so far. Also, I swapped the rest of the Blazes for 2 Burst Lightning because the Blazes were too inconsistent. That has been working out well too.
Yeah, Avenger does seem outdated. It loses to Day of Judgment and Pulse and costs two more mana. Titan is much much better since it gives two really good threats like you said. And both threats require different answers since one is a creature and the other is a land.
All Is Dust might be a sideboard card in the right meta but in my aggro build, I definitely don’t want it main deck. Also, the card doesn’t really play well with Titan.
Adam Koska talks about using Primeval Force in valakut on tcgplayer here:
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=9012
His is less creature oriented (I think the titans are the only ones) and runs All is Dust (like Michai and Peter mention, it seems to be a pretty good card). Looks like he is also using Crystal Ball and Destructive Force. As a caveat he is mentioning that it’s an untuned version.
I’d be interested in understanding how your decided on particular cards when morphing your old Valakut deck into this one.
Not counting M11 cards (still testing the build) my Valakut looks like this atm:
4x Bloodbraid Elf
4x Siege-Gang Commander
2x Avenger of Zendikar
3x Oracle of Mul Daya
Atrifact::
3x Armillary Sphere
4x Expedition Map
Instant/Sorcery:
4x Harrow
4x Explore
4x Lightning Bolt
3x All is Dust
Lands:
4x Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
2x Evolving Wilds
4x Terramorphic Expanse
3x Forest
12x Mountain
Sideboard:
3x Relic of Progenitus
3x Goblin Ruinblaster
3x Trace of Abudance
3x Chain Reaction
3x Grazing Gladheart
In my meta i got 2 countering decks, and really,,, counter spells ends in some point of game. And with decks like UW, BU or other like that you just dont need to rush… Playing with youre head makes harrow much better than cultivate.
After the rotations there are 8 slots (bloodbraid and goblin) so the titan will take place of siege-gang, 1 more oracle take place of 1 bloodbraid, and 3 slots are still in build…
@ Michai
Thanks for sharing your list. Seems solid if you only have two blue decks in your meta.
Bloodbraid and Siege Gang are still legal after M11 becomes legal so I’m guessing you’re talking about Scars of Mirrodin rotation.
Sure, you can play with someone’s head with Harrow but what if Harrow is your only three casting cost spell and you have three mana. Will you play it or not? I think that’s the problem because if I’m the blue player, I will usually leave up Mana Leak/Flashfreeze mana once I know you’re playing Harrow.
@ Beau
Thanks for the link.
Also, I wrote a new post talking about how I morphed the old deck to the new one.
http://magicgameplan.com/blog/rg-valakut-titan-deck-building-process/
Me again.
I’ve been trying out your Searing Blazes, and I think they are the wrong choice. I believe it is more crucial to kill their 1 or 2-drops than to get 3 damage ahead of the race. The main problem with early Blazes is that you often have to chose between a rampspell or the Blaze on your turn, while with burst you usually can do both. Also, it isn’t easy to get RR mana on turn 2 and be able to ramp turn 3 since most likely that 3rd land is a Terramorphic Expanse instead of a Forest.
I’m still uncertain about Harrow. I think I’ll actually run 2 Harrows and 2 Cultivates since both are justifyable.
Hey Peter,
Yeah, I had the same experience. If you check out my new list, I have Bursts instead.
I think Harrow is fine. I just hate auto-losing to Mana Leak but actually 2 is probably a good number since you probably won’t draw multiples against blue and you can still play around counterspells by casting Cultivate first.
Also, you can make Jund target their own lands when they cast Ruinblaster.
Dee,
I don’t agree that Avenger is outdated, I think he should still maintain a space in the sideboard, primarily for the Naya matchup. I think cards like combust are too narrow of an answer for that kind of deck, and between Cultivate, Rampant Growth, and Primeval Titan; you won’t have much trouble getting him out before you die to their swarms.
I think having access to Rampant and Cultivate at the same time will allow Valakut to be tier one for a very short while. It will still be good after rotation, but I’m not a huge fan of the 27 land, Explore, Oracle plan.
Here’s my current list.
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Khalni Heart Expedition
4 Rampant Growth
4 Cultivate
1 Harrow
3 All is Dust
4 Goblin Ruinblaster
4 Bloodbraid Elf
3 Siege-Gang Commander
4 Primeval Titan
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
4 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Evolving Wilds
4 Forest
12 Mountain
Sideboard
3 Avenger of Zendikar
4 Obstinate Baloth
3 Pithing Needle
2 Burst Lightning
3 Ricochet Trap
I’ve put a lot of testing into it. The list is very solid. Sometimes I miss expedition maps, but honestly, there just isn’t enough room.
Justin,
I really hope you take valakut farther this time. When you won that large event in Texas a number of months ago it caught my attention and I have been running the deck since.
I was wondering if you have any issues with mulliganing with only 9 green mana sources. With 8 T2 cards requiring green I would think this might be a problem. I have some to realize a number such as 14 is comfortable.
Here is my list thus far.
4 Primeval Titan
4 obstinate Baloth
4 Oracle of Mul Daya
4 overgrown embattlements
2 avenger of zendikar
4 cultivate
2 harrow
2 Expedition Map
4 lightning bolt
2 Comet Storm
1 burst lightning
12 mtn
4 forest
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
4 terramorphic expanse
3 evolving wilds
SB (still testing)
4 autumn veil (Jund removal and counterspells)
3 combust (slayer and sovereigns)
3 All is dust (walkers)
3 pithing needle (tectonic edge mainly)
2 prophet prism (forest haters)
The overgrown embattlements provide ramp, green mana and a blocker for the early game and can add a huge boost when doubled.
baloth provides a 4/4 body for blcoking and attacking, not to mention the life gain.
2 harrow to follow a titan for 12 and 2 avengers for alt wincons.
7 fetchlands, 2 maps and 4 forests give me 13 green sources for T2.
Let me know what you think and best of luck!
Hi guys!
And what do you think about using Explorer’s Scope in Valakut?
It could work in a heavy-creature version.
Thanks. Could you please take a look at my low budget Valakut deck?
Mainboard:
Creatures:
Goblin Ruinblaster x3
Siege-Gang Commander x3
Ondu Giant x1
Baloth Woodcrasher x1
Spells:
Lightning Bolt x4
Burst Lightning x4
Cultivate x3
Rampant Growth x1
Harrow x4
Expedition Map x4
Khalni Heart Expedition x4
Explore x3
Lands:
Mountain x12
Forest x4
Terramorphic Expanse x4
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle x4
Rootbound Crag x1
#60
Sideboard:
Searing Blaze x4
Naturalize x2
Grazing Gladehart x3
Elixir of Immortality x1
Mystifying Maze x1
Pyroclasm x2
Obstinate Baloth x1
Explorer’s Scope x1
#15
@ Mike
Looks mostly solid to me.
I don’t like Explore with only 25 lands. I would just play 4 Rampant Growth. You want a land most of the time especially on turn two so you can hit Ruinblaster on turn 3.
If you read my later Valakut posts, you’ll see that I don’t really like Ruinblaster anymore because of Wall of Omens. I would try Oracle of Mul Daya instead and go up to 26 or 27 lands.
Rootbound Crag should be Evolving Wilds.
Sideboard is messy though. Back to Nature is good against Seas and Leyline. Scope is too narrow and you don’t have that many creatures. Burst is better than Searing Blaze.
Check out the sb in my newest list:
http://magicgameplan.com/blog/rg-valakut-titan-ramp/
I have been doing well with it. Lavaball Trap has been good in the mirror, which should be more popular since Valakut has done well in big high profile tournaments.
I think you need Needles or All is Dust to fight walkers.
Thanks Dee!
I will modify my deck and test it next week during FNM.
@ Mike
Good luck! Keep us updated
[...] did stick around to see who won and with what deck types. The winner of the tournament won with a Valakut based deck. Second place was taken by a semi-homebrew Black Blue control deck, while third was taken by a Caw [...]