Turbo Titan: Primeval Titan + Summoning Trap
July 17, 2010 | Posted by Dee
What’s better than four Primeval Titans? How about eight? 
Ok, so adding Summoning Trap to the Valakut Titan deck doesn’t mean you get four more Titans. But it does allow you to dig through your deck to find them. With Summoning Trap, the deck feels like it has more than four Titans. You will regularly have access to the green mythic rare even if you don’t draw it. Plus, Summoning Trap gives you counterspell protection and instant speed Titan. Playing a Titan during your opponent’s combat phase can be pretty devastating.
Why did I go with this direction for the deck?
With my old list, I was doing well if I drew Titan and had enough mana to cast it. However, if I didn’t draw it or got slightly mana screwed, it was tough to win. For example, Wall of Omens can be tough to beat with the old list if you don’t draw Titan since the wall blocks Ruinblaster and Bloodbraid all day.
I started brainstorming ways to improve my chances of playing Titan. Fauna Shaman doesn’t really fit the deck because you don’t have enough creatures. Plus, she’s easy to kill. Running Diabolic Tutor was out of the question. Running a double black spell in a Red/Green Valakut deck wrecks the mana base. Plus, Tutor is slow.
The only other option seemed to be Summoning Trap. Once I added four Traps to the deck, I had to find another powerful creature to combo with Trap. I think eight Trap creatures is a good number to make sure Trap doesn’t fizzle. Avenger of Zendikar seemed like a good fit. I started with four Avengers but they kept dying to Destructive Force. I’m now testing 2 Avengers and 2 Inferno Titans.
Adding Trap meant that I needed to increase my ramp spells since my curve had increased. I now had 12 spells costing six or more mana. The removal spells were easy to cut. I added Explore and increased the land count to compensate. The Maps were another easy cut since Trap can go get Titan. Bloodbraid stayed in because it now always cascades into a ramp spell, which is important since our win conditions cost six mana.
Siege-Gang had to go because it made the mana curve too top-heavy. Ruinblaster also left the list because it was too narrow in my metagame (no one is playing Jund anymore). Plus, like I said, Wall of Omens was a beating.
I had two empty slots. Other than Bloodbraid, I wanted something else that I could ramp into on turn three that had good synergy with the deck. I went with Oracle of Mul Daya. Oracle has been awesome against slower decks because she helps you dig through your library for gas. Plus, she gives you land advantage, which is key against those decks.
Here’s my current list dubbed Turbo Titan.
| Turbo Titan | |||||||||||
Creatures (14) Spells (19) Lands (27) | Sideboard (15) |
| |||||||||
The basic game plan is to ramp up to six mana and cast Titan or Summoning Trap if you haven’t drawn Titan. The green instant will often find you the M11 mythic. Then, you destroy your opponent next turn.
The sideboard is definitely in flux, so feel free to play with it.
Earthquake has been awesome against Noble Hierarch decks. I want to find room for the fourth one. The card is better in this deck than the old list because you have less creatures that die to it and more ramp spells.
Pithing Needle has also been good but I think three is probably too much at least in my meta. I haven’t played versus Super Friends in a while. Ricochet Trap has been the weakest link but I’m keeping it because I’m still wary of counterspells, Time Warp, and Spreading Seas.
Acidic Slime was a fixture in old Trap lists so I’m trying it out. It seems good against other Valakut Titan lists and can keep Destructive Force decks off of seven mana. Also, it destroys Leyline of Sanctity, which just shuts down Valakut.
By the way, funny story which made me include Acidic Slime in the sideboard. In the screenshot below, I was playing a rated match against yet another Primeval Titan deck, RG Valakut. It was game three, turn four, and he had two active KHE. I was at 20 and he was at 17. I attacked with Bloodbraid Elf and was going to play Titan to win next turn.
Before the combat damage step, he fetched a Mountain and Forest with KHE and I’m like, “Searing Blaze, wtf?” Yep, he cast Searing Blaze and I went down to 17. I had not seen any of my Valakut opponents play the card, so I asked him, “Where did you get that list?”
He replied, “magicgameplan.com.”
Then, he dealt 18 on his turn with Titan to kill me.
My record in rated matches on Magic League with Turbo Titan is 16-6 (72.7%) 13-6 (68.4%). Update: Sorry, miscounted. In games, I am 30-19 (61.2%). The match record for the old non-Trap list is 14-7 (66.6%).
Turbo Titan definitely feels more powerful than the non-Trap list. In fact, I’ve stopped playing with the non-Trap version. I didn’t keep a record of my games for that deck but if I remember correctly, I didn’t have many 2-0 matches. With Turbo Titan, I’ve won six of my matches 2-0.
Here is the full breakdown of rated matches so far for Turbo Titan:
Mythic with Red 2-1
RGU Mass Polymorph 0-2
GBU Rock 2-0
RG Valakut Titan 1-2
UWR Artifact Destructive Force 2-0
GRU Midrange with Jace and some landkill 2-1
RG Destructive Force Titan 0-2
Elves 2-1
Mono White Midrange 2-0
Turboland 2-0
GU Jank 1-2
GU Jank 2-1
BR Goblins 2-1
RGU Cobra, Jace, Avenger 1-2
Vengevine Naya with Fauna Shaman 2-1
Open the Vaults 2-1
Vengevine Naya 1-2
Next Level Bant 2-0
RG Valakut Titan 2-0
For non-rated games on mwsplay.net (which has worse decks than Magic League), I am 13-0 in matches and 29-7 (80.5%) in games.
I played against these decks with the following results:
RGU Fauna 1-0
Jund Fauna 2-0
Jund 1-1
Eldrazi Elves 2-0
UR Pyromancer Ascension 2-1
GWU Luminarch Ascension 1-0
Mono White Midrange 2-0
Mono Blue Control 2-0
Ziggurat Jund/Naya 2-1
Elves with Acidic Slime main 2-0 (he hit me with 2 Slimes g1 and 1 Slime g2)
BW Lich 2-0
BR Goblins 2-1
RGU Lotus Cobra, Jace, Primeval Titan 2-1
RG Valakut Titan with Ravines 2-0
RG Valakut Titan with Rootbound Crag and Ravines 2-1
Jund 2-1
Anyways, try it out and let me know what you think.
9 Responses to “Turbo Titan: Primeval Titan + Summoning Trap”
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What website were you playing on? Is that free?
I was just wondering if you found the 2 ricochet traps in the board to be enough against spreading seas? And also if you have found tectonic edge to be a big problem against this deck?
I have to admit that adding summoning trap to call down an avenger or titan is SUPER sexy!!!!! I always wanted to make a summoning trap deck to get fatties into play. Punishing people who play counterspells excites me too.
Why inferno titan?
Add another mul daya or 4th explore. How you do agaiinst RDW? No bolts or early fat bodies?
wouldnt it be better to go with 4 oracle of mul daya and 2 bloodbraid elfs? if im not mistaken you can get primeval titan and avenger of zendakar out on turn 4 with mul daya. but with bloodbraid elf you can only get primeval titan out turn 5 in most cases.also i was thinking that rampaging baloths might be a good trade for inferno titan.
please let me know what you think
I tested it a little (3 hours)
I don’t know. Everytime I draw Avenger or Red Titan, I’m unimpressed. Summoning Trap vs Counters is awesome, though.
I think this list is better than the other one vs control, but loses to aggro more often. After all, there is really no defensive element whatsoever in it. No removal and no siege-gang. I’m afraid I’ll stick with the ABC-version (aggro burn control).
Try to convince me to switch.
Interestingly enough, I’m working on two different builds for my summoning trap deck, one of which includes Primeval Titan based on the results from your Valakut testing, haha. Summoning Trap feels really good to me to play, especially with the return of Mana Leak.
The other build involves Mass Polymorph, but i’ve found in my meager playtesting that so far it’s too fragile.
For those of you interested, here’s a link to Dee’s previous post about Summoning Trap: http://magicgameplan.com/blog/summoning-trap-deck/
@ Shayde
I play on Magic-League which uses the Magic Workstation software to play for free online with other people.
Magic Workstation has a paid version but the free version works good enough.
Magic-League is great. Pros occassionally show up. Also, the level of play and decks is higher than FNM.
@ Michael
I’m still not sure what to do about Spreading Seas. I actually cut Ricochet Trap because it was too narrow. I’m trying out 3 Banefires on the board. I have seen a solid player with 3 Back to Nature in the sideboard.
Tectonic Edge can be a problem, which is one reason why I upped my Pithing Needles to 3 in sb.
@ redirus91
Inferno Titan is there because I have Destructive Force decks in my meta. Avenger kinda sucks against D-Force lol.
RDW is tough so my new list has 4 Bolts main and 2 Burst sb.
// Deck file for Magic Workstation (http://www.magicworkstation.com)
// Lands
4 [10E] Terramorphic Expanse
11 [HOP] Mountain (3)
4 [ZEN] Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
4 [4E] Forest (3)
4 [ROE] Evolving Wilds
// Creatures
4 [M11] Primeval Titan
2 [ZEN] Oracle of Mul Daya
2 [ROE] Ondu Giant
3 [WWK] Avenger of Zendikar
// Spells
4 [ZEN] Khalni Heart Expedition
4 [6E] Rampant Growth
4 [M11] Cultivate
3 [ZEN] Summoning Trap
3 [WWK] Explore
4 [R] Lightning Bolt
// Sideboard
SB: 4 [M11] Obstinate Baloth
SB: 3 [CFX] Banefire
SB: 3 [M10] Pithing Needle
SB: 3 [PT] Earthquake
SB: 2 [ZEN] Burst Lightning
@ justin
Oracle is not that good against fast decks because it is easy to kill and doesn’t block well and sometimes it doesn’t even ramp the turn you play it because you don’t have lands in hand and the top card of your library is not a land.
But 2 copies has been fine because it is good against control and slow midrange decks.
btw, pls check my new list above, I am testing Ondu Giant over Bloodbraid Elf partly because of Earthquake in sb.
Rampaging Baloths is an option. Thanks for bringing it up. I totally missed it. I’ll probably test it out.
@ Peter Pegasus
Thanks for your input. I’ve had similar experiences. I’m actually thinking of switching back to the non-Trap version because there doesn’t seem to be anything worth trapping other than Primeval Titan. I might test Rampaging Baloths.
Btw, check my new list above. It has 4 Bolts.
@ Beau
Interesting coincidence
Hey man, maybe consider throwing in a few Bear Umbras. They basically double your mana output each turn, letting you play titan a turn early. Turn four play bear umbra, turn five, tap out your lands and attack and then tap 3 more and play titan
Bear Umbra might work in a creature heavy build but the winning decks I’ve seen only have around 9-12 creatures. And those creatures cost five or more mana.