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By: under_the_hammer, Andrew Phillips
Jun 11 2008 11:33pm
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skullclamp
 

 
Below is the decklist I took to the Top8 of a Premier Event in March 2008 shortly before the V2.5 plug was pulled:
 
Elf Clamp v1.07

Creatures
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Llanowar Elves
4x Essence Warden
3x Elves of Deep Shadow
2x Mesmeric Fiend
3x Fyndhorn Elves
3x Eternal Witness
                                       
Equipment 
4x Skullclamp
2x Umezawa's Jitte

Discard
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Thoughtseize

Other Spells 
1x Vampiric Tutor
2x Slaughter Pact
1x Krosan Grip
2x Putrefy

Lands
4x Gilt-Leaf Palace
3x Overgrown Tomb
2x Wooded Foothills
4x Windswept Heath
1x Swamp
2x Forest
2x Pendelhaven

 
     
  Essence Warden  
     
Essence Warden - A Metagamer!
Round 1 V's Ace of Drafts -Mono Red w/Tarmogoyf:
 A fast-clocked burn/beat deck, Blistering Firecat, Tarmogoyf and  direct damage. I win  G1 thanks to drawing two early Tarmogoyf. In G2 Pendelhaven plays a role in protecting my elves from the burn monster, and Essence Warden  negates some burn damage.
Round 2 V's Anssi - A Dredge:
G1 is closer than it Should have been, in the end the dredge engine found the tools and the beats followed. G2 I remove Hymn to Tourach and Thoughtseize and board in Leyline of the Void and Tormod's Crypt. The ability to replay the vapour bounced leylines(quick enough to be relevant thanks to the elves) was great. I drew early hate and commenced the beatdown.
Round 3 V's Michel M - BU/w Fish:
G1 is ended on turn 7 with Nantuko Shade beatdown. Michel M sides in Null Rod to Counter my equipment threat and I win an 18 turn epic battle. G3. I play two early Hymns but face early Shade beats until Tarmogoyf crashed in.
Round 4 V's Conradkolos - Sensi Sensi: ID to go 3-0-1
Round 5 V's Walkerdog!! - 4 Color Thresh: ID to go 3-0-2.
Top 8: Round 6 V's Flatlinner8233 - BWg  Beatdown:
My opponent had great threats with Jötun Grunt, Hypnotic Specter, Tarmogoyf, some discard and removal in the form of  Swords to Plowshares, and Smother which to dealt with my Tarmo's. I lose both games in spectacular style. 
   
 

An easily overlooked interaction is the option of using Pendelhaven to pump an elf to allow it to don multiple Skullclamps.  This enables the option of sending a bigger threat into the Red zone but more importantly the Double Clamped elf will lose the pump bonus at the end of turn and get send to the graveyard to net you 4 cards, which you can deploy on your next turn. 

This deck can suffer badly if the opponent can play a Moat  as all of the threats in the deck are groundbeaters, so the only hope is to discard the moat before it can be cast, or ride out the turns until you can access Krosan Grip.  Countertop decks can also be an issue since the top can always be bounced to counter most of the deck due to the heavy bias on the one drop cards. Likewise a Pithing Needle naming skullclamp or a Chalice of the Void set at 1, all need to be hit with a grip as quickly as possible, hence the possibility to go to the full set of grips post-board.  The grip is favourable to other options such as Naturalize, the elves help to negate the higher casting cost and the ability to dodge counter magic is invaluable.

Leyline of the Void and Tormod's Crypt are key to winning the dredge matchup.  Dredge usually combos out too fast for your clock and your discard only serves to aid their quest.  The flash match up can be tricky, you have to hit hard with discard, and try and get an essence warden on the board, I side in the grips(to hit Phyrexian Dreadnought) and voids.   Affinity ebs and flows in popularity but if you expected this deck is on the rise then Seeds of Innocence can be a total wrecking-ball, and can replace the crypts.

Sadly Premier Events have not restarted yet in V3.0 so I have been unable to fully test a new version of this deck which looks at abusing the combination of Bitterblossom and SkullclampSure I can hit up the Tournament Practice room but there is nothing like the gaunlet of a Premier Event to really test a deck. Never-the-less here is a proposed decklist and I also list my take on a mono black build.

Leyline of the Void

 

 
Bitter-Elves

Creatures
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Essence Warden
4x Elves of Deep Shadow
4x Oona's Blackguard
3x Fyndhorn Elves
3x Eternal Witness
                                       
Equipment 
4x Skullclamp
2x Umezawa's Jitte

Discard
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Thoughtseize

 Other Spells 
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Slaughter Pact
1x Krosan Grip
4x Bitterblossom

Lands
4x Gilt-Leaf Palace
4x Overgrown Tomb
2x Wooded Foothills
4x Bloodstained Mire
2x Swamp
2x Pendelhaven

Sideboard

     
  Bitterblossom  
     

This version of the deck seeks to abuse the interaction between Bitterblossom and Skullclamp. The rogue generator loyally pumps out tokens ready to be clamped for card advantage.  I feel this version is better positioned to afford the flashback of Cabal Therapy so the discard suite it tweaked slightly.  Against storm combo decks there is the ability to up this suite by siding in the Hymn to Tourach. There is a slight tweaking of the manabase to reflect the higher proportion of black cards, and likewise Elves of Deep Shadow get bumped to 4 of. 

By keeping the green this version gets to keep the powerful Tarmogoyf and the versitle Krosan Grips.  The Essence Warden is even more useful in this build, helping to negate the continual damage spent in the course of making 1/1 fliers.  The Bitterblossom also offers an "out" to Moat.

I think it might be necessary to downgrade the Thoughtseize to Duress especially since the blossom is hitting the life resources.

Finally I could not resist the chance to play Oona's Blackguard it can take a clamp and net you 2 cards, but more importantly is the interaction with Bitterblossom.  The fact that it also has flying is a nice added bonus, there are not all that many flying creatures in classic at the moment so this evasion is normally good for inflicting some damage.

 
Blacked Blossom

Creatures
4x Hypnotic Specter
4x Dark Confidant
4x Stromgald Crusader
4x Oona's Blackguard
                                       
Equipment 
4x Skullclamp
2x Umezawa's Jitte

Discard
4x Cabal Therapy
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Thoughtseize

 Other Spells 
1x Vampiric Tutor
4x Dark Ritual
4x Bitterblossom

Lands
2x Bloodstained Mire
2x Polluted Delta
14x Swamp

Sideboard

     
  Hypnotic Specter  
     
 

Finally I offer my MonoBlack take on Bitterblossom. The Dark Ritual allow this deck to inconsistently get off to an amazing start, either busting out a Hypnotic Specter, pairing up some discard spells, or dropping a blossom and a clamp.  Being mono-black this deck losses out on the mana elves and I personally prefer the consistency of the green black builds.

There is lots of pain in this deck and it is a big gamble to run Dark Confidant and Bitterblossom.  The Confidants can be off loaded with clamp of course once life totals become critical. The Stromgald Crusader again add a flying threat to the deck and can be pumped late-game, their ability to dodge Serra Avenger, and Swords to Plowshares should also not be underestimated.

The sideboard is similar to the other decks but the lack of green removes the excellent Krosan Grip and blacks lacks any suitable replacement. The other card of note is Abyssal Gatekeeper this is being tested as away to remove thresholds Nimble Mongoose and is also useful against true aggro matchups.  The Gatekeeper interacts fine with the cabals and the clamp, and I have even considered moving the Gatekeeper to the maindeck.

Although this deck has potential I think it too often just gets an average start.

I hope you have enjoyed this look at how Skullclamp can impact on Classic. I recommend you pick up a playset of this uncommon and start making some fun competitive classic decks. If you already own Tarmogoyf and Bitterblossoms as part of your extended or standard collection then it is relatively inexpensive to acquire the cards to fill out a classic deck and come and join the classic gamers in the Tournament Practice Room.

Thanks for reading. 

U_T_H   : 

A Proud member of the Classic Quarter Clan.

 

0 Comments

Clamp by dangerlinto at Fri, 06/13/2008 - 15:01
dangerlinto's picture

I have the gut instinct that if any deck sporting clamp ever really took off in the Classic scene, it would be the death knell for clamp. I mean, you HAVE to believe that if any card is on the watch list, it's clamp.

So if you want to keep playing with this deck - don't win with it! : )

by hamtastic at Thu, 06/12/2008 - 13:22
hamtastic's picture

Exactly!  It's amazing how dynamic this game is, even in the Classic format.  It makes things so much fun to see them change around as we get new cards!

by under_the_hammer at Thu, 06/12/2008 - 09:59
under_the_hammer's picture

Thank you for all the postivie feedback

Hammy/Iceman Re Blossom 

Yes looking back it is very funny:  I have already admitted my error in misjudging this card - See comments at the end of an excellent Walkerdog article (http://www.puremtgo.com/articledisplay.asp?AID=1032). "Nice Article Walkerdog! I total underestimated bitterblossom when it was first released and even went as far as to say I thought it would never make a PE T8! Well this has already been disproved and since accepting my error in assessing this card, I have recently picked up 4 - and I must say I am impressed. " 

I think it was with this knowledge that Iceage4Life posted here too!

"The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing" 

 

by hamtastic at Thu, 06/12/2008 - 09:21
hamtastic's picture

A very good article.  I remembered that someone was pretty adamant about Bitterblossom not being a good card in Classic, so I dug through the ClassicQuarter forums (Not to be mean, but I found the thread quite funny. ):

http://classicquarter.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=816KW=bitterblossomPN=1

:)

I thought that was a pretty funny thread, especially looking back on it from here.  :P

Anywho, a very good article, and I'm starting to agree with Dangerlinto about the Clamp gettign out of control in Classic.  Although based on how much help combo is going to be getting this fall it may be a moot point by then anyway.

so yea by whiffy penguin at Thu, 06/12/2008 - 08:16
whiffy penguin's picture

Like i said before nice article there andy. I do unfortunatly hate you for putting elf clamp in the public eye though. lol. In all seriousness elf clamp is an ok choice very hand dependant, but the addition of blossom is good enough to actually make me nerves to play aginst a clamp deck. Previosly all you had to do to win the game was really just make sure a goyf dosent sit on the table but now an unanswered turn 2 blossom will give the deck the power boost it needed to keep tempo on its side. i feel like this deck has a lot of potential and just needs to figure out the correct 60 for its make up to be a powerplayer in the format.depending on what we get in med2 it will probably be one of the surviving archtypes going in to tempest ara classic.

by iceage4life at Thu, 06/12/2008 - 01:21
iceage4life's picture

I hear this Bitterblossom card is good ;)

DRAGONDUNG's picture

I was skeptical at first about it in classic.  Although I had overlooked clamp till whiffey mentioned the combo.  Great article hammer this deck is dangerous to flash due to life gain and disruption.  If flash cant win in the first three turns it probally will not win this match up.  I took second thanks to one of these decks in my first top two appearence in classic.