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Raven's Crime + Treasure Hunt seems like a fine interaction.  I was wondering if anyone had any information on decks that feature this.  I know theres a few Retrace decks out there somewhere and I think its something Id like to play.

Is it viable vs the field?

This is a good degenerate interaction.

You will require the assistance of:
River Kelpie
Worm Harvest

From there you will have to heavily tune to not lose to aggro. Raven's Crime will generally be potent enough to wreck on fae but you'll be forced to possess answers for Bitterblossom and teams of guys.

I believe this would function best by dipping into green and going 3 color.

Cards that may help this effort:
Maelstrom Pulse
Hag Hedge-mage
Primal Command
Profane Command

And then you really, really want some hardcore 2 drops to run into Fae... some instant speed removal... and look for unearth guys who also trigger off Kelpie. 

It's pretty interesting. This sort of strategy works well agaisnt control and combo, so fae and valakut should suffer, and I'm sure you could incorporate something to make it work against aggro.

I've seen retrace decks using hedron crab and worm harvest, with an almost dredgevine feel to, but they tend to underperform.

Kitchen Finks will be a beast in this deck (triggers kelpie) and combined with Primal Command punish aggro.

From there you need Makeshift Mannequin .

And then I question why we wouldn't go ahead and add:
Shriekmaw
Mulldrifter

Those 3 cards plus mannequin and kelpie are going to beat aggro over the head over and over again.

So let's recap:

4 x Shriekmaw
4 x Mulldrifter
4 x Kitchen Finks
3 x River Kelpie

4 x Makeshift Mannequin
3 x Primal Command
2 x Profane Command
3 x Maelstrom Pulse
4 x Raven's Crime
4 x Treasure Hunt


This sucks and leaves no room for other much needed cards.

Quick revision:

4 x Shriekmaw
4 x +[Quirion]+[Dryad]+[Some]+[kind]+[of]+[two]+[drop]+[with]+[significant]+[presence]+[that]+[i]+[wish]+[was]+[this]+[c]" class="linkedCardName" target="_blank">[c=Quirion Dryad]Some-kind-of-two-drop-with-significant-presence-that-i-wish-was-this Some-kind-of-two-drop-with-significant-presence-that-i-wish-was-this &type=card">
4 x Kitchen Finks
3 x River Kelpie

4 x Makeshift Mannequin
3 x Primal Command
2 x Profane Command
2 x Worm Harvest
3 x Maelstrom Pulse
3 x  Raven's Crime
4 x Treasure Hunt

24 x Lands

Thats basically the list I had written down.  The two-drop should be Putrid Leech.  And the lands must include Oran-Rief Vastwood for Finks and Wurm Harvest fun.

The problem I see is going 3 colors doesnt leave you a lot of black mana to keep retracing Crimes.  Also the deck needs closer to 30 lands.

Realms Uncharted is another option for getting lands in the GY AND your hand.

Derrr of course its Putrid Leech. Good call. Very solid, but not as dumb as Dryad + Retrace was. Still should be exactly what is needed for pressuring Fae.

I do like Realms Uncharted here but I don't see slots for it, nor pushing to 30 lands.

We could probably cut Profane Command for 2 slots... 1 Mannequin..... and then get to 27 lands...

Probably smarter to just cut profanes and go to 26 lands. I'm also dying to get Mulldrifter in here... but the only slots I see are Treasure Hunt. In the end it might just be that Mulldrifter > Hunt so pay attention to that.

EDIT: Now that we've got a list let's take discussion to Deck Help and post it there.

Remember the BW raven's crime deck in the LOR-SHARDS standard?

It ran Ad Nauseum and raven's crime to draw up a load of the deck and pitch your opponent's hand. It used like 28-29 lands, and had a low CMC, running Scullers, Knights of meadowgrain, Thoughtseize etc. There was some other life gain, but I can't remember what, maybe spyon life or something? The deck worked pretty well, but the Treasure hunt now gives us an extra layer of redundancy and reliability to get the engine rolling.


On a side note, in the TSP-LOR era, I had a Kelpie deck build that was pretty nuts, Raven's crimes became crazy good, so I can vouch for it. It's a shame we still don't have Haakon-Inversion engine, which was all kinds of degenerate.

Never saw this BW ad nauseam raven's crime list.

But the ability to maindeck zealous persecution seems good vs. Fae and RDW.

Seems like you could fit Nip/Edge/Mimic in this deck very easily and get some degenerate openers to boot?

Where is mathias? 

It reminds me of that window where retrace and Life From the Loam were both in extended. I remember then seeing Knight of the Reliquary spoiled and feeling my mind explode.

What I really love is that, with a degenerate enough source of land, we're looking at Mind Twists that make countermagic entirely pointless.