Maze of Webs

What do you get when you combine a bunch of Elves, mana locks and some obscure land tuckers? Umm.. this. I’ve been considering how to build this deck for quite some time now, and am happy to see it done. Seriously, I don’t even know how long ago I started this thing (hint: a long time ago). As with many brews, this one started out with just an interesting card and a dream. After a bit of research, I found that others had tried tinkering with it as well, so I drew on them for some inspiration and here’s what we got: Maze of Webs.

As you can probably tell, the name of the deck stems from the 2 main lock pieces: Root Maze and Winter Orb. Originally, the deck focused mainly on just using Root Maze. I decided to add Orb, because it adds some consistency to your draws without taking away from the main game plan: ruining the opponent’s mana. “But why Root Maze?” With most decks using fetch lands in Ancient, this card was just begging to be abused. Notice how Elf Maze uses no fetch lands? That’s because it takes an opponent 3 turns to get mana out of a fetch land.

The webs. These things are awesome for locking down an opponent’s mana. Tsabo’s Web can be used to keep certain lands tapped, and Mana Web means they really have to budget how and when they tap a land for mana. If they’re saving up their mana for a spell, then it had better be a good one.

Mana tuckers. Plow Under and Fallow Earth.. what, you’ve never heard of them? Frankly, I’m not that surprised. The effect of putting land(s) on top of an opponent’s library are pretty obscure and narrow, but oh are they ever awesome with a Root Maze in play! Just remember: friendships were not made playing Maze of Webs.

Alright, on to the cards I’d considered. Surprisingly, there is a lot of room for brewing here. So what cards did I consider? Ankh of Mishra, Opposition and Parallax Tide were the frontrunners, and were actually in a version I had considered. I don’t care for the reliance on Ankh however, and adding a second colour means can complicate the mana base (we do NOT want fetch lands). There’s certainly potential there though, and if you’re curious about the deck then you should try them out. As always – Happy Brewing!

Maze of Webs

15 Forest

4 Gaea’s Cradle

4 Wasteland

Total: 23

Creatures

4 Llanowar Elves

4 Fyndhorn Elves

4 Quirion Ranger

2 Verdant Force

Total: 14

Spells

4 Root Maze

3 Winter Orb

4 Tsabo’s Web

3 Mana Web

4 Natural Order

1 Fallow Earth

4 Plow Under

Total: 23

Sideboard

4 Tormod’s Crypt

4 Naturalize

1 Winter Orb

1 Mana Web

2 Hurricane

3 Ice Storm