Well, this is my hash up of Varolz, at the moment its untested but I have been pushing the list together and should have it up and running shortly. Its sort of an ETB / Death trigger based deck at the moment trying to focus more on the sacrifice side of the commander rather than the scavange but there area few really nice tricks available with scavange.
Some of these cards are being given more thought than others but I figured I might drop in some cards that did hit my interest for one reason or another.
Grave Pact would synergize with your general because he is a sac outlet and it serves as another board control.
Its true that it would, I am in a heavy wrath meta though and generally I haven't gotten very good results from it due to that. Attrition is already a very borderline card for me that I dont know if it will stay in or not but Gravepact just hasnt ever worked out well for me.
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Its true that it would, I am in a heavy wrath meta though and generally I haven't gotten very good results from it due to that. Attrition is already a very borderline card for me that I dont know if it will stay in or not but Gravepact just hasnt ever worked out well for me.
Blood Artist - these guys are fun but I have a hard problem getting enough value from them. I like them but I dont feel like they are quite right for the deck.
Massacre Wurm - with the high wrath density that I am seeing I just dont know if it will be enough value here.
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed - wow I totally forgot about him. He should make a great addition to the deck. I will look at the options to see what to cut for him.
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I always like Fleshbag Marauder in my Jarad deck. Good ETB ability and clampable.
He is a good option. I will think about him a bit more. I like the idea of playing him into a Nim Deathmantle and looping him back. His low cost is another plus and he can act as a sac outlet if I dont have another handy. Its a decent option that I will give some thought to.
Rings - Scavange is a very minor ability for me in my list. The sac outlet portion of the commander is primarily what I am interested in here.
Hunted Creatures - I would run Phyrexian Dreadnought over the hunted creatures. Again though, Scavange is a very distant backburner ability in my list currently.
This might be the first Varolz list I've seen without his BFF Skullbriar in the 99.
I dont have a ton of creature recursion and in general my focus is on the sacrificing of creatures rather than the scavange part of the commander. I see a lot of wraths and a decent amount of grave hate making me really focus less on being a fast aggro deck than others might make out of him.
Skullbriar is very uninteresting to me. He is a vanilla beater and I dont have a lot of ways to rez him. Due to this I dont see why he would be very good here.
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Skullbriar is nice because you can scavenge things onto him, and he keeps the counters when he dies (sac him to Jarad, Varolz regen ability, or if he dies for some other reason), so you can scavenge his counters out of the gy, so you don't "lose" them unless he gets exiled or something.
Phyrexian Dreadnought and Death's Shadow should be auto includes. Whether you're going for an agro strategy or not, dropping 12 +1/+1 counters on a creature for 1 mana is good anytime, in any format. There's literally no reason not too.
In my mind, the best way to get value from this General is to play all ETB creatures, sac them, then put counters on others.
27 Creatures is too low for a creature based General.
Have you tested the new G/B Enchantment ? It's been surprisingly good in a lot of G/B lists I've played with/against.
The problem with this General is, he's kind of a catch 22. You're exiling creatures to make other creatures bigger, but the creatures you're making bigger have no protection, so they just get removed and you're not really gaining any value. When you consider that EDH is very "Sweeper" heavy, it just hard to justify wasting turns making creatures bigger but not really advancing yourself in the game.
With that said, Varolz is probably a better Voltron General, using green to ramp and black to clear the way, but that's just my opinion.
Phyrexian Dreadnought and Death's Shadow should be auto includes. Whether you're going for an agro strategy or not, dropping 12 +1/+1 counters on a creature for 1 mana is good anytime, in any format. There's literally no reason not too.
Sorry, its been a super busy weekend. Playing catch up on this deck though, I dropped like $120.00 on a lot of solid staple cards and as a result filled in a large portion of the chase staples for it. Some deck changes after further thought and reflection on some of the posts here.
DECK CHANGES:
Sword of Light and Shadow -> Mimic Vat I like the vat more when playing a sac based deck. The sword can be nice but I think I have a better capability of abusing the vat here. I can blow up opponents creatures here as my spot removal doesnt exile and I have tons of sac dudes. Plus I am in green so it should be a little nicer to drop and be able to pop it when I have green to ramp with.
Wirewood Herald -> Phyrexian Dreadnought after further thought, the greater good style of effects do push me to want to try to play this. Plus I picked up the dreadnought earlier when I was on a buying rampage. I don't really like the idea of always trying to push the aggro direction but I am willing to see where it goes.
Gamekeeper -> Faceless Butcher Gamekeeper is cool but totally random which puts it at sort of a worse than Lurking Predators profile for me. I think he is really cool but I don't know how good that turns out to be... If I ran more tutor to topdeck effects it might make him better but for now I am scrapping him. Faceless Butcher can work on a few different fronts such as dropping him on my own guys and sacing him to retrigger ETB or drop him on an opposing creature and sacing him while his ability is on the stack for a permenant exile. I like having this capability occasionally due to indestructable creatures.
Lurking Predators -> Mikaeus, the Unhallowed I think lurking is cool but I am trying to bring up my creature count and Mikaeus seems like he would be a total powerhouse in here. Being that I am somewhere between being an ETB/Death trigger deck with sac outlets I think he fits like perfectly.
Brawn -> Thought Gorger while I see merits to brawn in an aggro situation, I just dont see enough stable power there. I think Thought Gorger makes for some cool and interesting tech as I can scavange onto him and then sac him off for card draw. Its interesting so I figured I would at least try to play it once.
Attrition -> Fleshbag Marauder I have issues with Attrition's hit and miss side. When its a coinflip if I can deal with threats with it I get rally annoyed. It can be amazing, it can suck. I want to play with the Marauder and see how he goes.
I am going to see if I cant piece out the landbase too as I am pushing to have it sleeved up yet today.
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I played the deck like 9 games this weekend. Something like 6 of the games were heads up and another 3 games as 3 player free for all. So far the deck was working well, there were a few things I sort of noticed such as my entomb / reanimator stuff was really weak feeling. I just don't have much to abuse the Reassembling Skeleton / Bloodghast guys either and when I entomb I mostly just have 4 targets being 2 big scavange targets and 2 self reanimators usually. I ended up winning like 80% of the games so I will chalk that up as a decent new list. I have some changes I was looking to make and I intended to put the list through more testing tomorrow night.
DECK CHANGES:
Reassembling Skeleton -> Necromancy I noticed a bit of a lack of grave reanimation in here even though I seem to put a lot of guys in the bin. I thought of all things, this is one of my favorite black reanimate effects and it gives me a chance to instant speed drop a dude in to sac to keep my commander in which is also nice. I haven't been seeing that much interaction with the Skeleton / Bloodghast in the deck so far so I decided to cut one of them and decided I liked bloodghast more of the two.
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed -> Chainer, Dementia Master Mikaeus just ended up being too much to assemble too often for me. I wanted to set up a solid board state then drop him in but if I could establish the good board state then he was win-more at that point. Way too often I ended up drawing him early on and disliked seeing him. I think I saw him like 4/9 of the games and never once did I actually play him out. Chainer I would like to test out because he can benefit from the higher mana this deck can get up to. Due to having sac outlets I can potentially use him as grave hate as well. What I really like here though is that I am taking a situational card (Mikaeus) and turning it into a nice standalone card (Chainer). I feel like I can just cast Chainer out a lot easier than I could Mikaeus and plus, Mikaeus has the ability to infinite combo with persist guys which I don't particularly like.
Entomb -> Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord I like the idea of this guy so I will put him in for some testing. He has some strong synergy with some of the scavange options to just beat face and I would love to throw a kokopuff. Entomb was ending up being just a worse Buried Alive for me too often as I don't abuse my grave enough for a single tutor to the bin to be that impressive. I really only had a few targets and they were a little underwhelming under several situations.
1 Swamp -> Reliquary Tower I definitely noticed the need for a high forest count but I have a lot of nonbasics that just tap for black and I haven't needed as high of a basic swamp count for the most part. I have on a few occasions had the ability to draw some big hands though and at my first glance I don't think its so color intensive that adding another colorless land should hurt much.
Still in Consideration:
Sensei's Divining Top the deck does a lot of shuffling. This is a card very high on my list trying to push it in. I definately need to keep my eye out for something I can cut to make it in the list.
Necrogenesis grave hate that gives me dudes to sac to my commander for regeneration purposes is nice. They can also be chump blockers and serve for some nice sac targets in some situations too.
Helm of Possession theft is something hard to come across in these colors. Being sac based means its also a form of removal as I can sac what I steal.
Sadistic Hypnotistmindslicer has been absolutely amazing so far. This guy has some potential but I think he really pushes the importance of tokens / swarm / Reassembling Skeleton which I don't really quite feel like fits my list. The fact that its a sorcery speed sac only hurts it in my eyes.
Mind Slash sac outlet and I get to look and strip what I don't like. The fact that its a noncreature and its a sorcery only speed sac hurts it a little for me.
Tooth and Nail this list ramps really hard so this is something I have put a little more consideration into.
Mostly because its just a vanilla do nothing card. Sure its big and ya it can scavange big. But let me give you an example of my meta, I had 10 cards left in my library tonight and the Consuming Aberration I was watching was only like a 30/30 with 4 of us left in play. We run TONS of grave hate in my meta. There is a lazov deck that runs like 5 or 6 grave hate cards in his deck. Its at the point where I am not sure of the one drops as they got milled and exiled quickly. I managed to do one shinanigan with one of them off of Jarad and a birthing poded token but other than that.
I dont much like vanilla situational cards. The one drops are already situational but they are really cheap to work with at least. Lord is just slow and clunky to me.
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I like your deck a lot. I converted my Jarad deck to Varolz and I guess I'm not running into the same issues you are having with graveyard hate at all. Even online, I don't think many decks use it and those who did didn't pull it out. I'm wondering from your experience how many cards end up in your graveyard at a given time, how much self-mill you do, and what seems to be the most reliable wincon in your meta (even if it isn't your primary, such as Jarad or Infect)
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"Ask the right questions in the right way and truth is inevitable."
—Lazav
I like your deck a lot. I converted my Jarad deck to Varolz and I guess I'm not running into the same issues you are having with graveyard hate at all. Even online, I don't think many decks use it and those who did didn't pull it out. I'm wondering from your experience how many cards end up in your graveyard at a given time, how much self-mill you do, and what seems to be the most reliable wincon in your meta (even if it isn't your primary, such as Jarad or Infect)
Thanks,
Ya, the graveyard hate is sort of unusual here. There is a Lazav, Dimir Mastermind psudo mill deck here that I think runs something like 6 cards devoted to grave hate. He jumped on me first last night milling me which got me fairly close to milled out when the game ended.
Overall though, most people can probably ignore this as its not the normal. Also, I have found myself land denial as a decent tactic so far in here too as Sylvan Primordial + Nim Deathmantle + sac outlet can really take away a game. It is sort of currently a normal event for me to strip every forest from my deck by turn 8 or so in this deck lol.
As far as self milling goes, I generally do little to none of it. Drawing excessive cards and Buried Alive are currently really the only types of mill I have. Greater Good can set up scavanges really nicely though I suppose if you wanted to do something like that.
As a side note, Jarad and Chainer did some serious work for me already from my prior change. I think both will be welcome in the long run. Chainer almost got to have fun with Kokusho, but got exiled while kokopuff was on the stack. Jarad got to fling a Phyrexian Dreadnought and bring my opponents into lethal range.
EDIT: sorry, going to add a deck change to the list too here:
Thought Gorger -> Death Cloud I... just don't know about the gorger. Its cool and cute but I feel like its too much work just to be sort of a cute flavor addition. Death Cloud seems like a great sweeper that takes advantage of the fact that I seem to be able to out ramp my opponents very easily. I run so many sweep nonland effects that I am usually good at taking out stones and such that hit early on and the cloud could be a nice way to slam landbases too. Plus it works as a wrath for hexproof and indestructible guys which is always useful to me.
Have you considered Big Game Hunter? It's another creature based removal and the madness trigger is handy if you have survival of the fittest or other discard outlets. I use it in my Jarad deck.
Have you considered Big Game Hunter? It's another creature based removal and the madness trigger is handy if you have survival of the fittest or other discard outlets. I use it in my Jarad deck.
I have considered him a few times but I really dislike situational kill effects. It seems like a few problematic indestructables have been popping up a bit more as well since the legend update was announced as well as we have already jumped to the new rules. Personally I might be more willing to jump on another sac based ETB or something else over target kill due to this. I agree that the big game hunter is cool if you can discard him but I don't like his restrictions and just killing at sorcery speed is a little underwhelming for me usually.
There is nothing particularly "wrong" with him. I just dont like his effect all that much at sorcery speed. If I had more discard outlets I think I would find him a lot more useful as I think his real power comes from the madness option.
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How aggressively do you usually play the deck? I'm not sure that Death Cloud is what you want to be doing if you typically have Varolz out to fuel your engines. If you're more controlling it's fine, I used to love it in Glissa, but you don't seem to have too many ways to minimize its drawbacks.
I'd suggest cutting Skithryx and Green Sun's Zenith for Lord of Extinction and Liliana of the Veil. I see that you don't like LoE because of having lots of graveyard hate in your meta, but he accomplishes the same goal of killing an opponent in one hit and opens you up to the possibility of using him with Jarad to wipe out the rest of the table. You don't have too many green creatures where I would see you wanting GSZ over something like Worldly Tutor, Demonic Collusion (I like this card a lot but the manacost is prohibitive, but in BG with Loam I've become a big fan), or even Grim Tutor if you have one laying around.
Liliana is synergistic with your graveyard strategies, takes out hexproof creatures thanks to your ample removal, and pressures all of the control and combo decks at the table simultaneously. She's been really strong for me in Glissa and Mimeoplasm, but to be honest Varolz is still on my to-do list.
I'd consider Bitterblossom too, it's a good way to always have something to sacrifice to Varolz or Skullclamp, but you might not need it.
I'm guessing you don't like combos? No Tooth and Nail, Mikaeus, or Triskelion? Mikaeus especially would be very strong here even without the others.
How aggressively do you usually play the deck? I'm not sure that Death Cloud is what you want to be doing if you typically have Varolz out to fuel your engines. If you're more controlling it's fine, I used to love it in Glissa, but you don't seem to have too many ways to minimize its drawbacks.
I'd suggest cutting Skithryx and Green Sun's Zenith for Lord of Extinction and Liliana of the Veil. I see that you don't like LoE because of having lots of graveyard hate in your meta, but he accomplishes the same goal of killing an opponent in one hit and opens you up to the possibility of using him with Jarad to wipe out the rest of the table. You don't have too many green creatures where I would see you wanting GSZ over something like Worldly Tutor, Demonic Collusion (I like this card a lot but the manacost is prohibitive, but in BG with Loam I've become a big fan), or even Grim Tutor if you have one laying around.
Liliana is synergistic with your graveyard strategies, takes out hexproof creatures thanks to your ample removal, and pressures all of the control and combo decks at the table simultaneously. She's been really strong for me in Glissa and Mimeoplasm, but to be honest Varolz is still on my to-do list.
I'd consider Bitterblossom too, it's a good way to always have something to sacrifice to Varolz or Skullclamp, but you might not need it.
I'm guessing you don't like combos? No Tooth and Nail, Mikaeus, or Triskelion? Mikaeus especially would be very strong here even without the others.
I play this as more of a control based deck than an aggro one. I do have a few ways to try to quickly kill opponents but its very rare for them to work as I play in a very control based meta. Its assumed that all of my opponents will also be control and its fairly regular for games to be 5-6 player FFAs making fast aggro even worse.
Death Cloud - I have found that I ramp a lot of land very very quickly. The point of it here is to cull out hands, wrath the board, and limit my opponents lands all in one shot. I generally ramp up to land a lot faster than my opponents which means that I can potentially drop this even just at 3/4 to eat hands, wrath boards, and potentially still leave me with 6+ lands and my opponents at 2-3. I am using it as sort of a scaling type of Wildfire effect where I expect to be ramping harder than a lot of my opponents. This deck has a lot of hate for nonland permanents so I already have a ton of hate for mana stones and such. Death Cloud is a way for me to quickly get a lot of effect and wrath my opponents. I have also seen an increase in hexproof and indestructible creatures since the legendary rule change announcement as we already moved to it so this gives me another outlet to take them out. Its generally accepted that this will probably wrath me but the big advantage here is that I can control the size and timing of this and I tend to ramp a lot harder than most of my opponents.
Skithryx - he could potentially go. I haven't done enough testing of him though as I think I have yet to really draw him. I want to play with him a little more as I see him as a creature being a lot more useful to me than Lord. I understand the idea of scavanging the lord but I think as far as their in game presence goes, I would rather Skithryx of the two. I need further testing though before I can back this entirely though so I will come back to this after I get more testing. I did get to murder someone with a giant Inkmoth already though so I can see the potential in the infect option. I might consider adding the lord if I end up adding Tooth and Nail which I have considered a little more recently as Jarad does in fact work very well with him.
Green Sun's Zenith - its just too versatile. Its sort of a wildcard creature and with the new addition of Jarad I really don't see myself cutting this. I have tons of solid green creatures and I can always hit a Fierce Empath to turn into something else big later on. Early game it gives me ramp and overall I am just really happy to run this.
Liliana of the Veil - personally I just don't like value over time planeswalkers. She is really hard to defend and doesn't scale well for multiplayer. If I wanted a sac effect this is very low on what I would pick. Its a much better card when considering 1v1 play but for multiplayer I just don't see enough value fast enough to use her. She could be nice if you could reliably draw her early but that's just not an option here.
Bitterblossom - I might actually consider it in the future. The biggest problem with it is that it doesnt have a ton of synergy with what I am doing but it is nice for chump blockers, slullclamp targets, and just freely avalible sacs to regen my commander. I dont have a ton of interaction with 1/1 flying tokens beyond that though so I think overall it fits a little better in a deck that generates more value from the actual sacrifice of creatures than what I was pushing here. Still, it seems like a solid card that I could see myself playing.
Combos - I dislike going infinite. If there are several cards that belong in the list regardless of the combo potential I will run them but there is never a time that Triskillion is appropriate in my mind outside of combo options. Mikaeus was in the list until more recently but after like 6 games I found myself continuously in a situation that I couldn't really use him. My meta runs tons of wraths as well and I just couldn't really get enough time to establish myself on the board before dropping him. Due to this I found him too situational and replaced him with Chainer who is a little more free roam in general.
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1 Varolz, the Scar-Striped
CREATURES (29)
1 Death's Shadow
1 Phyrexian Dreadnought
1 Nezumi Graverobber
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Viridian Emissary
1 Eternal Witness
1 Farhaven Elf
1 Fierce Empath
1 Fleshbag Marauder
1 Wood Elves
1 Dimir House Guard
1 Disciple of Bolas
1 Faceless Butcher
1 Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
1 Mindslicer
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Acidic Slime
1 Chainer, Dementia Master
1 Puppeteer Clique
1 Seedguide Ash
1 Shadowborn Demon
1 Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon
1 Duplicant
1 Geth, Lord of the Vault
1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
1 Rune-Scarred Demon
1 Sylvan Primordial
1 Myojin of Night's Reach
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Skullclamp
1 Sol Ring
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Nim Deathmantle
1 Mimic Vat
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Birthing Pod
ENCHANTMENT (8)
1 Phyrexian Reclamation
1 Survival of the Fittest
1 Sylvan Library
1 Necromancy
1 Necropotence
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Greater Good
INSTANT (6)
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Beast Within
1 Chord of Calling
1 Corpse Dance
1 Momentous Fall
SORCERY (10)
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Diabolic Intent
1 Death Cloud
1 Gaze of Granite
1 Genesis Wave
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Natural Order
1 Living Death
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
LAND (38)
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Command Tower
11 Forest
1 High Market
1 Inkmoth Nexus
1 Marsh Flats
1 Mystifying Maze
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
8 Swamp
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Twilight Mire
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Winding Canyons
1 Woodland Cemetery
Some of these cards are being given more thought than others but I figured I might drop in some cards that did hit my interest for one reason or another.
GREEN CREATURES IN CONSIDERATION
BLACK CREATURES IN QUESTION:
GOLD CREATURES:
Lord of Extinction
ARTIFACT CREATURES:
ARTIFACTS:
ENCHANTMENTS:
INSTANT
SORCERY
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Its true that it would, I am in a heavy wrath meta though and generally I haven't gotten very good results from it due to that. Attrition is already a very borderline card for me that I dont know if it will stay in or not but Gravepact just hasnt ever worked out well for me.
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Have you considered Blood Artist or Massacre Wurm for life loss against board wipes or even Mikaeus, the Unhallowed for undying triggers?
Blood Artist - these guys are fun but I have a hard problem getting enough value from them. I like them but I dont feel like they are quite right for the deck.
Massacre Wurm - with the high wrath density that I am seeing I just dont know if it will be enough value here.
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed - wow I totally forgot about him. He should make a great addition to the deck. I will look at the options to see what to cut for him.
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stuff
He is a good option. I will think about him a bit more. I like the idea of playing him into a Nim Deathmantle and looping him back. His low cost is another plus and he can act as a sac outlet if I dont have another handy. Its a decent option that I will give some thought to.
Rings - Scavange is a very minor ability for me in my list. The sac outlet portion of the commander is primarily what I am interested in here.
Hunted Creatures - I would run Phyrexian Dreadnought over the hunted creatures. Again though, Scavange is a very distant backburner ability in my list currently.
I dont have a ton of creature recursion and in general my focus is on the sacrificing of creatures rather than the scavange part of the commander. I see a lot of wraths and a decent amount of grave hate making me really focus less on being a fast aggro deck than others might make out of him.
Skullbriar is very uninteresting to me. He is a vanilla beater and I dont have a lot of ways to rez him. Due to this I dont see why he would be very good here.
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Easily plays to your sacrifice theme and lets you draw a bunch of cards.
Damia http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=410191
DDFT Legacyhttp://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=505247
Domain Zoo http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=10212429#post10212429
In my mind, the best way to get value from this General is to play all ETB creatures, sac them, then put counters on others.
27 Creatures is too low for a creature based General.
Have you tested the new G/B Enchantment ? It's been surprisingly good in a lot of G/B lists I've played with/against.
The problem with this General is, he's kind of a catch 22. You're exiling creatures to make other creatures bigger, but the creatures you're making bigger have no protection, so they just get removed and you're not really gaining any value. When you consider that EDH is very "Sweeper" heavy, it just hard to justify wasting turns making creatures bigger but not really advancing yourself in the game.
With that said, Varolz is probably a better Voltron General, using green to ramp and black to clear the way, but that's just my opinion.
Actually Death's Shadow is in his list, and the reason Phyrexian Dreadnought is not included is in the beginning of his post ^_^.
@ISBPathfinder: Perhaps Krosan Grip?
Also, is Disciple of Bolas worth it? You don't really have a lot of fat creatures in your deck.
And no mana ramp? Cultivate, Kodama's Reach, Far Wanderings, ...
Neheb
Marath
Yidris
Sharuum
Yidris
Y u no Deadbridge Chant?
Delirium Skeins could be savage.
If you don't want to go all-in with Phyrexian Dreadnought, there's still Tarmogoyf and Lord of Extinction, and they're both great with your Greater Good effects.
Mono Red's Strengths and Mono White's Strengths
DECK CHANGES:
Sword of Light and Shadow -> Mimic Vat I like the vat more when playing a sac based deck. The sword can be nice but I think I have a better capability of abusing the vat here. I can blow up opponents creatures here as my spot removal doesnt exile and I have tons of sac dudes. Plus I am in green so it should be a little nicer to drop and be able to pop it when I have green to ramp with.
Wirewood Herald -> Phyrexian Dreadnought after further thought, the greater good style of effects do push me to want to try to play this. Plus I picked up the dreadnought earlier when I was on a buying rampage. I don't really like the idea of always trying to push the aggro direction but I am willing to see where it goes.
Gamekeeper -> Faceless Butcher Gamekeeper is cool but totally random which puts it at sort of a worse than Lurking Predators profile for me. I think he is really cool but I don't know how good that turns out to be... If I ran more tutor to topdeck effects it might make him better but for now I am scrapping him. Faceless Butcher can work on a few different fronts such as dropping him on my own guys and sacing him to retrigger ETB or drop him on an opposing creature and sacing him while his ability is on the stack for a permenant exile. I like having this capability occasionally due to indestructable creatures.
Lurking Predators -> Mikaeus, the Unhallowed I think lurking is cool but I am trying to bring up my creature count and Mikaeus seems like he would be a total powerhouse in here. Being that I am somewhere between being an ETB/Death trigger deck with sac outlets I think he fits like perfectly.
Brawn -> Thought Gorger while I see merits to brawn in an aggro situation, I just dont see enough stable power there. I think Thought Gorger makes for some cool and interesting tech as I can scavange onto him and then sac him off for card draw. Its interesting so I figured I would at least try to play it once.
Attrition -> Fleshbag Marauder I have issues with Attrition's hit and miss side. When its a coinflip if I can deal with threats with it I get rally annoyed. It can be amazing, it can suck. I want to play with the Marauder and see how he goes.
I am going to see if I cant piece out the landbase too as I am pushing to have it sleeved up yet today.
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DECK CHANGES:
Still in Consideration:
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Sig and Avatar Credit: Heroes of the Plane Studios
Mostly because its just a vanilla do nothing card. Sure its big and ya it can scavange big. But let me give you an example of my meta, I had 10 cards left in my library tonight and the Consuming Aberration I was watching was only like a 30/30 with 4 of us left in play. We run TONS of grave hate in my meta. There is a lazov deck that runs like 5 or 6 grave hate cards in his deck. Its at the point where I am not sure of the one drops as they got milled and exiled quickly. I managed to do one shinanigan with one of them off of Jarad and a birthing poded token but other than that.
I dont much like vanilla situational cards. The one drops are already situational but they are really cheap to work with at least. Lord is just slow and clunky to me.
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—Lazav
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Mafia Stats
Summary:
Total Win %: 40%
Total Scum Win %: 60%
Total Town Win %: 20%
Total Neutral Win %: 0%
Thanks,
Ya, the graveyard hate is sort of unusual here. There is a Lazav, Dimir Mastermind psudo mill deck here that I think runs something like 6 cards devoted to grave hate. He jumped on me first last night milling me which got me fairly close to milled out when the game ended.
Overall though, most people can probably ignore this as its not the normal. Also, I have found myself land denial as a decent tactic so far in here too as Sylvan Primordial + Nim Deathmantle + sac outlet can really take away a game. It is sort of currently a normal event for me to strip every forest from my deck by turn 8 or so in this deck lol.
As far as self milling goes, I generally do little to none of it. Drawing excessive cards and Buried Alive are currently really the only types of mill I have. Greater Good can set up scavanges really nicely though I suppose if you wanted to do something like that.
As a side note, Jarad and Chainer did some serious work for me already from my prior change. I think both will be welcome in the long run. Chainer almost got to have fun with Kokusho, but got exiled while kokopuff was on the stack. Jarad got to fling a Phyrexian Dreadnought and bring my opponents into lethal range.
EDIT: sorry, going to add a deck change to the list too here:
Thought Gorger -> Death Cloud I... just don't know about the gorger. Its cool and cute but I feel like its too much work just to be sort of a cute flavor addition. Death Cloud seems like a great sweeper that takes advantage of the fact that I seem to be able to out ramp my opponents very easily. I run so many sweep nonland effects that I am usually good at taking out stones and such that hit early on and the cloud could be a nice way to slam landbases too. Plus it works as a wrath for hexproof and indestructible guys which is always useful to me.
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I have considered him a few times but I really dislike situational kill effects. It seems like a few problematic indestructables have been popping up a bit more as well since the legend update was announced as well as we have already jumped to the new rules. Personally I might be more willing to jump on another sac based ETB or something else over target kill due to this. I agree that the big game hunter is cool if you can discard him but I don't like his restrictions and just killing at sorcery speed is a little underwhelming for me usually.
There is nothing particularly "wrong" with him. I just dont like his effect all that much at sorcery speed. If I had more discard outlets I think I would find him a lot more useful as I think his real power comes from the madness option.
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I'd suggest cutting Skithryx and Green Sun's Zenith for Lord of Extinction and Liliana of the Veil. I see that you don't like LoE because of having lots of graveyard hate in your meta, but he accomplishes the same goal of killing an opponent in one hit and opens you up to the possibility of using him with Jarad to wipe out the rest of the table. You don't have too many green creatures where I would see you wanting GSZ over something like Worldly Tutor, Demonic Collusion (I like this card a lot but the manacost is prohibitive, but in BG with Loam I've become a big fan), or even Grim Tutor if you have one laying around.
Liliana is synergistic with your graveyard strategies, takes out hexproof creatures thanks to your ample removal, and pressures all of the control and combo decks at the table simultaneously. She's been really strong for me in Glissa and Mimeoplasm, but to be honest Varolz is still on my to-do list.
I'd consider Bitterblossom too, it's a good way to always have something to sacrifice to Varolz or Skullclamp, but you might not need it.
I'm guessing you don't like combos? No Tooth and Nail, Mikaeus, or Triskelion? Mikaeus especially would be very strong here even without the others.
I play this as more of a control based deck than an aggro one. I do have a few ways to try to quickly kill opponents but its very rare for them to work as I play in a very control based meta. Its assumed that all of my opponents will also be control and its fairly regular for games to be 5-6 player FFAs making fast aggro even worse.
Death Cloud - I have found that I ramp a lot of land very very quickly. The point of it here is to cull out hands, wrath the board, and limit my opponents lands all in one shot. I generally ramp up to land a lot faster than my opponents which means that I can potentially drop this even just at 3/4 to eat hands, wrath boards, and potentially still leave me with 6+ lands and my opponents at 2-3. I am using it as sort of a scaling type of Wildfire effect where I expect to be ramping harder than a lot of my opponents. This deck has a lot of hate for nonland permanents so I already have a ton of hate for mana stones and such. Death Cloud is a way for me to quickly get a lot of effect and wrath my opponents. I have also seen an increase in hexproof and indestructible creatures since the legendary rule change announcement as we already moved to it so this gives me another outlet to take them out. Its generally accepted that this will probably wrath me but the big advantage here is that I can control the size and timing of this and I tend to ramp a lot harder than most of my opponents.
Skithryx - he could potentially go. I haven't done enough testing of him though as I think I have yet to really draw him. I want to play with him a little more as I see him as a creature being a lot more useful to me than Lord. I understand the idea of scavanging the lord but I think as far as their in game presence goes, I would rather Skithryx of the two. I need further testing though before I can back this entirely though so I will come back to this after I get more testing. I did get to murder someone with a giant Inkmoth already though so I can see the potential in the infect option. I might consider adding the lord if I end up adding Tooth and Nail which I have considered a little more recently as Jarad does in fact work very well with him.
Green Sun's Zenith - its just too versatile. Its sort of a wildcard creature and with the new addition of Jarad I really don't see myself cutting this. I have tons of solid green creatures and I can always hit a Fierce Empath to turn into something else big later on. Early game it gives me ramp and overall I am just really happy to run this.
Liliana of the Veil - personally I just don't like value over time planeswalkers. She is really hard to defend and doesn't scale well for multiplayer. If I wanted a sac effect this is very low on what I would pick. Its a much better card when considering 1v1 play but for multiplayer I just don't see enough value fast enough to use her. She could be nice if you could reliably draw her early but that's just not an option here.
Bitterblossom - I might actually consider it in the future. The biggest problem with it is that it doesnt have a ton of synergy with what I am doing but it is nice for chump blockers, slullclamp targets, and just freely avalible sacs to regen my commander. I dont have a ton of interaction with 1/1 flying tokens beyond that though so I think overall it fits a little better in a deck that generates more value from the actual sacrifice of creatures than what I was pushing here. Still, it seems like a solid card that I could see myself playing.
Combos - I dislike going infinite. If there are several cards that belong in the list regardless of the combo potential I will run them but there is never a time that Triskillion is appropriate in my mind outside of combo options. Mikaeus was in the list until more recently but after like 6 games I found myself continuously in a situation that I couldn't really use him. My meta runs tons of wraths as well and I just couldn't really get enough time to establish myself on the board before dropping him. Due to this I found him too situational and replaced him with Chainer who is a little more free roam in general.
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