Time to brainstorm a new deck...
I have four Consuming Aberrations, four Talent of the Telepaths and some Thing in the Ices crying out for a deck.
Thing + Aberration is a naaaasty combo - if you can flip Thing, Aberration is a Horror, and will stay on the board to wreak havoc (Thing flips to become Awoken Horror... autocarded here for your love and appreciation).
So the aim is to build a Dimir deck full of Horrors and cheap, useful instants and sorceries to help flip Thing and keep us afloat until then... counterspells, reanimation, removal and maybe some more mill will probably feature heavily.
There aren't too many other Horrors that fill this mould, though... maybe Dinrova Horror, Cairn Wanderer, Mindleech Mass, Nemesis of Reason, Nighthowler, Guiltfeeder and/or Mindslicer.
Thoughts?
Hmm, not what I was expecting, given it's card-draw centric and not mill-centric. Not that that's a bad thing.
I had actually dismissed Chasm Skulker, as I'd assumed it was a bit of a non-bo with Thing in the Ice (given all those little squiddy tokens will get bounced into oblivion when Thing flips). Does this mean that a card-advantage approach is going to work better than a mill-everyone approach?
Oh, and I discovered that Sewer Nemesis is still viable here as Consuming Aberration-lite. It's a Horror.
Sure, it protects your dudes from spot removal "for free" whereas cards like Swan Song or Counterspell force you to hold mana up. If you feel that that effect is worthwhile then you can feel free to shell out $100.00 for a playset .
More along the lines of where my brain had gone, yeah. Though Chasm Skulker's still there. That good, eh? Dread Summons is a card I've somehow avoided seeing before. Looks tasty. How does it scale compared to Rise from the Tides (which is currently doing the rounds in my playgroup), in your experience?
And yeah, Spellskite is indeed awesome. But at some point, it ceases becoming an awesome card and becomes "something I can trade for $25 worth of Multiplayer bombs" (which is where my copies went).
More along the lines of where my brain had gone, yeah. Though Chasm Skulker's still there. That good, eh?
It's definitely worth considering. I was just posting cards that you could consider, not ones that you're "required" to play or anything. Basically any Thing in the Ice deck is probably going to want some nice cheap cantrips/card draw and the Skulker is fantastic when you're drawing extra cards on a routine basis. Yes, I understand that tokens + mass bounce is a bit of a nonbo but ultimately you have full control over your spells and effects so you're never forced to screw yourself over. Again, you're not required to run it by any means, but I would strongly consider it in any list with a critical mass of cantrips, looters and card draw.
Dread Summons is a card I've somehow avoided seeing before. Looks tasty. How does it scale compared to Rise from the Tides (which is currently doing the rounds in my playgroup), in your experience?
My 60-card Constructed meta tends to extremely large (6-8 players) so I doubt that my personal experiences will help you very much. For someone like me it usually feels like a 5-6 mana Army of the Damned and once you start getting to 7-8 mana it's typically "Wrath or lose" with the table having exactly 1 turn to find an answer.
That being said I've never played the card in any of my EDH decks (which tend to be 3-4 player games at our LGS/Cockatrice) so I'm not entirely sure how well it fares in smaller games.
Getting back to this one...
... my mindset was changed by realising that I was planning on running a certain amount of bounce, and then remembering that Warped Devotion was a card (and a good one at that). With all that forced discard, the Aberrations and Nighthowlers start getting game-winningly large. And an overloaded Cyclonic Rift with Warped Devotion on the table is just evil.
So this is the super-controlly bounce version. It's basically just aiming to bounce and stall until it combos off.
Lovely curve now, too... I imagine T2 Thing / T3 Warped Devotion is going to cause some brown-trouser moments in my meta.
Guiltfeeder probably doesn't have a place here given you will need a critical mass of sorcery & instant choices, but if you plan on discarding opponents' cards on mass - it might be an effective tool.
1 Brainstorm(Sticking to one here to keep things Legacy-legal for kicks)
1 Ponder(Ditto)
1 Preordain(Ditto)
Well... you're not wrong.
Huh... true! Must've been thinking of Vintage! I should probably see which of the three performs best and roll with three of those... although maybe diversity is a good thing...
Back to report that this deck finally had its first run a couple of days ago, using the list posted in Post #13.
Five-player free-for-all.
T3 Warped Devotion
T4 kicked Into the Roil on a threat that swung at me
T5 Consuming Aberration
T6 kicked Into the Roil on another threat
T7 overloaded Cyclonic Rift (meditate on what that does with Warped Devotion on the board... this was pretty much the game-swinging play)
T8 play another Aberration, drop Rogue's Passage, Recoil the board's last remaining threat
T9 GG
It got left alone for the first four turns, and that was apparently too long. Awesome deck.
I think that I'm missing something here. If you are looking to exploit the synergy between Aberration and Thing in the Ice... Why exactly are you loading the deck with other horrors?
Why not load up on cards with useful ETB abilities (like the aforementioned augur of bolas) that you want to be bounced to your hand... especially as recasting them triggers your Aberration's mill ability again. IF you want to win through aberration mill, avoiding that self-bounce seems self-defeating.
I think that I'm missing something here. If you are looking to exploit the synergy between Aberration and Thing in the Ice... Why exactly are you loading the deck with other horrors?
Why not load up on cards with useful ETB abilities (like the aforementioned augur of bolas) that you want to be bounced to your hand... especially as recasting them triggers your Aberration's mill ability again. IF you want to win through aberration mill, avoiding that self-bounce seems self-defeating.
Are you perhaps missing that when Thing flips to become Awoken Horror, it bounces all non-Horrors? So Aberration stays out? I won a lot faster the other night through Aberration beat-down than via mill.
There's also the problem that Warped Devotion doesn't discriminate - if I bounce something back to my own hand, I'm discarding too. So I've purposely played targeted bounce, along with Cyclonic Rift which only affects opponents.
So I'm not aiming to win via mill - I'm aiming to control so that I have the only creatures on the table, and then smack face with them.
I have four Consuming Aberrations, four Talent of the Telepaths and some Thing in the Ices crying out for a deck.
Thing + Aberration is a naaaasty combo - if you can flip Thing, Aberration is a Horror, and will stay on the board to wreak havoc (Thing flips to become Awoken Horror... autocarded here for your love and appreciation).
So the aim is to build a Dimir deck full of Horrors and cheap, useful instants and sorceries to help flip Thing and keep us afloat until then... counterspells, reanimation, removal and maybe some more mill will probably feature heavily.
There aren't too many other Horrors that fill this mould, though... maybe Dinrova Horror, Cairn Wanderer, Mindleech Mass, Nemesis of Reason, Nighthowler, Guiltfeeder and/or Mindslicer.
Thoughts?
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- Mind Games
- Clockspinning
The Thing loves spinning clocks.Both critters like buyback.
Maybe add other stuff that likes spells or counters.
Most horrors like Rogue's Passage.
(Which opens the way for other damage = effect critters like that Ninjutsu demon or Scion of Darkness.)
Searches Gatherer...
Ah. Silent-Blade Oni that is.
(Oooh! Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni and Sakashima's Student...)
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.
13x Island
4x Evolving Wilds
4x Dimir Aqueduct
1x Swamp
1x Nephalia Drownyard
1x Rogue's Passage
Creatures (16)
4x Thing in the Ice
2x Augur of Bolas
4x Chasm Skulker
1x Archaeomancer
2x Consuming Aberration
2x Psychosis Crawler
1x Diluvian Primordial
4x Brainstorm
4x Counterspell
1x Cyclonic Rift
4x Trade Secrets
2x Rite of Replication
2x Talent of the Telepath
1x Memory Plunder
2x Recurring Insight
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Hmm, not what I was expecting, given it's card-draw centric and not mill-centric. Not that that's a bad thing.
I had actually dismissed Chasm Skulker, as I'd assumed it was a bit of a non-bo with Thing in the Ice (given all those little squiddy tokens will get bounced into oblivion when Thing flips). Does this mean that a card-advantage approach is going to work better than a mill-everyone approach?
Oh, and I discovered that Sewer Nemesis is still viable here as Consuming Aberration-lite. It's a Horror.
My Stupidly Large Number of Current Decks
PucaTrade with me!
The Multiplayer Power Rankings
Cube: the Gittening (My Multiplayer Cube) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The N00b Cube (Peasant cube for new players) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
24x Stuff
Creatures (12-20)
0x Wharf Infiltrator
0x Thing in the Ice
0x Chasm Skulker
0x Nighthowler
0x Sewer Nemesis
0x Consuming Aberration
0x Thought Scour
0x Mental Note
0x Shared Trauma
0x Dread Summons
0x Mind Grind
0x Talent of the Telepath
0x Memory Plunder
So you wanted something more like this?
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Sure, it protects your dudes from spot removal "for free" whereas cards like Swan Song or Counterspell force you to hold mana up. If you feel that that effect is worthwhile then you can feel free to shell out $100.00 for a playset .
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
More along the lines of where my brain had gone, yeah. Though Chasm Skulker's still there. That good, eh?
Dread Summons is a card I've somehow avoided seeing before. Looks tasty. How does it scale compared to Rise from the Tides (which is currently doing the rounds in my playgroup), in your experience?
And yeah, Spellskite is indeed awesome. But at some point, it ceases becoming an awesome card and becomes "something I can trade for $25 worth of Multiplayer bombs" (which is where my copies went).
My Stupidly Large Number of Current Decks
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The Multiplayer Power Rankings
Cube: the Gittening (My Multiplayer Cube) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
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It's definitely worth considering. I was just posting cards that you could consider, not ones that you're "required" to play or anything. Basically any Thing in the Ice deck is probably going to want some nice cheap cantrips/card draw and the Skulker is fantastic when you're drawing extra cards on a routine basis. Yes, I understand that tokens + mass bounce is a bit of a nonbo but ultimately you have full control over your spells and effects so you're never forced to screw yourself over. Again, you're not required to run it by any means, but I would strongly consider it in any list with a critical mass of cantrips, looters and card draw.
My 60-card Constructed meta tends to extremely large (6-8 players) so I doubt that my personal experiences will help you very much. For someone like me it usually feels like a 5-6 mana Army of the Damned and once you start getting to 7-8 mana it's typically "Wrath or lose" with the table having exactly 1 turn to find an answer.
That being said I've never played the card in any of my EDH decks (which tend to be 3-4 player games at our LGS/Cockatrice) so I'm not entirely sure how well it fares in smaller games.
I don't play with Rise from the Tides nearly enough to have a solid opinion of it. It seems like it would stellar in any "Augur of Bolas style Control deck full of things like Preordain, Augur of Bolas, Cyclonic Rift, Trade Secrets, Rite of Replication, Metallurgic Summonings, etc. style deck but I haven't played with or against that archetype very frequently.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
... my mindset was changed by realising that I was planning on running a certain amount of bounce, and then remembering that Warped Devotion was a card (and a good one at that). With all that forced discard, the Aberrations and Nighthowlers start getting game-winningly large. And an overloaded Cyclonic Rift with Warped Devotion on the table is just evil.
So this is the super-controlly bounce version. It's basically just aiming to bounce and stall until it combos off.
Lovely curve now, too... I imagine T2 Thing / T3 Warped Devotion is going to cause some brown-trouser moments in my meta.
The Horror... The Horror... v0.1
Creatures - 14
4 Thing in the Ice
4 Consuming Aberration
4 Nighthowler
2 Wharf Infiltrator
Spells - 23
4 Warped Devotion
4 Cyclonic Rift
4 Into the Roil
4 Cackling Counterpart
2 Recoil
1 Brainstorm (Sticking to one here to keep things Legacy-legal for kicks)
1 Ponder (Ditto)
1 Preordain (Ditto)
1 Talent of the Telepath (Testing this one out to see if it will be as good as it looks here)
1 Rise from the Tides (And same again... could be an alt-win-con)
Land - 23
2 Rogue's Passage
21 Things and Stuff
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Cube: the Gittening (My Multiplayer Cube) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
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Well... you're not wrong.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Huh... true! Must've been thinking of Vintage! I should probably see which of the three performs best and roll with three of those... although maybe diversity is a good thing...
My Stupidly Large Number of Current Decks
PucaTrade with me!
The Multiplayer Power Rankings
Cube: the Gittening (My Multiplayer Cube) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The N00b Cube (Peasant cube for new players) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
Five-player free-for-all.
T3 Warped Devotion
T4 kicked Into the Roil on a threat that swung at me
T5 Consuming Aberration
T6 kicked Into the Roil on another threat
T7 overloaded Cyclonic Rift (meditate on what that does with Warped Devotion on the board... this was pretty much the game-swinging play)
T8 play another Aberration, drop Rogue's Passage, Recoil the board's last remaining threat
T9 GG
It got left alone for the first four turns, and that was apparently too long. Awesome deck.
My Stupidly Large Number of Current Decks
PucaTrade with me!
The Multiplayer Power Rankings
Cube: the Gittening (My Multiplayer Cube) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The N00b Cube (Peasant cube for new players) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
Why not load up on cards with useful ETB abilities (like the aforementioned augur of bolas) that you want to be bounced to your hand... especially as recasting them triggers your Aberration's mill ability again. IF you want to win through aberration mill, avoiding that self-bounce seems self-defeating.
Are you perhaps missing that when Thing flips to become Awoken Horror, it bounces all non-Horrors? So Aberration stays out? I won a lot faster the other night through Aberration beat-down than via mill.
There's also the problem that Warped Devotion doesn't discriminate - if I bounce something back to my own hand, I'm discarding too. So I've purposely played targeted bounce, along with Cyclonic Rift which only affects opponents.
So I'm not aiming to win via mill - I'm aiming to control so that I have the only creatures on the table, and then smack face with them.
My Stupidly Large Number of Current Decks
PucaTrade with me!
The Multiplayer Power Rankings
Cube: the Gittening (My Multiplayer Cube) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor
The N00b Cube (Peasant cube for new players) - MTGS Cube List | @ CubeTutor