Snake Umbra acts as both protection and an extremely powerful draw spell when placed on Thermo-Alchemist/Firebrand Archer. You can play the full 4 and/or replace it with Keen Sense if you want. This is the only viable draw engine for the deck so feel free to go deep on it. After all, this is your primary backup plan in the games where you fail to draw a Sprout Swarm and that's why the budget version of the deck fields so many redundant copies of the combo. When you're drawing 4-7 cards per turn you tend to find what you need fairly quickly and Thunderscape Familiar + Benefactor's Draught enables you to churn through your deck at a blistering pace.
Firebrand Archer could be swapped for Guttersnipe if you want something slower but more powerful. Guttersnipe is especially useful in the budget versions of the deck that have additional copies of "Curiosity" effects.
As you can see the deck can be as fair or unfair as you want it to be but the base version that doesn't have any infinite combos (no easy ones anyways) is still extremely powerful :).
As you already know, I absolutely love the deck idea! I really appreciate you creating this little primer for it, and saving me (and you) from so many questions.
I do have one though, What do you think of Ready//Willing In the heroic intervention slot? More intensive casting cost, and no hexproof, But you get to untap for another couple sprout swarms maybe? And the Willing half can be cast with orchard in situations when you just need a few life, or to kill a big creature.
I do have one though, What do you think of Ready//Willing In the heroic intervention slot? More intensive casting cost, and no hexproof, But you get to untap for another couple sprout swarms maybe? And the Willing half can be cast with orchard in situations when you just need a few life, or to kill a big creature.
Seems great. It's slightly more mana intensive but the untap effect is amazing. You could easily justify swapping Heroic Intervention for it. That card is actually nuts with Thermo-Alchemist since giving it lifelink is awesome.
Aren’t there other useful buyback cards?
Top of mind is Haze of Rage but I bet there’s better.
Just to add versatility or on the off chance someone removes all your swarms from the deck.
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In magic there's Harry Dresden, Fizban, Sethra Lavode, Dorotea Senjak and me...
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.
True but only for Mentor, not for Pyro. Still a great card though. Worth noting that Top boasts immense synergy with cards like Helm of Awakening and The Immortal Sun (because you can cast it for free) which are already great in decks like these. Biggest issue is that Helm is super sketchy in MP.
Is The Immortal Sun a thing in this deck? The text on the card is great, obviously, but a 6-drop in a deck full of taplands sounds a bit slow. I guess one wouldn't hurt, just like with Paradox Engine.
Not in this exact deck no, but mass tokens love +1/+1 and buyback/Top love cost reduction. This deck has too few lands to support TIS but you can see how the synergies line-up nicely. Very few decks can abuse every aspect of TIS and this is an example of one of them.
FWIW one wouldn't even be terrible, especially in the budget version of the deck. If you go off with Keen Sense you really go off so you're not going to miss many land drops. Obviously removal kills you dead but having a TIS rotting in your hand isn't going to change much either way.
Absolutely love the idea of this deck, Pride, The Mentors sold me. Have you played it much? I need to spend about 45$ worth of cards and I could have it as is, non budget build. I'll try and get them soon!
Absolutely love the idea of this deck, Pride, The Mentors sold me. Have you played it much? I need to spend about 45$ worth of cards and I could have it as is, non budget build. I'll try and get them soon!
A dozen or so games. Testing is never as thorough that I'd like. Most of my buds prefer Cube and it's all EDH at the LGS. There's also only so much that you can do on Cockatrice. It's rarely better than goldfishing.
For sure, both cards could easily work in the deck. My first version of the deck was the budget one (was supposed to cheap and used cards that I already had) and I only added Mentors because they fit perfectly. The other WB nonsense could easily be cut. But yeah, by all means, any cost reduction effect can work here.
I understand that Benefactor's Draught is a cantrip, and even has other neat things it can do, but it is mainly to untap. It isn't super cheap, however, for a marginal card. So, is Vitalize, or Quest for Renewal, or some other card, the replacement pick?
I understand that Benefactor's Draught is a cantrip, and even has other neat things it can do, but it is mainly to untap...
Not really. You you can send tokens to players and they kinda have to block. It's either that or they take a ton of damage. As such it's trivial for it to be an Ancestral Recall or better with a Thunderscape Familiar in play. Like it auto cantrips, so it only takes 2 tokens to be blocked for it to be a Recall that untaps your team. And even then you can still use those chump attackers for Sprout Swarm buyback. That card is one of the main reasons why I built the deck tbh. It's even really good at "getting" people since it untaps all creatures. So a lot of times you untap a fatty (someone else's), kill an attacker, draw 2 cards and untap your team.
Is the card replaceable? Sure. Still, make no mistake, it's an incredibly important card for the deck. You lose a lot of power if you cut it. A lot of these cards aren't required, but that's one that I'd never even consider shaving a copy of. You can still build the deck without it, but you wouldn't see me posting a build with fewer than 4.
4x Exotic Orchard
4x Jungle Shrine
4x Bountiful Promenade
4x Spire Garden
2x Sandsteppe Citadel
2x Savage Lands
1x Gavony Township
1x Vault of the Archangel
4x Nettle Sentinel
4x Young Pyromancer
4x Thunderscape Familiar
4x Thermo-Alchemist
2x Firebrand Archer
4x Monastery Mentor
4x Benefactor's Draught
4x Sprout Swarm
4x Beast Within
2x Snake Umbra
2x Ready // Willing
9x Mountain
7x Forest
2x Evolving Wilds
2x Khalni Garden
Creatures (20)
4x Nettle Sentinel
4x Young Pyromancer
4x Thunderscape Familiar
4x Thermo-Alchemist
4x Firebrand Archer
2x Keen Sense
4x Benefactor's Draught
4x Sprout Swarm
2x Heroic Intervention
4x Beast Within
4x Snake Umbra
Awhile back I built and played a Young Pyromancer/Monastery Mentor + Sprout Swarm deck that I found rather enjoyable. The idea here is to support them with cards like Nettle Sentinel and Thunderscape Familiar that virtually reduce the cost of Sprout Swarm so that you can produce a ton of creatures as the game progresses. From there you can kill with cards like Thermo-Alchemist, Firebrand Archer and Guttersnipe while sitting back on your army of dorks.
Snake Umbra acts as both protection and an extremely powerful draw spell when placed on Thermo-Alchemist/Firebrand Archer. You can play the full 4 and/or replace it with Keen Sense if you want. This is the only viable draw engine for the deck so feel free to go deep on it. After all, this is your primary backup plan in the games where you fail to draw a Sprout Swarm and that's why the budget version of the deck fields so many redundant copies of the combo. When you're drawing 4-7 cards per turn you tend to find what you need fairly quickly and Thunderscape Familiar + Benefactor's Draught enables you to churn through your deck at a blistering pace.
Nettle Sentinel can be swapped for Blistercoil Weird and/or you can field both if you want more than 4 copies of the effect.
Ready // Willing could be swapped for Heroic Intervention if you want something cheaper. Thunderscape Familiar does a ton of work in the deck reducing the cost of these cards down to something manageable.
Firebrand Archer could be swapped for Guttersnipe if you want something slower but more powerful. Guttersnipe is especially useful in the budget versions of the deck that have additional copies of "Curiosity" effects.
The deck is splashing White and Black for cards like Gavony Township, Vault of the Archangel, Ready // Willing and Monastery Mentor but none of this is necessary. You can cut this axis of the deck and play straight Gruul to reduce its cost and it wouldn't be a deal-breaker. The lands can be anything, Ready // Willing can be Heroic Intervention (or any similar effect) and Monastery Mentor can be removed for 2x Firebrand Archer/Guttersnipe and 2x Snake Umbra/Keen Sense.
If you want free wins Paradox Engine turns Sprout Swarm into a (more-or-less) 1 card win condition.
If you want to add another combo go for Presence of Gond + Midnight Guard. After all, the Guard is inherently useful with Sprout Swarm and Presence of Gond on Nettle Sentinel is bonkers when you have cards like Benefactor's Draught in your list. It's also fantastic on Thermo-Alchemist when you're chaining Sprout Swarms. Obviously you want to go for the combo kill as much as possible but idea here is that the cards are still useful otherwise.
Blue enables you to add cards like Baral, Chief of Compliance, Goblin Electromancer and Intruder Alarm which is another "Paradox Engine" and/or Presence of Gond combo enabler. Intruder Alarm is also nuts with Thermo-Alchemist in general. There's also Docent of Perfection but that card is extremely slow and mana intensive for what the deck is trying to do.
As you can see the deck can be as fair or unfair as you want it to be but the base version that doesn't have any infinite combos (no easy ones anyways) is still extremely powerful :).
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
I do have one though, What do you think of Ready//Willing In the heroic intervention slot? More intensive casting cost, and no hexproof, But you get to untap for another couple sprout swarms maybe? And the Willing half can be cast with orchard in situations when you just need a few life, or to kill a big creature.
Seems great. It's slightly more mana intensive but the untap effect is amazing. You could easily justify swapping Heroic Intervention for it. That card is actually nuts with Thermo-Alchemist since giving it lifelink is awesome.
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
Top of mind is Haze of Rage but I bet there’s better.
Just to add versatility or on the off chance someone removes all your swarms from the deck.
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.
Good catch, totally missed that card!
You don't really have the mana to support them. Sprout Swarm only works because of convoke.
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
100%. Card is bonkers .
True but only for Mentor, not for Pyro. Still a great card though. Worth noting that Top boasts immense synergy with cards like Helm of Awakening and The Immortal Sun (because you can cast it for free) which are already great in decks like these. Biggest issue is that Helm is super sketchy in MP.
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
Not in this exact deck no, but mass tokens love +1/+1 and buyback/Top love cost reduction. This deck has too few lands to support TIS but you can see how the synergies line-up nicely. Very few decks can abuse every aspect of TIS and this is an example of one of them.
FWIW one wouldn't even be terrible, especially in the budget version of the deck. If you go off with Keen Sense you really go off so you're not going to miss many land drops. Obviously removal kills you dead but having a TIS rotting in your hand isn't going to change much either way.
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
A dozen or so games. Testing is never as thorough that I'd like. Most of my buds prefer Cube and it's all EDH at the LGS. There's also only so much that you can do on Cockatrice. It's rarely better than goldfishing.
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
Emerald Medallion could also be interesting.
For sure, both cards could easily work in the deck. My first version of the deck was the budget one (was supposed to cheap and used cards that I already had) and I only added Mentors because they fit perfectly. The other WB nonsense could easily be cut. But yeah, by all means, any cost reduction effect can work here.
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
Not really. You you can send tokens to players and they kinda have to block. It's either that or they take a ton of damage. As such it's trivial for it to be an Ancestral Recall or better with a Thunderscape Familiar in play. Like it auto cantrips, so it only takes 2 tokens to be blocked for it to be a Recall that untaps your team. And even then you can still use those chump attackers for Sprout Swarm buyback. That card is one of the main reasons why I built the deck tbh. It's even really good at "getting" people since it untaps all creatures. So a lot of times you untap a fatty (someone else's), kill an attacker, draw 2 cards and untap your team.
Is the card replaceable? Sure. Still, make no mistake, it's an incredibly important card for the deck. You lose a lot of power if you cut it. A lot of these cards aren't required, but that's one that I'd never even consider shaving a copy of. You can still build the deck without it, but you wouldn't see me posting a build with fewer than 4.
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
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