A few months ago I posted a thread asking for critique on my Mono-B Reanimator deck. I've been playing that to a lot of success and decided to make a second deck in this set challenge series my friends and I are currently doing. Today I bring you my first crack at a Scorpion God wither deck. Before I go into the deck, I wanted to point out some important deck building restrictions, facts about my meta, and the inspiration behind my deck that drives why my deck is the way it is currently.
Meta Considerations
All decks MUST be legal in any format. Formats are defined as: Vintage, Legacy, Modern, Block Constructed, any Standard format (Two years worth of sets), or any Extended format (Four years worth of sets).
We use a tier system in order to separate decks into a "Fun" category and a "Serious" category. This deck aims to be a part of the "Serious" category.
Games typically have between 3 and 7 players. On very rare occasions there may be more than 7 players, but 7 players should be considered the maximum for purposes of constructing this deck.
Personal Deck Building Restrictions
I am only allowing myself to put one copy of any legendary card in my deck. Different legendary cards are acceptable as long as there is only one copy of each.
I must be able to theoretically hard cast any card in my deck.
I am currently targeting a Vintage or Legacy legality for this deck.
My friends and I are currently building decks using a very loose theme. We pick a set we like, and then we pick a card from that set and build around that card. The set I chose today is Hour of Devastation, and the card from Hour of Devastation that I chose was The Scorpion God. In that regard, I am even open to deck suggestions that are completely different from the deck I put together, so long as they feature a card from Hour of Devastation as the central theme of the deck. This deck will be used at the highest tier of games that we have, so no card is off the table as an include assuming it meets the above restrictions.
The Deck
Now that all of that is out of the way, below is my current draft of the deck:
Working with the one legendary card per deck rule made this a little more difficult as I don't have tutors, so I had to walk a very tight line of keeping The Scorpion God important, while also not making him necessary for the deck to function. There's even a neat little infinite combo with Blowfly Infestation and Nest of Scarabs. I also really, really like Everlasting Torment for this deck, but I worry about including multiple copies since multiple copies are redundant. Finally, it turned out by chance and not design that this deck was incredibly black heavy.
Please let me know what you think, and give me any suggestions to improve the deck!
Deck looks sweet! My only concern would be that it feels a bit slow out of the gates given that it realistically needs 4 mana in order to play Magic. I don't know what your budget is like but have you considered adding things like Gemstone Caverns, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Sol Ring, Dockside Extortionist, etc. to speed things up a bit? Or you could even ignore the expensive options (save for Sol Ring maybe) and jam 4x Rakdos Signet or Fellwar Stone just so that you have a higher probability of curving out on turns 3 and 4. For cuts I would shave on things like Blowfly Infestation, Kulrath Knight and possibly even Skinrender. The idea wouldn't be to ignore the lategame or anything, far from it, I just want to ensure that you're consistently curving out with spells in the opening turns of the game and Rakdos Signet is hands-down one of the best ways to ensure that you're always playing Magic.
One last suggestion since it's what I do in my Wither deck; play Contagion Engine over Midnight Banshee. It's many orders of magnitude more powerful in my experience. I think that Engine is quite expensive at this point so that might not be a practical suggestion but if anyone is on the fence about it the card is completely absurd. It's especially nuts if you happen to have PWers or Everflowing Chalice in your deck (which is another solid 2 drop ramp spell btw, loves Karn's Bastion) but even with just the Wither shenanigans the card is out-of-this-world powerful. Still, it's possible that Karn's Bastion fills a similar function at a fraction of the cost so maybe that changes things a bit.
In regards to mana rocks... I'm curious if they're really as good as they are in Commander, as the deck slots are significantly fewer in 60 card. Virtually no one runs mana rocks of any kind in my meta (A sad reason why Dockside Extortionist, while an amazing card, probably wouldn't work in my meta.) And if they're worth the slots, how many should a deck typically be running? And should I be cutting down on lands to prevent a flood? (An old rule I used to use for limited was for every 2 mana accelerants, I would cut one land.)
Budget isn't really a concern for me, and thankfully I have a lot of those cards (including a play set of Contagion Engines from drafting a ton of Scars back in the day.)
Also, as far as a reanimator strategy goes, I want to shy away from leaning on it too heavily, since the last deck I built was Mono-B Reanimator. My local meta's already adjusted with more graveyard hate, so I may be making myself a little more vulnerable (Doubly so since a few of my other decks include R/G Flashback, and U/G Threshold which lean on the graveyard very heavily. :P) You do have a point about Card Draw though... I do love Necropotence. Maybe Dusk Urchins and hope to hit it with a big Black Sun's Zenith?
In regards to mana rocks, I'm curious if they're really as good as they are in Commander, as the deck slots are significantly fewer in 60 card.
Yes, they're just as good in 60 card formats as they are in Commander. Doing more powerful things faster is good in every format regardless of player quantity. Cards like Sol Ring and Mana Vault are auto-includes in my book since they're stupidly powerful and have trivial downsides. I'd happily play them in literally any deck. Mana Crypt is iffy because it puts a very real clock on you and your deck might be too fair to reliably race it so that one should probably sit on the sidelines for now. In terms of Fellwar Stone/Rakdos Signet/Everflowing Chalice I recommend running a playset of 4 and leaving it at that. Essentially, for decks with a high density of 4+ drops I recommend 22 lands, 1x Sol Ring, 1x Mana Vault and 4x any 2 CMC rock for 28 total sources of mana.
In terms of card draw, how do think that Syphon Mind would fare in your circles? I know that you said 3-7 players but how weighted is it to either spectrum? Syphon Mind is utter trash in 3 player games, fine in 4 player games and amazing in 5+ player games.
A few months ago I posted a thread asking for critique on my Mono-B Reanimator deck. I've been playing that to a lot of success and decided to make a second deck in this set challenge series my friends and I are currently doing. Today I bring you my first crack at a Scorpion God wither deck. Before I go into the deck, I wanted to point out some important deck building restrictions, facts about my meta, and the inspiration behind my deck that drives why my deck is the way it is currently.
Meta Considerations
Personal Deck Building Restrictions
Deck Inspiration
My friends and I are currently building decks using a very loose theme. We pick a set we like, and then we pick a card from that set and build around that card. The set I chose today is Hour of Devastation, and the card from Hour of Devastation that I chose was The Scorpion God. In that regard, I am even open to deck suggestions that are completely different from the deck I put together, so long as they feature a card from Hour of Devastation as the central theme of the deck. This deck will be used at the highest tier of games that we have, so no card is off the table as an include assuming it meets the above restrictions.
The Deck
Now that all of that is out of the way, below is my current draft of the deck:
4 Dragonskull Summit
4 Karn's Bastion
1 Reliquary Tower
12 Swamp
4 Black Sun's Zenith
4 Blowfly Infestation
4 Crumbling Ashes
1 Everlasting Torment
4 Kulrath Knight
2 Midnight Banshee
4 Necroskitter
4 Nest of Scarabs
4 Skinrender
2 Soul Snuffers
1 The Scorpion God
1 Yawgmoth, Thran Physician
Working with the one legendary card per deck rule made this a little more difficult as I don't have tutors, so I had to walk a very tight line of keeping The Scorpion God important, while also not making him necessary for the deck to function. There's even a neat little infinite combo with Blowfly Infestation and Nest of Scarabs. I also really, really like Everlasting Torment for this deck, but I worry about including multiple copies since multiple copies are redundant. Finally, it turned out by chance and not design that this deck was incredibly black heavy.
Please let me know what you think, and give me any suggestions to improve the deck!
Thanks!
One last suggestion since it's what I do in my Wither deck; play Contagion Engine over Midnight Banshee. It's many orders of magnitude more powerful in my experience. I think that Engine is quite expensive at this point so that might not be a practical suggestion but if anyone is on the fence about it the card is completely absurd. It's especially nuts if you happen to have PWers or Everflowing Chalice in your deck (which is another solid 2 drop ramp spell btw, loves Karn's Bastion) but even with just the Wither shenanigans the card is out-of-this-world powerful. Still, it's possible that Karn's Bastion fills a similar function at a fraction of the cost so maybe that changes things a bit.
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
Since you can’t run tutors that’s the only way to up your chance of encountering the god.
Or... go reanimator: somehow get him in your GY and magic him out of it.
Think Morality Shift or something equally radical.
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.
In regards to mana rocks... I'm curious if they're really as good as they are in Commander, as the deck slots are significantly fewer in 60 card. Virtually no one runs mana rocks of any kind in my meta (A sad reason why Dockside Extortionist, while an amazing card, probably wouldn't work in my meta.) And if they're worth the slots, how many should a deck typically be running? And should I be cutting down on lands to prevent a flood? (An old rule I used to use for limited was for every 2 mana accelerants, I would cut one land.)
Budget isn't really a concern for me, and thankfully I have a lot of those cards (including a play set of Contagion Engines from drafting a ton of Scars back in the day.)
Also, as far as a reanimator strategy goes, I want to shy away from leaning on it too heavily, since the last deck I built was Mono-B Reanimator. My local meta's already adjusted with more graveyard hate, so I may be making myself a little more vulnerable (Doubly so since a few of my other decks include R/G Flashback, and U/G Threshold which lean on the graveyard very heavily. :P) You do have a point about Card Draw though... I do love Necropotence. Maybe Dusk Urchins and hope to hit it with a big Black Sun's Zenith?
Yes, they're just as good in 60 card formats as they are in Commander. Doing more powerful things faster is good in every format regardless of player quantity. Cards like Sol Ring and Mana Vault are auto-includes in my book since they're stupidly powerful and have trivial downsides. I'd happily play them in literally any deck. Mana Crypt is iffy because it puts a very real clock on you and your deck might be too fair to reliably race it so that one should probably sit on the sidelines for now. In terms of Fellwar Stone/Rakdos Signet/Everflowing Chalice I recommend running a playset of 4 and leaving it at that. Essentially, for decks with a high density of 4+ drops I recommend 22 lands, 1x Sol Ring, 1x Mana Vault and 4x any 2 CMC rock for 28 total sources of mana.
In terms of card draw, how do think that Syphon Mind would fare in your circles? I know that you said 3-7 players but how weighted is it to either spectrum? Syphon Mind is utter trash in 3 player games, fine in 4 player games and amazing in 5+ player games.
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