If you somehow manage to remove the blockers after rampage triggers, hell get there for a bunch of damage. He gets closer to the mark than other rampagers, that's for sure. The only rampage card I've ever had make a final cut is Chromium as a commander for Esper Dragon Tribal control, and that's for style points. Rampage is just such an over coated and rarely relevant mechanic. It's the Lord of feel bad mechanics in my book. All it does is make creatures slightly more difficult to double block, which just results in them getting chumped until a double block kills them or you get a smaller than average creature ofor the cost through unblocked. At least the gorillas actually tend to get through most of the time. Its still over coated by 1. For its time.
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The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
One of the fastest-errata'd cards ever (Due to a simple error; the text X can't be 0 was omitted), Marath is as far as general use Naya generals go probably the strongest/most versatile. Yes, some of the others do a specific strategy really well, but Marath just does more. Pinging, buffing or sprouting tokens, Jittemoose can do it all.
That said I never built the deck myself. Probably because I fear that I already know exactly how the deck will end up looking and what it'll play like and it's just not my playstyle.
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My Commander decks:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
Marath is just super cool. There are just some many little synergies that are fun to build around. eg. green and white lieutenants from few days ago can buff your tokens or enchant marath with ordeal of nylea and get a 2 mana explosive vegetation.
Fun card in concept, but in practice he's just a boring combo elemental.
Sure, you can play him without combos, but so many of the cards that you would want to play for non-combo reasons just end up accidentally forming combos.
EDIT: Even so, I'm tempted to try him in a deck with nothing but mana ramp and try to solo people with him.
Even errata'd, this is a card that like Ghave, Guru of Spores "accidentally" comboes with cards that those colors naturally want to run such as Cathar's Crusade, Ashnod's Altar, Mana Echoes, Doubling Season, etc. As such, like LouCypher said, he is hands down the most powerful and versatile Naya Commander since you can do Elemental Tribal, Beast Tribal, +1/+1 counters matter, token creatures matter, Enchantress, Big Mana Group Slug, or Goodstuff.dec. But sadly, he's so powerful as a combo general its hard for those things not to creep into any of those above archetypes.
Marath is still worth considering in any Naya or WGRx deck focused on tokens or elementals, although unless you are doing Horde of Notions he is almost always best as a Commander than he is in the 99. 9/10 card; great, open-ended, but not everyone's cup of tea since he is too easy if that makes sense.
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Sufferer of EDHD
Commander - Currently Playing: RCRDaretti: Superfriends Forever RCR WGBDoran: Ent-mootWBG GGGMultani: Group Bear HugGGG GB(B/G)The Gitrog Monster: Dredgefall DurdleGB(B/G) RGWGahiji, the Honored Group Hug MonsterRGW UB(U/B)Yuriko, Ninja Trinket AggroUB(U/B) WUBRGAtogatog: Assembling a OHKOWUBRG
Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
One of the fastest-errata'd cards ever (Due to a simple error; the text X can't be 0 was omitted)
In a set with another card errataed equally quickly (Darksteel Mutation to also remove other card types and creature types, since turning something into an artifact creature is a special case)
One of the fastest-errata'd cards ever (Due to a simple error; the text X can't be 0 was omitted), Marath is as far as general use Naya generals go probably the strongest/most versatile. Yes, some of the others do a specific strategy really well, but Marath just does more. Pinging, buffing or sprouting tokens, Jittemoose can do it all.
That said I never built the deck myself. Probably because I fear that I already know exactly how the deck will end up looking and what it'll play like and it's just not my playstyle.
I thought the same thing when I first saw him, but my deck has become this weird pillowfort/control shell with a couple of token guys. All I can say is that Martyr's Bond is his second best friend (his first being Basilisk Collar).
He has the unique ability to become a token/CA engine with minimal support, so you can dedicate a lot of your deck space to whatever theme you're going for.
Seriously, **** this card. It's right up there with Prossh and Derevi in terms of illustrating how WotC don't understand the format. I swear, I don't want to ever see another pushed commander card again. This format doesn't need you pushing power to sell sets.
Seriously, **** this card. It's right up there with Prossh and Derevi in terms of illustrating how WotC don't understand the format. I swear, I don't want to ever see another pushed commander card again. This format doesn't need you pushing power to sell sets.
That set was just particularly egregious. Remember, you also had Oloro in the Esper deck and Nekusar in the Grixis one. Marath, despite being pushed and being a combo machine with good stuff cards that the colors want to run anyway, especially with a commander that likes tokens or counters (and Marath likes both!), he's still only the 4th or 5th most broken legend in the set.
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The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
At first I underestimated him greatly ( I started playing EDH when those decks came around) but when I learned proper EDH deckbuilding the horned overlord ended up in my sig
Seriously, **** this card. It's right up there with Prossh and Derevi in terms of illustrating how WotC don't understand the format. I swear, I don't want to ever see another pushed commander card again. This format doesn't need you pushing power to sell sets.
That set was just particularly egregious. Remember, you also had Oloro in the Esper deck and Nekusar in the Grixis one. Marath, despite being pushed and being a combo machine with good stuff cards that the colors want to run anyway, especially with a commander that likes tokens or counters (and Marath likes both!), he's still only the 4th or 5th most broken legend in the set.
Yeah, that year really was out of control. I actually dismantled Derevi as too unfun for everyone else and I wasn't even playing the Stasis version. Roon is no slouch either for a Blink deck. Prossh is an order of magnitude more powerful than any other Jund commander, as is Marath - while there may be specific archetypes other people do better it's often a pretty close and academic fight (for instance, I don't think Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund is that much better than Prossh for Dragon Tribal, and Prossh opens your deck up to all sorts of other side-plans). It's a testament to how powerful Sharuum the Hegemon and Merieke Ri Berit are that Oloro and Sydri are "just okay" as far as Commanders go in those colors, but they are both still utterly savage. Grixis was the only real loser that year but the deck had True-Name Nemesis to help and its not like Nekusaur is bad; he's just not a universally overwhelmingly powerful option for any archetype in the Shard. That would be Marchesa, the Black Rose released shortly thereafter. Oh, WotC.
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Sufferer of EDHD
Commander - Currently Playing: RCRDaretti: Superfriends Forever RCR WGBDoran: Ent-mootWBG GGGMultani: Group Bear HugGGG GB(B/G)The Gitrog Monster: Dredgefall DurdleGB(B/G) RGWGahiji, the Honored Group Hug MonsterRGW UB(U/B)Yuriko, Ninja Trinket AggroUB(U/B) WUBRGAtogatog: Assembling a OHKOWUBRG
I mean Grixis had Jeleva who helms what probably is the best grixis list but yeah Jeleva Derevi and Prossh in the same year what a year. I still prefer they print really strong stuff to really bad stuff no one wants to play with
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UG Arixmethes Combo UGR Wanderer UGB Tasigur Control URB Jeleva Storm RW Gisela Control
Marath can be brutal to play against. Can combo very effectively, but is also instant-speed removal whenever you want, blockers whenever you want, etc.
I have had a few games where I never got the opportunity to cast my general because Marath left mana open to instantly kill him.
I really like this design space though. While this edition of Commander gave us some powerful new generals, they actually had really bad precons. The decks played really badly, and lacked the synergy we see in the more recent editions.
Marath was an aggro deck that played Wrath of God!
Marath was an aggro deck that played Wrath of God!
... and? I'll stick Wrath of God in every one of my (white) aggro decks and twice on Sundays. Just because you intend to win with creatures doesn't mean you should avoid running sweepers. There will be a time when your opponent's board is scarier than yours, and losing your creatures is worth it if it means not losing next turn.
Sometimes a specific aggro deck might have a better option than ***. For example, my Depala deck runs Retribution of the Meek. Outside of animated vehicles, there are only two creatures in the deck that it hits (three, if Depala is on the board giving my dwarves +1/+1). But I still run ***, too.
Marath was an aggro deck that played Wrath of God!
... and? I'll stick Wrath of God in every one of my (white) aggro decks and twice on Sundays. Just because you intend to win with creatures doesn't mean you should avoid running sweepers. There will be a time when your opponent's board is scarier than yours, and losing your creatures is worth it if it means not losing next turn.
Sometimes a specific aggro deck might have a better option than ***. For example, my Depala deck runs Retribution of the Meek. Outside of animated vehicles, there are only two creatures in the deck that it hits (three, if Depala is on the board giving my dwarves +1/+1). But I still run ***, too.
It would have made more sense in the Derevi deck.
I'm just saying what I experienced playing the precons. They were really clunky, and had cards that did absolutely nothing. I guess the more relevant thing to say about the Marath deck was that it had mayael the anima as a general, and only had 11 creatures with 5 power.
Looking at the list now, Wrath of God doesn't look that out of place. The deck just looks terrible though.
Fun times with Ink-Treader Nephilim, this. Cantripping makes an otherwise subpar card into a decent consideration. If it was at 2 mana it'd see a lot more play if only due to Isochron Scepter.
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My Commander decks:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
I still prefer they print really strong stuff to really bad stuff no one wants to play with
Yeah, I mean, I guess I feel the same way, but I wish tehy would put that power on cards that aren't legendary creatures. Like, I feel like their line of reasoning is "The format is about legendary creatures; let's print really powerful legendary creatures to make them happy." When, in reality, the format is predicated on their being a pretty flat power curve among legendary creatures, allowing a large disparity of deckbuilding without wandering too far from the optimum.
Loved this back in the day since I was a young player; this was my first introduction to just how much I loved adding "and I draw a card" onto effects. Was a staple in a lot of casual decks for a long time, and I still view it as a gold standard bounce spell for midrange casual decks although Repeal tends to be a bit more efficient.
In EDH, outside of some specific builds this is hard to include - bouncing a single creature is underwhelming in a format where raw haymakers matters more than tempo and every single creature has an EtB ability. Can still make its way into more "budget" builds of Talrand, Sky Summoner and Baral, Chief of Compliance that just need every cantrip they can muster to keep the cards (and drakes) flowing, and is good in the aforementioned Ink-Treader Nephilim deck. Otherwise, it's hard to justify the inclusion of this card over the ubiquitous Cyclonic Rift, the uber-powerful Baral's Expertise, the recursive Capsize, or the versatile Cryptic Command and Mystic Confluence even though many of those cards are more expensive than this.
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Sufferer of EDHD
Commander - Currently Playing: RCRDaretti: Superfriends Forever RCR WGBDoran: Ent-mootWBG GGGMultani: Group Bear HugGGG GB(B/G)The Gitrog Monster: Dredgefall DurdleGB(B/G) RGWGahiji, the Honored Group Hug MonsterRGW UB(U/B)Yuriko, Ninja Trinket AggroUB(U/B) WUBRGAtogatog: Assembling a OHKOWUBRG
It's actually quite good in Melek, Izzet Paragon. 3 mana, bounce 2 creatures, draw 2 cards? Yes, please!
Instant-speed, cheap removal is exceptionally important, and blue doesn't get very many options in that arena other than bounce. Sure, Cyclonic Rift or Snap are better; the former because of its overload option, the latter because it's essentially free (or potentially a ritual). Even Pongify and Rapid Hybridization are probably stronger, since they're not bounce.
But I've already got Cyclonic Rift, Snap, Pongify, Rapid Hybridization, and Capsize in my Melek deck, and I need more answers to things.
I think that often getting a 2/2 body into play is going to be better than a cantrip, especially since there are powerful ways to reuse a creature body, so Man-O'-war is the one for me
8/10 I like Unsummon effects, but they always seem like the card disadvantage isn't worth it unless you're playing some sort of Winter Orb deck.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
I think that often getting a 2/2 body into play is going to be better than a cantrip, especially since there are powerful ways to reuse a creature body, so Man-O'-war is the one for me
I know what you meant but would you really play a repulse that gives a 2/2 token creature instead of a card?
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
One of the fastest-errata'd cards ever (Due to a simple error; the text X can't be 0 was omitted), Marath is as far as general use Naya generals go probably the strongest/most versatile. Yes, some of the others do a specific strategy really well, but Marath just does more. Pinging, buffing or sprouting tokens, Jittemoose can do it all.
That said I never built the deck myself. Probably because I fear that I already know exactly how the deck will end up looking and what it'll play like and it's just not my playstyle.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
Sure, you can play him without combos, but so many of the cards that you would want to play for non-combo reasons just end up accidentally forming combos.
EDIT: Even so, I'm tempted to try him in a deck with nothing but mana ramp and try to solo people with him.
- Rabid Wombat
Marath is still worth considering in any Naya or WGRx deck focused on tokens or elementals, although unless you are doing Horde of Notions he is almost always best as a Commander than he is in the 99. 9/10 card; great, open-ended, but not everyone's cup of tea since he is too easy if that makes sense.
RCRDaretti: Superfriends Forever RCR
WGBDoran: Ent-mootWBG
GGGMultani: Group Bear HugGGG
GB(B/G)The Gitrog Monster: Dredgefall DurdleGB(B/G)
RGWGahiji, the Honored Group Hug MonsterRGW
UB(U/B)Yuriko, Ninja Trinket AggroUB(U/B)
WUBRGAtogatog: Assembling a OHKOWUBRG
I think he's from Lorwyn.
This guy has lots of weird combos. Cathars' Crusade and Mana Echoes are the biggies, but Snake Umbra or Keen Sense also works. Or Basilisk Collar. Blade of the Bloodchief is good for that last one. And yeah, you get ones like Workhorse and Fertilid to give him additional +1/+1 counters.
I thought of him as mostly a slightly better Ulasht, the Hate Seed that adds white, but now you can scale the size of the tokens (and proliferate synergy), and you have synergy with Coat of Arms, Omnath, Locus of Rage, Caterwauling Boggart, Consuming Bonfire.
8/10 "Better Ulasht" is "new Ghave".
On phasing:
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
I thought the same thing when I first saw him, but my deck has become this weird pillowfort/control shell with a couple of token guys. All I can say is that Martyr's Bond is his second best friend (his first being Basilisk Collar).
He has the unique ability to become a token/CA engine with minimal support, so you can dedicate a lot of your deck space to whatever theme you're going for.
That set was just particularly egregious. Remember, you also had Oloro in the Esper deck and Nekusar in the Grixis one. Marath, despite being pushed and being a combo machine with good stuff cards that the colors want to run anyway, especially with a commander that likes tokens or counters (and Marath likes both!), he's still only the 4th or 5th most broken legend in the set.
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
This reminds me that I need to update my decklist
Marath, Will of the Wild
Friendly Kess Twin Combo
Tatyova - Sir Bounce A Lot
Gonti's Luxury Pie
Prime (Eldrazi) Speaker Zegana (Retired)
Yeah, that year really was out of control. I actually dismantled Derevi as too unfun for everyone else and I wasn't even playing the Stasis version. Roon is no slouch either for a Blink deck. Prossh is an order of magnitude more powerful than any other Jund commander, as is Marath - while there may be specific archetypes other people do better it's often a pretty close and academic fight (for instance, I don't think Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund is that much better than Prossh for Dragon Tribal, and Prossh opens your deck up to all sorts of other side-plans). It's a testament to how powerful Sharuum the Hegemon and Merieke Ri Berit are that Oloro and Sydri are "just okay" as far as Commanders go in those colors, but they are both still utterly savage. Grixis was the only real loser that year but the deck had True-Name Nemesis to help and its not like Nekusaur is bad; he's just not a universally overwhelmingly powerful option for any archetype in the Shard. That would be Marchesa, the Black Rose released shortly thereafter. Oh, WotC.
RCRDaretti: Superfriends Forever RCR
WGBDoran: Ent-mootWBG
GGGMultani: Group Bear HugGGG
GB(B/G)The Gitrog Monster: Dredgefall DurdleGB(B/G)
RGWGahiji, the Honored Group Hug MonsterRGW
UB(U/B)Yuriko, Ninja Trinket AggroUB(U/B)
WUBRGAtogatog: Assembling a OHKOWUBRG
UGR Wanderer
UGB Tasigur Control
URB Jeleva Storm
RW Gisela Control
I have had a few games where I never got the opportunity to cast my general because Marath left mana open to instantly kill him.
I really like this design space though. While this edition of Commander gave us some powerful new generals, they actually had really bad precons. The decks played really badly, and lacked the synergy we see in the more recent editions.
Marath was an aggro deck that played Wrath of God!
8.RG Green Devotion Ramp/Combo 9.UR Draw Triggers 10.WUR Group stalling 11.WUR Voltron Spellslinger 12.WB Sacrificial Shenanigans
13.BR Creatureless Panharmonicon 14.BR Pingers and Eldrazi 15.URG Untapped Cascading
16.Reyhan, last of the Abzan's WUBG +1/+1 Counter Craziness 17.WUBRG Dragons aka Why did I make this?
Building: The Gitrog Monster lands, Glissa the Traitor stax, Muldrotha, the Gravetide Planeswalker Combo, Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix + Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa Clues, and Tribal Scarecrow Planeswalkers
Sometimes a specific aggro deck might have a better option than ***. For example, my Depala deck runs Retribution of the Meek. Outside of animated vehicles, there are only two creatures in the deck that it hits (three, if Depala is on the board giving my dwarves +1/+1). But I still run ***, too.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
It would have made more sense in the Derevi deck.
I'm just saying what I experienced playing the precons. They were really clunky, and had cards that did absolutely nothing. I guess the more relevant thing to say about the Marath deck was that it had mayael the anima as a general, and only had 11 creatures with 5 power.
Looking at the list now, Wrath of God doesn't look that out of place. The deck just looks terrible though.
8.RG Green Devotion Ramp/Combo 9.UR Draw Triggers 10.WUR Group stalling 11.WUR Voltron Spellslinger 12.WB Sacrificial Shenanigans
13.BR Creatureless Panharmonicon 14.BR Pingers and Eldrazi 15.URG Untapped Cascading
16.Reyhan, last of the Abzan's WUBG +1/+1 Counter Craziness 17.WUBRG Dragons aka Why did I make this?
Building: The Gitrog Monster lands, Glissa the Traitor stax, Muldrotha, the Gravetide Planeswalker Combo, Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix + Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa Clues, and Tribal Scarecrow Planeswalkers
Fun times with Ink-Treader Nephilim, this. Cantripping makes an otherwise subpar card into a decent consideration. If it was at 2 mana it'd see a lot more play if only due to Isochron Scepter.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
Yeah, I mean, I guess I feel the same way, but I wish tehy would put that power on cards that aren't legendary creatures. Like, I feel like their line of reasoning is "The format is about legendary creatures; let's print really powerful legendary creatures to make them happy." When, in reality, the format is predicated on their being a pretty flat power curve among legendary creatures, allowing a large disparity of deckbuilding without wandering too far from the optimum.
In EDH, outside of some specific builds this is hard to include - bouncing a single creature is underwhelming in a format where raw haymakers matters more than tempo and every single creature has an EtB ability. Can still make its way into more "budget" builds of Talrand, Sky Summoner and Baral, Chief of Compliance that just need every cantrip they can muster to keep the cards (and drakes) flowing, and is good in the aforementioned Ink-Treader Nephilim deck. Otherwise, it's hard to justify the inclusion of this card over the ubiquitous Cyclonic Rift, the uber-powerful Baral's Expertise, the recursive Capsize, or the versatile Cryptic Command and Mystic Confluence even though many of those cards are more expensive than this.
RCRDaretti: Superfriends Forever RCR
WGBDoran: Ent-mootWBG
GGGMultani: Group Bear HugGGG
GB(B/G)The Gitrog Monster: Dredgefall DurdleGB(B/G)
RGWGahiji, the Honored Group Hug MonsterRGW
UB(U/B)Yuriko, Ninja Trinket AggroUB(U/B)
WUBRGAtogatog: Assembling a OHKOWUBRG
Instant-speed, cheap removal is exceptionally important, and blue doesn't get very many options in that arena other than bounce. Sure, Cyclonic Rift or Snap are better; the former because of its overload option, the latter because it's essentially free (or potentially a ritual). Even Pongify and Rapid Hybridization are probably stronger, since they're not bounce.
But I've already got Cyclonic Rift, Snap, Pongify, Rapid Hybridization, and Capsize in my Melek deck, and I need more answers to things.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
8/10 I like Unsummon effects, but they always seem like the card disadvantage isn't worth it unless you're playing some sort of Winter Orb deck.
On phasing:
I know what you meant but would you really play a repulse that gives a 2/2 token creature instead of a card?