I'm really intrigued by Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca for some reason, but I'm not a tribal player at all and also not a huge fan of overly linear decks. I realize most (maybe all) versions of this deck will just throw a bunch of merfolk out and swings with some overrun type effect. That's totally fine and we need to outline those cards here, but I'm hoping to get some ideas that may help me go with a slightly different route. The focus on merfolk is mostly inevitable based on his abilities and some of the testing I've done shows just dropping him early with a couple merfolk out seems to be a pretty good way to start drawing cards and building a small army.
So anyway, here are some interesting cards I found.
Doubling Season
What’s the Innistrad version that only doubles tokens?
Descendant’s Path (with Intruder Alarm)
Breaking Wave (the best place I can think to use this!)
Fallowsage
Seafloor Oracle
Doubling Season
What’s the Innistrad version that only doubles tokens?
Descendant’s Path (with Intruder Alarm)
Breaking Wave (the best place I can think to use this!)
Fallowsage
Seafloor Oracle
For the deck: Opposition as another tap instrument in case you can’t play him.
In my head I’m toying with him as a stax/prison general, making some of these lockdown effects one-sided with untap shenanigans. Angel’s Trumpet, Orbs...might be too risky.
Here's my decklist so far. I focused on the cheapest merfolk over the more expensive utility ones as I think just vomiting out as many fish as possible may be the way to go. The more you have out the more tap shenanigans that can take place. It consistently reaches critical mass by turn 8 when playing solitaire for whatever that's worth. I have all 3 free counterspells Force of Will, Foil, and Pact of Negation to try to against board wipes.
Some concerns:
Resiliency - Hard to tell without actually playing against other people, but the deck can reach a point where the card draw becomes insane and I think it is able to easily withstand board wipes at that point. However, there are spots early where it is vulnerable before the card drawing really gets going that could set it way back. There's also almost no redundancy for the commander, without him in play the deck will probably do very little. This actually may be the biggest problem so far.
Interaction - There's hardly any interaction at all beyond the few counterspells. The amount of dedication that needs to be invested into just consistently being able to cast merfolk (running something like 40) and then also being able to use cards that help abuse the tapping leaves very little room for anything else. I think I just have to try to go off before anyone else. There are some merfolk that also provide some interaction and I need to consider choosing them over some cheaper options.
Cards that seem to be all stars: Harvest Season - Playing one or more merfolk per turn seems to be the norm, meaning the deck can get 4 or 5 extra lands by turn 4 or 5. Quest for Renewal - This with 3 merfolk (including Kumena) lets me draw 4 cards in one go around the table and obviously starts getting pretty crazy as the number of merfolk goes up. Hardened Scales - Does a lot of work for 1 green mana. The entire army can get very big very quickly with this once the untapping shenanigans begin. Intruder Alarm, Paradox Engine, Tamiyo, the Moon Sage, Inspiring Call, Prime Speaker Zegana, Tishana, Voice of Thunder - All pretty good as expected and enable massive card drawing. Merrow Reejerey - With all the merfolk that only cost one and things like Sol Ring, this allows you to start casting stuff for free and just burning through the deck. Metallic Mimic - We want those +1/+1 counters, this is very good for little mana investment. Throne of the God-Pharaoh - Hard to tell with this one, but doing 5+ damage per turn for free to the table seems good. Will make you a target though so probably want some counterspell backup or a defensible board state. Deeproot Waters - Pretty obvious here.
Overall, definitely needs more work at this point.
My YouTube Channel: The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
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!
Here's my decklist so far. I focused on the cheapest merfolk over the more expensive utility ones as I think just vomiting out as many fish as possible may be the way to go. The more you have out the more tap shenanigans that can take place. It consistently reaches critical mass by turn 8 when playing solitaire for whatever that's worth. I have all 3 free counterspells Force of Will, Foil, and Pact of Negation to try to against board wipes.
With that many merfolk, Tidal Courier looks pretty good.
I'm brewing a second version of this deck that is more controlling and resilient but less explosive. I think my first version just had too many issues and I wan't happy with it. Part of the problem may just be that Kumena is a very fair card that requires a decent amount of set up to break.
And don't you forget, Arctic Merfolk lets you reuse ETB triggers.
I should've mentioned merfolk lords:
Kopala, Warden of Waves is a must, as is Lullmage Mentor. (Don't get too attached to Lullmage Mentor, you will need other counters as well. Trust me, I've made the mistake in other decks of thinking "I have Aura Shards, there's no reason to have other artifact and enchantment removal.") Deeproot Waters is a (slightly more expensive, but ultimately better) Myrsmith for merfolk. We should call it Mersmith. Stonybrook Banneret Hey look! It makes my fish cost 1 less. (I also use it to good effect in wizard decks.) Seafloor Oracle is Coastal Piracy #3 or #4, though Bident of Thassa is #1. Kindred Discovery gets special mention because you always cantrip off it. Merrow Reejerey is good just for the Twiddle effect if you're in Stax. Lord of Atlantis and Master of the Pearl Trident do the same thing, but Master of the Pearl Trident is strictly better because it only does it to your fish. Merfolk Sovereign There's that "can't be blocked", really if you're playing blue tribal, you may as well play to your strengths. Aquatic Incursion is like a worse Sovereign, but you get two tokens. Merfolk Mistbinder just provides the +1/+1. Merrow Commerce doesn't provide +1/+1, but it can use those +1/+1 counters even with Meekstone. Deeproot Elite is sort of like an Ivy Lane Denizen for merfolk. Forerunner of the Heralds is similar, but more of a merfolk-centric Titania's Chosen. River Sneak can get pretty big if you know what you're doing. It won't get as big as if it were another creature type, but having access to green in a merfolk deck means the few merfolk tokens you do get can be doubled by three different cards. Seahunter lets you grab whatever merfolk you want and put it straight on the battlefield. Swift WardenVines of Vastwood for merfolk.
Stoneforge Masterwork actually could be a win condition for merfolk, now that I think about it.
(Again wishing we had a Bant merfolk legend, though. Just for Summon the School/Parallel Lives shenanigans. I mean, it's not infinite on its own, but it does mean you get to reuse the card over and over.)
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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!
Vitalize, Dramatic Reversal and Benefactor's Draught under Isochron Scepter are great ways to get repeated untaps. Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter + Sol Ring + Kumena + 2 other merfolk = infinite draws. Cryptolithe Rites looks good here too.
Seedborn Muse is far too good in this deck not to include. I honestly would look at Awakening as well. Its these type of cards which can make having green a reason not to strictly play the better deck of Azami, Lady of Scrolls. Because lets face it, that commander is triple as good as Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca, so you have to make those green abilities count.
And don't you forget, Arctic Merfolk lets you reuse ETB triggers.
I should've mentioned merfolk lords:
Kopala, Warden of Waves is a must, as is Lullmage Mentor. (Don't get too attached to Lullmage Mentor, you will need other counters as well. Trust me, I've made the mistake in other decks of thinking "I have Aura Shards, there's no reason to have other artifact and enchantment removal.") Deeproot Waters is a (slightly more expensive, but ultimately better) Myrsmith for merfolk. We should call it Mersmith. Stonybrook Banneret Hey look! It makes my fish cost 1 less. (I also use it to good effect in wizard decks.) Seafloor Oracle is Coastal Piracy #3 or #4, though Bident of Thassa is #1. Kindred Discovery gets special mention because you always cantrip off it. Merrow Reejerey is good just for the Twiddle effect if you're in Stax. Lord of Atlantis and Master of the Pearl Trident do the same thing, but Master of the Pearl Trident is strictly better because it only does it to your fish. Merfolk Sovereign There's that "can't be blocked", really if you're playing blue tribal, you may as well play to your strengths. Aquatic Incursion is like a worse Sovereign, but you get two tokens. Merfolk Mistbinder just provides the +1/+1. Merrow Commerce doesn't provide +1/+1, but it can use those +1/+1 counters even with Meekstone. Deeproot Elite is sort of like an Ivy Lane Denizen for merfolk. Forerunner of the Heralds is similar, but more of a merfolk-centric Titania's Chosen. River Sneak can get pretty big if you know what you're doing. It won't get as big as if it were another creature type, but having access to green in a merfolk deck means the few merfolk tokens you do get can be doubled by three different cards. Seahunter lets you grab whatever merfolk you want and put it straight on the battlefield. Swift WardenVines of Vastwood for merfolk.
Stoneforge Masterwork actually could be a win condition for merfolk, now that I think about it.
(Again wishing we had a Bant merfolk legend, though. Just for Summon the School/Parallel Lives shenanigans. I mean, it's not infinite on its own, but it does mean you get to reuse the card over and over.)
Thank you for posting all the lords, that's going to be really beneficial. Stoneforge Masterwork could actually be really good on Kumena for some unblockable commander damage.
Seedborn Muse is far too good in this deck not to include. I honestly would look at Awakening as well. Its these type of cards which can make having green a reason not to strictly play the better deck of Azami, Lady of Scrolls. Because lets face it, that commander is triple as good as Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca, so you have to make those green abilities count.
Somehow I didn't even know Awakening was a card. Adding that one to the deck for sure.
Ok, here's my second attempt. Going all in on the untapping and also included Winter Orb and Static Orb. I've added some more non-merfolk to really take advantage of the untapping in Azami, Lady of Scrolls and Arcanis, the Omnipotent. There are a lot of merfolk wizards so Azami fits right in. I also threw in some mana dorks for obvious reasons. I got rid of most of the 1 mana merfolk that do little and added some more impactful merfolk instead. The deck seems to be just as explosive as it was with more decisions to make, which makes me happy. I'm still worried about the resilience and interactions of the deck, will keep tweaking. Thanks for all the help so far.
I'm really intrigued by Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca for some reason, but I'm not a tribal player at all and also not a huge fan of overly linear decks. I realize most (maybe all) versions of this deck will just throw a bunch of merfolk out and swings with some overrun type effect. That's totally fine and we need to outline those cards here, but I'm hoping to get some ideas that may help me go with a slightly different route. The focus on merfolk is mostly inevitable based on his abilities and some of the testing I've done shows just dropping him early with a couple merfolk out seems to be a pretty good way to start drawing cards and building a small army.
So anyway, here are some interesting cards I found.
Taking advantage of tapping/untapping (want to find more of these)
Faces of the Past - Ok, this seems really sweet with Kumena, tap all your dudes to draw cards or get counters, then sac one for some effect and untap the rest to do it all over again. I want to run a sacrifice package just for this card.
Lullmage Mentor - Seems like it'll probably be too hard to pull the 7 merfolk part off. Counters can definitely be used but going to be hard to balance that with the number of merfolk the deck needs.
Quest for Renewal - Sure I'll tap my merfolk to draw cards on every players turn.
Surgespanner - Shouldn't be hard to tap this so has a nice extra effect.
Tamiyo, the Moon Sage - Draw even more cards.
Wake Thrasher - Worth it? Could become pretty big with some untapping shenanigans.
Benefactor's Draught - Probably not good enough, but can be good with enough merfolk in play.
Copperhorn Scout - A way to repeatably untap, at least once each turn as long as he's alive.
Curse of Bounty
Seedborn Muse
Intruder Alarm - Seems like you could get a lot of untaps out of this, especially with four players casting creatures, pretty degenerate card of course.
Paradox Engine - Duh.
Retreat to Coralhelm - It's ok, don't think it's broken here unless you go all in on landfall.
Merrow Reejerey - It's a merfolk anyway so seems fine for a little extra value with the deck.
Merrow Commerce
Breaking Wave
Fallowsage
Harvest Season
Throne of the God-Pharaoh
Opposition
Jace, Ingenious Mind-Mage
Awakening
Patron of the Orochi
Carpet of Flowers
Cryptic Gateway
Drowner of Secrets
Winter Orb
Static Orb
+1/+1 counters
Inspiring Call - Seems good, can hold your merfolk untapped with this in hand and tap them to give counters in response to a wrath or if no wrath occurs tap them to draw cards instead.
Cosi's Trickster - I think we actually want 1/1 one drops for this deck.
Herald of Secret Streams - Can make all your merfolk unblockable.
Jade Bearer
Metallic Mimic - Tribal and +1/+1 counters.
Jadelight Ranger
Prime Speaker Zegana
Sage of Fables - I like that this doesn't require tapping, letting you utilize the merfolk for one of Kumena's tap abilities and draw cards too. Not many merfolk wizards though.
Shapers of Nature - Cost is a bit steep for the abilities, but 3/3 merfolk for 3 isn't bad.
Vineshaper Mystic
Vorel of the Hull Clade - I think we want to be spreading the counters around and not loading up one guy, which will make this not work so well.
Hadana's Climb
Hardened Scales - Perfect for putting a single +1/+1 counter on a lot of creatures.
Deeproot Elite
Rishkar, Peema Renegade
Other stuff
Saprazzan Legate - Should be a free merfolk almost all the time, which is pretty darn good.
Tishana, Voice of Thunder - It's a merfolk and we'll probably be playing a lot of creatures. Mana cost is pretty high though, I think the curve on this deck may be quite low.
Deeproot Waters - Auto-include.
Growing Rites of Itlimoc/Gaea's Cradle
Herald's Horn
Vanquisher's Banner
Heirloom Blade
Doubling Season
Descendants' Path
Seafloor Oracle
Seahunter
Cauldron of Souls
Tidal Courier
Equilibrium
Sylvan Library
Sensei's Divining Top
Earthcraft
Winter Orb
Meekstone
Quicksilver Fountain
Edric, Spymaster of Trest
Lords
Scroll down for a couple threads by hyalapterouslemur that lists them.
What am I missing?
What’s the Innistrad version that only doubles tokens?
Descendant’s Path (with Intruder Alarm)
Breaking Wave (the best place I can think to use this!)
Fallowsage
Seafloor Oracle
(U/B)(U/B)(U/B) JUMP IN THE LINE, ROCK YOUR BODY IN TIME
(R/W)(R/W)(R/W) RISING FROM THE NEON GLOOM, SHINING LIKE A CRAZY MOON
(U/R)(R/G)(G/U) STEALIN' WHEN I SHOULD HAVE BEEN BUYIN'
Thanks for the suggestions, added.
Also added:
Throne of the God-Pharaoh
Harvest Season
In my head I’m toying with him as a stax/prison general, making some of these lockdown effects one-sided with untap shenanigans. Angel’s Trumpet, Orbs...might be too risky.
(U/B)(U/B)(U/B) JUMP IN THE LINE, ROCK YOUR BODY IN TIME
(R/W)(R/W)(R/W) RISING FROM THE NEON GLOOM, SHINING LIKE A CRAZY MOON
(U/R)(R/G)(G/U) STEALIN' WHEN I SHOULD HAVE BEEN BUYIN'
Deeproot Elite is another source of counters.
Seahunter seems like it's probably real good here, if you can get it to survive a turn.
Added to the list.
Here's my decklist so far. I focused on the cheapest merfolk over the more expensive utility ones as I think just vomiting out as many fish as possible may be the way to go. The more you have out the more tap shenanigans that can take place. It consistently reaches critical mass by turn 8 when playing solitaire for whatever that's worth. I have all 3 free counterspells Force of Will, Foil, and Pact of Negation to try to against board wipes.
Some concerns:
Resiliency - Hard to tell without actually playing against other people, but the deck can reach a point where the card draw becomes insane and I think it is able to easily withstand board wipes at that point. However, there are spots early where it is vulnerable before the card drawing really gets going that could set it way back. There's also almost no redundancy for the commander, without him in play the deck will probably do very little. This actually may be the biggest problem so far.
Interaction - There's hardly any interaction at all beyond the few counterspells. The amount of dedication that needs to be invested into just consistently being able to cast merfolk (running something like 40) and then also being able to use cards that help abuse the tapping leaves very little room for anything else. I think I just have to try to go off before anyone else. There are some merfolk that also provide some interaction and I need to consider choosing them over some cheaper options.
Cards that seem to be all stars:
Harvest Season - Playing one or more merfolk per turn seems to be the norm, meaning the deck can get 4 or 5 extra lands by turn 4 or 5.
Quest for Renewal - This with 3 merfolk (including Kumena) lets me draw 4 cards in one go around the table and obviously starts getting pretty crazy as the number of merfolk goes up.
Hardened Scales - Does a lot of work for 1 green mana. The entire army can get very big very quickly with this once the untapping shenanigans begin.
Intruder Alarm, Paradox Engine, Tamiyo, the Moon Sage, Inspiring Call, Prime Speaker Zegana, Tishana, Voice of Thunder - All pretty good as expected and enable massive card drawing.
Merrow Reejerey - With all the merfolk that only cost one and things like Sol Ring, this allows you to start casting stuff for free and just burning through the deck.
Metallic Mimic - We want those +1/+1 counters, this is very good for little mana investment.
Throne of the God-Pharaoh - Hard to tell with this one, but doing 5+ damage per turn for free to the table seems good. Will make you a target though so probably want some counterspell backup or a defensible board state.
Deeproot Waters - Pretty obvious here.
Overall, definitely needs more work at this point.
BGU [Primer] Sidisi, Brood Tyrant BGU | BG [Primer] Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG | G [Primer] Polukranos, World Eater G
My YouTube Channel:
The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
Good merfolk include:
Cold-Eyed Selkie: Can draw a lot of cards with help.
Coralhelm Guide: Gets the selkie (and other saboteurs) through.
Empress Galina: Yes. This is legal.
Jolting Merfolk: Another tapper, albeit more temporary.
Kopala, Warden of Waves: Not quite hexproof, but it's like Frost Titan.
Leech Bonder: To move +1/+1 counters around.
Lullmage Mentor: Just, just.
Master of the Pearl Trident: This is especially ridiculous if you have ways to make sure opponents have islands. Yes, I think blue can do that, yes.
Master of Waves: Lots of tokens. Not merfolk, but do with them what you will.
Overtaker: It's an instant-speed Threaten on a stick!
Prime Speaker Zegana: Just, yeah. Just yeah. (As an aside, I don't often clone legends, but cloning her with Quicksilver Gargantuan is my one dream in life.)
Riptide Pilferer: Another thing to make unblockable. Notable for being one of the few blue specters.
Rootwater Diver: If your deck has a lot of good artifacts, you can use this.
Rootwater Thief: This can often hose combo decks. Especially decks that don't have creatures to defend themselves.
Sea Scryer: Going our Winter Orb route, I present the only merfolk mana dork in the game.
Shapers of Nature: Ahem, yeah. Definitely Training Grounds material, if you go that route.
Simic Fluxmage: Another one for our +1/+1 counter route.
Swift Warden: Okay, she's no Vines of Vastwood, but still...
Talrand, Sky Summoner: Another one who doesn't produce merfolk tokens, but does produce good tokens.
Thada Adel, Aquisitor: Goes without saying.
Thrasios, Triton Hero: Upgraded Sinbad is upgraded.
Tideshaper Mystic: Two merfolk lords give all your merfolk islandwalk. Also hoses nonbasic lands.
Tishana, Voice of Thunder: A maro merfolk with a Collective Unconscious if you go the token route.
True-Name Nemesis: Because nothing drives people apart more than politics!
Vodalian Mage: Goes great with Lullmage Mentor. More importantly, it trips folk up when you have Winter Orb out.
Vorel of the Hull Clade: Double the counters.
Wake Thrasher: This guy is big.
Waterfront Bouncer: Another one to put your opponents off-balance.
There are also plenty of merfolk tribal lords. Actually, Legacy Fish was at one time just merfolk lords. Merrow Reejerey is an obvious one.
And of course, Chameleon Colossus is a merfolk.
On phasing:
Great call outs. I may try to brew a separate version that has a stax strategy. It would be a very different deck than what I've got so far.
(U/B)(U/B)(U/B) JUMP IN THE LINE, ROCK YOUR BODY IN TIME
(R/W)(R/W)(R/W) RISING FROM THE NEON GLOOM, SHINING LIKE A CRAZY MOON
(U/R)(R/G)(G/U) STEALIN' WHEN I SHOULD HAVE BEEN BUYIN'
Added this and Tidal Courier from above.
I'm brewing a second version of this deck that is more controlling and resilient but less explosive. I think my first version just had too many issues and I wan't happy with it. Part of the problem may just be that Kumena is a very fair card that requires a decent amount of set up to break.
I should've mentioned merfolk lords:
Kopala, Warden of Waves is a must, as is Lullmage Mentor. (Don't get too attached to Lullmage Mentor, you will need other counters as well. Trust me, I've made the mistake in other decks of thinking "I have Aura Shards, there's no reason to have other artifact and enchantment removal.")
Deeproot Waters is a (slightly more expensive, but ultimately better) Myrsmith for merfolk. We should call it Mersmith.
Stonybrook Banneret Hey look! It makes my fish cost 1 less. (I also use it to good effect in wizard decks.)
Seafloor Oracle is Coastal Piracy #3 or #4, though Bident of Thassa is #1. Kindred Discovery gets special mention because you always cantrip off it.
Merrow Reejerey is good just for the Twiddle effect if you're in Stax.
Lord of Atlantis and Master of the Pearl Trident do the same thing, but Master of the Pearl Trident is strictly better because it only does it to your fish.
Merfolk Sovereign There's that "can't be blocked", really if you're playing blue tribal, you may as well play to your strengths. Aquatic Incursion is like a worse Sovereign, but you get two tokens.
Merfolk Mistbinder just provides the +1/+1.
Merrow Commerce doesn't provide +1/+1, but it can use those +1/+1 counters even with Meekstone.
Deeproot Elite is sort of like an Ivy Lane Denizen for merfolk. Forerunner of the Heralds is similar, but more of a merfolk-centric Titania's Chosen.
River Sneak can get pretty big if you know what you're doing. It won't get as big as if it were another creature type, but having access to green in a merfolk deck means the few merfolk tokens you do get can be doubled by three different cards.
Seahunter lets you grab whatever merfolk you want and put it straight on the battlefield.
Swift Warden Vines of Vastwood for merfolk.
There are also the generic tribal cards like Distant Melody, Brass Herald, Adaptive Automaton (though it's probably like my tenth choice for this effect), Door of Destinies, Urza's Incubator and Herald's Horn, Call to the Kindred, Descendants' Path, Grave Sifter, and Coat of Arms. Path of Ancestry is an obvious auto-include, as are Pillar of Origins and Cavern of Souls.
Stoneforge Masterwork actually could be a win condition for merfolk, now that I think about it.
(Again wishing we had a Bant merfolk legend, though. Just for Summon the School/Parallel Lives shenanigans. I mean, it's not infinite on its own, but it does mean you get to reuse the card over and over.)
On phasing:
WUBG Atraxa, Praetors' Voice (Planeswalkers)
(U/B)(U/B)(U/B) JUMP IN THE LINE, ROCK YOUR BODY IN TIME
(R/W)(R/W)(R/W) RISING FROM THE NEON GLOOM, SHINING LIKE A CRAZY MOON
(U/R)(R/G)(G/U) STEALIN' WHEN I SHOULD HAVE BEEN BUYIN'
Seedborn Muse is far too good in this deck not to include. I honestly would look at Awakening as well. Its these type of cards which can make having green a reason not to strictly play the better deck of Azami, Lady of Scrolls. Because lets face it, that commander is triple as good as Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca, so you have to make those green abilities count.
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
Here's my list: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/thrasios-merfolk-1/
I will say that Equilibrium is outstanding and truly game-changing in every game it sees play.
Thank you for posting all the lords, that's going to be really beneficial. Stoneforge Masterwork could actually be really good on Kumena for some unblockable commander damage.
Somehow I didn't even know Awakening was a card. Adding that one to the deck for sure.
https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/kumena-2-1/
Beating Face with Bane
Beatrice, the Golden Witch