For being sort a budget version, I like your list pretty well. Most of those cards don't quite make the cut in my list, but they're not bad and mostly fit the style of the deck well. Tainted Pact won't work at all with that many basics though, trust me.
I'm been messing around with the following changes:
City of Solitude continued to not really pull its weight. Most of the time it was in my hand I never even wanted to cast it. I briefly tried out Defense Grid too, but it had the same problem. I simply don't need cards like this to win, and I'd rather just have something proactive to do.
Lotus Cobra simply has not performed. I'd say it makes 1 mana 50% of the time, 0 mana 40% of the time, and 2 mana 10% of the time. For a 2-drop mana dork (all I want is a mana dork), that's horrible.
Tarmogoyf might be a controversial cut, but I noticed that it just wasn't a factor in most games I play. I frequently mulligan it, because it doesn't do anything particularly relevant in most hands and in most matchups. The only place I actually like having it is against aggressive creature decks where it can interact favorably with most creatures; in almost every other game, it tends to be irrelevant, since it just isn't quite enough of a threat to get things done and be worth the slot. Everything else I want it to do, Thrun does much better. I haven't missed the goyf yet.
Mindslicer ended up being, indeed, a bit too cute. It's very good in some games, against some matchups, but in general it's just too narrow for a deck like this. Especially since the matchups it's good in (control) are already quite good matchups for this deck without it.
Lignify never did what I wanted it to do, and I frequently found myself wishing it was any other removal spell. I just do not like sorcery speed removal at all, and this one leaves behind an annoying blocker and can be destroyed at inopportune moments. Instant speed turns out to be much more important than getting around pro-black.
Rancor, sort of like Tarmogoyf, doesn't have enough punch since this just isn't an aggro deck. It's only really effective if I stick a big Varolz, and in those situations I'm huge favorite to win anyways. Yes, evasion is still very important there, but I have other ways to grant trample that are a lot more versatile and have more interaction with other cards in the deck. Rancor only does one thing, and while it does it pretty well, I need more than that.
Treetop Village was occasionally relevant as an attacker...but only very, very occasionally. On the other hand, coming into play tapped has screwed up my curve and given my opponent an extra turn many times. It's just not worth the opportunity cost in this deck, even though I do like how it plays against planeswalkers.
I did what I've been threatening to do for a while, and just kind of replaced all the slots I wasn't sure about with removal. It's so good against most of the tough matchups that this is generally a winning proposition. In my relatively meager testing thus far, I haven't particularly liked Beast Within (too expensive, and the token can be annoying) or Oxidize (a little too narrow, perhaps), so those additions may be short-lived. We'll see.
Bloom Tender has been relatively mediocre, but still almost strictly better than Lotus Cobra, since it always produces at least 1 mana. I really wish I just had another one drop, but there's nothing else I can use yet. I'll keep using Bloom Tender for now, it's alright.
Exotic Orchard made it in over Treetop Village since I realized it makes either green or black (though very rarely both) in almost every matchup that matters. It certainly has the potential to screw me over, and I'd be happy to replace it with another untapped colored land, but so far it's been alright and I think the card is reasonable.
I'm kind of interested in trying Hex Parasite (I feel a little weak to planeswalkers), Glistener Elf/Blight Mamba (I don't think they'll cut it in this meta, but I could see them working, and Wild Growth (another one drop, even if I can't sac it and Wasteland destroys me). I'll probably try working some of these in as new additions disappoint me.
Recent testing has been pretty exciting. In the last couple weeks or so, I think I'm (in matches) 1-0 against Jenara, 4-1 against Nin, 1-0 against Maelstrom Wanderer, 1-0 against Zur, and 1-0 against GAAIV. I can dig it.
The more i read this thread, the more I want to switch my skullbriar list over.
do u want another 1 drop mana source for always having t2 varolz or for the overall extra mana?
if it's for the former, lotus petal gets you that one shot. And the latter, joraga treespeaker (running the risk of removal after paying for level up and having no t2 varolz).
have you considered gyre sage? she may prove decent over bloom tender, with slightly less initial mana production.
priest of titania? you run like 6-8 elves. she is similar to bloom tender, adds one and maybe more pending your other drops. i guess the call there would be do you run more elves vs black permanents. and how long either of those two groups stay.
@Jibux
I think this is a good choice for a tournament deck. Still something of a unknown quantity, but it definitely wins. I'm not surprised that Varolz is starting to place in France, though I'm very curious to see the list.
Berserk and obviously Dreadnought are absolutely crucial I feel, but you can get away without Grim Tutor, for sure. The card isn't even that great here. I'd try out Jarad's Orders or Beseech the Queen (if you're feeling ballsy with Ad Nauseum). Both are tutors I've played before, both are pretty solid and even superior to Grim Tutor on occasion, in their own ways. I could still see incorporating one or both into my list in the future, and I wouldn't hesitate to try them out now if you're trying to fill slots.
I have little write-ups on how to play the Zur and Animar matchups in the opening post. I haven't updated that in a while, but I still feel those assessments are accurate. I have to admit that Zur and Animar are probably the worst matchups for this deck, but that's mostly because I agree that they're the top decks in the format. They're most decks' worst matchups. I feel reasonably confident against both of these decks, even though I consider them the worst matchups. With practice I'd say we're at least 50-50 against them, if not more.
@Emether
Jibux is right, Arbor Elf would be in long before Utopia Sprawl, yet I don't think I can make it work. Trust me, I'd really like to. It's almost workable, since you can usually mull it if you don't have a forest, but that leads to a lot of unnecessary mulligans. Even though it works maybe 75% of the time, when it's bad it's SO BAD that I don't think it's worth the liability. I might be wrong about that though.
@SamuraiMunky
I definitely find Varolz to be much stronger against the meta (and in abstract) than Skullbriar. It has more broken stuff, more removal/disruption, and a faster kill. What's not to like?
1 drop mana sources are for overall extra mana, not for a turn 2 Varolz. Unless I have an elf out for regeneration purposes, I usually don't even want to play turn 2 Varolz, since getting him killed in that situation is just horrible. This deck is good at using all of its mana every turn, and the extra 1 mana every turn is huge.
Lotus Petal doesn't work here, too much of a one-shot deal. Elvish Spirit Guide is similar, and is somewhat borderline in terms of playability, but ends up being much better because it's a creature and because of the surprise factor (protection from Force Spike is hilarious when it comes up, and wins games). I don't think I'd play 2 Spirit Guides if I could though, and Lotus Petal is much worse.
Joraga Treespeaker is too clunky. It's more of a 2 drop than a 1 drop, since even if I successfully level it up on turn 2 there are not very many cards I can cast for 2 green mana. This deck is much more interested in having 3 mana on turn 2 than 5 mana on turn 3. Don't get me wrong, I still like having turn 2 Varolz very much, I just want to do it with another creature in play.
Gyre Sage is an interesting option I hadn't considered. I think it's not good enough, but it's kind of cool. The problem is that it does nothing initially, and it's not like I have a lot of creatures to evolve it. I can get it up 1 counter pretty reliably (though it's bad at that point). It probably won't grow any more unless I scavenge something smallish onto it, and I don't particularly want to have to do that. I don't need it to make a ton of mana, just one or two. Like Lotus Cobra, Gyre Sage can't always be relied upon to even make one mana when I need it, which makes it not good enough.
I have thought about Priest of Titania. It's quite similar to Bloom Tender, but I think that Bloom Tender plays much better. Not only is it somewhat more consistent at making 2 mana (just because of Varolz), but I like to mull away all but the first mana elf. I don't want a hand with a bunch of them, because those hands tend to not have enough business spells to have a plan. So in the hands with more than one elf, where you'd expect Priest of Titania to be good, I'd want to mull it away more often than not, because I probably need extra cards more than I need a bunch of mana. Also, making GB is a lot more useful than making GG most of the time.
@Jibux
Hmm. While GSZ for Deathrite Shaman or Birds of Paradise is quite a bit worse than just playing Bloom Tender, it is true that GSZ for Dryad Arbor is still another 1 drop mana dork, and that certainly beats Bloom Tender when it comes up. I'm loathe to lean on Dryad Arbor too hard, since I really do like being able to access a creature via fetchlands (this is relevant often), but I have to admit that I think you're right and GSZ is probably a better "mana dork" to play. It also has added upside of course, in being able to get Bramblewood Paragon, Fauna Shaman, Viridian Corrupter, Dosan the Falling Leaf, or Thrun, the Last Troll in a pinch. That's a pretty good assortment, even if you do have to pay a premium.
Playing GSZ again makes me want to consider trying out Sylvan Safekeeper again too. Even though you can't lean on him when you're going for the win (shroud fizzles scavenge too, so sad), he still helps you set up and maintain favorable board states, and to protect key creatures like Dosan and Fauna Shaman. I'm concerned with keeping my creature count up too, since I lost a few in the last round of changes. I think I'm going to give him and GSZ another chance and see how that plays.
Oxidize is definitely better than Krosan Grip in my opinion. 3 mana is huuuuuuuge. That's a whole turn with this deck, a whole turn you spent doing nothing but answering your opponent's threat. That's not how we want to be playing. 1 mana instants are practically free, since you can slip them in when you have an extra mana laying around anyway, and that gives you much more flexibility. In terms of the tempo cost, the comparison is more like Oxidize + Time Walk vs Krosan Grip. I'm being serious. I'm not 100% yet on whether Oxidize is good enough, but at least the price is right. I'm confident that Krosan Grip is much worse in this list: I'm even somewhat close to cutting Beast Within, Maelstrom Pulse, and Putrefy, because 3 mana for removal is so much, and those cards are all much more versatile.
Emerald Charm is a piece of crap by the way. What enchantments are you concerned about exactly? I can't think of any that see play and actually prevent us from winning, while there are a few very dangerous artifacts running around. Though Pithing Needle isn't nearly as troublesome as I used to think it was, Spellskite is still public enemy number one and sees plenty of play. If you don't have an answer close to hand, you durdle for a bunch of turns unable to do anything relevant, and you tend to lose those games. Umezawa's Jitte can also be incredibly annoying and dangerous if you give them a window to get it going, sees plenty of play, and you can lose games you were dominating just to Jitte if you can't handle it in time. There are also plenty of other annoying artifacts, like Sword of Feast and Famine and Skullclamp, and in a pinch most decks at least have mana rocks you can trade with it. I consider artifact removal to be pretty crucial, but I don't feel any need for extra enchantment removal at all.
From the OP:
Quote from Khymera »
Try to keep hands with a plan. Ideally, you want to have a big creature or a way to get one, or a source of card advantage like Phyrexian Arena. Sometimes it’s important to have at least one removal spell, as against Zur. One mana elf is a big benefit, but extras can usually be mulled away. This deck can operate on few lands, so I’ll usually go down to just 2 (sometimes 1 and a mana elf) if I’m mulling away a bunch of cards. Just be wary about keeping a hand with some land, an elf, a couple removal spells, a Tarmogoyf…it looks good at a glance, but hands like that have the potential to not actually do anything. You can’t always get it, but you really want a hand with a plan, if possible.
This is still true. The hand you outlined (3 lands, spot removal, Duress, Nature's Claim, Scavenging Ooze) is a textbook hand with no plan, and a clear mull. Exactly what you mull depends a bit on the matchup (i.e., I'd keep the spot removal if playing against Zur) but against most decks I'd keep one of the lands from that hand and mull everything else. Digging deep like that is likely to yield at least 1 other land, and hopefully a little more action. Even though you're throwing back some nice ones like Duress, you need to go that deep to maximize your chance of a hand with a plan. It's extremely important. That first hand won't win many games, but your chances of digging into something more relevant are still quite high.
On the other hand, turn 2 Phyrexian Arena is alright by me. I'm reasonably satisfied with a hand like that (especially on the play), since even though you don't have a plan yet, it only takes 1 good draw to change that, and with twice as many draws your odds of getting there in time are reasonably high. I would still strongly consider mulling away the other cards (i.e., keep Arena, a mana dork, and probably 1 land, and mull away everything else if it doesn't seem like it's going to get you there. That maximizes your chance of drawing something good enough in time, and you'll most likely hit the 2nd land you need. If you don't, you can always mull again for another chance, and you probably still won't be any worse off than if you hadn't mulled, if you didn't have action to begin with).
TLDR: As I said in the OP, try really hard to not keep hands without a plan. I would basically never keep a 7 card hand like that. Occasionally you might not get there on a mull, and have to keep a relatively do-nothing 6 or 5 card hand and need to get lucky, but overall I think your odds of winning are greatly improved by mulling aggressively to find a hand with a plan.
Let's do a few sample hands, just as evidence. Let's imagine we're playing against Animar, where if you don't have a plan from the get-go you're very likely to be too slow. I'm just drawing these hands in Cockatrice right now and walking you through my thought process.
Hand 1:
Overgrown Tomb, Swamp, Tree of Tales, Cabal Pit, Dryad Arbor, Go for the Throat, Phyrexian Dreadnought.
This is yucky. Dreadnought is good, but this is slow, with too many lands, and GftT isn't particularly good against Animar. Keep Overgrown Tomb and Dreadnought, mull the rest. Draw Gilt-Leaf Palace, Abyssal Persecutor, Demonic Tutor, Putrefy. We're getting a little closer, but Abyssal Persecutor and Putrefy are still pretty bad here. I would mull them here. I drew Oxidize. That's actually not bad at all against Animar, since it interrupts the key combo for 1 mana by sniping Phyrexian Metamorph, and it also handles Spellskite, which is the only relevant roadblock we might have to contend with.
Final Hand: Overgrown Tomb, Gilt-Leaf Palace, Demonic Tutor, Phyrexian Dreadnought, Oxidize.
Verdict: Surprisingly good. Demonic Tutor can always get Inkmoth Nexus, and that represents a likely turn 4 kill even without a mana elf or anything. We even have disruption if he has a very fast hand or a Spellskite, and the versatility to tutor for Liliana or whatever if the situation calls for it.
Hand 2:
Bloodstained Mire, Twilight Mire, Birds of Paradise, Fyndhorn Elves, Dark Confidant, Dosan the Falling Leaf, Abrupt Decay
Not awful, but not great either. Since Dosan and Abrupt Decay aren't great here, I'll keep Bloodstained Mire, Birds of Paradise, Dark Confidant (as a hedge) and mull the rest. Even if I draw total blanks, those 3 are still a reasonable start. I draw Gilt-Leaf Palace, Seal of Primordium, and Dark Ritual. I'd probably stop there.
Final Hand: Bloodstained Mire, Gilt-Leaf Palace, Birds of Paradise, Dark Confidant, Seal of Primordium, Dark Ritual
Verdict: Though I don't love it, this hand is fine. Turn 1 Birds, turn 2 Confidant, and Seal of Primordium is likely to buy enough time for Bob to dig us into something relevant.
Hand 3:
Wooded Foothills, Polluted Delta, Reflecting Pool, Dryad Arbor, Boreal Druid, Scavenging Ooze, Night's Whisper
Too much mana again. I like the Druid and the Night's Whisper, and don't mind passing on the rest. Keep Polluted Delta, Boreal Druid, Night's Whisper, mull the rest. Draw Cavern of Souls, Elvish Mystic, Buried Alive. Works for me.
Final Hand: Polluted Delta, Cavern of Souls, Elvish Mystic, Boreal Druid, Night's Whisper, Buried Alive
Verdict: Very nice. Buried Alive is basically plan in a can, it does everything you need by itself given enough mana. This hand goes turn 1 Elf, turn 2 Night's Whisper + other elf, turn 3 is probably Varolz + whatever else I've drawn, and turn 4 we win with Buried Alive. Can't ask for much better than that, though this hand is potentially weak to an early Spellskite if we don't draw removal.
Hand 4:
Snow-Covered Forest, Woodland Cemetary, Twilight Mire, Dryad Arbor, Dosan the Falling Leaf, Buried Alive, Oxidize
Another mana heavy hand. This one's tricky. Buried Alive is great, but it may be too slow in a hand like this. However, it's dangerous to mull away most of the lands again, because Buried Alive really wants you to have at least 4, preferably 5 mana, and getting stuck at 2 would be sure death. I could see playing this one in multiple ways, but since Oxidize really is a nice surprise against Animar, I feel like I'd rather risk a slightly slower game and play it safe than to try to mull and risk getting manascrewed. Dosan doesn't do very much against Animar though, so I would like to get rid of that if possible. I think I'd probably mull just Dosan and Dryad Arbor, since Dosan is fairly dead anyway and most cards would be equivalent or better to Dryad Arbor here. I draw Worldly Tutor, so that's nice.
Final Hand: Snow-Covered Forest, Woodland Cemetary, Twilight Mire, Worldly Tutor, Buried Alive, Oxidize.
Verdict: A little slow to kill, but I'm happy with this one. Since Animar has very little removal and I already have a plan to kill, I'd probably turn 1 Worldly Tutor for Dark Confidant, to help me make my land drops and just see more cards. Then probably turn 3 Varolz, turn 4 do whatever but make sure to keep Oxidize up, and hopefully turn 5 win with Buried Alive.
Hand 5:
Windswept Heath, Woodland Cemetery, Centaur Garden, Vault of Whispers, Worldly Tutor, Sign in Blood, Devour in Shadow
I feel like I'm getting way more 4 land hands than usual (and less elves) but so it goes. This hand is okay. Worldly Tutor is at least part way to a plan, since it represents a Dreadnought at the very least. We still need more against Animar, but it's a good start. Devour in Shadow isn't great against Animar. I want to ensure enough lands to cast Sign in Blood, so I'd keep Windswept Heath, Woodland Cemetery, Sign in Blood, and Worldly Tutor, and mull the rest. Draw Victim of Night and Plague Stinger. That's fine by me.
Final Hand: Windswept Health, Woodland Cemetery, Worldly Tutor, Sign in Blood, Plague Stinger, Victim of Night.
Verdict: A nice hand. We have a plan, even if the details aren't totally clear yet. I'd probably not use the Worldly Tutor on turn 1, and see what our draw step and Sign in Blood brings. The sequencing after that is highly variable, but basically we want to get Plague Stinger down on turn 3 or 4, then set up an eot Wordly Tutor so that we can play Varolz, Dreadnought, and scavenge onto Plague Stinger for the win on turn 5. We even have removal for Spellskite or as necessary disruption in a pinch.
So there are 5 random (and not particularly good) starting hands. Through mulliganing aggressively, I feel like every one of those starting hands was able to get a point where we have a good chance of beating an typical (or even a good) draw from Animar, the deck we have to be most one-dimensional against.
I feel like developing a sense of how to mulligan this deck properly might actually be the single most important aspect of piloting it successfully. Of those sample hands, I think only hand 4 had a realistic shot at beating Animar with the initial 7, but through mulliganing they all became good enough (in my estimation). That's typical of my experience playing this deck--it's very rare that I have to keep a hand with no plan. I can't say it doesn't happen, but it probably only happens in something like 2% of my games, and in those cases I've usually gone to 5 or even 4 cards and just gotten unlucky.
Does that make sense? Any questions? I'm happy to answer questions of how I would mulligan certain hands against particular opponents.
There are a lot of enchantments I'm concerned about (sylvan library, survival, oath of druid, earthcraft, food chain if prossh becomes a thing), and most artifacts i don t care about (except jitte, birthing pod, and spellskite). Maybe we could play naturalize, to find a middle ground?
Those enchantments...eh. Sure, they're good, but they're not in the same class as Spellskite or Umezawa's Jitte with 2 counters, where you literally cannot win without dealing with that card first. None of those enchantments shut you down, and though they're very powerful, you can still go over the top and win with them on the board, even if they've been sitting around for a few turns. We do have several pieces of enchantment removal in the deck, and if we have one at the right time that's great, but we don't NEED to deal with these cards. Even Oath of Druids (which is the only one that directly affects how we play, and is thus the most annoying) can be completely circumvented by using Inkmoth Nexus and not playing Varolz until the turn you kill. Even though the enchantments are powerful, to be sure, the artifacts are more crushing against this deck.
I don't particularly like Naturalize here, though it's not the worst. It sounds like a piddling difference, but 2 mana is still a lot! It costs twice as much as Oxidize! Having removal up the exact moment you need it is so important, and it's way easier to do the things we need to be doing and still keep 1 mana up than to keep 2 up. With Naturalize, we'd run into a lot more decisions where we have to choose between advancing our game plan or keeping removal up, and the difference between victory and defeat frequently hinges on those decisions. Sometimes you just need both, and you can't do that as well with Naturalize. Did you notice how well Oxidize fit in those hands vs Animar? Naturalize would have been a lot less impressive, since having to keep 2 mana up every turn he might go off is a lot more burdensome. I can get behind Seal of Primordium, even though it's not as tricky, because not needing to keep any mana up is still really nice. Stuff like Putrefy and Beast Within is borderline, but are staying for now because they're so versatile that they have a relevant target much more frequently. Again, Naturalize wouldn't be the worst, but Oxidize is much more powerful when it does its thing, and I've yet to draw Oxidize and wish it could destroy enchantments (though I'll keep an eye on how often that comes up).
I like the idea of Lifebane Zombie quite a bit and would love to be able to play it, even though it's probably worse in the latest list than previous versions, since I'm less aggro than ever. 3/1 evasion is just not too relevant, though it does have a decent scavenge rate and I want to play more creatures. I didn't test it because I think that the odds of hitting a relevant creature (or any creature) are quite low overall, but you make a good point that even just the information gained is very valuable in this deck. I'd definitely play Gitaxian Probe if I could, and even if it's not free, it still might just be worthwhile when attached to a creature (though I'm not sure it would play any better than Distress, which did not play well at all). My gut says that this isn't enough value for 3 mana (if it was a 1 mana 1/1, I would play it) but I wouldn't fault you for trying it. I might try it myself at some point. I would like it to be good!
@kvcsmrtn: Look at my posts on page 5. I've already justified all the changes I've ever made in this list in great detail. I can already say that I'll be replacing Bloom Tender with Green Sun's Zenith in the next update, but beyond that I'm not sure yet.
@DaniekK
Griselbrand is one of the harder matchups (lots of removal, and if Griselbrand stays on the board for any length of time it's hard to win), but it's still been at least 60-40 or so in my testing, if not a little better. Luck probably plays a bigger factor in this matchup than in most, since so much depends on whether they can get Griselbrand out fast, how much relevant removal they have, and whether you have the kill when they tap out.
It sounds to me like the version you played against was particularly annoying (I haven't seen anyone play Leyline of the Void in years, and it's not something I routinely worry about). Even against all that though, you still won the match, so I can't see things being too bad. Clearly this deck has the tools to beat Griselbrand. I'm surprised you weren't happy with Oxidize, it's fantastic against Griselbrand in my experience. Hitting a Worn Powerstone or a Gilded Lotus is a huge set-back for most of his hands, and buys us a ton of time. I've never seen a Griselbrand deck that didn't play far more artifacts than enchantments.
I've thought about playing another hexproof creature, but realistically Thrun has been enough for me. He's hard to kill, and if you play him you don't need more. I think the next best card like this to play would be Silhana Ledgewalker, since it's cheap and evasive (Infest doesn't see nearly enough play to make me worry about that). The problem with anything but Thrun is they're so irrelevant when you don't scavenge onto them though, and you usually don't want to scavenge there. So they're relatively dead draws in most matches, and that is NOT what I want to be playing. The other creatures just lack the necessary oomph and aren't even all around good in the matchups you want them for--Witchstalker is weak to counterspells, which excludes it right away. Great Sable Stag is a little better, but does nothing against the oh-so-common white removal, and doesn't work with Death's Shadow either. Troll Ascetic is counterable and just doesn't do enough.
Dense Foliage is like a really bad City of Solitude in this deck, and City of Solitude wasn't good enough.
@Theswitch31
Animar isn't the worst opponent, though if you're playable against a tuned list with your budget version I can certainly see how you'd struggle. If you play against Animar a lot I'd definitely include Lignify and Beast Within, but beyond that there's not a lot else you can do except mulligan intelligently and win faster. I doubt that Damnation or Hex Parasite are going to help you fight Animar effectively. A good Animar list will roll you right through them. Cutting the 3cc removal is reasonable. I find myself mulling that stuff from my opening hand frequently, which is an ominous sign for any card staying in the deck. I still like Fleshbag Marauder, because sometimes you just need removal on a creature so you can tutor for it more easily. The 3/1 body is marginal, I must admit, especially with the latest changes. I could see cutting it if you want to.
I don't like Ghastly Demise partly because it can be dead early game, but mostly because it can't kill black creatures. It's super important to me that all my removal can kill Zur. If you never play against Zur, I guess Ghastly Demise is fine, but otherwise I wouldn't recommend it. Also, I'd play Snuff Out and Slaughter Pact first, those are better.
@Jibux
Cool! I can see that approach being good, though the tough part is fitting in enough good creatures to make Boneyard Wurm and Splinterfright live without just degenerating into typical aggro deck, albeit with a little more punch. It sounds interesting, though I don't like that approach better than mine (he must play a lot less removal, which would make the Zur matchup really tough). Still very interested in seeing the list, maybe your friend can obtain it?
Sorry for the lack of activity. I haven't had time to play more than a couple of games in the last month or more.
I agree with GSZ over Bloom Tender and Eternal Witness over Beast Within. Grim Tutor is slightly better than Beseech the Queen, but Beseech is only marginally worse and is obviously much more attainable.
I'm a bit leery of adding extraneous colorless lands, and I'm not sure we really need Tectonic Edge. It's not all that relevant in terms of disruption, since by the time we can use it, we're hopefully close to winning. It's obviously not bad, but I've been very happy with Tarnished Citadel. It's not 3 life a turn, it's more like 3 life once or twice a game, if you're unlucky. I've never had to pay more than 6 life in a game, and never lost a game because of damage from the Citadel. I think that I probably take more damage from City of Brass, on average, in a typical game than from Tarnished Citadel. If the mana is so good that we can afford to cut a dual land for a colorless land, then sure, this switch is good, but I don't think the mana is that good. And I think I'd sooner cut Vault of Whispers or Centaur Garden than Tarnished Citadel, if I did want to change a land.
I've thought about Silhana Ledgewalker a lot, though I never actually tried it. Every time I draw Plague Stinger though, I think about whether I'd rather it was Ledgewalker, and the answer is almost always no. When Stinger is good, it wins the game and is much better. When it's bad, Ledgewalker would usually be equally bad. I'm concerned that Ledgewalker encourages you to go all in on Ledgewalker in situations where you don't necessarily need to, making you risk wraths and whatnot. The evasion just isn't reliable enough to ensure that many decks can't chump it either. I may be wrong though, and I'd like to hear people's experiences with it.
Did you try Sylvan Tutor? I explained earlier why in theory I hate it in this deck, but it's possible that the cost/power ratio is still enough to make it good. It could work.
Sad that Lotus Bloom didn't work out. I thought that one was a great idea, and was planning on testing it. Are you sure it's terrible? I could easily see it being better than Mox Diamond (which is a card I want to cut).
I go back and forth on Tainted Pact. While I hate what it does to the manabase, the card is just so powerful that it's not hard to set up situations where you just win with it. I feel like it's probably won me more games than the wonky mana has lost me, though I must admit that having a kill with Brawn, but no forest is the worst feeling in the world, and has happened to me a couple of times. It may be time to try adding like 2 more basics (probably Forest/Snow-Covered Forest) and trying to run the odds again. Statistically I suspect that's correct, I'm just hesitant because every single time it's been possible for Tainted Pact to fizzle on me, it's fizzled on me. With 2 more Forests we might be able to play Arbor Elf again too, which would be nice.
I'm surprised you found Geist of St Traft to be so tough. I've played against it on Cockatrice 6 or 7 times, and I've never lost a match against it. I consequently consider it to be quite a good matchup. We have a few edicts and a bunch of tutors, and he's really not hard to block at all. If you have any mana dorks or other expendable creatures out, you can always just block with Varolz and regen. You have to be very careful about stuff like equipment, but I've frequently been able to achieve blowouts against Geist by doing something like destroying his equipment after he attacks, and ambushing him with Varolz. We can interact with Geist more than most decks I can think of.
In most of my games, I kill Geist once or maybe twice and kind of stonewall him with Varolz if necessary. If they tap out, they risk getting obliterated by Varolz, and if they play it safe, I do too, and slowly rip apart their hand until I know the coast is clear. We have way more sources of repetitive card advantage than they do, and this is one match where the longer the game goes, the more likely we are to win. I really don't feel that it's a bad matchup at all (Zur is still the one I struggle with by far the most, despite tuning my removal package around him).
Be careful with Gaea's Cradle, DanieLegend. I wish I could play it, but I just don't think we have enough creatures. When it's good it's decent, but when it's bad it's SO BAD that it's very hard for me to justify. Also, I used to play a hexproof package (Swiftfoot Boots, Vines of Vastwood, Ranger's Guile). It wasn't great. It turns out you really don't need them, even against removal heavy decks, and they just wind up diluting the deck. The better you get at piloting this deck, the less you want them.
In terms of Theros additions, there's unfortunately not much for this deck, but I think Read the Bones and Hero's Downfall both are worth testing, and will probably make the cut over something. Read the Bones is probably worse than Sign in Blood, but it still digs pretty deep, and is not something I'd be unhappy to be casting. Hero's Downfall is boring, but probably good enough, given that we're still playing some 3cc removal and that this deck can be a little soft to planeswalkers, since we often lack sturdy attackers. I just wish we had a couple of good 1 mana cards instead of more 3s.
I might've counted wrong, idk, but I think the deck only has 99...
And the land count, is the total 37 with or WITHOUT Dryad Arbor? (Don't mean to be picky or anything, I'm just adhd and dyslexic not a good combo for a 17yearold)
Can Chain of Smog be added as one of the discard spells? If any opponent is familiar with the combo, I'm sure they wouldn't want to risk launching the spell back and risk discarding another 2 cards, so it's almost always "1B discard 2". As the aggressor, especially against control it seems really good since they can't function in topdeck mode as well.
pack rat actually isnt bad, you have to play it correctly but a lot of time you just convert your strategy to the pack rat plan and kill them in two or 3 turns without any way for them to answer it unless they have a wrath.
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Discard, especially Duress effects, are very good against Blue as a whole. Every time you cast one, they are going to lose a card regardless of whether they counter it or not.
Green is the enemy of Blue, and some good hosers to add are Choke, Carpet of Flowers, and Tsunami.
As long as you can Resolve Varolz on turn two, you should be fine since everything else you do to win- Inkmoth Nexus, and scavenging- cant be stopped withcounterspells. Just beware of bounce and spot removal... See OP for strategies against that.
Anyone still playing this deck? I just built it after the Zur banning and have played a couple of small tournaments to good success so far. Today I played three matches, won all three in two games each. Out of the six games I had three turn 3 kills, and no kill was later than turn 5 or 6, I think. Here's my list:
It's pretty similar to the list in the first post, modulo a couple of cards I don't own (like Chrome Mox, or Twilight Mire). The two-of basic lands haven't given me trouble yet. I can usually fetch at least one of the copies.
Any recent developments from more experienced pilots?
Hey guys I've been looking at this deck for a while and it looks way more fun than most duel commander decks. I'm going to wonder com in a few weeks to play in their Swiss tourney and wanted some advice. I can put this whole deck together minus most of the fetch lands but how important do you think it is to have all of the fetch lands? Also any changes I should make since I have no idea who I'll be playing against? Thanks for any help!
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I've done some matches with a close copy of this deck:
vs Marath:
First game i manage to stonewall his creatures with varolz and some removal. he dropped a scavenging ooze, and i used priority carefully to scavenge onto varolz 13 tokens and attacked for a win with general damage.
Second game went like chrome mox(exiling liliana), thoughtseize, land, elf. he had no removal or relevant creature in hand. second turn land, death's shadow and varolz. third turn scavenge and berserk for the win. it felt unfair.
vs Ezuri
First game win, drew everything that i needed and his deck is light on removal, so i went in with all i had without much preoccupation.
Second game he wins due to not finding a third mana source or any relevant threat.
Third game he got me with a +1/+1 on his blightsteel colossus on about turn 5, i had a 2/2 blocker and lethal next turn on board.
vs Thraximundar
first game was a joke to magic. land, dark ritual into liliana. from there on i just discarded and made him sac half of his land whenever i could.
second game i decided to risk on ad nauseam to try and close the game the same turn (as he was tapped out) and failed.
third game i just went under a massive streak of edict effects and kill spells on all my other creatures.
reasonings:
1 - i want more hand control. will try the new creature from journey to nyx to at least spy on my opponents' hand and include cabal therapy and hunger for brains
2 - i want more creatures to justify better the regen clause for varolz. going to try bitterblossom and gravecrawler, skullbriar as a makeshift dreadnaught, devoted druid instead of bloom tender and quillspike for the combo.
3 - more card draw. thinking of replacing drawing spells with drawing effects (skullclamp instead of sign in blood because of the commander's sinergy and the inclusion of gravecrawler above, also because most of the creatures are */1)
4 - different tutors. i wasn't satisfied by wordly tutor and i'm probably going to substitute it with summoner's pact (awesome vs tempo decks: daze->summoner's pact and exile elf spirit guide) and/or living wish (the shop lets players use a 10 card sideboard) and/or green sun's zenith (forest dryad does so much in this deck, i'm getting in also xantid swarm or sylvan safekeeper).
5 - MAZE OF ITH. seriously. all the time in the world to tutor for it and it demands to be destroyed by so many commanders.
looking for any suggestion for anything to include in the sideboard to exploit living wish: some niche creatures or lands would be perfect (probably maze of ith will find a place in here for that reason).
I've barely had any time to play recently, so haven't been actively working on this. It's about as tuned as it can get anyway I think, though I think Varolz isn't as good as he used to be since the printing of Marath. There was a time where I think this deck was arguably tier 1...it still beats most things, but it's enough of an underdog to Marath that I think it would be at a significant disadvantage in a tournament situation now.
I was messing around with a more aggressive build with multiple infect creatures and less removal after Zur was banned. I didn't really like it, but I did learn some things, and a few of the infect creatures are versatile enough to have earned their place even without quite so much emphasis on them.
From my prior list, I think the most recent deck I've been using is:
Basically I just trimmed some fat and some removal. All of those cards are good, but frequently turned out to be unnecessary. They don't synergize particularly well with Plan A, and they're not strong enough to win games by themselves. I tried to add a little more punch.
Plague Myr is usually just a bad elf...but even a bad elf is decent in this deck, and this one demands a bit of respect. If I have it in play, my opponent can't feel safe tapping out. They either have to respect it and play suboptimally, or risk just outright losing. I've won several games this way. Similarly, Necropede is so unassuming but has really impressed me in this deck. It's cheap and just always seems to be relevant in some way. If they have no blockers, it represents a legitimate threat. If they do have blockers, it usually functions as removal (in conjunction with Varolz). It has enough impact on any board state that I've liked having it around. Whispering Specter is a new addition but I think it will be pretty good. It should play like Plague Stinger most of the time, but with much more versatility in that a small scavenge allows it to wreck someone's hand when I can't kill with it.
Brain Maggot is great. Though a little worse than Mesmeric Fiend, Fiend is an all-star and I'm happy to have 2. Phyrexian Revoker finally made the cut because I wanted something that could stop Marath, but it's just a generally solid card in many situations. Mindslicer is back in for now--it's not always the greatest, but the power of this card cannot be denied, and it sometimes wins games I have no business winning. I still hate Sylvan Tutor for the timing awkwardness, but the price is right and fundamentally it does what this deck needs. Toxic Deluge is another card that's kind of iffy sometimes, but it opens up a lot of gameplans that we just don't otherwise have access to. If it's in your opener you can usually make it good. And having it in your deck sometimes lets you come back when you'd otherwise be dead for sure.
Buddha--funny that you won against our worst matchup, and lost a couple that ought to be easier. Oh well. I like your general goals, but would don't agree with your proposed implementation.
1) Discard is very important, yes. I was playing Distress again recently (but it's not great). I've also played Cabal Therapy in the past and didn't really have success with it. In theory if you have enough other sources of targeted discard it should be good but I could never reach that point. Hunger for Brains seems bad, all the cards I care about are 3 mana or less. Brain Maggot is good though!
2) I like Bitterblossom but could never really make it worthwhile. All it did was produce sacrifice fodder, since you'll never beat a legitimate deck with faerie aggro. It gets a lot more interesting if you can make Skullclamp work, but I could never do that either (believe me, I've tried). Devoted Druid seems ok but a bit underpowered. Quillspike can't possibly be worthwhile, it's just way too narrow. Gravecrawler also seems horrible...I play 0 zombies!
3) There's probably a way to build this deck that lets you use Skullclamp and Gaea's Cradle and maybe Gravecrawler. I wish I could find it. I think what I have might be better though. I would definitely not cut Sign in Blood, that card is great. The problem with Skullclamp, at least in my build, is that none of the creatures are really expendable. In order to make Skullclamp good, I'd have to play a bunch of cards that are pretty bad unless I draw Skullclamp, and this deck doesn't have a particularly easy time finding the clamp.
4) Don't cut Worldly Tutor, that card is amazing. I almost always win immediately after casting it (you can ambush someone with the instant speed). I'm even playing Sylvan Tutor now, and that card is much much worse. Summoner's Pact is horrible in comparison: it doesn't get Death's Shadow or Phyrexian Dreadnought, which is what I'm tutoring for 99% of the time. That upkeep cost will kill you too. Living Wish isn't legal with the real rules. GSZ you should play. Sylvan Safekeeper is underwhelming since it doesn't work how we'd like with scavenge. Xantid Swarm does almost nothing here, all the spells I'm afraid of happen before attacking.
5) Why Maze of Ith? None of the deck I'm afraid of win by racing me. Maze just slows you down, land drops are precious. We don't want to be interacting on that level.
Thanks for the reply, i will use the feedback for sure (to be honest i've been lurking here long enough even before building the deck, so it's not like i played many matches yet with varolz).
the infect creatures idea is nice to be honest, whispering specter was in my maybeboard for a while now, i'll try him for sure. why not phyrexian crusader though? i'd go with him before the artifact infecters for sure (besides mabye plague myr).
glad to see you let go of abyssal persecutor, that eases me in removing it too. same with the ooze.
i included cabal therapy and i used it so far to take a peek at opponent's hand. if he had anything i didn't like, i flashbacked it on the spot. hunger (and despise) are there just to see if you are all clear for the 1 hit ko, i would go as far as use gitaxian probe if i could just for that.
i haven't got my list on hand right now, but i use also skullbriar as a makeshift dreadnaught (and a nice turn 1 attacker if we happen to find fast mana). varolz is a zombie too, so my reasoning behind gravecrawler is to keep sacrificing him for varolz regen, and including mutavault possibly for this reason only. if skullclamp doesn't work out for me i'll probably get it out with gravecrawler, bloodghast and bitterblossom. i still have to see a game when i don't have a field full of elves by turn 5, but i might have been lucky in that so far.
wordly tutor stays in. i didn't read it was an instant when i read it (damn foreign cards ^^). i'm still looking weirdly at demonic consultation though...
and the shop where i play organizes tournaments based on duel commander rules with a 10 card sideboard, so considering this possibility, i think this warrants the use of living wish instead of filling the sideboard with cards i wouldn't know what to get out for.
I tried Phyrexian Crusader for a while. He wasn't very good. The protections aren't all that relevant, and 3 mana is a lot more than 2 in this deck. Necropede is cheaper, more versatile, and kills them just as dead when scavenged upon. Whispering Specter gets a pass (for now) despite costing 3 because evasion is a big deal.
Your rationale for Cabal Therapy is solid. A big issue I've always run into is that the mana elves and whatnot are not very expendable, so I don't often have a creature I'm ok with sacrificing. If you're about to win though, that's another story. It wasn't very good when I tried it but it's possible it deserves a second chance. Don't play Hunger for Brains and Despise for that purpose. It's not worth it. The cards we care about are removal spells that those can't take. It doesn't help us that much to see that they have it if there's nothing we can do about it. It's good to know, don't get me wrong, but that's not worth a card. I would love to play Gitaxian Probe, but that card cantrips, so it doesn't cost you a card. That's a whole different situation.
I don't get what you mean by Skullbriar as "makeshift dreadnought." It doesn't seem good in this deck at all. You can scavenge onto him...but we can't really bring him back when he dies, so keeping those counters on doesn't help. And he doesn't scavenge well--he'll only give 1 counter, no matter how many are on him. He's nothing like a dreadnought.
Do you have a foreign Varolz too? He's definitely not a zombie. He's a Troll Warrior. Gravecrawler is not workable. I've had many many games where I don't have a field of excess elves (I'll also mulligan away excess if I can). Mana is often the limiting factor in whether I can win or not, so I find that I generally need those elves around until the turn I win. Spending mana to reduce my mana on subsequent turns (even if it does draw a couple cards) is a risky proposition.
Demonic Consultation is tempting but too risky. It works in Iname because you can safely name Swamp and have it at least be a live card in all situations. In Varolz, there's going to be a very real chance of just flat-out losing every single time you cast the spell. That means in all the games you look to be winning, you shouldn't cast it at all and it's a dead draw. It's better just to play something more universally useful.
I don't like sideboard play but just play a few wish targets and as many hosers as you can. Off the top of head, I'd probably include Dust Bowl, Gaea's Cradle, Shriekmaw, Great Sable Stag, Phyrexian Crusader, Engineered Plague, Grave Pact, Choke, Tsunami, Gloom. If I'm forgetting any good color-hosers (probably am), play those too.
nah, i always considered varolz a grown up lotleth troll, there's why i was convinced he was a zombie warrior.
as for skullbriar, counters modify power and thoughness of cards even in the graveyard, i'm quite in a hurry and can't find the exact ruling, but here's a relevant link on that: http://magicjudge.tumblr.com/post/48933956558/if-i-use-varolz-to-scavenge-skullbriar-its-always-just
and from the gatherer page: "Counters that adjust power and/or toughness affect Skullbriar's power and/or toughness in zones other than the battlefield. For example, a Skullbriar in the command zone with a +1/+1 counter on it will be 2/2."
by your reasoning on infect creatures, i'll surely try tainted strike too.
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I'm been messing around with the following changes:
- City of Solitude
- Lotus Cobra
- Tarmogoyf
- Mindslicer
- Lignify
- Rancor
- Treetop Village
+ Bloom Tender
+ Grasp of Darkness
+ Diabolic Edict
+ Devour in Shadow
+ Beast Within
+ Oxidize
+ Exotic Orchard
City of Solitude continued to not really pull its weight. Most of the time it was in my hand I never even wanted to cast it. I briefly tried out Defense Grid too, but it had the same problem. I simply don't need cards like this to win, and I'd rather just have something proactive to do.
Lotus Cobra simply has not performed. I'd say it makes 1 mana 50% of the time, 0 mana 40% of the time, and 2 mana 10% of the time. For a 2-drop mana dork (all I want is a mana dork), that's horrible.
Tarmogoyf might be a controversial cut, but I noticed that it just wasn't a factor in most games I play. I frequently mulligan it, because it doesn't do anything particularly relevant in most hands and in most matchups. The only place I actually like having it is against aggressive creature decks where it can interact favorably with most creatures; in almost every other game, it tends to be irrelevant, since it just isn't quite enough of a threat to get things done and be worth the slot. Everything else I want it to do, Thrun does much better. I haven't missed the goyf yet.
Mindslicer ended up being, indeed, a bit too cute. It's very good in some games, against some matchups, but in general it's just too narrow for a deck like this. Especially since the matchups it's good in (control) are already quite good matchups for this deck without it.
Lignify never did what I wanted it to do, and I frequently found myself wishing it was any other removal spell. I just do not like sorcery speed removal at all, and this one leaves behind an annoying blocker and can be destroyed at inopportune moments. Instant speed turns out to be much more important than getting around pro-black.
Rancor, sort of like Tarmogoyf, doesn't have enough punch since this just isn't an aggro deck. It's only really effective if I stick a big Varolz, and in those situations I'm huge favorite to win anyways. Yes, evasion is still very important there, but I have other ways to grant trample that are a lot more versatile and have more interaction with other cards in the deck. Rancor only does one thing, and while it does it pretty well, I need more than that.
Treetop Village was occasionally relevant as an attacker...but only very, very occasionally. On the other hand, coming into play tapped has screwed up my curve and given my opponent an extra turn many times. It's just not worth the opportunity cost in this deck, even though I do like how it plays against planeswalkers.
I did what I've been threatening to do for a while, and just kind of replaced all the slots I wasn't sure about with removal. It's so good against most of the tough matchups that this is generally a winning proposition. In my relatively meager testing thus far, I haven't particularly liked Beast Within (too expensive, and the token can be annoying) or Oxidize (a little too narrow, perhaps), so those additions may be short-lived. We'll see.
Bloom Tender has been relatively mediocre, but still almost strictly better than Lotus Cobra, since it always produces at least 1 mana. I really wish I just had another one drop, but there's nothing else I can use yet. I'll keep using Bloom Tender for now, it's alright.
Exotic Orchard made it in over Treetop Village since I realized it makes either green or black (though very rarely both) in almost every matchup that matters. It certainly has the potential to screw me over, and I'd be happy to replace it with another untapped colored land, but so far it's been alright and I think the card is reasonable.
I'm kind of interested in trying Hex Parasite (I feel a little weak to planeswalkers), Glistener Elf/Blight Mamba (I don't think they'll cut it in this meta, but I could see them working, and Wild Growth (another one drop, even if I can't sac it and Wasteland destroys me). I'll probably try working some of these in as new additions disappoint me.
Recent testing has been pretty exciting. In the last couple weeks or so, I think I'm (in matches) 1-0 against Jenara, 4-1 against Nin, 1-0 against Maelstrom Wanderer, 1-0 against Zur, and 1-0 against GAAIV. I can dig it.
do u want another 1 drop mana source for always having t2 varolz or for the overall extra mana?
if it's for the former, lotus petal gets you that one shot. And the latter, joraga treespeaker (running the risk of removal after paying for level up and having no t2 varolz).
have you considered gyre sage? she may prove decent over bloom tender, with slightly less initial mana production.
priest of titania? you run like 6-8 elves. she is similar to bloom tender, adds one and maybe more pending your other drops. i guess the call there would be do you run more elves vs black permanents. and how long either of those two groups stay.
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Actually I have definitely considered this myself. Krosan Grip was so slow 80% of the time. Oxidize definitely feels more appealing to me atm.
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I think this is a good choice for a tournament deck. Still something of a unknown quantity, but it definitely wins. I'm not surprised that Varolz is starting to place in France, though I'm very curious to see the list.
Berserk and obviously Dreadnought are absolutely crucial I feel, but you can get away without Grim Tutor, for sure. The card isn't even that great here. I'd try out Jarad's Orders or Beseech the Queen (if you're feeling ballsy with Ad Nauseum). Both are tutors I've played before, both are pretty solid and even superior to Grim Tutor on occasion, in their own ways. I could still see incorporating one or both into my list in the future, and I wouldn't hesitate to try them out now if you're trying to fill slots.
I have little write-ups on how to play the Zur and Animar matchups in the opening post. I haven't updated that in a while, but I still feel those assessments are accurate. I have to admit that Zur and Animar are probably the worst matchups for this deck, but that's mostly because I agree that they're the top decks in the format. They're most decks' worst matchups. I feel reasonably confident against both of these decks, even though I consider them the worst matchups. With practice I'd say we're at least 50-50 against them, if not more.
@Emether
Jibux is right, Arbor Elf would be in long before Utopia Sprawl, yet I don't think I can make it work. Trust me, I'd really like to. It's almost workable, since you can usually mull it if you don't have a forest, but that leads to a lot of unnecessary mulligans. Even though it works maybe 75% of the time, when it's bad it's SO BAD that I don't think it's worth the liability. I might be wrong about that though.
@SamuraiMunky
I definitely find Varolz to be much stronger against the meta (and in abstract) than Skullbriar. It has more broken stuff, more removal/disruption, and a faster kill. What's not to like?
1 drop mana sources are for overall extra mana, not for a turn 2 Varolz. Unless I have an elf out for regeneration purposes, I usually don't even want to play turn 2 Varolz, since getting him killed in that situation is just horrible. This deck is good at using all of its mana every turn, and the extra 1 mana every turn is huge.
Lotus Petal doesn't work here, too much of a one-shot deal. Elvish Spirit Guide is similar, and is somewhat borderline in terms of playability, but ends up being much better because it's a creature and because of the surprise factor (protection from Force Spike is hilarious when it comes up, and wins games). I don't think I'd play 2 Spirit Guides if I could though, and Lotus Petal is much worse.
Joraga Treespeaker is too clunky. It's more of a 2 drop than a 1 drop, since even if I successfully level it up on turn 2 there are not very many cards I can cast for 2 green mana. This deck is much more interested in having 3 mana on turn 2 than 5 mana on turn 3. Don't get me wrong, I still like having turn 2 Varolz very much, I just want to do it with another creature in play.
Gyre Sage is an interesting option I hadn't considered. I think it's not good enough, but it's kind of cool. The problem is that it does nothing initially, and it's not like I have a lot of creatures to evolve it. I can get it up 1 counter pretty reliably (though it's bad at that point). It probably won't grow any more unless I scavenge something smallish onto it, and I don't particularly want to have to do that. I don't need it to make a ton of mana, just one or two. Like Lotus Cobra, Gyre Sage can't always be relied upon to even make one mana when I need it, which makes it not good enough.
I have thought about Priest of Titania. It's quite similar to Bloom Tender, but I think that Bloom Tender plays much better. Not only is it somewhat more consistent at making 2 mana (just because of Varolz), but I like to mull away all but the first mana elf. I don't want a hand with a bunch of them, because those hands tend to not have enough business spells to have a plan. So in the hands with more than one elf, where you'd expect Priest of Titania to be good, I'd want to mull it away more often than not, because I probably need extra cards more than I need a bunch of mana. Also, making GB is a lot more useful than making GG most of the time.
@Jibux
Hmm. While GSZ for Deathrite Shaman or Birds of Paradise is quite a bit worse than just playing Bloom Tender, it is true that GSZ for Dryad Arbor is still another 1 drop mana dork, and that certainly beats Bloom Tender when it comes up. I'm loathe to lean on Dryad Arbor too hard, since I really do like being able to access a creature via fetchlands (this is relevant often), but I have to admit that I think you're right and GSZ is probably a better "mana dork" to play. It also has added upside of course, in being able to get Bramblewood Paragon, Fauna Shaman, Viridian Corrupter, Dosan the Falling Leaf, or Thrun, the Last Troll in a pinch. That's a pretty good assortment, even if you do have to pay a premium.
Playing GSZ again makes me want to consider trying out Sylvan Safekeeper again too. Even though you can't lean on him when you're going for the win (shroud fizzles scavenge too, so sad), he still helps you set up and maintain favorable board states, and to protect key creatures like Dosan and Fauna Shaman. I'm concerned with keeping my creature count up too, since I lost a few in the last round of changes. I think I'm going to give him and GSZ another chance and see how that plays.
Oxidize is definitely better than Krosan Grip in my opinion. 3 mana is huuuuuuuge. That's a whole turn with this deck, a whole turn you spent doing nothing but answering your opponent's threat. That's not how we want to be playing. 1 mana instants are practically free, since you can slip them in when you have an extra mana laying around anyway, and that gives you much more flexibility. In terms of the tempo cost, the comparison is more like Oxidize + Time Walk vs Krosan Grip. I'm being serious. I'm not 100% yet on whether Oxidize is good enough, but at least the price is right. I'm confident that Krosan Grip is much worse in this list: I'm even somewhat close to cutting Beast Within, Maelstrom Pulse, and Putrefy, because 3 mana for removal is so much, and those cards are all much more versatile.
Emerald Charm is a piece of crap by the way. What enchantments are you concerned about exactly? I can't think of any that see play and actually prevent us from winning, while there are a few very dangerous artifacts running around. Though Pithing Needle isn't nearly as troublesome as I used to think it was, Spellskite is still public enemy number one and sees plenty of play. If you don't have an answer close to hand, you durdle for a bunch of turns unable to do anything relevant, and you tend to lose those games. Umezawa's Jitte can also be incredibly annoying and dangerous if you give them a window to get it going, sees plenty of play, and you can lose games you were dominating just to Jitte if you can't handle it in time. There are also plenty of other annoying artifacts, like Sword of Feast and Famine and Skullclamp, and in a pinch most decks at least have mana rocks you can trade with it. I consider artifact removal to be pretty crucial, but I don't feel any need for extra enchantment removal at all.
From the OP:
This is still true. The hand you outlined (3 lands, spot removal, Duress, Nature's Claim, Scavenging Ooze) is a textbook hand with no plan, and a clear mull. Exactly what you mull depends a bit on the matchup (i.e., I'd keep the spot removal if playing against Zur) but against most decks I'd keep one of the lands from that hand and mull everything else. Digging deep like that is likely to yield at least 1 other land, and hopefully a little more action. Even though you're throwing back some nice ones like Duress, you need to go that deep to maximize your chance of a hand with a plan. It's extremely important. That first hand won't win many games, but your chances of digging into something more relevant are still quite high.
On the other hand, turn 2 Phyrexian Arena is alright by me. I'm reasonably satisfied with a hand like that (especially on the play), since even though you don't have a plan yet, it only takes 1 good draw to change that, and with twice as many draws your odds of getting there in time are reasonably high. I would still strongly consider mulling away the other cards (i.e., keep Arena, a mana dork, and probably 1 land, and mull away everything else if it doesn't seem like it's going to get you there. That maximizes your chance of drawing something good enough in time, and you'll most likely hit the 2nd land you need. If you don't, you can always mull again for another chance, and you probably still won't be any worse off than if you hadn't mulled, if you didn't have action to begin with).
TLDR: As I said in the OP, try really hard to not keep hands without a plan. I would basically never keep a 7 card hand like that. Occasionally you might not get there on a mull, and have to keep a relatively do-nothing 6 or 5 card hand and need to get lucky, but overall I think your odds of winning are greatly improved by mulling aggressively to find a hand with a plan.
Let's do a few sample hands, just as evidence. Let's imagine we're playing against Animar, where if you don't have a plan from the get-go you're very likely to be too slow. I'm just drawing these hands in Cockatrice right now and walking you through my thought process.
Hand 1:
Overgrown Tomb, Swamp, Tree of Tales, Cabal Pit, Dryad Arbor, Go for the Throat, Phyrexian Dreadnought.
This is yucky. Dreadnought is good, but this is slow, with too many lands, and GftT isn't particularly good against Animar. Keep Overgrown Tomb and Dreadnought, mull the rest. Draw Gilt-Leaf Palace, Abyssal Persecutor, Demonic Tutor, Putrefy. We're getting a little closer, but Abyssal Persecutor and Putrefy are still pretty bad here. I would mull them here. I drew Oxidize. That's actually not bad at all against Animar, since it interrupts the key combo for 1 mana by sniping Phyrexian Metamorph, and it also handles Spellskite, which is the only relevant roadblock we might have to contend with.
Final Hand: Overgrown Tomb, Gilt-Leaf Palace, Demonic Tutor, Phyrexian Dreadnought, Oxidize.
Verdict: Surprisingly good. Demonic Tutor can always get Inkmoth Nexus, and that represents a likely turn 4 kill even without a mana elf or anything. We even have disruption if he has a very fast hand or a Spellskite, and the versatility to tutor for Liliana or whatever if the situation calls for it.
Hand 2:
Bloodstained Mire, Twilight Mire, Birds of Paradise, Fyndhorn Elves, Dark Confidant, Dosan the Falling Leaf, Abrupt Decay
Not awful, but not great either. Since Dosan and Abrupt Decay aren't great here, I'll keep Bloodstained Mire, Birds of Paradise, Dark Confidant (as a hedge) and mull the rest. Even if I draw total blanks, those 3 are still a reasonable start. I draw Gilt-Leaf Palace, Seal of Primordium, and Dark Ritual. I'd probably stop there.
Final Hand: Bloodstained Mire, Gilt-Leaf Palace, Birds of Paradise, Dark Confidant, Seal of Primordium, Dark Ritual
Verdict: Though I don't love it, this hand is fine. Turn 1 Birds, turn 2 Confidant, and Seal of Primordium is likely to buy enough time for Bob to dig us into something relevant.
Hand 3:
Wooded Foothills, Polluted Delta, Reflecting Pool, Dryad Arbor, Boreal Druid, Scavenging Ooze, Night's Whisper
Too much mana again. I like the Druid and the Night's Whisper, and don't mind passing on the rest. Keep Polluted Delta, Boreal Druid, Night's Whisper, mull the rest. Draw Cavern of Souls, Elvish Mystic, Buried Alive. Works for me.
Final Hand: Polluted Delta, Cavern of Souls, Elvish Mystic, Boreal Druid, Night's Whisper, Buried Alive
Verdict: Very nice. Buried Alive is basically plan in a can, it does everything you need by itself given enough mana. This hand goes turn 1 Elf, turn 2 Night's Whisper + other elf, turn 3 is probably Varolz + whatever else I've drawn, and turn 4 we win with Buried Alive. Can't ask for much better than that, though this hand is potentially weak to an early Spellskite if we don't draw removal.
Hand 4:
Snow-Covered Forest, Woodland Cemetary, Twilight Mire, Dryad Arbor, Dosan the Falling Leaf, Buried Alive, Oxidize
Another mana heavy hand. This one's tricky. Buried Alive is great, but it may be too slow in a hand like this. However, it's dangerous to mull away most of the lands again, because Buried Alive really wants you to have at least 4, preferably 5 mana, and getting stuck at 2 would be sure death. I could see playing this one in multiple ways, but since Oxidize really is a nice surprise against Animar, I feel like I'd rather risk a slightly slower game and play it safe than to try to mull and risk getting manascrewed. Dosan doesn't do very much against Animar though, so I would like to get rid of that if possible. I think I'd probably mull just Dosan and Dryad Arbor, since Dosan is fairly dead anyway and most cards would be equivalent or better to Dryad Arbor here. I draw Worldly Tutor, so that's nice.
Final Hand: Snow-Covered Forest, Woodland Cemetary, Twilight Mire, Worldly Tutor, Buried Alive, Oxidize.
Verdict: A little slow to kill, but I'm happy with this one. Since Animar has very little removal and I already have a plan to kill, I'd probably turn 1 Worldly Tutor for Dark Confidant, to help me make my land drops and just see more cards. Then probably turn 3 Varolz, turn 4 do whatever but make sure to keep Oxidize up, and hopefully turn 5 win with Buried Alive.
Hand 5:
Windswept Heath, Woodland Cemetery, Centaur Garden, Vault of Whispers, Worldly Tutor, Sign in Blood, Devour in Shadow
I feel like I'm getting way more 4 land hands than usual (and less elves) but so it goes. This hand is okay. Worldly Tutor is at least part way to a plan, since it represents a Dreadnought at the very least. We still need more against Animar, but it's a good start. Devour in Shadow isn't great against Animar. I want to ensure enough lands to cast Sign in Blood, so I'd keep Windswept Heath, Woodland Cemetery, Sign in Blood, and Worldly Tutor, and mull the rest. Draw Victim of Night and Plague Stinger. That's fine by me.
Final Hand: Windswept Health, Woodland Cemetery, Worldly Tutor, Sign in Blood, Plague Stinger, Victim of Night.
Verdict: A nice hand. We have a plan, even if the details aren't totally clear yet. I'd probably not use the Worldly Tutor on turn 1, and see what our draw step and Sign in Blood brings. The sequencing after that is highly variable, but basically we want to get Plague Stinger down on turn 3 or 4, then set up an eot Wordly Tutor so that we can play Varolz, Dreadnought, and scavenge onto Plague Stinger for the win on turn 5. We even have removal for Spellskite or as necessary disruption in a pinch.
So there are 5 random (and not particularly good) starting hands. Through mulliganing aggressively, I feel like every one of those starting hands was able to get a point where we have a good chance of beating an typical (or even a good) draw from Animar, the deck we have to be most one-dimensional against.
I feel like developing a sense of how to mulligan this deck properly might actually be the single most important aspect of piloting it successfully. Of those sample hands, I think only hand 4 had a realistic shot at beating Animar with the initial 7, but through mulliganing they all became good enough (in my estimation). That's typical of my experience playing this deck--it's very rare that I have to keep a hand with no plan. I can't say it doesn't happen, but it probably only happens in something like 2% of my games, and in those cases I've usually gone to 5 or even 4 cards and just gotten unlucky.
Does that make sense? Any questions? I'm happy to answer questions of how I would mulligan certain hands against particular opponents.
Those enchantments...eh. Sure, they're good, but they're not in the same class as Spellskite or Umezawa's Jitte with 2 counters, where you literally cannot win without dealing with that card first. None of those enchantments shut you down, and though they're very powerful, you can still go over the top and win with them on the board, even if they've been sitting around for a few turns. We do have several pieces of enchantment removal in the deck, and if we have one at the right time that's great, but we don't NEED to deal with these cards. Even Oath of Druids (which is the only one that directly affects how we play, and is thus the most annoying) can be completely circumvented by using Inkmoth Nexus and not playing Varolz until the turn you kill. Even though the enchantments are powerful, to be sure, the artifacts are more crushing against this deck.
I don't particularly like Naturalize here, though it's not the worst. It sounds like a piddling difference, but 2 mana is still a lot! It costs twice as much as Oxidize! Having removal up the exact moment you need it is so important, and it's way easier to do the things we need to be doing and still keep 1 mana up than to keep 2 up. With Naturalize, we'd run into a lot more decisions where we have to choose between advancing our game plan or keeping removal up, and the difference between victory and defeat frequently hinges on those decisions. Sometimes you just need both, and you can't do that as well with Naturalize. Did you notice how well Oxidize fit in those hands vs Animar? Naturalize would have been a lot less impressive, since having to keep 2 mana up every turn he might go off is a lot more burdensome. I can get behind Seal of Primordium, even though it's not as tricky, because not needing to keep any mana up is still really nice. Stuff like Putrefy and Beast Within is borderline, but are staying for now because they're so versatile that they have a relevant target much more frequently. Again, Naturalize wouldn't be the worst, but Oxidize is much more powerful when it does its thing, and I've yet to draw Oxidize and wish it could destroy enchantments (though I'll keep an eye on how often that comes up).
I like the idea of Lifebane Zombie quite a bit and would love to be able to play it, even though it's probably worse in the latest list than previous versions, since I'm less aggro than ever. 3/1 evasion is just not too relevant, though it does have a decent scavenge rate and I want to play more creatures. I didn't test it because I think that the odds of hitting a relevant creature (or any creature) are quite low overall, but you make a good point that even just the information gained is very valuable in this deck. I'd definitely play Gitaxian Probe if I could, and even if it's not free, it still might just be worthwhile when attached to a creature (though I'm not sure it would play any better than Distress, which did not play well at all). My gut says that this isn't enough value for 3 mana (if it was a 1 mana 1/1, I would play it) but I wouldn't fault you for trying it. I might try it myself at some point. I would like it to be good!
@kvcsmrtn: Look at my posts on page 5. I've already justified all the changes I've ever made in this list in great detail. I can already say that I'll be replacing Bloom Tender with Green Sun's Zenith in the next update, but beyond that I'm not sure yet.
Griselbrand is one of the harder matchups (lots of removal, and if Griselbrand stays on the board for any length of time it's hard to win), but it's still been at least 60-40 or so in my testing, if not a little better. Luck probably plays a bigger factor in this matchup than in most, since so much depends on whether they can get Griselbrand out fast, how much relevant removal they have, and whether you have the kill when they tap out.
It sounds to me like the version you played against was particularly annoying (I haven't seen anyone play Leyline of the Void in years, and it's not something I routinely worry about). Even against all that though, you still won the match, so I can't see things being too bad. Clearly this deck has the tools to beat Griselbrand. I'm surprised you weren't happy with Oxidize, it's fantastic against Griselbrand in my experience. Hitting a Worn Powerstone or a Gilded Lotus is a huge set-back for most of his hands, and buys us a ton of time. I've never seen a Griselbrand deck that didn't play far more artifacts than enchantments.
I've thought about playing another hexproof creature, but realistically Thrun has been enough for me. He's hard to kill, and if you play him you don't need more. I think the next best card like this to play would be Silhana Ledgewalker, since it's cheap and evasive (Infest doesn't see nearly enough play to make me worry about that). The problem with anything but Thrun is they're so irrelevant when you don't scavenge onto them though, and you usually don't want to scavenge there. So they're relatively dead draws in most matches, and that is NOT what I want to be playing. The other creatures just lack the necessary oomph and aren't even all around good in the matchups you want them for--Witchstalker is weak to counterspells, which excludes it right away. Great Sable Stag is a little better, but does nothing against the oh-so-common white removal, and doesn't work with Death's Shadow either. Troll Ascetic is counterable and just doesn't do enough.
Dense Foliage is like a really bad City of Solitude in this deck, and City of Solitude wasn't good enough.
@Theswitch31
Animar isn't the worst opponent, though if you're playable against a tuned list with your budget version I can certainly see how you'd struggle. If you play against Animar a lot I'd definitely include Lignify and Beast Within, but beyond that there's not a lot else you can do except mulligan intelligently and win faster. I doubt that Damnation or Hex Parasite are going to help you fight Animar effectively. A good Animar list will roll you right through them. Cutting the 3cc removal is reasonable. I find myself mulling that stuff from my opening hand frequently, which is an ominous sign for any card staying in the deck. I still like Fleshbag Marauder, because sometimes you just need removal on a creature so you can tutor for it more easily. The 3/1 body is marginal, I must admit, especially with the latest changes. I could see cutting it if you want to.
I don't like Ghastly Demise partly because it can be dead early game, but mostly because it can't kill black creatures. It's super important to me that all my removal can kill Zur. If you never play against Zur, I guess Ghastly Demise is fine, but otherwise I wouldn't recommend it. Also, I'd play Snuff Out and Slaughter Pact first, those are better.
@Jibux
Cool! I can see that approach being good, though the tough part is fitting in enough good creatures to make Boneyard Wurm and Splinterfright live without just degenerating into typical aggro deck, albeit with a little more punch. It sounds interesting, though I don't like that approach better than mine (he must play a lot less removal, which would make the Zur matchup really tough). Still very interested in seeing the list, maybe your friend can obtain it?
I agree with GSZ over Bloom Tender and Eternal Witness over Beast Within. Grim Tutor is slightly better than Beseech the Queen, but Beseech is only marginally worse and is obviously much more attainable.
I'm a bit leery of adding extraneous colorless lands, and I'm not sure we really need Tectonic Edge. It's not all that relevant in terms of disruption, since by the time we can use it, we're hopefully close to winning. It's obviously not bad, but I've been very happy with Tarnished Citadel. It's not 3 life a turn, it's more like 3 life once or twice a game, if you're unlucky. I've never had to pay more than 6 life in a game, and never lost a game because of damage from the Citadel. I think that I probably take more damage from City of Brass, on average, in a typical game than from Tarnished Citadel. If the mana is so good that we can afford to cut a dual land for a colorless land, then sure, this switch is good, but I don't think the mana is that good. And I think I'd sooner cut Vault of Whispers or Centaur Garden than Tarnished Citadel, if I did want to change a land.
I've thought about Silhana Ledgewalker a lot, though I never actually tried it. Every time I draw Plague Stinger though, I think about whether I'd rather it was Ledgewalker, and the answer is almost always no. When Stinger is good, it wins the game and is much better. When it's bad, Ledgewalker would usually be equally bad. I'm concerned that Ledgewalker encourages you to go all in on Ledgewalker in situations where you don't necessarily need to, making you risk wraths and whatnot. The evasion just isn't reliable enough to ensure that many decks can't chump it either. I may be wrong though, and I'd like to hear people's experiences with it.
Did you try Sylvan Tutor? I explained earlier why in theory I hate it in this deck, but it's possible that the cost/power ratio is still enough to make it good. It could work.
Sad that Lotus Bloom didn't work out. I thought that one was a great idea, and was planning on testing it. Are you sure it's terrible? I could easily see it being better than Mox Diamond (which is a card I want to cut).
I go back and forth on Tainted Pact. While I hate what it does to the manabase, the card is just so powerful that it's not hard to set up situations where you just win with it. I feel like it's probably won me more games than the wonky mana has lost me, though I must admit that having a kill with Brawn, but no forest is the worst feeling in the world, and has happened to me a couple of times. It may be time to try adding like 2 more basics (probably Forest/Snow-Covered Forest) and trying to run the odds again. Statistically I suspect that's correct, I'm just hesitant because every single time it's been possible for Tainted Pact to fizzle on me, it's fizzled on me. With 2 more Forests we might be able to play Arbor Elf again too, which would be nice.
I'm surprised you found Geist of St Traft to be so tough. I've played against it on Cockatrice 6 or 7 times, and I've never lost a match against it. I consequently consider it to be quite a good matchup. We have a few edicts and a bunch of tutors, and he's really not hard to block at all. If you have any mana dorks or other expendable creatures out, you can always just block with Varolz and regen. You have to be very careful about stuff like equipment, but I've frequently been able to achieve blowouts against Geist by doing something like destroying his equipment after he attacks, and ambushing him with Varolz. We can interact with Geist more than most decks I can think of.
In most of my games, I kill Geist once or maybe twice and kind of stonewall him with Varolz if necessary. If they tap out, they risk getting obliterated by Varolz, and if they play it safe, I do too, and slowly rip apart their hand until I know the coast is clear. We have way more sources of repetitive card advantage than they do, and this is one match where the longer the game goes, the more likely we are to win. I really don't feel that it's a bad matchup at all (Zur is still the one I struggle with by far the most, despite tuning my removal package around him).
Be careful with Gaea's Cradle, DanieLegend. I wish I could play it, but I just don't think we have enough creatures. When it's good it's decent, but when it's bad it's SO BAD that it's very hard for me to justify. Also, I used to play a hexproof package (Swiftfoot Boots, Vines of Vastwood, Ranger's Guile). It wasn't great. It turns out you really don't need them, even against removal heavy decks, and they just wind up diluting the deck. The better you get at piloting this deck, the less you want them.
In terms of Theros additions, there's unfortunately not much for this deck, but I think Read the Bones and Hero's Downfall both are worth testing, and will probably make the cut over something. Read the Bones is probably worse than Sign in Blood, but it still digs pretty deep, and is not something I'd be unhappy to be casting. Hero's Downfall is boring, but probably good enough, given that we're still playing some 3cc removal and that this deck can be a little soft to planeswalkers, since we often lack sturdy attackers. I just wish we had a couple of good 1 mana cards instead of more 3s.
And the land count, is the total 37 with or WITHOUT Dryad Arbor? (Don't mean to be picky or anything, I'm just adhd and dyslexic
EDH Decks:
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Tajic, Blade of the Legion
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
Purphoros, God of the Forge
Ezuri, Renegade Leader 1v1
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher 1v1
Hythonia the Cruel
Trying to build:
Jenara, Asura of War
Designing a Custom Set:
Clash of the Cultures: 5 Wedges, 5 Cultures
Providing Artwork for:
Archester: Frontier of Steam
Can Chain of Smog be added as one of the discard spells? If any opponent is familiar with the combo, I'm sure they wouldn't want to risk launching the spell back and risk discarding another 2 cards, so it's almost always "1B discard 2". As the aggressor, especially against control it seems really good since they can't function in topdeck mode as well.
Could Encroach find it's way in?
EDH Decks:
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Tajic, Blade of the Legion
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
Purphoros, God of the Forge
Ezuri, Renegade Leader 1v1
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher 1v1
Hythonia the Cruel
Trying to build:
Jenara, Asura of War
Designing a Custom Set:
Clash of the Cultures: 5 Wedges, 5 Cultures
Providing Artwork for:
Archester: Frontier of Steam
Pack Rat is terrible, particularly for this deck.
Legacy: UBRG Czech Pile, WWW Death & Taxes, many other things
Modern: UBR Grixis, RWG Burn, UR UR Storm, BBB 8 Rack, whatever other control deck I can force
Multiplayer EDH: RR Norin the Wary, UU Barrin, Master Wizard, UB Wrexial, the Risen Deep, GR Borborygmos, Enraged
Modern
No clue
RIP Twin
MTGS Olde Name:
Hruen (apparently it was taken, probably by me about 10 years ago.........)
I run a competitive 1v1 with Azusa and crucible landlock for late grindy games.
Green is the enemy of Blue, and some good hosers to add are Choke, Carpet of Flowers, and Tsunami.
As long as you can Resolve Varolz on turn two, you should be fine since everything else you do to win- Inkmoth Nexus, and scavenging- cant be stopped withcounterspells. Just beware of bounce and spot removal... See OP for strategies against that.
EDH Decks:
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Tajic, Blade of the Legion
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
Purphoros, God of the Forge
Ezuri, Renegade Leader 1v1
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher 1v1
Hythonia the Cruel
Trying to build:
Jenara, Asura of War
Designing a Custom Set:
Clash of the Cultures: 5 Wedges, 5 Cultures
Providing Artwork for:
Archester: Frontier of Steam
1x Varolz, the Scar-Striped
Sorcery (11)
1x Buried Alive
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Duress
1x Green Sun's Zenith
1x Hymn to Tourach
1x Inquisition of Kozilek
1x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Night's Whisper
1x Sign in Blood
1x Sylvan Scrying
1x Thoughtseize
Instant (19)
1x Abrupt Decay
1x Ad Nauseam
1x Berserk
1x Crop Rotation
1x Dark Ritual
1x Devour in Shadow
1x Diabolic Edict
1x Dismember
1x Entomb
1x Go for the Throat
1x Hero's Downfall
1x Krosan Grip
1x Nature's Claim
1x Putrefy
1x Skeletal Scrying
1x Tainted Pact
1x Tainted Strike
1x Victim of Night
1x Worldly Tutor
Enchantment (6)
1x Dark Tutelage
1x Fastbond
1x Phyrexian Arena
1x Seal of Primordium
1x Survival of the Fittest
1x Sylvan Library
1x Birds of Paradise
1x Boreal Druid
1x Bramblewood Paragon
1x Brawn
1x Dark Confidant
1x Deathrite Shaman
1x Death's Shadow
1x Dosan the Falling Leaf
1x Elves of Deep Shadow
1x Elvish Mystic
1x Elvish Spirit Guide
1x Eternal Witness
1x Fauna Shaman
1x Fyndhorn Elves
1x Llanowar Elves
1x Mesmeric Fiend
1x Mindslicer
1x Phyrexian Dreadnought
1x Plague Stinger
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Sylvan Safekeeper
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
1x Viridian Corrupter
Planeswalker (1)
1x Liliana of the Veil
Artifact (1)
1x Mox Diamond
Land (38)
1x Bayou
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Cabal Pit
1x Cavern of Souls
1x Centaur Garden
1x City of Brass
1x Command Tower
1x Dryad Arbor
1x Exotic Orchard
2x Forest
1x Inkmoth Nexus
1x Llanowar Wastes
1x Marsh Flats
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Pendelhaven
1x Polluted Delta
1x Reflecting Pool
1x Rishadan Port
1x Shizo, Death's Storehouse
1x Snow-Covered Forest
1x Snow-Covered Swamp
2x Swamp
1x Tainted Wood
1x Tarnished Citadel
1x Tree of Tales
1x Urborg
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Vault of Whispers
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Wasteland
1x Windswept Heath
1x Wooded Foothills
1x Woodland Cemetery
It's pretty similar to the list in the first post, modulo a couple of cards I don't own (like Chrome Mox, or Twilight Mire). The two-of basic lands haven't given me trouble yet. I can usually fetch at least one of the copies.
Any recent developments from more experienced pilots?
Legacy: UBRG Czech Pile, WWW Death & Taxes, many other things
Modern: UBR Grixis, RWG Burn, UR UR Storm, BBB 8 Rack, whatever other control deck I can force
Multiplayer EDH: RR Norin the Wary, UU Barrin, Master Wizard, UB Wrexial, the Risen Deep, GR Borborygmos, Enraged
"I'd say this about guarantees that it won't be up till this Friday, but considering the current track record, the ETA is now probably two weeks after the set has been out."
Quote from Sirius_B
Speak for yourself, if drawing *****-headed wurms makes social justice warriors cry I'll make it my favorite hobby.
vs Marath:
First game i manage to stonewall his creatures with varolz and some removal. he dropped a scavenging ooze, and i used priority carefully to scavenge onto varolz 13 tokens and attacked for a win with general damage.
Second game went like chrome mox(exiling liliana), thoughtseize, land, elf. he had no removal or relevant creature in hand. second turn land, death's shadow and varolz. third turn scavenge and berserk for the win. it felt unfair.
vs Ezuri
First game win, drew everything that i needed and his deck is light on removal, so i went in with all i had without much preoccupation.
Second game he wins due to not finding a third mana source or any relevant threat.
Third game he got me with a +1/+1 on his blightsteel colossus on about turn 5, i had a 2/2 blocker and lethal next turn on board.
vs Thraximundar
first game was a joke to magic. land, dark ritual into liliana. from there on i just discarded and made him sac half of his land whenever i could.
second game i decided to risk on ad nauseam to try and close the game the same turn (as he was tapped out) and failed.
third game i just went under a massive streak of edict effects and kill spells on all my other creatures.
reasonings:
1 - i want more hand control. will try the new creature from journey to nyx to at least spy on my opponents' hand and include cabal therapy and hunger for brains
2 - i want more creatures to justify better the regen clause for varolz. going to try bitterblossom and gravecrawler, skullbriar as a makeshift dreadnaught, devoted druid instead of bloom tender and quillspike for the combo.
3 - more card draw. thinking of replacing drawing spells with drawing effects (skullclamp instead of sign in blood because of the commander's sinergy and the inclusion of gravecrawler above, also because most of the creatures are */1)
4 - different tutors. i wasn't satisfied by wordly tutor and i'm probably going to substitute it with summoner's pact (awesome vs tempo decks: daze->summoner's pact and exile elf spirit guide) and/or living wish (the shop lets players use a 10 card sideboard) and/or green sun's zenith (forest dryad does so much in this deck, i'm getting in also xantid swarm or sylvan safekeeper).
5 - MAZE OF ITH. seriously. all the time in the world to tutor for it and it demands to be destroyed by so many commanders.
looking for any suggestion for anything to include in the sideboard to exploit living wish: some niche creatures or lands would be perfect (probably maze of ith will find a place in here for that reason).
I was messing around with a more aggressive build with multiple infect creatures and less removal after Zur was banned. I didn't really like it, but I did learn some things, and a few of the infect creatures are versatile enough to have earned their place even without quite so much emphasis on them.
From my prior list, I think the most recent deck I've been using is:
-Abyssal Persecutor
-Elvish Spirit Guide
-Fleshbag Marauder
-Scavenging Ooze
-Seal of Primordium
-Devour in Shadow
-Diabolic Edict
-Putrefy
-Reflecting Pool
+Plague Myr
+Necropede
+Whispering Specter
+Brain Maggot
+Phyrexian Revoker
+Mindslicer
+Sylvan Tutor
+Toxic Deluge
+Mana Confluence
Basically I just trimmed some fat and some removal. All of those cards are good, but frequently turned out to be unnecessary. They don't synergize particularly well with Plan A, and they're not strong enough to win games by themselves. I tried to add a little more punch.
Plague Myr is usually just a bad elf...but even a bad elf is decent in this deck, and this one demands a bit of respect. If I have it in play, my opponent can't feel safe tapping out. They either have to respect it and play suboptimally, or risk just outright losing. I've won several games this way. Similarly, Necropede is so unassuming but has really impressed me in this deck. It's cheap and just always seems to be relevant in some way. If they have no blockers, it represents a legitimate threat. If they do have blockers, it usually functions as removal (in conjunction with Varolz). It has enough impact on any board state that I've liked having it around. Whispering Specter is a new addition but I think it will be pretty good. It should play like Plague Stinger most of the time, but with much more versatility in that a small scavenge allows it to wreck someone's hand when I can't kill with it.
Brain Maggot is great. Though a little worse than Mesmeric Fiend, Fiend is an all-star and I'm happy to have 2. Phyrexian Revoker finally made the cut because I wanted something that could stop Marath, but it's just a generally solid card in many situations. Mindslicer is back in for now--it's not always the greatest, but the power of this card cannot be denied, and it sometimes wins games I have no business winning. I still hate Sylvan Tutor for the timing awkwardness, but the price is right and fundamentally it does what this deck needs. Toxic Deluge is another card that's kind of iffy sometimes, but it opens up a lot of gameplans that we just don't otherwise have access to. If it's in your opener you can usually make it good. And having it in your deck sometimes lets you come back when you'd otherwise be dead for sure.
Buddha--funny that you won against our worst matchup, and lost a couple that ought to be easier. Oh well. I like your general goals, but would don't agree with your proposed implementation.
1) Discard is very important, yes. I was playing Distress again recently (but it's not great). I've also played Cabal Therapy in the past and didn't really have success with it. In theory if you have enough other sources of targeted discard it should be good but I could never reach that point. Hunger for Brains seems bad, all the cards I care about are 3 mana or less. Brain Maggot is good though!
2) I like Bitterblossom but could never really make it worthwhile. All it did was produce sacrifice fodder, since you'll never beat a legitimate deck with faerie aggro. It gets a lot more interesting if you can make Skullclamp work, but I could never do that either (believe me, I've tried). Devoted Druid seems ok but a bit underpowered. Quillspike can't possibly be worthwhile, it's just way too narrow. Gravecrawler also seems horrible...I play 0 zombies!
3) There's probably a way to build this deck that lets you use Skullclamp and Gaea's Cradle and maybe Gravecrawler. I wish I could find it. I think what I have might be better though. I would definitely not cut Sign in Blood, that card is great. The problem with Skullclamp, at least in my build, is that none of the creatures are really expendable. In order to make Skullclamp good, I'd have to play a bunch of cards that are pretty bad unless I draw Skullclamp, and this deck doesn't have a particularly easy time finding the clamp.
4) Don't cut Worldly Tutor, that card is amazing. I almost always win immediately after casting it (you can ambush someone with the instant speed). I'm even playing Sylvan Tutor now, and that card is much much worse. Summoner's Pact is horrible in comparison: it doesn't get Death's Shadow or Phyrexian Dreadnought, which is what I'm tutoring for 99% of the time. That upkeep cost will kill you too. Living Wish isn't legal with the real rules. GSZ you should play. Sylvan Safekeeper is underwhelming since it doesn't work how we'd like with scavenge. Xantid Swarm does almost nothing here, all the spells I'm afraid of happen before attacking.
5) Why Maze of Ith? None of the deck I'm afraid of win by racing me. Maze just slows you down, land drops are precious. We don't want to be interacting on that level.
the infect creatures idea is nice to be honest, whispering specter was in my maybeboard for a while now, i'll try him for sure. why not phyrexian crusader though? i'd go with him before the artifact infecters for sure (besides mabye plague myr).
glad to see you let go of abyssal persecutor, that eases me in removing it too. same with the ooze.
i included cabal therapy and i used it so far to take a peek at opponent's hand. if he had anything i didn't like, i flashbacked it on the spot. hunger (and despise) are there just to see if you are all clear for the 1 hit ko, i would go as far as use gitaxian probe if i could just for that.
i haven't got my list on hand right now, but i use also skullbriar as a makeshift dreadnaught (and a nice turn 1 attacker if we happen to find fast mana). varolz is a zombie too, so my reasoning behind gravecrawler is to keep sacrificing him for varolz regen, and including mutavault possibly for this reason only. if skullclamp doesn't work out for me i'll probably get it out with gravecrawler, bloodghast and bitterblossom. i still have to see a game when i don't have a field full of elves by turn 5, but i might have been lucky in that so far.
wordly tutor stays in. i didn't read it was an instant when i read it (damn foreign cards ^^). i'm still looking weirdly at demonic consultation though...
and the shop where i play organizes tournaments based on duel commander rules with a 10 card sideboard, so considering this possibility, i think this warrants the use of living wish instead of filling the sideboard with cards i wouldn't know what to get out for.
Your rationale for Cabal Therapy is solid. A big issue I've always run into is that the mana elves and whatnot are not very expendable, so I don't often have a creature I'm ok with sacrificing. If you're about to win though, that's another story. It wasn't very good when I tried it but it's possible it deserves a second chance. Don't play Hunger for Brains and Despise for that purpose. It's not worth it. The cards we care about are removal spells that those can't take. It doesn't help us that much to see that they have it if there's nothing we can do about it. It's good to know, don't get me wrong, but that's not worth a card. I would love to play Gitaxian Probe, but that card cantrips, so it doesn't cost you a card. That's a whole different situation.
I don't get what you mean by Skullbriar as "makeshift dreadnought." It doesn't seem good in this deck at all. You can scavenge onto him...but we can't really bring him back when he dies, so keeping those counters on doesn't help. And he doesn't scavenge well--he'll only give 1 counter, no matter how many are on him. He's nothing like a dreadnought.
Do you have a foreign Varolz too? He's definitely not a zombie. He's a Troll Warrior. Gravecrawler is not workable. I've had many many games where I don't have a field of excess elves (I'll also mulligan away excess if I can). Mana is often the limiting factor in whether I can win or not, so I find that I generally need those elves around until the turn I win. Spending mana to reduce my mana on subsequent turns (even if it does draw a couple cards) is a risky proposition.
Demonic Consultation is tempting but too risky. It works in Iname because you can safely name Swamp and have it at least be a live card in all situations. In Varolz, there's going to be a very real chance of just flat-out losing every single time you cast the spell. That means in all the games you look to be winning, you shouldn't cast it at all and it's a dead draw. It's better just to play something more universally useful.
I don't like sideboard play but just play a few wish targets and as many hosers as you can. Off the top of head, I'd probably include Dust Bowl, Gaea's Cradle, Shriekmaw, Great Sable Stag, Phyrexian Crusader, Engineered Plague, Grave Pact, Choke, Tsunami, Gloom. If I'm forgetting any good color-hosers (probably am), play those too.
as for skullbriar, counters modify power and thoughness of cards even in the graveyard, i'm quite in a hurry and can't find the exact ruling, but here's a relevant link on that: http://magicjudge.tumblr.com/post/48933956558/if-i-use-varolz-to-scavenge-skullbriar-its-always-just
and from the gatherer page: "Counters that adjust power and/or toughness affect Skullbriar's power and/or toughness in zones other than the battlefield. For example, a Skullbriar in the command zone with a +1/+1 counter on it will be 2/2."
by your reasoning on infect creatures, i'll surely try tainted strike too.