Interesting, I didn't realize the counters affected p/t when out of play as well. Skullbriar has to be the only card in history where that's relevant so it's sort of a unique ruling. That makes him better, though I'm still not sure he's worthwhile. It's still weak to bounce or exile, and in most situations where you could scavenge onto him, scavenging onto Varolz is probably just better. Worth thinking about, but I doubt he's worth the slot when this list is so tight already.
I don't like Tainted Strike much, since it's dead unless you have a dreadnought, and if you have a dreadnought scavenged and attacking and getting through you're probably a 95% favorite to win that game anyway. It's also mostly dead if you have an infect creature already in play. It does have the potential to get people sometimes, so I guess there's some potential there, but my gut says it's not worth it.
Assuming you are looking for 1 exact card with tainted pact and you have 1 card that is a 2-of left in the deck, there's a 25% chance to fizzle, which is pretty bad. I'd only include one extra basic if I was going to run multiple basics and I'd always pull it out at the first opportunity. Even then, I'd prefer to have 0 duplicates if I was running tainted pact. It definitely is hindering to certain cards, though.
EDIT:
Also, once you've revealed one of the cards that there are 2 of (ie a forest when you have 2 forests), you now have a 50% chance of hitting your other forest before the card you want, which is pretty bad.
I've noticed that no one on this thread is talking about invigorate. Holy crap is that card super good, especially in non tainted pactable decks. But even in the pure singleton decks is it super good. It's a great answer to dismember(on varolz) and can sometimes be a blowout with an infect creature. I've used it a bunch and it's been great.
invigorate is a good card, but to be worth a slot it needs to be berserk good.
based on your reasoning, vines of vastwood is an improvement on invigorate for defense and for disruption (spellskite before scavenging, in response to opponent equipping etc) and is cmc 1 instead of 3 (every bit counts). also saves varolz's ass from dismemberment.
i also went looking for a second spell to functionally replicate berserk, but the closest is predator's strike.
I'd disagree with you. While vines is a super great card, it isn't free. You can be 100% tapped out, and still get your Invigorate. It can save you from a lot of ill timed infests and deluges, when you're tapped out. Or in my meta, most of my opponents always deluge for the extra life if I have a forest in play. You compare their cmc's (Which matters for ad nauseum and bob, admittedly) but I don't think I've ever cast Invigorate for 2G. It's almost always the life.
While it doesnt' provide trample(which is a bummer) it still really helps from a resiliency standpoint. It's probably one of the best cards in my deck.
i was wondering, how about chord of calling? i haven't tested it yet, but it could be a perfect end of turn play, especially if we already played varolz and at least an elf. it could look for a discard creature, or for a dreadnaught.
@SAUS9001: You're right about Tainted Pact. The card is so strong in this deck that it's definitely worth playing, but having any duplicates is just too much of a liability. Since I generally need a specific card to win me the game, the odds of getting screwed over by hitting 2 basics is just too high. That's why I'm back down to one of each.
@Gemiinus: Invigorate's not good enough in this deck. Free is nice, but +4/+4 isn't generally enough to be relevant. This deck one-shots (sometimes two-shots) people. It doesn't nickel-and-dime with smaller pump effects. If I wanted a protection instant, I'd play Vines of Vastwood or Ranger's Guile first (protecting from bounce is a big deal), but even those haven't been necessary. I haven't played them in a long time and haven't missed them.
@Jibux: Nah, Temple of Malady isn't good here. It's definitely not better than any of the lands you mentioned. All I want from my lands is that they make colored mana and that they don't come in tapped. It's hard to overstate how important the untapped part is. This deck has an extremely low curve and generally makes efficient use of every mana every turn. Playing a CITP land is usually like giving your opponent a free Time Walk, and that's really not an exaggeration. Gilt-Leaf Palace is by far the worst land in the deck, because it comes into play tapped about 40% of the time and is a reverse Time Walk 30% of the time. It's a necessary evil though, since there simply isn't anything better out there. Temple of Malady is far, far worse than Gilt-Leaf Palace in this deck.
Sakura-Tribe Elder and Sylvan Caryatid are cards I've considered. They don't fit the curve though, don't interact well with Varolz, and really aren't impactful enough to do that much vs Marath. 1 more mana is nice and all, but it doesn't really address the problem like Phyrexian Revoker does. If I was going to play another ramp card like that, I think it would be Viridian Emissary (somewhat better synergy with Varolz) but I don't like that either.
@buddha84: Chord of Calling has been in and out of my list several times. Every time it's in, I hate it and find it unbearably clunky. It tends to get stuck in my hand even though it's instant speed and I only ever want to cast it for 1. Experience has shown that it's way harder to cast it in a real game than you would expect. I still try it out every once in a while, because in theory it seems decent and this deck wants the effect badly, but it's never performed well for me.
Since my last update, I've taken out Sylvan Tutor and Mindslicer, and replaced them with Needle Specter and Nihil Spellbomb. Sylvan Tutor is semi-valid for grabbing Dark Confidant or Mesmeric Fiend, but I don't want to play a tutor for that. It's terrible for getting a Dreadnought, since it telegraphs what you're doing and gives your opponent a turn to prepare. This deck needs to be trickier than that. Mindslicer has always been either pretty good or very bad, depending on the situation. The problem is that it's so high variance, and it's never extremely good. Needle Specter is very similar to Whispering Specter (which has been testing quite well) and I've liked it so far. It's somewhat relevant to just grind away with it (more so than Whispering Specter), and is actually a reasonably good scavenge target as well. It's the very best target to scavenge small stuff like mana dorks on, and when you think you can get a hit in, build-your-own-Nicol-Bolas has been enough to win the game on the couple of occasions I've been able to make that happen. I like it so far. Nihil Spellbomb is just a great card with very low opportunity cost, and I wanted a little bit more control of the graveyard. It's kind of filler and could definitely be replaced in the future, but I like it fine for now.
I'm considering cutting Dosan the Falling Leaf and Thrun, the Last Troll. It seems that the better I get with this deck, the less useful "protection" cards like this become. They just usually aren't very relevant. Sometimes they're good, often they're bad, but even when they're good I generally feel like I could have won the game without them. I'm not sure what I'll add instead, but I think I can do without them now.
The deck continues to test well. I've played several matches on Cockatrice in the last week, winning all of them. In full matches, I've beaten Oloro twice, Geist twice, Ezuri once, Marchesa twice, Grenzo once, and a few others I don't remember. I think I lost one match, but can't remember to what (it wasn't a top deck). Almost all of the games I've lost were to my own lands (not drawing enough, or not drawing a color, despite multiple mulligans). It's hard to figure out how to fix that though.
is anybody able to point out a creature to tutor to kill/incapacitate opposing creatures? fleshbag marauder doesn't cut it for me, and shriekmaw would be a pain to get with confidant/tutelage/ad nauseam (he's already in the wishboard just for this reason). kiku, night's flower perhaps?
i'm looking also for a creature which can tap or destroy lands in these colors, had some issues with a damage prevention land (could have been a maze of ith as well).
that aside, yesterday i couldn't play skeletal scrying for the life of me, i either had tons to do with my mana or a graveyard empty (this deck doesn't fill it up as one would imagine).
I tried diabolic intent and it has been relevant in both games i drew it.
EDIT: sylvan safekeeper would have let me win through that damage prevention (it targeted). will try and put it in again just for that, it would have been especially relevant since i had a deathrite shaman as t1 play.
I'm not currently playing a creature that kills opposing non-artifact creatures. If I was to add one, it would probably be Shriekmaw despite the annoying cmc, but I don't think it's strictly necessary if you have enough removal otherwise. Removal in general has become slightly less important recently, since there are fewer "answer me NOW or die" generals running around. Kiku, Night's Flower is kind of cool, but surely costs too much to use. I don't think you'll find any playable land destruction on a creature, but with enough land-tutors it shouldn't be too big an issue. Sylvan Safekeeper is alright too (I'm trying him again myself, though not for that reason).
I haven't had issues with Skeletal Scrying. Sometimes it's 4-5 cards and sometimes just 2, but it always does something when I need it. If you have tons to do with your mana already, you probably don't need to be casting Skeletal Scrying--just save it for when you run out of things to do. It's fairly common for me to end games with stuff like Skeletal Scrying, Read the Bones, or even Phyrexian Arena in hand because I simply didn't have time to cast them...that usually means you just had a good hand. Even though the draw spells aren't so good in those situations, I think they're still necessary for when you have to keep worse hands and hope to draw into some action.
How was Diabolic Intent relevant? It doesn't seem awful, but neither does it seem great. I'm not sure it's better than Grim Tutor, and I actually cut that recently for being too clunky and haven't missed it.
You make a good point about Thrun vs. Clique DL. It is indeed a great card there (or against mono-blue in general). However, at least on Cockatrice, mono-blue seems to be very seldom played recently (I literally haven't encountered Clique in months). I cut Thrun a while ago and haven't missed him yet. If blue control is rampant I'd definitely keep him in, but with the way the meta's going he may not be necessary. I did cut Dosan the Falling Leaf as well, and haven't missed him either.
Since my last changelist, I think I've gone:
-Dosan the Falling Leaf
-Thrun, the Last Troll
-Nihil Spellbomb
-Grasp of Darkness
-Grim Tutor
-Eternal Witness
I've also tested out (again) Glistener Elf, Elvish Spirit Guide, Chord of Calling, and Parallax Nexus, but wasn't satisfied with any of them and they all got cut again. Chord of Calling maintained its perfect streak of being utterly uncastable every single time I've drawn it.
Thrun and Dosan are discussed above. Nihil Spellbomb was nice but not necessary, and I wanted to play with the slot. I'm planning on replacing Grasp of Darkness with Ulcerate once M15 comes out, and figured I'd test Disfigure to see how different it is and whether it's worth playing. It's actually not bad at all--cmc on removal is tremendously important for curving out properly, and Disfigure still kills a lot of stuff. Ulcerate will be better though. Hypnotic Specter and Sylvan Safekeeper are still test spots and might not stay long. I've been impressed with Needle Specter, and while Hypnotic Specter is worse, my theory is that it's kind of a probe for removal spells. No one ever takes a hit from Hyppie if they're holding removal--it just doesn't happen. So if he gets through, the coast is probably clear. It's also just a pretty good card overall. Sylvan Safekeeper does have annoying dissynergy with scavenge, but it's still effective protection in many other circumstances...and it's possible my opponents won't realize that it blocks scavenge too (shh). I'm not sure it will be good enough, but it might still work. Nature's Lore and Three Visits are just a trial of some ramp that's immune to sweepers. I think these are the best options, since even though they don't fit the curve so well they still fix mana and sometimes effectively cost 1. So far in testing I haven't loved or hated them. We'll see.
Speaking of M15, it's a little questionable but I think Yisan, the Wanderer Bard will actually be worth testing. I really wish the activation didn't cost so much, but any card that can by itself tutor up a Dreadnought and then follow that up with Mesmeric Fiend or Plague Stinger is worth a look. I wouldn't be surprised if the card turns out to be quite good in this deck. I'm still interested in including another card or two to beat Marath: I actually have a positive record against the deck, but it doesn't feel so good. Toxic Deluge is fairly effective and I've been very happy with Phyrexian Revoker, but I want just a little bit more. Maybe Pithing Needle? My issues with the deck primarily just stem from Marath being able to machine-gun down all my little creatures at will.
I've been keeping track of all my games on Cockatrice in the last few months or so (only started recording player names recently though). I have descriptions for some of the games, especially the recent ones. Here are my results:
Jenara, Asura of War: 2-1
Horobi, Night's Whisper: 1-0
Akroma, Angel of Fury: 1-0
Geist of St. Traft: 2-0
Animar, Soul of Elements: 2-0
Tajic, Blade of the Legion: 2-0
Ephara, God of the Polis: 2-0
Ghave, Guru of Spores: 1-0
Ezuri, Renegade Leader: 2-0 Doran, the Siege Tower: 0-2 (g1 manascrew into g2 colorscrew, i had him dead both games if i just drew black mana) Doran, the Siege Tower: 2-1 (same player. the game I lost, i had duress to make sure the coast was clear, followed by lethal with berserk the next turn. On his one draw step, he topdecked instant-speed removal to stop me from winning) Grimgrin, Corpse-Born: 1-0
Tajic, Blade of the Legion: 2-0 Olivia Voldaren: 2-1 (the game I lost, I neglected to play around blood moon effects when I could have, and lost to magus of the moon with an awesome hand and a board of just mountains) Ezuri, Renegade Leader: 1-2 (g1 i lost one turn before i would have killed him with with a huge berserking guy. I had awkward lands this game and tapped wrong multiple times, giving him at least 2 extra turns I think. g2 turn 4 win. g3 i had a good hand but was a little tight on mana, and his wasteland made that much worse. I still would have won if i had found a second source of black mana, losing the game to ezuri going nuclear with the combo, victim of night, and grasp of darkness all in hand). Skithyrix, the Blight Dragon: 1-0
Azusa, Lost but Seeking: 2-0
The Mimeoplasm: 2-0
Maelstrom Wanderer: 2-0
Jenara, Asura of War: 2-0
Prime Speaker Zegana: 1-0 (ragequit) Oloro, Ageless Ascetic: 2-0 (Omniscience combo, I was faster) Oloro, Ageless Ascetic: 2-0 (control, this seems like a nice matchup overall since his deck is slow and I don't care how much life he gains) Azusa, Lost but Seeking: 2-1 (the game i lost, i kept a 1 lander on the play with swamp, dark rit, liliana, entomb, death's shadow. couldn't draw green mana in like 15 turns. if i had been able to play varolz, would have won, even after he terastodoned me. other 2 games were straightforward.) Azusa, Lost but Seeking: 2-0 (different player) Varolz, the Scar-Striped: 2-0 (different style of deck than mine, had the combos but didn't seem very tuned) Grenzo, Dungeon Warden: 2-1 (goblin deck, i lost a game due to never drawing a 4th land in 10 or so turns. had everything i needed otherwise. won game 3 on turn 3 despite his sparksmith: dark ritual + buried alive + berserk for the massive overkill) Nekusar, the Mindrazer: 1-0 Grenzo, Dungeon Warden: 2-1 (very tuned looking aggro deck. I lost a close game 1 due to multiple misplays. I let Slavering Nulls hit my hand several times, when I should have sucked it up and killed it early. Then I wound up making varolz big instead of inkmoth nexus because i was 1 mana short of insta-killing with nexus and was afraid of land destruction. He was able to kill me over several turns while repeatedly chumping varolz and my inkmoth just sat there. Game 2 was close but i was able to get there with nexus combo a turn or 2 before he could kill me. Game 3 i had a ton of lands, but dryad arbor + pendelhaven did a good job slowing him down, then when he played 5 guys toxic deluge for 2 destroyed him, and i even got to save dryad arbor. He kept trying, but liliana, plague stinger, and death's shadow wrapped it up 2 turns later) Azami, Lady of Scrolls: 2-1 (game 1: sweet hand, turn 4 kill with chrome mox, brain maggot, and a giant necropede. Still had demonic tutor in hand at the end. Game 2 I have a good hand but misplay horribly by playing sylvan library instead of dark confidant before casting nature's claim on his fellwar stone. The instant after I do that I realize how terrible my sequencing/choice is if he has Misdirection, and of course he has it for the monster blowout. Then he's able to play Azami, I get stuck on mana, and it's all downhill from there. My starting hand was so powerful that this was probably unlosable if I just played around Misdirection, which I could have done easily. Game 3 I have turn 1 Survival of the Fittest off of Chrome Mox. I get greedy and make a big mistake of hitting him with a 15/15 Varolz on turn 3 after he taps out for Sky Diamond (never do this against blue decks). He has Sower of Temptation of course, and I don't have any answers to it that I can get off of Survival. Luckily, I topdeck Tainted Pact, which finds me removal and the win, but that could have gone very badly for me. I definitely should have waited longer. Marath, Will of the Wild: 2-1 (g1 i keep a nice hand with 3 land, deathrite, library, liliana, viridian corrupter on the play. unfortunately, he has seal of cleansing to immediately kill library. liliana takes out his argothian enchantress but dies to marath. i draw no action cards for like 7 turns and lose. g2 i mull into a somewhat awkward hand with fauna shaman, an elf, tainted pact and 3 lands. i decide to play the mana elf on turn 1 (instead of saving it for Fauna Shaman) and never really draw another creature. We both have rishadan ports though, so his mana is awkward. He can't really play marath and tainted pact gets me there eventually. g3 i mull into an awkward hand with whispering specter, entomb, and 4 lands. the pieces are there...he has a turn 1 weathered wayfarer and skips his next land drop. i am not about to give him gaea's cradle and am perfectly willing to play the waiting game so we stare at each other for a few turns until he gives up and starts playing land. i have plague myr, he has aura shards. frown. i have whispering specter and tainted pact in hand, dreadnought in my gy from entomb. i just play varolz and pass. he plays marath as expected, killing my myr with aura shards. on my turn, i scavenge onto varolz, attack, and tainted pact for berserk when he chumps. so sweet.) Heartless Hidetsugo: 2-0 Doran, the Siege Tower: 2-1 (game 1, i have survival and am playing around his scavenging ooze. i misplay really badly and pass up the chance to make a 14/14 plague myr and make him start chumping, when i already know he has sword of feast and famine in hand and will make me discard and lose my chance. the game is still extremely close, and i would have won if i had 1 more life or a land other than tarnished citadel to make colored mana. as is, i eventually get that 14/14 trampling myr, but he just plays doran to chump, and i'm dead the next turn. i definitely could have won this with tighter play. g2 turn 3 kill. g3 turn 4 kill) Marath, Will of the Wild: 2-0 (g1 i go for the 14/14 varolz on turn 3 before marath is active. he takes 14, and then i have removal for his chump blocker.
g2 i mull to 5 to find lands and keep something slow with survival and tainted pact. he has turn 2 marath followed by skullclamp. i get to a position where i can win out of nowhere if he taps out, but he doesn't go for it, and i have to tainted pact for toxic deluge in order to survive. that almost lets me win right after, except that he has swords to plowshares to slow me down too. i'm able to survival up phyrexian revoker to curtail his 5/5 marath though, then play a 15/15 varolz to block, then win.) Prossh, Skyraider of Kher, piloted by Graddock: 2-0 (g1 i mull to a hand with a lot of discard and 2 lands. i miss a couple land drops while he ramps, but eventually sign in blood into enough mana. varolz comes down, then buried alive and attack for 27 the following turn. he's actually able to survive for a turn by chumping with prossh and some tokens, but still can't deal with varolz. g2 i keep a decent hand that just lacks a way to win, but draw worldly tutor pretty early. he has a bunch of ramp, while i get out varolz and inkmoth nexus. there's a turn where i could go for the kill with inkmoth nexus, but he has 1 unknown card and mana up and if he kills it i'd lose. i didn't go for it. the next turn he tutors for toxic deluge and kills all my stuff, including varolz and dryad arbor, while revealing that he didn't have removal. c'est la vie. i just play varolz. he plays prossh. i make a 14/14 nexus and force him to chump. next turn he replays prossh, but when he tries to chump again i have tainted pact for berserk.) Geist of St. Traft, piloted by mavrkhrom: 2-0 (g1 i keep a pretty powerful but land light hand. he has swords to plowshares and force of will to stop fauna shaman and dark confidant and gets geist going, alongside rishadan port and dust bowl to tie up my mana. i'm able to ambush his geist with necropede and crop rotation for pendelhaven though, which feels sweet. i miss a bunch of land drops and feel sure I'm losing this to his port and dust bowl, but i'm still able to get out survival and maneuver a bit. when he gets sword of feast and famine, necropede chump blocks, and then viridian corrupter takes it out. he tries to kill me with elspeth for exactly lethal, but i point out that he can't cast her (only 1 white). the next turn i'm able to discard dreadnought getting brawn, scavenge onto corrupter, and attack for lethal after i discard brawn. g2 the server crashes midway through this game so we don't technically finish, but i had plenty of mana, high life, varolz and sylvan library in play, and a strong hand vs his 4 lands and 3 cards in hand. i'm pretty confident i was winning that game.) Marchesa, the Black Rose, piloted by italicizedliez: 2-0 (g1 i'm attacking with 15/15 varolz on turn 3 with brain maggot protection. g2 he gets stuck on land and i have a great hand with turn 1 dark confidant, followed up by sylvan library and plenty of action.) Marath, Will of the Wild, piloted by Guino500: 1-2: (g1 i mull to find lands and wind up with something slow but keepable, with maelstrom pulse for marath. i have to use the pulse on his sylvan library though after sign in blood just draws me little creatures i don't want. turns out he has a great hand and i don't draw much, and he quickly assembles his infinite combo with fauna shaman on turn 5. g2 i'm able to maneuver into a 13/13 needle specter without him able to stop me. g3 he has a pretty average hand (just a bunch of mana) but mine is pretty slow and non-interactive (hymn into read the bones into hero's downfall into ad nauseum. he's not doing much but has taken some life off me. ad nauseum finds me about 15 cards but nothing i can use, and i lose.) Zedruu, the Great-Hearted, piloted by bata: 2-0 (g1 he keeps a 1 lander with land tax on the draw, and gets screwed when i just stay on 1 land and play elves. g2 glacial chasm actually buys him several turns right before i was about to kill him with buried alive, but it's not enough.) Horde of Notions, piloted by Agent of Cuber: 2-0 (he's playing some sort of creature-based combo deck. g1 i mull away a bunch of lands and draw more lands, then draw nothing but lands. however, those lands include rishadan port and wasteland and he has a land light hand, and he concedes (somewhat inappropriately i think) to mana issues. g2 i'm able to set up a turn 4 nexus kill right through his scavenging ooze, with discard backup.) Jenara, Asura of War, piloted by pizieno: 1-0 (i have a great hand, scoring a turn 4 kill off of buried alive when he taps out. he gets very excited and leaves.)
So...yeah. Those are all the games I've played semi-recently. Obviously some of those decks aren't as competitive as others, but plenty of them are, and I have a stellar win-loss ratio overall. This is absolutely the deck I would take a tournament, and I think a strong case could be made for it being tier 1 (if only anyone else played it!).
why nature's lore and three visits? i'd use green sun's zenith. while makes your ramp/fixing vulnerable to removal, it can tutor up bramblewood paragon, dryad arbor or a viridian corruptor. in my case, there's also skullbriar, and i like the idea of attacking with him on turn 2 with any elf acceleration.
Hit my opponent, Dan Pyre, for 18 off of a scavenged Dreadnought on an Abyssal, putting him at 2, because I'm bad at math (my play was wrong, but it actually gave me the win). He then attacked me back with Master of Cruelties, which I blocked with Varolz and sacrificed an elf for regeneration. With a Termination in hand, he killed Varolz, and I sacced Abyssal in response to be able to win next turn.
I had a Demonic Tutor in hand and a Brain Maggot on board. Well, my feeble 1/1 Brain Maggot suddenly turned fearsome as a 2/1 Brain Maggot with trample!
Thanks Berserk.
Confirming that Berserk is worth playing in Varolz decks
Still not quite sold on Diabolic Intent, though it surely isn't that bad. I wouldn't say sacrificing a mana dork isn't a hindrance though--unless you're winning that turn, it's like you're stone raining yourself. Considering how critical every mana is when I win, and how frequently 1 mana is the difference between being able to kill or not kill, it's a major disadvantage. The card might work, but I'd want to have more sacrificial fodder since the mana dorks are precious. I will test it myself though. Which reminds me...I think I forgot to mention, but I did finally test a list where I included Skullclamp along with Bitterblossom and Bloodghast. It was awful. Unless I actually drew a pair to combo, I never had a use for any of these cards. They were pretty much dead. I had multiple games where I had Skullclamp and nothing I could afford to sac, since I needed the mana even more than the cards, or I needed to keep something around to regenerate. This kind of combo isn't something you ever want to tutor for, since a tutor can just get you a card to win instead of a card that will draw you some cards and hopefully find a win.
I like Hypnotic Specter a lot so far. I think it'll stay. I've even considered Hollow Specter and Shimian Specter quite strongly, though I think the mana costs involved there are probably too much. They might work though (haven't actually tested them).
I need to update the list in the OP when I have time. It's very outdated and I guess it's hard to follow the change-logs from newer posts. I haven't played Abyssal Persecutor in quite a while. I'm not playing Bramblewood Paragon anymore either. I am playing Green Sun's Zenith (it gets Dryad Arbor literally 99% of the time, but in this deck that's fine).
Nature's Lore and Three Visits were just because I wanted to try out a little more ramp and they seemed like the next best options. I don't think they'll stay though. 2cc ramp just doesn't seem to do it for this deck--even Bloom Tender didn't play well, when that card is usually so good. I should maybe try Wild Growth (it's probably a little better for curve purposes), but I'm pretty hesitant because I play so few basic lands. A lot of hands with Wild Growth are just going to absolutely fold to Wasteland, and considering that pretty much all decks play that, I think the risk is just too high. I'm not sure there's any other ramp I can play that's good enough, so I may just have to play something else in those slots. Arbor Elf really isn't an option unfortunately, since with my current land base it's just dead in the opening hand about 50% of the time.
Berserk is one of the absolute best cards in this deck and wins so many games. I'd play 4 or 5 if I could--it's actually the card I wind up tutoring for more often than anything else. The card is just impossible to play around and invariably ends games. I never have had to Berserk a 1/1 before though!
i had the same doubts about diabolic intent myself, but so far it hasn't been a hindrance yet - there are more times when i can go for the kill and i just need a discard to ensure my opponents isn't up to something than i need the mana.
skullclamp, bitterblossom and bloodghast had been cut from my list as well. as you said this deck doesn't need incremental card advantage combos, just draw and tutoring.
let me know how your tests go with the specters (on paper i really like the withering one). before testing them my gut feeling says they cost one mana too much for what we'd need, but it wouldn't surprise me if they exhausted opponents' resources efficiently. if i can reliably open with a mana dork and two lands, and so far it's been common, they are a perfect turn 2.
about this topic, if you find them good, i'd rather have one of those instead of hymn to tourach, so far it hadn't had that big of an impact i thought it would have. do still use it?
i was thinking about getting rid of the zenith, and if i didn't play bramblewood paragon i wouldn't have any second thoughts about it. i still use him, it happened already twice that i was about to cast buried alive and i drew brawn, my only way to win was to tutor the elf as fast as i could or a berserk, but a creature is ways more easier to tutor.
i wouldn't know about sorcery ramp, i figure second turn is really crucial to either drop a draw engine or a creature to start beating or drawing removal (like confidant, a specter or in my case a skullbriar if the field is empty).
i feel the 1 mana dork suite is good as it is. if they printed another variant of llanowar elves, i would add it instead of boreal druid, not in addition. i never got around to use it, and i removed it as well, but elven spirit guide might help, even if it's a one time use, and tutorable if you need one more mana the following turn.
one more card i am testing is noxious revival. usually anything that ends up in our graveyard we want to reuse (discard, especially cabal therapy, wasteland) or we need to protect (on death's shadow while the trigger from a bojuka bog is on the stack). even if that doesn't come up, there are cases when it will be a time walk.
so far then the main difference between our versions are noxious, skullbriar and bone shredder. i still lack a bayou and a gu fetch, but that's not really that much impactful.
as for new cards to test, it has been twice now i needed a creature protection to tutor for at instant speed. which would be the best one in your opinion?
berserk is the sole reason i waited to build this deck. without it i wouldn't even have bothered to sleeve this one up.
edit: maybe gemstone cavern might be the card we're looking for. ramp in exchange for card advantage, comes in untapped, can be safely mulliganed if we get it with a mox.
Clearly the list in the OP isn't updated with all your latest changes. What does the current list look like? Also is it viable to play this deck without Berserk, Dark Confidant, Grim Tutor, Liliana of the Veil, Rishadan Port, and Wasteland? These are the only expensive cards I don't have.
berserk has no budget substitutes. and i would suppose without it the win rate of the deck would go down significantly.
confidant is nice to have, but you could do with another ca source.
grim tutor i don't have it either. i use diabolic intent and i reckon khymera said he cutted it too from his list.
liliana is really good, but i never tutored for her. it's a key card if you happen to go against geist of saint traft or pure control lists.
rishadan i don't have it either, and i have really an issue justifying its price tag for the effect it does in this deck.
wasteland can be subbed with any other land, i'd say go with tectonic edge. you need some land destruction to tutor on a land, since you can't have it on a creature with less than 5 cmc.
all in all, i said to myself i wouldn't sleeve this deck up until i got hold of a berserk. i still stand by this reasoning, won so many times on the back of this card i lost count.
i tried plunge in constructed, and paying 15 life often lost me the game without me getting the card i needed.
in commander, i think there are too many cards in the deck even if we have more starting life, and also not that many functional reprints to justify running it. if i needed another tutor i'd go for demonic consultation first.
Needle Specter has been great. I've won several games with it in the short time it's been in the deck. My favorite thing about it is that it's the only creature that benefits hugely from smaller scavenges. I often have 1 and 2 power creatures sitting in the graveyard that I don't bother to scavenge because there's no real point. Needle Specter will just end a game if you make it huge, but it's still great even if you can only make it medium-sized.
Hypnotic Specter has been fine thus far. Needs more testing. Hymn to Tourach should stay though, the card is just extremely overpowered.
I had cut Green Sun's Zenith for a while, but realized that I really did want as many 1-mana creature accelerants as possible. Thanks to Dryad Arbor, GSZ counts. That alone makes it worth playing for me. Nothing else really factors in.
Bramblewood Paragon isn't necessary. Brawn truly is, but you can always do without the Paragon, and I found it was irrelevant most times I drew it. You know, if you draw Brawn at the wrong time you can always just cast it and sacrifice it to Varolz...
I've played Elvish Spirit Guide quite a bit, it's not really worth it. The way this deck functions, we do tend to need more mana every turn. Ramp that only lasts a turn just leaves you needing one more the following turn. It was only good for the turn you win, and it's not consistently helpful in that regard.
I still don't know why you play Skullbriar lol. The card seems awful to me.
I quite like the idea of Noxious Revival. I hadn't considered it before, but the price is certainly right. It's not a great card, but it has enough utility in this deck that I could see it being good. I'll give it a try.
I don't really understand what you mean by "creature protection to tutor for at instant speed." There's only 1 instant speed tutor. The best options are probably Vines of Vastwood or Sylvan Safekeeper, depending on what you're talking about, but I don't think either card is crucial. The more experience I get with this deck the less I've found myself wanted any sorts of dedicated protection cards. You don't need them, and can accomplish the exact same thing with tight play and well-timed discard.
Gemstone Caverns is interesting. I might try it out. My gut says it probably isn't good enough, since there are a lot of situations it's bad in, and plenty of hands where we wouldn't necessarily want to use it even if on the play (I mulligan Chrome Mox away a lot), but I wouldn't be too surprised if it worked. It's exciting to have another land I could potentially play too, since I've actually hit the limit of lands I'm willing to play under Tainted Pact's constraints. If you try it, let me know how it is.
I agree with most of what buddha's been saying. Plunge into Darkness doesn't cut it as card selection. DTrain, I wouldn't play this deck without Berserk, but the other cards you mention are not absolutely essential (I don't even play Grim Tutor anymore).
I'll try to update the OP soon. I'm not going to have much (if any) time to play test for about the next 3 months though, so progress will be slow.
I had cut Green Sun's Zenith for a while, but realized that I really did want as many 1-mana creature accelerants as possible. Thanks to Dryad Arbor, GSZ counts. That alone makes it worth playing for me. Nothing else really factors in.
i really ought to count games when i don't have a forest in play. as far as i can recall it never happened and the deck can fetch a forest when needed. it might be time to use arbor elf as well..
Bramblewood Paragon isn't necessary. Brawn truly is, but you can always do without the Paragon, and I found it was irrelevant most times I drew it. You know, if you draw Brawn at the wrong time you can always just cast it and sacrifice it to Varolz...
yes, the reasoning is solid, the game i was playing when drawing brawn had been a issue has been one of those close games regarding mana and tempo. playing brawn costed me a turn, and if varolz had trample one turn earlier i would've won that game. but i can see how rare these situations are.
i'll be keeping the paragon in, but i'll consider it expendable in case i won't need some redundancy for the trample (running nylea in the wishboard currently, might be bramblewood in her stead).
I still don't know why you play Skullbriar lol. The card seems awful to me.
aside from one game when it shone (i knew my opponent had a oblivion ring in hand and a maze of ith in play. kept scavenging on skullbriar and forced him to oring him, instead of varolz) i agree that he hadn't been stellar. is a low cost beater but i agree each specter is really better than him. will cut him from my list.
I quite like the idea of Noxious Revival. I hadn't considered it before, but the price is certainly right. It's not a great card, but it has enough utility in this deck that I could see it being good. I'll give it a try.
i could use it twice so far. once i got back a tutor for the win and the other time i timewalked my opponent. i'd say it can be really useful in evolved metas (where even monocolor deck run fetchlands), i really need to remember not to exile that last land in the opponent graveyard tho unless really necessary.
I don't really understand what you mean by "creature protection to tutor for at instant speed." There's only 1 instant speed tutor. The best options are probably Vines of Vastwood or Sylvan Safekeeper, depending on what you're talking about, but I don't think either card is crucial. The more experience I get with this deck the less I've found myself wanted any sorts of dedicated protection cards. You don't need them, and can accomplish the exact same thing with tight play and well-timed discard.
sylvan is interesting still because of gsz and low mana cost. i must have been thinking about lands too (so that crop rotation was included as well) and creatures that could be played at instant speed (wordly tutor). ad nauseam could be included too. so, the ideal protection should be a creature or land that could be pitched from one's hand at a low cost, like some ability connected to cycle. first ideas just after a quick gatherer search could be Briarhorn or Muck Drubb. i know they're both terrible (i just had time to search for the flash keyword) and that we have enough discard to play the control game, but i think that if a card exists with these qualities and it's not a complete dud on her own, some playtest can be useful. (EDIT -- I just remembered we have also survival of the fittest and fauna shaman that could are instant tutors for creatures)
Gemstone Caverns is interesting. I might try it out. My gut says it probably isn't good enough, since there are a lot of situations it's bad in, and plenty of hands where we wouldn't necessarily want to use it even if on the play (I mulligan Chrome Mox away a lot), but I wouldn't be too surprised if it worked. It's exciting to have another land I could potentially play too, since I've actually hit the limit of lands I'm willing to play under Tainted Pact's constraints. If you try it, let me know how it is.
i'll try it as soon as i get my hands on a copy. the singleton land aspect of this deck is one of the things that appeals so much to me
thanks for the detailed replies as usual, i'll post my list in the next few days too (judge yourself if it can be included in the primer, i don't think it will differ that much from yours).
I thought about Arbor Elf too. I was too lazy to actually do the math, but I drew 50 sample 6-cards on Cockatrice, imagining that the 7th was Arbor Elf and mulliganing appropriately. I was only able to make Arbor Elf live in 30/50 hands, and it makes mulligan decisions harder (you often have to mull it away because you don't know if it will be live). Also some of the "live" hands hinged on Dryad Arbor, which is both slow and precarious. Also some of those live hands had multiple mana dorks, and when I get those I usually like to mull away all but 1, so the Arbor Elf was sort of dead there too. It's good when it works, but there are lots of very real situations where it won't work, and in those situations it's really really bad. I still can't justify it.
I get what you mean by "instant speed creature protection" now, but the card you're looking for unfortunately does not exist. Nothing like this is good enough. Maybe someday.
Sylvan Safekeeper is okay but remember that it's not as good as it looks. It's actually very weak protection from instant-speed removal, since a savvy opponent will just wait until you try to scavenge and then use their removal. If you save your creatures, you fizzle the scavenge, which is not good at all. It's still a reasonable card but it's by no means indispensable. It's in and out of my deck, and those cards tend to wind up staying out eventually.
Kamenitza, Tainted Strike is bad. As you observe, it's really only good in the circumstance where you're attacking with a big (but not super-big from Buried Alive) Varolz and are unblocked and they have nothing. You win those games perfectly fine without Tainted Strike 99% of the time. Berserk is a whole different story because it grants evasion too, giving it a lot of extra utility. Tainted Strike is very one-dimensional, frequently going to be dead in hand, and usually win-more even when you can cast it.
I'm somewhat ambivalent about Chrome Mox myself, though I still play it. It's not the greatest (I'd rather have a mana elf most of the time), but I do use it much more commonly than you suggest. If it lets me play engine cards or card draw sooner, it's worth it. Most spell-heavy hands can use it effectively, and when you can't, you generally need more spells anyway and are pretty happy mulliganing it. Does that make sense? With most cards, saying that you can always mull it if it's dead doesn't mean much, because those cards make you mull when you don't otherwise want to, but with Chrome Mox that's not really an issue, since if a hand can't use Chrome Mox effectively, it probably doesn't contain enough action to begin with. Chrome Mox also takes the place of a land slot, not a spell. I don't think it's critical to include it, but I've been playing it for a very long time and I'm still pretty happy with it. It's frequently better than a random land would be.
Whether you play Chrome Mox or not, please don't play Mox Diamond. It's so much worse in this deck. There are 3 kinds of draws with this deck: good ones, ones with great spells but not enough land, and ones with enough land but light on action. The latter two are the ones that most frequently lead to losses (this deck doesn't lose much, but I think it loses to itself more often than to an opponent). Mox Diamond is terrible in both of those types of hands. If you're light on lands you always just wish it was a land, and if you have too many lands you can probably cast it, but don't have much to ramp into. You're probably better off mulling a couple of lands and non-essential spells (including Mox Diamond) hoping to hit a better balance with more action. That is not a situation where you want to be sacrificing card advantage for ramp. Compare that with Chrome Mox, which is still bad when you have too many lands, but can actually be very good when you're a little light on them. Just cut Mox Diamond, it's seriously awful here, you need some kind of perfect hand to make it ever even worth casting.
I'm trying out Yisan and Noxious Revival too. I have no opinion yet but I'm hopeful. I'm also trying Gemstone Caverns and Ulcerate (I looooove cheap removal).
Your deck is still within about 10 cards of what I'm currently testing, and every single card you're playing that I'm not has been in and out of my list at some point. I think that this deck is getting pretty close to optimized, and there's a core of about 80 cards that I wouldn't even consider changing.
From your list, I have:
-Reflecting Pool
-Gilt-Leaf Palace
-Mox Diamond
-Bloom Tender
-Scavenging Ooze
-Rancor
-Seal of Primordium
-Devour in Shadow
-Diabolic Edict
-Beast Within
-Putrefy
+Urborg
+Tectonic Edge
+Gemstone Caverns
+Chrome Mox
+Expedition Map
+Plague Myr
+Necropede
+Skeletal Scrying
+Ulcerate
+Hero's Downfall
+Read the Bones
I've already voiced my opinion on the Moxes. I think you're a little land light, considering I'm running ~2 more than you (Chrome Mox counts as a land, Mox Diamond and Expedition Map count as half a land). I feel like I've finally gotten the number right, since I get manascrewed almost exactly as often as I get manaflooded now, and this deck lives and dies off of that. Gilt-Leaf Palace is fine and was very recently in my deck (I just cut it to try out Gemstone Caverns, but I have no idea if Caverns is better yet). Gilt-Leaf Palace was definitely the worst land in the deck though, since sometimes you have to play it tapped and just lose a turn. I'm not a fan of Reflecting Pool since it's so ineffective at fixing. I think Urborg is better (it's also better than Vault of Whispers, but I still play that). I'd rather just have something consistent than Reflecting Pool. Expedition Map made its way back into my deck recently and has been fine. It's a little slower than you like, but Inkmoth Nexus is so important in this deck that I've found it to be worthwhile. Sometimes getting Wasteland or Rishadan Port is key too. I like having Tectonic Edge for the same reason--there are a few lands that really mess with us, especially Maze of Ith, and it's important to be able to find answers.
Bloom Tender was always really clunky for me. 2 mana accelerants don't fit the curve well, and it's hard to really capitalize on it in many hands. This deck wants to ramp fast, not high, and Bloom Tender isn't very good for that. I much prefer Plague Myr, which is almost as good as ramping (Bloom Tender often only makes 1 mana, or makes extra mana I can't use), and gives you immense potential to just win simply by being on the board. Your opponents have to respect that and play very differently, or risk just losing (and I've won many games exactly like that). I also like Necropede, which is not super powerful but demands the same kind of respect, and has also won me many games. The option to use it as removal for 1 toughness creatures also comes up more often than you would expect, and gives it a good bit of utility. I don't like Scavenging Ooze at all in this deck. Most of the best decks simply don't care about graveyard hate (including this one), and this deck isn't aggressive enough to win games off of its body either. It just doesn't play well with anything this deck is doing, and isn't powerful enough to constitute a plan by itself.
Rancor is bad. It's considerably worse than Bramblewood Paragon, and I don't think that's good enough either. Again, this deck isn't aggressive enough, even with as much infect as I play, to win by just attacking (it happens, but very rarely). Rancor is basically trample and nothing else here, and that's not good enough to be worth a slot.
You play more removal than I do right now. I used to play that much, but I think it's less important in the current meta. It's not like when Zur was running around--there are very few decks now that demand that you always have removal or just lose. I tried out playing less, and haven't regretting it at all. I really like Ulcerate though--mana cost for removal is absolutely crucial. I really hate 3 mana removal spells--in this deck, it usually takes most of your turn just to play one, whereas you can typically cast a cheaper one and still have enough mana to advance your gameplan. The difference between 3 and 2 is huge, and the difference between 2 and 1 is just as big. Ulcerate still kills most things I care about, so I think it will be worthwhile. I was pretty happy with Disfigure even, and could see playing that again sometime. I don't like Hero's Downfall, but it's still probably better than Putrefy, and I like having some answers to planeswalkers. I keep wanting to cut Maelstrom Pulse for being too clunky but can't quite bring myself to do it. I don't like Beast Within in this deck at all though, 3 mana is a lot and the Beast token is often very relevant against us. I'm strongly in favor of playing as much card draw as you can--in games where you're flooding out (the games you can easily lose), these are the best spells you can draw. Skeletal Scrying is very explosive and versatile and has won me lots of games. Read the Bones is a little clunky, but still quite good--honestly, it's better than Phyrexian Arena a lot of the time, since it's faster. I think this deck still wants the Arenas, since they can save bad hands that would otherwise doom you, but I could see an argument for cutting them, since this deck is so fast that it usually doesn't get many cards out of them. Read the Bones at least lets you dig pretty deep immediately, and fairly often lets you win the next turn. I'd work pretty hard to fit these in.
Sure, there are situations where any card shines. Needle Specter does indeed like Rancor very much: unfortunately, it's the only creature that really benefits from the power boost. Most of the time Rancor doesn't do much. But test all you like.
Arbor Elf over Tainted Pact...I mean, that's a thing you could do. I can't imagine it's worth it though. At the end of the day, Arbor Elf is just one more mana elf among many. It's nice, to be sure, but there's nothing special about it, and it's not even good when you draw multiple elves. On the other hand, Tainted Pact is insanely good in this deck--I really find it to be better than Demonic Tutor since I can cast it eot or in my combat step and kill by surprise. Yes, I have to make my lands back over backwards to accommodate this one card, which is annoying, but the mana can handle it and the card is SO GOOD that it's still definitely worth it in my mind. Resistance to nonbasic hate isn't a big deal at all I think--these cards are not that commonly played, are not always drawn on time anyway, and can absolutely be played around with most hands. Even though the landbase is soft to them, I've beaten these cards more often than I've lost to them. I don't think adding a few more basics will really help that much against them anyway, they're still going to be great against us no matter what we do.
I've found Oloro combo decks to be a great matchup actually. We're faster than they are, and they tend to have very minimal disruption. Our average hand definitely beats their average hand, and as long as you get a hand with a reasonable clock you should be fine.
I really like Ulcerate though--mana cost for removal is absolutely crucial. I really hate 3 mana removal spells--in this deck, it usually takes most of your turn just to play one, whereas you can typically cast a cheaper one and still have enough mana to advance your gameplan. The difference between 3 and 2 is huge, and the difference between 2 and 1 is just as big. Ulcerate still kills most things I care about, so I think it will be worthwhile. I was pretty happy with Disfigure even, and could see playing that again sometime. I don't like Hero's Downfall, but it's still probably better than Putrefy, and I like having some answers to planeswalkers. I keep wanting to cut Maelstrom Pulse for being too clunky but can't quite bring myself to do it. I don't like Beast Within in this deck at all though, 3 mana is a lot and the Beast token is often very relevant against us.
how about slaughter pact?
also, if yisan fits well in the deck, there could be a point in keeping sylvan safekeeper in the deck, as an active yisan and 3 mana would mean instant speed protection.
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I don't like Tainted Strike much, since it's dead unless you have a dreadnought, and if you have a dreadnought scavenged and attacking and getting through you're probably a 95% favorite to win that game anyway. It's also mostly dead if you have an infect creature already in play. It does have the potential to get people sometimes, so I guess there's some potential there, but my gut says it's not worth it.
EDIT:
Also, once you've revealed one of the cards that there are 2 of (ie a forest when you have 2 forests), you now have a 50% chance of hitting your other forest before the card you want, which is pretty bad.
BBB Two Hundred Zombies BBB
Duel Commander
WR Tajic, Wrath of the Manlands RW
BGW Doran Destruction WGB
Commander
GUB Mimeoplasm, Screw Politics BUG
BR Mogis, God of Slaughter RB
RGW Marath, Ramp and Removal WGR
WUBRG Karona, Jank God GRBUW
based on your reasoning, vines of vastwood is an improvement on invigorate for defense and for disruption (spellskite before scavenging, in response to opponent equipping etc) and is cmc 1 instead of 3 (every bit counts). also saves varolz's ass from dismemberment.
i also went looking for a second spell to functionally replicate berserk, but the closest is predator's strike.
While it doesnt' provide trample(which is a bummer) it still really helps from a resiliency standpoint. It's probably one of the best cards in my deck.
@Gemiinus: Invigorate's not good enough in this deck. Free is nice, but +4/+4 isn't generally enough to be relevant. This deck one-shots (sometimes two-shots) people. It doesn't nickel-and-dime with smaller pump effects. If I wanted a protection instant, I'd play Vines of Vastwood or Ranger's Guile first (protecting from bounce is a big deal), but even those haven't been necessary. I haven't played them in a long time and haven't missed them.
@Jibux: Nah, Temple of Malady isn't good here. It's definitely not better than any of the lands you mentioned. All I want from my lands is that they make colored mana and that they don't come in tapped. It's hard to overstate how important the untapped part is. This deck has an extremely low curve and generally makes efficient use of every mana every turn. Playing a CITP land is usually like giving your opponent a free Time Walk, and that's really not an exaggeration. Gilt-Leaf Palace is by far the worst land in the deck, because it comes into play tapped about 40% of the time and is a reverse Time Walk 30% of the time. It's a necessary evil though, since there simply isn't anything better out there. Temple of Malady is far, far worse than Gilt-Leaf Palace in this deck.
Sakura-Tribe Elder and Sylvan Caryatid are cards I've considered. They don't fit the curve though, don't interact well with Varolz, and really aren't impactful enough to do that much vs Marath. 1 more mana is nice and all, but it doesn't really address the problem like Phyrexian Revoker does. If I was going to play another ramp card like that, I think it would be Viridian Emissary (somewhat better synergy with Varolz) but I don't like that either.
@buddha84: Chord of Calling has been in and out of my list several times. Every time it's in, I hate it and find it unbearably clunky. It tends to get stuck in my hand even though it's instant speed and I only ever want to cast it for 1. Experience has shown that it's way harder to cast it in a real game than you would expect. I still try it out every once in a while, because in theory it seems decent and this deck wants the effect badly, but it's never performed well for me.
Since my last update, I've taken out Sylvan Tutor and Mindslicer, and replaced them with Needle Specter and Nihil Spellbomb. Sylvan Tutor is semi-valid for grabbing Dark Confidant or Mesmeric Fiend, but I don't want to play a tutor for that. It's terrible for getting a Dreadnought, since it telegraphs what you're doing and gives your opponent a turn to prepare. This deck needs to be trickier than that. Mindslicer has always been either pretty good or very bad, depending on the situation. The problem is that it's so high variance, and it's never extremely good. Needle Specter is very similar to Whispering Specter (which has been testing quite well) and I've liked it so far. It's somewhat relevant to just grind away with it (more so than Whispering Specter), and is actually a reasonably good scavenge target as well. It's the very best target to scavenge small stuff like mana dorks on, and when you think you can get a hit in, build-your-own-Nicol-Bolas has been enough to win the game on the couple of occasions I've been able to make that happen. I like it so far. Nihil Spellbomb is just a great card with very low opportunity cost, and I wanted a little bit more control of the graveyard. It's kind of filler and could definitely be replaced in the future, but I like it fine for now.
I'm considering cutting Dosan the Falling Leaf and Thrun, the Last Troll. It seems that the better I get with this deck, the less useful "protection" cards like this become. They just usually aren't very relevant. Sometimes they're good, often they're bad, but even when they're good I generally feel like I could have won the game without them. I'm not sure what I'll add instead, but I think I can do without them now.
The deck continues to test well. I've played several matches on Cockatrice in the last week, winning all of them. In full matches, I've beaten Oloro twice, Geist twice, Ezuri once, Marchesa twice, Grenzo once, and a few others I don't remember. I think I lost one match, but can't remember to what (it wasn't a top deck). Almost all of the games I've lost were to my own lands (not drawing enough, or not drawing a color, despite multiple mulligans). It's hard to figure out how to fix that though.
i'm looking also for a creature which can tap or destroy lands in these colors, had some issues with a damage prevention land (could have been a maze of ith as well).
that aside, yesterday i couldn't play skeletal scrying for the life of me, i either had tons to do with my mana or a graveyard empty (this deck doesn't fill it up as one would imagine).
I tried diabolic intent and it has been relevant in both games i drew it.
EDIT: sylvan safekeeper would have let me win through that damage prevention (it targeted). will try and put it in again just for that, it would have been especially relevant since i had a deathrite shaman as t1 play.
I haven't had issues with Skeletal Scrying. Sometimes it's 4-5 cards and sometimes just 2, but it always does something when I need it. If you have tons to do with your mana already, you probably don't need to be casting Skeletal Scrying--just save it for when you run out of things to do. It's fairly common for me to end games with stuff like Skeletal Scrying, Read the Bones, or even Phyrexian Arena in hand because I simply didn't have time to cast them...that usually means you just had a good hand. Even though the draw spells aren't so good in those situations, I think they're still necessary for when you have to keep worse hands and hope to draw into some action.
How was Diabolic Intent relevant? It doesn't seem awful, but neither does it seem great. I'm not sure it's better than Grim Tutor, and I actually cut that recently for being too clunky and haven't missed it.
You make a good point about Thrun vs. Clique DL. It is indeed a great card there (or against mono-blue in general). However, at least on Cockatrice, mono-blue seems to be very seldom played recently (I literally haven't encountered Clique in months). I cut Thrun a while ago and haven't missed him yet. If blue control is rampant I'd definitely keep him in, but with the way the meta's going he may not be necessary. I did cut Dosan the Falling Leaf as well, and haven't missed him either.
Since my last changelist, I think I've gone:
-Dosan the Falling Leaf
-Thrun, the Last Troll
-Nihil Spellbomb
-Grasp of Darkness
-Grim Tutor
-Eternal Witness
+Cabal Therapy
+Disfigure
+Hypnotic Specter
+Sylvan Safekeeper
+Nature's Lore
+Three Visits
I've also tested out (again) Glistener Elf, Elvish Spirit Guide, Chord of Calling, and Parallax Nexus, but wasn't satisfied with any of them and they all got cut again. Chord of Calling maintained its perfect streak of being utterly uncastable every single time I've drawn it.
Thrun and Dosan are discussed above. Nihil Spellbomb was nice but not necessary, and I wanted to play with the slot. I'm planning on replacing Grasp of Darkness with Ulcerate once M15 comes out, and figured I'd test Disfigure to see how different it is and whether it's worth playing. It's actually not bad at all--cmc on removal is tremendously important for curving out properly, and Disfigure still kills a lot of stuff. Ulcerate will be better though. Hypnotic Specter and Sylvan Safekeeper are still test spots and might not stay long. I've been impressed with Needle Specter, and while Hypnotic Specter is worse, my theory is that it's kind of a probe for removal spells. No one ever takes a hit from Hyppie if they're holding removal--it just doesn't happen. So if he gets through, the coast is probably clear. It's also just a pretty good card overall. Sylvan Safekeeper does have annoying dissynergy with scavenge, but it's still effective protection in many other circumstances...and it's possible my opponents won't realize that it blocks scavenge too (shh). I'm not sure it will be good enough, but it might still work. Nature's Lore and Three Visits are just a trial of some ramp that's immune to sweepers. I think these are the best options, since even though they don't fit the curve so well they still fix mana and sometimes effectively cost 1. So far in testing I haven't loved or hated them. We'll see.
Speaking of M15, it's a little questionable but I think Yisan, the Wanderer Bard will actually be worth testing. I really wish the activation didn't cost so much, but any card that can by itself tutor up a Dreadnought and then follow that up with Mesmeric Fiend or Plague Stinger is worth a look. I wouldn't be surprised if the card turns out to be quite good in this deck. I'm still interested in including another card or two to beat Marath: I actually have a positive record against the deck, but it doesn't feel so good. Toxic Deluge is fairly effective and I've been very happy with Phyrexian Revoker, but I want just a little bit more. Maybe Pithing Needle? My issues with the deck primarily just stem from Marath being able to machine-gun down all my little creatures at will.
I've been keeping track of all my games on Cockatrice in the last few months or so (only started recording player names recently though). I have descriptions for some of the games, especially the recent ones. Here are my results:
Horobi, Night's Whisper: 1-0
Akroma, Angel of Fury: 1-0
Geist of St. Traft: 2-0
Animar, Soul of Elements: 2-0
Tajic, Blade of the Legion: 2-0
Ephara, God of the Polis: 2-0
Ghave, Guru of Spores: 1-0
Ezuri, Renegade Leader: 2-0
Doran, the Siege Tower: 0-2 (g1 manascrew into g2 colorscrew, i had him dead both games if i just drew black mana)
Doran, the Siege Tower: 2-1 (same player. the game I lost, i had duress to make sure the coast was clear, followed by lethal with berserk the next turn. On his one draw step, he topdecked instant-speed removal to stop me from winning)
Grimgrin, Corpse-Born: 1-0
Tajic, Blade of the Legion: 2-0
Olivia Voldaren: 2-1 (the game I lost, I neglected to play around blood moon effects when I could have, and lost to magus of the moon with an awesome hand and a board of just mountains)
Ezuri, Renegade Leader: 1-2 (g1 i lost one turn before i would have killed him with with a huge berserking guy. I had awkward lands this game and tapped wrong multiple times, giving him at least 2 extra turns I think. g2 turn 4 win. g3 i had a good hand but was a little tight on mana, and his wasteland made that much worse. I still would have won if i had found a second source of black mana, losing the game to ezuri going nuclear with the combo, victim of night, and grasp of darkness all in hand).
Skithyrix, the Blight Dragon: 1-0
Azusa, Lost but Seeking: 2-0
The Mimeoplasm: 2-0
Maelstrom Wanderer: 2-0
Jenara, Asura of War: 2-0
Prime Speaker Zegana: 1-0 (ragequit)
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic: 2-0 (Omniscience combo, I was faster)
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic: 2-0 (control, this seems like a nice matchup overall since his deck is slow and I don't care how much life he gains)
Azusa, Lost but Seeking: 2-1 (the game i lost, i kept a 1 lander on the play with swamp, dark rit, liliana, entomb, death's shadow. couldn't draw green mana in like 15 turns. if i had been able to play varolz, would have won, even after he terastodoned me. other 2 games were straightforward.)
Azusa, Lost but Seeking: 2-0 (different player)
Varolz, the Scar-Striped: 2-0 (different style of deck than mine, had the combos but didn't seem very tuned)
Grenzo, Dungeon Warden: 2-1 (goblin deck, i lost a game due to never drawing a 4th land in 10 or so turns. had everything i needed otherwise. won game 3 on turn 3 despite his sparksmith: dark ritual + buried alive + berserk for the massive overkill)
Nekusar, the Mindrazer: 1-0
Grenzo, Dungeon Warden: 2-1 (very tuned looking aggro deck. I lost a close game 1 due to multiple misplays. I let Slavering Nulls hit my hand several times, when I should have sucked it up and killed it early. Then I wound up making varolz big instead of inkmoth nexus because i was 1 mana short of insta-killing with nexus and was afraid of land destruction. He was able to kill me over several turns while repeatedly chumping varolz and my inkmoth just sat there. Game 2 was close but i was able to get there with nexus combo a turn or 2 before he could kill me. Game 3 i had a ton of lands, but dryad arbor + pendelhaven did a good job slowing him down, then when he played 5 guys toxic deluge for 2 destroyed him, and i even got to save dryad arbor. He kept trying, but liliana, plague stinger, and death's shadow wrapped it up 2 turns later)
Azami, Lady of Scrolls: 2-1 (game 1: sweet hand, turn 4 kill with chrome mox, brain maggot, and a giant necropede. Still had demonic tutor in hand at the end. Game 2 I have a good hand but misplay horribly by playing sylvan library instead of dark confidant before casting nature's claim on his fellwar stone. The instant after I do that I realize how terrible my sequencing/choice is if he has Misdirection, and of course he has it for the monster blowout. Then he's able to play Azami, I get stuck on mana, and it's all downhill from there. My starting hand was so powerful that this was probably unlosable if I just played around Misdirection, which I could have done easily. Game 3 I have turn 1 Survival of the Fittest off of Chrome Mox. I get greedy and make a big mistake of hitting him with a 15/15 Varolz on turn 3 after he taps out for Sky Diamond (never do this against blue decks). He has Sower of Temptation of course, and I don't have any answers to it that I can get off of Survival. Luckily, I topdeck Tainted Pact, which finds me removal and the win, but that could have gone very badly for me. I definitely should have waited longer.
Marath, Will of the Wild: 2-1 (g1 i keep a nice hand with 3 land, deathrite, library, liliana, viridian corrupter on the play. unfortunately, he has seal of cleansing to immediately kill library. liliana takes out his argothian enchantress but dies to marath. i draw no action cards for like 7 turns and lose. g2 i mull into a somewhat awkward hand with fauna shaman, an elf, tainted pact and 3 lands. i decide to play the mana elf on turn 1 (instead of saving it for Fauna Shaman) and never really draw another creature. We both have rishadan ports though, so his mana is awkward. He can't really play marath and tainted pact gets me there eventually. g3 i mull into an awkward hand with whispering specter, entomb, and 4 lands. the pieces are there...he has a turn 1 weathered wayfarer and skips his next land drop. i am not about to give him gaea's cradle and am perfectly willing to play the waiting game so we stare at each other for a few turns until he gives up and starts playing land. i have plague myr, he has aura shards. frown. i have whispering specter and tainted pact in hand, dreadnought in my gy from entomb. i just play varolz and pass. he plays marath as expected, killing my myr with aura shards. on my turn, i scavenge onto varolz, attack, and tainted pact for berserk when he chumps. so sweet.)
Heartless Hidetsugo: 2-0
Doran, the Siege Tower: 2-1 (game 1, i have survival and am playing around his scavenging ooze. i misplay really badly and pass up the chance to make a 14/14 plague myr and make him start chumping, when i already know he has sword of feast and famine in hand and will make me discard and lose my chance. the game is still extremely close, and i would have won if i had 1 more life or a land other than tarnished citadel to make colored mana. as is, i eventually get that 14/14 trampling myr, but he just plays doran to chump, and i'm dead the next turn. i definitely could have won this with tighter play. g2 turn 3 kill. g3 turn 4 kill)
Marath, Will of the Wild: 2-0 (g1 i go for the 14/14 varolz on turn 3 before marath is active. he takes 14, and then i have removal for his chump blocker.
g2 i mull to 5 to find lands and keep something slow with survival and tainted pact. he has turn 2 marath followed by skullclamp. i get to a position where i can win out of nowhere if he taps out, but he doesn't go for it, and i have to tainted pact for toxic deluge in order to survive. that almost lets me win right after, except that he has swords to plowshares to slow me down too. i'm able to survival up phyrexian revoker to curtail his 5/5 marath though, then play a 15/15 varolz to block, then win.)
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher, piloted by Graddock: 2-0 (g1 i mull to a hand with a lot of discard and 2 lands. i miss a couple land drops while he ramps, but eventually sign in blood into enough mana. varolz comes down, then buried alive and attack for 27 the following turn. he's actually able to survive for a turn by chumping with prossh and some tokens, but still can't deal with varolz. g2 i keep a decent hand that just lacks a way to win, but draw worldly tutor pretty early. he has a bunch of ramp, while i get out varolz and inkmoth nexus. there's a turn where i could go for the kill with inkmoth nexus, but he has 1 unknown card and mana up and if he kills it i'd lose. i didn't go for it. the next turn he tutors for toxic deluge and kills all my stuff, including varolz and dryad arbor, while revealing that he didn't have removal. c'est la vie. i just play varolz. he plays prossh. i make a 14/14 nexus and force him to chump. next turn he replays prossh, but when he tries to chump again i have tainted pact for berserk.)
Geist of St. Traft, piloted by mavrkhrom: 2-0 (g1 i keep a pretty powerful but land light hand. he has swords to plowshares and force of will to stop fauna shaman and dark confidant and gets geist going, alongside rishadan port and dust bowl to tie up my mana. i'm able to ambush his geist with necropede and crop rotation for pendelhaven though, which feels sweet. i miss a bunch of land drops and feel sure I'm losing this to his port and dust bowl, but i'm still able to get out survival and maneuver a bit. when he gets sword of feast and famine, necropede chump blocks, and then viridian corrupter takes it out. he tries to kill me with elspeth for exactly lethal, but i point out that he can't cast her (only 1 white). the next turn i'm able to discard dreadnought getting brawn, scavenge onto corrupter, and attack for lethal after i discard brawn. g2 the server crashes midway through this game so we don't technically finish, but i had plenty of mana, high life, varolz and sylvan library in play, and a strong hand vs his 4 lands and 3 cards in hand. i'm pretty confident i was winning that game.)
Marchesa, the Black Rose, piloted by italicizedliez: 2-0 (g1 i'm attacking with 15/15 varolz on turn 3 with brain maggot protection. g2 he gets stuck on land and i have a great hand with turn 1 dark confidant, followed up by sylvan library and plenty of action.)
Marath, Will of the Wild, piloted by Guino500: 1-2: (g1 i mull to find lands and wind up with something slow but keepable, with maelstrom pulse for marath. i have to use the pulse on his sylvan library though after sign in blood just draws me little creatures i don't want. turns out he has a great hand and i don't draw much, and he quickly assembles his infinite combo with fauna shaman on turn 5. g2 i'm able to maneuver into a 13/13 needle specter without him able to stop me. g3 he has a pretty average hand (just a bunch of mana) but mine is pretty slow and non-interactive (hymn into read the bones into hero's downfall into ad nauseum. he's not doing much but has taken some life off me. ad nauseum finds me about 15 cards but nothing i can use, and i lose.)
Zedruu, the Great-Hearted, piloted by bata: 2-0 (g1 he keeps a 1 lander with land tax on the draw, and gets screwed when i just stay on 1 land and play elves. g2 glacial chasm actually buys him several turns right before i was about to kill him with buried alive, but it's not enough.)
Horde of Notions, piloted by Agent of Cuber: 2-0 (he's playing some sort of creature-based combo deck. g1 i mull away a bunch of lands and draw more lands, then draw nothing but lands. however, those lands include rishadan port and wasteland and he has a land light hand, and he concedes (somewhat inappropriately i think) to mana issues. g2 i'm able to set up a turn 4 nexus kill right through his scavenging ooze, with discard backup.)
Jenara, Asura of War, piloted by pizieno: 1-0 (i have a great hand, scoring a turn 4 kill off of buried alive when he taps out. he gets very excited and leaves.)
So...yeah. Those are all the games I've played semi-recently. Obviously some of those decks aren't as competitive as others, but plenty of them are, and I have a stellar win-loss ratio overall. This is absolutely the deck I would take a tournament, and I think a strong case could be made for it being tier 1 (if only anyone else played it!).
diabolic intent was relevant as i often have in play one or more mana dork, and so could play it without being hindered by the drawback.
I thought about Yisan as well, and will probably be playtesting him soon.
i concur of thinking of this as one of the best duel commander decks, and the fact that it's under the radar it might make it even better.
Confirming that Berserk is worth playing in Varolz decks
I like Hypnotic Specter a lot so far. I think it'll stay. I've even considered Hollow Specter and Shimian Specter quite strongly, though I think the mana costs involved there are probably too much. They might work though (haven't actually tested them).
I need to update the list in the OP when I have time. It's very outdated and I guess it's hard to follow the change-logs from newer posts. I haven't played Abyssal Persecutor in quite a while. I'm not playing Bramblewood Paragon anymore either. I am playing Green Sun's Zenith (it gets Dryad Arbor literally 99% of the time, but in this deck that's fine).
Nature's Lore and Three Visits were just because I wanted to try out a little more ramp and they seemed like the next best options. I don't think they'll stay though. 2cc ramp just doesn't seem to do it for this deck--even Bloom Tender didn't play well, when that card is usually so good. I should maybe try Wild Growth (it's probably a little better for curve purposes), but I'm pretty hesitant because I play so few basic lands. A lot of hands with Wild Growth are just going to absolutely fold to Wasteland, and considering that pretty much all decks play that, I think the risk is just too high. I'm not sure there's any other ramp I can play that's good enough, so I may just have to play something else in those slots. Arbor Elf really isn't an option unfortunately, since with my current land base it's just dead in the opening hand about 50% of the time.
Berserk is one of the absolute best cards in this deck and wins so many games. I'd play 4 or 5 if I could--it's actually the card I wind up tutoring for more often than anything else. The card is just impossible to play around and invariably ends games. I never have had to Berserk a 1/1 before though!
skullclamp, bitterblossom and bloodghast had been cut from my list as well. as you said this deck doesn't need incremental card advantage combos, just draw and tutoring.
let me know how your tests go with the specters (on paper i really like the withering one). before testing them my gut feeling says they cost one mana too much for what we'd need, but it wouldn't surprise me if they exhausted opponents' resources efficiently. if i can reliably open with a mana dork and two lands, and so far it's been common, they are a perfect turn 2.
about this topic, if you find them good, i'd rather have one of those instead of hymn to tourach, so far it hadn't had that big of an impact i thought it would have. do still use it?
i was thinking about getting rid of the zenith, and if i didn't play bramblewood paragon i wouldn't have any second thoughts about it. i still use him, it happened already twice that i was about to cast buried alive and i drew brawn, my only way to win was to tutor the elf as fast as i could or a berserk, but a creature is ways more easier to tutor.
i wouldn't know about sorcery ramp, i figure second turn is really crucial to either drop a draw engine or a creature to start beating or drawing removal (like confidant, a specter or in my case a skullbriar if the field is empty).
i feel the 1 mana dork suite is good as it is. if they printed another variant of llanowar elves, i would add it instead of boreal druid, not in addition. i never got around to use it, and i removed it as well, but elven spirit guide might help, even if it's a one time use, and tutorable if you need one more mana the following turn.
one more card i am testing is noxious revival. usually anything that ends up in our graveyard we want to reuse (discard, especially cabal therapy, wasteland) or we need to protect (on death's shadow while the trigger from a bojuka bog is on the stack). even if that doesn't come up, there are cases when it will be a time walk.
so far then the main difference between our versions are noxious, skullbriar and bone shredder. i still lack a bayou and a gu fetch, but that's not really that much impactful.
as for new cards to test, it has been twice now i needed a creature protection to tutor for at instant speed. which would be the best one in your opinion?
berserk is the sole reason i waited to build this deck. without it i wouldn't even have bothered to sleeve this one up.
edit: maybe gemstone cavern might be the card we're looking for. ramp in exchange for card advantage, comes in untapped, can be safely mulliganed if we get it with a mox.
GUB [Retired Primer] The Mimeoplasm BUG
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Credit for the banner goes to DarkNightCavalier at Heroes of the Plane Studios
confidant is nice to have, but you could do with another ca source.
grim tutor i don't have it either. i use diabolic intent and i reckon khymera said he cutted it too from his list.
liliana is really good, but i never tutored for her. it's a key card if you happen to go against geist of saint traft or pure control lists.
rishadan i don't have it either, and i have really an issue justifying its price tag for the effect it does in this deck.
wasteland can be subbed with any other land, i'd say go with tectonic edge. you need some land destruction to tutor on a land, since you can't have it on a creature with less than 5 cmc.
all in all, i said to myself i wouldn't sleeve this deck up until i got hold of a berserk. i still stand by this reasoning, won so many times on the back of this card i lost count.
i tried plunge in constructed, and paying 15 life often lost me the game without me getting the card i needed.
in commander, i think there are too many cards in the deck even if we have more starting life, and also not that many functional reprints to justify running it. if i needed another tutor i'd go for demonic consultation first.
Hypnotic Specter has been fine thus far. Needs more testing. Hymn to Tourach should stay though, the card is just extremely overpowered.
I had cut Green Sun's Zenith for a while, but realized that I really did want as many 1-mana creature accelerants as possible. Thanks to Dryad Arbor, GSZ counts. That alone makes it worth playing for me. Nothing else really factors in.
Bramblewood Paragon isn't necessary. Brawn truly is, but you can always do without the Paragon, and I found it was irrelevant most times I drew it. You know, if you draw Brawn at the wrong time you can always just cast it and sacrifice it to Varolz...
I've played Elvish Spirit Guide quite a bit, it's not really worth it. The way this deck functions, we do tend to need more mana every turn. Ramp that only lasts a turn just leaves you needing one more the following turn. It was only good for the turn you win, and it's not consistently helpful in that regard.
I still don't know why you play Skullbriar lol. The card seems awful to me.
I quite like the idea of Noxious Revival. I hadn't considered it before, but the price is certainly right. It's not a great card, but it has enough utility in this deck that I could see it being good. I'll give it a try.
I don't really understand what you mean by "creature protection to tutor for at instant speed." There's only 1 instant speed tutor. The best options are probably Vines of Vastwood or Sylvan Safekeeper, depending on what you're talking about, but I don't think either card is crucial. The more experience I get with this deck the less I've found myself wanted any sorts of dedicated protection cards. You don't need them, and can accomplish the exact same thing with tight play and well-timed discard.
Gemstone Caverns is interesting. I might try it out. My gut says it probably isn't good enough, since there are a lot of situations it's bad in, and plenty of hands where we wouldn't necessarily want to use it even if on the play (I mulligan Chrome Mox away a lot), but I wouldn't be too surprised if it worked. It's exciting to have another land I could potentially play too, since I've actually hit the limit of lands I'm willing to play under Tainted Pact's constraints. If you try it, let me know how it is.
I agree with most of what buddha's been saying. Plunge into Darkness doesn't cut it as card selection. DTrain, I wouldn't play this deck without Berserk, but the other cards you mention are not absolutely essential (I don't even play Grim Tutor anymore).
I'll try to update the OP soon. I'm not going to have much (if any) time to play test for about the next 3 months though, so progress will be slow.
taking your word on it, will keep it!
i really ought to count games when i don't have a forest in play. as far as i can recall it never happened and the deck can fetch a forest when needed. it might be time to use arbor elf as well..
yes, the reasoning is solid, the game i was playing when drawing brawn had been a issue has been one of those close games regarding mana and tempo. playing brawn costed me a turn, and if varolz had trample one turn earlier i would've won that game. but i can see how rare these situations are.
i'll be keeping the paragon in, but i'll consider it expendable in case i won't need some redundancy for the trample (running nylea in the wishboard currently, might be bramblewood in her stead).
aside from one game when it shone (i knew my opponent had a oblivion ring in hand and a maze of ith in play. kept scavenging on skullbriar and forced him to oring him, instead of varolz) i agree that he hadn't been stellar. is a low cost beater but i agree each specter is really better than him. will cut him from my list.
i could use it twice so far. once i got back a tutor for the win and the other time i timewalked my opponent. i'd say it can be really useful in evolved metas (where even monocolor deck run fetchlands), i really need to remember not to exile that last land in the opponent graveyard tho unless really necessary.
sylvan is interesting still because of gsz and low mana cost. i must have been thinking about lands too (so that crop rotation was included as well) and creatures that could be played at instant speed (wordly tutor). ad nauseam could be included too. so, the ideal protection should be a creature or land that could be pitched from one's hand at a low cost, like some ability connected to cycle. first ideas just after a quick gatherer search could be Briarhorn or Muck Drubb. i know they're both terrible (i just had time to search for the flash keyword) and that we have enough discard to play the control game, but i think that if a card exists with these qualities and it's not a complete dud on her own, some playtest can be useful. (EDIT -- I just remembered we have also survival of the fittest and fauna shaman that could are instant tutors for creatures)
i'll try it as soon as i get my hands on a copy. the singleton land aspect of this deck is one of the things that appeals so much to me
thanks for the detailed replies as usual, i'll post my list in the next few days too (judge yourself if it can be included in the primer, i don't think it will differ that much from yours).
I get what you mean by "instant speed creature protection" now, but the card you're looking for unfortunately does not exist. Nothing like this is good enough. Maybe someday.
Sylvan Safekeeper is okay but remember that it's not as good as it looks. It's actually very weak protection from instant-speed removal, since a savvy opponent will just wait until you try to scavenge and then use their removal. If you save your creatures, you fizzle the scavenge, which is not good at all. It's still a reasonable card but it's by no means indispensable. It's in and out of my deck, and those cards tend to wind up staying out eventually.
Kamenitza, Tainted Strike is bad. As you observe, it's really only good in the circumstance where you're attacking with a big (but not super-big from Buried Alive) Varolz and are unblocked and they have nothing. You win those games perfectly fine without Tainted Strike 99% of the time. Berserk is a whole different story because it grants evasion too, giving it a lot of extra utility. Tainted Strike is very one-dimensional, frequently going to be dead in hand, and usually win-more even when you can cast it.
I'm somewhat ambivalent about Chrome Mox myself, though I still play it. It's not the greatest (I'd rather have a mana elf most of the time), but I do use it much more commonly than you suggest. If it lets me play engine cards or card draw sooner, it's worth it. Most spell-heavy hands can use it effectively, and when you can't, you generally need more spells anyway and are pretty happy mulliganing it. Does that make sense? With most cards, saying that you can always mull it if it's dead doesn't mean much, because those cards make you mull when you don't otherwise want to, but with Chrome Mox that's not really an issue, since if a hand can't use Chrome Mox effectively, it probably doesn't contain enough action to begin with. Chrome Mox also takes the place of a land slot, not a spell. I don't think it's critical to include it, but I've been playing it for a very long time and I'm still pretty happy with it. It's frequently better than a random land would be.
Whether you play Chrome Mox or not, please don't play Mox Diamond. It's so much worse in this deck. There are 3 kinds of draws with this deck: good ones, ones with great spells but not enough land, and ones with enough land but light on action. The latter two are the ones that most frequently lead to losses (this deck doesn't lose much, but I think it loses to itself more often than to an opponent). Mox Diamond is terrible in both of those types of hands. If you're light on lands you always just wish it was a land, and if you have too many lands you can probably cast it, but don't have much to ramp into. You're probably better off mulling a couple of lands and non-essential spells (including Mox Diamond) hoping to hit a better balance with more action. That is not a situation where you want to be sacrificing card advantage for ramp. Compare that with Chrome Mox, which is still bad when you have too many lands, but can actually be very good when you're a little light on them. Just cut Mox Diamond, it's seriously awful here, you need some kind of perfect hand to make it ever even worth casting.
I'm trying out Yisan and Noxious Revival too. I have no opinion yet but I'm hopeful. I'm also trying Gemstone Caverns and Ulcerate (I looooove cheap removal).
Your deck is still within about 10 cards of what I'm currently testing, and every single card you're playing that I'm not has been in and out of my list at some point. I think that this deck is getting pretty close to optimized, and there's a core of about 80 cards that I wouldn't even consider changing.
From your list, I have:
-Reflecting Pool
-Gilt-Leaf Palace
-Mox Diamond
-Bloom Tender
-Scavenging Ooze
-Rancor
-Seal of Primordium
-Devour in Shadow
-Diabolic Edict
-Beast Within
-Putrefy
+Urborg
+Tectonic Edge
+Gemstone Caverns
+Chrome Mox
+Expedition Map
+Plague Myr
+Necropede
+Skeletal Scrying
+Ulcerate
+Hero's Downfall
+Read the Bones
I've already voiced my opinion on the Moxes. I think you're a little land light, considering I'm running ~2 more than you (Chrome Mox counts as a land, Mox Diamond and Expedition Map count as half a land). I feel like I've finally gotten the number right, since I get manascrewed almost exactly as often as I get manaflooded now, and this deck lives and dies off of that. Gilt-Leaf Palace is fine and was very recently in my deck (I just cut it to try out Gemstone Caverns, but I have no idea if Caverns is better yet). Gilt-Leaf Palace was definitely the worst land in the deck though, since sometimes you have to play it tapped and just lose a turn. I'm not a fan of Reflecting Pool since it's so ineffective at fixing. I think Urborg is better (it's also better than Vault of Whispers, but I still play that). I'd rather just have something consistent than Reflecting Pool. Expedition Map made its way back into my deck recently and has been fine. It's a little slower than you like, but Inkmoth Nexus is so important in this deck that I've found it to be worthwhile. Sometimes getting Wasteland or Rishadan Port is key too. I like having Tectonic Edge for the same reason--there are a few lands that really mess with us, especially Maze of Ith, and it's important to be able to find answers.
Bloom Tender was always really clunky for me. 2 mana accelerants don't fit the curve well, and it's hard to really capitalize on it in many hands. This deck wants to ramp fast, not high, and Bloom Tender isn't very good for that. I much prefer Plague Myr, which is almost as good as ramping (Bloom Tender often only makes 1 mana, or makes extra mana I can't use), and gives you immense potential to just win simply by being on the board. Your opponents have to respect that and play very differently, or risk just losing (and I've won many games exactly like that). I also like Necropede, which is not super powerful but demands the same kind of respect, and has also won me many games. The option to use it as removal for 1 toughness creatures also comes up more often than you would expect, and gives it a good bit of utility. I don't like Scavenging Ooze at all in this deck. Most of the best decks simply don't care about graveyard hate (including this one), and this deck isn't aggressive enough to win games off of its body either. It just doesn't play well with anything this deck is doing, and isn't powerful enough to constitute a plan by itself.
Rancor is bad. It's considerably worse than Bramblewood Paragon, and I don't think that's good enough either. Again, this deck isn't aggressive enough, even with as much infect as I play, to win by just attacking (it happens, but very rarely). Rancor is basically trample and nothing else here, and that's not good enough to be worth a slot.
You play more removal than I do right now. I used to play that much, but I think it's less important in the current meta. It's not like when Zur was running around--there are very few decks now that demand that you always have removal or just lose. I tried out playing less, and haven't regretting it at all. I really like Ulcerate though--mana cost for removal is absolutely crucial. I really hate 3 mana removal spells--in this deck, it usually takes most of your turn just to play one, whereas you can typically cast a cheaper one and still have enough mana to advance your gameplan. The difference between 3 and 2 is huge, and the difference between 2 and 1 is just as big. Ulcerate still kills most things I care about, so I think it will be worthwhile. I was pretty happy with Disfigure even, and could see playing that again sometime. I don't like Hero's Downfall, but it's still probably better than Putrefy, and I like having some answers to planeswalkers. I keep wanting to cut Maelstrom Pulse for being too clunky but can't quite bring myself to do it. I don't like Beast Within in this deck at all though, 3 mana is a lot and the Beast token is often very relevant against us. I'm strongly in favor of playing as much card draw as you can--in games where you're flooding out (the games you can easily lose), these are the best spells you can draw. Skeletal Scrying is very explosive and versatile and has won me lots of games. Read the Bones is a little clunky, but still quite good--honestly, it's better than Phyrexian Arena a lot of the time, since it's faster. I think this deck still wants the Arenas, since they can save bad hands that would otherwise doom you, but I could see an argument for cutting them, since this deck is so fast that it usually doesn't get many cards out of them. Read the Bones at least lets you dig pretty deep immediately, and fairly often lets you win the next turn. I'd work pretty hard to fit these in.
Other than those, the list looks perfect though
Arbor Elf over Tainted Pact...I mean, that's a thing you could do. I can't imagine it's worth it though. At the end of the day, Arbor Elf is just one more mana elf among many. It's nice, to be sure, but there's nothing special about it, and it's not even good when you draw multiple elves. On the other hand, Tainted Pact is insanely good in this deck--I really find it to be better than Demonic Tutor since I can cast it eot or in my combat step and kill by surprise. Yes, I have to make my lands back over backwards to accommodate this one card, which is annoying, but the mana can handle it and the card is SO GOOD that it's still definitely worth it in my mind. Resistance to nonbasic hate isn't a big deal at all I think--these cards are not that commonly played, are not always drawn on time anyway, and can absolutely be played around with most hands. Even though the landbase is soft to them, I've beaten these cards more often than I've lost to them. I don't think adding a few more basics will really help that much against them anyway, they're still going to be great against us no matter what we do.
I've found Oloro combo decks to be a great matchup actually. We're faster than they are, and they tend to have very minimal disruption. Our average hand definitely beats their average hand, and as long as you get a hand with a reasonable clock you should be fine.
Why? It's a mediocre body, and if you're in a situation where you want to use its ability to discard a fattie, you should already be winning shortly.
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
how about slaughter pact?
also, if yisan fits well in the deck, there could be a point in keeping sylvan safekeeper in the deck, as an active yisan and 3 mana would mean instant speed protection.