What if you know for a fact that all the UB deck has is counterspells and targetted bounce and doesnt run tuck? I wish I could be joking here, but he doesnt for some reason and I want to show him thats a big mistake.
Against any style of draw / go control though trying to push them off of your turn is going to open you up to your big plays more freely. In general, I would try to stay away from the large commitment haymakers like Eldrazi Conscription as its too easy to bounce or counter it. You can also likely spend less effort on obtaining trample and focus more on sticking to the table if that's what your meta looks like. I usually try to take a bit of a split build where I need to trample over the tokens and utility guys and sustain through the control decks but it really depends on what your meta looks like.
Some of the token based pumps can also be nice if he isn't sweep bouncing things as it doesn't leave targets for bounce.
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What advice do you have for running your deck in multiplayer in general. we normally play 1v1, 2HG and 4 man pods, and I really just want to play thrun in all those styles. Do you normally dog on opponent at a time or spread out the damage?
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For 1v1 and 2HG I am assuming that counterspell protection will serve you well. Since Thrun is already hard to hit with removal I would assume where you will have most of your issues will be with countering your buffs. This sort of comes down to some meta calls though too as if you dont see a lot of those type of decks then obviously it isnt as good of a plan. Things like Defense Grid / Dosan the Falling Leaf / City of Solitude and Seedtime seem like solid options to hate on these strategies.
I always try to focus Thrun's beats as it gives them less time to recover and find an answer to you. Try to focus out the player that will be the biggest problem later first generally speaking. It can feel sort of lame if they dont have anything to defend themselves with but generally they will learn to try to mulligan into answers that will work. I think my fastest kill to date was on turn 4 lol.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Great deck ideas - had a lot of fun trying some of these cards out thus far. I already have a mono-green token deck using Nemata, Grove Guardian but this, obviously, feels completely different.
Don't currently own a copy of Berserk or Riding the Dilu Horse so I scanned through Gatherer for some permanent counter effects (as Thrun seems to have never died thus far in testing) and trample effects to see if any escaped your extensive primer. Only found a few so I thought I would list them just as a reference and see if you had any opinions or testing experience with them:
Permanent counter effects
Hunger of the Howlpack: (1cmc) Morbid seems to trigger most turns so it seems like an instant speed 1-mana +3 counters. No trample/evasion, weaker late-game, and conditional and/or unreliable due to morbid.
Quest for the Gemblades: (2cmc) +4 counters if Thrun deals combat damage to a creature can make people second guess blocking or taking the damage. Prone to removal as an enchantment before it actually has an effect, and encourages you to attack a defended player - contradicting normal strategy.
Strength of the Tajuru: (x2cmc) Instant-speed mana dump that scales into the game. Probably more an EOT effect rather than a combat trick due to wanting to keep regenerate mana available.
Hunting Triad: (4cmc) +3 counters from reinforce that can't be countered. Obviously, 3 counters for 4 mana isn't too efficient. Maybe some sort of edict utility due to option for making tokens.
Soul's Might: (5cmc) Scales with Thrun - great when things are going great, poor when things are going poor.
Shape of the Wiitigo: (6cmc) Interesting aura that leaves the counters on Thrun even after it is removed and continues to add counters if not dealt with. No evasion for a high-cmc card.
Decree of Savagery: (6cmc cycle) Cycle effect that adds 4 counters and draws a card for six mana. Not sure how efficient these abilities are combined at this point in the curve.
Trample Sources
Pretty sure you nailed all the decent trample effects. Only found Sylvan Might. Doesn't seem add much beyond trample and the overcosted flashback effect.
I am glad you have been enjoying Thrun so far. He is a cool commander for sure which is part of what I love about him since he feels so different from the usual mono green approach.
I have primarily built around utilizing pump + evasion effects when I can get them. Building around counters is an option but it has the downside that you will be loosing some of the evasion as well. Of the ones you mentioned, Soul's Might feels like one of the better options due to the fact that it scales so it would be fun to do in the same turn as a Berserk for a lot of very big tokens that you would get to keep. I think if you are looking for some budget pump options you could look at most of them but I am assuming that a regular playgroup would probably make adjustments to decks to some extent for Thrun.
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I continue to slow roll out my Journey reviews so here goes another one.
Journey into Nyx Set Review:
Armory of Iroas its sort of nifty as its a pump effect that keeps adding onto Thrun. The biggest issue is that its sort of slow rolling and doesn't work well with the potential for someone answering Thrun. I think its an interesting budget friendly card and or even potentially useful for a +/+ counter style of build but it feels like it would need a bit more power to be considered here.
Colossal Heroics its sort of a bad Spidery Grasp really. Sadly, Strive as a mechanic for this deck as the scalability of the spells seems to sort of cut into the power of the spells especially since we tend to mostly use a single creature.
Chariot of Victory ironically, this is probably stronger than Helm of Kaldra since it equips for cheaper and its unlikely you would want to run all of Kaldera in a mono green deck. It gives some solid abilities to the creature for faily cheap but with it lacking any increase to power I feel like its not quite powerful enough for me to consider. I definitely like Sword of Vengeance more since it has the power and vigilance instead but the cheap cost to equip is nice here. Its sort of cool but too often its hard to pick up haste for Thrun without it being free. I think its something that could be played with potentially but its likely to be more of a budget friendly sort of card than something that I feel would be an optimization.
Consign to Dust it has scalability which is really cool. It sort of reminds me of Shattering Spree but unfortunately it costs a lot of mana to get extra copies and a single counter still takes it out. If I were dealing with big mana more often I might be able to see myself playing it but 3 mana Naturalize that can be doubled doesn't sound that good to me. I don't think this deck generates enough mana to reliably expect more than the 6 mana option for it either.
Eidolon of Blossoms I think its a cool card but I dont build around auras and enchantments enough to expect much from it. Its likely that Wall of Blossoms would be easier to toy with. I think this could be a possible inclusion in a Thrun but you would need to gear up for it a bit more with more of an enchantress approach to it. Just throwing it into a random Thrun list seems like it would be surprising to draw more than two cards overall with it without it just sticking all game or something.
Reviving Melody its sort of a conditional regrowth. Its cool that it could get extra value but its too narrow for this deck to work. I would go with Restock probably before this card. Still, its interesting I suppose.
Setessan Tactics I love the flavor of this spell. Sadly, I need Thrun to turn sideways so while I really really want this to work, its just not quite the flavor I need for this deck. One of these days they are going to make a great fight spell.... its just a matter of time I suppose.
Solidarity of Heroes assuming you are pushing a heavy counter based deck, its an interesting card. You would need to be pushing really hard on it though since this card does nothing if you dont have counters already.
The skinny of things is that I dont foresee any changes from journey at the moment.
Overall, I have to say I am a little surprised with how little Thrun got out of this block. We were dealing with monstrous, auras, and heroic mechanics all of which I suspected I might get things for Thrun from and it just ended up being more of limited style of effects which is really unfortunate. I dont really intend to test anything from Journey as it stands for this deck. Looking at the block as a whole, I think Hunter's Prowess was my only new addition but I will say it has been doing some crazy work for me in here. I often just follow Thrun up with drawing a new 7 with the card so its been doing some really great work. There were some really cool looking fight mechanic cards as well in Theros which I like seeing but most of them missed the mark for Thrun specifically by a little bit. I hope to continue seeing plenty of fight mechanic cards in the future for green though as I enjoy having access to them. Well, here is hoping that next block isn't multicolor based.
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I like playing Thrun but a lot of the time I feel like either you crush through people in the early game or you get controlled and can't do much of anything. I suppose you could say that about almost every deck but being mono green with a very linear goal seems limiting.
I've been debating reforming my deck into either Sigarda, Host of Herons or Rafiq of the Many. Sigarda is very similar to Thrun but with more low cost single target removal and a different form of protection. Rafiq would be more of a finisher, he has none of the inherent protections of Thrun but his colors would enable you to set up the board well then bring Rafiq out to start one shotting people. Curious if you have any thoughts on this.
For me, Thrun is sort of a coin flip as to if he is going to work or not. I really wish I could get more cards like Hunter's Prowess as I feel like I could run him more as just a robust creature than a voltron only plan. I still really like the feel of thrun so I dont intend to go anywhere anytime soon but I will give my opinions on a few others.
Sigarda, Host of Herons she is stronger and weaker in a few ways. Adding an extra color, plus flying, plus edict protection. Overall, she probably is stronger than Thrun but she just reminds me too much of Jenara in a lot of ways which was sort of a turn off to me in using her. The only real downside is you might run into counters from the blue player and Hinder / Spell crumple will be annoying. Outside of that though, I think she is likely stronger than Thrun. I keep playing thrun in part though because I love that he is mono colored which I really enjoy and that he just feels very different than any other commander to me. Similar to Thrun and Sigarda, Uril, the Miststalker is a really scarey guy but I really dislike him because I feel he is over the top.
Rafiq - Rafiq has a few ways to build him. I have seen the super fast aggro Rafiq and while I think it can kill people, I think it has more of an issue closing out games than Thrun does as its much easier to control him. I dont really overly feel that an aggro rafiq is all that strong in multiplayer EDH because I just feel like a lot of the tricks are good for about a turn and while they are really explosive it tends to be easy to use control on what he does. I have also seen some slower more combo oriented rafiq lists like swift's which I think is more viable but I have Jenara again which is very similar which is part of why I wont bother.
When it really comes down to it, if you are looking for a small tweek to the build, I think Sigarda most resembles Thrun as far as a plan of attack goes. I think it would take less changes to shift to her than it would be to anyone else. I myself will just sort of stick it out because I just enjoy busting out the green beats now and then.
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Good luck. Thrun is fun and hits on a lot of elements that seem sort of rare to see these days.
Ring of Kalonia - my concerns here are that its sort of slow rolling. I think I would be more likely to include Primeval Bounty which I have considered adding several times now but sort of never get around to doing it. It does give evasion and pump though so I could see it working... it just seems a little slow to get rolling is my concern I guess.
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Ring of Kalonia - my concerns here are that its sort of slow rolling. I think I would be more likely to include Primeval Bounty which I have considered adding several times now but sort of never get around to doing it. It does give evasion and pump though so I could see it working... it just seems a little slow to get rolling is my concern I guess.
I've been looking into a more counter heavy list in order to try and justify cards such as Solidarity of Heroes, Mutant's Prey, and even Doubling Season - probably a reason the ring caught my eye. However, blue bounce really messes up the counter strategy more than a balanced list.
Funny you mention Primeval Bounty as I have been testing it instead of Ritual of Subdual. Subdual had only seen play one time and usually just sat in my hand; with a single mana rock most of my opponents seemed unaffected by it while I was left debating if it was doing anything to justify the upkeep. Primeval Bounty, Mind's Eye, Shape of the Wiitigo, and Decree of Savagery are all cards I have been testing in place of it to keep the same curve.
What multiplayer formats is this designed to play in? It works fairly well for me in most formats but I've had the best luck by trimming a few of the game-warping effects and going with an aggro approach in 1v1.
What multiplayer formats is this designed to play in? It works fairly well for me in most formats but I've had the best luck by trimming a few of the game-warping effects and going with an aggro approach in 1v1.
My own list is designed for small to normal sized multiplayer games. Most of the games I will play with tend to be in the 3-4 player FFA range but it quickly has difficulties scaling to more players than that without some sort of team structure but is a bit hit and miss depending on what sort of team structure as well. I have some ideas to possibly doing an overhaul and trying out some new packages / tactics with this list in the future here but have been sort of occupied with testing of my Toshiro deck for the last few months.
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Time for another review. I currently want to do some changes to my Thrun and Lin Sivvi lists but dont have the time to line those things up yet so I will just keep trucking with set reviews for now.
M15 Set Review:
Genesis Hydra I feel like wizards really missed the mark here by excluding land as being an option. This deck has a somewhat low curve but its likely that I would need to be casting him from hand for 6 mana to really justify him and even then there are a lot of important things he can miss on. Not having land being an option just feels really odd. Still, even if it was he doesn't really fit the game plan of this deck so I dont see any reason to think I would run him. Genesis Wave costs one more mana and does a lot more. I just thought I would vent a bit about poor choice of design on this in my opinion.
Hornet Nest interesting design but it doesn't fit this deck very well. We tend to be the aggressor deck and by the time someone else will have stabilized enough to attack us and be threatening we tend to be in trouble already. I just see this as a situation that a fog effect deals with better is all I guess.
Hunter's Ambush interesting fog variant. I dont feel like I would use it over the better fogs though but its interesting.
Life's Legacy its really sad that this is sorcery speed as this is a nice effect. I dont generally want to sac Thrun though unless things have already gone very wrong though. In my mind Momentous Fall is in better position than this one just because it is an instant speed. Honestly though if this was an instant it would be very very good for this deck but I am not about to sacrifice Thrun at sorcery speed without reason to.
Nissa, Worldwaker she can work with land disruption effects like Winter Orb / Static Orb quite well. That said, I dont know if we have enough ways to reliably have those sort of effects in play to really bother following them up with something like this.
Paragon of Eternal Wilds pump and trample. It does things I like but the pump is small and the trample is slow to kick in. It doesnt pack enough punch and is in my mind more for a swarm beats style of deck. Its not quite what I need.
Reclamation Sage great spot removal on a stick. I will probably suit this up as a good creature tutor target.
Avarice Amulet its sort of slow churning card draw but it comes with a power boost and vigilance. The downside of this equipment is essentially negated by the fact that Thrun will likely be the one to wear it the whole time and thus he wont be dying as we can put him in CZ if he normally would die. Its a bit durdley but I might give it a shot as a pump + draw effect. It also serves defense due to the vigilance it grants.
Brawler's Plate its got all the things I like seeing on it its drop + equip cost is just really high. It costs more than Loxodon Warhammer to drop + equip so I think on that basis alone and the fact that the pump isn't that big I cant see this going in. It is unfortunate that it costs so much because this is a good combination of effects on an equipment but it just needed to cost like 2 less mana somewhere (likely on the equip).
Rogue's Gloves its bad draw with no other bonuses to it. Its not that reasonable really.
Well, Avarice Amulet and Reclamation Sage seem interesting. The amulet is more of something I am interested in as a sustaining style of equipment. It doesn't have the explosiveness factor to it but it gives some sustainability in the fact that it gives defense and draw. I have been looking for ways to stop being an early game only style of deck with my thrun deck and getting more sustainable draw seems like a good way to move in that direction. The sage is good removal and at a good cost. Like I said though, I see myself doing a bit of an overhaul to change things up and try another direction with this deck in the near future when I can get around to it.
In other news, Null Profusion has been fantastic in my Toshiro list making me think that I really want to get some testing in here with Recycle. There is also a lot of big power drawing in here making me think that it might be worth adding Reliquary Tower as a possibility.
Doing a few tweeks to my list because I want to try a few things out.
DECK CHANGES:
Static Orb -> Avarice Amulet of the land disruption / stasis effects it seems the least useful to me. I feel at a slight disadvantage in the fact that I always need to untap Thrun so its a bit more limiting than say Winter Orb in that sense. I want to try out the amulet and see what I think of it. The amulet is interesting because assuming we are strapping it to thrun, we wont ever hit the death trigger clause. Getting vigilance, power, and draw all in one is a good combination for thrun as it gives him some mid game sustainability. My biggest concern offhand is just that the amulet is 6 mana to drop and equip where as sweet spot is sort of 5 or less so I can suit it up right behind dropping Thrun. If it were a 3 to drop and 3 to equip it might possibly even be stronger here just because I would be able to stagger it better but being a 4 drop makes it for sure after Thrun is in but a bad follow up turn to just drop and not suit up.
Awakening Zone -> Recycle I haven't been seeing as many edict effects and I have wanted to get some testing in with Recycle for this list. I have been running Null Profusion to great results in my Toshiro so I want to see what I might be able to do with it here. Awakening Zone has some benefit while running resource denial but I think I want to lighten up on that slightly as it stands and with seeing a few less edicts of late I feel that I don't need the zone right now.
Acidic Slime -> Reclamation Sage I more or less don't need to spot remove lands in here because the lands I would normally worry about in a voltron deck cannot target Thrun so it seems like I can save myself 2 mana for just deathtouch here. This makes it easier to multi task or keep up mana for thrun to regen.
Vow of Wildness -> Primeval Bounty just sort of moving some buffs around. I am a little worried about the bounty because I think its a much bigger removal target and it has less immediate impact but has the potential to generate a lot more value which I like. Vow of Wildness has always been just sort of an ok buff for me.
Some of this is just to sort of move cards around and see what I like. Its been a while since I did much for playtesting of new things in Thrun so I want to make sure to give Primeval Bounty a shot as I had sort of skipped over it in the past. I am also a little skeptical of Avarice Amulet but it combines a lot of things I like seeing together so I will just remain optimistic for now and see what it does.
I instantly reached for Avarice Amulet and Reclamation Sage when I saw the set release. I swapped sex monkeys oyt for the Sage, I forget what I moved out for the Amulet but after a few games I really enjoyed the CA, which is something my Thrun decks lacks.
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I just thought I would post to say that I am retiring this primer. I really enjoyed Thrun for a long time but I had frequent issues with playing him in my meta that have just lead me to not play him or be frustrated too often while playing him to really keep playing him. I have been toying with an Omnath build and am sure I will keep tweaking and trying other mono green decks but for right now I just find myself wanting to play different lists. Its been fun and sorry to bail on the Thrun train as it had a lot of good moments but for now he is going into retirement.
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I feel your pain on this. I like my Thrun deck but it almost never wins. My other decks outclass it in versatility and potential. I saw you started playing Omnath and I think the advantage to him is you can wreck with him with commander damage or you can use the huge mana to power other green goodstuff. Obviously Omnath is way easier to remove but I am looking forward to your experiences with him.
I've been thinking about going to Sigarda but honestly voltron just seems to easy too shut down as a deck theme. I think commanders that sustain themselves like Jenara / Omnath might be the better choice as an alt win con but the rest of the deck doesn't have to focus on them.
So far I have experienced a lot more power from omnath. I enjoy all of the built in protections that Thrun has but at the same time half of the time they seem to not matter so sometimes ignoring that and just seeing if people can deal with huge rage monster seems to work. It started to sort of annoy me when I was looking at Life's Legacy and it just seemed like something that I would love to be able to use and then I thought about using it on a huge Omnath and it sounded just so good.
There are pros and cons to Thrun for sure and I will miss him for sure as using things like Berserk / Riding the Dilu Horse were so much more fun with him but I still find them interesting port over cards to the Omnath list that I am running for now. Still.... they are not the same as they were in Thrun...
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Yo, ISB. Long time lurker here. You seem to be the foremost Thrun expert. (Period) Any thoughts regarding Thrun's viability with the changing of the tuck rules?
Also, you've thoroughly enjoyed Ulvenwald Tracker and Prey Upon, I've been having a ball with Savage Punch and Epic Confrontation. I've also had fun rolling the occasional game with Tooth and Nail= Craterhoof + Avenger with Thrun on board.
My toughest losses have been via mill. Hinder + Tunnel Vision. They prompted me to include Ulamog. The addition of Ugin to PW options is great.
Sorry to revive an old thread, but this has been an amazing resource for me and I wanted your perspective on a few things.
Yo, ISB. Long time lurker here. You seem to be the foremost Thrun expert. (Period) Any thoughts regarding Thrun's viability with the changing of the tuck rules?
Also, you've thoroughly enjoyed Ulvenwald Tracker and Prey Upon, I've been having a ball with Savage Punch and Epic Confrontation. I've also had fun rolling the occasional game with Tooth and Nail= Craterhoof + Avenger with Thrun on board.
My toughest losses have been via mill. Hinder + Tunnel Vision. They prompted me to include Ulamog. The addition of Ugin to PW options is great.
Sorry to revive an old thread, but this has been an amazing resource for me and I wanted your perspective on a few things.
Thrun is a very good commander. My own opinion of the tuck rules is that it hurt Thrun because he was so difficult to tuck as it was down to just the two wrath tucks for the most part that could tuck him. I feel that it actually took away from his power vs Hinder / Spell Crumple and give some power back to some of the slower counterable commanders like Sigard and Uril. I will run through some of the recent stuff since I stopped playing just to give some ideas of what I would look at since I stopped playing this.
Return to the Earth I really did enjoy Crushing Vines and its very similar but one more mana with more options. I guess I wouldnt dismiss it offhand but 4 mana starts to get sort of expensive to cast.
Roar of Challenge its potentially a different kind of defense which is nice vs a lot of wraths since tuck lost some power some people put away the tuck wraths. You can keep it as a protect effect vs some wraths or you can use it as a means of removal. It seems... situational but I guess ok.
Ruthless Instincts its sort of nice as it has a few different options to it. Its nice that it gives some flying defense or a small pump + evasion on attacking. I like the versatility of it I guess but it could be a little small scale for this format.
Savage Punch seems like great removal. Its something I would probably have loved to have available when I was playing him.
Sight of the Scalelords its continuous effect pump that doesn't need to equip and isn't an aura which is nice. It sadly does not give evasion but its a nice size buff and it gives some defense which is also very welcome. It seems like an ok budget option I guess.
Sunbringer's Touch its a little bit similar in some ways to Increasing Savagery but its nice that it also gives a turn of evasion which is very welcome as you can drop the big buff upfront and worry about evasion the next turn. Of the bolster effects, this one seems the most interesting to me but the question is how many counters you can really expect. I think that 4-5 would probably be my assumed if you curve int Thrun decently between mulligans and ramping.
Surrak, the Hunt Caller he is big and haste could matter... he sadly hits at the wrong mana cost as it means dropping Thrun behind him or dropping him behind Thrun of which both are sub par options.
Honestly of what is new since I last played, I think Savage Punch and possibly Sunbringer's Touch would be the ones I would be looking at. Between the eldrazi options I might also consider Kozilek, Butcher of Truth over Ulamog in part because he costs one less and also in part because by the time I can cast an eldrazi I would assume I am probably mostly out of hand to play.
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540 Peasant cube- Gold EditionSomething SpicySome of the token based pumps can also be nice if he isn't sweep bouncing things as it doesn't leave targets for bounce.
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[Modern] Allies
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I always try to focus Thrun's beats as it gives them less time to recover and find an answer to you. Try to focus out the player that will be the biggest problem later first generally speaking. It can feel sort of lame if they dont have anything to defend themselves with but generally they will learn to try to mulligan into answers that will work. I think my fastest kill to date was on turn 4 lol.
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[Modern] Allies
Don't currently own a copy of Berserk or Riding the Dilu Horse so I scanned through Gatherer for some permanent counter effects (as Thrun seems to have never died thus far in testing) and trample effects to see if any escaped your extensive primer. Only found a few so I thought I would list them just as a reference and see if you had any opinions or testing experience with them:
Permanent counter effects
Hunger of the Howlpack: (1cmc) Morbid seems to trigger most turns so it seems like an instant speed 1-mana +3 counters. No trample/evasion, weaker late-game, and conditional and/or unreliable due to morbid.
Quest for the Gemblades: (2cmc) +4 counters if Thrun deals combat damage to a creature can make people second guess blocking or taking the damage. Prone to removal as an enchantment before it actually has an effect, and encourages you to attack a defended player - contradicting normal strategy.
Strength of the Tajuru: (x2cmc) Instant-speed mana dump that scales into the game. Probably more an EOT effect rather than a combat trick due to wanting to keep regenerate mana available.
Hunting Triad: (4cmc) +3 counters from reinforce that can't be countered. Obviously, 3 counters for 4 mana isn't too efficient. Maybe some sort of edict utility due to option for making tokens.
Soul's Might: (5cmc) Scales with Thrun - great when things are going great, poor when things are going poor.
Shape of the Wiitigo: (6cmc) Interesting aura that leaves the counters on Thrun even after it is removed and continues to add counters if not dealt with. No evasion for a high-cmc card.
Decree of Savagery: (6cmc cycle) Cycle effect that adds 4 counters and draws a card for six mana. Not sure how efficient these abilities are combined at this point in the curve.
Trample Sources
Pretty sure you nailed all the decent trample effects. Only found Sylvan Might. Doesn't seem add much beyond trample and the overcosted flashback effect.
I have primarily built around utilizing pump + evasion effects when I can get them. Building around counters is an option but it has the downside that you will be loosing some of the evasion as well. Of the ones you mentioned, Soul's Might feels like one of the better options due to the fact that it scales so it would be fun to do in the same turn as a Berserk for a lot of very big tokens that you would get to keep. I think if you are looking for some budget pump options you could look at most of them but I am assuming that a regular playgroup would probably make adjustments to decks to some extent for Thrun.
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[Modern] Allies
Journey into Nyx Set Review:
Armory of Iroas its sort of nifty as its a pump effect that keeps adding onto Thrun. The biggest issue is that its sort of slow rolling and doesn't work well with the potential for someone answering Thrun. I think its an interesting budget friendly card and or even potentially useful for a +/+ counter style of build but it feels like it would need a bit more power to be considered here.
Colossal Heroics its sort of a bad Spidery Grasp really. Sadly, Strive as a mechanic for this deck as the scalability of the spells seems to sort of cut into the power of the spells especially since we tend to mostly use a single creature.
Chariot of Victory ironically, this is probably stronger than Helm of Kaldra since it equips for cheaper and its unlikely you would want to run all of Kaldera in a mono green deck. It gives some solid abilities to the creature for faily cheap but with it lacking any increase to power I feel like its not quite powerful enough for me to consider. I definitely like Sword of Vengeance more since it has the power and vigilance instead but the cheap cost to equip is nice here. Its sort of cool but too often its hard to pick up haste for Thrun without it being free. I think its something that could be played with potentially but its likely to be more of a budget friendly sort of card than something that I feel would be an optimization.
Consign to Dust it has scalability which is really cool. It sort of reminds me of Shattering Spree but unfortunately it costs a lot of mana to get extra copies and a single counter still takes it out. If I were dealing with big mana more often I might be able to see myself playing it but 3 mana Naturalize that can be doubled doesn't sound that good to me. I don't think this deck generates enough mana to reliably expect more than the 6 mana option for it either.
Eidolon of Blossoms I think its a cool card but I dont build around auras and enchantments enough to expect much from it. Its likely that Wall of Blossoms would be easier to toy with. I think this could be a possible inclusion in a Thrun but you would need to gear up for it a bit more with more of an enchantress approach to it. Just throwing it into a random Thrun list seems like it would be surprising to draw more than two cards overall with it without it just sticking all game or something.
Reviving Melody its sort of a conditional regrowth. Its cool that it could get extra value but its too narrow for this deck to work. I would go with Restock probably before this card. Still, its interesting I suppose.
Setessan Tactics I love the flavor of this spell. Sadly, I need Thrun to turn sideways so while I really really want this to work, its just not quite the flavor I need for this deck. One of these days they are going to make a great fight spell.... its just a matter of time I suppose.
Solidarity of Heroes assuming you are pushing a heavy counter based deck, its an interesting card. You would need to be pushing really hard on it though since this card does nothing if you dont have counters already.
The skinny of things is that I dont foresee any changes from journey at the moment.
Overall, I have to say I am a little surprised with how little Thrun got out of this block. We were dealing with monstrous, auras, and heroic mechanics all of which I suspected I might get things for Thrun from and it just ended up being more of limited style of effects which is really unfortunate. I dont really intend to test anything from Journey as it stands for this deck. Looking at the block as a whole, I think Hunter's Prowess was my only new addition but I will say it has been doing some crazy work for me in here. I often just follow Thrun up with drawing a new 7 with the card so its been doing some really great work. There were some really cool looking fight mechanic cards as well in Theros which I like seeing but most of them missed the mark for Thrun specifically by a little bit. I hope to continue seeing plenty of fight mechanic cards in the future for green though as I enjoy having access to them. Well, here is hoping that next block isn't multicolor based.
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I've been debating reforming my deck into either Sigarda, Host of Herons or Rafiq of the Many. Sigarda is very similar to Thrun but with more low cost single target removal and a different form of protection. Rafiq would be more of a finisher, he has none of the inherent protections of Thrun but his colors would enable you to set up the board well then bring Rafiq out to start one shotting people. Curious if you have any thoughts on this.
Retired Lists: Ghave - Hanna - Thrun - Zur
Pauper: Crypt Rats
Sigarda, Host of Herons she is stronger and weaker in a few ways. Adding an extra color, plus flying, plus edict protection. Overall, she probably is stronger than Thrun but she just reminds me too much of Jenara in a lot of ways which was sort of a turn off to me in using her. The only real downside is you might run into counters from the blue player and Hinder / Spell crumple will be annoying. Outside of that though, I think she is likely stronger than Thrun. I keep playing thrun in part though because I love that he is mono colored which I really enjoy and that he just feels very different than any other commander to me. Similar to Thrun and Sigarda, Uril, the Miststalker is a really scarey guy but I really dislike him because I feel he is over the top.
Rafiq - Rafiq has a few ways to build him. I have seen the super fast aggro Rafiq and while I think it can kill people, I think it has more of an issue closing out games than Thrun does as its much easier to control him. I dont really overly feel that an aggro rafiq is all that strong in multiplayer EDH because I just feel like a lot of the tricks are good for about a turn and while they are really explosive it tends to be easy to use control on what he does. I have also seen some slower more combo oriented rafiq lists like swift's which I think is more viable but I have Jenara again which is very similar which is part of why I wont bother.
When it really comes down to it, if you are looking for a small tweek to the build, I think Sigarda most resembles Thrun as far as a plan of attack goes. I think it would take less changes to shift to her than it would be to anyone else. I myself will just sort of stick it out because I just enjoy busting out the green beats now and then.
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Wondering if you ever tested Ring of Kalonia in your decklist? Slower than Sword of Vengeance and Loxodon Warhammer but easier to equip and the counters stay on Thrun even if it gets removed.
Good luck. Thrun is fun and hits on a lot of elements that seem sort of rare to see these days.
Ring of Kalonia - my concerns here are that its sort of slow rolling. I think I would be more likely to include Primeval Bounty which I have considered adding several times now but sort of never get around to doing it. It does give evasion and pump though so I could see it working... it just seems a little slow to get rolling is my concern I guess.
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I've been looking into a more counter heavy list in order to try and justify cards such as Solidarity of Heroes, Mutant's Prey, and even Doubling Season - probably a reason the ring caught my eye. However, blue bounce really messes up the counter strategy more than a balanced list.
Funny you mention Primeval Bounty as I have been testing it instead of Ritual of Subdual. Subdual had only seen play one time and usually just sat in my hand; with a single mana rock most of my opponents seemed unaffected by it while I was left debating if it was doing anything to justify the upkeep. Primeval Bounty, Mind's Eye, Shape of the Wiitigo, and Decree of Savagery are all cards I have been testing in place of it to keep the same curve.
My own list is designed for small to normal sized multiplayer games. Most of the games I will play with tend to be in the 3-4 player FFA range but it quickly has difficulties scaling to more players than that without some sort of team structure but is a bit hit and miss depending on what sort of team structure as well. I have some ideas to possibly doing an overhaul and trying out some new packages / tactics with this list in the future here but have been sort of occupied with testing of my Toshiro deck for the last few months.
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[Modern] Allies
M15 Set Review:
Genesis Hydra I feel like wizards really missed the mark here by excluding land as being an option. This deck has a somewhat low curve but its likely that I would need to be casting him from hand for 6 mana to really justify him and even then there are a lot of important things he can miss on. Not having land being an option just feels really odd. Still, even if it was he doesn't really fit the game plan of this deck so I dont see any reason to think I would run him. Genesis Wave costs one more mana and does a lot more. I just thought I would vent a bit about poor choice of design on this in my opinion.
Hornet Nest interesting design but it doesn't fit this deck very well. We tend to be the aggressor deck and by the time someone else will have stabilized enough to attack us and be threatening we tend to be in trouble already. I just see this as a situation that a fog effect deals with better is all I guess.
Hunter's Ambush interesting fog variant. I dont feel like I would use it over the better fogs though but its interesting.
Life's Legacy its really sad that this is sorcery speed as this is a nice effect. I dont generally want to sac Thrun though unless things have already gone very wrong though. In my mind Momentous Fall is in better position than this one just because it is an instant speed. Honestly though if this was an instant it would be very very good for this deck but I am not about to sacrifice Thrun at sorcery speed without reason to.
Nissa, Worldwaker she can work with land disruption effects like Winter Orb / Static Orb quite well. That said, I dont know if we have enough ways to reliably have those sort of effects in play to really bother following them up with something like this.
Paragon of Eternal Wilds pump and trample. It does things I like but the pump is small and the trample is slow to kick in. It doesnt pack enough punch and is in my mind more for a swarm beats style of deck. Its not quite what I need.
Reclamation Sage great spot removal on a stick. I will probably suit this up as a good creature tutor target.
Avarice Amulet its sort of slow churning card draw but it comes with a power boost and vigilance. The downside of this equipment is essentially negated by the fact that Thrun will likely be the one to wear it the whole time and thus he wont be dying as we can put him in CZ if he normally would die. Its a bit durdley but I might give it a shot as a pump + draw effect. It also serves defense due to the vigilance it grants.
Brawler's Plate its got all the things I like seeing on it its drop + equip cost is just really high. It costs more than Loxodon Warhammer to drop + equip so I think on that basis alone and the fact that the pump isn't that big I cant see this going in. It is unfortunate that it costs so much because this is a good combination of effects on an equipment but it just needed to cost like 2 less mana somewhere (likely on the equip).
Rogue's Gloves its bad draw with no other bonuses to it. Its not that reasonable really.
Well, Avarice Amulet and Reclamation Sage seem interesting. The amulet is more of something I am interested in as a sustaining style of equipment. It doesn't have the explosiveness factor to it but it gives some sustainability in the fact that it gives defense and draw. I have been looking for ways to stop being an early game only style of deck with my thrun deck and getting more sustainable draw seems like a good way to move in that direction. The sage is good removal and at a good cost. Like I said though, I see myself doing a bit of an overhaul to change things up and try another direction with this deck in the near future when I can get around to it.
In other news, Null Profusion has been fantastic in my Toshiro list making me think that I really want to get some testing in here with Recycle. There is also a lot of big power drawing in here making me think that it might be worth adding Reliquary Tower as a possibility.
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[Modern] Allies
DECK CHANGES:
Static Orb -> Avarice Amulet of the land disruption / stasis effects it seems the least useful to me. I feel at a slight disadvantage in the fact that I always need to untap Thrun so its a bit more limiting than say Winter Orb in that sense. I want to try out the amulet and see what I think of it. The amulet is interesting because assuming we are strapping it to thrun, we wont ever hit the death trigger clause. Getting vigilance, power, and draw all in one is a good combination for thrun as it gives him some mid game sustainability. My biggest concern offhand is just that the amulet is 6 mana to drop and equip where as sweet spot is sort of 5 or less so I can suit it up right behind dropping Thrun. If it were a 3 to drop and 3 to equip it might possibly even be stronger here just because I would be able to stagger it better but being a 4 drop makes it for sure after Thrun is in but a bad follow up turn to just drop and not suit up.
Awakening Zone -> Recycle I haven't been seeing as many edict effects and I have wanted to get some testing in with Recycle for this list. I have been running Null Profusion to great results in my Toshiro so I want to see what I might be able to do with it here. Awakening Zone has some benefit while running resource denial but I think I want to lighten up on that slightly as it stands and with seeing a few less edicts of late I feel that I don't need the zone right now.
Acidic Slime -> Reclamation Sage I more or less don't need to spot remove lands in here because the lands I would normally worry about in a voltron deck cannot target Thrun so it seems like I can save myself 2 mana for just deathtouch here. This makes it easier to multi task or keep up mana for thrun to regen.
Vow of Wildness -> Primeval Bounty just sort of moving some buffs around. I am a little worried about the bounty because I think its a much bigger removal target and it has less immediate impact but has the potential to generate a lot more value which I like. Vow of Wildness has always been just sort of an ok buff for me.
Some of this is just to sort of move cards around and see what I like. Its been a while since I did much for playtesting of new things in Thrun so I want to make sure to give Primeval Bounty a shot as I had sort of skipped over it in the past. I am also a little skeptical of Avarice Amulet but it combines a lot of things I like seeing together so I will just remain optimistic for now and see what it does.
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Thanks to Heroes of the Plane Studios for the amazing sig!
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[Modern] Allies
I've been thinking about going to Sigarda but honestly voltron just seems to easy too shut down as a deck theme. I think commanders that sustain themselves like Jenara / Omnath might be the better choice as an alt win con but the rest of the deck doesn't have to focus on them.
Retired Lists: Ghave - Hanna - Thrun - Zur
Pauper: Crypt Rats
There are pros and cons to Thrun for sure and I will miss him for sure as using things like Berserk / Riding the Dilu Horse were so much more fun with him but I still find them interesting port over cards to the Omnath list that I am running for now. Still.... they are not the same as they were in Thrun...
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[Modern] Allies
Also, you've thoroughly enjoyed Ulvenwald Tracker and Prey Upon, I've been having a ball with Savage Punch and Epic Confrontation. I've also had fun rolling the occasional game with Tooth and Nail= Craterhoof + Avenger with Thrun on board.
My toughest losses have been via mill. Hinder + Tunnel Vision. They prompted me to include Ulamog. The addition of Ugin to PW options is great.
Sorry to revive an old thread, but this has been an amazing resource for me and I wanted your perspective on a few things.
Thrun is a very good commander. My own opinion of the tuck rules is that it hurt Thrun because he was so difficult to tuck as it was down to just the two wrath tucks for the most part that could tuck him. I feel that it actually took away from his power vs Hinder / Spell Crumple and give some power back to some of the slower counterable commanders like Sigard and Uril. I will run through some of the recent stuff since I stopped playing just to give some ideas of what I would look at since I stopped playing this.
Return to the Earth I really did enjoy Crushing Vines and its very similar but one more mana with more options. I guess I wouldnt dismiss it offhand but 4 mana starts to get sort of expensive to cast.
Roar of Challenge its potentially a different kind of defense which is nice vs a lot of wraths since tuck lost some power some people put away the tuck wraths. You can keep it as a protect effect vs some wraths or you can use it as a means of removal. It seems... situational but I guess ok.
Ruthless Instincts its sort of nice as it has a few different options to it. Its nice that it gives some flying defense or a small pump + evasion on attacking. I like the versatility of it I guess but it could be a little small scale for this format.
Savage Punch seems like great removal. Its something I would probably have loved to have available when I was playing him.
Sight of the Scalelords its continuous effect pump that doesn't need to equip and isn't an aura which is nice. It sadly does not give evasion but its a nice size buff and it gives some defense which is also very welcome. It seems like an ok budget option I guess.
Sunbringer's Touch its a little bit similar in some ways to Increasing Savagery but its nice that it also gives a turn of evasion which is very welcome as you can drop the big buff upfront and worry about evasion the next turn. Of the bolster effects, this one seems the most interesting to me but the question is how many counters you can really expect. I think that 4-5 would probably be my assumed if you curve int Thrun decently between mulligans and ramping.
Surrak, the Hunt Caller he is big and haste could matter... he sadly hits at the wrong mana cost as it means dropping Thrun behind him or dropping him behind Thrun of which both are sub par options.
Temur Sabertooth potential protection for Thrun vs sweepers.
Honestly of what is new since I last played, I think Savage Punch and possibly Sunbringer's Touch would be the ones I would be looking at. Between the eldrazi options I might also consider Kozilek, Butcher of Truth over Ulamog in part because he costs one less and also in part because by the time I can cast an eldrazi I would assume I am probably mostly out of hand to play.
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[Modern] Allies