I've been working on Borborygmos as well, and I'm currently testing the new Tempt with Discovery and Opal Palace. We end up recasting Borborygmos quite a bit, so it seems like the Palace will generate value.
Link is in my signature, let me know what you think I'm going for primer status soon.
I haven't yet. Honestly, the intro isn't 100% done, so I haven't bothered. This lives on well enough and when I have a little more free time, I'll wrap up the intro and request primer status.
Figured I might as well post here as this seems to be the most active Borbo thread and I've been lurking here forever. I was able to play my first games with Borborygmos tonight after getting my last shipment of cards in the mail this afternoon. Got a bunch of games in, he is loads of fun to play.
(Sorry about the repetitiveness of the Commanders, we all just built new decks and don't really want to play any others.)
The maiden voyage of my deck went exactly as planned. Ramped into an early Borborygmos with Lightning Greaves and proceeded to get some early beats in to fill up on lands. Krenko couldn't cast his commander because I'd just chuck a land at him, so he wasn't able to swarm really hard and shut me down. Rampaging Baloths was awesome for keeping a steady stream of blockers. Eventually I was able to cast Praetor's Counsel and get a huge grip of lands back from the yard and straight up kill the Roon player. I revealed a Creeping Renaissance and the Krenko player scooped. Honestly a perfect game.
We decided to play Star since we had five people, I was allied with Thassa and Shattergang Bros and against Krenko and Roon. This game sucked. I think I didn't shuffle very well after my first game, I was stuck on 3 lands the entire game and no red mana. Got out an early Lotus Cobra into Zhur-Taa Druid, and then sat and did nothing for the rest of the game while the Roon player flickered Lavinia of the Tenth over and over and Krenko paid me back for the first game. I sat and shuffled for about 20 minutes after that one.
Krenko left to do something else so we played a free for all. I was well rewarded for my shuffling and ended up with 10 mana by the end of turn 3 thanks to Sol Ring, Azusa, Lost But Seeking, and Explosive Vegetation. I ended up killing the Roon player with Commander Damage. Thassa played an overloaded Cyclonic Rift and then backed it up with enough clones of Shipbreaker Kraken to close it out.
Had a pretty decent start but ran out of gas after Borborygmos was removed a few times. The Roon player dropped Roon of the Hidden Realms and Prophet of Kruphix, which the Thassa player promptly copied and they proceeded to durdle during everyone's turn for the rest of the game. I couldn't interact with the board and was begging the Shattergang Brothers player to wipe but he was afraid that it would turn the Roon and Thassa players against him (they were running away with the game anyways). Eventually I was able to sneak in an Inkmoth Nexus and Bloodrush Rubblehulk to kill the Roon player before the Thassa player revealed Cyclonic Rift and the rest of us scooped.
Cavern of Souls/Vexing Shusher: I knew these cards would be good but I didn't know how good. I tutored for Cavern pretty much every game. Invaluable in such a blue-heavy meta. Borborygmos was never counter-tucked once.
Into the Wilds: Pretty solid ramp when you're running almost 50% lands. I was honestly surprised at how good it was.
Cards that Under-Performed:
Keen Sense/Snake Umbra: not so much under-performed as just never saw them all night. That was pretty frustrating as I know from playtesting on Cockatrice that you can pretty much win the game off one of them if your draws are lucky enough.
Life from the Loam: I swear every single dredge was 3 non-lands. One activation that particularly stood out for me is when I dredged Eternal Witness and Nostalgic Dreams all in one go. I know how good LftL can be but it was not being friendly tonight. Might add more recursion to be more resilient to bad dredges.
Closing Thoughts:
My biggest problem tonight was interacting with board states that got out of control. I'm not sure if I'm not running enough wipes or what. I'm probably gonna swap out my Comet Storm for Chain Reaction. I'm also thinking about adding a Glacial Chasm but I'm not sure how good it would be without Crucible of Worlds. Constant Mists would have definitely helped me here but I never drew it.
I'm also never sure when to use my lands in hand to clear creatures off the board or when to go all-in and try and go for the kill. I'm sure I'll become more comfortable with that with time though.
The decklist has evolved over the past few months as I have acquired some of the cards. Finally got a top and cow-those are some seriously high powered cards in this deck! I'm trying out some of the commander 2013 cards to see how they deck. In particular restore,tempt with discovery and from the ashes are looking for permanent places in the deck. But I haven't had enough of a chance to see how they work yet. Doing the tempting offer followed up taking out all of there lands with ashes sounds sick and fun-for me. And if life from the loam is running, there is no bad for me. In most decks I don't like land in the graveyard, not this one.
Still many cards I want/need for this deck. Abundance,gratuitious violence, and memory jar are at the top of the list. But I think I will always want cards for this deck. I'm amazed at the changes in other people's responses to this deck. I was an edh newbie with a beginner deck that was mostly ignored and not considered capable of doing much. Now I get 'that damned cyclops comes out and kills us all again!' I'm the only one playing Borbor at my lgs and he didn't get respect at first-he certainly does now.
I hope you get primer status alfindeol, both you and our general deserve it. Do you know it was your thread that really got me into commander? I been trying to make and an edh deck with some of the old legends and had been extremely frustrated with the process. I was ready to give up the whole idea. I found the forums and was reading, checking the handful of new legends I did own-one of which was Borbor. I found this thread and realized I had at least a few of the cards, and slowly my favorite commander got his deck. I still love taking out the table in one turn with him, even though I certainly don't win even the majority of the games, let along all of him.
Mary
Added Tempt with discovery, Crucible of Worlds, Hammer of Purphuros and Heartless Hidetsugu. I know I'm late to crucible party, but I had been talking myself out of it since I mostly run basics. The hammer sold me on it, though I have yet to need to sac a land for a creature. Heartless replaces price of progress as a way to drop life totals to a range where borborygmos can wrap up, plus with furnace or gratuitous it can be a combo win in itself if I'm at odd life. I had considered him before but having more haste in the deck from hammer sells me on it. Ended a game turn 5 in a draw the other night just for fun. Now I want a basilisk collar for synergy with borborygmos and hidetsugu.
I don't know if I would be entirely sold on the hammer. Haste is cool, and the land sac has some synergy with the graveyard effects. But I often found that if things go poorly and I can't get Borb to stick for long then I'd really desperately need those lands in play. Seems like a card slot that is better served for something else.
I don't know if I would be entirely sold on the hammer. Haste is cool, and the land sac has some synergy with the graveyard effects. But I often found that if things go poorly and I can't get Borb to stick for long then I'd really desperately need those lands in play. Seems like a card slot that is better served for something else.
yeah, ymmv. its not one of our all star cards or anything but i wanted a third haste card, and after boots and grieves its a pretty good third card. I still run Orcish Lumberjack and will use his ability as soon as turn 2 in many cases, so what do I know?
I'm coming out of a holiday MTG retirement so expect a few updates to this deck. Theros brought some neat tools for the deck and I'm picking up my Scroll Rack soon.
Kekule_the_Magician on the inclusion of Devouring Light in a TurboFog Deck:
Quote from Kekule_the_Magician »
As a person who typically plays very creature oriented decks, I HATE when an opponent has Devouring Light. It is infuriating to finally get through with a creature on to have it exiled.
I've come to hate White in general now because it gets everything to the point where it is almost unfair. White has boardwipes (Wrath of God, End Hostilities), targeted exile and removal (Devouring Light, Banishing Light, Last Breath), lifegain spells, lifelink, low cost/high power enchantments and auras, flying creatures; my goodness what don't they get!?
Maybe this time I'll actually come out of retirement. My usual EDH night is Sunday, so Game of Thrones is currently ruining that. On the other hand, flash Furnace of Rath is just too good to be true.
That cards sounds too fun. Furnace of Rath can bite me hard, being able to flash this at the proper time would be a lot safer.
Mary
It adds a whole surprise element to the game. Players are always mental math-ing if you can kill them with Borbor based on the cards in your hand. With this, they'll never really know.
So I've been stewing over what to do with this deck for the last few days. Been playing around with it, and seeing what it can and can't do. In the games I've played with it, I've won simply because people have left me alone for the most part. The deck does a great job of not being the threat until it's too late for people to stop you. On the other hand, it's nearly incapable of simply beating a table. It has even more trouble if someone simply tucks the general. The biggest issue I've seen is the deck simply isn't fast enough. I've typically relied on land drops rather than traditional ramp and I'm starting to truly believe the deck needs a better ramp package and some back breaking early plays. I'm thinking about bringing back Wildfire. Destructive Force along with adding Keldon Firebombers and It That Betrays for a hilariously backbreaking Tooth and Nail play.
I'm hoping to go back an edit the OP this week. The site change made it a mess. The deck has also gone through some changes. Including ones that I can't recommend for everyone, but I try to make sure my deck avoid the same combos. For that reason Tooth and Nail came out of the deck. No matter, I played two games with the deck for the first time in a long time.
This took a bit longer, but an early Sylvan Library kept things hoping. Ended up with the Library, Scroll Rack and Sensei's Divining Top active in the game. I dropped an early Torpor Orb which no one could apparently deal with and the game sort of shambled along for awhile. I finally assembled Lightning Greaves, Snake Umbra and Borbor with all that top deck stuff and started to combo. The Umbra got blown up but my next draw was Storm Cauldron with Creeping Renaissance in hand. That was enough to off both players.
Going 2-0 in my first couple games back felt good. Not sure my opponents shared my opinion, but they were playing decks that just seemed to durdle or they had no idea what they were doing. The lack of sweepers on their end made it nearly impossible for them to deal with the deck. I'd like to find some new card draw engines and I'm wondering if Seer's Sundial is worth a try.
I'm glad I'm not the only one still playing the deck. It still catches people off guard and I think a lot of people have wandered into new, shinier things.
Glacial Chasm has been an all star in this deck so many times for me. My favorite trick right now is to hold Crop Rotation as an emergency fog when someone tries to off me.
Well in a 4 player game, and our ramp it will probably land on turn 4, if we're slow. That's 9 +1+1 counters on average. yes a doom blade or the likes will kill it easily but it gives a way to ramp faster or gives a nice land to discard for 3 dmg later on. Anything that can fetch lands from my deck for more than once is very welcome in my deck.
Once I get my hands on one, I'm going to throw it in the deck for testing. Maybe I'm underrating it.
I have a big, shiny surprise coming in the mail. I'll throw up a picture once it arrives.
I promised something special when it arrives... now I have it...
On the very first page of this thread I mentioned I really wanted a Korean Foil Borbor. Now I have it! Hooray! Since last post, I've played the deck to 4 more wins all of which were assembled without the original Keen Sense and Abundance combo. The deck is really rolling.
I recently built a Borborygmos deck that was based mostly on the list in the primer. I'm missing a couple of key cards (Gamble, Wheel of Fortune, Crucible of Worlds). But I replaced a lot of those cards for now with just more ramp and random green/red creatures. I thought that the deck would be a lot weaker without a lot of those cards, but it's still a decent multiplayer deck. Took it to an event where about a dozen of us played Commander and all the games I was involved in I either won the game or was in position to win it. Never felt like I was hopelessly outmatched. In one of the games I ramped pretty high, played Borby, and no one really had the removal to deal with it save for an Angel of Serenity. So over the course of a couple of turns I was able to win. The second game, I didn't have as much ramp, but one of the other players was playing Purphoros and drew the attention of the table. And because we were all at 10 life all I basically had to do was play the guy, discard a few lands and play Comet Storm to finish people off. The third game I was able to play Mirri's Guile and then I strung like... 6 cards that shuffle my library (Cultivate, Green Sun's Zenith, etc) and that allowed me to see a good 18 cards of my deck. I found Life of the Loam, played the commander, played Snake Umbra, unfortunately I didn't get to do that for more than a turn so I was just able to do like 18 damage before he got hit with Swords to Plowshares. This was the game I didn't win, because every time I played the commander, he was the #1 target. The third time I played him, I was in position to win had I gotten the opportunity to untap and chain a few Life from the Loams but I died to combat before that could happen.
I feel like had I had the full list that this guy is using, I would've been much more consistent and I probably would've been in the situation where I can go off in one turn more often. But the list still performed well IMO. For a creature light deck, it can sure pack a punch. One thing that I'm noticing is that when Borby is on the field, it tends to make people not want to attack me. One time someone had the potential to kill me and would only lose 1 creature in the process, but didn't do it because they were afraid I would kill some important creature of their's out of spite. I feel like this is a misplay when I can potentially untap and "combo out" next turn anyway. It's especially weird when they are worried about me discarding a land to kill a creature of theirs and probably aren't considering the fact that I'd rather aim the lands at their face. Maybe that's just how multiplayer dynamics work. In any case, it allows me to have a board with just a 7/6 (half the time tapped from attacking) and not have to worry about defense.
I'm so glad the deck worked for you! Sure, Crucible of Worlds is a powerhouse, but I certainly played the deck to a lot of wins before I got my hands on one. Same is true of Gamble and Wheel of Fortune. There are plenty of similar cards and they simply increase consistency. Crucible also lets you easily recycle Glacial Chasm and some of the other utility lands at will.
In other news, new Nissa is probably worth toying with and I'm kind of digging Aggressive Mining. Sure, we almost always want to play lands, but even if we drop it once we've hit 12 or 14 lands, we can simply use it to fish for our combo pieces. We've also got a ton of ways to simply put lands into play, so it's probably worth looking at.
Glacial Chasm is another card I'm missing as well.
It's not even a money issue. It was a time issue. The stores I have store credit at didn't have those cards, and buying online would mean at least 2 days before getting the cards. I'm actually a little hesitant to make the deck more pro level because the group of people I tend to play with is a lot more casual. So if I show up with a deck that can combo out really consistently and produce powerful board states even without the commander in play... it makes the games less fun.
I mostly just made the comments I did because literally my deck is Life from the Loam, the and the other cards that put lands from my graveyard into hand. The artifacts that effectively double the damage Borby does (Ring and Bracers), and then some ramp and stuff like Sensei's Top to fill out the deck. I'm playing a lot less creatures than I'm used to playing. And I assumed that because I'm mostly playing ramp spells that the deck would be a lot less consistent and I'd be open to attacks... but that turned out not to be the case.
Yeah, you're typically not really a threat. Players tend to ignore you until it's far too late for them to stop it. It's a political deck. Let everyone else waste their resources on each other. Make very wise use of your instant speed answers and look for an opportunity to end the game suddenly. It's been a pleasure to play.
I like the card, we've got lots of lands and ways to bring them back, but I worry that only drawing 2 cards a turn off it is pretty meh. If I could activate it more than once per turn, heck yeah! I'd abuse the heck out of it, but 3 mana to draw 2 isn't going to win me the game outright on that turn.
I guess I didn't really consider the added benefit the card has when you're playing against multiple opponents. I'll have to give it a try in the next couple weeks.
Time to necro this thread. Sort of. The deck is still getting play and still winning games from out of nowhere. Commander 14 was kind of good to us.
Titania, Protector of Argoth is pretty awesome. More than a pretty awesome, she's exactly what the deck is looking for as an alternate win condition. Likely putting Anger back in to make Scapeshift even dumber. Not to mention it does stupid things with any number of other cards Jeez, this and Aggressive Mining seems neat. Also Constant Mists. Also, Zuran Orb Seriously, it's a value machine or a combo piece. Both ways are a win.
In other discoveries, why have I never seen Burning Sands before? That seems really devastating in a deck that doesn't run very many creatures.
Link is in my signature, let me know what you think I'm going for primer status soon.
Horde of Notions
Yosei | Talrand | Geth | Slobad | Polukranos
Medomai | Grimgrin | Tymaret | Borborygmos | Saffi | Obzedat | Edric | Glissa | Jhoira | Aurelia
Sydri | Shattergang | Thraximundar | Derevi | Karador | Wanderer | Zedruu | Mimeoplasm
R Norin the Wary: I've Got a Bad Feeling About This
UG Thrasios & Kydele: Knowledge is Power
RG Borborygmos Enraged: The Breaking of the World
BG The Gitrog Monster: All Glory to the Hypnotoad
WUR Zedruu the Greathearted: Endless Possibilities, One Outcome
WBG Karador, Ghost Chieftain: What's Dead May Never Die
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(Sorry about the repetitiveness of the Commanders, we all just built new decks and don't really want to play any others.)
Game 1 vs. Krenko, Mob Boss and Roon of the Hidden Realm:
The maiden voyage of my deck went exactly as planned. Ramped into an early Borborygmos with Lightning Greaves and proceeded to get some early beats in to fill up on lands. Krenko couldn't cast his commander because I'd just chuck a land at him, so he wasn't able to swarm really hard and shut me down. Rampaging Baloths was awesome for keeping a steady stream of blockers. Eventually I was able to cast Praetor's Counsel and get a huge grip of lands back from the yard and straight up kill the Roon player. I revealed a Creeping Renaissance and the Krenko player scooped. Honestly a perfect game.
Game 2 vs. Krenko, Mob Boss, Roon of the Hidden Realm, Thassa, God of the Sea, and Shattergang Brothers:
We decided to play Star since we had five people, I was allied with Thassa and Shattergang Bros and against Krenko and Roon. This game sucked. I think I didn't shuffle very well after my first game, I was stuck on 3 lands the entire game and no red mana. Got out an early Lotus Cobra into Zhur-Taa Druid, and then sat and did nothing for the rest of the game while the Roon player flickered Lavinia of the Tenth over and over and Krenko paid me back for the first game. I sat and shuffled for about 20 minutes after that one.
Game 3 vs. Roon of the Hidden Realm, Thassa, God of the Sea, and Shattergang Brothers:
Krenko left to do something else so we played a free for all. I was well rewarded for my shuffling and ended up with 10 mana by the end of turn 3 thanks to Sol Ring, Azusa, Lost But Seeking, and Explosive Vegetation. I ended up killing the Roon player with Commander Damage. Thassa played an overloaded Cyclonic Rift and then backed it up with enough clones of Shipbreaker Kraken to close it out.
Game 4 vs. Roon of the Hidden Realm, Thassa, God of the Sea, and Shattergang Brothers:
Had a pretty decent start but ran out of gas after Borborygmos was removed a few times. The Roon player dropped Roon of the Hidden Realms and Prophet of Kruphix, which the Thassa player promptly copied and they proceeded to durdle during everyone's turn for the rest of the game. I couldn't interact with the board and was begging the Shattergang Brothers player to wipe but he was afraid that it would turn the Roon and Thassa players against him (they were running away with the game anyways). Eventually I was able to sneak in an Inkmoth Nexus and Bloodrush Rubblehulk to kill the Roon player before the Thassa player revealed Cyclonic Rift and the rest of us scooped.
Cards that Performed:
Azusa, Lost but Seeking: what a surprise...
Cavern of Souls/Vexing Shusher: I knew these cards would be good but I didn't know how good. I tutored for Cavern pretty much every game. Invaluable in such a blue-heavy meta. Borborygmos was never counter-tucked once.
Praetor's Counsel/Creeping Renaissance: game-winning once you've dumped a bunch of lands.
Into the Wilds: Pretty solid ramp when you're running almost 50% lands. I was honestly surprised at how good it was.
Cards that Under-Performed:
Keen Sense/Snake Umbra: not so much under-performed as just never saw them all night. That was pretty frustrating as I know from playtesting on Cockatrice that you can pretty much win the game off one of them if your draws are lucky enough.
Life from the Loam: I swear every single dredge was 3 non-lands. One activation that particularly stood out for me is when I dredged Eternal Witness and Nostalgic Dreams all in one go. I know how good LftL can be but it was not being friendly tonight. Might add more recursion to be more resilient to bad dredges.
Closing Thoughts:
My biggest problem tonight was interacting with board states that got out of control. I'm not sure if I'm not running enough wipes or what. I'm probably gonna swap out my Comet Storm for Chain Reaction. I'm also thinking about adding a Glacial Chasm but I'm not sure how good it would be without Crucible of Worlds. Constant Mists would have definitely helped me here but I never drew it.
I'm also never sure when to use my lands in hand to clear creatures off the board or when to go all-in and try and go for the kill. I'm sure I'll become more comfortable with that with time though.
BGWKarador is the Bee's KneesWGB
GRBorborygmos, World DestroyerRG
RHow Can Mirrors Be Real If Our Eyes Aren't RealR
BUWDromar, the Esper Strikes BackWUB
GUVorel of the Hull Clade, Green Grass and High TidesUG
1 azusa, lost but seeking
1 loaming shaman
1 groundskeeper
1 avenger of zendikar
1 oracle of mul daya
1 silklash spider
1 rubblehulk
1 acidic slime
1 fertilid
1 eternal witness
1 brutalizer exarch
1 sylvan primordial
1 yavimaya elder
1 hermit druid
1 journey of discovery
1 seek the horizon
1 crop rotation
1 life from the loam
1 realms uncharted
1 restore
1 from the ashes
1 harrow
1 sprouting vines
1 cultivate
1 renewal
1 scapeshift
1 tempt with discovery
1 krosan grip
1 sylvan library
1 praetor's counsel
1 defense of the heart
1 harmonize
1 exploration
1 regrowth
1 gamble
1 creeping renaissance
1 asceticism
1 nostalgic dreams
1 constant mists
1 hull breach
1 worldly tutor
1 into the wilds
1 green sun's zenith
1 reforge the soul
1 illusionist's bracers
1 lightning greaves
1 storm cauldron
1 sol ring
1 crucible of worlds
1 whispersilk cloak
1 mind's eye
1 sensei's divining top
Lands
1 mystifying maze
1 blasted landscape
1 slippery karst
1 evolving wilds
1 maze of ith
1 tranquil thicket
1 thespian's stage
1 terramorphic expanse
1 yavimaya hollow
1 cavern of souls
1 forgotten cave
1 tower of the magistrate
1 thawing glaciers
1 fire-list thicket
1 smoldering crater
1 reliquary tower
1 valakut, the molten pinnacle
1 strip mine
16 forests
13 mountains
The decklist has evolved over the past few months as I have acquired some of the cards. Finally got a top and cow-those are some seriously high powered cards in this deck! I'm trying out some of the commander 2013 cards to see how they deck. In particular restore,tempt with discovery and from the ashes are looking for permanent places in the deck. But I haven't had enough of a chance to see how they work yet. Doing the tempting offer followed up taking out all of there lands with ashes sounds sick and fun-for me. And if life from the loam is running, there is no bad for me. In most decks I don't like land in the graveyard, not this one.
Still many cards I want/need for this deck. Abundance,gratuitious violence, and memory jar are at the top of the list. But I think I will always want cards for this deck. I'm amazed at the changes in other people's responses to this deck. I was an edh newbie with a beginner deck that was mostly ignored and not considered capable of doing much. Now I get 'that damned cyclops comes out and kills us all again!' I'm the only one playing Borbor at my lgs and he didn't get respect at first-he certainly does now.
I hope you get primer status alfindeol, both you and our general deserve it. Do you know it was your thread that really got me into commander? I been trying to make and an edh deck with some of the old legends and had been extremely frustrated with the process. I was ready to give up the whole idea. I found the forums and was reading, checking the handful of new legends I did own-one of which was Borbor. I found this thread and realized I had at least a few of the cards, and slowly my favorite commander got his deck. I still love taking out the table in one turn with him, even though I certainly don't win even the majority of the games, let along all of him.
Mary
Added Tempt with discovery, Crucible of Worlds, Hammer of Purphuros and Heartless Hidetsugu. I know I'm late to crucible party, but I had been talking myself out of it since I mostly run basics. The hammer sold me on it, though I have yet to need to sac a land for a creature. Heartless replaces price of progress as a way to drop life totals to a range where borborygmos can wrap up, plus with furnace or gratuitous it can be a combo win in itself if I'm at odd life. I had considered him before but having more haste in the deck from hammer sells me on it. Ended a game turn 5 in a draw the other night just for fun. Now I want a basilisk collar for synergy with borborygmos and hidetsugu.
Anyway, having lots of fun as usual!
yeah, ymmv. its not one of our all star cards or anything but i wanted a third haste card, and after boots and grieves its a pretty good third card. I still run Orcish Lumberjack and will use his ability as soon as turn 2 in many cases, so what do I know?
R Norin the Wary: I've Got a Bad Feeling About This
UG Thrasios & Kydele: Knowledge is Power
RG Borborygmos Enraged: The Breaking of the World
BG The Gitrog Monster: All Glory to the Hypnotoad
WUR Zedruu the Greathearted: Endless Possibilities, One Outcome
WBG Karador, Ghost Chieftain: What's Dead May Never Die
Turn your junk into something great with PucaTrade!
EDIT: Nvm I see it has.
Could seem good when you are ready to close out the game.
As well as Scouting Trek good for the win as well. Put the remaining lands in your deck on top, then keen sense up and throw.
R Norin the Wary: I've Got a Bad Feeling About This
UG Thrasios & Kydele: Knowledge is Power
RG Borborygmos Enraged: The Breaking of the World
BG The Gitrog Monster: All Glory to the Hypnotoad
WUR Zedruu the Greathearted: Endless Possibilities, One Outcome
WBG Karador, Ghost Chieftain: What's Dead May Never Die
Turn your junk into something great with PucaTrade!
Mary
It adds a whole surprise element to the game. Players are always mental math-ing if you can kill them with Borbor based on the cards in your hand. With this, they'll never really know.
R Norin the Wary: I've Got a Bad Feeling About This
UG Thrasios & Kydele: Knowledge is Power
RG Borborygmos Enraged: The Breaking of the World
BG The Gitrog Monster: All Glory to the Hypnotoad
WUR Zedruu the Greathearted: Endless Possibilities, One Outcome
WBG Karador, Ghost Chieftain: What's Dead May Never Die
Turn your junk into something great with PucaTrade!
R Norin the Wary: I've Got a Bad Feeling About This
UG Thrasios & Kydele: Knowledge is Power
RG Borborygmos Enraged: The Breaking of the World
BG The Gitrog Monster: All Glory to the Hypnotoad
WUR Zedruu the Greathearted: Endless Possibilities, One Outcome
WBG Karador, Ghost Chieftain: What's Dead May Never Die
Turn your junk into something great with PucaTrade!
Game 1 vs. Wort, the Raidmother and Sharuum the Hegemon
The Sharuum player was new, so he played right into an active Oblivion Stone. Twice. I used Thespian's Stage and Dark Depths to get my 20/20 with Gratuitous Violence on the board. Unfortunately it got Swords to Plowshares'd. No matter, I managed to stick Borbor, Illusionist's Bracers and Grafted Exoskeleton a few turns later for the win. Highlight of the game? Having Burgeoning active with my opening playing Font of Mythos. Also Grafted Exoskeleton + Zhur-Taa Druid is a thing.
Game 2 vs. Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord and Sen Triplets
This took a bit longer, but an early Sylvan Library kept things hoping. Ended up with the Library, Scroll Rack and Sensei's Divining Top active in the game. I dropped an early Torpor Orb which no one could apparently deal with and the game sort of shambled along for awhile. I finally assembled Lightning Greaves, Snake Umbra and Borbor with all that top deck stuff and started to combo. The Umbra got blown up but my next draw was Storm Cauldron with Creeping Renaissance in hand. That was enough to off both players.
All stars this time around included Grafted Exoskeleton, Sylvan Library and Burgeoning.
Going 2-0 in my first couple games back felt good. Not sure my opponents shared my opinion, but they were playing decks that just seemed to durdle or they had no idea what they were doing. The lack of sweepers on their end made it nearly impossible for them to deal with the deck. I'd like to find some new card draw engines and I'm wondering if Seer's Sundial is worth a try.
R Norin the Wary: I've Got a Bad Feeling About This
UG Thrasios & Kydele: Knowledge is Power
RG Borborygmos Enraged: The Breaking of the World
BG The Gitrog Monster: All Glory to the Hypnotoad
WUR Zedruu the Greathearted: Endless Possibilities, One Outcome
WBG Karador, Ghost Chieftain: What's Dead May Never Die
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Glacial Chasm has been an all star in this deck so many times for me. My favorite trick right now is to hold Crop Rotation as an emergency fog when someone tries to off me.
I'm updating the main list now.
R Norin the Wary: I've Got a Bad Feeling About This
UG Thrasios & Kydele: Knowledge is Power
RG Borborygmos Enraged: The Breaking of the World
BG The Gitrog Monster: All Glory to the Hypnotoad
WUR Zedruu the Greathearted: Endless Possibilities, One Outcome
WBG Karador, Ghost Chieftain: What's Dead May Never Die
Turn your junk into something great with PucaTrade!
It's like a bigger Fertilid. It's interesting. My concern is that we should have better things to do with 6 untapped mana.
R Norin the Wary: I've Got a Bad Feeling About This
UG Thrasios & Kydele: Knowledge is Power
RG Borborygmos Enraged: The Breaking of the World
BG The Gitrog Monster: All Glory to the Hypnotoad
WUR Zedruu the Greathearted: Endless Possibilities, One Outcome
WBG Karador, Ghost Chieftain: What's Dead May Never Die
Turn your junk into something great with PucaTrade!
Once I get my hands on one, I'm going to throw it in the deck for testing. Maybe I'm underrating it.
I have a big, shiny surprise coming in the mail. I'll throw up a picture once it arrives.
R Norin the Wary: I've Got a Bad Feeling About This
UG Thrasios & Kydele: Knowledge is Power
RG Borborygmos Enraged: The Breaking of the World
BG The Gitrog Monster: All Glory to the Hypnotoad
WUR Zedruu the Greathearted: Endless Possibilities, One Outcome
WBG Karador, Ghost Chieftain: What's Dead May Never Die
Turn your junk into something great with PucaTrade!
On the very first page of this thread I mentioned I really wanted a Korean Foil Borbor. Now I have it! Hooray! Since last post, I've played the deck to 4 more wins all of which were assembled without the original Keen Sense and Abundance combo. The deck is really rolling.
R Norin the Wary: I've Got a Bad Feeling About This
UG Thrasios & Kydele: Knowledge is Power
RG Borborygmos Enraged: The Breaking of the World
BG The Gitrog Monster: All Glory to the Hypnotoad
WUR Zedruu the Greathearted: Endless Possibilities, One Outcome
WBG Karador, Ghost Chieftain: What's Dead May Never Die
Turn your junk into something great with PucaTrade!
I feel like had I had the full list that this guy is using, I would've been much more consistent and I probably would've been in the situation where I can go off in one turn more often. But the list still performed well IMO. For a creature light deck, it can sure pack a punch. One thing that I'm noticing is that when Borby is on the field, it tends to make people not want to attack me. One time someone had the potential to kill me and would only lose 1 creature in the process, but didn't do it because they were afraid I would kill some important creature of their's out of spite. I feel like this is a misplay when I can potentially untap and "combo out" next turn anyway. It's especially weird when they are worried about me discarding a land to kill a creature of theirs and probably aren't considering the fact that I'd rather aim the lands at their face. Maybe that's just how multiplayer dynamics work. In any case, it allows me to have a board with just a 7/6 (half the time tapped from attacking) and not have to worry about defense.
I'm so glad the deck worked for you! Sure, Crucible of Worlds is a powerhouse, but I certainly played the deck to a lot of wins before I got my hands on one. Same is true of Gamble and Wheel of Fortune. There are plenty of similar cards and they simply increase consistency. Crucible also lets you easily recycle Glacial Chasm and some of the other utility lands at will.
The best card in the deck is probably Life from the Loam.
In other news, new Nissa is probably worth toying with and I'm kind of digging Aggressive Mining. Sure, we almost always want to play lands, but even if we drop it once we've hit 12 or 14 lands, we can simply use it to fish for our combo pieces. We've also got a ton of ways to simply put lands into play, so it's probably worth looking at.
R Norin the Wary: I've Got a Bad Feeling About This
UG Thrasios & Kydele: Knowledge is Power
RG Borborygmos Enraged: The Breaking of the World
BG The Gitrog Monster: All Glory to the Hypnotoad
WUR Zedruu the Greathearted: Endless Possibilities, One Outcome
WBG Karador, Ghost Chieftain: What's Dead May Never Die
Turn your junk into something great with PucaTrade!
It's not even a money issue. It was a time issue. The stores I have store credit at didn't have those cards, and buying online would mean at least 2 days before getting the cards. I'm actually a little hesitant to make the deck more pro level because the group of people I tend to play with is a lot more casual. So if I show up with a deck that can combo out really consistently and produce powerful board states even without the commander in play... it makes the games less fun.
I mostly just made the comments I did because literally my deck is Life from the Loam, the and the other cards that put lands from my graveyard into hand. The artifacts that effectively double the damage Borby does (Ring and Bracers), and then some ramp and stuff like Sensei's Top to fill out the deck. I'm playing a lot less creatures than I'm used to playing. And I assumed that because I'm mostly playing ramp spells that the deck would be a lot less consistent and I'd be open to attacks... but that turned out not to be the case.
R Norin the Wary: I've Got a Bad Feeling About This
UG Thrasios & Kydele: Knowledge is Power
RG Borborygmos Enraged: The Breaking of the World
BG The Gitrog Monster: All Glory to the Hypnotoad
WUR Zedruu the Greathearted: Endless Possibilities, One Outcome
WBG Karador, Ghost Chieftain: What's Dead May Never Die
Turn your junk into something great with PucaTrade!
I like the card, we've got lots of lands and ways to bring them back, but I worry that only drawing 2 cards a turn off it is pretty meh. If I could activate it more than once per turn, heck yeah! I'd abuse the heck out of it, but 3 mana to draw 2 isn't going to win me the game outright on that turn.
R Norin the Wary: I've Got a Bad Feeling About This
UG Thrasios & Kydele: Knowledge is Power
RG Borborygmos Enraged: The Breaking of the World
BG The Gitrog Monster: All Glory to the Hypnotoad
WUR Zedruu the Greathearted: Endless Possibilities, One Outcome
WBG Karador, Ghost Chieftain: What's Dead May Never Die
Turn your junk into something great with PucaTrade!
R Norin the Wary: I've Got a Bad Feeling About This
UG Thrasios & Kydele: Knowledge is Power
RG Borborygmos Enraged: The Breaking of the World
BG The Gitrog Monster: All Glory to the Hypnotoad
WUR Zedruu the Greathearted: Endless Possibilities, One Outcome
WBG Karador, Ghost Chieftain: What's Dead May Never Die
Turn your junk into something great with PucaTrade!
Titania, Protector of Argoth is pretty awesome. More than a pretty awesome, she's exactly what the deck is looking for as an alternate win condition. Likely putting Anger back in to make Scapeshift even dumber. Not to mention it does stupid things with any number of other cards Jeez, this and Aggressive Mining seems neat. Also Constant Mists. Also, Zuran Orb Seriously, it's a value machine or a combo piece. Both ways are a win.
In other discoveries, why have I never seen Burning Sands before? That seems really devastating in a deck that doesn't run very many creatures.
R Norin the Wary: I've Got a Bad Feeling About This
UG Thrasios & Kydele: Knowledge is Power
RG Borborygmos Enraged: The Breaking of the World
BG The Gitrog Monster: All Glory to the Hypnotoad
WUR Zedruu the Greathearted: Endless Possibilities, One Outcome
WBG Karador, Ghost Chieftain: What's Dead May Never Die
Turn your junk into something great with PucaTrade!