Ah so I found where you put dark confidant. First things first though where is dark ritual? This is a card I consider to be a staple in almost any deck I play with black. With as much double dipping as your general does along with blacks massive draw card power and the fact that it is an instant lets you plop your general turn 1 or use your general to turn a leftover mana or 2 into another instant. Considering monk black typically struggles to empty it's hand not fill it combine with the synergy from your general i literally checked your instant section 5 times before leaving a comment. Also I like your last round of changes. If your looking for more shuffle for the shiney new top perhaps expidition map would be fairly solid here and with coffers is most likely better than any ramp at the same cost.
Ah so I found where you put dark confidant. First things first though where is dark ritual? This is a card I consider to be a staple in almost any deck I play with black. With as much double dipping as your general does along with blacks massive draw card power and the fact that it is an instant lets you plop your general turn 1 or use your general to turn a leftover mana or 2 into another instant. Considering monk black typically struggles to empty it's hand not fill it combine with the synergy from your general i literally checked your instant section 5 times before leaving a comment. Also I like your last round of changes. If your looking for more shuffle for the shiney new top perhaps expidition map would be fairly solid here and with coffers is most likely better than any ramp at the same cost.
Dark Ritual - its a strong card but my issue is what am I ramping into off of it? Fast ramp that is use and be done can be really awkward while playing a grindy attrition game of magic. I think it has a much more stable place while playing fast combo decks and or 60 card magic where you can build around it with more consistency. I think it is a good card still but it sort of falls off quickly in its use in my opinion if you dont draw it in the first 5 or so turns of the game. I think it has some good synergy still with things like bob and AdN but at the same time there is a big question of how underwhelming it can be to topdeck beyond that. In general I have uses for excess mana but with it being a one shot and done effect it makes me a lot more hesitant. I feel its use for this format is primarily for fast combo decks.
I can try to put it in for some testing at some point just to get the viewpoint of it personally but I am curious as to your thoughts of it. What do you like about it in the mid and late game? I have always been a little so so on cards that fall off in effect beyond the first few turns of the game and that is how I feel Dark Ritual would be. I am not trying to say that fast mana isn't important but I tend to favor fast mana that sticks with me.
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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.
No problem. I am interested in your argument for it and would love to be talked into it. Worst case I can always put it in for some testing as its really no big issue as I have the things all over the place in my old boxes of cards. I will see if I cant check later tonight or tomorrow to see what you can drum up.
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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.
I got a little bit of testing in of late. It seems like I have been busy with new decks and or missing several of my usual EDH nights of late so not a ton to report on overall but I did some 1v1 games with a buddy I dont see very often this weekend and we played a few.
I just sort of dropped lands to Null Profusion in the early game. He was struggling to hit his land drops and got stuck in around 4-6 mana for a while. I looped a Burnished Hart a few times with Corpse Dance drawing a few cards but not having a lot else to do. Where it got really fun was when I ended up popping a Memory Jar as I had a few cool things as well as some responsive sort of cards in hand. The memory Jar draws were just sort of ok as if I recall correctly it was something along the lines of: Chainer, Dementia Master, Erebos, God of the Dead, Demonic Tutor, Insidious Dreams, and a few answers which I cannot recall offhand. I still had my Null Profusion in play though which made this play a bit more interesting. I played Insidious Dreams discarding all but Erebos to it (I needed a cheap card that did not search aka not demonic tutor). In my tutors I arranged them in the following order: Cabal Coffers, Crypt Ghast, Jet Medallion (I still had corpse dance in my other hand), Sheoldred, Whispering One (his commander was in play and it was a hexproof one), and Altar of Dementia. I proceeded to play Erebos and then just daisy chained into all of the rest of them playing them as I cam across them lol. I think I got like 3 cards further as well before hitting a land.
He untaps, sacrifices to Sheoldred, and then plays a Planar Cleansing on me lol. I use my own alter to self mill myself with all of the triggers. I then tap a Nykthos for 13 mana as I had a lot of stuff on the board when he blew me up plus one additional swamp tapping for two mana. I allow the Clensing to resolve and then I Empty the Pits for 25 zombies which swarm him to death.
It was an interesting game where I learned the power of Null Profusion + Insidious Dreams. Empty the Pits was nice as well but obviously with only one opponent it seems like an easy situation to know that its going to be a lot better. Still though, having a surprise 50 damage hidden behind 3 lands is still really nice.
I had an absolutely amazing start to a game yesterday. I unfortunately burned out in the mid game where I just sort of got hit by a lot of bad things and then taken out but it was still amusing.
It was a 4 player FFA game with the following opponents: Zirilan of the Claw, Sen Triplets, and Sidisi, Brood Tyrant. I went second for this game with Sidisi first. I kept a super greedy hand with only a single land in it lol.
T1: top deck a second swamp, play a Swamp, end of opponents turns Vampiric Tutor for a Sol Ring. Zirilan starts with sol ring + a 2 mana stone.
T2: Swamp, Sol Ring, Jet Medallion, Dark Confidant. Zirilan drops a Burnished Hart
T3: land, Phyrexian Arena. I get poked from Zirilan's Burnished Hart before he pops it.
T4: I get poked for 5 from bob on a Memory Jar. I play out a Sensei's Divining Top and Puppeteer Clique the Sidisi's Clever Impersonator as a Farhaven Elf he has. Zirilan hits me for some damage, pops my Jet Medallion and then hits a Wheel effect. Somewhere in here he also drops a Vedalken Orrery into play.
T5: I stack my topdeck with the top to dodge bob damage. I start just throwing surplus creatures into play because I am going to discard them otherwise. As I go to attack I get blown out by a one mana Blasphemous Act from Zirilan.
T6: I Animate Dead a Geth, Lord of the Vault I had discarded to the wheel and drop a Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx into play. At the end of turn I reanimate a dragon and an oblivion stone off of the Zirilan player. I use the stone's protect option to try to protect something and in response Zirilan does a Warp World on us. I end up getting a kokusho and Rune Scarred demon and some lands. Overall its essentially a blow out against me as it always is since I have so many spells in deck. I end up wrathing the dragons with a Tsabo's Decree that I tutor for off the demon but in the end I just flounder from there and eventually just get aggroed to death from the Zirilan player (probably about 4-5 turns after this but they were gruling turns of not drawing relivant things. The Sidisi player also got out a Scavenging Ooze and proceeded to eat my graveyard and got like most of my usual wincons in one shot in a game where I ran out of card draw and then had my graveyard poached from me.
So.... I died but still, it was one hell of an impressive start with all the ramp and moving right into three cards drawn a turn. Unfortunately he is known for the fast wheel starts and using warp world at least once a game as its like automatically his gamble target. I was essentially singled out by the Zirilan player all game and it didnt help getting side swiped by Sidisi on my graveyards due to the ooze. I should have made a few adjustments in how I played the last few turns but I forgot the Zirilan player randomly had like 20 damage in random dudes and I had essentially no way to protect myself when I died. The game ended in the triplets player creating infinite Chancellor of the Spires off of a Heat Shimmer and murdering the other two. It was funny as both of the other two were able to copy it and do the same thing but because of how they were doing it the triplets player got to resolve his last and just pick a larger number of tokens than the other two and kill them both.
So....
Bob - continues to prove to be strong in opening hands and in the early game. I have not had a lot of chances to encounter him later in the game but my opinion of him seems to remain more or less the same that his power seems to fall off as time goes on. I will continue testing him at this time being only sort of so so on him.
Sensei's Divining Top I did get to assemble it with bob in play which I knew was going to be good. Sadly I couldn't stick them together for very long. I will keep testing but I still suspect I will probably want to add fetchlands to support it.
Empty the Pits - in the game above I did end up milling my way into it in grave but unfortunately it was while I was getting mauled for damage and Sidisi had the ooze in play. It has some great output potential as well as surprise factor. I need to keep testing but it can be a bit slow in general to make it work. I don't think I ever got my commander into play in this game either and that is sort of difficult as well.
Word of Command - it seems to have hit and miss sort of situations but I did utilize it to tap out the counter deck to force a Null Profusion through like right as I was dying lol. Still, I like what it does and the information as well as screwing with the answer heavy decks seems really fun.
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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.
It is a little early to do a complete review for Commander 2014 but given the large chunk of cards we recieved essentially overnight I wanted to do a bit of a small review now. I assume we still have several artifacts and lands yet to come so I will do another one when we have everything spoiled.
Demon of Wailing Agonies as a whole, hes an ok creature but creatures with big size and an ability on combat damage to an opponent is mostly just ok in a mono black control deck. Its slow in general and does not scale for multiple opponents well. I feel he is a decent creature but better suited for a deck like Kaalia of the Vast where he could come out swinging already.
Malicious Affliction it has the issue of still being a Doom Blade but its just better for the purposes of this deck than Doom Blade. It is essentially the good parts of Reckless Spite for this deck. You can always cast it to kill one target and flash it back for two more so that's fairly strong. Anytime that we would be flashing it back with toshiro it will be getting two copies assuming there are two targets. The fact that it splits off into two copies is great as well because counter based decks will have a harder time interacting with it. If you really needed something to die you could always put both on the stack targeting that one creature making it very difficult to push through it with counter magic. Overall, I would say this is a very strong bit of utility but it still resembles Tragic Slip in a lot of ways in its use but the advantage being casting it normally essentially always sets it up to be flashed back where as Tragic Slip is a bit more uncertain on that front. It seems like really solid removal but that nonblack clause always irritates me a bit.
Necromantic Selection an expensive wrath with a reanimate effect attached. I think its alright but its a lot of mana at sorcery speed for a reanimate effect. Personally I would say you are better off reanimating or wrathing than trying to combo them together and pay too much at sorcery speed.
Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath as a whole, he is a value over time sort of a walker who isnt as good as a card in the 99 because he is meant to see play several times. His ability to syphon life isnt bad and the demons could possibly defend him however I just see it being difficult to defend him as a whole and the overall value he would generate is likely not as good as say Liliana of the Dark Realms.
Overseer of the Damned removal on ETB plus potential to create a lot of tokens later. What I like about this guy offhand is if your meta runs a lot of wrath removal he gains fairly good power after the wrath. His ETB removal also triggers a token so he seems sort of nice but his casting cost is a bit high.
Spoils of Blood its an interesting and cheap token production. The big issue is that its just sort of a big bulky token really. It is best post wrath but we arent really an aggro type of deck and the token lacks any sort of evasion not to mention the fact that it requires a specific sort of setup for it to really work. Being an instant is good but it misses what we are trying to do for the most part here.
Wake the Dead man... I love this card already. Instant speed mass reanimation that only self sacrifices at the endstep. This.... is going to be a fantastic card for this deck. We have a good bit of ETB creatures in deck. This not only gives some great blocking options but its just nice and large scale in general. It is limited to defense and triggering ETB effects but honestly I think its still a fantastic card for this deck.
Arcane Lighthouse this allows our spot removal to work on hexproof commanders????? YES PLEASE. This land is sort of outrageous for a lot of reasons and I love it. Honestly.... it sort of irritates me what they make sometimes as this does seem like a hell of a lot of utility for a cheap tap ability. Still, I dont have any hexproof commanders offhand. This is going to be a huge achilles heel for them moving forward. I am honestly surprised that wizards would make this card as it seems a bit outrageously powerful on a land.
Myriad Landscape a land that fetches me into two more lands? Sounds great. This is a control deck and this does rotate itself into swamps so while it does cost some time to do it, its great value for a control deck. It adds another fetch effect to improve top as well while not costing the same as a fetchland so it seems great overall.
Commander's Sphere its a little slow for a one mana stone but in a lot of regards its on par with Darksteel Ingot which is indestructible. Trading off indestructible for sac to draw seems like it has pros and cons. I think the two of them in a lot of decks will be somewhat interchangeable.
Unstable Obelisk another nice mana stone. Considering that artifacts / enchantments / walkers can sometimes be an issue this is a nice option to consider. It can also function as a Strip Mine in a pinch so I think its a good consideration sort of a card.
Honestly, from what we have seen I think the strongest black considerations would be Malicious Affliction and Wake the Dead. Wake the Dead really takes the cake as far as black spells are concerned in my mind its an incredible card on paper. I am really interested to see how it plays in implementation. Malicious Affliction comes back and makes me wonder again due to the whole nonblack targets clause but overall it seems quite powerful for this type of deck.
When we get to lands and artifacts... it seems like all of the ones spoiled so far seem incredibly powerful as options. I look forward to testing and pushing them arround. Unstable Obelisk seems a little so so when you look at it from just the angle of utilizing it as a Spine of Ish Sah but you have to consider the fact that you activate it at instant speed when you want it and it functions as a mana stone until then. I think its likely going to make it into my list just due to versatility if for nothing else. I already plan to take out my Darksteel Ingot to bring it in.
Overall, this so far blows my expectations out of the water. The commanders and walkers have not been so huge for me so far but the number of amazing spells and cards as a whole is so much higher than I recall the other decks in the past being. Two thumbs way up.
Well, I have brewed on the Commander 2014 stuff for a while and I know there are adjustments I want to make to at the very least test some cards. I am really excited for this product for so many decks its hard to really make all the adjustments at once.
DECK CHANGE:
Undying Evil -> Wake the Dead both of these effects are a bit limited in how they work. What I love about both is just how cheap they really are to use. Both of these effects have some concerns as to how many creatures I run and neither one of them work for stolen creatures. With the Undying Evil you run the risk that someone will kill it in response and you have to have the reanimation effect in hand as the creature would be dying with the mana up to save it. With Wake the Dead you need to prioritize creature quantity as well as some ETB / immediate effects. There are different uses for both but I want to give the new effect some game time and see how I feel about it in contrast.
Animate Dead -> Malicious Affliction I have quite a bit of reanimation in the list and unfortunately I have synergy with the instants and creatures in this list. This is still a good animation effect but I really need to watch how heavy I get in the artifacts, enchantments, and sorcery effects for this list. It could come back in but for now I am making room and I feel like I can live with one less animation effect.
Darksteel Ingot -> Unstable Obelisk functionally, they do about the same thing in the early game but instead of having a robust mana stone in the later stages I get access to an instant speed Desert Twister effect. I like the idea of it I suppose.
Tectonic Edge -> Arcane Lighthouse I considered a few options as to how I was going to try to get the new lighthouse into my list. In the end, the only real options I felt I had were Tectonic Edge, Reliquary Tower, or cutting into my swamp count. Right now, the lands that I tend to want to hit with removal tend to be Cabal Coffers and Homeward Path (situationally). Outside of these having land removal tends to be more useful against opponents land removal effects so I can hit my big mana lands. Overall, I just feel like I can move back down to a single Strip Mine effect. Being that this deck is so target removal heavy the Lighthouse seems to be another great means to give us access to removing opponents creatures.
I have a few adjustments I want to make so forgive me but I am going to work a few things out and sort of discuss things a bit first if anyone wants to indulge my ramblings for a bit I wouldn't mind the assistance in some of my thoughts. I have wanted to make a few adjustments and some of this has just been me testing things and some of it has been things that havent tested that well so far.
On the Block:
Phyrexian Altar it came in as a means to loop some of the creatures who siphon life off of my opponents. If I get set up with something like Chainer, Dementia Master or Corpse Dance set up I can potentially loop a siphoning creature a lot for some real pain. It seems like that has been something I have been able to set up less frequently though of late due to some increased grave hate as well as things just progressing a bit faster. I wont lie, I have seen more Warp World than I care to see with this list as well. Overall though, I think its a decent wincon but overall its something that if I am not trying to press the win button I don't find it that useful often enough.
Umezawa's Jitte it has been drawing more hate than I had expected. The amount of Tower of the Magistrate has been on the rise in my meta of late as well. I cant really recall a situation where I have been able to abuse it as much as I have wanted to and it usually dies quickly on me.
Mesmeric Orb people in my meta have this unreasonable reaction to mill. I mean.... unreasonable. The last two to three times I have curved into this it has died within about a turn or two. It really needs to be let ride to get the value I am looking for sadly. The fact that I need to wait a turn rotation to get any value from it is not exactly a good thing for me.
Sensei's Divining Top outside of situations where I have bob in play with it it seems to have been really sort of a dead draw. This list doesnt shuffle enough to take advantage of it to my own likes.
Dark Confidant this deck doesn't win fast enough to justify him is my consensus at this time. I played him for a good amount of time and have cast him 5 or 6 times and even set him up with top occasionally. It just isn't panning out for me it seems. If I dont like curve into him he just doesnt seem to pan out and this deck doesn't win quickly. The average hit from his draw is about 3 damage a card and its entirely unknown how much he might draw. Ad Nauseam just seems like an effect I can control better than him in this deck.
In Consideration:
Thrashing Wumpus I have been considering having more wrath options in this deck. I abuse creatures better than sorceries and this deck does have the overall objective of being a bit of a siphon style of deck. I have always liked the Crypt Rat sort of creatures.
Pestilence Demon similar to the Wumpus but for more mana with a more impressive body to it. The fact that it could swing out and it defends well are all things that intrigue me about him.
Isochron Scepter I have this dream of putting a Word of Command on a Scepter and just making someone cry. My overall count of two or less mana instants is up above what it used to be with a good number of decent targets for it. I still dont like the idea of exiling spells with it but it has potential for better value than from Toshiro so it might be worth pushing in.
Exsanguinate my long time concern from this card has been that I cant abuse it and it does nothing to the board state. I have the same concerns now but I could see it as an interesting add if I do end up adding more Pestilence creatures.
Crypt Incursion graveyard hate with lifegain. There have been some graveyard abuse issues in my meta of late.
Pontiff of Blight more siphoning. I ended up sort of cutting it before actually getting any testing out of it in the past so its still on my list of things to possibly try to push in here.
Eye of Doom removal for whatever. Being creature light and target light makes it stronger but with possibly adding more creatures its not as impressive.
Disciple of Bolas draw / lifegain that could be stronger especially if my creature count does go back up some.
Thoughts on that? The artifacts have been harder to use and abuse and I have noticed some reasons to buff my overall creature count as well as my wrath options. The idea of hitting a Wake the Dead into a Pestilence Demon seems really spicy.
Personally I feel these changes are warranted after your long discontent with bob. So for top and Bob those make very good sense. As for the other changes they make sense to why you took them out but I feel that Jitte should stay just for flavor than function.
The Isochron Scepter is an interesting inclusion, but the additions you listed seem to be either a meta choice, or I'm just not seeing the relevance to Toshiro. The only card you are adding that is an instant, then, would be the Crypt Incursion, which I totally agree with and have that card in my list too. But my deck is much, much less of a reanimate than yours - mine is more for mp control/politics.
I would have no objections to the cuts you mentioned, otherwise.
Hey ISBPathfinder, have you gotten a chance to test out those suggested changes to your Toshiro deck yet? I'm curious as to how the Thrashing Wumpus and Pestilence Demon have worked out for you.
Hey ISBPathfinder, have you gotten a chance to test out those suggested changes to your Toshiro deck yet? I'm curious as to how the Thrashing Wumpus and Pestilence Demon have worked out for you.
I am testing the changes but have only logged one game with Toshiro in the last few weeks and I ended up drawing the Demon + Wumpus in the early game draws in a 1v1 match against a faster aggro deck so its not really much of a playtest. I will try to bring the deck out tonight as I have been pushing my newer decks a bit heavier of late to get some testing but I still really have not gotten much play from my established decks in the last few months.
EDIT: for now this will just be an edit but I will try to report it once the 48 hours since this post have passed. It will likely have to be later this weekend but while it is fresh in my mind I wanted to cover some game results.
My opening hand was alright but it was light on black mana so my turn two demonic tutor ended up fetching into a Burnished Hart as I still only had one black source at the time. The game progression was a bit slow for me but I had Erebos, God of the Dead that I curved into behind the Burnished Hart pop to sort of even out some of my card draw.
I ended up playing a bit of draw go with nothing really particularly great in play. My commander got gimped by a Sword of Fire and Ice like immediately so I ended up playing a Gray Merchant of Asphodel just as sort of a chump blocker at a devotion of three as well as an option to pitch to my Diabolic Intent which I for whatever reason never really got around to playing. I dirdled for a while playing simulacrum. The Nahiri was swinging arround a 12 powered dork with tons of equipment and I took a hit from that. I finally got a Rune-Scarred Demon and I fetched up my Wake the Dead with it given that I already had Simulacrum / Burnished Hart in grave with a Demon that was probably going to die fairly quickly as well. Riku flashes in an Acidic Slime hitting my Phyrexian Tower. Its a really rogue move that I didn't really see the point in so I did the math in my head and realized he was trying to clone my Rune-Scarred Demon so I saced him in response. He was annoyed at me.
From here we played a little bit more draw go sort of control. Riku kept playing with flash which was sort of troublesome to me trying to do an all in Wake the Dead so I slow played that for a bit. I ended up getting a Kokusho + Attrition online. Riku ended up using his mana on his turn eventually to do something and Sen Triplets (who got horribly mana hosed all game) finally got enough mana for his commander. At that point I cast a Wake the Dead for 5 targets, Kokusho, the Evening Star, Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Rune-Scarred Demon, Solemn Simulacrum, and Burnished Hart. In response to the cast of Wake the Dead riku cast a Chaos Warp on my Attrition hoping it was going to keep me off of cycling / repeating it somehow. I flipped into Necropotence off of the Warp. My opponents got domed for 11 off of gary and later another 5 off of Kokusho. Given that I had already done this prior for 5 with kokusho and 3 with Gary that put my overall life siphoning at 24 off the top of everyone at that point not to mention all the swings that everyone had been taking from the white player who liked evenly distributing his hits. My Rune-Scarred Demon fetched me a Cabal Coffers.
My turn rolled around and I cast a creature and kicked it off with my Diabolic Intent finally. I tutored for Thrashing Wumpus because I felt like it and just murdered them with my remaining 20 or so mana.
So.... Wake the Dead.... its good.... I probably would have been in trouble if not for the Erebos I got. He did actually dig me through quite a few cards throughout the span of the game.
I've been toying around with an Erebos discard theme control list, sorta similar to this. I wanted to ask how Dark Confidant was, and if he ever becomes too much of a nuisance? He seems really good in terms of generating card advantage, something my deck absolutely needs, but I'm worried because the average CMC of my list is 3.48. I noticed this list's CMC is 3.47, so almost the exact same. What's your opinion on him?
I've been toying around with an Erebos discard theme control list, sorta similar to this. I wanted to ask how Dark Confidant was, and if he ever becomes too much of a nuisance? He seems really good in terms of generating card advantage, something my deck absolutely needs, but I'm worried because the average CMC of my list is 3.48. I noticed this list's CMC is 3.47, so almost the exact same. What's your opinion on him?
I ended up playing him out several times and my consensus was always that he worked quite well in the early game but took too long to spin up later to really matter. His hits are a lot harder than those from say Graveborn Muse as well as projecting half of what you draw. The only real upside I ended up seeing with him over Graveborn Muse for example seemed to be if you can curve into him early. He seems more important to me in fast metas where the games close out early on a regular basis.
Some people will swear by the guy but I just did not see enough to convince me that he is better than Graveborn Muse. There is only the situations where you have it before turn 4 where I really experienced any sort of feeling that it was better. I could also possibly see it picking back up if you run MLD in your meta and thus probably run a lower curve.
There are reasons I believe to run him. I just did not feel like this deck was really served any better by his inclusion.
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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.
First of all, I ended up playing three games last night. One of the guys forgot his decks so he borrowed Toshiro for two of the matches. Its impressive to see the difference in someone who is not accustomed to the deck and someone who is. He didn't do terribly with it but there was definitely a difference in when I play the deck and when he played it.
T1:Swamp, Wayfarer's Bauble. Riku and Gisela also do land / bauble that turn. T2:Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, use Wayfarer's Bauble. Riku pops his bauble before my turn and on his following turn plays a Farhaven Elf. Bruna plays a Azorius Guildmage. Gisela plays a Hideaway land and passes turn. T3: Topdeck Myriad Landscape at the wrong time . I play it out anyways. I play a Stinkweed Imp as well (prepairing for the Bruna beats). Bruna plays a Serene Master and pokes someone else for 2 with his guildmage. Riku plays a Proteus Staff and cycles off his Farhaven Elf into an Ixidron sort of awkwardly and flips my stinkweed and the Bruna players creatures down. Gisela has hit land stall as well. We don't realize it at the moment but he believes his Temple of the False God is a dud at 4 lands stalled but I have an urborg I point out about a turn later when I realize as much. T4: I reluctantly pop my Myriad Landscape for my turn as I have stalled on lands and NEED to hit 5 mana. Bruna does some attacking with 2/2s if I recall. Riku uses his Proteus Staff with with a Kher Keep to flip up a duplicant (terrible target options). He takes my face down Stinkweed Imp away from me (NOOOOS). I point out the 4th mana due to urborg and the Gisela player drops his Solemn Simulacrum. T5: I still have no land drops but I have 5 land. I have no board position so I opt to Moonlight Bargain instead of Ad Nauseam at this time because I mostly just need land drops to keep me going. My flip on it was 2x Swamp, Burnished Hart, Phyrexian Arena, and Memory Jar. I pay 8 life and keep all but the Memory Jar. I didn't have a land for the turn or a land for next turn so I wanted both of those. I need the ramp off the Heart as well and long term I needed sustained draw so it seemed like a good time to be greedy and put myself to 32. I play a Swamp. I end up discarding like 2 cards to keep the ones I just drew unfortunately but the new ones were a lot better than what I had in hand. Bruna plays his commander (I don't think he knew what Proteus Staff did entirely. Riku uses Proteus Staff on the Bruna player and ends up flipping him some other creature I cant recall offhand. I cant recall the Gisela player doing anything this turn. T6:Swamp, Burnished Hart. Bruna player drops a Ring of Three Wishes (and somewhere along the line got a Gilded Lotus but I don't know when he dropped it). Bruna attacks with his two creatures and ends up killing them both off which kills Ixidron as well. Riku flips another token into an Acidic Slime (again no real good targets) so sadly he smashes the Bruna player's Ring of Three Wishes which I find a little amusing as he is making an enemy very quickly lol. I complain hard enough about the Staff that I pressure Gisela into using an Austere Command and he clears out the board (I find it amusing as it hurts me like none and I get rid of the pesky staff) I pop my Burnished Hart in response for my lands. T7: Land, Crypt Ghast (finally the stupid staff is gone). I pass turn keeping mana up for optional plays. Riku tries casting an Eternal Witness to recover the staff. Bruna doesn't like this plan and cast his Dissipate on the witness. Riku casts his commander. Gisela casts an Anger of the Gods taking out Riku and my Crypt Ghast. I cast a Makeshift Mannequin with extort on the Burnished Hart and pop it for more lands. T8: Land, Toshiro + Erebos, God of the Dead. Bruna casts a Darksteel Mutation on my Toshiro... Bruna also casts a Nimbus Naiad. Riku casts his commander again and puts a Darksteel Plate on. Gisela plays an Akroma's Memorial. End of turn I Bile Blight Riku. T9:Karn Liberated devouring the Akroma's Memorial I also play the Phyrexian Arena. Bruna plays a Plea for Guidance fetching up Spectra Ward + Eldrazi Conscription. Riku does a Green Sun's Zenith for Dragon Broodmother with a Yavimaya Hollow up to protect from my spot removal. Gisela casts a Platinum Emperion for whatever reason I dont know... End of turn I draw a few cards off of Erebos. T10:Karn Liberated uses his last three devotion on the Dragon Broodmother. Attrition + Isochron Scepter (with a Go for the Throat on it). Bruna plays a Spectra Ward on the Nimbus Naiad which is super questionable with the amount of kill I have up and running. I sort of miscalculate it though and think offhand that he can no longer cast the Conscription on it later which is incorrect as its colorless. I allow it to resolve because the guy had been mostly getting his teeth kicked in all game and immediately realize the derp at allowing it. Riku puts a Darksteel Plate on a Dragon token and hides from my spot removal engine. Gisela seeing that the only one open for attacks plays a Gratuitous Violence and swings for 16 at the Bruna player. Riku gives him a helping hand with a berserk to crash in for 32 instead. I lol fairly hard being that I have no part in this exchange. I had indestructible blockers and the spot removal for it if he came my way and riku also had indestructible blockers making it really the only direction he could go with it. End of turn I draw a few cards off of Erebos. T11: I tutor for Gray Merchant of Asphodel and dig a few more cards with Erebos hoping for more devotion. I end up casting him for 9 devotion killing off the Bruna player before he could take his revenge for the Berserk. It puts the other two in the mid 20s and brings me back up to high 30s (I had been using Erebos fairly heavily). I cast a Word of Command on Riku after he draws for his turn. The options are Snapcaster Mage, Relic of Progenitus, and Natural Order. I use the Order to sac the indestructable dragon and fail to find. Riku plays his Relic of Progenitus. Riku and Gisela have issues with my spot removal yet and sort of slow play things. Gisela ends up casting a Pyrohemia. T12: On my turn I cast a Demonic Tutor. Gisela casts a Reiterate with buyback (which taps him out). I end up fetching up Chainer, Dementia Master because he tapped out. I cast chainer and Riku assumes I am going after things in grave so he pops the relic in response. I use my attrition to cycle Gray Merchant in and out of play twice more siphoning 11 per off of my opponents. This kills Riku on the nose and puts Gisela at like 3-4 and leaves me at 90 hp. Gisela has no creatures in play and has no hp to spare. He flails a bit and I think blows up some stuff but I have a Thrashing Wumpus in hand which I show him which is game.
So... as usual Gary is a monster. It was interesting to see the Isochron Scepter at work. I don't think I ever actually used it but being in play was enough to just make people stop doing things lol. It was also a little redundant with Attrition but I really wanted to see it in play. Fudge it takes some time to do a detailed report...
Archfiend of Depravity - I think this is a really cool tool to fight against swarm tactics and tokens. The hard part is that you sort of need to get him into play before they are a problem and keep him in play. On the flip side though things like Massacre Wurm work after they become an issue but are a one shot use sort of effect. This guy just sort of keeps the board position where you can use spot removal to clean up what you need to. I don't think he is a slam dunk but I don't think he is something to dismiss either. I am interested by him I guess is where I stand currently.
Crux of Fate - a nice budget option for those looking for a cheap wrath effect. Damnation costs a bit of money these days but still, I think there are enough wrath variants that this is likely just a case of whatever you have sort of budget players but I think its also likely a decent card for budget players.
Dark Deal - this deck operates off of its graveyard. Forcing everyone to throw away their hands and draw less cards can be useful at times as sometimes situational cards build up in hand. The fact that its a wheel for less cards is an interesting concept as often if you are casting this a few turns into a game most people have burned their ramp and lands and are probably getting ready for some midrange tactics. I think it is interesting... Black until this really has not had a wheel effect so I like the feel of it is I guess my first feeling but I wish we could have seen what a rare or mythic variation would have done instead. Its a nice start but I want to see them try this again.
Merciless Executioner - nice function reprint of Fleshbag Marauder with a shifted creature type. It is nice to have more copies of this effect even though I don't really run them.
Soulflayer - I love the flavor but he is never going to work in practice. In theory you give him half of those abilities and he is a mean machine but those abilities dont naturally come on good cards in this format.
Hero's Blade - this isn't a voltron deck. Its an amusing thought but there are a lot of equipment that work better than this for this sort of deck. I like the flavor though.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon - great removal for those pesky enchantments. The biggest issue is he cant deal with eldrazi and or colorless effects. Still, he can function as a scaling wrath that forces exile removal. His bolts are nothing to ignore and he is hard to attack. This is the sort of walker who can dominate the entire board as he potentially defends himself from multiple opponents who might be trying to attack him to bring him down. I dont think he is a replacement for Karn because of the fact that Karn can catch a few problem things that he cannot but I think that both of them are strong considerations. I feel that Ugin generally speaking will be far more powerful in deck than running a wrath effect offhand.
So, whats what for Fate Reforged? Well, I think its safe to say that I expect to be testing Ugin, the Spirit Dragon in this deck and I might get around to testing Archfiend of Depravity. Ugin is definitely in the forefront of my mind when it comes to what I think will work out for this format from this set but the hard part is going to be getting enough copies for my decks. I don't feel that Ugin will be a staple for every deck as Karn is similar in a lot of ways and is not a staple across all decks so I expect that decks like this where we have limitations of what our colors can handle might pick him up.
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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.
I'm surprised there aren't any comments on Xiahou Dun in the OP. I'd probably run Toshiro if I wasn't pretty dedicated to him at the moment.
This deck is fairly heavy on flashing back instants and rezing creatures. So really the issue with Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed is that the deck already recovers most of the things he can recover. He essentially picks up enchantments and sorceries as things he can rez and for the most part the deck is not made up with that many of either. It is more likely to include Yawgmoth's Will and or Crucible of Worlds for the ability to recover Cabal Coffers and such.
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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.
Oh, no, I meant as a general. Given that you mention Chainer, Balthor, Geth, and Dralnu.
My own opinions of Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed as a commander have always been that he tends to be more of a goodstuff commander. I think he is quite powerful but he in my mind has a lot of similar issues I have with Geth which is mostly that he doesn't contribute much to the deck itself. I realize that I am over generalizing and there is some good interaction with his deck but in my mind he is a bit like running Eternal Witness as a commander. It would be effective as a commander but that does not make it less boring of a concept.
Toshiro has had a lot of impact in what I have chosen to run in this deck and while sometimes he is hit and miss on how productive he is throughout the course of a game I enjoy the flavorful concept that he has me build.
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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.
I run him as a combo deck. He can also head either control or aggro in mono-black, which I think is quite significant. To me at least, he really feels like he could be put at the head of almost any mono-black deck and have it work decently well. Yes, good-stuff is a standard example of that, but certainly not the only one, or even necessarily the primary one. Maybe I'm overestimating his usefulness, but I don't think it's by much.
I have been testing the below changes for a few games so far. I don't have any solid concrete results on them to really say where I plan to go with them moving forward but so far I guess where I stand is that I like the changes more than the cards that were in before them. For now I am going to update the OP to reflect these changes but as I get more testing in some of them might revert and or change again. Part of being informed as a primer holder entails me making changes to get the feel of other cards as well so some of this I just want to test and see where it goes.
I had another good game of Toshiro Tuesday night. There were three games played last night of which I ended up piecing together a Brago deck out of my EDH cube on the fly which actually almost took a 5 player FFA game due to me stealing a Purphoros, God of the Forge and then just flickering creatures and at one point the Purpheros player incorrectly cast a Tempt with Vengeance for 8 which I took him up on the tokens. Sadly at the last second Zirilan of the Claw sideswiped me for like 20 or so with a few dragons. I ended up sitting out game three because there wasnt much time to finish it and the only deck I wanted to play was my Ephara deck that normally takes 2+ hours to play with.
T1:Myriad Landscape (I really need to update the OP to reflect that I am running that) T2:Swamp, Riku tries to ramp with a Coiling Oracle and reveals a Natural Order T3:Swamp, pop my Myriad Landscape Riku ramps, Nahiri plays a Sword of Vengeance, Feldon drops an Extraplanar Lens T4:Swamp, Toshiro Umezawa Grenzo drops his commander, Riku ramps, Nahiri drops a Kemba, Kha Regent, Feldon drops a Krenko, Mob Boss T5:Cabal Coffers, Sheoldred, Whispering One (I have no creatures in grave but like everyone controls a single create at this point and there are a lot of good targets at the time. Grenzo uses his commander and finds a creature to sac, riku sacs his creature but drops a Dual Nature into an empty board seeing little other way to overcome Sheoldred offhand. Nahiri sacs Kemba to sheoldred and brings out two Taj-Nar Swordsmith with two mana left. He opts to go get a skullclamp and equip it over having two skullclamps. Feldon creates a token with Krenko to keep from sacrificing him. Then drops a pair of Pilgrim's Eye. T6: Swamp, Beseech the Queen for Burnished Hart and cast him keeping 4 mana up. Grenzo spins his wheels and gets some random value and destroying Feldon's Extraplanar Lens and flipping a Gray Merchant of Asphodel x2 thanks to Dual Nature for 14 syphoned from each player. Grenzo also drops a Null Rod on my head . I pop one of the Burnished Harts. Riku drops a chord of calling into 2x Wood Elves and then pops the copy off to Natural Order to get 2x Avenger of Zendikar and drops a fetchland + pops it to turn them into 4/5s. Nahiri drops Elspeth, Sun's Champion and wraths the 4+ power creatures. Feldon pokes at the hands of Riku and Nahiri with a Mindclaw Shaman and whiffs on both players. T7: Swamp (accidentally played it first), Demonic Tutor and tutor up Null Profusion which I cast. Cast Attrition and end my turn with Necromancy and a bunch of swamps so I go down to a swamp / Necromancy. Grenzo sets up to recover his Gray Merchant of Asphodel with one of his 2x Phyrexian Delver and I in response rez it with my Necromancy stealing 14 from everyone else. Apparently Grenzo would have gotten 20 from everyone so he was fairly mad at me. He ends up using a Mindslicer and popping it immediately for our hands. Riku drops his commander and I fight with him to try to kill it with my remaining creatures using Attrition. He ends up getting 2x Snapcaster Mages which he uses to 2x cast a Chord of Calling for 6 mana and the other one gives his Natural Order flashback this turn. He ends up getting a Prophet of Kruphix + Clever Impersonator (as my Null Profusion). He uses the Natural Order for some Spike Weavers because he has 8 life left. After Nahiri draws his card for the turn Riku flashes in a Mindclaw Shaman peeking at his hand. Nahiri responds by casting a Swords to Plowshares on Riku's Prophet of Kruphix (nice topdeck). Nahiri then +1s elspeth who is somehow still alive for tokens which he rams through his skullclamp. Feldon screws around with his commander and casts a Shattering Spree for a bunch of artifacts I don't own. T8: Cast Toshiro (no cards in hand) which gets me drawing on Null Profusion. Bile Blight off Grenzo's Graveborn Muse. Toshiro gives flashback to Bile Blight and I kill Krenko, Mob Boss as well. I rez 2x Burnished HartDual Nature still out, with Makeshift Mannequin. At the endstep I cast Necrologia for 9 cards and pop the two Burnished Harts off the leftover mana from coffers. Feldon catches me after the draw with a Mindclaw Shaman off his commander and I derp for a moment but realize ultimately that I have a Cremate and so I cut him off. Grenzo comes back out as he had died earlier to the Elspeth wrath. Riku sort of struggles getting land jammed with his Null Profusion. Nahiri puts a casts an Austere Command for enchantments and 4+ mana creatures then puts some equipment onto a soldier token and swings it at Grenzo who ends up killing it before he connects. Nahiri is annoyed at us and drops out of the game.. Feldon doesn't do much but gets ready with his commander. T9: I play an All is Dust to slow down Grenzo's commander. I also have an Empty the Pits which I am saving to cast. Grenzo responds and gets some triggers and value off of his commander. Grenzo kills the Feldon player with his creatures entering triggers using Flayer of the Hatebound. Feldon responds by milling him a ton of cards with his Altar of Dementia. Grenzo plays some recovery play and hits me with his Flayer of the Hatebound. Riku is mostly done at this point, he recasts his commander. End of turn I consume my graveyard and manage to shoot out 17 zombies from my Empty the Pits. T10: I Puppeteer Clique and rez two clones as Clique off of Riku and when I go for the Gray Merchant of Asphodel it ends up getting denied with a Volrath's Stronghold. I spend a lot of mana to set up a Chainer, Dementia Master + Altar of Dementia + Gray Merchant of Asphodel and I manage to dome my opponents for 28 each killing riku. I swing all of the zombies I can at Grenzo and I get him back down to something like 24 life (he had gained 56 life earlier off of Gray Merchant himself). Grenzo casts a Mimic Vat, Sacrifices his Flayer of the Hatebound and casts a Living Death. Right about here we both fudge it up a little. I sacrifice all of my creatures to my Altar of Dementia and self mell myself to 3 cards left in library trying to just flip value off of this. I also attempt to rez his Flayer of the Hatebound utilizing my Puppeteer Clique (its his turn so he cannot stop my persist as it resolves before his mimic vat). He utilizes Volrath's Stronghold again to deprive my rez but it doesnt matter because I deny it from him. He missed his shot to steal away my own Gray Merchant of Asphodel onto his Mimic Vat though but at the same time I wasnt thinking because I forgot that he runs a Kozilek, Butcher of Truth in his deck so my stronger move likely would have been to dig for that since I had enough power to likely dig 3/4 of what he had left in deck into his grave little bit at a time and try to wipe out his graveyard. We end up doing the flip and I end up stealing another 20 life off of Gray Merchant of Asphodel. He then has a lot of spot removal creatures and he removes a lot of my good stuff that flipped. I drop a Crypt Rat from hand and kill him.
In all reality, I likely had the mana to kill him outright with the Crypt Rat next turn so even if he had held off my Gray Merchant correctly outside of him capturing him and using him the same turn (which I dont know if he had the mana for) he wasn't going to kill me that turn. I similarly should have remembered he ran Kozilek and I should have tried denying his Living Death by milling into his Kozilek. It was a good game though regardless if not a little backwards on how I wanted to operate.
DECK CHANGES:
Swamp -> Myriad Landscape I keep forgetting otherwise to make the change to the OP. I replaced a swamp due to the fact that it is generally speaking going to be cycled as soon as I can to do exactly that. My nonbasic land count is getting a little bit high even with this replacing itself so nicely.
Pestilence Demon -> Ugin, the Spirit Dragon there isnt really any one card that I can think of offhand that is a really easy swap at the moment for Ugin. Pestilence Demon has plagued me a few times in early hands and he needs a lot of mana to really operate. Ugin deals with some things that I have trouble dealing with otherwise and nicely defends himself. I want to bring him in for testing at the least but I suspect he will be a good option for clearing things out. He defends himself nicely and with the support of this deck's removal its entirely possible to hold the board with him.
RECENT RESULTS:
Sheoldred, Whispering One in part due to the increase in graveyard hate, my overall low creature count, and at times my ability to never be able to find reanimation I have had a lot less good results with her of late. People hate on her and I essentially never get her to trigger to rez other things. It seems of late I have been drawing her at some awkward times and it seems like often when I am casting her it is as an overcosted Braids, Cabal Minion. To be honest, if Braids, Cabal Minion wasnt banned I would probably shift to her right now because that is about all I am getting out of Sheoldred at the moment.
Malicious Affliction I swear every time I draw this card what I am looking to kill tends to be Grenzo, Dungeon Warden. I really hate nonblack removal. I don't mind it as much on something like Attrition due to how silly it can be at just keeping some things off the table or from attacking me but in general it seems incredibly awkward on spot removal. It... is in the list for now but I have been displeased with it more than once so far. I keep telling myself that the amazing setup of double casting it with Morbid might happen some day and so I keep holding out for it.
Empty the Pits it has been more than a little awkward more than once now. Still, I want to test it a bit longer due to how much mana this deck really can generate. I probably shouldnt complain that much since I did cast it with 17 zombies who got to shuffle in for 30 damage on someone before they really got to respond while multi tasking it for a turn but even still, I am not sold either way yet. I think it has some incredible potential but it can also be absolutely terrible to draw in a lot of situations.
Bile Blight I just thought I would mention that this has been pure gold for me. Most every time I have gotten it it has gotten what I needed done. I know I am going to have it one day vs Consecrated Sphinx and be cursing to myself but it kills so much and it can just chain down tokens. Its been really good for me so far.
Arcane Lighthouse I have yet to activate the dang thing which makes it less productive than a swamp or some other utility land. For now I will keep it in but it seems like its a bit dependent on how much voltron you see in group and or how much Lightning Greaves effects. Due to how spot removal heavy my deck is I suspect I will keep it in but I guess I was just going to mention that so far its been sort of meh.
Sorry that got so long....
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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.
Damia http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=410191
DDFT Legacyhttp://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=505247
Domain Zoo http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=10212429#post10212429
Dark Ritual - its a strong card but my issue is what am I ramping into off of it? Fast ramp that is use and be done can be really awkward while playing a grindy attrition game of magic. I think it has a much more stable place while playing fast combo decks and or 60 card magic where you can build around it with more consistency. I think it is a good card still but it sort of falls off quickly in its use in my opinion if you dont draw it in the first 5 or so turns of the game. I think it has some good synergy still with things like bob and AdN but at the same time there is a big question of how underwhelming it can be to topdeck beyond that. In general I have uses for excess mana but with it being a one shot and done effect it makes me a lot more hesitant. I feel its use for this format is primarily for fast combo decks.
I can try to put it in for some testing at some point just to get the viewpoint of it personally but I am curious as to your thoughts of it. What do you like about it in the mid and late game? I have always been a little so so on cards that fall off in effect beyond the first few turns of the game and that is how I feel Dark Ritual would be. I am not trying to say that fast mana isn't important but I tend to favor fast mana that sticks with me.
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[Modern] Allies
Check that link in about 5 hours for my answer i unfortunatly don't upload very fast
Damia http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=410191
DDFT Legacyhttp://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=505247
Domain Zoo http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=10212429#post10212429
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[Modern] Allies
I just sort of dropped lands to Null Profusion in the early game. He was struggling to hit his land drops and got stuck in around 4-6 mana for a while. I looped a Burnished Hart a few times with Corpse Dance drawing a few cards but not having a lot else to do. Where it got really fun was when I ended up popping a Memory Jar as I had a few cool things as well as some responsive sort of cards in hand. The memory Jar draws were just sort of ok as if I recall correctly it was something along the lines of: Chainer, Dementia Master, Erebos, God of the Dead, Demonic Tutor, Insidious Dreams, and a few answers which I cannot recall offhand. I still had my Null Profusion in play though which made this play a bit more interesting. I played Insidious Dreams discarding all but Erebos to it (I needed a cheap card that did not search aka not demonic tutor). In my tutors I arranged them in the following order: Cabal Coffers, Crypt Ghast, Jet Medallion (I still had corpse dance in my other hand), Sheoldred, Whispering One (his commander was in play and it was a hexproof one), and Altar of Dementia. I proceeded to play Erebos and then just daisy chained into all of the rest of them playing them as I cam across them lol. I think I got like 3 cards further as well before hitting a land.
He untaps, sacrifices to Sheoldred, and then plays a Planar Cleansing on me lol. I use my own alter to self mill myself with all of the triggers. I then tap a Nykthos for 13 mana as I had a lot of stuff on the board when he blew me up plus one additional swamp tapping for two mana. I allow the Clensing to resolve and then I Empty the Pits for 25 zombies which swarm him to death.
It was an interesting game where I learned the power of Null Profusion + Insidious Dreams. Empty the Pits was nice as well but obviously with only one opponent it seems like an easy situation to know that its going to be a lot better. Still though, having a surprise 50 damage hidden behind 3 lands is still really nice.
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[Modern] Allies
It was a 4 player FFA game with the following opponents: Zirilan of the Claw, Sen Triplets, and Sidisi, Brood Tyrant. I went second for this game with Sidisi first. I kept a super greedy hand with only a single land in it lol.
T1: top deck a second swamp, play a Swamp, end of opponents turns Vampiric Tutor for a Sol Ring. Zirilan starts with sol ring + a 2 mana stone.
T2: Swamp, Sol Ring, Jet Medallion, Dark Confidant. Zirilan drops a Burnished Hart
T3: land, Phyrexian Arena. I get poked from Zirilan's Burnished Hart before he pops it.
T4: I get poked for 5 from bob on a Memory Jar. I play out a Sensei's Divining Top and Puppeteer Clique the Sidisi's Clever Impersonator as a Farhaven Elf he has. Zirilan hits me for some damage, pops my Jet Medallion and then hits a Wheel effect. Somewhere in here he also drops a Vedalken Orrery into play.
T5: I stack my topdeck with the top to dodge bob damage. I start just throwing surplus creatures into play because I am going to discard them otherwise. As I go to attack I get blown out by a one mana Blasphemous Act from Zirilan.
T6: I Animate Dead a Geth, Lord of the Vault I had discarded to the wheel and drop a Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx into play. At the end of turn I reanimate a dragon and an oblivion stone off of the Zirilan player. I use the stone's protect option to try to protect something and in response Zirilan does a Warp World on us. I end up getting a kokusho and Rune Scarred demon and some lands. Overall its essentially a blow out against me as it always is since I have so many spells in deck. I end up wrathing the dragons with a Tsabo's Decree that I tutor for off the demon but in the end I just flounder from there and eventually just get aggroed to death from the Zirilan player (probably about 4-5 turns after this but they were gruling turns of not drawing relivant things. The Sidisi player also got out a Scavenging Ooze and proceeded to eat my graveyard and got like most of my usual wincons in one shot in a game where I ran out of card draw and then had my graveyard poached from me.
So.... I died but still, it was one hell of an impressive start with all the ramp and moving right into three cards drawn a turn. Unfortunately he is known for the fast wheel starts and using warp world at least once a game as its like automatically his gamble target. I was essentially singled out by the Zirilan player all game and it didnt help getting side swiped by Sidisi on my graveyards due to the ooze. I should have made a few adjustments in how I played the last few turns but I forgot the Zirilan player randomly had like 20 damage in random dudes and I had essentially no way to protect myself when I died. The game ended in the triplets player creating infinite Chancellor of the Spires off of a Heat Shimmer and murdering the other two. It was funny as both of the other two were able to copy it and do the same thing but because of how they were doing it the triplets player got to resolve his last and just pick a larger number of tokens than the other two and kill them both.
So....
Bob - continues to prove to be strong in opening hands and in the early game. I have not had a lot of chances to encounter him later in the game but my opinion of him seems to remain more or less the same that his power seems to fall off as time goes on. I will continue testing him at this time being only sort of so so on him.
Sensei's Divining Top I did get to assemble it with bob in play which I knew was going to be good. Sadly I couldn't stick them together for very long. I will keep testing but I still suspect I will probably want to add fetchlands to support it.
Empty the Pits - in the game above I did end up milling my way into it in grave but unfortunately it was while I was getting mauled for damage and Sidisi had the ooze in play. It has some great output potential as well as surprise factor. I need to keep testing but it can be a bit slow in general to make it work. I don't think I ever got my commander into play in this game either and that is sort of difficult as well.
Word of Command - it seems to have hit and miss sort of situations but I did utilize it to tap out the counter deck to force a Null Profusion through like right as I was dying lol. Still, I like what it does and the information as well as screwing with the answer heavy decks seems really fun.
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[Modern] Allies
Demon of Wailing Agonies as a whole, hes an ok creature but creatures with big size and an ability on combat damage to an opponent is mostly just ok in a mono black control deck. Its slow in general and does not scale for multiple opponents well. I feel he is a decent creature but better suited for a deck like Kaalia of the Vast where he could come out swinging already.
Malicious Affliction it has the issue of still being a Doom Blade but its just better for the purposes of this deck than Doom Blade. It is essentially the good parts of Reckless Spite for this deck. You can always cast it to kill one target and flash it back for two more so that's fairly strong. Anytime that we would be flashing it back with toshiro it will be getting two copies assuming there are two targets. The fact that it splits off into two copies is great as well because counter based decks will have a harder time interacting with it. If you really needed something to die you could always put both on the stack targeting that one creature making it very difficult to push through it with counter magic. Overall, I would say this is a very strong bit of utility but it still resembles Tragic Slip in a lot of ways in its use but the advantage being casting it normally essentially always sets it up to be flashed back where as Tragic Slip is a bit more uncertain on that front. It seems like really solid removal but that nonblack clause always irritates me a bit.
Necromantic Selection an expensive wrath with a reanimate effect attached. I think its alright but its a lot of mana at sorcery speed for a reanimate effect. Personally I would say you are better off reanimating or wrathing than trying to combo them together and pay too much at sorcery speed.
Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath as a whole, he is a value over time sort of a walker who isnt as good as a card in the 99 because he is meant to see play several times. His ability to syphon life isnt bad and the demons could possibly defend him however I just see it being difficult to defend him as a whole and the overall value he would generate is likely not as good as say Liliana of the Dark Realms.
Overseer of the Damned removal on ETB plus potential to create a lot of tokens later. What I like about this guy offhand is if your meta runs a lot of wrath removal he gains fairly good power after the wrath. His ETB removal also triggers a token so he seems sort of nice but his casting cost is a bit high.
Spoils of Blood its an interesting and cheap token production. The big issue is that its just sort of a big bulky token really. It is best post wrath but we arent really an aggro type of deck and the token lacks any sort of evasion not to mention the fact that it requires a specific sort of setup for it to really work. Being an instant is good but it misses what we are trying to do for the most part here.
Wake the Dead man... I love this card already. Instant speed mass reanimation that only self sacrifices at the endstep. This.... is going to be a fantastic card for this deck. We have a good bit of ETB creatures in deck. This not only gives some great blocking options but its just nice and large scale in general. It is limited to defense and triggering ETB effects but honestly I think its still a fantastic card for this deck.
Arcane Lighthouse this allows our spot removal to work on hexproof commanders????? YES PLEASE. This land is sort of outrageous for a lot of reasons and I love it. Honestly.... it sort of irritates me what they make sometimes as this does seem like a hell of a lot of utility for a cheap tap ability. Still, I dont have any hexproof commanders offhand. This is going to be a huge achilles heel for them moving forward. I am honestly surprised that wizards would make this card as it seems a bit outrageously powerful on a land.
Myriad Landscape a land that fetches me into two more lands? Sounds great. This is a control deck and this does rotate itself into swamps so while it does cost some time to do it, its great value for a control deck. It adds another fetch effect to improve top as well while not costing the same as a fetchland so it seems great overall.
Commander's Sphere its a little slow for a one mana stone but in a lot of regards its on par with Darksteel Ingot which is indestructible. Trading off indestructible for sac to draw seems like it has pros and cons. I think the two of them in a lot of decks will be somewhat interchangeable.
Unstable Obelisk another nice mana stone. Considering that artifacts / enchantments / walkers can sometimes be an issue this is a nice option to consider. It can also function as a Strip Mine in a pinch so I think its a good consideration sort of a card.
Honestly, from what we have seen I think the strongest black considerations would be Malicious Affliction and Wake the Dead. Wake the Dead really takes the cake as far as black spells are concerned in my mind its an incredible card on paper. I am really interested to see how it plays in implementation. Malicious Affliction comes back and makes me wonder again due to the whole nonblack targets clause but overall it seems quite powerful for this type of deck.
When we get to lands and artifacts... it seems like all of the ones spoiled so far seem incredibly powerful as options. I look forward to testing and pushing them arround. Unstable Obelisk seems a little so so when you look at it from just the angle of utilizing it as a Spine of Ish Sah but you have to consider the fact that you activate it at instant speed when you want it and it functions as a mana stone until then. I think its likely going to make it into my list just due to versatility if for nothing else. I already plan to take out my Darksteel Ingot to bring it in.
Overall, this so far blows my expectations out of the water. The commanders and walkers have not been so huge for me so far but the number of amazing spells and cards as a whole is so much higher than I recall the other decks in the past being. Two thumbs way up.
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[Modern] Allies
DECK CHANGE:
Undying Evil -> Wake the Dead both of these effects are a bit limited in how they work. What I love about both is just how cheap they really are to use. Both of these effects have some concerns as to how many creatures I run and neither one of them work for stolen creatures. With the Undying Evil you run the risk that someone will kill it in response and you have to have the reanimation effect in hand as the creature would be dying with the mana up to save it. With Wake the Dead you need to prioritize creature quantity as well as some ETB / immediate effects. There are different uses for both but I want to give the new effect some game time and see how I feel about it in contrast.
Animate Dead -> Malicious Affliction I have quite a bit of reanimation in the list and unfortunately I have synergy with the instants and creatures in this list. This is still a good animation effect but I really need to watch how heavy I get in the artifacts, enchantments, and sorcery effects for this list. It could come back in but for now I am making room and I feel like I can live with one less animation effect.
Darksteel Ingot -> Unstable Obelisk functionally, they do about the same thing in the early game but instead of having a robust mana stone in the later stages I get access to an instant speed Desert Twister effect. I like the idea of it I suppose.
Tectonic Edge -> Arcane Lighthouse I considered a few options as to how I was going to try to get the new lighthouse into my list. In the end, the only real options I felt I had were Tectonic Edge, Reliquary Tower, or cutting into my swamp count. Right now, the lands that I tend to want to hit with removal tend to be Cabal Coffers and Homeward Path (situationally). Outside of these having land removal tends to be more useful against opponents land removal effects so I can hit my big mana lands. Overall, I just feel like I can move back down to a single Strip Mine effect. Being that this deck is so target removal heavy the Lighthouse seems to be another great means to give us access to removing opponents creatures.
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[Modern] Allies
On the Block:
Phyrexian Altar it came in as a means to loop some of the creatures who siphon life off of my opponents. If I get set up with something like Chainer, Dementia Master or Corpse Dance set up I can potentially loop a siphoning creature a lot for some real pain. It seems like that has been something I have been able to set up less frequently though of late due to some increased grave hate as well as things just progressing a bit faster. I wont lie, I have seen more Warp World than I care to see with this list as well. Overall though, I think its a decent wincon but overall its something that if I am not trying to press the win button I don't find it that useful often enough.
Umezawa's Jitte it has been drawing more hate than I had expected. The amount of Tower of the Magistrate has been on the rise in my meta of late as well. I cant really recall a situation where I have been able to abuse it as much as I have wanted to and it usually dies quickly on me.
Mesmeric Orb people in my meta have this unreasonable reaction to mill. I mean.... unreasonable. The last two to three times I have curved into this it has died within about a turn or two. It really needs to be let ride to get the value I am looking for sadly. The fact that I need to wait a turn rotation to get any value from it is not exactly a good thing for me.
Sensei's Divining Top outside of situations where I have bob in play with it it seems to have been really sort of a dead draw. This list doesnt shuffle enough to take advantage of it to my own likes.
Dark Confidant this deck doesn't win fast enough to justify him is my consensus at this time. I played him for a good amount of time and have cast him 5 or 6 times and even set him up with top occasionally. It just isn't panning out for me it seems. If I dont like curve into him he just doesnt seem to pan out and this deck doesn't win quickly. The average hit from his draw is about 3 damage a card and its entirely unknown how much he might draw. Ad Nauseam just seems like an effect I can control better than him in this deck.
In Consideration:
Thrashing Wumpus I have been considering having more wrath options in this deck. I abuse creatures better than sorceries and this deck does have the overall objective of being a bit of a siphon style of deck. I have always liked the Crypt Rat sort of creatures.
Pestilence Demon similar to the Wumpus but for more mana with a more impressive body to it. The fact that it could swing out and it defends well are all things that intrigue me about him.
Isochron Scepter I have this dream of putting a Word of Command on a Scepter and just making someone cry. My overall count of two or less mana instants is up above what it used to be with a good number of decent targets for it. I still dont like the idea of exiling spells with it but it has potential for better value than from Toshiro so it might be worth pushing in.
Exsanguinate my long time concern from this card has been that I cant abuse it and it does nothing to the board state. I have the same concerns now but I could see it as an interesting add if I do end up adding more Pestilence creatures.
Promise of Power decent draw
Syphon Mind decent draw
Crypt Incursion graveyard hate with lifegain. There have been some graveyard abuse issues in my meta of late.
Pontiff of Blight more siphoning. I ended up sort of cutting it before actually getting any testing out of it in the past so its still on my list of things to possibly try to push in here.
Eye of Doom removal for whatever. Being creature light and target light makes it stronger but with possibly adding more creatures its not as impressive.
Disciple of Bolas draw / lifegain that could be stronger especially if my creature count does go back up some.
Nihil Spellbomb grave hate. I cant abuse it but its solid.
I am not totally sold right this moment with anything but I was contemplating something sort of like this as an option.
OUT
Phyrexian Altar
Umezawa's Jitte
Mesmeric Orb
Sensei's Divining Top
Dark Confidant
IN
Thrashing Wumpus
Pestilence Demon
Isochron Scepter
Disciple of Bolas
Nihil Spellbomb
Thoughts on that? The artifacts have been harder to use and abuse and I have noticed some reasons to buff my overall creature count as well as my wrath options. The idea of hitting a Wake the Dead into a Pestilence Demon seems really spicy.
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[Modern] Allies
I would have no objections to the cuts you mentioned, otherwise.
Cards I would suggest for consideration(if you want to lean away from reanimate more):
Suffer the Past
Consume the Meek
Withering Boon
Tribute to Hunger
Undying Evil
Hero's Demise
Necrobite
Geth's Verdict
Diabolic Edict
Reaper from the Abyss (does serious work)
Phyrexian Obliterator (sometimes you need a wall)
Animar (Combo >Eldrazi)
Drana (Vamp tribal + big mana)
Vorel (WiP)
Arcanis (Stealy/Combo)
Toshiro (removal.Dek)
Thada (Stealy/ramp/control)
Derevi (WiP)
Kaalia (Fatty)
Teysa (Combo)
Karador (ETB/LTB Reanimate)
Mirko Vosk (Land grind/mill)
Geth (Discard/Gravecasting)
Rhada (Pro blue homebrew)
Oloro (Pillow fort mp)
And about 10 more...
Animar (Combo >Eldrazi)
Drana (Vamp tribal + big mana)
Vorel (WiP)
Arcanis (Stealy/Combo)
Toshiro (removal.Dek)
Thada (Stealy/ramp/control)
Derevi (WiP)
Kaalia (Fatty)
Teysa (Combo)
Karador (ETB/LTB Reanimate)
Mirko Vosk (Land grind/mill)
Geth (Discard/Gravecasting)
Rhada (Pro blue homebrew)
Oloro (Pillow fort mp)
And about 10 more...
I am testing the changes but have only logged one game with Toshiro in the last few weeks and I ended up drawing the Demon + Wumpus in the early game draws in a 1v1 match against a faster aggro deck so its not really much of a playtest. I will try to bring the deck out tonight as I have been pushing my newer decks a bit heavier of late to get some testing but I still really have not gotten much play from my established decks in the last few months.
EDIT: for now this will just be an edit but I will try to report it once the 48 hours since this post have passed. It will likely have to be later this weekend but while it is fresh in my mind I wanted to cover some game results.
GAME REPORT:
5 player FFA game. Opponents were Riku of Two Reflections, Grenzo, Dungeon Warden, Nahiri, the Lithomancer, and Sen Triplets.
My opening hand was alright but it was light on black mana so my turn two demonic tutor ended up fetching into a Burnished Hart as I still only had one black source at the time. The game progression was a bit slow for me but I had Erebos, God of the Dead that I curved into behind the Burnished Hart pop to sort of even out some of my card draw.
I ended up playing a bit of draw go with nothing really particularly great in play. My commander got gimped by a Sword of Fire and Ice like immediately so I ended up playing a Gray Merchant of Asphodel just as sort of a chump blocker at a devotion of three as well as an option to pitch to my Diabolic Intent which I for whatever reason never really got around to playing. I dirdled for a while playing simulacrum. The Nahiri was swinging arround a 12 powered dork with tons of equipment and I took a hit from that. I finally got a Rune-Scarred Demon and I fetched up my Wake the Dead with it given that I already had Simulacrum / Burnished Hart in grave with a Demon that was probably going to die fairly quickly as well. Riku flashes in an Acidic Slime hitting my Phyrexian Tower. Its a really rogue move that I didn't really see the point in so I did the math in my head and realized he was trying to clone my Rune-Scarred Demon so I saced him in response. He was annoyed at me.
From here we played a little bit more draw go sort of control. Riku kept playing with flash which was sort of troublesome to me trying to do an all in Wake the Dead so I slow played that for a bit. I ended up getting a Kokusho + Attrition online. Riku ended up using his mana on his turn eventually to do something and Sen Triplets (who got horribly mana hosed all game) finally got enough mana for his commander. At that point I cast a Wake the Dead for 5 targets, Kokusho, the Evening Star, Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Rune-Scarred Demon, Solemn Simulacrum, and Burnished Hart. In response to the cast of Wake the Dead riku cast a Chaos Warp on my Attrition hoping it was going to keep me off of cycling / repeating it somehow. I flipped into Necropotence off of the Warp. My opponents got domed for 11 off of gary and later another 5 off of Kokusho. Given that I had already done this prior for 5 with kokusho and 3 with Gary that put my overall life siphoning at 24 off the top of everyone at that point not to mention all the swings that everyone had been taking from the white player who liked evenly distributing his hits. My Rune-Scarred Demon fetched me a Cabal Coffers.
My turn rolled around and I cast a creature and kicked it off with my Diabolic Intent finally. I tutored for Thrashing Wumpus because I felt like it and just murdered them with my remaining 20 or so mana.
So.... Wake the Dead.... its good.... I probably would have been in trouble if not for the Erebos I got. He did actually dig me through quite a few cards throughout the span of the game.
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[Modern] Allies
I ended up playing him out several times and my consensus was always that he worked quite well in the early game but took too long to spin up later to really matter. His hits are a lot harder than those from say Graveborn Muse as well as projecting half of what you draw. The only real upside I ended up seeing with him over Graveborn Muse for example seemed to be if you can curve into him early. He seems more important to me in fast metas where the games close out early on a regular basis.
Some people will swear by the guy but I just did not see enough to convince me that he is better than Graveborn Muse. There is only the situations where you have it before turn 4 where I really experienced any sort of feeling that it was better. I could also possibly see it picking back up if you run MLD in your meta and thus probably run a lower curve.
There are reasons I believe to run him. I just did not feel like this deck was really served any better by his inclusion.
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[Modern] Allies
Game Report:
Four player FFA. Opponents are Bruna, Light of Alabaster (a younger player that usually doesn't play with us), Riku of Two Reflections, and Gisela, Blade of Goldnight.
Opening hand: 2x Swamp, Wayfarer's Bauble, Hero's Downfall, Crypt Ghast, Ad Nauseam, and Stinkweed Imp. It was a little loose due to the land count in the opener but it looked like I was most of the way to Crypt Ghast in my opener and I wanted Stinkweed Imp as it is good against Bruna so I needed to hold onto sort of everything. I end up being last based on the dice roll.
T1: Swamp, Wayfarer's Bauble. Riku and Gisela also do land / bauble that turn.
T2: Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, use Wayfarer's Bauble. Riku pops his bauble before my turn and on his following turn plays a Farhaven Elf. Bruna plays a Azorius Guildmage. Gisela plays a Hideaway land and passes turn.
T3: Topdeck Myriad Landscape at the wrong time . I play it out anyways. I play a Stinkweed Imp as well (prepairing for the Bruna beats). Bruna plays a Serene Master and pokes someone else for 2 with his guildmage. Riku plays a Proteus Staff and cycles off his Farhaven Elf into an Ixidron sort of awkwardly and flips my stinkweed and the Bruna players creatures down. Gisela has hit land stall as well. We don't realize it at the moment but he believes his Temple of the False God is a dud at 4 lands stalled but I have an urborg I point out about a turn later when I realize as much.
T4: I reluctantly pop my Myriad Landscape for my turn as I have stalled on lands and NEED to hit 5 mana. Bruna does some attacking with 2/2s if I recall. Riku uses his Proteus Staff with with a Kher Keep to flip up a duplicant (terrible target options). He takes my face down Stinkweed Imp away from me (NOOOOS). I point out the 4th mana due to urborg and the Gisela player drops his Solemn Simulacrum.
T5: I still have no land drops but I have 5 land. I have no board position so I opt to Moonlight Bargain instead of Ad Nauseam at this time because I mostly just need land drops to keep me going. My flip on it was 2x Swamp, Burnished Hart, Phyrexian Arena, and Memory Jar. I pay 8 life and keep all but the Memory Jar. I didn't have a land for the turn or a land for next turn so I wanted both of those. I need the ramp off the Heart as well and long term I needed sustained draw so it seemed like a good time to be greedy and put myself to 32. I play a Swamp. I end up discarding like 2 cards to keep the ones I just drew unfortunately but the new ones were a lot better than what I had in hand. Bruna plays his commander (I don't think he knew what Proteus Staff did entirely. Riku uses Proteus Staff on the Bruna player and ends up flipping him some other creature I cant recall offhand. I cant recall the Gisela player doing anything this turn.
T6: Swamp, Burnished Hart. Bruna player drops a Ring of Three Wishes (and somewhere along the line got a Gilded Lotus but I don't know when he dropped it). Bruna attacks with his two creatures and ends up killing them both off which kills Ixidron as well. Riku flips another token into an Acidic Slime (again no real good targets) so sadly he smashes the Bruna player's Ring of Three Wishes which I find a little amusing as he is making an enemy very quickly lol. I complain hard enough about the Staff that I pressure Gisela into using an Austere Command and he clears out the board (I find it amusing as it hurts me like none and I get rid of the pesky staff) I pop my Burnished Hart in response for my lands.
T7: Land, Crypt Ghast (finally the stupid staff is gone). I pass turn keeping mana up for optional plays. Riku tries casting an Eternal Witness to recover the staff. Bruna doesn't like this plan and cast his Dissipate on the witness. Riku casts his commander. Gisela casts an Anger of the Gods taking out Riku and my Crypt Ghast. I cast a Makeshift Mannequin with extort on the Burnished Hart and pop it for more lands.
T8: Land, Toshiro + Erebos, God of the Dead. Bruna casts a Darksteel Mutation on my Toshiro... Bruna also casts a Nimbus Naiad. Riku casts his commander again and puts a Darksteel Plate on. Gisela plays an Akroma's Memorial. End of turn I Bile Blight Riku.
T9: Karn Liberated devouring the Akroma's Memorial I also play the Phyrexian Arena. Bruna plays a Plea for Guidance fetching up Spectra Ward + Eldrazi Conscription. Riku does a Green Sun's Zenith for Dragon Broodmother with a Yavimaya Hollow up to protect from my spot removal. Gisela casts a Platinum Emperion for whatever reason I dont know... End of turn I draw a few cards off of Erebos.
T10: Karn Liberated uses his last three devotion on the Dragon Broodmother. Attrition + Isochron Scepter (with a Go for the Throat on it). Bruna plays a Spectra Ward on the Nimbus Naiad which is super questionable with the amount of kill I have up and running. I sort of miscalculate it though and think offhand that he can no longer cast the Conscription on it later which is incorrect as its colorless. I allow it to resolve because the guy had been mostly getting his teeth kicked in all game and immediately realize the derp at allowing it. Riku puts a Darksteel Plate on a Dragon token and hides from my spot removal engine. Gisela seeing that the only one open for attacks plays a Gratuitous Violence and swings for 16 at the Bruna player. Riku gives him a helping hand with a berserk to crash in for 32 instead. I lol fairly hard being that I have no part in this exchange. I had indestructible blockers and the spot removal for it if he came my way and riku also had indestructible blockers making it really the only direction he could go with it. End of turn I draw a few cards off of Erebos.
T11: I tutor for Gray Merchant of Asphodel and dig a few more cards with Erebos hoping for more devotion. I end up casting him for 9 devotion killing off the Bruna player before he could take his revenge for the Berserk. It puts the other two in the mid 20s and brings me back up to high 30s (I had been using Erebos fairly heavily). I cast a Word of Command on Riku after he draws for his turn. The options are Snapcaster Mage, Relic of Progenitus, and Natural Order. I use the Order to sac the indestructable dragon and fail to find. Riku plays his Relic of Progenitus. Riku and Gisela have issues with my spot removal yet and sort of slow play things. Gisela ends up casting a Pyrohemia.
T12: On my turn I cast a Demonic Tutor. Gisela casts a Reiterate with buyback (which taps him out). I end up fetching up Chainer, Dementia Master because he tapped out. I cast chainer and Riku assumes I am going after things in grave so he pops the relic in response. I use my attrition to cycle Gray Merchant in and out of play twice more siphoning 11 per off of my opponents. This kills Riku on the nose and puts Gisela at like 3-4 and leaves me at 90 hp. Gisela has no creatures in play and has no hp to spare. He flails a bit and I think blows up some stuff but I have a Thrashing Wumpus in hand which I show him which is game.
So... as usual Gary is a monster. It was interesting to see the Isochron Scepter at work. I don't think I ever actually used it but being in play was enough to just make people stop doing things lol. It was also a little redundant with Attrition but I really wanted to see it in play. Fudge it takes some time to do a detailed report...
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[Modern] Allies
Archfiend of Depravity - I think this is a really cool tool to fight against swarm tactics and tokens. The hard part is that you sort of need to get him into play before they are a problem and keep him in play. On the flip side though things like Massacre Wurm work after they become an issue but are a one shot use sort of effect. This guy just sort of keeps the board position where you can use spot removal to clean up what you need to. I don't think he is a slam dunk but I don't think he is something to dismiss either. I am interested by him I guess is where I stand currently.
Crux of Fate - a nice budget option for those looking for a cheap wrath effect. Damnation costs a bit of money these days but still, I think there are enough wrath variants that this is likely just a case of whatever you have sort of budget players but I think its also likely a decent card for budget players.
Dark Deal - this deck operates off of its graveyard. Forcing everyone to throw away their hands and draw less cards can be useful at times as sometimes situational cards build up in hand. The fact that its a wheel for less cards is an interesting concept as often if you are casting this a few turns into a game most people have burned their ramp and lands and are probably getting ready for some midrange tactics. I think it is interesting... Black until this really has not had a wheel effect so I like the feel of it is I guess my first feeling but I wish we could have seen what a rare or mythic variation would have done instead. Its a nice start but I want to see them try this again.
Ghastly Conscription - bleh this one turned out poorly for this format. Run Rise of the Dark Realms instead if you like this sort of thing.
Merciless Executioner - nice function reprint of Fleshbag Marauder with a shifted creature type. It is nice to have more copies of this effect even though I don't really run them.
Soulflayer - I love the flavor but he is never going to work in practice. In theory you give him half of those abilities and he is a mean machine but those abilities dont naturally come on good cards in this format.
Hero's Blade - this isn't a voltron deck. Its an amusing thought but there are a lot of equipment that work better than this for this sort of deck. I like the flavor though.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon - great removal for those pesky enchantments. The biggest issue is he cant deal with eldrazi and or colorless effects. Still, he can function as a scaling wrath that forces exile removal. His bolts are nothing to ignore and he is hard to attack. This is the sort of walker who can dominate the entire board as he potentially defends himself from multiple opponents who might be trying to attack him to bring him down. I dont think he is a replacement for Karn because of the fact that Karn can catch a few problem things that he cannot but I think that both of them are strong considerations. I feel that Ugin generally speaking will be far more powerful in deck than running a wrath effect offhand.
So, whats what for Fate Reforged? Well, I think its safe to say that I expect to be testing Ugin, the Spirit Dragon in this deck and I might get around to testing Archfiend of Depravity. Ugin is definitely in the forefront of my mind when it comes to what I think will work out for this format from this set but the hard part is going to be getting enough copies for my decks. I don't feel that Ugin will be a staple for every deck as Karn is similar in a lot of ways and is not a staple across all decks so I expect that decks like this where we have limitations of what our colors can handle might pick him up.
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[Modern] Allies
This deck is fairly heavy on flashing back instants and rezing creatures. So really the issue with Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed is that the deck already recovers most of the things he can recover. He essentially picks up enchantments and sorceries as things he can rez and for the most part the deck is not made up with that many of either. It is more likely to include Yawgmoth's Will and or Crucible of Worlds for the ability to recover Cabal Coffers and such.
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[Modern] Allies
My own opinions of Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed as a commander have always been that he tends to be more of a goodstuff commander. I think he is quite powerful but he in my mind has a lot of similar issues I have with Geth which is mostly that he doesn't contribute much to the deck itself. I realize that I am over generalizing and there is some good interaction with his deck but in my mind he is a bit like running Eternal Witness as a commander. It would be effective as a commander but that does not make it less boring of a concept.
Toshiro has had a lot of impact in what I have chosen to run in this deck and while sometimes he is hit and miss on how productive he is throughout the course of a game I enjoy the flavorful concept that he has me build.
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[Modern] Allies
I had another good game of Toshiro Tuesday night. There were three games played last night of which I ended up piecing together a Brago deck out of my EDH cube on the fly which actually almost took a 5 player FFA game due to me stealing a Purphoros, God of the Forge and then just flickering creatures and at one point the Purpheros player incorrectly cast a Tempt with Vengeance for 8 which I took him up on the tokens. Sadly at the last second Zirilan of the Claw sideswiped me for like 20 or so with a few dragons. I ended up sitting out game three because there wasnt much time to finish it and the only deck I wanted to play was my Ephara deck that normally takes 2+ hours to play with.
Game Report:
5 player FFA game with opponents being Grenzo, Dungeon Warden, Riku of Two Reflections, Nahiri, the Lithomancer, Feldon of the Third Path
T1: Myriad Landscape (I really need to update the OP to reflect that I am running that)
T2: Swamp, Riku tries to ramp with a Coiling Oracle and reveals a Natural Order
T3: Swamp, pop my Myriad Landscape Riku ramps, Nahiri plays a Sword of Vengeance, Feldon drops an Extraplanar Lens
T4: Swamp, Toshiro Umezawa Grenzo drops his commander, Riku ramps, Nahiri drops a Kemba, Kha Regent, Feldon drops a Krenko, Mob Boss
T5: Cabal Coffers, Sheoldred, Whispering One (I have no creatures in grave but like everyone controls a single create at this point and there are a lot of good targets at the time. Grenzo uses his commander and finds a creature to sac, riku sacs his creature but drops a Dual Nature into an empty board seeing little other way to overcome Sheoldred offhand. Nahiri sacs Kemba to sheoldred and brings out two Taj-Nar Swordsmith with two mana left. He opts to go get a skullclamp and equip it over having two skullclamps. Feldon creates a token with Krenko to keep from sacrificing him. Then drops a pair of Pilgrim's Eye.
T6: Swamp, Beseech the Queen for Burnished Hart and cast him keeping 4 mana up. Grenzo spins his wheels and gets some random value and destroying Feldon's Extraplanar Lens and flipping a Gray Merchant of Asphodel x2 thanks to Dual Nature for 14 syphoned from each player. Grenzo also drops a Null Rod on my head . I pop one of the Burnished Harts. Riku drops a chord of calling into 2x Wood Elves and then pops the copy off to Natural Order to get 2x Avenger of Zendikar and drops a fetchland + pops it to turn them into 4/5s. Nahiri drops Elspeth, Sun's Champion and wraths the 4+ power creatures. Feldon pokes at the hands of Riku and Nahiri with a Mindclaw Shaman and whiffs on both players.
T7: Swamp (accidentally played it first), Demonic Tutor and tutor up Null Profusion which I cast. Cast Attrition and end my turn with Necromancy and a bunch of swamps so I go down to a swamp / Necromancy. Grenzo sets up to recover his Gray Merchant of Asphodel with one of his 2x Phyrexian Delver and I in response rez it with my Necromancy stealing 14 from everyone else. Apparently Grenzo would have gotten 20 from everyone so he was fairly mad at me. He ends up using a Mindslicer and popping it immediately for our hands. Riku drops his commander and I fight with him to try to kill it with my remaining creatures using Attrition. He ends up getting 2x Snapcaster Mages which he uses to 2x cast a Chord of Calling for 6 mana and the other one gives his Natural Order flashback this turn. He ends up getting a Prophet of Kruphix + Clever Impersonator (as my Null Profusion). He uses the Natural Order for some Spike Weavers because he has 8 life left. After Nahiri draws his card for the turn Riku flashes in a Mindclaw Shaman peeking at his hand. Nahiri responds by casting a Swords to Plowshares on Riku's Prophet of Kruphix (nice topdeck). Nahiri then +1s elspeth who is somehow still alive for tokens which he rams through his skullclamp. Feldon screws around with his commander and casts a Shattering Spree for a bunch of artifacts I don't own.
T8: Cast Toshiro (no cards in hand) which gets me drawing on Null Profusion. Bile Blight off Grenzo's Graveborn Muse. Toshiro gives flashback to Bile Blight and I kill Krenko, Mob Boss as well. I rez 2x Burnished Hart Dual Nature still out, with Makeshift Mannequin. At the endstep I cast Necrologia for 9 cards and pop the two Burnished Harts off the leftover mana from coffers. Feldon catches me after the draw with a Mindclaw Shaman off his commander and I derp for a moment but realize ultimately that I have a Cremate and so I cut him off. Grenzo comes back out as he had died earlier to the Elspeth wrath. Riku sort of struggles getting land jammed with his Null Profusion. Nahiri puts a casts an Austere Command for enchantments and 4+ mana creatures then puts some equipment onto a soldier token and swings it at Grenzo who ends up killing it before he connects. Nahiri is annoyed at us and drops out of the game.. Feldon doesn't do much but gets ready with his commander.
T9: I play an All is Dust to slow down Grenzo's commander. I also have an Empty the Pits which I am saving to cast. Grenzo responds and gets some triggers and value off of his commander. Grenzo kills the Feldon player with his creatures entering triggers using Flayer of the Hatebound. Feldon responds by milling him a ton of cards with his Altar of Dementia. Grenzo plays some recovery play and hits me with his Flayer of the Hatebound. Riku is mostly done at this point, he recasts his commander. End of turn I consume my graveyard and manage to shoot out 17 zombies from my Empty the Pits.
T10: I Puppeteer Clique and rez two clones as Clique off of Riku and when I go for the Gray Merchant of Asphodel it ends up getting denied with a Volrath's Stronghold. I spend a lot of mana to set up a Chainer, Dementia Master + Altar of Dementia + Gray Merchant of Asphodel and I manage to dome my opponents for 28 each killing riku. I swing all of the zombies I can at Grenzo and I get him back down to something like 24 life (he had gained 56 life earlier off of Gray Merchant himself). Grenzo casts a Mimic Vat, Sacrifices his Flayer of the Hatebound and casts a Living Death. Right about here we both fudge it up a little. I sacrifice all of my creatures to my Altar of Dementia and self mell myself to 3 cards left in library trying to just flip value off of this. I also attempt to rez his Flayer of the Hatebound utilizing my Puppeteer Clique (its his turn so he cannot stop my persist as it resolves before his mimic vat). He utilizes Volrath's Stronghold again to deprive my rez but it doesnt matter because I deny it from him. He missed his shot to steal away my own Gray Merchant of Asphodel onto his Mimic Vat though but at the same time I wasnt thinking because I forgot that he runs a Kozilek, Butcher of Truth in his deck so my stronger move likely would have been to dig for that since I had enough power to likely dig 3/4 of what he had left in deck into his grave little bit at a time and try to wipe out his graveyard. We end up doing the flip and I end up stealing another 20 life off of Gray Merchant of Asphodel. He then has a lot of spot removal creatures and he removes a lot of my good stuff that flipped. I drop a Crypt Rat from hand and kill him.
In all reality, I likely had the mana to kill him outright with the Crypt Rat next turn so even if he had held off my Gray Merchant correctly outside of him capturing him and using him the same turn (which I dont know if he had the mana for) he wasn't going to kill me that turn. I similarly should have remembered he ran Kozilek and I should have tried denying his Living Death by milling into his Kozilek. It was a good game though regardless if not a little backwards on how I wanted to operate.
DECK CHANGES:
Swamp -> Myriad Landscape I keep forgetting otherwise to make the change to the OP. I replaced a swamp due to the fact that it is generally speaking going to be cycled as soon as I can to do exactly that. My nonbasic land count is getting a little bit high even with this replacing itself so nicely.
Pestilence Demon -> Ugin, the Spirit Dragon there isnt really any one card that I can think of offhand that is a really easy swap at the moment for Ugin. Pestilence Demon has plagued me a few times in early hands and he needs a lot of mana to really operate. Ugin deals with some things that I have trouble dealing with otherwise and nicely defends himself. I want to bring him in for testing at the least but I suspect he will be a good option for clearing things out. He defends himself nicely and with the support of this deck's removal its entirely possible to hold the board with him.
RECENT RESULTS:
Sheoldred, Whispering One in part due to the increase in graveyard hate, my overall low creature count, and at times my ability to never be able to find reanimation I have had a lot less good results with her of late. People hate on her and I essentially never get her to trigger to rez other things. It seems of late I have been drawing her at some awkward times and it seems like often when I am casting her it is as an overcosted Braids, Cabal Minion. To be honest, if Braids, Cabal Minion wasnt banned I would probably shift to her right now because that is about all I am getting out of Sheoldred at the moment.
Malicious Affliction I swear every time I draw this card what I am looking to kill tends to be Grenzo, Dungeon Warden. I really hate nonblack removal. I don't mind it as much on something like Attrition due to how silly it can be at just keeping some things off the table or from attacking me but in general it seems incredibly awkward on spot removal. It... is in the list for now but I have been displeased with it more than once so far. I keep telling myself that the amazing setup of double casting it with Morbid might happen some day and so I keep holding out for it.
Empty the Pits it has been more than a little awkward more than once now. Still, I want to test it a bit longer due to how much mana this deck really can generate. I probably shouldnt complain that much since I did cast it with 17 zombies who got to shuffle in for 30 damage on someone before they really got to respond while multi tasking it for a turn but even still, I am not sold either way yet. I think it has some incredible potential but it can also be absolutely terrible to draw in a lot of situations.
Bile Blight I just thought I would mention that this has been pure gold for me. Most every time I have gotten it it has gotten what I needed done. I know I am going to have it one day vs Consecrated Sphinx and be cursing to myself but it kills so much and it can just chain down tokens. Its been really good for me so far.
Arcane Lighthouse I have yet to activate the dang thing which makes it less productive than a swamp or some other utility land. For now I will keep it in but it seems like its a bit dependent on how much voltron you see in group and or how much Lightning Greaves effects. Due to how spot removal heavy my deck is I suspect I will keep it in but I guess I was just going to mention that so far its been sort of meh.
Sorry that got so long....
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[Modern] Allies