Early Game: I start and focus on hitting land drops, play a Birds turn one, and Bloom Tender turn two. Sharuum starts chaining mana rocks which is never any good. Purphoros does the same to try and slide Purphoros in before counter magic becomes likely. Marath has a slow start, but plays an early Curse of the Stalked Prey on Purphoros player and next turn (turn 3) starts swinging in with Marath. Turn 3 Purphy player drops a Magus of the Moon turn 3 while I'm missing a second plains for Render Silent.
Midgame: I just draw go while hitting land drops. Sharuum's beginnging to stall out having dropped his hand but no real gas other than a Arcbound Ravager that he sends into Purphoros player to start building +1/+1 counters. Marath keeps playing lands and attacking with Marath for counters. Purphoros finally drops purphoros and I end step Chaos Warp it into a mountain. Next turn all I keep drawing is lands and so I continue to play draw-go. Sharuum plays Trinket Mage for a mana rock and keeps sending in Ravager. As of right now, Purphoros is half dead, with no blockers except for Magus of the Moon which he's not willing to trade with anything. Marath plays Ashling the Pilgrim, and swings with Marath again. The game drags like this for a few turns with everyone's momentum being used to stall out everyone else's momentum.
Late Game: Eventually Purphy plays Myr Incubator getting 26 Myr at end of turn and brings Marath to 10 life from 36. Purphy dies from the swing back from Marath, and Marath dies a turn later from the counter attack from Sharuum who's Ravager ate a few artifacts in the attack step and took Marath by surprise. Now that Magus of the Moon is gone my Thespian's Stage is turned on again, so when I draw Dark Depths for the turn, I'm pretty happy with it. I crack them for the Marit Lage token and pass the turn holding up mana. Sharuum transmutes a Tolaria West for Maze of Ith and puts it into play and passes the turn. I play a land, cast Horde of Notions and swing with both of them. Maze tags Marit Lage and Horde gets in. Next Sharuum plays a Karn Liberated and instead of dropping my token, just goes straight for my three card hand - I discard Fracturing Gust in the off chance that he ultimates it.
Late Game 2 - Electric Boogaloo: So long story short, Sharuum manages to protect Karn by playing Sharuum and bringing back a Myr Battlesphere. Suddenly with 6 blockers and a Maze to protect him, Karn has no problems and ends up restarting the game with an Overgrown Tomb and Birds of Paradise in play. We shuffle up, and Sharuum starts ramping again. I play a Flood Plain and pass. He plays a Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas and starts digging for cards. He finds some inconsequential artifact and keeps. I draw into my Dark Depths again and along with the Thespian's Stage in my hand I'm actually feeling like I could win this after all I play another land and go tithing for some plains to ensure I can copy my dark depths. Next turn, he plays a rings of brighthearth and doubles Tezzeret's +1 to find some more artifacts. I slam down the Depths on my turn. I've got enough mana in play now to activate it, and a castable Boros Charm in hand for the 1-Hit KO with Marit Lage. Sadly his turn went Mycosynth Lattice > Tezzeret -4 > Rings of Brightheart to copy it > ends up draining me for 48 life. Only after scooping everything up did I realize I could've/should've responded to the Lattice by burning Tezzeret for 4 with the Boros Charm I completely forgot that it deals for damamge to target player, sigh. Oh well, next time I guess. Still a great, swingy game.
Really what I'm learning from this last game is mainly that I need more practice with the deck, mostly I lost because I messed up the combat math, didn't knew my cards well enough, and failed to protect my sources of card advantage (I tapped out to play an early Sylvan Library that immediately got killed when I had a counterspell in hand - I spent most of the game with a very small hand after that). I also need to try and find more ways to draw cards as this deck tries to trade cards 1 for 1 a lot of the time and that will burn out your hand very quickly. You either need to play out a cheap threat and keep pressure on with that while trading, or you need to get an engine like the Sunforger-Wheel of Sun and Moon/Mistveil Plains one or something like Life from the Loam-Trade routes for a source of huge card draw to help keep your hand fresh. In this sense, I want empahsize how important it really is to protect those sources of card advantage: Sylvan Library, Trade Routes, Sunforger, Cephalid Coliseum, etc.
Aditionally I'll be updating the original post as there's still a long list of cards to be testing. Thanks for any comments and I hope this can help guide anyone looking to play a Horde Deck.
April 26th
Played another few games today 1v1 against my buddy.
Game 1: The game started slowly for the first two turns. My opening hand had Wargate and so when I drew Crop Rotation on turn 3 I basically just had to go the combo. I had Marit lage killing him in two hits before he'd played anything but land. Not too bad for keeping a one land hand.
Game 2: Started a lot slower. Draw, land, go for the first bit. He started playing some Howling Mine effects and Spellbook and started burying me in CA, which was topped off by an Omnisicence. My hand was very reactive, but could never hit all the colours I needed to start dismantling all his enchantments. I managed to play a Horde followed by Bloom Tender to try and start Ingot Chewering & Wispmaring his board over the next couple turns, but O-Ringed Horde and swung in for lethal after playing Gissella, Blade of Goldnight and Akroma's Memorial
Game 1: we both got decent starts. Kept another 1 lander with Mystical Tutor, Brainstorm, and Tibalt. I play a Breeding Pool untapped brainstorm EoT, and upkeep tutor for a Homing Lightning. The brainstorm allowed me to start hitting landdrops but I activated Tibalt's +1 ability with Homing Lightning and one other card in hand to end up discarding homing lightning. The card I drew was Stoneforge Mystic and so I was amped to start swinging in with my Batterskull but I never found a plains and got overun with golbins.
Game 2: He had a much slower start and I consistently hit my land drops. He stumbled on land for a bit allowing me to gather some reactive cards to counter Krenko. I endstep Expedition Map for Urborg, tomb of Yawmgoth allowing me to drop a Phyrexian Obliterator which Brickwalled him a bit as he was low on goblins and no Krenko. I end up playing a Sun Titan next turn to retrieve a land and map and crack map again for Academy Ruins. That engine came online and I brought out Maze of ith (to protect my Sun Titan triggers), and then assembled the Dark Depths combo to win in the air.
Game 1: had a very reactive hand of counterspell, counterspell, and Chaos Warp. I managed to hit the lands for it all, but he read that I had something and continueed to play some *****ty little dudes and apparently they went all the way. I never drew anything that could deal with them, and he played very patiently trying lots of things to draw out the counters. While I thought I could counter something and then surprise him with the follow up Chaos Warp on Zur, it never really mattered.
Game 2: I think he was a little spooked to play Zur as he doesn't know my list and all he's seen is removal and counters. I play Horde on turn 5 and just try to play it out like a really slow delver deck. Horde attacked every turn, and I had just enough removal to get him through.
Things I've learnt from these games: Even in 1v1, this deck can fall behind on card advantage. I need to find more ways to draw cards
Sylvan Library - obviously already in the deck, but thinking I should focus on it more
The thing I'm finding with this deck is that I need more practice mulliganing. It seems a little random as I've had 1 land hands that turn out beastly, and great mana hands that just never come together.
May 3rd
Finally got togeth with my friends for a few decent games of Commander. One (Thrax is just learning the game and figuring out the mechanics of multiplayer, the other two I've played against for a few years and have a very developed meta game together. I ended up going 2 for 3 in our games, losing the only one when Thrax decides to attack me out of the blue. I'd rant but it's nothing you haven't seen on countless "Threat Assesment" threads. I'll explain below.
Game one starts out against Thrax, Maelstrom Wanderer, and Nath of the Gilt-Leaf. Having seen this Maelstrom list go from 0-60 I decide to mulligan for an agressive hand and focus on him. Nath is a decent deck, but sort of GB good-stuff. My aggro hand is strong but Nath keeps ramping and disrupting everything I do. All my mana dorks get killed by wolves and I'm without removing for a while. I end up getting colour screwed as anything I play with a measure of toughness dies immediately. The game goes on and Nath is solidly in the lead, my plan stops being to hit the Wanderer player becuase he's equally screwed and has yet to do a meaningful thing, fourty minutes into the game. Thrax is slowly building a board while I'm playing draw go. Putting down ever card I draw because Nath has also been tearring my hand apart. Eventually he drops a Pernicious Deed and plays "dance monkeys while I let my finger hover over the button." He does this in litterally every game we play with him and I always make a point of making him pull the trigger too early. Right now, though I've got nothing to threaten him with other than a germless Batterskull. Maelstrom finally hits some gas and casts Wanderer twice in a single turn to cascade four times. He swings with everything at Nath, but Nath's got enough little elves at this point that he take's minimal damage (Wanderer really wiffed on all his cascades). Thrax is doing his thing and occasionally attacking, building up zombies and the like. I don't remember all how it went down, but Deed got cracked. Thrax rebuilds quickly, overrunning Maelstrom, and quickly Nath. He ends his turn with an Army of the Damned and passes the turn to me. I'm still without a single thing on the board but manage to top deck a Rakdos Charm and slam it down for the win. He was a little put out, but a good sport about the whole thing.
After the first game took two hours, we opt for a final much faster game to end the night. Thrax stays, but Kaalia of the Vast, and Zur, the Enchanter come out. I was going to play Sharuum, but that meant either giving the game up or winning in a very slow way. I get my opening hand see my silver bullet for Kaalia: Bant Charm. With Kaalia out of the way, I could easily play Horde agressively against Zur and grind out Thrax with sweepers and grave hate. Well, that only half-worked. I managed to go land->Birds of Paradise and got the Bant Charm up just in time to respond main phase to a hasted Kaalia. Penner (the Kaalia player) looked super put out and past the turn. Zur plays lands and passes. The game goes on like that until I play Horde. I start attacking Zur, and equip a Umezawa's Jitte shortly there after. With Boros Charm in hand, I'm feeling confident that I can win this. Zur Pariah's Thrax and the whole table - minus Zur - is encouraging him to swing in with Thrax regardless just to remove the damn thing. I've got Bojuka Bog in hand and can exile it before Zur recurs it but Thrax continues to play defense. I realized I had been counting too much on Thrax's ability to keep Zur off the table as Zur has very few creatures and would be forced to sacrifice Zur. Just when I've got 4 counters on Jitte am readying to take Zur out as soon as Pariah comes off, thrax sends his whole damn army at me instead, knowing that he's dead from Zur next turn and Thrax's ability can save him. I have to pop all the counters off Jitte and crack Elixir of Immortality to survive but die next turn to Lightning Bolt from Kaalia. I guess it`s deserved after tucking her.
Well, because he was so extremely screwed over in the last game Penner calls for another. The game is now: Thrax, Kaalia, and Krenko, Mob Boss. I get my opening hand that is decent but also has Dark Depths. Despite this I keep and draw Expedition Map for the turn. EOT Turn 4 I've got a Marit Lage token in play and next turn I swing it into Thrax, joking that two can playing "attack the wrong person game (Krenko's got 16 goblins at this point, but I'v got Boros Charm in hand and plan on killing him in one swing the following turn). What does Thrax do? Slave of Bolas on marit lage.... I had not seen that coming and had to applaud his wicked timing. So we're both at 20 life with Kaalia (who is again horrifically mana droughting) and Krenko completely untouched. So we both take some damage next turn, until I play Child of Alara. I misplay the next turn, tapping out when I could've kept up mana for Boros Charm (to ensure all my stuff survives the nuclear baby), but I manage to play around some attacks, with Child blocking the small guys and KOTR doing some ridiculous knight stuff to block then respond by getting huge off of sac lands. I'm down some life, but still have Child and Boros charm, so when I topdeck Rakdos Charm again, I play it immediately to kill the Krenko player. Thrax then atacks again, and sac Child this time, Boros Charming with the trigger on the stack to save myself from the alpha strike and destroy everyone elses's board. After that, I just swing in with Knight of the Reliquary who's an 11/11 at this point to quickly close out the game with Counterflux back up.
What I learnt from these games:
Don't lean to heavily on the actions off another player. I could've swung in with Horde myself to kill Thrax, but didn't want to wast the Jitte counters it would've taken.
Don't pussyfoot around after summoning a monstrous 20/20 token, just swing in and kill the biggest threat.
The deck does much better than I was expecting in multiplayer
I need more sources of mass creature removal as I was almost always Mystical Tutoring for Wrath of God. Mystical Tutor is so much better than just having a second wrath and I'm thinking of adding Valakut to help keep creatures in check. Also, considering Mana Bond, Burgeoning, and/or Exploration to help shore up my aggro strategy as it can be pretty lacking and all of these cards would help me explode out of the gates when I need to.
Reading some more through the lands primer has given me some ideas. Namely that I need to drop my Birthind Pod suite and add cards that help strengthen my other engines. I'm not thinking of cutting everything but mainly:
Birthing pod has not been doing as much for me as I'd like and the list is getting extremely hard to make cuts from. Dust Elemental was cute, but I've only ever cast it to help recur my Ingot Chewers/Mulldrifters but that's extremely durdle and mana intensive. Animar is getting axed because I just don't run enough creatures to make him good. I like the Prot. White&Black but not when he's basically a 1/1. Serra Ascendant has been huge in the early game but a terrible top deck. Were I running multiple Brainstorms/Scrollrack/etc. I could justify it, but it'll get replaced with something else for now and find a home in one of my other decks.
Current thoughts on replacements:
Mana Bond - for obvious reasons: ramping out a quick Progenitus/Horde of Notions, playing both pieces of a Dark Depths combo in one turn without a way for my opponents to remove it before it goes off.
Academy Ruins - as I covered in the OP, artifact recursion every turn can be huge, especially when paired with Crucible of Worlds, Wurmcoil engine, or Expedition Map.
Constant Mists - acting as a back up Glacial Chasm, not 100% sure though especially given that I need to sac a land every turn, which could add up to no lands left very fast.
Darksteel Ingot - I think this deck needs an indestructible source of mana to help survive board wipes and LD. Mana dorks are nice, but still very susseptible to removal.
Scapeshift - a mass land tutor that along side Prismatic Omen could allow me to grab any utility lands I want and have them still tap for any colour. I'll be curious to try and pair this with Valakut at some point along with Vesuva for adding fun.
Seismic Assualt - Almost like Valakut/Scape***** combo. This one would require Life from the Loam but it could work better for the longer grindier games.
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle - along with Prismatic Omen could help keep the board clean without scapeshift and becomes a combo piece with it. I'm not 100% on it, but it'll definitely be tested.
Zealous Persecution - something instant speed and happens to be white, making an excellent target for Sunforger. I'm a fan of things that keep masses of 1/1's off the table and so this will have to get tested for sure. With enough mana, it could be cast twice with a Sunforger/Wheel of Sun and Moon combo, which is relevant in some games.
Zuran Orb - could provide some extra padding against the brunt of our shock lands coming into play and fetches fetching. Not to mention Glacial Chasm, as mentioned in the Lands primer by Gromgrom. I like that it's a Tolaria West target and protects us from Price of Progress and similar cards.
Mystical Tutor - a very cheap tutor which could help us clinch some of our more important important spells (Wrath of God, counterspells, Fracturing Gust, Bant Charm & Chaos Warp for tough to deal with generals.
Additional Basic Lands
More Sweepers:
Vandalblast - a value card agaisnt artifact heavy strategies, but also capable of being pinpoint removal. I like the versatility and options this give you as this deck is typically trying to trade 1 for 1 against multiple people card advantage like this is necessary.
Engineered Explosives - a fantastic sweeper. It's pinpoint enough to kill what you need gone, but also provides massive card advantage. Abuseable with Academy Ruins for what can be a very hard lock to over come.
So obviously a big list to test. *sigh I'm considering adding a Scapeshift/Valakut combo as that would be relatively easy to assemble, but I think I'm going to wait a bit. I don't want to get too focused on the combo as I like this to be a very control oriented deck, and so having those options open for more removal and sweepers or having a greater variety of targets for Sunforger. Alternatively shoring up my mana base with a great number of basics will also go into the testing.
One last note: I'll be testing out Prismatic Omen in place of Chromatic Lantern. I think that the G requirement will be balanced out by the lower cost. Getting it out T2 insteand of turn T3 will be a big deal, and having it be an enchantment instead of an artifact will protect it a little more, I'm hoping.
Added an Alternative Midrange Build that's similar to my original Horde list. Very much a timmy deck list that is massively fun to play. I'll add a smaller Card Choices section for that, and a quick strategy section as well.
Working on the Strategy section. I've mostly finished the part on how the deck mulligans. Next will be early game/building the mana base and focusing on keeping all your colours in check. I'll add a section on using your removal appropriately, and lastly a section on how to use your win-cons effectively.
If you're thinking about building a Horde deck let me know what you'd like to see and what you think would be helpful. If you have a Horde list, no matter what it focuses on throw it up as it'd be great to have many lists to show the diversity that Horde brings as a commander. I know I've seen some really sick lists that aren't anything like mine, so I'd love to have them together.
Edit: I somehow overlooked the fact that Land Tax gets you 3 basic lands. I assumed and read it as get 3 plains. I'll 1000% need to test this out as this would make a beastly draw engine with Trade Routes. Pick up enough lands to be 1 short, get three lands and just cycle them all to be drawing 3 extra cards/turn. Hmm, gears are turning....
Valakut has been working very well. Happy with the changes so far, as Land Tax has been working great as land engine, and Valakut has been doing it's job of raining molten death onto the board. Typically the games it's been best in are the ones where it gets tutored for with Knight of the Reliquary so I can follow up with a vesuva and start using KOTR to chain Plateau into other mountains. One game I had Crucible of Worlds in the mix to sacrifice the Plateau for a mountain/Steam Vents/Stomping Ground and then replay it for 12+ damage a turn.
Made some changes to the OP, adding card explanations and I'll work on parring down the info as it's pretty verbose right now. Let me know what you think.
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Currently Playing: R8whackR WUBGAtraxa Stax-Superfriends *Under Construction*WUBG
Hey man, I find it funny that you like the Sunforger package as you were the one who originally suggested in my original list I posted months ago. Yeah, I've been considering them but I'm testing out Burgeoning and Exploration right now. Honestly, I know they're like the big two cards that net you extra land drops, but I've never really liked them. They're both too easy to remove, they're expensive, and I feel like they really send out signals as most players have played against an Azusa, Lost but Seeking before and have the reaction to get rid of her. Obviously, the same with exploration, but it's much cheaper comes down on turn 1, and much harder to remove. I won't lose it to wraths, and is tutorable by Enlightened Tutor. Same goes for Oracle of Mul Daya just super costly and removable. I don't know if I changed the list but I've replaced Sun Titan and Cribswap for the Exploration and Burgeoning. They're both great cards you mentioned, though and if Exploration/Burgeoning work out I may have to find room for Azusa.
Edit: Thinking about Oracle of Mul Daya, the "play with the top card of your deck revealed" makes me uncomfortable. This is a control deck, and giving my opponents more information about what I'm doing is going to lose me games. Netting an extra land drop per turn is not worth having my opponents be able to properly play around my removal.
Honestly, I've found Phyrexian Obliterator to be worth the cost. The deck has so many land tutors and so if I`ve got him in hand, I`ve typically got a way to search up an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth as well. He`s such a beast, and I feel like it`s worth the effort.
R8whackR
WUBGAtraxa Stax-Superfriends *Under Construction*WUBG
April 20th
Aditionally I'll be updating the original post as there's still a long list of cards to be testing. Thanks for any comments and I hope this can help guide anyone looking to play a Horde Deck.
April 26th
May 3rd
R8whackR
WUBGAtraxa Stax-Superfriends *Under Construction*WUBG
Birthing pod has not been doing as much for me as I'd like and the list is getting extremely hard to make cuts from. Dust Elemental was cute, but I've only ever cast it to help recur my Ingot Chewers/Mulldrifters but that's extremely durdle and mana intensive. Animar is getting axed because I just don't run enough creatures to make him good. I like the Prot. White&Black but not when he's basically a 1/1. Serra Ascendant has been huge in the early game but a terrible top deck. Were I running multiple Brainstorms/Scrollrack/etc. I could justify it, but it'll get replaced with something else for now and find a home in one of my other decks.
Current thoughts on replacements:
- Mana Bond - for obvious reasons: ramping out a quick Progenitus/Horde of Notions, playing both pieces of a Dark Depths combo in one turn without a way for my opponents to remove it before it goes off.
- Academy Ruins - as I covered in the OP, artifact recursion every turn can be huge, especially when paired with Crucible of Worlds, Wurmcoil engine, or Expedition Map.
- Constant Mists - acting as a back up Glacial Chasm, not 100% sure though especially given that I need to sac a land every turn, which could add up to no lands left very fast.
- Darksteel Ingot - I think this deck needs an indestructible source of mana to help survive board wipes and LD. Mana dorks are nice, but still very susseptible to removal.
- Scapeshift - a mass land tutor that along side Prismatic Omen could allow me to grab any utility lands I want and have them still tap for any colour. I'll be curious to try and pair this with Valakut at some point along with Vesuva for adding fun.
- Seismic Assualt - Almost like Valakut/Scape***** combo. This one would require Life from the Loam but it could work better for the longer grindier games.
- Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle - along with Prismatic Omen could help keep the board clean without scapeshift and becomes a combo piece with it. I'm not 100% on it, but it'll definitely be tested.
- Zealous Persecution - something instant speed and happens to be white, making an excellent target for Sunforger. I'm a fan of things that keep masses of 1/1's off the table and so this will have to get tested for sure. With enough mana, it could be cast twice with a Sunforger/Wheel of Sun and Moon combo, which is relevant in some games.
- Zuran Orb - could provide some extra padding against the brunt of our shock lands coming into play and fetches fetching. Not to mention Glacial Chasm, as mentioned in the Lands primer by Gromgrom. I like that it's a Tolaria West target and protects us from Price of Progress and similar cards.
- Mystical Tutor - a very cheap tutor which could help us clinch some of our more important important spells (Wrath of God, counterspells, Fracturing Gust, Bant Charm & Chaos Warp for tough to deal with generals.
Additional Basic LandsMore Sweepers:
So obviously a big list to test. *sigh I'm considering adding a Scapeshift/Valakut combo as that would be relatively easy to assemble, but I think I'm going to wait a bit. I don't want to get too focused on the combo as I like this to be a very control oriented deck, and so having those options open for more removal and sweepers or having a greater variety of targets for Sunforger. Alternatively shoring up my mana base with a great number of basics will also go into the testing.
R8whackR
WUBGAtraxa Stax-Superfriends *Under Construction*WUBG
Edit: I somehow overlooked the fact that Land Tax gets you 3 basic lands. I assumed and read it as get 3 plains. I'll 1000% need to test this out as this would make a beastly draw engine with Trade Routes. Pick up enough lands to be 1 short, get three lands and just cycle them all to be drawing 3 extra cards/turn. Hmm, gears are turning....
Edit: Current Testing/Cuts:
R8whackR
WUBGAtraxa Stax-Superfriends *Under Construction*WUBG
Valakut has been working very well. Happy with the changes so far, as Land Tax has been working great as land engine, and Valakut has been doing it's job of raining molten death onto the board. Typically the games it's been best in are the ones where it gets tutored for with Knight of the Reliquary so I can follow up with a vesuva and start using KOTR to chain Plateau into other mountains. One game I had Crucible of Worlds in the mix to sacrifice the Plateau for a mountain/Steam Vents/Stomping Ground and then replay it for 12+ damage a turn.
Made some changes to the OP, adding card explanations and I'll work on parring down the info as it's pretty verbose right now. Let me know what you think.
R8whackR
WUBGAtraxa Stax-Superfriends *Under Construction*WUBG
Wouldn't Azusa or Oracle of Mul-Daya be nice to get extra Landdrops?
How has Phyrexian Obliterator been? He sure is fun to have but isn't the quadruple B an issue?
GWKarametra - The MistveiledGW
GWR Marath - The Egg-laying Wool-Milk-Pig GWR
RBGrenzo - Restrained RakdosRB
UWRGBHorde of NotionsUWRGB
Retired: Karador, Ghost Chieftain | Rafiq of the Many | Animar, Soul of Elements | Maelstrom Wanderer
Edit: Thinking about Oracle of Mul Daya, the "play with the top card of your deck revealed" makes me uncomfortable. This is a control deck, and giving my opponents more information about what I'm doing is going to lose me games. Netting an extra land drop per turn is not worth having my opponents be able to properly play around my removal.
Honestly, I've found Phyrexian Obliterator to be worth the cost. The deck has so many land tutors and so if I`ve got him in hand, I`ve typically got a way to search up an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth as well. He`s such a beast, and I feel like it`s worth the effort.
R8whackR
WUBGAtraxa Stax-Superfriends *Under Construction*WUBG