Also sac outlets in general are quite underestimated in this type of deck. Being able to save the general while it is a creature by eating one of my own guys is not that uncommon. Being cheap to play is just another upside. Lastly, it practically keeps Sneak Attack fueled forever!
Now that my finals are done I should take some time to review the opening post again.
+ Evolutionary Leap - It was worse when I first tried it because my ramp package got in the way. I should give it a fair shot now.
- Flameshadow Conjuring Again, it's a lot better when you can reliably cheat out your threats. Not when we pay full price for them at times.
Frontier Siege keeps giving me the mana to outpace people (4 a turn!). It's making me think of the closest alternatives to the card. Also makes me wonder how badly I mis-estimated the mana needs for the deck. As in, not the amount of mana needed to merely function, but to explode.
The best I can think of is Thran Dynamo. Skyshroud Claim is safer, but I'll take the extra 1 mana that I can generate in a deck this hungry. Plus, you lose minimal tempo if you draw it later. The colorless is not a huge issue.
Vandalblast is being shelved while I'm testing. I always hate cutting removal, but artifacts that aren't sol ring and top have taken a nosedive in my meta. It is a meta call.
I could always use more mana, so dynamo is staying. Artifacts that aren't sol ring literally just dropped off the map in my meta. Everyone is doing an enchantress craze.
However this doesn't mean that I'll be running Bane of Progress again, because out of all the enchantments, I only care about a certain few of them.
Knollspine Dragon is a suggestion made earlier, and now I will actually try it. It is an expensive drawspell and a mediocre creature if you cast it pre-combat, but the important part is that it is both at once, and freeing up space with multirole cards is pretty good. This will allow me to get Scavenging Ooze back in if it proves itself.
Recent highlights: Killing a table through a Blind Obedience because someone wanted all their enchantments back with Open the Vaults and gave me a Sneak Attack back. Last opponent's end step, sneak in Savage Ventmaw. I draw into noncreature recursion and start chaining my extra combats with Kessig Wolf Run help with the small opening I got despite being in last place for most of the game.
Lastly, I will probably be posting up a section on "hate cards" (I will soon have 4 spots dedicated to it) and how adjusting these to your meta can play to your advantage. I'm lucky to be able to run City of Solitude without too many harsh consequences, but in less forgiving metagames I can see individuals adjusting for more anti-blue measures, anti-counterspell measures, more graveyard hate, or more specific ways to slow down your opponents. This deck is very proactive and therefore is generally suited to capitalizing on whatever time you buy off of these cards or for blanking a key answer so that you can gain a large advantage. This will likely end up demanding its own tiny section on the original post.
I think with the current build I'm not actually that concerned about point removal-heavy reactive strategies where Evolutionary Leap would be at its best. I'm concerned more about losing through deck tempo and removal engines where you would still lose without hexproof even if you somehow could play a threat every turn. Graveyard decks are also popping up again, so I'm throwing Scavenging Ooze back in. Sac outlets are still good, but I just feel I needed a tiny bit more oomph. Or more hate. Scooze being a creature that gets big is always relevant.
Here's another way of looking at it. Evo leap does the same thing in this deck that Feldon or Mimic Vat does, but the latter costs three mana instead of the total 7-8 you would spend replaying whatever you get. That is also assuming your leap doesn't whiff and hit a mana dork.
I almost want to throw a Relic of Progenitus in here too. I just can't find what to cut. Tormod's Crypt is also really good for costing us no tempo loss.
Knollspine Dragon being sneakable is super sweet. It's also not dependent on your creature surviving post-combat and you can generally hard-cast it when it is time.
Change log:
- Vandalblast - Artifacts fell off the map in my meta. Will re-add to "meta calls"
- Evolutionary Leap - Not terrible, but I needed a tiny bit more out of it or build around these effects as a theme. (my current build is synergistic with extra combats for surprise kills) Better in the dedicated "cheat and sac" build.
- Managorger Hydra - It gets really mean when we draw it early, but we already have enough bad topdecks.
+ Knollspine Dragon - It's a threat that draws at the same time. Note that having a "may" clause is extremely important, since the fail case of being a plain 7/5 flyer is really not terrible. Can be cheated out.
+ Scavenging Ooze - I miss you already.
+ Thran Dynamo - Gobble that mana. 3 colorless gets us places. Not as insane as Frontier Siege though.
The deck as it stands is feeling a little top heavy. I mean, it always was, but more so than usual. On the plus side, I'm saving deck slots!
Lastly, I do have a Survival of the Fittest, although I won't be slotting it in yet. That depends on how badly I want Mr. Knollspine Dragon every game for when I'm hurting to draw into anything good. Or how badly I need scooze and such.. Not having summoning sickness is the main benefit in a deck like this. Obviously not a budget inclusion.
Also, I've reversed my position a bit on Sylvan Safekeeper. Even though it gives shroud, it does it only in response to actual attempts to stop you, and he essentially throws lands in the way of spot removal. You won't get the buff or the haste, but you end up keeping your guy. I may find a spot for him in the future. Costing 1 mana is a very very nice bonus.
The other thing is that I managed to beat three(!) records with this deck in a single game
NEW RECORDS:
Most damage dealt to a player by a single creature: 320 (Rapacious One)
Most Eldrazi Spawns created off of Rapacious one: 370!
Biggest boost granted from Pathbreaker Ibex Attack - +160/+160 on Rapacious one and 40 eldrazi spawns with summoning sickness.
How the hell did this happen? Well, I had that + a Pathbreaker Ibex, both sneaked in. Also some draw to get extra combats + Strionic Resonator. Basically, a metric ton of damage amp.
One thing that I've been liking so far that I've been up against decks with good passive defenses like Solitary Confinement and Spike Weaver and if they're not as proactive as I am, I still find ways of punching through eventually. Or how all it takes is one good topdeck for me to go nuts late game... I got another situation where I had a single creature out and no hand and one topdeck allowed me to go absolutely nuts.
This card actually seems somewhat decent in theory. It doesn't hit for much (only 10) and its biggest downside is that you don't get a token the turn you play it.
However, you can play it before Xenagod and then have a constant source of pressure. Also, since it gives everyone else tokens, if they are so inclined, they can start attacking other players with the tokens, shortening your clock. Be careful playing this with cards that care about death triggers.
This deck is what I call the "snowball build". This isn't designed to one-shot a player quickly, but instead snowball completely out of control if you ignore it for even a moment. This card will always give me an expendable conduit for my card draw.
This will replace red Akroma because well... 8 is a lot of mana and it is hard to do a lot of damage with it (16+) unless you are seriously cheating on mana. It also fulfills the same quota of having a resilient threat, although Akroma is better when the deck is "comboing off"
- Akroma, Angel of Fury
+ Rite of the Raging Storm.
Seems interesting, may end up fulfilling a similar role to Assault Suit in, say, a Zurgo shell, but on a much smaller scale. It seems more likely that this will make planeswalkers have a miserable time than actively, massively shorten your clock, but we'll see how it goes. Keep us posted!
Hello. I'm glad to see that you're still playing the deck. I haven't queued up with Xenagos in a while online, but still remember it fondly.
You noticed what I did too about the recent meta trends. There are a lot of graveyard decks recently. The strong majority of the 4-player games have at least one Golgari deck, sometimes two, and that's on top of whatever other graveyard decks are getting run. The concern there for me would be constant Grave Pact, particularly with Instant speed sac outlet. Also, all the Black spot removal.
Next level, not thrilled about eating ancillary hate like Containment Priest.
I think best matchups are White-based, wrath heavy decks, which probably includes the very large category of value oriented, grindy decks. Poor matchups, clearly, are spellslinger and combo decks. I think graveyard Golgari decks can be either one, or both. Seems like some hate is in order.
I think graveyard decks are quite beatable with the right tuning (I blame this resurgence on Meren). A lot of grindy engines that aren't grave pacts will interact with you at sorcery speed. The more annoying ones will tear apart YOUR engines, but that doesn't take you out of the game and you can still do quite a bit with just lands and a Xenagos. Nonetheless, as usual with Xenagod, if your opponents are depending on either bodies or wraths to keep pressure off of them, they are going to get wrecked. I agree that most midrange value-based decks are prey to this deck. I also agree about the bad matchups. If you were dead serious about winning, there are far better ways than trying to clock everyone for 40 in combat.
I'm still trying to make assessments to see what to cut for more yard hate.
On a side note, on a couple occasions I actually can work around Grave Pact if I can tutor up Rapacious One and hit someone quickly enough. It's pretty hard to chew through 10 eldrazi spawn tokens with triggers before the GP player ends up dying or taking serious hits. Maybe Prossh can do it, but few others can.
Black spot removal is a pain, but the worst-case scenario I've seen in my meta is people packing Slaughter. 4 life is a non-insignificant life payment, but when not doing so means risking a 20-point hit, then they'll play this card. The worst case scenario is that they overload on spot removal, making your life a pain, but leaving themselves vulnerable to noncreature or swarm-based strategies.
On an unrelated note, because of the overall resurgence of graveyard decks, I started playing Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet as a general. It is already annoying the hell out of my opponents. He's pretty sweet.
OMG, great minds. I've been working on a Kalitas deck too. Definitely strong right now.
As for Xenagos, I think you always have some chance, even against a deck that might give you fits most of the time. That's the sign of a well built deck. It can sometimes just end up working, even under less than favorable game conditions. I think it's important though, particularly for newcomers, to recognize what those unfavorable conditions might be. It allows you to internalize problems onto the unpredictable, high-variety nature of the game, rather than onto the build of the deck or how you played it.
Actually kind of disappointed with Rite of the Raging Storm (mostly because of situations where my stuff lived and therefore didn't make sense to play it), but in testing, Tireless Tracker kicks ass!
So, when you're spending all of your mana every turn, you are generally doing fine and don't need to crack clues. However, when this deck runs out of gas from getting too much stuff answered or you just don't draw stuff, the clues get you back in the game where almost nothing else in green-red would without giving your opponents a significant boost.
This card is a very good engine and actually hits pretty hard if it lives to crack clues.
Next thing to cut for sure is Garruk, Primal Hunter. Hoping to get more cards like Tireless Tracker in the future. Decent, nonconditional card draw in green is very hard to find!
Probably a good call. Reminds me of scooze, in that it does a thing and can double up as a vanilla puncher in a pinch. You'll probably get good mileage out of it.
Slight write-up suggestion - you might want to move up the list before you start talking about hands etc, it would help with the flow of the post.
Probably a good call. Reminds me of scooze, in that it does a thing and can double up as a vanilla puncher in a pinch. You'll probably get good mileage out of it.
Slight write-up suggestion - you might want to move up the list before you start talking about hands etc, it would help with the flow of the post.
Im wondering what you think of maelstrom wanderer beatdown decks. They pack solely ramp to get mw out by t3 or t4 and use a curve that averages around 6.5, using most of the GR beatdown creatures as well some blue ones. A major advantage of maelstrom wanderer is that he brings two threats along with him. Although he doesnt pump them, he does give them haste.
Im contemplating on changing my maelstrom wanderer deck as it is almost too unfair but i wanna stick to the timmy beatdown type of deck. Im pondering whether changing it to xenagos will be a good idea. What are your thoughts?
It depends on which direction you go.
I mean, while Wanderer just gets insane value and brings two things with him, you do sometimes just end up hitting things like ramp spells with him.
Xenagod in general is probably a more tame option, however it can be unfair if you stick to Donald's route of one-shotting people as quickly as possible.
There's also my build that has a bit more focus on the late game and its emphasis on having large amounts of mana, card draw, and extra combats means that it can snowball into a single guy that can kill multiple players in a single turn. I don't know if that counts as being "unfair" by your definition.
Both Wanderer and Xenagos have the advantage of their generals being difficult to interact with profitably.
Awesome list! My meta right now basically consists on me and 2 buddies getting together every once in a while. We keep it pretty casual, no MLD or infinite combo's allowed. Both of my opponents are playing Esper decks (Oloro and Sharuum) so I want to play the colours no one else is just to spite em . I think Xenagos is underrated. His ability to bust out insane damage out of almost nowhere seems unparrallelled and sounds like a lot of fun.
It looks like your list on the op only has 98 cards including xenagos
Just for the hell of it, I had a friend run my Gitrog list against this list.
I had a solid hand, but my T1 Joraga Treespeaker ate a Snuff Out in response to my level up attempt. My fault for putting in good cards
He had a turn 1 exploration and proceeded to dump lands. He dumped Gitrog and then had land destruction to keep me off five for long enough to spam lands, then Avenger of Zendikar while hiding behind Glacial Chasm. Welp. All situations my deck can deal with, but not with the tempo advantage he had.
At least I didn't eat five Raven's Crimes in a row. And at least he didn't get a lotus cobra start...
Scavenging Ooze makes sense. Whats the last card? Putrefax seems pretty sweet but maybe overly reliant on the general? Although we have other pump spells and Relentless Assault type cards so maybe not
Scavenging Ooze makes sense. Whats the last card? Putrefax seems pretty sweet but maybe overly reliant on the general? Although we have other pump spells and Relentless Assault type cards so maybe not
I actually like Phyrexian Hydra the most if you want to go that route. I've also been liking Godo fetching up Grafted Wargear though that's actually 2 slots (and probably a third to fit in Skullclamp as a secondary target).
I think Id prefer the trample on Putrefax. Grafted Wargear seems like a good idea. I'm a bit nervous running it in my meta though. I was running Daxos, the Returned and my buddy runs Sharuum, the Hegemon so artifact/enchantment removal is fairly common.
I think Id prefer the trample on Putrefax. Grafted Wargear seems like a good idea. I'm a bit nervous running it in my meta though. I was running Daxos, the Returned and my buddy runs Sharuum, the Hegemon so artifact/enchantment removal is fairly common.
I've played both cards a lot and while there are certainly situations where Putrefax is better I tutor for the Hydra more often.
I don't think Grafted Wargear is good enough without Godo. I'd rather play more Berserk effects but it has it's uses.
Im wondering what you think of maelstrom wanderer beatdown decks. They pack solely ramp to get mw out by t3 or t4 and use a curve that averages around 6.5, using most of the GR beatdown creatures as well some blue ones. A major advantage of maelstrom wanderer is that he brings two threats along with him. Although he doesnt pump them, he does give them haste.
Im contemplating on changing my maelstrom wanderer deck as it is almost too unfair but i wanna stick to the timmy beatdown type of deck. Im pondering whether changing it to xenagos will be a good idea. What are your thoughts?
In my experience, Maelstrom Wanderer decks are more prone to interaction, provided that opponents are actually trying to interact with it. However if it's not interacted with, MW is going to be stronger. In fact, MW is probably the poster-child for "goodstuff" decks that are unbeatable on value and have to be interacted with.
As for the things that do the interacting, it's basically anything that interferes with your mana production, your ability to cast your general, or your ability to cascade. It could be something like Blood Moon, Ruination or Back to Basics to shut off your lands (or even Armageddon, for that matter). Or, it could be Nevermore, along the same line of stuff that gets brought in against Narset. Or, it could be something like Rule of Law to shut off your ability to Cascade, or Manabarbs that just burns you out for being ahead. But sure enough, if your opponents are down with playing against Maelstrom Wanderer, other than just combo'ing over the top of it, they will eventually put in something to restrict your ability to cast spells or just resign to losing to it.
Xenagos though, it's not as if the deck presents some mana count that it has to be kept off of. Countering or exiling the Commander hurts, but it's not as if it requires the attention of all the Blue players at the table to not let it resolve. By its nature, the deck still packs enough threat density that it will outpace the answer density of the table, if all they do is try to interact with the Commander. But to shut down Maelstrom Wanderer itself is to shut down that player's entire plan. Also as a 2-color deck, Xenagos is less vulnerable to some stuff out there too. A straight up Armageddon plan is still likely to wreck you, but there are mana-producing creatures in Xenagos that you have as outs. Also in EDH lately, the denial seems to be much more narrowly tailored along the lines of Winter Orb, Blood Moon and so on, which is just intended to punish the kind of greedy play with high land counts that Maelstrom Wanderer is a chief example of.
Now that my finals are done I should take some time to review the opening post again.
+ Evolutionary Leap - It was worse when I first tried it because my ramp package got in the way. I should give it a fair shot now.
- Flameshadow Conjuring Again, it's a lot better when you can reliably cheat out your threats. Not when we pay full price for them at times.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
The best I can think of is Thran Dynamo. Skyshroud Claim is safer, but I'll take the extra 1 mana that I can generate in a deck this hungry. Plus, you lose minimal tempo if you draw it later. The colorless is not a huge issue.
Vandalblast is being shelved while I'm testing. I always hate cutting removal, but artifacts that aren't sol ring and top have taken a nosedive in my meta. It is a meta call.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
However this doesn't mean that I'll be running Bane of Progress again, because out of all the enchantments, I only care about a certain few of them.
Knollspine Dragon is a suggestion made earlier, and now I will actually try it. It is an expensive drawspell and a mediocre creature if you cast it pre-combat, but the important part is that it is both at once, and freeing up space with multirole cards is pretty good. This will allow me to get Scavenging Ooze back in if it proves itself.
I have still not drawn Caller of the Pack yet.
Recent highlights: Killing a table through a Blind Obedience because someone wanted all their enchantments back with Open the Vaults and gave me a Sneak Attack back. Last opponent's end step, sneak in Savage Ventmaw. I draw into noncreature recursion and start chaining my extra combats with Kessig Wolf Run help with the small opening I got despite being in last place for most of the game.
Lastly, I will probably be posting up a section on "hate cards" (I will soon have 4 spots dedicated to it) and how adjusting these to your meta can play to your advantage. I'm lucky to be able to run City of Solitude without too many harsh consequences, but in less forgiving metagames I can see individuals adjusting for more anti-blue measures, anti-counterspell measures, more graveyard hate, or more specific ways to slow down your opponents. This deck is very proactive and therefore is generally suited to capitalizing on whatever time you buy off of these cards or for blanking a key answer so that you can gain a large advantage. This will likely end up demanding its own tiny section on the original post.
New green Oath is worth testing.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
Here's another way of looking at it. Evo leap does the same thing in this deck that Feldon or Mimic Vat does, but the latter costs three mana instead of the total 7-8 you would spend replaying whatever you get. That is also assuming your leap doesn't whiff and hit a mana dork.
I almost want to throw a Relic of Progenitus in here too. I just can't find what to cut. Tormod's Crypt is also really good for costing us no tempo loss.
Knollspine Dragon being sneakable is super sweet. It's also not dependent on your creature surviving post-combat and you can generally hard-cast it when it is time.
Change log:
- Vandalblast - Artifacts fell off the map in my meta. Will re-add to "meta calls"
- Evolutionary Leap - Not terrible, but I needed a tiny bit more out of it or build around these effects as a theme. (my current build is synergistic with extra combats for surprise kills) Better in the dedicated "cheat and sac" build.
- Managorger Hydra - It gets really mean when we draw it early, but we already have enough bad topdecks.
+ Knollspine Dragon - It's a threat that draws at the same time. Note that having a "may" clause is extremely important, since the fail case of being a plain 7/5 flyer is really not terrible. Can be cheated out.
+ Scavenging Ooze - I miss you already.
+ Thran Dynamo - Gobble that mana. 3 colorless gets us places. Not as insane as Frontier Siege though.
The deck as it stands is feeling a little top heavy. I mean, it always was, but more so than usual. On the plus side, I'm saving deck slots!
Lastly, I do have a Survival of the Fittest, although I won't be slotting it in yet. That depends on how badly I want Mr. Knollspine Dragon every game for when I'm hurting to draw into anything good. Or how badly I need scooze and such.. Not having summoning sickness is the main benefit in a deck like this. Obviously not a budget inclusion.
Also, I've reversed my position a bit on Sylvan Safekeeper. Even though it gives shroud, it does it only in response to actual attempts to stop you, and he essentially throws lands in the way of spot removal. You won't get the buff or the haste, but you end up keeping your guy. I may find a spot for him in the future. Costing 1 mana is a very very nice bonus.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
Oath of Nissa
Sylvan Safekeeper
(Want to find room for Relic of Progenitus)
The other thing is that I managed to beat three(!) records with this deck in a single game
NEW RECORDS:
Most damage dealt to a player by a single creature: 320 (Rapacious One)
Most Eldrazi Spawns created off of Rapacious one: 370!
Biggest boost granted from Pathbreaker Ibex Attack - +160/+160 on Rapacious one and 40 eldrazi spawns with summoning sickness.
How the hell did this happen? Well, I had that + a Pathbreaker Ibex, both sneaked in. Also some draw to get extra combats + Strionic Resonator. Basically, a metric ton of damage amp.
One thing that I've been liking so far that I've been up against decks with good passive defenses like Solitary Confinement and Spike Weaver and if they're not as proactive as I am, I still find ways of punching through eventually. Or how all it takes is one good topdeck for me to go nuts late game... I got another situation where I had a single creature out and no hand and one topdeck allowed me to go absolutely nuts.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
Rite of the Raging Storm.
This card actually seems somewhat decent in theory. It doesn't hit for much (only 10) and its biggest downside is that you don't get a token the turn you play it.
However, you can play it before Xenagod and then have a constant source of pressure. Also, since it gives everyone else tokens, if they are so inclined, they can start attacking other players with the tokens, shortening your clock. Be careful playing this with cards that care about death triggers.
This deck is what I call the "snowball build". This isn't designed to one-shot a player quickly, but instead snowball completely out of control if you ignore it for even a moment. This card will always give me an expendable conduit for my card draw.
This will replace red Akroma because well... 8 is a lot of mana and it is hard to do a lot of damage with it (16+) unless you are seriously cheating on mana. It also fulfills the same quota of having a resilient threat, although Akroma is better when the deck is "comboing off"
- Akroma, Angel of Fury
+ Rite of the Raging Storm.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
You noticed what I did too about the recent meta trends. There are a lot of graveyard decks recently. The strong majority of the 4-player games have at least one Golgari deck, sometimes two, and that's on top of whatever other graveyard decks are getting run. The concern there for me would be constant Grave Pact, particularly with Instant speed sac outlet. Also, all the Black spot removal.
Next level, not thrilled about eating ancillary hate like Containment Priest.
I think best matchups are White-based, wrath heavy decks, which probably includes the very large category of value oriented, grindy decks. Poor matchups, clearly, are spellslinger and combo decks. I think graveyard Golgari decks can be either one, or both. Seems like some hate is in order.
I'm still trying to make assessments to see what to cut for more yard hate.
On a side note, on a couple occasions I actually can work around Grave Pact if I can tutor up Rapacious One and hit someone quickly enough. It's pretty hard to chew through 10 eldrazi spawn tokens with triggers before the GP player ends up dying or taking serious hits. Maybe Prossh can do it, but few others can.
Black spot removal is a pain, but the worst-case scenario I've seen in my meta is people packing Slaughter. 4 life is a non-insignificant life payment, but when not doing so means risking a 20-point hit, then they'll play this card. The worst case scenario is that they overload on spot removal, making your life a pain, but leaving themselves vulnerable to noncreature or swarm-based strategies.
On an unrelated note, because of the overall resurgence of graveyard decks, I started playing Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet as a general. It is already annoying the hell out of my opponents. He's pretty sweet.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
As for Xenagos, I think you always have some chance, even against a deck that might give you fits most of the time. That's the sign of a well built deck. It can sometimes just end up working, even under less than favorable game conditions. I think it's important though, particularly for newcomers, to recognize what those unfavorable conditions might be. It allows you to internalize problems onto the unpredictable, high-variety nature of the game, rather than onto the build of the deck or how you played it.
So, when you're spending all of your mana every turn, you are generally doing fine and don't need to crack clues. However, when this deck runs out of gas from getting too much stuff answered or you just don't draw stuff, the clues get you back in the game where almost nothing else in green-red would without giving your opponents a significant boost.
This card is a very good engine and actually hits pretty hard if it lives to crack clues.
- Rite of the Raging Storm
+ Tireless Tracker - it looks like I'm overdoing it with the card draw, but I'm not.
Next thing to cut for sure is Garruk, Primal Hunter. Hoping to get more cards like Tireless Tracker in the future. Decent, nonconditional card draw in green is very hard to find!
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
(W/U)(B/R)GForm of Progenitus, Shape of a Scrubland
BRGJund Tokens with Prossh, the Magic Dragon Foil
URGAnimar, the RUG CleanerFoil
RRRFeldon of the Third Path 2.0 Foil
BG(B/G)Not Another Meren DeckFoil
UR(U/R)Mizzix, Y Control and X Burn Spells
(W/U)(B/R)GHarold Ramos - The 35 Foot Long Twinkie (In +1/+1 counters)
UB(U/B)Dragonlord Silumgar
Slight write-up suggestion - you might want to move up the list before you start talking about hands etc, it would help with the flow of the post.
(W/U)(B/R)GForm of Progenitus, Shape of a Scrubland
BRGJund Tokens with Prossh, the Magic Dragon Foil
URGAnimar, the RUG CleanerFoil
RRRFeldon of the Third Path 2.0 Foil
BG(B/G)Not Another Meren DeckFoil
UR(U/R)Mizzix, Y Control and X Burn Spells
(W/U)(B/R)GHarold Ramos - The 35 Foot Long Twinkie (In +1/+1 counters)
UB(U/B)Dragonlord Silumgar
Good suggestion. I should probably do that.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
It depends on which direction you go.
I mean, while Wanderer just gets insane value and brings two things with him, you do sometimes just end up hitting things like ramp spells with him.
Xenagod in general is probably a more tame option, however it can be unfair if you stick to Donald's route of one-shotting people as quickly as possible.
There's also my build that has a bit more focus on the late game and its emphasis on having large amounts of mana, card draw, and extra combats means that it can snowball into a single guy that can kill multiple players in a single turn. I don't know if that counts as being "unfair" by your definition.
Both Wanderer and Xenagos have the advantage of their generals being difficult to interact with profitably.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
It looks like your list on the op only has 98 cards including xenagos
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
Scavenging Ooze is supposed to be on that list but isn't.
Just for the hell of it, I had a friend run my Gitrog list against this list.
I had a solid hand, but my T1 Joraga Treespeaker ate a Snuff Out in response to my level up attempt. My fault for putting in good cards
He had a turn 1 exploration and proceeded to dump lands. He dumped Gitrog and then had land destruction to keep me off five for long enough to spam lands, then Avenger of Zendikar while hiding behind Glacial Chasm. Welp. All situations my deck can deal with, but not with the tempo advantage he had.
At least I didn't eat five Raven's Crimes in a row. And at least he didn't get a lotus cobra start...
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
I don't think Grafted Wargear is good enough without Godo. I'd rather play more Berserk effects but it has it's uses.
In my experience, Maelstrom Wanderer decks are more prone to interaction, provided that opponents are actually trying to interact with it. However if it's not interacted with, MW is going to be stronger. In fact, MW is probably the poster-child for "goodstuff" decks that are unbeatable on value and have to be interacted with.
As for the things that do the interacting, it's basically anything that interferes with your mana production, your ability to cast your general, or your ability to cascade. It could be something like Blood Moon, Ruination or Back to Basics to shut off your lands (or even Armageddon, for that matter). Or, it could be Nevermore, along the same line of stuff that gets brought in against Narset. Or, it could be something like Rule of Law to shut off your ability to Cascade, or Manabarbs that just burns you out for being ahead. But sure enough, if your opponents are down with playing against Maelstrom Wanderer, other than just combo'ing over the top of it, they will eventually put in something to restrict your ability to cast spells or just resign to losing to it.
Xenagos though, it's not as if the deck presents some mana count that it has to be kept off of. Countering or exiling the Commander hurts, but it's not as if it requires the attention of all the Blue players at the table to not let it resolve. By its nature, the deck still packs enough threat density that it will outpace the answer density of the table, if all they do is try to interact with the Commander. But to shut down Maelstrom Wanderer itself is to shut down that player's entire plan. Also as a 2-color deck, Xenagos is less vulnerable to some stuff out there too. A straight up Armageddon plan is still likely to wreck you, but there are mana-producing creatures in Xenagos that you have as outs. Also in EDH lately, the denial seems to be much more narrowly tailored along the lines of Winter Orb, Blood Moon and so on, which is just intended to punish the kind of greedy play with high land counts that Maelstrom Wanderer is a chief example of.
Modern
UWGB 4c Snow Control BGWU