This is the Xenagos deck I'm currently playing with.
I have been playing versions of Xenagos since more or less the time he was released, and what surprised me and I think a lot of players is how difficult he is to get right. When other decks are playing out their 5+ mana Generals and attacking with the Generals themselves, it can be a bit awkward to invest that amount of mana only to parley an effect into a later play. What I think most Xenagos players will tell you is that he can often draw a hand that's too light on threats, get blown off a decent hand by one piece of spot removal, and even be slow to close out a game when one of your battlship threats does go unresolved. Still, there's something very Timmy and compelling about Xenagos. If only these issues could be dealt with...
Time to bring out the really big guns. The biggest creatures in the entire game. The most cheaty-face, unfair, how does this even exist kind of cards. Bring your imagination, and your wallet. Here's the list:
As a little bit of explanation, let me go over what I believe to be the common pitfalls of a Xenagos deck, and then explain a little about how my build aims to address them.
1) Not Drawing Enough Threats
If you look at most aggressive decks in this format, most of them are "voltron" decks that plan to attack primarily with the general, such as Rafiq of the Many. A large portion of the rest are "swarm" decks, which usually use a general like Márton Stromgald or Ezuri, Renegade Leader to buff a large quantity of creatures. These are two proven strategies in Commander. They look different, but what they have in common is that all of the pieces other than the General have added value and are virtually interchangable. For example, it usually doens't matter much what equipment is on your General in a voltron deck, because they mostly end up working the same. Likewise, in a swarm deck anything that adds a body or bodies to the board ends up getting a buff, these small things are cheap and end up doing other good things for you. Redundancy is the bread and butter of any aggressive deck, and these strategies are very good at achieving it due to how they work.
Xenagos is very different. His touchpoint is a really big, fat creature. And Magic just isn't designed to be able to support a high density of expensive creautres. You only get 7 cards in an openining hand, one mana card usually only produces one mana. So when you're looking at cards that need about twice the amount of mana you start with in an opening hand, you're limited in how many you can put into your deck. A Xenagos deck needs to break the rules.
This build runs cards that cheat creatures into play without casting them. With that backbone, it can run 17 (or more) creatures that cost more than 5 mana. Xenagos can't work without that, so the deck has to work with that. Cards like Sneak Attack turn that weakness into a strength, and Deathrender or Elvish Piper do a fairly decent impression of that card when Xenagos is providing Haste. Natural Order is also a card that has been wrecking Magic games since its printing, and here it's a 4 mana copy of the most powerful creature in the deck - Worldspine Wurm. Pattern of Rebirth is like NO number two, only less notorious because it's not played in 60card 1v1. Worst case, mana producers like Savage Ventmaw will usually get you up to a mana count where ridiculous looking cards look less ridiculous.
It's also a strict necessity to smooth out your draws when you're this top-heavy. To make sure you get more of what you need and less of what you don't, the library manipulation cards such as Sensei's Divining Top, Scroll Rack and Sylvan Library are essential to the deck. They're not just there for optimization or luxury, they're needed to make sure that you don't get screwed with a clunky hand by a deck that would otherwise be too prone to giving you one.
2) Dies to Removal
Interaction coming from three players at once is a big hurdle for any deck that tries to step out and be the aggressor. Going back to the Swarm and Voltron archetypes, those proven Commander strategies deal with potential interaction through redundancy. First, they're able to claim the huge advantage of being able to re-cast the General, such that they're never truly out of gas. Xenagos isn't so lucky. Second, they then make sure that the pieces of the setup add some sort of secondary value, which ends up being something that most "fair" EDH decks aim for at some level or another. Looking at that though, it's not enough most of the time. Getting a play you spent a lot of mana on killed by another player is a huge tempo loss, and trading tempo for value still loses tempo. And so another thing that aggressive decks do is iron out the game plan until it's only weak to maybe one or two types of interaction, then they build the rest of the deck to hedge against or defeat that kind of interaction.
Xenagos is very different from that because the deck's redundancy is in its buff, not its offensive piece. So the result is that the threat varies drastically in nature and quality, depending on what you draw. For example, a Silvos, Rogue Elemental is best handled by removal, a Gaea's Revenge is best handled by a chump blocker, and a Siege Behemoth might only be answered by a wipe. This deck and most Xenagos decks are built with the principle that they will be able to only to make one attack with a threat, and so they will forego any countermeasures to Sorcery speed wipes and just make sure they can't be interacted with on the player's own turn, either by removal or chump blocking. Compounded with the above issue of threat density though, if you now plan on having most of the stuff you play killed, after you've taken the time to draw it, you're now hurt severely on both card quality and tempo when you're interacted with.
This deck's solution to that is through sacrifice and recursion. If you get back the threat that was killed by spending just a bit of mana, such as Mimic Vat, then the tempo and card loss isn't as severe. You will eventually run the table out of interaction unless it deals with your engine pieces. And to make sure you can keep going thereafter, there are a lot of ways to turn your creatures into cards and redeploy. In an absolute perfect world, the setup is something like Sneak Attack, Genesis, and Helm of Possession, which has you attacking and interacting at relatively low mana requirements, regardless of creature removal. Along with that is a set of big creatures that all have evasion, some of whom also having Hexproof or Protection, and then the cheaty tutors like Pattern of Rebirth make sure that you can get the threat best tailored for the situation.
3) Closing out Games
One problem that might come as a surprise to those who haven't played Xenagos is that it's still not the quickest deck among aggressive decks. In Commander, there is an inbuilt damage multiplier in the Commander damage rule, and foregoing that multiplier has a huge effect on the potential speed of a deck. Swarm decks tend to deal with it well because mass pump cards are among the best multipliers in the game, and unlike even Voltron decks, they can then divide their attacks among opponents in a way that can kill multiple players per turn. A Xenagos deck sort of struggles from the worst aspects of each strategy. It has one attack by nature, and still has to do 40 or more damage to each player rather than 21. This problem actually becomes two-sided. For one, you're trying to win as fast as you can through these obstacles. Second though, since now you're somewhat slower, you start to drop games to decks that got there before you did, and so you need to somehow find space for more interaction.
First, the only way of dealing with the speed problem is to barrel through it with as much force as you can possibly get. Most Xenagos decks will use all the additional multiplers that they can. Chaining together two copies of a multiplier like Scourge of the Throne into something as small as a 5/5 can get you to the 40 damage threshhold. Where Xenagos often falls short though relative to Voltron and Swarm is efficiency. Using a couple one-shot multiplers with a 5-power creature can have you out of cards. This deck leans heavily toward those multipliers that are repeatable, such as Flamerush Rider, Strionic Resonator and Seize the Day. With them, you can make the same lethal attack next turn against the next opponent in line, all with the same material. Still though, starting too small means you're multiplying by a small number once you get those, and so you need a really, really big creature to hit the ideal threshhold.
An alternative to the efficency problem then that's sometimes explored is starting off with a really, really big creature that doesn't need as much material for a one-shot, such as Malignus. The problem then becomes getting the needed evasion for the job, which then has you out one more card even if you can find it. This deck makes no compromises. About the most compact kill I've found is Worldspine Wurm. Like other heavy hitters, it typically needs only the single Xenagos trigger, but it has Trample. Then after it's sacrificed, the Wurms can finish off the remaining points of life among the table. You have to cheat to get it into play, but it's something this deck is capable of game after game. Given that setup, Dragon Tyrant has the same potential to reach damage counts into the 30's by itself, after you invest a few mana into the Firebreathing ability. And while you're cheating, might as well Annihilate your opponents with your attacks to make it a little more difficult for them to stop you. Pathrazer of Ulamog is the single Eldrazi with evasion and makes sure you're adding insult to injury, not just doing insult.
4) Faster than the Guy Next to You
The secondary concern when it comes to closing out games efficiently is with interaction. Aggressive decks have the most difficulty interacting with opponents because it's not how they win. They're also the most likely to be targeted and the least likely to be helped out. I should start off by saying that most of the decks presenting must-handle threats are fellow aggressive decks. Sometimes you will play against a Combo deck that's quicker than you, and for that you'll need an Instant speed answer, but you will hopefully get the help of the table. Where you're really on your own though is against another aggro deck. So myself, and a few other Xenagos players I've noticed, seem to have concluded that interacting with creatures is the best way to interact. So with Xenagos sitting in front of you, unless you're the one killing, you're going to be the one who gets killed. You'll need to interact without watering down the deck. What if you could interact and be aggressive at the same time?
Well, cards like Unwilling Recruit and Helm of Possession do exactly that. What helps you to run them to good effect are all the sacrifice cards in the deck, without which a card like Act of Aggression just isn't close enough to "kill target creature" to make the cut. But with them now in the deck, it's astonishingly easy to kill someone with their own General by using an Unwilling Recruit. A classic, 6-power Elder Dragon one-shots its controller with an 8 mana cast, and generals like Rafiq of the Many and Aurelia, the Warleader are even cheaper to steal. Basically by stealing and threatening, you're able to use the hidden, inbuilt damage multipler of EDH, general damage, in a deck where you otherwise wouldn't. Not every voltron strategy is susceptible to it, but I find that most all of those using control, timing or some kind of resilience to protect themsleves usually end up slower than this build because of it. You know who to kill first when someone reveals a general like Bruna, Light of Alabaster, Sigarda, Host of Herons, or Zur, the Enchanter, and some of those tend to be disliked strongly enough for the rest of the table to leave you alone as you do the honors.
That's it for my Xenagos build. I plan on adding card by card and matchup analysis later.
Hydra omnivore seems almost a necessity for a deck like this. If it gets through once with xenagos, that's 16 damage to each opponent. It gives you a multiple opponent killer with one hit, something relatively unique to a mid range aggro deck.
Yeah, I have honestly played more games with Hydra Omnivore in here than without it. Right now, I'm trying Flameshadow Conjuring in its place. I know they're not even close to the same thing, but I can't imagine cutting either Flamerush Rider or Heat Shimmer from my build.
Omnivore was the one to get the cut because the politics were just too bad. I mean, the alternative of one-shotting a single player isn't the best political move either, but at least the table is missing what was probably the most threatening player. So in this deck, if it's not something I want to tutor for, cheat out, copy, or recur, then it's something that could probably be something else.
I guess I don't know your playgroup, then. Personally, I would enjoy very much one creature that hits multiple opponents without needing an additional combat step, particularly if it allows the multiple combat steps to be even nastier. I play in a relatively casual playgroup and this sort of creature fits it perfectly. If you're going to do the steal and sacrifice game as well, have you given any consideration to sarkhan vol?
Well, I play this deck online with mostly unknowns, sometimes a friend or two in a 4-man table. I'm talking in terms of politics after it resolves, and yeah, you're going to eat every piece of removal and every attack from that table until either you're dead or you've won. Like I said though, I have played it a lot and a few times it's hooked up with a multiplier against a completely open player and won the game. It's not wrong to run it. I just no longer have any evasion enablers other than lands I can't tutor for. And Flameshadow Conjuring has been good in its place.
On Sarkhan Vol, I am aware of it but I have never played it because it was so low on the depth chart. I don't value the Haste ability in Xenagos, and I don't see him ever living longer than a turn. I value Traitorous Blood and Traitorous Instinct higher than him, and they are also on the bench right now.
Thank you very much for posting your list Jusstice. Even though I don't play online, getting a glimpse at what other people are running helps me think of other directions that the deck can be built. I'll take another few looks over and see if there's anything I can recommend, just wanted to comment first.
Well, hopefully your explanations can accelerate the pace of my improvements, because I've been testing the cheaty method. Even with the "fair" threats, I've really been liking it just from the mana savings alone.. Not even just with the "cheating 30/30s part"
I still need to make room for a recursion package. I'm currently running more draw.
My group is extremely adaptive and literally playing Rout over Wrath of God because of this deck. I'm testing the "more extra combats" route and without the Sneak Attack and Natural Order, but I will test Nature's Will. I will also test a Mimic Vat and Feldon, as they will require my opponents to deal with the card without committing any more cards. Hitting draw has no longer been an issue with my version. However, I've been getting unlucky with drawing threats, but only when I play it. Not when others do.
Also will test Flameshadow Conjuring. Paying a single extra red for more damage or less board commitment is a very fair deal. I leave the fatty and attack with the token.
No one plays voltron in my group because the same adaptations that are tooled for me can be tooled against them.
There are very few other *good* aggro decks in my meta. They like durdling, which means I'm generally enemy #1 until someone is far ahead and they WANT me to force a kill in. Today, everyone has had the right answers all the time. Sometimes I can force a late-game kill on almost everyone. I'll be cutting the 5 mana wheel for recursion.
In any case, you have addressed the overall problems with building Xenagos perfectly. I'm going a slight different route than you, which has its own separate problems. Instead of having more uncastables it has slightly more dead draws. I'm playing enchantments that stop interaction, which has actually been working to an extent. Dense Foliage has killed people who had removal but can't use it on the one thing gunning for their whole life total.
The deck is always going to have problems, but you can't deny that it isn't fun.
Godo, Bandit Warlord - You've mentioned a couple of times that adding Godo may not be worth an inclusion without also devoting deck slots to SoLaS, but I think including other options such as Mage Slayer and Horned Helm, and some cute stuff like Hot Soup or Hedron Matrix, might be fun and effective as well. In my initial read through, of course I overlooked the best part about Godo in getting in that extra combat phase. Other cards that grant vigilance like Sword of Vengeance or Batterskull should also be considered so you don't have to go all in with Godo. Nim Deathmantle may be something you want to consider as well if you're looking for extra recursion.
Moldgraf Monstrosity – This card just never really worked for me in the past in sacrifice based green decks, but I'm willing to give it another shot. The potential here is pretty real, especially getting another shot at Pathrazer of Ulamog and other beaters. Speaking of which...
Pathrazer of Ulamog – A worthy inclusion in Xenagod. It is often overlooked by it's mythic brethren, in fact I forgot this card even existed. Annihilator 3 and a force-3 block, and also not granting any devotion, makes this guy look like an all star in your deck.
Rupture – Wish it was instant, but this thing is awesome! I'm definitely going to look for one as I'm a huge fan of Fling and other spells like it. My build is slowly becoming more explosive with cards like this (though I have yet to update it), and this thing looks like a real gem.
Things I'm unsure of:
Wickerbough Elder – Is there any particular reason you are running this instead of things like Hull Breach, Krosan Grip, and Ancient Grudge? I feel they, especially the instant options, may prove useful more often than the tree. Without seeing how the deck plays out, however, I might be missing something.
Explore – I see this pop up in more and more lists. I don't really see the power of this card in EDH, I'd be more inclined to use Kodama's Reach for ramp or Harmonize for the draw. For landfall interactions, sure, but I think this slot could be put to better use.
Hunter's Prowess – This is a good card, effectively granting +6+6 and trample and potentially ending with the pilot getting a full grip. There's also it's smaller version Hunter's Insight. I prefer the instant version, mostly because it is cheaper and also works against planeswalkers which my meta uses frequently. This doesn't really need to be in this category, but I would like your opinion on the two.
34 Lands – Yikes! Perhaps its just a standard building practice of mine, but I normally run decks with at least 37 lands; even ones that include green. You do have ways of filtering out unwanted cards and dropping more than one land a turn, but with so few (imho) do you find yourself starved or screwed often?
Congratulations for being ahead on me with the evolution of this deck. I'll be sure to give you credit when I feel satisfied with the list.
It goes to show that this deck is no exception when it comes to my rule of multiplayer deckbuilding to generally want engines. I was looking purely on the side of drawing cards, but having engines to go along with that is better.
Godo, Bandit Warlord - You've mentioned a couple of times that adding Godo may not be worth an inclusion without also devoting deck slots to SoLaS, but I think including other options such as Mage Slayer and Horned Helm, and some cute stuff like Hot Soup or Hedron Matrix, might be fun and effective as well. In my initial read through, of course I overlooked the best part about Godo in getting in that extra combat phase. Other cards that grant vigilance like Sword of Vengeance or Batterskull should also be considered so you don't have to go all in with Godo. Nim Deathmantle may be something you want to consider as well if you're looking for extra recursion.
The one thing that I wanted in here other than what I've got is Loxodon Warhammer. I had a few games with it against decks like Nekusar that I remember quite fondly. And lifelink just seems to show up really often as the difference between a win and a loss. Connecting once with it and Godo makes a huge difference, since with it Godo does 12 and 24 damage with his own extra attack. That usually will drop a player, as always, but then it also solidifies you against the counterattack. Since I decided to drop Time of Need I have worked in Miren, the Moaning Well in its place. And also because what I most often grab with Godo is Deathrender in this build, I started leaning on other ways to gain massive life.
Generally speaking, you can certainly go more equipment heavy than this, if that works. Some of these cards would put you in that direction. Mainly, it depends both on how long equipment tend to stay around in the group you play with and what kind of decks you are facing. Me personally, there was a while where I saw more artifact-enchantment removal and wipes than creature kill. Also against a certain field, you can certainly try a Xenagos deck with only things such as Caustic Wasps, Goblin Vandal and Wood Elves to carry buffs, such as equipment and Rancor. It's less mana intensive, and probably better against the Mana Crypt-based aggro and stax decks of this format. I played a Kresh deck for a while that was like that. But, it can end up being slow going against "fair" decks unless you or somebody else at the table is destroying some lands.
Nim Deathmantle is something I have tried out, and that was an all-star in the Kresh deck similar to this. But for this build, I think it would have to be between this and something like Mimic Vat or Genesis. This deck just seems like it wouldn't be able to leave 4 open very often on the first attack, and the second attack is a little hard to come by after that. It would be awesome with Sneak Attack, but Pattern, Natural Order, and hardcasting will all have you tapping out.
Rupture – Wish it was instant, but this thing is awesome! I'm definitely going to look for one as I'm a huge fan of Fling and other spells like it. My build is slowly becoming more explosive with cards like this (though I have yet to update it), and this thing looks like a real gem.
Just make sure you don't kill yourself with it, lol. That can actually happen quite a bit, depending on the kind of decks you face, and so it wouldn't be wrong to opt for something else instead such as Blasphemous Act. I have personally closed out players a few times with this card though, since a lot of the time an attack in the 20-30 range leaves opponents with a bit of remaining life. It also shows up here becuase I want as many ways to sacrifice a stolen creature as I can get in the list.
Wickerbough Elder – Is there any particular reason you are running this instead of things like Hull Breach, Krosan Grip, and Ancient Grudge? I feel they, especially the instant options, may prove useful more often than the tree. Without seeing how the deck plays out, however, I might be missing something.
Pretty much does what it advertises, nothing more. I wanted at least one creature-based option in the deck to kill stuff for purposes of recursion, and this one gets the edge for me over things like Caustic Caterpillar and Reclamation Sage that others may be running because of a few conditions. I wanted it to get around Torpor Orb, not sacrifice itself, be as flexible as possible so I could play it out on curve with no target, and preferrably be as large as possible to prompt removal on it. It got the edge over Caustic Wasps because of its size. Those conditions I named might not be as imporant everywhere, though, so I can see running something else. I definitely would run at least one creature of this sort, though.
Also, the single Nature's Claim I consider very important. Of course, a ton of creature-hating artifacts and enchantments exist, and so the deck needs at least one non-creature out to them. What this deck can usually continue to do with them down though is draw massive quantities of cards through Life's Legacy effects. In those situations, your hand will get full enough that you want to unload spells as cheaply as possible, so the 1cmc really makes a difference. I strongly prefer Instant speed for flexibility, also.
Explore – I see this pop up in more and more lists. I don't really see the power of this card in EDH, I'd be more inclined to use Kodama's Reach for ramp or Harmonize for the draw. For landfall interactions, sure, but I think this slot could be put to better use.
Well first, ramp at 2 mana is premium in this deck, which makes sense in terms of curve, but also just runs well by test. You want to be able to do something else with a Turn 3 and 4 other than ramp, such as Sneak Attack, Mimic Vat, and so on. Playing Xenagos into an otherwise empty field as your first business spell of the game should be avoided as much as possible, but it's something I see all the time from Xenagos players online and on VOD's. Playing a card with no immediate impact just seems like a cardinal "don't" of Magic. And Xenagos is so much better with immediate impact.
So now given that decision to operate at 2 mana, I think the choice is between those spells that bring a mana source into play untapped (Explore, Nature's Lore and Three Visits) or creatures at 2 mana with some sort of value-add, such as Werebear, Lotus Cobra, or any of the conditional add 2's like Devoted Druid or Whisperer of the Wilds. In the situation described above where you draw a ton of cards and are faced with having to discard down, you definitely won't play a 2cmc creature or a 3cmc ramp, but you probably will play a 2cmc spell that costs a net 1 by refunding one mana untapped. And enough of the time of course, players opt for things that don't die to wipes. But mainly it's being good late out of a massive hand. The deck is built to be able to somewhat weather not making a mana-count higher than 5, but then being able to massively build up via cards like Exploration, these 2 mana ramp spells, cheating out Seedguide Ash and so on, once a massive draw spell does connect. The Monolith, Vault etc along with the ramp package I included are supposed to help out with that. Three Visits is better than Explore, but I'm not going to pay for it. Ramp is just ramp at the end of the day though, so whatever is done for that is probably not wrong by any means.
Hunter's Prowess – This is a good card, effectively granting +6+6 and trample and potentially ending with the pilot getting a full grip. There's also it's smaller version Hunter's Insight. I prefer the instant version, mostly because it is cheaper and also works against planeswalkers which my meta uses frequently. This doesn't really need to be in this category, but I would like your opinion on the two.
Well first off, I think of the card draw as divided between the low-volume unconditional and the conditional high-volume. And my opinion is that you should have only the amount of the high-volume stuff that you need so that one chains together with the next one, and then the rest should be enough low-volume to access the higher volume. For me, that number is 4-5 in the deck. I'm currently somewhat low at 4, so there's that.
Prowess specifically starts to make more sense though when you look one by one at the conditions for the conditional, high-volume draw - Xenagos, a big creature on board, opponent with no removal. Prowess, Greater Good and Insight are all susceptible to getting your creature killed, so that's one mark against them. Unfortunately, basically everything other than Mementous and Life's Legacy hurt there, so adding more cards doesn't help. Both Insight and Prowess might be ok, though. But mainly, the reason I go Prowess over Insight is that Prowess doesn't require a creature that's in the huge range in order to be used.
Specifically, I want to be able to deal with a situation where I'm on 5 mana, ran out of land, have no method to cheat something into play, and don't have anything I can hardcast. You'll notice also that I've got a lot of creatures at 5 rather than 6 and up, just for that reason. But if what I've got is a Yavimaya Dryad, and that's it, a draw 4 for 3 mana in Inisight is alright, but it's not going to set up the rest of the game for me. I'm now also down one mass draw effect from the deck. Prowess makes it a draw 10 or a draw 8 used with the smaller section of my creature set, which is at the least much more likely to get me to the next mass draw effect or a top of library effect I can use to get there. That's the advantage of Prowess. Greater Good is never dead in hand, Life's Legacy is cheap enough to be used together with a theft effect or Heat Shimmer, and Momentous Fall is a must-run despite it getting stuck in the hand sometimes also. Insight is low on the pecking order, in my mind, because it's similarly easy to get it stuck in your hand. But, I would run it before Garruk or Soul's Majesty, in whose place I would probably run Knollspine or Dragon Mage instead, or just Wheel. Right now I'm trying out Elemental Bond, seems ok so far.
34 Lands – Yikes! Perhaps its just a standard building practice of mine, but I normally run decks with at least 37 lands; even ones that include green. You do have ways of filtering out unwanted cards and dropping more than one land a turn, but with so few (imho) do you find yourself starved or screwed often?
It will vary depending on your mulligan rules. On cocka, I am using mostly PP, one free. I'd rarely run more than 35 under those rules, although I always look at the cards I can use at 3cmc or less that dig at least 3 deep, cycle for a land, or allow me to re-use land, and the goal is to always get to at least 40 total. On Modo where it's only one free big-deck mulligan, I'm taking out something like Heat Shimmer, Weatherseed or Wargear for 2 more land. Anyone who wants to take the deck into less forgiving mulligan rules should probably start their cuts there.
All said and done though, this deck will draw closer on the side of 4 land in 12 cards than it will toward the 5 count. Hopefully you either see more cards than 12 by Turn 5 or you hit at least one ramp spell. But, that's just how Magic goes. No one runs much more than 38 land in 99 anyway, and the average number of land in 12 cards there is still about 4 1/2. Not much you can do about running bad. What's important is that you have a plan for something to do on 4-5 mana. Cheating cards into play (somewhat) hedges against situations where you get an average or below average number of land but don't get any multiple-mana gaining spells to go past that. If the plan is to make hardcasts at 7 mana, then a deck will want much more ramp and draw than I have here. I'm probably giving a bunch of information you already know, just EDH deckbuilding of wanting to cast more expensive stuff than an opening hand will usually let you. I just find that even having 38-40 land won't save you, and you can guarantee at least 3 land in your opener most of the time with PP, so it matters whether what's in your deck helps you reach the mana you need.
You don't need to go that big with Xenagos. You can drastically lower the curve by playing cards like Wilderness Elemental, Malignus or perhaps Chameleon Colossus and similar lower mana cards. Main exceptions are Atarka, World Render and Panglacial Wurm. I was struggling at first but got much more consistent by lowering the curve drastically and knocking other players out of the game a lot sooner.
Wilderness I actually cut in my version. It is HUGELY variable on your actual matchups and I've had a couple games where it has been dead. Plus, if you have enough things to do at 3 mana, I don't actually need the three drops. Chameleon colossus costs too much to pump to respectable size and I would only consider running it if I really hated monoblack.
As for the draw, the conditional nature of it sucks, but my build doesn't really have Wickerbough Elders or 5/5 tokens to pump with Hunter's Prowess. I don't like it or insight (the sac ones are good), but we need ENOUGH of the effects to see at least one.
I'm using crop rotation + ancient tomb as ramp that isn't dead mid to late game. Also testing Holistic Wisdom for ways of cycling dead ramp spells late-game. I'm probably cutting my three ramp as I add more engines to my version. As of this moment, I actually already swapped Krosan Grip for Nature's Claim and liked it much better. I kinda want to cut a Hull Breach for Deglamer.
Basically, I'm giving up aggression starting on turn 4 for more sustainable aggression starting turn 5. I'm basically doing the "curve cutting" that you propose and it works for me but it doesn't solve the problem the deck has. So I'm dialing it down a bit to make my plan more sustainable. I just have to make do without the expensive cheaty cards and the worldspine wurm + dragon tyrant package.
If you're playing a non-combo meta with few voltron decks like mine, then cards like City of Solitude are safer to run. In HIS meta, I would not run these cards. Even in my scenarios, sometimes there are times where you don't want to play these cards. One more reason I want to test Holistic Wisdom.
You don't need to go that big with Xenagos. You can drastically lower the curve by playing cards like Wilderness Elemental, Malignus or perhaps Chameleon Colossus and similar lower mana cards. Main exceptions are Atarka, World Render and Panglacial Wurm. I was struggling at first but got much more consistent by lowering the curve drastically and knocking other players out of the game a lot sooner.
Wilderness I actually cut in my version. It is HUGELY variable on your actual matchups and I've had a couple games where it has been dead. Plus, if you have enough things to do at 3 mana, I don't actually need the three drops. Chameleon colossus costs too much to pump to respectable size and I would only consider running it if I really hated monoblack.
Agreed. It's also that it's not great early game. Wilderness, when good, is probably about at 6-7 power at the point of the game where you're casting Xenagos. And you're probably letting mana go unused at that point. That's not enough power to justify an otherwise vanilla body, even at that discount. And when bad, he's really bad.
I'm using crop rotation + ancient tomb as ramp that isn't dead mid to late game. Also testing Holistic Wisdom for ways of cycling dead ramp spells late-game. I'm probably cutting my three ramp as I add more engines to my version. As of this moment, I actually already swapped Krosan Grip for Nature's Claim and liked it much better. I kinda want to cut a Hull Breach for Deglamer.
I like that ramp idea, and also with Gruul Turf Crop Rotation at least cycles itself for a land in hand. Good idea for late game trample land.
If you're playing a non-combo meta with few voltron decks like mine, then cards like City of Solitude are safer to run. In HIS meta, I would not run these cards. Even in my scenarios, sometimes there are times where you don't want to play these cards. One more reason I want to test Holistic Wisdom.
I do like Dense Foliage in your build. There's a lot of interaction possible in the deck through abilities, which don't get turned off. But yeah, you don't always want to run out a card like City of Solitude that blanks a hero's game-saving counterspell.
Of the dozens of games I've played with this deck, I've literally never paid full price for any of the three cards listed above.
Long Version: see original post
Fair enough, but if you have all those great cards to cheat stuff into play why play Dragon Tyrant over Atarka, World Render? You likely won't be able to afford the quad red next turn anyways if you do cheat it into play early, nor will you have much spare red mana to pump it significantly. Or why not play Blightsteel Colossus instead of Pathrazer of Ulamog? Am I missing something here?
Wilderness I actually cut in my version. It is HUGELY variable on your actual matchups and I've had a couple games where it has been dead. Plus, if you have enough things to do at 3 mana, I don't actually need the three drops. Chameleon colossus costs too much to pump to respectable size and I would only consider running it if I really hated monoblack.
I agree that Atarka somewhat outclasses Dragon Tyrant, except in the one quality that Tyrant has Firebreathing. When you are basically paying one R for 4 damage together with the Double Strike and Xenagos trigger, I've found it really useful to be able to ratchet that up as needed for exact lethal. The Tyrant can also be sacrificed to Birthing Pod in order to bring out a permanent Worldspine or Pathrazer, something that happens a fair amount of time with Hoarding Dragon often fetching Pod. All said, the idea is to never pay for Tyrant's upkeep unless doing so is a clear best play. So, I think the consideration is whether to run Atarka in addition to Tyrant, not in place of him. And Atarka may just perform better in certain spots than stuff like Akroma, Siege Behemoth, or Adephage. It will depend on disruption.
Blightsteel Colossus might be just fine. I am a little down on running him though, for my own reasons, because I feel that basically any deck can cheat that one out for an OTK, nothing to do with Xenagos. Again though, I'm pretty certain by now that I wouldn't sub out Pathrazer for the free slot. Pathrazer can live in the graveyard, Wurm, Blightsteel and most other Eldrazi can't, and I want to have something a little better than Dragon Tyrant and Akroma that do that. Moldgraf Monstrosity triggers are a reality, and sometimes Genesis and SoLaS also hook up with Sneak Attack, Deathrender, and so on. If I see that kind of setup happening, Pathrazer is what I want. The threat of an annihilator trigger is important because it forces removal from the entire table, not just the person that gets attacked, and then you get an idea of what's in your way to set up the next pass. It's between It That Betrays and Pathrazer, I feel, and I lean toward Pathrazer due to his evasion.
On the topic of creatures in the 3-5 mana range, what I have are Weatherseed Treefolk, Genesis, Vorapede, Hoarding Dragon, Wickerbough Elder, Seedguide Ash and Zealous Conscripts. I'm aware that they don't hit as hard as other options like Malignus, Managorger, Kalonian, Savageborn Hydra, Putrefax, Deus of Calamity and so on. But, what I'm trying for in this slot are cards that embrace the removal. They're the kind of cards that you'd often want to sacrifice yourself even. I do think that it's important to run enough cast'able threats in the middle game in order to pressure and force removal, and so far this amount has been enough and each one has been big enough to prompt removal and wipes from the players left who don't have chump blocks. If I am flexible on my selections here, the two I'd throw out first would be Vorapede and Weatherseed Treefolk. Basically, they just replace themselves. If that doesn't sound like a good deal, that's probably where I'd put a card that has more one-shot potential.
Basically, the whole idea with what you've been doing is trying to embrace the removal, while I've been trying to blank the removal. When your opponent's removal is useless, it makes the 1-shot kills a little more viable. Assuming you draw your countermeasures and you have it stick.
The problem is that I am not as likely in any particular game to draw the cards that help me do my approach as you are for yours, so I'm probably going to lean towards a hybrid strategy to increase the chances of me drawing into an approach that can work. Flameshadow Conjuring has performed well enough to stay as a permanent addition. I've done both routes where I pump the card to get 50% damage and attack trigger benefits and where I pump the token so that I have the card to attack with next turn if the token gets answered. Doubling up on e-wit and friends is just a bonus.
Additionally, my method ideally won't even allow people to use their removal as fogs on lethal hits, but it comes with the downside of potentially protecting someone enacting a faster proactive strategy than mine.
I agree that Atarka somewhat outclasses Dragon Tyrant, except in the one quality that Tyrant has Firebreathing. When you are basically paying one R for 4 damage together with the Double Strike and Xenagos trigger, I've found it really useful to be able to ratchet that up as needed for exact lethal.
I completely understand your reasoning. Personally, in testing felt Dragon Tyrant to be either a more expensive Atarka, World Render, or a win-more. Both kill in 2. Both kill in 1 with another doubler in play. You'd need at least an additional 4 red mana to make Tyrant a 1 hit. Most of the time the two cards function close to identical, and with Atarka you have the option to hard cast, tutor it up with Natural Order, and keep it around for another turn if nobody kills it. If you go more heavy into red and can guarantee the extra 4 red for a 1 hit kill Tyrant might be better though.
Blightsteel Colossus might be just fine. I am a little down on running him though, for my own reasons, because I feel that basically any deck can cheat that one out for an OTK, nothing to do with Xenagos.
The beauty of Blightsteel Colossus with Xenagos is that it gives it both haste and doubles. Yes, it's a one hit kill on an empty board in any deck, but in Xenagos he's a one hit kill versus anyone with less than 13 toughness on the board. Significant improvement.
If I am flexible on my selections here, the two I'd throw out first would be Vorapede and Weatherseed Treefolk. Basically, they just replace themselves. If that doesn't sound like a good deal, that's probably where I'd put a card that has more one-shot potential.
I used to run both of those cards. They're fine, but they never excited me. They swing for 10, which is merely OK for a Xenagos deck. Other cards at that mana cost hit significantly harder, though won't have the build in survival. I stopped running them when more people started running exile cards over destroy cards (to deal with Gods and other indestructibles). But again a meta call.
I agree that Atarka somewhat outclasses Dragon Tyrant, except in the one quality that Tyrant has Firebreathing. When you are basically paying one R for 4 damage together with the Double Strike and Xenagos trigger, I've found it really useful to be able to ratchet that up as needed for exact lethal.
I completely understand your reasoning. Personally, in testing felt Dragon Tyrant to be either a more expensive Atarka, World Render, or a win-more. Both kill in 2. Both kill in 1 with another doubler in play. You'd need at least an additional 4 red mana to make Tyrant a 1 hit. Most of the time the two cards function close to identical, and with Atarka you have the option to hard cast, tutor it up with Natural Order, and keep it around for another turn if nobody kills it. If you go more heavy into red and can guarantee the extra 4 red for a 1 hit kill Tyrant might be better though.
One aspect of that, when Sneak Attack, Deathrender, or Pattern of Rebirth are used, you usually have most of your mana still untapped at that point. Also Feldon sometimes leaves a bit of Red leftover. If it were just tapping out for the Dragon, then getting a 24-point attack in, yeah Atarka would just be better basically all of the time then considering you wouldn't have mana on attack 1 after casting and you wouldn't have it on attack 2 either because of Tyrant's upkeep costs. When Atarka came out, he basically replaced Tryant for all purposes, except for the corner case of cheating something out.
Also on Natural Order, the thing about NO and Worldspine is that pretty much the only case where Wurm isn't the target is when it's in your hand (or it's gotten exiled). I remember maybe once or twice I got something with NO other than E-wit or Wurm. And I also do remember a bunch of games where Wurm came out 2-3 times.
Basically, the whole idea with what you've been doing is trying to embrace the removal, while I've been trying to blank the removal. When your opponent's removal is useless, it makes the 1-shot kills a little more viable. Assuming you draw your countermeasures and you have it stick.
The problem is that I am not as likely in any particular game to draw the cards that help me do my approach as you are for yours, so I'm probably going to lean towards a hybrid strategy to increase the chances of me drawing into an approach that can work. Flameshadow Conjuring has performed well enough to stay as a permanent addition. I've done both routes where I pump the card to get 50% damage and attack trigger benefits and where I pump the token so that I have the card to attack with next turn if the token gets answered. Doubling up on e-wit and friends is just a bonus.
Additionally, my method ideally won't even allow people to use their removal as fogs on lethal hits, but it comes with the downside of potentially protecting someone enacting a faster proactive strategy than mine.
Yeah I was going to say, between blanking removal and embracing it, you probably have to do a little of both. You might run the B/W player out of responses, but then Capsize is a card that exists, unfortunately for Xenagos decks everywhere. That's one of the main reasons that I have always run Akroma, and I think Siege Behemoth has deserved a permanent spot by now as well. You really can't beat evasion and untargetability in the same package, and it's great now that Behemoth is a GSZ/NO target where Akroma wasn't. I'd still run all the untargetable creatures with evasion that I could though, so let me know if you find any more.
On Flameshadow Conjuring, it's really been solid for me too as well. Even doubling up on utility creatures in the early game is great value, which was something no other card like this was doing before. I agree that spreading out attacks a little bit between multiple creatures is also really important. Removal can blank the creature receiving the Xenagos trigger, and in that spot your problem is basically solved by pressuring through that anyway. That's the main reason why Worldspine and Giant Adephage have been so solid for me in this build. Conjuring does basically the same thing with any non-legendary, no matter how it got into play.
One other card like that, have you tried out Flamerush Rider? I know it's more mana intensive than Conjuring and isn't as good against removal, but it was performing a similar role for me pretty solidly before Conjuring was printed, and he does allow you to copy a creature after the trigger resolves. I guess another option would be Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, but I have issues with running that guy.
I treat Flamerush Rider as strionic resonator #2, because it needs to live through the beginning of combat in order to be able to double up an attack, and my guys sometimes do not even live to that stage. Also it can die in combat and is more expensive. Dying in combat is especially big because I don't go absolute nuts on the recursion like you are.
It gets benefits off worldspine and adephage and combat triggers, so I can understand why you use it. It's next on my list once I finish evaluating the viability of running additional extra combats.
Lastly, I still believe there is a decent amount of merit to playing cards that blank removal, especially the tamer ones. Dense Foliage in particular is generally safe to play out if you don't expect heavy creature combos and has also won me games when people hinge too much on swords to plowshares over Grave Pact strategies. One thing I forgot to mention is that City of Solitude stops Prophet of Kruphix strategies cold until they get rid of it, so if you're up against Momir Vig, Simic Visionary and have no combo decks trying to race you, playing this out is a good way to not get overwhelmed by U/G goodstuff. At least they would need to tutor for a way to kill it.
Yeah. You can't even tap for mana on any opponent's turn while this thing is out. So Seedborn Muse also cries at this card.
The one thing that I wanted in here other than what I've got is Loxodon Warhammer. I had a few games with it against decks like Nekusar that I remember quite fondly. And lifelink just seems to show up really often as the difference between a win and a loss. Connecting once with it and Godo makes a huge difference, since with it Godo does 12 and 24 damage with his own extra attack. That usually will drop a player, as always, but then it also solidifies you against the counterattack. Since I decided to drop Time of Need I have worked in Miren, the Moaning Well in its place. And also because what I most often grab with Godo is Deathrender in this build, I started leaning on other ways to gain massive life.
Loxodon Warhammer is a solid consideration, and I agree with you on the life gain aspect that needs to be factored in when piloting the deck. If people have preconceived notions of a general, no matter who it is, they will gun for you right off the bat until someone else becomes public enemy #1. Small burst amounts of life gain from cards like Warhammer and Momentous Fall are very appreciated when it comes to being counterattacked. I have considered Miren, the Moaning well and to a lesser extent Diamond Valley. How has it performed?
Just make sure you don't kill yourself with it, lol. That can actually happen quite a bit, depending on the kind of decks you face, and so it wouldn't be wrong to opt for something else instead such as Blasphemous Act. I have personally closed out players a few times with this card though, since a lot of the time an attack in the 20-30 range leaves opponents with a bit of remaining life. It also shows up here becuase I want as many ways to sacrifice a stolen creature as I can get in the list.
If the game ends in a draw because of a spell like this (I did this with Arcbond recently) and everyone ends up happy, then I consider it a win in my book. Bringing up lifegain again, those effects reduce the chances that I end up dead as well. So fortunately for me the danger this card presents is perk in my eyes. I have considered the addition of Blasphemous Act and readdition of Impact Resonance to better my chances of getting through and not being counterattacked. I'm leaning more toward BA as I have never once casted it for more than 3 mana. However I treat Arcbond and Fling effects as finishers. Sometimes a buffed creature won't finish off a player completely, and the addition of these spells means that sometimes I don't have to. I have found that it is also very likely (at my LGS) that someone will finish off said player before it comes back around to my turn.
Pretty much does what it advertises, nothing more. I wanted at least one creature-based option in the deck to kill stuff for purposes of recursion, and this one gets the edge for me over things like Caustic Caterpillar and Reclamation Sage that others may be running because of a few conditions. I wanted it to get around Torpor Orb, not sacrifice itself, be as flexible as possible so I could play it out on curve with no target, and preferrably be as large as possible to prompt removal on it. It got the edge over Caustic Wasps because of its size. Those conditions I named might not be as imporant everywhere, though, so I can see running something else. I definitely would run at least one creature of this sort, though.
Also, the single Nature's Claim I consider very important. Of course, a ton of creature-hating artifacts and enchantments exist, and so the deck needs at least one non-creature out to them. What this deck can usually continue to do with them down though is draw massive quantities of cards through Life's Legacy effects. In those situations, your hand will get full enough that you want to unload spells as cheaply as possible, so the 1cmc really makes a difference. I strongly prefer Instant speed for flexibility, also.
I had not considered that factor. It also works well early game as you had stated below, enabling early use of draw spells instead of waiting to use them late game. A great choice, do you have any recommendations for similar creatures like it aside from the caterpillar that can also get in for some minor beats/draw?
Well first, ramp at 2 mana is premium in this deck, which makes sense in terms of curve, but also just runs well by test. You want to be able to do something else with a Turn 3 and 4 other than ramp, such as Sneak Attack, Mimic Vat, and so on. Playing Xenagos into an otherwise empty field as your first business spell of the game should be avoided as much as possible, but it's something I see all the time from Xenagos players online and on VOD's. Playing a card with no immediate impact just seems like a cardinal "don't" of Magic. And Xenagos is so much better with immediate impact.
So now given that decision to operate at 2 mana, I think the choice is between those spells that bring a mana source into play untapped (Explore, Nature's Lore and Three Visits) or creatures at 2 mana with some sort of value-add, such as Werebear, Lotus Cobra, or any of the conditional add 2's like Devoted Druid or Whisperer of the Wilds. In the situation described above where you draw a ton of cards and are faced with having to discard down, you definitely won't play a 2cmc creature or a 3cmc ramp, but you probably will play a 2cmc spell that costs a net 1 by refunding one mana untapped. And enough of the time of course, players opt for things that don't die to wipes. But mainly it's being good late out of a massive hand. The deck is built to be able to somewhat weather not making a mana-count higher than 5, but then being able to massively build up via cards like Exploration, these 2 mana ramp spells, cheating out Seedguide Ash and so on, once a massive draw spell does connect. The Monolith, Vault etc along with the ramp package I included are supposed to help out with that. Three Visits is better than Explore, but I'm not going to pay for it. Ramp is just ramp at the end of the day though, so whatever is done for that is probably not wrong by any means.
This opened my eyes up so much to considering other seemingly less effective spells in EDH. I have a lot of reassessment to do!
Well first off, I think of the card draw as divided between the low-volume unconditional and the conditional high-volume. And my opinion is that you should have only the amount of the high-volume stuff that you need so that one chains together with the next one, and then the rest should be enough low-volume to access the higher volume. For me, that number is 4-5 in the deck. I'm currently somewhat low at 4, so there's that.
Prowess specifically starts to make more sense though when you look one by one at the conditions for the conditional, high-volume draw - Xenagos, a big creature on board, opponent with no removal. Prowess, Greater Good and Insight are all susceptible to getting your creature killed, so that's one mark against them. Unfortunately, basically everything other than Mementous and Life's Legacy hurt there, so adding more cards doesn't help. Both Insight and Prowess might be ok, though. But mainly, the reason I go Prowess over Insight is that Prowess doesn't require a creature that's in the huge range in order to be used.
Specifically, I want to be able to deal with a situation where I'm on 5 mana, ran out of land, have no method to cheat something into play, and don't have anything I can hardcast. You'll notice also that I've got a lot of creatures at 5 rather than 6 and up, just for that reason. But if what I've got is a Yavimaya Dryad, and that's it, a draw 4 for 3 mana in Inisight is alright, but it's not going to set up the rest of the game for me. I'm now also down one mass draw effect from the deck. Prowess makes it a draw 10 or a draw 8 used with the smaller section of my creature set, which is at the least much more likely to get me to the next mass draw effect or a top of library effect I can use to get there. That's the advantage of Prowess. Greater Good is never dead in hand, Life's Legacy is cheap enough to be used together with a theft effect or Heat Shimmer, and Momentous Fall is a must-run despite it getting stuck in the hand sometimes also. Insight is low on the pecking order, in my mind, because it's similarly easy to get it stuck in your hand. But, I would run it before Garruk or Soul's Majesty, in whose place I would probably run Knollspine or Dragon Mage instead, or just Wheel. Right now I'm trying out Elemental Bond, seems ok so far.
Fair enough! I do like Prowess and have used it previous just as a card draw spell, but the ceiling for it in this deck especially when factoring in the small utility creatures early game is higher than I had initially thought. I can see why Heat Shimmer is good in the deck, but I think I prefer your Flamerush Rider as it is a creature and thus has a bit more synergy with the deck. It is also more easily recurrable, though more expensive.
It will vary depending on your mulligan rules. On cocka, I am using mostly PP, one free. I'd rarely run more than 35 under those rules, although I always look at the cards I can use at 3cmc or less that dig at least 3 deep, cycle for a land, or allow me to re-use land, and the goal is to always get to at least 40 total. On Modo where it's only one free big-deck mulligan, I'm taking out something like Heat Shimmer, Weatherseed or Wargear for 2 more land. Anyone who wants to take the deck into less forgiving mulligan rules should probably start their cuts there.
All said and done though, this deck will draw closer on the side of 4 land in 12 cards than it will toward the 5 count. Hopefully you either see more cards than 12 by Turn 5 or you hit at least one ramp spell. But, that's just how Magic goes. No one runs much more than 38 land in 99 anyway, and the average number of land in 12 cards there is still about 4 1/2. Not much you can do about running bad. What's important is that you have a plan for something to do on 4-5 mana. Cheating cards into play (somewhat) hedges against situations where you get an average or below average number of land but don't get any multiple-mana gaining spells to go past that. If the plan is to make hardcasts at 7 mana, then a deck will want much more ramp and draw than I have here. I'm probably giving a bunch of information you already know, just EDH deckbuilding of wanting to cast more expensive stuff than an opening hand will usually let you. I just find that even having 38-40 land won't save you, and you can guarantee at least 3 land in your opener most of the time with PP, so it matters whether what's in your deck helps you reach the mana you need.
Then the low land count makes perfect sense to me. Since I run more creatures with a higher CMC and no real way to dance around that, more lands are required for them to make plays. Your deck manipulation and ways to cheat around CMC allow you to run less lands. Less lands isn't my style, but again it makes sense.
Speaking of lands and manipulation, what are your thoughts on something like Abundance? I've been eyeing it and, since I don't have access to SDT or Sylvan Library, was wondering if it would be a good addtion to the deck. For my purposes, it gets around potential Obliterates and makes it easier to recover post MLD if I don't have access to Life From the Loam. I believe it also triggers off of every card drawn, so spells like Momentous Fall turn into pure gas. Also since I run Borborygmos Enraged, it would be nice to have the chance to force a Lightning Bolt when needed.
One game recently reminded me why I run Pathrazer of Ulamog. The card in question, and the card that has ruined the game of many an aggressive player - Maze of Ith. Maybe it's because I really don't like playing against the card, but I always run a plan for Maze in all my aggro decks. Siege Behemoth is new for me, and it does the trick, but before then it was the Annihilator plan. If you can't connect with an attack, you can just punish their board state enough that they're out of the game anyway.
Quote from tooWhite2ball »
Speaking of lands and manipulation, what are your thoughts on something like Abundance? I've been eyeing it and, since I don't have access to SDT or Sylvan Library, was wondering if it would be a good addtion to the deck. For my purposes, it gets around potential Obliterates and makes it easier to recover post MLD if I don't have access to Life From the Loam. I believe it also triggers off of every card drawn, so spells like Momentous Fall turn into pure gas. Also since I run Borborygmos Enraged, it would be nice to have the chance to force a Lightning Bolt when needed.
Abundance is a card to try, for sure, if your meta has a lot of MLD and you don't have access to better options. Honestly, MLD and Artifact Stax decks tend to really punish this style of deck, in the abstract. I mean, I see it can't be said that Abundance is better than any of those others listed, and I've always had access to those, so I have not tried it. The problem, of course, is that you want both land and action cards most of the time, unless you're in a really slow area and play until everyone is saturated with mana. Going down a card for the effect is also going to hurt.
Quote from tooWhite2ball »
I had not considered that factor. It also works well early game as you had stated below, enabling early use of draw spells instead of waiting to use them late game. A great choice, do you have any recommendations for similar creatures like it aside from the caterpillar that can also get in for some minor beats/draw?
If you want draw, Ohran Viper is one of Green's great cards, but it's pretty hard to find one.
You might get Burnished Hart or Dawntreader Elk big enough to merit worry, and they replace themselves. Caustic Wasps is one of my favorites, but no real pressure.
I also like Molder Slug as a similar style card for this style of deck, better than Indrik Stomphowler or Acidic Slime most of the time.
Of course, Hellkite Tyrant is a card most people run in Xenagos, but doesn't exactly qualify as "early" pressure. Vithian Renegades - usually the extra power isn't worth the tradeoff compared with Reclamation Sage hitting enchantments, but it can be worth it. Viridian Corrupter - More useful in a build with Rancor, Inkmoth Nexus and a lot more buffs than this one, but is probably the best in this slot for demanding removal. Tin Street Hooligan - Always fairly solid while in color, and saving the mana is great. Torch Fiend and his clone Reckless Reveler are cards I've played before in the format with a sort of rattlesnake effect, but they're usually not too superb unless you are running both recursion and buffs.
I just realized that all those I named are artifact-only. Probably just me playing against decks online that all mostly have digi-proxies of Mana Crypt, and rarely stuff like Humility. I think problem Artifacts in this format probably outnumber Enchantments by something like 5 to 1 though, so it could be a thing to do to put 1-2 enchantment kills in here, then the rest of what you run, if anything, being artifact only. Honestly though, decks that make tons of mana artifacts early in the game are often such a poor matchups for stompy decks like this that I've sort of just decided in my build that I need to play innocent in that spot and let some other deck at the table do the police work. My only remaining worry is stuff like Sphere of Safety and Grafdigger's Cage on the seldom occaisions where they do get run. Putting in more kill would have the deck pursuing a different goal.
Not sure if it has been mentioned, but Vicious Shadows seems like a solid card with all the sacrificing, tokens, and reanimation you have going on. In my meta this card destroys due to the large amount of control players that like to maintain a full hand.
Not sure if it has been mentioned, but Vicious Shadows seems like a solid card with all the sacrificing, tokens, and reanimation you have going on. In my meta this card destroys due to the large amount of control players that like to maintain a full hand.
Yeah, the good old V-Shad is probably Red's most robust answer to durdle in EDH. It's hard to say it's wrong anywhere. One similar card that was in the list a while before it got cut was Stalking Vengeance. The key is cheatability. The reason it got the axe is because it's not always that this deck will get multiple 7-drops into play. I'm thinking it would be even rarer to be able to cast a 7-cmc enchantment behind a bunch of creatures, so there are stronger places for V-Shad. Never a bad card, though.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I have been playing versions of Xenagos since more or less the time he was released, and what surprised me and I think a lot of players is how difficult he is to get right. When other decks are playing out their 5+ mana Generals and attacking with the Generals themselves, it can be a bit awkward to invest that amount of mana only to parley an effect into a later play. What I think most Xenagos players will tell you is that he can often draw a hand that's too light on threats, get blown off a decent hand by one piece of spot removal, and even be slow to close out a game when one of your battlship threats does go unresolved. Still, there's something very Timmy and compelling about Xenagos. If only these issues could be dealt with...
Time to bring out the really big guns. The biggest creatures in the entire game. The most cheaty-face, unfair, how does this even exist kind of cards. Bring your imagination, and your wallet. Here's the list:
1x Xenagos, God of Revels
Creatures (27)
1x Joraga Treespeaker
1x Feldon of the Third Path
1x Yavimaya Elder
1x Yavimaya Dryad
1x Eternal Witness
1x Elvish Piper
1x Oracle of Mul Daya
1x Wickerbough Elder
1x Flamerush Rider
1x Weatherseed Treefolk
1x Vorapede
1x Hoarding Dragon
1x Seedguide Ash
1x Genesis
1x Zealous Conscripts
1x Rapacious One
1x Savage Ventmaw
1x Godo, Bandit Warlord
1x Deadwood Treefolk
1x Balefire Dragon
1x Siege Behemoth
1x Giant Adephage
1x Moldgraf Monstrosity
1x Akroma, Angel of Fury
1x Dragon Tyrant
1x Worldspine Wurm
1x Pathrazer of Ulamog
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Vault
1x Strionic Resonator
1x Scroll Rack
1x Grim Monolith
1x Mimic Vat
1x Sword of Light and Shadow
1x Grafted Wargear
1x Deathrender
1x Birthing Pod
1x Helm of Possession
Enchantment (9)
1x Exploration
1x Sylvan Library
1x Evolutionary Leap
1x Aggravated Assault
1x Elemental Bond
1x Sneak Attack
1x Pattern of Rebirth
1x Flameshadow Conjuring
1x Greater Good
Instant (4)
1x Nature's Claim
1x Momentous Fall
1x Grab the Reins
1x Act of Aggression
1x Green Sun's Zenith
1x Life From the Loam
1x Explore
1x Nature's Lore
1x Life's Legacy
1x Heat Shimmer
1x Rupture
1x Unwilling Recruit
1x Natural Order
1x Seize the Day
1x World At War
1x Hunter's Prowess
1x Chandra's Ignition
Land (34)
34x As Desired
Now by role
1x Weatherseed Treefolk
1x Vorapede
1x Hoarding Dragon
1x Rapacious One
1x Savage Ventmaw
1x Godo, Bandit Warlord
1x Balefire Dragon
1x Seige Behemoth
1x Giant Adephage
1x Moldgraf Monstrosity
1x Akroma, Angel of Fury
1x Dragon Tyrant
1x Worldspine Wurm
1x Pathrazer of Ulamog
Cheat (7)
1x Mimic Vat
1x Feldon of the Third Path
1x Deathrender
1x Elvish Piper
1x Sneak Attack
1x Pattern of Rebirth
1x Natural Order
Because Once Isn't Enough (7)
1x Heat Shimmer
1x Flameshadow Conjuring
1x Flamerush Rider
1x Strionic Resonator
1x Aggravated Assault
1x Seize the Day
1x World At War
1x Evolutionary Leap
1x Life's Legacy
1x Grafted Wargear
1x Rupture
1x Birthing Pod
1x Helm of Possession
1x Greater Good
1x Momentous Fall
Recursion (4)
1x Sword of Light and Shadow
1x Eternal Witness
1x Genesis
1x Deadwood Treefolk
Stealing and Killing (7)
1x Nature's Claim
1x Wickerbough Elder
1x Unwilling Recruit
1x Grab the Reins
1x Zealous Conscripts
1x Act of Aggression
1x Chandra's Ignition
Good 'ol Draw (7)
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Scroll Rack
1x Sylvan Library
1x Life From the Loam
1x Yavimaya Elder
1x Elemental Bond
1x Hunter's Prowess
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Vault
1x Joraga Treespeaker
1x Exploration
1x Green Sun's Zenith
1x Grim Monolith
1x Explore
1x Nature's Lore
1x Yavimaya Dryad
1x Oracle of Mul Daya
1x Seedguide Ash
Land (34)
34x As Desired
As a little bit of explanation, let me go over what I believe to be the common pitfalls of a Xenagos deck, and then explain a little about how my build aims to address them.
1) Not Drawing Enough Threats
If you look at most aggressive decks in this format, most of them are "voltron" decks that plan to attack primarily with the general, such as Rafiq of the Many. A large portion of the rest are "swarm" decks, which usually use a general like Márton Stromgald or Ezuri, Renegade Leader to buff a large quantity of creatures. These are two proven strategies in Commander. They look different, but what they have in common is that all of the pieces other than the General have added value and are virtually interchangable. For example, it usually doens't matter much what equipment is on your General in a voltron deck, because they mostly end up working the same. Likewise, in a swarm deck anything that adds a body or bodies to the board ends up getting a buff, these small things are cheap and end up doing other good things for you. Redundancy is the bread and butter of any aggressive deck, and these strategies are very good at achieving it due to how they work.
Xenagos is very different. His touchpoint is a really big, fat creature. And Magic just isn't designed to be able to support a high density of expensive creautres. You only get 7 cards in an openining hand, one mana card usually only produces one mana. So when you're looking at cards that need about twice the amount of mana you start with in an opening hand, you're limited in how many you can put into your deck. A Xenagos deck needs to break the rules.
This build runs cards that cheat creatures into play without casting them. With that backbone, it can run 17 (or more) creatures that cost more than 5 mana. Xenagos can't work without that, so the deck has to work with that. Cards like Sneak Attack turn that weakness into a strength, and Deathrender or Elvish Piper do a fairly decent impression of that card when Xenagos is providing Haste. Natural Order is also a card that has been wrecking Magic games since its printing, and here it's a 4 mana copy of the most powerful creature in the deck - Worldspine Wurm. Pattern of Rebirth is like NO number two, only less notorious because it's not played in 60card 1v1. Worst case, mana producers like Savage Ventmaw will usually get you up to a mana count where ridiculous looking cards look less ridiculous.
It's also a strict necessity to smooth out your draws when you're this top-heavy. To make sure you get more of what you need and less of what you don't, the library manipulation cards such as Sensei's Divining Top, Scroll Rack and Sylvan Library are essential to the deck. They're not just there for optimization or luxury, they're needed to make sure that you don't get screwed with a clunky hand by a deck that would otherwise be too prone to giving you one.
2) Dies to Removal
Interaction coming from three players at once is a big hurdle for any deck that tries to step out and be the aggressor. Going back to the Swarm and Voltron archetypes, those proven Commander strategies deal with potential interaction through redundancy. First, they're able to claim the huge advantage of being able to re-cast the General, such that they're never truly out of gas. Xenagos isn't so lucky. Second, they then make sure that the pieces of the setup add some sort of secondary value, which ends up being something that most "fair" EDH decks aim for at some level or another. Looking at that though, it's not enough most of the time. Getting a play you spent a lot of mana on killed by another player is a huge tempo loss, and trading tempo for value still loses tempo. And so another thing that aggressive decks do is iron out the game plan until it's only weak to maybe one or two types of interaction, then they build the rest of the deck to hedge against or defeat that kind of interaction.
Xenagos is very different from that because the deck's redundancy is in its buff, not its offensive piece. So the result is that the threat varies drastically in nature and quality, depending on what you draw. For example, a Silvos, Rogue Elemental is best handled by removal, a Gaea's Revenge is best handled by a chump blocker, and a Siege Behemoth might only be answered by a wipe. This deck and most Xenagos decks are built with the principle that they will be able to only to make one attack with a threat, and so they will forego any countermeasures to Sorcery speed wipes and just make sure they can't be interacted with on the player's own turn, either by removal or chump blocking. Compounded with the above issue of threat density though, if you now plan on having most of the stuff you play killed, after you've taken the time to draw it, you're now hurt severely on both card quality and tempo when you're interacted with.
This deck's solution to that is through sacrifice and recursion. If you get back the threat that was killed by spending just a bit of mana, such as Mimic Vat, then the tempo and card loss isn't as severe. You will eventually run the table out of interaction unless it deals with your engine pieces. And to make sure you can keep going thereafter, there are a lot of ways to turn your creatures into cards and redeploy. In an absolute perfect world, the setup is something like Sneak Attack, Genesis, and Helm of Possession, which has you attacking and interacting at relatively low mana requirements, regardless of creature removal. Along with that is a set of big creatures that all have evasion, some of whom also having Hexproof or Protection, and then the cheaty tutors like Pattern of Rebirth make sure that you can get the threat best tailored for the situation.
3) Closing out Games
One problem that might come as a surprise to those who haven't played Xenagos is that it's still not the quickest deck among aggressive decks. In Commander, there is an inbuilt damage multiplier in the Commander damage rule, and foregoing that multiplier has a huge effect on the potential speed of a deck. Swarm decks tend to deal with it well because mass pump cards are among the best multipliers in the game, and unlike even Voltron decks, they can then divide their attacks among opponents in a way that can kill multiple players per turn. A Xenagos deck sort of struggles from the worst aspects of each strategy. It has one attack by nature, and still has to do 40 or more damage to each player rather than 21. This problem actually becomes two-sided. For one, you're trying to win as fast as you can through these obstacles. Second though, since now you're somewhat slower, you start to drop games to decks that got there before you did, and so you need to somehow find space for more interaction.
First, the only way of dealing with the speed problem is to barrel through it with as much force as you can possibly get. Most Xenagos decks will use all the additional multiplers that they can. Chaining together two copies of a multiplier like Scourge of the Throne into something as small as a 5/5 can get you to the 40 damage threshhold. Where Xenagos often falls short though relative to Voltron and Swarm is efficiency. Using a couple one-shot multiplers with a 5-power creature can have you out of cards. This deck leans heavily toward those multipliers that are repeatable, such as Flamerush Rider, Strionic Resonator and Seize the Day. With them, you can make the same lethal attack next turn against the next opponent in line, all with the same material. Still though, starting too small means you're multiplying by a small number once you get those, and so you need a really, really big creature to hit the ideal threshhold.
An alternative to the efficency problem then that's sometimes explored is starting off with a really, really big creature that doesn't need as much material for a one-shot, such as Malignus. The problem then becomes getting the needed evasion for the job, which then has you out one more card even if you can find it. This deck makes no compromises. About the most compact kill I've found is Worldspine Wurm. Like other heavy hitters, it typically needs only the single Xenagos trigger, but it has Trample. Then after it's sacrificed, the Wurms can finish off the remaining points of life among the table. You have to cheat to get it into play, but it's something this deck is capable of game after game. Given that setup, Dragon Tyrant has the same potential to reach damage counts into the 30's by itself, after you invest a few mana into the Firebreathing ability. And while you're cheating, might as well Annihilate your opponents with your attacks to make it a little more difficult for them to stop you. Pathrazer of Ulamog is the single Eldrazi with evasion and makes sure you're adding insult to injury, not just doing insult.
4) Faster than the Guy Next to You
The secondary concern when it comes to closing out games efficiently is with interaction. Aggressive decks have the most difficulty interacting with opponents because it's not how they win. They're also the most likely to be targeted and the least likely to be helped out. I should start off by saying that most of the decks presenting must-handle threats are fellow aggressive decks. Sometimes you will play against a Combo deck that's quicker than you, and for that you'll need an Instant speed answer, but you will hopefully get the help of the table. Where you're really on your own though is against another aggro deck. So myself, and a few other Xenagos players I've noticed, seem to have concluded that interacting with creatures is the best way to interact. So with Xenagos sitting in front of you, unless you're the one killing, you're going to be the one who gets killed. You'll need to interact without watering down the deck. What if you could interact and be aggressive at the same time?
Well, cards like Unwilling Recruit and Helm of Possession do exactly that. What helps you to run them to good effect are all the sacrifice cards in the deck, without which a card like Act of Aggression just isn't close enough to "kill target creature" to make the cut. But with them now in the deck, it's astonishingly easy to kill someone with their own General by using an Unwilling Recruit. A classic, 6-power Elder Dragon one-shots its controller with an 8 mana cast, and generals like Rafiq of the Many and Aurelia, the Warleader are even cheaper to steal. Basically by stealing and threatening, you're able to use the hidden, inbuilt damage multipler of EDH, general damage, in a deck where you otherwise wouldn't. Not every voltron strategy is susceptible to it, but I find that most all of those using control, timing or some kind of resilience to protect themsleves usually end up slower than this build because of it. You know who to kill first when someone reveals a general like Bruna, Light of Alabaster, Sigarda, Host of Herons, or Zur, the Enchanter, and some of those tend to be disliked strongly enough for the rest of the table to leave you alone as you do the honors.
That's it for my Xenagos build. I plan on adding card by card and matchup analysis later.
Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
Omnivore was the one to get the cut because the politics were just too bad. I mean, the alternative of one-shotting a single player isn't the best political move either, but at least the table is missing what was probably the most threatening player. So in this deck, if it's not something I want to tutor for, cheat out, copy, or recur, then it's something that could probably be something else.
Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
On Sarkhan Vol, I am aware of it but I have never played it because it was so low on the depth chart. I don't value the Haste ability in Xenagos, and I don't see him ever living longer than a turn. I value Traitorous Blood and Traitorous Instinct higher than him, and they are also on the bench right now.
I still need to make room for a recursion package. I'm currently running more draw.
My group is extremely adaptive and literally playing Rout over Wrath of God because of this deck. I'm testing the "more extra combats" route and without the Sneak Attack and Natural Order, but I will test Nature's Will. I will also test a Mimic Vat and Feldon, as they will require my opponents to deal with the card without committing any more cards. Hitting draw has no longer been an issue with my version. However, I've been getting unlucky with drawing threats, but only when I play it. Not when others do.
Also will test Flameshadow Conjuring. Paying a single extra red for more damage or less board commitment is a very fair deal. I leave the fatty and attack with the token.
No one plays voltron in my group because the same adaptations that are tooled for me can be tooled against them.
I wanted to cut Chord of Calling for a while now. Now I have the excuse. Cutting Chain Reaction too.
There are very few other *good* aggro decks in my meta. They like durdling, which means I'm generally enemy #1 until someone is far ahead and they WANT me to force a kill in. Today, everyone has had the right answers all the time. Sometimes I can force a late-game kill on almost everyone. I'll be cutting the 5 mana wheel for recursion.
In any case, you have addressed the overall problems with building Xenagos perfectly. I'm going a slight different route than you, which has its own separate problems. Instead of having more uncastables it has slightly more dead draws. I'm playing enchantments that stop interaction, which has actually been working to an extent. Dense Foliage has killed people who had removal but can't use it on the one thing gunning for their whole life total.
The deck is always going to have problems, but you can't deny that it isn't fun.
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.
Godo, Bandit Warlord - You've mentioned a couple of times that adding Godo may not be worth an inclusion without also devoting deck slots to SoLaS, but I think including other options such as Mage Slayer and Horned Helm, and some cute stuff like Hot Soup or Hedron Matrix, might be fun and effective as well. In my initial read through, of course I overlooked the best part about Godo in getting in that extra combat phase. Other cards that grant vigilance like Sword of Vengeance or Batterskull should also be considered so you don't have to go all in with Godo. Nim Deathmantle may be something you want to consider as well if you're looking for extra recursion.
Moldgraf Monstrosity – This card just never really worked for me in the past in sacrifice based green decks, but I'm willing to give it another shot. The potential here is pretty real, especially getting another shot at Pathrazer of Ulamog and other beaters. Speaking of which...
Pathrazer of Ulamog – A worthy inclusion in Xenagod. It is often overlooked by it's mythic brethren, in fact I forgot this card even existed. Annihilator 3 and a force-3 block, and also not granting any devotion, makes this guy look like an all star in your deck.
Rupture – Wish it was instant, but this thing is awesome! I'm definitely going to look for one as I'm a huge fan of Fling and other spells like it. My build is slowly becoming more explosive with cards like this (though I have yet to update it), and this thing looks like a real gem.
Things I'm unsure of:
Wickerbough Elder – Is there any particular reason you are running this instead of things like Hull Breach, Krosan Grip, and Ancient Grudge? I feel they, especially the instant options, may prove useful more often than the tree. Without seeing how the deck plays out, however, I might be missing something.
Explore – I see this pop up in more and more lists. I don't really see the power of this card in EDH, I'd be more inclined to use Kodama's Reach for ramp or Harmonize for the draw. For landfall interactions, sure, but I think this slot could be put to better use.
Hunter's Prowess – This is a good card, effectively granting +6+6 and trample and potentially ending with the pilot getting a full grip. There's also it's smaller version Hunter's Insight. I prefer the instant version, mostly because it is cheaper and also works against planeswalkers which my meta uses frequently. This doesn't really need to be in this category, but I would like your opinion on the two.
34 Lands – Yikes! Perhaps its just a standard building practice of mine, but I normally run decks with at least 37 lands; even ones that include green. You do have ways of filtering out unwanted cards and dropping more than one land a turn, but with so few (imho) do you find yourself starved or screwed often?
Congratulations for being ahead on me with the evolution of this deck. I'll be sure to give you credit when I feel satisfied with the list.
It goes to show that this deck is no exception when it comes to my rule of multiplayer deckbuilding to generally want engines. I was looking purely on the side of drawing cards, but having engines to go along with that is better.
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 one thing that I wanted in here other than what I've got is Loxodon Warhammer. I had a few games with it against decks like Nekusar that I remember quite fondly. And lifelink just seems to show up really often as the difference between a win and a loss. Connecting once with it and Godo makes a huge difference, since with it Godo does 12 and 24 damage with his own extra attack. That usually will drop a player, as always, but then it also solidifies you against the counterattack. Since I decided to drop Time of Need I have worked in Miren, the Moaning Well in its place. And also because what I most often grab with Godo is Deathrender in this build, I started leaning on other ways to gain massive life.
Generally speaking, you can certainly go more equipment heavy than this, if that works. Some of these cards would put you in that direction. Mainly, it depends both on how long equipment tend to stay around in the group you play with and what kind of decks you are facing. Me personally, there was a while where I saw more artifact-enchantment removal and wipes than creature kill. Also against a certain field, you can certainly try a Xenagos deck with only things such as Caustic Wasps, Goblin Vandal and Wood Elves to carry buffs, such as equipment and Rancor. It's less mana intensive, and probably better against the Mana Crypt-based aggro and stax decks of this format. I played a Kresh deck for a while that was like that. But, it can end up being slow going against "fair" decks unless you or somebody else at the table is destroying some lands.
Nim Deathmantle is something I have tried out, and that was an all-star in the Kresh deck similar to this. But for this build, I think it would have to be between this and something like Mimic Vat or Genesis. This deck just seems like it wouldn't be able to leave 4 open very often on the first attack, and the second attack is a little hard to come by after that. It would be awesome with Sneak Attack, but Pattern, Natural Order, and hardcasting will all have you tapping out.
Just make sure you don't kill yourself with it, lol. That can actually happen quite a bit, depending on the kind of decks you face, and so it wouldn't be wrong to opt for something else instead such as Blasphemous Act. I have personally closed out players a few times with this card though, since a lot of the time an attack in the 20-30 range leaves opponents with a bit of remaining life. It also shows up here becuase I want as many ways to sacrifice a stolen creature as I can get in the list.
Pretty much does what it advertises, nothing more. I wanted at least one creature-based option in the deck to kill stuff for purposes of recursion, and this one gets the edge for me over things like Caustic Caterpillar and Reclamation Sage that others may be running because of a few conditions. I wanted it to get around Torpor Orb, not sacrifice itself, be as flexible as possible so I could play it out on curve with no target, and preferrably be as large as possible to prompt removal on it. It got the edge over Caustic Wasps because of its size. Those conditions I named might not be as imporant everywhere, though, so I can see running something else. I definitely would run at least one creature of this sort, though.
Also, the single Nature's Claim I consider very important. Of course, a ton of creature-hating artifacts and enchantments exist, and so the deck needs at least one non-creature out to them. What this deck can usually continue to do with them down though is draw massive quantities of cards through Life's Legacy effects. In those situations, your hand will get full enough that you want to unload spells as cheaply as possible, so the 1cmc really makes a difference. I strongly prefer Instant speed for flexibility, also.
Well first, ramp at 2 mana is premium in this deck, which makes sense in terms of curve, but also just runs well by test. You want to be able to do something else with a Turn 3 and 4 other than ramp, such as Sneak Attack, Mimic Vat, and so on. Playing Xenagos into an otherwise empty field as your first business spell of the game should be avoided as much as possible, but it's something I see all the time from Xenagos players online and on VOD's. Playing a card with no immediate impact just seems like a cardinal "don't" of Magic. And Xenagos is so much better with immediate impact.
So now given that decision to operate at 2 mana, I think the choice is between those spells that bring a mana source into play untapped (Explore, Nature's Lore and Three Visits) or creatures at 2 mana with some sort of value-add, such as Werebear, Lotus Cobra, or any of the conditional add 2's like Devoted Druid or Whisperer of the Wilds. In the situation described above where you draw a ton of cards and are faced with having to discard down, you definitely won't play a 2cmc creature or a 3cmc ramp, but you probably will play a 2cmc spell that costs a net 1 by refunding one mana untapped. And enough of the time of course, players opt for things that don't die to wipes. But mainly it's being good late out of a massive hand. The deck is built to be able to somewhat weather not making a mana-count higher than 5, but then being able to massively build up via cards like Exploration, these 2 mana ramp spells, cheating out Seedguide Ash and so on, once a massive draw spell does connect. The Monolith, Vault etc along with the ramp package I included are supposed to help out with that. Three Visits is better than Explore, but I'm not going to pay for it. Ramp is just ramp at the end of the day though, so whatever is done for that is probably not wrong by any means.
Well first off, I think of the card draw as divided between the low-volume unconditional and the conditional high-volume. And my opinion is that you should have only the amount of the high-volume stuff that you need so that one chains together with the next one, and then the rest should be enough low-volume to access the higher volume. For me, that number is 4-5 in the deck. I'm currently somewhat low at 4, so there's that.
Prowess specifically starts to make more sense though when you look one by one at the conditions for the conditional, high-volume draw - Xenagos, a big creature on board, opponent with no removal. Prowess, Greater Good and Insight are all susceptible to getting your creature killed, so that's one mark against them. Unfortunately, basically everything other than Mementous and Life's Legacy hurt there, so adding more cards doesn't help. Both Insight and Prowess might be ok, though. But mainly, the reason I go Prowess over Insight is that Prowess doesn't require a creature that's in the huge range in order to be used.
Specifically, I want to be able to deal with a situation where I'm on 5 mana, ran out of land, have no method to cheat something into play, and don't have anything I can hardcast. You'll notice also that I've got a lot of creatures at 5 rather than 6 and up, just for that reason. But if what I've got is a Yavimaya Dryad, and that's it, a draw 4 for 3 mana in Inisight is alright, but it's not going to set up the rest of the game for me. I'm now also down one mass draw effect from the deck. Prowess makes it a draw 10 or a draw 8 used with the smaller section of my creature set, which is at the least much more likely to get me to the next mass draw effect or a top of library effect I can use to get there. That's the advantage of Prowess. Greater Good is never dead in hand, Life's Legacy is cheap enough to be used together with a theft effect or Heat Shimmer, and Momentous Fall is a must-run despite it getting stuck in the hand sometimes also. Insight is low on the pecking order, in my mind, because it's similarly easy to get it stuck in your hand. But, I would run it before Garruk or Soul's Majesty, in whose place I would probably run Knollspine or Dragon Mage instead, or just Wheel. Right now I'm trying out Elemental Bond, seems ok so far.
It will vary depending on your mulligan rules. On cocka, I am using mostly PP, one free. I'd rarely run more than 35 under those rules, although I always look at the cards I can use at 3cmc or less that dig at least 3 deep, cycle for a land, or allow me to re-use land, and the goal is to always get to at least 40 total. On Modo where it's only one free big-deck mulligan, I'm taking out something like Heat Shimmer, Weatherseed or Wargear for 2 more land. Anyone who wants to take the deck into less forgiving mulligan rules should probably start their cuts there.
All said and done though, this deck will draw closer on the side of 4 land in 12 cards than it will toward the 5 count. Hopefully you either see more cards than 12 by Turn 5 or you hit at least one ramp spell. But, that's just how Magic goes. No one runs much more than 38 land in 99 anyway, and the average number of land in 12 cards there is still about 4 1/2. Not much you can do about running bad. What's important is that you have a plan for something to do on 4-5 mana. Cheating cards into play (somewhat) hedges against situations where you get an average or below average number of land but don't get any multiple-mana gaining spells to go past that. If the plan is to make hardcasts at 7 mana, then a deck will want much more ramp and draw than I have here. I'm probably giving a bunch of information you already know, just EDH deckbuilding of wanting to cast more expensive stuff than an opening hand will usually let you. I just find that even having 38-40 land won't save you, and you can guarantee at least 3 land in your opener most of the time with PP, so it matters whether what's in your deck helps you reach the mana you need.
You don't need to go that big with Xenagos. You can drastically lower the curve by playing cards like Wilderness Elemental, Malignus or perhaps Chameleon Colossus and similar lower mana cards. Main exceptions are Atarka, World Render and Panglacial Wurm. I was struggling at first but got much more consistent by lowering the curve drastically and knocking other players out of the game a lot sooner.
As for the draw, the conditional nature of it sucks, but my build doesn't really have Wickerbough Elders or 5/5 tokens to pump with Hunter's Prowess. I don't like it or insight (the sac ones are good), but we need ENOUGH of the effects to see at least one.
I'm using crop rotation + ancient tomb as ramp that isn't dead mid to late game. Also testing Holistic Wisdom for ways of cycling dead ramp spells late-game. I'm probably cutting my three ramp as I add more engines to my version. As of this moment, I actually already swapped Krosan Grip for Nature's Claim and liked it much better. I kinda want to cut a Hull Breach for Deglamer.
Basically, I'm giving up aggression starting on turn 4 for more sustainable aggression starting turn 5. I'm basically doing the "curve cutting" that you propose and it works for me but it doesn't solve the problem the deck has. So I'm dialing it down a bit to make my plan more sustainable. I just have to make do without the expensive cheaty cards and the worldspine wurm + dragon tyrant package.
If you're playing a non-combo meta with few voltron decks like mine, then cards like City of Solitude are safer to run. In HIS meta, I would not run these cards. Even in my scenarios, sometimes there are times where you don't want to play these cards. One more reason I want to test Holistic Wisdom.
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.
Short version:
If you have Natural Order and Pattern of Rebirth in your deck, you want Worldspine Wurm.
If you get Sylvan Library and Sensei's Divining Top early game (optional Mirri's Guile), along with a Scroll Rack somewhere in your pile, you will often not draw a card you don't want to cast.
If you have Deathrender, Sneak Attack, and Elvish Piper in your deck, you will often be able to use a creature you can't cast.
And finally if you are throwing 3 cards to Greater Good, or also have other ways to overdraw in your deck, you will often be able to get rid of cards you don't want (then possibly use them with Feldon of the Third Path).
Of the dozens of games I've played with this deck, I've literally never paid full price for any of the three cards listed above.
Long Version: see original post
Agreed. It's also that it's not great early game. Wilderness, when good, is probably about at 6-7 power at the point of the game where you're casting Xenagos. And you're probably letting mana go unused at that point. That's not enough power to justify an otherwise vanilla body, even at that discount. And when bad, he's really bad.
I like that ramp idea, and also with Gruul Turf Crop Rotation at least cycles itself for a land in hand. Good idea for late game trample land.
I do like Dense Foliage in your build. There's a lot of interaction possible in the deck through abilities, which don't get turned off. But yeah, you don't always want to run out a card like City of Solitude that blanks a hero's game-saving counterspell.
I think Holistic Wisdom is really interesting. Probably works a lot like Tortured Existence.
Fair enough, but if you have all those great cards to cheat stuff into play why play Dragon Tyrant over Atarka, World Render? You likely won't be able to afford the quad red next turn anyways if you do cheat it into play early, nor will you have much spare red mana to pump it significantly. Or why not play Blightsteel Colossus instead of Pathrazer of Ulamog? Am I missing something here?
Both Wilderness Elemental and Chameleon Colossus are meta calls, but those were just examples. Could just go with Managorger Hydra, Kalonian Hydra, or Malignus for cost effective cheap-ish beaters instead.
Blightsteel Colossus might be just fine. I am a little down on running him though, for my own reasons, because I feel that basically any deck can cheat that one out for an OTK, nothing to do with Xenagos. Again though, I'm pretty certain by now that I wouldn't sub out Pathrazer for the free slot. Pathrazer can live in the graveyard, Wurm, Blightsteel and most other Eldrazi can't, and I want to have something a little better than Dragon Tyrant and Akroma that do that. Moldgraf Monstrosity triggers are a reality, and sometimes Genesis and SoLaS also hook up with Sneak Attack, Deathrender, and so on. If I see that kind of setup happening, Pathrazer is what I want. The threat of an annihilator trigger is important because it forces removal from the entire table, not just the person that gets attacked, and then you get an idea of what's in your way to set up the next pass. It's between It That Betrays and Pathrazer, I feel, and I lean toward Pathrazer due to his evasion.
On the topic of creatures in the 3-5 mana range, what I have are Weatherseed Treefolk, Genesis, Vorapede, Hoarding Dragon, Wickerbough Elder, Seedguide Ash and Zealous Conscripts. I'm aware that they don't hit as hard as other options like Malignus, Managorger, Kalonian, Savageborn Hydra, Putrefax, Deus of Calamity and so on. But, what I'm trying for in this slot are cards that embrace the removal. They're the kind of cards that you'd often want to sacrifice yourself even. I do think that it's important to run enough cast'able threats in the middle game in order to pressure and force removal, and so far this amount has been enough and each one has been big enough to prompt removal and wipes from the players left who don't have chump blocks. If I am flexible on my selections here, the two I'd throw out first would be Vorapede and Weatherseed Treefolk. Basically, they just replace themselves. If that doesn't sound like a good deal, that's probably where I'd put a card that has more one-shot potential.
The problem is that I am not as likely in any particular game to draw the cards that help me do my approach as you are for yours, so I'm probably going to lean towards a hybrid strategy to increase the chances of me drawing into an approach that can work. Flameshadow Conjuring has performed well enough to stay as a permanent addition. I've done both routes where I pump the card to get 50% damage and attack trigger benefits and where I pump the token so that I have the card to attack with next turn if the token gets answered. Doubling up on e-wit and friends is just a bonus.
Additionally, my method ideally won't even allow people to use their removal as fogs on lethal hits, but it comes with the downside of potentially protecting someone enacting a faster proactive strategy than mine.
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.
I completely understand your reasoning. Personally, in testing felt Dragon Tyrant to be either a more expensive Atarka, World Render, or a win-more. Both kill in 2. Both kill in 1 with another doubler in play. You'd need at least an additional 4 red mana to make Tyrant a 1 hit. Most of the time the two cards function close to identical, and with Atarka you have the option to hard cast, tutor it up with Natural Order, and keep it around for another turn if nobody kills it. If you go more heavy into red and can guarantee the extra 4 red for a 1 hit kill Tyrant might be better though.
The beauty of Blightsteel Colossus with Xenagos is that it gives it both haste and doubles. Yes, it's a one hit kill on an empty board in any deck, but in Xenagos he's a one hit kill versus anyone with less than 13 toughness on the board. Significant improvement.
I used to run both of those cards. They're fine, but they never excited me. They swing for 10, which is merely OK for a Xenagos deck. Other cards at that mana cost hit significantly harder, though won't have the build in survival. I stopped running them when more people started running exile cards over destroy cards (to deal with Gods and other indestructibles). But again a meta call.
One aspect of that, when Sneak Attack, Deathrender, or Pattern of Rebirth are used, you usually have most of your mana still untapped at that point. Also Feldon sometimes leaves a bit of Red leftover. If it were just tapping out for the Dragon, then getting a 24-point attack in, yeah Atarka would just be better basically all of the time then considering you wouldn't have mana on attack 1 after casting and you wouldn't have it on attack 2 either because of Tyrant's upkeep costs. When Atarka came out, he basically replaced Tryant for all purposes, except for the corner case of cheating something out.
Also on Natural Order, the thing about NO and Worldspine is that pretty much the only case where Wurm isn't the target is when it's in your hand (or it's gotten exiled). I remember maybe once or twice I got something with NO other than E-wit or Wurm. And I also do remember a bunch of games where Wurm came out 2-3 times.
Yeah I was going to say, between blanking removal and embracing it, you probably have to do a little of both. You might run the B/W player out of responses, but then Capsize is a card that exists, unfortunately for Xenagos decks everywhere. That's one of the main reasons that I have always run Akroma, and I think Siege Behemoth has deserved a permanent spot by now as well. You really can't beat evasion and untargetability in the same package, and it's great now that Behemoth is a GSZ/NO target where Akroma wasn't. I'd still run all the untargetable creatures with evasion that I could though, so let me know if you find any more.
On Flameshadow Conjuring, it's really been solid for me too as well. Even doubling up on utility creatures in the early game is great value, which was something no other card like this was doing before. I agree that spreading out attacks a little bit between multiple creatures is also really important. Removal can blank the creature receiving the Xenagos trigger, and in that spot your problem is basically solved by pressuring through that anyway. That's the main reason why Worldspine and Giant Adephage have been so solid for me in this build. Conjuring does basically the same thing with any non-legendary, no matter how it got into play.
One other card like that, have you tried out Flamerush Rider? I know it's more mana intensive than Conjuring and isn't as good against removal, but it was performing a similar role for me pretty solidly before Conjuring was printed, and he does allow you to copy a creature after the trigger resolves. I guess another option would be Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, but I have issues with running that guy.
It gets benefits off worldspine and adephage and combat triggers, so I can understand why you use it. It's next on my list once I finish evaluating the viability of running additional extra combats.
Lastly, I still believe there is a decent amount of merit to playing cards that blank removal, especially the tamer ones. Dense Foliage in particular is generally safe to play out if you don't expect heavy creature combos and has also won me games when people hinge too much on swords to plowshares over Grave Pact strategies. One thing I forgot to mention is that City of Solitude stops Prophet of Kruphix strategies cold until they get rid of it, so if you're up against Momir Vig, Simic Visionary and have no combo decks trying to race you, playing this out is a good way to not get overwhelmed by U/G goodstuff. At least they would need to tutor for a way to kill it.
Yeah. You can't even tap for mana on any opponent's turn while this thing is out. So Seedborn Muse also cries at this card.
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.
Loxodon Warhammer is a solid consideration, and I agree with you on the life gain aspect that needs to be factored in when piloting the deck. If people have preconceived notions of a general, no matter who it is, they will gun for you right off the bat until someone else becomes public enemy #1. Small burst amounts of life gain from cards like Warhammer and Momentous Fall are very appreciated when it comes to being counterattacked. I have considered Miren, the Moaning well and to a lesser extent Diamond Valley. How has it performed?
If the game ends in a draw because of a spell like this (I did this with Arcbond recently) and everyone ends up happy, then I consider it a win in my book. Bringing up lifegain again, those effects reduce the chances that I end up dead as well. So fortunately for me the danger this card presents is perk in my eyes. I have considered the addition of Blasphemous Act and readdition of Impact Resonance to better my chances of getting through and not being counterattacked. I'm leaning more toward BA as I have never once casted it for more than 3 mana. However I treat Arcbond and Fling effects as finishers. Sometimes a buffed creature won't finish off a player completely, and the addition of these spells means that sometimes I don't have to. I have found that it is also very likely (at my LGS) that someone will finish off said player before it comes back around to my turn.
I had not considered that factor. It also works well early game as you had stated below, enabling early use of draw spells instead of waiting to use them late game. A great choice, do you have any recommendations for similar creatures like it aside from the caterpillar that can also get in for some minor beats/draw?
This opened my eyes up so much to considering other seemingly less effective spells in EDH. I have a lot of reassessment to do!
Fair enough! I do like Prowess and have used it previous just as a card draw spell, but the ceiling for it in this deck especially when factoring in the small utility creatures early game is higher than I had initially thought. I can see why Heat Shimmer is good in the deck, but I think I prefer your Flamerush Rider as it is a creature and thus has a bit more synergy with the deck. It is also more easily recurrable, though more expensive.
Then the low land count makes perfect sense to me. Since I run more creatures with a higher CMC and no real way to dance around that, more lands are required for them to make plays. Your deck manipulation and ways to cheat around CMC allow you to run less lands. Less lands isn't my style, but again it makes sense.
Speaking of lands and manipulation, what are your thoughts on something like Abundance? I've been eyeing it and, since I don't have access to SDT or Sylvan Library, was wondering if it would be a good addtion to the deck. For my purposes, it gets around potential Obliterates and makes it easier to recover post MLD if I don't have access to Life From the Loam. I believe it also triggers off of every card drawn, so spells like Momentous Fall turn into pure gas. Also since I run Borborygmos Enraged, it would be nice to have the chance to force a Lightning Bolt when needed.
Abundance is a card to try, for sure, if your meta has a lot of MLD and you don't have access to better options. Honestly, MLD and Artifact Stax decks tend to really punish this style of deck, in the abstract. I mean, I see it can't be said that Abundance is better than any of those others listed, and I've always had access to those, so I have not tried it. The problem, of course, is that you want both land and action cards most of the time, unless you're in a really slow area and play until everyone is saturated with mana. Going down a card for the effect is also going to hurt.
If you want draw, Ohran Viper is one of Green's great cards, but it's pretty hard to find one.
You might get Burnished Hart or Dawntreader Elk big enough to merit worry, and they replace themselves.
Caustic Wasps is one of my favorites, but no real pressure.
I also like Molder Slug as a similar style card for this style of deck, better than Indrik Stomphowler or Acidic Slime most of the time.
Of course, Hellkite Tyrant is a card most people run in Xenagos, but doesn't exactly qualify as "early" pressure.
Vithian Renegades - usually the extra power isn't worth the tradeoff compared with Reclamation Sage hitting enchantments, but it can be worth it.
Viridian Corrupter - More useful in a build with Rancor, Inkmoth Nexus and a lot more buffs than this one, but is probably the best in this slot for demanding removal.
Tin Street Hooligan - Always fairly solid while in color, and saving the mana is great.
Torch Fiend and his clone Reckless Reveler are cards I've played before in the format with a sort of rattlesnake effect, but they're usually not too superb unless you are running both recursion and buffs.
I just realized that all those I named are artifact-only. Probably just me playing against decks online that all mostly have digi-proxies of Mana Crypt, and rarely stuff like Humility. I think problem Artifacts in this format probably outnumber Enchantments by something like 5 to 1 though, so it could be a thing to do to put 1-2 enchantment kills in here, then the rest of what you run, if anything, being artifact only. Honestly though, decks that make tons of mana artifacts early in the game are often such a poor matchups for stompy decks like this that I've sort of just decided in my build that I need to play innocent in that spot and let some other deck at the table do the police work. My only remaining worry is stuff like Sphere of Safety and Grafdigger's Cage on the seldom occaisions where they do get run. Putting in more kill would have the deck pursuing a different goal.
Yeah, the good old V-Shad is probably Red's most robust answer to durdle in EDH. It's hard to say it's wrong anywhere. One similar card that was in the list a while before it got cut was Stalking Vengeance. The key is cheatability. The reason it got the axe is because it's not always that this deck will get multiple 7-drops into play. I'm thinking it would be even rarer to be able to cast a 7-cmc enchantment behind a bunch of creatures, so there are stronger places for V-Shad. Never a bad card, though.