I'm slowly putting this deck together and wanted to make a suggestion. I took out mystic remora for top since my playgroup just waits until remora isn't paid for. Also do you think taking out underground river for morphic pool is a good life saving switch?
Well, hot damn, Lavinia, Azorius Renegade is absolutely broken for the cEDH scene. It single-handedly stops nearly every competitive Combo deck in this format as long as she's in play and she has a massively attractive mana cost as a build around Commander. This deck is going to have to adapt to this by possibly increasing the amount of removal being played maindeck and/or upping the land count. Thankfully, she doesn't stop our main Flash Hulk plan too badly but she DOES stop Isochron Scepter all by herself. Whew. What a great card for the cEDH scene.
Her first ability just hurts decks that cast big spells thanks to mana dorks and mana rocks but mana-based ramp will do just fine. That being said, she's an amazing hate bear.
I think you're 100% correct when evaluating the card from a more casual approach. I happily admit that there are many ways to play Commander, and I personally prefer playing more competitively. That being said, here's how I see the new Lavinia:
Lavinia's power is directly proportional to the type of decks your opponents are playing. For me and my playgroup, and the cEDH meta generally, mana rocks are king, especially the ones costing 2 and under. Lavinia causes mana rocks to be non-beneficial sources of mana advantage since she restricts your opponents' casting of spells to their land size. Check out my Memnarch and Teferi Primers. You see the relatively low land counts? More often than not, I only have 2-3 lands in play but a bunch of artifact mana that powers out MORE sources of mana advantage and card advantage. Very few of these effects WHEN I CAST THEM are ever proportional to the number of actual lands I have in play! Lavinia makes this type of mana advantage a liability for these types of decks since they no longer contribute directly to developing your board presence for the important non-creature spells that are played. There are too many playlines and gamestates to describe where the ability of my mana rocks to generate mana that can be used to cast non-creature spells ahead of their casting cost is absolutely crucial.
In my playgroup, it's very frequent that you'll see someone trying to jam a T1 Mana Rock into some sort of T2 non-creature spell (more often than not some sort of Wheel effect). This is almost 100% the consistent playline that I see and Lavinia stops that super effectively. Additionally, cEDH decks run a VERY low land count. This means that the non-creature spells that cost any more than 2+ mana have a real possibility of being unable to be cast with Lavinia in play. Hell, she even stops the earliest, most effective Wrath effect from going off UNTIL T3. If they even get to 3 actual lands in play in order to cast it. This is a very significant tempo loss for your opponents since they now HAVE to depend on land as their primary mana sources in order to unlock their spells.
Lavinia doesn't just shut down "large X spells" or Tooth and Nail type of cards. She causes legitimate tempo loss for optimized decks that run low land counts and the most powerful non-creature spells available. Ad Nauseam decks will NEVER get off the ground as long as Lavinia is in play until AT LEAST T5. Do you see how Lavinia shuts down any type of Dark Ritual effect? What about High Tide? Fast Combo decks that aren't Flash Hulk decks can no longer chain their spells together on time until they have the correct number of lands in play. Assuming they even hit their land drops every turn. Teferi Chain Veil decks now have to up their removal count because there's NO WAY that they can cast a T2 or T3 Teferi with Lavinia in play. Even Food Chain[/CARD} decks will stumble (not as signficantly as Storm or Teferi Chain Veil) because their most common line of play is T1 mana dork or tutor -> T2 double mana dork or tutor -> T3 Food Chain, often seeing rarely seeing their 3rd land since they depend on mana dorks to power out an early Food Chain line. Even Flash Hulk type of decks have to be careful since they can still possibly jam a T2 Flash but now have to be careful about what kind of protection they have for their combo. And her 2nd ability shuts down the new Arcum Dagsson decks that depend on different variants of Ornithopter in order to keep triggering Paradox Engine.
All of this discussion is relevant because Lavinia is a Legendary creature. That means she can be cast on T2 EVERY game and even on T1 with a MASSIVE degree of consistency. Because her effects are also ASYMMETRICAL, you don't disrupt your own combo lines at all. She's like a one-sided Gaddock Teeg.
So, to conclude my rant/explanation, Lavinia is significant and a very important card for the cEDH scene. For any other type of play, she's just a cool 2/2 Hate-Bear that enforces everyone to play fairly or depend on the inherently slower land-based ramp effects available.
I'm slowly putting this deck together and wanted to make a suggestion. I took out mystic remora for top since my playgroup just waits until remora isn't paid for. Also do you think taking out underground river for morphic pool is a good life saving switch?
Welcome to the thread, comrade! I'm glad that you're finding it useful as a template for your own Tasigur deck. That's the best kind of compliment I can receive!
Mystic Remora is a card that is definitely playgroup specific and I included it in the general Primer since it's usually broadly applicable for cEDH playgroups. More often than not, a general cEDH meta will include some number of Storm and Flash Hulk variants, both of which run high non-creature spell counts. Thus, the little-fish-that-could usually draws upwards of 3+ cards in a single turn cycle.
And if your opponents are playing around it and not casting any spells at all, then rejoice. You just bought yourself a significant amount of time to develop your own board state and/or card advantage.
That being said, Sensei's Divining Top is a great choice to replace the Remora. Being able to ensure consistent card quality from the Top 3 cards of your library is pretty awesome, especially in concert with fetch-lands and tutor effects. Top helps to hit consistent land drops, which is never a bad thing. Honestly, Sensei's Top is a generically good card that can go into any optimized cEDH list and never be an explicitly bad choice.
See? This is why I appreciate other people. I totally forget about the Morphic Pool cycle. Like, every time. This is a perfect swap and I'll be updating the Primer accordingly. There's no reason not to include the Pool since we're always playing with at least 3 people when we sit down with this deck.
Welcome to the forums, Mr. Coupon! I hope the Primer was useful to you!
To answer your question, there have been a few times where I've needed to be able to clone Phyrexian Delver in order to get another Combo piece into play with Phantasmal Image. I can't do that with Body Double. And the Flash Hulk chain has actually been updated to use Body Snatcher primarily.
Just finished buying all the cards for this should be playing soon. What do you do when combo pieces are in hand? Is there a way to get them back into your deck?
No, you simply change the Flash Hulk change by a single step.
As outlined in the Primer, if you have a combo piece in hand (Carrion Feeder or Mikaues, the Unhallowed primarily), you simply FLash Hulk for Body Snatcher and CArrion Feeder in the first round. Discard the stranded combo piece to your 'yard via the Snatcher's ETB trigger and then sac the Snatcher to the Feeder to get the Hulk back into play. Once the Hulk is back in play, sac it to the Feeder to find Phyrexian Delver and Walking Ballista. If the Feeder is in your hand and you don't have mana to cast it, I would simply wait a turn until you have mana to cast it. In fact, I've recently been toying with the idea of having BOTH the Feeder and Viscera Seer to ensure a bit of redundancy to the Chain. I've recently not been particularly impressed with Sidisi, as she's simply too slow to reliably cast each game.
EDIT: And in the desperate case that you have TWO combo pieces in hand with no way to get rid of them, you can update your first Flash Hulk step by including Phantasmal Image and Body Snatcher. Make the Image a copy of the Snatcher and you can now discard two combo pieces to your 'yard to be reanimated via the Snatchers.
So in that example you used, if you bring out Ballista and Phyrexian Delver at the same time, does bringing back Mikaeus go on the stack before Ballista dies from not have any toughness?
For the EDIT comment or for the chain I originally described?
For the Edit Comment, you definitely want to find Mikaeus, the Unhallowed first with one of the Body Snatchers you have in play.
For the original comment, it doesn't matter if you find the Ballista in the second instance of sac-ing the Hulk or the third instance. To minimize the opportunity of your opponents interacting with you and disrupting your combo, it's probably better to find the Delver first and then find Mikaeus AND the Ballista. The reason it doesn't matter if you get the Ballista on the second or third instance of the Hulk dying is because, if the Ballista were to die to state-based effects (being a 0/0) BEFORE Mikaeus hits play, you can simply sacrifice the Delver to the Feeder once Mikaeus DOES hit the battlefield. Because the Delver WON'T have a +1/+1 counter it will trigger Undying, allowing you to return it to play and Reanimate the Ballista for 0 life (since the Ballista has a CMC of 0). Then, state-based effects take over and the Ballista survives as a 1/1 due to Mikaeus' static ability. You then execute the Mikaeus/Ballista/Feeder loop FTW.
Oh wow thanks that's better than I thought it worked out. Also I went to a small 2hg tournament this weekend and got the nuts draw in the finals. Was only two rounds but felt good to draw demonic tutor, then hulk next turn.
That's awesome! It's one of the reasons I really like the deck and its current configuration: if you want to go aggressively for the Flash Hulk Combo, the deck can deliver. If you want to play a more Mid-Range, grindy, Card Advantage style of play, the deck can deliver on that too.
I haven't been able to play too much lately with the holiday madness, but I'm hoping to get in some games this weekend at my friend's shop.
I'll also be officially cutting Sidisi AND Hostage Taker from the deck to add in Viscera Seer and Sylvan Safekeeper. Having redundancy is good and the sacrifice effect is valuable with Skullclamp for the Seer and being able to add in protection to the deck is great via the Safekeeper. It also reduces the average CMC of the deck a bit, so I think this is a good swap to take.
It does not. Shroud prevents the creature from being the target of spells and abilities that explicitly use the word "target" within their text. An example of this would be the eponymous Doom Blade. Any spell or ability that tries to target the Safekeeper'ed creature will fizzle since the creature will no longer be a legal target for said spell or ability. Since the Feeder doesn't target itself or any creatures as part of its activated ability, we can freely sacrifice all the creatures to it after giving it Shroud via the Safekeeper.
While I plan to do a full set review for Ravnica Allegiance, there's a couple of decent cards that are worth mentioning.
First, Guardian Project. This is far and away THE BEST card in the new set for Commander. Card Advantage is the name of the game in this format and Project ensures that EVERY creature cantrips in your deck. You can even draw a card from simply recasting your Commander. This is so awesome, especially for any deck that's looking to flood the Board with low CMC creatures (i.e. Edric, Spymaster of Trest decks...). Get your copy preordered fo' sho'.
Second, Prime Speaker Zannifar. Wow. They reprinted a weaker Birthing Pod. I'm not sure this card fits with the Core strategy of the deck, but hot damn this card is good. I haven't thought about what kind of chains could be done in order to execute a Protean Hulk combo, but I'm sure they exist. This is a very good card that will be very powerful in Tasigur. Is there a 7 CMC sac outlet that exists? That would make the decision to test this card easier since you can EOT sac Tasigur to Vannifar to get Hulk and then recast Tasigur via his Delve cost to sac him again to VAnnifar on your upkeep. Time to do a quick search on Gatherer... EDIT: The only one I can find is Eater of Hope. Lame.
And finally, Biomancer's Familiar. Putting Training Grounds on a body is pretty significant for this deck and the core strategy it's employing. Anything we can do to up the creature count is very welcome to the deck.
My initial thought is to do a clean swap for the Familiar instead of the Training Grounds. The 2 CMC vs. 1 CMC shouldn't be too relevant. The real issue is whether or not being an enchantment is better for the effect or if having it present on a creature is acceptable. Testing will tell, but I can't perceive any significant difference right now.
The Primer Committee has officially given the Green light and the Green Primer tag for this Primer! Huzzah!
I wasn't able to get any games in this weekend because my wife had a family friend visit, but I'm hoping to get some games in this coming weekend. Kind of like my payoff for entertaining her friend instead of playing Commander with mine.
I'll also be doing a review of the new set shortly.
Sounds good and congrats on primer status! After playing a couple more games I think I'll take out Viscera Seer for the Biomancers Familiar. I usually don't like to sacrifice creatures to the seer and my meta is a little more grindy unless someone just has a great starting hand.
My YouTube Channel: The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
Sounds good and congrats on primer status! After playing a couple more games I think I'll take out Viscera Seer for the Biomancers Familiar. I usually don't like to sacrifice creatures to the seer and my meta is a little more grindy unless someone just has a great starting hand.
Thank you all! It's fun writing Primers but even more satisfying when the Primer is being used for its intended purpose: to aid in deck-building and strategy implementation.
I'll try my list with both the Feeder and the Seer in the mainlist for now, but I suspect that you might be right, Legion. Having a redundant sac outlet might not be necessary for this deck since the Feeder has a CMC of 1. I'll keep tweaking it until I can get a better feel for the redundancy affects any games I play.
I keep drawing both the familiar and training grounds in the same game so redundancy is nice I guess. Also if I flash hulk with feeder in my hand or graveyard is there a line to combo off?
It depends on where the Feeder is and whether or not you have Viscera Seer in your deck. If you have the Seer, than you just tutor for it instead. Otherwise, you'll want to do the following:
If in your 'yard:
As the Hulk's dying trigger goes off, search for Spellseeker and Phantasmal Image and Sylvan Safekeeper. The 'Seeker will find Demonic Tutor/tutor effect and the Image will copy the 'Seeker to find Diabolic Intent. Tutor use one of the Tutors to go and find Animate Dead and the other Tutor to go and find Life // Death. Animate Dead the Viscera Seer first followed by Death-ing the Hulk back to play. YOu can then proceed to Flash Hulk Mikaeus and the Ballista to play on the next Hulk dying trigger. Do note that this costs quite a bit of mana, though, in order to be effective.
Generally speaking, if one of our combo pieces is already in the 'yard, we have to do some very convoluted things to get those pieces back to our hand or deck so that we can continue with the Flash Hulk package. The sac outlet costing 1 CMC is a critical fail point and is one of the reasons I initially contemplated adding the Seer alongside the Feeder for the main decklist.
If in your hand:
I would simply wait to cast it. That's probably the safer route in this situation, and I can't think of a Flash Hulk chain that would allow you to get the Feeder to play without any additional mana spent.
It does pose a fun thought puzzle, so I'll keep thinking about it!
Biomancer's Familiar - giving Training Grounds a fleshy body makes it more vulnerable to removal, sure, but MUCH more tutorable and abusable in this deck. I think it's a clean swap between the two, since I would love to be able to Survival up a Training Grounds.
Prime Speaker Vannifar - Birthing Pod on a body! Aw yeah! It can be good for your deck, based on your particular strategy, and she's pretty decent with Tasigur in the Command zone. I'd love to always have access to Nezahal, thank you very much. A solid include for your deck, should you focus on the value she can provide. I'm sure there are Vannifar chains in Sultai that you can do to go infinite, but I'm not going to spend my energy thinking of them right now.
Growth Spiral - an actually decent ramp spell because it actually says "draw a card". It can go underneath Scepter as another value card while also giving you marginal ramp effects. Ultimately, I don't have enough lands to justify including this card but it's a fine option.
Incubation Druid - has the potential to go infinite with Dramatic Scepter and no other permanents. That, by itself, is why this Druid is getting a solid test right now. It's also really good with Seedborn Muse and Tasigur outside of the Dramatic Scepter case, which makes it even more solid.
Verity Circle - my dream is to combine this enchantment with Nature's Revolt and proceed to draw a bajillion cards every turn cycle, for as long as these two cards stay in effect. It's also good against any mana dork based deck, so it's good based on your meta.
Font of Agonies - depending on your build, this card could be VERY good, specifically if you're running Ad Nauseam or [CARD}Necropotence[/CARD].
Guardian Project - probably the best Commander card from the new set, this basically guarantees that every creature card in your deck cantrips when they hit play. An excellent source of card advantage that will probably become a Commander staple at some point soon.
Rampage of the Clans - if you're in a heavy mana rock meta, this card will probably be amazing for you. Being able to set your opponents back in tempo in trade for vanilla creature board presence is much better, I think. The fact that it's instant speed is very attractive as well. It could combo VERY well with Mnemonic Betrayal if you feel so inclined.
Wilderness Reclamation[/CARD ] - basically a budget Seedborn Muse. But the Muse is pretty cheap now, so I don't think you should consider this if you already have the Muse.
Damn I didn't think of the whole spellseeker route that is fun lol. Also for the incubation druid I think it might make the list. It's comparable to gilded lotus but you would still need to put some mana into it. I've been considering bloom tender too have you played that in this deck yet?
I did play it for a while and noticed that the Tender often tapped for just G, sadly. I think if Tasigur was actually Sultai colors in his casting cost she would be a no-brainer, but as is she often only allows me to tap her consistently for green mana. I think she's a great card with Commanders that have different colors in their casting costs, but Tasigur is ironically an exception to this.
for Incubation Druid, you have to put 7 mana into it in order to make it a Gilded Lotus. That's a lot of mana. But I DO like the ability to Survival for it, 'Clamp it, and Mikaeus it in addition to upping the creature count for Cradle. I'm still contemplating this one.
Yup, [CARD}Spellseeker[/CARD] is a fantastic card. I'm very surprised she hasn't seen Legacy play yet, but I can't imagine that it will be too much longer before someone figures out how to break her.
I think you're 100% correct when evaluating the card from a more casual approach. I happily admit that there are many ways to play Commander, and I personally prefer playing more competitively. That being said, here's how I see the new Lavinia:
Lavinia's power is directly proportional to the type of decks your opponents are playing. For me and my playgroup, and the cEDH meta generally, mana rocks are king, especially the ones costing 2 and under. Lavinia causes mana rocks to be non-beneficial sources of mana advantage since she restricts your opponents' casting of spells to their land size. Check out my Memnarch and Teferi Primers. You see the relatively low land counts? More often than not, I only have 2-3 lands in play but a bunch of artifact mana that powers out MORE sources of mana advantage and card advantage. Very few of these effects WHEN I CAST THEM are ever proportional to the number of actual lands I have in play! Lavinia makes this type of mana advantage a liability for these types of decks since they no longer contribute directly to developing your board presence for the important non-creature spells that are played. There are too many playlines and gamestates to describe where the ability of my mana rocks to generate mana that can be used to cast non-creature spells ahead of their casting cost is absolutely crucial.
In my playgroup, it's very frequent that you'll see someone trying to jam a T1 Mana Rock into some sort of T2 non-creature spell (more often than not some sort of Wheel effect). This is almost 100% the consistent playline that I see and Lavinia stops that super effectively. Additionally, cEDH decks run a VERY low land count. This means that the non-creature spells that cost any more than 2+ mana have a real possibility of being unable to be cast with Lavinia in play. Hell, she even stops the earliest, most effective Wrath effect from going off UNTIL T3. If they even get to 3 actual lands in play in order to cast it. This is a very significant tempo loss for your opponents since they now HAVE to depend on land as their primary mana sources in order to unlock their spells.
Lavinia doesn't just shut down "large X spells" or Tooth and Nail type of cards. She causes legitimate tempo loss for optimized decks that run low land counts and the most powerful non-creature spells available. Ad Nauseam decks will NEVER get off the ground as long as Lavinia is in play until AT LEAST T5. Do you see how Lavinia shuts down any type of Dark Ritual effect? What about High Tide? Fast Combo decks that aren't Flash Hulk decks can no longer chain their spells together on time until they have the correct number of lands in play. Assuming they even hit their land drops every turn. Teferi Chain Veil decks now have to up their removal count because there's NO WAY that they can cast a T2 or T3 Teferi with Lavinia in play. Even Food Chain[/CARD} decks will stumble (not as signficantly as Storm or Teferi Chain Veil) because their most common line of play is T1 mana dork or tutor -> T2 double mana dork or tutor -> T3 Food Chain, often seeing rarely seeing their 3rd land since they depend on mana dorks to power out an early Food Chain line. Even Flash Hulk type of decks have to be careful since they can still possibly jam a T2 Flash but now have to be careful about what kind of protection they have for their combo. And her 2nd ability shuts down the new Arcum Dagsson decks that depend on different variants of Ornithopter in order to keep triggering Paradox Engine.
All of this discussion is relevant because Lavinia is a Legendary creature. That means she can be cast on T2 EVERY game and even on T1 with a MASSIVE degree of consistency. Because her effects are also ASYMMETRICAL, you don't disrupt your own combo lines at all. She's like a one-sided Gaddock Teeg.
So, to conclude my rant/explanation, Lavinia is significant and a very important card for the cEDH scene. For any other type of play, she's just a cool 2/2 Hate-Bear that enforces everyone to play fairly or depend on the inherently slower land-based ramp effects available.
Welcome to the thread, comrade! I'm glad that you're finding it useful as a template for your own Tasigur deck. That's the best kind of compliment I can receive!
Mystic Remora is a card that is definitely playgroup specific and I included it in the general Primer since it's usually broadly applicable for cEDH playgroups. More often than not, a general cEDH meta will include some number of Storm and Flash Hulk variants, both of which run high non-creature spell counts. Thus, the little-fish-that-could usually draws upwards of 3+ cards in a single turn cycle.
And if your opponents are playing around it and not casting any spells at all, then rejoice. You just bought yourself a significant amount of time to develop your own board state and/or card advantage.
That being said, Sensei's Divining Top is a great choice to replace the Remora. Being able to ensure consistent card quality from the Top 3 cards of your library is pretty awesome, especially in concert with fetch-lands and tutor effects. Top helps to hit consistent land drops, which is never a bad thing. Honestly, Sensei's Top is a generically good card that can go into any optimized cEDH list and never be an explicitly bad choice.
See? This is why I appreciate other people. I totally forget about the Morphic Pool cycle. Like, every time. This is a perfect swap and I'll be updating the Primer accordingly. There's no reason not to include the Pool since we're always playing with at least 3 people when we sit down with this deck.
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
To answer your question, there have been a few times where I've needed to be able to clone Phyrexian Delver in order to get another Combo piece into play with Phantasmal Image. I can't do that with Body Double. And the Flash Hulk chain has actually been updated to use Body Snatcher primarily.
Happy holidays to everybody as well!
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
As outlined in the Primer, if you have a combo piece in hand (Carrion Feeder or Mikaues, the Unhallowed primarily), you simply FLash Hulk for Body Snatcher and CArrion Feeder in the first round. Discard the stranded combo piece to your 'yard via the Snatcher's ETB trigger and then sac the Snatcher to the Feeder to get the Hulk back into play. Once the Hulk is back in play, sac it to the Feeder to find Phyrexian Delver and Walking Ballista. If the Feeder is in your hand and you don't have mana to cast it, I would simply wait a turn until you have mana to cast it. In fact, I've recently been toying with the idea of having BOTH the Feeder and Viscera Seer to ensure a bit of redundancy to the Chain. I've recently not been particularly impressed with Sidisi, as she's simply too slow to reliably cast each game.
EDIT: And in the desperate case that you have TWO combo pieces in hand with no way to get rid of them, you can update your first Flash Hulk step by including Phantasmal Image and Body Snatcher. Make the Image a copy of the Snatcher and you can now discard two combo pieces to your 'yard to be reanimated via the Snatchers.
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
For the Edit Comment, you definitely want to find Mikaeus, the Unhallowed first with one of the Body Snatchers you have in play.
For the original comment, it doesn't matter if you find the Ballista in the second instance of sac-ing the Hulk or the third instance. To minimize the opportunity of your opponents interacting with you and disrupting your combo, it's probably better to find the Delver first and then find Mikaeus AND the Ballista. The reason it doesn't matter if you get the Ballista on the second or third instance of the Hulk dying is because, if the Ballista were to die to state-based effects (being a 0/0) BEFORE Mikaeus hits play, you can simply sacrifice the Delver to the Feeder once Mikaeus DOES hit the battlefield. Because the Delver WON'T have a +1/+1 counter it will trigger Undying, allowing you to return it to play and Reanimate the Ballista for 0 life (since the Ballista has a CMC of 0). Then, state-based effects take over and the Ballista survives as a 1/1 due to Mikaeus' static ability. You then execute the Mikaeus/Ballista/Feeder loop FTW.
Does that answer your question?
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
I haven't been able to play too much lately with the holiday madness, but I'm hoping to get in some games this weekend at my friend's shop.
I'll also be officially cutting Sidisi AND Hostage Taker from the deck to add in Viscera Seer and Sylvan Safekeeper. Having redundancy is good and the sacrifice effect is valuable with Skullclamp for the Seer and being able to add in protection to the deck is great via the Safekeeper. It also reduces the average CMC of the deck a bit, so I think this is a good swap to take.
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
First, Guardian Project. This is far and away THE BEST card in the new set for Commander. Card Advantage is the name of the game in this format and Project ensures that EVERY creature cantrips in your deck. You can even draw a card from simply recasting your Commander. This is so awesome, especially for any deck that's looking to flood the Board with low CMC creatures (i.e. Edric, Spymaster of Trest decks...). Get your copy preordered fo' sho'.
Second, Prime Speaker Zannifar. Wow. They reprinted a weaker Birthing Pod. I'm not sure this card fits with the Core strategy of the deck, but hot damn this card is good. I haven't thought about what kind of chains could be done in order to execute a Protean Hulk combo, but I'm sure they exist. This is a very good card that will be very powerful in Tasigur. Is there a 7 CMC sac outlet that exists? That would make the decision to test this card easier since you can EOT sac Tasigur to Vannifar to get Hulk and then recast Tasigur via his Delve cost to sac him again to VAnnifar on your upkeep. Time to do a quick search on Gatherer... EDIT: The only one I can find is Eater of Hope. Lame.
And finally, Biomancer's Familiar. Putting Training Grounds on a body is pretty significant for this deck and the core strategy it's employing. Anything we can do to up the creature count is very welcome to the deck.
Wilderness REclamation can act as a budget Seedborn Muse, for those that are interested.
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
I wasn't able to get any games in this weekend because my wife had a family friend visit, but I'm hoping to get some games in this coming weekend. Kind of like my payoff for entertaining her friend instead of playing Commander with mine.
I'll also be doing a review of the new set shortly.
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
BGU [Primer] Sidisi, Brood Tyrant BGU | BG [Primer] Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG | G [Primer] Polukranos, World Eater G
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Thank you all! It's fun writing Primers but even more satisfying when the Primer is being used for its intended purpose: to aid in deck-building and strategy implementation.
I'll try my list with both the Feeder and the Seer in the mainlist for now, but I suspect that you might be right, Legion. Having a redundant sac outlet might not be necessary for this deck since the Feeder has a CMC of 1. I'll keep tweaking it until I can get a better feel for the redundancy affects any games I play.
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
If in your 'yard:
As the Hulk's dying trigger goes off, search for Spellseeker and Phantasmal Image and Sylvan Safekeeper. The 'Seeker will find Demonic Tutor/tutor effect and the Image will copy the 'Seeker to find Diabolic Intent. Tutor use one of the Tutors to go and find Animate Dead and the other Tutor to go and find Life // Death. Animate Dead the Viscera Seer first followed by Death-ing the Hulk back to play. YOu can then proceed to Flash Hulk Mikaeus and the Ballista to play on the next Hulk dying trigger. Do note that this costs quite a bit of mana, though, in order to be effective.
Generally speaking, if one of our combo pieces is already in the 'yard, we have to do some very convoluted things to get those pieces back to our hand or deck so that we can continue with the Flash Hulk package. The sac outlet costing 1 CMC is a critical fail point and is one of the reasons I initially contemplated adding the Seer alongside the Feeder for the main decklist.
If in your hand:
I would simply wait to cast it. That's probably the safer route in this situation, and I can't think of a Flash Hulk chain that would allow you to get the Feeder to play without any additional mana spent.
It does pose a fun thought puzzle, so I'll keep thinking about it!
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
for Incubation Druid, you have to put 7 mana into it in order to make it a Gilded Lotus. That's a lot of mana. But I DO like the ability to Survival for it, 'Clamp it, and Mikaeus it in addition to upping the creature count for Cradle. I'm still contemplating this one.
Yup, [CARD}Spellseeker[/CARD] is a fantastic card. I'm very surprised she hasn't seen Legacy play yet, but I can't imagine that it will be too much longer before someone figures out how to break her.
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager