Hello. My name is Kahno, and I'm an EDH enthusiast. I have been playing Magic since around 2004 (started around the Mirrodin set and made a few short breaks along the way) and have mostly been playing EDH the last 7 years. I'd like to present my personal EDH deck that's been with me my entire EDH playing life and has undergone countless improvements, tweaks and tune-ups. It has developed from a complete and utter mess of almost random cards to something very powerful, efficient, resilient and most of all incredibly fun to play. Something that in my mind deserves to be written down and presented. Without further ado, I give you: Sliver Queen Boonweaver combo.
This is supposed to be an in-depth guide for the 5 color Boonweaver combo archetype utilizing Sliver Queen as its commander. The deck is named after Boonweaver Giant because it is the card that best encapsulates the line of play that the deck is trying to accomplish. It is a creature-oriented combo deck that also utilizes Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker for added synergy, redundancy and a different angle of attack. It boasts an extremely low average mana cost of 2.3 (1.9 including lands) making it a fast deck and a strong candidate for a potential Ad Nauseam inclusion. It very consistently threatens a turn 3-5 table kill, often with protection and resilience.
This guide is (in my personal opinion) an interesting read for both casual and competitive players, and potentially even people who don't play EDH. Expect a lot of lists, hypothetical scenarios and reading! I will try to outline all the card choices and lines of play with the deck. There will also be a summary of the deck's weaknesses, advanced tips and possible inclusions beyond the current 100.
As any EDH deck, this one is also a living, changing organism. It is heavily influenced by the metagame in which it operates and would need to be tuned if it were exposed to other metagames, or even played blind in a tourney. It is meant for high level competitive play, so the list tries to reflect that, barring very few omissions for economical reasons. I'm also constantly testing and considering new cards and trying to work in new synergies. If you have any questions about card selection or any suggestions about possible improvements, you are very welcome to start a discussion in the comments below.
The story of my playground is in a way more important than of the deck itself, since the latter would not exist without the former. After I built the first version of the deck (an ancient and outdated relic by today's standards, including everything from Great Whale, Azorius Guildmage to even Multani, Maro-Sorcerer), I started playing EDH more and more. Our playgroup at the time was very small and consisted of rather clunky decks with impossibly slow game plans and horrible mana curves. Games lasted forever, and victors were chosen almost arbitrarily. This situation lasted until a certain Spike also started to show interest in EDH and decided to tune a Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind deck. He constructed an impressive ramp shell and topped it off with time magic, Curiosity effects and Eldrazi. Every game, he would ignore "meaningless" player interactions and just focus on his own development. Needless to say, he nearly always won. He was of course pleased with his deck, but everyone else was annoyed at always losing, and we began to look for ways stop him. Eventually, we all (more or less independently) came up with the same method: imitation. Over time, we started modifying our decks and adding more and more ramp and powerful draw spells, while some of us even went a step further and threw in a Time Warp or two. We also started ignoring each other more and more and focusing on our respective development. The result was horrible. Every game would get completely clogged with mana rocks, lands and bombs. There was almost no interaction. Games would reach a point of critical mass, and the person with the strongest board would win. Although games were becoming more even, our Spike player still won most of them, and most of the time games felt unstable to play. We started experimenting with 2- and 3-card combos, but that idea also proved futile, since our Spike's Niv-Mizzet was simply more consistent.
All this time was not completely lost, however. Through countless games and much discussion, we started noticing victory patterns and the real culprits behind powerful and efficient game plans. We already knew that ramp, especially cheap efficient ramp, is exceptionally strong, since it basically allows the user to do anything earlier, which logically translates to winning earlier. Due to recent games further reinforcing our opinion and other methods proving futile, we decided to directly attack ramp through targeted and mass removal. Cards like Austere Command and Return to Dust became extremely popular. The result was somewhat positive, but we were still noticing that in most situations the answers would be symmetrical and thus also hinder the user, plus the Spike player usually bounced back the fastest. The reason for the latter is perhaps the single most important lesson in all of EDH. The Spike player did not just ramp; he ramped and replenished his hand.
The interplay between board development and hand refilling is crucial for a smooth game-plan, because it allows you to further your board, while not compromising your hand. Card drawing and ramp also combine to break the two fundamental restraints of Magic: one card and one land per turn. This allows you to do turn 7 things turn 4 while still having gas for turn 5. Armed with this knowledge, we began to adapt our decklists and started including cards like Spell Pierce and Pyroblast in our decks. The shift was finally here. Games became complex, fun and reliant on skill, and people doing broken things early were almost always stopped, or at least punished. Even though we were playing very strong decks, the actual deck diversity was quite high, with basically everyone playing their own unique strategy (although U was still more or less ubiquitous). Our goal was achieved. And the rest is pretty much history.
You have a puzzle-solving mentality. Playing this deck involves a number of very complicated decisions, including predicting how much and what kind of removal your opponents might have, what and when to tutor, when to try to win as opposed to expand, etc. Furthermore, the combo itself and the lines to arrive to it are non-trivial themselves, spawning impressive decision trees.
You want a solid chance against most opponents. Aside from very unlucky scenarios, this deck does not have many obvious weaknesses, and is incredibly resilient. Due to the nature of the deck's engine, we also have a very strong mid and late game plan, since most combo pieces are very strong value cards on their own. We are also able to utilize the best removal available.
You like an open ended strategy. This deck is not directly reliant on its commander, and rather utilizes the access to all five colors to construct a synergistic and highly customizable strategy.
You want to really use all five colors. Each color gives important and unique cards to the core strategy which wouldn't be possible in all its glory in "lesser" color combinations.
You want to play something that is unusual. This is the first official guide for a 5 color Boonweaver/Kiki list. The archetype (which is in many important ways different from the more well-known Boonweaver Karador, found here) is, as of yet, quite unexplored in the cEDH scene.
You probably shouldn't play this deck if:
You dislike infinite combos. The main avenue to victory with this deck will be some kind of an infinite loop generating either inifinite instances of damage, mill or hasty attackers. Even though we will sometimes be able to kill players through general damage or even regular attacks, this is not our main plan. If you believe combos are inherently unfun, this guide is going to be less interesting to you, although you might still find interesting card choices and interactions.
You have a low budget. While this deck can be somewhat approximated on a lower budget, since most of the engine is not very expensive, what really ties it together is its mana base. If you cannot afford at least most of the fetchlands and shocklands, playing this deck is not the best idea.
You are a beginner at EDH or Magic in general. This deck is not only incredibly complicated because of cards like Intuition, Birthing Pod and tutors in general, but also relies on a somewhat solid understanding of the stack, advanced mechanics of certain cards and good threat assessment. You have a limited number of control pieces and not many efficient ways to recur them, so picking your targets is crucial.
Why not play some other Commander:
Atogatog - has a worse body than Sliver Queen and provides no advantage with its ability, since we don't play any Atogs.
Child of Alara - has an extremely powerful ability, which pairs nicely with our multiple sacrifice outlets and reanimation. However, we do play a lot of cheap mana producers and zero land based ramp, so activating it usually hurts us very much as well. Also, we dislike losing our sacrifice outlets in the process.
Cromat - its abilities are very mana intensive and basically weaker than simply making Sliver tokens.
General Tazri - the tutor ability gives Tazri unique potential. This potential was showcased not long ago with the invention of Food Chain Tazri, which can win after getting infinite mana through Food Chain, and then uses Tazri to fetch relevant Allies. It then wins the game by recasting its general infinitely many times and getting the relevant Ally triggers. Although the ability makes Tazri very useful, it also makes her very all-in, since there are not very many Allies with wide synergy potential, so the deck is forced to focus entirely on the Food Chain (+ enabler) + Ally interaction. Therefore, Tazri is not suited for a synergistic creature deck, and especially not suited for a deck meant to operate in a very response-heavy metagame, which quickly adapts to all-in strategies.
Horde of Notions - Horde of Notions is definitely a solid general for this deck. All of its static abilities are relevant and even the activated ability can matter, especially if we also include Mulldrifter in our deck. At the end of the day, I still think that Sliver Queen's bigger body and token production is stronger than Horde's abilities, because they play so well with cards like Skullclamp.
Karona, False God - People dismiss Karona at first glance because of the stipulation that you lose the general at end of turn and that it can be used against you. I've seen Karona be very useful as a general, but I find that her ability is more suited for aggressive decks with a lot of small creatures. Although we play quite a few mana dorks, being outright aggressive with them would take away from our main plan. Also, Karona offers very little in the comeback/rebuild department, where Sliver Queen shines.
Progenitus - I don't consider Progenitus a real contender for any deck. Its cost is too prohibitive and what you get is actually not that impressive. Even though it has the largest body of all the generals on this list, it still needs to hit three times to outright kill a single opponent (the same as an unblocked Sliver Queen). It's also basically a giant vanilla creature that just ignores most point removal and creatures, but still dies to sweepers.
Reaper King - my opinion is that Reaper King suffers from a lack of decent Scarecrows to help fuel its incredibly powerful triggered ability. I believe a deck with a solid plan around him could maybe even exist (probably utilizing cheap Scarecrows like Heap Doll, Jawbone Skulkin, Scarecrone or even Mirror Entity and of course effects like Rite of Replication or Sakashima the Impostor) it just isn't this deck
Scion of the Ur-Dragon - Scion has the same problem as Tazri, namely that Dragons are not very synergistic on their own and that the most viable way to play it are very all-in. He also doesn't help with rebuilding, which is usually the time when we wish to cast our general.
Sliver Hivelord - since this is not a Sliver deck, Hivelord only makes himself indestructible. This might actually be useful in a Jokulhaups-style deck, but of course, this is not that kind of deck.
Sliver Legion - not a real contender, because this is not a Sliver deck.
Sliver Overlord - not a real contender, because this is not a Sliver deck. One could argue that we can play him as a "sliver bullet" (hah, get it!) fetcher (getting Harmonic Sliver or Amoeboid Changeling for instance), but that would still make it less useful than Sliver Queen's token production.
I will try to outline what each of these groups means to the deck and also include a card-by-card analysis.
Lands
Having a solid mana base is the only way to make this deck work. We achieve this by playing a combination of fetchlands, duals, shocklands and rainbow lands. It's important to note that this opens us up to a lot of non-basic land hate.
We play all 10 fetchlands. In a 5 color deck, fetchlands are the most important lands, since they achieve 3 things: (1) fix our mana, (2) shuffle our library, (3) thin our deck.
We play 9 shocklands, mostly due to economical reasons. If given unlimited resources, some of the shocklands would be substituted by dual lands, so we would instead play 10 dual lands.
We play 6 dual lands. They are dual color producing lands without a downside, except being non-basic, so they are perfect for a 5 color deck with greedy mana requirements. As mentioned above, our goal is to play all 10.
Command Tower - The ultimate land for this deck. Its only two minor downsides are that it is non-basic and that it cannot be fetchable. Exotic Orchard - Since 3 color EDH decks are by far the most popular, this card is often Command Tower #2. Also don't forget that with the new rules, this card produces all colors of mana if say a Zegana player controls City of Brass. City of Brass - The original rainbow land. Losing one life per activation is a small price to pay for access to all five colors. Mana Confluence - Basically City of Brass #2. There are small differences between the two cards. For instance, Mana Confluence is better against Derevi, since you only lose life when you pay for the mana ability as opposed to losing it when it taps. It's also better if someone controls Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, since you can avoid paying the life while still tapping for mana. Forbidden Orchard - This card is dismissed in 1v1 Magic (outside of something like Oath decks), since the 1/1 body it provides usually outweighs the 5 color access. In Commander, however, the 1/1s can actually be used as a bargaining tool. I could probably write a mini paragraph about its possible uses, from creating early-game aggro alliances, to controlling a table by donating a Spirit to the player with Aura Shards. In our case, most of our plans do not mind if there are a few more 1/1 dudes on the board. Be careful about surprise Skullclamps, though. Gemstone Mine - A functional Command Tower for the first three activations.
Forest - We play a single basic forest to have an out against non-basic land hate. We chose the green producing basic land because it fuels our mana dorks and can flashback Ancient Grudge
Mana acceleration
As mentioned above, playing things earlier naturally translates to winning earlier. This section of cards allows us to do so.
Chrome Mox - Investing an extra card in hand for Power 9 utility is almost always a solid move, especially if you can refill your hand immediately afterwards. Because Chrome Mox is essentially free, it is also very useful if you are trying to combo out and need that last mana boost to assemble the combo. Mox Diamond - Has basically all the qualities of Chrome Mox, while also fixing your mana. Also feeds Deathrite Shaman. Mana Crypt - Basically like Sol Ring, but stronger. The life loss is usually negligible. Sol Ring - People in established metagames are complaining because of its power and rightfully so. It is the true meaning of the phrase "auto-include", being present in virtually every tuned EDH list. Even though we are playing a 5 color deck, 2 colorless mana is always useful and allows us to cast important cards much earlier.
Llanowar Elves - The basic and arguably weakest of the one-drop mana dorks. Potential future one-drop mana producer inclusions need to be at least as good if not better than Llanowar. Fyndhorn Elves - Basically Llanowar Elves #2. Currently I feel that running two copies is enough. If that stops being the case, we can always add Llanowar Elves #3 (Elvish Mystic). Avacyn's Pilgrim - Almost always better than Llanowar Elves, because we use green mana mostly for ramping, which is less urgent if we already have a mana dork on the battlefield. Weaker when having Survival of the Fittest out, though. Elves of Deep Shadow - On the surface, these elves look worse than the Elves and Pilgrim, but producing black mana is much much more valuable than producing green or white, since we use it for tutors and reanimation. Arbor Elf - Due to the nature of the landbase, this will often be a flightless Birds of Paradise with 1 power. Be careful though, since his ability can be responded to by destroying the forest. Noble Hierarch - Gives very good color coverage and can sometimes help with exalted. This mostly comes in handy during board Mexican standoffs, when you can only spare attacking with a lone creature. Birds of Paradise - In a vacuum, this is the best one-drop mana dork. Flying can be valuable for blocking. Deathrite Shaman - Arguably the best one-drop mana dork. Fetches are very popular, so this guy almost always has gas. The other two abilites are crazy useful as well. Exiling creatures can often prevent people from comboing off, while cutting off certain instants or sorceries (especially flashback spells) can be a huge value play. The life loss and life gain are sometimes useful too, especially in the late game.
Bloom Tender - This guy is a tad more expensive than the 1-drops, but he makes up for it with sheer explosiveness. Since we are playing fast mana and Sliver Queen is directly accessible virtually any time in the game, Bloom Tender can often produce 5 mana. At worst, it's a slightly overcosted Llanowar Elves.
Sacrifice outlets
Sacrifice outlets are a crucial part of our main combo. They allow us to loop recursion pieces and can also generate useful resources (like damage or mana) from their activations.
Viscera Seer - Arguably the weakest of the sacrifice outlets, since it only sets the top card of your deck. We play it because it is a very cheap creature and can be tutored through different means than other sacrifice outlets. It's also important that it can be recurred with creature recursion to possibly start your combo. Goblin Bombardment - In most cases, this is the best of our sacrifice outlets, since it costs only 2 mana and translates to a win with a recursion loop. It can also be useful when we don't have a combo assembled, since it can be used to kill smaller creatures. Altar of Dementia - The applications of this card are too varied to be included in this breakdown. Instead, the card has its own chapter below. Carrion Feeder - This joins Viscera Seer on the list of sacrifice outlets that don't technically win the game on their own, but still make the cut due to other factors. It's very cheap and allows for quick wins, while also becoming a big attacker in a pinch.
Tutors
Since EDH is not only a 99-card deck format, but also a singleton format, having tutors allows us to reduce the inherently high level of variance in the game. They increase our consistency and sometimes even explicitly or implicitly perform the Tinker-treatment: searching for the desired card and putting it directly into play without having to pay its mana cost.
Enlightened Tutor - Can get everything, from ramp, Pattern, reanimation enchantments, to bigger tutor cards, like Survival or Pod. Mystical Tutor - Mostly tutors Wheel effects, Intuition, but can also tutor specific removal or other tutors like Entomb or Demonic Tutor, if you wish to mask your plan. Vampiric Tutor - What Enlightened and Mystical do, Vampiric does better. Entomb - One of the tutors that implicitly goes around the card cost of the tutored card, since we are most likely attempting to reanimate it somehow. This mostly finds missing combo pieces, but can also set up any of our flashback cards or team up with Sun Titan to become a poor man's Demonic Tutor. Gamble - A cheaper Demonic Tutor with an important caveat, this card is best used very early in the game, when our hand size is guaranteed to be larger, so the probability to lose a key card is lower. It allows us to construct a combo very quickly and sometimes even helps in kickstarting it, by discarding a creature card. Demonic Tutor - The premium tutor in EDH. It doesn't have the raw power or speed of Vampiric, but it gives you the card directly with no strings attached. Survival of the Fittest - Has its own chapter below. Diabolic Intent - Since we play a high number of cheap creatures, the downside is often negligible, and can even be positive if Academy Rector, Pattern of Rebirth or Boonweaver Giant or Reveillark are involved. Tainted Pact - Usually, we can play this at the end of an opponent's turn and flip cards until a viable combo piece shows up. Due to the nature of the deck, it can win with a lot of different card combinations, so fishing for cards is much easier than in many other decks. We also don't play an duplicated basics, so the card cannot fizzle. Intuition - Has its own chapter below. Buried Alive - Is mentioned in later chapters. It's essentially used to set up wins with reanimation spells. If that isn't possible or safe for whatever reason, it can also act as a big Entomb to simply get value creatures in your graveyard. Recruiter of the Guard - Is able to fetch most of our creatures. It's also clampable and has an easy win sequence with Sneak Attack (Sneak Attack -> Recruiter -> Kiki -> copy Recruiter -> Pestermite). Pattern of Rebirth - Due to the interaction with Boonweaver Giant, this card is basically a win condition when paired with a sacrifice outlet (and a creature to carry it). It can also go search and set up a different combo (specifically Kikimite), if using the graveyard is not possible for whatever reason. Academy Rector - because it can tutor for Pattern, this basically has all win condition characteristics of Pattern, while also being able to tutor for other useful enchantments, like Bombardment, Survival or the reanimation enchantments. Be careful, though, since your opponents can exile it from your graveyard in response to the tutor trigger, countering it. Birthing Pod - Has its own chapter below. Boonweaver Giant - The deck's namesake, and for good reason. Its interactions are thoroughly documented below, but it essentially combines with Pattern of Rebirth to assemble some kind of a recursion loop.
Card advantage and quality
For a card type of such importance, this list is quite small, but don't let that fool you. Each of the cards performs a very valuable role and some of them are actually top priority tutor targets.
Faithless Looting - Isn't actually card advantage since it gives no cards while costing us one. However, seeing two cards for one mana, while also being able to discard crucial combo pieces is incredibly valuable, to the point that we are sometimes even tutoring for this card during our combo turn. Having flashback is also very useful, because it can be included in some Intuition stacks. It makes land heavy hands more keepable. Skullclamp - In a deck that plays almost all 1-drop mana dorks, this card is insane value. It is also synergistic with our commander and makes for a disgusting card advantage engine with Saffi Eriksdotter. Wheel of Fortune - The original Wheel effect. It's one of our possibly back breaking early plays if we have managed to ramp. It can also be a valuable refilling tool in the mid to late game. Be careful, since it also restocks your opponents, both with potential answers and threats. Windfall - Basically Wheel #2. It's weaker since it doesn't always draw us 7 cards, plus it gets countered by Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast. Day's Undoing - The weakest of our wheel effects, it still makes the cut due to being 3 mana to cast. It increases the number of 'acceleration -> wheel' blowouts. Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur - His end-of-turn ability is incredible card advantage that torpedoes our early game. To add insult to injury, he also threatens to completely destroy opposing hands if left unanswered. We try to reanimate Jin in the early game to restock our hand, and force potential mass discards, but that's not his only application. He can actually be a very important card in the late game as well, because we can use him as either removal bait, or as an attractive reanimation target for out opponents, who will get tapped out and exhausted in the process. This misdirection is sometimes enough to help us successfully perform our combo.
Recursion
This group gives us the advantage over many other combo decks, since our combo package can also be used to bring us into the game or get us back in after we have been stopped.
Reanimate - The premier reanimation spell of EDH. It's most useful when paired with Entomb or Survival of the Fittest. Don't forget it can also target your opponents' graveyards, so you can steal their important creatures to either prevent them from winning or generate momentum. Saffi Eriksdotter - Light sweeper protection and a direct combo with other recursion pieces. As mentioned above, she's great with Skullclamp. Animate Dead - The go-to reanimation enchantment due to its low mana cost and negligible downside. It can also target your opponents' creatures. Necromancy - Although costing 1 mana more than Animate Dead, there are often cases where it is more useful, since it can be used at instant speed, either starting your combo at an unexpected time, or stealing another person's reanimation target. Loyal Retainers - Even though this is our narrowest reanimation piece, it is arguably one of the strongest due to its synergy with cards like Survival of the Fittest and of course our important legendary creatures. Dread Return - Powerful due to its implications with Intuition and the fact it can basically circumvent a counterspell if you have an appropriate number of disposable creatures. Body Double - Basically a graveyard Clone. It's a core recursion piece that can also copy creatures in your opponents' graveyards. Karmic Guide - Another core recursion piece. Although less relevant, it's sometimes relevant that it has flying and protection from black. Important to note, our reanimation enchantments are able to reanimate her, but will fall off as soon as she enters the battlefield. If you wish to, for instance, copy her, you will need to respond to the reanimation enchantment creature sacrifice trigger. Reveillark - Another core recursion piece. Previously the deck's hallmark card, now just one of the strong support players. Remember that its trigger is based on it leaving the battlefield, so you still get your value even if your opponents manage to exile or bounce it. The evoke cost is also sometimes useful. Sun Titan - An auxiliary recursion piece and a strong value engine in his own right, he is also part of a few less known infinite combos documented below. Perfect for slower games where removal has been depleted. Important to note, his ability can bring back any type of permanent.
Answers
Magic is essentially a game of interaction. That holds especially true for EDH, with its multiplayer nature and strong cards that often require immediate intervention. As mentioned above, cheap, efficient and, if possible, instant answers are the best and should be included in every deck. Everyone who is saying otherwise is either playing in a very loose metagame or playing against much weaker opponents.
Mental Misstep - Potentially a free counterspell that targets other cheap counterspells, Sol Rings, Reanimates, Deathrite Shamans, High Tides, removal spells and more. Swords to Plowshares - In my opinion the best creature removal in EDH. The downside is irrelevant to a deck like ours that wins with an arbitrary amount of damage. Sometimes it is even a good idea to sword one of our own creatures to survive a critical attack and then win on the next turn. Path to Exile - Achieves the same as Swords, except it gives our opponent a more tangible advantage. Pyroblast - An allstar in a blue-heavy metagame. It can handle everything from draw spells, counterspells to problematic commanders or other blue permanents. Pyroblast is the stronger of the two blasts, since it can target a permanent even if it isn't blue (useful if your Phantasmal Image is copying an Academy Rector for instance). Chain of Vapor - A very versatile answer card that's able to handle everything from hatebears to lock-pieces. Its power is even greater though, since it can also act as protection for our own combo pieces, mana acceleration when paired with Mana Crypt and a value engine when used on our own reanimation enchantments! Swan Song - A cheap counterspell that hits most important targets. The 2/2 body is negligible. Abrupt Decay - Handles a variety of must-answer permanents (Aven Mindcensor, Scavenging Ooze, Blood Moon, Torpor Orb, etc.), while being very cheap and uncounterable. Ancient Grudge - An underrated card in my opinion, it can often generate card advantage or make Wheel spells even bigger hits. Arcane Denial - The downside of this spell is quite large, however it is essentially a hard counterspell with no card disadvantage and a more forgiving mana cost than Counterspell. Cyclonic Rift - In my opinion the best sweeper in EDH. Perfect for breaking creature stalemates/soft locks. Unsubstantiate - A useful tempo counterspell that also acts as a bounce spell to combat hatebears and save our own creatures.
Additional combo/value pieces
This group mainly exists because cards in it don't really belong anywhere else from a classification point of view. Nonetheless, they have amazing synergy with the rest of the deck, while also being strong standalone cards and 2-card combos.
Phantasmal Image - Cheapest Clone in EDH. We are often happy to pay 1U for a solid ETB ability, so getting a body (however fragile) as well is a great bonus. It's also very valuable as part of a Birthing Pod line. Deceiver Exarch - Mainly used in the deck to combo with Kiki-Jiki. It can also tap a big attacker in a pinch. Pestermite - Basically achieves the same as Deceiver Exarch. It compensates its weaker backside by having flying. Restoration Angel - Another Kiki-Jiki dance partner, this one is also very useful if we want to reuse any of our ETB creature triggers. Sadly cannot blink Karmic Guide as she is considered an Angel. Sneak Attack - Facilitates all of our combos by making creatures cost one mana and has very powerful synergy with Recruiter of the Guard as well as Academy Rector. It's important to note that we can use Sneak Attack ability at the end of our opponent's turn and have a full turn with our creature. Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker - The combo goblin enables the complementary line of attack to Boonweaver's more graveyard oriented approach, making our deck dangerous even when there is strong graveyard hate in place. It directly combos with three of the creatures in this section, while also generating insane value with cards like Sun Titan. Just don't point it at Phantasmal Image Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite - An extremely powerful value and counter-value creature. It shuts down creature based strategies while providing an aggressive angle.
Winning with the deck's combo engine is easiest by having Boonweaver Giant and a sacrifice outlet in play (described further below), but that does not deactivate the deck's other avenues to victory, which were more central before the printing of Boonweaver. To assemble the engine, we essentially need a sacrifice outlet and some combination of cards which are able to reanimate each other. We then proceed to win by either:
dealing infinite damage
milling every opponent
generating infinite mana
making infinite attackers
The above depends on many factors, mainly which sacrifice outlet is used, and how many options we still have at that point in the game. A list of most engine configurations (we assume a strong sacrifice outlet is also present):
One of the biggest cEDH hits in recent years, Boonweaver Giant (with Pattern of Rebirth) has played a pivotal role in powering up Reveillark combo decks by giving them a streamlined win condition and eliminating the need to assemble multiple combo pieces before beginning a Reveillark loop. A typical Boonweaver Giant sequence requires a sacrifice outlet and playing (or reanimating) Boonweaver Giant. The sequence is described below:
trigger Boonweaver Giant's ability and fetch Pattern of Rebirth (typically from your library but possibly also from your graveyard or hand)
sacrifice Boonweaver and trigger Pattern, fetching Karmic Guide
reanimate Boonweaver and re-fetch Pattern
sacrifice Boonweaver and trigger Pattern, fetching Reveillark
At this point, we have assembled the basic Reveillark combo, which we can now loop arbitrarily many times for as many sacrifice outlet abilities as desired. In the case of the stronger sacrifice outlets (Goblin Bombardment and Altar of Dementia), this is enough, however with weaker sacrifice outlets (Viscera Seer, Carrion Feeder), we need to do a bit more magic. In those cases, we need to proceed with creature fetching (below is an example):
sacrifice Guide and Boonweaver and then sacrifice Reveillark, reanimating Guide and, in turn, Boonweaver
sacrifice Boonweaver and fetch Body Double, which enters the battlefield as Reveillark
The Reveillark/Body Double is now able to reanimate itself and Karmic Guide arbitrarily many times, which also means we get arbitrarily many Pattern triggers through Boonweaver. This means we can fetch any creature in our deck and can easily either set up a Kikimite combo or fetch Goblin Bombardment through Academy Rector.
In most decks, Birthing Pod is already a very strong card, since it performs two very valuable things: bypasses mana cost and tutors creatures. This is also true in this deck, but due to our 5-color nature, we are able to construct a creature base that compliments Pod extremely well and almost makes it a one-card combo. An ideal Birthing Pod scenario is comprised of the following three conditions:
our board contains a 1-drop creature
our board contains a 2-drop creature
we are able to produce 4 colorless mana and 4 phyrexian mana (which normally simply translates to 8 life)
The winning sequence in that scenario is:
1) sacrifice the 2-drop with Pod to fetch Pestermite and untap Pod with Pestermite's ability
2) sacrifice the 1-drop with Pod to fetch Phantasmal Image, which enters the battlefield as Pestermite, once again untapping Pod
3) sacrifice Phantasmal Image (which has a CMC of 3, since it copies Pestermite) with Pod to fetch Restoration Angel
4) use Restoration Angel's ability to blink the original Pestermite and untap Pod for the third time
5) sacrifice Restoration Angel with Pod to fetch Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
End result: our board contains Pestermite and Kiki-Jiki. From here, we can copy Pestermite with Kiki's ability and use the newly created Pestermite copy's ability to untap Kiki. We generate an arbitrary number of hasty Pestermite copies and attack.
The above combo makes Birthing Pod an extremely dangerous card for our opponents, since we are immune to stack based control after playing it. It is also very easy to assemble, given the high density of 1-drops in the deck (remember, having two 1-drops is also ok, as long as you are able to activate Pod a turn prior, to get your 2-drop).
Notably, the above combo is just the most streamlined way to abuse Pod and squeeze out a win. We can use it in countless other ways to either force a win, improve our current position, or deal with a problematic game state. A few different examples of winning with it are listed below (I'll leave the winning sequences as an exercise for the reader ):
Survival is a well known and respected card in EDH and Magic in general. It's used both as an efficient continuous creature tutor and as an engine. We use it in a similar manner, fetching whatever is needed at a given point in the game. What makes Survival especially attractive, however, is its potential to generate a winning combination of creatures out of multiple activations and almost no additional invested resources. The basic scenario is:
have Survival of the Fittest on the battlefield
have a random creature card in hand
From here, we need to simply activate Survival 3 times in the following way:
1) Discard the random creature card and search for Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker.
2) Discard Kiki-Jiki and search for Pestermite.
3) Discard Pestermite and search for Karmic Guide.
4) Play Karmic Guide (or discard her to survival, and reanimate her with Reanimate, for instance)
At this point, we have Kiki and Pestermite in the graveyard and Karmic Guide in play. We can simply use Guide's triggered ability to reanimate Kiki, use his ability targeting Guide and use the copy's triggered ability to reanimate Pestermite, untapping Kiki-Jiki. From here, we can generate infinite hasty Pestermite copies and swarm the table.
The beauty of this combo is that it is nearly always available and very easy to restart, since Survival enables us to simply tutor a new reanimation creature to begin again.
Very similar to the banned tutor Gifts Ungiven, Intuition is a card that is used to set up engines or simply grab answers for a situation at hand. The most frequent usages in this deck (ordered by likelihood) are:
tutoring for missing combo pieces
tutoring for three counterspells mid-combo
setting up value with flashback spells
Intuition can also serve as a 1-card combo under certain conditions:
we have 3 creatures on board
we are able to produce at worst 5 mana (depending on the opponent's choice we need to produce 2RRR, 2BB or 2U) plus mana for Intuition
The second condition might seem confusing and difficult to achieve, but we are usually able to play Intuition at end of turn before we begin our combo. Furthermore, duals, fetches and rainbow lands are virtually always enough to facilitate the mana requirements of the combo. The first condition is actually more problematic, but also easy enough to achieve with the help of our commander and the high density of cheap creatures in the deck.
The mana constraints should make sense now, since we just need to play the fetched card (any of the three are fine), which invariably puts one of the two creatures on the battlefield, and then flashback Dread Return to get back the other one.
In addition to being a game ending combo piece, Altar of Dementia also has a few more subtle uses. The uses are especially valuable when our opponents do not know our deck as well as we do, and are lulled into a false sense of security.
1) The first instance of this is the most important. Sometimes, people will have ways to either play around deck milling (by playing Eldrazi or other narrow cards) or their deck will be built in such a way that it's dangerous to let them move their library into their graveyard (think Hermit Druid). In those cases, we start milling ourselves! The plan is to use our engine to mill ourselves until we have access to the following cards in our graveyard:
After gaining access to these cards, we will use our current engine to reanimate Body Double (as Reveillark), which will then get sacrificed and return itself and Karmic Guide, which will in turn reanimate Sun Titan. Sun Titan will then be able to recur Goblin Bombardment, while still maintaining your engine. We are now able to kill our opponents without touching their library!
The core trio of Body Double, Karmic Guide and Reveillark is actually able to accomplish much more, since we can essentially loop any creature in our deck (we simply substitute the Sun Titan from the above scenario with any creature we wish to loop).
2) The second instance is rarely used, but can be game winning: filling our graveyard with flashback spells. We play a small flashback package of useful spells:
The first one can sometimes be a game winner by preventing someone else from winning by eliminating a key permanent at instant speed after they are milled. In such instances, we are especially abusing our opponents' false sense of security, because we can pull of such a manoeuvre even through hand destruction or Peek effects. The last two flashback spells are useful value cards that also play an important role when we are trying to combo off.
3) The third instance is not really specific to this deck, but that does not make it any less important: disrupting top tutors. Cards like Vampiric Tutor and Mystical Tutor are super useful and popular, and people often forget that the top of their library is not a completely safe space.
Our main plan in the early game is mana acceleration with fast artifact mana and mana dorks. It's important to note that it's not always safe going all out with our acceleration, especially if we do not have an immediate way to refill or at least partially refill our hand. After accelerating, we have four different objectives:
Deciding which way we are going is dependant on our hand, the opposing decks and the current board state. As a rule of thumb, I always try to go with a Wheel effect turn 2 if I'm able to produce 4+ mana. This is usually possible with some combination of fast mana artifacts and/or manadorks and torpedoes our deck so far forward that we can often run away with the game in short order. Wheeling turn 2 with just a mana dork or a Mox is sometimes fine, but many times our opponents will also ramp turn one, and we do not want to give them the advantage of a hand refill unless our hand is particularly weak.
If we have access to Entomb, Survival or another discard outlet early, reanimating Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur is usually a good idea. If he survives until the end of our turn, it often creates overwhelming card advantage and also forces people to remove him or lose. In extremely rare situations, Jin-Gitaxias can also simply win you the game if you manage to protect him against removal (Mental Misstep and Swan Song are key here).
Another early game objective is tutoring or playing a value card. Basically all value cards in this deck are combo pieces as well, so we can quickly switch from accumulating card advantage to going for the kill. Classic value cards are Birthing Pod, Survival of the Fittest and even Reveillark. Depending on our opponents, we might also want to tutor for more aggressive cards, like Academy Rector or Pattern of Rebirth. The latter two are stronger in situations where we are sure the opponents won't interfere with our plans, so we can attempt to combo off right away. Pattern wins with a sacrifice outlet and a random creature, and Rector works in a similar way. If you only have a sacrifice outlet, no creatures, but have somehow come into a lot of mana (perhaps getting Sol Ring and/or Mana Crypt early), you can of course also tutor for Boonweaver Giant and hard cast him.
Lastly, there are situations where none of the above plays are viable, either due to an unlucky hand, getting handled early or playing against certain hard control matchups. In those situations, we try to accelerate into Sliver Queen and transition into a midrange deck. Having a general with 7 power on the table by turn 3 or 4 is deceptively powerful, since it puts any of our opponents on a 3 turn clock. There are also other benefits to playing Queen:
we can be aggressive without fear of return attackers
The mid game is where this deck truly shines. After we have established our ramp and started generating advantage with our value cards, we need to look for openings to combo off. At this point, we have an advantage over other combo decks, because we rebuild much more easily. That's because many of our combo pieces are interchangeable and act as value generators or recursion in their own right. Let's take, for instance, a classic win attempt of Buried Alive. Assuming that our opponents do not counter Buried Alive (which is a marginal play at best) and we get to tutor for Karmic Guide, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and Pestermite, every reanimation card or ability translates into a win for us. If someone manages to destroy any of the involved creatures at any part of the combo, we still only need another reanimation effect to combo off. The worse that can happen is if someone is able to exile Kiki-Jiki. In that case, we are still left with Karmic Guide in the graveyard, which can quickly translate to a win with a sacrifice outlet and a reanimation creature.
The above resilience only gets stronger later in the game when we draw into more tutors, reanimation spells and combo pieces. That, coupled with the fact that we play a number of cards which translate into a win without many additional invested resources (Survival of the Fittest, Birthing Pod, Academy Rector, Pattern of Rebirth, Boonweaver Giant), makes us very strong.
Despite its general resilience, the deck has a couple of specific hate cards that need to be handled before proceeding with the combo. These cards are Torpor Orb, Hushwing Gryff, Humility and, to a lesser extent, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and Aven Mindcensor. The first three stop nearly all of our combos, and Humility even eliminates the possibility of Sliver Queen beats. Elesh Norn also stops most of our combos while also severely hurting our mana production by killing all our mana dorks. Aven Mindcensor does not technically stop any of our combos, but it does neuter our tutor effects which are typically how we start our combo. It also hurts our mana production by heavily weakening our fetchlands.
Another thing to look out for is graveyard hate. Even though we can play around graveyard hate by utilizing our Kiki-Jiki lines, we are always trying to use our graveyard as a resource as much as possible. Graveyard hate prevents that, while also stopping our attempts to rebuild after a failed combo. Efficient one-shot graveyard hate pieces like Tormod's Crypt, Relic of Progenitus and Nihil Spellbomb are actually not that problematic, because we can often bait out an activation or destroy them before attempting to combo off. The most annoying and tough to deal with graveyard hate cards are Scavenging Ooze and Withered Wretch, because they are continuous and often easily recurable (with say Karador).
Lastly, some decks will try to directly attack our land base by playing cards like Blood Moon, Magus of the Moon and Back to Basics. In those situations, mana dorks, Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond are especially valuable, since they bypass the land limitations and help fuel our removal. That's also the reason we play (at least) one basic Forest, which enables us to crack a fetch and prepare to start playing (or using Survival of the Fittest to tutor for) our mana dorks.
Below is a list of tips on playing the deck. I have been playing this deck (and its previous iterations) for quite a few years and believe I have a strong understanding of it. Many of the tips are simply minor play optimizations, but I have found that in many games, these minor optimizations can be the turning point and the difference between winning and losing.
Don't forget to immediately use your Birthing Pod unless you have a good reason not to. Opponents will be eager to destroy it and you cannot respond to their kill spell by activating it.
Before the start of your turn, always try to use one of Deathrite Shaman's abilities if he was not used for mana production. Two more life for you can prove very useful, as can two less life for all your opponents.
When tutoring for sacrifice outlets, don't go straight for the strong ones. Consider if the win is possible with the weaker ones and prioritize those, since they are more expendable.
Be mindful of your opponents' graveyards and any creatures you might utilize for your game plan. This can be as simple as Reanimating an Eternal Witness or even comboing with Body Double copying another person's Reveillark.
If you are desperate for an Academy Rector activation, but don't have a sacrifice outlet, you can try copying it with Phantasmal Image and pointing something at it.
If you are very desperate to dig for cards, you can counter your own spell (something cheap, like a Chrome Mox, for instance) with Arcane Denial for a poor man's Ancestral Recall.
Don't forget that Kiki-Jiki can also copy a mana dork for that one extra mana.
Arbor Elf doesn't actually give mana. He instead untaps forests, which can be very useful against certain cards, like Winter Orb. You can untap a land at end of turn even if you don't need the mana at the moment.
When considering Birthing Pod lines, also keep in mind Sliver Queen. Cracking her can fetch Sun Titan, which can sometimes reanimate some other combo piece. You can also use Queen to make a token and crack it to search for Viscera Seer.
Don't let your mind get trapped in conventional lines of play. Sometimes you'll need to play a Karmic Guide and reanimate nothing or play Boonweaver Giant and not tutor for Pattern of Rebirth. The important thing is that you have a clear path to victory in a given game and try to assess which resources are needed for it. Identifying unconventional value plays is an important part of winning close games.
You can use Swan Song to counter your own spell and get a 2/2 body. This can be very useful either as blocking, Bombardment or Birthing Pod fodder.
In extreme scenarios, you can untap your opponent's permanent with Pestermite (Exarch doesn't work, though). This can be useful if someone else has a removal spell, but no mana available, while a third person is trying to go off.
Saffi Eriksdotter can target your opponents' creatures or herself (but obviously can't reanimate herself). This can be useful if you have no other creatures and are trying to save her from exile or want to use Skullclamp. It can even be useful in the rare scenario where you are killing a creature you own that your opponent controls, so you can regain control of it.
This chapter is basically part my plans for the future, part me theorycrafting. Many of the cards on this list have simply not been tested/included because of economical reasons (i.e. I don't have them yet). The other reason for not including them is that the list is very tight and I'm having trouble cutting cards. Expect this section to constantly change as different cards come and go.
The no-brainer inclusions are of course the rest of the duals:
Imperial Recruiter - Sneak Attack and Recruiter of the Guard have already been included in the main deck. Both cards are performing great and Imperial Recruiter will find a place in the deck in the future as well, to round out the Recruiter Package. Splinter Twin - It would basically play the role of Kiki-Jiki #2. The reason it is not played already is that it is not a creature and thus less synergistic with the rest of the deck. Mana Drain - Strictly better than a Counterspell. Enables us very strong plays very early. Can help power out a Boonweaver or Sun Titan. Chain of Vapor - An efficient bounce spell that also has incredible value with our reanimation enchantments, since you can bounce them and let the creature fall back into the graveyard. Afterwards, you can reanimate it again or even use the enchantment on something else. Loyal Retainers - The card has a narrow effect, since we only play 3 legendary creature cards (4 if we count Sliver Queen), but it might prove strong enough. It allows for a very efficient line with Survival -> Jin-Gitaxias, reanimates Kiki in the mid game and can be reanimated itself with Sun Titan.
This post will try to document the changes that have happened with the deck over time. Notice that these changes are for my personal decklist, so they are influenced by my metagame. Certain exclusions and inclusions might seem out of place in a blind metagame or a playgroup with a different representation of decks than my own. I've separated the cards into two categories: cards that I have excluded prior to creating this guide and cards that have been replaced after recent testing. I will try to argument my points in both cases, but feel free to open a discussion on any of the mentioned cards if you strongly feel that they are missing from the deck.
Cards documented below have been played in earlier iterations of the deck. Some of them are still highly relevant for the modern version of this deck, while others are included to paint a picture of this deck's past. I've purposefully omitted many cards that were also past inclusions, but were simply too incompatible with the current idea of the deck to provide any meaningful discussion.
Creatures
Elvish Mystic - Basically an extra Llanowar Elves. After a while, I felt that having a third green manadork was not needed, because we don't need that much green mana in the early game. Orcish Lumberjack - Its effect is incredibly powerful and can enable back-breaking early plays in any deck that's able to successfully activate it. I had moderate success with it, because, while he would get us ahead, rebuilding after a failed win attempt would be that much harder. This is not a land-heavy deck and sacrificing a dual forest can often also spell mana screw down the line. Gemhide Sliver (and Manaweft Sliver) - They give the potential for producing an absurd amount of mana if we go with the early Sliver Queen line. Their place is currently occupied by Bloom Tender, which is easier to boost and interacts favourably with Pestermite and Exarch. Lotus Cobra - Had an okay interaction with fetchlands in the deck, but felt generally underwhelming. Bloom Tender is again better in my opinion. Qasali Pridemage - A very useful card, because it can get around a Torpor Orb. I reluctantly took it out as part of testing an expanded combo package and it hasn't found its way back in yet. It's definitely a potential re-include, especially if the meta turns to more stax based control. Boneshredder - A relatively cheap creature with a very useful ability, since it handles quite a few problematic creatures (Hushwing Gryff, Aven Mindcensor, Elesh Norn, Scavenging Ooze). It was replaced by instant removal, because quickly handling problems was more important. Since we have included Birthing Pod in the deck (Boneshredder left the deck a while before Pod arrived), Shredder could make a comeback. Stonecloaker - This was an anti-graveyard tech back when my metagame was extremely graveyard oriented. Right now I feel it does too little and doesn't vastly contribute to any of our combos. Trinket Mage - Fetches a number of goodies, but has to compete with so many other great tutor effects. Might make a return if I decide to include other important cheap artifacts (or if they print a 1-mana sacrifice outlet that does something A guy can dream...) Wood Elves - This card was in the deck for a long time. It often partnered with Skullclamp and recursion, specifically Saffi, to generate value in both cards and mana producers. After a while I had to face the fact that the value it provided was simply too small. Crypt Champion - This is an inclusion from the distant past. It combos with Saffi to give us infinite bodies for our stronger sacrifice outlets. It can also provide mid game value by returning one of our cheap creatures. Since its ability is symmetric and I'm playing in a relatively creature heavy metagame, my opponents are often able to reanimate a creature that shuts down my plans (something like Reclamation Sage or Scavenging Ooze). I would reconsider it in a more creatureless metagame. Notion Thief - It's been going in and out of the deck frequently and that's because it is a great disruption card and an "I win" button with wheel effects. Currently it isn't included because I find it difficult to surprise my opponents with it (having 4+ mana open with this deck is a huge red flag). Its re-inclusion is dependant on metagame changes. If more people wander into spellslinger, it will return. Zur the Enchanter - Could fetch our reanimation enchantments, Survival and Bombardment, but was simply too slow. We also don't play his biggest pal, Necropotence, anymore. Mulldrifter - Like Wood Elves, it was simply too weak. Worldgorger Dragon - I was initially interested in the card, because it enabled infinite mana with any one of our reanimation enchantments. It was removed after it became obvious it is simply too risky, while not even guaranteeing us a win. Rune-Scarred Demon - Its ability is undeniably powerful, but its mana cost is too prohibitive for what the modern version of this deck is trying to accomplish. Kederekt Leviathan - This has gigantic disruptive potential with our reanimation enchantments. I removed it from the deck when it became apparent that mana dorks are too important for our core strategy. Terastodon - A useful anti-hate creature that can also bash face in a pinch. I removed it for an expanded combo package. Definitely viable for certain metagames. The ability to single-handedly break open complex locks might warrant a reconsideration in the future.
Instants
Worldly Tutor - One of the top candidates for re-inclusion. We almost always need specific creatures, so this is a welcome card at any stage in the game. We are currently not playing it due to deck space and card disadvantage. I feel that all other net negative tutors currently in the deck are better. If we add more creature based sacrifice outlets to the deck, this is definitely returning. Eladamri's Call - Same as Worldly Tutor, except this is even more attractive due to being net positive. Flash - This was a huge playmaker when Sylvan Primordial was legal, since it basically boosted us three turns ahead while pushing our opponents a turn back each. It currently interacts favourably with Academy Rector and several ETB creatures, but does so at the cost of card advantage, which was the ultimate reason for its current exclusion. If Protean Hulk were unbanned, I would re-include it in an instant. Izzet Charm - All three modes are incredibly useful and relevant. It is outclassed by cards like Spell Pierce, because 1 mana is a world of difference for counterspells. Momentary Blink - It interacted favourably with many ETB creatures, but was ultimately removed to make place for stronger value cards. Chord of Calling - It performed okay enough, but I always found it quite expensive. I might reconsider it in the future. Frantic Search - "Free" card quality and a discard outlet is quite useful for the deck, however it was replaced by Faithless Looting, because of the latter's interaction with Intuition. Thirst for Knowledge - It was removed as a card advantage piece after it became obvious that discarding any of our artifacts was usually a bad play. Fact or Fiction - This was a useful card advantage piece in the deck for a long time, since it was instant and comboed well with recursion. It was cut due to its higher mana cost, but might make a return in the future.
Sorceries
Green Sun's Zenith - Was cut due to not being able to fetch the core combo cards (aside from manadorks, can only fetch Saffi and Harmonic Sliver). Ponder - It, along with other 1-drop card quality cards were slowly phased out of the deck, when I chose to commit to a more resilient and less all-in plan. Life from the Loam - It plays great with fetchlands and wheels, and is generally great when recovering. Might make a return, but is currently excluded due to deck space (including it would hinder the recursion package). Open the Armory - A very useful tutor, since it grabs Pattern, the reanimation enchantments and Skullclamp. It performed okay when tested, but is currently excluded due to being inferior to other tutors that we play. Regrowth - Was excluded due to not doing enough. Has less utility than Eternal Witness, which is also currently excluded. Victimize - A recursion spell that has performed solidly for a number of years. It could generate a win in many different scenarios and was especially great after getting key creatures destroyed. It is currently excluded due to an increased amount of graveyard hate in my metagame. Wargate - An all-purpose tutor that can help in any situation (assemble a specific combo, search for Harmonic Sliver, etc.). It was cut due to being expensive. Damnation - Was cut when mana dorks became the main source of fast mana. Skyshroud Claim - Helps with both ramping and fixing. Was excluded due to the higher cost compared to the other mana producing pieces we run. Bring to Light - Similarly to Wargate, it can help in almost any situation yet is quite mana expensive. Austere Command - Was strong against ramp decks and creature-heavy decks. Has long since been excluded, because we value our mana dorks very much. It's also quite expensive.
Artifacts
Aether Vial - Was slow and not performing enough. Mana Vault - Was basically a colourless Dark Ritual, which wasn't strong enough. Phyrexian Furnace - Was played when dedicated graveyard decks were more popular. Relic of Progenitus - Similar to Furnace, except that its effect is much much stronger. The problem was that its effect was symmetrical and hurt us quite a bit as well. Sensei's Divining Top - Excluded due to being too mana intensive. We don't have spare mana every turn, so frequently using it for card quality stifled our other plans. Sunforger - Much too mana intensive and very easy to disrupt. Thran Dynamo - Very slow and not extremely useful due to the high number of colored mana costs. Gilded Lotus - Very slow. When we already have access to five mana, dropping more mana producers is not very important anymore. Memory Jar - Slow and clunky to use in this type of deck.
Enchantments
Exploration - One of the stronger mana production cards available to us, when we consider hand refilling effects. It was cut because it was not consistent enough, sometimes giving us much more mana than needed, and sometimes not helping us at all. I might try to find a place for it again in the future. Sylvan Library - Provided solid card quality and advantage if needed. It is currently excluded because we are testing other cards with more impact. Aura Shards - Solid removal potential, especially with Sliver Queen. Was replaced by Harmonic Sliver which offers more utility by being a creature. False Demise - Part of an infinite combo with Sun Titan and also a value piece. Was cut due to being too narrow. Necropotence - Extreme card advantage and hand-refill. We also used it to dig for combo. It was cut due to multiple factors: (1) being very mana intensive, which meant we weren't able to cast it early and refill our hand after dropping mana dorks, (2) forcing us to exile discarded cards, which made it a nonbo with Survival, (3) being difficult to use after getting stopped once, since we wouldn't be able to reliably use it again (due to a high number of hate cards and the lower life total in my metagame). Mana Echoes - It's an infinite mana combo with Sliver Queen, but that's the only thing it can do. It's not useful enough, because the combo does not even guarantee us a win, only infinite colorless mana and infinite sliver tokens, neither of which are usually enough to seal the deal.
Planeswalkers
Jace, the Mind Sculptor - Was a very useful card advantage and card quality engine due to the high density of library shuffle effects. Cut to make space for cards that are more in line with the main strategy of the deck, but might make a return if the deck decides to start playing a more grindy game. Tezzeret the Seeker - Was cut when mana production became focused on 1-drop mana dorks. Might make a return in the future if I manage to work in a few more artifact mana producers and shift to a slower, more controlling game. Has potentially amazing synergy with fast mana and especially Birthing Pod.
Lands
Ancient Tomb - Was cut when it became apparent that it is useless in most early game scenarios. It also made mulliganing a pain, since we are looking for fetches/green mana to power out our mana dorks. Barren Moor (and the rest of the cycle lands) - They were mostly a nuisance due to entering the battlefield tapped. The cycle ability was not relevant enough. Dryad Arbor - Was played when Green Sun's Zenith was included and even then felt very underwhelming. We already don't play Elvish Mystic because we don't need that much green mana production. The summoning sickness was also very annoying. High Market - Provides good synergy with a few important creatures in the deck (mainly Academy Rector and Reveillark) but only tapping for colorless mana is a deal breaker in a 5 color deck. Reflecting Pool - I played this card for a long time, since it acted as another rainbow land in the mid and late game. It was cut due to being poor in opening hands.
Below is a list of changes that have been made since the deck has debuted on MTGS. Each entry has a timestamp and an explanation for all exclusions and inclusions. I will also try to modify the main post to include the new cards and explanations for their inclusion.
I still maintain that Ad Nauseam is a very strong card in the deck and should be an autoinclude when playing in a blind metagame. However, there are two important factors for its current exclusion and both are tied to my own metagame. Firstly, we play with 30 point life totals. This makes Ad Nauseam considerably worse, but still very much playable due to the very low mana curve of the deck. However there is also the second reason: the metagame is packed with tons of very varied and specific answers. You can find everything from Force of Will, Mental Misstep, Swords to Plowshares, Abrupt Decay, Pyroblast to even more obscure (but still crazy efficient) cards like Warping Wail, Submerge, Rakdos Charm, Barbarian Ring, Crop Rotation (into Bojuka Bog) etc. This makes playing Ad Nauseam and performing your winning line very difficult, because you can get stopped at virtually any step and because the nature of Ad Nauseam makes any whiff an almost guaranteed loss due to the low life total. Ad Nauseam is a strong card for a 40 life meta and especially one where people don't understand what kind of a deck you are playing.
I've also decided to try playing without Blasting Station. I've always enjoyed the redundancy it provided, although the 3 mana cost was sometimes problematic to generate on a combo turn. It's also a bit more tricky to use outside of the combo.
I never really had a big attachment to Sylvan Library. It performed okay by being a combination of card quality and card advantage, but I always considered it a potential flex slot. I'm especially interested if the deck will noticably underperform because of losing another card advantage card.
The inclusions are all strongly synergistic to my core combo engine. All three make all the possible lines of play in the deck much smoother, as well as opening new unique combos (Sneak Attack -> Recruiter -> Kikimite or Rector + EE -> Sneak Attack + Recruiter).
I consider Eternal Witness only temporarily out of the deck. I'm testing the newly included cards and even though results are okay, Witness will most likely return after I find out which pieces of the current configuration are the weakest. It's incredibly useful and makes rebuilding much easier.
Glen Elendra Archmage is a great control card that can often be crucial protection on our combo turn. Currently I'm playing Abrupt Decay in its place, because I'm trying to deal with different problems (mainly permanent-based disruption elements).
Jin-Gitaxias makes his triumphant return after being absent from the deck for some time. It enables back-breaking early game situations by combining with quick reanimation. It's also a way for us to refill our hand after dropping mana production.
You are correct, the fetching is almost always completely dependant on what I currently have in hand. When I'm able to get extra colors, and there are no important other factors to take into account, I usually get extra things that can produce a red color, since Kiki-Jiki is the most mana intensive card in the deck.
I actually mentioned sneak attack and its strong points in the final chapter. I'm officially putting it in this week (when I also receive it in physical form) instead of Blasting Station, which is arguable the weakest of the sacrifice outlets (Altar of Dementia is cheaper, Bombardment is also cheaper and resistant to Null Rod, Viscera Seer is also cheaper and a creature and Phyrexian Altar is also usually cheaper, even if it only gives is infinite mana as opposed to damage). As I mentioned there, I'm immune to counterspells if it resolves, have a nice easy win line with the Recruiter (which I'm also playing now) and have a very enjoyable out to one of the deck's main enemies: Blood Moon.
A strong line for dealing with null rod, cursed totem and similar artifacts (most notably Torpor Orb) is tutoring for Ancient Grudge. I play in a very controlish metagame, and while there is a low chance they will counter my tutor, it's quite possible that my removal for the stax piece is countered. Ancient Grudge helps here, since it gives me two chances to get rid of something.
Yes, when playing against heavy graveyard hate, it's best going with the Kiki-Jiki interactions. That was originally the reason I even included him in the deck, since my metagame became increasingly graveyard, and after that, anti-graveyard oriented. It's also notable that because we are playing redundant pieces of the same Reveillark combo shell, we can sometimes bait out something like a Relic of Progenitus activation and still proceed to combo after that by restocking our graveyard in the same turn.
Sorry, I didn't understand that you specifically wanted to know which winning lines are best/most frequent when playing under those cards. Going for the Kikimite is strongest under Null Rod. You are cut off from your Birthing Pod play, but you can easily assemble the combo with either Buried Alive + reanimation spell or just Survival + random creature (dumping Kiki and Mite and fetching Karmic). You can also go with your non-artifact sacrifice outlets + Boonweaver (or Rector/Pattern + another creature), and either burn them with Bombardment or fetch Kikimite again. Null Rod really doesn't do too much damage to us. Cursed Totem/Linvala is trickier, because we also play a bunch of mana dorks which also get stopped. In that case, assembling a Reveillark loop is a better idea (almost all of the pieces still work, with the exception of Viscera Seer and Saffi).
I still maintain that Ad Nauseam is a very strong card in the deck and should be an autoinclude when playing in a blind metagame. However, there are two important factors for its current exclusion and both are tied to my own metagame. Firstly, we play with 30 point life totals. This makes Ad Nauseam considerably worse, but still very much playable due to the very low mana curve of the deck. However there is also the second reason: the metagame is packed with tons of very varied and specific answers. You can find everything from Force of Will, Mental Misstep, Swords to Plowshares, Abrupt Decay, Pyroblast to even more obscure (but still crazy efficient) cards like Warping Wail, Submerge, Rakdos Charm, Barbarian Ring, Crop Rotation (into Bojuka Bog) etc. This makes playing Ad Nauseam and performing your winning line very difficult, because you can get stopped at virtually any step and because the nature of Ad Nauseam makes any whiff an almost guaranteed loss due to the low life total. Ad Nauseam is a strong card for a 40 life meta and especially one where people don't understand what kind of a deck you are playing.
I've also decided to try playing without Blasting Station. I've always enjoyed the redundancy it provided, although the 3 mana cost was sometimes problematic to generate on a combo turn. It's also a bit more tricky to use outside of the combo.
I never really had a big attachment to Sylvan Library. It performed okay by being a combination of card quality and card advantage, but I always considered it a potential flex slot. I'm especially interested if the deck will noticably underperform because of losing another card advantage card.
I've already spoken a bit about the inclusion in the above posts. All three inclusion make all the possible lines of play in the deck much smoother, as well as opening new unique combos (Sneak Attack -> Recruiter -> Kikimite or Rector + EE -> Sneak Attack + Recruiter).
Over time the basic part of the land base has been slowly decreasing so I have indeed thought about Hermit Druid, however there are currently two important factors against it:
Space:
I feel that, to effectively utilize Hermit Druid, I would need to also include at least two other cards: Fatestitcher and Narcomoeba. This makes the package at least 3 cards big, which is very difficult to find space for, especially since Hermit and Narcomoeba are not very useful outside of the Druid line. Including them weakens either our combo, draw or answer package as we cannot afford to cut mana production or tutors. It could be argued that we don't need to play both extra cards since we have many mana dorks, but that just decreases the possibility of a successful Druid line.
Risk:
If we successfully activate the Druid and dump our library, then attempt Dread Return -> Karmic -> Kiki -> Exarch, we leave ourselves open to counterspells, creature removal, or instant graveyard exile (the possiblity of Rakdos Charm or Crop Rotation -> Bojuka Bog is very real). If our plan gets foiled during a Druid line, we lose the game 100%. A dedicated Druid deck mitigates this problem with Memory's Journey and having Devoted Druid + Morselhoarder + Necrotic Ooze -> Shivan Hellkite activations (which render the combo immune to creature based removal). But when we commit to a Druid line we are betting our entire game on the process going smoothly. I feel that this deck's greatest strength is actually the opposite; making strong plays and threatening to win even if things get answered again and again. In that sense Hermit Druid does more harm than good.
Nevertheless, I could totally see a version of this deck playing with a Hermit Druid package as an extra option of attack if the hypothetical metagame were greedier and played less specific removal. I think in that case two very useful cards would be Shallow Grave and Postmortem Lunge since they are incredibly useful with Hermit Druid and synergize well with the rest of the deck. Right now I am mainly interested in tuning the deck towards synergy and resilience.
I don't understand why you play Sliver Queen over Tazri. I get that Tazri wants you to be a bit more all-in than you are, but Tazri's tutor ability can find a few cards that could be useful. Zulaport Cutthroat seems plausible. I also don't understand why you play the sacrifice outlets you do. In what way is Blasting Station better than Varolz, Scar-Striped, which can be tutored with Green Sun's Zenith?
Tazri:
I did another quick inspection of the Ally list and Zulaport Cutthroat is indeed the most useful Ally that Tazri could possibly fetch for this deck (please correct me if I missed something! I also considered Changeling Berserker, Mirror Entity. Stuff like Sea Gate Loremaster seems horrible to me). This in my opinion makes Tazri much much weaker than Sliver Queen for the Commander slot. As a creature, Tazri is useless most of the time and can only act as an extremely overpriced combo piece to one half of our deck (because it doesn't help Kikimite at all, except under some rare circumstances).
Besides, Zulaport Cutthroat is not even strictly needed in any of the graveyard loop interactions. If we are using Bombardment (or Blasting Station) or Altar of Dementia, that is enough for killing all players, since we can mill or burn them. In the case of Phyrexian Altar and Viscera Seer Zulaport Cutthroat can indeed help, but that's not really important since we usually use these two sacrifice outlets with Boonweaver, in which case we can also easily fetch Kikimite, eliminating the need for Zulaport once again.
I concede that Sliver Queen does not directly help our combos, but it does often help us leading up to them. It gives us a board presence, powers our Bloom Tender and threatens artifact decks with the Harmonic Sliver interaction.
Sacrifice outlets:
I've actually stopped playing with Blasting Station and don't really miss its redundancy. I still maintain that it's a solid sacrifice outlet since it can win the game without Boonweaver making an appearance (with Reveillark and Karmic Guide, for instance). Bombardment and Altar of Dementia both do that as well and are much better because they are cheaper. As already mentioned above, Viscera Seer and Phyrexian Altar cannot strictly win the game with their activations alone, but they are both very cheap (Seer only being 1 mana and Phyrexian Altar often acting double duty as a Ritual).
Varolz is expensive and cannot kill players with a Boonweaver-less graveyard loop. I like that it can be fetched with Green Sun's Zenith, but currently we don't play it. That's because we don't include Dryad Arbor due to the demanding mana base and other than fetching mana producing creatures it doesn't currently do anything for our combo except fetch Saffi. I'd consider Dimir House Guard much earlier than Varolz, since he can also act as a tutor for important cards in the deck.
An interesting idea might be Cartel Aristocrat, since it is unique as a sacrifice outlet that protects itself. I'll also be re-testing Carrion Feeder as another cheap creature sacrifice outlet, because the deck has changed considerably since I last considered it.
Snapcaster is a solid card, but I feel that it is not exceptional, while Recruiter directly helps all of our winning lines and is also a great value play. This may trigger a number of other potential changes, most notably Phyrexian Altar -> Carrion Feeder, since the latter is easily tutorable with both Recruiters.
This is a great primer and your list is far more tuned than mine. While I agree with most of your choices, there are a few slots I am on the fence about and have a few questions/suggestions for you.
For instance, I have played deep analysis in my sidisi hermit druid deck as a combo piece and I had many ways to get it in the graveyard as well. While it occassionally has come in handy for me, I always viewed it as a necessary evil, not as something I would include if I had a choice. So seing as you have 5 colors worth of cards to choose from wouldn't gamble or imperial seal give you way more bang for that card slot? I would also personally prefer lim dul's vault or Sylvan library.
Another card I have reservations about is arcane denial, why not flusterstorm instead? How often has the hard counter been worth it given it cost one more and has a pretty substantial drawback?
I have a couple other cards that may be decent enough to warrant a spot and am curious to your perspective on them. I apologize ahead of time if you have already discussed these cards somewhere in your primer
Splinter twin: Slightly faster than Kiki and easily tutored for with rector.
Heliod's Pilgrim: Really useful tutor especially if you use splinter twin. Even so it could replace dance of the dead or necromancy
It's been quite a while since I have posted in this thread. I took a longer vacation and headed to Japan, where I had plenty of time to think about improvements to the deck and also gather sweet sweet pimp cards
Even though the core of the deck is still very much the same and all the major lines are unchanged, a whopping 10% of the list has changed. The switches are documented below:
I didn't want to cut any duals/shocks that are unique in their color combination, so that left Temple Garden, Blood Crypt, Stomping Ground, Breeding Pool, Sacred Foundry, Overgrown Tomb. The Rx shocks are too valuable to cut, because red mana is very relevant in the later stages, when we are going for Kiki-Jiki or Sneak Attack. This leaves us with three Gx shocks and out of those three, the least important color is W, so Temple Garden was cut. Its replacement was Gemstone Mine which will hopefully increase the number of keepable hands and reduce the inherent problem of playing a 5 color deck.
Phyrexian Altar was cut for Carrion Feeder because we still need to generate 3 mana before getting it into play, not to mention Carrion Feeder is a creature and thus has a number of advantages: it can be tutored with Recruiter(s), reanimated with a number of cards, is clampable and pitches to Survival. It can even become an annoying physical threat in a pinch. Most importantly, it enables very early Boonweaver combos that wouldn't be possible with a 3 mana artifact.
Eldritch Evolution was kind of okay in the deck, but simply didn't do enough. The Tinker-like quality, while absurd on paper, often proved underwhelming, because our most common creature is a 1-drop mana dork that doesn't fetch enough crucial creatures. Compared to Evolution, Diabolic Intent gives us unlimited options. There is not really much more that needs to be said in praise of Demonic Tutor, even one with a caveat.
I have been eyeing Tainted Pact as a potential inclusion for quite a while. It seemed like a natural fit, because our combo engine is made from many interchangable pieces and since we are 5 color, we do not play any multiples of basics which could mess up our card flipping line. I was also really attracted to the card because it is an instant, which allows for a much greater surprise. I felt that cutting one of the three reanimation enchantments was safe enough to make room for it. Although Dance of the Dead is cheaper than Necromancy, I really liked the flash aspect of the latter, so it stayed in the deck.
Deep Analysis would normally be replaced with Timetwister, but as of yet I do not wish to spend upwards of 400 euros on it Day's Undoing is doing a remarkably good Twister impression, because it opens me to more t2 wheeling blowouts.
As already mentioned in a previous post, Snapcaster is a solid card, but is not crucial to the deck. It was cut for Gamble, which is yet another Demonic Tutor type card and enables us some risky, but blazing fast openings. Even though its downside is very annoying, this is one of the better decks to mitigate it, since we play so much recursion.
Red Elemental Blast was replaced with Chain of Vapor because of certain metagame changes (rising popularity of permanent-based decks: most notable are monogreen Selvala, Karador, Queen Marchesa and Derevi) and the synergy with cards like Animate Dead and Sneak Attack. It can also act as a mana boost with Mana Crypt and save our own permanents from removal. Lastly, we can use it to trigger Phantasmal Image, which wasn't possible with REB unless Phantasmal Image was blue.
The change from Spell Pierce to Unsubstantiate is also due to metagame changes. Both are basically tempo counterspells with Unsubstantiate also having the added value of temporarily dealing with creatures and "countering" uncounterable spells.
Lastly, the final two inclusions will be mentioned together, since they are an important duo. Harmonic Sliver and Ray of Revelation were removed as I was feeling that the need for enchantment removal has decreased in the metagame. This slightly reduced the power of Sliver Queen as the Harmonic interaction for sweeping artifacts and enchantments is gone. However, the cards that replaced them more than make up for it! Having Loyal Retainers in the deck suddenly gives us even more dangerous lines with Kiki-Jiki, Jin-Gitaxias and Saffi. While Kiki is by far the most attractive from a combo perspective, Jin-Gitaxias appreciates Retainers the most, since they enable very easy mid- and even earlygame reanimation. This holds doubly true for our final inclusion, Elesh Norn. She gives the deck another threat angle, while simultaneously dealing with creature-based strategies like elfball and hatebears.
In the following days, I will update the opening posts to include all the mentioned changes.
This is a great primer and your list is far more tuned than mine. While I agree with most of your choices, there are a few slots I am on the fence about and have a few questions/suggestions for you.
For instance, I have played deep analysis in my sidisi hermit druid deck as a combo piece and I had many ways to get it in the graveyard as well. While it occassionally has come in handy for me, I always viewed it as a necessary evil, not as something I would include if I had a choice. So seing as you have 5 colors worth of cards to choose from wouldn't gamble or imperial seal give you way more bang for that card slot? I would also personally prefer lim dul's vault or Sylvan library.
Another card I have reservations about is arcane denial, why not flusterstorm instead? How often has the hard counter been worth it given it cost one more and has a pretty substantial drawback?
I have a couple other cards that may be decent enough to warrant a spot and am curious to your perspective on them. I apologize ahead of time if you have already discussed these cards somewhere in your primer
Splinter twin: Slightly faster than Kiki and easily tutored for with rector.
Heliod's Pilgrim: Really useful tutor especially if you use splinter twin. Even so it could replace dance of the dead or necromancy
You are correct with a lot of your reasoning. Deep Analysis has indeed been removed from the list and both Imperial Seal as well as Gamble are excellent inclusions. I've included Gamble as stated above, but Imperial Seal is currently not being considered due to price concerns (this list exists and is meant for paper play so I am omitting cards like Seal and Timetwister until I'm in a comfortable enough to buy them and not have a guilty conscience :P). I find Vault a bit underwhelming and Sylvan Library has previously been in the deck but didn't live up to expectations. This is in large part due to the 30 life rule we are playing with.
Arcane Denial's range is invaluable. I would only consider cutting it for something like Mana Drain.
Splinter Twin is actually weaker than Kiki-Jiki in a number of ways. Most importantly, we are forced to only use Pestermite or Exarch (not Restoration Angel) and they must lose summoning sickness, which means we need to play them earlier in the game. Rector can of course fetch us Twin, but we are unable to use any of our creature tutors or creature reanimation on it. This all makes it clunkier than Kiki-Jiki and I would never switch them. Being a replacement for Kiki is much more plausible, but still not the most attractive due to all the mentioned reasons. Still, the effect is very unique and even a "bad" Kiki-Jiki is still great in a lot of scenarios, so I will be keeping an eye on the card. Perhaps it finds its way on the list as part of another larger change.
I agree with your opinion on Heliod's Pilgrim. It can also fetch Pattern of Rebirth. I will definitely reconsider it, if I'm trying to include Twin in the deck.
What do you think of replacing SLiverQueen with Scion of the Ur-Dragon, and adding in Worldgorger dragon? a combo piece in the command zone seems more relevant than a slightly larger beater or token fodder.
What do you think of replacing SLiverQueen with Scion of the Ur-Dragon, and adding in Worldgorger dragon? a combo piece in the command zone seems more relevant than a slightly larger beater or token fodder.
Even though I still think Sliver Queen is optimal for this kind of deck, Scion is definitely one of the better candidates we could also use (and I actually built a version of this deck with Scion in the past). That being said, there are some problems with Scion.
It shifts the role of our commander from a rebuilding/restabilization/anti-stax piece to another combo piece. Seeing as the deck already behaves as a systematic combo deck, I often find that redundant.
The combo with Scion would be Worldgorger + reanimation enchantment -> generate infinite mana and win by probably tutoring Shivan Hellkite. While this combo is quite compact and reasonably easy to execute (notable hurdles are Worldgorger stuck in hand, having only Shockland/City of Brass type lands for red mana, certain stax effects), we basically lose if it is somehow interrupted (due to Worldgorger exiling all our permanents). I predominantly play this deck against the same group of competitive players and over the years we have adapted to each other very much, to the point that I wouldn't be comfortable using this combo most of the time (this is the same reason I avoid playing Hermit Druid).
If I was playing in a blind meta, I would strongly consider playing Scion, because people often do not understand what exactly our deck is trying to do and going for the combo as soon as possible is usually the best idea.
I was thinking of making a 4-Color ETB-Tribal deck, and this deck definitely has the shell for it!
One suggestion I don't see here is Felidar Guardian, which I find incredibly useful in the tutor chain - not only does it combo off with Kiki-Jiki and untap Birthing Pod, it's a 4-drop, meaning a 3-drop creature pods into Felidar Guardian, which goes into Karmic Guide reanimating Felidar Guardian, untapping Pod, which gets Kiki-Jiki, which copies Karmic Guide, which reanimates Felidar Guardian for the win.
I was thinking of making a 4-Color ETB-Tribal deck, and this deck definitely has the shell for it!
One suggestion I don't see here is Felidar Guardian, which I find incredibly useful in the tutor chain - not only does it combo off with Kiki-Jiki and untap Birthing Pod, it's a 4-drop, meaning a 3-drop creature pods into Felidar Guardian, which goes into Karmic Guide reanimating Felidar Guardian, untapping Pod, which gets Kiki-Jiki, which copies Karmic Guide, which reanimates Felidar Guardian for the win.
Yep, that's my bad. I have replaced Restoration Angel with Felidar Guardian quite some time ago. The original post has not yet been modified to reflect this and the Birthing Pod section is also similarly outdated. The Kitty has become a huge roleplayer indeed. Not only is the line you described possible, but since Pestermite is in the deck, you can even start with a 2-drop creature -> pod into Pestermite -> untap Pod -> pod Pestermite into Felidar -> ...
Would you include Protean Hulk now that it is unbanned?
I'm actually playing the deck with Hulk already! It's performing super well in place of Boonweaver Giant and also allows for a super early win with Flash. That being said, I'm currently exploring the possibility of moving away from red and focusing on the WUBG shell utilizing Thrasios and Tymna. I plan to update the primer with the recent changes in the near future and there's also the possibility of a complete primer overhaul if the new shell sticks.
What is usaully used for the buried alive? only used when we have a reanimate spell in hand?
edit: yeah, read with more attention the primer.
The skullcamp is there for any reason? killing mana dorks?
As mentioned Buried Alive is usually Karmic Guide + Kiki + Kiki partner. There are of course other uses, if you are for some reason unwilling to put Kiki in your graveyard (perhaps due to fear of exile).
Skullclamp is used for quick card advantage. As you noticed, we can kill our dorks with it (usually advisable when we have multiple) or play Sliver Queen and use her as an engine. Skullclamp is also exceptionally good with Saffi.
Kahno, after seeing your sliver hulk list, i have some questions:
what can i use as substitutes for the original duals (shocklands is straight forward, anything else?)?
mana crypt?
mox diamond?
carpet of flowers is kind of meta dependent, right? or everyone uses U in cEDH (same with pyroblast)?
utopia sprawl is better than any other mana dork? (i guess there might be one or two still left)?
why no use of brainstorm/ponder/pre-ordain?
any substitute for imperail seal, timwtwiester and wheel of fortune, bloom tender, imperial recruiter?
why no sylvan library or silence?
why not village bell ringer instead of pestermite?
and at last, anything from the new edition to add?
Shocklands are the best substitutes, yes. Having all 10 fetches is the most important part of the mana base, along with the rainbow lands, so you can always achieve the desired colors. Shocklands and duals simply make the fetches work optimally. If you can't afford duals, definitely try to at least play all 10 shocklands. Other possible budget alternatives are pain lands. They are much worse, since they don't synergize with fetches, but still provide okay fixing without sacrificing tempo.
Mana Crypt is arguably the strongest acceleration in the deck. I'd substitute it with a random mana rock if you can't afford it. Something like Fellwar Stone should be fine. Either that or include one of the one-drop mana dorks you aren't currently playing (I think Elvish Mystic is currently excluded).
Mox Diamond is also quite hard to replace, since there are few cards with its explosive potential. I'd play another mana rock here as well.
Yes, Carpet is pretty meta dependant. Also, if you play against decks with no blue, you are pretty much winning anyway
While it's usually faster than a mana dork, Utopia Sprawl is also worse in a number of ways. Dorks are often used to fuel other lines of play (Birthing Pod, Skullclamp, Dread Return, etc.) and Utopia Sprawl isn't. Utopia Sprawl is also worse against land based disruption like Back to Basics.
The cantrips you mentioned are all great and solid cards. Currently the deck isn't playing them due to lack of space. We are using a number of different combos that synergize with each other, but that approach takes an above average number of card slots. If you wish to stop playing any of the included combos, those cards are an okay substitution, as they increase consistency.
I'd make the following substitutions:
Imperial Seal -> Lim-Dul's Vault
Timetwister -> either Days' Undoing (if you have all the fast mana) or Thirst for Knowledge
Wheel of Fortune -> Manifold Insights
Bloom Tender -> Priest of Titania
Imperial Recruiter -> Eladamri's Call, assuming you are already playing Recruiter of the Guard
I play in a metagame with 30 point life totals and Sylvan Library is much worse there. Silence is an incredible card and I've only recently started appreciating its power in my 4c Hulk list. I'd definitely try to include it in Sliver Queen KikiHulk, but I don't have an idea what to remove yet.
Village Bell-Ringer does not synergize with Birthing Pod and I find only playing one Pod-synergistic untapper is too unrealiable. The Pod line (2 cmc creature -> Pestermite -> Felidar -> Karmic -> Kiki) is one of our strongest moves and it's important to preserve it even if we lose Deceiver Exarch somehow.
I don't think there's anything that needs to be added from the new set. The only card that has potential in my eyes is Razaketh, since he synergizes with Sliver Queen and can virtually always fetch Flash + Hulk. I'm sure yet, if he is needed in the 5c version.
Did you mean Survival instead of Oath? I played Retainers and Elesh in the past and they performed okay. I decided to remove them from the current version because I didn't need them as often and they were sometimes difficult to play (since Elesh is quite expensive and Retainers only works on legendary creatures).
RiP doesn't wreck us completely. We still have the Birthing Pod line that goes as follows:
1-drop and 2-drop in play
pod 2-drop -> Pestermite (untap Pod)
pod 1-drop -> Phantasmal Image (enters as Pestermite -> untap Pod)
pod Phantasmal Image -> Felidar Guardian (blink Pod)
pod Guardian -> Kiki-Jiki
In addition to the Birthing Pod line we also have the Sneak Attack line:
sneak in Recruiter of the Guard/Imperial Recruiter
tutor for Kiki-Jiki
sneak in Kiki
copy Recruiter
tutor for Pestermite
sneak in Pestermite
You'll notice both of these lines don't use the graveyard at all.
In your recent deck, you cut dread return, doesn't that wreck the intuition line?
I tried to make a deck a little faster, so I removed the slower lines (Intuition was cut too). I consider Intuition among the slower lines, because hitting all the requirements for the combo is difficult in the early game. I would still play it in a slower meta though.
I personally don't value Riftsweeper highly and I think it's definitely not needed in a deck like this, since it's really difficult for us to lose all lines to victory.
Early game it is G and whetever color you need to play what's already in your hand. Later it becomes important to produce at least 3 R mana for Kiki or Sneak Attack lines.
Was doing some goldfishing and i'm kind in doubt in what lines should i take.
example, 3 lands + englightned tutor + counter + something. should i keep, and play until i have something for sure to get with the tutor? or go get... ?
same question but replace englightned with demonic, vampiric, mystical/wordly? what should be the line of play?
surival first, a creature for the combo?
Sorry for the late reply. Keepable hands are largely reliant on the type of decks you are facing. I usually play in a slower, grindier meta with a lot of hate, so keeping slower hands is okay, but sometimes you might want to aggresively mulligan to either early reanimation or something like fast mana + wheel.
Survival is normally best if you only have one tutor, because it prepares both for a fast (Hulk + Flash or chaining Kiki kill pieces in the grave) and slow game (discarding expensive creatures for dorks -> Sliver Queen or a value piece). Sometimes tutoring for a Recruiter is also viable when you have only a single tutor, because it opens you up to multiple lines and you can partially build them without drawing too much focus to yourself (Recruiter -> Carrion Feeder / Viscera Seer is a good example).
Sliver Queen Boonweaver combo.
This post will try to document the changes that have happened with the deck over time. Notice that these changes are for my personal decklist, so they are influenced by my metagame. Certain exclusions and inclusions might seem out of place in a blind metagame or a playgroup with a different representation of decks than my own. I've separated the cards into two categories: cards that I have excluded prior to creating this guide and cards that have been replaced after recent testing. I will try to argument my points in both cases, but feel free to open a discussion on any of the mentioned cards if you strongly feel that they are missing from the deck.
Cards documented below have been played in earlier iterations of the deck. Some of them are still highly relevant for the modern version of this deck, while others are included to paint a picture of this deck's past. I've purposefully omitted many cards that were also past inclusions, but were simply too incompatible with the current idea of the deck to provide any meaningful discussion.
Below is a list of changes that have been made since the deck has debuted on MTGS. Each entry has a timestamp and an explanation for all exclusions and inclusions. I will also try to modify the main post to include the new cards and explanations for their inclusion.
You are correct, the fetching is almost always completely dependant on what I currently have in hand. When I'm able to get extra colors, and there are no important other factors to take into account, I usually get extra things that can produce a red color, since Kiki-Jiki is the most mana intensive card in the deck.
I actually mentioned sneak attack and its strong points in the final chapter. I'm officially putting it in this week (when I also receive it in physical form) instead of Blasting Station, which is arguable the weakest of the sacrifice outlets (Altar of Dementia is cheaper, Bombardment is also cheaper and resistant to Null Rod, Viscera Seer is also cheaper and a creature and Phyrexian Altar is also usually cheaper, even if it only gives is infinite mana as opposed to damage). As I mentioned there, I'm immune to counterspells if it resolves, have a nice easy win line with the Recruiter (which I'm also playing now) and have a very enjoyable out to one of the deck's main enemies: Blood Moon.
A strong line for dealing with null rod, cursed totem and similar artifacts (most notably Torpor Orb) is tutoring for Ancient Grudge. I play in a very controlish metagame, and while there is a low chance they will counter my tutor, it's quite possible that my removal for the stax piece is countered. Ancient Grudge helps here, since it gives me two chances to get rid of something.
Yes, when playing against heavy graveyard hate, it's best going with the Kiki-Jiki interactions. That was originally the reason I even included him in the deck, since my metagame became increasingly graveyard, and after that, anti-graveyard oriented. It's also notable that because we are playing redundant pieces of the same Reveillark combo shell, we can sometimes bait out something like a Relic of Progenitus activation and still proceed to combo after that by restocking our graveyard in the same turn.
- Ad Nauseam
- Blasting Station
- Sylvan Library
+ Sneak Attack
+ Recruiter of the Guard
+ Eldritch Evolution
I still maintain that Ad Nauseam is a very strong card in the deck and should be an autoinclude when playing in a blind metagame. However, there are two important factors for its current exclusion and both are tied to my own metagame. Firstly, we play with 30 point life totals. This makes Ad Nauseam considerably worse, but still very much playable due to the very low mana curve of the deck. However there is also the second reason: the metagame is packed with tons of very varied and specific answers. You can find everything from Force of Will, Mental Misstep, Swords to Plowshares, Abrupt Decay, Pyroblast to even more obscure (but still crazy efficient) cards like Warping Wail, Submerge, Rakdos Charm, Barbarian Ring, Crop Rotation (into Bojuka Bog) etc. This makes playing Ad Nauseam and performing your winning line very difficult, because you can get stopped at virtually any step and because the nature of Ad Nauseam makes any whiff an almost guaranteed loss due to the low life total. Ad Nauseam is a strong card for a 40 life meta and especially one where people don't understand what kind of a deck you are playing.
I've also decided to try playing without Blasting Station. I've always enjoyed the redundancy it provided, although the 3 mana cost was sometimes problematic to generate on a combo turn. It's also a bit more tricky to use outside of the combo.
I never really had a big attachment to Sylvan Library. It performed okay by being a combination of card quality and card advantage, but I always considered it a potential flex slot. I'm especially interested if the deck will noticably underperform because of losing another card advantage card.
I've already spoken a bit about the inclusion in the above posts. All three inclusion make all the possible lines of play in the deck much smoother, as well as opening new unique combos (Sneak Attack -> Recruiter -> Kikimite or Rector + EE -> Sneak Attack + Recruiter).
Space:
I feel that, to effectively utilize Hermit Druid, I would need to also include at least two other cards: Fatestitcher and Narcomoeba. This makes the package at least 3 cards big, which is very difficult to find space for, especially since Hermit and Narcomoeba are not very useful outside of the Druid line. Including them weakens either our combo, draw or answer package as we cannot afford to cut mana production or tutors. It could be argued that we don't need to play both extra cards since we have many mana dorks, but that just decreases the possibility of a successful Druid line.
Risk:
If we successfully activate the Druid and dump our library, then attempt Dread Return -> Karmic -> Kiki -> Exarch, we leave ourselves open to counterspells, creature removal, or instant graveyard exile (the possiblity of Rakdos Charm or Crop Rotation -> Bojuka Bog is very real). If our plan gets foiled during a Druid line, we lose the game 100%. A dedicated Druid deck mitigates this problem with Memory's Journey and having Devoted Druid + Morselhoarder + Necrotic Ooze -> Shivan Hellkite activations (which render the combo immune to creature based removal). But when we commit to a Druid line we are betting our entire game on the process going smoothly. I feel that this deck's greatest strength is actually the opposite; making strong plays and threatening to win even if things get answered again and again. In that sense Hermit Druid does more harm than good.
Nevertheless, I could totally see a version of this deck playing with a Hermit Druid package as an extra option of attack if the hypothetical metagame were greedier and played less specific removal. I think in that case two very useful cards would be Shallow Grave and Postmortem Lunge since they are incredibly useful with Hermit Druid and synergize well with the rest of the deck. Right now I am mainly interested in tuning the deck towards synergy and resilience.
Jarad Graveyard Combo[Primer]!
Sidisi ANT!
Playing Commander to Win - A guide on Competitive, 4-player EDH
LandDestruction.com - An EDH blog
I did another quick inspection of the Ally list and Zulaport Cutthroat is indeed the most useful Ally that Tazri could possibly fetch for this deck (please correct me if I missed something! I also considered Changeling Berserker, Mirror Entity. Stuff like Sea Gate Loremaster seems horrible to me). This in my opinion makes Tazri much much weaker than Sliver Queen for the Commander slot. As a creature, Tazri is useless most of the time and can only act as an extremely overpriced combo piece to one half of our deck (because it doesn't help Kikimite at all, except under some rare circumstances).
Besides, Zulaport Cutthroat is not even strictly needed in any of the graveyard loop interactions. If we are using Bombardment (or Blasting Station) or Altar of Dementia, that is enough for killing all players, since we can mill or burn them. In the case of Phyrexian Altar and Viscera Seer Zulaport Cutthroat can indeed help, but that's not really important since we usually use these two sacrifice outlets with Boonweaver, in which case we can also easily fetch Kikimite, eliminating the need for Zulaport once again.
I concede that Sliver Queen does not directly help our combos, but it does often help us leading up to them. It gives us a board presence, powers our Bloom Tender and threatens artifact decks with the Harmonic Sliver interaction.
Sacrifice outlets:
I've actually stopped playing with Blasting Station and don't really miss its redundancy. I still maintain that it's a solid sacrifice outlet since it can win the game without Boonweaver making an appearance (with Reveillark and Karmic Guide, for instance). Bombardment and Altar of Dementia both do that as well and are much better because they are cheaper. As already mentioned above, Viscera Seer and Phyrexian Altar cannot strictly win the game with their activations alone, but they are both very cheap (Seer only being 1 mana and Phyrexian Altar often acting double duty as a Ritual).
Varolz is expensive and cannot kill players with a Boonweaver-less graveyard loop. I like that it can be fetched with Green Sun's Zenith, but currently we don't play it. That's because we don't include Dryad Arbor due to the demanding mana base and other than fetching mana producing creatures it doesn't currently do anything for our combo except fetch Saffi. I'd consider Dimir House Guard much earlier than Varolz, since he can also act as a tutor for important cards in the deck.
An interesting idea might be Cartel Aristocrat, since it is unique as a sacrifice outlet that protects itself. I'll also be re-testing Carrion Feeder as another cheap creature sacrifice outlet, because the deck has changed considerably since I last considered it.
The decklist is currently unchanged, but I will soon begin testing:
+ Imperial Recruiter
- Snapcaster Mage
Snapcaster is a solid card, but I feel that it is not exceptional, while Recruiter directly helps all of our winning lines and is also a great value play. This may trigger a number of other potential changes, most notably Phyrexian Altar -> Carrion Feeder, since the latter is easily tutorable with both Recruiters.
For instance, I have played deep analysis in my sidisi hermit druid deck as a combo piece and I had many ways to get it in the graveyard as well. While it occassionally has come in handy for me, I always viewed it as a necessary evil, not as something I would include if I had a choice. So seing as you have 5 colors worth of cards to choose from wouldn't gamble or imperial seal give you way more bang for that card slot? I would also personally prefer lim dul's vault or Sylvan library.
Another card I have reservations about is arcane denial, why not flusterstorm instead? How often has the hard counter been worth it given it cost one more and has a pretty substantial drawback?
I have a couple other cards that may be decent enough to warrant a spot and am curious to your perspective on them. I apologize ahead of time if you have already discussed these cards somewhere in your primer
Splinter twin: Slightly faster than Kiki and easily tutored for with rector.
Heliod's Pilgrim: Really useful tutor especially if you use splinter twin. Even so it could replace dance of the dead or necromancy
It's been quite a while since I have posted in this thread. I took a longer vacation and headed to Japan, where I had plenty of time to think about improvements to the deck and also gather sweet sweet pimp cards
Even though the core of the deck is still very much the same and all the major lines are unchanged, a whopping 10% of the list has changed. The switches are documented below:
Temple Garden -> Gemstone Mine
I didn't want to cut any duals/shocks that are unique in their color combination, so that left Temple Garden, Blood Crypt, Stomping Ground, Breeding Pool, Sacred Foundry, Overgrown Tomb. The Rx shocks are too valuable to cut, because red mana is very relevant in the later stages, when we are going for Kiki-Jiki or Sneak Attack. This leaves us with three Gx shocks and out of those three, the least important color is W, so Temple Garden was cut. Its replacement was Gemstone Mine which will hopefully increase the number of keepable hands and reduce the inherent problem of playing a 5 color deck.
Phyrexian Altar was cut for Carrion Feeder because we still need to generate 3 mana before getting it into play, not to mention Carrion Feeder is a creature and thus has a number of advantages: it can be tutored with Recruiter(s), reanimated with a number of cards, is clampable and pitches to Survival. It can even become an annoying physical threat in a pinch. Most importantly, it enables very early Boonweaver combos that wouldn't be possible with a 3 mana artifact.
Eldritch Evolution was kind of okay in the deck, but simply didn't do enough. The Tinker-like quality, while absurd on paper, often proved underwhelming, because our most common creature is a 1-drop mana dork that doesn't fetch enough crucial creatures. Compared to Evolution, Diabolic Intent gives us unlimited options. There is not really much more that needs to be said in praise of Demonic Tutor, even one with a caveat.
I have been eyeing Tainted Pact as a potential inclusion for quite a while. It seemed like a natural fit, because our combo engine is made from many interchangable pieces and since we are 5 color, we do not play any multiples of basics which could mess up our card flipping line. I was also really attracted to the card because it is an instant, which allows for a much greater surprise. I felt that cutting one of the three reanimation enchantments was safe enough to make room for it. Although Dance of the Dead is cheaper than Necromancy, I really liked the flash aspect of the latter, so it stayed in the deck.
Deep Analysis would normally be replaced with Timetwister, but as of yet I do not wish to spend upwards of 400 euros on it Day's Undoing is doing a remarkably good Twister impression, because it opens me to more t2 wheeling blowouts.
As already mentioned in a previous post, Snapcaster is a solid card, but is not crucial to the deck. It was cut for Gamble, which is yet another Demonic Tutor type card and enables us some risky, but blazing fast openings. Even though its downside is very annoying, this is one of the better decks to mitigate it, since we play so much recursion.
Red Elemental Blast was replaced with Chain of Vapor because of certain metagame changes (rising popularity of permanent-based decks: most notable are monogreen Selvala, Karador, Queen Marchesa and Derevi) and the synergy with cards like Animate Dead and Sneak Attack. It can also act as a mana boost with Mana Crypt and save our own permanents from removal. Lastly, we can use it to trigger Phantasmal Image, which wasn't possible with REB unless Phantasmal Image was blue.
The change from Spell Pierce to Unsubstantiate is also due to metagame changes. Both are basically tempo counterspells with Unsubstantiate also having the added value of temporarily dealing with creatures and "countering" uncounterable spells.
Harmonic Sliver -> Loyal Retainers
Lastly, the final two inclusions will be mentioned together, since they are an important duo. Harmonic Sliver and Ray of Revelation were removed as I was feeling that the need for enchantment removal has decreased in the metagame. This slightly reduced the power of Sliver Queen as the Harmonic interaction for sweeping artifacts and enchantments is gone. However, the cards that replaced them more than make up for it! Having Loyal Retainers in the deck suddenly gives us even more dangerous lines with Kiki-Jiki, Jin-Gitaxias and Saffi. While Kiki is by far the most attractive from a combo perspective, Jin-Gitaxias appreciates Retainers the most, since they enable very easy mid- and even earlygame reanimation. This holds doubly true for our final inclusion, Elesh Norn. She gives the deck another threat angle, while simultaneously dealing with creature-based strategies like elfball and hatebears.
In the following days, I will update the opening posts to include all the mentioned changes.
You are correct with a lot of your reasoning. Deep Analysis has indeed been removed from the list and both Imperial Seal as well as Gamble are excellent inclusions. I've included Gamble as stated above, but Imperial Seal is currently not being considered due to price concerns (this list exists and is meant for paper play so I am omitting cards like Seal and Timetwister until I'm in a comfortable enough to buy them and not have a guilty conscience :P). I find Vault a bit underwhelming and Sylvan Library has previously been in the deck but didn't live up to expectations. This is in large part due to the 30 life rule we are playing with.
Arcane Denial's range is invaluable. I would only consider cutting it for something like Mana Drain.
Splinter Twin is actually weaker than Kiki-Jiki in a number of ways. Most importantly, we are forced to only use Pestermite or Exarch (not Restoration Angel) and they must lose summoning sickness, which means we need to play them earlier in the game. Rector can of course fetch us Twin, but we are unable to use any of our creature tutors or creature reanimation on it. This all makes it clunkier than Kiki-Jiki and I would never switch them. Being a replacement for Kiki is much more plausible, but still not the most attractive due to all the mentioned reasons. Still, the effect is very unique and even a "bad" Kiki-Jiki is still great in a lot of scenarios, so I will be keeping an eye on the card. Perhaps it finds its way on the list as part of another larger change.
I agree with your opinion on Heliod's Pilgrim. It can also fetch Pattern of Rebirth. I will definitely reconsider it, if I'm trying to include Twin in the deck.
If I was playing in a blind meta, I would strongly consider playing Scion, because people often do not understand what exactly our deck is trying to do and going for the combo as soon as possible is usually the best idea.
One suggestion I don't see here is Felidar Guardian, which I find incredibly useful in the tutor chain - not only does it combo off with Kiki-Jiki and untap Birthing Pod, it's a 4-drop, meaning a 3-drop creature pods into Felidar Guardian, which goes into Karmic Guide reanimating Felidar Guardian, untapping Pod, which gets Kiki-Jiki, which copies Karmic Guide, which reanimates Felidar Guardian for the win.
Skullclamp is used for quick card advantage. As you noticed, we can kill our dorks with it (usually advisable when we have multiple) or play Sliver Queen and use her as an engine. Skullclamp is also exceptionally good with Saffi.
Mana Crypt is arguably the strongest acceleration in the deck. I'd substitute it with a random mana rock if you can't afford it. Something like Fellwar Stone should be fine. Either that or include one of the one-drop mana dorks you aren't currently playing (I think Elvish Mystic is currently excluded).
Mox Diamond is also quite hard to replace, since there are few cards with its explosive potential. I'd play another mana rock here as well.
Yes, Carpet is pretty meta dependant. Also, if you play against decks with no blue, you are pretty much winning anyway
While it's usually faster than a mana dork, Utopia Sprawl is also worse in a number of ways. Dorks are often used to fuel other lines of play (Birthing Pod, Skullclamp, Dread Return, etc.) and Utopia Sprawl isn't. Utopia Sprawl is also worse against land based disruption like Back to Basics.
The cantrips you mentioned are all great and solid cards. Currently the deck isn't playing them due to lack of space. We are using a number of different combos that synergize with each other, but that approach takes an above average number of card slots. If you wish to stop playing any of the included combos, those cards are an okay substitution, as they increase consistency.
I'd make the following substitutions:
Imperial Seal -> Lim-Dul's Vault
Timetwister -> either Days' Undoing (if you have all the fast mana) or Thirst for Knowledge
Wheel of Fortune -> Manifold Insights
Bloom Tender -> Priest of Titania
Imperial Recruiter -> Eladamri's Call, assuming you are already playing Recruiter of the Guard
I play in a metagame with 30 point life totals and Sylvan Library is much worse there. Silence is an incredible card and I've only recently started appreciating its power in my 4c Hulk list. I'd definitely try to include it in Sliver Queen KikiHulk, but I don't have an idea what to remove yet.
Village Bell-Ringer does not synergize with Birthing Pod and I find only playing one Pod-synergistic untapper is too unrealiable. The Pod line (2 cmc creature -> Pestermite -> Felidar -> Karmic -> Kiki) is one of our strongest moves and it's important to preserve it even if we lose Deceiver Exarch somehow.
I don't think there's anything that needs to be added from the new set. The only card that has potential in my eyes is Razaketh, since he synergizes with Sliver Queen and can virtually always fetch Flash + Hulk. I'm sure yet, if he is needed in the 5c version.
RiP doesn't wreck us completely. We still have the Birthing Pod line that goes as follows:
1-drop and 2-drop in play
pod 2-drop -> Pestermite (untap Pod)
pod 1-drop -> Phantasmal Image (enters as Pestermite -> untap Pod)
pod Phantasmal Image -> Felidar Guardian (blink Pod)
pod Guardian -> Kiki-Jiki
In addition to the Birthing Pod line we also have the Sneak Attack line:
sneak in Recruiter of the Guard/Imperial Recruiter
tutor for Kiki-Jiki
sneak in Kiki
copy Recruiter
tutor for Pestermite
sneak in Pestermite
You'll notice both of these lines don't use the graveyard at all.
I tried to make a deck a little faster, so I removed the slower lines (Intuition was cut too). I consider Intuition among the slower lines, because hitting all the requirements for the combo is difficult in the early game. I would still play it in a slower meta though.
I personally don't value Riftsweeper highly and I think it's definitely not needed in a deck like this, since it's really difficult for us to lose all lines to victory.
Survival is normally best if you only have one tutor, because it prepares both for a fast (Hulk + Flash or chaining Kiki kill pieces in the grave) and slow game (discarding expensive creatures for dorks -> Sliver Queen or a value piece). Sometimes tutoring for a Recruiter is also viable when you have only a single tutor, because it opens you up to multiple lines and you can partially build them without drawing too much focus to yourself (Recruiter -> Carrion Feeder / Viscera Seer is a good example).