You got it, Fr0sty711! I updated the spreadsheet. Send me an editor request if you haven't already. You can swizzle the spreadsheet around if you need to make any updates.
In a multiplayer game, I use CoA as a rattlesnake card. I aggressively ramp into CoA in the early stages of the game, using removal to stop anyone coming at me during the early turns. The incremental value creatures are good early blockers. The beauty of this deck is that it doesn't look threatening in the early turns.
I tutor to set up this combination of cards:
1) CoA in play.
2) A card in hand to trigger CoA, ideally Sidisi's Faithful.
3) A recursion card in hand, ideally Disturbed Burial.
4) A counterspell in hand.
The first time I demonstrate the loop, I usually gain an insurmountable amount of card advantage. It's enough to often cause the table to concede. Seriously. This happens a lot. People don't realize how backbreaking wiping the board is in a multiplayer game. When they see that I can literally do it over and over, they start to think through decklists and realize there isn't a way out.
We don't call it "dreamcrusher" for nothing.
If they decide to play it out, I usually take out one player at a time with CoA beats while playing a quick game of Archenemy as they proceed to openly gang up on me. If often doesn't matter because they don't have enough collective time to rebuild under repeated board wipes.
If there is a tricky control player, I buy time and tutor to set this up:
1) 12+ mana sources in play.
2) Capsize in hand.
3) A counterspell in hand.
Capsizing one or two permanents per turn after a CoA board wipe is usually enough to cause the concession.
I rarely use the combo to win. It's too risky to outright tutor for and never comes up randomly (for me). It's good to know that it's there.
This deck is cool because you can hold counterspells for the very few cards that cause you to not be able to loop CoA. Discard spells, counterspells, hasted threats, indestructible blockers, etc. You can (mostly) let everything else go through because CoA will clean it up in short order. Even then, unless it causes you an outright loss, you can even lose a counter war and still rebuild because you will likely draw one of the card draw spells or something that lets you recur a key card. The entire deck is set up to be robust in this way. In other words, you can let spells resolve that would cause other decks an eventual loss.
I'm interested to know how the flow of the game goes for other players.
The new set brings us more than a few interesting cards. I'm only going to list the cards that I think will test out, but there are several other cards in the set that look like they could be upgrades, duplicate effects, or a different direction besides these. Please add your own analysis!
Ardent Elementalist - Can't be tutored with Wizardcycling, but likely better than Izzet Chronarch. Same effect, less mana, fewer colors.
Blood Pact - Another draw 2 for 3cmc and 2 life, but this one is at instant speed. It's not the most efficient version of this spell, but instant speed could make it a contender for one of the other card draw slots.
Eaten Alive - This is an Angelic Purge-type effect, except it hits planeswalkers (and not artifacts or enchantments). It also has more flexible costing, allowing us more control over if we need to trigger CoA (for example). This could be good if you are running into indestructible creatures in your meta, although Capsize is likely the better solution.
Electric Revelation - I like filter cards. This one had flashback for added value. I don't run Faithless Looting, though. And I would probably test that over this first.
Path to the Festival - It tutors for a basic land and puts it into play tapped and is likely to offer the Scry 1 in this deck. Plus, it has flashback. That might be enough value to make this worth a ramp slot.
What other cool cards did you see for this deck in the new set?
Nice to see the regulars are still keeping the thread active! Even some new comers to the deck - awesome!
Anyway, I think you've missed the most important contribution to the deck so far in these recent sets: INDESTRUCTIBLE DUALS!!
I'm talking about the Bridge lands (Darkmoss Bridge etc.) I mean wow, just wow. LD is one of the very core and main weaknesses of this deck and I wouldn't in my wildest fantasies have considered that WotC would print such an awesome counter-measure at common rarity. Of course you need a density of them to make them useful, and they won't geddon-proof the deck on their own, but still - those limitations are only fair.
We have so many good and actually relevant lands to play at common now, we're spoiled for choice. Remember when we all were excited about getting guildgates! That escalated quickly. Now we must decide if we want the snow lands that let us ramp and fix two colors at once, the duals that let us scry or the duals that are friggin' indestructible. Didn't see that coming for pauper. I'll be sure to update my list later this fall, but I just wanted to comment on the insane power of indestructible duals at common for this deck.
As for the other cards, the only no-brainer I think will be an auto-include is Deadly Dispute. It's not quite as good as Village Rites, but still a step above most other sac outlets.
Feign Death vs. Kaya's Ghostform: Probably, Feign Death is better but all three could be run. Undying Evil is still best IMO. I don't think MV4 to-the-battlefield recursion is necessary when the going price is ONE for all of these three effects, unless you want a transmute target for DHG (if you're still running that). Is three more mana and sorcery speed really worth avoiding the timing hassle? I don't think so.
Step Through vs. Vedalken Aethermage: I think Alexandre said everything on this already. The tutor chains that Aethermage offers are more abundant for getting Sidid's Faithful or Aethermage for CoF-combo, so it's a bad trade. Having said that, Step Through is not a bad card, especially if you run a couple of more wizards than the bare requirements.
Minimus Containment: I think this is decent if you want a little something extra, but it's not a dependable solution to a bad problem. They sac, recur - now the problem is there again and unlike Capsize, your solution is not. I don't think I'll be testing this card and I think it will fall away from lists for better options.
Growth Spiral and friends: These cards are filler, they shouldn't replace the necessary 7-or-so ramp slots. The deck has about 10-20 flex slots where you can run more draw, more counters, more silver bullets, more combo pieces, more sac outlets or what have you. Growth Spiral should be compared to cards like Minimus Containment IMO and not mandatory staples in draw or ramp. Our agreable problem today is that we have compacted the deck so it does what it has always done, but with more room to spare and for less mana, and meanwhile the playable cards in these flex slots have gone way up so we now have 50-ish good options for 20-ish slots. We're spoiled for choice - should we run Condescend, fill 'er up with Growth Spiral or perhaps good ol' Wrecking Ball etc. etc. Either way it will probably be good as long as we're still getting WUBRG, playing CoA and recurring her for cheap.
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Okay, I've played around a bit with the new artifact lands. As usual, what fascinates me the most about this deck is how strong we can make a 5c pauper manabase, and it's getting stronger every year. To recap, this is what I was running this spring:
The new idea here was to use the new snow duals to empower Into the North, Farseek and Land Grant. I noticed a question earlier on "why not Nature's Lore/Three Visits when running Land Grant". The idea there is that you don't actually want to ramp up a green source when you already have a green source. If you have green and need red, it's very nice to cast Into the North for Volatile Fjord, but casting Three Visits for Highland Forest isn't much better than just Rampant Growth for basic Mountain - since you already had green. Land Grant is a different story, because you can use it to get that initial green source without committing to basic Forest - indeed get Rimewood Falls instead and up your island count for later Mystic Sanctuary - much better!
Land Grant replaced Mycosynth Wellspring in the MV2 green fixer slot. You see, one of the things that let you keep hands without a green source is the fact that we're running many U and B sources and transmute cards. Most transmuters (3 total) are in the MV2 slot, meaning you want a MV2 target that can fetch green. Wellspring is awesome for the deck here for many reasons, but with the new snow duals, Land Grant is probably slightly better still. I would not recommend running both.
The small issue with Land Grant is that it forces you to run all the 4 green snow duals, which wasn't really a problem before when other good green sources were scarce and the only opportunity cost was miniscule life gain from cards like Thornwood Falls. But now, we have a serious contender for these slots and more, namely the new indestructible artifact duals! This solves an old problem for the deck - the vulnerability to mass LD like Armageddon. It will still suck, but if you have a couple of indestructible mana on the table, you will recover so much faster.
To this end, I present two alternative mana bases to the spring 2021 version above. First, one that eschews Land Grant and plays Wellspring instead, in order to cram as many indestructible duals as possible in the deck. The second one is a hybrid version that attempts to combine the best bits of the Land Grant idea and the indestrutible duals idea. Both of these lists make use of Trinket Mage and Expedition Map, meaning they consume two more slots in your deck!
This list cuts both remaining Panoramas, three of the green snow duals and Shimmerdrift Vale (because it's not an Island for Mystic Sanctuary) and adds all four green artifact duals plus the BR and BW duals. The net loss of 2 green sources is compensated by the addition of Expedition Map and Trinket Mage to the deck, but as mentioned this takes up more space.
This hybrid list keeps the Land Grant package and adds only 2 artifact duals. It also swaps a swamp for Vault of Whispers to retain complete mana fixing ability for Trinket Mage. It keeps Bant Panorama for its awesomeness as a green source that can also grab islands for Mystic Sanctuary, but cuts Grixis Panorama and Shimmerdrift Vale for the same inability.
A question might be, how much protective value is there to 6 indestructible duals as opposed to only running 2? Well, the clutch is really Trinket Mage, so you should be comparing 7 to 3. Then there's the possibility that you anticipate mass LD from knowing your opponents' decks, which might change your tutoring priorities with Crop Rotation and Expedition Map, or even second order tutors like Vedalken Aethermage (Trinket Mage) and Mystic Teachings (Crop Rotation). MV3 tutors can go directly for Darksteel Ingot if you anticipate geddon. All this of course closes the gap further. So yeah, 6 indestructible lands are better than 2, but might not impact getting a couple of indestructible sources on the board pre-geddon as much as you'd think.
I'm thinking the sweet spot for the mana base is somewhere in the lists above. Would love to hear what you think about Land Grant package, Trinket Mage package and the rest.
PS: A mistake in the spring list at the top is that it should probably run a second forest over Tranquil Thicket. The second forest is the next-best-thing to try and rebuild after a 'geddon effect when you have lots of basic land fetch in the deck. When you don't, and run Expedition Map, and run indestructible green sources instead to combat mass LD, Thicket gets much better.
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As always, thank you urdjur for the time and energy you put into your analysis and write-up(s). It is helpful to spark conversation and also to look back on thoughts as the deck develops.
4MV vs. 1MV Reanimation Spells
I am drawn to the 4MV reanimation spells, probably because my style of play. Is it not your experience that you have tight turns in the early-to-mid-game where you simply do not have the extra B mana to cast one of the 1MV spells to bring CoA back? This happens to me a lot. And those 1MV renanimation spells are terrible topdecks.
Tough Choices
The more I think about this deck, the more I realize that I'm not making the tough choices on what to cut. There are a lot of "cutsey" cards in my list, like Minimus Containment, that I end up telling myself I am "testing," but that I know aren't really helping me move the overall strategy forward. This is probably where all of our metas or playgrounds differ. If the deck is /too efficient,/ my opponents don't want to shuffle up and try again. That's not a good argument for running suboptimal cards, but falling back on making some card swaps here and there at least changes up the lines of play for a while.
Indestructible Lands
This is possibly another meta-driven choice. I simply do not see mass LD in my meta. And if I do, it's rare enough that countermagic is a reasonable response. That's not to say that moving the mana base in this direction is a bad choice anyway, but I haven't felt the pressure so I never considered it.
The Mana Base
In the pre-snow duals days, the mana base already felt solid to me. Turn 4-5 CoA was consistent. Colorless fixers put less pressure on opening hands or counting colored sources. Cards like Expedition Map, Mycosynth Wellspring, and Darksteel Ingot did the job. You've done considerable analysis on the mana sources and fixing. These current mana bases may be objectively better. Again, this may come down to playstyle: mana sources that come into play tapped drive me crazy. Is there a workable version of the mana base that prioritizes untapped mana sources/lands? This could possibly work with Trinket Mage, as you suggested.
Thank you again for the conversation and analysis, to all of you!
VivienneHell - currently on vacation but your last post gave me lots of food for thought on the mana base. I’ll get back on that.
Meanwhile, I was wondering if anybody has tried the new Resculpt over Crib Swap? Upside is being tutorable with Merchant Scroll and the less overcrowded 2MV transmute slot, and handling arifacts too. Downside is not tutoring with Aethermage (reducing the versatility of that tutor a lot), and leaving a bigger token (probably not very relevant).
On a similar note, I haven’t seen much discussion on Masked Vandal as an alternative to Forsake the Worldly. It does tutor with Aethermage AND 2MV transmutes. It’s pretty easy to feed it either CoA from recent wipe leaving indestructible target, or from a creature-type tutor etc. Seems like a good fit for the deck.
Swapping both would also lower the deck’s curve even further. Thoughts?
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Now I finally have time to reply more indepth to your previous post, VivienneHell!
I am drawn to the 4MV reanimation spells, probably because my style of play. Is it not your experience that you have tight turns in the early-to-mid-game where you simply do not have the extra B mana to cast one of the 1MV spells to bring CoA back? This happens to me a lot. And those 1MV renanimation spells are terrible topdecks.
Before the rules change, I would have agreed with you. Back then, CoA could sit in the GY post wipe and of course, the 1MV reanimation is no good then. It didn't much matter if your yard got exiled, because then you could finally cast CoA from the Command Zone again. But anyway, that's in the past. These days there's little reason not to put CoA back in CZ after it dies and wipes (unless you have that cheapening reanimation in hand). So that means CoA is either on the battlefield or in the CZ and the 1MV reanimation is just more cost effective than 4MV reanimation then - but it's for that "next" wipe, rather than the current one at hand (which is, or just was, financed directly from CZ as per normal taxing rules).
There can be different advantages to either effect early game. If you drop CoA t4 and tap out, it's easier to have mana on t5 for reanimation AND sac outlet if you use the 1MV variant. If you play CoA t5 with one mana open to blow it up and you're forced to do that before t6, then the 4MV reanimation is better than just putting CoA back in CZ and paying 7 mana next time - despite the cheapness of 1MV reanimation, you just don't have the mana to do it all same turn that early.
All in all, I think Late to Dinner and Mistmoon Griffin are very playable cards in the deck, especially if you run Dimir House Guard with a few other solid 4MV targets. I would love for a 3MV variant to be printed as common, and it seems like WotC are sweetening the 4MV deal already - perhaps power creep will eventually grant us something like Breath of Life costing 1GB or 1WB (gold requirements makes it balanced IMO) so we can tutor it with 3MV transmutes. Until then, I will probably be running all three 1MV reanimation though.
Is there a workable version of the mana base that prioritizes untapped mana sources/lands? This could possibly work with Trinket Mage, as you suggested.
I think this was one of the most interesting questions asked about this deck in like a year or so! It sparked many ideas and I've given it lots of thoughts the last couple of weeks. I think we've been so obsessed with fixing, running enough sources, getting WUBRG with a pauper mana base etc. that we've missed the fact that we can afford to relax a bit and try to make a slightly faster mana base now that we have better fixing.
The obvious choice would be to run more basics and more panoramas. This is not unproblematic. We're already maxed out on dedicated blue sources IMO, so running more would lead to less WUBRG t4-5 and more redundant early lands. Black sources pose the same problems. We can add more basic forests, but those slots come at the expense of other green sources: Green sources that also tap for U/B gives us more colored mana for the spells we want to play and have lots of, and green sources that tap for R/W lets us fetch extra islands with green ramp spells rather than mountain/plains.
It becomes a philosophical questions: What do we mean by a fast mana base? Playing more Forest to have fewer tap lands might seem fast on paper, but will it feel fast when you can't play Counterspell on turn 6 due to lack of UU? Concretely, my observations these last days leads me to believe the following:
2) It is not obviously necessary to also play Arctic Treeline, Highland Forest and Woodland Chasm to support Land Grant (or any ramp spell at common with keyword "Forest", as I've explained earlier). This needs clarification. Obviously, Land Grant isn't such a good spell to motivate running three tap lands to support it. However, if the mana base requires running more green sources that ETB tapped anyway (see reasoning on basic forests above), a virtually free spell that tutors at 2MV to boot and can fix two colors at once, is not a bad card or a bad reason to pick these green sources in particular.
3) A separate question is the need for green mana fixing at the 2MV slot. The idea has been previously that we can have more keepable hands with a card like Mycosynth Wellspring or Land Grant, not only to these cards themselves but because we could theoretically tutor for them at turns 3-4 to get a green source even when we didn't have one in our opener. However, with the present mana base, it will be very unusual to have 3 mana and no green source. Furthermore, we probably can't expect to have 1BB (for transmuting Shred Memory) even under such circumstances, meaning only Dimir Infiltrator and Muddle the Mixture would feasible fit for purpose. That's only 2 cards, of which we'd need one in hand in addition to the strange 3 lands but no green situation. I have not done any math on this, but it seems very unlikely, and will probably only increase keepable hands with 1-2%. All in all, the tutorability of Wellspring/Grant should not weigh heavily into the decision of running them - they can be good cards in their own right though.
4) The conclusion of 3) above has opened my eyes to yet another fixing option: Jhessian Zombies. It costs 2 to play (to cycle) much like Mycosynth Wellspring, but cycles at instant speed. Much like Land Grant, it can find duals - but islands rather than forests, which is much better since we're already running those to support cards as per 1) above. Moreover, it can find Mystic Sanctuary, as well as basic islands and swamps that don't ETB tapped. Downside is costing 2 to cycle where Land Grant is free, and being untutorable (but it's no biggie, as explained above). Thoughts?
5) Returning to the original question of more untapped lands, it is possible to run only the three island duals in 1) and squeeze in green sources in ravnica karoos, panoramas and forests. I still recommend Bant Panorma for all mana bases at present - I think it's at least a good a green source as Shimmerdrift Vale. Jund Panorama is probably necessary if you're not running the forest duals in 2) and much better than running a third Forest IMO. Grixis Panorama is a good card for any deck that has enough green sources and wants another good non-basic. Esper Panorama is slightly worse and probably only worth it if you have many white cards in the deck, and Naya Panorama would probably need support from 3 forests and 2 mountains in the mana base before you should consider running it (there's just no room IMO). I like the karoo set of Azorius Chancery, Golgari Rot Farm and Izzet Boilerworks because it lets you fix all colors at card parity with Crop Rotation, while being redundant in blue - the most important color to have lots of and a needed karoo color to pull off combo. However, with cutting away almost every white card in the deck as I'm currently considering, you can squeeze another green source in there by swapping chancery for Simic Growth Chamber. You could run all four of course, but that's more tap lands for you. I'm not a big fan of Dimir Aqueduct mainly because it risks being both black and blue redundant early game, and because it's not a green source to help with further fixing from ramp either. Certainly playable though.
6) The artifact lands and Trinket Mage are probably a meta call as you say. There are very few effects like Obliterate where you can't counter the mass LD, so it will be a question of opportunity costs. Running a few indestructible artifact duals to support Trinket Mage is no worse than running a few forest duals to support Land Grant really. The question is how Trinket Mage compares to other staples like Sea Gate Oracle - if it can earn its own slot. Trinket Mage needs to be much better than Borderland Ranger in the deck, and the indestructible artifact lands alone do not accomplish that. Cards like Expedition Map and Nihil Spellbomb are not quite good enough to be staples in their own right today, but certainly contenders for open slots. Maybe Trinket Mage will be the card to tie it all together and make a synergy that's greater than its parts?
All in all, I now think there are three different "optimal" mana bases at present that should only differ in a few cards:
A) The Land Grant version with all the snow forest duals.
B) The heavy basics/panoramas version that plays as many untapped lands as possible. This could also support Far Wanderings if one so desires, or possibly run Jhessian Zombies.
C) The Trinket Mage version with a few indestructible artifact duals and some main deck trinkets to boot.
What I'm really waiting for is another "breakthrough" like the thriving lands cycle or snow land duals cycle. The days of Panoramas and perhaps even cards like Shimmerdrift Vale are probably numbered, the question is only how quickly land/fixing power creep at common proceeds.
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I posted my current list on moxfield: Link, including a short primer with my thoughts on the current list. I also posted it in the discord but figured that some people only check the forums.
I like my list and it's quite fun to play. I enjoy low mana curves and powerful spells. I tried cutting all the bad spells that we simply had to play because we only have access to commons. I am "leaning into" the good commons wherever possible.
I would be grateful for any feedback. Is anyone still actively playing the deck in varying pods?
Hi broktok - thanks for posting your list. I'm not quite sure how you define bad vs. good spells. I read your primer. It seems unclear how it's helping you to run a card like Mind Swords over Mind Extraction, or not running Capsize. I do agree on cutting most of the clunkier creature recursion, as most lists here have - keeping one copy of some recursion engine card seems prudent though, if games go long.
I also think you're onto something with the more basics + panoramas approach. It's certainly one feasible route to take the mana base in, what with the good fixing we have these days in the thriving land cycle especially. Has Mortuary Mire outstayed its welcome with new rules and creature-light lists? Perhaps! I must admit almost never tutoring for it nowadays, and it's hard to say if using it is really better than a vanilla draw most of the time. Running 4 forests though seems a high price to pay for a few less tap lands.
I personally think the combo is the weakest part of the deck, as well as the greatest weakness of being limited to only commons (the control aspect of the deck is almost as strong despite the limitation IMO). And adding to the combo with even more overcosted recursion wizards and worse spells and tutors like Displace and Brainspoil only exacerbates the problem. I used to run Opal Palace to speed up the commander damage wincon, but I've come to see it doesn't really matter. If you have control, you can kill at leisure.
What excited me most about your list was Grapeshot over Rolling Thunder! I don't think we've ever discussed Grapeshot over all the years this deck has been in the brewing - an almost criminal oversight! Probably due to most storm cards being banned in regular pauper/peasant, so they're not on the pauper radar so to speak. But yeah, you can combo out with a single karoo and it potentially opens up more secure ways to combo out with Mystical Sanctuary and get infinite storm, which is harder to disrupt. Certainly merits more consideration IMO!
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... Mind Swords over Mind Extraction, or not running Capsize. I do agree on cutting most of the clunkier creature recursion, as most lists here have - keeping one copy of some recursion engine card seems prudent though, if games go long.
I still play reaping the graves. I like that the most as it cannot be countered. A countered Death Denied etc. easily loses us the game on the spot. Mind Swords is quite nice as a 0 mana sac outlet and against combo decks that nearly empty their hands by plaing ramp and mana rocks and pass with only a few spells in hand. Mind Extraction is just ok in my experience. It's quite expensive and rarely a blowout. Most of the time, a protection spell would be comparable. Capsize is among the cards that made me overhaul my list in the first place. It's just so slow and much, much worse than Cyclonic Rift except in a situation where we have infinite mana already or play against only one opponent. I was never happy to draw it, especially in the early game and rarely cast it at all. To me, it is purely a combo piece.
I personally think the combo is the weakest part of the deck, as well as the greatest weakness of being limited to only commons (the control aspect of the deck is almost as strong despite the limitation IMO). And adding to the combo with even more overcosted recursion wizards and worse spells and tutors like Displace and Brainspoil only exacerbates the problem. I used to run Opal Palace to speed up the commander damage wincon, but I've come to see it doesn't really matter. If you have control, you can kill at leisure.
I think recursion wizard + Ephemerate is very strong. Ephemerate in particular is so busted that I wanted to lean into it even more. Brainspoil sucks but is a concession to the fact that I need Peregrine Drake 90% of the time to combo off. Child beats are too slow in my experience. A lot of decks just don't care about a wrath every turn. And if we wrath every turn, we're not really attacking. I'm waiting for something like a common Kessig Wolf Run. THAT card would revolutionize the deck. I might try Opal Palace. Even a being a 7/7 makes a significant difference.
What excited me most about your list was Grapeshot over Rolling Thunder! I don't think we've ever discussed Grapeshot over all the years this deck has been in the brewing - an almost criminal oversight! Probably due to most storm cards being banned in regular pauper/peasant, so they're not on the pauper radar so to speak. But yeah, you can combo out with a single karoo and it potentially opens up more secure ways to combo out with Mystical Sanctuary and get infinite storm, which is harder to disrupt. Certainly merits more consideration IMO!
If you are on the discord you can see a picture of my deck - I'm aiming for printings that "don't look like magic cards". I found Grapeshot when I looked through all mystical archives
There's quite a few cute cards that could be relevant. A weird one is Sentinel's Eyes. Recurable and vigilance on a 6/6 (or more with Opal Palace is relevant in my experience. Other cards I'm looking at are Gush and Gitaxian Probe: Banned in Legacy, they must be good, right? Logic Knot: If Counterspell is good enough, this card must be playable as well.
I still play reaping the graves. I like that the most as it cannot be countered.
It's a good choice. I'd recommend running either that or Grim Harvest, which is also counter-resistent. The choice comes down to how many creatures you're running. Harvest is a 5 mana total investment to get back one creature. Archeomancer + RtG is 7 mana, so if you're only getting one other creature (apart from the recursion wizard needed to recur RtG) back, Harvest is more mana-efficient. You need to be getting 2+ creatures AND the wizard, to get ahead with RtG - difficult to do if your list has like 11 creatures total.
Mind Swords is quite nice as a 0 mana sac outlet and against combo decks that nearly empty their hands by plaing ramp and mana rocks and pass with only a few spells in hand. Mind Extraction is just ok in my experience. It's quite expensive and rarely a blowout.
I hate that Mind Swords hurts you too though, that makes it unplayable IMO. It's -3 cards for you and -2 cards for the others. How is ME not always a blowout? You blow out all resources on board AND in hand, except lands. If they can play their game plan using only the command zone and graveyard, or are playing land.dec, I guess they can recover - otherwise they are sitting ducks in topdeck mode.
Capsize is among the cards that made me overhaul my list in the first place. It's just so slow and much, much worse than Cyclonic Rift except in a situation where we have infinite mana already or play against only one opponent. I was never happy to draw it, especially in the early game and rarely cast it at all. To me, it is purely a combo piece.
I don't think Capsize and CR are comparable at all - if anything our commander already does better what CR can accomplish. Capsize is run to handle what CoA can't handle, to provide a different way of attack. Capsize + counter is a "generic answer" to most things, and repeated land bouncing when you're ahead on the land ramp and have blown out all the artifact mana is just another way to gain control. The extra utility as a combo piece is gravy IMO - I run it as a control piece.
I think recursion wizard + Ephemerate is very strong. Ephemerate in particular is so busted that I wanted to lean into it even more.
I've been wanting to try Ephemerate, but I think it too is a question of creature count. If you're already leaning into redundant combo package with many recursion wizards and Displace, throwing in Ephemerate is probably strong. If you have like 5 targets total that it can interact favorably with, it probably isn't. I also don't like that it works best if left uninterrupted for several turns - somewhat of a pipe dream in multiplayer and even more so with this deck that wants to blow up the world quite often. Ghostly Flicker shares many of the problems with Ephemerate, but at least it can win the game on the spot if the board position is right.
Brainspoil sucks but is a concession to the fact that I need Peregrine Drake 90% of the time to combo off.
What's wrong with Cloud of Faeries? You only have two outs to Drake - the Drake itself and Brainspoil. If you see 30 cards in your deck in a given game, that's less than 50% chance each game of actually getting a necessary combo piece in hand. CoF has 3 2MV transmute tutors, and tutor chains via Merchant Scroll/Mystical Teachings so you'll find it any game you want. Granted you also need a bounce land, but you can run those in multiples and Crop Rotation is easy to tutor for too. And it cycles, so it's not useless in hand before you try combo.
A thing I'm considering since you turned my attention to Grapeshot: cost reducers like Goblin Electromancer and Sunscape Familiar. You'd need two of those in play, Mystic Sanctuary and Mulldrifter. MS comes back untapped so it costs nothing to draw your deck, transition to some infinite storm combo if needed, and play Grapeshot. Pauper "Familiars combo" has transitioned to this version since the printing of Mystic Sanctuary, leaving Archaeomancer and friends behind. The problem with this deck is that it hates permanents that need to stay on board to be effective, but a card like Goblin Electromancer isn't entirely useless in the deck outside combo. Another problem is that we can only run 1 copy of Mulldrifter, so we're stuck in Brainspoil land again. Ugh. At least we don't have to run Peregrine Drake though. I think I'll revisit this idea if Flamekin Harbinger ever gets downgraded to common (it really should - I mean look at Goblin Matron!)
Gush and Gitaxian Probe: Banned in Legacy, they must be good, right?
Logic Knot: If Counterspell is good enough, this card must be playable as well.
No, yes and yes. The difference for Gush is that Legacy doesn't play 5-drops that get more expensive to cast for each use, plus games last 4-ish turns making free draw very relevant. For us, Gush is a terrible deal, but I'm very much in favor of sneaking in Deprive + Mystical Sancturary for whenever you're missing a land drop anyway, which is bound to happen eventually. The deck has quite a few flex slots IMO as its "core business" has become so efficient lately - it's up to taste if one runs more cantrips like Probe, more counters like Logic Knot or something else. Logic Knot is not necessarily better than Negate or Arcane Denial though - there's lot of competition for all those "next best in line" cards.
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Thank you for your detailed response!
I think you are correct with your assessments if your meta is mid to high power level without too many infinite combos. As you point out, the deck is quite flexible nowadays.
Regarding Capsize and Mind Extraction, I get your points but that's not usually how my games play out. Capsize is broken in a 1v1 situation where you have 12 mana. Mind Extraction completely destroys one opponent. But in my meta I rarely end up in a 1v1 situation. People play combo-centric decks or go over the top with Craterhoof Behemoth, so if someone wins, it's because the other 3 players die at the same time.
In that context, the comparison of Capsize to Cyclonic Rift is not so crazy anymore. If you think about it, Child of Alara itself acts kind of as a Cyclonic Rift with instant speed sac outlets.
The cost reducer plan is potentially viable, but I have never seen a list. Might miss a few powerful cards for redundancy. I am sure we will get something in the next few sets, commons are really pushed at the moment.
Btw I have another pet card: Cavern Harpy. You can recycle almost all relevant creatures ad infinitum!
If I wanted to go into a more grindy build, I would include Harpy immediately. It even makes a decent Thrasios impression with Coiling Oracle.
But in my meta I rarely end up in a 1v1 situation. People play combo-centric decks or go over the top with Craterhoof Behemoth, so if someone wins, it's because the other 3 players die at the same time.
Ah I see. IMO, the best was to handle such scenarios is not to blow up CoA unnecessarily just because you can or to even the playing field. I blow up CoA when potentially facing lethal, when someone is about to combo out or similar dire circumstances where the other players might thank me for doing so. CoA is a great solution to something like Craterhoof Behemoth, as long as you still have it on the table to blow up.
This also means you're making your opponents fight each other and expend resources to do so, rather than gang up on you for destroying all of their plans. So in such a sceanario, Mind Extraction and Capsize are strong tools. If someone pulls way ahead by turn 6-7 ish, by all means bring him down to size with Mind Extraction. It's unlikely anyone will win the next few turns if you blow up CoA early anyway, so you have time to reload. But if you have one strong opponent and one weak in the end game, you can use Mind Extraction to have two weak opponents instead. That's how I like to play, ideally at least.
If you think about it, Child of Alara itself acts kind of as a Cyclonic Rift with instant speed sac outlets.
Yes, that's exactly what I meant in my previous post
The cost reducer plan is potentially viable, but I have never seen a list. Might miss a few powerful cards for redundancy.
You know I was thinking: We don't actually need Mulldrifter - a card like Augur of Bolas or Sea Gate Oracle works just as well! You need:
*2 cost reducers in play. I'd recommend running Goblin Electromancer (the deck is almost all instant/sorceries) and Sunscape Familiar (almost all green spells have colorless in costs). You can play and use these for acceleration at your leisure and then get it all back with Reaping the Graves when you want to combo out.
*Mystical Sanctuary in play along with 3 more Island
*Augur of Bolas, Sea Gate Oracle, Mulldrifter or similar card
*Ghostly Flicker. IMO the weakes link because Displace offers no redundancy here because it can't target Sanctuary. So this "secondary combo" still hinges on having Ghostly Flicker, just like the first one. Oh well.
Okay, so you flicker the card drawer and mystical sancturay for infinite storm, while rummaging through your library. Once you see Grapeshot, you put it into your hand instead of Ghostly Flicker and kill everybody. The advantage is that the combo is basically already there - all you need to add to make it work is 2 slots devoted to cost reducers. Very easy to fit, and I'd probably rather run two of those than Peregrine Drake + Brainspoil as combo 2.
Btw I have another pet card: Cavern Harpy. You can recycle almost all relevant creatures ad infinitum! Smile
If I wanted to go into a more grindy build, I would include Harpy immediately. It even makes a decent Thrasios impression with Coiling Oracle.
You know, Cavern Harpy was in the original list presented by d0su many years ago. The deck was so grindy back then, Hana Kami was considered for the combo with Death Denied!
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On a somewhat related note, as everyone is diving into some card selection. Goozefraba in the Discord server mentioned compiling a list of all the previously played cards in this deck. I decided to scour back through the various threads and decklists I could find to put together a list on Moxfield of all the cards discussed in the context of this deck. Do with this info what you will. Some options are very easily outclassed nowadays, so it may be worth culling the list a bit later. I'm planning to revisit this list in light of all of the changes to the deck lately. Feel free to send me cards to add as well, as I plan on updating this every set release.
My style of play seems like it aligns with urdjur. Child is a political piece that just serves to keep me alive and prevent anyone else from winning until everyone else is out of resources and I have tons of mana and control pieces. I regularly consider cutting the combo completely, but at this point, that would only mean cutting Cloud of Faeries and maybe Rolling Thunder (which I've considered cutting separately) so I may not even bother. I am giving Ephemerate a try, since I do get down to 1v1 scenarios or 1v2 scenarios regularly enough that a slow lock like that could still be very strong. I am not adding more than 2 recursion wizard effects just yet, but if I added a 3rd it would be Salvager of Secrets (already running Izzet Chronarch and Archaeomancer).
Follow up on the Land Grant conversations of recent past. Goozefraba (shout out again since they are having Twitch account issues) is playing Valley Rannet in addition to Land Grant. I don't know if these were brought up previously, but any card with forestcycling could also function very similarly. Curious what other people think. I'd probably play one of the landcyclers before I play Environmental Sciences or Mycosynth Wellspring.
I don't see anything in this new set that is a "must have," but we did get a bunch of new "exploit" creatures that could be interesting. Here are the cards that jumped out at me in the set. Please add anything I've missed!
Mindleech Ghoul - It's a 2MV sacrifice outlet that makes your opponents exile a card from hand. It can exploit itself, another creature, or Child of Alara. I can imagine a scenario where you're exploiting CoA, hitting everyone with a board wipe, and knocking the last card of out everyone else's hand. With that said, I'm not sure what this would replace in the deck.
Persistent Specimen - We run a lot of cards that sacrifice a creature to draw cards. I'm not sure where the critical mass of effects like that is to make a creature like this worthwhile. Probably much higher than where we are now.
Pointed Discussion - Another draw 2 cards, lose 2 life spell. This one has a bit of upside because it creates a Blood token which can be used for filtering. It is sorcery speed, though. In most of our lists, it does not make the cut of 3MV spells with this effect. It is easier to cast than Notion Rain for example, but sees fewer cards.
Repository Skaab - Is there a world where we want this effect? This card plays multiple roles in the deck as a sacrifice outlet for CoA and a recursion spell for an instant/sorcery (since it can exploit itself). It doesn't leave a body behind if it exploits itself, so it doesn't work with the flicker recursion plan many of you are running.
Reckless Impulse - This isn't the only card in the game that has this effect, but it's reasonably costed for access to two cards with a time limit.
Scattered Thoughts - It sees 4 cards at instant speed and lets you keep 2 of them. That's a pretty good rate. It doesn't draw the cards, so you're only looking at those 4 off the top, but it's only supported by one U mana symbol. That's a lot of cards to see for a splashable spell like this.
Stitched Assistant - Another exploit creature. This one has scry 1, then draw 1 card. This falls into that zone where the card has a lot of ways we can use it, but might be too high of a MV to make it worth replacing anything else.
Undying Malice - Because sometimes you just need another copy of this effect in your deck. Seriously, we have a lot of options like this now at 1MV. This one comes with a +1/+1 counter, but the creature comes back tapped.
We also got a reprint of Evolving Wilds if you are interested in new artwork / bling for your deck.
I didn't see a lot of great cards for crushing dreams, but there are a few that caught my eye. As always, if you see something I missed, please add it!
Commune with Spirits - It digs for an enchantment or land. I can't imagine this is worth a slot in the deck, but if you're looking for this effect it's here.
Fade into Antiquity - Forsake the Worldly is much better because it has cycling and is an instant, but if you want this effect in green now you have it.
Greater Tanuki - It's ramp. It's color-fixing. It's a body.
Lucky Offering - There are better cards, but this version is 1MV so I'll include it here.
Mirrorshell Crab - It's a 2U soft-counter that can't be countered by traditional counterspells. That's something. It's a body, too.
Mnemonic Sphere - It draws 2 cards for 4MV spread that can be spread over one or two turns. It can also cycle for U. That's interesting.
Planar Incision - It's a blue blink card that returns the creature with +1/+1. This has combo potential.
Return to Action - It's another surprise reanimation card at 2MV. It returns the creature tapped, though. But it gives the creature lifelink for a turn, so it has additional utility. You could use it only for the lifelink, for example.
I've decided to cut Devour Flesh for Reckoner's Bargain. It gives the same effect, but uncounterable based on my play with it. I don't think I've targeted somebody else with it. Of note, Fade into Antiquity is a card we've had, but still a solid effect (that has been one-upped by Forsake the Worldly as VivienneHell mentioned). I mentioned in the discord that if you go the route of channel creatures, I think it may be worth exploring Hana Kami + Death Denied again.
Good analysis of the latest sets and their use for the deck! I agree with bfine that Reckoner's Bargain is a strong upgrade to Devour Flesh. Life AND 2 cards, plus instant speed and sacrifice as a cost?! That's the best 2MV sac outlet we've ever had! Apart from that, I don't think I take anything new from the recent sets, but I have made a few adjustments.
My biggest change is actually in the combo section. I have swapped Rolling Thunder for Grapeshot and added High Tide. Grapeshot is a more resilient wincon than Rolling Thunder (though losing some versatility), but more importantly it offers a win from infinite storm rather than infinite mana. This opens up a High Tide combo.
I prefer High Tide to creature based cheapeners like Goblin Electromancer, because it works better with CoA and is more useful on its own (with the snow duals and compatible ramp, we're running many islands so it's at least an overpowered, instant speed dark ritual). For the storm combo, you need Mystical Sanctuary (found with Crop Rotation or Farseek), Ghostly Flicker (same as CoF combo) and either one of Mulldrifter, Sea Gate Oracle or Augur of Bolas. Instead of ravnica bounce lands, you need to cast High Tide twice, which you can do by simply dropping Mystical Sanctury on the combo turn and using any draw spell, or any recursion wizard or Flood of Recollection etc. Since sanctuary is an island, untapping it alone will finance an infinity of flickers, and the other half of the flicker combo either draws your library or sifts through it until you find Grapeshot and win.
High Tide can also be used in the regular CoF combo of course, replacing the need for ravnica bounce lands as long as you have 2 islands in play (snow duals count!). This and the secondary combo path has enable me to make a few tweaks to the mana base as well so it's even faster now with a few more basics and panoramas. I've also decided to swap Vedalken Aethermage for Step Through - the latter is the better card in a vacuum and the tutor chaining aspect of aethermage diminishes when you also have a combo path that doesn't rely on recursion wizards. Those tutor chains are also less relevant for getting Sidisi's Faithful off of 2MV transmuters IMO, now that we have Reckoner's Bargain as a strong 2MV option directly.
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Happy to see you there. Not very active but some interesting discussions. I prefer the discord as it's much easier to use on mobile.
Here's my last post from the discord:
Last week I was at the LGS for commander night but the only pod that was not full was cEDH. I played Child of Alara twice that night, against Urza Combo, Niv Mizzet Food Chain and Narset Turns. No tier 1 decks but very strong. My deck performed quite well! All the cheap interaction is great in any power level. I got to 7 mana once but could not blow up Child of Alare due to color issues.. if it would have resolved, it would have killed at least the Urza player.
All in all the deck is in a great spot and I love playing it.
Things I am thinking about currently:
- Adding the new 2 mana sac outlet from Kamigawa
- cutting Mycosynth Wellspring, just too slow
- cutting Augur of Bolas, never does anything. I don't care about card selection, most of the time I'd take any card, so even Elvish Visionary would be better as it never misses
- Adding Harrow. Sounds crazy, but I can keep interaction up. If countered, I lose the game though.
- Undying Malice over Undying Evil (slightly better, also great alternate art style)
- cutting Mulldrifter, I am starting to despise that inefficient dinosaur
This set brought us a few new cycles of color-fixing cards that could be interesting. As always, if I missed anything please add it!
Big Score - This rarity shift of Pirate's Pillage probably isn't exactly what we are looking for, but I'm interested in cards that create treasures since they can color-fix and act as targets for the cards that ask us to sacrifice artifacts. There could be a new treasure color-fixing deck structure with upside.
Botanical Plaza - This is part of a cycle of two-color lands that ETB tapped but that also have a sac/draw ability. Likely outclassed by other land options.
Brokers Hideout - This is part of a land cycle that fixes for three colors with incidental life-gain.
Dig Up the Body - Introduction of the "Casualty" mechanic. If I am following the timing right, you can sacrifice CoA on cast, which means it will itself be in the graveyard to return along with another creature. There are likely combo shenanigans to be had here, assuming I have the timing right.
Fake Your Own Death - Another instant reanimation spell, this time with a treasure. Do we get to keep the treasure? I think so.
Glamorous Outlaw - Another color-fixing card cycle. This cycle is interesting because it only costs 2 to fix three colors and the card can be cast from exile, which is convenient when the board has just been cleared by CoA.
Make Disappear - This is a corner case card, for sure. But it has Casualty, so it can trigger CoA. Probably not worth the timing restriction, though (in response to another spell being cast).
Witness Protection - Likely too narrow to earn a slot, but it is a 1mv way to deal with an indestructible creature.
Noticed that as I was looking at lists. Would just clean that section up a tad.. nothing major just noticed.
Is there a set of cards you typically always tutor for.
Or a combination of cards you always try to have before you blow up the world?
I've just had some clunky games as of late and wanna get a better feel for how you are winning in your playgroup.
Specifically playing with 2-3 opponents..not usually 1v1
I tutor to set up this combination of cards:
1) CoA in play.
2) A card in hand to trigger CoA, ideally Sidisi's Faithful.
3) A recursion card in hand, ideally Disturbed Burial.
4) A counterspell in hand.
The first time I demonstrate the loop, I usually gain an insurmountable amount of card advantage. It's enough to often cause the table to concede. Seriously. This happens a lot. People don't realize how backbreaking wiping the board is in a multiplayer game. When they see that I can literally do it over and over, they start to think through decklists and realize there isn't a way out.
We don't call it "dreamcrusher" for nothing.
If they decide to play it out, I usually take out one player at a time with CoA beats while playing a quick game of Archenemy as they proceed to openly gang up on me. If often doesn't matter because they don't have enough collective time to rebuild under repeated board wipes.
If there is a tricky control player, I buy time and tutor to set this up:
1) 12+ mana sources in play.
2) Capsize in hand.
3) A counterspell in hand.
Capsizing one or two permanents per turn after a CoA board wipe is usually enough to cause the concession.
I rarely use the combo to win. It's too risky to outright tutor for and never comes up randomly (for me). It's good to know that it's there.
This deck is cool because you can hold counterspells for the very few cards that cause you to not be able to loop CoA. Discard spells, counterspells, hasted threats, indestructible blockers, etc. You can (mostly) let everything else go through because CoA will clean it up in short order. Even then, unless it causes you an outright loss, you can even lose a counter war and still rebuild because you will likely draw one of the card draw spells or something that lets you recur a key card. The entire deck is set up to be robust in this way. In other words, you can let spells resolve that would cause other decks an eventual loss.
I'm interested to know how the flow of the game goes for other players.
The new set brings us more than a few interesting cards. I'm only going to list the cards that I think will test out, but there are several other cards in the set that look like they could be upgrades, duplicate effects, or a different direction besides these. Please add your own analysis!
Ardent Elementalist - Can't be tutored with Wizardcycling, but likely better than Izzet Chronarch. Same effect, less mana, fewer colors.
Blood Pact - Another draw 2 for 3cmc and 2 life, but this one is at instant speed. It's not the most efficient version of this spell, but instant speed could make it a contender for one of the other card draw slots.
Eaten Alive - This is an Angelic Purge-type effect, except it hits planeswalkers (and not artifacts or enchantments). It also has more flexible costing, allowing us more control over if we need to trigger CoA (for example). This could be good if you are running into indestructible creatures in your meta, although Capsize is likely the better solution.
Electric Revelation - I like filter cards. This one had flashback for added value. I don't run Faithless Looting, though. And I would probably test that over this first.
Path to the Festival - It tutors for a basic land and puts it into play tapped and is likely to offer the Scry 1 in this deck. Plus, it has flashback. That might be enough value to make this worth a ramp slot.
What other cool cards did you see for this deck in the new set?
Anyway, I think you've missed the most important contribution to the deck so far in these recent sets: INDESTRUCTIBLE DUALS!!
I'm talking about the Bridge lands (Darkmoss Bridge etc.) I mean wow, just wow. LD is one of the very core and main weaknesses of this deck and I wouldn't in my wildest fantasies have considered that WotC would print such an awesome counter-measure at common rarity. Of course you need a density of them to make them useful, and they won't geddon-proof the deck on their own, but still - those limitations are only fair.
We have so many good and actually relevant lands to play at common now, we're spoiled for choice. Remember when we all were excited about getting guildgates! That escalated quickly. Now we must decide if we want the snow lands that let us ramp and fix two colors at once, the duals that let us scry or the duals that are friggin' indestructible. Didn't see that coming for pauper. I'll be sure to update my list later this fall, but I just wanted to comment on the insane power of indestructible duals at common for this deck.
As for the other cards, the only no-brainer I think will be an auto-include is Deadly Dispute. It's not quite as good as Village Rites, but still a step above most other sac outlets.
Feign Death vs. Kaya's Ghostform: Probably, Feign Death is better but all three could be run. Undying Evil is still best IMO. I don't think MV4 to-the-battlefield recursion is necessary when the going price is ONE for all of these three effects, unless you want a transmute target for DHG (if you're still running that). Is three more mana and sorcery speed really worth avoiding the timing hassle? I don't think so.
Step Through vs. Vedalken Aethermage: I think Alexandre said everything on this already. The tutor chains that Aethermage offers are more abundant for getting Sidid's Faithful or Aethermage for CoF-combo, so it's a bad trade. Having said that, Step Through is not a bad card, especially if you run a couple of more wizards than the bare requirements.
Minimus Containment: I think this is decent if you want a little something extra, but it's not a dependable solution to a bad problem. They sac, recur - now the problem is there again and unlike Capsize, your solution is not. I don't think I'll be testing this card and I think it will fall away from lists for better options.
Growth Spiral and friends: These cards are filler, they shouldn't replace the necessary 7-or-so ramp slots. The deck has about 10-20 flex slots where you can run more draw, more counters, more silver bullets, more combo pieces, more sac outlets or what have you. Growth Spiral should be compared to cards like Minimus Containment IMO and not mandatory staples in draw or ramp. Our agreable problem today is that we have compacted the deck so it does what it has always done, but with more room to spare and for less mana, and meanwhile the playable cards in these flex slots have gone way up so we now have 50-ish good options for 20-ish slots. We're spoiled for choice - should we run Condescend, fill 'er up with Growth Spiral or perhaps good ol' Wrecking Ball etc. etc. Either way it will probably be good as long as we're still getting WUBRG, playing CoA and recurring her for cheap.
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1 Command Tower
1 Path of Ancestry
1 Opal Palace
1 Ash Barrens
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Shimmerdrift Vale
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Thriving Bluff
1 Thriving Grove
1 Thriving Heath
1 Thriving Isle
1 Thriving Moor
1 Golgari Rot Farm
1 Izzet Boilerworks
1 Bant Panorama
1 Grixis Panorama
1 Arctic Treeline
1 Glacial Floodplain
1 Highland Forest
1 Rimewood Falls
1 Volatile Fjord
1 Woodland Chasm
1 Mortuary Mire
1 Mystic Sanctuary
1 Tranquil Thicket
5 Island
4 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Plains
The new idea here was to use the new snow duals to empower Into the North, Farseek and Land Grant. I noticed a question earlier on "why not Nature's Lore/Three Visits when running Land Grant". The idea there is that you don't actually want to ramp up a green source when you already have a green source. If you have green and need red, it's very nice to cast Into the North for Volatile Fjord, but casting Three Visits for Highland Forest isn't much better than just Rampant Growth for basic Mountain - since you already had green. Land Grant is a different story, because you can use it to get that initial green source without committing to basic Forest - indeed get Rimewood Falls instead and up your island count for later Mystic Sanctuary - much better!
Land Grant replaced Mycosynth Wellspring in the MV2 green fixer slot. You see, one of the things that let you keep hands without a green source is the fact that we're running many U and B sources and transmute cards. Most transmuters (3 total) are in the MV2 slot, meaning you want a MV2 target that can fetch green. Wellspring is awesome for the deck here for many reasons, but with the new snow duals, Land Grant is probably slightly better still. I would not recommend running both.
The small issue with Land Grant is that it forces you to run all the 4 green snow duals, which wasn't really a problem before when other good green sources were scarce and the only opportunity cost was miniscule life gain from cards like Thornwood Falls. But now, we have a serious contender for these slots and more, namely the new indestructible artifact duals! This solves an old problem for the deck - the vulnerability to mass LD like Armageddon. It will still suck, but if you have a couple of indestructible mana on the table, you will recover so much faster.
To this end, I present two alternative mana bases to the spring 2021 version above. First, one that eschews Land Grant and plays Wellspring instead, in order to cram as many indestructible duals as possible in the deck. The second one is a hybrid version that attempts to combine the best bits of the Land Grant idea and the indestrutible duals idea. Both of these lists make use of Trinket Mage and Expedition Map, meaning they consume two more slots in your deck!
1 Command Tower
1 Path of Ancestry
1 Opal Palace
1 Ash Barrens
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Thriving Bluff
1 Thriving Grove
1 Thriving Heath
1 Thriving Isle
1 Thriving Moor
1 Golgari Rot Farm
1 Izzet Boilerworks
1 Glacial Floodplain
1 Rimewood Falls
1 Volatile Fjord
1 Darkmoss Bridge
1 Drossforge Bridge
1 Goldmire Bridge
1 Slagwoods Bridge
1 Tanglepool Bridge
1 Thorngling Bridge
1 Mortuary Mire
1 Mystic Sanctuary
1 Tranquil Thicket
5 Island
4 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Plains
This list cuts both remaining Panoramas, three of the green snow duals and Shimmerdrift Vale (because it's not an Island for Mystic Sanctuary) and adds all four green artifact duals plus the BR and BW duals. The net loss of 2 green sources is compensated by the addition of Expedition Map and Trinket Mage to the deck, but as mentioned this takes up more space.
1 Command Tower
1 Path of Ancestry
1 Opal Palace
1 Ash Barrens
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Thriving Bluff
1 Thriving Grove
1 Thriving Heath
1 Thriving Isle
1 Thriving Moor
1 Golgari Rot Farm
1 Izzet Boilerworks
1 Bant Panorama
1 Arctic Treeline
1 Glacial Floodplain
1 Highland Forest
1 Rimewood Falls
1 Volatile Fjord
1 Woodland Chasm
1 Slagwoods Bridge
1 Razortide Bridge
1 Vault of Whispers
1 Mortuary Mire
1 Mystic Sanctuary
1 Tranquil Thicket
5 Island
3 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Plains
This hybrid list keeps the Land Grant package and adds only 2 artifact duals. It also swaps a swamp for Vault of Whispers to retain complete mana fixing ability for Trinket Mage. It keeps Bant Panorama for its awesomeness as a green source that can also grab islands for Mystic Sanctuary, but cuts Grixis Panorama and Shimmerdrift Vale for the same inability.
A question might be, how much protective value is there to 6 indestructible duals as opposed to only running 2? Well, the clutch is really Trinket Mage, so you should be comparing 7 to 3. Then there's the possibility that you anticipate mass LD from knowing your opponents' decks, which might change your tutoring priorities with Crop Rotation and Expedition Map, or even second order tutors like Vedalken Aethermage (Trinket Mage) and Mystic Teachings (Crop Rotation). MV3 tutors can go directly for Darksteel Ingot if you anticipate geddon. All this of course closes the gap further. So yeah, 6 indestructible lands are better than 2, but might not impact getting a couple of indestructible sources on the board pre-geddon as much as you'd think.
I'm thinking the sweet spot for the mana base is somewhere in the lists above. Would love to hear what you think about Land Grant package, Trinket Mage package and the rest.
PS: A mistake in the spring list at the top is that it should probably run a second forest over Tranquil Thicket. The second forest is the next-best-thing to try and rebuild after a 'geddon effect when you have lots of basic land fetch in the deck. When you don't, and run Expedition Map, and run indestructible green sources instead to combat mass LD, Thicket gets much better.
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4MV vs. 1MV Reanimation Spells
I am drawn to the 4MV reanimation spells, probably because my style of play. Is it not your experience that you have tight turns in the early-to-mid-game where you simply do not have the extra B mana to cast one of the 1MV spells to bring CoA back? This happens to me a lot. And those 1MV renanimation spells are terrible topdecks.
Tough Choices
The more I think about this deck, the more I realize that I'm not making the tough choices on what to cut. There are a lot of "cutsey" cards in my list, like Minimus Containment, that I end up telling myself I am "testing," but that I know aren't really helping me move the overall strategy forward. This is probably where all of our metas or playgrounds differ. If the deck is /too efficient,/ my opponents don't want to shuffle up and try again. That's not a good argument for running suboptimal cards, but falling back on making some card swaps here and there at least changes up the lines of play for a while.
Indestructible Lands
This is possibly another meta-driven choice. I simply do not see mass LD in my meta. And if I do, it's rare enough that countermagic is a reasonable response. That's not to say that moving the mana base in this direction is a bad choice anyway, but I haven't felt the pressure so I never considered it.
The Mana Base
In the pre-snow duals days, the mana base already felt solid to me. Turn 4-5 CoA was consistent. Colorless fixers put less pressure on opening hands or counting colored sources. Cards like Expedition Map, Mycosynth Wellspring, and Darksteel Ingot did the job. You've done considerable analysis on the mana sources and fixing. These current mana bases may be objectively better. Again, this may come down to playstyle: mana sources that come into play tapped drive me crazy. Is there a workable version of the mana base that prioritizes untapped mana sources/lands? This could possibly work with Trinket Mage, as you suggested.
Thank you again for the conversation and analysis, to all of you!
Meanwhile, I was wondering if anybody has tried the new Resculpt over Crib Swap? Upside is being tutorable with Merchant Scroll and the less overcrowded 2MV transmute slot, and handling arifacts too. Downside is not tutoring with Aethermage (reducing the versatility of that tutor a lot), and leaving a bigger token (probably not very relevant).
On a similar note, I haven’t seen much discussion on Masked Vandal as an alternative to Forsake the Worldly. It does tutor with Aethermage AND 2MV transmutes. It’s pretty easy to feed it either CoA from recent wipe leaving indestructible target, or from a creature-type tutor etc. Seems like a good fit for the deck.
Swapping both would also lower the deck’s curve even further. Thoughts?
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Before the rules change, I would have agreed with you. Back then, CoA could sit in the GY post wipe and of course, the 1MV reanimation is no good then. It didn't much matter if your yard got exiled, because then you could finally cast CoA from the Command Zone again. But anyway, that's in the past. These days there's little reason not to put CoA back in CZ after it dies and wipes (unless you have that cheapening reanimation in hand). So that means CoA is either on the battlefield or in the CZ and the 1MV reanimation is just more cost effective than 4MV reanimation then - but it's for that "next" wipe, rather than the current one at hand (which is, or just was, financed directly from CZ as per normal taxing rules).
There can be different advantages to either effect early game. If you drop CoA t4 and tap out, it's easier to have mana on t5 for reanimation AND sac outlet if you use the 1MV variant. If you play CoA t5 with one mana open to blow it up and you're forced to do that before t6, then the 4MV reanimation is better than just putting CoA back in CZ and paying 7 mana next time - despite the cheapness of 1MV reanimation, you just don't have the mana to do it all same turn that early.
All in all, I think Late to Dinner and Mistmoon Griffin are very playable cards in the deck, especially if you run Dimir House Guard with a few other solid 4MV targets. I would love for a 3MV variant to be printed as common, and it seems like WotC are sweetening the 4MV deal already - perhaps power creep will eventually grant us something like Breath of Life costing 1GB or 1WB (gold requirements makes it balanced IMO) so we can tutor it with 3MV transmutes. Until then, I will probably be running all three 1MV reanimation though.
I think this was one of the most interesting questions asked about this deck in like a year or so! It sparked many ideas and I've given it lots of thoughts the last couple of weeks. I think we've been so obsessed with fixing, running enough sources, getting WUBRG with a pauper mana base etc. that we've missed the fact that we can afford to relax a bit and try to make a slightly faster mana base now that we have better fixing.
The obvious choice would be to run more basics and more panoramas. This is not unproblematic. We're already maxed out on dedicated blue sources IMO, so running more would lead to less WUBRG t4-5 and more redundant early lands. Black sources pose the same problems. We can add more basic forests, but those slots come at the expense of other green sources: Green sources that also tap for U/B gives us more colored mana for the spells we want to play and have lots of, and green sources that tap for R/W lets us fetch extra islands with green ramp spells rather than mountain/plains.
It becomes a philosophical questions: What do we mean by a fast mana base? Playing more Forest to have fewer tap lands might seem fast on paper, but will it feel fast when you can't play Counterspell on turn 6 due to lack of UU? Concretely, my observations these last days leads me to believe the following:
1) It is certainly necessary to play Glacial Floodplain, Rimewood Falls and Volatile Fjord in order to support Farseek, Into the North and Mystic Sanctuary, for all optimal manabases. Shimmerdrift Vale, while the worst of the "any lands", is also hard to avoid at present.
2) It is not obviously necessary to also play Arctic Treeline, Highland Forest and Woodland Chasm to support Land Grant (or any ramp spell at common with keyword "Forest", as I've explained earlier). This needs clarification. Obviously, Land Grant isn't such a good spell to motivate running three tap lands to support it. However, if the mana base requires running more green sources that ETB tapped anyway (see reasoning on basic forests above), a virtually free spell that tutors at 2MV to boot and can fix two colors at once, is not a bad card or a bad reason to pick these green sources in particular.
3) A separate question is the need for green mana fixing at the 2MV slot. The idea has been previously that we can have more keepable hands with a card like Mycosynth Wellspring or Land Grant, not only to these cards themselves but because we could theoretically tutor for them at turns 3-4 to get a green source even when we didn't have one in our opener. However, with the present mana base, it will be very unusual to have 3 mana and no green source. Furthermore, we probably can't expect to have 1BB (for transmuting Shred Memory) even under such circumstances, meaning only Dimir Infiltrator and Muddle the Mixture would feasible fit for purpose. That's only 2 cards, of which we'd need one in hand in addition to the strange 3 lands but no green situation. I have not done any math on this, but it seems very unlikely, and will probably only increase keepable hands with 1-2%. All in all, the tutorability of Wellspring/Grant should not weigh heavily into the decision of running them - they can be good cards in their own right though.
4) The conclusion of 3) above has opened my eyes to yet another fixing option: Jhessian Zombies. It costs 2 to play (to cycle) much like Mycosynth Wellspring, but cycles at instant speed. Much like Land Grant, it can find duals - but islands rather than forests, which is much better since we're already running those to support cards as per 1) above. Moreover, it can find Mystic Sanctuary, as well as basic islands and swamps that don't ETB tapped. Downside is costing 2 to cycle where Land Grant is free, and being untutorable (but it's no biggie, as explained above). Thoughts?
5) Returning to the original question of more untapped lands, it is possible to run only the three island duals in 1) and squeeze in green sources in ravnica karoos, panoramas and forests. I still recommend Bant Panorma for all mana bases at present - I think it's at least a good a green source as Shimmerdrift Vale. Jund Panorama is probably necessary if you're not running the forest duals in 2) and much better than running a third Forest IMO. Grixis Panorama is a good card for any deck that has enough green sources and wants another good non-basic. Esper Panorama is slightly worse and probably only worth it if you have many white cards in the deck, and Naya Panorama would probably need support from 3 forests and 2 mountains in the mana base before you should consider running it (there's just no room IMO). I like the karoo set of Azorius Chancery, Golgari Rot Farm and Izzet Boilerworks because it lets you fix all colors at card parity with Crop Rotation, while being redundant in blue - the most important color to have lots of and a needed karoo color to pull off combo. However, with cutting away almost every white card in the deck as I'm currently considering, you can squeeze another green source in there by swapping chancery for Simic Growth Chamber. You could run all four of course, but that's more tap lands for you. I'm not a big fan of Dimir Aqueduct mainly because it risks being both black and blue redundant early game, and because it's not a green source to help with further fixing from ramp either. Certainly playable though.
6) The artifact lands and Trinket Mage are probably a meta call as you say. There are very few effects like Obliterate where you can't counter the mass LD, so it will be a question of opportunity costs. Running a few indestructible artifact duals to support Trinket Mage is no worse than running a few forest duals to support Land Grant really. The question is how Trinket Mage compares to other staples like Sea Gate Oracle - if it can earn its own slot. Trinket Mage needs to be much better than Borderland Ranger in the deck, and the indestructible artifact lands alone do not accomplish that. Cards like Expedition Map and Nihil Spellbomb are not quite good enough to be staples in their own right today, but certainly contenders for open slots. Maybe Trinket Mage will be the card to tie it all together and make a synergy that's greater than its parts?
All in all, I now think there are three different "optimal" mana bases at present that should only differ in a few cards:
A) The Land Grant version with all the snow forest duals.
B) The heavy basics/panoramas version that plays as many untapped lands as possible. This could also support Far Wanderings if one so desires, or possibly run Jhessian Zombies.
C) The Trinket Mage version with a few indestructible artifact duals and some main deck trinkets to boot.
What I'm really waiting for is another "breakthrough" like the thriving lands cycle or snow land duals cycle. The days of Panoramas and perhaps even cards like Shimmerdrift Vale are probably numbered, the question is only how quickly land/fixing power creep at common proceeds.
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I like my list and it's quite fun to play. I enjoy low mana curves and powerful spells. I tried cutting all the bad spells that we simply had to play because we only have access to commons. I am "leaning into" the good commons wherever possible.
I would be grateful for any feedback. Is anyone still actively playing the deck in varying pods?
I also think you're onto something with the more basics + panoramas approach. It's certainly one feasible route to take the mana base in, what with the good fixing we have these days in the thriving land cycle especially. Has Mortuary Mire outstayed its welcome with new rules and creature-light lists? Perhaps! I must admit almost never tutoring for it nowadays, and it's hard to say if using it is really better than a vanilla draw most of the time. Running 4 forests though seems a high price to pay for a few less tap lands.
I personally think the combo is the weakest part of the deck, as well as the greatest weakness of being limited to only commons (the control aspect of the deck is almost as strong despite the limitation IMO). And adding to the combo with even more overcosted recursion wizards and worse spells and tutors like Displace and Brainspoil only exacerbates the problem. I used to run Opal Palace to speed up the commander damage wincon, but I've come to see it doesn't really matter. If you have control, you can kill at leisure.
What excited me most about your list was Grapeshot over Rolling Thunder! I don't think we've ever discussed Grapeshot over all the years this deck has been in the brewing - an almost criminal oversight! Probably due to most storm cards being banned in regular pauper/peasant, so they're not on the pauper radar so to speak. But yeah, you can combo out with a single karoo and it potentially opens up more secure ways to combo out with Mystical Sanctuary and get infinite storm, which is harder to disrupt. Certainly merits more consideration IMO!
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I still play reaping the graves. I like that the most as it cannot be countered. A countered Death Denied etc. easily loses us the game on the spot. Mind Swords is quite nice as a 0 mana sac outlet and against combo decks that nearly empty their hands by plaing ramp and mana rocks and pass with only a few spells in hand. Mind Extraction is just ok in my experience. It's quite expensive and rarely a blowout. Most of the time, a protection spell would be comparable.
Capsize is among the cards that made me overhaul my list in the first place. It's just so slow and much, much worse than Cyclonic Rift except in a situation where we have infinite mana already or play against only one opponent. I was never happy to draw it, especially in the early game and rarely cast it at all. To me, it is purely a combo piece.
I think recursion wizard + Ephemerate is very strong.
Ephemerate in particular is so busted that I wanted to lean into it even more. Brainspoil sucks but is a concession to the fact that I need Peregrine Drake 90% of the time to combo off. Child beats are too slow in my experience. A lot of decks just don't care about a wrath every turn. And if we wrath every turn, we're not really attacking. I'm waiting for something like a common Kessig Wolf Run. THAT card would revolutionize the deck. I might try Opal Palace. Even a being a 7/7 makes a significant difference.
If you are on the discord you can see a picture of my deck - I'm aiming for printings that "don't look like magic cards". I found Grapeshot when I looked through all mystical archives
There's quite a few cute cards that could be relevant. A weird one is Sentinel's Eyes. Recurable and vigilance on a 6/6 (or more with Opal Palace is relevant in my experience. Other cards I'm looking at are Gush and Gitaxian Probe: Banned in Legacy, they must be good, right?
Logic Knot: If Counterspell is good enough, this card must be playable as well.
It's a good choice. I'd recommend running either that or Grim Harvest, which is also counter-resistent. The choice comes down to how many creatures you're running. Harvest is a 5 mana total investment to get back one creature. Archeomancer + RtG is 7 mana, so if you're only getting one other creature (apart from the recursion wizard needed to recur RtG) back, Harvest is more mana-efficient. You need to be getting 2+ creatures AND the wizard, to get ahead with RtG - difficult to do if your list has like 11 creatures total.
I hate that Mind Swords hurts you too though, that makes it unplayable IMO. It's -3 cards for you and -2 cards for the others. How is ME not always a blowout? You blow out all resources on board AND in hand, except lands. If they can play their game plan using only the command zone and graveyard, or are playing land.dec, I guess they can recover - otherwise they are sitting ducks in topdeck mode.
I don't think Capsize and CR are comparable at all - if anything our commander already does better what CR can accomplish. Capsize is run to handle what CoA can't handle, to provide a different way of attack. Capsize + counter is a "generic answer" to most things, and repeated land bouncing when you're ahead on the land ramp and have blown out all the artifact mana is just another way to gain control. The extra utility as a combo piece is gravy IMO - I run it as a control piece.
I've been wanting to try Ephemerate, but I think it too is a question of creature count. If you're already leaning into redundant combo package with many recursion wizards and Displace, throwing in Ephemerate is probably strong. If you have like 5 targets total that it can interact favorably with, it probably isn't. I also don't like that it works best if left uninterrupted for several turns - somewhat of a pipe dream in multiplayer and even more so with this deck that wants to blow up the world quite often. Ghostly Flicker shares many of the problems with Ephemerate, but at least it can win the game on the spot if the board position is right.
What's wrong with Cloud of Faeries? You only have two outs to Drake - the Drake itself and Brainspoil. If you see 30 cards in your deck in a given game, that's less than 50% chance each game of actually getting a necessary combo piece in hand. CoF has 3 2MV transmute tutors, and tutor chains via Merchant Scroll/Mystical Teachings so you'll find it any game you want. Granted you also need a bounce land, but you can run those in multiples and Crop Rotation is easy to tutor for too. And it cycles, so it's not useless in hand before you try combo.
A thing I'm considering since you turned my attention to Grapeshot: cost reducers like Goblin Electromancer and Sunscape Familiar. You'd need two of those in play, Mystic Sanctuary and Mulldrifter. MS comes back untapped so it costs nothing to draw your deck, transition to some infinite storm combo if needed, and play Grapeshot. Pauper "Familiars combo" has transitioned to this version since the printing of Mystic Sanctuary, leaving Archaeomancer and friends behind. The problem with this deck is that it hates permanents that need to stay on board to be effective, but a card like Goblin Electromancer isn't entirely useless in the deck outside combo. Another problem is that we can only run 1 copy of Mulldrifter, so we're stuck in Brainspoil land again. Ugh. At least we don't have to run Peregrine Drake though. I think I'll revisit this idea if Flamekin Harbinger ever gets downgraded to common (it really should - I mean look at Goblin Matron!)
No, yes and yes. The difference for Gush is that Legacy doesn't play 5-drops that get more expensive to cast for each use, plus games last 4-ish turns making free draw very relevant. For us, Gush is a terrible deal, but I'm very much in favor of sneaking in Deprive + Mystical Sancturary for whenever you're missing a land drop anyway, which is bound to happen eventually. The deck has quite a few flex slots IMO as its "core business" has become so efficient lately - it's up to taste if one runs more cantrips like Probe, more counters like Logic Knot or something else. Logic Knot is not necessarily better than Negate or Arcane Denial though - there's lot of competition for all those "next best in line" cards.
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I think you are correct with your assessments if your meta is mid to high power level without too many infinite combos. As you point out, the deck is quite flexible nowadays.
Regarding Capsize and Mind Extraction, I get your points but that's not usually how my games play out. Capsize is broken in a 1v1 situation where you have 12 mana. Mind Extraction completely destroys one opponent. But in my meta I rarely end up in a 1v1 situation. People play combo-centric decks or go over the top with Craterhoof Behemoth, so if someone wins, it's because the other 3 players die at the same time.
In that context, the comparison of Capsize to Cyclonic Rift is not so crazy anymore. If you think about it, Child of Alara itself acts kind of as a Cyclonic Rift with instant speed sac outlets.
The cost reducer plan is potentially viable, but I have never seen a list. Might miss a few powerful cards for redundancy. I am sure we will get something in the next few sets, commons are really pushed at the moment.
Btw I have another pet card: Cavern Harpy. You can recycle almost all relevant creatures ad infinitum!
If I wanted to go into a more grindy build, I would include Harpy immediately. It even makes a decent Thrasios impression with Coiling Oracle.
Ah I see. IMO, the best was to handle such scenarios is not to blow up CoA unnecessarily just because you can or to even the playing field. I blow up CoA when potentially facing lethal, when someone is about to combo out or similar dire circumstances where the other players might thank me for doing so. CoA is a great solution to something like Craterhoof Behemoth, as long as you still have it on the table to blow up.
This also means you're making your opponents fight each other and expend resources to do so, rather than gang up on you for destroying all of their plans. So in such a sceanario, Mind Extraction and Capsize are strong tools. If someone pulls way ahead by turn 6-7 ish, by all means bring him down to size with Mind Extraction. It's unlikely anyone will win the next few turns if you blow up CoA early anyway, so you have time to reload. But if you have one strong opponent and one weak in the end game, you can use Mind Extraction to have two weak opponents instead. That's how I like to play, ideally at least.
Yes, that's exactly what I meant in my previous post
You know I was thinking: We don't actually need Mulldrifter - a card like Augur of Bolas or Sea Gate Oracle works just as well! You need:
*2 cost reducers in play. I'd recommend running Goblin Electromancer (the deck is almost all instant/sorceries) and Sunscape Familiar (almost all green spells have colorless in costs). You can play and use these for acceleration at your leisure and then get it all back with Reaping the Graves when you want to combo out.
*Mystical Sanctuary in play along with 3 more Island
*Augur of Bolas, Sea Gate Oracle, Mulldrifter or similar card
*Ghostly Flicker. IMO the weakes link because Displace offers no redundancy here because it can't target Sanctuary. So this "secondary combo" still hinges on having Ghostly Flicker, just like the first one. Oh well.
Okay, so you flicker the card drawer and mystical sancturay for infinite storm, while rummaging through your library. Once you see Grapeshot, you put it into your hand instead of Ghostly Flicker and kill everybody. The advantage is that the combo is basically already there - all you need to add to make it work is 2 slots devoted to cost reducers. Very easy to fit, and I'd probably rather run two of those than Peregrine Drake + Brainspoil as combo 2.
You know, Cavern Harpy was in the original list presented by d0su many years ago. The deck was so grindy back then, Hana Kami was considered for the combo with Death Denied!
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My style of play seems like it aligns with urdjur. Child is a political piece that just serves to keep me alive and prevent anyone else from winning until everyone else is out of resources and I have tons of mana and control pieces. I regularly consider cutting the combo completely, but at this point, that would only mean cutting Cloud of Faeries and maybe Rolling Thunder (which I've considered cutting separately) so I may not even bother. I am giving Ephemerate a try, since I do get down to 1v1 scenarios or 1v2 scenarios regularly enough that a slow lock like that could still be very strong. I am not adding more than 2 recursion wizard effects just yet, but if I added a 3rd it would be Salvager of Secrets (already running Izzet Chronarch and Archaeomancer).
CURRENT DECKS
WUBRG Child of Alara, Pauper Dreamcrusher GRBUW | BGU Muldrotha, Dreamcrusher REDUX UGB | WUB Dreamcrusher Pt. III: Nevinyrral's Disco BUW
CURRENT DECKS
WUBRG Child of Alara, Pauper Dreamcrusher GRBUW | BGU Muldrotha, Dreamcrusher REDUX UGB | WUB Dreamcrusher Pt. III: Nevinyrral's Disco BUW
I don't see anything in this new set that is a "must have," but we did get a bunch of new "exploit" creatures that could be interesting. Here are the cards that jumped out at me in the set. Please add anything I've missed!
Mindleech Ghoul - It's a 2MV sacrifice outlet that makes your opponents exile a card from hand. It can exploit itself, another creature, or Child of Alara. I can imagine a scenario where you're exploiting CoA, hitting everyone with a board wipe, and knocking the last card of out everyone else's hand. With that said, I'm not sure what this would replace in the deck.
Persistent Specimen - We run a lot of cards that sacrifice a creature to draw cards. I'm not sure where the critical mass of effects like that is to make a creature like this worthwhile. Probably much higher than where we are now.
Pointed Discussion - Another draw 2 cards, lose 2 life spell. This one has a bit of upside because it creates a Blood token which can be used for filtering. It is sorcery speed, though. In most of our lists, it does not make the cut of 3MV spells with this effect. It is easier to cast than Notion Rain for example, but sees fewer cards.
Repository Skaab - Is there a world where we want this effect? This card plays multiple roles in the deck as a sacrifice outlet for CoA and a recursion spell for an instant/sorcery (since it can exploit itself). It doesn't leave a body behind if it exploits itself, so it doesn't work with the flicker recursion plan many of you are running.
Reckless Impulse - This isn't the only card in the game that has this effect, but it's reasonably costed for access to two cards with a time limit.
Scattered Thoughts - It sees 4 cards at instant speed and lets you keep 2 of them. That's a pretty good rate. It doesn't draw the cards, so you're only looking at those 4 off the top, but it's only supported by one U mana symbol. That's a lot of cards to see for a splashable spell like this.
Stitched Assistant - Another exploit creature. This one has scry 1, then draw 1 card. This falls into that zone where the card has a lot of ways we can use it, but might be too high of a MV to make it worth replacing anything else.
Undying Malice - Because sometimes you just need another copy of this effect in your deck. Seriously, we have a lot of options like this now at 1MV. This one comes with a +1/+1 counter, but the creature comes back tapped.
We also got a reprint of Evolving Wilds if you are interested in new artwork / bling for your deck.
I didn't see a lot of great cards for crushing dreams, but there are a few that caught my eye. As always, if you see something I missed, please add it!
Commune with Spirits - It digs for an enchantment or land. I can't imagine this is worth a slot in the deck, but if you're looking for this effect it's here.
Fade into Antiquity - Forsake the Worldly is much better because it has cycling and is an instant, but if you want this effect in green now you have it.
Greater Tanuki - It's ramp. It's color-fixing. It's a body.
Lucky Offering - There are better cards, but this version is 1MV so I'll include it here.
Mirrorshell Crab - It's a 2U soft-counter that can't be countered by traditional counterspells. That's something. It's a body, too.
Mnemonic Sphere - It draws 2 cards for 4MV spread that can be spread over one or two turns. It can also cycle for U. That's interesting.
Planar Incision - It's a blue blink card that returns the creature with +1/+1. This has combo potential.
Reckoner's Bargain - It's a Deadly Dispute that gains life instead of creating a treasure.
Return to Action - It's another surprise reanimation card at 2MV. It returns the creature tapped, though. But it gives the creature lifelink for a turn, so it has additional utility. You could use it only for the lifelink, for example.
Uncharted Haven - It's a non-snow Shimmerdrift Vale.
CURRENT DECKS
WUBRG Child of Alara, Pauper Dreamcrusher GRBUW | BGU Muldrotha, Dreamcrusher REDUX UGB | WUB Dreamcrusher Pt. III: Nevinyrral's Disco BUW
My biggest change is actually in the combo section. I have swapped Rolling Thunder for Grapeshot and added High Tide. Grapeshot is a more resilient wincon than Rolling Thunder (though losing some versatility), but more importantly it offers a win from infinite storm rather than infinite mana. This opens up a High Tide combo.
I prefer High Tide to creature based cheapeners like Goblin Electromancer, because it works better with CoA and is more useful on its own (with the snow duals and compatible ramp, we're running many islands so it's at least an overpowered, instant speed dark ritual). For the storm combo, you need Mystical Sanctuary (found with Crop Rotation or Farseek), Ghostly Flicker (same as CoF combo) and either one of Mulldrifter, Sea Gate Oracle or Augur of Bolas. Instead of ravnica bounce lands, you need to cast High Tide twice, which you can do by simply dropping Mystical Sanctury on the combo turn and using any draw spell, or any recursion wizard or Flood of Recollection etc. Since sanctuary is an island, untapping it alone will finance an infinity of flickers, and the other half of the flicker combo either draws your library or sifts through it until you find Grapeshot and win.
High Tide can also be used in the regular CoF combo of course, replacing the need for ravnica bounce lands as long as you have 2 islands in play (snow duals count!). This and the secondary combo path has enable me to make a few tweaks to the mana base as well so it's even faster now with a few more basics and panoramas. I've also decided to swap Vedalken Aethermage for Step Through - the latter is the better card in a vacuum and the tutor chaining aspect of aethermage diminishes when you also have a combo path that doesn't rely on recursion wizards. Those tutor chains are also less relevant for getting Sidisi's Faithful off of 2MV transmuters IMO, now that we have Reckoner's Bargain as a strong 2MV option directly.
1 Child of Alara
CREATURES (11)
1 Archaeomancer
1 Ardent Elementalist
1 Augur of Bolas
1 Cloud of Faeries
1 Dimir Infiltrator
1 Drift of Phantasms
1 Mulldrifter
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Sea Gate Oracle
1 Sidisi’s Faithful
1 Wretched Gryff
ARTIFACTS (1)
1 Darksteel Ingot
ENCHANTMENTS (1)
1 Kaya's Ghostform
INSTANTS (26)
1 Arcane Denial
1 Brainstorm
1 Capsize
1 Ghostly Flicker
1 Counterspell
1 Crib Swap
1 Crop Rotation
1 Deprive
1 Reckoner’s Bargain
1 Dispel
1 Dizzy Spell
1 Forsake the Worldly
1 Growth Spiral
1 High Tide
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Mystical Teachings
1 Negate
1 Perplex
1 Pyroblast
1 Reaping the Graves
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Shred Memory
1 Soul Manipulation
1 Terminate
1 Undying Evil
1 Village Rites
1 Cleansing Wildfire
1 Compulsive Research
1 Cultivate
1 Farseek
1 Flood of Recollection
1 Grape Shot
1 Grim Discovery
1 Into the North
1 Kodama’s Reach
1 Land Grant
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Mind Extraction
1 Night's Whisper
1 Notion Rain
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Primal Growth
1 Read the Bones
1 Secrets of the Golden City
1 Step Through
1 Treasure Cruise
LANDS (39)
1 Command Tower
1 Path of Ancestry
1 Ash Barrens
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Thriving Bluff
1 Thriving Grove
1 Thriving Heath
1 Thriving Isle
1 Thriving Moor
1 Golgari Rot Farm
1 Bant Panorama
1 Esper Panorama
1 Grixis Panorama
1 Jund Panorama
1 Artic Treeline
1 Glacial Floodplain
1 Highland Forest
1 Rimewood Falls
1 Volatile Fjord
1 Woodland Chasm
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Mystic Sanctuary
6 Island
6 Swamp
1 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Plains
RAMP/FIXING (10)
1 Crop Rotation
1 Primal Growth
1 Kodama’s Reach
1 Cultivate
1 Sakura-tribe Elder
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Land Grant
1 Farseek
1 Into the North
1 Growth Spiral
CARD DRAW/QUALITY (12)
1 Brainstorm
1 Preordain
1 Ponder
1 Night's Whisper
1 Mulldrifter
1 Read the Bones
1 Compulsive Research
1 Notion Rain
1 Secrets of the Golden City
1 Augur of Bolas
1 Sea Gate Oracle
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Dizzy Spell
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Mystical Teachings
1 Dimir Infiltrator
1 Drift of Phantasms
1 Step Through
1 Perplex
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Shred Memory
COUNTERMAGIC (7)
1 Counterspell
1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Arcane Denial
1 Deprive
1 Negate
1 Dispel
CREATURE REMOVAL/SAC OUTLETS (6)
1 Reckoner’s Bargain
1 Terminate
1 Sidisi's Faithful
1 Mind Extraction
1 Village Rites
1 Wretched Gryff
1 Archaeomancer
1 Ardent Elementalist
1 Flood of Recollection
1 Undying Evil
1 Kaya's Ghostform
1 Grim Discovery
1 Reaping the Graves
1 Soul Manipulation
UTILITY (4)
1 Capsize
1 Forsake the Worldly
1 Crib Swap
1 Cleansing Wildfire
COMBO/WINCON (4)
1 Cloud of Faeries
1 Ghostly Flicker
1 High Tide
1 Grapeshot
Btw, what's the discord for the deck? Would be interesting to join the discussion there too.
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Discord link: https://discord.gg/hte6FQcHsQ
Happy to see you there. Not very active but some interesting discussions. I prefer the discord as it's much easier to use on mobile.
Here's my last post from the discord:
Last week I was at the LGS for commander night but the only pod that was not full was cEDH. I played Child of Alara twice that night, against Urza Combo, Niv Mizzet Food Chain and Narset Turns. No tier 1 decks but very strong. My deck performed quite well! All the cheap interaction is great in any power level. I got to 7 mana once but could not blow up Child of Alare due to color issues.. if it would have resolved, it would have killed at least the Urza player.
All in all the deck is in a great spot and I love playing it.
Things I am thinking about currently:
- Adding the new 2 mana sac outlet from Kamigawa
- cutting Mycosynth Wellspring, just too slow
- cutting Augur of Bolas, never does anything. I don't care about card selection, most of the time I'd take any card, so even Elvish Visionary would be better as it never misses
- Adding Harrow. Sounds crazy, but I can keep interaction up. If countered, I lose the game though.
- Undying Malice over Undying Evil (slightly better, also great alternate art style)
- cutting Mulldrifter, I am starting to despise that inefficient dinosaur
Here's my current list:
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/u3lb9oQXwUuqKea8S1ABhg
This set brought us a few new cycles of color-fixing cards that could be interesting. As always, if I missed anything please add it!
Big Score - This rarity shift of Pirate's Pillage probably isn't exactly what we are looking for, but I'm interested in cards that create treasures since they can color-fix and act as targets for the cards that ask us to sacrifice artifacts. There could be a new treasure color-fixing deck structure with upside.
Botanical Plaza - This is part of a cycle of two-color lands that ETB tapped but that also have a sac/draw ability. Likely outclassed by other land options.
Brokers Hideout - This is part of a land cycle that fixes for three colors with incidental life-gain.
Demon's Due - Another 4mv scry 2 / draw 2 / lose 2 card in black. An instant speed Read the Bones for an additional mana. Behold the Multiverse is likely your better option.
Dig Up the Body - Introduction of the "Casualty" mechanic. If I am following the timing right, you can sacrifice CoA on cast, which means it will itself be in the graveyard to return along with another creature. There are likely combo shenanigans to be had here, assuming I have the timing right.
Fake Your Own Death - Another instant reanimation spell, this time with a treasure. Do we get to keep the treasure? I think so.
Glamorous Outlaw - Another color-fixing card cycle. This cycle is interesting because it only costs 2 to fix three colors and the card can be cast from exile, which is convenient when the board has just been cleared by CoA.
Make Disappear - This is a corner case card, for sure. But it has Casualty, so it can trigger CoA. Probably not worth the timing restriction, though (in response to another spell being cast).
Witness Protection - Likely too narrow to earn a slot, but it is a 1mv way to deal with an indestructible creature.
If your list is already on the spreadsheet, you are invited to update it!
If your list is not already on the spreadsheet, please create a new column and add it!