This is a list I've been fiddling with for the past couple of weeks. At its core, it's a combo deck which is very difficult to interact with, except via countermagic.
1) Get out a Tortured Existence. We can dig for it with Commune With the Gods, filling our graveyard at the same time.
2) Use dredgers to get most of your deck into your graveyard. Tortured Existence isn't strictly necessary for this part, but it helps a lot.
2.5) Stay alive with Gnaw to the Bone and utility creatures like Spore Frog.
3) At this point, you should have a hand full of dredge creatures and only about three lands in play-- we stop hitting land drops once the dredge engine is online. Use Tortex to pitch a dredge creature, returning Tilling Treefolk.
4) Cast the Treefolk, returning two basics from the 'yard. Play a swamp this turn and activate Tortex again, this time returning your Battlefield Scrounger.
5) Cast the Scrounger, then activate his ability to put three cards from your yard on the bottom of your deck. I recommend some combination of Crypt Rats, Gnaw to the Bone, and Songs of the Damned.
6) Dredge away the rest of your deck so you can draw your combo pieces. You can Tortex for Street Wraiths to turn the useless dredge creatures in your hand into extra draws, so you can draw all three pieces immediately.
7) Songs makes tons of black mana, Gnaw lets you get to a life total higher than your opponent's, and Rats will let you dome your opponent for 20.
If our opponent's life total is too high, we can just keep reusing Scrounger to draw nothing but combo pieces for the rest of the game. If our opponent's life total is infinitely high, we can just make our deck last forever and wait for them to deck.
Our combo is pretty much immune to creature removal. Enchantment removal poses an inconvenience, but we can draw into another Tortex. We can hold the last Tortex until we have enough lands in play to get sufficient value out of it the turn it comes down. Tortex isn't needed for the combo kill, only to set it up.
Countermagic is the only way to really stop us. Fortunately, Tortex means once we get our scrounger into the yard, we can 'draw' and cast it every turn until our opponent lets it resolve. So countermagic isn't what we lose to, we lose to that Delver hitting us for 3 every turn.
Obviously, we'd prefer for our opponent to not have counterspells.
The basic interaction here is Tortured Existence, a Dredge Dude and a Cycling Dude. We can discard the dredger to get back our cycler, then cycle the creature and dredge instead of drawing. We can repeat this process as many times as we have mana. Life total permitting, we can dredge at double speed with Street Wraith, but we'll sometimes want to conserve our life total and use Architects of Will. Paying life to dredge faster is usually correct, since it means a bigger Gnaw to the Bone next turn.
I call this deck Deathwish Dredge, because the way it uses its life total as a resource can be borderline suicidal, and you execute the combo by milling your entire library before dealing 20+ damage to yourself. Also there is a (slim) chance that Tilling Treefolk will be the exact bottom card of our deck, causing us to hilariously deck ourselves and lose.
I don't know how competitive the deck is, but it's very fun (and difficult!) to pilot. In order to play this deck well, you need to manage your resources and make a lot of important decisions every turn. Do I dredge or draw? Should I try to kill my opponent's creatures, or just leave them alone and go for a big Gnaw? Things like that.
I'd like to improve the list, since I think it has potential to be a tiered deck. Any suggestions or critiques are much appreciated! I'll try to answer any questions as best I can-- this deck has lots of weird interactions and confusing plays.
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Modern: Kiki ChordWBRG
TokensWB
EDH: Kuon, Ogre AscendantBBB
This deck has already been called Dead Dogs a while ago. It is now way more competitive than it used to be, thanks to new cards from the recent sets. You don't necessary need to go full combo when playing this deck, a lot of the cards are good by themselves and if you get a Tortured Existence out, this is usually enough to win. Having 2 Golgari Brownscale basically means that you can pay B as many times as you want to win 2 life.
Raven's Crime is awesome, Tilling Treefolk and Sylvok Replica too. The good thing about the deck is that you can play it as a toolbox. Discard, dredge and recur what you need. See my list below.
My own rules when building a Commander deck:
1) Underrated general that I can build around but the deck must work without him/her too.
2) Every card must be legal in both banlists.
3) No infinite combo that could win (and ruin) instantly a multiplayer game.
4) Synergy at all costs; stay on theme, avoid goodstuff.
My own rules when building a Commander deck:
1) Underrated general that I can build around but the deck must work without him/her too.
2) Every card must be legal in both banlists.
3) No infinite combo that could win (and ruin) instantly a multiplayer game.
4) Synergy at all costs; stay on theme, avoid goodstuff.
I was aware of Dead Dog and other Tortex decks, but I had believed my build was more unique than perhaps it really is. I thought I was the only person wacky enough to be playing Battlefield Scrounger...
It should be noted that I don't have Consume Spirit anywhere in my 75. I just don't think it's a good card, so I deal 20 with Crypt Rats instead. Songs of the Damned is excellent in its own right. Being able to Dark Ritual for ~7 on an early turn allows me to mill almost my entire deck, cycling a creature to dredge and then discarding my dredger to get back the cycler. I've also used it to make enough mana to just nuke a pesky Ulamog's Crusher with Crypt Rats.
You're absolutely right about the toolbox nature of the deck. I like to compare Tortured Existence to a Birthing Pod that can activate an unlimited number of times per turn, at instant speed. Infinite Spore Frogs is pretty hard for a lot of decks to beat.
Anyway, I'll look into Dead Dog some more and see how this list can be improved. If I decide my deck is unique, I'll keep posting here. If I decide it's just a Dead Dog variant, I'll post in the Dog thread. Thanks for the feedback!
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Modern: Kiki ChordWBRG
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Similar plan, different approach; idea is to cycle forever until you get your torture and draw or bin a stinkweed; then cycle the stinkweed until you profit! The walls are there to get back the songs. The keepers are there as a backup plan in case torture goes away or is not drawn. They also can come out early to recycle a cycler and chump/trade. The celebrant is there to let you cast the wall off of Songs mana. I possibly should have a scrounger in my sideboard. Also, it feels weird to only have 3 rats and 3 gnaws main.
On Commune vs. Grisly Salvage: Commune has a specific job in this deck, which is going and getting the TE.
On Exhume: I've tried the exhume plan with other cycling decks - it definitely doesn't have a place in this one, which is very focused on getting the combo going. In general, I've found that Pauper decks are too well-equipped with ways to kill a single fatty, and these decks don't usually have much of a way to follow up.
On blue cards - With only 1 island plus a 1/1 creature as my blue sources (and no way to get lands from the yard), I don't want to run setup cards like Careful Study. Mulldrifter is also really cool if you can swing the mana cost but seems too greedy here.
I haven't spent much time with this deck since I put up the first post, but I can say a few things about why I made my list the way I did:
The Blue/Red Splash
I did a lot of testing with Jund and Sultai versions that played Faithless Looting or Careful Study + Mulldrifter. While it's a tempting idea to dredge for two imps and then immediately discard them both, Tortex + Cycling is just way more consistent. And, of course, playing two colors in pauper is already risky business. Splashing a third or fourth is just too much risk and too much of a tempo hit. I deliberately made 10 of my 19 lands not CipT, because the deck often needs to hit an untapped land to survive the early turns. Splashing cards like those looting spells also means you will be dredging those sorceries instead of dredging creature cards, which brings me to my next point:
Keeping a High Creature Count
I played versions of the deck with as few as 18 creatures and as many as 26. There is a remarkable difference between the two-- with even just a slightly higher creature count, the explosiveness of Gnaw to the Bone and Songs of the Damned is noticeably enhanced. Sometimes it's hard to know if it's correct to cast Gnaw now, or if you can wait until after you've dredged one or two more times. With a low creature count, you run a higher risk that you'll dredge zero creatures and then die as a result.
Other Combos
This deck is inspired by the Damn Cycling thread and some card choices suggested by other users there. After playing that deck for some time I decided I wanted a faster way to fill my grave and a more consistent win condition, which is why I developed this list. That deck originally used Songs + Drain Life, or Songs + Consume Spirit. I said there and I'll say again that both DL and CS are pretty awful cards and not at all necessary, since the deck can just with with the ability of Crypt Rats for x=20, as long as our life total is higher than our opponent's (it will be).
As for any kind of reanimator combo involving Ulamog's Crusher and Dragon Breath or whatever... I see no reason to play that in this deck. It just seems like a way less consistent way to win, and it's way easier to disrupt. I haven't tested it much, but I do see the appeal. Like the Goryo's Vengeance + Griselbrand deck in Modern, you'll sometimes get your god draw and just win the game on turn 2. However, that's a different deck entirely. It's also a worse deck, in my opinion.
Delve Cards
I'm still not sure how good Treasure Cruise can be in pauper, since it faces a lot of competition from Mulldrifter. Here that is only more true-- Mulldrifter doesn't lower our creature count and doesn't ask us to exile cards from our grave. The happy fish is clearly better, I'd say, but still not good enough to justify a blue splash. Hooting Mandrills is okay, but for my mana the most exciting delve creature is Shambling Attendants by a mile. A 3/5 zombie is nearly unkillable in this format, and I believe the deathtouch makes it an absolute house against Affinity (though I have not tested this matchup). I play one in the sideboard currently, but it could be good enough to run 2.
Similar plan, different approach; idea is to cycle forever until you get your torture and draw or bin a stinkweed; then cycle the stinkweed until you profit! The walls are there to get back the songs. The keepers are there as a backup plan in case torture goes away or is not drawn. They also can come out early to recycle a cycler and chump/trade. The celebrant is there to let you cast the wall off of Songs mana. I possibly should have a scrounger in my sideboard. Also, it feels weird to only have 3 rats and 3 gnaws main.
Walls plus Blood Celebrant is very interesting. Can you describe some of the plays that are possible with those inclusions?
Actually, it's possible to combo for near-infinite mana if you throw in Ghoulcaller's Chant and two zombies... this is probably too janky, though.
I've been pretty comfortable with only two or three Rats in the main. Since we can dredge into them and then play them over and over with Tortex, I'd rather use the other spots for other utility creatures like Spore Frog and Fume Spitter.
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The main advantage with the wall is the ability to use your one songs in hand for 10-11 mana, use the mana to cycle another 20-25 cards into your yard, then retrieve the wall and celebrant, cast celebrant, cast wall, recast songs for a million, then win. In some versions I have Cavern Harpy to recycle the wall as needed if you really need to rat for 100 (mirror match? Elves with Wellwisher doing work?)
The blue version is better according to Alex Ullman (see his Facebook). He plays Forbidden Alchemy which is almost strictly better than Commune. Also, Treasure Cruise. Dredge 15.
My own rules when building a Commander deck:
1) Underrated general that I can build around but the deck must work without him/her too.
2) Every card must be legal in both banlists.
3) No infinite combo that could win (and ruin) instantly a multiplayer game.
4) Synergy at all costs; stay on theme, avoid goodstuff.
got my own blue splashed build, mimicking ullman's. found space for 3 treasure cruise, and even without the dredge "combo" that much card draw is what makes the deck close games.
I have to say that in a full-on aggro meta i wouldn't go blue, too slow against goblins (and sometimes affinity too).
Well the real benefit of green is probably Golgari Brownscale but I don't feel the green version is really better against aggro. Trinket Mage and Mulldrifter can block and you can sideboard cards like Fade Away. (Sorry for the tags, I'm on my phone.)
My own rules when building a Commander deck:
1) Underrated general that I can build around but the deck must work without him/her too.
2) Every card must be legal in both banlists.
3) No infinite combo that could win (and ruin) instantly a multiplayer game.
4) Synergy at all costs; stay on theme, avoid goodstuff.
The difference between 2 mana and 3 is very, very large. And a controlly u/b Tortured Existence deck is really not the same thing as the combo deck we're talking about here. (You can, and should, play brownscale whether or not you have green mana in your deck, if you're playing the control game.)
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This is a list I've been fiddling with for the past couple of weeks. At its core, it's a combo deck which is very difficult to interact with, except via countermagic.
4 Stinkweed Imp
3 Shambling Shell
1 Greater Mossdog
1 Golgari Brownscale
4 Street Wraith
2 Architects of Will
2 Crypt Rats
3 Spore Frog
2 Fume Spitter
1 Tilling Treefolk
1 Satyr Wayfinder
1 Battlefield Scrounger
4 Tortured Existence
4 Commune With the Gods
4 Songs of the Damned
4 Gnaw to the Bone
Lands (19)
4 Golgari Guildgate
4 Jungle Hollow
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Forest
9 Swamp
Here's how the combo works:
2) Use dredgers to get most of your deck into your graveyard. Tortured Existence isn't strictly necessary for this part, but it helps a lot.
2.5) Stay alive with Gnaw to the Bone and utility creatures like Spore Frog.
3) At this point, you should have a hand full of dredge creatures and only about three lands in play-- we stop hitting land drops once the dredge engine is online. Use Tortex to pitch a dredge creature, returning Tilling Treefolk.
4) Cast the Treefolk, returning two basics from the 'yard. Play a swamp this turn and activate Tortex again, this time returning your Battlefield Scrounger.
5) Cast the Scrounger, then activate his ability to put three cards from your yard on the bottom of your deck. I recommend some combination of Crypt Rats, Gnaw to the Bone, and Songs of the Damned.
6) Dredge away the rest of your deck so you can draw your combo pieces. You can Tortex for Street Wraiths to turn the useless dredge creatures in your hand into extra draws, so you can draw all three pieces immediately.
7) Songs makes tons of black mana, Gnaw lets you get to a life total higher than your opponent's, and Rats will let you dome your opponent for 20.
If our opponent's life total is too high, we can just keep reusing Scrounger to draw nothing but combo pieces for the rest of the game. If our opponent's life total is infinitely high, we can just make our deck last forever and wait for them to deck.
Our combo is pretty much immune to creature removal. Enchantment removal poses an inconvenience, but we can draw into another Tortex. We can hold the last Tortex until we have enough lands in play to get sufficient value out of it the turn it comes down. Tortex isn't needed for the combo kill, only to set it up.
Countermagic is the only way to really stop us. Fortunately, Tortex means once we get our scrounger into the yard, we can 'draw' and cast it every turn until our opponent lets it resolve. So countermagic isn't what we lose to, we lose to that Delver hitting us for 3 every turn.
Obviously, we'd prefer for our opponent to not have counterspells.
I don't know how competitive the deck is, but it's very fun (and difficult!) to pilot. In order to play this deck well, you need to manage your resources and make a lot of important decisions every turn. Do I dredge or draw? Should I try to kill my opponent's creatures, or just leave them alone and go for a big Gnaw? Things like that.
I'd like to improve the list, since I think it has potential to be a tiered deck. Any suggestions or critiques are much appreciated! I'll try to answer any questions as best I can-- this deck has lots of weird interactions and confusing plays.
Modern: Kiki ChordWBRG
TokensWB
EDH: Kuon, Ogre AscendantBBB
#FreeContractfromBelow
Modern: Kiki ChordWBRG
TokensWB
EDH: Kuon, Ogre AscendantBBB
#FreeContractfromBelow
It means that I don't need Gnaw to the Bone, but I'm not going for the win with Songs of the Damned and Consume Spirit. I don't think you need this to win. Just recurring a Putrid Leech every turn is sometimes all you need.
Raven's Crime is awesome, Tilling Treefolk and Sylvok Replica too. The good thing about the deck is that you can play it as a toolbox. Discard, dredge and recur what you need. See my list below.
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Pauper decks: Weenie Tokens — Zombies
My own rules when building a Commander deck:
1) Underrated general that I can build around but the deck must work without him/her too.
2) Every card must be legal in both banlists.
3) No infinite combo that could win (and ruin) instantly a multiplayer game.
4) Synergy at all costs; stay on theme, avoid goodstuff.
2 Basking Rootwalla
1 Carrion Feeder
2 Fume Spitter
3 Putrid Leech
2 Wild Mongrel
1 Crypt Rats
3 Golgari Brownscale
1 Shambling Shell
1 Sylvok Replica
1 Tilling Treefolk
2 Vampire Hounds
3 Grave Scrabbler
4 Stinkweed Imp
1 Street Wraith
1 Raven's Crime
3 Chainer's Edict
3 Commune with the Gods
Enchantments: 4
4 Tortured Existence
Lands: 22
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Golgari Rot Farm
4 Jungle Hollow
6 Snow-Covered Forest
9 Snow-Covered Swamp
1 Augur of Skulls
1 Battlefield Scrounger
2 Chilling Shade
1 Crypt Rats
2 Faerie Macabre
1 Festercreep
1 Grim Harvest
1 Moment's Peace
1 Shinen of Life's Roar
1 Spore Frog
2 Sylvok Replica
1 Whiteout
Rules Advisor
Pauper decks: Weenie Tokens — Zombies
My own rules when building a Commander deck:
1) Underrated general that I can build around but the deck must work without him/her too.
2) Every card must be legal in both banlists.
3) No infinite combo that could win (and ruin) instantly a multiplayer game.
4) Synergy at all costs; stay on theme, avoid goodstuff.
I was aware of Dead Dog and other Tortex decks, but I had believed my build was more unique than perhaps it really is. I thought I was the only person wacky enough to be playing Battlefield Scrounger...
It should be noted that I don't have Consume Spirit anywhere in my 75. I just don't think it's a good card, so I deal 20 with Crypt Rats instead.
Songs of the Damned is excellent in its own right. Being able to Dark Ritual for ~7 on an early turn allows me to mill almost my entire deck, cycling a creature to dredge and then discarding my dredger to get back the cycler. I've also used it to make enough mana to just nuke a pesky Ulamog's Crusher with Crypt Rats.
You're absolutely right about the toolbox nature of the deck. I like to compare Tortured Existence to a Birthing Pod that can activate an unlimited number of times per turn, at instant speed. Infinite Spore Frogs is pretty hard for a lot of decks to beat.
Anyway, I'll look into Dead Dog some more and see how this list can be improved. If I decide my deck is unique, I'll keep posting here. If I decide it's just a Dead Dog variant, I'll post in the Dog thread. Thanks for the feedback!
Modern: Kiki ChordWBRG
TokensWB
EDH: Kuon, Ogre AscendantBBB
#FreeContractfromBelow
4x Deadshot Minotaur
4x Monstrous Carabid
4x Street Wraith
1x Blood Celebrant
3x Crypt Rats
2x Mnemonic Wall
3x Pit Keeper
5x Forest
1x Island
8x Swamp
3x Gnaw to the Bone
4x Songs of the Damned
4x Stinkweed Imp
2x Commune with the Gods
4x Tortured Existence
3x Chainer's Edict
1x Crypt Rats
3x Duress
1x Festercreep
2x Fume Spitter
1x Gnaw to the Bone
2x Moment's Peace
2x Spore Frog
Similar plan, different approach; idea is to cycle forever until you get your torture and draw or bin a stinkweed; then cycle the stinkweed until you profit! The walls are there to get back the songs. The keepers are there as a backup plan in case torture goes away or is not drawn. They also can come out early to recycle a cycler and chump/trade. The celebrant is there to let you cast the wall off of Songs mana. I possibly should have a scrounger in my sideboard. Also, it feels weird to only have 3 rats and 3 gnaws main.
On Exhume: I've tried the exhume plan with other cycling decks - it definitely doesn't have a place in this one, which is very focused on getting the combo going. In general, I've found that Pauper decks are too well-equipped with ways to kill a single fatty, and these decks don't usually have much of a way to follow up.
On blue cards - With only 1 island plus a 1/1 creature as my blue sources (and no way to get lands from the yard), I don't want to run setup cards like Careful Study. Mulldrifter is also really cool if you can swing the mana cost but seems too greedy here.
The Blue/Red Splash
I did a lot of testing with Jund and Sultai versions that played Faithless Looting or Careful Study + Mulldrifter. While it's a tempting idea to dredge for two imps and then immediately discard them both, Tortex + Cycling is just way more consistent. And, of course, playing two colors in pauper is already risky business. Splashing a third or fourth is just too much risk and too much of a tempo hit. I deliberately made 10 of my 19 lands not CipT, because the deck often needs to hit an untapped land to survive the early turns. Splashing cards like those looting spells also means you will be dredging those sorceries instead of dredging creature cards, which brings me to my next point:
Keeping a High Creature Count
I played versions of the deck with as few as 18 creatures and as many as 26. There is a remarkable difference between the two-- with even just a slightly higher creature count, the explosiveness of Gnaw to the Bone and Songs of the Damned is noticeably enhanced. Sometimes it's hard to know if it's correct to cast Gnaw now, or if you can wait until after you've dredged one or two more times. With a low creature count, you run a higher risk that you'll dredge zero creatures and then die as a result.
Other Combos
This deck is inspired by the Damn Cycling thread and some card choices suggested by other users there. After playing that deck for some time I decided I wanted a faster way to fill my grave and a more consistent win condition, which is why I developed this list. That deck originally used Songs + Drain Life, or Songs + Consume Spirit. I said there and I'll say again that both DL and CS are pretty awful cards and not at all necessary, since the deck can just with with the ability of Crypt Rats for x=20, as long as our life total is higher than our opponent's (it will be).
As for any kind of reanimator combo involving Ulamog's Crusher and Dragon Breath or whatever... I see no reason to play that in this deck. It just seems like a way less consistent way to win, and it's way easier to disrupt. I haven't tested it much, but I do see the appeal. Like the Goryo's Vengeance + Griselbrand deck in Modern, you'll sometimes get your god draw and just win the game on turn 2. However, that's a different deck entirely. It's also a worse deck, in my opinion.
Delve Cards
I'm still not sure how good Treasure Cruise can be in pauper, since it faces a lot of competition from Mulldrifter. Here that is only more true-- Mulldrifter doesn't lower our creature count and doesn't ask us to exile cards from our grave. The happy fish is clearly better, I'd say, but still not good enough to justify a blue splash.
Hooting Mandrills is okay, but for my mana the most exciting delve creature is Shambling Attendants by a mile. A 3/5 zombie is nearly unkillable in this format, and I believe the deathtouch makes it an absolute house against Affinity (though I have not tested this matchup). I play one in the sideboard currently, but it could be good enough to run 2.
Walls plus Blood Celebrant is very interesting. Can you describe some of the plays that are possible with those inclusions?
Actually, it's possible to combo for near-infinite mana if you throw in Ghoulcaller's Chant and two zombies... this is probably too janky, though.
I've been pretty comfortable with only two or three Rats in the main. Since we can dredge into them and then play them over and over with Tortex, I'd rather use the other spots for other utility creatures like Spore Frog and Fume Spitter.
Modern: Kiki ChordWBRG
TokensWB
EDH: Kuon, Ogre AscendantBBB
#FreeContractfromBelow
Rules Advisor
Pauper decks: Weenie Tokens — Zombies
My own rules when building a Commander deck:
1) Underrated general that I can build around but the deck must work without him/her too.
2) Every card must be legal in both banlists.
3) No infinite combo that could win (and ruin) instantly a multiplayer game.
4) Synergy at all costs; stay on theme, avoid goodstuff.
I have to say that in a full-on aggro meta i wouldn't go blue, too slow against goblins (and sometimes affinity too).
Rules Advisor
Pauper decks: Weenie Tokens — Zombies
My own rules when building a Commander deck:
1) Underrated general that I can build around but the deck must work without him/her too.
2) Every card must be legal in both banlists.
3) No infinite combo that could win (and ruin) instantly a multiplayer game.
4) Synergy at all costs; stay on theme, avoid goodstuff.