Introduction
Hello and greetings! I am Goat Tribal, a recently returning MTG player with a mission; Spicy Brews. So today I present to you my first spicy brew, Totes McGoats or Totes NykGoats. You may have read my posts on Reddit but I've recently wanted to expand my deck to more mediums and forums so I can get better and more varied advice. So, without further adieu, lets get into the deck.
What Is Totes McGoats?
Plainly put, Totes McGoats is a White Chroma deck with a twist. We aim to pump out Tron levels of mana on turn 3 and 4 and win by dropping Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite or another large bomb early on. We do this by dropping in as many W symbols as possible as early as possible. We do this by playing Weathered Wayfarer, Fieldmist Borderpost, Wildfield Borderpost, and Knight of the White Orchid to not only reach high levels of Chroma but also ramp our deck. We then use Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx to tap for ludicrous amounts of mana. There is also a Gemstone Cavern effect in this deck if you happen to start with Leyline of Sanctity in your hand, but thats just icing on the cake.
But wait, where are the goats I was promised?
Oh ye of little faith, the Goats serve multiple purposes in this deck and are actually the reason this deck can reach insane levels of mana. Let me explain how and why. Nykthos taps for X white mana where X is the Chroma (No I won't say devotion because Chroma came first) and Springjack Shepherd makes X goats, where X is your Chroma to white. And Springjack Pasture can tap for X mana and X life of any 1 color where X is the number of Goats you sacrifice to it. See where this is going?
We tap Nykthos for, lets say 5 (a pretty below average tap for turn 4), then we play Springjack Shepherd for 4 of it. Leaving us with 1. We then gain 6 Goats and have 1 floating. We then sacrifice all 6 goats to Springjack Pasture and gain 6 life and 6 white mana. Bam, we drop in Elesh Norn and our opponent cries because his board has been wiped. Or maybe we drop in Baneslayer Angel but I haven't tried that card in the deck yet.
So now that you see the basics for the mana ramp, lets get into the deck as a whole:
Why Play Totes McGoats?
Because you are looking for something different. Something that makes your opponent incredibly confused when they Thoughtseize you. When you want to win by using Goats or when you like the idea of Angels protecting a literal flock. Maybe you like the idea of Eldrazi Goats. Or maybe you just like the oldschool Flickerwisp + Springjack Shepherd combo but felt it was never actually competitive. Or maybe you just want to have fun. This deck has the wierdest synergies ever and it just play very enjoyably, plus it beats T1 decks and T2 decks quite frequently. Nothing feels better than trampling over someones Eldrazi-Tron deck by out "Troning" him with Nykthos and bringing in Avacyn on turn 4.
Deck Core
The core of the deck is only 43 cards. This leaves 17 cards to fill in to taste. But I do suggest having at least 4 payoff cards for your abundance of mana and I suggest some form of card draw but you can do this any way you like.
Suggested Cards
While you can flex in any card you like to fill to taste, there are some recommendations I have for certain functions but you can seriously fill to taste and have fun.
These vary by how you want to build the deck, I currently run Sphinx's as it doubles up with the Goat sacrificing to make a good amount of health. Mesa enchantress works if you're building the deck to be more enchantment focused with your flex slots.
All of these cards add to your Chroma and are fairly good in this deck. I've been relying purely on Path recently and it's been doing well but there are some matchups where I miss Oblivion Ring. Cast Out is nice because of the cycling so keep tempo if you don't need it at a given point.
All these cards can be brought in very early. I personally use Elesh Norn because she's a boardwipe and lets me swing in with the goats. Nothing feels better than swinging for the win with goats. Baneslayer can come out very early and forces your opponent to react, leaving them unable to focus their turn on killing your enchantments or lands.
These all provide good Chroma and good utility. Azorius Guildmage provides a nice mana sink for late game and helps stop some annoying combos.
The Sideboard
The sideboard is entirely flex. This you need to adjust to your local meta. I have mine tuned to what I've encountered on MTGO and it looks as such:
You have access to a lot of hate cards, so take advantage and slow down your enemy!
Cards To Watch Out For Stony Silence shuts down our borderposts and really slows us down. Luckily it doesn't hit Nykthos so we can kind of work around us but it turns our borderposts into just 1 mana, down from the 2 they were providing before.
Blood Moon shuts down our Nykthos and Pasture. This hurts A LOT. Without a way to make goats or tap for excessive mana, the deck is effectively dead.
Spreading Seas This shuts down our Nykthos and Pasture again, really hurting us. I've seen this card a lot lately which is why I put Aura of Silence and Forsake the Worldly into the sideboard (I like the cycling on Forsake over Disenchant).
Oddly enough Ghost Quarter doesn't hit our deck very hard because we can use Wayfarer to get Nykthos back and most people won't hit Springjack Pasture with a Ghost Quarter until match 2, since the land feels very unimpressive until its the most annoying thing they've ever had to work around.
Tips and Tricks
We have some very annoying tools at our disposal in this deck, the first being Ramping: Weathered Wayfarer or Knight of the White Orchid and Borderposts. Basically you send a land back to your hand with the Borderpost and keep Wayfarering for your important lands or Knight to ramp forward. And you can even use them in conjunction if you're on the draw to ramp and fetch.
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx No this isn't a typo. Having 2 of these lands in your hand is amazing. On turn 4, tap Nykthos for 4 or 5, then play Nykthos leaving the new one alive, pay 2, and tap for another 4-5 putting you up to 6-7 mana. Not including Goats to sacrifice.
Springjack Pasture and Blocking. Basically, you make a bunch of goats and block. Then, after declaring blockers, you sacrifice your goats for mana and life. You prevent the damage and gain life. If you end up with 2 pastures you can actually make a goat, block with it, and sacrifice it for mana in the same turn. Its very effective against non-trample or flying decks. An important note about Pasture, the Sacrifice X and gain X life and mana is a mana ability. At no point during the activation does your opponent get priority and it doesn't even use the stack. Its amazing.
Springjack Pasture, Springjack Shepherd and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx These 3 cards have great synergy. As I mentioned above you can generate insane mana with these 3. Nykthos for your Shepherd and then sacrifice the goats for extra mana. Its a long winded combo for Chroma + 1 Mana, but it scales even higher late in the game. Also know, you can use Pasture in response to a split second card. It hasn't come up yet but someday I'll get to do it.
Thats It For Now
I hope you enjoyed this weird deck I've been working on! Let me know if you have any feedback on my post format (this is my first MTG Salvation post) or on the deck itself. This deck wouldn't have been possible without all the help from my twitch viewers and individuals on Reddit who have provided some great options to improve the deck.
Shameless Twitch Plug
If you're interested in watching the deck perform, you can check it out at Twitch.tv/GoatTribal on my VOD's for catch me live. Hope to see you there!
I think this deck can play in a Wb tokens shell very well. I don't love the sideboard yet, I'm still mishmashing cards to figure out what might be good, but most likely the deck needs discard, especially after teh sideboard. The tokens shell takes care of card advantage pretty well.
Leyline of the Meek allows for much more powerful token play, often doubling your clock. By playing Leyline of the Meek main you are also further leveraging the big mana possiblity of of Shrine to Nyx, so a full layset of WEathered Wayfarer to find them is important. Tips also lends itself to lots of utility lands making their way into the deck, like Vault, Windbrisk Heights, and Springjack Pasture. We could add Ghost Quarter, but I don't think this big mana deck wants to give up lands.
Rise of the Hobgoblins is just a great card for the deck, two Chroma, it's okay to cast at four or five mana, but it can be a great mana sink later in a game. First strike to all your creatures is icing.
Vault of the ARcharnglel plays well with Rise of the Hobgoblins givingdeathtouch to a large number of tokens with first strike its nuts.
Goats are still a big part of the deck. Its not budget anymore if that was a concern. The Leyline of the meek work very well to grant the goats some Power.
I think you can play more creatures in the sideboard games and Pack Rat might go very very well with the strategy. Pack Rat tokens benefit from Leyline of Meek and Intangible Virtue. Pack Rat is another form of card advantage turning unhelpful cards into self replicating pack rat tokens.
With black creatures and removal so prevalent, Deaths Shadow, Fatal Push, Tasigure, etc; Auriok Champions, always good with token strategies becomes a great sideboard option, it also helps sure up burn match ups.
This is my updated version. Its BW Tokens with a very solid Goats plays, but Goats are not the focus of my deck. Its pretty solid. It wins grindy. The discard helps to slow down combo and the bad mass removal. The Pack Rat helps when you draw discard (or other cards that don't impact the board) in the late game and its dead. But cast pack rat make a token that is already pretty big is really solid win condition against Jund style decks heavy with removal.
Introduction
Hello and greetings! I am Goat Tribal, a recently returning MTG player with a mission; Spicy Brews. So today I present to you my first spicy brew, Totes McGoats or Totes NykGoats. You may have read my posts on Reddit but I've recently wanted to expand my deck to more mediums and forums so I can get better and more varied advice. So, without further adieu, lets get into the deck.
What Is Totes McGoats?
Plainly put, Totes McGoats is a White Chroma deck with a twist. We aim to pump out Tron levels of mana on turn 3 and 4 and win by dropping Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite or another large bomb early on. We do this by dropping in as many W symbols as possible as early as possible. We do this by playing Weathered Wayfarer, Fieldmist Borderpost, Wildfield Borderpost, and Knight of the White Orchid to not only reach high levels of Chroma but also ramp our deck. We then use Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx to tap for ludicrous amounts of mana. There is also a Gemstone Cavern effect in this deck if you happen to start with Leyline of Sanctity in your hand, but thats just icing on the cake.
But wait, where are the goats I was promised?
Oh ye of little faith, the Goats serve multiple purposes in this deck and are actually the reason this deck can reach insane levels of mana. Let me explain how and why. Nykthos taps for X white mana where X is the Chroma (No I won't say devotion because Chroma came first) and Springjack Shepherd makes X goats, where X is your Chroma to white. And Springjack Pasture can tap for X mana and X life of any 1 color where X is the number of Goats you sacrifice to it. See where this is going?
We tap Nykthos for, lets say 5 (a pretty below average tap for turn 4), then we play Springjack Shepherd for 4 of it. Leaving us with 1. We then gain 6 Goats and have 1 floating. We then sacrifice all 6 goats to Springjack Pasture and gain 6 life and 6 white mana. Bam, we drop in Elesh Norn and our opponent cries because his board has been wiped. Or maybe we drop in Baneslayer Angel but I haven't tried that card in the deck yet.
So now that you see the basics for the mana ramp, lets get into the deck as a whole:
1 Avacyn, Angel of Hope
4 Knight of the White Orchid
2 Soul Warden
4 Azorius Guildmage
4 Springjack Shepherd
3 Weathered Wayfarer
2 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Sorcery
1 Devout Invocation
4 Path to Exile
3 Sphinx's Revelation
Artifact
4 Wildfield Borderpost
4 Fieldmist Borderpost
Enchantment
4 Leyline of Sanctity
Land
4 Springjack Pasture
4 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
2 Island
10 Plains
3 Aura of Silence
2 Nevermore
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
3 Ghostly Prison
2 Rest in Peace
2 Suppression Field
2 Forsake the Worldly
Why Play Totes McGoats?
Because you are looking for something different. Something that makes your opponent incredibly confused when they Thoughtseize you. When you want to win by using Goats or when you like the idea of Angels protecting a literal flock. Maybe you like the idea of Eldrazi Goats. Or maybe you just like the oldschool Flickerwisp + Springjack Shepherd combo but felt it was never actually competitive. Or maybe you just want to have fun. This deck has the wierdest synergies ever and it just play very enjoyably, plus it beats T1 decks and T2 decks quite frequently. Nothing feels better than trampling over someones Eldrazi-Tron deck by out "Troning" him with Nykthos and bringing in Avacyn on turn 4.
Deck Core
The core of the deck is only 43 cards. This leaves 17 cards to fill in to taste. But I do suggest having at least 4 payoff cards for your abundance of mana and I suggest some form of card draw but you can do this any way you like.
4 Knight of the White Orchid
4 Springjack Shepherd
3 Weathered Wayfarer
4 Path to Exile
Artifact
4 Wildfield Borderpost
4 Fieldmist Borderpost
4 Springjack Pasture
4 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
12 Basics
Suggested Cards
While you can flex in any card you like to fill to taste, there are some recommendations I have for certain functions but you can seriously fill to taste and have fun.
Card Draw
These vary by how you want to build the deck, I currently run Sphinx's as it doubles up with the Goat sacrificing to make a good amount of health. Mesa enchantress works if you're building the deck to be more enchantment focused with your flex slots.
Removal
All of these cards add to your Chroma and are fairly good in this deck. I've been relying purely on Path recently and it's been doing well but there are some matchups where I miss Oblivion Ring. Cast Out is nice because of the cycling so keep tempo if you don't need it at a given point.
Pillow Fort
Its easy to have a creature out and you can "flash" in a goat with Springjack Pasture. Worship makes you very hard to kill against aggro decks.
Bombs
All these cards can be brought in very early. I personally use Elesh Norn because she's a boardwipe and lets me swing in with the goats. Nothing feels better than swinging for the win with goats. Baneslayer can come out very early and forces your opponent to react, leaving them unable to focus their turn on killing your enchantments or lands.
Utility Cards
These all provide good Chroma and good utility. Azorius Guildmage provides a nice mana sink for late game and helps stop some annoying combos.
The Sideboard
The sideboard is entirely flex. This you need to adjust to your local meta. I have mine tuned to what I've encountered on MTGO and it looks as such:
You have access to a lot of hate cards, so take advantage and slow down your enemy!
Cards To Watch Out For
Stony Silence shuts down our borderposts and really slows us down. Luckily it doesn't hit Nykthos so we can kind of work around us but it turns our borderposts into just 1 mana, down from the 2 they were providing before.
Blood Moon shuts down our Nykthos and Pasture. This hurts A LOT. Without a way to make goats or tap for excessive mana, the deck is effectively dead.
Spreading Seas This shuts down our Nykthos and Pasture again, really hurting us. I've seen this card a lot lately which is why I put Aura of Silence and Forsake the Worldly into the sideboard (I like the cycling on Forsake over Disenchant).
Oddly enough Ghost Quarter doesn't hit our deck very hard because we can use Wayfarer to get Nykthos back and most people won't hit Springjack Pasture with a Ghost Quarter until match 2, since the land feels very unimpressive until its the most annoying thing they've ever had to work around.
Tips and Tricks
We have some very annoying tools at our disposal in this deck, the first being Ramping:
Weathered Wayfarer or Knight of the White Orchid and Borderposts. Basically you send a land back to your hand with the Borderpost and keep Wayfarering for your important lands or Knight to ramp forward. And you can even use them in conjunction if you're on the draw to ramp and fetch.
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx No this isn't a typo. Having 2 of these lands in your hand is amazing. On turn 4, tap Nykthos for 4 or 5, then play Nykthos leaving the new one alive, pay 2, and tap for another 4-5 putting you up to 6-7 mana. Not including Goats to sacrifice.
Springjack Pasture and Blocking. Basically, you make a bunch of goats and block. Then, after declaring blockers, you sacrifice your goats for mana and life. You prevent the damage and gain life. If you end up with 2 pastures you can actually make a goat, block with it, and sacrifice it for mana in the same turn. Its very effective against non-trample or flying decks. An important note about Pasture, the Sacrifice X and gain X life and mana is a mana ability. At no point during the activation does your opponent get priority and it doesn't even use the stack. Its amazing.
Springjack Pasture, Springjack Shepherd and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx These 3 cards have great synergy. As I mentioned above you can generate insane mana with these 3. Nykthos for your Shepherd and then sacrifice the goats for extra mana. Its a long winded combo for Chroma + 1 Mana, but it scales even higher late in the game. Also know, you can use Pasture in response to a split second card. It hasn't come up yet but someday I'll get to do it.
Thats It For Now
I hope you enjoyed this weird deck I've been working on! Let me know if you have any feedback on my post format (this is my first MTG Salvation post) or on the deck itself. This deck wouldn't have been possible without all the help from my twitch viewers and individuals on Reddit who have provided some great options to improve the deck.
Shameless Twitch Plug
If you're interested in watching the deck perform, you can check it out at Twitch.tv/GoatTribal on my VOD's for catch me live. Hope to see you there!
By TalionisMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
1 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
4 Springjack Shepherd
4 Weathered Wayfarer
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Spells (8)
4 Path to Exile
4 Lingering Souls
Enchantment (14)
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Leyline of the Meek
1 Intangible Virtue
2 Rise of the Hobgoblins
1 Hidden Stockpile
2 Promise of Bunrei
Planeswalkers (5)
3 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Springjack Pasture
3 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Swamp
3 Plains
4 Marsh Flats
1 Vault of the Archangel
2 Windswept Heath
1 Concealed Courtyard
2 Fetid Heath
2 Godless Shrine
2 Windbrisk Heights
1 Westvale Abbey
2 Aura of Silence
2 Nevermore
1 Blade Splicer
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
2 Ghostly Prison
2 Rest in Peace
2 Auriok Champion
1 Suppression Field
1 Forsake the Worldly
1 Tidehollow Sculler
2 Pack Rat
2 Hour of Reckoning
1 Avacyn, Angel of Hope
1 Spectral Procession
I think this deck can play in a Wb tokens shell very well. I don't love the sideboard yet, I'm still mishmashing cards to figure out what might be good, but most likely the deck needs discard, especially after teh sideboard. The tokens shell takes care of card advantage pretty well.
Leyline of the Meek allows for much more powerful token play, often doubling your clock. By playing Leyline of the Meek main you are also further leveraging the big mana possiblity of of Shrine to Nyx, so a full layset of WEathered Wayfarer to find them is important. Tips also lends itself to lots of utility lands making their way into the deck, like Vault, Windbrisk Heights, and Springjack Pasture. We could add Ghost Quarter, but I don't think this big mana deck wants to give up lands.
Rise of the Hobgoblins is just a great card for the deck, two Chroma, it's okay to cast at four or five mana, but it can be a great mana sink later in a game. First strike to all your creatures is icing.
Vault of the ARcharnglel plays well with Rise of the Hobgoblins givingdeathtouch to a large number of tokens with first strike its nuts.
Goats are still a big part of the deck. Its not budget anymore if that was a concern. The Leyline of the meek work very well to grant the goats some Power.
I think you can play more creatures in the sideboard games and Pack Rat might go very very well with the strategy. Pack Rat tokens benefit from Leyline of Meek and Intangible Virtue. Pack Rat is another form of card advantage turning unhelpful cards into self replicating pack rat tokens.
With black creatures and removal so prevalent, Deaths Shadow, Fatal Push, Tasigure, etc; Auriok Champions, always good with token strategies becomes a great sideboard option, it also helps sure up burn match ups.
By TalionisMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
2 Springjack Shepherd
4 Weathered Wayfarer
1 Pack Rat
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
Spells (13)
4 Path to Exile
4 Lingering Souls
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Thoughtseize
Enchantment (11)
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Leyline of the Meek
2 Rise of the Hobgoblins
1 Promise of Bunrei
Planeswalkers (4)
3 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Springjack Pasture
3 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Swamp
3 Plains
4 Marsh Flats
1 Vault of the Archangel
2 Windswept Heath
1 Concealed Courtyard
2 Fetid Heath
2 Godless Shrine
2 Windbrisk Heights
1 Westvale Abbey
1 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
1 Intangible Virtue
1 Aura of Silence
1 Nevermore
3 Blade Splicer
2 Rest in Peace
2 Auriok Champion
2 Tidehollow Sculler
2 Hour of Reckoning