Nest of Scarabs and Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons are two cards from Amonkhet that really stand out to me. I'm wondering if these cards are possibly viable in standard? This deck is kind of a different take on the current G/B energy constrictor deck. With a Nest of Scarabs out, if you play a Channeler Initiate or Exemplar of Strength it comes with 3 scarab tokens. There are also many instant speed shenanigans you can pull off with Splendid Agony if you have either Nest or Hapatra out. This works particularly well with Hapatra, since if you target 2 creatures with Splendid Agony, you will get 2 deathtouch snake tokens that you can surprise your opponent with. Here is just a rough first pass on the deck.
I've been looking at something a little more all in. Really not sure without testing. What I wonder about your list is the Splendid Agony. You make good points on combat shenanigans with Hapatra, but beyond that, I have a hard time justifying a 3 mana spell whose best solo case is killing an X/2.
Agony seems okay. it plays well with any of the synergies, and solo just shrinking some guys a point or two in combat changes all of thier math, and they will always have to play around it.
You could even use it to set up Liliana, death wielder's -3. Not sure if you'd want to play any copies of her but it's something to keep in mind
Blisterpod does seem quite good in this deck. One weakness that I found in testing was that the deck seemed fairly slow to get going, but playing I think playing Blisterpod could speed it up significantly.
I really like the Decimator as a finish. I'm a little confused on your Greatmaw assessment though. I haven't done a ton of testing, but my impression has consistently been that I'd rather lose a 1/1 token than shrink my 4/5, except for corner cases like growing a Plague Belcher that didn't have another target for its own counters. Obviously, I dig the 4/5 for 3 (sometimes more than a hasty 5/4 for 4, honestly), but I don't see it being the cornerstone of the deck by any means. What kinds of plays do you make with it?
Along the lines of finishers, some brainstorming:
Does Decimator want maybe Cryptolith Rite to power it out sooner?
What about Throne of the God-Pharaoh? If you can tap the tokens without killing them, that'll put a lot of damage through for way less mana. Westvale Abbey comes to mind as a very low opportunity cost with a high payoff.
I think it depends on how deep you are on the tokens. If you're running 7-8 token makers (Hapatra and Nest of Scarabs) then you've got enough other places to put the counters that removing them isn't that important. At that point, hexproof by itself seems like sideboard material. If you're going more beatdown and only have a few sources of chumps, then it seems better.
How about adding Winding Constrictor to this deck? Here's the thinking: If Nest of Scarabs or Hapatra are around, you will have tokens. Now you play out Winding Constrictor and then Exemplar, place 4 -1/-1 counters on a token and make 4 tokens. Seems good to me! Even if you don't have those key cards, placing 4 counters on a token is not a disadvantage compared to placing 3 counters. Token is dead! And then you -2 Nissa and get 2 counters on all your creatures, including the tokens.
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Current Awesome Deck: UWAll-In GiftsWU Consistent, Resiliant, and way overpowered, making multiple 4/4s per turn.
GB Electric Dreams BG Deal 20 in one shot, or discard their hand?
GWUFree Stuff MidrangeUWG Slowly bury the opponent with more threats and answers than they can handle.
Here is my revised version of this deck. Blisterpod has been great, because it allows for Exemplar of Strength or Channeler Initiate to come out as aggressive 2-drops, while also ramping me up to 4 mana on turn 3. Adding Rhonas the Indomitable seems to be good so far, since it is fairly easy to turn him on, and his activated ability is very hard to play around when you are attacking with a bunch of 1/1 tokens. Nissa, Voice of Zendikar is great with all of the Scarabs. Both her and Westvale Abbey seem like easy includes as win conditions. Also, Crocodile of the Crossing has been surprisingly good. The deck can be slow at times, so having a big hasty threat helps it out in a lot of matchups.
One thing I have noticed is that you frequently have to make the choice to play a Nest of Scarabs, or another 3-drop, and that can be the turn that determines the direction of the rest of the game. It seems like the deck really wants to get to 6 mana so that you can play both Nest and another card in the same turn.
I like that list a lot. The Creature vs. Nest conundrum is an interesting one. The three drop slot is definitely crowded. My instinct is that unless you're under a lot of pressure, dropping the Nest first will get you more value over the game.
If getting to 6 mana faster helps, does it want more mana dorks? Naga Vitalist, Druid of the Cowl, and Servant of the Conduit could each take a -1/-1 counter in a pinch and ramp the mana. The other things that come to mind are some sort of 1 or 2 cost mana sink or maybe Champion of Rhonas. That would give you something to do on turn 4 and then an extra creature on turn 5.
I think this is a sign that the mana curve is too high. I would suggest looking for a way to run more (and more powerful) 2-drops and slightly less 3-drops so you can feel happy playing Nest and something else with only 5 mana.
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Current Awesome Deck: UWAll-In GiftsWU Consistent, Resiliant, and way overpowered, making multiple 4/4s per turn.
GB Electric Dreams BG Deal 20 in one shot, or discard their hand?
GWUFree Stuff MidrangeUWG Slowly bury the opponent with more threats and answers than they can handle.
It doesn't really fit the "more powerful" criteria, but for lowering the curve I would suggest trying festering mummy
it can take counters for an aggressive turn 2 like blisterpod but instead of ramping for t3 it can trade up if it needs to block. Also plays nice with nest later in the game which blisterpod does less well.
So not as good as bp early but I think better after turn 3, which is when you wete wanting something to play the same turn as nest
It doesn't really fit the "more powerful" criteria, but for lowering the curve I would suggest trying festering mummy
it can take counters for an aggressive turn 2 like blisterpod but instead of ramping for t3 it can trade up if it needs to block. Also plays nice with nest later in the game which blisterpod does less well.
So not as good as bp early but I think better after turn 3, which is when you wete wanting something to play the same turn as nest
I think Festering Mummy might be an okay sideboard card? It seems like it could be good in a creature-based match up. I'm not sure how good it would be against a control-oriented deck. I do like that you can chain your -1/-1 counters using this card, though. If you have either a Hapatra or a Nest of Scarabs out, you could play something like a Plague Belcher, put the counter on Festering Mummy and get a 1/1 scarab or snake token. Then Festering Mummy dies and you get to put a counter on one of your opponent's creatures, and you get another scarab or snake token.
Maybe swapping out a few of the 3-drops for Walking Ballista or Scrapheap Scrounger could be a good option to lower the curve. Both cards are just good. Ballista also has synergy with Nissa, while Scrounger is a good target to put your -1/-1 counters on, since you can just bring it back from the graveyard.
Both of those sound like reasonable choices. of course walking ballista might start being less good with all these -1/-1 counters flying around canceling out his counters. One of those things we will just have to see about.
I'm not sure how -1/-1 counters affect the usefulness of Walking Ballista any more than they affect any other creature. They cancel out the +1/+1 counters on Ballista, but on any other creature they remain as -1/-1. Isn't the end result in both cases that your creatures ends up with minus 1 power and toughness?
I'm not sure how -1/-1 counters affect the usefulness of Walking Ballista any more than they affect any other creature. They cancel out the +1/+1 counters on Ballista, but on any other creature they remain as -1/-1. Isn't the end result in both cases that your creatures ends up with minus 1 power and toughness?
It forces the ballista controller to either fire the Ballista early or not have as much ammo to use later
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Standard - Some kind of control
Modern - UB Mill (casual)
EDH - Meren's Grave Shenanigans
I'm not sure how -1/-1 counters affect the usefulness of Walking Ballista any more than they affect any other creature. They cancel out the +1/+1 counters on Ballista, but on any other creature they remain as -1/-1. Isn't the end result in both cases that your creatures ends up with minus 1 power and toughness?
It forces the ballista controller to either fire the Ballista early or not have as much ammo to use later
That's still the same end result as putting the -1/-1 counter on a non Ballista creature, though. If you have a 2/2 Ballista or a 2/2 anything, it still becomes a 1/1 with the -1/-1 counter applied to it. I'd argue that it's actually better to have your Ballista get targeted by the -1/-1 counter, because at least you have the option of using it's ability to grow later on. If the counter was placed on some other 2-drop, like a Servant of the Conduit, it's going to have reduced power and toughness for the rest of the game.
The only situation in which it's worse to have the counter placed on the Ballista is if it only has one +1/+1 counter on it to begin with, which forces you to remove the counter and shoot something because its going to die anyway. With this logic it means that as long as -1/-1 counters are in standard, Glint-Sleeve Siphoner will be a bad 2-drop because it always dies to having the -1/-1 counter placed on it.
The point I'm trying to make is that Walking Ballista is no more affected by -1/-1 counters than any other creature is.
Walking ballista's usefulness is more dependant on its size than a Lott of other creatures. To use your example, shrinking a servant in no way stops is from doing its thing. Ballista absolutely needs it's counters while not everything else cares.
I would suggest looking for a way to run more (and more powerful) 2-drops and slightly less 3-drops so you can feel happy playing Nest and something else with only 5 mana.
A quick Gatherer check turned up some interesting ideas. Duskwatch Recruiter seems like my favorite. Two drop, gets us gas; if it transforms, we start playing 5/4s for 2 and that's just silly. Greenwheel Liberator seems like something you only wanna play on turn 5 with another counters creature, but would be really good in that situation (i.e. lose a token to your Plague Belcher and then add a 4/3 to the board too). Relentless Dead plays real nice with Plague Belcher. Triggers the life loss, goes back to your hand, and can bring dead Belchers back with it.
What to take out becomes the question for me. After the prerelease, I like Plague Belcher a lot. I'd probably cut Defiant Greatmaw first.
This is a decktype that my friend (elicik) and I have been working on for awhile. Basically, it revolves around abusing cards like Plague Belcher and Exemplar of Strength, which are really big and efficient creatures for their mana cost. Their main downside is that they require you to place -1/-1 counters on your own stuff in order to cast them; this deck seeks to mitigate that cost and even in some circumstances profit from it.
So, without further ado, here's an outline of the deck.
Cards that place -1/-1 counters
These are the main cards that the deck revolves around. Basically, as mentioned earlier, these three are extremely efficient in terms of stats, with the downside of placing down -1/-1 counters on your creatures. Plague Belcher is unique, however, in that it doesn't have a baked-in means of removing counters. To combat this, you're probably going to want to almost-always use him on either a token or Blisterpod, unless you have a Hapatra's Mark in hand.
Side note that a lot of people forget; Nest of Scarabs gives you an insect for each counter that you place, rather than Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons which only gives you one snek even if your card places multiple counters.
Cards that benefit from having big creatures
Because all three of the deck's main creatures are above four toughness, it's very easy to keep Rhonas the Indomitable live. Mouth // Feed is used for a similar reason; at the point in the game where you'd be casting it for its aftermath, you should be able to get quite a few draws off of it.
Other potential cards for the deck
These are basically just miscellaneous cards which somewhat suit the win condition of the deck, but I chose not to include in the sample list because I don't think they're that great considering our other options.
Of these, the most relevant cards for discussion are probably Prowling Serpopard and Channeler Initiate. I did include Prowling Serpopard in the sideboard of my sample list, but that's mostly because I didn't have much else that I thought was worth siding. It's definitely a good card, but very meta based.
Channeler Initiate is good, but the deck doesn't really need a mana dork (at least not with a curve like in the sample), and considering its lack of space a 2 mana 3/4 is, surprisingly, just not good enough considering that Exemplar of Strength exists.
Other than those two, I think Crocodile of the Crossing would be the next logical choice to run, followed by perhaps Nissa, Voice of Zendikar. They're good cards, one providing more aggression with the other providing tokens to murder with our counter placers.
Overall, I really like this deck, and highly recommend giving it a go. It curves out extremely well, a 4/4 and 5/4 + Menace on turn 3 being a pretty strong board state that early on. Also, it utilizes the Black and Green gods very well, which considering the level of pressure they apply by simply existing is something worth noting.
The only real problem with the deck that I've found so far is it's not terribly interactive with the opponent, though as what is essentially an early-format aggro deck, this is to be expected. I imagine if this picks up as a decltype, we'll see a much more utility based build, less focused on the simple advantage from counters.
I definitely see this as one of the more powerful decks of the format. Elicit plans on posting his list on my thread at some point, so you can see his variance in card choice etc.
Hope you enjoyed the read! Nice primer! However, per Standard Deck Creation Rules, "If you want to post a new thread in this forum, please check and make sure there isn't already a thread on the same topic. " Merging threads. - hoser2
4x Channeler Initiate
4x Exemplar of Strength
3x Glint-Sleeve Siphoner
3x Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons
2x Plague Belcher
2x Rishkar, Peema Renegade
3x Vizier of the Menagerie
4x Walking Ballista
7x Forest
2x Grasping Dunes
4x Hissing Quagmire
5x Swamp
2x Fatal Push
3x Splendid Agony
2x Oath of Nissa
1x Liliana, the Last Hope
1x Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
4 Blisterpod
2 Bontu the Glorified
4 Channeler Initiate
4 Crocodile of the Crossing
3 Defiant Greatmaw
4 Exemplar of Strength
3 Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons
4 Plague Belcher
2 Never
4 Fatal Push
4 Nest of Scarabs
Land
4 Blooming Marsh
6 Forest
2 Grasping Dunes
4 Hissing Quagmire
7 Swamp
I've been looking at something a little more all in. Really not sure without testing. What I wonder about your list is the Splendid Agony. You make good points on combat shenanigans with Hapatra, but beyond that, I have a hard time justifying a 3 mana spell whose best solo case is killing an X/2.
R.I.P. Wash
Don't click this. I mean it. No, seriously. I said not to click it. The world might blow up. Even if you just think about it. BOOM. See? The whole world could've just blown up and it would've been all your fault. Just don't click this.
You could even use it to set up Liliana, death wielder's -3. Not sure if you'd want to play any copies of her but it's something to keep in mind
Modern: WURG Twin
Standard: Mardu Planeswalkers
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/standard-type-2/deck-creation-standard/661834-mardu-planeswalker?comment=1
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blisterpod is poo poo though, the cute interaction with the -1/-1 counters isn't enough to make up for a terrible card in the deck.
defiant greatmaw is what makes this deck, it should be an auto 4 of.
Along the lines of finishers, some brainstorming:
Does Decimator want maybe Cryptolith Rite to power it out sooner?
What about Throne of the God-Pharaoh? If you can tap the tokens without killing them, that'll put a lot of damage through for way less mana.
Westvale Abbey comes to mind as a very low opportunity cost with a high payoff.
R.I.P. Wash
Don't click this. I mean it. No, seriously. I said not to click it. The world might blow up. Even if you just think about it. BOOM. See? The whole world could've just blown up and it would've been all your fault. Just don't click this.
R.I.P. Wash
Don't click this. I mean it. No, seriously. I said not to click it. The world might blow up. Even if you just think about it. BOOM. See? The whole world could've just blown up and it would've been all your fault. Just don't click this.
4 Blisterpod
4 Channeler Initiate
4 Exemplar of Strength
4 Catacomb Sifter
2 Rhonas the Indomitable
4 Crocodile of the Crossing
4 Plague Belcher
2 Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons
1 Bontu the Glorified
3 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
Other Spells
3 Nest of Scarabs
3 Blossoming Defense
Land 22
4 Blooming Marsh
4 Foul Orchard
4 Hissing Quagmire
7 Forest
3 Swamp
GB Electric Dreams BG Deal 20 in one shot, or discard their hand?
GWU Free Stuff Midrange UWG Slowly bury the opponent with more threats and answers than they can handle.
My greatest hits:
GURFate Reforged Temur Ascendancy COMBORUG
GUDragons of Tarkir Whisperwood Forever UG
One thing I have noticed is that you frequently have to make the choice to play a Nest of Scarabs, or another 3-drop, and that can be the turn that determines the direction of the rest of the game. It seems like the deck really wants to get to 6 mana so that you can play both Nest and another card in the same turn.
// 25 Creature
4 Channeler Initiate
4 Exemplar of Strength
3 Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons
3 Plague Belcher
4 Blisterpod
1 Rhonas the Indomitable
3 Crocodile of the Crossing
3 Defiant Greatmaw
4 Nest of Scarabs
// 6 Instant
3 Fatal Push
2 Splendid Agony
1 Grasp of Darkness
// 23 Land
4 Blooming Marsh
6 Forest
2 Grasping Dunes
4 Hissing Quagmire
5 Swamp
2 Westvale Abbey
2 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
If getting to 6 mana faster helps, does it want more mana dorks? Naga Vitalist, Druid of the Cowl, and Servant of the Conduit could each take a -1/-1 counter in a pinch and ramp the mana. The other things that come to mind are some sort of 1 or 2 cost mana sink or maybe Champion of Rhonas. That would give you something to do on turn 4 and then an extra creature on turn 5.
R.I.P. Wash
Don't click this. I mean it. No, seriously. I said not to click it. The world might blow up. Even if you just think about it. BOOM. See? The whole world could've just blown up and it would've been all your fault. Just don't click this.
GB Electric Dreams BG Deal 20 in one shot, or discard their hand?
GWU Free Stuff Midrange UWG Slowly bury the opponent with more threats and answers than they can handle.
My greatest hits:
GURFate Reforged Temur Ascendancy COMBORUG
GUDragons of Tarkir Whisperwood Forever UG
it can take counters for an aggressive turn 2 like blisterpod but instead of ramping for t3 it can trade up if it needs to block. Also plays nice with nest later in the game which blisterpod does less well.
So not as good as bp early but I think better after turn 3, which is when you wete wanting something to play the same turn as nest
Modern: WURG Twin
Standard: Mardu Planeswalkers
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/standard-type-2/deck-creation-standard/661834-mardu-planeswalker?comment=1
Monthly Proxy Legacy
Charlotte/Greensboro area, NC
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I think Festering Mummy might be an okay sideboard card? It seems like it could be good in a creature-based match up. I'm not sure how good it would be against a control-oriented deck. I do like that you can chain your -1/-1 counters using this card, though. If you have either a Hapatra or a Nest of Scarabs out, you could play something like a Plague Belcher, put the counter on Festering Mummy and get a 1/1 scarab or snake token. Then Festering Mummy dies and you get to put a counter on one of your opponent's creatures, and you get another scarab or snake token.
Maybe swapping out a few of the 3-drops for Walking Ballista or Scrapheap Scrounger could be a good option to lower the curve. Both cards are just good. Ballista also has synergy with Nissa, while Scrounger is a good target to put your -1/-1 counters on, since you can just bring it back from the graveyard.
Modern: WURG Twin
Standard: Mardu Planeswalkers
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/standard-type-2/deck-creation-standard/661834-mardu-planeswalker?comment=1
Monthly Proxy Legacy
Charlotte/Greensboro area, NC
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GB Electric Dreams BG Deal 20 in one shot, or discard their hand?
GWU Free Stuff Midrange UWG Slowly bury the opponent with more threats and answers than they can handle.
My greatest hits:
GURFate Reforged Temur Ascendancy COMBORUG
GUDragons of Tarkir Whisperwood Forever UG
Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
Plague Belcher
Channeler Initiate
Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons
Scarab Nest
Everything else should just be "good stuff" in Golgari Colors
It forces the ballista controller to either fire the Ballista early or not have as much ammo to use later
Standard - Some kind of control
Modern - UB Mill (casual)
EDH - Meren's Grave Shenanigans
That's still the same end result as putting the -1/-1 counter on a non Ballista creature, though. If you have a 2/2 Ballista or a 2/2 anything, it still becomes a 1/1 with the -1/-1 counter applied to it. I'd argue that it's actually better to have your Ballista get targeted by the -1/-1 counter, because at least you have the option of using it's ability to grow later on. If the counter was placed on some other 2-drop, like a Servant of the Conduit, it's going to have reduced power and toughness for the rest of the game.
The only situation in which it's worse to have the counter placed on the Ballista is if it only has one +1/+1 counter on it to begin with, which forces you to remove the counter and shoot something because its going to die anyway. With this logic it means that as long as -1/-1 counters are in standard, Glint-Sleeve Siphoner will be a bad 2-drop because it always dies to having the -1/-1 counter placed on it.
The point I'm trying to make is that Walking Ballista is no more affected by -1/-1 counters than any other creature is.
Modern: WURG Twin
Standard: Mardu Planeswalkers
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/standard-type-2/deck-creation-standard/661834-mardu-planeswalker?comment=1
Monthly Proxy Legacy
Charlotte/Greensboro area, NC
Pm me for details
A quick Gatherer check turned up some interesting ideas.
Duskwatch Recruiter seems like my favorite. Two drop, gets us gas; if it transforms, we start playing 5/4s for 2 and that's just silly.
Greenwheel Liberator seems like something you only wanna play on turn 5 with another counters creature, but would be really good in that situation (i.e. lose a token to your Plague Belcher and then add a 4/3 to the board too).
Relentless Dead plays real nice with Plague Belcher. Triggers the life loss, goes back to your hand, and can bring dead Belchers back with it.
What to take out becomes the question for me. After the prerelease, I like Plague Belcher a lot. I'd probably cut Defiant Greatmaw first.
R.I.P. Wash
Don't click this. I mean it. No, seriously. I said not to click it. The world might blow up. Even if you just think about it. BOOM. See? The whole world could've just blown up and it would've been all your fault. Just don't click this.
1 Bontu the Glorified
3 Rhonas the Indomitable
4 Bone Picker
4 Blisterpod
4 Defiant Greatmaw
4 Exemplar of Strength
4 Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons
4 Plague Belcher
2 Nest of Scarabs
Instants - 6
4 Fatal Push
2 Hapatra's Mark
Land - 22
4 Blooming Marsh
9 Forest
2 Hissing Quagmire
7 Swamp
Sorceries - 2
2 Mouth // Feed
1 Mouth // Feed
1 Bontu the Glorified
2 Verdurous Gearhulk
2 Blossoming Defense
2 Prowling Serpopard
2 Grasp of Darkness
2 Never // Return
3 Manglehorn
This is a decktype that my friend (elicik) and I have been working on for awhile. Basically, it revolves around abusing cards like Plague Belcher and Exemplar of Strength, which are really big and efficient creatures for their mana cost. Their main downside is that they require you to place -1/-1 counters on your own stuff in order to cast them; this deck seeks to mitigate that cost and even in some circumstances profit from it.
So, without further ado, here's an outline of the deck.
Cards that place -1/-1 counters
These are the main cards that the deck revolves around. Basically, as mentioned earlier, these three are extremely efficient in terms of stats, with the downside of placing down -1/-1 counters on your creatures. Plague Belcher is unique, however, in that it doesn't have a baked-in means of removing counters. To combat this, you're probably going to want to almost-always use him on either a token or Blisterpod, unless you have a Hapatra's Mark in hand.
Cards that abuse -1/-1 counters
Basically, these types of cards fall into 3 categories. There are cards that are good fodder for the counters, like Blisterpod(elicik's discovery, a card that I had completely forgotten about) and the various tokens. There are cards that actually benefit from you placing counters on things, like Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons, Nest of Scarabs and Hapatra's Mark. Lastly, there are cards like Bontu the Glorified and Bone Picker which benefit from things like Blisterpod and the tokens from Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons and Nest of Scarabs being killed for -1/-1 fodder.
Side note that a lot of people forget; Nest of Scarabs gives you an insect for each counter that you place, rather than Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons which only gives you one snek even if your card places multiple counters.
Cards that benefit from having big creatures
Because all three of the deck's main creatures are above four toughness, it's very easy to keep Rhonas the Indomitable live. Mouth // Feed is used for a similar reason; at the point in the game where you'd be casting it for its aftermath, you should be able to get quite a few draws off of it.
Other potential cards for the deck
These are basically just miscellaneous cards which somewhat suit the win condition of the deck, but I chose not to include in the sample list because I don't think they're that great considering our other options.
Of these, the most relevant cards for discussion are probably Prowling Serpopard and Channeler Initiate. I did include Prowling Serpopard in the sideboard of my sample list, but that's mostly because I didn't have much else that I thought was worth siding. It's definitely a good card, but very meta based.
Channeler Initiate is good, but the deck doesn't really need a mana dork (at least not with a curve like in the sample), and considering its lack of space a 2 mana 3/4 is, surprisingly, just not good enough considering that Exemplar of Strength exists.
Other than those two, I think Crocodile of the Crossing would be the next logical choice to run, followed by perhaps Nissa, Voice of Zendikar. They're good cards, one providing more aggression with the other providing tokens to murder with our counter placers.
Overall, I really like this deck, and highly recommend giving it a go. It curves out extremely well, a 4/4 and 5/4 + Menace on turn 3 being a pretty strong board state that early on. Also, it utilizes the Black and Green gods very well, which considering the level of pressure they apply by simply existing is something worth noting.
The only real problem with the deck that I've found so far is it's not terribly interactive with the opponent, though as what is essentially an early-format aggro deck, this is to be expected. I imagine if this picks up as a decltype, we'll see a much more utility based build, less focused on the simple advantage from counters.
I definitely see this as one of the more powerful decks of the format. Elicit plans on posting his list on my thread at some point, so you can see his variance in card choice etc.
Hope you enjoyed the read!
Nice primer! However, per Standard Deck Creation Rules, "If you want to post a new thread in this forum, please check and make sure there isn't already a thread on the same topic. " Merging threads. - hoser2