I think the card has a ton of potential. It's like Garruk, Primal Hunter except you get both abilities at once. It can help stabilize and it provides a win-con. I'm eager to play with it in a competitive setting, but I don't know what the rest of the shell looks like.
Some thoughts...
1. Thragtusk - If you cast Prime Speaker after this, you just win. Card is ridiculous on its own, blah blah blah. I'm thinking any build that wants to play the speaker wants to play this as a 4-of
2. Jace, Arcitect of Thought - Since the deck is going to have a high mana curve, and will include at least one "combo" (guy + Speaker), the -2 will be more useful to us. In addition, since the deck is playing it's own dudes, it doesn't want to wrath, so the +1 is your best bet against creature swarms. I think the shell also needs 3 of this card.
Pure simic vs bant vs BUG vs RUG
I think white's main draw is Sphinx's Revelation, Supreme Verdict, and Restoration Angel. Prime Speaker does everything you'd want the revelation to do, so having both in the deck is redundant (you don't need 5 of the effect). We don't want to wrath, since we're playing dudes, so Supreme Verdict's out. Bant control is a great deck, but it's not this deck.
No splash gives you access to Garruk's Primal Hunter, but Simic colors have basically no early disruption, so we'd have to resort to running something like Ambush Viper or roll over to a decent aggro deck.
RUG gives you access to bloodrush and several large early creatures. It's still suprisingly light on disruption, but at least you can play Searing Spear.
BUG lets you play Abrupt Decay, Liliana of the Veil, and Ultimate Price, but doesn't offer a lot of attractive creature options. I still think I prefer this color configuration for now though.
Midrange decks will start splashing blue for this card. I can see it in jund+blue or Naya+blue or maybe even junk+blue. It's a really powerful card and will see play.
is the mana really that good that you can make AABBCCDD by turn 6? Maybe I'm just not mulliganning correctly or something but I don't think most lists can stretch that far.
If the deck is built correctly, yes. I'm already casting Prime Speaker Zegana turn 4. Still working out the kinks though. Trying to see if I cant get her at T3 by adding another color...
If the deck is built correctly, yes. I'm already casting Prime Speaker Zegana turn 4. Still working out the kinks though. Trying to see if I cant get her at T3 by adding another color...
If the deck is built correctly, yes. I'm already casting Prime Speaker Zegana turn 4. Still working out the kinks though. Trying to see if I cant get her at T3 by adding another color...
What the point of casting Zegana fast? Paying 6 for 2/2 that draw 2.
Zegana should be used to refuel your hand after you built a decent presence.
She pairs well with Thragtusk and undying creatures (Strangleroot Geist and Vorapede).
You should have either more than one creature or a very resilient one to cast her. You don't want pay 6 for a Elvish Visionary.
Also i can't see her being played in 4 colors deck, she isn't very splashable, So she could be played only on UGx builds. With UG as the main colors. You can't simply make a small plash for blue or green and hope to cast her reliably.
Well I'm trying to find a way to cast her reliably and draw at least 3 cards off of her. The answer isn't in U/G. So I'm just going to take a look in other colors. No harm in trying right?
Well I'm trying to find a way to cast her reliably and draw at least 3 cards off of her. The answer isn't in U/G. So I'm just going to take a look in other colors. No harm in trying right?
she cost 2UUGG, How can you reliably afford this UUGG without playing with UG?
First off; the mana is not an issue. You can reliably play Prime Speaker in Jund or Naya on turn 6.
Personally though, I had the same original thought as to start off with BUG as I am not drawn towards the elf ramp idea. I didn't like how the BUG deck felt, but it is very possible I was building it poorly. I feel as though RUG is a better option because once you cast the Prime Speaker, you are going to want to draw answers to their board in order to get your guys through, which is why I like the idea of drawing bonfire and small burn spells. You have access to Staticaster and Peddler in the board, counterflux which will be great if any control decks take off, and pillar // mortars is still a house versus the creature decks.
How about "You may discard your hand, pay 5 life, rip this card, remove 3 digits from any number of target fingers you control, and concede at the end of the next end step rather than pay It Will Go Through!!'s mana cost.
Darn it Genocide beat me to it.
Zegana is actually also pretty sweet in decks with pump spells as well. I'm currently playing it in my RUG midrange deck to a little bit of success. I won't spoil it to you just yet though.
It's essentially the old Bant Midrange deck with PSZ added in, and it ran beautifully. It has very little weakness to aggro because of all of the recurring lifegain, and it comes out faster and beats down control (like a good midrange deck should). The only match I lost was to a BUG Zombies deck, and the games dragged out forever. I lost the first game to double Duskmantle Seers, and since my curve is so high, I had a hard time competing with that constant life loss. The second game, I drew nothing but land after turn three (and in the late game, he Dimir Charmed me to make sure I continued to draw land). I was pretty much outplayed. But after the match, we played another game and my deck completely destroyed his. I ended the game with 27 life, so I know we're not dead to Zombies. Anyways, I think Prime Speaker Zegana is well positioned right now, she's big and she draws cards. I think she might be better than Sphinx's Revelation, because she usually draws more cards, can be abused with Restoration Angel, and provides board presence (which is usually better than a few points of life).
I think it is less about if she has a home. She is very powerful creature for anything that wants to ramp. She does exactly what ramp needs to do. Draw more cards to replace the ramp spells used earlier in the game, dig through the bad top decks that ramp usually has, and she is usually another fatty.
I think the main question is this: Is she better than the guildmage? Right now with undying and evolve the guildmage is just better. Zagana needs a lot of things to go right. The guildmage is self contained. The mana is about the same for the cost of drawing cards. You will have a smaller body than zegana but that isn't going to matter much when you are swarming with creatures that are board wipe resilient.
Don't misunderstand me I love zegana. I have 2 full pages in my binder of her. She will be seeing play eventually.
I think it is less about if she has a home. She is very powerful creature for anything that wants to ramp. She does exactly what ramp needs to do. Draw more cards to replace the ramp spells used earlier in the game, dig through the bad top decks that ramp usually has, and she is usually another fatty.
I think the main question is this: Is she better than the guildmage? Right now with undying and evolve the guildmage is just better. Zagana needs a lot of things to go right. The guildmage is self contained. The mana is about the same for the cost of drawing cards. You will have a smaller body than zegana but that isn't going to matter much when you are swarming with creatures that are board wipe resilient.
Don't misunderstand me I love zegana. I have 2 full pages in my binder of her. She will be seeing play eventually.
I assume you're referring to Zameck Guildmage, who I think is definitely playable for all the reasons you mentioned. However, the guildmage is not self-contained; it requires other creatures, just like Zegana does. And, to be honest, it requires creatures who give themselves +1/+1 counters (unless you really want to pay an extra 2 for every creature you play afterwards, which really throws off your curve). The guildmage also makes your creatures smaller, which is really only good with undying and Fathom Mage. Prime Speaker Zegana, on the other hand, makes any creatures with evolve bigger, and can be played in any deck that runs resilient creatures (like Thragtusk), regardless of whether or not they otherwise use counters. Zegana can be played with any of the Garruks (Wildspeaker, Primal Hunter, and Relentless), who don't have much synergy with the guildmage. Overall, I'd rather rely on having a deck that has resilient creatures and creature generators than a guildmage engine; that way, you're playing creatures that are independently valuable, and even more synergistic when played together.
For what it's worth, I played my Bant list against a deck running both Zameck Guildmage and Fathom Mage. Obviously there was an evolution theme, and I will admit that there were a lot of counters flying around, and a lot of card draw. However, I had a lot of creatures as well, and in order to draw cards, he had to keep his creatures small, and without the card draw, he was out of gas and his creatures couldn't get bigger. It was slow and durdly, and I can't think of a way to use the guildmage without being slow and durdly. Zegana advances your board and provides card advantage; the guildmage only does one or the other, but never both.
I really like your deck list, and I think a Corpsejack Menace/Prime Speaker Zegana deck is promising. I really wanted to go BUG with Zegana but just couldn't work out the list in time for FNM last week. Bant just presented itself to me, I threw it together last minute, and took second with it.
As far as tweeks to your list go, I would suggest the following:
You either need to go up to 4 Thragtusks, or add some combination of Garruk, Primal Hunter or Vorapede (or both). Since Prime Speaker Zegana relies so heavily on board presence, having resilient creatures or creature producers in the five-spot is crucial. What do you do when you have the dream play of Farseek into Master Biomancer into Corpsejack Menace, but then your opponent plays Supreme Verdict? Then you end up with a 6-mana Elvish Visionary, despite getting the nut draw.
Another suggestion I have is, if you can find a way to make your mana support it, replace Wolfir Avenger with Predator Ooze. That card does beautiful things with Corpsejack Menace and is resilient to all the same things the Avenger is without having to pay mana for the privilege. It can also get super big for the lead-up to PSZ (if you played it turn 3, it would be a 4/4 from attacking each turn, bigger if it was chumped, by the time you played PSZ on turn 6). It's also one of the better blockers when facing aggressive decks.
Finally, this deck is definitely more of a tapout style deck, and I don't think you can really afford to play Mystic Genesis (which I see getting play in control or flash-type decks to battle all of the midrange decks that are sure to emerge in this meta, but not in the midrange decks themselves). Keeping mana open on turn five (and thus not adding to board presence) is just begging to get blown out if your opponent plays no or only small spells turn 5. If you want counterspells, I'd play more Syncopates. Otherwise, more removal spells (Tragic Slip, Ultimate Price, or Devour Flesh) or more low-cost utility (Arbor Elf, Deathrite Shaman, Golgari Charm, or Grisly Salvage).
I could see maybe a wolf run blue with her, using a good amount of ramp, bant midrange or r/u/g midrange using her, don't see a future in black for her.
Maybe for bant with farseek, arbor elf, and avacyn's pilgrim for ramp, geist for early beats, and the thragtusk, master biomancer, sphinx's revalation, and maybe garruk for the midrange part of it.
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I think the card has a ton of potential. It's like Garruk, Primal Hunter except you get both abilities at once. It can help stabilize and it provides a win-con. I'm eager to play with it in a competitive setting, but I don't know what the rest of the shell looks like.
Some thoughts...
1. Thragtusk - If you cast Prime Speaker after this, you just win. Card is ridiculous on its own, blah blah blah. I'm thinking any build that wants to play the speaker wants to play this as a 4-of
2. Jace, Arcitect of Thought - Since the deck is going to have a high mana curve, and will include at least one "combo" (guy + Speaker), the -2 will be more useful to us. In addition, since the deck is playing it's own dudes, it doesn't want to wrath, so the +1 is your best bet against creature swarms. I think the shell also needs 3 of this card.
Pure simic vs bant vs BUG vs RUG
I think white's main draw is Sphinx's Revelation, Supreme Verdict, and Restoration Angel. Prime Speaker does everything you'd want the revelation to do, so having both in the deck is redundant (you don't need 5 of the effect). We don't want to wrath, since we're playing dudes, so Supreme Verdict's out. Bant control is a great deck, but it's not this deck.
No splash gives you access to Garruk's Primal Hunter, but Simic colors have basically no early disruption, so we'd have to resort to running something like Ambush Viper or roll over to a decent aggro deck.
RUG gives you access to bloodrush and several large early creatures. It's still suprisingly light on disruption, but at least you can play Searing Spear.
BUG lets you play Abrupt Decay, Liliana of the Veil, and Ultimate Price, but doesn't offer a lot of attractive creature options. I still think I prefer this color configuration for now though.
Mana Ramp:
Powerhouse/Draw Power:
Grand Finale:
Biomass Mutation
Or so I reckon.
Turn 1 Arbor Elf
Turn 2 Arbor Elf, Farseek
Turn 3 Zegana, Divination
You don't really want to rush out a Zegana. She's the kind of card you wait to play once you have (ideally) two fatties.
What the point of casting Zegana fast? Paying 6 for 2/2 that draw 2.
Zegana should be used to refuel your hand after you built a decent presence.
She pairs well with Thragtusk and undying creatures (Strangleroot Geist and Vorapede).
You should have either more than one creature or a very resilient one to cast her. You don't want pay 6 for a Elvish Visionary.
Also i can't see her being played in 4 colors deck, she isn't very splashable, So she could be played only on UGx builds. With UG as the main colors. You can't simply make a small plash for blue or green and hope to cast her reliably.
I think he means adding other colors, probably bant because bant is already getting a big boost from the simic cards
Personally though, I had the same original thought as to start off with BUG as I am not drawn towards the elf ramp idea. I didn't like how the BUG deck felt, but it is very possible I was building it poorly. I feel as though RUG is a better option because once you cast the Prime Speaker, you are going to want to draw answers to their board in order to get your guys through, which is why I like the idea of drawing bonfire and small burn spells. You have access to Staticaster and Peddler in the board, counterflux which will be great if any control decks take off, and pillar // mortars is still a house versus the creature decks.
Huntmaster isn't too shabby either.
@RobVaughan12
Zegana is actually also pretty sweet in decks with pump spells as well. I'm currently playing it in my RUG midrange deck to a little bit of success. I won't spoil it to you just yet though.
Talking about going to MTG heaven....
1 Forest
4 Breeding Pool
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Hallowed Fountain
4 Hinterland Harbor
4 Sunpetal Grove
4 Temple Garden
Spells
2 Azorius Charm
4 Farseek
2 Selesnya Charm
3 Detention Sphere
3 Sphinx's Revelation
2 Supreme Verdict
1 Garruk Relentless
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
Creatures
4 Centaur Healer
4 Restoration Angel
4 Thragtusk
3 Prime Speaker Zegana
2 Drogskol Reaver
1 Azorius Charm
1 Selesnya Charm
4 Strangleroot Geist
3 Loxodon Smiter
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Clone
2 Rhox Faithmender
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Terminus
It's essentially the old Bant Midrange deck with PSZ added in, and it ran beautifully. It has very little weakness to aggro because of all of the recurring lifegain, and it comes out faster and beats down control (like a good midrange deck should). The only match I lost was to a BUG Zombies deck, and the games dragged out forever. I lost the first game to double Duskmantle Seers, and since my curve is so high, I had a hard time competing with that constant life loss. The second game, I drew nothing but land after turn three (and in the late game, he Dimir Charmed me to make sure I continued to draw land). I was pretty much outplayed. But after the match, we played another game and my deck completely destroyed his. I ended the game with 27 life, so I know we're not dead to Zombies. Anyways, I think Prime Speaker Zegana is well positioned right now, she's big and she draws cards. I think she might be better than Sphinx's Revelation, because she usually draws more cards, can be abused with Restoration Angel, and provides board presence (which is usually better than a few points of life).
Modern - UG Mana Denial GU
. . . . . . .
WBG Melira Pod GBWCommander - BR Olivia Voldaren RB Vampire Tribal
. . . . . . . . . WUB Sharuum the Hegemon BUW Not-Broken Artifact Midrange
. . . . . . . . . WUG Rafiq of the Many GUW Voltron
. . . . . . . . . . .UB Oona, Queen of the Fae BU No-combo Tempo-Mill
. . . . . . . . . WUB Oloro, Ageless Ascetic BUW Pillow Fort
I think the main question is this: Is she better than the guildmage? Right now with undying and evolve the guildmage is just better. Zagana needs a lot of things to go right. The guildmage is self contained. The mana is about the same for the cost of drawing cards. You will have a smaller body than zegana but that isn't going to matter much when you are swarming with creatures that are board wipe resilient.
Don't misunderstand me I love zegana. I have 2 full pages in my binder of her. She will be seeing play eventually.
I assume you're referring to Zameck Guildmage, who I think is definitely playable for all the reasons you mentioned. However, the guildmage is not self-contained; it requires other creatures, just like Zegana does. And, to be honest, it requires creatures who give themselves +1/+1 counters (unless you really want to pay an extra 2 for every creature you play afterwards, which really throws off your curve). The guildmage also makes your creatures smaller, which is really only good with undying and Fathom Mage. Prime Speaker Zegana, on the other hand, makes any creatures with evolve bigger, and can be played in any deck that runs resilient creatures (like Thragtusk), regardless of whether or not they otherwise use counters. Zegana can be played with any of the Garruks (Wildspeaker, Primal Hunter, and Relentless), who don't have much synergy with the guildmage. Overall, I'd rather rely on having a deck that has resilient creatures and creature generators than a guildmage engine; that way, you're playing creatures that are independently valuable, and even more synergistic when played together.
For what it's worth, I played my Bant list against a deck running both Zameck Guildmage and Fathom Mage. Obviously there was an evolution theme, and I will admit that there were a lot of counters flying around, and a lot of card draw. However, I had a lot of creatures as well, and in order to draw cards, he had to keep his creatures small, and without the card draw, he was out of gas and his creatures couldn't get bigger. It was slow and durdly, and I can't think of a way to use the guildmage without being slow and durdly. Zegana advances your board and provides card advantage; the guildmage only does one or the other, but never both.
Modern - UG Mana Denial GU
. . . . . . .
WBG Melira Pod GBWCommander - BR Olivia Voldaren RB Vampire Tribal
. . . . . . . . . WUB Sharuum the Hegemon BUW Not-Broken Artifact Midrange
. . . . . . . . . WUG Rafiq of the Many GUW Voltron
. . . . . . . . . . .UB Oona, Queen of the Fae BU No-combo Tempo-Mill
. . . . . . . . . WUB Oloro, Ageless Ascetic BUW Pillow Fort
I really like your deck list, and I think a Corpsejack Menace/Prime Speaker Zegana deck is promising. I really wanted to go BUG with Zegana but just couldn't work out the list in time for FNM last week. Bant just presented itself to me, I threw it together last minute, and took second with it.
As far as tweeks to your list go, I would suggest the following:
You either need to go up to 4 Thragtusks, or add some combination of Garruk, Primal Hunter or Vorapede (or both). Since Prime Speaker Zegana relies so heavily on board presence, having resilient creatures or creature producers in the five-spot is crucial. What do you do when you have the dream play of Farseek into Master Biomancer into Corpsejack Menace, but then your opponent plays Supreme Verdict? Then you end up with a 6-mana Elvish Visionary, despite getting the nut draw.
Another suggestion I have is, if you can find a way to make your mana support it, replace Wolfir Avenger with Predator Ooze. That card does beautiful things with Corpsejack Menace and is resilient to all the same things the Avenger is without having to pay mana for the privilege. It can also get super big for the lead-up to PSZ (if you played it turn 3, it would be a 4/4 from attacking each turn, bigger if it was chumped, by the time you played PSZ on turn 6). It's also one of the better blockers when facing aggressive decks.
Finally, this deck is definitely more of a tapout style deck, and I don't think you can really afford to play Mystic Genesis (which I see getting play in control or flash-type decks to battle all of the midrange decks that are sure to emerge in this meta, but not in the midrange decks themselves). Keeping mana open on turn five (and thus not adding to board presence) is just begging to get blown out if your opponent plays no or only small spells turn 5. If you want counterspells, I'd play more Syncopates. Otherwise, more removal spells (Tragic Slip, Ultimate Price, or Devour Flesh) or more low-cost utility (Arbor Elf, Deathrite Shaman, Golgari Charm, or Grisly Salvage).
(Also just noticed that your list has 62 cards; try as hard as you can to get it down to 60.)
Modern - UG Mana Denial GU
. . . . . . .
WBG Melira Pod GBWCommander - BR Olivia Voldaren RB Vampire Tribal
. . . . . . . . . WUB Sharuum the Hegemon BUW Not-Broken Artifact Midrange
. . . . . . . . . WUG Rafiq of the Many GUW Voltron
. . . . . . . . . . .UB Oona, Queen of the Fae BU No-combo Tempo-Mill
. . . . . . . . . WUB Oloro, Ageless Ascetic BUW Pillow Fort
Maybe for bant with farseek, arbor elf, and avacyn's pilgrim for ramp, geist for early beats, and the thragtusk, master biomancer, sphinx's revalation, and maybe garruk for the midrange part of it.