I've opted to set Raver to ignore since they clearly don't know what they're talking about. The spoiled card is insane and contributes to your plan against a huge range of decks that have play post-LE. Something like Affinity can use Ravager to recur a lot of their board, now you can mop up what comes back. Same thing against a card like Kitchen Finks which survives through LE as a 2/1. There's definitely a limit on how many you can run due to the 2 cost cycle, but it's already the most powerful cycling creature that will be available in Modern. All I'm looking for now is another 1 cost cycle which requires B so I can cut Architects. Alternately a 1G cycle creature which gains life when cycled would be great!
I did my first local run of Merfolk with Copter last Friday. Space for 4 copter is made by running no fun-ofs, shaving to 3 Reejerey and 3 Harbinger, and using only 2 Dismember as spell-based interaction.
Went 4-0, beating Burn, Expertise Reanimator, Blue Tron, and GW Hate-bears. The copter was as good as any other 2-drop in the deck in every game it was drawn. When copter was bad, any other 2-drop creature would have been bad. When it was good, any other 2-drop creature would have been good as well. I certainly liked the Copter more than Phantasmal Images I've run in the past, and managed to get a Kira+Copter board going which was nice. I'll continue to test my artifact friend until it punishes me.
What does it replace? What does playing 1-2 copies of "UUU, get Lotus Bloom" add to this deck?
It adds redundancy, which is important. I doubt I'd want to play more than 1 - 2 copies, but it gets very exciting once you start considering what other SB cards it can be used to fetch to protect the combo or force it through.
I played Ad Nauseam last weekend at a local LCQ for the RPTQ. I went 4-2 losing to Suicide Zoo and Lantern. The Suicide Zoo games were whatever, I had combo hands low on mana and kept on the hope of top decking blue sources in both. Draw no lands, win no games. The lantern matchup however was very interesting. I'd never played it before and I feel like I don't know how I'm supposed to side. I run a typical Spoils build with 4 Unlife on the main. My side looks like this:
Given that sideboard, how would you side for the Lantern matchup and why?
Also, I feel like Ad Nauseam is starting to pick up in popularity as more players come to the realisation this is a strong choice for the current meta. I haven't yet played a mirror, but I feel horribly unprepared for one. If you were going to side ANY 4 cards in post-board, what would you want?
So I'm honestly curious, why don't Merfolk decks play Serum Visions? I've never thought about doing it before, but in all honesty making space for them is insanely simple.
Just an update from the GP. I did scrub out day 1 of the main event and play the Commander Bounty on day 2. Won the event for enough points to get a box + 6 packs.
I didn't get an opportunity to update the list but I certainly think some of your suggestions need to be taken on board. Viridian Emissary is almost certainly too slow/unreliable to be in the deck, and a Fairy Macabre should almost definitely be in there, alongside a Street Wraith for Meren synergy. The devoted druid is faster and stronger than it looks due to synergy with my commander, Necrotic Ooze, and Mikaeus. Wood Elves is in there to form part of the pod chain and due to synergy with Gaea's Cradle (when fetching Dryad Arbor) but that doesn't mean it's correct. Definitely a spot to play with. Carpet of flowers is a strong card which I only just got a copy of a couple weeks ago. Picked it up to test it out, it just hadn't made its way into the deck yet.
Scooze is probably a misguided inclusion and should come out. Eldritch Evolution is definitely something that should be played with. The Shizo and Okina would be better served as basics now that I've dropped the Hermit Druid and STE is consistently the best thing to loop with Meren. I'm tempted to test Genesis in the deck as well.
So this weekend I'm attending GP Sydney. If I scrub out on day 1 I plan to play the Commander Bounty event on day 2. I'll be running my Meren combo list heavily inspired by this thread. The list is below and I'd love feedback/suggestions to consider before the event.
Note: I run Meren as the commander over Jarad for two reasons. First, I like being able to tutor Jarad with Tooth and Nail when it's time to go off. Second, I like Meren more as a commander when dealt poor hands. For the time being I'm not willing to change commander but understand why others would disagree with my decision.
I ran this deck to a 6-2 at my WMCQ on the weekend. First competitive REL level event I've played Ad Naus. Deck felt insane to play, this will easily be my jam for the PPTQ season.
Unfortunately I punted a match by missing a line to win the game through an Ethersworn Canonist. It got on the board after I'd put a Phyrexian Unlife into play but had dropped to negative life against lethal attackers. I had 5 land in play. My opponent had fetch shocked down to 14 life in the game. It wasn't until I started shuffling up for game 3 that I realised I had a line of play to win in my opponents upkeep. I should have cast Ad Nauseam in my main phase and drawn my deck. I then play a land and exile 3 simian spirit guide to play 2 Pentad Prism for 3 total charge counters in the same turn since they're artifacts. During my cleanup step I discard down to 1 Lightning Storm and 6 land and on my opponents upkeep cast the Storm off the prisms discarding 6 land for 15 damage in their upkeep. They had no lands in hand. Instead I cast the Ad Naus in their upkeep then realised I was just straight up dead to a lethal swing.
My sideboard was heavily inspired by posts from shadowgripper a few pages back, while my maindeck is a 3 Spoils 4 Phyrexian Unlife variant. I felt like 3 Spoils was too much but liked the sideboard. I only had 2 spellskite and I'm not sure I want to run a third. I had 1 Ethereal Haze on the side and I think I want to drop it for 1 Tolaria West. Pact of Negation was clutch in so many games.
Curious what other fish players think of converting their Relics to Grafdigger's Cages given recent results. Best speed bump available against CoCo decks, prevents Nahiri dropping Emrakul, Interferes with Snapcaster etc. I'm never anything but disappointed with Relic when I play it.
Hey Raz, thanks for all the feedback, I'll definitely take it on board and test some of your ideas, particularly more interaction and different graveyard interaction options.
Just a couple quick points:
I can't take my land count as low as yours (I've tried). Every time I do I find myself taking too many mulligans, particularly with Vancouver mulligans in effect for Commander. My mana costs are also too colour intensive for cards like Sol Ring and Mana Crypt to fix for me. 37 is probably 1 too many, but I'd rather win with a land in my hand than lose because I was 1 short.
Fauna Shaman is less in the deck as a way to get the Ooze combo going, and more as a way to dump in hand fatties while tutoring ramp/Sidisi/reanimation to get to a T&N kill. If I'm taking this route the fatty I always start with is Vorinclex because it both gives you the mana needed to T&N and makes it harder for the table to stop you.
I agree 100% that this list should have an Elves of Deep Shadow and I have one on the way in the mail alongside a Sylvan Library. It should probably have BoP too and shave a land.
I legitimately didn't realise Baleful Force was each upkeep. That makes it a lot more enticing.
Duplicant is in there for 2 reasons - it's very unconditional removal that only misses Hexproof creatures and fits in a Pod chain.
Gaea's Cradle is amazing, never leave home without it. An important land for doing an early T&N. This deck kills with T&N more than it kills with Ooze combo. It pretty much always adds 2 - 3 mana since this deck is intentionally creature focussed to work well with Meren.
Hey, I just wanted to chime in on this thread with a deck I did well with at my first real Commander event inspired by this Primer.
Last weekend I attended GP Melbourne. After getting brutally molested in Modern by maindeck Ghostly Prisons and maindeck Worship while playing Fish I decided to spend the rest of my Saturday and Sunday playing Commander. I've run my deck at the local store a few times and hadn't yet lost so I went into the games pretty confident I'd do well. I played two casual 4 man pods winning both, and then a Commander bounty event where I got to the finals and was beaten by my opponents ganging up on me. They knew how my deck played having heard how I'd won other games and knew I was the #1 threat at the table.
The deck isn't Jarad, but instead Meren. The Meren Pre-con was the first Commander I'd ever pickled up and as I started to play with her I realised I wanted to abuse the combo synergies in G/B. I don't like long drawn out games so I wanted to be able to close games quickly. I also wanted to be able to take my deck to an event and beat other degenerate Commanders. While working to improve the Meren deck I stumbled upon this primer and realised almost the exact same strategy was the right direction to take Meren. Below you can find the list I ran through the event, which is close to finished but still requires tweaking:
There are some notable cards missing from this deck for availability reasons: Sensei's Diving Top, Scroll Rack, Misty Rainforest, Marsh Flats, and Mana Crypt. The Evolutionary Leap has already been replaced with a Scroll Rack I picked up at the end of the GP.
The primary game plan with the deck is to pull off a Necrotic Ooze combo, Mike + Trike combo, Jarad combo, or Woodfall + Mikaeus combo. If your opponents successfully keep you off of the combos you can use your commander and the Praetors to pursue a win instead.
So I'll start by explaining the biggest Difference - Why Meren over Jarad?
There are a few reasons for Meren being my Commander. The first and most important reason is that I want the ability to Tooth and Nail for Jarad + Phyrexian Devourer against opponents that have open mana. It doesn't take much to break apart the Mike + Trike combo, but the Jarad + Devourer combo is near impossible to interact with. The second reason is that Jarad is only really good when I'm ready to win, but Meren can help loop early creatures like Sakura-Tribe Elder and ensure you're actually able to go off. The third is that Meren is a reanimation spell letting you get back win cons like Necrotic Ooze against opponents ready with removal. The last is that Meren is an amazing way to grind out opponents if most of your kills have been stopped. She's even more insane after a Mindslicer strips everyone's hands.
There are a number of cards that I'm not sure about in this list:
I find the Signet would generally be better served as a dude so that it both ramps and interacts positively with sacrifice effects and Meren. My intention is to swap it for a Devoted Druid which plays very nicely with Pattern of Rebirth.
Damnation and Living Death are sort of emergency buttons, but I've yet to find myself in a board state where they would help me more than hurt me. By comparison I regularly encounter situations where sacrifice effects like Butcher of Malakir, Fleshbag Marauder, Merciless Executioner, and Grave Pact would be stronger. Those have all been in the list at some point and I'm wondering if I at least need a Fleshbag Marauder back in the deck.
Defense of the Heart was supposed to be another Tooth and Nail for the deck but I think I'm deluding myself. Only bad players will let me trigger the enchantment and kill the table. A table of bad players.
Greater Good is my non-creature repeatable free sac outlet but I'm not sure it's the right one. It doesn't help me utilise Viridian Emissary on time, is as likely to pull me ahead as set me behind, and has a bigger limitation on how much I can use it. Over options I've tried are Altar of Dementia, Phyrexian Altar, Ashnod's Altar, and Spawning Pit. Of those I think I actually like the Spawning Pit or Altar of Dementia the most since each can act as a win condition. Altar in particular gives you a means of beating opponents with infinite life if you get the Persist loop going.
On the persist loop, I'm not sure how heavily I should consider running it. It's not come up yet but it's also pretty low cost to include in the deck. Sepulchral Primordial often plays like a bigger Puppeteer Clique. Maybe I should just have Puppeteer Clique. At that point maybe I should also have Melira. Would love opinions.
I think my list probably wants a little more instant speed interaction. I'm not sure where my cuts should be to enable this.
It's possible that 3 3cmc accelerators is wrong in this deck, and that Solemn Simulacrum is wrong too. Hell, 37 land might be wrong (although I'd not go below 36 with the new mulligan rule). I'm not sure what changes would be smart.
Grave Titan feels like a waste of space. It's not amazing enough to just win the game, and it's not doing anything this deck really wants to do. I typically find making green mana easier than black and wonder what others think of changing the Titan to something like Greenwarden of Murasa to give myself more chances to re-cast Tooth and Nail against control decks.
Nezumi Graverobber is currently my grave hate of choice. This is because it's a late game mana sink and works with Skullclamp. But it could just as easily be Scooze, and Scooze is a valid Green Sun's Zenith target. I'm not sure which way I should go.
I'm not really sure why I run Pack Rat, this is probably just a stupid inclusion. When would I ever want to cast this in Multiplayer. It made the cut for its ability to discard a fatty and turn on reanimation, but that's probably too cute.
I'd love input from the Jarad Veterans.
On a side note, in the first round of the bounty event I beat a Jarad player who was pretty closely running Raz's list. Shout-out to that player and sorry for not winning the whole thing. I was lucky I managed to get him the turn before he got the rest of us in the pod!
Some of us board out master of waves, kira is questionable, as is spreading seas. Those are the most common cuts, I would imagine.
Cursecatcher could be cuttable if you need the space, but having a one-drop is nice, as we can sometimes be a bit too slow to race them without it.
I agree with cutting Master of Waves post-board, Kira if you have to (but you should drop any spell pierce etc you have MB first), but never Spreading Seas. The match-up is a race dictated by Vault Skirge, Plating, your interaction, and evasion from both sides. Winning tends to involve keeping them off a big lifelink swing until you can alpha strike with Islandwalk, or force unprofitable chumping. Cursecatcher does suck in the matchup but is a necessary evil. With my current build (Kira's on the SB) I'd cut 4 Master of Waves and 1 Spell Pierce to bring in 3 Hurkyl's Recall, 1 Gut Shot, and 1 Echoing Truth. Kira is serviceable in the matchup because it slows down Signal Pests but I don't think Affinity gives you the time to consistently cast the Legend.
The second Gut Shot and second Spellskite are my two flex spots and I'm not sure how happy I am with them. I've cut Spell Pierce entirely because I most commonly need to counter instant speed removal and on Sunday all my opponents were playing around Pierce. The only major exception to this is Living End which I expect to face at the GP, but feel we have a good shot against even if they cast board wipe thanks to vial, seas, and Master of Waves. Darkslicks have made it on the main to give me the odd game where I can Dismember and only pay 2 life. This has come up as relevant against Eldrazi. Going full 12 lord because games with lots of lords play out much better than games without. Kira shifted to the side and Phantasmal image on the main due to less Jund, Grixis, and other control decks. I'm tempted to side a Swan Song over 1 Spellskite to fight combo decks and Living End. There isn't enough Bogles and Infect around atm to justify 2 and I think control decks are shifting into more board wipes to fight Eldrazi (Spellskite is awful against board wipes). 2 Gut Shot feels like it may be too many, and maybe I want the 3rd Dismember on the side, or the second Echoing Truth.
Personally I would not play Chalice as hate for either Affinity or Infect. Sure it works if you're on the play, but it's awful on the draw and this format is too fast for situations like that. The format has also adapted to play against Chalice. Gut Shot seems so much stronger when the meta is dominated by Affinity, Infect, Ux Eldrazi, and Chord decks, and is great on the play and draw.
Went 4-0, beating Burn, Expertise Reanimator, Blue Tron, and GW Hate-bears. The copter was as good as any other 2-drop in the deck in every game it was drawn. When copter was bad, any other 2-drop creature would have been bad. When it was good, any other 2-drop creature would have been good as well. I certainly liked the Copter more than Phantasmal Images I've run in the past, and managed to get a Kira+Copter board going which was nice. I'll continue to test my artifact friend until it punishes me.
It adds redundancy, which is important. I doubt I'd want to play more than 1 - 2 copies, but it gets very exciting once you start considering what other SB cards it can be used to fetch to protect the combo or force it through.
2 Ethereal Haze
2 Spellskite
2 Thoughtseize
1 Echoing Truth
1 Boseiju, who Shelters All
1 Tolaria West
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Pact of Negation
Given that sideboard, how would you side for the Lantern matchup and why?
Also, I feel like Ad Nauseam is starting to pick up in popularity as more players come to the realisation this is a strong choice for the current meta. I haven't yet played a mirror, but I feel horribly unprepared for one. If you were going to side ANY 4 cards in post-board, what would you want?
I didn't get an opportunity to update the list but I certainly think some of your suggestions need to be taken on board. Viridian Emissary is almost certainly too slow/unreliable to be in the deck, and a Fairy Macabre should almost definitely be in there, alongside a Street Wraith for Meren synergy. The devoted druid is faster and stronger than it looks due to synergy with my commander, Necrotic Ooze, and Mikaeus. Wood Elves is in there to form part of the pod chain and due to synergy with Gaea's Cradle (when fetching Dryad Arbor) but that doesn't mean it's correct. Definitely a spot to play with. Carpet of flowers is a strong card which I only just got a copy of a couple weeks ago. Picked it up to test it out, it just hadn't made its way into the deck yet.
Scooze is probably a misguided inclusion and should come out. Eldritch Evolution is definitely something that should be played with. The Shizo and Okina would be better served as basics now that I've dropped the Hermit Druid and STE is consistently the best thing to loop with Meren. I'm tempted to test Genesis in the deck as well.
Note: I run Meren as the commander over Jarad for two reasons. First, I like being able to tutor Jarad with Tooth and Nail when it's time to go off. Second, I like Meren more as a commander when dealt poor hands. For the time being I'm not willing to change commander but understand why others would disagree with my decision.
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
Land
4 Forest
3 Swamp
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Windswept Heath
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Polluted Detla
1 Marsh Flats
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Bayou
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Command Tower
1 City of Brass
1 Mana Confluence
1 Tarnished Citadel
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Twilight Mire
1 Llanowar Wastes
1 Woodland Cemetery
1 Gilt-Leaf Palace
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Okina, Temple to Grandfather's
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Strip Mine
Artifact
1 Chrome Mox
1 Sol Ring
1 Skullclamp
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Scroll Rack
1 Birthing Pod
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Fyndhorn Elves
1 Elves of Deep Shadow
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Elvish Mystic
1 Viscera Seer
1 Devoted Druid
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Viridian Emissary
1 Fauna Shaman
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Dark Confidant
1 Wood Elves
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Eternal Witness
1 Fleshbag Marauder
1 Doomed Necromancer
1 Mindslicer
1 Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
1 Necrotic Ooze
1 Phyrexian Delver
1 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
1 Lord of Extinction
1 Shriekmaw
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1 Triskelion
1 Phyrexian Devourer
1 Rune-Scarred Demon
1 Sheoldred, Whispering One
1 Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
1 Woodfall Primus
1 Animate Dead
1 Survival of the Fittest
1 Sylvan Library
1 Necromancy
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Song of the Dryads
1 Pattern of Rebirth
Sorcery
1 Reanimate
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Diabolic Intent
1 Life/Death
1 Buried Alive
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Victimize
1 Dread Return
1 Tooth and Nail
Instant
1 Crop Rotation
1 Entomb
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Worldly Tutor
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Beast Within
1 Chord of Calling
1 Dismember
1 Snuff Out
Unfortunately I punted a match by missing a line to win the game through an Ethersworn Canonist. It got on the board after I'd put a Phyrexian Unlife into play but had dropped to negative life against lethal attackers. I had 5 land in play. My opponent had fetch shocked down to 14 life in the game. It wasn't until I started shuffling up for game 3 that I realised I had a line of play to win in my opponents upkeep. I should have cast Ad Nauseam in my main phase and drawn my deck. I then play a land and exile 3 simian spirit guide to play 2 Pentad Prism for 3 total charge counters in the same turn since they're artifacts. During my cleanup step I discard down to 1 Lightning Storm and 6 land and on my opponents upkeep cast the Storm off the prisms discarding 6 land for 15 damage in their upkeep. They had no lands in hand. Instead I cast the Ad Naus in their upkeep then realised I was just straight up dead to a lethal swing.
My sideboard was heavily inspired by posts from shadowgripper a few pages back, while my maindeck is a 3 Spoils 4 Phyrexian Unlife variant. I felt like 3 Spoils was too much but liked the sideboard. I only had 2 spellskite and I'm not sure I want to run a third. I had 1 Ethereal Haze on the side and I think I want to drop it for 1 Tolaria West. Pact of Negation was clutch in so many games.
Just a couple quick points:
Last weekend I attended GP Melbourne. After getting brutally molested in Modern by maindeck Ghostly Prisons and maindeck Worship while playing Fish I decided to spend the rest of my Saturday and Sunday playing Commander. I've run my deck at the local store a few times and hadn't yet lost so I went into the games pretty confident I'd do well. I played two casual 4 man pods winning both, and then a Commander bounty event where I got to the finals and was beaten by my opponents ganging up on me. They knew how my deck played having heard how I'd won other games and knew I was the #1 threat at the table.
The deck isn't Jarad, but instead Meren. The Meren Pre-con was the first Commander I'd ever pickled up and as I started to play with her I realised I wanted to abuse the combo synergies in G/B. I don't like long drawn out games so I wanted to be able to close games quickly. I also wanted to be able to take my deck to an event and beat other degenerate Commanders. While working to improve the Meren deck I stumbled upon this primer and realised almost the exact same strategy was the right direction to take Meren. Below you can find the list I ran through the event, which is close to finished but still requires tweaking:
1 Meren of Clan Nel Toth
Land (37)
1 Tarnished Citadel
1 City of Brass
1 Mana Confluence
1 Command Tower
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Polluted Delta
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Windswept Heath
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Bayou
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Twilight Mire
1 Woodland Cemetery
4 Swamp
7 Forest
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 High Market
1 Strip Mine
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Hissing Quagmire
1 Temple of Malady
1 Tainted Wood
1 Llanowar Wastes
1 Gilt-Leaf Palace
Artifact (4)
1 Birthing Pod
1 Skullclamp
1 Sol Ring
1 Golgari Signet
1 Animate Dead
1 Defense of the Heart
1 Greater Good
1 Necromancy
1 Pattern of Rebirth
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Song of the Dryads
1 Survival of the Fittest
1 Evolutionary Leap
Sorcery (12)
1 Buried Alive
1 Damnation
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Diabolic Intent
1 Dread Return
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Life // Death
1 Living Death
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Reanimate
1 Tooth and Nail
1 Victimize
Instant (4)
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Worldly Tutor
1 Entomb
1 Chord of Calling
Creature (33)
1 Apprentice Necromancer
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Doomed Necromancer
1 Duplicant
1 Eternal Witness
1 Farhaven Elf
1 Fauna Shaman
1 Grave Titan
1 Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
1 Lord of Extinction
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1 Mindslicer
1 Necrotic Ooze
1 Nezumi Graverobber
1 Pack Rat
1 Phyrexian Devourer
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Rune-Scarred Demon
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Sepulchural Primordial
1 Sheoldred, Whispering One
1 Shriekmaw
1 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Triskelion
1 Graveborn Muse
1 Viridian Emissary
1 Viscera Seer
1 Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
1 Wood Elves
1 Woodfall Primus
1 Yavimaya Dryad
The primary game plan with the deck is to pull off a Necrotic Ooze combo, Mike + Trike combo, Jarad combo, or Woodfall + Mikaeus combo. If your opponents successfully keep you off of the combos you can use your commander and the Praetors to pursue a win instead.
So I'll start by explaining the biggest Difference - Why Meren over Jarad?
There are a few reasons for Meren being my Commander. The first and most important reason is that I want the ability to Tooth and Nail for Jarad + Phyrexian Devourer against opponents that have open mana. It doesn't take much to break apart the Mike + Trike combo, but the Jarad + Devourer combo is near impossible to interact with. The second reason is that Jarad is only really good when I'm ready to win, but Meren can help loop early creatures like Sakura-Tribe Elder and ensure you're actually able to go off. The third is that Meren is a reanimation spell letting you get back win cons like Necrotic Ooze against opponents ready with removal. The last is that Meren is an amazing way to grind out opponents if most of your kills have been stopped. She's even more insane after a Mindslicer strips everyone's hands.
There are a number of cards that I'm not sure about in this list:
- I find the Signet would generally be better served as a dude so that it both ramps and interacts positively with sacrifice effects and Meren. My intention is to swap it for a Devoted Druid which plays very nicely with Pattern of Rebirth.
- Damnation and Living Death are sort of emergency buttons, but I've yet to find myself in a board state where they would help me more than hurt me. By comparison I regularly encounter situations where sacrifice effects like Butcher of Malakir, Fleshbag Marauder, Merciless Executioner, and Grave Pact would be stronger. Those have all been in the list at some point and I'm wondering if I at least need a Fleshbag Marauder back in the deck.
- Defense of the Heart was supposed to be another Tooth and Nail for the deck but I think I'm deluding myself. Only bad players will let me trigger the enchantment and kill the table. A table of bad players.
- Greater Good is my non-creature repeatable free sac outlet but I'm not sure it's the right one. It doesn't help me utilise Viridian Emissary on time, is as likely to pull me ahead as set me behind, and has a bigger limitation on how much I can use it. Over options I've tried are Altar of Dementia, Phyrexian Altar, Ashnod's Altar, and Spawning Pit. Of those I think I actually like the Spawning Pit or Altar of Dementia the most since each can act as a win condition. Altar in particular gives you a means of beating opponents with infinite life if you get the Persist loop going.
- On the persist loop, I'm not sure how heavily I should consider running it. It's not come up yet but it's also pretty low cost to include in the deck. Sepulchral Primordial often plays like a bigger Puppeteer Clique. Maybe I should just have Puppeteer Clique. At that point maybe I should also have Melira. Would love opinions.
- I think my list probably wants a little more instant speed interaction. I'm not sure where my cuts should be to enable this.
- It's possible that 3 3cmc accelerators is wrong in this deck, and that Solemn Simulacrum is wrong too. Hell, 37 land might be wrong (although I'd not go below 36 with the new mulligan rule). I'm not sure what changes would be smart.
- Grave Titan feels like a waste of space. It's not amazing enough to just win the game, and it's not doing anything this deck really wants to do. I typically find making green mana easier than black and wonder what others think of changing the Titan to something like Greenwarden of Murasa to give myself more chances to re-cast Tooth and Nail against control decks.
- Nezumi Graverobber is currently my grave hate of choice. This is because it's a late game mana sink and works with Skullclamp. But it could just as easily be Scooze, and Scooze is a valid Green Sun's Zenith target. I'm not sure which way I should go.
- I'm not really sure why I run Pack Rat, this is probably just a stupid inclusion. When would I ever want to cast this in Multiplayer. It made the cut for its ability to discard a fatty and turn on reanimation, but that's probably too cute.
I'd love input from the Jarad Veterans.On a side note, in the first round of the bounty event I beat a Jarad player who was pretty closely running Raz's list. Shout-out to that player and sorry for not winning the whole thing. I was lucky I managed to get him the turn before he got the rest of us in the pod!
2 Cavern of Souls
4 Mutavault
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
3 Darkslick Shores
8 Island
Non-creature Spells:
4 Aether Vial
2 Dismember
1 Dispel
4 Spreading Seas
4 Cursecatcher
4 Silvergill Adept
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the Pearl Trident
4 Harbinger of Tides
4 Merrow Reejery
4 Master of Waves
2 Phantasmal Image
2 Kira, Great Glass-spinner
1 Tormod's Crypt
1 Negate
1 Tectonic Edge
2 Gut Shot
2 Spellskite
3 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Echoing Truth
2 Tidebinder Mage
The second Gut Shot and second Spellskite are my two flex spots and I'm not sure how happy I am with them. I've cut Spell Pierce entirely because I most commonly need to counter instant speed removal and on Sunday all my opponents were playing around Pierce. The only major exception to this is Living End which I expect to face at the GP, but feel we have a good shot against even if they cast board wipe thanks to vial, seas, and Master of Waves. Darkslicks have made it on the main to give me the odd game where I can Dismember and only pay 2 life. This has come up as relevant against Eldrazi. Going full 12 lord because games with lots of lords play out much better than games without. Kira shifted to the side and Phantasmal image on the main due to less Jund, Grixis, and other control decks. I'm tempted to side a Swan Song over 1 Spellskite to fight combo decks and Living End. There isn't enough Bogles and Infect around atm to justify 2 and I think control decks are shifting into more board wipes to fight Eldrazi (Spellskite is awful against board wipes). 2 Gut Shot feels like it may be too many, and maybe I want the 3rd Dismember on the side, or the second Echoing Truth.
Personally I would not play Chalice as hate for either Affinity or Infect. Sure it works if you're on the play, but it's awful on the draw and this format is too fast for situations like that. The format has also adapted to play against Chalice. Gut Shot seems so much stronger when the meta is dominated by Affinity, Infect, Ux Eldrazi, and Chord decks, and is great on the play and draw.