I have not tried mb hand attack such as Harsh Scrutiny or Duress. Without Heart of Kiran, Bone Picker doesn't seem extremely necessary, but it is a good creature in any non-control matchup. Even in the control matchup, it can fly over their finisher, if it is something like The Scarab God or Torrential Gearhulk. Ruin Raider seems like the glue that holds the deck together imo, but my local meta is slanted more towards control than ramunap or temur.
I'm doing an ultra-budget burn deck, and looking for a cheaper substitute for Eidolon of the Great Revel. The ones that spring to my mind are Ash Zealot and Abbot of Keral Keep. Which do y'all think is better? Or is there some other cheap option that's better than either? (Note: I play exclusively online, and the prices for online cards are often quite different from the prices for the paper versions of those same cards).
I played this deck to a 2nd place finish on sunday at a 16 player mini invitational. Gotta lots a fun prizes, including plenty of store credit to upgrade the deck if I wanted to.
Tourney Report!!!*we only had a 3 round swiss because lots of people quit early, plus some couldn't make it
Round 1: Temur Energy 2-0
Game one was really close. I got him down to one extremely fast and then he stabilized with hydra and virtuoso. Key to the City (of course it was my lucky german copy, always play one non-english card in your deck for good luck, it works 100% of the time.) was a lucky rip, allowing me to win with an unblockable Heart of Kiran.
Sideboard: -2 Supernatural Stamina -1 Fatal Push -1 Heart of Kiran
+2 Aethersphere Harvester +2 Sorcerous Spyglass
Game two was a little easier for me. He boarded in Essence Scatter which almost all of the participants agreed was wrong against a deck like mine. He got in some good beats, but I outdrew him on cards and got the win with my fliers.
Round 2: Grixis Control 0-2
Game one I kept a slow hand, he countered everything of importance I sideboarded a bunch of cards, don't really feel like putting them down, its just most of my removal out, keep 1/2 walk the prank in, bring in grindy cards.
Game 2 I kept the ultra greed hand of 1 colorless land, drew the only other one in my deck. This is all on me for the extra greed. Not much to say here.
Round 3: Jund Vehicles 2-0
He had a game-loss game one for forgetting to sideboard.
Sideboarded in harvesters.
Game two was close. He had more individually powerful creatures, but mono B just annihilated him with its speed.
TOP 4 CUT! YAY!!!
Semifinals: UB Control 2-0
My opponent didn't draw Fatal Push either game. izi rek. Boarded in harvesters over heart of kiran due to it being harder for them to kill. Brought in a bunch of other stuff as well, didn't matter much.
Finals: UW Approach Control 0-2
Game one I got him low, but Fumigates and Settle the Wreckage game him enough time to recover.
Sideboard: All but harvesters and spyglass. Brought out all of my removal and bone pickers, and key to the city.
Game two felt really bad. Early game I Lost Legacy'd approach, his only threat was Sunscourge Champion. What was the game changer was Authority of the Consuls. He resolved two, and shut down my recursive threats almost entirely. Eventually he decked me out, not much to say.
All in all it was a fun tournament, sorry I'm so bad a breaking things down.
A few things looking forward:
Authority of the Consuls is really, really, really good against us, at least in my experience, since mono black, and red for that matter, don't have good enchantment hate, the best way to stop it is with hand destruction.
Supernatural Stamina was just plain underwhelming. Nothing much to see here.
A complicated sideboard doesn't help this aggro deck much. I think a much more streamlined sideboard could work. There needs to be ways to fight control and graveyard decks, but our aggro and midrange matchups are pretty good already.
Moving Forward: I want to try out a deck like this:
The focus on Duress effects is to be able to stop enchantments pre-emptively. Kitesail Freebooter seems good here as part disruption, and part flier. No Aether Hub is because I really want to be able to cast Walk the Plank on turn 2 or 3 while also deploying other cards that cost B or B1. Scavenger Grounds, as our only utility land, can be squeezed in, as well as being sacrificial fodder to ifnir deadlands if we want to machine gun little creatures down.
Sorry for the rambling, I wanted to write this yesterday with all the games still in my head, but this will have to suffice. Thoughts? Criticisms? How did your tournaments go? Until next time, keep on raiding!
I like the idea of Heart of Kiran, and supernatural stamina seems like a wierdly good place to be rn because of no Magma Spray and obviously 0 Incendiary Flow. Tonight at fnm if I find some hearts to put in i'll run them. I still think Glint-Sleeve Siphoner is too good not to include. I might try to play something like this.
With gift being such a bad matchup, along with tokens. I've going to try out Socerous Spyglass.
The idea being it comes down and names either Gate To the Afterlife which is where most gift decks are trending, or Hidden Stockpile which dampens the token deck's power a little bit. It also seems good against The Scarab God because if our opponent is just playing a 5 mana 5/5, it gets much easier to deal with.
This sunday is a 16 player championship series at our lgs, where the top 16 most attending players get to go for free and play for some big prizes. I'll try to write everything down as a comprehensive tournament report.
I beat Grixis Control, Mono White Tokens, and Jund Vehicles, in that order. Yahenni really impressed me as she single handedly helped me beat grixis control, and I was able to get under the vehicles deck. He and I were both discussing about how this deck is faster than Mono Red because of the powerful 1 drops. Going forward, I will probably try to fit more conquistadors in in place of a three-drop. Sorry this is not organized, just wanted to write this before I completely forgot.
I've been practicing mono black aggro, and I can say that Hazoret the Fervent is probably a very worthwhile upgrade for this deck. I've been jamming it with mono black, and this is where my build sits:
Fleetwheel Cruiser does a fairly good hazoret impression, but still isn't as good as the god herself. the upside is that there is no stipulation on attacking and that can be relavent with all the card draw that this version has, but hazoret is still much better because she can represent reach as well. Ammit Eternal seems good to me because it breaks through board stalls one way or another, and can give a wierd version of reach.
If I were to splash red at the moment, this is the build I would go for:
Undead Swarm1GB
Creature - Zombie Insect
Whenever Undead Swarm attacks and isn't blocked, you may pay B. If you do, create a copy of Undead Swarm.
Creatures named Undead Swarm get +1/+0 if you control 3 or more creatures named Undead Swarm.
0/1 Quantity trumps Quality
Your decklist seems to be wanting to grind slow. If you want to "sunmare quickly and overrun with horse tokens" You have a couple places you can look. First, a fairly popular MtG Personality SaffronOlive made a mono-white horse list a while ago. I'll link it but I highly suggest that you do not buy into that version because standard rotation is coming up and almost half the deck will rotate then.
The Deck: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/698050#paper
Experiment Three1UG
Creature - Human Ooze (R)
Evolve (Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control, if that creature has greater power/toughness than this creature, but a +1/+1 counter on this creature)
Sacrifice a Creature: Put X +1/+1 Counters on Experiment Three, where X is its power.
Remove two +1/+1 counters from Experiment Three: Experiment Three gains Hexproof, Indestructible, Double Strike, Trample, Deathtouch, or Lifelink.
1/1 Experiment Two had a negative reaction to the improved Ethermana Serum. Experiment Three absorbed it without an issue.
-Simic Scienctist, Human Modification Experiment Line
Tyto, the Swift3WUR
Legendary Creature - Bird Warrior (M)
Whenever ~ would deal damage to a player, ~ afflicts bleed instead.
(For each 3 damage an opponent is dealt, they get a bleed counter. At the beginning of their upkeep, they lose one life per bleed counter.)
Flying, Vigilance, Haste
3/3 Quicker than a mouse, stronger than an ox, sharper than a sword.
IIW: color shifted tribal things! Like in ixalan, green merfolk, white vampires, etc, etc.
Imperial Enforcer2BR
Creature - Metathran Warrior
When ~ enters the battlefield, it deals 2 damage to target blue or white creature.
Whenever a spell or permanent is copied, ~ deals 2 damage to target player for each copy.
3/2
While they aren't direct upgrades I would suggest Stigma Lasher as a sideboard card, but Abbot of Keral Keep seems good. along that line, you could play Ire Shaman or probably the best option: Harsh Mentor
4 Night Market Lookout
4 Dread Wanderer
3 Vicious Conquistador
4 Glint-Sleeve Siphoner
4 Scrapheap Scrounger
4 Ruin Raider
2 Bone Picker
Other Spells:
4 Heart of Kiran
4 Fatal Push
3 Walk the Plank
2 Supernatural Stamina
1 Key to the City
4 Ifnir Deadlands
3 Aether Hub
12 Swamp
1 Sunsorched Desert
1 Hostile Desert
3 Duress
2 Lost Legacy
2 Sorcerous Spyglass
2 Arguel's Blood Fast
2 Aethersphere Harvester
2 Deadeye Tracker
2 Yahenni, Undying Partisan
Tourney Report!!!*we only had a 3 round swiss because lots of people quit early, plus some couldn't make it
Round 1: Temur Energy 2-0
Game one was really close. I got him down to one extremely fast and then he stabilized with hydra and virtuoso. Key to the City (of course it was my lucky german copy, always play one non-english card in your deck for good luck, it works 100% of the time.) was a lucky rip, allowing me to win with an unblockable Heart of Kiran.
Sideboard: -2 Supernatural Stamina -1 Fatal Push -1 Heart of Kiran
+2 Aethersphere Harvester +2 Sorcerous Spyglass
Game two was a little easier for me. He boarded in Essence Scatter which almost all of the participants agreed was wrong against a deck like mine. He got in some good beats, but I outdrew him on cards and got the win with my fliers.
Round 2: Grixis Control 0-2
Game one I kept a slow hand, he countered everything of importance I sideboarded a bunch of cards, don't really feel like putting them down, its just most of my removal out, keep 1/2 walk the prank in, bring in grindy cards.
Game 2 I kept the ultra greed hand of 1 colorless land, drew the only other one in my deck. This is all on me for the extra greed. Not much to say here.
Round 3: Jund Vehicles 2-0
He had a game-loss game one for forgetting to sideboard.
Sideboarded in harvesters.
Game two was close. He had more individually powerful creatures, but mono B just annihilated him with its speed.
TOP 4 CUT! YAY!!!
Semifinals: UB Control 2-0
My opponent didn't draw Fatal Push either game. izi rek. Boarded in harvesters over heart of kiran due to it being harder for them to kill. Brought in a bunch of other stuff as well, didn't matter much.
Finals: UW Approach Control 0-2
Game one I got him low, but Fumigates and Settle the Wreckage game him enough time to recover.
Sideboard: All but harvesters and spyglass. Brought out all of my removal and bone pickers, and key to the city.
Game two felt really bad. Early game I Lost Legacy'd approach, his only threat was Sunscourge Champion. What was the game changer was Authority of the Consuls. He resolved two, and shut down my recursive threats almost entirely. Eventually he decked me out, not much to say.
All in all it was a fun tournament, sorry I'm so bad a breaking things down.
A few things looking forward:
Moving Forward: I want to try out a deck like this:
4 Night Market Lookout
3 Vicious Conquistador
4 Dread Wanderer
4 Scrapheap Scrounger
2 Glint-Sleeve Siphoner
4 Ruin Raider
4 Bone Picker
4 Fatal Push
3 Walk the Plank
Artifacts:
4 Heart of Kiran
1 Key to the City
3 Aethersphere Harvester
Lands:
4 Ifnir Deadlands
2 Scavenger Grounds
14 Swamp
4 Duress
4 Kitesail Freebooter
3 Lost Legacy
2 Deadeye Tracker
2 Vraska's Contempt
The focus on Duress effects is to be able to stop enchantments pre-emptively. Kitesail Freebooter seems good here as part disruption, and part flier. No Aether Hub is because I really want to be able to cast Walk the Plank on turn 2 or 3 while also deploying other cards that cost B or B1. Scavenger Grounds, as our only utility land, can be squeezed in, as well as being sacrificial fodder to ifnir deadlands if we want to machine gun little creatures down.
Sorry for the rambling, I wanted to write this yesterday with all the games still in my head, but this will have to suffice. Thoughts? Criticisms? How did your tournaments go? Until next time, keep on raiding!
4 Bone Picker
4 Dread Wanderer
2 Gifted Aetherborn
4 Night Market Lookout
4 Ruin Raider
4 Scrapheap Scrounger
3 Vicious Conquistador
3 Walk the Plank
4 Fatal Push
3 Supernatural Stamina
1 Aethersphere Harvester
4 Heart of Kiran
Lands:
4 Ifnir Deadlands
16 Swamp
2 Gifted Aetherborn
2 Aethersphere Harvester
1 Supernatural Stamina
1 Walk the Plank
4 Duress
2 Harsh Scrutiny
1 Key to the City
2 Lost Legacy
I like the idea of Heart of Kiran, and supernatural stamina seems like a wierdly good place to be rn because of no Magma Spray and obviously 0 Incendiary Flow. Tonight at fnm if I find some hearts to put in i'll run them. I still think Glint-Sleeve Siphoner is too good not to include. I might try to play something like this.
4 Dread Wanderer
4 Night Market Lookout
3 Vicious Conquistador
4 Glint-Sleeve Siphoner
4 Scrapheap Scrounger
4 Ruin Raider
3 Bone Picker
4 Fatal Push
4 Walk the Plank
4 Heart of Kiran
2 Supernatural Stamina
Lands (20):
4 Ifnir Deadlands
3 Aether Hub
13 Swamp
4 Duress
2 Lost Legacy
2 Sorcerous Spyglass
2 Arguel's Blood Fast
3 Aethersphere Harvester
2 Yahenni, Undying Partisan
The idea being it comes down and names either Gate To the Afterlife which is where most gift decks are trending, or Hidden Stockpile which dampens the token deck's power a little bit. It also seems good against The Scarab God because if our opponent is just playing a 5 mana 5/5, it gets much easier to deal with.
This sunday is a 16 player championship series at our lgs, where the top 16 most attending players get to go for free and play for some big prizes. I'll try to write everything down as a comprehensive tournament report.
4 Ifnir Deadlands
17 Swamp
Creatures (27):
4 Dread Wanderer
4 Night Market Lookout
2 Vicious Conquistador
4 Glint-Sleeve Siphoner
2 Gifted Aetherborn
4 Scrapheap Scrounger
4 Ruin Raider
2 Yahenni, Undying Partisan
1 Ammit Eternal
4 Fatal Push
4 Walk the Plank
Others (4):
2 Key to the City
2 Fleetwheel Cruiser
4 Duress
3 Lost Legacy
2 Aethersphere Harvester
2 Deadeye Tracker
2 Gonti, Lord of Luxury
1 Ammit Eternal
1 Sentinel Totem
I beat Grixis Control, Mono White Tokens, and Jund Vehicles, in that order. Yahenni really impressed me as she single handedly helped me beat grixis control, and I was able to get under the vehicles deck. He and I were both discussing about how this deck is faster than Mono Red because of the powerful 1 drops. Going forward, I will probably try to fit more conquistadors in in place of a three-drop. Sorry this is not organized, just wanted to write this before I completely forgot.
4 Night Market Lookout
3 Vicious Conquistador
4 Dread Wanderer
4 Scrapheap Scrounger
4 Glint-Sleeve Siphoner
2 Gifted Aetherborn
4 Ruin Raider
2 Ammit Eternal
4 Fatal Push
4 Walk the Plank
Utility:
2 Key to the City
2 Fleetwheel Cruiser
Lands:
4 Ifnir Deadlands
17 Swamp
4 Duress
3 Lost Legacy
3 Aethersphere Harvester
1 Sentinel Totem
2 Deadeye Tracker
2 Doomfall
Fleetwheel Cruiser does a fairly good hazoret impression, but still isn't as good as the god herself. the upside is that there is no stipulation on attacking and that can be relavent with all the card draw that this version has, but hazoret is still much better because she can represent reach as well. Ammit Eternal seems good to me because it breaks through board stalls one way or another, and can give a wierd version of reach.
If I were to splash red at the moment, this is the build I would go for:
4 Night Market Lookout
2 Vicious Conquistador
2 Bomat Courier
4 Scrapheap Scrounger
4 Glint-Sleeve Siphoner
2 Yahenni, Undying Partisan
2 Ruin Raider
3 Hazoret the Fervent
4 Lightning Strike
2 Walk the Plank
1 Unlicensed Disintegration
4 Aether Hub
4 Dragonskull Summit
2 Canyon Slough
2 Mountain
10 Swamp
I really like ruin raider and think it should deserve some copies in the deck.
Creature - Zombie Insect
Whenever Undead Swarm attacks and isn't blocked, you may pay B. If you do, create a copy of Undead Swarm.
Creatures named Undead Swarm get +1/+0 if you control 3 or more creatures named Undead Swarm.
0/1
Quantity trumps Quality
IIW: Legendary Starfish, Whale, or Crow
The Deck: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/698050#paper
Creature - Human Ooze (R)
Evolve (Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control, if that creature has greater power/toughness than this creature, but a +1/+1 counter on this creature)
Sacrifice a Creature: Put X +1/+1 Counters on Experiment Three, where X is its power.
Remove two +1/+1 counters from Experiment Three: Experiment Three gains Hexproof, Indestructible, Double Strike, Trample, Deathtouch, or Lifelink.
1/1
Experiment Two had a negative reaction to the improved Ethermana Serum. Experiment Three absorbed it without an issue.
-Simic Scienctist, Human Modification Experiment Line
IIW: Legendary Starfish, Shrimp, or Fish
Legendary Creature - Bird Warrior (M)
Whenever ~ would deal damage to a player, ~ afflicts bleed instead.
(For each 3 damage an opponent is dealt, they get a bleed counter. At the beginning of their upkeep, they lose one life per bleed counter.)
Flying, Vigilance, Haste
3/3
Quicker than a mouse, stronger than an ox, sharper than a sword.
IIW: color shifted tribal things! Like in ixalan, green merfolk, white vampires, etc, etc.
Creature - Metathran Warrior
When ~ enters the battlefield, it deals 2 damage to target blue or white creature.
Whenever a spell or permanent is copied, ~ deals 2 damage to target player for each copy.
3/2