I wanted to a little bit more in-depth on my matches, the differences in card choices, and my overall thoughts on the deck.
-1 Omnath (In all my games I had to use my mana up every turn, I couldn't imagine him ever getting above 4/4 consistently. This deck can generate mana *fast*, but not "oh its' turn 4 and I have 9 mana with nothing to do". It might find it's way back in but I didn't like it during my testing.
-2 Masticore (There is a lot of disruption and removal in the format, I'm fairly certain that every smart opponent will wait until after my first upkeep so that I discard a card before removing it. That's so much card disadvantage that I figured Walking Ballista was the card I really wanted. It costs more to ping, but has better "nothing to do, guess I'll use my mana" than Masticore does.)
-1 Thragtusk (never really felt like I needed the lifegain, the only time I wanted this card was against Miracles when they cast Terminus or Supreme Verdict but honestly leaving behind a 3/3 still isn't fast enough to kill them after they cast a sweeper.
-2 Trinisphere (didn't really feel like it was locking down the game at all.)
-2 Umezawa's Jitte (not exactly the right deck for this card. I want to keep my weenies out of combat, and my big beefy threats are big and beefy on their own.)
+1 Polukranos (decided to use this guy over Omnath as the mana sink. I like that he can come out turn 4. I was never unhappy to draw/cast this guy.)
+1 Walking Ballista (Replacement for Masticore. Masticore is cute to shuffle back Progenitus but it's such a double edged sword that can really set you back. Probably 1 more Ballista is needed since without a way to tutor it I never once drew it all 4 matches.)
+2 Forest (I did mulligan tests and wasn't happy with the low number of lands)
+2 Lodestone Golem (Jamming this guy out on turn 2 was one of the stronger plays I got off a few times. Against the blue decks it would always bait out a Force of Will, which allowed me to cast Natural Order next turn. I felt it was more important for our lock pieces to be able to attack)
+2 Garruk Wildspeaker (I feel this was the correct inclusion. At 4 mana, he's the perfect cmc, and he untaps for mana after he's cast, which allows for another +2-3 mana to drop more lock pieces. Making Beasts is important, to make more threats/protection or for sac fodder to Natural Order. And his ultimate won me two games, I don't even need a whole slew of 1/1's out just 1-2 big fatties.
R1: Death and Taxes 0-2
I was theorizing with my mtg friends before the tournament that our mana denial plan shuts their deck down while their mana denial plan doesn't affect us at all. Turns out I was very wrong. They don't care about Winter Orb or Root Maze. Aether Vial does a lot for their deck. Some of their bears (mostly Phyrexian Revoker) can shut off some of our key cards. About the only thing our deck can do that D & T cannot stop is Natural Order into Progenitus (ideally turn 2 but turn 3/4 can work also). From what I remember, Game 1 he got Aether Vial turn 1 and got a good board state with Mother of Runes and Thalia, used Phyrexian Revokers tagged on my Arbor Elves. I did get out Progenitus, but he got Sword of War and Peace on his Thalia, which I couldn't chump block with 'ole 'Proggy, and when it came down to us both attacking, he won the race with life gain. He never once as scared of Winer Orb. Game two after seeing Winter Orb he kept a hand of 3 Aether Vial and 4 land, assuming that there was no way I could stop that. Which is correct when I never drew Pithing Needle; I only drew Krosan Grip and Reclamation Sage, and by that point he was giving his Revoker (tagged on Garruk) pro green on my upkeep (which sucked because I had Reclamation Sage in hand). He also was able to use his Port effectively on my suped-up forest. I probably was a little nervous and made one or two misplays but he also had god hands both games and played perfectly. I also really, really wanted to draw Walking Ballista to snipe his whole team but never drew it.
R2 Elves 2-1
I forget the order or who won game 1/2, I remember the game that he won was off of Natural Order --> Craterhoof for +6/+6. In this matchup, Dragonlord Atarka was the allstar, I searched him out twice and won both those games. Cursed Totem is really good to stall the Elves deck out, but they have access to GSZ and Rexclamation Sage as well, I had a totem get sniped but luckily I had another totem to cast. because we're both combo decks, and my deck has slightly more disruption, I feel like this is more in our favor.
R3 Miracles 0-2
This matchup felt unwinnable.
R4 BUG FoodChain 2-0
This match was interesting. Because his deck is also focused on combo, it means he runs less disruption, which is better for us. Not only that, but some cards he run is dead, for example Leovold doesn't do much because we don't draw extra cards. Our ideboard cards happen to naturally screw over Food Chain (Krosan Grip and Pithing Needle). But the most interesting thing was the turn before he wanted to combo he'd tap out to either cast Food Chain or Misthollow Griffin, and I'd then cast Winter Orb, which means it'd take him another 2-3 turns before he could finally combo off, giving me enough time to win with Progenitus. He actually asked his friend sitting next to him how he's supposed to sideboard against the deck.
Overall thoughts:
-Winter Orb + Root Maze is not a hard lock together. Many times I had both out and still lost. Of the two, Root Maze operated better on its own in a vacuum and has more potential (I could even see cutting 2 winter orb), but is only good when it comes out on turn 1. So many Legacy decks are built around having low/aggressive mana costs; out of 9 games only one of them had a sequence of "play Winter Orb, haha now you have to wait many turns". Winter Orb feels best in decks that also have Stifle and Wasteland, like Canadian Threshold. I sided Winter Orb and Root Maze out of most games, almost to the point where I was wondering why they're included in the first place.
-No card draw felt really bad. No combo protection also felt bad. All it would take is for one key spell to get countered/removed and I'd be in top deck mode. As a Stax deck I get that the idea is for both players to not be doing anything many turns in a row so that I can catch up with cards in hand, but every opponent was always drawing cards and getting out of whatever stax pieces I had on board.
-It does have the "spicy brew factor" that got a lot of people's attention, however once my smarter opponents figured out what I was doing, they adjusted and crushed me. I feel like Winter Orb only worked on the less experienced players.
-The deck feels very weak to counterspells and disruption. It seems the primer focuses a bit too much on magical christmasland scenarios of "I can deploy all these by turn 4 without the opponent casting anything to stop my shenanigans."
-Honestly, I feel like Dragon Stompy is the better lock deck because Chalice + Blood Moon are actual locks that stop the opponent from playing spells, not soft locks (and they can get either one of those out on turn 1). And Elves is the better ramp deck since they can refuel their hand way better and it sucks for budget but Gaea's Cradle just makes 6+ mana by turn 3 so consistently in that deck. As a budget alternative, $380 is mad affordable and can be a good introduction to Legacy because I did at least win two matches. Kudos to Laser Brains for the list to get me into my first Legacy tournament, but I'm definitely going to try and switch gears to a different deck once I acquire the duals (but will continue to play this deck until I do so.)
I went to my first Legacy tournament last night with this list (using a few tweaks) and got 2-2, which isn't too bad considering it's my first time playing Legacy and first time piloting this deck. Amongst a sea of established D & T, Miracles, Delver, and combo decks, everybody wanted to stop what they were doing and see what this deck was about, which was really cool. Many opponents had to stop and read what Root Maze and Wild Growth do.
My list is same as OP but with the following changes:
I managed to get two multiplayer games in over the weekend, and we added all the monarch cards we could, and the Monarch came into play very early for both games, and it totally changed the way the game played out. My first impression was that it wasn't going to be good, but I played Grixis control and pretty much had a full hand the entire time, having control of the Monarch more than average in a 3 player pod. It makes evasive creatures even better; my meta is split between evasive creatures and giant beaters. I think the black one is the best since it's 4 mana and is very much a rattlesnake blocker (and sometimes rattlesnake attacker), the blue one seems good on paper with a 5 toughness and potential evasion but at 6 mana, once the Monarch was already in play, I tried saving it only for a turn where I could steal the monarch away from someone else, but I never had a problem attacking to get the Monarch back, and I also didn't want to tap out 6 mana, I wanted to keep mana open for instant-speed interaction. The red one is atrocious, and the white and green ones are very solid blockers. I think it's a great addition to the Pauper EDH metagame, it really helps prevent board stalls and encourages players to attack more often and to not just pick on the defenseless player, and it helps provide gas to a lot of different decks, and it's a card advantage engine that stays for the remainder of the game. I think it'll get better if everyone in my playgroup all decides to cram them into all their decks as well, increasing the odds that somebody in the 3-4 player pod has drawn one and casts it between turn 4-6, especially since the number of 3 color decks that can use 3 of the monarch creatures is fewer than the 2 color and mono color decks.
Yes, my suggestion would be to have Manufactory be like Wastes, as a basic land with no basic land type you can run any number of in your deck. 1, it'd be flavorful with the set, since the land can be overrun with giant factories (and the artwork is perfect) and 2, it'd help with steam-powered costs and activated abilities. As a basic land, any basic fetcher for getting colors can help get it, and the best part is if we use a Panorama cycle for color fetching, the Panoramas can't fetch Manufactories.
Yeah if you could PM me a link to the fonts download I'd need or your version of MSE2 that'd be helpful. Not having Italics sucks.
Thoughts on the artwork so far? I personally hate Stonemight because it's very hard to find an earth/stone elemental picture that has a mechanical feel to it.
Also silly request, can more gremlin/gnome cards be designed? I found a whole slew of really on-theme pictures for those two races
Edit: Added Mechanical Rat, changed artwork for Stonemight
Very interesting to see a revival for this project. I know there was a bit of friction when I was last was involved, but would people be interested in me working on selecting artwork for cards as before, as well as working on card design/editing?
Also is there a new version of Magic Set Editor that has the C symbol?
Edit: I just looked at some of the new cards in the multiverse cardlist and already I see cards that need serious tweaking/changing and/or are very underwhelming. Disciple Executioner a Common??
Very interesting to see a revival on this. I know there was a bit of friction the last time I got involved with finding artwork for the old set, but would people be interested in me doing the same thing here? (also in helping out card design/creation) I still have hundreds of unused Steampunk artwork I have saved, and there's bound to be plenty of new ones since last year
Necropotence + Confessor doesnt work, since Necro exiles any card that's discarded. Necrologia might work, but during the discard phase extra cards are discarded all at once, not one at a time. Karlov really wants numerous triggers in small amounts.
I did a bit of playtesting and Karlov can attack an opponent for lethal on turn 3 with Zuran Orb + Second Sunrise.
Necropotence + Confessor doesnt work, since Necro exiles any card that's discarded. Necrologia might work, but during the discard phase extra cards are discarded all at once, not one at a time. Karlov really wants numerous triggers in small amounts.
I did a bit of playtesting and Karlov can attack an opponent for lethal on turn 3 with Zuran Orb + Second Sunrise.
I very recently started to build a Karametra, God of Harvests deck and then this was spoiled. Definite auto-include. Very cute trick with Sakura-Tribe Elder, I didn't pick up on that at first.
Patchwork Gnomes was first printed in Tempest; the Odyssey version is a reprint.
My playgroup plays strictly with paper-printings only, so changes in online rarities do not have an impact. Of that list, being able to include some of the slivers to a 5Color sliver deck, and Whispers of the Muse for 1v1 blue control are the only cards worth looking at.
Modern Masters 2, however *fingers crossed for awesome rarity changes like the original Modern Masters*
Your playgroup may vary but the vast majority of Pauper EDH decks run an uncommon creature as the Commander, and the rest of the 99 as all commons. Slippery Bogle is among the list of creatures (alongside Delver of Secrets, Tinder Wall, and others) that make having a Common creature as your Commander way too oppressive. Bassara Tower Archer is a possibility if you want to run green enchantments
Noxious Revival is an uncommon, so it can't replace Reclaim. If you want to make this a true Pauper EDH deck, Sultai Soothsayer is the perfect replacement to Sidisi.
With only four Arcane spells, how good is Hana Kami really?
I've found that in Pauper Control unblockable threats are really solid, especially Dauthi Marauder and Infiltrator il-Kor.
Disowned Ancestor seems like a flexible blocker that graduallybecomes a threat. Same with Archer's Parapet.
-1 Omnath (In all my games I had to use my mana up every turn, I couldn't imagine him ever getting above 4/4 consistently. This deck can generate mana *fast*, but not "oh its' turn 4 and I have 9 mana with nothing to do". It might find it's way back in but I didn't like it during my testing.
-2 Masticore (There is a lot of disruption and removal in the format, I'm fairly certain that every smart opponent will wait until after my first upkeep so that I discard a card before removing it. That's so much card disadvantage that I figured Walking Ballista was the card I really wanted. It costs more to ping, but has better "nothing to do, guess I'll use my mana" than Masticore does.)
-1 Thragtusk (never really felt like I needed the lifegain, the only time I wanted this card was against Miracles when they cast Terminus or Supreme Verdict but honestly leaving behind a 3/3 still isn't fast enough to kill them after they cast a sweeper.
-2 Trinisphere (didn't really feel like it was locking down the game at all.)
-2 Umezawa's Jitte (not exactly the right deck for this card. I want to keep my weenies out of combat, and my big beefy threats are big and beefy on their own.)
+1 Polukranos (decided to use this guy over Omnath as the mana sink. I like that he can come out turn 4. I was never unhappy to draw/cast this guy.)
+1 Walking Ballista (Replacement for Masticore. Masticore is cute to shuffle back Progenitus but it's such a double edged sword that can really set you back. Probably 1 more Ballista is needed since without a way to tutor it I never once drew it all 4 matches.)
+2 Forest (I did mulligan tests and wasn't happy with the low number of lands)
+2 Lodestone Golem (Jamming this guy out on turn 2 was one of the stronger plays I got off a few times. Against the blue decks it would always bait out a Force of Will, which allowed me to cast Natural Order next turn. I felt it was more important for our lock pieces to be able to attack)
+2 Garruk Wildspeaker (I feel this was the correct inclusion. At 4 mana, he's the perfect cmc, and he untaps for mana after he's cast, which allows for another +2-3 mana to drop more lock pieces. Making Beasts is important, to make more threats/protection or for sac fodder to Natural Order. And his ultimate won me two games, I don't even need a whole slew of 1/1's out just 1-2 big fatties.
R1: Death and Taxes 0-2
I was theorizing with my mtg friends before the tournament that our mana denial plan shuts their deck down while their mana denial plan doesn't affect us at all. Turns out I was very wrong. They don't care about Winter Orb or Root Maze. Aether Vial does a lot for their deck. Some of their bears (mostly Phyrexian Revoker) can shut off some of our key cards. About the only thing our deck can do that D & T cannot stop is Natural Order into Progenitus (ideally turn 2 but turn 3/4 can work also). From what I remember, Game 1 he got Aether Vial turn 1 and got a good board state with Mother of Runes and Thalia, used Phyrexian Revokers tagged on my Arbor Elves. I did get out Progenitus, but he got Sword of War and Peace on his Thalia, which I couldn't chump block with 'ole 'Proggy, and when it came down to us both attacking, he won the race with life gain. He never once as scared of Winer Orb. Game two after seeing Winter Orb he kept a hand of 3 Aether Vial and 4 land, assuming that there was no way I could stop that. Which is correct when I never drew Pithing Needle; I only drew Krosan Grip and Reclamation Sage, and by that point he was giving his Revoker (tagged on Garruk) pro green on my upkeep (which sucked because I had Reclamation Sage in hand). He also was able to use his Port effectively on my suped-up forest. I probably was a little nervous and made one or two misplays but he also had god hands both games and played perfectly. I also really, really wanted to draw Walking Ballista to snipe his whole team but never drew it.
R2 Elves 2-1
I forget the order or who won game 1/2, I remember the game that he won was off of Natural Order --> Craterhoof for +6/+6. In this matchup, Dragonlord Atarka was the allstar, I searched him out twice and won both those games. Cursed Totem is really good to stall the Elves deck out, but they have access to GSZ and Rexclamation Sage as well, I had a totem get sniped but luckily I had another totem to cast. because we're both combo decks, and my deck has slightly more disruption, I feel like this is more in our favor.
R3 Miracles 0-2
This matchup felt unwinnable.
R4 BUG FoodChain 2-0
This match was interesting. Because his deck is also focused on combo, it means he runs less disruption, which is better for us. Not only that, but some cards he run is dead, for example Leovold doesn't do much because we don't draw extra cards. Our ideboard cards happen to naturally screw over Food Chain (Krosan Grip and Pithing Needle). But the most interesting thing was the turn before he wanted to combo he'd tap out to either cast Food Chain or Misthollow Griffin, and I'd then cast Winter Orb, which means it'd take him another 2-3 turns before he could finally combo off, giving me enough time to win with Progenitus. He actually asked his friend sitting next to him how he's supposed to sideboard against the deck.
Overall thoughts:
-Winter Orb + Root Maze is not a hard lock together. Many times I had both out and still lost. Of the two, Root Maze operated better on its own in a vacuum and has more potential (I could even see cutting 2 winter orb), but is only good when it comes out on turn 1. So many Legacy decks are built around having low/aggressive mana costs; out of 9 games only one of them had a sequence of "play Winter Orb, haha now you have to wait many turns". Winter Orb feels best in decks that also have Stifle and Wasteland, like Canadian Threshold. I sided Winter Orb and Root Maze out of most games, almost to the point where I was wondering why they're included in the first place.
-No card draw felt really bad. No combo protection also felt bad. All it would take is for one key spell to get countered/removed and I'd be in top deck mode. As a Stax deck I get that the idea is for both players to not be doing anything many turns in a row so that I can catch up with cards in hand, but every opponent was always drawing cards and getting out of whatever stax pieces I had on board.
-It does have the "spicy brew factor" that got a lot of people's attention, however once my smarter opponents figured out what I was doing, they adjusted and crushed me. I feel like Winter Orb only worked on the less experienced players.
-The deck feels very weak to counterspells and disruption. It seems the primer focuses a bit too much on magical christmasland scenarios of "I can deploy all these by turn 4 without the opponent casting anything to stop my shenanigans."
-Honestly, I feel like Dragon Stompy is the better lock deck because Chalice + Blood Moon are actual locks that stop the opponent from playing spells, not soft locks (and they can get either one of those out on turn 1). And Elves is the better ramp deck since they can refuel their hand way better and it sucks for budget but Gaea's Cradle just makes 6+ mana by turn 3 so consistently in that deck. As a budget alternative, $380 is mad affordable and can be a good introduction to Legacy because I did at least win two matches. Kudos to Laser Brains for the list to get me into my first Legacy tournament, but I'm definitely going to try and switch gears to a different deck once I acquire the duals (but will continue to play this deck until I do so.)
My list is same as OP but with the following changes:
-1 Omnath
-2 Masticore
-1 Thragtusk
-2 Trinisphere
-2 Umezawa's Jitte
+1 Polukranos
+1 Walking Ballista
+2 Forest
+2 Lodestone Golem
+2 Garruk Wildspeaker
Sideboard:
3 Cursed Totem
1 Empyrial Archangel
3 Faerie Macabre
2 Guttural Response
2 Krosan Grip
2 Pithing Needle
1 Ruric Thar
1 Xantid Swarm
R1 0-2
Death & Taxes
R2 2-1
Elves
R3 0-2
Miracles
R4 2-0
BUG Food Chain
The newly spoiled Prowling Serpopard seems like a solid sideboard choice
Yeah if you could PM me a link to the fonts download I'd need or your version of MSE2 that'd be helpful. Not having Italics sucks.
Thoughts on the artwork so far? I personally hate Stonemight because it's very hard to find an earth/stone elemental picture that has a mechanical feel to it.
Also silly request, can more gremlin/gnome cards be designed? I found a whole slew of really on-theme pictures for those two races
Edit: Added Mechanical Rat, changed artwork for Stonemight
This would make steam-powered costs easier to achieve, if for example you're drafting and can make half your basic lands produce colorless only.
Here's some artwork samples:
Also is there a new version of Magic Set Editor that has the C symbol?
Edit: I just looked at some of the new cards in the multiverse cardlist and already I see cards that need serious tweaking/changing and/or are very underwhelming. Disciple Executioner a Common??
-Comicalflop
I did a bit of playtesting and Karlov can attack an opponent for lethal on turn 3 with Zuran Orb + Second Sunrise.
I did a bit of playtesting and Karlov can attack an opponent for lethal on turn 3 with Zuran Orb + Second Sunrise.
My playgroup plays strictly with paper-printings only, so changes in online rarities do not have an impact. Of that list, being able to include some of the slivers to a 5Color sliver deck, and Whispers of the Muse for 1v1 blue control are the only cards worth looking at.
Modern Masters 2, however *fingers crossed for awesome rarity changes like the original Modern Masters*
With only four Arcane spells, how good is Hana Kami really?
I've found that in Pauper Control unblockable threats are really solid, especially Dauthi Marauder and Infiltrator il-Kor.
Disowned Ancestor seems like a flexible blocker that graduallybecomes a threat. Same with Archer's Parapet.
My WIP list, you can find suggestions there: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/sultai-soothsayer-pauper-edh/