Let someone borrow the deck and he played it all day. He made a lot of sequencing errors, but I still got good data. He REALLY loves the deck. I might need to create a "budget budget" version.
I was playing a different one and got killed super hard by my own deck via a Savage Ventmaw in one turn because of Seize the Day. He almost drew 64 cards but since he killed me he didn't force the removal by attacking the person that had it to avoid a 2 for 1.
Things that tested super well: Reforge the Soul: Wheel did well. It sometimes gasses your opponents but it's a okay way for them to lay off of you for a turn (unless that person is your target). Draw density is too important. What you get out of it is essential and it sometimes wrecks peoples hands. Dense Foliage: I had to remind players numerous times that they couldn't shoot my stuff due to this card. Every time someone tries, I have to say "Nope, Dense Foliage".
Things that tested poorly: Elemental Bond: Only drew 2 cards. I don't have a 3/3 token generator to make this insane. Nissa's Revelation: I play a lower fatty density than the Xenagod decks here, so this can whiff more often. And, like See the Written, you NEVER want it to.
Things I didn't get to try: Evolutionary Leap: The theory of playing this card still seems good, but the player misplayed and didn't exploit it to its full potential. Siege Behemoth: Didn't really get to see it. But the theory is so strong that I expect to permanently keep it.
Notable moments: The guy had the Kessig Wolf Run + Rapacious One combo so he precombat pumped to kill a guy for 30 damage, then an extra combat killed another guy for 60 damage. Afterwards he was sitting on 90 Eldrazi spawns. If he had another red, he would have killed a third person and had 180 Eldrazi Spawns!
Change:
- Acidic Slime: I think the card is still good enough to play, but I've been seeing far fewer Maze of Ith recently. However, if you see it often, you should still keep a decent land D package.
+ Reforge the Soul: Eight big draw spells now. Nonconditional in all forms.
Lastly, it is possible for me to eventually make this into a Primer? I may need to find some time to do some touchups and add more content.
Notable moments: The guy had the Kessig Wolf Run + Rapacious One combo so he precombat pumped to kill a guy for 30 damage, then an extra combat killed another guy for 60 damage. Afterwards he was sitting on 90 Eldrazi spawns. If he had another red, he would have killed a third person and had 180 Eldrazi Spawns!
Thats the reason of Magic. Kill with more, and more and more ! More damage
- Acidic Slime I think the card is still good enough to play, but I've been seeing far fewer Maze of Ith recently. However, if you see it often, you should still keep a decent land D package.
Acidic Slime is a MVP. How can you do supress it ? Its the only option to manage easiest problematic land or artifacts
Yavimaya Wurm might prove a super-budget option; it will certainly be seen in my cheap Xenagod deck. A not-so-budget creature is Worldspine Wurm - at 11cmc, it is steep, but wow!
Lightning Serpent looks tempting, but would be kinda meh in the early game. What about the assorted X-creatures (mostly hydras) in general? Or are they too variable?
Neither Thundermare nor Timbermare are likely to one-shot people, but they do clear the way!
Last suggestion: Realm Seekers is both budget and likely to be big. An SCD thread in the nondeck forum got me thinking about it.
I have a lot of enchantment and artifact removal as is, so cutting one doesn't feel THAT bad. Acidic Slime is still a solid card and if I need to fit it back in, I will find a way. I don't normally like cutting any removal but I'm doing it for draw then I'm likely to see the other removal spells more often.
As for the primer, I need more experience fighting in the face of hate before I can feel confident about beginning the primer process. Currently the deck has no issues finding ramp and throwing down damage. It excels at both. The current issues are keeping up in card advantage for the mid-late game and making sure I can execute my plan in spite of peoples attempts to stop me. Hence I have so much focus on finding decent anti-control cards. Less so on stopping counterspells (although stopping those is a bonus!) and more for stopping point removal. I'm looking into Asceticism. It costs a lot for what it does but I might still need the effect badly enough. Archetype of Endurance costs 8 and the body is hard to abuse even in a deck like this.
As far as creature resilience goes, in this deck, you want hexproof over indestructible, and indestrucible over regen. Regen fails pretty hard to exile and a lot of old-school black removal. Indestructible fails to bounce and exile but is better against sweepers. However, this deck is naturally sweep resilient because we don't have to play more threats than necessary. So targeting denial is the best of the three.
Lastly, as my playtest buddy learned the hard way, the absolute most important decision to make is WHO TO KILL FIRST. If you pick poorly, the person you should have attacked will gear up to stop you.
Also, I'm close to completing my master playset of Khans fetches. That means I now have spares for this deck. Sure, it may not be flavorful, but you really don't want to get color screwed. Also, they aren't really THAT necessary. I just have em.
Here's another fun fat suggestion - Panglacial Wurm. It's late game, you're out of gas, you topdeck your Nature's Lore, this guy's got your back with a pretty respectable 9 trampling power for 7 mana. It's definitely not an auto include on principle, but it strikes me as fun as hell
Building Xenagod is about the fine balance of fat and ways to abuse Xenagod triggers to kill people faster, i.e. extra combats etc. If you focus too much on the former, then you can get clogged in the slower decks catching up and developing a presence. If you focus too much on the latter, then you become soft as hell to players dealing with your threats. If you start devoting a large chunk of your card space to protection (you're missing Vexing Shusher by the way, maybe your meta is just not counter rich), then your draws may become more temperamental and you'll weave between both cases of weaknesses? I don't know, I'm just theorycrafting here.
It is a fine balance trying to run the right amount of fat and damage accelerants.
I'm facing more Slaughters than Forbids in my meta, so I'm not needing a Vexing Shusher yet. It is nice though that three of my four protection cards stop both!
I have considered Panglacial Wurm (and own one), but I'm going for draw power because when I'm in topdeck mode, it's gonna take more than one fatty to get the job done. It has a chance of going back in though, especially if I end up getting more fetches! (the reason why I didn't have it before was in fact before the fetch land reprint!). It is actually a solid suggestion and may bump out Wilderness Elemental if I can easily drop him at instant speed.
I think I'd play five protection spells max if needed. The fifth will probably be Vines of Vastwood. It is one-shot but it would definitely throw off my opponents calculations if done right.
Lastly, I'm editing the original post frequently. Adding stuff you might expect out of a primer. I'm hoping my Purph analysis is somewhat correct. I've never actually played against it.
I'm not really understanding how you're experiencing these card draw issues. In my experience, you just run the full gamut of power-based card draw options, the full list of top of deck manipulators and fetch lands, and then you don't ever mulligan one or shuffle one away. If you are not seeing the draw you need, then I'd look to cards like Sylvan Library, Sensei's Divining Top and Mirri's Guile and putting your fetch count up to the full 7. Looks like you're at 37 land now, so you can trim the land count down some in exchange for these cards. Also I'm playing under Partial Paris mull rules, maybe that's what it is? Of course when you draw 10 or more cards off one one of these effects, you're extremely likely to draw into the second one. Life's Legacy is not only well worth it, it's probably the best of the set. You lose your creature, but you draw into the next one with enough mana left over that turn to do a lot of things. The only issues then are not having what you need left in the deck.
Come to think of it now, I am seeing no cards like Genesis, Sword of Light and Shadow, Mimic Vat or Feldon of the Third Path in your list. Your fatty density is like mine with 12-15 beaters, and so if your experience is anything like mine you are running thin after your second or third pass. There are just no good substitutes for certain cards, and at that point one Evolution Charm is better than a draw 7. I mean, the overall idea there is to run people out of spot removal eventually in those spots where you just can't set up a Hexproof threat. With buyback like Slaughter and Capsize, it can be a problem, but those can be such a huge tempo loss for the player that someone else is bound to set up in the meantime and need attention. Mimic Vat for one has been excellent for me because of being able to exile someone else's threat and provide your own in one pinch.
For that matter, how is Insurrection working for you? I can see the card being there just for its ability to end games in a certain group, but I have also noticed that Xenagos has a great relationship ith Threaten effects. I'm running Unwilling Recruit in my build, and the results are hilarious. I recently stole a Medomai the Ageless with Strionic Resonator out, and that opponent was nice enough not to concede. If you didn't want to interfere too much with Dense Foliage, you could run Helm of Possession, Zealous Conscripts, etc. Maybe in exchange for some of the removal in your list like Chain Reaction since these can be good at killing things too.
Aye. I have almost all those library manipulation cards. They're just in another deck.. Annoying to move em around, but if I should try them, I'll try them. I only own the Khans fetches. If I play the full 7 I definitely want to test Panglacial Wurm.
I can cut a land, but I'm generally wary of going below 36 in a mana hungry deck like this. I also still need to pick up a Fire-lit Thicket
I completely forgot that Life's Legacy cannot be stopped by removal, and considering that I often draw into more hasty threats, I shouldn't worry about losing pressure. Seems better than Soul's Majesty
Out of those recursion options, I like Mimic Vat the most. However Genesis can be easily discarded off of an overdraw. Like you, without draw I run thin after 2-3 fatties. The long game of this deck still has potential simply because we can kill people out of nowhere. However, we definitely want to have the means to do it.
I have not been drawing Insurrection often enough to discount it or keep it in. It does win games, but I always look at the conditionality of 8-9 mana spells to see if they are worth it. As for threaten effects, they work well. I just don't often find threats better than my own to send in. You are still spending a card to do it too.
Just be slightly mindful that I'm not made of money. So if I need something expensive it might take me a bit of time to actually get it. This is another reason why I'm not quite ready for primer status yet.
Lastly, a minor nitpick, but I realized that caustic caterpillar is better than reclamation sage here because it does its job and removes its own devotion.
Yeah it's true you're still going down a card, I just see Threaten effects more in terms of the removal slot than the threat slot. So in theory replacing one for the other, not having a better threat than your own to steal puts you in the same spot, because in either spot that's where you just hold on to your removal and play your own threat. I mean especially when taking this deck around town, you'll be in a wide variety of spots. Sometimes you'll be in the spot where one opponent is way more threatening than you, and answers will be the only relevant thing for you. It's just about maximizing that slot, and a couple cards in your list like Hull Breach, Chain Reaction and Decimate I see more oriented toward a value game which can't be won with this deck, and less toward stopping other people from winning on their turn. It's always surprising to me in this format what can be done with an Instant in your hand even against top tier decks, and how much you just end up doing the job of the player to your left when you play at Sorcery. Act of Aggression and Grab the Reins have always done a lot of work for me in any Red deck, Word of Seizing to a lesser extent also, and they just happen to be really good in Xenagos. Unwilling Recruit is just something I'm playing with along with that because now I've got sacrifice effects like Pod and Evolutionary Leap, which turn it into removal at worst.
Caustic Caterpillar is a card I love from this set. To me though, this slot is between Viridian Corrupter, Tin Street Hooligan, and Caustic Wasps. I just find way, way more artifacts I want to kill in this format than enchantments, and the worst ones like Necropotence and Survival are just unstoppable by removal when they get played anyway. Corrupter doesn't work in your deck because of no Godo package, though. I'd try out the Wasp. It kind of responds to a different situation than Reclamation Sage, but I've never been disappointed with it.
On land count, it will depend on your mulligan rules. I find that 34 is about optimal with Partial Paris, as long as I have 6 or more cards at 2cmc or less that either cycle for a land or dig 2-3 cards deep. But if you're using a free big deck mulligan like on MODO, I agree you will want 36.
I kind of disagree about decimate and hull breach, sometimes you just need to remove things, and these are really effective in doing so, think humility for example.
I agree though that them being sorceries is a shame, and I would never cut krosan grip before them.
I also don't like the recursion options mentioned, eternal witness I like because of the tutorability, the others not so much, I'd rather just play another devestating big guy or more draw to get to more of them.
On the recursion cards I listed, forgive the verbosity, but I just thought of something else that could be different between our two sets of experience. It comes down to this - to cheat or not to cheat? My current version has Sneak Attack, Natural Order, Pattern of Rebirth, Deathrender, and I waffle back and forth on Elvish Piper and/or Quicksilver Amulet. I see the OP version with Green Sun's Zenith, Worldly Tutor and Chord of Calling, which are more "fair" tutors since they don't net mana discounts. So because that stuff is naturally just putting stuff into the graveyard, getting it back is pretty important for that setup.
I don't mind paying 3 for Genesis when Sneak Attack has me paying 1 for the creature, but cards like it and Sword of Light and Shadow might totally suck, otherwise.
Humility opens up a huge can of worms. The last time I saw that card, I was lucky enough to have a man-land and I drew into an equipment, so I just attacked through it. It's hard for a deck with no equipment and no Rancor to deal with that though, outside of Grip/Chaos Warp. That card is a total buzz kill.
Jusstice is very correct in that playing instant speed answers has a huge advantage in what I call the "priority advantage theory". This theory is that if someone has something that everyone else has to absolutely stop. The person with highest priority doesn't know if the players after that person have answers. So naturally they'll be inclined to respond first. If you play at sorcery speed, you will always have highest priority and therefore be spending YOUR cards to help the other players (and yourself). You'd much rather have last priority to see if other people burn answers first.
Also I think he's playing against more dedicated combo decks where having such disruption is absolutely necessary. I'm more worried about control, hence the card suite that would also end up helping combo decks.
I believe that what he is doing is indeed very powerful, but as he mentioned, it comes with the tradeoff of requiring more "moving parts" so to speak.. You have more cards that need other cards to come together to perform its finest (although this way you could probably get away with less ramp). For my build, all you need is ramp, fatty, card draw, and then a sprinkle of various other utilities, removal, and damage amplification. Nonetheless, I'm glad you are here to test your build and give feedback on a different approach made for the decks you find. Over in San Diego, I talked to all the major store owners today. We can't really find "competitive EDH" in our stores. Having cards like Chain Reaction are less for grinding opponents out as is making sure they can't pool all their creatures to kill me before I get another turn.
As for Humility, I dread both that card and cards like Ensnaring Bridge. Cards that we absolutely must destroy before we can do anything that involves our plan. Even a simple Propaganda, while not incredibly effective against is, can still slow us down a tad.
I should probably start testing on Cockatrice to remove the problem I might have of an "inbred" metagame of sorts. We already have more rules than most (sol ring + mana crypt has the Serra Avenger clause for turn 1 and 2, for example), and so testing for a different metagame may give me more ideas.
Oh.. I also showed the deck to some people who have never seen it before. I got mobbed before I could kill the first person with Siege Behemoth after drawing 14 cards.
I'm looking into a couple cards that I'd like to purchase, but since I've had zero experience with either card I'd like your opininos on them.
Scourge of the Throne - Is it really worth the cash? Best case scenario, it hits for 33 on the second combat trigger if targeted with Xenagod twice. Worst case it hits for 10. How often are you able to use the dethrone mechanic when this hits the field? Running minor life gain like Momentous Fall works against it, but if it really is that powerful I'm willing to give it a shot.
Bane of Progress - If I'm looking to race Rafiq of the Many or Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest, I want to be able to blow them out of the water while doing it. I believe I run slightly more artifacts/enchantments than your build, but with a little retooling I think this guy could get the job done. Worth a slot as a beater? If you can think of it, about on average how big does this guy get?
There are some other cards that I may not be purchasing but would like to discuss anyway. As far as budget options go, what are your thoughts on Drumhunter? Unfortunately he drops at 4, but he does ramp a bit and has a chance to draw you a card every turn. Another card that comes to mind is Bow of Nylea. While extremely prone to removal, it does add the benefit of deathtouch to attacking creatures. As you probably already know, Deathtouch + Trample is pretty gravy. The utility on the bow isn't too bad either, with the counters giving a bit more oomph every turn, shooting down Kaalia of the Vast and other small flying blockers, or just putting some good cards back into your deck. Lastly, how about Spinerock Knoll? Sure it comes into play tapped and it is prone for getting 2 for 1'd, but being able to cast World at War and friends for R seems great. Mosswort Bridge has performed very well for me, but is undoubtedly the better of the two since it is easier to use.
For me, practically never. It's basically a Hellkite Charger that gives you its extra combat for free if you just attack the person with the highest life first. I am very rarely the person with the highest life because I don't spread damage around. I focus it on one deserving person, and early on tons of people are still at 40 and so you can hit them pretty freely. Especially if they don't own fetch lands.
Bane of Progress is for trashing people's artifact mana, pillowforts, and auras. You generally don't use it as a beater and don't care how big it gets, although the fact that it gets counters makes it a viable conduit for card draw.
Drumhunter is fine for drawing. Doesn't go nuts but any draw is better than no draw IMO. Bow I don't think is needed. When you're attacking for 16+ trample, only late-game will people have the blocking power to match that. It's also far better with ground tramplers than air attackers. If you have enough dragons, the static might not come up as often as you like. Spinerock Knoll is worth playing, but ETB tapped lands are something you want to minimize in any deck, this one more so.
On a whim I decided to acquire an Elvish Piper. I'm not cheating anything crazy but I basically want to test it as a giant mana dork. The idea is that you play it on turn 3 with some ramp help, play a god turn 4, and then turn 5 you can drop one of your guys and have five spare mana. This allows someone to either instantly die from an extra combat or allow you to do your draw one turn early. It allows you to play support earlier if you don't open with a double ramp hand. The downside is that, like all mana dorks, it does piss-all when you actually want to draw into something that does something. There's more power at the cost of some consistency, to say the least.
For me, practically never. It's basically a Hellkite Charger that gives you its extra combat for free if you just attack the person with the highest life first. I am very rarely the person with the highest life because I don't spread damage around. I focus it on one deserving person, and early on tons of people are still at 40 and so you can hit them pretty freely. Especially if they don't own fetch lands.
Bane of Progress is for trashing people's artifact mana, pillowforts, and auras. You generally don't use it as a beater and don't care how big it gets, although the fact that it gets counters makes it a viable conduit for card draw.
Drumhunter is fine for drawing. Doesn't go nuts but any draw is better than no draw IMO. Bow I don't think is needed. When you're attacking for 16+ trample, only late-game will people have the blocking power to match that. It's also far better with ground tramplers than air attackers. If you have enough dragons, the static might not come up as often as you like. Spinerock Knoll is worth playing, but ETB tapped lands are something you want to minimize in any deck, this one more so.
Unfortunately I have yet to actually cast Hellkite Charger, so I cannot say with certainty how often I will be able to drop it and use it's ability in the same turn. 13 Mana says not very likely, but with access to Savage Ventmaw, Rapacious One, and Awakening Zone, it could theoretically happen. I'll probably bite the bullet and grab one. Good call on the Bane of Progress, there's at least one pillowfort player at my LGS, so it'll be nice to have a chance to cover all of my bases. I would also say that is a very fair analysis on the Bow, specifically on your point with flyers. Most dragons and other flyers don't have or need trample to get through, so having deathtouch is less relevant. I think I may give Spinerock Knoll a try since my build is tuned (still tuning) around MLD, so things like Life From the Loam make a 2 for 1 less painful.
Let us know how the piper works for you. My rough draft before I posted it on MTGS included a copy of Quicksilver Amulet as a semi-functional copy of the elf, but I took it out before actually playing with the deck.
Both Spinerock Knoll and Mosswort Bridge I find fantastic in Xenagod. The conditions happen pretty much automatically. It's also great synergy with cards like Sensei's Top and Sylvan Library because you can see ahead of time if it's a good time to drop it, and then they get you a fresh look at 3 new cards after they drop. Almost better than a Scry land when it all lines up. Also, I'm not quite sure what's meant by them opening you up for a 2 for 1. If the land does destroyed, it's not as if you drew the card. You are basically in the same spot you'd be if any of your lands got Srip Mine'd.
My opinion on Scourge of the Throne is not very high. I mean, you could do worse in the 6 slot. It's just that when he's your only creature, the first attack for 10 doesn't do all that much but upset the person with the highest life. And if what you're after is the second attack for 20 you can get a lot of creatures at a similar mana cost that will do nearly that much damage, but with some sort of added resilience or utility. I'd think better of him if Xenagos had more than one creature out more often, since then the trigger from the extra combat could pile onto the second creature pointed at the player you want to kill. That just doesn't happen often though. Also he runs out of utility when he's by himself, because with the first attack you probably just ran out of people with their starting life and are now on the throne yourself.
A card I'd consider instead of Scourge is Godo, Bandit Warlord. Suppose you get an equipment with at least +2 and some sort of evasion, you're now better off than with Scourge after you pay the equip cost. You can attack who you want, and if Godo dies you are +1 equipment on the board. He just seems to work better for situations where you have a single attacker, whereas Scourge wants you to have something else to attack with. Obvious downside though is that you probably should have at least 2 equipments in your deck to play Godo.
Bane of Progress I find to be a card that does what it says it does, never really impressed me that much. The spots where you have a problem with a non-creature permanent are mostly going to be against stuff like Ensnaring Bridge, Humility, Teferi's Moat or what not. That's a single target, and it's not worth it to pay 3-4 mana more than you need to in order to get it off the board. General principle with Xenagos I find, big creatures designed to do something other than kill face end up being too cute. And another thing that's not all that intuitive is that for some reason it seems to help a lot more to kill creatures. In cases of getting outraced by Rafiq or Shu Yun, killing the creatures just seems to do way more than worrying about the equips. What is really a blowout against Rafiq, for example, is Traitorous Instinct. Cards like Balefire Dragon also swing the race drastically in your favor, because now the opponent has to deal with your board, and then play the Commander tax just to get going again. One card that I played for a while was Cyclops Gladiator, since it was just a bit quicker than other options. I only took it out when the color weight of my deck shifted more toward Green.
One card I wanted to get other players' opinion on is Weatherseed Treefolk. I'm sure it doesn't quite amount to 10-point Fireballs for 5 for the rest of the game, but it does seem like there's some synergy with sacrifice effects like Greater Good, Birthing Pod, and so on. I have not tried it yet because the color weight is a little off-putting.
I think people will be pretty satisfied with Elvish Piper. At worst, presenting a removal target is not a bad thing for Xenagos to do at 4 mana, and that has always been the main gripe against Piper. When people burn your mana dork, you know it's the right mana dork. If resolved of course, that is a ton of mana production. Also not to be forgotten with things like Piper and Feldon of the Third Path, you can use the Xenagos trigger for the Haste and then just put something down. Not a play that looks impressive, but it at least guarantees that you make some value.
I do that haste play with Fauna shaman all the time.
Anyway, Jusstice, do you mind posting your list? I'm curious as to how you approach your build and how it plays out. For example, the only voltron I ever face is Sigarda, Host of Herons, and the threaten effects would just sit in my hand against her. I also want to see the creatures you play, especially the ones you play for the factor of resilience. Cards like Siege Behemoth have been overperforming for me so far (because they can't kill it easily!) and I want to see what others I can roll with. I still got a spot that I can use to slot in Putrefax. I'm still looking into recursion such as Mimic Vat just as a way to overwhelm my opponent's removal options, although admittedly it doesn't help me keep tempo.
I forgot completely about Nature's Will. Card seems made for the deck!
I actually end up facing pillowfort + Serra's Sanctum abuse decks. I probably don't NEED Bane of Progress all the time, but if sideboards were just plain okay for people, it would be in that.
I guess I do need a different mindset when building the deck. Normally, you play these cards to remove problem permanents, but what I really should be doing is playing cards that will help me more quickly remove the players that carry the problem permanents, when possible.
LATE EDIT: I play in a meta where not every player has fetch lands in every deck, meaning even on turn 5 I generally have a good choice of who to attack for 33 with Scourge of the Throne. In more competitive metas, this card becomes worse because life payments no longer give you the choice.
My list is still in a state of flux right now. I can see what I can do to post it once I've got some time at home. There are a few beaters though I'd always run in Xenagos - Akroma, Balefire Dragon, Hellkite Tyrant, Hydra Omnivore, and probably Vorapede. I just don't ever mind hardcasting these, so I imagine that they would go into any variant of Xenagos I'd ever be playing.
Right now I'm with a very sacrifice-heavy deck with all the sac cards and cheat into play cards mentioned, and the beaters being Worldspine Wurm, Giant Adephage, Dragon Tyrant, Akroma, Omnivore, and actually Pathrazer of Ulamog. I have played a few games with Siege Behemoth, but because it's never a target for Natural Order or Pattern of Rebirth over the other ones, it hasn't been the thing to carry the deck yet. Just one of those things that I've never been disapponted drawing, but always mulligan in the opening. The other creatures I'm running now are for the Birthing Pod chain and just general utility. I've got Dragon Tyrant over Atarka because of Pod, but I have no 9-drops so I might go with Atarka. Still though, the Firebreathing has won games, so I don't know.
I wanted to play with Kozilek, but since I refuse to run Survival of the Fittest I will probably never get enough use out of the Reminisce effect to justify the slot, which is mostly why I'd want him. Pathrazer works really well though for being Annihilator, not reshuffling itself on death, and being the only Eldrazi with any kind of evasion. I had It that Betrays for a while, again due to pod and having Worldspine, but it was doing that same thing where it just irritates people to a high degree and doesn't kill them, so I never grabbed it out of the deck and never wanted to pod a 15/15 Trample into it. Don't want to do Blightsteel, because any deck can do that, and I am kind of tired of seeing it.
I have played Silvos, Rogue Elemental and he was really good. I played Thornling also, and it wasn't that great. I thought it would be really good, but just too mana intensive. I don't know how you avoid losing a game in which the nightmare happens. You run it out, givng Trample and floating for Indestructible, and hit for 8 maximum. Then on the next turn pump 3 mana into it hoping to hit for the full 14, only you have it bounced/swords'd and then you pass that turn because you don't have enough mana left to play anything. The dream of going the distance with it is also really slow going. I see creatures in the 5-power range as being mostly removal-bait and utility, and when you want to end games you really need that double striker, something around 10 power, or at least Firebreathing like Akroma's you can use more than 3 times, and then you hook that up with a Strionic Resonator or something.
One of the conceptual hurdles for me was just appreciating how huge the size threshhold really is to trim the kill turn window down. The way I see it, there are enough decks in this format that can one-shot opponents through Commander damage. You either have that kind of setup where you don't exactly need to go turn after turn to win, or you're doing something different, maybe giving up a bit of speed in order to be more resilient or more disruptive, and then you have somewhat of a handle on the game other than speed.
I think it's all meta call, though. Playing against multiple pillow fort opponents, yeah, isn't something you'd want to do without Bane. If you know what you're opponents are up to and you've got a silver bullet like that in your deck, you don't need to lean as much on speed. Bane is really good. EDH is getting more like that, if it's not really good it's not being talked about in the first place, it's just whether it's good for your deck against your group.
The guy posts here by the name of Tarasco. With my build, I sort of pushed to the absolute furthest extent this idea of sneaking fat into play then sacrificing it.
My list is still in a state of flux right now. I can see what I can do to post it once I've got some time at home. There are a few beaters though I'd always run in Xenagos - Akroma, Balefire Dragon, Hellkite Tyrant, Hydra Omnivore, and probably Vorapede. I just don't ever mind hardcasting these, so I imagine that they would go into any variant of Xenagos I'd ever be playing.
Right now I'm with a very sacrifice-heavy deck with all the sac cards and cheat into play cards mentioned, and the beaters being Worldspine Wurm, Giant Adephage, Dragon Tyrant, Akroma, Omnivore, and actually Pathrazer of Ulamog. I have played a few games with Siege Behemoth, but because it's never a target for Natural Order or Pattern of Rebirth over the other ones, it hasn't been the thing to carry the deck yet. Just one of those things that I've never been disapponted drawing, but always mulligan in the opening. The other creatures I'm running now are for the Birthing Pod chain and just general utility. I've got Dragon Tyrant over Atarka because of Pod, but I have no 9-drops so I might go with Atarka. Still though, the Firebreathing has won games, so I don't know.
I would also greatly appreciate you posting your list if you ever have the time. Since Jusstice's deck is more sac-based, why not discuss some alternate recursion options for Xenagos? Of course, some of Green's best resources for recursion are Eternal Witness and Genesis, but bringing to light some other options might help other readers/lurkers with their builds. As a side note, I figure talking about things now might save plush some time and effort in regards to writing content for primer status...if you're still gunning for it of course.
Since I'm playing with both Giant Adephage and Utvara Hellkite, I'm also running Paleoloth. Now being completely honest here, drawing into this early and having to play it isn't the greatest feeling in the world. Aside from those few instances the ceiling for this guy is pretty high in a power heavy build, and now that I'm thinking about it works very well with Sneak Attack. It doesn't have trample, and it's a 5/5 for 6, but as long as it sticks the effect is pretty great. It might not be as useful in your build plush but it is something to consider when playing Wheel effects. Another recursion option I'm using is Creeping Renaissance. I'll admit, this is a pet card of mine, but it does some serious work if you don't happen to draw into Reliquary Tower off of a big draw spell. It's also very synergistic with Borborygmos Enraged which I am running as a beater and as something to use excess lands when MLD isn't a threat. Flashback is a great and, imho, often overlooked keyword in EDH. Another option that comes to mind is Artisan of Kozilek. This one doesn't work with Elvish Piper or Sneak Attack, but it does bring a creature from the yard directly into play. Annihilator 2 and being a 10/9 is nothing to scoff at either.
Can you think of any other cards that you may not be running but might be useful for other builds?
In my biased opinion, the best options for recursion are:
Moldgraf Monstrosity - Into play is much better than into hand. It's tramply and big enough itself to make a difference in the red zone, and the on-death effect is somewhat of deterrent to people killing it. Usually there won't be more than 2-3 creatures in the graveyard for the randomness of it to screw you up too bad.
Deadwood Treefolk - Pretty silly with Deathrender and Birthing Pod, especially podding into Monstrosity above. I think the key is to have both mana-intensive options for the long game, but also mana-less options like these for when a cheaty deck is running on all cylinders. These two do that, but the following are the more long-game options. They don't require any cheaty antics to work, so they can do work in most Xenagos builds....
Mimic Vat - Takes a bit of the stars lining up right to get the best out of it, but it's good at interfering with the other side of the table a little bit.
Genesis - Very grindy, annoying, and hard to get rid of. Extremely mana intensive, though, and it's one of those cards that gives you benefit from sacrificing it so it's not hard to fit it in.
Feldon of the Third Path - He ends up being a bit clunky with how Xenagos works, but he can take over a game. A good option if Time of Need is in the deck, which can be really good depending on the build.
Sword of Light and Shadow - Basically, you run this if you're running Godo, don't run it if you're not. Can be conditional and slow.
And of course you run Eternal Witness because it's a card. Another tech card I've used is Evolution Charm, I recommend only if you are on Partial Paris mulligan rules because you can slip out a land for it. Also hard to argue with Regrowth, Revive, or Noxious Revival if you end up having room for them. Always great to grab a used Natural Order or Pattern of Rebirth.
I've not tried Paleoloth, seems like it could be pretty good though. A few cards could give it multiple activations in a single turn. I think I'll give it a try because the trigger on Worldspine Wurm could be really sweet, and could save the Wurm from going back into the Library if I'm correct on the rules. Stack token trigger on top, then Paleoloth triggers would go on top and save Wurm with reshuffle trigger still on the stack.
Reincarnation was a pet card of mine for a while, but I ended up not using it because I just started to get a high density of potentially dead cards. And once in a while removal would be a blowout against me when I tried to use it. In response to removal though I think it could be good.
I have to apologize for not posting my own list yet. I'm only able to post while I'm at work, for the time being, and the deck is on a home computer. I played a few games on MODO recently with it, and I'm probably going to go back to Cockatrice to do some testing of new cards. Lots of good discussion here, and a few cards have caught my eye.
Well, here's what I'll be considering for testing in the coming weeks. The deck curves out pretty well an acceptably consistent amount of the time (With partials, very high. Even without them, pretty good). However, I can't deny the power of playing cards that cheat out things. I only wish I could find a Natural Order around here. I could potentially trade for it, but that means losing Dark Depths from another deck.
Crop Rotation Cut a mana dork. The instant speed nature we can't abuse, but we can use it as turn 1 ramp in a pinch by getting Ancient Tomb. Having more hits for Reliquary Tower off a big draw is very important. Also another way to fetch a trample land.
It only becomes awkward if we have to use a dual land or our only green source. As a result, I'm cutting Tectonic Edge for Ancient Tomb.
It also seems better for getting no max hand size for almost free than playing a crappy card like Spellbook.
A Savage Beating. It costs a lot but it's a late-game "kill multiple people" card. I'm basically playing "the ramp and draw-based version" which means instead of cheating stuff I'll want space for additional extra combats. I might even try Relentless Assault. However, I must be confident that I won't get blown out.
A recursion package. I'm playing a version that want its card draw but I also would like ways of maintaining pressure that is less vulnerable to getting blown out by removal. Also to accommodate for more of the sac-based card draw. Sometimes that one guy you sac is literally the one you want.
Putrefax. It wants a wolf-run all the time. More ways of getting it = this card is dead less often. Hellkite Charger if my group unbans Defense of the Heart. I will play this just to get this card and ventmaw.
Also getting a Spinerock Knoll. I've just been lazy on this card. It's obviously good.
PERMANENT CHANGES - WILL EDIT OP LATER
- Reclamation sage - adds unnecessary devotion
- Evolutionary Leap - Sorry, you just don't have the word "consistent" on you. Also don't know what else to cut
- Forest
- Tectonic Edge - No Mazes! Phew. If they do show up I might need to show this back in.
I was playing a different one and got killed super hard by my own deck via a Savage Ventmaw in one turn because of Seize the Day. He almost drew 64 cards but since he killed me he didn't force the removal by attacking the person that had it to avoid a 2 for 1.
Things that tested super well:
Reforge the Soul: Wheel did well. It sometimes gasses your opponents but it's a okay way for them to lay off of you for a turn (unless that person is your target). Draw density is too important. What you get out of it is essential and it sometimes wrecks peoples hands.
Dense Foliage: I had to remind players numerous times that they couldn't shoot my stuff due to this card. Every time someone tries, I have to say "Nope, Dense Foliage".
Things that tested poorly:
Elemental Bond: Only drew 2 cards. I don't have a 3/3 token generator to make this insane.
Nissa's Revelation: I play a lower fatty density than the Xenagod decks here, so this can whiff more often. And, like See the Written, you NEVER want it to.
Things I didn't get to try:
Evolutionary Leap: The theory of playing this card still seems good, but the player misplayed and didn't exploit it to its full potential.
Siege Behemoth: Didn't really get to see it. But the theory is so strong that I expect to permanently keep it.
Notable moments: The guy had the Kessig Wolf Run + Rapacious One combo so he precombat pumped to kill a guy for 30 damage, then an extra combat killed another guy for 60 damage. Afterwards he was sitting on 90 Eldrazi spawns. If he had another red, he would have killed a third person and had 180 Eldrazi Spawns!
Change:
- Acidic Slime: I think the card is still good enough to play, but I've been seeing far fewer Maze of Ith recently. However, if you see it often, you should still keep a decent land D package.
+ Reforge the Soul: Eight big draw spells now. Nonconditional in all forms.
Lastly, it is possible for me to eventually make this into a Primer? I may need to find some time to do some touchups and add more content.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
Thats the reason of Magic. Kill with more, and more and more ! More damage
Acidic Slime is a MVP. How can you do supress it ? Its the only option to manage easiest problematic land or artifacts
Lightning Serpent looks tempting, but would be kinda meh in the early game. What about the assorted X-creatures (mostly hydras) in general? Or are they too variable?
Neither Thundermare nor Timbermare are likely to one-shot people, but they do clear the way!
Last suggestion: Realm Seekers is both budget and likely to be big. An SCD thread in the nondeck forum got me thinking about it.
Cheers!
Krichaiushii on PucaTrade.
As for the primer, I need more experience fighting in the face of hate before I can feel confident about beginning the primer process. Currently the deck has no issues finding ramp and throwing down damage. It excels at both. The current issues are keeping up in card advantage for the mid-late game and making sure I can execute my plan in spite of peoples attempts to stop me. Hence I have so much focus on finding decent anti-control cards. Less so on stopping counterspells (although stopping those is a bonus!) and more for stopping point removal. I'm looking into Asceticism. It costs a lot for what it does but I might still need the effect badly enough. Archetype of Endurance costs 8 and the body is hard to abuse even in a deck like this.
As far as creature resilience goes, in this deck, you want hexproof over indestructible, and indestrucible over regen. Regen fails pretty hard to exile and a lot of old-school black removal. Indestructible fails to bounce and exile but is better against sweepers. However, this deck is naturally sweep resilient because we don't have to play more threats than necessary. So targeting denial is the best of the three.
Lastly, as my playtest buddy learned the hard way, the absolute most important decision to make is WHO TO KILL FIRST. If you pick poorly, the person you should have attacked will gear up to stop you.
Also, I'm close to completing my master playset of Khans fetches. That means I now have spares for this deck. Sure, it may not be flavorful, but you really don't want to get color screwed. Also, they aren't really THAT necessary. I just have em.
- Mountain
- Forest
+ Windswept Heath
+ Bloodstained Mire
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
Building Xenagod is about the fine balance of fat and ways to abuse Xenagod triggers to kill people faster, i.e. extra combats etc. If you focus too much on the former, then you can get clogged in the slower decks catching up and developing a presence. If you focus too much on the latter, then you become soft as hell to players dealing with your threats. If you start devoting a large chunk of your card space to protection (you're missing Vexing Shusher by the way, maybe your meta is just not counter rich), then your draws may become more temperamental and you'll weave between both cases of weaknesses? I don't know, I'm just theorycrafting here.
I'm facing more Slaughters than Forbids in my meta, so I'm not needing a Vexing Shusher yet. It is nice though that three of my four protection cards stop both!
I have considered Panglacial Wurm (and own one), but I'm going for draw power because when I'm in topdeck mode, it's gonna take more than one fatty to get the job done. It has a chance of going back in though, especially if I end up getting more fetches! (the reason why I didn't have it before was in fact before the fetch land reprint!). It is actually a solid suggestion and may bump out Wilderness Elemental if I can easily drop him at instant speed.
I think I'd play five protection spells max if needed. The fifth will probably be Vines of Vastwood. It is one-shot but it would definitely throw off my opponents calculations if done right.
Lastly, I'm editing the original post frequently. Adding stuff you might expect out of a primer. I'm hoping my Purph analysis is somewhat correct. I've never actually played against it.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
Come to think of it now, I am seeing no cards like Genesis, Sword of Light and Shadow, Mimic Vat or Feldon of the Third Path in your list. Your fatty density is like mine with 12-15 beaters, and so if your experience is anything like mine you are running thin after your second or third pass. There are just no good substitutes for certain cards, and at that point one Evolution Charm is better than a draw 7. I mean, the overall idea there is to run people out of spot removal eventually in those spots where you just can't set up a Hexproof threat. With buyback like Slaughter and Capsize, it can be a problem, but those can be such a huge tempo loss for the player that someone else is bound to set up in the meantime and need attention. Mimic Vat for one has been excellent for me because of being able to exile someone else's threat and provide your own in one pinch.
For that matter, how is Insurrection working for you? I can see the card being there just for its ability to end games in a certain group, but I have also noticed that Xenagos has a great relationship ith Threaten effects. I'm running Unwilling Recruit in my build, and the results are hilarious. I recently stole a Medomai the Ageless with Strionic Resonator out, and that opponent was nice enough not to concede. If you didn't want to interfere too much with Dense Foliage, you could run Helm of Possession, Zealous Conscripts, etc. Maybe in exchange for some of the removal in your list like Chain Reaction since these can be good at killing things too.
I can cut a land, but I'm generally wary of going below 36 in a mana hungry deck like this. I also still need to pick up a Fire-lit Thicket
I completely forgot that Life's Legacy cannot be stopped by removal, and considering that I often draw into more hasty threats, I shouldn't worry about losing pressure. Seems better than Soul's Majesty
Out of those recursion options, I like Mimic Vat the most. However Genesis can be easily discarded off of an overdraw. Like you, without draw I run thin after 2-3 fatties. The long game of this deck still has potential simply because we can kill people out of nowhere. However, we definitely want to have the means to do it.
I have not been drawing Insurrection often enough to discount it or keep it in. It does win games, but I always look at the conditionality of 8-9 mana spells to see if they are worth it. As for threaten effects, they work well. I just don't often find threats better than my own to send in. You are still spending a card to do it too.
Just be slightly mindful that I'm not made of money. So if I need something expensive it might take me a bit of time to actually get it. This is another reason why I'm not quite ready for primer status yet.
Lastly, a minor nitpick, but I realized that caustic caterpillar is better than reclamation sage here because it does its job and removes its own devotion.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
Caustic Caterpillar is a card I love from this set. To me though, this slot is between Viridian Corrupter, Tin Street Hooligan, and Caustic Wasps. I just find way, way more artifacts I want to kill in this format than enchantments, and the worst ones like Necropotence and Survival are just unstoppable by removal when they get played anyway. Corrupter doesn't work in your deck because of no Godo package, though. I'd try out the Wasp. It kind of responds to a different situation than Reclamation Sage, but I've never been disappointed with it.
On land count, it will depend on your mulligan rules. I find that 34 is about optimal with Partial Paris, as long as I have 6 or more cards at 2cmc or less that either cycle for a land or dig 2-3 cards deep. But if you're using a free big deck mulligan like on MODO, I agree you will want 36.
I agree though that them being sorceries is a shame, and I would never cut krosan grip before them.
I also don't like the recursion options mentioned, eternal witness I like because of the tutorability, the others not so much, I'd rather just play another devestating big guy or more draw to get to more of them.
Of course, I might be totally wrong about this
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I don't mind paying 3 for Genesis when Sneak Attack has me paying 1 for the creature, but cards like it and Sword of Light and Shadow might totally suck, otherwise.
Humility opens up a huge can of worms. The last time I saw that card, I was lucky enough to have a man-land and I drew into an equipment, so I just attacked through it. It's hard for a deck with no equipment and no Rancor to deal with that though, outside of Grip/Chaos Warp. That card is a total buzz kill.
Jusstice is very correct in that playing instant speed answers has a huge advantage in what I call the "priority advantage theory". This theory is that if someone has something that everyone else has to absolutely stop. The person with highest priority doesn't know if the players after that person have answers. So naturally they'll be inclined to respond first. If you play at sorcery speed, you will always have highest priority and therefore be spending YOUR cards to help the other players (and yourself). You'd much rather have last priority to see if other people burn answers first.
Also I think he's playing against more dedicated combo decks where having such disruption is absolutely necessary. I'm more worried about control, hence the card suite that would also end up helping combo decks.
I believe that what he is doing is indeed very powerful, but as he mentioned, it comes with the tradeoff of requiring more "moving parts" so to speak.. You have more cards that need other cards to come together to perform its finest (although this way you could probably get away with less ramp). For my build, all you need is ramp, fatty, card draw, and then a sprinkle of various other utilities, removal, and damage amplification. Nonetheless, I'm glad you are here to test your build and give feedback on a different approach made for the decks you find. Over in San Diego, I talked to all the major store owners today. We can't really find "competitive EDH" in our stores. Having cards like Chain Reaction are less for grinding opponents out as is making sure they can't pool all their creatures to kill me before I get another turn.
As for Humility, I dread both that card and cards like Ensnaring Bridge. Cards that we absolutely must destroy before we can do anything that involves our plan. Even a simple Propaganda, while not incredibly effective against is, can still slow us down a tad.
I should probably start testing on Cockatrice to remove the problem I might have of an "inbred" metagame of sorts. We already have more rules than most (sol ring + mana crypt has the Serra Avenger clause for turn 1 and 2, for example), and so testing for a different metagame may give me more ideas.
Oh.. I also showed the deck to some people who have never seen it before. I got mobbed before I could kill the first person with Siege Behemoth after drawing 14 cards.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
Scourge of the Throne - Is it really worth the cash? Best case scenario, it hits for 33 on the second combat trigger if targeted with Xenagod twice. Worst case it hits for 10. How often are you able to use the dethrone mechanic when this hits the field? Running minor life gain like Momentous Fall works against it, but if it really is that powerful I'm willing to give it a shot.
Bane of Progress - If I'm looking to race Rafiq of the Many or Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest, I want to be able to blow them out of the water while doing it. I believe I run slightly more artifacts/enchantments than your build, but with a little retooling I think this guy could get the job done. Worth a slot as a beater? If you can think of it, about on average how big does this guy get?
There are some other cards that I may not be purchasing but would like to discuss anyway. As far as budget options go, what are your thoughts on Drumhunter? Unfortunately he drops at 4, but he does ramp a bit and has a chance to draw you a card every turn. Another card that comes to mind is Bow of Nylea. While extremely prone to removal, it does add the benefit of deathtouch to attacking creatures. As you probably already know, Deathtouch + Trample is pretty gravy. The utility on the bow isn't too bad either, with the counters giving a bit more oomph every turn, shooting down Kaalia of the Vast and other small flying blockers, or just putting some good cards back into your deck. Lastly, how about Spinerock Knoll? Sure it comes into play tapped and it is prone for getting 2 for 1'd, but being able to cast World at War and friends for R seems great. Mosswort Bridge has performed very well for me, but is undoubtedly the better of the two since it is easier to use.
For me, practically never. It's basically a Hellkite Charger that gives you its extra combat for free if you just attack the person with the highest life first. I am very rarely the person with the highest life because I don't spread damage around. I focus it on one deserving person, and early on tons of people are still at 40 and so you can hit them pretty freely. Especially if they don't own fetch lands.
Bane of Progress is for trashing people's artifact mana, pillowforts, and auras. You generally don't use it as a beater and don't care how big it gets, although the fact that it gets counters makes it a viable conduit for card draw.
Drumhunter is fine for drawing. Doesn't go nuts but any draw is better than no draw IMO. Bow I don't think is needed. When you're attacking for 16+ trample, only late-game will people have the blocking power to match that. It's also far better with ground tramplers than air attackers. If you have enough dragons, the static might not come up as often as you like. Spinerock Knoll is worth playing, but ETB tapped lands are something you want to minimize in any deck, this one more so.
On a whim I decided to acquire an Elvish Piper. I'm not cheating anything crazy but I basically want to test it as a giant mana dork. The idea is that you play it on turn 3 with some ramp help, play a god turn 4, and then turn 5 you can drop one of your guys and have five spare mana. This allows someone to either instantly die from an extra combat or allow you to do your draw one turn early. It allows you to play support earlier if you don't open with a double ramp hand. The downside is that, like all mana dorks, it does piss-all when you actually want to draw into something that does something. There's more power at the cost of some consistency, to say the least.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
Unfortunately I have yet to actually cast Hellkite Charger, so I cannot say with certainty how often I will be able to drop it and use it's ability in the same turn. 13 Mana says not very likely, but with access to Savage Ventmaw, Rapacious One, and Awakening Zone, it could theoretically happen. I'll probably bite the bullet and grab one. Good call on the Bane of Progress, there's at least one pillowfort player at my LGS, so it'll be nice to have a chance to cover all of my bases. I would also say that is a very fair analysis on the Bow, specifically on your point with flyers. Most dragons and other flyers don't have or need trample to get through, so having deathtouch is less relevant. I think I may give Spinerock Knoll a try since my build is tuned (still tuning) around MLD, so things like Life From the Loam make a 2 for 1 less painful.
Let us know how the piper works for you. My rough draft before I posted it on MTGS included a copy of Quicksilver Amulet as a semi-functional copy of the elf, but I took it out before actually playing with the deck.
My opinion on Scourge of the Throne is not very high. I mean, you could do worse in the 6 slot. It's just that when he's your only creature, the first attack for 10 doesn't do all that much but upset the person with the highest life. And if what you're after is the second attack for 20 you can get a lot of creatures at a similar mana cost that will do nearly that much damage, but with some sort of added resilience or utility. I'd think better of him if Xenagos had more than one creature out more often, since then the trigger from the extra combat could pile onto the second creature pointed at the player you want to kill. That just doesn't happen often though. Also he runs out of utility when he's by himself, because with the first attack you probably just ran out of people with their starting life and are now on the throne yourself.
I do agree that he's better in the abstract than Hellkite Charger, but if I am playing Charger it's because it combo's with Savage Ventmaw, Rapacious One, Nature's Will, and so on.
A card I'd consider instead of Scourge is Godo, Bandit Warlord. Suppose you get an equipment with at least +2 and some sort of evasion, you're now better off than with Scourge after you pay the equip cost. You can attack who you want, and if Godo dies you are +1 equipment on the board. He just seems to work better for situations where you have a single attacker, whereas Scourge wants you to have something else to attack with. Obvious downside though is that you probably should have at least 2 equipments in your deck to play Godo.
Bane of Progress I find to be a card that does what it says it does, never really impressed me that much. The spots where you have a problem with a non-creature permanent are mostly going to be against stuff like Ensnaring Bridge, Humility, Teferi's Moat or what not. That's a single target, and it's not worth it to pay 3-4 mana more than you need to in order to get it off the board. General principle with Xenagos I find, big creatures designed to do something other than kill face end up being too cute. And another thing that's not all that intuitive is that for some reason it seems to help a lot more to kill creatures. In cases of getting outraced by Rafiq or Shu Yun, killing the creatures just seems to do way more than worrying about the equips. What is really a blowout against Rafiq, for example, is Traitorous Instinct. Cards like Balefire Dragon also swing the race drastically in your favor, because now the opponent has to deal with your board, and then play the Commander tax just to get going again. One card that I played for a while was Cyclops Gladiator, since it was just a bit quicker than other options. I only took it out when the color weight of my deck shifted more toward Green.
One card I wanted to get other players' opinion on is Weatherseed Treefolk. I'm sure it doesn't quite amount to 10-point Fireballs for 5 for the rest of the game, but it does seem like there's some synergy with sacrifice effects like Greater Good, Birthing Pod, and so on. I have not tried it yet because the color weight is a little off-putting.
I think people will be pretty satisfied with Elvish Piper. At worst, presenting a removal target is not a bad thing for Xenagos to do at 4 mana, and that has always been the main gripe against Piper. When people burn your mana dork, you know it's the right mana dork. If resolved of course, that is a ton of mana production. Also not to be forgotten with things like Piper and Feldon of the Third Path, you can use the Xenagos trigger for the Haste and then just put something down. Not a play that looks impressive, but it at least guarantees that you make some value.
Anyway, Jusstice, do you mind posting your list? I'm curious as to how you approach your build and how it plays out. For example, the only voltron I ever face is Sigarda, Host of Herons, and the threaten effects would just sit in my hand against her. I also want to see the creatures you play, especially the ones you play for the factor of resilience. Cards like Siege Behemoth have been overperforming for me so far (because they can't kill it easily!) and I want to see what others I can roll with. I still got a spot that I can use to slot in Putrefax. I'm still looking into recursion such as Mimic Vat just as a way to overwhelm my opponent's removal options, although admittedly it doesn't help me keep tempo.
I forgot completely about Nature's Will. Card seems made for the deck!
I actually end up facing pillowfort + Serra's Sanctum abuse decks. I probably don't NEED Bane of Progress all the time, but if sideboards were just plain okay for people, it would be in that.
I guess I do need a different mindset when building the deck. Normally, you play these cards to remove problem permanents, but what I really should be doing is playing cards that will help me more quickly remove the players that carry the problem permanents, when possible.
Looking through additional creature choices, I found Silvos, Rogue Elemental and Thornling. Do you play any of these?
LATE EDIT: I play in a meta where not every player has fetch lands in every deck, meaning even on turn 5 I generally have a good choice of who to attack for 33 with Scourge of the Throne. In more competitive metas, this card becomes worse because life payments no longer give you the choice.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
Rapacious One and Savage Ventmaw are also hard not to run, but not indespensible. They go along really well with the Aggravated Assault, Hellkite Charger set of cards, if you like comboing through stuff like Defense of the Heart.
Right now I'm with a very sacrifice-heavy deck with all the sac cards and cheat into play cards mentioned, and the beaters being Worldspine Wurm, Giant Adephage, Dragon Tyrant, Akroma, Omnivore, and actually Pathrazer of Ulamog. I have played a few games with Siege Behemoth, but because it's never a target for Natural Order or Pattern of Rebirth over the other ones, it hasn't been the thing to carry the deck yet. Just one of those things that I've never been disapponted drawing, but always mulligan in the opening. The other creatures I'm running now are for the Birthing Pod chain and just general utility. I've got Dragon Tyrant over Atarka because of Pod, but I have no 9-drops so I might go with Atarka. Still though, the Firebreathing has won games, so I don't know.
I wanted to play with Kozilek, but since I refuse to run Survival of the Fittest I will probably never get enough use out of the Reminisce effect to justify the slot, which is mostly why I'd want him. Pathrazer works really well though for being Annihilator, not reshuffling itself on death, and being the only Eldrazi with any kind of evasion. I had It that Betrays for a while, again due to pod and having Worldspine, but it was doing that same thing where it just irritates people to a high degree and doesn't kill them, so I never grabbed it out of the deck and never wanted to pod a 15/15 Trample into it. Don't want to do Blightsteel, because any deck can do that, and I am kind of tired of seeing it.
I have played Silvos, Rogue Elemental and he was really good. I played Thornling also, and it wasn't that great. I thought it would be really good, but just too mana intensive. I don't know how you avoid losing a game in which the nightmare happens. You run it out, givng Trample and floating for Indestructible, and hit for 8 maximum. Then on the next turn pump 3 mana into it hoping to hit for the full 14, only you have it bounced/swords'd and then you pass that turn because you don't have enough mana left to play anything. The dream of going the distance with it is also really slow going. I see creatures in the 5-power range as being mostly removal-bait and utility, and when you want to end games you really need that double striker, something around 10 power, or at least Firebreathing like Akroma's you can use more than 3 times, and then you hook that up with a Strionic Resonator or something.
One of the conceptual hurdles for me was just appreciating how huge the size threshhold really is to trim the kill turn window down. The way I see it, there are enough decks in this format that can one-shot opponents through Commander damage. You either have that kind of setup where you don't exactly need to go turn after turn to win, or you're doing something different, maybe giving up a bit of speed in order to be more resilient or more disruptive, and then you have somewhat of a handle on the game other than speed.
I think it's all meta call, though. Playing against multiple pillow fort opponents, yeah, isn't something you'd want to do without Bane. If you know what you're opponents are up to and you've got a silver bullet like that in your deck, you don't need to lean as much on speed. Bane is really good. EDH is getting more like that, if it's not really good it's not being talked about in the first place, it's just whether it's good for your deck against your group.
Oh one last thing, here's a link to an article from last year that helped me a lot to get to the Xenagos build I decided on: http://puremtgo.com/articles/conqueror-commander-vol-cxlvii-xenagos-god-revels
The guy posts here by the name of Tarasco. With my build, I sort of pushed to the absolute furthest extent this idea of sneaking fat into play then sacrificing it.
I would also greatly appreciate you posting your list if you ever have the time. Since Jusstice's deck is more sac-based, why not discuss some alternate recursion options for Xenagos? Of course, some of Green's best resources for recursion are Eternal Witness and Genesis, but bringing to light some other options might help other readers/lurkers with their builds. As a side note, I figure talking about things now might save plush some time and effort in regards to writing content for primer status...if you're still gunning for it of course.
Since I'm playing with both Giant Adephage and Utvara Hellkite, I'm also running Paleoloth. Now being completely honest here, drawing into this early and having to play it isn't the greatest feeling in the world. Aside from those few instances the ceiling for this guy is pretty high in a power heavy build, and now that I'm thinking about it works very well with Sneak Attack. It doesn't have trample, and it's a 5/5 for 6, but as long as it sticks the effect is pretty great. It might not be as useful in your build plush but it is something to consider when playing Wheel effects. Another recursion option I'm using is Creeping Renaissance. I'll admit, this is a pet card of mine, but it does some serious work if you don't happen to draw into Reliquary Tower off of a big draw spell. It's also very synergistic with Borborygmos Enraged which I am running as a beater and as something to use excess lands when MLD isn't a threat. Flashback is a great and, imho, often overlooked keyword in EDH. Another option that comes to mind is Artisan of Kozilek. This one doesn't work with Elvish Piper or Sneak Attack, but it does bring a creature from the yard directly into play. Annihilator 2 and being a 10/9 is nothing to scoff at either.
Can you think of any other cards that you may not be running but might be useful for other builds?
Moldgraf Monstrosity - Into play is much better than into hand. It's tramply and big enough itself to make a difference in the red zone, and the on-death effect is somewhat of deterrent to people killing it. Usually there won't be more than 2-3 creatures in the graveyard for the randomness of it to screw you up too bad.
Deadwood Treefolk - Pretty silly with Deathrender and Birthing Pod, especially podding into Monstrosity above. I think the key is to have both mana-intensive options for the long game, but also mana-less options like these for when a cheaty deck is running on all cylinders. These two do that, but the following are the more long-game options. They don't require any cheaty antics to work, so they can do work in most Xenagos builds....
Mimic Vat - Takes a bit of the stars lining up right to get the best out of it, but it's good at interfering with the other side of the table a little bit.
Genesis - Very grindy, annoying, and hard to get rid of. Extremely mana intensive, though, and it's one of those cards that gives you benefit from sacrificing it so it's not hard to fit it in.
Feldon of the Third Path - He ends up being a bit clunky with how Xenagos works, but he can take over a game. A good option if Time of Need is in the deck, which can be really good depending on the build.
Sword of Light and Shadow - Basically, you run this if you're running Godo, don't run it if you're not. Can be conditional and slow.
And of course you run Eternal Witness because it's a card. Another tech card I've used is Evolution Charm, I recommend only if you are on Partial Paris mulligan rules because you can slip out a land for it. Also hard to argue with Regrowth, Revive, or Noxious Revival if you end up having room for them. Always great to grab a used Natural Order or Pattern of Rebirth.
I tried Artisan of Kozilek, was too difficult to hardcast in my build. It's probably great with stuff like Mana Geyser and Rapacious One.
I've not tried Paleoloth, seems like it could be pretty good though. A few cards could give it multiple activations in a single turn. I think I'll give it a try because the trigger on Worldspine Wurm could be really sweet, and could save the Wurm from going back into the Library if I'm correct on the rules. Stack token trigger on top, then Paleoloth triggers would go on top and save Wurm with reshuffle trigger still on the stack.
Reincarnation was a pet card of mine for a while, but I ended up not using it because I just started to get a high density of potentially dead cards. And once in a while removal would be a blowout against me when I tried to use it. In response to removal though I think it could be good.
I have to apologize for not posting my own list yet. I'm only able to post while I'm at work, for the time being, and the deck is on a home computer. I played a few games on MODO recently with it, and I'm probably going to go back to Cockatrice to do some testing of new cards. Lots of good discussion here, and a few cards have caught my eye.
Crop Rotation Cut a mana dork. The instant speed nature we can't abuse, but we can use it as turn 1 ramp in a pinch by getting Ancient Tomb. Having more hits for Reliquary Tower off a big draw is very important. Also another way to fetch a trample land.
It only becomes awkward if we have to use a dual land or our only green source. As a result, I'm cutting Tectonic Edge for Ancient Tomb.
It also seems better for getting no max hand size for almost free than playing a crappy card like Spellbook.
The aforementioned Elvish Piper
A Savage Beating. It costs a lot but it's a late-game "kill multiple people" card. I'm basically playing "the ramp and draw-based version" which means instead of cheating stuff I'll want space for additional extra combats. I might even try Relentless Assault. However, I must be confident that I won't get blown out.
A recursion package. I'm playing a version that want its card draw but I also would like ways of maintaining pressure that is less vulnerable to getting blown out by removal. Also to accommodate for more of the sac-based card draw. Sometimes that one guy you sac is literally the one you want.
Putrefax. It wants a wolf-run all the time. More ways of getting it = this card is dead less often.
Hellkite Charger if my group unbans Defense of the Heart. I will play this just to get this card and ventmaw.
Also getting a Spinerock Knoll. I've just been lazy on this card. It's obviously good.
PERMANENT CHANGES - WILL EDIT OP LATER
- Reclamation sage - adds unnecessary devotion
- Evolutionary Leap - Sorry, you just don't have the word "consistent" on you. Also don't know what else to cut
- Forest
- Tectonic Edge - No Mazes! Phew. If they do show up I might need to show this back in.
+ Caustic Caterpillar - Does its job and removes its devotion. Awkward with Moldgraf Monstrosity, but that's about it.
+ Sylvan Library - Acts as (costly) draw in a pinch and is free library manipulation
+ Sensei's Divining Top - I got ways to shuffle
+ Ancient Tomb - Sylvan Scrying and Crop Rotation now count as ramp spells with this here. Hooray! This might also free me to cut a ramp spell later!
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/multiplayer-commander-decklists/626377-xenagos-because-you-always-wanted-to-play-these